Tag: Fiction

Writing a book in 365 days

Day 17

Today’s topic is Words of Wisdom.

Can you find the words to describe what you think fiction means to you? Or even what it is for a particular novel?

One opinion, Russian, is that it’s aesthetic bliss. To me, most works by Russian writers tend to go on and on and on. Fyodor Dostoevsky is a case in point. I grant you that if you can sit through the novel, which is very good, your opinion might be a little different. Not so much Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and some of his works.

In my younger days of reading when a large book never fazed me, a thousand plus pages (And Quietly Flows The Don – War and Peace) to a few hundred (One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich) to mid-range five hundred pages (Doctor Zhivago) they all could tend to be tedious, though I have to say Doctor Zhivago as a book was fascinating, the film by David Lean, captivating, and the stage play, boring beyond words.

That is to say once you for past the Russians, there were British authors like Charles Dickens who could get up to that magic number of pages, and whose works could reach that lofty thousand. They were however perhaps more interesting, and most having been made into mini series for television, far more interesting as a spectacle than in reading the book.

And, of course, there is Jane Austen. Need I say more.

But there are times when you pick up a book and start reading the first page, and then stop. It tells a budding author that on the one hand it’s not going to be your genre, and on the other, that the opinion of the book is in the eye of the beholder.

Writing a book in 365 days

Day 16

Today we have a writing exercise – at last.

The theme, nothing like anything that will fit the outline of the story I have in mind, but maybe I can use a little poetic licence.

It is: “I never liked rain, so I moved to the desert. The clouds followed.”

Metaphorically speaking, and not literally the clouds followed, or I would be feeling like Charlie Brown who says it always rains on the unloved, which to him was a daily occurrence.

So…

A friend of mine once said if I did not like the rain, move to the desert. I never quite understood what that meant until I saw my name in the newspaper and a not-too-flattering profile.

Then, when I spoke to him a few days after reading the profile, he said, “You can run but you can’t hide.”

OK, enough with the metaphors.

When pressed he told me that going to another town no matter how remote from the last did not guarantee me anonymity, not when I used my real name, and fabricated the rest. Not too many white lies, but just enough.

Of course, he said, it was the internet, that juggernaut of information, good and bad, that follows us everywhere and destroys a good person and extols a criminal.

I tried to tell everyone that what was written about me was wrong, a distortion of the facts, but it seemed people wanted to believe what they wanted to believe, not what was true. I had done nothing wrong. People had lied to save themselves and when you throw mud, some of it sticks. Even when it’s proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was lies.

And, like all good newspapers, never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

The pity of it was the journalist who wrote the story was someone I cared about, and not without reason decided to do a check on the new guy who moved into town and seemed too good to be true. I realised that was the case the moment she said it.

I also knew that whatever relationship we may have had was over.

It taught me a valuable lesson and one that took nearly six months in a remote cabin in the wilderness to rectify.

I changed my name, changed everything. I had read a dozen different spy novels and followed the guide to changing who I was. Finding a small place in the middle of nowhere that had a graveyard with someone my age who had died in their first year. Started with a birth certificate, and went from there, until I had a whole new identity.

And then, and only then, did I come out of hiding, remembering the cardinal rule, keep to myself, do not entertain having a relationship, and at the top of the list, don’t date a journalist.

…

©  Charles Heath  2025

Writing a book in 365 days – 15

Day 15

Set yourself a reading list, and don’t limit yourself to the sort of genre of books that you wish to write. But, I have to admit I’m guilty of not necessarily reading everything because there are genres that I do not like.

But, for the purposes of this exercise, what you are looking for are:

  • Descriptions of locations, the methods by which the author conveys the setting, whether, dark, light, eerie, scary, dripping with menace, or inspiring fear. A dark room can be just a dark room, but it can be so much more.
  • Descriptions of people. If anyone who witnessed a crime was asked to describe the guilty, ten different people would give ten different descriptions and unless there was a distinguishing factor like he only had one arm, it might describe a quarter to half the population. Your job is to see how others do it and refine it for your characterisations.
  • Conversation. We all have conversations but when it comes to writing them down and making them sound plausible, that’s another story. Conversation is the hardest part of this writing thing, or at least I think so.
  • Writing style. You will eventually get your own, but to begin with, it might be a little strange. Reading many similar-themed or genre books will give you some idea of what the publisher’s editors are looking for.

