Writing a novel in 365 days – 23

Day 23

Today’s discussion is about the writer’s point of view.

This is different to the point of view, like writing in the first person.

I’m not sure as Rod Serling puts it, “The writer’s role is to menace the public’s conscience”.

Maybe if you’re going to intertwine the dilemma of climate change advancing upon us in a practical sense through the pages of a novel, though if you are well versed in what climate change is going to do, it might serve as a warning, and help slow it down.

It might also be used to highlight the very real effect of women being treated badly in a number of situations, at home, at work, and in general.

It might also highlight the very real problems that people in the United States are going to be subjected to in the wake of the ‘two genders’ proclamation. Knowing several transgender and non-binary people, it seems to me that it is an affront to their dignity. A story that highlights their plight might go a long way to educating others about their situation.

There are a great many themes, some of them controversial, that could and are aired from time to time, and it is a path you can go down, but a lot of research is required to get an accurate picture.

As someone who is closely associated with a transgender, and who has travelled the rollercoaster ride of discovering who they are, the discussions with psychiatrists and doctors, the ‘exercises’ that the subject undergoes, long before the operation to change gender, the surgery, the aftermath, and the reaction from those closer and not so close, I can say from experience that it is brutal and sometimes leaves the subject questioning everything.

It is not surprising then that the suicide rate of transgender people alone is one of the highest in the world.

Perhaps I will get around to writing that story sooner rather than later.

An excerpt from “Sunday in New York”

Now available on Amazon at:  https://amzn.to/2H7ALs8

…

Williams’ Restaurant, East 65th Street, New York, Saturday, 8:00 p.m.

We met the Blaine’s at Williams’, a rather upmarket restaurant that the Blaine’s frequently visited, and had recommended.

Of course, during the taxi ride there, Alison reminded me that with my new job, we would be able to go to many more places like Williams’.  It was, at worst, more emotional blackmail, because as far as Alison was concerned, we were well on our way to posh restaurants, the Trump Tower Apartments, and the trappings of the ‘executive set’.

It would be a miracle if I didn’t strangle Elaine before the night was over.  It was she who had filled Alison’s head with all this stuff and nonsense.

Aside from the half frown half-smile, Alison was looking stunning.  It was months since she had last dressed up, and she was especially wearing the dress I’d bought her for our 5th anniversary that cost a month’s salary.  On her, it was worth it, and I would have paid more if I had to.  She had adored it, and me, for a week or so after.

For tonight, I think I was close to getting back on that pedestal.

She had the looks and figure to draw attention, the sort movie stars got on the red carpet, and when we walked into the restaurant, I swear there were at least five seconds silence, and many more gasps.

Even I had a sudden loss of breath earlier in the evening when she came out of the dressing room.  Once more I was reminded of how lucky I was that she had agreed to marry me.  Amid all those self-doubts, I couldn’t believe she had loved me when there were so many others ‘out there’ who were more appealing.

Elaine was out of her seat and came over just as the Head Waiter hovered into sight.  She personally escorted Alison to the table, allowing me to follow like the Queen’s consort, while she and Alison basked in the admiring glances of the other patrons.

More than once I heard the muted question, “Who is she?”

Jimmy stood, we shook hands, and then we sat together.  It was not the usual boy, girl, boy, girl seating arrangement.  Jimmy and I on one side and Elaine and Alison on the other.

The battle lines were drawn.

Jimmy was looking fashionable, with the permanent blade one beard, unkempt hair, and designer dinner suit that looked like he’d slept in it.  Alison insisted I wear a tuxedo, and I looked like the proverbial penguin or just a thinner version of Alfred Hitchcock.

The bow tie had been slightly crooked, but just before we stepped out she had straightened it.  And took the moment to look deeply into my soul.  It was one of those moments when words were not necessary.

Then it was gone.

I relived it briefly as I sat and she looked at me.  A penetrating look that told me to ‘behave’.

When we were settled, Elaine said, in that breathless, enthusiastic manner of hers when she was excited, “So, Harry, you are finally moving up.”  It was not a question, but a statement.

