Tag: $amwriting

The cinema of my dreams – Was it just another surveillance job – Episode 41

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.”

Hands up it was.

—

© Charles Heath 2020-2022

The fourth attempt, let’s look at the main character

So there are words on paper, and three times I’ve tried to fix it, or, perhaps just make it sound better because reading it in my head, there’s too little background and too many questions.

The flow of the story isn’t working for me, so I guess it’s time to sit down and work out what it is I’m trying to say.

The notion that our main character, Graham, is a loser seems to shine through, and that’s not what I’m trying to portray him as.  No, far from it, it’s been a lifetime of bad choices that have put him where he is, and he knows it.

So, in part, this is about owning your mistakes, and it’s my job to make him come across as a hero in waiting.  There’s good in him, perhaps too much, but there is also that attitude that led to all those bad choices, the one that can get him into trouble, and a sort of intransigence inherited from his father, that has more or less got him ostracised from the family. 

I want this character to be a chop off the old block, both of whom are the type not to back down, not to say sorry, and, to quote a rather apt allegory, would cut their nose off to spite their face.

Graham’s intransigence led to his refusal to follow his father into business, refusal to go to University despite having the necessary qualifications, and just to round out the defiance, his choice of women whom he knew would meet with family disapproval.

And these factors, over a period of time, saw him bounce from a low-paying job to jobs with no prospects, and a string of failed relationships, until this moment in time, where he was basically on his own, working the graveyard shift as a security guard.  The sort of job where qualifications weren’t looked for and workmates looked like and probably were ex-cons.

There are a few more details like the older brother, Jackson, politician and schemer, the same as his father before him (the seat was passed down through the family), like the younger sister who is a highly successful surgeon, married into immense wealth.  His brother had been less successful in the marital stakes but what he lacked in a wife was more than made up with a string of highly eligible and beautiful women.

And, no, he doesn’t resent the fact they’re rich, or that his parents were, too, just that they treated him with contempt.

It was almost five years since the last time he had seen any of them, that last time he attended the family Christmas in Martha’s Vineyard, the ‘Stockdale Residence’ an ostentatious sprawling fifty-room mansion that, in a drunken rage, he’s tried to burn down.

Once again, he had not received an invitation to the next, due in a few days, and it was not entirely unexpected.

Graham has his faults, but that even, five years ago, had pulled him off the road to self-destruction, helped along by a year stint in jail where he learned a great many lessons about life itself, and survival.

The four years since?

A lot of regrets, and a lot of repentance.  Life after jail was a lot worse than life trying to defy the family and the system.  There were two roads he could have gone down, and thankfully for him, it was not the wrong one.

So, he’s back on the path, a whole lot wiser, a whole lot tougher.

That might not have been exactly what I was thinking for him over the first three attempts.  I don’t think any character really begins to shine until halfway through, as you find him meeting various challenges in ways even you, as the writer, find quite unexpected.

Is that the end result of being a pantser over being a planner?

I don’t think, even as a planner, you can create a character that’s not going to change, or even surprise you, as the story evolves.

And somehow I don’t think I’m about to change from one to the other.

Well, not completely.

But there’s more, and no, it’s not steak knives!

…

© Charles Heath 2020-2021

The devil features prominently in a lot of sayings

For instance, I’ve heard someone mutter, “the devil you say…”

Or another, who was telling his friend, who, at the time was in a spot of bother, ‘You’re between the devil and the deep blue sea.”

Wrong.  We all know the sea is green, not blue.

But whatever the circumstances, the devil seems to pop up a lot.

For instance,

Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.

It seems I’ve heard that somewhere before, or at least a part of it.  Hmmm.

Maybe you’ve “gone to the devil”.  Can that be paired with “going downhill at a rapid rate of knots”?

OK, it’s impossible to go downhill using the speed measure of knots, that only applies to boats, so who came up with that saying, a landlubber sailor?

Hang on, isn’t there a team called the New Jersey Devils?  Funny, I didn’t see if the players had horns or not, and they were using hockey sticks not tridents.

Maybe I misheard.