You will have to read quite a few, I have a library with about 3,000 books, having accumulated them over 50 years. And I think I have learned a thing or two from reading nearly all of them.

Writing a book in 365 days

Day 13

The bible, believe it or not, is just a collection of stories handed down over the years, from one language to the next, ending up in English so we English-speaking people could read it.

But, originally, these stories were told by people, not written down and read out, not for a long time when someone thought it would be a good idea to get them down before they were lost in the mists of time.

It’s not unlike the stories we tell our children about those who came before them, of what we knew about them, and sometimes a few embellishments to make them sound larger than life. I mean, who wants to have boring relatives?

Coming from another angle, when writing a story, sometimes it’s a good idea to read it out aloud. That will tell you if there are any problems. The first time I did this, I had to ask myself what I was thinking … people didn’t talk like that!

Now I get the text-to-voice feature working on the words, which is just as good. It tries to interpret the badly and wrongly spelled words. AI is good but not that good.

Then, if you write a good enough story, you can hold readings in bookstores and libraries, and not have storage looks cast in your direction when something is not quite right.

Everybody’s a critic, yes?

Writing a novel in 365 days – 6e

Day 6 Continued – It’s all in the detail

While we get to talk about characters and characteristics later, part of what sets the scene is the details, those little things about people, places, and sometimes just everyday items that will make a story from routine to, well, slightly more interesting.

For others to find these details relatable makes it even better.

I’ve been to the Eiffel Tower, but I’m sure there’s a detail that can transform words on a page into a picture in the reader’s mind.

Walking across a meadow isn’t just walking, it’s watching the swirling grass as the breeze pushes it one way then another, all around the sounds of birds, and insects.

For added colour you could add a dog, about the same height as the grass, one minute bounding through the grass, the next hot on the trail of a small animal like a field mouse or rabbit.

Above, the sky is blue, the sun is shining, not a hot day, but warm, the sort you don’t need a jumper.

It could be the first day or the last day of the holidays, or you could be staying with an aunt or uncle on a farm in the countryside, in the distance the farmhouse sitting in a familiar position overlooking the valley before it.

There could be a babbling brook, a small bridge to cross, even though it is not very deep, and hiding in the rocks, fish waiting to be caught, taken back to the house, and later become part of supper.

And tying the elements together:

It was almost the end of the holidays and I didn’t want to go back to the city. The last few weeks had opened my eyes to a world I had never known existed.

Sitting under the apple tree on the edge of the grove I looked out across the meadow that fell gently down towards the creek when the other day I had taken my aunt’s advice and went for a dip to cool off.

Now, looking out and trying to put a permanent image of the scene before me in my mind so I could remember it in the coming weeks and months, there was something new, different, than the other days.

Yes, the grass, as high as Cyclops, my aunt’s dog, was swirling in the breeze, and was bounding as he always did through the grass, searching for a rabbit, or he just caught a scent. Yes, the sky was blue, though now there were whispy clouds in the distance, perhaps an omen the weather was about to change, but that was not it.

A different sound from the birds chirping and the insects buzzing, someone singing not loudly but as they would to themselves when they knew no one else was around.

And, then I saw her, a girl my age, long blonde hair tousled by the breeze, in a summery dress with flowers and birds. The elusive Erica, the girl from the next farm, who, my aunt said, sometimes came to pick some apples to take back to her mother to bake apple pie.

Apple pie that was to die for.

When she reached the grove she saw me and stopped. The happy, cheerful expression turned to one of curiosity.

“Who are you?”

“Andy. I’m staying with my aunt. How come I haven’t seen you before?”

