When you first think of this word, it is with a slippery slope in mind.
I’ve been on a few of those in my time.
And while we’re on the subject, those inclines measured in degrees are very important if you want a train to get up and down the side of a mountain.
For the train, that’s an incline plane, the point where traction alone won’t get the iron horse up the hill.
Did I say ‘Iron Horse’? Sorry, regressed there, back to the mid-1800s in the American West for a moment.
It’s not that important when it comes to trucks and cars, and less so if you like four-wheel driving; getting up near-vertical mountainsides often present a welcome challenge to the true enthusiast
But for the rest of us, not so much if you find yourself sliding in reverse uncontrollably into the bay. I’m sure it’s happened more than once.
Then…
Are you inclined to go?
A very different sort of incline, ie to be disposed towards an attitude or desire.
An inclination, maybe, not to go four-wheel driving?
There is another, probably more obscure use of the word incline, and that relates to an elevated geological formation. Not the sort of reference that crops up in everyday conversation at the coffee shop.
But, you never know. Try it next time you have coffee and see what happens.
Hang about. Didn’t I read somewhere you need to plan your novel, create an outline setting the plot points, and flesh out the characters?
I’m sure it didn’t say, sit down and start writing!
Time to find a writing pad, and put my thinking cap on.
I make a list, what’s the story going to be about? Who’s going to be in it, at least at the start?
Like a newspaper story, I need a who, what, when, where, and how.
Right now.
I pick up the pen.
Character number one:
Computer nerd, ok, that’s a little close to the bone, a computer manager who is trying to be everything at once, and failing. Still me, but with a twist. Now, add a little mystery to him, and give him a secret, one that will only be revealed after a specific set of circumstance. Yes, I like that.
We’ll call him Bill, ex-regular army, a badly injured and repatriated soldier who was sent to fight a war in Vietnam, the result of which had made him, at times, unfit to live with.
He had a wife, which brings us to,
Character number two:
Ellen, Bill’s ex-wife, an army brat and a General’s daughter, and the result of one of those romances that met disapproval for so many reasons. It worked until Bill came back from the war, and from there it slowly disintegrated. There are two daughters, both by the time the novel begins, old enough to understand the ramifications of a divorce.
Character number three:
The man who is Bill’s immediate superior, the Services Department manager, a rather officious man who blindly follows orders, a man who takes pleasure in making others feel small and insignificant, and worst of all, takes the credit where none is due.
Oops, too much, that is my old boss. He’ll know immediately I’m parodying him. Tone it down, just a little, but more or less that’s him. Last name Benton. He will play a small role in the story.
Character number four:
Jennifer, the IT Department’s assistant manager, a woman who arrives in a shroud of mystery, and then, in time, to provide Bill with a shoulder to cry on when he and Ellen finally split, and perhaps something else later on.
More on her later as the story unfolds.
So far so good.
What’s the plot?
Huge corporation plotting to take over the world using computers? No, that’s been done to death.
Huge corporation, OK, let’s stop blaming the corporate world for everything wrong in the world. Corporations are not bad people, people are the bad people. That’s a rip off cliché, from guns don’t kill people, people kill people! There will be guns, and there will be dead people.
There will be people hiding behind a huge corporation, using a part of their computer network to move billions of illegally gained money around. That’s better.
Now, having got that, our ‘hero’ has to ‘discover’ this network, and the people behind it.
All we need now is to set the ball rolling, a single event that ‘throws a cat among the pigeons’.
Yes, Bill is on holidays, a welcome relief from the problems of work. He dreams of what he’s going to do for the next two weeks. The phone rings. Benton calling, the world is coming to an end, the network is down. He’s needed. A few terse words, but he relents.
What happens when your past finally catches up with you?
…
Christmas is just around the corner, a time to be with family. For Will Mason, an orphan since he was fourteen, it is a time for reflection on what his life could have been, and what it could be.