Neutral men are the devil’s allies, therefore there must be a lot of devils in Switzerland

The devil finds work for idle hands, oh yes, my grandmother used this often on me whenever she caught me doing nothing, or digging around in her magazine room … which was a lot

But my favorite,

When in hell, only the devil can show you the way out.

I’m still trying to find him!

The cinema of my dreams – I always wanted to see the planets – Episode 46

Back on the alien vessel

…

Here’s the thing.

I personally believed that we wouldn’t be sitting on this alien vessel unless we had some value, or there was something about the group of so-called criminals that the alien captain didn’t have the authority to take decisive action.

“Hold that thought,” I said to him.  Then, “Number one?”

“Sir?”

“Are you still with the alien group?”

“Yes sir, awaiting orders?”

“Is the spokesman for the prisoners nearby?”

“A moment, sir.”  Silence for a minute, then, “He’s here, sir.”

“You wish to speak to me?” 

An odd thought, they all sounded the same.

“Yes.  I find it odd that the alien captain of this vessel hasn’t just destroyed our vessels and moved on, after all, if they have determined you are all criminals, what would be the difference between being left in a prison, or being executed? 

“I’m not sure what you are getting at.  For all intents and purposes, we are dead, to them and our homeworlds.”

It wasn’t the way he said it, but the way it was spoken.  And what was left unsaid.  It was a moment when you didn’t get the answer you wanted because you didn’t ask the right question.

“Now is not the time to be keeping secrets, because when our host comes back, the situation is going to end badly for you, and just as badly for us.  We’re all still here because you have something they want.  What is it?”

There was silence, but it was not generated by a refusal to speak, but more than the answer might have worse consequences than no answer.

Then, very quietly, he said, “Jai Ti.”

There are only three reasons that drive people to do the unthinkable.  Money, power, and a woman.

“She is not a so-called criminal, is she?”

“No.  She was indiscreet and found herself banished to the same detention center like us.  We are high-level detainees, rather than prisoners, who live in far better conditions than the more common criminal classes.”

“Let me guess, she was a so-called friend of one of the high council or someone of consequence in the political power structure.”

“In a manner of speaking, yes.”

“And they’re worried if she gets free, she might denounce the injustice?”

“She feels she did nothing wrong.  She claims she did not tell anyone, as per her agreement with the individual in question.  The situation is exacerbated by the fact they people have a very strict moral code, and relationships, shall we say, that is extra, and severely frowned upon, and for a leader who is expected to set an example.”

“And this leader…”

“The rules don’t necessarily apply depending on who you are.  Unfortunately, it is a problem across the many homeworlds here.  An enlightened society doesn’t necessarily mean what we and others are led to believe.”

“We have the same problems.  Thank you for your honesty, it may help, it might not.”  I had all I needed.  “Number One.”

“Sir.”

“No need to stay, I have no intention of getting between the passengers or the alien captain, so get back to the ship as quickly as you can and be ready on the bridge.  General?”

“Sir?”

“You are ordered to defend the ship by whatever means at your disposal, without regard to that personnel not aboard.  Do you understand?”

I expected a but because I was basically telling him that if he had to fire upon the Russian ship or the Alien ship, both senior officers and some crew would be in danger.

As far as I was concerned, the ship and 2000 others were more important.

“Under protest, but I understand.  Sir.”

“Number one?”

I also expected to get the standard lecture, which was well within his purview, but instead, “Understood, sir but let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

“Second?”

“Sir?”

“You have the bridge until either Number One or I return, otherwise you know what the standing orders are.”

“Understood.”

It was the precise moment the alien captain returned.

“I’ve spoken to the high council.  We are also monitoring a high level of activity on your ship.”

“If it’s a war you want, it’s a war you’ll get.  I think it’s time for the truth, something you have been playing, as we say, fast and loose with.  I told you exactly why we’re here, you haven’t.  I don’t approve of my compatriots’ actions, but he has, as anyone from our world would grant preliminary asylum to anyone who asks for it, pending a thorough investigation.  That investigation starts and ends with two words, Jai Ti.”

