This photo was taken at a Castello in Tuscany, Italy, and was quite interesting.
I was fascinated as to what was behind the door in front, and up the stairs to the right. I was guessing, up the stairs was the exit from the ballroom, but it might be something else quite banal.
Behind me was the room that had all the names of the family who had lived at the castle.
More interesting was the fact there was the old castle, going back centuries, and the new castle, not so old.
But…
One could cast their minds back to the 1500s perhaps and imagine the castle, on a hill, overlooking what are now vineyards, but could once have been the forest.
Extensive gardens at the back could have been where the jousting and other games could have taken place.
There would be a feasting hall, the kitchens, the servants, and there was a keep.
Italy had a rich history of each of the towns launching raids on other towns, and these towns were walled in, like San Gimignano, with 14 watch towers around the perimeter, where the fortifications were such they kept out the oncoming marauders.
Siena is much the same, a walled town.
Each had a large central square, and Siena famously holds the Il Palio di Siena every year in theirs.
Just being in Tuscany is almost inspiration enough for any sort of story with Tuscany as the backdrop.
Instead of making a grand entrance, arriving in style and being greeted by important dignitaries, we are slinking in via an airplane, late at night. It’s hardly the entrance I’d envisaged. At 9:56 the plane touches down on the runway. Outside the plane, it is dark and gloomy and from what I could see, it had been raining. That could, of course, simply be condensation.
Once on the ground, everyone was frantically gathering together everything from seat pockets and sending pillows and blankets to the floor. A few were turning their mobile phones back on, and checking for a signal, and, perhaps, looking for messages sent to them during the last 12 hours. Or perhaps they were just suffering from mobile phone deprivation.
It took 10 minutes for the plane to arrive at the gate. That’s when everyone moves into overdrive, unbuckling belts, some before the seatbelt sign goes off, and are first out of their seats and into the overhead lockers. Most are not taking care that their luggage may have moved, but fortunately, no bags fall out onto someone’s head. The flight had been relatively turbulent free.
When as many people and bags have squeezed into that impossibly small aisle space, we wait for the door to open, and then the privileged few business and first-class passengers to depart before we can begin to leave. As we are somewhere near the middle of the plane, our wait will not be as long as it usually is. This time we avoided being at the back of the plane. Perhaps that privilege awaits us on the return trip.
Once off the plane, it is a matter of following the signs, some of which are not as clear as they could be. It’s why it took another 30 odd minutes to get through immigration, but that was not necessarily without a few hiccups along the way. We got sidetracked at the fingerprint machines, which seemed to have a problem if your fingers were not straight, not in the center of the glass, and then if it was generally cranky, which ours were, continue to tell you to try again, and again, and again, and again…That took 10 to 15 minutes before we joined an incredibly long queue of other arrivals,
A glance at the time, and suddenly it’s nearly an hour from the moment we left the plane.
And…
That’s when we got to the immigration officer, and it became apparent we were going to have to do the fingerprints yet again. Fortunately this time, it didn’t take as long. Once that done, we collected our bags, cleared customs by putting our bags through a huge x-ray machine, and it was off to find our tour guide.
We found several tour guides with their trip-a-deal flags waiting for us to come out of the arrivals hall. It wasn’t a difficult process in the end. We were in the blue group. Other people we had met on the plane were in the red group or the yellow group. The tour guide found, or as it turned out she found us, it was simply a matter of waiting for the rest of the group, of which there were eventually 28.Gathered together we were told we would be taking the bags to one place and then ourselves to the bus in another. A glance in the direction of the bus park, there were a lot of busses.
Here’s a thought, imagine being told your bus is the white one with blue writing on the side.
Yes, yours is, and 25 others because all of the tourist coaches are the same. An early reminder, so that you do not get lost, or, God forbid, get on the wrong bus, for the three days in Beijing, is to get the last five numbers of the bus registration plate and commit them to memory. It’s important. Failing that, the guide’s name is in the front passenger window.
Also, don’t be alarmed if your baggage goes in one direction, and you go in another. In a rather peculiar set up the bags are taken to the hotel by what the guide called the baggage porter. It is an opportunity to see how baggage handlers treat your luggage; much better than the airlines it appears.
That said, if you’re staying at the Beijing Friendship Hotel, be prepared for a long drive from the airport. It took us nearly an hour, and bear in mind that it was very late on a Sunday night.
Climbing out of the bus after what seemed a convoluted drive through a park with buildings, we arrive at the building that will be our hotel for the next three days. From the outside, it looks quite good, and once inside the foyer, that first impression is good. Lots of space, marble, and glass. If you are not already exhausted by the time you arrive, the next task is to get your room key, find your bags, get to your room, and try to get to be ready the next morning at a reasonable hour.
Sorry, that boat has sailed.
We were lucky, we were told, that our plane arrived on time, and we still arrived at the hotel at 12:52. Imagine if the incoming plane is late.
This was taken the following morning. It didn’t look half as bland late at night.
This is the back entrance to Building No 4 but is quite representative of the whole foyer, made completely of marble and glass. It all looked very impressive under the artificial lights, but not so much in the cold hard light of early morning.