Until a chance encounter brings back to life the reasons for his twenty years of self-imposed exile from a life only normal people could have. From that moment, Will’s life slowly starts to unravel, and it’s obvious to him that it’s time to move on.
This time, however, there is more at stake.
Will has broken his number one rule: don’t get involved.
With his nemesis, Eddie Jamieson, suddenly within reach, and a blossoming relationship with an office colleague, Maria, about to change everything, Will has to make a choice. Quietly leave, or finally, make a stand.
But as Will soon discovers, when other people are involved, there are going to be terrible consequences no matter what choice he makes.
The One Place You Must Visit on a One-Day Stopover in Athens
So, you’ve landed in Athens with just 24 hours to spare—a layover that’s more than just a waiting game. Between the bustling airport and your next flight, you have a golden opportunity to step into the cradle of Western civilisation. But with so much to see—the ancient ruins, vibrant markets, and stunning coastline—how do you choose just one spot to make your short visit unforgettable?
The answer is clear: the Acropolis.
Yes, it might seem like the obvious choice, but there’s a reason it’s stood the test of time—both literally and figuratively. Here’s why dedicating your day to this iconic landmark will give you a memory to last a lifetime.
Why the Acropolis?
Perched high above Athens, the Acropolis is more than just a collection of ancient ruins. It’s a symbol of human achievement, a monument to artistry, democracy, and mythology all in one breathtaking site. In just a few hours here, you’ll walk in the footsteps of philosophers, stand before architectural marvels, and soak in panoramic views that stretch across the entire city.
What Makes It Special for a Short Visit?
Concentrated Wonder: Within the Acropolis complex, you’ll encounter the Parthenon, the Erechtheion, the Temple of Athena Nike, and the Odeon of Herodes Atticus—all within a walkable area. It’s like stepping into an open-air museum of ancient history.
Iconic Photo Opportunities: That postcard-perfect view of the Parthenon against the Athenian sky? You’ll capture it here. Whether you’re a photography enthusiast or just want a keepsake, the visuals are unbeatable.
Easy Access: The Acropolis is centrally located and well-connected by metro (the Acropoli station is a short walk away). With limited time, convenience is key.
How to Make the Most of Your Visit
Morning Start: Arrive early—right at opening time (usually 8 AM). You’ll beat the crowds and the midday heat. The morning light also casts a magical glow over the marble structures, perfect for photos.
Guided Insight: Consider a short guided tour or an audio guide. Hearing the stories behind the Parthenon’s construction or the myths tied to the Erechtheion’s Caryatids adds depth to what you’re seeing.
Don’t Miss the Acropolis Museum: Just a short walk downhill, this modern museum houses artifacts from the site. Its top-floor gallery, with views straight up to the Parthenon, is a breathtaking way to contextualise your visit.
Pause at the Areopagus Hill: On your way down, stop at this rocky outcrop near the Acropolis entrance. It offers stunning vistas of Athens and is steeped in history—the site where the apostle Paul is said to have preached.
A Taste of Athens on the Go
After your Acropolis exploration, wander into the nearby Plaka neighbourhood. Its cobblestone streets are lined with tavernas where you can grab a quick, authentic Greek lunch. Think souvlaki, fresh Greek salad, and a slice of baklava—because no stopover is complete without a taste of local flavour.
Practical Tips for a Smooth Layover
Storage: Athens International Airport has luggage storage facilities, so you can explore hands-free.
Transport: Take the metro Blue Line directly from the airport to the city centre (about 40-45 minutes). A day pass is affordable and efficient.
Timing: Allow at least 3-4 hours for the Acropolis and museum, plus transit time. Always keep your onward flight in mind!
Why This Day Will Stay With You
Athens is a city where history isn’t confined to textbooks—it’s etched into every stone and echoed in every horizon. By choosing the Acropolis, you’re not just checking off a landmark; you’re connecting with a legacy that has inspired millennia. As you watch the sunset paint the ancient marble in hues of gold (if your timing allows), you’ll carry with you more than just photos—you’ll take home a piece of timeless wonder.