“I’ve been here. You have not or I would have seen you.”

True. I had spent most of my time, up until this day working with my uncle in the barn and on the tractor ploughing other fields. I was only here because my aunt had sent me to get some apples fresh from the tree.

“I have been helping my uncle.”

…

It started out as an awkward conversation because I was not very comfortable around girls. Those that I knew, in the city, were not very nice. By the end, I had found a new friend, and it made it all the more impossible that I had to go home.

And, although I didn’t know it then, it was the start of a relationship that would continue until the day we both died.

…

It of course needs refinement and more interweaving of the elements around us, but it;s a start.

…

©  Charles Heath  2025


Writing a book in 365 days

Days 11 and 12

It’s a writing exercise, not one I particularly like, but it’s another step – building characters

This one, a car lover, has more interest in his car than anything else. We’re looking to gauge his reactions when various events occur.

I must say, I don’t really know anyone like this.

Firstly, the car was stolen but returned a week later undamaged and a full tank of petrol.

Well, it’s certainly not a group of 12 to 14-year-olds stealing cars, they’d wrap it around a lamp post and kill everyone but the driver who would be unscathed, taken to the station, charged, let out because he’s a juvenile, and get caught the following week doing the same thing.

But that’s not the brief.

What really happened? A relative borrowed the vehicle. Who else would do such a thing?

Second, a tree falls on it and wrecks it, and the son of the car lover thinks it’s funny.

It probably is, to a certain degree. The irony of someone who so lovingly cares for it, watches it get destroyed with such ease? There’s always insurance, isn’t there?

Third, While cleaning the truck he finds a secret compartment and a note.

Yes, this is the stuff to feed a fertile imagination. My reaction, a note left by a previous lover after they made out on the back seat, advising him he’s a father. The fact he had a girlfriend, married her, and had children already, this has to be a shock.

There is a dozen other scenarios, and maybe it might fuel a story … one day.

Writing a book in 365 days – 16

Day 16

Today we have a writing exercise – at last.

The theme, nothing like anything that will fit the outline of the story I have in mind, but maybe I can use a little poetic licence.

It is: “I never liked rain, so I moved to the desert. The clouds followed.”

Metaphorically speaking, and not literally the clouds followed, or I would be feeling like Charlie Brown who says it always rains on the unloved, which to him was a daily occurrence.

So…

A friend of mine once said if I did not like the rain, move to the desert. I never quite understood what that meant until I saw my name in the newspaper and a not-too-flattering profile.

Then, when I spoke to him a few days after reading the profile, he said, “You can run but you can’t hide.”

OK, enough with the metaphors.

When pressed he told me that going to another town no matter how remote from the last did not guarantee me anonymity, not when I used my real name, and fabricated the rest. Not too many white lies, but just enough.

Of course, he said, it was the internet, that juggernaut of information, good and bad, that follows us everywhere and destroys a good person and extols a criminal.

I tried to tell everyone that what was written about me was wrong, a distortion of the facts, but it seemed people wanted to believe what they wanted to believe, not what was true. I had done nothing wrong. People had lied to save themselves and when you throw mud, some of it sticks. Even when it’s proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was lies.

And, like all good newspapers, never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

The pity of it was the journalist who wrote the story was someone I cared about, and not without reason decided to do a check on the new guy who moved into town and seemed too good to be true. I realised that was the case the moment she said it.

I also knew that whatever relationship we may have had was over.

It taught me a valuable lesson and one that took nearly six months in a remote cabin in the wilderness to rectify.

I changed my name, changed everything. I had read a dozen different spy novels and followed the guide to changing who I was. Finding a small place in the middle of nowhere that had a graveyard with someone my age who had died in their first year. Started with a birth certificate, and went from there, until I had a whole new identity.

And then, and only then, did I come out of hiding, remembering the cardinal rule, keep to myself, do not entertain having a relationship, and at the top of the list, don’t date a journalist.

…

©  Charles Heath  2025

Writing a book in 365 days – 350 – new

Day 350 – Writing exercise

He had never liked the desert, or anywhere hot, if he was telling the truth.

