Tag: Author

“Echoes From The Past”, buried, but not deep enough

What happens when your past finally catches up with you?

Christmas is just around the corner, a time to be with family. For Will Mason, an orphan since he was fourteen, it is a time for reflection on what his life could have been, and what it could be.

Until a chance encounter brings back to life the reasons for his twenty years of self-imposed exile from a life only normal people could have. From that moment Will’s life slowly starts to unravel and it’s obvious to him it’s time to move on.

This time, however, there is more at stake.

Will has broken his number one rule, don’t get involved.

With his nemesis, Eddie Jamieson, suddenly within reach, and a blossoming relationship with an office colleague, Maria, about to change everything, Will has to make a choice. Quietly leave, or finally, make a stand.

But as Will soon discovers, when other people are involved there is going to be terrible consequences no matter what choice he makes.

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It’s just another day of the week

I used to like Saturdays, it was the first day of the weekend, and after working Monday through Friday, one could sleep in, have a leisurely breakfast, and then do the shopping.

Then there’s the reality.

Body clocks are dreadful, and never let you sleep in if, in fact, it’s bright daylight shining through the curtains at 5am.  Blackout curtains never seem to quite work.

Shutters are marginally better.

Once awake it is difficult to get back to sleep, so you lie in bed staring at the ceiling or partake in monitoring social media.

I read the latest in the New York Times, online.  Some days I wish I didn’t.

But…

Yes, there’s always a but…

I can, at times, go through the plotline of the latest story in my head, and if it’s boring, it puts me to sleep, and if it’s not, I head to the writing room and start putting it down.

Until notifications start distracting me.

Twitter, Facebook, WordPress, Linked In, Tumblr, and Instagram.

News headlines, the world is ending, or close enough, a car accident is causing traffic delays even though I’m not going out, yet another school shooting massacre in the USA, and my crossword for the day has arrived.

Why can’t the computer make me coffee, and toast and marmalade?

From 6am to 9am shot to hell, not a word on paper, perhaps I should go back to bed.

I remember Saturdays before computers, before social media, before any of those modern distractions.

What is referred to, these days, as the good old days!

 

Conversations with my cat – 6

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This is Chester.  He is giving me the ‘Come back when you’ve rewritten the start’ look.

Yet another ‘disagreement’ over such a small matter!

Here’s the thing.

Like many authors with cats, I like to use Chester as my audience of one, my sounding board.  It is better to be reading to him, rather than reading out loud by yourself.

Reading what you have written often points out tongue tangling or ‘drippy’ dialog, and  unfortunate mix ups in words.  Proof reading sometimes misses these.

Hitherto, Chester has been patient, lying on the floor, or sitting on the couch.

I guess a few pats doesn’t go astray in the process.

But, this morning, reading him the new start to ‘First Dig Two Graves’ the sequel to ‘The Devil You Don’t’, he just gave me one of his angry ‘meow’s’ and left.

Obviously he didn’t like it.

Of course, after I re-read it again, I could see the problem, so the days writing is not over yet.

As a matter of fact…

But, is it?

This oft used expression is one we pull out of our argument arsenal every now and then, but the problem is, are we quoting actual facts, or are we just trying to get a point of view across?

What are facts?

There seems to be a wide disparity of explanations on what facts are, depending on what purpose they’re used for.

We’re all familiar with a certain line of information being put forward as factual in defense of a particular wall, but are these facts?

Can we disprove these facts with other facts, and are these facts factual or otherwise.

The real facts may never be known because they may well be buried underneath a welter of auxiliary information that is factual but can be twisted any which way.

So…

Would we be better of with conjecture?

To be honest, I’m not quite sure what conjecture is, but at a guess, conjecture is a series of assumptions based on facts (oh no, here we go again!)

Over here we built a fence to keep out the rabbits.

Walls, fences, it didn’t work.  It cost a lot of money but didn’t achieve the intended result.

Humans are more inventive than rabbits.  We seem to be better keeping them in, rather than keeping them out.

And I’m off track yet again, distracted by current affairs.

I just wanted to say that any story can be based on fact, and then generally go down the path of conjecture.  Historically, we might keep people who have died alive, places that have disappeared in place, follow history accurately for a while and then make assumptions of what might have happened rather than what did.