I was not sure what she meant by ‘finally’ but I accepted it with good grace.  Sometimes Elaine was prone to using figures of speech I didn’t understand.  I guessed she was talking about the new job.  “It was supposed to be a secret.”

She smiled widely.  “There are no secrets between Al and I, are there Al?”

I looked at ‘Al’ and saw a brief look of consternation.

I was not sure Alison liked the idea of being called Al.  I tried it once and was admonished.  But it was interesting her ‘best friend forever’ was allowed that distinction when I was not.  It was, perhaps, another indicator of how far I’d slipped in her estimation.

Perhaps, I thought, it was a necessary evil.  As I understood it, the Blaine’s were our mentors at the Trump Tower, because they didn’t just let ‘anyone’ in.  I didn’t ask if the Blaine’s thought we were just ‘anyone’ before I got the job offer.

And then there was that look between Alison and Elaine, quickly stolen before Alison realized I was looking at both of them.  I was out of my depth, in a place I didn’t belong, with people I didn’t understand.  And yet, apparently, Alison did.  I must have missed the memo.

“No,” Alison said softly, stealing a glance in my direction, “No secrets between friends.”

No secrets.  Her look conveyed something else entirely.

The waiter brought champagne, Krug, and poured glasses for each of us.  It was not the cheap stuff, and I was glad I brought a couple of thousand dollars with me.  We were going to need it.

Then, a toast.

To a new job and a new life.

“When did you decide?”  Elaine was effusive at the best of times, but with the champagne, it was worse.

Alison had a strange expression on her face.  It was obvious she had told Elaine it was a done deal, even before I’d made up my mind.  Perhaps she’d assumed I might be ‘refreshingly honest’ in front of Elaine, but it could also mean she didn’t really care what I might say or do.

Instead of consternation, she looked happy, and I realized it would be churlish, even silly if I made a scene.  I knew what I wanted to say.  I also knew that it would serve little purpose provoking Elaine, or upsetting Alison.  This was not the time or the place.  Alison had been looking forward to coming here, and I was not going to spoil it.

Instead, I said, smiling, “When I woke up this morning and found Alison missing.  If she had been there, I would not have noticed the water stain on the roof above our bed, and decide there and then how much I hated the place.” I used my reassuring smile, the one I used with the customers when all hell was breaking loose, and the forest fire was out of control.  “It’s the little things.  They all add up until one day …”  I shrugged.  “I guess that one day was today.”

I saw an incredulous look pass between Elaine and Alison, a non-verbal question; perhaps, is he for real?  Or; I told you he’d come around.

I had no idea the two were so close.

“How quaint,” Elaine said, which just about summed up her feelings towards me.  I think, at that moment, I lost some brownie points.  It was all I could come up with at short notice.

“Yes,” I added, with a little more emphasis than I wanted.  “Alison was off to get some study in with one of her friends.”

“Weren’t the two of you off to the Hamptons, a weekend with some friends?” Jimmy piped up, and immediately got the ‘shut up you fool’ look, that cut that line of conversation dead.  Someone forgot to feed Jimmy his lines.

It was followed by the condescending smile from Elaine, and “I need to powder my nose.  Care to join me, Al?”

A frown, then a forced smile for her new best friend.  “Yes.”

I watched them leave the table and head in the direction of the restroom, looking like they were in earnest conversation.  I thought ‘Al’ looked annoyed, but I could be wrong.

I had to say Jimmy looked more surprised than I did.

There was that odd moment of silence between us, Jimmy still smarting from his death stare, and for me, the Alison and Elaine show.  I was quite literally gob-smacked.

I drained my champagne glass gathering some courage and turned to him.  “By the way, we were going to have a weekend away, but this legal tutorial thing came up.  You know Alison is doing her law degree.”

He looked startled when he realized I had spoken.  He was looking intently at a woman several tables over from us, one who’d obviously forgotten some basic garments when getting dressed.  Or perhaps it was deliberate.  She’d definitely had some enhancements done.

He dragged his eyes back to me.  “Yes.  Elaine said something or other about it.  But I thought she said the tutor was out of town and it had been postponed until next week.  Perhaps I got it wrong.  I usually do.”

“Perhaps I’ve got it wrong.”  I shrugged, as the dark thoughts started swirling in my head again.  “This week or next, what does it matter?”

