Over the past year or so I have been selecting photographs I’ve taken on many travels, and put a story to them.
When I reached a milestone of 50 stories, I decided to make them into a book, and, in doing so, I have gone through each and revised them, making some longer and into short stories.
50 photographs, 50 stories. I’ve called it, “Inspiration, Maybe”
It will be available soon.
This is Chester. It’s going to be an interesting morning.
When I finally make it out to the writing room, I find him sitting on my desk, next to the keyboard, with a rather benign expression.
Remembering that cats can’t have expressive expressions, it worried me that he’s working overtime to make me think he has one.
I can feel his eyes boring into me, following me around the room, watching and waiting.
Waiting for what I wonder.
I also remember that cats are hunters and killers. If he was a lion or a tiger I’d be in a great deal of trouble now. He’d pounce, and that would be the end.
Is this we hat he’d be doing if I let him outside?
Is he sending me a warning?
I finish what I’m doing on the other side of the room and come over to the seat.
Are you done giving me the death stare? I ask him.
A slight shake of the head, and if I wanted to write anything into it, that would be a no.
A few seconds pass, then he jumps down to the floor and walks off.
Job done, I suspect he’s thinking.
Back to his least favourite dinner tonight, I’m thinking.
This is not meant to be a treatise on short story writing. Far be it for me to advise anyone on the subject. I prefer to say how it is that I do it so you can learn all of the pitfalls in one go.
My main characters are quite often me.
Not the real me, because I’m boring. No, those characters are what I would like to be, that imaginary superhuman that can do everything.
Until, of course, reality sets in, and the bullets start flying. In reality, we should be looking to run or at the very least get under cover, not walk into a hail of bullets, with a huge grin, staring down the enemy.
Hang on, that never happens except in superman comics.
What’s really needed here is a little vulnerability, a little humility and a lot of understanding, qualities at times I don’t have.
So, in order to create a more believable character, I start dragging traits from others I’ve met, or know, or really don’t want to know. In a writer’s environment, there are a plethora of people out there that you can draw on for inspiration.
Like a piano player in a restaurant. It was not so much the playing was bad, it was the way he managed to draw people into his orbit and keep them there. The man has charisma, but sadly no talent for the instrument.
Like an aunt I met only twice in a lifetime, and who left a lasting impression. Severe, angry looking, speaking a language I didn’t understand, even though it was English. It was where I learned we came from England, and she was the closest thing I came to as an example of nineteenth-century prim and proper. And, no, she didn’t have a sense of humour or time for silly little boys.
Like one of my bosses, a man of indeterminate age, but it had to be over 100, or so it seemed to my sixteen-year-old brain, who spoke and dressed impeccably, and yes, he did once say that I would be the death of him.
I can only hope I wasn’t.
Like a Captain of a ship I once met, a man who didn’t seem to have time for the minions, and a man who reeked authority and respect. I’ve always wanted to be like him, but unfortunately, it was not in the genes.
Those are only a few, there are thousands of others over the years, a built-in library, if you will, of characters waiting to be taken off the shelf and used where necessary or appropriate. We all have one of these banks.
You just have to know when to use them.
It’s not hard to start confusing what day it is when they all seem to run together. I pick up one of my grandchildren every Friday, but out of the ordinary, I picked her up today, and now can’t get the idea out of my mind that it’s Friday.
Like Saturday and Sunday, if we do not do the usual things on Saturday, suddenly it feels like it’s just another day of the week.
But since retiring, about four years ago, the days gave sort of been running together in a continuous stream. As a writer, and not having a day job, or the fact that being a writer is a 24/7 job with no specific delineation, it’s not as if I have to be anywhere between the hours of 9 and 5, nor look forward to the weekend off.
Not any more.
Or perhaps that’s just my interpretation of what a writer’s life is.
Not that I’m being much of a writer at the moment.
There’s writer’s block and there’s laziness. Me, I’m in the latter basket. I sit down to write but the truth is I can always find something else to do. Social media was invented as a distraction for people like me.
But, is there a deeper issue at the heart of my ‘problem’?
I think it’s because I’m not satisfied with one of my stories as it stands.