For a man with an expressionless face, it wasn’t hard to tell I’d hit the nerve.

“Alas, as you may or may not appreciate, we are in a difficult situation.”

“Dare I say it, but for an enlightened civilization, you seem to have all the same problems we do.  We could have resolved this much earlier had you just stated the facts.”

“Then you are prepared to return the prisoners.”

“Prisoners, yes, but with a suggestion.  The princess, no.  Unfortunately, you’re going to have to censure the leader that broke the rules.”

“And if that’s not possible?”

“Then I will take her home, and whatever happens after that is on his head, and to a lesser extent, yours.”

“Even if it means your ship is destroyed, and all those crew members die needlessly.”

“More have died for less, but noble cause.  Do as you wish, but I strongly advise you not to test our resolve.”

The alien captain turned to the Russian captain.  “If you hand over the prisoners, all of the prisoners, you will free to leave.”

“Sorry.  It’s a tempting offer, but it doesn’t solve the problem for future explorers.  Eliminating us will just bring more, in the not-too-distant future, only they will be hostile.  You might be able to live with the short-term consequences, but given what we are learning about your relations with other worlds, who are they going to blame for the problems you caused in the name of short-term expediency?”

A few seconds later four new aliens appeared, each in a particular style of dress.

Members of the high council?

…

© Charles Heath 2021-2022

The cinema of my dreams – I always wanted to see the planets – Episode 45

Back on the alien vessel

…

If asking for and getting what you wanted was the technology of lesser beings, what was the other world’s technology like?

It was a question I asked myself, or perhaps a moment after, if the alien people we were currently talking to had difficulties with other more advanced people in their galaxy, where would we fit into the picture?

It was a worrying thought, because through time those that were inferior, in our world, were always subjugated by the more superior.

Granted we had spaceships making us seem reasonably advanced, but theirs were not like the one I was on.  We thought we were very clever getting the ship we were on into space, but out there, now, I certainly didn’t feel clever, or superior.

There was also the revelation that we had been observed for a long time, our progress monitored, and basically rejected as likely candidates for being welcomed.  Or being told we were not alone.

It must have been a dock to see us turn up one their proverbial doorstep, but not so great as out that they knew about us.  It was a case of our reputation preceded us, and it wasn’t the good, only the bad.

It would be true to say, given everything we’d done to our world through greed and selfishness, that finding off-world destinations for colonization was a definite requirement rather than an option, and along with that, to find and learn from other civilizations, especially those that had been in the same plight.

And having found what we had always believed, well, a lot of us anyway, that there was other life in the galaxy, it wasn’t going to sit well that we were basically in the ‘cane man’ stage of development as a civilization.

It was not much of a starting point for any sort of negotiation, diplomatic or otherwise, along with the prospect of meeting the other civilizations in this quadrant if it could be called that, basically from behind that proverbial eight-ball.

We were still no wiser as to where these people came from, or that it was near our first intended destination, Proxima Centauri.  We had a list NASA had compiled, earth-like exotic plants that were thought to be able to support life.

Several of the meetings between the world’s greatest scientific minds, when they were not off on one of their theoretical rants, all concluded that there should be life out in the universe somewhere, that all the known explanations of our existence were wrong, and we were descendants of aliens, possibly more than one species. 

It was a fanciful notion that drew interesting reactions from the Darwinians who believed we descended from the apes, the church, still stuck on their Adam and Eve theory, and others that we evolved after the ‘big bang’, or that our DNA arrived via a colliding meteor, which had me puzzled.

Now, I was not sure what I believed.

The Russian captain, now free of being threatened with an alien weapon, had completed a full circuit of the bridge, taken a moment to stare out into space, and where our ships were standing off, then come and join us.

I had a hundred questions, but the first was, “What was your mission?”

“Beat you lot into space.  To be honest we never expected you’d ever get that ship out of the space dock”

A year late, and people still arguing over staffing, fittings, weapons, technology, even bragging rights, if it hadn’t been for the Admiral, we might still be there.

