Whilst I found this tree house to be interesting, it seems to be far from practical because there was little to keep the wind and rain out, though I suppose, in the book, that might not be such a problem.
Be that as it may, and if it was relatively waterproof, then the furnishings would probably survive, and one had to also assume that much of the furnishings, such as the writing desk below, would have washed up as debris from the shipwreck.
The stove and oven would have to be built by hand, and it is ‘remarkable’ such well-fitting stones were available. It doesn’t look like it’s been used for a while judging by the amount of gree on it. Perhaps it is not in a waterproof area.
The dining table and the shelf in the background have that rough-hewn look about them
A bit of man-made equipment here for drawing water from the stream
And though not made in the era of electricity, there is an opportunity to use the water wheel to do more than it appears to be doing
And tucked away in a corner the all-important study where one can read, or play a little music on the organ. One could say, for the period, one had all the comforts of home.
It could be said that of all the women one could meet, whether contrived or by sheer luck, what are the odds it would turn out to be the woman who was being paid a very large sum to kill you.
John Pennington is a man who may be lucky in business, but not so lucky in love. He has just broken up with Phillipa Sternhaven, the woman he thought was the one, but relatives and circumstances, and perhaps because she was a ‘princess’, may also have contributed to the end result.
So, what do you do when you are heartbroken?
That is a story that slowly unfolds, from the first meeting with his nemesis on Lake Geneva, all the way to a hotel room in Sorrento, where he learns the shattering truth.
What should have been a high turns out to be something else entirely, and from that point every thing goes to hell in a handbasket.
He suddenly realises his so-called friend Sebastian has not exactly told him the truth about a small job he asked him to do, the woman he is falling in love with is not quite who she says she is, and he is caught in the middle of a war between two men who consider people becoming collateral damage as part of their business.
The story paints the characters cleverly displaying all their flaws and weaknesses. The locations add to the story at times taking me back down memory lane, especially to Venice where in those back streets I confess it’s not all that hard to get lost.
All in all a thoroughly entertaining story with, for once, a satisfying end.
This is not a treatise, but a tongue in cheek, discussion on how to write short stories. Suffice to say this is not the definitive way of doing it, just mine. It works for me – it might not work for you.
…
You’ve got the place, now you want the who.
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. When that happens, 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. I once spent and afternoon at a railway station just observing people. Even now, I make observations, some of which are true, and others, wildly off course.
I once tried to convince my other half that I could pick people’s traits, and we sat at a café outside a church in Venice. I was lucky, I got more than 75% correct.
Other characters in my stories I have met along the way.
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.
For a story that was conceived during those long boring hours flying in a steel cocoon, striving to keep away the thoughts that the plane and everyone in it could just simply disappear as planes have in the past, it has come a long way.
Whilst I have always had a fascination with what happened during the second world war, not the battles or fighting, but in the more obscure events that took place, I decided to pen my own little sidebar to what was a long and bitter war.
And, so, it continues…
…
Leonardo was a fool, not that any of those who followed him would say that to his face, but all of them knew it and accepted that he made the best leader.
The reason for that, they all knew if anything went wrong, then the leader would be the first to be held accountable.
They all also knew that what Leonardo had done to Martina and Chiara, and the cold-blooded murder of the villagers, justifying it by saying they were collaborators, was also wrong, and had refused to take part in it.
Leonardo just thought they didn’t have the stomach to do what was necessary, failing to realize he was committing a crime, war or not.
Alberto, arguably the next man to take over the resistance group if anything happened to Leonardo, was nominally second in command and was there because he had the respect of the men, far more than their current leader.
He was the one who suspected there was something wrong at the castle, that the British soldiers there were not quite doing what they said they were there for. He had seen, even directed, Germans seeking sanctuary in England in exchange for information, come, but not go. Not like they did in the beginning.
And that man called Atherton, the one who arrived just before the paratroopers, he was British, and they had captured him. The talk was that he was a German collaborator, but Alberto wasn’t convinced.
But, not having the full allegiance of all the resistance fighters, he could not say anything or try to organize the men to be more careful in their approach to those at the castle. Leonardo still held sway with them.
For now.
.