So, on your next one-day Athens stopover, look up. The Acropolis awaits, ready to turn a few hours into a story you’ll tell for years.
Safe travels, and may your layover be nothing short of epic!
There’s something to be said for a story that starts like a James Bond movie, throwing you straight in the deep end, a perfect way of getting to know the main character, David, or is that Alistair?
A retired spy, well, not so much a spy as a retired errand boy, David’s rather wry description of his talents, and a woman that most men would give their left arm for, not exactly the ideal couple, but there is a spark in a meeting that may or may not have been a setup.
But as the story progressed, the question I kept asking myself was why he’d bother.
And, page after unrelenting page, you find out.
Susan is exactly the sort of woman to pique his interest. Then, inexplicably, she disappears. That might have been the end of it, but Prendergast, that shadowy enigma, David’s ex-boss who loves playing games with real people, gives him an ultimatum: find her or come back to work.
Nothing like an offer that’s a double-edged sword!
A dragon for a mother, a sister he didn’t know about, Susan’s BFF who is not what she seems or a friend indeed, and Susan’s father, who, up till David meets her, couldn’t be less interested, his nemesis proves to be the impossible dream, and he’s always just that one step behind.
When the rollercoaster finally came to a halt, and I could start breathing again, it was an ending that was completely unexpected.
Why Writing is the Hardest (and Noblest) Work in the World
“Writing is the hardest work in the world… writing is harder, lonelier and nobler and more exciting!” – Harlan Ellison
Few quotes capture the paradoxical nature of the writing life quite like this one. To the outside observer, writing looks deceptively simple. It is just a person sitting at a desk, tapping at a keyboard or moving a pen across paper. No heavy lifting, no hazardous machinery, no immediate physical exhaustion.
Yet, any writer—from the novelist crafting a sweeping epic to the copywriter drafting a landing page—knows the truth: Writing is agonising. It is a profound psychological wrestling match, a solitary confinement of the mind, and, at the same time, one of the most thrilling endeavours a human being can undertake.
Why is writing the hardest work in the world? And more importantly, why do we keep doing it? Let’s break down the beautiful, brutal reality of the craft.
1. Harder: The Agony of the Blank Page
Why is writing harder than physical labour? Because physical labour has a beginning, a middle, and an end. You dig a ditch, and when the sun goes down, the ditch is there. You feel a satisfying ache of completion.
Writing offers no such guarantees. You can stare at a blank white screen for four hours, type three sentences, delete all of them, and end the day with less than nothing. You are pulling something entirely out of the ether—translating abstract thoughts, emotions, and half-formed concepts into a linear sequence of universally understood symbols (words).
It is an act of creation from absolute void. As the late writer Gene Fowler famously put it: “Writing is easy. You just stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.”
2. Lonelier: The Solitary Confinement of the Mind
Most jobs involve collaboration, socialisation, and external feedback. Even remote work usually includes Zoom calls, Slack messages, and team updates.
Writing, however, is intensely, ruthlessly solitary. You cannot write a book, an essay, or even a deeply resonant blog post by committee. Ideas are forged in silence. The heavy lifting of editing, pacing, and structuring takes place in the quiet echo chamber of your own skull.
Worse still is the isolation of doubt. When you are stuck in the middle of a messy first draft, you cannot turn to a coworker and ask, “Does this make sense?” You are the creator, the critic, the taskmaster, and the audience, all rolled into one. That profound isolation is why so many writers lean into eccentric habits or struggle with imposter syndrome—you spend hours inside your own head, and eventually, the walls start closing in.
3. Nobbler: The Pursuit of Truth and Connection
If writing is so difficult and lonely, why don’t we all just quit? Because of the noble element.
