I have been working on the story, the editor is asking for a second draft after making suggested changes – and I’m now working on it
…
Jack’s mother is missing, well, not technically missing, but dumping the package and disappearing seemed a very close equivalent.
Maryanne has finally dropped the pretence and told Jack the truth, she is working with the authorities (but will not tell him who exactly they are) and that she is only interested in the diary, which everyone now assumes was in the package.
Who does it belong to? That will be revealed soon.
Failing her mission, Maryanne tells Jack she’s been taken off the case, and when Jack tells her is going after Jacob, she decided to tag along, perhaps for his protection.
Looking like Jacob, and going to look for him has some irony attached to it, and it would not be unreasonable to assume Jack is about to find himself in some very hot water, from good people and bad alike.
Then, if that isn’t enough on his plate, McCallister, the reputed owner of the diary, and Jacob’s father, and probably likely his, calls. He wants the diary back, or Jack’s mother will be harmed.
The search is now not for Jacob, but his mother.
Today’s effort amounts to 2,186 words, for a total, so far, of 51,629.
We were in London in Summer, it was a fine afternoon, going into the evening and we decided to get on the London Eye. As you can see from the clock it was near 7:00 pm.
This photo was taken as we were coming down.
Those long evenings were quite remarkable, not in the least going to a pub and sinking a few pints! There was one such pub not far from Charing Cross Station
There’s nothing more certain that a favourite web site you go to and use often, sooner or later starts charging a subscription ‘fee’.
I remember when the NANOWRIMO site had been updated, and the changes look good. At that moment the site was free, but you do get a lot of emails and requests to purchase products, which I think is a reasonable way to raise money for keeping the site free.
But, how long is this going to last before a ‘fee’ is introduced, and then a ‘fee’ to enter your book?
It’s the airline principle, once it was a flat charge for the ticket, now you pay for this tax, that tax, fuel tax, baggage tax, tax on the tax, and then if that’s not enough, a charge for the food and water. Soon it will be a charge for toilets, and then the air you breathe.
It’s inevitable, and once these charges start they don’t stop and only get higher with each passing year.
A lot of the sites I use are free. Some have since started to charge and have put up a firewall to stop you getting any free information.
I’m not a rich author, so sadly I have to discontinue using these sites.
Perhaps the problem is that the owner of the site has come up with a good idea, thousands of people sign up, and suddenly a small web site becomes a big one, and hosting costs suddenly go through the roof.
Like airlines, it’s the user that pays.
Often I see or get an email from, various people with what looks to be a useful site. Some start out by giving you a month free to have a look and use the facilities. In some cases they are quite good, in other, well, there’s a dozen others like it that are still free.
But, after a month, you have to pay. What gets me with some of them, they are asking somewhere between 50 and 100 US dollars a month, you heard that right, a month, which you can basically double that for me after the exchange rate and a dozen bank fees.
Sometimes there are different levels, but basically, if you look at the fine print, the lowest level set, which gives you very little, is set low deliberately. Say it’s 10 dollars a month. It’s no different to the free version except they probably don’t have annoying ads and advertise, what for many, is non-existent 24/7 help (via an email, no guarantee they look at it more than once a week, if at all). Money for jam for the site owner, as the saying goes.
Why can’t there be a more reasonable option?
But I get it. Everyone wants to get rich quick, it’s an objective that’s built into all of us, but it seems I missed the inoculation given the day after you’re born.
I also get it that these people worked hard on coming up with the web sites and facilities, and they deserve a reward for that hard work, but to me it would make more sense if they sold the service for 10 dollars or even 20 dollars a month if the systems were available and they worked. And flowing from that wouldn’t 20,000 sales at 20 dollars, be better than 2000 at a 100 dollars?
The same seems to go for the so-called decent web site hosts, like WordPress, Wix and GoDaddy. The free option is good but just for show and tell, but I’m sure they deliberately nobble it so it’s slow and kludgy just the sort of attributes that turn potential visitors off.
I thought if I paid a monthly charge for Wix, and reading the inclusions for what my site could do over the free one was very persuasive, so I signed up. The site was no better than it was before and half the options that were on the list weren’t available, and still aren’t. But I suspect if I paid them 100 plus dollars a month or more for their premium package I’d get it.
But, to pay for it I would have to be selling a million books a month, and I doubt, no matter how good my web site is, it wouldn’t attract that kind of business.
Not one of the basic packages, read affordable for me, has the ability to allow downloads after sales. You can’t even have a sales page where you can actually sell books to people like you were a bookshop. That’s in all of the premium packages, so they say, and that costs far too much.
GoDaddy were by far the worst, telling me if I signed up to the 60 dollars a month package I could have sales and downloads. I tried to add it to the web page, which I might add was as difficult to create as all hell, and when it didn’t work, rang up to ask why I couldn’t have downloading after sales and was met with silence.
No, that’s not available at the moment, I was told, and not likely in the future. What am I paying all this money for? I don’t have a GoDaddy site any more. I had a Wix site that I paid for, and I don’t have that any more. They don’t offer anything useful, and they too, make it virtually impossible to create a useful site, so it sits out there in the ether with disappointment written all over it.
Perhaps others have had better luck, or things have changed in the last few years but I won’t be going back.
Maybe one day someone might understand the needs of the majority who can afford to pay exorbitant monthly charges but just not as much as we are expected to, for very little in return.
I’m back home and this story has been sitting on a 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 prioritising.
But, here we are, a few minutes opened up and it didn’t take long to get back into the groove.
An interrogation and a revelation.
Debriefings were like interrogations, only friendlier. We were trained to withstand interrogation, so it would be interesting to see how I reacted. I had no doubt what some of the questions would be.
While I had a few minutes to myself, sitting down behind a bare metal table on a hard plastic and uncomfortable chair, with a warm cup of station house coffee, to consider the briefing.
