Tag: Challenge

Writing instead of insomnia – 3

Back to the explosion at what was first thought to be at a takeaway.  Certainly, it had been leveled, but so had several other buildings in the near vicinity, but we haven’t got to that part yet.

The boredom of the flight is still giving me an opportunity to explore the opening sequence a little further, where we left our man on the scene under tight police guard.

 

In five minutes, perhaps less, the whole scene had turned into countless vehicles with red and blue flashing lights, screams from the victims, and yelling from the rescuers.

I was still under police guard, but coming from the other side of the scene, a rather battered and bleeding street policeman came running towards us, stopping short of the man standing back, the one I assumed was in charge.

Tell me you’ve got them, he gasped, then looking from the man in charge to me then back again, looking very concerned.

We have.  He looked very calm and pleased with himself.

What? Him? He nodded in my direction. He was blown up in the blast and from what I saw was chasing the real culprits, two men covered in dust, one of whom was carrying a large duffel bag.

This guy was caught running from the scene.

I decided to add my bit to the discussion. Your car drove straight past them. I can’t see how you missed them.

He was starting to look worried. We were given your exact description from an anonymous tip.

The battered policeman bent over and collapsed to the ground. Two of my captors went towards him, but he motioned them away. Of course, you did, by the two men escaping. Get after them, before it’s too late. And free this guy. He’s got nothing to do with the blast.

After removing the cuffs they jumped back in their car and headed back in the direction they came. Too late now, the two men would be long gone.

I went over to the policeman on the ground just as another ambulance pulled up and as the paramedics got out, I motioned to them to come and attend him.

What happened, I asked him

A bank robbery, the clowns used far too much explosive and almost brought the building down on them. Not so lucky for the neighbors.

He was looking around, then stopped, looking at the place where I’d just been held down. I followed his gaze and then saw what he saw. The cuffs were still on the ground where the man who removed them had obviously dropped them.

His expression changed, and for a moment I thought he was going to explode.

What’s wrong.  Obviously, something was but I couldn’t see it.

The cuffs. We haven’t used those for years now. They weren’t real police.

My mind clicked into gear at the same time as he uttered the words.

They were there to help the others escape whilst holding us both up with a phony arrest. I wonder what they would do if they hadn’t been sent after their fellow robbers.

The battered policeman just sighed and lay down on the pavement and let the paramedics work on him.

Only then did we notice he had a piece of an iron bar sticking out of his side.

 

Then, of course, people just don’t happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Or do they?

 

© Charles Heath 2020

The vissictitudes of life

I’m currently sitting in my car waiting to pick the grandchildren up from school wondering where that dream of the glamorous life of an author went.

Can it be said that any author leads a glamorous life, except for maybe J K Rowling, James Patterson and a handful of others?

That dream is of course only a dream. I did not start this writing caper to become rich and famous or live a glamorous life. I started It, and it continues in the same vein, that I have a lot of stories in my head that I want to get on paper.

If anyone else wants to read them, then that’s a bonus. If I happen to make enough money, rather than live high on the hog, an expression my father often used to describe the rich, I would happily invest in programs that get young people reading more.

It also strikes me that it would be difficult to write a literary novel in the vein of Jane Austen or the Bronte sisters, to name a few because modern day life has no real meaning like it did then.

Instant news, instant communications, and the rest of the country, as well as the world, do close, we can go anywhere, and communicate instantly. In the days of classic literature, they survived on periodic letters, and traveling to another part of the same country was very arduous. Just the receipt of a letter could give a chapter, the trip to and the visit to a relative could give several.

But those tales of life were always about people of means, not the ordinary people. Stories that have the minutiae of daily life do not appeal. No one wants to read about their lives, they want to be transported to another world where there is no such inanity like cooking, cleaning, washing and picking up children.

I’m using this time to write another episode or chapter, or, in this case, a blog post.

As any parent will tell you, it is the calm before the storm.

Writing instead of insomnia – 1

There’s nothing like being on an airplane and suddenly getting annoyed.

If it’s not the confined space, it’s generally because most people before a flight are usually stressed or on edge.  At least until the plane takes off.