Unfortunately, it involves a lot of studies, and, sometimes, the unearthing of a fact that no one really knew about.

Make of that what you will.

A blank look means you’re in another world

I can see how it is that a writer’s life can be a lonely one.  That’s why, I guess, so many writers have an animal as a pet, someone to talk to, or just feel as though you are not alone in this quest.

I’m often sitting in front of the computer screen, or in a large lounge chair with my trusty tablet computer, writing the words, or staring into space!

Sometimes the words don’t make any sense, sometimes the thoughts leading to those words don’t make any sense.

Sometimes the most sensible person in the room is the cat.

I’m sure his thoughts are not vague or scrambled, or wrestling with the ploys of several stories on the go, getting locations right, getting characters to think and do their thing with a fair degree of continuity.

The cat’s world is one of which chair to lie on, where is that elusive mouse be it real or otherwise, and is this fool going to feed me, and please, please, don’t let it be the lasagna.  I am not that cat!

Unlike other professions, there is no 9 to 5, no overtime, no point where you can switch off and move into leisure time.  Not while you are writing that next masterpiece.  It’s a steady sometimes frustrating slog where you can’t just walk away, have a great time, and come back and pick up where you left off.

Stories have to be written from beginning to end, not a bit here and a bit there.

It’s a bit like running a marathon.  You are in a zone, the first few miles are the hardest, the middle is just getting the rhythm and breathing under control, and then you hope you get to the end because it can seem that you’ve been going forever and the end is never in sight.

But, when you reach the end, oh, isn’t the feeling one of pure joy and relief.

And, yes, perhaps you’ve just created another masterpiece!

Is it me, or are the queues getting longer

It seems that we spend nearly as much time waiting as some of us do sleeping.  In fact, I’ve been known to be sleeping while waiting.

What is it in this era of mechanization and computerization that we still have to wait.  Is it the human element that is still holding us back?

But, hang on, isn’t it the human element that creates the mechanization and computerization?  Perhaps we are building in redundancy so that we are not replaced by the very things we are creating to make our lives easier?

We don’t have robots who can perform the same tasks as a GP doctor because we still need the human factor, and since one size does not fit all, no consultation can ever be fit into a specific time frame so there will always be waiting especially as the day wears on.

We cannot automate phone call answering except for the part where you are put in a queue and told your call is important and then you sit there listening to some awful music, seemingly forgotten

There will always be hundreds of calls in a queue for the most important services. or when you need an answer in a hurry, because only a few people are available to answer the phone.  Robots will not be able to answer calls either, because once again, only a real person can respond to the randomness of callers questions.

Artificial intelligence only works in science fiction.

Then there is the time we spend waiting at traffic lights, and then, even when the lights are with us, in traffic jams.  We are still stumped by trying to find an all-conquering answer to moving masses of people, either by the roads or by public transport.

The latter is all too frequently suffering delays and congestion due to the number of services needed and decaying networks and infrastructure, all of which is only going to get worse, with, of course, longer delays and more waiting.

Maybe the answer is to work from home but sadly the internet, that so-called answer to all our off-site networking, is not going to cope, and in fact, in this country, our latest update is a retrograde step on speed and availability, ie more waiting and less work.

Waiting, it seems, we are stuck with it whether we like it or not.  Good thing then our lives are longer.  But, if we delve into the mystery of longer lives now against what they were back when there was less waiting, maybe we still have the same amount of life, and the fact we’re living longer is negated by all the waiting.

I’m sure we didn’t have to wait very long for anything a hundred years ago.

Just saying.

I think I’ve got a plan

You see, it’s the result of a New Year’s resolution which I only told myself, mainly because I didn’t think I’d be able to execute it.

The plan, that is, not some of the people around me.

Be more organized.

Have a writing plan for each story, a synopsis if you will, something that can be used to plan and write to, instead of the hodgepodge of trying to remember where I was, or what I was intending to write as a follow on.

And it’s working to a certain degree.

In the morning, an hour to check social media, Instagram, WordPress, twitter.  I don’t bother with Facebook because everything I’ve tried there has failed, and I don’t think it’s for want of trying, it’s because Facebook will not give you reasonable coverage.  If you want that, you have to pay, and even if I did, I would still not get anything like I’d want.

Best left for the Fake News we keep hearing about, or people who want their details sold off to the highest bidder.

