Tag: $amwriting

A photograph from the inspirational bin – 15

It’s the obvious items in the photograph that you see first, or that your eyes go to first.

The ocean, the beach, the buildings. You can see a shopping mall with MacDonald’s sign above it.

Yes, it’s late afternoon, and you can see long shadows of the buildings.

So, if I asked you what did you see in this photo, what would your reply be?

From a thriller writer or murder mystery writer’s point of view, it’s what you don’t necessarily see.

So, for the purposes of the story, the opening line for the world-weary detective, handing the photo to his partner, “What’s is it you can’t see in this photo?”

A partner that hadn’t been on the job very long, in from the suburbs, and had seen little more than break and enters car theft, and school kids hi-jinks.

“What am I supposed to be looking for?”

“You want to be a detective, or be looking for old ladies cats?”

His partner takes the photo in hand and looks at it again.  There has to be a reason why the old man had given it to him, or perhaps there wasn’t and he was just playing with him again.

No, he thought, there has to be something…

And then he saw it, quite by accident.  A hand, a gun, and following the line of fire, at the end, what looked like someone in the bushes.

In a photo taken from a higher floor of the building over the road, looking down on what was supposed to be a rooftop recreational area.

Only there had been no report of a missing person or a gunshot wound in the last seven days.

“When was it taken?”

“Two days ago?”

“And no reports of a shooting, or a body?”

“No.  And yet the person who took this swears he saw a body, but by the time he came back, there was nothing.”

The detective handed his partner a second photo.  Time-stamped five minutes later.  With no gun and no body.

What will happen next?

The cinema of my dreams – It’s a treasure hunt – Episode 12

Here’s the thing…

Every time I close my eyes, I see something different.

I’d like to think the cinema of my dreams is playing a double feature but it’s a bit like a comedy cartoon night on Fox.

But these dreams are nothing to laugh about.

Once again there’s a new instalment of an old feature, and we’re back on the treasure hunt.

Feeling a little miffed at Boggs’ dismissal, I decided to go on my own fact-finding mission. 

Of course, it depended a lot on whether the Cossatino’s still hung out at the same bar, and whether I’d get a foot in the door.

I was going to talk to Nadia, or at least try to.

The Lantern Inn was about as far from the image the name threw up, it was more a place where respectable people wouldn’t be caught dead in.

And, as I recall, a few had.  Seemingly respectable people anyway.

It was the place to go if you were looking for three things, not necessarily all at once, trouble, girls, and drugs.  Soggy, a friend of Boggs and I, had always looked older than his age and was able to get into places like the Lantern Inn, mainly to buy us beer, and we would go down to the beach and drink it before going home.

When I found a spot to keep an eye on the place and assess whether it was safe or not to go in, now I was old enough, I saw old man Gattle, Soggy’s foster father stagger out, on his way home.  It brought back memories of Joel, Soggy’s real name.

Soggy got his name because he was always falling in the water, whether it was a pool or the ocean, and one day, after too many beers, he fell in and didn’t come back up.  Boggs and I almost finished up in jail for that, since we were with him, but there was no way we could rescue him as it was in a spot where there was often a rip, and he had been carried away before we could get to him.

And, the body was never recovered.  I thought, at the time, he may have jumped in, because his life with foster parents was no fairy tale, and he had suffered.  Of course, those foster parents were friends with the Benderby’s so they were never held to account.

It would be easy to lie in wait in a dark alley and simply hit him over the head with a four by two, but I doubt it would make me feel any better.

I watched him stagger and fall several times before I looked back at the Inn.  In days past, the patrons often spilled out onto the sidewalk where there used to be tables and chairs.  Now, it was just the Inn, and it didn’t look like many people were there.

Had it changed from a den of iniquity to something more respectable?

A large truck, an F350 by the look of it, stopped outside the front entrance, the passenger door opened and what looked like Nadia, or another Amazonian woman, got out.  She spoke to the driver, slammed the door, and the truck left.

The light over the door shone on her face, yes, it was a woman, and yes, it was Nadia.  By herself?  Was that Vince who dropped her off, or Willy, her younger brother, and why didn’t they join her?

I guess I was not going to get any answers from where I was sitting.

Time to make my first foray into the place my mother always told me never to step foot in.

© Charles Heath 2019-2021

In a word: Story

All of us writers know what this is, the sort of combination of words that all come together as a story.  A tale about anything whether it is true or just plain fiction.

A story can be long, or it can be short.  It could be a magazine or newspaper article, it could be what a child tells his or her mother or father when they get into trouble.