Then it can be any number of things that can set you off

One might be the propensity for the liquid to spill.  Those tray tables are hardly stable or level at the best of times, and the plastic they serve meals on and pour drinks into, is very slippery and it doesn’t take much to spill.

I know, it just happened to me.

Of course, if its water, you can suffer the cold for as long as it takes to dry, but when it’s beer or wine, then there’s that ever pervading aroma the lingers long after it’s dried.

Yes, I had to spill beer, and yes, it does smell.

Annoyed am I, yes.

But that isn’t the biggest bugbear, that’s bothering me right now.  Its one the affects a lot of air travelers and it’s that 31 inches between seats and the person in front who decides to fully recline their seat, right into your face. 

I mean, it’s not that bad if everyone decides to recline, or it’s not mealtime, but on top of the spill, I’m not going to be in a good mood anytime soon.

So, while I’m at it, the next problem is airline food.  Ok, I get it, I’m in economy and I’m getting what I pay for, but seriously, I’m not really sure what it was I got, other than the rice, and, since we’re leaving Australia and one of our signature fast foods is the humble meat pie, why not one of those, a pleasant reminder of home, or the place you may have visited.

Air New Zealand has the right idea and serves you venison as a menu choice.

I guess bring a Chinese airline we’d be served Chinese food, but a menu describing what it was would be a help instead of being tossed on a slippery plastic tray and dumped in front of you.

Maybe I’m expecting too much from airlines who seem to consider that transporting you from one place to another in a seat that has a modicum of comfort more important than the trimmings.  Well, I guess that what you get for paying a rock bottom fare.

Maybe I could work this into a plotline if I can’t get to sleep.

Our next airline will be Air Canada.  I wonder if moose is on the menu?

 

Is there something wrong?

I asked myself that question when about 1000 odd words into a current short story, one that I continue to go back to, but found an initial reluctance to write, and now seems to be difficult to continue.

Is the reason because I don’t feel like writing, that I’ve written myself into a corner, the story isn’t flowing, or there’s something else I’d rather be doing…

Like, scouring the internet…

Working on writing some blog posts, like this one…

Checking my email…

Checking my other blogs to see how many people have viewed my recent posts,

Or just puddle with anything other than what I should be doing.

The thing is, I know where most of the stories are going, it’s just a matter of sitting down, picking up the threads, and writing. Certainly, I could be working on one or another right now.

But, something is nagging at me.

I thought it was that I wanted to write another Being Inspired piece, having the photo I wanted to use for inspiration in my head. I sat down this morning and started it, and got seven or eight paragraphs done, and then it was time to go down to breakfast.

Attention diverted.

I could have written more after breakfast, but that seemed to segue into a chat over coffee that ran into lunch. It’s odd how it seems there is so much to talk about.

Then it’s been one excuse after another that has kept me from picking up that story and running with it. I could do it now, but that reluctance remains.

Perhaps tomorrow.

For now, I’m going to work on some crosswords and see if that doesn’t inspire me, and if it doesn’t I could always have an early night.

It’s the same every time we go away, on the run all day doing touristy stuff, making notes for later on, on the run, and then getting back to the room exhausted. After all, there is so much to see and do.

Maybe I’ll just reflect on today and worry about it tomorrow, except…

We have an equally hectic day planned.

Maybe I’ll get that holiday from writing after all.

I should be on holiday but…

You would think that going away for a few days, you would be able to drag yourself away from writing.

You would think, after doing it every day for the last six months, it would be time to take a break. But, the trouble with good intentions and being in a different place, there’s a ton of new and different places and things to write about.

We are here primarily for a wedding, with part of it being a Chinese Tea Ceremony, and at course I’ve been reading up on it, and there is any number of descriptions, making it difficult to get a clear idea of what happens.

I guess I’m going to have to wait until the day, next Friday.

In between, there will be a dinner that will have as the centrepiece, Peking duck, my absolute favourite duck dish.

I had it last in Hong Kong two years back before the riots at the restaurant in the Peninsular hotel, and it was exquisite.

Then it’s my brother’s 70th birthday. As he is working feverishly on the family history, and having jetted off many times overseas tracking down the long lost relatives we knew nothing about, it’ll be time for a progress report.