Then it’s time to write some new blog posts, I have more than one blog, each a different subject or aspect of either writing or traveling.

Rest.  Sometimes.

Afternoon, writing.  Yep, I have managed to get a few words on paper and editing the next two novels.  Bandy words with Chester, the cat, and generally come off second best.  He had the best ‘I don’t care’ face I’ve ever seen.

Then chores, dinner, what laughingly can be called TV, then maybe some more writing.

There, how’s that for a plan.

And…

How long do you think it will last?

 

Conversations with my cat – 5

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This is Chester.  He’s contemplating the mess on the floor.

I’ve asked him many times to stop unraveling the extension cords or to play with it as if it was a ball of string.

I’m not sure he understands the implications of playing with electrical wires.

Yet.

He is recovering from the visit by our grandchildren.

Sometimes, when they’re very quiet, he assumes they have gone.  He comes down to see what’s for dinner, or if there are any ‘snacks’.

Then, suddenly he realizes they have not gone, and panic sets in.

Sometimes he gets away.

Sometimes he is trapped, and forced to take large doses of child affection.

Yesterday, it was very close.

 

And that’s how I met your mother, maybe

Want to hear an interesting story?

Well, perhaps not because it’s not relevant to you.

But…

To someone else, like your children, if they ever listen to anything you say, I’m sure there’s always an interesting story in how you met your spouse, or each of them if you’ve been married more than once,

Or…

You didn’t marry them but just live together.

We live in a complicated world, one that fortunately for some, is not ruled by a piece of paper.

Fortunately, I have only one and thank God for that.

Oh, you want to know the story?

Boring, we worked together, hated each other, and when I left for a new job, we just sort of started going out.  How does that work?

It could be said God works in mysterious ways.

However…

That’s not the story.

Over the years we can intentionally or unintentionally run into each other, quite unexpected.  For some, this might mean they discover their spouse, girlfriend, boyfriend, partner, significant other (or whatever) with someone else.

That’s a bad day.

Then you can almost be run down by a hospital bed, that, lo and behold, you find is the bed bringing your spouse back to the hospital ward.

Yep, nearly got run over by it.

By a strange quirk of coincidence, I arrived at the ward at the same time my wife did.  There could be something like karma in all of this, nearly being run down by the motorized bed she was being transported from the recovery ward.

But only she would see the humor in that.

When I rang the ward nurse prior to coming to the hospital, to see if she had arrived in the ward, they said she was in transit.  That was 50 minutes before I left for the hospital, so it was a long, long, transit.

Of course, it’s been a long day but it seems I was more worried about the day’s events than she was.  That, I suppose, it’s s good thing because if our roles were reversed I would have been in a blind panic by the time we got to the hospital, prior to the admission.

And the surgery was not one that could be taken lightly, at the heart of it the removal of a 35cm section of the bowel because of the possibility of cancer.

After a five hour wait after leaving her in the hands of hospital staff, always with the lingering thought it might be the last time I see her alive, the doctor called and said everything went fine.

So, its another trip to the hospital, out of visiting hours, another running the gamut of finding a parking spot, though had I known it, there was one right outside the night entrance, good to know if I need to come again, and a happy end to what could have been a traumatic day.

It’s no wonder I don’t like hospitals, either as a visitor, which I have been on numerous occasions, or a patient, which I try very hard to keep to a minimum.

“The Devil You Don’t”, be careful what you wish for

John Pennington’s life is in the doldrums.  Looking for new opportunities, prevaricating about getting married, the only joy on the horizon was an upcoming visit to his grandmother in Sorrento, Italy.

Suddenly he is left at the check-in counter with a message on his phone telling him the marriage is off, and the relationship is over.

If only he hadn’t promised a friend he would do a favor for him in Rome.

At the first stop, Geneva, he has a chance encounter with Zoe, an intriguing woman who captures his imagination from the moment she boards the Savoire, and his life ventures into uncharted territory in more ways than one.

That ‘favor’ for his friend suddenly becomes a life-changing event, and when Zoe, the woman who he knows is too good to be true, reappears, danger and death follows.

Shot at, lied to, seduced, and drawn into a world where nothing is what it seems, John is dragged into an adrenaline-charged undertaking, where he may have been wiser to stay with the ‘devil you know’ rather than opt for the ‘devil you don’t’.

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