Tag: Creative Writing

It’s cold out there

But…

It is, but it isn’t.  Oddly enough after two weeks in temperatures ranging from -21 to 7 degrees Fahrenheit, I think I’m finally used to it.

My early morning walk after leaving the hotel is both for exercise and exploring.

Looking for locations, observing people, watching and learning what it’s like to live, work, and hang out in a city like New York.

It’s so much more interesting than where I come from.  There it would be impossible to spin a story in such a small city.  You need to be able to hide in plain sight among millions of people over a very large area that encompasses Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and everything else in-between and beyond.

I was looking at going to a Walmart in Secaucus, about three and a half miles from my hotel in Manhattan.  Three and a half miles.  In my city that’s way beyond the limits of the city and in the outer suburbs.

Here I can spin a tale that could live within the confines of 35th street, 85th street, 2nd Avenue and 10th Avenue, and have so much material, I could probably write a trilogy.

Pity is, I won’t be here long enough to gather enough background.

Still, it’s like being in literary seventh heaven.

I’ve written one book based in New York, I’m sure another is currently writing itself in my head and will be on paper over the next year.

Then, maybe I’ll be back.

I’m back in the big apple

Only to find that no one calls New York that anymore.  Just goes to show you how far behind the times I am.

But…

Here I am, and loving it.

We’re staying in the middle of everything.  One way is Broadway, and down the road, Times Square.  Go the other way, and we’re in Fifth Avenue, looking in shops that I can’t possibly afford to buy anything.

Yet it feels good to think one day I might.

And to magnify the stress level through the roof, we hired a car from Avis whose office was in West 54th Street and then went ‘joy riding’ through the streets of New York on our way to the Lincoln Tunnel and further south to Philadelphia.

There’s something about being out in the minus 1 temperatures, dodging the rain, looking at the low mist, or clouds, hiding the high rise buildings.

It took us two days to find the Empire State Building.

We haven’t been to any museums yet, nor have I found a good bookshop, which is practically sacrilegious for me, but it’s now very high on the list of things to do.  There’s a Barnes and Noble in 5th Avenue, which is not far away.

But for the moment it’s dining at Ruby Tuesday where I had the best hamburger, simplicity in itself, and Cassidy’s Irish pub where I had some strange meat burger thing and vegetables which was delicious, and a slice of apple pie that would take three people to finish off.

And a bucket of beer.

Wow, are things done differently here.

“What Sets Us Apart”, a mystery with a twist

David is a man troubled by a past he is trying to forget.
Susan is rebelling against a life of privilege and an exasperated mother who holds a secret that will determine her daughter’s destiny.
They are two people brought together by chance. Or was it?
When Susan discovers her mother’s secret, she goes in search of the truth that has been hidden from her since the day she was born.
When David realizes her absence is more than the usual cooling off after another heated argument, he finds himself being slowly drawn back into his former world of deceit and lies.
Then, back with his former employers, David quickly discovers nothing is what it seems as he embarks on a dangerous mission to find Susan before he loses her forever.

http://amzn.to/2Eryfth

whatsetscover

What the hell time is it anyway?

And why is a coyote baying?

Oh, that’s right, were in Canada, and the ice hockey channel is running in the background while I’m trying to work.

Alright, we’ve arrived in Lake Louise from Kamloops, and there’s been a time change.  Being from Australi, we lost or gained so many hours I don’t know whether I’m coming or going.

Yes, I left on the 26th, traveled around half the planet, and it’s still the 26th, after a stopover in Shanghai where it was the 27th.

Can someone tell me what the hell is going on?

Today it is the 30th.  Yesterday was my wife’s birthday in Australia and we got a number of calls on the 29th, which was amusing, to say the least.

Now, we’ve gone from Kamloops to Lake Louise, and apparently now that we are in Alberta, it’s an hour later.

The rental car we’re driving didn’t get it, and we’re still an hour behind.

My phone didn’t get it, but it is understandable because I did not connect it to the Canadian network to give us internet connection because it will cost money.

It did on my wife’s phone which is connected to the network and it’s the only device we have that tells the correct time.

And why do we really need to know what time it is?

So we make the plane the day after tomorrow, from Calgary to Toronto.

I never realized that time was so important, and I wonder how people who travel the world remain sane with all the changes to the time zones.