Writing matters because it is an act of extreme empathy. When you write, you are attempting to bridge the gap between two isolated human consciousnesses. You take your specific, subjective experiences of joy, grief, confusion, and wonder, and you distil them into ink and pixels so that a stranger, sitting hundreds of miles away and years in the future, can read them and say: “I thought I was the only one who felt that way.”
Writing immortalises ideas. It challenges injustice, preserves history, heals trauma, and sparks revolutions. To put words on a page with the intent to move, educate, or inspire another human being is a sacred trust. It elevates the mundane to the meaningful.
4. More Exciting: The Rush of Discovery
And finally, there is the excitement—the addictive, elusive high that keeps every writer coming back to the desk, morning after morning.
Writing is an adventure of discovery. Great writers often say that they don’t write to know what they think; they write in order to find out what they think.
There are moments—rare, magical moments—when the friction stops. The cursor flies across the screen, the right metaphors seem to assemble themselves, and you surprise even yourself. You unlock a door in your subconscious that you didn’t know was locked. You realize, mid-sentence, the true point of the piece you’ve been struggling with for a week.
That rush of sudden clarity, that lightning-strike moment of creative flow, is unlike anything else in the world. It is the carrot at the end of the psychological stick that makes all the agony worthwhile.
The Verdict: Embrace the Struggle
If you are a writer experiencing the crushing weight of a difficult draft, take heart. The struggle is not a sign that you are failing; the struggle is the job.
Writing is the hardest work in the world. It is supposed to stretch you, break you down, and rebuild you. But in doing so, it offers a rare kind of nobility and an unmatched thrill.
So, sit back down at the desk. Stare at the blank page. Let the drops of blood form on your forehead—because on the other side of that blank space lies a connection waiting to be made.
Are you currently battling a blank page, or are you chasing the high of a breakthrough? Let’s talk about the writing struggle in the comments below!
Known only to a few, there is a legend that a ship named the ‘Flying Dutchman’ left Nazi Germany in the last weeks of the war and set sail for America, escorted by U-boats, under a different name. Aboard was a trove of treasure and gold worth a ‘king’s ransom’.
It was said that it had been sent to a group of American Nazis to create the Fourth Reich at an appropriate time. Over the years, many expeditions off the coast had searched, but found no trace of the vessel or the treasure.
In other words, it was just a legend created to boost tourism.
…
Fast forward to 2024. Our intrepid private detective, Harry Walthenson, overhears a conversation at Grand Central Station. It was the oddness of the message that caught his attention. An investigation turned up nothing out of the ordinary, and he thinks no more about it.
Then Harry is kidnapped, interrogated, and asked questions over and over about a date and a place, why he went there, and when he could not give satisfactory answers, he was beaten half to death and left for dead on a rubbish heap. He was lucky that it was a living space for homeless men; otherwise, he would have died.
In the aftermath, he once again gives it no more thought.
…
After resolving his first case successfully, there’s no rest. Harry’s angry mother comes to his office and demands that he find out where his father has gone. She believes he has run off with a mistress, not for the first time.
Perhaps it was not the wisest decision she has made, because Harry promises to investigate, and adds that she might not like what he finds.
He soon discovered he does not like what he finds, that his father’s friends, a cabal formed at University, have two who are his mother’s current lovers, and another, a criminal blackmailing his father.
Felicity, now his partner, working on a different case, and trying to get answers, uncovers a crime family involved in guarding a disused warehouse on the docks, where she believes Harry had been taken for interrogation, and subsequently dumped nearby to die.
Why are they up to? What is so important that the empty warehouse needs guarding? Who is employing them?
Harry, following up on the death of the blackmailer, traces his death back to an enforcer employed by his grandfather. His mother’s grandfather was a pre-war industrialist who made his fortune in war munitions and shipbuilding.
He was also a member of the American Nazi party.
When Harry also discovers a logbook belonging to a so-called wartime Liberty ship the “Paul Revere” in brackets ‘Freiheitskämpfer’, hidden by his father, and written in a code that is not readily identifiable.
