This case has everything, red herrings, jealous brothers, femme fatales, and at the heart of it all, greed.
Coming soon!
Tag: Creative Writing
Trying to pick up the pieces
I can see how it is that a writer’s life is one that, at times, has to be shut off from the outside world.
It’s a bit hard to keep a stream of thoughts going when in one ear is some banal detective show, and in the other, a conversation that you have to keep up with. I know how hard it is because I’ve tried doing three things at once, and failed miserably in all three.
So, out I slink to the writing room and start by re-reading the previous chapters, to get back into the plot. I should remember where I am, and get straight to it, but the devil is in the detail.
Going back, quite often I revise, and a plotline is tweaked, and a whole new window is opened. God, I wish I didn’t do that!
Then I get to the blank page, ready to go, and…
The phone rings.
Damn. Damn. Damn.
Phone answered, back to the blank page, no, it’s gone, got yo go back, blast, another revision, and back to the blank page.
Half an hour shot to pieces.
The phone rings again.
Blast scam callers. I nearly rip the cord out of the wall.
All through this the cat just watches, and, is that a knowing smile?
It can’t be, I’ve just learned that cats can’t smile, or make any sort of face.
I’m sure his thoughts are not a vague or scrambled, or wrestling with the ploys of several stories on the go, getting locations right, getting characters to think and do their thing with a fair degree of continuity.
The cat’s world is one of which chair to lie on, where is that elusive mouse be it real or otherwise, and is this fool going to feed me, and please, please, don’t let it be the lasagna. I am not that cat!
Unlike other professions, it’s a steady, sometimes frustrating, slog where you can’t just walk away, have a great time, and come back and pick up where you left off. Stories have to be written from beginning to end, not a bit here and a bit there.
It’s a bit like running a marathon. You are in a zone, the first few miles are the hardest, the middle is just getting the rhythm and breathing under control, and then you hope you get to the end because it can seem that you’ve been going forever and the end is never in sight.
But, when you reach the end, oh, isn’t the feeling one of pure joy and relief.
Sorry, not there yet.
And no comment is required from the cat gallery, thankyou!
In a word: Not
You will not go outside, you will not go to the movies.
The word not, when used by your parents when you are a child is the key in the lock keeping you from having fun.
It is the very definition of everything negative, and much harsher than just a plain no.
That you will ‘not…’ has been the gateway for many an exploit or adventure, because anything you have done contrary to the ‘not’ is all that much sweeter.
Until you get into trouble, but, then, isn’t that how you learn life’s lessons?
But if you are a programmer like me, not takes on a whole new meaning in a language like,
‘If not like …. then’
meaning in layman’s terms if something isn’t like a specific value then do something else.
Hang on, isn’t that a bit like reality?
This is not to be confused with the work Knot which is,
A blemish in a piece of wood
The speed of a ship, winds, and sometimes a plane
But basically,
Something you tie to keep your shoes on, or around your finger to remind you to tie your shoes before getting on the 36-knot high-speed ferry made of knotty wood.
It is also something you find in tangled hair and is very painful trying to remove it.
It is also an unpleasant tightness in body muscles and you need a masseuse to get rid of them.
That notion that I could be organised…
Well, toss that baby out with the bathwater.
It’s something that I have never been able to get a handle on, and I seem to stagger from one day to the next without getting anything done. I guess I’m one of those freeform sorts of people and I guess it goes with the star sign, Gemini.
Over the years many people tried, some with limited success, others completely failing.
I’ve created outlines and created chapters as sections, and scenes within chapters, as best I could. Once upon a time, I used to teach Microsoft Project, and having this application on hand, I used this to create a timeline, using ‘slack’ time to make up for my inability to keep to a schedule.
This is like taking a sledgehammer to a tack.
Just the time to set it up took longer than it would to just sit down and write the blasted novel.
But, I’m a fly by the seat of my pants writer. The book starts, often with a start and a finish, and the rest fills itself in, not necessarily in the order of final events. Of course, this means some backwards revision from time to time, but I get there in the end.
Perhaps a little longer than it should but at least I don’t get halfway and suddenly decide on going in a different direction because I’ve suddenly got writers’ block. That doesn’t happen. It usually plays out as the start of another story, and then I mull over the changes necessary to get the original story back on track.
Yes, I’ve been to those time management courses with the books and diaries to seem to want you to time manage your life. it works to a certain extent, but you live your like inside another type of book.
Nor do I work well with deadlines.
But oddly enough most of the jobs I’ve had over the years have involved time management of one sort or another and I have survived.
Now, in retirement, I really need something to organize my days so something gets done. As a writer allocating 12 midnight to 2am for writing doesn’t seem to be a good idea.
Unfortunately, it is the best time for me to write.
Anyone else out there with the same problem, and if so what was your answer to the getting stuff done?
“Echoes From The Past”, buried, but not deep enough
What happens when your past finally catches up with you?