Come to think of it, I think that’s where I got an interest in writing stories because as a child I was always in trouble.

Of course, if you are telling certain types of stories,, then it’s bound to be a lie.  And made even worse if it is gossip!

That story might even be my interpretation of events, and as it happens, it’s possible no two stories are the same, especially if I and others had witnessed the same event.

This is not to be confused with the other version, storey, which is a single level in a building, one that might have thirty or more stories.

And, just to add to the confusion, living in Brisbane in Australia we have the Storey Bridge.

I have to stop thinking…

Have you ever wondered what you might have been back in the 1700s, or the 1800s in England, or whatever country you reside.

I live in Australia, so I suspect I would be a convict or the descendant of a convict. Certainly in those past years, there is nothing to suggest that I would have been much else, based on the fact I used to be a tradesman, and later a computer programmer, only one of which existed back then.

In England I have often imagined what it would be like for the underclasses, and very definitely where I;pd finish up. A servant maybe, like a stable boy or footman, or an agricultural worker before the industrial resolution, or a coal miner after it. Poor people it seemed had no prospects.

In the 1900s, my time on earth, and before the computer era, I trained in a trade school, doing woodwork, machine shop practise, and sheet metal. There was also farming. For the select few there was Accounting and business studies, but to be a clerk you had to go to a different school.

My family couldn’t afford it.

When I left school, as soon as I could, and therefore without the benefit of a good education, my prospects for work didn’t amount to much, and among my first jobs was mail sorter, telegram delivery boy, a packer for a book wholesaler, an odd job boy in an abattoir, and later a clerk.

Perhaps then I formed an idea that one day I might be a writer. I certainly had a go, but never did anything with it. I guess, even then, I knew my limitations borne from what I perceived was my station in life.

What did I want to do though? It didn’t matter. People from our social strata couldn’t afford university fees so I was never going to get a tertiary education. That just about ruled out everything.

So what happpened to change all that?

Reading.

From as young as I could, I read. Not only stories about people who lived so very different lives to me, but reference books about everything. It gave me an understanding of what it might be like to be something else, then gave me the impetus to actually apply for what I would call ‘a real job’.

Whether I could do it or not was irrelevant. I just wanted the chance.

It took a wile but then someone gave me that chance. That door was prised open just a little, enugh for me to get a foot in.

I had several tenets to abide by, don’t speak unless your spoken to, respect your elders, and don’t say anything unless it’s relevant.

First job was mail boy under a very crotchety old man who thought I was a waste of space. I learned everything he knew, listened to everything he said, and did everything I was told, better than everyone else.

I moved up to shipping clerk, creating manifests for ships cargo. It was the golden age just before computers, the days of the mainframes that had the computing power of an IBM XT.

They fascinated me.

My next job was for a new company, working for a mining and shipping company, as a distribution clerk maintaining a shipping timetable. That led to a role in communications, the days of telexes and internal couriers and memos, and memorandums for board meetings.

It wasn’t heady stuff, but I was in management, learned communications, and understood accounting.

When I left there, I became a computer programmers. It was dumb luck, my brother in law was an insurance salesman, created listings of investment outcomes using insurance products, and his individualised reports used to take in a week or so, restricting the number of clients he had.

This was the days of the first Apples, and IBM’s. I had a small personal computer, and told him I could create a program to work out his calculations in seconds not days, and he gave me the opportunity.

The rest is history.

So, it makes me wonder had I been back in those 1700s and 1800s, whether or not I may have started small, and made something of myself. A lord of the manor I would not be, but perhaps something more comfortable than a coal miner maybe.

I guess I’ll never know.

A Long Day’s Journey into Night

That was the name of a play, the script of which I once took out of a library, but never got around to reading it.

It sparked a momentary interest in Eugene O’Neill’s work, but I found it a little hard to understand.  Of course, back then, when I knew little about anything, it was basically a mystery.

It did fuel a brief dalliance with books with a deeper meaning for a short time, one of which was Alan Sillitoe’s Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, but more intriguing of his works was called The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner.

While it could be said the literal meaning of that title was rather true, having done a little long-distance running mostly in the final years of school, and realizing it was a lonely sport, it was probably the first time I discovered allegory.

But aside from all that, it led to a foray into more salacious books such as The Postman Always Rings Twice.

And, don’t get me started on D H Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover.

However, I’m doing my usual digression, so back to the point…

Taking it in the literal sense, you can do a long day’s work, not get finished by the time you are supposed to go home, and then decide to burn the midnight oil, i.e., work on into the night.

