This book has been written for some time and the manuscript was sitting in a box with half a dozen others gathering dust and not quite as complete, so this month it is going to get the makeover, a first draft for the editor.
And so it begins…
…
All’s well if it ends well
…
Three days to go, so much to do.
Although I’ve reached nearly 62,000 words, much longer than the original 50,000 word target I have not finished the novel, and the plot changes are causing a little consternation.
I know now how it is going to end, but it’s getting there, in three days that’s the problem.
So, back and forth I go, laying the groundwork in the earlier chapters and I now have only one more piece to fix, the words on the document that set the series of events in motion.
Novel writing is exhausting.
The editor’s draft is not going to be the horrible mess covered in post-it notes like the first draft, but after all is said and done it will be a novel that was revised and a lot more coherent in 30 days, a remarkable achievement.
This book has been written for some time and the manuscript was sitting in a box with half a dozen others gathering dust and not quite as complete, so this month it is going to get the makeover, a first draft for the editor.
And so it begins…
…
Something had to change
…
And that, my friends, is the words on the document.
When I conceived the original story, the words were quite simple, a memo from one man to another, words that should not be committed to paper.
Ah, yes, the dreaded paper trail.
Those words were adequate at the time, but now, with developments in the story and a shift or two in the plotline, it’s time to change those words.
They need to be damaging enough to kill a lot of people in the line of making both the words and the document they appear on, disappear forever.
And here’s the thing…
No one ever counted on the fact deleting on a computer is not deleting.
This book has been written for some time and the manuscript was sitting in a box with half a dozen others gathering dust and not quite as complete, so this month it is going to get the makeover, a first draft for the editor.
And so it begins…
…
The end is nigh, for someone!
…
For all those people out there who think the end of the world is coming, it is not.
For all those people out there who think my story is getting to the end, I really hope so.
I’m writing three separate chapters, each a little at a time, trying to dovetail the sequence of events that will lead to the unmasking of the murderer and finding the whereabouts of 30-odd missing persons.
What had begun as a simple quest has turned into a convoluted tale of lies, distortions, and people whose propensity for being something other than who they appear, had muddied the waters,.
Yep, everything you’d expect in a completely unexpected ending.
50 photographs, 50 stories, of which there is one of the 50 below.
They all start with –
A picture paints … well, as many words as you like. For instance:
And the story:
It was once said that a desperate man has everything to lose.
The man I was chasing was desperate, but I, on the other hand, was more desperate to catch him.
He’d left a trail of dead people from one end of the island to the other.
The team had put in a lot of effort to locate him, and now his capture was imminent. We were following the car he was in, from a discrete distance, and, at the appropriate time, we would catch up, pull him over, and make the arrest.
There was nowhere for him to go.
The road led to a dead-end, and the only way off the mountain was back down the road were now on. Which was why I was somewhat surprised when we discovered where he was.
Where was he going?
“Damn,” I heard Alan mutter. He was driving, being careful not to get too close, but not far enough away to lose sight of him.
“What?”
“I think he’s made us.”
“How?”
“Dumb bad luck, I’m guessing. Or he expected we’d follow him up the mountain. He’s just sped up.”
“How far away?”
“A half-mile. We should see him higher up when we turn the next corner.”
It took an eternity to get there, and when we did, Alan was right, only he was further on than we thought.”
“Step on it. Let’s catch him up before he gets to the top.”
Easy to say, not so easy to do. The road was treacherous, and in places just gravel, and there were no guard rails to stop a three thousand footfall down the mountainside.
Good thing then I had the foresight to have three agents on the hill for just such a scenario.
Ten minutes later, we were in sight of the car, still moving quickly, but we were going slightly faster. We’d catch up just short of the summit car park.
Or so we thought.
Coming quickly around another corner we almost slammed into the car we’d been chasing.
“What the hell…” Aland muttered.
I was out of the car, and over to see if he was in it, but I knew that it was only a slender possibility. The car was empty, and no indication where he went.
Certainly not up the road. It was relatively straightforward for the next mile, at which we would have reached the summit. Up the mountainside from here, or down.
I looked up. Nothing.
Alan yelled out, “He’s not going down, not that I can see, but if he did, there’s hardly a foothold and that’s a long fall.”
Then where did he go?
Then a man looking very much like our quarry came out from behind a rock embedded just a short distance up the hill.
“Sorry,” he said quite calmly. “Had to go if you know what I mean.”
I’d lost him.
It was as simple as that.