“You didn’t answer the question, not specifically.  No one just wants to be first, and especially not brave about it.”

“Not yet.”

“I assume you’ve been in communication back home?”

“Communication wasn’t one of the strong points since no one really knew how to make instant calls work, so not really.  We’re basically flying by the seat of our pants.”

“I can see that, applying earth mentality to alien relations.  I would have thought you and your superiors would take a more diplomatic approach.”

“We tried.  You do realize were are technically inferior to this lot, and they don’t view us as being worthy of their time and effort.  Apparently, they knew exactly who we are, and where we were from, something I find hard to believe.”

“Did you visit the planet?”

“We were stopped by a patrolling ship, and they actually fired on us.”

I was not surprised.  We would have done exactly the same, in reverse.

“So, you started on the wrong foot and it only got worse from there.”

“What would you have done in the same situation?”

“Be less confrontational, but then, we’re on an exploratory mission, not one that takes whatever we can steal or in your case kidnap.  Did you realize who those people were?”

“They approached us.  Before we got to their planet we got a distress signal from what looked like a space station, quite a distance from the planet.  We didn’t know it was a prison, only that there were people in distress.  We rescued them, as anyone else would.  That’s when the proverbial hit the fan.”

“Did you know they had specialist knowledge?”

“Eventually, when the aliens came after us, I told them I needed to know why they were being so angry about a few criminals.  I offered them sanctuary if they were willing to share their knowledge.  They agreed.”

“They didn’t want to go home?”

“No.  They said they’d be killed by their own people.   We call it treason, they call it something else, but its more or less the same thing.  Now they’re going to kill all of us.”

…

© Charles Heath 2021-2022

There seems to be something missing…

It seems the closer I get to the end of a story, the harder it becomes.

In this case, it is not the first draft, but more like the fifth.  The first is to correct any continuity errors and hidden clues that, when the reader gets to the end, it’s not a case of ‘how the hell did that happen’.

The second and quite possibly the third is to correct all the grammatical and spelling errors.

The fourth is to read it as a reader and to find anything that may have slipped through the first three passes.  You would be amazed, at this point, how many grammatical errors there can be, and even a wrong spelling or two.  Sometimes it seems the eyes see what they assume is right when it is glaringly wrong.

Sometimes there isn’t the fifth reading.  On those very rare occasions when there isn’t, it is when I am satisfied with what I’ve written, but this doesn’t happen too often, because, after the fourth reading, I let it rest, and let it stew in my mind.  If it doesn’t fade away after a week or two, it means there’s something wrong.

Hence the fifth reading.

So, here we are, and there is something not quite right, and it needed a few more pages earlier on to reinforce what comes later, and I get this done.  Now, the conclusion is sounding more plausible, but there’s going to be one less death because I can see, somewhere in a dark and murky future, this person is going to return at an entirely unexpected moment.

Whether it’s to save the day, or something a lot, lot worse, I won’t know until the idea in the back of my mind becomes words on paper.

Maybe next year.

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

There seems to be something missing…

It seems the closer I get to the end of a story, the harder it becomes.

In this case, it is not the first draft, but more like the fifth.  The first is to correct any continuity errors and hidden clues that, when the reader gets to the end, it’s not a case of ‘how the hell did that happen’.

The second and quite possibly the third is to correct all the grammatical and spelling errors.

The fourth is to read it as a reader and to find anything that may have slipped through the first three passes.  You would be amazed, at this point, how many grammatical errors there can be, and even a wrong spelling or two.  Sometimes it seems the eyes see what they assume is right when it is glaringly wrong.

Sometimes there isn’t the fifth reading.  On those very rare occasions when there isn’t, it is when I am satisfied with what I’ve written, but this doesn’t happen too often, because, after the fourth reading, I let it rest, and let it stew in my mind.  If it doesn’t fade away after a week or two, it means there’s something wrong.

Hence the fifth reading.

So, here we are, and there is something not quite right, and it needed a few more pages earlier on to reinforce what comes later, and I get this done.  Now, the conclusion is sounding more plausible, but there’s going to be one less death because I can see, somewhere in a dark and murky future, this person is going to return at an entirely unexpected moment.