Target, male, 6 foot 3 inches, 200 pounds, Caucasian, thought to be from either Russia or Bulgaria, but nothing to define his as such. I had wondered, at the time, what that meant. When I saw him in the alley I knew, then, what was meant, he looked the same as you or me.
No explanation for why he was under surveillance, but we did get a warning that he might be dangerous if he suspected he was being observed. Right about that, given team casualties.
Main objective, who he met, talked to, and where he went, every place, every detail to be noted. The unpredictable explosion threw the whole operation into chaos.
The door opened and a woman, middle-aged, conservatively dressed, walked in, closing it behind her. She sat in the other chair opposite me. She brought a file, thin, and put it in front of her on the table.
“Your name is Sam Jackson?”
“Yes.”
No introductions, nothing, just a start on the questions. No nonsense, but I could see she was very, very angry. With me, or those who had run a failed operation?
“How long have you been with us?”
“Eight months.”
She opened the file and glanced at the piece of paper on top. A minute passed before she closed the file again. “Closer to nine,” she said.
I said nothing. I wasn’t counting the days.
“How many operations have you been on?”
“Six, including this one.”
“Who assigned you to this specific operation?”
“Couldn’t say. I got the usual request via text message to attend a briefing at the midtown office.”
“What was the designated operation name?”
“Chancellery.”
For a brief second, there was a quizzical expression on her face, then it was gone.
“Who was running this operation?”
“Director Severin.”
A full three minutes of silence passed. I thought she was looking at me, the sort of stare that would break a lesser man, but in the end, I think she was looking right through me. I could not read her thoughts, but if I was to guess, they would be rather dark right now.
Then she spoke.
“You should know that there was no Chancellery on the books, and we certainly do not have a Director named Severin.”
“Sunday in New York” is ultimately a story about trust, and what happens when a marriage is stretched to its limits.
When Harry Steele attends a lunch with his manager, Barclay, to discuss a promotion that any junior executive would accept in a heartbeat, it is the fact his wife, Alison, who previously professed her reservations about Barclay, also agreed to attend, that casts a small element of doubt in his mind.
From that moment, his life, in the company, in deciding what to do, his marriage, his very life, spirals out of control.
There is no one big factor that can prove Harry’s worst fears, that his marriage is over, just a number of small, interconnecting events, when piled on top of each other, points to a cataclysmic end to everything he had believed in.
Trust is lost firstly in his best friend and mentor, Andy, who only hints of impending disaster, Sasha, a woman whom he saved, and who appears to have motives of her own, and then in his wife, Alison, as he discovered piece by piece damning evidence she is about to leave him for another man.
Can we trust what we see with our eyes or trust what we hear?
Haven’t we all jumped to conclusions at least once in our lives?
Can Alison, a woman whose self-belief and confidence is about to be put to the ultimate test, find a way of proving their relationship is as strong as it has ever been?
Whilst I found this tree house to be interesting, it seems to be far from practical because there was little to keep the wind and rain out, though I suppose, in the book, that might not be such a problem.
Be that as it may, and if it was relatively waterproof, then the furnishings would probably survive, and one had to also assume that much of the furnishings, such as the writing desk below, would have washed up as debris from the shipwreck.
The stove and oven would have to be built by hand, and it is ‘remarkable’ such well-fitting stones were available. It doesn’t look like it’s been used for a while judging by the amount of gree on it. Perhaps it is not in a waterproof area.
The dining table and the shelf in the background have that rough-hewn look about them
A bit of man-made equipment here for drawing water from the stream
And though not made in the era of electricity, there is an opportunity to use the water wheel to do more than it appears to be doing
And tucked away in a corner the all-important study where one can read, or play a little music on the organ. One could say, for the period, one had all the comforts of home.
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 just 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 down on her for the last three months, and if noticed it, the late nights, the moodiness, and 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 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 like the right time.
It was then 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 where who, 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 I just shrugged and asked 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 that intimacy we used to have when 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, which 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 and instrumental in her getting the position, but unlike some men in his position he had not taken advantage of a situation like some men would. And even if she had made a move, which I doubted, 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. In the beginning, it’s a slow easy ride, followed by a slow climb to the top. It’s much like some relationships, they start out easy, but they require a little work to get to the next level, follows 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 or of the final turn and we were braking so that it stops 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 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 few trips 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 were a dozen other plane spotters, a rather motley crew of plane enthusiasts.
Already that morning there’s 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.
I have been working on the story, the editor is asking for a second draft after making suggested changes – and I’m now working on it
…
How many of us would ever get caught up in a dangerous situation ever in a lifetime?
How many of us have skeletons in the closet that we don’t know about?
I had been thinking about it a lot when I discovered my mother’s previous boyfriend, the man whom was the love of her life.
Then, in terms of coming up with an idea for a story, what if she had a child by him that we didn’t know about, a half brother or sister.
There were many ways of putting a spin on this premise.
Then, in the back of my mind I remembered a story an acquaintance at works was once telling us over morning tea, that a fried of a friend had a mother who had a twin sister and that each of the sisters had a son by the same father, without each knowing of the father’s actions, both growing up without the other knowing of their half brother only to meet by accident on the other side of the world.
It was an enormous coincidence.
And we all wondered what the sisters had planned as retribution for the man who had lied to them both.
Of course it could also be said that they could have spoken to each other long before it came to that, but like a lot of families, small problems become much larger ones when allowed to fester, and cause almost unhealable rifts. It had n this case.
Sometimes the backstory can be just as interesting as the story itself.
Today’s effort amounts to 2,573 words, for a total, so far, of 49,443.
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 set up.
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 the pique his interest. Then, inexplicably, she disappears. That might have been the end to 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.
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 