Christmas is just around the corner, a time to be with family. For Will Mason, an orphan since he was fourteen, it is a time for reflection on what his life could have been, and what it could be.
Until a chance encounter brings back to life the reasons for his twenty years of self-imposed exile from a life only normal people could have. From that moment Will’s life slowly starts to unravel and it’s obvious to him it’s time to move on.
This time, however, there is more at stake.
Will has broken his number one rule, don’t get involved.
With his nemesis, Eddie Jamieson, suddenly within reach, and a blossoming relationship with an office colleague, Maria, about to change everything, Will has to make a choice. Quietly leave, or finally, make a stand.
But as Will soon discovers, when other people are involved there is going to be terrible consequences no matter what choice he makes.
It’s nearly the end of another month
And where am I in the greater scheme of things?
I don’t feel like I’ve made any progress.
Well, that’s not exactly true.
With ‘The Things We Do For Love’, the final edit is about halfway through, and in a mad moment, I decided to flesh out Chapter Thirty, which was altogether too brief and didn’t say how certain events came about. That’s been rectified now, and instead of one chapter, it’s now five.
OK, I know the reason for editing is to reduce the size of the book and weed out unnecessary words, but I assure you this is for plot continuity more than anything else.
I’m still not happy with Chapter Twenty Nine, but I’ve revised it about seven times now, and I think one or two more might do it. I should learn not to keep tinkering and leave it to the editor to sort out.
Being Inspired, Maybe has finally come back from the editor and there’s a pile of pages sitting in my in-tray … waiting.
As for my four episodic stories, the treasure hunt, the surveillance exercise gone wrong, the world war two story, and what started with a helicopter crash and became way too complicated, they all need new episodes.
The other two, an icy rescue, and motive means and opportunity are still in limbo. After all, there are only so many stories you can write at once.
Perhaps a crossover is in order, like in the Flash, Supergirl and others universe.
If only there were enough hours in a day.
Sigh.
Now NANOWRIMO is almost upon us and I have to get my next story for it into the planning stage with an outline and summary of chapters and daily schedule that will accommodate 1667 or something like that words a day.
Double sigh.
And the cat, well, just don’t get me started!
Being Inspired – the book
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.
In a word: Hair
You comb it every day, or brush it, it can be tangled, fine, smooth and silky or shiny.
It can fall out, you can have none, it can be red, brown, black, blonde, white, and a million shades in between.
Yes, it’s hair.
It can be pesky stuff, especially from animals who tend to moult and leave it everywhere. We have a cat and well know the foibles of hair loss.
You can get it cut, get it coloured, trimmed, permed by a hairdresser in a salon, where lots of subjects are discussed, and even movies have been made around salons.
I haven’t been within a hairsbreadth of either living or dying, but I’m sure someone has. That hairsbreadth is not very wide, and I’d rather have bullets, arrows or fists missing by that margin.
You can be in another’s hair, that is, being a pest.
There’s the hair of the dog, supposedly a hangover cure.
And, going to scary places will make your hair stand on end.
This is not to be confused with the word heir which means something completely different, namely it described the legatee or inheritor of the family fortune.
Or not. Ages ago, only sons were seen as heirs, and that was even more prevalent among royal families. It also applied to heirs when it came to titles, and the family wealth and property, which went to the eldest son.
It makes a good plotline for many a murder mystery.
Also, let’s be clear, there is also an heiress and an heirloom.
Then there is another, hare, which is a cousin of the rabbit and considered a pest.
I’m not quite sure how someone came up with the descriptor harebrained, which has nothing to do with the hare.
It could mean to run quickly and usually in a careless manner.
I’ve always wanted to go on a Treasure Hunt – Part 27
Here’s the thing…
Every time I close my eyes, I see something different.
I’d like to think the cinema of my dreams is playing a double feature but it’s a bit like a comedy cartoon night on Fox.
But these dreams are nothing to laugh about.
Once again there’s a new instalment of an old feature, and we’re back on the treasure hunt.
I was taken to the hospital, despite the fact the paramedics deemed that I might not be as badly concussed as they first thought. At the very least, I got a ride in the ambulance and painkilling pills that were very effective.
They kept me in the emergency department in between being taken for X-Rays, and I think something they called a CT Scan. Whatever it was, it didn’t help my claustrophobia. When that was completed, my mother was waiting in the cubicle. Benderby, looking concerned, stood behind her.
After the attendant left, he said, “I’ll be going now. Take all the time you need to recover Sam; I’ll make sure you don’t lose any wages over this. And you can be assured that it will not happen again, and we will get the people who did this.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“I’m just glad nothing worse happened to you.”
He said something to my mother in hushed tones and then left. My mother had got over her initial reaction, and a more curious look had replaced the one of fear.
“Tell me you didn’t try to apprehend those thieves yourself, Sam.”