I must admit that some of those relatives have roused my writer’s curiosity. When I helped clear out my parent’s house after they moved into a retirement home, we found a great deal of ancestral material, the most interesting of which is, would you believe, was about my mother.

We have found a whole lot of letters she received from her first boyfriend and then from my father. It shows a side to her I never knew about, and a side to my father that given what I know of him, is totally out of character.

There will no doubt be more on this subject later.

And finally but not least there was a baby announcement, always a subject of much joy and happiness.

This is only day two. There is definitely more to come.

Is social media useful for advertising?

Of course, if I had I might be saying that it was luck

But…

There’s no such thing as luck, there’s simply good management or being in the right place at the right time.

Or you’ve just put a lot of research and hard work into an idea that pays off.

That’s not luck, that’s something else.

I say this because I have never been on the receiving end of good fortune very often, except, as you would expect, as the result of hard work.  And yes, everything appears to conspire against me some days, but I would not call that bad luck.

Timing, quite often, is everything.

So…

I’ve been researching the internet and the world of social media. So many people make claims about how good it is, how bad it is, how they made a fortune, and how, for others, it’s a dud.

Again, it’s about good management, hard work, or being in the right place, etc.

And viral stuff on YouTube, well, if it goes viral with a million hits in fifteen minutes, it means everybody, in that fifteen minutes, was looking for something interesting at that particular moment, and there it was.

It was not luck.

However…

Using either of Facebook or Twitter as a means to advertise, without parting with your hard earned, or more likely, non-existent cash, is not all it’s cracked up to be.

You have 17,000 followers, that means you have at least 17,000 people who are going to see your post.  Or someone else’s if you are thinking of getting people to market their product on the back of your followers, hang on, targeted followers.  If, say, for instance, you’re followers are book orientated, doesn’t that mean…

You get my point.

Wrong.

You’re lucky if 5% of those followers see anything, and that doesn’t increase by putting a lot of different tags on the post.  Twitter itself is restrictive in the number of people it will distribute the post to.

Five per cent, that’s 850 of your followers who may see any one of your posts at the one time.  other people have done vari0ous tests to check just who gets a post and who doesn’t, so it’s not just me who had noted what’s happening.

Then there’s the take-up rate, which Twitter does tell you, in my case, it’s about 2% at it’s lowest, which means the effective number of real peal people looking at my posts with any interest, is about 17.

It can be more, though I’m not sure how the Twitter algorithm for distributing posts works.  I’ve seen other people get thousands of likes and re-tweets.

And, yes, I get it, their posts might be more interesting than mine, and I accept that, but the numbers I’ve been tracking don’t lie.  If more people saw the tweet, the curiosity factor would be higher, and at the very least, the click-through rate would be higher.

That it isn’t can be verified from checking with the number of clicks on the bitly web site for the day, even over a number of days, in the basic statistics they provide their users.

I’m just saying…

All of those people who say they have thousands, sometimes tens of thousands, of followers just waiting for you to advertise with them, cannot deliver any sort of mass advertising you need, and even if they were to pay to advertise with Twitter, they would have to charge very exorbitant prices.

You can do it yourself, but there’s no guarantee your tweet will read by the people you need to buy your book.

It’s what I would call a shot in the dark.

So…

What do we do?

Anyone else done this exercise and come up with different results?  If you have I’d be interested to know what sort of responses you are getting from Twitter, or Facebook, or any other social media platform.

Preferably before I pull all my hair out in frustration!

 

Conversations with my cat – 84

 

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This is Chester.  He is looking out the door at the rain.

After a long spell of heat and humidity that was practically unbearable, we now have rain and cold.

I’m standing at the back door watching the near torrential downpour, and both of us are watching the river of water flowing from the back yard down the side of the house.

Chester looks at me.  Is that the look that’s asking me to let him outside.,

I’m toying with the idea.

He turns his head and looks up at me.  Is that an imploring look to stay in or go out.

The hell with it, I open the door.  If he wants to go out in the rain, that’s his business.

He stands up and turns his head to look at me.

OK, I get it.  When you know I can’t go out, you let me out.  That’s just not right.