Of course, it mattered to me, and I digested what he said with a sinking heart.  It showed there was another problem between Alison and me; it was possible she was now telling me lies.  If what he said was true and I had no reason to doubt him, where was she going tomorrow morning, and had she really been with a friend studying today?

We poured some more champagne, had a drink, then he asked, “This promotion thing, what’s it worth?”

“Trouble, I suspect.  Definitely more money, but less time at home.”

“Oh,” raised eyebrows.  Obviously, the women had not talked about the job in front of him, or, at least, not all the details.  “You sure you want to do that?”

At last the voice of reason.  “Me?  No.”

“Yet you accepted the job.”

I sucked in a breath or two while I considered whether I could trust him.  Even if I couldn’t, I could see my ship was sinking, so it wouldn’t matter what I told him, or what Elaine might find out from him.  “Jimmy, between you and me I haven’t as yet decided one way or another.  To be honest, I won’t know until I go up to Barclay’s office and he asks me the question.”

“Barclay?”

“My boss.”

“Elaine’s doing a job for a Barclay that recently moved in the tower a block down from us.  I thought I recognized the name.”

“How did Elaine get the job?”

“Oh, Alison put him onto her.”

“When?”

“A couple of months ago.  Why?”

I shrugged and tried to keep a straight face, while my insides were churning up like the wake of a supertanker.  I felt sick, faint, and wanting to die all at the same moment.  “Perhaps she said something about it, but it didn’t connect at the time.  Too busy with work I expect.  I think I seriously need to get away for a while.”

I could hardly breathe, my throat was constricted and I knew I had to keep it together.  I could see Elaine and Alison coming back, so I had to calm down.  I sucked in some deep breaths, and put my ‘manage a complete and utter disaster’ look on my face.

And I had to change the subject, quickly, so I said, “Jimmy, Elaine told Alison, who told me, you were something of a guru of the cause and effects of the global economic meltdown.  Now, I have a couple of friends who have been expounding this theory …”

Like flicking a switch, I launched into the well-worn practice of ‘running a distraction’, like at work when we needed to keep the customer from discovering the truth.  It was one of the things I was good at, taking over a conversation and pushing it in a different direction.  It was salvaging a good result from an utter disaster, and if ever there was a time that it was required, it was right here, right now.

When Alison sat down and looked at me, she knew something had happened between Jimmy and I.  I might have looked pale or red-faced, or angry or disappointed, it didn’t matter.  If that didn’t seal the deal for her, the fact I took over the dining engagement did.  She knew well enough the only time I did that was when everything was about to go to hell in a handbasket.  She’d seen me in action before and had been suitably astonished.

But I got into gear, kept the champagne flowing and steered the conversation, as much as one could from a seasoned professional like Elaine, and, I think, in Jimmy’s eyes, he saw the battle lines and knew who took the crown on points.  Neither Elaine nor Jimmy suspected anything, and if the truth be told, I had improved my stocks with Elaine.  She was at times both surprised and interested, even willing to take a back seat.

Alison, on the other hand, tried poking around the edges, and, once when Elaine and Jimmy had got up to have a cigarette outside, questioned me directly.  I chose to ignore her, and pretend nothing had happened, instead of telling her how much I was enjoying the evening.

She had her ‘secrets’.  I had mine.

At the end of the evening, when I got up to go to the bathroom, I was physically sick from the pent up tension and the implications of what Jimmy had told me.  It took a while for me to pull myself together; so long, in fact, Jimmy came looking for me.  I told him I’d drunk too much champagne, and he seemed satisfied with that excuse.  When I returned, both Alison and Elaine noticed how pale I was but neither made any comment.

It was a sad way to end what was supposed to be a delightful evening, which to a large degree it was for the other three.  But I had achieved what I set out to do, and that was to play them at their own game, watching the deception, once I knew there was a deception, as warily as a cat watches its prey.

I had also discovered Jimmy’s real calling; a professor of economics at the same University Alison was doing her law degree.  It was no surprise in the end, on a night where surprises abounded, that the world could really be that small.

