Here is an excerpt from my first chapter of my novel-in-progress...The Biography of a Real Man. I hate posting my work on the internet, but in order to give some sort of attention to my writing, I guess it's a must. I hope you enjoy!! Tell me what you think please! 

The wind lashed icy pebbles against my cheeks and lips as I stood on the broken, hole ridden porch. I shivered beneath my faux leather jacket, under prepared for the bitter morning chill. The house was surrounded by large trees. Overbearing pines hung above the roof, knocking their branches against loose shingles. Others, the barren ash, oak and maple trees scattered the yard as thin icicles hung from their cold, stiff and outstretched limbs. Narrow streams of light rose through the dense surrounding forest. To the west of the house and down a steep hill, the Stillaguamish River meandered toward Skagit Bay. After hundreds of miles and many changes of the tide that dark blue water would cross the Canadian border and disappear into the Pacific Ocean.
    For years, on summer evenings, before the sun had set, my grandfather and I would sit by the river heating marshmallows in our handmade fire pit and talking until the sky blackened. We carried lawn chairs down the hill and arranged them on a tiny stretch of pebbles, sand and dirt that the water splashed against when the tide was high. He told me stories about the history of the land, our family and made up his own fantasies about the constellations. He spoke of the Pacific Ocean and the ancient Indian tribes that for centuries ruled these lands. When I was a child, I saw the excitement in his eyes, the glossy shimmer, as he acted out scenes and I chewed on burnt marshmallows. But as I grew older, into my teens and a young adult, I noticed the somberness in his voice, his chuckle of regret as he finished a tale, how his eyes concentrated on the river’s westward movement toward the ocean he never saw. Maybe he wished he lived during that earlier age as a tribesman free to roam the wilderness instead of growing up in Seattle confined to the expectations of an Irish Catholic man.
    He told me once, “Avery, never move to the city. There’s just too much hassle for the heart to bear.” I never understood his meaning, but I knew that was why, after marrying, he moved to Stanwood with my grandmother and built this home. The small town, seclusion and privacy suited him. My grandfather enjoyed the freedom of rural life and found it easier to be alone than among the urban chaos and concrete. My grandmother in all ways opposed him, especially when it came to living in Stanwood. From the day my mother, my brother, Paul, and I moved in, her complaints about living in “the woods” were daily reminders of her misery. “The birds sing too damn loud,” she would say while pouring her morning coffee. “I can’t stand the scent of the buds outside. It’s like a funeral home!” I was sorry that any peace my grandfather had from this home was interrupted by her persistent depression. I never fathomed how he convinced her to move to begin with.
    Frost stuck to the aged plywood under my feet. A layer of snow covered the porch’s surface and I tripped over the wood’s concealed splinters and cracks. The past seven days I imagined a much different scenario than what I was confronted with. I had not expected the home’s ruinous transformation, the sad dilapidation of its former self. The windows, covered with heavy drapes, hid its cavernous insides from view.