The Italians had their own section of the cells in the dungeons where they stayed, Leonardo, deeming it not safe in the village. Alberto agreed because he had made several forays down there, only to discover that Leonardo would be shot on sight if he showed his face there again. Some resistance they made, he thought, where they didn’t have the confidence of their own people.
Leonardo was up supping with the devil, as Alberto had been known to say, put of Leonardo’s earshot, and several of the men were resting. The others, more loyal to Leonardo were in the cellar cell drinking their way through the wine stock and were most likely drunk and passed out.
Alberto didn’t care for the vintage, a subject that he was well versed in because before the war he had worked for the family of winemakers. The wines stored, he had recognized when they’d first discovered them, as being of inferior quality, and had been left there rather than throwing it away. Leonardo would not have known the difference.
“Something is not right.” A voice from the corner, belonging to a man named Bolini, broke his reverie. The truth was, he was tired and wished it were all done with.
“What makes you say that?” He asked.
“Killing the villagers. What did they do wrong, other than just trying to survive? It’s what we’re all trying to do. It’s not our war.”
“You know what it’s like, stuck in the middle. It’s a bit like the in-laws. You don’t want them, but you’re stuck with them.”
“In-laws. Don’t get me started.” The other, a man named Christo, weighed in.
“You do realize we may be held accountable for what happened back at the village,” Bolini had obviously been thinking about the repercussions.
“We brought the only witnesses here, and they sure as hell aren’t going to last long. Not after what Leonardo did to them.”
“That’s possible, but we all know what happened.”
“But there are others outside who also know what happened, and if we want to keep out of trouble, we are going to have to take care of them,” Bolini said.
Alberto hadn’t quite got through considering the ramifications of what Fernando just did, and the fact they’d helped him. Bolini was right, even if they hadn’t been as reckless, they were still going to be tarred with the same brush.
And Atherton was still out there.
The trouble with trying to clean up a mess is that eventually there’s a bigger mess to deal with. Maybe it was time to get rid of Fernando.
The man called Wallace, the one who seemed to be in charge, came around the corner and stopped when he saw Alberto.
“Where’s your leader?”
Alberto pointed his head in the direction of the wine cellar.
Wallace shook his head, knowing what that meant. “Tell him he’s got another pickup. Two hours in the village. A family, with two children. Tell him to sober up, and if he doesn’t in time, you have my permission to shoot him.”
Surely the man wasn’t serious.
“Well, what are you sitting around for? Get moving.”
Wallace cast a disapproving glance over the three, shook his head again, and left.
When we arrive at the embarkation site we find at least 100 buses all lined up and parked, and literally thousands of Chinese and other Asians streaming through the turnstiles to get on another boat leaving earlier than ours.
Buses were just literally arriving one after the other stopping near where we were standing with a dozen or so other groups waiting patiently, and with people were everywhere it could only be described as organized chaos.
Someone obviously knew where everyone was supposed to go, and when it was our turn, we joined the queue. There were a lot of people in front of us, and a lot more behind, so I had to wonder just how big the boat was.
We soon found out.
And it was amusing to watch people running, yes, they were actually running, to get to the third level, or found available seating. Being around the first to board, we had no trouble finding a seat on the second level.
I was not quite sure what the name of the boat was, but it had 3 decks and VIP rooms and it was huge, with marble staircases, the sort you could make a grand entrance on. The last such ornate marble staircase we had seen was in a hotel in Hong Kong, and that was some staircase.
But who has marble staircases in a boat?
We’re going out across the water as far as the Bund and then turn around and come back about 30 to 40 minutes. By the time everyone was on board, there was no room left on the third level, no seats on the second level nor standing room at the end of the second level where the stairs up to the third level were.
No one wanted to pay the extra to go into the VIP lounge.
We were sitting by very large windows where it was warm enough watching the steady procession of the colored lights of other vessels, and outside the buildings.
It was quite spectacular, as were some of the other boats going out on the harbor.
All the buildings of the Bund were lit up
And along that part of the Bund was a number of old English style buildings made from sandstone, and very impressive to say the least.
On the other side of the harbour were the more modern buildings, including the communications tower, a rather impressive structure.
I had to go to the rear of the vessel to get a photo, a very difficult proposition given here was no space on the railing, not even on the stairs going up or down. It was just luck I managed to get some photos between passengers heads.