…

It started out a joke and ended up as the reason for defunding my project, but irrespective of the reason given, it was not unexpected because of the lack of progress, and cost overruns.

And the fact that I had suffered a minor breakdown, having laboured day and night, in very hot, dusty, trying conditions for longer than I expected.

Of course, the fact that I had assured the Management team that I would be available 24/7, and was forced to go on indefinite sick leave, was probably the final nail in the coffin.

That, and the fact that I had participated in an interview where I had confessed, in a moment of reflection, that I preferred to live in the cooler climate of the mountains than in the middle of the desert, the place where I had been running a major investigation into underground rivers.

Or, as my hard-working and cynical assistant project manager had put it, they didn’t want a woman taking my place, and worse, they didn’t want anyone to know they had run out of funding.

In the end none of it matered.  They shut down the site.

…

Melanie, Acting Project Manager, resident cynic, and all-around conspiracy theorist, had dropped in on her way home, or as she put it, a welcome deviation before returning to a ‘rat hole’ at her sister’s residence while in transit between jobs.

I had just left the hospital, and arrived at my ‘Shangrila’ the day before.  She had just wrapped up the operation in Mexico.  She looked as exhausted as I still felt.

When Melanie watched the replay of the post-project interview, curious to see what had been said, she realised one very important point.  “You were led. The interviewer had a definite plan to lead you down a particular path, and then took a run with it.”

“I was tired and wanted to get it over with.”

“You didn’t ask for the slate of questions ahead of time?”

“I did and was given a folder.  There was nothing about climate preferences, or the possibility of exhaustion, in them.”

“There you are.  It was nothing less than a set-up, clearly designed to derail your project.”

Melanie always suspected the organisation that funded the projects to be exactly the sort of people they portrayed to the outside world, and she had been very vocal at the first meeting, and several since, citing the world needed water, not geo-thermal energy.

In the beginning, it had been a hard sell.  Until suddenly they changed their minds from a hard no to a three year deal.

That was until the two board members who agreed with her had retired in the last six months.

“If they hadn’t retired, we wouldn’t be here.”

Actually, we would.  We had not found irrefutable evidence that there was water under the impenetrable rock.  It was somewhere near there, I just wasn’t sure exactly where, and drilling bores wasn’t cheap.

I had been assured they’d come back to it later.

Meanwhile…

I was on administrative leave.  Melanie was supposed to go to Peru, or Chile.  Instead she stayed with me.

…

Melanie had also suspected the Project Management organisation of having ulterior motives.  I had also heard the rumours that somewhere of the projects had two purposes.

The most recent, an archaeological dig turned into a search for oil, in a place where the local government had been prevented from prospecting.

Our project had the security team ‘enhanced’ because of ‘perceived’ threats to our safety, which, in the end, didn’t materialise.

Just before the funding dried up.

It was not as if they didn’t have a reason.  Suddenly, we found it difficult to bore through the hard rock to get down to the suspected cavern where an underground river ran from the Arctic to the north to the equator.

We had found what was believed to be the entrance in northern Scandinavia, but not the outlet, other than ancient evidence of water feeding a flourishing Aztec city, not just dry dusty ruins.   It had been paradise.

And as much as I would like to also give my archaeological skills a run, that hadn’t been our focus.  We just had to work around the archealogical aspects of the site.

Even so, I had a feeling someone was poking around the ruins, with people going missing, and strange noises at night.

Melanie was adamant that the ghosts of the city’s once-inhabitants were rising up to protect their final resting place from us invaders.

It became the subject of a conversation one morning, after about a week, the amount of time it took for Melanie doing nothing to start getting bored.

She had just latched onto the archaeological aspects of the site, just arriving at a conclusion I had considered a possibility, but unlikely given the local government’s stand on exploration of the ruins.

“It’s an unjustified cost to bore through impassable rock, especially when we cannot prove an outcome.”

“What if it wasn’t and they’re just telling you that?”