It is no longer a matter of a father who has run off with his mistress; it is a very frightened man in fear of his life, running from a group who will stop at nothing to get the logbook back. And when Harry discovers a family connection to the group, it becomes a race against time to decode the log and find his father before his grandfather does.
…
Coming soon: Harry Walthenson’s new adventure – A case of finding the ‘Flying Dutchman’
I’m back home and this story has been sitting on the back burner for a few months, waiting for some more to be written.
The trouble is, there are also other stories to write, and I’m not very good at prioritizing.
But, here we are, a few minutes opened up and it didn’t take long to get back into the groove.
Chasing leads, maybe
—
I gave it about five minutes before I think I started breathing again and then headed back to Jennifer.
Or where I thought I had left her.
She wasn’t there. I think, in the end, it didn’t surprise me. She had been reluctant from the start so if I had to guess, she had done a bunk. This was not her fight, nor mine, but she had a ticket out. Why would you want to come back after being betrayed by the likes of Severin and Maury?
I hope she left the car behind.
Now that I was here there was no point leaving, so I took a few minutes to search the surrounding area, just in case she was still here, just someplace else, and when she wasn’t, I quickly and silently made my way back to the side of the house with the open door from a different direction.
There was another set of French doors, these curtained, and with an overhead light above the doorway, so I kept my distance in case there was a movement activator, another which looked to be a servant’s entrance at the back. Neither door looked to be an easy viable entrance.
The original side door was still unlocked, with no lights or movement inside.
I waited, then opened the door wide enough to slip through. Again, I waited in case there was a silent alarm, then when nothing stirred, slipped through and closed the door behind me.
On the other side of the door, it was quite dark, except now I could see, on one wall, the dying embers of a fire. Someone had been in the room earlier and most likely gone to bed.
It meant the house was occupied.
It also meant I had to be careful.
On the other side of the doors, it was a lot warmer. Again I waited a few minutes, just in case someone came, and, when they didn’t, I pulled out a small torch and turned it on.
In front of me were two chairs and a table, one I would have walked into without a light. The walls had shelves and those shelves were filled with books. Some behind glass doors, others not. There was another chair by the fire, and beside it, a stack of cooks, and a table with had an empty glass and a bottle, and a pair of reading glasses.
The downstairs reading room.
I cross the room slowly, hoping there were no squeaky floorboards, to be expected in an old house like this one. The timber flooring was exposed only at the edges of the room, the rest of the floor covered in a large, discolored, and fraying carpet square.
It was old, like everything else in the room.
I was tempted to have a look at how far the books dated back to but resisted the urge. I was looking for information on the owner.
At the doorway to what looked like a passage, I turned off the torch and peered out. It was not exactly dark, my eyes had adjusted to the low-level light from low wattage lights about a foot above the floor.
Lights to help guide the way at night.
Left, rooms, right, rooms, at the end of the passage a wide doorway leading towards the other side of the house. Larger rooms perhaps.
I turned right and headed towards the front, and they stopped at the doorway to the next room. I’d deliberately walked on the carpet runner in the middle of the passage, and just managed to catch my foot when one part of the floor creaked softly.
The room next door was almost the same as the one I’d entered by, with chairs and shelves but only on two sides. This room had a long window and no French doors.
On one side there was a writing desk, open, with papers scatted on the writing surface. I quickly crossed the room to it, switched on the light, and checked.
Bills. In the name of Mrs. Marianne Quigley. This had to be Adam Quigley’s mother, and by deduction, O’Connell’s mother.
Proof I was in the right place.
Then I heard the squeak of a floorboard followed by the clicking sound of a gun being cocked.
“Don’t move, or I’ll shoot. Hands in the air. And don’t make me ask twice.”
50 photographs, 50 stories, of which there is one of the 50 below.
They all start with –
A picture paints … well, as many words as you like. For instance:
And, the story:
Have you ever watched your hopes and dreams simply fly away?