And some days, you know the ones, where time literally drags, and it feels like forever before it’s time to go home, sometimes in darkness, for a variety of reasons, not just the obvious!

Other times, like when reading a good book, you pick it up in the morning, and the next thing you know, it’s night, and the day is gone.  That was a ‘journey’ but a pleasant one.  Long ago, that used to happen to me a lot.

Now, I hardly get time to read, let alone write, and for some strange reason, retirement is much harder than being at work.

Perhaps I should have taken those time management courses when they were offered.

The cinema of my dreams – It’s a treasure hunt – Episode 13

Here’s the thing…

Every time I close my eyes, I see something different.

I’d like to think the cinema of my dreams is playing a double feature but it’s a bit like a comedy cartoon night on Fox.

But these dreams are nothing to laugh about.

Once again there’s a new instalment of an old feature, and we’re back on the treasure hunt.

…

I stood at the entrance and counted to ten, then pushed the door open and went in.

I was not sure what I was expecting, but it was not what I saw.  A country and western bar, with decorations that made you think you were in Texas, booths and tables elegantly set under subdued lighting, and well dressed serving staff serving customers.

Across the back was a long bar, and a bottle of every known drink known to mankind behind it, and two bartenders, looking busy.  Several people were sitting at the bar, including Nadia, who was by herself, having a shot glass, no doubt with tequila, and beer put in front of her.

No one even looked up to note my arrival.

It took a minute to scan the customers I could see, and not recognise any of them, except they were not of the scoundrel variety, and whether or not there was another exit if I needed one.

Always an emergency exit near the restrooms and I could see them in the distance.

Another look around, then I crossed the room, weaving through the tables, to where Nadia was sitting.  She hadn’t noticed my arrival.

“This seat taken?” I asked.

A quick turn of the head and I could see the rebuke on her lips.  Then surprise on her face.

“Smidge.  What are you doing here?”

“You keep asking me that question every time we meet.”

“Perhaps we should stop meeting like this.”  She turned back to the bar and downed the shot glass contents.  “Sit if you must.”

I had expected the back of her hand to slap me to the floor for daring to talk to her, but instead sat before she changed her mind.

“Same question,” she said, still not looking at me.

I’d try flippancy first and see how that went.  “Always wanted to come and see the famous Lantern Inn, but it doesn’t seem to be famous any more, well, not in that respect.”

She looked sideways at me.  “What if it had been?”

“Then I’m guessing this would have been a short encounter.”

“It still might be.”

OK, try not to be too brave, she could still beat me to a pulp with one hand tied behind her back.  “I doubt you want to cause a scene, and especially not with someone like me.”

She turned and looked at me.  Admittedly I was not the skinny assed punk I used to be, but still not her type.

“When did you go and grow up?”  At least, now, she didn’t tower over me, I could see eye to eye, literally and figuratively.

“While you were away.  Amazing what some sunshine and fertilizer will do.”

Was that a hint of a smile, or a grimace?

“Still a smart ass though.”

“You haven’t changed much either.”  Short skirt, low cut top, she’d been wearing a coat when she came in.  Hair was shorter and with a fringe.  Didn’t suit her.  “What happened to this place?”

“The last Mayor cleaned up the waterfront, most of it anyway.”

And died, rather ironically, in the crossfire between the two rival gangs in this very place.  Nothing like killing a public official, corrupt or not, to precipitate a cleanup.  It just sent the gangs into darker corners.

“Why are you here, then?”  I had to ask.

“I’m respectable.”  A nod to the bartended got another shot of tequila.

For me, a Budweiser.

“So does that mean you’re dating a Benderby?”  For her, it would be the only type of respectability she could have in a town like ours unless she moved away to somewhere no one knew who she was.

“Not if they were the last family on earth.”

“So, what’s he got on you?”

She turned much faster this time to look at me, sliding off the chair and standing over me.  There was not a pretty look on her face.

I tried not to exhibit signs of fear and failed.

“Who told you that?”

“No one.”  I took a deep breath to get the tremor out of my voice.  “They got the dirt on everyone, so why should you be an exception?”

I slipped of my chair and stood toe to toe with her.

For a person with an ugly soul, she had beautiful eyes.

Then she leaned forward those last six inches and kissed me briefly on the lips.  Hers was cold.

“What do you really want Smidge?”  She pulled back, and sat down again, picking up the beer and taking a sip.

“To get payback on Alex.”

“And you think I’ll help you?”

“Well, you need a map, and I don’t think you want to cosy up to Rico, do you?”