I looked at her over the conference table with surprise.  Melanie was my guru for superstitions and conspiracy theories, and was often closer to the bone than most.

She had said once after a few too many margaritas that the site we were working at had been an old Aztec temple and place of worship and sacrifice, and more than one ghost had been seen at night.

I thought I had seen one myself, but I didn’t believe in such things.  But I did suspect that there might be an element of truth in another myth she had uncovered, that somewhere within the boundaries of the site was a reputed entrance to a network of caverns and tunnels, where artifacts had been hidden from the Spanish conquerors, and which several items had been found nearby.

It would make more sense to think we had been shut down so that another cladescine expedition was being funded to locate the entrance, or determine whether there was any truth to the supposition of gold and or artifacts were hidden there.  That would make more money than finding underground watercourses.

“Then what are you telling me?”

“Those extra security staff sent to save us from the revolting masses would know one end of a gun from the other.  Did they look like mercenaries?”

After a few more margaritas she confessed her ideal man was that Hollywood stereotype mercenary, a stereotype that was not supported by the members of of security team, or the additional people sent.

“Not really, but do we really know that security people have a ‘type’?”

“Girls who look like they just came from a fashion show in Milan.  You remember Joanne and Louisa?”

I don’t think anyone could forget them.  She had a point, but by that time, I was almost overcome by exhaustion.

“You think they were archaeology students?”

“Isn’t that how digs work?  One or two experts and a dozen students are working towards their degrees.  You went through that process.”

I had, though, not been so lucky to find a dig so rich in history.  “We were strictly forbidden from any archealogical exploration.”

“And Management knew you’d assure them that nothing like that was going on.  They relied on your reputation, one of the main reasons the local government allowed the project.  That you’d run it and you’d find water.  Especially if you found water.  When I stopped at the office of the mayor to give him the keys, half a dozen of the newbies, including the girls, were still there.  They were supposed to be on a plane a week ago.”

“They don’t have permission to conduct archaeological exploration of the ruins.”

“Who needs permission to do anything, other than us good guys.  We’ve been running a distraction.  I think they’ve discovered the tunnels and caverns.  And they, more than anything else, might lead us to the water.  We were looking in the wrong place.  I think the city was built on top of the water outlet, and the Aztecs destroyed it themselves to spite the Spanish”

“But we were not in the business of treasure hunting.”

Or were we?

“Why don’t we go and find out?”

…

Melanie and I had worked together for nearly ten years and had know each other since university as struggling engineers.  My first choice of archaeology became my second choice out of practicality.

Melanie was fun, we had a brief fling, but it was at a time where serious stuff like study, then work, tore us apart.  Now we had gravitated back into each other’s orbit, and in the latest downtime it was a sign she preferred to stay with me than go home to her sister.

The bolt hole of a room filled with years of accumulated junk may have been a better reason to stay, but after three days of sleeping on the couch, she came out, took my hand, and told me we were finally too old to be making the same mistakes.

It was one of those things where you just knew instinctively that you should be together.  We finished each other’s sentences.  We knew what the other was thinking, but that thought was not expressed out loud.  It was scary sometimes.

Like sitting on the plane heading towards Mexico City, and seeing two of the Management team that had been at the meeting that shut us down.

It had been her idea to disguise ourselves, not with fake hair and props, but by getting her friend, a stylist who worked in a Salon, to give us both a makeover.

Even I didn’t recognise myself in the mirror.  And Melanie, well, I don’t think I ever looked at her other than as that sloppy eighteen-year-old who cared less for fashion and style than I did.

And we didn’t even have to try and act like we were on our honeymoon.

Off the plane and into secret agent mode, which felt strange trying to act like someone your not, was a little comical.

We followed the two ‘targets’ from the plane, to immigration, to the baggage hall and through customs, to outside the terminal building, where they were collected in a white van, the vehicle that delivered the new security team members a few months before, and their leader, who got out to greet them and stow their luggage.