And, another view of that communications tower:
There was no doubt this was one of the most colourful night-time boat tours I’ve ever been on. Certainly, when we saw the same buildings the following day, they were not half as spectacular in daylight.
I never did get up to the third level to see what the view was like.
People just don’t like rain. All I ever hear is complaints because they want to go away camping, they want to go shopping, or they have to go to children’s sports.
Not, of course, because they can’t mow the lawn!
And that pesky rain, well, it just makes everything more difficult. Mud and dirt get trampled inside, the washing can’t be hung out to dry, it causes floods, it stops games being played, well, sometimes. The pitch would have to be six feet under water before that happens.
But…
Let’s think about the rain for a moment.
What if we didn’t get any rain?
There would be a drought. There might not be any water. Everything outside that needed water to survive, the sort of water rain provides, would die. Then we’d have no flowers, no trees, no grass, oh, quite possibly no food, or oxygen.
A bit radical don’t you think, no food, no water, and no oxygen?
Hey, wouldn’t that be an interesting premise for an apocalyptic novel?
Usually, in a post-apocalyptic world, there’s still rain, water, and oxygen, you’d p[robably have to fight for food, but no one seems to go down that unthinkable path of losing everything.
Seems that happened around the time of the dinosaurs, when that comet hit the earth, blotted out the sun, and everything died, well, nearly everything. It’s what I think is called an Earth Life Extinction Event.
Some say the same might happen if we have a nuclear holocaust, say America and Russia deciding to launch nuclear weapons on each other for some insane reason, knowing full well they would be condemning the whole world to a terrible end.
Nearly happened, I’m guessing. That would make a good story. Hang on, it’s been done before, a dozen or more times, and usually saved by a single man or woman whose actions never reach the ears of what would be a grateful public.
We’re a long way from simply wishing the rain to go away and come again some other day, aren’t we?
Let’s let someone else worry about the big picture.
And let’s not start thinking about post-apocalyptic novels that could get scarily real one day.
Sigh! Only three more months of winter to endure, and it’ll be spring again.
How often do we make a judgment call simply on what we see?
I knew what I saw, and it looked exactly like a situation that, if you asked any ten others who witnessed it, they would agree with me.
And then there would always be one that wouldn’t.
The prosecution had made a very good case, the defense counsel had woven a brilliant tale from start to finish, and he delivered in an almost persuading tone, with the subliminal message, the defendant was not guilty.
I felt sorry for the prosecution because his delivery had been halting, filled with ums and ers and in the end, everyone, from the judge down, wanted it to end.
As for the jury, it was an odd assortment of characters, a lawyer, a builder, a plumber, a housewife, two sales staff, two clerks, a janitor, two retirees, and a motor mechanic. I thought it would be the lawyer who would be the problem.
The trial had lasted 22 days, and over that time I noticed that groups would form, and discuss aspects of the case, each of the groups forming a different opinion. Sometimes, the dynamics of the groups changed as more evidence and testimony was revealed.
But, I think on those first few days, opinions were made, and judgment was passed.
In my opinion, based on looking at the defendant, it could be said that she didn’t look like a murderer, nor did she seem capable of committing such a heinous act. Having said that, as a throwaway first assumption, the lawyer nixed it in a second. Knowing something of how these trials worked, he said there would have been a lot of careful grooming, dress down, but not to drab, look demure, not aggressive, and speak in a modulated tone, like everyday conversation.
In other words, he was basically telling us she was giving an academy award performance.
I certainly looked at her in a different light after that, but the fact remained, for some of us, that initial assessment said not guilty.
A few days before we had to deliberate, a very damning piece of video was tendered and we all watched as the defendant was shown talking to her alleged accomplice, the victim’s current girlfriend, and passing an enveloped which the defense claimed was the payoff for helping her dispose of her husband.
It seemed odd to me that someone had known she would be in that bar, perfectly placed under the CCTV camera, both women so easily recognizable. Of course, the woman in question could not be found, and the inference was that she might also be one of the defendant’s victims.
Several people were called by the defense to assert a line of defense that the husband was a cruel man, who had treated his wife very badly indeed, to the extent her best friend remarked that she had turned up for work on several occasions with the results of what looked like a beating, and another, an ER nurse, had confirmed the defendant had visited the hospital on several occasions with lacerations consistent with what was considered spousal abuse.