Everything I thought I wanted and needed had just left in an aeroplane, and although I said I was not going to, I came to the airport to see the plane leave. Not the person on it, that would have been far too difficult and emotional, but perhaps it was symbolic, the end of one life and the start of another.
But no matter what I thought or felt, we had both come to the right decision. She needed the opportunity to spread her wings. It was probably not the best idea for her to apply for the job without telling me, but I understood her reasons.
She was in a rut. Though her job was a very good one, it was not as demanding as she had expected, particularly after the last promotion, but with it came resentment from others on her level that she, the youngest of the group, would get the position.
It was something that had been weighing her down for the last three months, and if she noticed it, the late nights, the moodiness, sometimes a flash of temper. I knew she had one; no one could have such red hair and not, but she had always kept it in check.
And then there was us, together, and after seven years, it felt like we were going nowhere. Perhaps that was down to my lack of ambition, and though she never said it, lack of sophistication. It hadn’t been an issue, well, not until her last promotion, and the fact that she had to entertain more, and frankly, I felt like an embarrassment to her.
So, there it was, three days ago, the beginning of the weekend, and we had planned to go away for a few days and take stock. We both acknowledged we needed to talk, but it never seemed the right time.
It was then that she said she had quit her job and found a new one. Starting the following Monday.
Ok, that took me by surprise, not so much that it was something I sort of guessed might happen, but that she would just blurt it out.
I think that right then, at that moment, I could feel her frustration with everything around her.
What surprised her was my reaction. None.
I simply asked who, where, and when.
A world-class newspaper in New York, and she had to be there in a week.
A week.
It was all the time I had left with her.
I remember just shrugging and asking if the planned weekend away was off.
She stood on the other side of the kitchen counter, hands around a cup of coffee she had just poured, and that one thing I remembered was the lone tear that ran down her cheek.
Is that all you want to know?
I did, yes, but we had lost the intimacy we used to have, where she would have told me what was happening, and we would have brainstormed solutions. I might be a cabinet maker, but I still had a brain, was what I overheard her tell a friend once.
There’s not much to ask, I said. You’ve been desperately unhappy and haven’t been able to hide it all that well, you have been under a lot of pressure trying to deal with a group of troglodytes, and you’ve been leaning on Bentley’s shoulder instead of mine, and I get it, he’s got more experience in that place, and the politics that go with it, and is still an ally.
Her immediate superior was instrumental in her getting the position, but unlike some men in his position, he had not taken advantage of the situation like some might. And even if she had made a move, which I doubted, that was not the sort of woman she was, he would have politely declined.
One of the very few happily married men in that organisation, so I heard.
So, she said, you’re not just a pretty face.
Par for the course for a cabinet maker whose university degree is in psychology. It doesn’t take rocket science to see what was happening to you. I just didn’t think it was my place to jump in unless you asked me, and when you didn’t, well, that told me everything I needed to know.
Yes, our relationship had a use-by date, and it was in the next few days.
I was thinking, she said, that you might come with me; you can make cabinets anywhere.
I could, but I think the real problem wasn’t just the job. It was everything around her and going with her that would just be a constant reminder of what had been holding her back. I didn’t want that for her and said so.
Then the only question left was, what do we do now?
Go shopping for suitcases. Bags to pack, and places to go.
Getting on the roller coaster is easy. At the beginning, it’s a slow, easy ride, followed by the slow climb to the top. It’s much like some relationships; they start out easy, they require a little work to get to the next level, followed by the adrenaline rush when it all comes together.
What most people forget is that what comes down must go back up, and life is pretty much a roller coaster with highs and lows.
Our roller coaster had just come out of the final turn, and we were braking so that it would stop at the station.
There was no question of going with her to New York. Yes, I promised I’d come over and visit her, but that was a promise with crossed fingers behind my back. After a few months in the new job, the last thing she’d want was a reminder of what she left behind. New friends, new life.