“I was right.  Sneaky devils.”  Melanie might have had a complete makeover but her underlying personality was still there. 

What had seemed a lark back in the retreat where we were safe and cosy now took on a more serious aspect.  The idea of getting proof … of what, wasn’t exactly clear now … gave me second thoughts.

There was definitely something going on, but it might be legitimate, and we were just blowing smoke.

“How do you know any of this is suspect?  I mean, they could be here for something else?”

She looked me up and down.  “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.  Besides, I asked Monty to bump into the Mayor’s assistant, you know, the one he’s keen on, and ask her if anything is afoot.”

Of course, Melanie had a network of spies. 

“She wouldn’t tell him anything.”

“After a few Margaritas, she’s worse than I am.  You really need to get out more.”

Perhaps I did, though trying to imagine Melanie as this whole other different person was a surprise.

“And…”

“It’s not what she said, it’s how she said it.  I think that there’s an undercover operation going on, like there was while we were there.  I suspect, given what Monte tells me, they closed our operation too quickly, on the basis of a discovery that was premature.  They found the entrance to a tunnel that had been covered over to look like a roof collapse, and everyone jumped the gun.”

“No tunnel?”

“Nothing but an empty cavern.”

“Someone else stole the treasure before them.”

“Doubtful.  They found bones.  One of the intrepid students said it was a place for rituals, like sacrifices to the gods.”

“They did that in temples on top of hills.  They’d more likely be the remains of captured Spanish invaders.”

She shrugged.  “Whatever they’re doing, time is running out.  Maybe they’ll ask us to come back and run interference for them.”

“Would you?”

“They know I wouldn’t.  It’s why they were sending me to Peru.  Purgatory.”

A battered van that had seen better days screeched to a halt in front of us, and I saw Monty through the grimy side window.  The last time I saw the van, he was taking me to the hospital.

He gave Melanie a hug, with far more affection than I expected for friends, and felt a tinge of jealousy.  I would have to get used to her affectionate and easy manner with everyone.

Then he shook my hand.  “You still look terrible.”

“Thanks.  I thought you were going to modernise?”

He had spoken about getting a new Toyota.

“Why mess with perfection?  It gets from point A to point B without a hiccup.”  He opened the side door, and we got in, then closed it with a bang.

Seconds later, we were on our way to the hotel, whatever cloak-and-dagger hotel Melanie had picked.  It was not going to be a five-star or even four-star.

We were, she said, flying under the radar.  I had expected to be given a new fake passport after the makeover. 

I found it hard to believe anyone would care what we did; now we were no longer working on any project.  I was still on Administrative leave, whatever that was.

“So, what’s happening.

“That is a long story and I think it’s better if I show you.  Settle in at the hotel, and I’ll come and get you at 8pm.  You will be … amused.”

Amused, then, it will be.

…

I spent the better part of an hour trying not to think about Melanie in a clingy black jumpsuit.

Our instructions were to dress in black, head to foot, for camouflage.  I didn’t look half as good as she did, and I had to readjust my thoughts.  It had been so long since I’d been that close to a woman, and I hadn’t really expected that I would feel this way.

I got the impression that she liked being admired, again, part of her persona that I would have to get a grip on.  I can’t be jealous of everyone and everything.

In the jalopy, my new name for Monty’s vehicle, he wasn’t telling us much, except…

After the site was closed down, an old man, a descendant of the Aztecs, he thought came to see him.

First it was to thank him for getting it done.

Second, he said he was the last of the custodians of the city, and having no one to pass it on to, asked Monty if he would.

Monty was curious as to what it entailed.

Making sure no one discovered the true power of the city.  It was dismantled when the invaders got too close.  For the elders, it meant they had to kill the city so the invaders would go away.

Of course, he agreed, if only to find out what this power was.

The man took him to a certain part of the city, some distance from where it was considered to be the southern wall line, the original city with four walls and four gates, all of which had only traces remaining.  The city was considered only within the walls.

The spot they were headed was out of view of the city, and, he was told, for a reason.

