Tymescroll started out as a short story more than twenty years ago. The first two lines I wrote for it were "He was different—not just in his physical appearance, but more in the way he impressed himself upon my senses. He seemed to command attention."
Originally intended as a descriptor for my Grandfather who had recently died, I was going to tell what I knew of his story and the influences he had had on my life. The next line: "He was a wizard", irrevocably changed the entire course and content of the piece, eventually culminating in something close to 97,000 words and an aberration that I like to describe as an unhappy marriage between Lord of the Rings and Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
Not that I’m claiming the talent of Tolkien or Adams; rather, there is a schizophrenia to Tymescroll that wanders the parallel and alternate universes between the worlds of those two master storytellers, and that dissonance is exemplified (amplified?) most in the main character, Brent Teller. Brent is Charlie Brown writ large. He quite often finds himself in dire straights, most often of his own doing.
However, in his journeys, he meets several individuals that help keep him focused on the task at hand and help drive the tale to its conclusion.
As for the original opening lines, they have survived multiple edits and revisions and now reside almost 200 pages into the story. The tribute to my Grandfather also sill exists and is distributed primarily amongst two of the characters that Brent meets on his quest.