I finished writing the sixth or seventh draft, didn’t like the way it was reading, and added a new section. The problem with that is having to go back to the start and seed the threads that lead to and/or incorporate that new section.
It’s just about formed in my mind how it is going to go, but I have not written a word, or looked at the story for at least four months, and that’s probably a good thing.
In between, I have written a number of short stories, most of them in one sitting, as an exercise to clear the cobwebs, much the same as you would take a car out of the motorway and give it its head.
I’ve convinced myself that I still believe in the happy ending, even though all around me there doesn’t seem to be too many. I have to stop watching the news, and a lot of television shows. No one really wants to know the gritty reality.
There’s something else I’ve been meaning to do.
So, I’m going to flesh out the second draft of the story with the new ideas and see how that looks.
A long time ago my eldest grandchild asked me to write a story for her. She was 12 then, acted like a princess, so I told her I would write her as one. The other two granddaughters, also girls, also wanted to be princesses, and this sparked some interesting discussion. The eldest is 16 now and I’m still no closer to finishing it, but I have decided to make a map of their realm, and that of the quest involved to save the realm in the hope that will prompt the end.
We used to sit around when they are all together and brainstorm ideas, but as they get older, there is always something else more important to do, like texting their friends on their phones or playing computer games. Life, it seems, for the young, has more interesting pursuits.
At least, if I ever finish it I will have the three best beta readers going.
Roll on tomorrow, and maybe, just maybe, I’ll get started on that map.
I think it’s stating the obvious, we are expressing something definitively and clearly. I stated my case, but it was not good enough to save me from the hangman’s noose.
Or, they stated their case, but with an unforgiving government, it didn’t save them from being deported.
Or maybe not, maybe a state is a territory or nation under one government, though sometimes we might think that governance is not all that great
But it could also mean a subdivision within a single country, like the 52 states of the US, and the 5 states in Australia
And woe betide you if you become a state-less person, it means living in the international transit lounge for the rest of your life.
Or it might be how I feel at the time, you know, I’m not in a fit state of mind to be writing this post, or that I might be agitated, with someone else saying ‘he’s in a state’, or having said something quite odd, it might be said that my state of mind is clouded by grief.
If I was an important person, such as a king or prince, and had the unfortunate luck of dying, I could lie in state, though I could never understand why you’d want to hang around after you died.
This case has everything, red herrings, jealous brothers, femme fatales, and at the heart of it all, greed.
Coming soon!
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’.
Purchase:
This is not meant to be a treatise on short story writing. Far be it for me to advise anyone on the subject. I prefer to say how it is that I do it so you can learn all of the pitfalls in one go.
I like to think I fly by the seat of my pants, you know, like the reader who takes up the story and starts reading, not having a clue where it’s going to go.
I prefer that blissful ignorance, of course, until I have to start editing it into something that resembles a logical story,
It was a revelation when I discovered there are two types (possibly more) or writer, pantsers and planners.
I’ve tried both. Both work. But in the case of the latter, you need to know where it’s going to start what’s going to happen in the middle and have the end firmly planted in your mind. Not much good if a rotten character is pissing you off and you want to kill him, excruciatingly.
Flying blind gives you a little more creativeness, and be able to go around a corner and see what’s there. it also allows for those complete changes of direction you come up with in the shower, that place that is a fertile ground for new ideas just when you’re running out of them.
But, it can sometimes play havoc with word counts and if you’re trying to fit into 2,000 words, 5,000 words, or a lot less, taking the story where it wants to go is not a good idea, and sadly, I tend to let stories run their course.
And sometimes I like the idea of writing three different endings, and then can’t choose which one I like the best.
So, role model I am not. I like writing, and when I’m in the ‘zone’ it’s like I’m in another world.
But, then, isn’t that the case for all of us?
More unclarity tomorrow!
Here’s the thing.
I’ve written the story, now I’m editing it after leaving the story for about a year, and it’s coming along.
But…
Yes, there’s always a but in there somewhere.
But, I don’t like the start, or for that matter, I can’t get a feel for it. I have about five different starting points, but none of them feel right.