I had just put together a plan, shaky at best, highly dangerous at worst, but it might work.  It didn’t have to be the real map, just one that was close enough to the real thing.

She reached into her purse and pulled out a key, and slid it across the bar towards me.

Room 14 at the Shingle Hotel.   Where they used to have rooms to rent by the hour.  And cockroaches, people not the bugs, in every corner.

“One hour.  Now leave.”

I heard the door open and close and looked back through the mirror behind the bar.  A large man with a beard and dark glasses.  In a gloomy restaurant.

Her date?

I took the key and left, trying to look like I was not leaving in a hurry.

© Charles Heath 2019-2021

The cinema of my dreams – It’s a treasure hunt – Episode 11

Here’s the thing…

Every time I close my eyes, I see something different.

I’d like to think the cinema of my dreams is playing a double feature but it’s a bit like a comedy cartoon night on Fox.

But these dreams are nothing to laugh about.

Once again there’s a new instalment of an old feature, and back on the treasure hunt.

…

“Do you remember Nadia?”

Boggs was out the back on the veranda, sitting in an old lounge chair that had seen better days, eating tacos, or at least I think they were tacos.  He offered me one but I didn’t like the look of it.  Aside from the fact I wasn’t a fan of Mexican food.

“One of the Cossatino’s, Vince’s sister, tall, shorts skirts and big, well you know what I mean.”

Statuesque, Amazonian, yes I did.  We all coveted what we couldn’t have.

“The same.  She’s back in town.”

“And this means what to us if anything.  As I recall, the one time we tried talking to her, Vince had his friends rough us up.”

“I saw her with Alex today, in the warehouse.”

I had his attention.  I knew what he was thinking.

“Doing what, as if I couldn’t guess?”

“Alex wouldn’t be that stupid.”

“And we also said that when he fucked Annie in front of the class in the sports hall, not that we knew then what he was doing.”

Good point.  “No.  He told her to get the map from Rico.  Has Rico and her…”

“Dated?  Like Rico would be in her league.  He’d be little more than trash in her eyes.  But, no, not that I’m aware of.  But, if she was to throw herself at him, I’m sure he would react like any other dumb bastard who thinks with his dick and not his head.  But he hasn’t got the map.”

“Yet.”

“I still think I should try to sell it to Alex.”

“And I think if you are looking for a reason for a long hospital stay, that would be it.  You need to be careful where Rico is concerned.  Maybe we should check him out tomorrow.”

“I thought you had a job, and couldn’t get away.”

“My shift has changed to the afternoon, so I’ll be available in the mornings.  Do you know where Rico lives?”

“On his boat.  He has a small cruiser at the docks.  Uses if for, he says, fishing trips for businessmen, but I think he does the drug run from the shipping lanes to a quiet cove.”

“For the Benderby’s?”

“No idea, and don’t care.  But you’re right.  We should check him out.  Tomorrow morning.  I’ll meet you at Al’s fishing shop at about 9:00.”

He’d finished the tacos, and clearly had something else to do, something that didn’t involve me.  I felt a little disappointed.

…

© Charles Heath 2019-2021

Where do you write?

Here’s an interesting question, where do you find the most comfortable place to write?  Is it in an office, in a room overlooking the ocean, and basement where you can make it dark and creepy for atmosphere, is it at a train station, at work, which could end up presenting you with problems, or somewhere else.

Some people have an office, mine is a converted garage, and the walls are lined with books.  It isn’t the greatest place though.  There’s a smart alec cat always on my case.

There’s a couch in the living room where, late at night, I sometimes sit and ponder over about a thousand words of whatever the current story is in my head.  Cat withstanding.

It could be a cafe or restaurant, where it starts out as notes on the ambiance, the food, the people, then a little more, and gets me into trouble with my dining companions.

They should not have created writing programs for mobile phones.  Or for that matter, allow the phones to get smarter than their users.

But…

That’s a whole other story.

So having found that special or nonspecial spot in the house, or out there in the universe, how do you become creative?

Is it you’ve been carrying the ideas around in your head for a while and you just need somewhere neutral to get them on paper, or in that pesky smartphone?

Is it sitting by the window with a cup of coffee and a mice cream-filled cake, when something catches your eye, and instantly the words begin forming?

Are you with someone, a muse, a partner, a spouse, a friend, a secret friend, or just a stranger, and you start getting the wrong ideas?  Or the right ideas if it’s a different sort of book.

Sometimes I move seats and sit opposite the writer’s chair to take a good long hard look at the person, the so-called writer, conjuring up in my mind, if I was someone I’d just dragged in off the street, what would I ask?

