Tag: creativity

A photograph from the inspirational bin – 7

There is always something strange about certain photographs that is not evident when you take them.

For instance, the photograph above.

While this might look like some vegetation by the side of a river or stream, its that are of blackness behind what looks like steps up from the water level that adds a level of intrigue or mystery.

For instance:

…

We had spent two weeks slowly going upriver looking for a needle in a haystack. It was an apt description, because there had been quite a large number of likely spots, all of which after investigation, came to nothing.

I mean, the description Professor Bates had given is was as hazy as day is long in these parts.

His recollection: that it was what looked like a cave behind lush undergrowth, with steps fashioned out of stone.

It was all the more confuse. Because when we found him, he was drifting on a rough hewn and constructed raft, half dead from dehydration. We were told he’d been on the raft for nearly a week.

That meant the cave could be anywhere between where we found him at the 10 mile mark, and 200 miles further on based on river flow.

We were currently at the 150 mile mark and the river was losing depth and width, and soon there would not be enough water to continue in the boat.

It was dusk and too dark to continue. We’d been enthusiastic those first days, continuing on in the dark, on shifts, using the arc lamps.

Then after a week, having lights on made us target practise, and after sever brushes with death, and the loss of all the bulbs being shot out, we got the message.

There was the odd marauder during the day, but we had the width of the river for safety.  Now that had gone too, and we had lookouts posted, but seeing into the dense jungle was difficult.

But we got through another night with no activity, and come morning, what looked like the entrance to a cave was not fifteen feet from us.

All we had to was row over and check.

…

© Charles Heath 2020-2021

In a word: Home – in sayings

I’m always on the lookout for inspiration for stories, especially the short stories I attach to photographs in my Being Inspired series, and one of the topis that has been suggested is along the lines of the following.

There is certainly a lot of scope with these.

Home is where the heart is

One’s home is the preferred place to all others, the one you are most emotionally attached, i.e. you have the deepest affection for. It may not necessarily be a physical place though.

I must say I tend to agree with this because every time I go away, I’m always looking forward to coming home.

Even when I’ve had to stay away for a few months, it’s not possible to call that home, it’s just another place to stay.

On the other hand…

It’s the name of a song by Elvis Presley.

And it has been the title of several films.

The Hallmark channel presses this point home time and time again.

Pliny the Elder is credited with coming up with the saying.

Home is what you make it

This is a similar saying, but, to me, it means something completely different

Though many will say this means that it’s where family and friends can come to, a place where memories can be made, I don’t believe it’s the same as the first saying.

What you make of it depends on your circumstances, you can hate it because it might be because you’re stuck with one parent with perhaps a step-parent. Or you might love it because you’ve escaped a bad situation.

But it’s not necessarily where your heart is.

Wherever I hang my hat I call home

Barbra Streisand made this song famous, and probably means that no matter where you are, it is home to you. It would be more fitting for someone who doesn’t necessarily see their true home very often, ie you work in the diplomatic service or in the military and you move around a lot.

Home away from home

This is a place that is as good as your real home.

A photograph from the inspirational bin – 5

I found this:

The innocuous explanation for this photo is that I took it at my grand daughter’s little athletics competition, now most sensibly being held on Friday evenings.

For those who don’t know how the weather can be in Brisbane, Queensland, it is generally hot, particularly from November when temperatures are between 35 and 40 degrees centigrade.

But not only is it hot but humidity, the real problem, is around 100 percent.

So at the moment we have reasonably cool evenings, ideal conditions for the young athletes.

But, where a photo could be innocuous there can a more interesting, if not sinister description.

Lurking in the back of my mind, and perhaps a lot of others, that there might be an unidentified flying object somewhere in the sky.

Of course, there might not be any, but it doesn’t mean that we stop looking, or assume, sometimes that a moving light in the sky isn’t a UFO.

And its been said that humans are quite arrogant in thinking that we are the only people in the universe.

Personally, I don’t think we are, and I keep an eye on the sky every time I’m out at night, perhaps the most likely time we might see one.

The only issue I might have is that if I am that lucky to see one, or that it lands nearby, what I would do when confronted by an alien.

And, yes, there’s definitely a story in that.

This is Baldrick on the line, I have a cunning plan

And for those who know nothing of Rowan Atkinson and his endless episodes of Blackadder, the name Baldrick would be equally as puzzling.

But for those who do, you will recognize the significance of the statement.

Baldrick always had a cunning plan, almost inevitably doomed to failure.