I had been led a merry chase up the hill, and all the time he was getting away in a different direction.
I’d fallen for the oldest trick in the book, letting my desperation blind me to the disguise that anyone else would see through in an instant.
It was a lonely sight, looking down that road, knowing that I had to go all that way down again, only this time, without having to throw caution to the wind.
This book has been written for some time and the manuscript was sitting in a box with half a dozen others gathering dust and not quite as complete, so this month it is going to get the makeover, a first draft for the editor.
And so it begins…
…
The end is nigh, for someone!
…
For all those people out there who think the end of the world is coming, it is not.
For all those people out there who think my story is getting to the end, I really hope so.
I’m writing three separate chapters, each a little at a time, trying to dovetail the sequence of events that will lead to the unmasking of the murderer and finding the whereabouts of 30-odd missing persons.
What had begun as a simple quest has turned into a convoluted tale of lies, distortions, and people whose propensity for being something other than who they appear, had muddied the waters,.
Yep, everything you’d expect in a completely unexpected ending.
This book has been written for some time and the manuscript was sitting in a box with half a dozen others gathering dust and not quite as complete, so this month it is going to get the makeover, a first draft for the editor.
And so it begins…
…
Sanity, if nothing else, returns
…
Got the 50,000 words, 51,540 to be exact, but the story is not done yet.
Hasty revisions, adding more words, taking out some others, it’s a long and difficult day, with the yellow post-it note collection growing exponentially.
Where would we be without them, endless scraps of paper strewn over an already cluttered desk?
All it would take was one enthusiastic cleaning lady, and it would become an ‘oh-my-god’ moment.
The end, however, is becoming clearer, and I’m working towards it from three different angles.
This book has been written for some time and the manuscript was sitting in a box with half a dozen others gathering dust and not quite as complete, so this month it is going to get the makeover, a first draft for the editor.
And so it begins…
…
Sanity, if nothing else, returns
…
Got the 50,000 words, 51,540 to be exact, but the story is not done yet.
Hasty revisions, adding more words, taking out some others, it’s a long and difficult day, with the yellow post-it note collection growing exponentially.
Where would we be without them, endless scraps of paper strewn over an already cluttered desk?
All it would take was one enthusiastic cleaning lady, and it would become an ‘oh-my-god’ moment.
The end, however, is becoming clearer, and I’m working towards it from three different angles.
50 photographs, 50 stories, of which there is one of the 50 below.
They all start with –
A picture paints … well, as many words as you like. For instance:
And, the story:
Have you ever watched your hopes and dreams simply just fly away?
Everything I thought I wanted and needed had just left in an aeroplane, and although I said I was not going to, i came to the airport to see the plane leave. Not the person on it, that would have been far too difficult and emotional, but perhaps it was symbolic, the end of one life and the start of another.
But no matter what I thought or felt, we had both come to the right decision. She needed the opportunity to spread her wings. It was probably not the best idea for her to apply for the job without telling me, but I understood her reasons.
She was in a rut. Though her job was a very good one, it was not as demanding as she had expected, particularly after the last promotion, but with it came resentment from others on her level, that she, the youngest of the group would get the position.
It was something that had been weighing down of her for the last three months, and if noticed it, the late nights, the moodiness, sometimes a flash of temper. I knew she had one, no one could have such red hair and not, but she had always kept it in check.
And, then there was us, together, and after seven years, it felt like we were going nowhere. Perhaps that was down to my lack of ambition, and though she never said it, lack of sophistication. It hadn’t been an issue, well, not until her last promotion, and the fact she had to entertain more, and frankly I felt like an embarrassment to her.
So, there it was, three days ago, the beginning of the weekend, and we had planned to go away for a few days and take stock. We both acknowledged we needed to talk, but it never seemed the right time.
It was then she said she had quit her job and found a new one. Starting the following Monday.
Ok, that took me by surprise, not so much that it something I sort of guessed might happen, but that she would just blurt it out.
I think that right then, at that moment, I could feel her frustration with everything around her.
What surprised her was my reaction. None.
I simply asked where who, and when.
A world-class newspaper, in New York, and she had to be there in a week.
A week.
It was all the time I had left with her.
I remember I just shrugged and asked if the planned weekend away was off.
She stood on the other side of the kitchen counter, hands around a cup of coffee she had just poured, and that one thing I remembered was the lone tear that ran down her cheek.
Is that all you want to know?