Those photographs were quite confronting, but a question had to be asked, why had she not gone to the police with that evidence and let them deal with the husband.
The fact she hadn’t was one weakness in her defense. The thing there was why the defense introduced such testimony because, to me, it confused the issue by pushing the jury into thinking she had killed him, but in mitigating circumstances. Was she looking for a verdict of justifiable homicide?
From day two, after the lawyer had told us about how lawyers schooled their clients, I watched her carefully, when sitting beside her lawyer, or when on the stand. There were interesting actions she made when certain events occurred, like brushing a stray lock of hair back behind her ear, like teasing it out with a slight shake of the head, in a subtle but obvious show of displeasure. Like smoothing out the invisible wrinkles in her clothes, perfectly fitting and obviously made for her, but understated in a sense that she would stand out in a crown but not ostentatiously so. It was almost a ritual when she came in at the start, and when she took the stand, preparing herself.
Perfectionist, maybe. Or trying to convey a certain picture. Certainly, in the early days before the trial began, the media had a field day with the case, whipped into an even bigger frenzy when the police finally arrested the wife for the murder of her husband. Almost all of them said he had it coming, with page after page of revelations about a man who could not have done half the things he was accused of.
The trial by newspaper done, I suspect it was hard to find 12 unbiased men and women who could be trusted to make the right decision. I knew 100 would be jurors had been called up.
Now, in the jury room for the third day, trying to reach a verdict, it was the lawyer trying to wrap it up. He had a job to go back to. So did everyone else, for that matter.
“So, in essence, we are all agreed, that she is not guilty.”
It had been an interesting change in his position on the morning of day three of our deliberation. Before that, he wanted to hang her from the nearest yardarm. Interestingly enough, that morning, after he had given us his reasons for changing his mind, it would have been unanimous, and over.
The thing is, I didn’t like the way he changed sides so easily or for the reasons he spoke of.
So, in that vote, I changed my decision to guilty, and watch a group of people who had been friendly suddenly become enemies.
But at that moment, that other ten didn’t interest me, it was the expression on the lawyer’s face. He hadn’t expected the vote to go that way. It was like he had been goading everyone into voting not guilty and weathering the storm because of his stance. Had it been staged, had we been led down this path, and then all of a sudden, the verdict he wanted being reached?
I had to find out.
I watched the eleven raise their hands to vote not guilty. I did not. And immediately felt the looks of every one of those eleven on me.
“Why?” he asked.
By this time he had taken the lead, and the others had let him. Now I suspect they would let him do the talking.
“You’ve got it all wrong. The reasons are the same. There are two sides to that tale you came up with this morning. The problem I have is from being adamant she was guilty, and as you said, without a shadow of a doubt, now all of a sudden you’re having doubts.”
“So, you don’t think she’s guilty, you’re just voting that way because you suspect my motives?”
“What I think is irrelevant right now. You need to convince me that you truly think she’s not guilty. What is it you saw, or heard, or know that changed your mind. It certainly had nothing to do with that so-called video in the bar being staged. It has nothing to do with the fact they can’t find that woman so they can either verify or dispel the accusations being made she was an accomplice. It had nothing to do with the fact you think she might have been goaded into it and was left with no other option. In that case, it might well be a case of manslaughter rather than murder. Is that what you’re trying to suggest?”
“I think given the evidence, or lack of concrete evidence against her, she is not guilty.”
“But given everything you have said, it seems to me you think she had some crime to answer for.”
“Hasn’t she suffered enough?”
“That might well be the case, but it doesn’t give you an excuse to murder., and there’s certainly no forensic evidence that she was defending herself against an attack at the time. She should have taken her case to the police and have it investigated. She chose not to, for reasons that were never fully explained.”
“And didn’t we hear that the husband had links to various police that might have made such an investigation a waste of time. This was a woman trapped in a bad situation with no way out.”
It was a long way from where we, as jurors, were at the beginning of our deliberations. The first vote at the end of the first day was four voted not guilty and eight voted guilty. In the following days, a lot of arguments changed the decisions of those seven to vote not guilty, when they believed, in their own minds the defendant was guilty.
In my mind, the first instinct was usually correct. Over time that decision was only changed because of expediency, not necessarily for the right reasons. My first instinct was that she was, in fact, not guilty for all the reasons the lawyer cited.