They, no doubt would be cynical.

Why bother when there are a million others out there trying to do the same thing?

That’s the easy question.  Every story is different.  Why?  Because every writer has a different point of view, a different set of experiences, a different personality, different friends, this could go on forever…

Here’s a test, outline a story and give that outline to ten different writers.  You’d get ten different stories.

Where do you get the motivation?

Don’t know.  Some days I don’t want to get out of bed, others, I can’t go to sleep until the words have stopped.  Go figure.

What do you do for inspiration?

Inside, outside, upside down, everywhere and anywhere.

Just remember, always have a notebook and pencil on hand.  Why pencil, I never have any luck with pens.

 

 

 

What would you ask a writer?

I’ve been sitting at this desk staring at the screen thinking of what to write that might interest other people.

Seems I’m not very good at it.

So I moved seats, and sit opposite the writer’s chair, taking a good long hard look at the person, the so-called writer, and conjuring up in my mind, if I was someone I’d just dragged in off the street, what would I ask?

That thought hadn’t occurred to me before, except at some time or other I might have to give an interview.

And as for being ‘dragged off the street’, most of us walk down the street trying to avoid everyone else and anything bad that might happen.

But I’m here now, so for a free cup of tea and a Doubletree cookie, I consider myself available to play the part.

Question 1:  Why on earth would you want to write when there are a billion other books out there?  Seems a complete waste of time to me.

[Answer] Good point, most days when I get out of bed or rather stare at the ceiling from under the covers, I wonder why I bother to get up.

OK, that’s the borderline manic depressive speaking, and most likely suffering from a hangover, trying to get those last 1,000 words for the day done.

Question 2: You write when you’re drunk?  That must make a lot of sense, not!

This person has found me out in two questions.

[Answer] No, a little Scotch helps to oil the wheels in the mind.

Question 3:  What do you do for inspiration?

[Answer] Thinking up new and novel ways of killing off people, I often drag people in off the street to ask me questions about myself, then kill them.  You know, it’s the old story, if I tell you I’ll have to kill you?  No, sorry, didn’t mean that.  I haven’t a mean bone in my body.  Inspiration you say?

I look around.

So does the inquisitor.  There is seven floor to ceiling bookcases full of my favorite authors, about 2,000 or so books, aside from the reference library that is mostly in e-book format which runs to about 10,000.

Question 4:  You read all of these?

[Picks up a copy of ‘Kill Me If You Can’ by James Patterson]  This one.

I nod yes.  I have read most of them.  I tell him writers must read.  Someone told me that a long time ago.  Not only thrillers and crime, but the classics.  I found War and Peace heavy going, but not so much as Madame Bovary, or Vanity Fair.

You can ask one more question.

Question 5:  Can I borrow this book [James Patterson]

As always the answer is yes.  I encourage people to read.  It doesn’t have to be my work.  It would be nice but I’m realistic enough to know there are a billion other books out there I have to compete with.

Thank God that’s over!

 

 

A photograph from the inspirational bin – 15

It’s the obvious items in the photograph that you see first, or that your eyes go to first.

The ocean, the beach, the buildings. You can see a shopping mall with MacDonald’s sign above it.

Yes, it’s late afternoon, and you can see long shadows of the buildings.

So, if I asked you what did you see in this photo, what would your reply be?

From a thriller writer or murder mystery writer’s point of view, it’s what you don’t necessarily see.

So, for the purposes of the story, the opening line for the world-weary detective, handing the photo to his partner, “What’s is it you can’t see in this photo?”

A partner that hadn’t been on the job very long, in from the suburbs, and had seen little more than break and enters car theft, and school kids hi-jinks.

“What am I supposed to be looking for?”

“You want to be a detective, or be looking for old ladies cats?”

His partner takes the photo in hand and looks at it again.  There has to be a reason why the old man had given it to him, or perhaps there wasn’t and he was just playing with him again.

No, he thought, there has to be something…

And then he saw it, quite by accident.  A hand, a gun, and following the line of fire, at the end, what looked like someone in the bushes.

In a photo taken from a higher floor of the building over the road, looking down on what was supposed to be a rooftop recreational area.

Only there had been no report of a missing person or a gunshot wound in the last seven days.

“When was it taken?”

“Two days ago?”

“And no reports of a shooting, or a body?”

“No.  And yet the person who took this swears he saw a body, but by the time he came back, there was nothing.”

The detective handed his partner a second photo.  Time-stamped five minutes later.  With no gun and no body.

What will happen next?