I did, yes, but we had lost that intimacy we used to have when she would have told me what was happening, and we would have brainstormed solutions. I might be a cabinet maker but I still had a brain, was what I overheard her tell a friend once.
There’s not much to ask, I said. You’ve been desperately unhappy and haven’t been able to hide it all that well, you have been under a lot of pressure trying to deal with a group of troglodytes, and you’ve been leaning on Bentley’s shoulder instead of mine, and I get it, he’s got more experience in that place, and the politics that go with it, and is still an ally.
Her immediate superior and instrumental in her getting the position, but unlike some men in his position he had not taken advantage of a situation like some men would. And even if she had made a move, which I doubted, that was not the sort of woman she was, he would have politely declined.
One of the very few happily married men in that organisation, so I heard.
So, she said, you’re not just a pretty face.
Par for the course for a cabinet maker whose university degree is in psychology. It doesn’t take rocket science to see what was happening to you. I just didn’t think it was my place to jump in unless you asked me, and when you didn’t, well, that told me everything I needed to know.
Yes, our relationship had a use by date, and it was in the next few days.
I was thinking, she said, that you might come with me, you can make cabinets anywhere.
I could, but I think the real problem wasn’t just the job. It was everything around her and going with her, that would just be a constant reminder of what had been holding her back. I didn’t want that for her and said so.
Then the only question left was, what do we do now?
Go shopping for suitcases. Bags to pack, and places to go.
Getting on the roller coaster is easy. On the beginning, it’s a slow easy ride, followed by the slow climb to the top. It’s much like some relationships, they start out easy, they require a little work to get to the next level, follows by the adrenaline rush when it all comes together.
What most people forget is that what comes down must go back up, and life is pretty much a roller coaster with highs and lows.
Our roller coaster had just come or of the final turn and we were braking so that it stops at the station.
There was no question of going with her to New York. Yes, I promised I’d come over and visit her, but that was a promise with crossed fingers behind my back. After a few months in t the new job the last thing shed want was a reminder of what she left behind. New friends new life.
We packed her bags, three out everything she didn’t want, a free trips to the op shop with stiff she knew others would like to have, and basically, by the time she was ready to go, there was nothing left of her in the apartment, or anywhere.
Her friends would be seeing her off at the airport, and that’s when I told her I was not coming, that moment the taxi arrived to take her away forever. I remember standing there, watching the taxi go. It was going to be, and was, as hard as it was to watch the plane leave.
So, there I was, finally staring at the blank sky, around me a dozen other plane spotters, a rather motley crew of plane enthusiasts.
Already that morning there’s been 6 different types of plane depart, and I could hear another winding up its engines for take-off.
People coming, people going.
Maybe I would go to New York in a couple of months, not to see her, but just see what the attraction was. Or maybe I would drop in, just to see how she was.
As one of my friends told me when I gave him the news, the future is never written in stone, and it’s about time you broadened your horizons.
This book has been written for some time and the manuscript was sitting in a box with half a dozen others gathering dust and not quite as complete, so this month it is going to get the makeover, a first draft for the editor.
And so it begins…
…
No, no, no, no, no No.
…
You know how it is when a brilliant plot line comes to you in the middle of the night, when you’re half asleep, after a long day of writing.
A long day maybe, but not much writing, because the current plot line heading towards the end doesn’t gel.
I write a page or three, toss it. Another page, toss it. Another two pages, toss it.
Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn.
Another secondary character wants to come out and play a bigger part, except that to do this I have to go back and seed a few pointers so that the revelation doesn’t seem skewed, or worse, coming out of nowhere.
No sleep tonight, have to sow the seeds while it’s fresh in my mind.
Seriously, with only seven days to go and this pops into my head?
This book has been written for some time and the manuscript was sitting in a box with half a dozen others gathering dust and not quite as complete, so this month it is going to get the makeover, a first draft for the editor.
And so it begins…
…
No, no, no, no, no No.
…
You know how it is when a brilliant plot line comes to you in the middle of the night, when you’re half asleep, after a long day of writing.
A long day maybe, but not much writing, because the current plot line heading towards the end doesn’t gel.
I write a page or three, toss it. Another page, toss it. Another two pages, toss it.
Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn.
Another secondary character wants to come out and play a bigger part, except that to do this I have to go back and seed a few pointers so that the revelation doesn’t seem skewed, or worse, coming out of nowhere.
No sleep tonight, have to sow the seeds while it’s fresh in my mind.
Seriously, with only seven days to go and this pops into my head?
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 