I’ve been thinking of writing it from John’s perspective, but there are so many peripheral characters that need to be drawn in, people he doesn’t really know much about, or that some have a vested interest in his current girlfriend if she could be called that.
So I thought I’d throw a few words down and see how they sit:
You would not know by looking at MaryAnne that she was probably one of the best assassins in the world. You would be more inclined to consider she was just another spoilt American brat on the loose on holiday.
She was certainly one of the most beautiful women I’d ever met.
And she was certainly one of the most deadly. I could personally attest to that having seen her in action.
I could also attest to the fact that somewhere under that hard, conscienceless exterior, there was a heart, and sometimes it was visible. After all, I was a target, her target, once, and I’m still alive thanks to her.
It was a small detail I omitted when I introduced her to my parents, but that was one little step on a long road that I thought was going somewhere.
Perhaps, after all this time, I’d misinterpreted the signs and I was wrong.
We were sitting on the balcony of our hotel room on the 45th floor of the hotel we were staying at in downtown Surfer’s Paradise, a mecca for holidaymakers from the rest of Australia, and overseas.
It was perfect for tourists.
The champagne was cold, and although it was a hot 35 degrees Celcius out in the sunlight, the mood on the balcony was as decidedly cool as the champagne.
Today was the six month anniversary of the first day we had spent together as, well, I was not sure, now, what we were.
She turned to look at me. She was nothing like the Zoe of old, and I had finally got used to Mary Anne. It was an amazing transformation, but with it, I had thought she had finally shrugged off the Zoe persona.
She hadn’t. That hardened expression that I had hoped would be gone forever, had returned.
“It’s time to go back home, John.”
It was also that tone, the one when she spoke, that sent shivers down my spine, not the good shivers, but the one that told me trouble was ahead. Deadly trouble.
“I need to do something. Don’t get me wrong, this had been a delightful rest, and I could not ask for a better companion, but it’s time. We both knew this was going to happen.”
I noticed her features had softened a little when she mentioned my name, but the message was the same. We had talked about this moment at the outset. There was always going to be a use-by date on this adventure, for me at least.
It was also the time when she would, she said, decide where I would fit, if I fitted, in her future. When we originally spoke about it, she was still unsure of her feelings towards me. Over time, I had also hoped that they would be the same as mine for her.
Perhaps I had been expecting too much.
“When did you decide?”
“About thirty seconds ago. That’s when I realized it doesn’t matter where we are in the world, I still want to be with you. So, how do you like the idea of going into the assassination business?”
I’m not sure what John might think of this development, but I think you will agree with me, so long as he is with Zoe, he’s happy.
© Copyright, Charles Heath 2018
Am I seriously reading my work to a cat, as an aid to correcting errors and grammar
This is Chester, he helps with the proofreading.
It’s not his favorite job, and truth be told he’d rather be outside being chased by a dog. But that’s why he’s not allowed outside.
He mistakenly wanders into my writing room ready to take up a spot on the seat near the window.
I watch him, and he’s pretending not to care if I’m watching him. A wide yawn, and a dour look in my direction. Yes, I can hear him now, “do your worst.”
For a moment while I read, trying to add the right amount of inflection and accent into the voices of the various characters, I realize that some of the conversational pieces seem a little awkward.
I think, judging from the expression on Chester’s face he agrees
Stilted, forced, or ‘mate, you’ve got a bloody awful accent, that sounded nothing like an Italian using English as a second language’.
OK, so I can’t write accents very well. Note to self, find an Italian and spend some time talking to them.
So, the conversation needs a little rework, let’s move on.
The next part is a little descriptive, just to set the scene.
‘Flowery’ is the word Chester uses. Flowery? It isn’t describing a garden. Oh, overly descriptive with too many comparisons.
What’s wrong with the sky is as blue as the ocean?
Have you seen the ocean?
Yes.
I doubt it. The ocean is green.
How do you know, you’ve never seen an ocean? This cat is starting to annoy me.
A gentle shrug, he gets up off the floor and heads towards the door. A condescending look over his shoulder and he’s gone.
What’s the definition of madness? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
It’s official. I’m mad!