What’s stopping you?

You know exactly what the problem is.  Water.  You know I hate water.

That’s every other cat.  A while back you convinced you were not like the other cats.  Fearless, you said, able to take on any challenge.

Open door, it’s an invitation to paradise.

He takes two tentative steps towards freedom.  The rain comes down harder as if someone up there is playing a mean joke on him.

Another step, just about through the door.

The wind blows and we both catch a spray of water.

He jumps and scuttles back inside so fast, and I’m left alone at the door.  I close it again.

We will be discussing invincibility sometime soon, I yell out.  But, he’s gone.

I shrug and go back inside.  I will savor this victory for the next few minutes.

Or for along as he’ll let me.

Writing about writing a book – Day 25

We’ve been given the introduction to who Barry McDougall is, or the man otherwise known as ‘Brainless’, and after three days of trying to get it straight, this is the first rough draft of his start in the story.

 

Barry, whose daring selfless deeds earned him the nickname Brainless because that was the only way to describe the motivation behind them, was one of the regular soldiers, and, for a long time, had been my only true friend.  His was a reputation both friends and foes alike considered awesome.  He’d been in Vietnam, and later just turned up at Davenport’s camp, reporting for duty.

Davenport was more surprised than I was at his arrival, but obviously, after checking his credentials, he was impressed because he let him stay.  And it would be true to say, if he had not, I would not be here now.

So Barry was just the sort of person I needed to help me.

That was the good news.

The bad news was Barry, at the best of times, either on one of his ‘benders’ using drugs or alcohol, whatever was easier to get at the time, lost to everyone, or locked up in a mental institution, having admitted himself.  He had no interest in participating in life, hadn’t worked in years, and often said, in moments when he was at his lowest, that he did not care if he lived or died.  It had not always been that way, but his demons had all but taken him over, and despite the help, I tried to give him, nothing could shake him out of this lethargy.  He said once he envied me that I could not remember the dark days, and, now those memories had returned, I knew what he meant.

For a long time, I could not understand why he didn’t try harder to help himself, and I guess he humored me by accepting the jobs I’d found him, and the help I offered.  I owed him a great deal, but that was probably the one honorable thing about him, he never expected, nor wanted, anything in return.

He tried to make a go of being a police officer and lasted several years before he resigned over an incident that didn’t reach the papers.  There was, he said, no place for heroics in modern society.  I hadn’t got to the bottom of it, but I heard he shot some thieves at a time when the police were trying to promote a pacifist image.

He tried a few other occupations with an equal lack of success, so now he survived on whatever money I gave him.  He lived on the street, and when he was not there, I knew he could be found in a bar, in one of the more seedier parts of the city, a ubiquitous underground bar called Jackson’s, named after a man who had a salubrious reputation that hovered between load shark and saint, and who was reputed to be buried under the storeroom floor.  The present owner, or what I assumed to be the owner, was a large, gruff, ex-prizefighter, who had the proverbial heart of gold, most of the time, and who took my money and looked after Barry without making it look like he was.

I’d called the bartender in advance, and he said he was in his usual spot, and that it was at the start of the next cycle, having just discharged himself from the hospital after a bout of pneumonia.  It was, he said, getting worse, and taking longer to recover.

It was probably only a matter of time before it took him, so perhaps this time I would have to try harder to convince him to give up his nomadic lifestyle.

When I walked in, the aroma of spilled beer, stale sweat, and vomit, mingled with the industrial-strength carbolic cleaner almost took my breath away.  In the corner, two construction workers were sitting, quietly smoking and drinking large glasses of beer.  In the other, Barry was being held up by the table, an untouched double scotch sitting in front of him.  Sitting at the bar was a woman of indeterminate age, badly made up, and thin to the point of emaciation.  I was not sure what she was drinking, or what it was she was smoking, but I could smell it from the front doorway.

The bartender, Ogilvy, no first name given, was pretending to polish glasses, standing at the end of the bar, looking at the television, playing some daytime soap.  He didn’t look over when I came in, but I knew he didn’t miss anything.  I saw him flick a glance at Barry, and then shake his head.  I think he cared as much about Barry as I did, but could recognize the sadness within him.  As much as Ogilvy said, which wasn’t much, he too had seen service in Vietnam, and it had affected him too.

