Tag: #amwriting

The attack of the dastardly distraction

If I get a headache I can take paracetamol

If I have a sore back I can take ipBrufen.

If I can’t put words on paper … what is there I can take?

Therein lies the writer’s dilemma.

I have been staring at the blank sheet on the computer screen for about an hour now.  I am in the middle of a re-write.  I know what direction I want the story to go.  Yet, for the life of me, I cannot find the words.

Is it writer’s block?

Here’s the thing.

Not four hours ago I had all the words in the world.  The new scene was all but writing itself, the words flowing, the characters were alive and almost bubbling over with enthusiasm.  I was almost as if I was in the same room with them and their mental sparring.

That scene is done.

And, usually the next is already forming in my mind as I’m getting to the end.  This time, an untimely interruption put a spoke in the works, diverted my attention to resolving a problem, and everything I’d been thinking about has gone.

Not a block then, but a dastardly distraction.

I guess I’m going on a long walk around the neighbourhood, looking but not seeing, thinking but trying not to think, stopping at the café and have a long hot coffee and a cake, perhaps this time a custard tart with whipped cream (OK, I know that can’t be good for me, but it is delicious) and by the time I get back …

Hopefully, the words will return.

Was it just another surveillance job – Episode 7

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.

A body and a whole bunch of questions.

 

A full minute passed, with only one car passing, the rest of the time there was a strange sort of silence.

The man on the ground didn’t move.  Whoever shot him had shot to kill.  I took the few steps to stand beside him and could see the hole and the bloodstain of the wound.  Shot in the heart, instant death.

Usually, if it was a sniper, it was a head shot.  Less chance of missing a vital organ and leaving the target alive.

Odd too that it was just before he told me where some ‘evidence’ was located.  And who the hell was this Alfred Nobbin?

I heard a car turn into the alley and come towards me.  Halfway, it stopped, the engine switched off, and the doors opened.

Two men.  Maury, my handler, and Severin, the instructor.  Neither was carrying a gun, so neither had shot him.  That meant someone else was still in play.

I said, “I had him, but someone shot him.”

Stating the obvious, Maury’s expression told me.

“You’re not dead.”

“Perhaps I wasn’t a target.”

“Today.  Did he say who he was?”

“No.”

No hesitation or they’ll think I’m lying, which I am.  I was not sure why, but was it because I detected a note of sincerity in the target’s tone?

“Checked for identification yet?”

“Just about to.”  I knelt down and went through his pockets.  Nothing.  I told Maury that.

“Pity.”  He hadn’t moved from where he stopped.  Severin had been looking back up the alley, no doubt looking for where the bullet came from.

Had he reached the same conclusion I had, a balcony on the third floor of the left-hand building?  The shooter would be long gone by now.

A white van pulled into the lane and pulled up behind Maury’s car.  The cleaners.

It raided questions.  How did Maury know we’d be here, and that the target would be shot dead?  Or had he assumed I’d all but kill him in revenge for what had happened to the others.

What had happened to the others?

“The rest of the team,” I asked.

“Two dead, one critical.  One safe.  Let’s go.  We need to have a debriefing.”

I took a last look at the body, the joined Maury and Severin in the car.  I had questions of my own.

“A bad day’s work,” Severin muttered, as he drove off.

“But conclusive proof we have a traitor, the last thing we need right now.”

I was surprised they were discussing high-level matters that I considered above my pay grade.  And, I had to say, it worried me.

 

© Charles Heath 2019

Another day, another plot, another story…

Why is it ideas come at the least expected and most inconvenient time?

I thought I’d trained my thoughts to assemble when I was having a shower.  It seems that has not worked so well, and now the telephone rings instead.

Don’t you hate that?

I wasn’t considering a new idea for yet another book; I have so many on the go already.  But, the sad truth is, you have no control over it.

When I sit down, listening to Ravel, or some other classical music, I close my eyes and drift along to the music, waiting for the imagination to kick in.

Can’t force it, can you?

But, five minutes to three, after a frantic call announcing yet another storm in a teacup, I’m racing out the door, setting the alarm, locking the door, and …

… bing …

The idea is there, out of left field, in front of me.

 

Here’s the pitch:

Detroit, ghost town, a nightwatchman, formerly a high flyer on Wall Street, is doing the rounds.

Yep, different location, same story as a dozen others, you say.

Pitch on:

With him, his work partner, from Mexico, a woman with a checkered past, maybe an illegal, maybe not, but who would work for the kind of pay they got if there was not something they were either running or hiding from?

A man and a woman thrown together by fate.  Seriously?