We parted in the early hours of the morning, a taxi whisking us back to the Lower East Side, another taking the Blaine’s back to the Upper West Side.  But, in our case, as Alison reminded me, it would not be for much longer.  She showed concern for my health, asked me what was wrong.  It took all the courage I could muster to tell her it was most likely something I ate and the champagne, and that I would be fine in the morning.

She could see quite plainly it was anything other than what I told her, but she didn’t pursue it.  Perhaps she just didn’t care what I was playing at.

And yet, after everything that had happened, once inside our ‘palace’, the events of the evening were discarded, like her clothing, and she again reminded me of what we had together in the early years before the problems had set in.

It left me confused and lost.

I couldn’t sleep because my mind had now gone down that irreversible path that told me I was losing her, that she had found someone else, and that our marriage was in its last death throes.

And now I knew it had something to do with Barclay.

© Charles Heath 2015-2020

Sunday In New York

In a word: Bar

There’s more than one way … er, perhaps it’s better to say, there are many ways to use the word bar, which is not bad for a three-letter word.

Bar, the one you associate with drinks, in hotels, restaurants and we’ll, just bars.

Probably the best type of bar you might find me in is a Sports Bar, where you can snack on buffalo wings a tall glass of beer and watch with ice hockey in winter or baseball in summer.

It’s one I use from time to time when asked, what will we do, and the reply is often let’s go to a bar.  The best bars are underground, dark and dingy, full of eclectic people, with a band playing almost passable music or better still jazz

Bar, as in the legal variety

There are so many legal references to using bar, that the one that I am most familiar with is being admitted to the bar which means that you can now practice law.

Raising the bar, if that’s possible, where the bar is that imaginary level which offers sinks very low.  When someone says they’re going to try and raise the bar, you may be assured there will be a long battle ahead, simply because people generally find it hard to change.

Bar, as in we are not going to let you in here.  Yes, this is the irksome one where you find yourself, often for reasons unknown, barred from somewhere or something.  This may also be referred to by saying everyone may enter bar you.  

Bar, as in an iron bar, the sort that is sometimes used as a blunt force object by villains to remind the victim they owe any one of a loan shark, bookie or the mafia.  God help you if it is all three.

There are also iron bars of a different sort, those that are set in concrete outside a window most likely in a prison where the objective is to prevent escape.

It gives rise to an old expression, that person should be behind bars.

Then there is just a bar, such as a bar of gold, which I’m sure we’d all like to have stashed away, but not necessarily in the mattress, or the more common variety, a chocolate bar, which I have one now.  What’s your favorite?

And just to add to the list of meanings you can always refer to sashes or stripes as bars.

Confused?  Well, there’s still music, and the bane of yachtsmen, sand bars but I think we’ll leave it there.

Welcome to the English language

Skeletons in the closet, and doppelgangers

A story called “Mistaken Identity”

…

How many of us have skeletons in the closet that we know nothing about? The skeletons we know about generally stay there, but those we do not, well, they have a habit of coming out of left field when we least expect it.

In this case, when you see your photo on a TV screen with the accompanying text that says you are wanted by every law enforcement agency in Europe, you’re in a state of shock, only to be compounded by those same police, armed and menacing, kicking the door down.

I’d been thinking about this premise for a while after I discovered my mother had a boyfriend before she married my father, a boyfriend who was, by all accounts, the man who 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, which might mean I had a half brother or sister I knew nothing about. It’s not an uncommon occurrence from what I’ve been researching.

There are many ways of putting a spin on this story.

Then, in the back of my mind, I remembered a story an acquaintance at work was once telling us over morning tea, that a friend 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 having any knowledge of their half brother, only to meet by accident on the other side of the world.

It was an encounter that in the scheme of things might never have happened, and each would have remained oblivious of the other.

For one sister, the relationship was over before she discovered she was pregnant, and therefore had not told the man he was a father. It was no surprise the relationship foundered when she discovered he was also having a relationship with her sister, a discovery that caused her to cut all ties with both of them and never speak to either from that day.

It’s a story with more twists and turns than a country lane!

And a great idea for a story.

That story is called ‘Mistaken Identity’.