He ended with the fact that he had seen what the man wanted him to see, but decided to wait until we had returned.  It was what he had been told what there, well, he wanted the rights to the movie because this was going to be an instalment of Indiana Jones.

I was beginning to think he was completely mad.

…

It was a dark night with a cloudy sky and intermittent moonlight.  On the drive here, it had been reasonably light.  Near the bushes after parking, it was very dark, and Monty had been using a pen light to minimise exposure.

Monty parked the car in a spot that was practically concealed on three fronts.  It was clear the man who showed him had been there before, once recently.

From the parking spot, it was a short walk towards a copse of thick bushes that, for some reason, seemed to be growing very well when everything beyond twenty metres was dead or dying.

We watched Monty carefully pick his way through the copse, following equally as carefully.  The bushes were prickly and the thorns sharp.

With several scratches we made to the middle, where an area of the ground was covered in sand.

Monty went to the other side of the clearing and looked on the ground for several minutes before he put his foot into a bush.  That’s what it looked like.  Then, several seconds later the sand started sinking, then moving slowly sideways exposing and opening and steps going down.

Monty had brought a backpack and distributed three torches.

“I’ll go first.”

I noticed he also had a gun.  I’d never seen him with a gun before.

We went down.  And down.  And down.  There seemed to be a lot of steps built into the walls of a hole that had been dug out of the rock that we apparently drilled through.

Until we reached a large, very deep hole that seemed to go down into the depths of the earth.  At the top, there was a wooden structure that looked like the top of an elevator, though that was impossible.

On the side, more steps, heading down.

And in the background, a very faint but familiar sound.  Running water.

“So, this person knew all along we were looking for water in the wrong place?”

Monty nodded.  “He’s a guardian.  I’m surprised he told me, but he seemed to think I had a hand in sending you lot away.  He asked me to be the next guardian.”

“He has no interest in reviving the city?”

“The city is in ruins.  Nothing can revive it.”

“Is there anything of value?”

“If there is, he didn’t tell me about it.”

It was not that difficult to see what had been used in this well.  A system of buckets taking the water from below up to an intermediate reservoir, then redirected to the city, and elsewhere.

The real treasure here was the water.

“Now you know, what are you going to do?” Melanie gave me one of those sideways looks of hers, the one that said, There’s a right and a wrong decision.  We found the waterways, but it didn’t end here.  That was somewhere else, and I could plot it.

They shut the project down, and as far as I could see, it might as well stay shut.  I didn’t think they’d find any treasure, and even if they did, they wouldn’t tell anyone.

I looked at Monty.  “You want to become this guardian character?”

“If Juanita will have me.  What are you going to do?”

“I told them I want to find the endpoint.  This is not the end.  I’ll be going further south, Chile, Peru, Argentina, or find something else to do.  Maybe I’ll write a book about the Aztecs.”

“Good choice.  That old man I was telling you about.  He takes his job seriously.  Those treasure hunters, they’re on borrowed time.  I told him you’d do the right thing.”

“And if we hadn’t?”

“I told him you would do the right thing.  You didn’t make a liar out of me.  Now, let’s go eat.  All this stumbling around in the dark has made me hungry.”

…

Writing about writing a book – Day 21

I’m back to writing Bill’s backstory, and how he got mixed up in the war, and a few other details which will play out later on.

This will be some of it, in his own words:

…

I think I volunteered for active duty in Vietnam.

It was either that, or I had been volunteered by my prospective father-in-law.  I was serving under his command in an Army Camp for some time, and unbeknownst to me for a time, I had been dating his daughter.

The daughter of a General.  It was like that adage, ‘marrying the boss’s daughter’.  Only this boss was the bastard of all bastards.  When he found out, my life became hell.  As a Corporal, he told me I was far beneath his expectations of the right man for his daughter.  He thought she would be better off with a Colonel.

Then I got my orders.  I was to join the latest batch of nashos on their way to the latest theatre of war.  But before that, Ellen, a woman with a mind of her own, and sometimes daring enough to defy her father, said we should get married, and I being the young fool I did, in a registry office, the day before I left for the war.