Whether it’s to save the day, or something a lot, lot worse, I won’t know until the idea in the back of my mind becomes words on paper.

Maybe next year.

Writing about writing a book – Day 21 continues

I’m still working on Bill’s backstory, and how he got mixed up in the war, and as a general background to his situation, and life before Davenport.

This is still in his own words:

 

But whether we were stupid or naive, or completely mad, we were all eager to get into battle, filled with the sort of hate only Army propaganda films could fill you with.  They were our enemy, and they deserved to concede or die.

A fresh face in a hardened platoon, I was eager to get on with it.  They looked knowingly, having seen it all before.  No idea of the reality, and no time to tell us.  Have a few beers to celebrate, and then, the next morning, go out on patrol.  No problem.

There was camaraderie, but it was subdued.  We walked single file, the seasoned campaigners in front and at the rear, treading carefully, demanding quiet, and a general cautiousness.  In the middle of nowhere, where only the sound of rain, or the animals and birds for company, we were naive enough to think this was going to be a doddle.

Then it happened, six hours out, and just before we reached a small clearing.  I thought to myself it was odd there should be such a clear space with jungle all around it.  There must be a reason.

There was.

We had walked into an ambush, and everyone hit the ground.  I was bringing up the rear with another soldier, a veteran not much older than myself whose name was Scotty, a little farther back from the main group.  Bullets sprayed the undergrowth, pinging off trees and leaves.  I buried my face in the dirt, praying I would not die on my first patrol.

We became separated from the others, lying in a hollow, with no idea how far away help was.  He was muttering to himself.  “God, I hate this.  You can never see the bastards.  They’re out there, but you can never bloody well see them.”  Then he crawled up the embankment, gun first.

He let off a few rounds, causing a return of machine-gun fire, spattering the dirt at the top.  Next thing I knew he was sliding down the hill with half his face shot away.  Dead.  I threw up there and then.  What an initiation.

Then one of the enemy soldiers came over the hill to check on his ‘kill’.  I saw him at the same time he saw me and aimed my gun and shot.  It was instinct more than anything else, and I hadn’t stopped to think of the consequences.  He fell down, finishing up next to me, staring at me from black, lifeless eyes. 

Dead. 

I’ll never forget those lifeless eyes.  I just got up and ran, making it back to the rest of the group without getting hit.  No one could explain how I made it safely through the hail of gunfire, from our side and theirs.

Back in the camp later, the veterans remarked on how unlucky Scotty was and how lucky I was to shoot one of the enemies, and not be killed myself.  They all thought it was worth a celebration.

Before we went out the next day to do it all again.

I spent the night vomiting, unable to sleep, haunted look on his face, one I finally realized that reflected complete astonishment.

 

There will be more, as the story develops.

 

© Charles Heath 2016-2020

Is there an end in sight?

I feel like I’m losing my mind.

Or perhaps I’m turning a molehill into a mountain.

I’m suffering from indecision, one of those moments in a writer’s life where either you get on with it, take a holiday, start a new story, of finish another one.

I want to get on with it, finish it, sent it to the editor, and then move on, but I can’t.

Once again I’m struggling with the end.  Well, not so much the end, but the way in which the story unfolds getting there.  I have the ending written, it just that part that usually falls into the category of ‘then a miracle occurs’.

The first draft was supposed to be finished three months ago and I’m getting frustrated.

Over the last few days I have taken a break away from it.  Every time I load it up, and sit on the page where I want the end to start (a rather curious mix of opposites) it draws a blank.

Will I add a few explosions, a building demolition, or an edge of the seat car chase?

Will I let a few of the secrets out of the bag?

Will I try to set it up for a sequel?

Wow!  So many possibilities.

I know what I’d do if it was me, which begs the question of how much of ourselves is woven into the fabric of our characters.

I want the main character to appear more human against a backdrop of having to be inhuman in order to get the necessary result.  And, there in lies the dilemma.

Perhaps I’ll sleep on it one more night.