I lump my plan, scheme, borrowed or stolen idea into this category, because it needs outside help, support, encouragement, discouragement, or whatever input you feel is necessary.

As well, if you so desire, participation.

A long time ago I realized I was never going to be able to pay for marketing assistance from the ‘experts’.

In reading the material on their webpages, and blogs, it quickly came about that all of these used the same premise, dressed up in different words, all of which was to get you to hand over what little money you didn’t have, with the disclaimer that it worked for them, but it might not work for you.

$50 gone, no result and no comeback.  You read the disclaimer.

And, sadly when I tried several ‘products’ I discovered not only were they basically the same (who sold them the get-rich-quick template?) and offered no advice I hadn’t trawled the internet first for.

I thought, also, for a short time, I might do the same as them, but in the end, I know what it’s like to have a book, the desire to make it available to others, good or bad reviews withstanding, and not have to spend a fortune doing it (with no hope of guaranteed success).

Of course, there was the rub, since I couldn’t afford to market it, there were no good or bad reviews.

Perhaps a pact could be made where we each buy each other’s book and write a review.

We could call it a ‘The Gathering of Eagles’ since we all want to soar!

Let me know if you’re interested to cwheath555@gmail.com.

A photograph from the inspirational bin – 2

It’s the obvious items in the photograph that you see first, or that your eyes go to first.

The ocean, the beach, the buildings. You can see a shopping mall with MacDonald’s sign above it.

Yes, it’s late afternoon, and you can see long shadows of the buildings.

So, if I asked you what did you see in this photo, what would your reply be?

From a thriller writer or murder mystery writer’s point of view, it’s what you don’t necessarily see.

So, for the purposes of the story, the opening line for the world-weary detective, handing the photo to his partner, “What’s is it you can’t see in this photo?”

A partner that hadn’t been on the job very long, in from the suburbs, and had seen little more than break and enters car theft, and school kids hi-jinks.

“What am I supposed to be looking for?”

“You want to be a detective, or be looking for old ladies cats?”

His partner takes the photo in hand and looks at it again.  There has to be a reason why the old man had given it to him, or perhaps there wasn’t and he was just playing with him again.

No, he thought, there has to be something…

And then he saw it, quite by accident.  A hand, a gun, and following the line of fire, at the end, what looked like someone in the bushes.

In a photo taken from a higher floor of the building over the road, looking down on what was supposed to be a rooftop recreational area.

Only there had been no report of a missing person or a gunshot wound in the last seven days.

“When was it taken?”

“Two days ago?”

“And no reports of a shooting, or a body?”

“No.  And yet the person who took this swears he saw a body, but by the time he came back, there was nothing.”

The detective handed his partner a second photo.  Time-stamped five minutes later.  With no gun and no body.

What will happen next?

I just want to be finished

Just when you think that the story is done, and you’re on the third re-read, just to make sure…

Damn!

I don’t like the way that chapter reads, and what’s worse, it’s about the tenth time I’ve looked at it.

It doesn’t matter whether the last three times you read it, it was just fine, or, the editor has read it and the chapter passed without any major comment.

I think the main problem I have is letting go.  For some odd reason, certain parts of a story sometimes seem to me as though they are not complete, or can be missing a vital clue or connection for the continuity of the story.

That, of course, happens when you rewrite a section that is earlier on in the story, and then have to make ongoing changes.

Yes, I hear the stern warnings, that I should have made a comprehensive outline at the beginning, but the trouble is, I can change the ending, as I’m writing it and then have to go back and add the hooks earlier on.  Not the best method, but isn’t that what an editor is for, to pick up the missed connections, and out-of-the-blue events that happen for no reason?

I find that often after leaving a finished story for a month before the next reading, the whole picture must formulate itself in my head, so when I re-read, there was always a problem, one I didn’t want to think about until the re-read.

Even then it might survive a second pass.

I know the scene is in trouble when I get to it and alarm bells are going off.  I find nothing else to do but look at it.

So, here I am, making major changes.

But, at least now I am satisfied with where it’s going.

Only 325 pages to go!

Why is writing so hard

In just about every book about how to be a good writer, there seems to be a pile of problems that at some time in a writer’s life will need to be overcome.

Writer’s block

Don’t have it.  The ideas pour out of my head like water over a waterfall

Don’t use abstract descriptions in your writing

Damn, I do that all the time

But, back to writer’s block, is that where you write 37 chapters and there the story stops?

Oops.

Plan your book and have an outline so you can write it from start to finish

Plan?  What Plan?