The cinema of my dreams – It continued in London – Episode 36

Juliet has a secret identity

…

It bothered me that Juliet was not quite as fazed about being shot at as she should be.  Ordinarily, being shot at would bring on a bout of hysterics at the very least, but she was unmoved.

Was that because, after being coerced into criminal activity by the likes of Larry, and possibly others, she had been expecting something to happen, just not when.  Or did she know that it was quite possibly her mother that was gunning for her?

To me, I would take a less active approach and try to come to some arrangement with the possible heir to a very large estate.  There was no possible way her mother could get it, other than to marry and then kill, Alessandro, after taking care of the countess.  Or gain favour with her daughter and split the proceeds, after killing the other parties.

It seemed a lot of work, to me, and with no guarantees she could remain anonymous.  After all, we knew about her, how many others did?  I was still thinking about how quickly she had recovered from the attack.  I know my heart was still beating quite fast.

“After what happened back at the conference centre, do you think it’s possible we might be gunned down in the street?”

I had been thinking that exact same thought, not moments before, and it would be so easy, without the possibility of being caught.  I had been looking around to make sure there was no one, or anything, suspicious.

We had almost reached the underground station to take us to Russell Square, near where her apartment was.  I was hoping there would be a nearby restaurant where we could get dinner.

“Do you want to be a victim of a possible drive-by shooting?”

“No, but it is possible.  It’s the sort of thing that happens to other people, isn’t it, like real criminals.”

“That only happens to people who double cross or snitch on their bosses or fellow gang members.  Unless you are part of a gang, or thinking of ratting someone out, I’d say that was a result of reading too many crime novels.  I doubt you could classify yourself as a real criminal.”

“Perhaps not anymore, but you know that I was caught up in something I had no control over, at least not the last time.  I can promise you I don’t do stuff like that anymore.  I have a legitimate job, and a lot of respect from my fellow coroners.”

“Then why are you sounding concerned?  What is more concerning is why this isn’t bothering you?”

“Perhaps it’s because as much as I don’t want it to be, it seems that stuff like this happens to me.”

OK, what did she mean by that?  “Has it happened before?”

“Three times in the last month, if I let my imagination run wild.  Two weeks ago, a car came up on the footpath and I thought it was because the driver was trying to avoid a dog.  Very nearly ran me over.  Last week, another car didn’t stop at a pedestrian crossing, an old man, I thought it might be a medical incident.  Today just put those incidents into another perspective.  I’m sure you’ll tell me why eventually.”

I chose not to speak any more about the subject and got her to tell me about the presentation at the conference if only to take her mind off working on a barrage of difficult questions.

That consumed the train trip and the walk to an Italian Restaurant a block from her apartment.  It was reasonably empty before the later dinner rush which suited me; we could sit where I could keep an eye on everything.  I didn’t expect trouble in the restaurant, but maybe later when we left.

If they, whoever they were, knew where she lived.  I still hadn’t seen anyone following us, but it was London, and there were a lot of people about.  And I was still a little rusty.

After we ordered I could see she had been patient enough.  “So, tell me, why are you here?”

I shrugged.  There was no simple way around asking.  “What can you tell me about your mother?”

“My birth mother or my adoptive mother?”

If she was trying to surprise me, it didn’t work.  That she decided to be truthful did.  Given that I had seen the photo of her with Vittoria when she was about thirteen at Sorrento, how did that fit into the two-mother thing?  I guess it was just another question among many.

“Birth mother to begin with.”

“Not as much as I would like.”

“As in you’ve never known, no one told you, or you didn’t want to know?”

“As in I was never told her name, just that she lived in a large house in Italy, and that my father had been someone very important.  It was a condition that I should not be told because she didn’t want me to know.”

“A condition imposed on your adoptive mother?”

“Yes.  She was an Englishwoman who had been a servant in that large house in Italy, a friend of my mother.  My adoptive mother had found me in her room one morning, with a letter, telling her that I would be better off in her care.”

“Did you see your real mother again?”

“Yes.  Once.  When I was a teenager, we were holidaying in Italy.  We went to the large castle or chateau near Sorrento, and I met her and no one else, though my adoptive mother didn’t tell me it was her until after we left.  I have a photograph, the only thing I have of her.”