This the foyer of the floor our room was on. Marble with interesting carpet designs. Those first impressions of it being a plush hotel were slowly dissipating as we got nearer and nearer to the room. From the elevator, it was a long, long walk.
So…Did I tell you about the bathroom in our room?
The shower and the toilet both share the same space with no divide and the shower curtain doesn’t reach to the floor. Water pressure is phenomenal. Having a shower floods the whole shower plus toilet area so when you go to the toilet you’re basically underwater.
Don’t leave your book or magazine on the floor or it will end up a watery mess.
And the water pressure is so hard that it could cut you in half. Only a small turn of the tap is required to get that tingling sensation going.
This photograph represents an idyllic scene, a pool at the bottom of a waterfall, which on a fine day would be perfect.
The fact it looks to be in the middle of nowhere is neither here nor there because…
That’s where the writer’s inventiveness kicks in.
So…
How do we get there? If it’s below the waterfall, then we came up the river, which is basically how you would go anyway, it’s just the depth of the river that determines how far you can go.
We had a situation like that where the depth of the river nearly stopped us from getting far enough up the river into the mountains to discover some amazing territory.
You could also go downriver, but since this river might start up in the mountains, it might be a long way.
Why would we be there?
The boring answer, we are on holiday.
The better answer, we’re searching for gold, and so are others who are trying to get us to move on, or we’re searching for something, just insert what you want to find. I was thinking: an intrepid brother or sister who has gone missing, and the waterfall was the last place they were seen.
And, what if there’s a secret entrance behind the waterfall, that opens into an underground complex with sophisticated, very strange and never seen before equipment, that hasn’t been used in a very long time.
Somehow I like the last one best.
And, just to add a new twist, you find a human-like body in a pod, and when someone accidentally leans on a button, it comes to life. Is it human, or is it a robot?
The other day when visiting a friend I was asked if I would like some camomile tea. I said it was something I had tried once and didn’t like, which prompted the comment ‘you don’t seem to like very much’.
It was not a comment made in malice, we have known each other a long time, but I didn’t realize it until then that our individual tastes had changed over time, more particularly in my case.
I used to drink tea with milk and three, sometimes more, sugars once, drink the archetypal Australian beer like Fosters Lager and Carlton Draught, but in recent years found I could no longer drink it and had switched to European beers such as Peroni or Heineken.
It got me thinking about how our likes and dislikes change over time, sometimes through a bad experience (as is the case with a type of alcohol – mine is tequila), sometimes for other reasons, like for dietary or health reasons (one is having diabetes).
My steak preference has changed from medium to medium-rare to rare, I no longer have tea with milk and sugar, and drastically cut down on chocolate.
Another phenomenon I have noticed particularly in my and my wife’s case is how our tastes have changed together, so I’m assuming that is from familiarity.
In the case of friends, you do not necessarily see them all that often, so it would be possible for them to change and you do not know about it, and no doubt eventually prompt a comment.
There is also the case of external influences on each of us that bring changes, such as those who have children and those who do not, those who travel to particular places and those who travel to different places, even having a different job can affect our lives.
This is why, over time, our friends come and go, going off in different directions for one or many reasons.
I guess that’s why the saying ‘change is not always for the better’ came into being, but, there again, for some the exact opposite might be true.
This was at a winery in Italy where, on the tour we took, we had lunch as part of the tour, after, of course, a tour of the winery.
It was a picturesque setting, and the food, and matching wines, were exquisite, and perhaps we may have had slightly more than we should have.
But, they did leave the wine behind…
However…
Inspirationally, we could base the story around a lunch or dinner, two people looking to get their relationship back on track, deciding to take time out alone to see if the part is still there.
How could it not in a setting like this?
It could be the setting for a chef, trying out his new menu, or working on a new menu, getting tourists to sample the courses and wines.
We’d have to make the chef a man, or woman, on the edge of disaster, and looking to recover from a disaster of some description – like a failed restaurant and the need for second chances…
Or…
A failing chateau, typified by the declining visitor number and warring family members, all of whom were left a share in the large but rapidly deteriorating mansion.
Should they renovate and turn it into a hotel with a 5 star restaurant, or should they sell to developers and see it bulldozed, or will one, secretly very wealthy, offer to buy them all out and preserve the ancestral home?
John’s search for Zoe was at an impasse, simply because it was her job to disappear and reappear at will, and he knows he was no match for her in that regard.
So, having gone to her residence in Paris, not finding her there which was predictable, the place looked like it had not been visited in months, he concluded a short stay might help to clear his head.
Until he gets a phone call.
Kidnappers, other than the Russians, have captured Zoe, and they’re ringing him for a ransom.
Odd, because he was not the one who placed the kidnap order on her, so why would they be ringing him?
This was initiated by Zoe, no doubt playing the kidnapper by sending him to a bigger payday.
If that’s the case then John has to deduce she has faith in him to come and get her.
Which he’s going to do, but not on his own.