Pitch on:

They’re guarding a large factory, looking exactly the same as it had the day the doors closed, only there are no people, no work, and no likelihood of it reopening.

It’s night.  It’s dark.  Only the security lighting casts a dim glow over everything, casting shadows.  The walls and roof creaks as the building moves, as all do in a wind.

From here it could go anywhere, ghosts, murder, mayhem, or …

Pitch on:

Every night is the same, go to point B, the extent of the guard’s run, and no further.  Punch a card to say you’ve done the check, then back to the office.

That’s it.

As for the rest of the factory, don’t worry.  They were told that beyond point B was taken care of by another team.  It was a large factory, and neither had questioned their orders.  A job was a job in a city where jobs were at a premium.

Six months, from the office to point B and back.

Of course, the story has to suddenly come alive, like when you’re sitting alone in a dark room watching a horror moving, and the music hypes the fear factor to 1000% and you nearly jump out of your skin.

Not so easy to do in writing, but we try.

Pitch on:

Six months and one day later, it was time to find out what was beyond point B.

What they found was to change the fabric and course of their lives.

 

Reads like blurb inside the cover of a bestseller, doesn’t it?

All it will take is somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000 words, and the time to write them.

Conversations with my cat – 37

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This is Chester.  He’s miffed that I didn’t tell him about China.

Sorry, already had this discussion a month ago, and I’m beginning to think he’s losing his marbles.  Perhaps he didn’t remember me saying I hadn’t run into any of his relatives on the Chinese side.  Dodging cars and scooters, you know…

The blank look says it all.  Oh, well, if we must…

So…

This morning he decided to jump up on the desk and sit beside the keyboard.  He was going to sit on it, but a stern look from me deterred him.

Or am I deluding myself, and we’re playing a game.

But I get it.  China.  The gossip, now.

Well, Beijing airport is the same as anywhere else in the world, except I had to battle the fingerprint machines.

A look tells me that any fool can get a paw, well, fingers, on the glass plate.   Next time I go, I tell him, he’s coming and I’d like to see his efforts.  It’s not as easy as it looks, and I wasn’t the only one.

After exiting the airport, a train ride to the baggage belt then out to find our guide, it takes about an hour and a half just to get to the bus, then another hour in the bus to our hotel.

He looks at the cup of tea I’ve made, attention span coming to an end.  Tea leaves from China, I say.  Good for you.  Saw it dissolve iodine right before my eyes.

Of course, the retort is, what idiot drinks iodine?

Just in case, I say.  You can never be too prepared, can you?

He takes a sniff, turns up his nose, and jumps down.  Enough of ‘travels without my cat’ for today.

I just shake my head and get back to work.

 

Motive, means, and opportunity – Opportunity

I’m working on a novella which may boringly be called “Motive, Means and Opportunity” where I will present a chunk of information from which you if you want to, can become the armchair detective.

Here’s the third part, the Opportunity

 

Where was I last night between 9pm and 3am?

Not with my wife, Wendy. She had gone out before 6 pm, about the time is got home from work. No, she didn’t really say where she was going, or if she did, given the list of the past, I didn’t believe her.

Where was I?

Home, alone.

Could anyone corroborate that?

Sadly no.  Isn’t that always the way, though?

But, the car I was driving was a company car. It had a GPS and tracking system, part of so-called security measures put in by the company I worked for, but in reality there to check after hours use.

The GPS would show I never left home.  Using the car, that is.

The only other car had been taken by Wendy so the reality was, I hadn’t left home. The other car, the off-road vehicle was in the workshop, still waiting to be repaired. It was the car out son had been killed in, and neither of us had the heart to do anything with it.

But…

Apparently, I had a visitor.

James Burgman had been seen outside my house at 10:30 pm, his car had been found two blocks away in the car park, away from the street, and he was found dead, shot by a gun that used 9mm bullets, at 4:45 am the next morning.

No. I had not been seen leaving the house, but it had been ascertained that it was possible to leave and not be seen, if I tried hard enough.

I hadn’t and had no reason to, but that didn’t seem to matter.

Sitting in the interview room, purportedly to help the police in their enquiries, Detective John Sanderson had detailed quite succinctly how I had a motive, the means, and opportunity.

Little else mattered, and particularly the fact I didn’t do it. It was only a matter of time before the gun was found.

So, there I sat in the station, waiting for a series of test results to come back, mainly gunshot residue on me and on my clothes, not just those I was wearing, but everything I owned.

In the end, there was nothing. They couldn’t prove I left home, or that I shot him. Not then. I was advised not to leave the city, that I was a person of interest.

