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.
The first section or part is done. I think.
I had intended it to be longer, but as it pans out what follows belongs to the second part, and I have begun working on this.
There are 8 chapters so far in Part One.
This may change depending on what happens in the second part.
Of course, there are moments while I’m working on this part, and checking the plan, I can see a fork in the road coming up. It feels quirky, but then I just dropped a huge plot twist and will play this out and see what happens.
At the same time, after completing my day’s quota, I have to resist the urge to write more, but that’s just a fear in the back of my mind that I might run out of words and be staring at a blank page tomorrow.
So, looking at the plan, the third section looks like it might need a rework, and I’m playing around with several angles that might be pursued.
I think it’s time to stop overthinking it.
I don’t like Mondays – a song lingering on the periphery of my memory, and I’m not sure who sung it.
But it’s official, I don’t like Mondays.
I’ve been procrastinating since last Thursday, telling myself I have to get the next part of one of my stories written, but I keep putting it off. I have to go to Africa, the Niger Delta to be exact. It can wait, I’m not ready for the steaming jungle and hostile villagers yet.
I didn’t do anything on Sunday, and, as a writer, I guess that’s not very good. I’m supposed to be writing a page, or a hundred or thousand words a day, just to keep the juices flowing.
I’m not in the mood. I sit and stare at the computer screen, and nothing is coming. Is this the first sign of writer’s block?
I dig out several articles on how to overcome it and start putting their suggestions into action. No. No. Maybe. No. I don’t think it’s writer’s block.
Perhaps I need some inspiration so I go to my tablet playlist, spend 10 minutes trying to find the headphones carelessly discarded by one of my grandchildren the last time they were here.
And, yes, the tablet was left in the middle of playing a Minecraft video which has drained the battery. Now I can’t find the charger!
Back at the computer, holding a dead tablet, and a pair of headphones, inspiration is as far away as the mythical light at the end of the tunnel. Today it is an oncoming express train.
Perhaps a pen and paper will work.
An idea pops into my head…
Is it possible the passing of a weekend could change the course of your life? An interesting question, one to ponder as I sat on the floor of a concrete cell, with only the sound of my breathing, and the incessant screams coming from a room at the end of the corridor.
It was my turn next. That was what the grinning ape of a guard said in broken English. He looked like a man who relished his job.
What goes through your mind at a time like this, waiting, waiting for the inevitable? Will I survive, what will they do to me, will it hurt?
The screaming stops abruptly, and a terrible silence falls over the facility.
Then, looking in the direction of where the screams had come from, I hear the clunk of the door latch being opened, and then the slow nerve tingling screech of rusty metal as the door opens slowly.
Oh God, Oh God, Oh God, no.
No writer’s block. But I have to stop watching late night television.
This is Chester. He had asked the question; why doesn’t he get to go on holidays
I think we both know the answer to that.
It’s not the first time he’s asked, but this ‘simply forgetting he’s asked before’ is a ruse.
If he asks enough times, maybe…
But…
A few questions first,
Do you often find the sunniest spot, lie down and have a nap?
Hmmm, thinking
Do you only turn up in the dining room at meal times expecting the food to be ready?
Hmmm, thinking
Do you sleep in every morning?
Hmmm, thinking
Do you find your self thinking more about relaxing and less about working?
Same questions as the last time, and same no answer.
I think we both know you’re already and have been for a while, on holiday!
“Sunday in New York” is ultimately a story about trust, and what happens when a marriage is stretched to its limits.
When Harry Steele attends a lunch with his manager, Barclay, to discuss a promotion that any junior executive would accept in a heartbeat, it is the fact his wife, Alison, who previously professed her reservations about Barclay, also agreed to attend, that casts a small element of doubt in his mind.
From that moment, his life, in the company, in deciding what to do, his marriage, his very life, spirals out of control.
There is no one big factor that can prove Harry’s worst fears, that his marriage is over, just a number of small, interconnecting events, when piled on top of each other, points to a cataclysmic end to everything he had believed in.
Trust is lost firstly in his best friend and mentor, Andy, who only hints of impending disaster, Sasha, a woman whom he saved, and who appears to have motives of her own, and then in his wife, Alison, as he discovered piece by piece damning evidence she is about to leave him for another man.