It’s time to call Sebastian, someone John knew would know what to do.
Or at least hope he does!
…
Today’s writing, with Zoe languishing in a dungeon waiting for a white knight, 3,270 words, for a total of 8,871.
This is a photograph of the Leopoldskron Palace used for exterior shots in the movie “The Sound of Music”.
It was a very bleak day when we decided to go on the Sound of Music bus tour, and, yes, there was singing.
But…
It is a sombre setting and lends a great deal of inspiration to a story.
For instance…
There was a large uninhabited house on the edge of a lake where multiple fatalities occurred in the mid-1800s. The family was cursed from the moment the house was built because a gypsy family who had lived on the land before the building commenced were murdered because they would not leave.
The original owner died when falling from a ladder fetching a book from the top shelf in his library, the wife died when she accidentally slipped and fell on a knife in the kitchen, and the eldest son died when he fell from the roof. No one could explain how he got there.
The daughter left immediately after all of these events which happened in the first week of residence, and moved far away.
Move forward about 170 years and one of the ancestors discovered they are entitled to take ownership of the building that had not been lived in for a long, long time.
But…
It does not look any different from the day the last inhabitants died, and is in perfect condition.
How could this be after 170 years?
And what exactly is going on when the descendants come to live in the house?
Is it paranormal activity or is it just gold old fashioned scare tactics to send them away?
John’s search for Zoe was at an impasse, simply because it was her job to disappear and reappear at will, and he knows he was no match for her in that regard.
So, having gone to her residence in Paris, not finding her there which was predictable, the place looked like it had not been visited in months, he concluded a short stay might help to clear his head.
Until he gets a phone call.
Kidnappers, other than the Russians, have captured Zoe, and they’re ringing him for a ransom.
Odd, because he was not the one who placed the kidnap order on her, so why would they be ringing him?
This was initiated by Zoe, no doubt playing the kidnapper by sending him to a bigger payday.
If that’s the case then John has to deduce she has faith in him to come and get her.
Which he’s going to do, but not on his own.
It’s time to call Sebastian, someone John knew would know what to do.
Or at least hope he does!
…
Today’s writing, with Zoe languishing in a dungeon waiting for a white knight, 3,270 words, for a total of 8,871.
…
Do you have days when you feel like you’ve achieved nothing, even after getting through what might appear to be a lot? It’s the ancillary stuff that’s the bugbear of anyone who simply wants to get on with what’s important, and that’s writing.
You know, sit down in front of a blank page on the computer, for on your writing desk, if you have one, ready for the words to come.
Except there’s the email to check.
Then there are ads to be sent out on Twitter and the general Twitter feed to look at just to keep up with what’s happening out there.
Then there’s the news usually that arrives on my desktop computer, the feed from the major papers around the world, for me, the New York Times, in the US, the Times in The UK and the Australian, in my country.
And, dammit, each has a challenging crossword that I really don’t have time to do, well, not in the morning.
Then there’s the stuff that has to be done around the house, I’m home but my wife still works so there’s washing, cooking, and domestics to be done which eats into the day.
Sometimes it’s not until mid-morning before I get to sit down with a cup of tea.
The point is, it’s not conducive to writing during the day because you can’t get a run at it, time enough to think about what you’re going to write before committing it to paper.
That is, before the phone rings with another scammer, and breaks your concentration. Right, I hear you, cut the phone off.
So, three phone calls later, I’m about to give up. It’s time to get the dinner on with family coming. Perhaps I’ll have a few bottles of beer instead.
This is why I write at night, sometime after ten. No phone calls, no distractions. Well, that’s not necessarily true because what you didn’t get done earlier had a way of backing up if you don’t get through it in a timely manner.
Perhaps I’ll get a blog post or two done, another episode of the trip to China, upload another photo to Instagram and look at the current novel I’m in the middle of editing.
By that time it will be two am, way past anyone’s decent time to go to bed. In fact, it’s ten past two, and I’ve got an early morning.
Just when you think you’ve got a good start, it all comes crashing down.
Here’s the thing…
I’ve been planning the sequel for quite some time, and from time to time, I’ve been jotting down notes about how the story will go. I thought I had filed them all in the same place, and because I thought I had all of them, I missed a part.
This was confirmed when I found a synopsis, something I rarely make before writing a story, with details of several sections I obviously added when the thought came to me. Perhaps the idea of the synopsis was to consolidate all the ideas, at a time when I thought I was going to sit down and write the story.
Dated a month or so before covid came along, I suspect it all got set aside for the two or so year’s hiatus.
Now, the time has come, and today, I went n a detailed search of three computers, four phones, cloud storage, and the boxes that hold all the handwritten notes.
I have a reference to the section, and several chapters, but no writing. In the back of my mind, I have a feeling I’d written the chapters, but the evidence says otherwise.
Damn!
I’ll move on, and come back to it later. At the moment it doesn’t have relevance.
Oh, and Zoe has now become Mary-Anne. What is John going to think when he finally finds her.
…
Todays writing, introducing Mary Anne, 1,501 words, for a total of 3,610.
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 