I thought I'd publish the official first words of my NaNoWriMo novel right here. You can find out more about it at its very own site, The Shooting Match.

Anyway, here's the first few hundred words...


I was getting pushed every which way. Bodies thumping in to me, people trying to push my head down, elbows flying. And all around me the deep, satisfying roar of the football supporters' pack at full bay. Little Donny Wisdom had the ball and was flying down the left and in the middle the giant presence of Jimmy Kashnemu was headed for goal, elbows out, knees out, a terrifying sight for any defender. The crowd sensed another great Hammersmith comeback. There were two minutes left and we were down one to nothing.

"Here we go, 'ere we go, 'ere we go," came the roar. And, indeed, here we came. Donny Kebab got the cross in. Kash rose above the field of defenders like a giant crane above suburban row houses and nodded the ball past the hamstrung goalie. It was inevitable, it was predestined and we had about a minute and half left plus maybe a minute of injury time to get a winner. Somehow, even then, right at the start of the season, we knew it was inevitable. It was Hammersmith's year.

Of course, while on the pitch we were going crazy, sensing victory, the forces of darkness and evil were undermining us from another and unexpected direction. We had few enough pleasures in life in 1982. Maggie was in power, the dark forces of the 'free' market had been unleashed and greedy men in business suits were making hay while the sun shone. My own personal rug was waiting at home to be yanked from under me, but I didn't know that. I had levitated spontaneously twenty feet in the air along with 3000 other Hammersmith fans and was urging the ball back to the centre circle. We wanted another goal. We needed another goal. The macabre sound of 'Maxwell's silver hammer' rang out. It was our anthem and it was oh so ironically suited to the times.