“Have you ever wanted to find out who she is?”

“Of course, I’ve been to Italy many times, even staked out the house, but I never saw her again.  You said it was possible I could inherit a lot of money.  It is from those people in that house?”

“Do you know who they are?”

“A family called Burkehardt I think.  Are you telling me I’m one of them?”

© Charles Heath 2023

The cinema of my dreams – Was it just another surveillance job – Episode 38

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 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’d expected more questions from her, but the ride in the train to Wimbledon, and then to the car, she had very little to say.  There was no doubt she was intrigued by the offer, but there was some trepidation too.

But it didn’t auger well for her longevity if she trusted people this easily.  I had expected a lot more questions if only to find out what the job was.  

Then, by the time we reached my car, it seemed she had time enough to think about everything.

“How do I know you’re not going to kill me too?”

She was standing on the other side of the car, yet to open the door.  I was about to get in.

I looked at her across the roof.

“I could have done that ages Ago if that was my intention.”

“Not in a public space unless absolutely necessary.”

She was quoting the manual.

“So, I’m about to take you to a quiet spot in the country and shoot you?”

“Unlikely.  You don’t have a gun with you.”

“A knife then?”

“I’m sure you don’t have one of those either.  Besides, there’s a few other ways that don’t require weapons.”

I was astonished this was the conversation.

“I asked for your help, and that wasn’t to practice my killing skills.  But, where we’re going that might happen to either of us.”

“Where are we going?”

“To a residence in Peaslake.  Do you know of it?  It’s about an hour away, southwest, I think.  I’m not expecting to find anyone, but I am looking for a USB drive.”

“This O’Connell character’s?”

“Yes.”

A few seconds passed as she took that in, then, “If you are not expecting anyone to be there, why do you need me?”

“Rule whatever number it was, expect the unexpected.  And get back up if it’s available.  And there are other people looking for these documents, and the USB.  Not friendly people I might add.  I have no idea if they have the same information I have, so I’m expecting the unexpected.  We have worked together and you know me.”

We had performed several assignments together for training purposes, as each of us had with the other four.  She hadn’t been the best, but she hadn’t been the worst.

I saw her shrug.  Acceptance?

She opened the door and got in.

It took me 15 minutes to get to the A3 and head towards Guildford.

A few minutes later she asked, “What the hell did we sign up for?”

“What do you mean?  I thought it was pretty straight forward.  Something other than a dull as ditchwater 9 to 5 job behind a desk.”

“I mean, don’t you think it’s odd we do all of this stuff for 6 months, almost to the day, then get an assignment, and it all goes wrong.”

“That our instructors were frauds?”

“We didn’t know that, and apparently they didn’t either.  Do you know if any of it was real?”

“Seemed to me it was.  And we only have this Monica’s word that Severin and Maury are frauds.  I mean, I was surprised to learn they allegedly didn’t exist, but you and I both know that in organizations like the security services have wheels within wheels, departments unknown to other departments, event MI5 or the police, so who’s to say what really happened.”

“And you say you now work for this character Dobbin, whose another department head.  As is this Monica.”

Put like that, it seemed very confusing.

“There are others that I’ve run into, working for both Dobbin and for Severin.”

“You mean Severin is still out there?”

“Yes.  He tracked me down.”

And when I said it out loud, it crossed my mind why he hadn’t come after her, but the answer to that was he might have thought I was the only one that O’Connell hadn’t killed.

“And he thinks you are still working for him?”

“It’s complicated.  I’m kind of doing a soft shoe shuffle around all of them and trying to find out what the hell is going on while keeping them at arm’s length.  That might go horribly wrong which is also a good reason why I need help.  We really should find out what we got into.”

“I’d prefer not to.  He hasn’t come after me.”

“He will.  It’s only a matter of time.  You’re in the system, and I have no doubt he has access to that system.  You’ve just been lucky so far.  And you equally know as I do, there’s no such thing as luck in our line of work.”

Another minute or so passed.

Then she said, “If you’re trying to scare the hell out of me, it’s working.”