“No, I didn’t. I didn’t know there was anyone in the building until I was hit from behind. I’m not sure what they thought they were going to find there that was of any value, it’s just parts for some of the products built there.”
“People will steal anything for money these days. You should know that. Times are not as good for some. Perhaps it’s not a good idea for you to work there is this is going to happen again.”
“You heard Mr Benderby. He’ll make sure security is improved, and I suspect I was in the wrong place at the wrong time because I don’t normally go into the warehouse itself, that someone else’s purview. So, stop worrying, and go home. I’m fine.”
I wished she would go. I wanted to check if Boggs had been brought in and see what had happened to him. I also wanted to know if the perpetrator was Vince. If it was, Nadia was first on my list for a visit when I got out of the hospital.
It seemed to mollify her concern.
“Mr Benderby said to tell you if you need a ride home, to call this number,” she gave me a piece of paper with a phone number on it, “and a driver will come. He’s been very nice about everything. You will thank him.”
“I will. Yes. Now go home. Get some rest. And stop worrying about me.”
Ten minutes later, I got off the bed and stood. Well, I tried to stand, but my head wasn’t quite ready to accept that it was in command of everything else. It took only seconds for the room to start spinning, and I had to lie down again.
My reconnaissance was going to have to wait for an hour or so.
A nurse came and checked my blood pressure and pulse, both high but not off the chart, and she went off looking concerned.
A few minutes after that an orderly went by with another bed, empty but recently used, and I recognised him as another of the boys Boggs and I went to school with. He was destined for bigger things, but it seems he, too, never got out of the neighbourhood.
He saw me looking at him, stopped, and his expression told me he’d recognised me.
“Sam?”
“Angelo?”
“The same. I’ll be back after I’ve dropped off this bed. Won’t be long. I won’t ask how you are, you must be sick if you’re in that bed.”
True. And it was natural to ask, ‘How are you?’ when you see someone after having not seen them a while, even if you are in a hospital. A weird custom indeed, which occupied my thoughts till he returned.
Angelo had been the smartest kid in our class, and we had all assumed that he would become a doctor, or a lawyer, one of those jobs that made piles of money. He was also the boy whom all the girls swooned over.
Being his friend had benefits.
Unfortunately, Boggs and I, not being the two brightest kids, didn’t register on his friend’s scale. In his favour, he was not a bully like Monty was, but I guess that went with being one of the school’s star athletes, but he did simply ignore us.
Now, it seems the mighty had fallen. It was a destiny that seemed to befall anyone who came from our neighbourhood.
The same could be said for Monty, who got a sports scholarship to further his sporting career, but he too stumbled at the second hurdle, being done for performance-enhancing drugs, and banished to the boondocks from whence he came.
Now, as far as I knew, he was working for the Colosimo’s.
Angelo seemed bright enough. That impression was confirmed when he returned with two bottles of soda and handed one to me.
“Hopefully it won’t kill you,” he said, sitting down.
“Shouldn’t. I’m here because someone hit me over the head.”
“Bar fight?”
Once, in the old days, that might be the case. “If only I could take the bragging rights, but no. I work over at Benderby’s warehouse, and someone broke it. Seems I got in the way.”
“Benderby’s eh? Thought you said you’d die before ever working for them.”
True, we all said the same, in school, as naïve children who hadn’t yet learned how tough the world was going to be.
“Needs must. My mother isn’t getting any younger, and it’s a struggle. But I guess you already know that. You were going to be a doctor, not a trolley pusher.”
His shook his head. “As you say, reality trumps dreams. Education costs, my parents couldn’t raise the money, and, well, I think you know the rest.”
A minute’s silence for the death of whatever dreams we may have had passed.
“Have you seen Boggs. He’s here somewhere.”
“I saw him in ER, didn’t look too good, but I think it was mostly superficial wounds. Apparently, some unknown assailants beat him up. You two still hang out together?”
“Off and on.”
You weren’t with him when this happened.” He nodded towards the bandage on my head.
“No.” but, I thought, it was most likely the same person who inflicted both injuries. Had Boggs set us both up for some reason? It had to do with the treasure, and now Vince was in on the act.
“Does Boggs still go on about that Pirate treasure he reckons is buried here somewhere? I mean, his dad used to bang on about it, and there’s no doubt it got him killed. You reckon someone went after Boggs over it?”
Angelo hadn’t forgotten that even in school, Boggs had said he was going to be a treasure hunter when he grew up, and he had a map that would be the basis of his first quest. That same map he told me was his father’s.
That same map that had got both of us beaten up.
“Is he here, somewhere?” I asked.
“Next ward. Last I saw he was out; they gave him a sedative so he could rest.”
Squawking sounds came out of Angelo’s communicator, and only he seemed to know what it meant.
He stood. “Got to go now. Perhaps we can catch up later.”
© Charles Heath 2019
“The Devil You Don’t”, be careful what you wish for
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’.
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