We packed her bags, threw out everything she didn’t want, a free trip to the op shop with stuff she knew others would like to have, and basically, by the time she was ready to go, there was nothing left of her in the apartment, or anywhere.
Her friends would be seeing her off at the airport, and that’s when I told her I was not coming; that moment, the taxi arrived to take her away forever. I remember standing there, watching the taxi go. It was going to be, and was, as hard as it was to watch the plane leave.
So, there I was, finally staring at the blank sky, around me a dozen other plane spotters, a rather motley crew of plane enthusiasts.
Already that morning, there had been 6 different types of planes departing, and I could hear another winding up its engines for take-off.
People coming, people going.
Maybe I would go to New York in a couple of months, not to see her, but just to see what the attraction was. Or maybe I would drop in, just to see how she was.
As one of my friends told me when I gave him the news, the future is never written in stone, and it’s about time you broadened your horizons.
Let’s pause a minute, in space, to get it some measurements right
…
Out there, in space, it’s not like being on the highway, going from one side of the country to the other.
That, effectively, is only a few thousand miles, or kilometres as we now measured distance, the influence of the European countries attached to the space alliance.
But late at night, and astrophysics, or astrology, or whatever the science of space is called, is not a subject to take up, particularly when you’re tired.
The other night I was tired, and confused, and hence got all my numbers muddled up. The thing is, when numbers go up to billions, with all of them zeros, it could be confusing for everyone.
Or maybe it was just me.
But, the first constant is the speed of light. That’s approximately 1,079,251,200 km per hour, Pretty fast, eh.
But, as I’m told, nothing can go faster than the speed of light.
So, in this story, it’s a given.
Spaceship speeds, in this story, are measured as SSPDs.
SSPD 1,000 is the speed of light.
This new spaceship will not go that fast. It is capable of SSPD 5, but even then, it’s not recommended. So, we are, from the beginning, are going to accept that it will go SSPD 4.
Trials got it to 4.5, but that was when the design engineers were aboard and could fix any problems.
So how fast are the SSPD increments?
SSPD 1 is 1,079,251 km per hour. SSPD 2 is double that. That’s the fastest cruising speed the current ships can travel.
This new ship goes twice as fast so at SSPD 4 it can cruise at 4,317,004 km per hour.
Now, where I got everything wrong, is the distance of the planets from Earth, and the time it would take to get there.
Mars: about 56 million km when in line between the earth and the sun, but has a min of 54.5 million km
Venus: between 38 million and 261 million km
Mercury: averaging about 77 million km to a max of 222 million km
Jupiter: from a min of 588 million to a max of 968 million km
Saturn: from a min of 1.3 billion to 1.7 billion km
Uranus: from a min of 2.57 billion to 3.15 billion km
Neptune: from a min of 4.3 billion to 4.7 billion km
Since in the story, it’s possible the ship might be stopping at Mars briefly, the time it could possibly take, given the position of Mars at the time (about 60 million km), is about 14 hours.
As for the ultimate destination, Neptune, at 4.5 billion km approximately, it is going to take 1,042 hours, or 43.5 days.
Hopefully, I’m now over some of the confusion of distances between the planets, and will have some semblance of credible measurements and times.
Or that’s what I keep telling myself, struggling to stay awake and write the next sentence, then the next sentence, and the one after that.
Long after I should have gone to bed.
Does that sound like your life?
Of course, it doesn’t. The rest of the world is sane, goes to work, comes home, has dinner, watches a little television or plays with the children, or maybe not, then goes to bed.
None of this writing business, trying to finish the page, the scene, the chapter while the ideas are fresh in your mind.
Only your mind isn’t fresh, it’s been a long day, an argument with the significant other, a bigger argument with the cat, there’s the washing, the cooking, the cleaning…
When do I get five minutes for myself?
At the dead of night, when everyone else has gone to bed, getting their eight hours of sleep.
In the dark with only the screen to light the keyboard, I’m trying to find the way around the keyboard and turn out what has to be the next international best-selling thriller.