That only happens when I’ve written the book and prior to the first edit, I make a precise of each chapter to make sure of continuity.

Plan your characters and give them a timeline

Oh God is that why characters’ names are often changing as the story progresses.

Believe it or not, I’m working on this issue.

Manage your time.

Still can’t get it right.

Write at least a thousand words a day, no matter if it’s rubbish or not.

Does that include writing for social media?

Apparently not.

At least this is one of the requirements I follow religiously. Sometimes it’s a lot more words but a least some writing finished up either on paper in on the word processor.

Now it’s time to write those thousand words.

Look, there, I’ve at least got one part of time management under control.

A photograph from the inspirational bin – 1

We think of tropical Queensland having pristine white beaches and azure sparkling seas.

Not necessarily so.

This used to be a mangrove swamp.

Perhaps this is what happens when you mess with the natural environment, you’re left with something that’s not very nice.

There’s no beach, no sand, and sometimes not a very pleasant odor.

We can imagine what this might have looked like before man turned up to urbanize the area. In the background, there is an inlet and on either side lush vegetation.

It must have looked very inviting once upon a time. Now the shoreline is completely built on, the vegetation that was once there completely cleared, and the inlet leads to a marina.

Perhaps the story here might be about greedy destructive property developers who care not for anything but profits.  But in their quest to destroy, there is always someone else aiding and abetting, someone in government.

But what if there was an even darker secret hiding just below the surface, and about to be uncovered.  How far would someone go to preserve that secret?

 

Is there a reason to get out of bed?

I sometimes wonder if there is.

Is that depression speaking, or am I just tired from all the late nights?

Unlike most writers, authors and bloggers I don’t have a day job.  You could say it’s one of the benefits of getting old, this retirement thing, but after a while, not having a reason to get out of bed starts working on your subconscious.

The idea of having a job, and going to work, is a good reason to drag yourself out of bed every morning.  And because of this, the idea of sleeping in takes on a whole new meaning.

You know, I’ll just lie here for a few more minutes, and then I’ll get up.  Having turned off the alarm, the eyelids flutter, and before you know it, half an hour had passed, and you wake up in fright, knowing you’re going to be late.

In retirement, that doesn’t happen.  There is no alarm, there is no guilty pleasure in spending those extra minutes in bed.

Of course, this tardiness, or lack of desire could be because I find I do my best writing in the dead of night, often not getting to bed before 2 a.m.   Last night it was a little later because of a story I’m working on came to life with a new idea.

It had been stagnating because it’s part two and whilst I had an idea about where it was going to go, in the end, we’re off in a different direction, and the words flowed.  You just don’t stop writing when you hit a vein.

But this isn’t always the case.  This morning I have an excuse to stay in bed, but most others I don’t.

Perhaps I should find something else to do, something that will give me that same reason I used to have to get up every morning.

Or maybe I should be more organized in my retirement life, you know, set a schedule and do things according to a timetable.  I was never one for being organized, but perhaps it’s time to start.

Just let me lie here for a few more minutes and think about that.

Timelines, deadlines, and disasters

Unfortunately, I’m not one of those people who work well to timelines, so the very thought of using something like Microsoft Project to get my writing into some sort of timeframe, with deadlines, seemed, to me, to be a bit extreme.

Say for instance the major deadlines for a writing project are

  1.  Write an outline, with as much detail as possible, with an overarching plot, characters, key points in the novel, and scouting for locations
  2. Writing.  This could be broken down into chapters, but more practicable would be sectioned, each consisting of a number of chapters.
  3. Editing, planning for one, two or three, or more edits
  4. Proofreading
  5. Send to editor

Clearly if I was going to take this approach, then I would have to allocate hours of the day specifically for writing and doing all those other writer chores in less time, and with fewer distractions.

And, it might work for a more dedicated author.

But…

I did make a new years resolution that I would try and do things differently this year.

Except…

I set a goal to restart editing of my next novel on 1st Feb. I thought, setting it so far into the year it would be easy.

It would give me the time to clear up all the outstanding, get in the way, distractions, and be free to finally finish it.

But there’s always something else to do, other than what we’re supposed to be doing.

For me it used to be going away, spending long, sleepless hours flying from one side of the world to the other had fuelled my imagination more than I expected and where this used to be the impetus to write more stories that that had not happened yet this year.

I have other stories of course, all in carious stages of writing, but if only I could focus on one story at a time.

So…

I’ve tried to set some new, more realistic goals to finish playing with these other stories as soon as I can, so come the first of March, I can resume work on the next book to be published.

Or not.