When I asked either my wife, Wendy, had been subjected to the same interrogation, the atmosphere changed, and Sanderson had rounded on me quite savagely.

“Her innocence is not in question. In fact, you would not be here if it wasn’t for her statement. She honestly believes you shot him out of pure jealousy, and, quite frankly Mr Winters, so do I, and it will only be a matter of time before I find the evidence to convict you.  Now, get out of my sight.”

 

© Charles Heath 2019

Earth to …

You know how it is, you’re sitting at the lights waiting for the green, and everything is calm around you.

It’s a warm day, the sun is out, the sky is blue, and because they’re taking so long to change, you’re almost drifting off, somewhere else than in traffic.

Bang!

That awful sound of two metal cars crashing, short, sharp, incisive, intruding.

Lights changed, driver next to me, in a lane that ends on the other side of the intersection, pushes his foot to the floor, trying to get in front.  Another driver running a red light hits him.

I sit in stunned silence before moments after the scene bursts into life, people getting out of cars to help.

My eyes are on the car than ran the red light.  The door slowly opens, and a person is getting out.  I look closer, it’s a woman, bright red hair, and blood running down her face.

She is standing, stunned, looking around, then sees a man coming towards her.

Is that panic.  She looks in my direction, our eyes meeting for a brief second, then she’s running.

Towards my car.

Seconds later the door opens, she gets in, and the door slams shut.

Two men are now running towards my car.

“Drive,” she yells.

“You’re injured, you should wait for …”

“Drive, now, or I’ll shoot you.”

I see the gun, now pointing at me.

“You’re joking.”

One of the men is pounding on her door, which I noticed she’d locked.

“Drive.”

I did, pushing the accelerator pedal to the floor.

The two men were now running towards another car, reaching it before I’d got more than 50 yards.  My car was tired, old, and not very quick in a standing 100.

I didn’t tell her she’d picked the wrong car and driver if she hoped to make a getaway.

Before I made a 100 yards, there was a large black 4×4 hurtling towards us.

“Turn left here,” she commanded, pushing the barrel of the gun into my side for emphasis.

I did, nearly losing the rear end of the car in a slide towards the curb, just touching it before moving forward.

My heart was now in my mouth and pounding.

Death by a bullet or an accident, both were high probabilities.

Who was this woman, now indistinguishable because her face was covered in blood.  She should be bleeding out.  Perhaps she might, and that would save me from an ignominious death.

I could see the 4×4 closing the distance between us quickly.

Perhaps there was another way to die.

“Right,”

Another swerving turn.

“Left,” she yelled almost instantly after the last order.

A few seconds later, “Right”.  Then another “left, then floor it.”

The wrong car, I muttered under my breath.

No sign of the 4×4.  Had we lost it?

At intersection coming up, one I recognized.  The railway station.

“Don’t slow down, straight across.”

“Are you mad?”

Prod.

Apparently so, and with a death wish.

The front of the car crunched on the driveway, as I hit it at speed, the slammed my foot on the brake.  A train was waiting at the platform.

She was out and gone before the car had stopped, and the doors of the carriage had closed, all just before the 4×4 pulled into the station carpark.

 

Tap, tap, tap.

I looked over at the passenger side and saw my granddaughter looking in.

“Have you been daydreaming again, Poppy?”

 

© Charles Heath 2018

 

In a word: Land

And, yes, the simple description for this word is that area of the earth that isn’t covered by water.

It could also describe that little patch that my house is built on, and is generally covered by the expression, house and land as a package.

After all, a piece of land is not much used to you unless there’s a dwelling on it, or, on rare occasions, under it.  Does that mean then that land in this instance only as what you can see?

OK, now it’s getting confusing.

What if I wanted to live off the land.  A small patch will not do, in this case, is need a large area, perhaps thousands if hectares.

It is said that the Australian aborigines have lived off the land for thousands of years, with a nomadic lifestyle.

No small patch of land for them.

Now, what if I come down out of the sky. Oddly enough this means I have to land, even if I come back to earth over later.  It’s still a landing.

Now it’s getting interesting.

So what if you wanted to refer to where you live?  That would be your homeland or motherland, and it describes a country.

So it’s my patch, my country, any area where there isn’t water.  What about describing a country, say the land of the long white cloud, or the land of the rising sun?

And just to add to the confusion

I can land a fish

Make land, after being all at sea, and,

Best of all, land that much desired job.

Wow.

I’m beginning to think it’s another one of those ‘four-letter words’

Motive, means, and opportunity – Means

I’m working on a novella which may boringly be called “Motive, Means and Opportunity” where I will present a chunk of information from which you if you want to, can become the armchair detective.