“What Sets Us Apart”, a mystery with a twist

David is a man troubled by a past he is trying to forget.
Susan is rebelling against a life of privilege and an exasperated mother who holds a secret that will determine her daughter’s destiny.
They are two people brought together by chance. Or was it?
When Susan discovers her mother’s secret, she goes in search of the truth that has been hidden from her since the day she was born.
When David realizes her absence is more than the usual cooling off after another heated argument, he finds himself being slowly drawn back into his former world of deceit and lies.
Then, back with his former employers, David quickly discovers nothing is what it seems as he embarks on a dangerous mission to find Susan before he loses her forever.

http://amzn.to/2Eryfth

whatsetscover

While it still is called Christmas

I’ve been reading other blogs again.

Every morning I have a skim through the half million or so blog pieces that appear in my reader.  It has a number of recommended blogs which I sometimes follow because the piece added to the blog mini profile looks interesting.

To be honest, I have no idea how many blogs I follow, but there is always a lot of diversity in reading material.

At this time of year, the main subject is Christmas.

Thankfully we can still celebrate Christmas, and not offend the multitude of other religions that don’t, but I’m guessing that sometime in the future when some government decides to go overboard with political correctness, the word Christmas will be banned, and it will simply be ‘holidays’.

I guess my rights as a Christian will be trampled on, and there’ll be nothing I can do about it.  Perhaps in being not so devout about my religious convictions, I’ll let is pass as most people do when there’s nothing they can do about it.

It’s a bit like death and taxes really.

Maybe then the turkeys will only have to dread one day of the year!

I found a few travel pieces, one of which was walking around London in a day.  Not possible because I’ve tried it.  High Holborn to Hyde Park to Knightsbridge, and everything in between.  Trafalgar Square, Picaddilly Circus, Oxford Street, the Serpentine, just to name a few.  High tea in Selfridges was the highlight.

Memories of another lifetime.

Then there was the rant.  I love a good rant, especially when I agree with it.

People who have succeeded in their own individual way should keep it to themselves, and not try to ‘market’ these ideas as workable for the masses.  They just don’t work for everyone else.  What happens at a particular time in the universe for you is great, but to replicate it?

I don’t think these people get it.

Your own brand of success is yours.  You do a lot of work, spill a lot of blood and tears along the way.  Trying to find an easier way by emulating someone else’s success?  You and a million others are trying to get on a single bandwagon.

Oops, looks like I’m having a rant too.

Have a Merry Christmas while it still is Christmas, who knows what might happen in the future.

 

On the ground, not daring to move

For the moment the treasure hunt is off.

In another universe, our hero, or a fool, depending on what you think of him jumping out of a moving helicopter, is languishing in the sand.

 

Lying there, afraid to move, I honestly believed that was just the stupidest thing I’d ever done.

Aside from the fact I could see we were about to be blown to kingdom come by a rocket, I had that split second to decide if I wanted to be incinerated, or in possession of 206 broken bones.

I guess I was assuming I’d survive the landing. 

After all the helicopter was only about twenty to thirty feet above the ground and not moving very fast, in fact, it was slowing, and turning away, when the pilot saw the rocket launcher.

I could hear the crackling of fire not far from me, a result of the helicopter hitting the ground.  It wasn’t a large explosion, and certainly not accompanied by a hail of red-hot metal parts.

Not yet.

I moved and it hurt.  Understandable.  But there didn’t seem to be any broken bones, which was nothing short of a miracle.  I did try to affect a roll when landing as we were trained in parachute jumping, and maybe that had helped.

Enough time to recover, I rolled over and got to my knees.  Ok, that hurt, twinges in my lower back, a slight sprain in my right ankle.  No running then.

Then I heard the gears crunching, so sort an old Toyota pickup would make, followed by an over-revving engine.  A novice driver.  Or a man in a hurry.

Damn.

The pickup was coming back to check the wreckage.

And if there were any survivors.

No gun, lost that in the jump.  But, as luck would have it, an AK47 was lying on the ground between me and the burning wreckage.

Only one problem.  The pickup would be on me before I could get to it.

 

Is this the very definition of being between a rock and a hard place?

Back on the treasure hunt

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.

 

I never realized Boggs had this thing for treasure.  Seems a long time ago one of his relatives was a diver, found a wreck, and with it gold bullion.  He became rich, and the wealth in the family lasted till Boggs’ grandfather, who frittered away the last of the fortune on dodgy land schemes and supposed match tree forests in Ecuador.

It was up to him, Boggs told me, to restore the family fortune.

I couldn’t see how this was going to happen sitting in a bar that openly advertised treasure maps and an owner who was only too happy to tell the story of the Spaniard to anyone who’d listen.