…

© Charles Heath 2020

A photograph from the Inspirational bin – 33

This is countryside somewhere inside the Lamington National Park in Queensland. It was one of those days where the rain come and went…

We were spending a week there, in the middle of nowhere on a working macadamia farm in a cottage, one of four, recuperating from a long exhausting lockdown.

It was not cold, and we were able to sit out of the verandah for most of the day, watching the rain come and pass over on its way up the valley, listing to the gentle pitter-patter of the rain on the roof and nearby leaves.

But as for inspiration:

This would be the ideal setting for a story about life, failed romance, or a couple looking to find what it was they lost.

It could be a story about recovering from a breakdown, or a tragic loss, to be anywhere else but in the middle of dealing with the constant reminders of what they had.

It could be a safe house, and as we all know, safe houses in stories are rarely safe houses, where it is given away by someone inside the program, or the person who it’s assigned to give it away because they can’t do as they’re supposed to; lay low.

Then there’s camping, the great outdoors, for someone who absolutely hates being outdoors, or those who go hunting, and sometimes become the hunted.

Oh, and watch out for the bears!

Writing a novel in 365 days – 22

Day 22

Today we’re discussing dialogue, and sometimes that’s the hardest part to write.

Making a conversation sound like a normal conversation is sometimes impossible because who can define normal? People speak in many different ways, with different accents, tones, and sometimes completely different words.

My grandchildren are sometimes completely incomprehensible because the modern vernacular is based on writing a text on a cell in which the squiggles used as words sometimes make no sense to me.

I have received messages that

I have not understood, or have on occasion suffered that new blight on our writing, the corrector, and some of my texts, well, people have got upset and I can understand why.

So, it may not be that in the story we are writing, and the characters we have decided to use, that we have an understanding of their language or manner of speaking. If we are using our own manner of speaking, it might not lend credence to the characters we’re looking for.

Or if you’re lucky and know someone who has the vernacular, then it’s good. If not, then our task would be to find and talk to people with that character’s voice. I have often spent lunch or dinner out just to listen to the people around me talking. I’m not interested in the content, though sometimes it can be quite interesting, but just the words and the way they are spoken.

Try it, you will be amazed at just how many different ways there are to speak the same word.

I was.

Searching For Locations: Disneyland, Paris, France

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.

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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.

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The dining table and the shelf in the background have that rough-hewn look about them

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A bit of man-made equipment here for drawing water from the stream

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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

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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.

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Monday came and went, and now it’s Tuesday

I had so many things planned, those little bits and pieces that seem to get away from you.

It’s now Thursday night and I have only just come back to this post to write some more or maybe finish it, but that should you some idea of how easy simple things can get away from me.

To fill in the gaps in the story, I started to make a list of those bits and pieces, and that was the first mistake.

I frightened myself.

Tuesday disappeared in writing down what was on my writing slate. For instance,

Episodes 11 to 15 of the murder story, because my characters are having a fight in my head

The treasure hunt story is done, just needs a few tweaks

Episode 47 of the Castello di Brolio story, where the Germans are about to find themselves on the wrong end of the war

Episode 1 of the WW2 story – this has a start but is it Episode 1.  What bothers me is that I wrote some of this on the plane, but it disappeared somewhere, so I’m not sure when this may get done.

Writing instead of insomnia  is actually giving me insomnia

Episodes 151 through 177 of Being Inspired, Maybe – Volume 4. This is a series of photographs, and the story inspired by them.  Volume 3 is at first draft, and photo association with the stories.

Just about finished editing Volume 2, and I’m about to publish Volume 1.

Episodes 60 through 63 of PI Walthenson’s second case, new additions to the story, and although there is a title, the jury’s still out on whether it’ll be adopted.  There’s an interesting dynamic developing between the son and the mother, a woman whom he is discovering to be nothing like the one he thought he knew.

And, don’t get me started on where I am with Strangers We’ve Become, I just finished the 10th read and edit.  The book is done but rereading told me, or the cat did far more emphatically, there are a few gaps.  This needs to get done, and I need to stick the courage to the sticking point.

Wednesday arrived and I was looking at the list wondering what I was going to do next and realized that I’d been putting off writing the next few posts on the travelling blog which desperately need to be done.

So…

Travelling blog times two, and now it’s Thursday.

Damn, where did the week go?