I ordered an orange juice, caught the glances from the construction workers, and a steely look from the woman then went over to Barry’s table and sat down.  Despite the loud scraping noise when I moved the chair, or the creaking as I sat in it, Barry didn’t move.

Whilst the bar had that seedy aroma, Barry was showing the signs of having spent time on the street.  It was one of the disadvantages of having no permanent residence and though there was a shower at the bar which Ogilvy let Barry use from time to time, he obviously hadn’t for a few days.

 

Getting all of this background in shape is hard work, and having toiled long and hard, tomorrow I’ll have a go at getting Barry back.

© Charles Heath 2016-2020

 

 

Yet another story bubbles to the surface…

I write about spies, washed out, worn out or thrown out.

It’s another idea, and another lot of scribbling to go in the ‘when I’m at a loss for a new story’ book.

The first sentence of a novel is always the hardest. Like I guess many others, I sit and ponder what I’m going to write, whether it will be relevant, whether it will pull the reader into my world, and cause them to read on.

And that’s the objective, to capture the reader’s imagination and want to see what’s going to happen next.

The problem is, we have to set the scene.

Or do we?

Do we need to cover the who, what, where, and when criteria in that first sentence? Can we just start with the edge of the seat suspense, like,

 

The first bullet hit the concrete wall about six inches above my head with a resounding thwack that scared the living daylights out of me. The second, sent on its way within a fraction of a second of the first found its mark, the edge of my shoulder, slicing through the material, and creasing skin and flesh. There was blood and then panic.

Milliseconds later my brain registered the near-miss and sent the instruction: get down you idiot.

I hit the ground just as another bullet slammed into the concrete where my head had just been.

 

It can use some more work, fewer commas, perhaps shorter, sharper sentences to convey the urgency and danger.

Perhaps we could paint a picture of the main character.

He tentatively has the name of Jackson Galworthy. He has always aspired to be a ‘secret agent’ or ‘spy’ and but through luck more than anything else, he was given his opportunity. The problem is he failed his first test and failure means washing out of the program.

What had ‘they’ said? When the shit hits the fan, you need to be calm, cool and collected. He’d been anything but.

Maybe we’ll flesh the character out as we go along.

OK, I just had another thought for an opening,

 

Light snow was still falling, past the stage where each flake dissolved as it hit the ground, and now starting to gather in white patches.

It was cold, very cold, and even with the three layers I still shivered.

What surprised me was the silence, but, of course, it was a graveyard beside an ancient church, and everyone who had attended the funeral service had left.

It was a short service for the few that came and a shorter burial. No one seemed keen to hang around, not with the evening darkness and the snow setting in.

I stood, not far from the filled grave looking at it, but not looking at it. Was I expecting it’s occupant to rise again? Was I expecting forgiveness? I certainly didn’t deserve it.

The truth is, I was responsible for this person’s death, making a mistake a more seasoned professional might not, and the reason why I was shown the door. I had been given very simple instructions; protect this man at all costs.

It was going to be a simple extraction, go in, get the target, and get out before anyone noticed.

A pity then I was the only one who got that memo.

 

Any thoughts?

Past conversations with my cat – 45

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This is Chester.  We’ve been getting quite a few scam calls lately.

Like today, the caller said they were a technician from Telstra, our leading telecommunications company in this country.

The scammers think that most if not all people are with Telstra.  The problem is, it’s a lot less than they think.

Hence getting the phone slammed down in their ear, because nearly everyone knows they’re scammers.

So, Chester gives me the death stare after today’s effort.  it’s not the first time, and the banging noise startles him if he’s asleep.

That’s enough yelling and banging the phone, he says.

Then you answer the phone and sort them out.

You know I can’t do that.

Well, you should I say.  They always ask for the owner of the house, and that’s you isn’t it?

No, I just live here.

I snort this time.

I make your bed, get you foot, clean the little, put up with your cantankerous ways.  If you’re going to behave like that, then you have to start taking responsibility.

He gives me that condescending look reserved for the servants.

The phone rings.

Funny, Chester just disappeared.