The dog next door barks; it means the cat got out and is terrorising it.
A door slams, it’s old Joe getting home late from the pub, probably drunk again.
Yep, right on target, the vitriol of a bitter woman, and I have to say, I don’t blame her.
Then I hear it, that voice from the deep, “Poppy.”
The youngest of the grandchildren was the very devil to get to sleep.
Writing for the night is over, time to read other people’s stories.
This month is just starting to disappear, and once again, I don’t feel like I’m going to make any more progress than I did last week.
Winter has all but disappeared, and Spring is upon us. Not as cold as Lake Louise in December, but it feels like it.
What were my expectations last month?
I had set a list of projects for the month, more episodes for the three continuing stories, and a start to the next episodic story, ‘Motive, Means, and Opportunity’, though for this story I have brought together all the writing I’ve been doing in past weeks. But like most of these fringe stories, it has reached a point where more research is needed, and I have too much else to do.
Then there is the completion of ‘The Things We Do for Love’. It’s finally finished and needs a read-through before going to the editor, but making time to just sit and read…?
The same applies to ‘Strangers We’ve Become’, and it is in the same time-consuming basket. It needs a final read-through, so it’s on the to-do list.
It would be easy to blame any number of obscure reasons, but I’ve been home and had the time, only there have been several distractions and ideas for new stories that seem to divert my attention from what I should be doing.
It’s not writer’s block. It’s not laziness. It seems that I just don’t want to work on them, and that might be because there are problems with the narrative, and I’m just not ready to address them.
What has got my attention then?
I’m not sure how or why, but something triggered the idea of passing through a portal into another time, in the past. I think I might have been looking for photographs to write another photo story, and I came across a covered bridge, which led me to look for photographs of ghost towns. What topped it off was an old western in black and white, High Noon, which provoked a whole lot of memories of many westerns I’d seen in the past.
What other reason do you need to write your own story?
Then, when visiting my grandchildren, we happened to do some stargazing using Google Sky Map and picked out the planets. Somehow, I managed to take a photo and looking at it, it took me back to the days of Star Trek, and the many series, which sort of gave me an idea for another story, which has been running off and on over the last month. It now has 53 episodes, and I need to write more, yep, on the to-do list.
Equally, I’m always on the lookout for photo opportunities that I can use to write short stories, and these continue apace, the latest being published this week, number 146. These are being formed into anthologies, stories 1 to 50, and stories 51 to 100. The first has been assembled into book form and is awaiting the editor’s first reading and report. I’m still working on the second.
Meanwhile, another 50 have been written and are awaiting publication in volume 3.
Perhaps some of the time has been spent keeping up with Twitter, where, over the last six months, and more recently, sales of my books on Amazon have been increasing. Not to best-seller numbers, but people are reading my stories, and the reviews have been very good.
It has, of course, pushed me to work harder on marketing, and that has consumed some of my time, which unfortunately takes me away from writing. It sometimes feels like a self-defeating exercise, but it is the same for all of us.
Oh, and something else that cropped up this month, my brother has been digging into our family history, and around the middle of the month, he found some interesting revelations about some family members, including a pseudo-Luddite, and then later on, when chasing down the places that we, as a family, lived, and this brought out some very interesting information about our father.
It also seems we may have had a distant relative on the ship that left after the Mayflower to Plymouth Rock, USA, at the very beginning. That will be remarkable if it is true.
I’m discovering that for what I’d always assumed was an ordinary man, he had done a lot of very interesting things in his life, and not only that, I’ve also been fictionalising the story. I have potted pieces written over various stages, and, one day, they might come together as a sort of biography. It is astonishing just how much you don’t know about your family, until much later on, at least for some of us. Our relatives have always been a mystery to me, and it’s fascinating as each one is brought to life with new detail here and there.
Looking back on what I’ve just written, perhaps the passing of the month had been more productive than I first thought. It just seems like nothing major has happened.