“Look,” he said. “We’ve been here for three days. It’s an open and shut case. Let’s vote.”
We did with the same result. Eleven for not guilty and one against.
A hung jury. I wasn’t going to be moved on my position, and so it went back to the court. It was declared a mistrial and the defendant was returned to custody and a new trial was to be scheduled.
I was reading the paper’s version of events, and speculation on the result. Several of the jurors had featured in the discussion, but none were willing to talk about the result or who was responsible for the hung jury, only that one juror had not agreed with the majority. In some states, it was argued, it only required a majority, but in this and other states, quite rightly, it needed a unanimous decision to confer the death sentence.
Justice, it seemed to the writer of the piece, had prevailed.
They also believed that the plight of women trapped in marriages to violent men was a matter that should be looked at and that such women should be treated better in the eyes of the law. It was not a position that I disagreed with. What I disagreed with was the notion of jury tampering.
It was, apparently, the fifth time that a case such as this had a similar track record, that the deliberations of the jury had swung from an initial guilty verdict to not guilty at the hands of a single juror. In each of the five cases, the circumstances were similar, the wife had endured violence by her husband, and then, in odd circumstances, the husband had finished up dead.
Someone had discerned a pattern, and this had been a test case. In each of the other four cases, a not guilty verdict had been handed down by a jury that had also started with a majority guilty verdict, only to be worn down by a single juror with an agenda. To get the defendant a not guilty verdict.
My job was to find out which juror it was that was there to change minds. Then it was a case of finding links between him and four other jurors who were equally instrumental in obtaining a not guilty verdict. In each of the five cases, there was irrefutable evidence that the defendant was, in fact, guilty of the charge, and the expectation was the legal system would prosecute them.
And then, in each of the cases, a weak prosecutor was selected, and a particular juror was selected by that prosecutor. From there, the trail led back to a particular assistant District Attorney who had overseen each of the five cases. The fact was, justice was not served, and four out of the five defendants had escaped justice.
For a story that was conceived during those long boring hours flying in a steel cocoon, striving to keep away the thoughts that the plane and everyone in it could just simply disappear as planes have in the past, it has come a long way.
Whilst I have always had a fascination with what happened during the second world war, not the battles or fighting, but in the more obscure events that took place, I decided to pen my own little sidebar to what was a long and bitter war.
And, so, it continues…
…
It didn’t surprise Johannesen there were about twenty prisoners down in the dungeons, though he was surprised to find that the dungeon area was quite large, and in several sections. The fact they smelled of wine told him that once, the cells were used at storage areas for bottles of wine.
Several of the cells that were furthest from the downstairs entrance, and recently boarded over caused several overzealous resistance fighters of Leonardo’s to start smashing walls looking for it.
Johannsen tried not to think about Leonardo. He was the very worst of men, a pig even by German standards.
Martina had been put in a cell not far from Leonardo’s wine cache. There was purpose in that, he could get drunk and then take it out of the woman who had made him look stupid. Come to think of it, he thought, it wouldn’t be too hard for a ten-year-old to do that.
The cell door was locked, but Johannsen had a key. He had meticulously gone through all the keyrings and loose keys that had been found and those that didn’t have an immediate use had been stored in the dungeon guardroom.
Matching keys to locks had been one of his secret tasks, under the disguise of being given the job by Wallace to match keys to locks for them. There were a few short in the end, keys to rooms, and cells that seem to serve no purpose. One had become Johannessen’s hideaway.
It was part of a plan he had been formulating, one where he could take prisoners and hide them. Of course, it wouldn’t work for the moment because the prisoners had to be moved on as soon as possible, and staying in the castle, even if the others didn’t know where they were, would invite a microscopic search. It would need Atherton’s knowledge of the castle, and whether there was another escape route they could use.
It was another of his works in progress, one that was highly likely to fail.
He stood back from the door and looked at the crumpled heap on the floor that was once the leader of the resistance. Leonardo had interrogated her before bringing her back, half-dead, to the castle, and in doing so had made it impossible for anyone to interrogate her further. Had that been the reason why Leonardo had bashed her senseless?
He saw a hand move by her side, and a low groan.