Can we trust what we see with our eyes or trust what we hear?
Haven’t we all jumped to conclusions at least once in our lives?
Can Alison, a woman whose self-belief and confidence is about to be put to the ultimate test, find a way of proving their relationship is as strong as it has ever been?
As they say in the classics, read on!
Purchase:
http://tinyurl.com/Amazon-SundayInNewYork
Remember a few days ago I was looking at a separate first part, and that will be the case. It was not what I originally planned, but it is a work in progress.
Now, having worked on the next part, this is now developing into a section of its own too, and will serve as an introduction to the second main character. I had planned it differently, but this is better.
This section is starting to all but write itself too, which is a good sign, because I’m at over 2,000 words for the day, and the story isn’t done yet.
But, I’m taking a step back, just in case I jinx myself.
Later…
Sitting staring at the ceiling and looking ahead, a few notes for what’s coming vs what I planned, and the work so far will form part 2.
Part three is going to be the main story, where the two main characters come together, more through the circumstances of their first meeting that something that was consciously planned
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, so 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 girl a chapter, the trip to and the visit to a relative could girl 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.
This is Chester. You wouldn’t think he would have an interest in horse racing.
But…
He does. Today, in Australia, is the day the Melbourne Cup is run. It seems to be the biggest thing on the racing calendar, not only in Melbourne but the rest of the country.
Chester, as usual, doesn’t seem to think it’s all that great.
He wants to know why the cat races are not televised.
What cat races?
It seems he had been watching Fox Sports, and there’s dog races, greyhounds he says.
I’ve heard of them, even went once or twice when we lived in Melbourne, where there was a dog race track.
\Well, he says, if they can race dogs, they can race cats.
I appear a little sceptical. What are they going to chase?
Mice.
Isn’t that a little cruel, I mean, you’ll get the animal rights people up in arms.
Over mice, he snorts. No one likes mice. But if it’s a problem, why not rats? Everyone hates rats.
So, I say, you’re up for it then. We could make a killing.
A shake of the head, and nose in the air. “Of course not, I’m a pedigree cat. That’s for the alley cats. I’ll be watching from the Royal box thankyou.”
This is my least favored option for spending a Sunday morning, but having married a Catholic and agreeing to adopt Catholicism, it’s one of those things that has to be done on rare occasions, usually a child’s milestone.
Yes, we went through our children’s moments like baptism, first communion, and confirmation, or these days in a somewhat different order. Then it came to the turn of our grandchildren and today the last child is making her first communion, and there will end our involvement till the last rites.
Hopefully.
Church to me doesn’t hold any real significance. It doesn’t mean that I would debunk the idea of religion and I firmly believe that if anyone believes in God, then that’s their right.
And it seems there are a lot of believers. I’m sitting in the church now and it is packed. It might be that it’s a captive audience given that it’s a first communion for grade three students and others. but given the enthusiasm of the children involved, I’d say the church was about to get over a hundred new followers.
Of course, a lot depends on the enthusiasm and devoutness of the parents who may wish to spend their Sundays in a different manner, but I suspect there are many here who will continue their devoutness in some form or other.
As for me, sadly, I will continue to use the only day of the week it’s possible to sleep in.
Here’s the thing, a bark is the sound made by a dog. Isn’t it? Apparently, it can also be from a fox or a seal
Not necessarily. A man or woman can bark orders, especially if they are in the army.
And then, their bark might be worse than their bite, this usually refers to newspaper editors and school teachers.
You can theoretically be barking up the wrong tree, and believe me, I’ve done that a few times myself.
People can be barking mad. Just go to any old spooky hospital that is named Belleview, and has a basement. How do I know this, I’ve seen a lot of old black and white movies.
Then there’s that other type of bark, the outer layer of a lot of trees, and can be very useful as a top layer of a garden to keep the moisture in.
It can be thin sheets of chocolate with a thin layer of nuts or other confectionaries.
You can bark your shins, that is, scrape the skin off when you trip over a tree with bark.
Or just to complicate matters, there is also a barque, usually a three-masted sailing ship, though you don’t get to see many of them these days.