Here’s the second part, the so-called Means

 

Everyone knew I had a gun.  It was locked away in a safe that was not in an obvious position in the dressing room at home.

Several years ago our neighbourhood had been subjected to several breaking and several people had been injured, prompting the rest of us to seriously consider getting protection.

I got a Glock 19, 9 mm along with several of my neighbours and then both Wendy and I got lessons so we knew how to use it properly, and avoid shooting either each other or in our feet.

The thing is, there had only been that one round of breaking, and since the gun was put away on the safe about eighteen months ago, it had not seen the light of day since.

Or so I thought.

When asked to check if it was still there, it wasn’t, much to my surprise.

Equally, to my surprise, the bullet that killed James Burgman was a nine millimetre.  Was that a coincidence, I didn’t think so.

 

© Charles Heath 2019

In a word: Holiday

Some call time off from work whether it is for a day, a few days, and a couple of weeks, or maybe longer,  a holiday.

Or leave, leave of absence, annual leave, or long service leave.

Others may call it a vacation.

It depends on what part of the world you live in.

But the end result is the same, you do not go to work, so you stay home and do all those things that have mounted up, you drive up, and for some reason it is always up, to the cabin, for a little hunting shooting a fishing, or you get on a plane or a ship and try to get as far away from home and work as possible.

That’s called going overseas.  It seems if there is an ocean between w there you go and where you live, no one will be able to disturb you.

Sorry, I bet you didn’t leave that mobile phone or iPad home did you?

But, of course, there are a few other obscure references to the word holiday.

For instance,

It can be a day set aside to commemorate an event or a person, a day when you are not expected to work, e.g. Memorial Day, Christmas Day, Good Friday.   In Britain, they used to be called Bank Holidays.

It can be a specified period that you may be excused from completing a task or doing something such as getting a one-year tax exemption, which might also be called a one year tax holiday.

Yes, now that is an obscure reference, particularly when no tax department would ever grant anyone an exemption of any sort.

 

Not looking for inspiration

Everyone knows about the Iran and USA standoff, well, perhaps a reported standoff, the truth may never be known, because in situations like this both sides of a conflict are looking to gain brownie points with their people.

I’ve decided to look at this from a thriller writer’s perspective, so all or none of my thoughts are true or false.

So, Iran tried to mine and cripple oil tankers, and shot down a drone, a rather expensive drone at that.

The US wants to retaliate, but can’t prove conclusively that the Iranians are guilty of mining ships, and shooting down a drone in airspace it should not be in is hardly the reason to launch an offensive that could have catastrophic consequences.

Several things spring to mind from this doubtless misinformation on both sides:

150 innocent lives mean nothing in the greater scheme of things.  Thriller writers routinely kill off lots of people, innocent or otherwise, because the bad guys are really bad guys and couldn’t care less.  If this wasn’t the lead into another presidential election, that thought of the loss of life would not figure in any military or political thinking.

Innocent civilians in any war, real or otherwise are the last to be considered, and the first to die.

There is, of course, another more cynical perspective, one that was used in Iraq, and that’s to have human shields in places likely to attract precision bombing.  Yes, if the reports are correct, there is such a thing as pinpoint strikes using cruise missiles, though I suspect these types are now obsolete and the US arsenal has something far better.

Then there’s the possibility that whatever that replacement is it’s so new and untested in a live situation, that provoking another country might just give them a reason for doing so.  Or, a more simple explanation, the arsenal is full to overflowing and the US needs to offload some of its inventory.

Wars have been started with a lesser excuse.

Crippling oil tankers is an interesting tactic.  To me, destroying them would send a far more meaningful message to, well, whoever you like.

But, in destroying the ship, and have it sink in a place that would cause catastrophic consequences for all shipping in that region, would cause the Iranians far more problems than anyone else, which is why I suspect they didn’t, and I don’t think they will.   Like it or not they depend on the rest of the world, just as the rest of the world depends on that particular region.  Except for the US, the people they appear to be trying to antagonise simply because the US doesn’t need oil from that region.

So, not a good idea to isolate yourselves by having a complete ban on shipping to that corner of the world.  They’d have to suddenly become shipbuilders themselves, but in turn, no one would let their ships dock anywhere else in the world.

It seems to be posturing on both sides, and no doubt the propaganda machines on both sides are working overtime to convince not only their own people but the rest of the world, they are the injured party.  From what I’m reading, and I’m sure it has nothing to do with the truth, is that we are moments away from full-scale war.

And, not to throw a spanner in the works, it all depends on what the Russians will do.

The plot thickens!