He spoke quietly, in English, “Are you able to come closer to the door?” He knelt down, trying to get a better look at her injuries. Abrasions, and bruising. Swollen eyes, possible broken nose, blood spatter everywhere on her clothing which remarkably was relatively intact. He had suspected Leonardo of doing a lot worse and may still have.
She lifted her head slightly, “Who are you?”
“I could be a friend.”
She laughed, then coughed, and blood came out of her mouth. Broken ribs possibly, and a punctured lung. She might be too injured to move.
“There are no friends in this place, just Tedeschi.” She lowered her head and closed her eyes. Her breathing was irregular and shallow. Definitely broken ribs, he thought. And not likely to survive another interrogation. Not if Jackerby was going to conduct it.
“I’d like to help you if I can.”
“Everyone in here, we’re beyond help. You know that because you’re one of them.”
“Some of us care what happens to people.”
She pushed hard to move around slightly to face him, laying her head on the side to face him. “Which one are you?”
“Johannsen.”
“Yes, Johannesen. Atherton mentioned you. As untrustworthy as the rest. But for me, I’m all but dead, but I’ll humor you. Get me out of here and away from that bastardo Leonardo, and I might believe you.”
Atherton. This might be an opportunity to find out how he could get in contact with him, knowing of course, she wasn’t going to tell him where Atherton was.
“If you want to get away from here, we need Atherton. He’s the only one who knows this place inside out.”
He could see her shaking her head, as painful as that might be.
“He’s not.”
“Then is there anyone who does?”
“There is.”
“Who?”
Again she laughed and it sounded like the death rattle of her last breath. “You think I’m that far gone that I would tell you anything?”
“If you want to escape, I can only get you so far.”
“There is no escape. Believe me. If there was, I would be gone. Save your trickery and lies for someone who might be gullible enough to believe you. I’m quite prepared to die, the fact I’ve lived this long is what some would call a miracle.”
With that she turned away, coughed, and went silent. She wasn’t dead, but death wasn’t far away.
When Johannesen reluctantly left the cell, he only made it to the turn towards the steps up when he ran into Jackerby.
Had Jackerby been somewhere near and overheard their conversation.
“You have a rather interesting interrogation technique,” Jackerby said.
Johannesen groaned inwardly. He had heard.
“Sometimes it’s better to try and infuse hope in the subject rather than resignation. I was trying to get her to tell me where Atherton is.”
“And did she?”
“What do you think. After what Leonardo did, she’s not likely to tell us anything. I’m sure if we had taken a different approach…”
“Yes, softly softly. Doesn’t work. Just leave the heavy lifting to us, and don’t bother coming down to revisit the prisoners. Otherwise, I might believe you really are trying to help them escape.”
One can never quite predict when a story might be done, where the line in the sand has been drawn, and that’s it, stop tinkering.
Finally, I’ve drawn that line in the sand.
But are we ever satisfied the story is done, can we not make one more change, it’s just a little tweak, it won’t take long.
Please!
My editor tolerated three ‘minor’ changes.
Firstly, a change of name for a character
Secondly, consistency of word use, such as times and contractions
Thirdly, I wasn’t happy with the overall story, and it needed some more action
It took three weeks to sort out all of those issues, and last night I send the final draft to the Editor.
It’s like watching your child go to school of their first day. Not knowing what will happen but expecting everything will be fine.
This morning I sat in front of the computer, a blank sheet of paper on the screen. I know it’s not a matter of starting the next story from scratch; I have so many started and finished, sitting in the wings to be ‘tinkered with’.
Of course, literally, that might mean I’m standing at the top of a craggy cliff looking down at a bed of rocks.
One that would hurt a lot if I landed there.
But there are many ideas of what that precipice might be, metaphorically.
It might mean, in an argument, you’re about to say something you’ll regret or can’t take back.
It might mean you are one action away from turning your parent. or someone else, into a green-eyed monster, and do something you thought you’d never do.
Pushing them to the precipice.
It might mean you are one thought or idea away from solving a problem.
Like the title of your next book.
Or the formula to create a warp drive.
Or perhaps a simpler problem like where the money is coming from to pay next weeks bills.
My precipice?
The next plotline for my current NaNoWriMo project.
And, no, I’m not usually one of these writers who plan the whole novel before writing it.
But ideas like this, they just happen.
I usually write my stories in the same manner it would be for the reader, not knowing what will happen next, but it’s hard not to.
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 