The problem was, no two versions of the story were the same.

Whilst Boggs was taking in the fourth or fifth rendition of the story, I looked around at the clientele.  They were certainly more interesting than the treasure.

Mostly here for the sun and surf, there were two notable exceptions, and if I was to guess, they looked Spanish.

Or was it my imagination working overtime.

They seemed very interested in Boggs, from time to time looking over at him, and then muttering to each other.  Conveniently, they were along the path to the restroom, so I took a stroll, and lingering a moment near their table, I listened to the conversation.

In Spanish.

My Spanish was a little rusty but what I thought I heard, “Boy, map, find out what he knows, gold, and it’s in the hills somewhere.

The phrase, there’s gold in them thar hills came to mind.

But for the moment I think we had a problem.

When I came out of the restroom, the first thing I noticed was the two Spaniards had left.  When I looked over towards the bar, where I left Boggs, I noticed he too, was missing.

All of a sudden I had a very bad feeling.

I ran outside, just in time to see the two men bundling Boggs into the back of a car, and drive off.

 

That’s where I fell asleep

When I should be sleeping…

My mind will not rest.

Down here, it is summer, and the last few days have been rather hot, well, it is summer after all, but tonight it is particularly hot.

So, as I can’t sleep, I’m lying on the couch staring at the ceiling, otherwise known as the cinema of my dreams.

Where am I?

Well, it has to be someplace cool, of course.

 

I have no idea where or when I got sucked into this game of searching for treasure.  Boggs had been reading some newspaper article relating to a Spaniard who had survived a shipwreck off the coast and had supposedly come ashore dragging his treasure chest, all that he could save from the sinking ship.

I think my priorities may have been slightly different.

Standing on the beach where Boggs believed the man came ashore, we looked inland at the coastal plain now overbuilt with holiday houses and apartments, behind that, some parkland, under threat from the developers, and behind that, the mountains.

I could guess what Boggs was going to say next.

“It has to be somewhere in the mountains, a cave perhaps.”

My map told me there was a mountain face for about 25 miles in either direction and rising to two to three thousand feet up.  I didn’t calculate the area, I just considered it big.

“If he came ashore here, dragging a heavy chest, and barring all of this building, he would take the most direct route inland.”

He pointed in the direction he thought the Spaniard took.

My eyes followed his arm and stopped at a beacon halfway up the hillside. 

That was a long way, pulling a heavy chest.

“Not up the hill, maybe, but somewhere along the base.”

“And don’t you think every man and his dog would have made the same assumption, and covered the ground already.”  The treasure hunt was beginning to bore me.

His expression changed, the sort that told me he might not have considered that possibility.  Boggs was like that, always thinking he had the original idea.

“Perhaps, then, a drink and more thought on the matter.”

We trudged through the soft sand to the bar just off the sand, a small place called The Spaniard.  A sign on the window said ‘Treasure Maps for sale’.

 

Well, the bar was air-conditioned, and the beer was cold.  I have one myself and see where this cinematic experience goes

 

 

Betwixt metaphorical houses

It’s like working in two offices, one uptown, and one downtown.

I have two blogs, this one, and another which is purely for writing, and generally, a lot of starts and not a lot of finishes.  I get ideas, and it’s a place to store them, and give a few people some amusement at my, sometimes, improbable situations and far-fetched stories.

Here I try to be more serious.

I have the ceiling, the cinema of my dreams.  Here anything is possible, like jumping from a helicopter about to explode, and survive, and get out of a sinking ship, like Houdini.  Of course, there is always one time when it doesn’t work, and Houdini knows that all too well.

Over there, I have a series which I started here, long ago, where I take a photograph and write a story inspired by it.  The interesting thing about that is I could probably use the same photograph over and over, and it would inspire a different tale.

I know, if I was running a writing class, everyone would see that photograph differently.

But what amazes me sometimes is the fact the story is not directly related to the theme.  It got me thinking about how we view our experiences, and what triggers memories.  I’ve discovered that it doesn’t necessarily happen by correlation, say, for instance, a memory of being in New York might be triggered by a visit to a cafe in Cloncurry.

I try to do one of these every day, but sometimes it’s hard work.  Writing itself can be some days, particularly when the words are lurking there, behind that invisible, impenetrable, rock wall.

OK, so I’m stuck in the middle of writing a piece over there, and I’ve come over here to whinge.

But, enough.  I’ll let you know what the cinema of my dreams is showing, later.