I promised to be faithful, as all newly married men did, and that I would come back to her.  We had all heard the stories coming out of Southeast Asia, where the war was not going so well, for us, or the Americans, and that this was a final effort.

When we landed, we were greeted by the men leaving.  They were glad to be going home.  And I chose not to believe some of the stories.  Nothing could be as bad as they painted it.

Could it?

 

I’d been trained for war.  I could handle a weapon, several actually, and I could if I had to kill the enemy.  After all, it was my job.  I was defending Queen and country.

I was a regular soldier, not a nasho.  Not one of the mostly terrified boys who’d hardly reached anything approaching manhood, some all gung-ho, others frightened out of their minds.  As a regular soldier, this was where I was supposed to be.

But being sent to a war to fight, and having to fight, I soon discovered were two very different things.  On the training ground, even training with live ammunition, being shot at, mortared, and chased through the jungles of North Queensland, it was not the same, on the ground in Saigon.

It was relentlessly hot, steamy, raining, and fine.  Or dry and dusty.  But in any of the conditions, it was uncomfortable being hot all the time.  During the day, and during the night.

Then we were sent out to join various units.  Mine was north, where, I wasn’t quite sure, where the motley remains of the group were bolstered by us, new people.  Morale was not good, as we arrived in the torrential rain in an air transport that had seen better days, and notable for two events, the fact we were shot at several times and taking out the first casualty before we arrived, and the near-crash landing when we did.

I soon learned the value of the statement, ‘any landing you walk away from is a good one’.

 …

Yes, seems like a good start to a bad end.  More on this tomorrow while I’m in the mood.

…

© Charles Heath 2016-2024

Writing about writing a book – Day 2

Hang about.  Didn’t I read somewhere you need to plan your novel, create an outline setting the plot points, and flesh out the characters?

I’m sure it didn’t say, sit down and start writing!

Time to find a writing pad, and put my thinking cap on.

I make a list, what’s the story going to be about? Who’s going to be in it, at least at the start?

Like a newspaper story, I need a who, what, when, where, and how.

Right now.

 

I pick up the pen.

 

Character number one:

Computer nerd, ok, that’s a little close to the bone, a computer manager who is trying to be everything at once, and failing.  Still me, but with a twist.  Now, add a little mystery to him, and give him a secret, one that will only be revealed after a specific set of circumstance.  Yes, I like that.

We’ll call him Bill, ex-regular army, a badly injured and repatriated soldier who was sent to fight a war in Vietnam, the result of which had made him, at times, unfit to live with.

He had a wife, which brings us to,

Character number two:

Ellen, Bill’s ex-wife, an army brat and a General’s daughter, and the result of one of those romances that met disapproval for so many reasons.  It worked until Bill came back from the war, and from there it slowly disintegrated.  There are two daughters, both by the time the novel begins, old enough to understand the ramifications of a divorce.

Character number three:

The man who is Bill’s immediate superior, the Services Department manager, a rather officious man who blindly follows orders, a man who takes pleasure in making others feel small and insignificant, and worst of all, takes the credit where none is due.

Oops, too much, that is my old boss.  He’ll know immediately I’m parodying him.  Tone it down, just a little, but more or less that’s him.  Last name Benton.  He will play a small role in the story.

Character number four:

Jennifer, the IT Department’s assistant manager, a woman who arrives in a shroud of mystery, and then, in time, to provide Bill with a shoulder to cry on when he and Ellen finally split, and perhaps something else later on.

More on her later as the story unfolds.

So far so good.

What’s the plot?

Huge corporation plotting to take over the world using computers?  No, that’s been done to death.

Huge corporation, OK, let’s stop blaming the corporate world for everything wrong in the world.  Corporations are not bad people, people are the bad people.  That’s a rip off cliché, from guns don’t kill people, people kill people!  There will be guns, and there will be dead people.

There will be people hiding behind a huge corporation, using a part of their computer network to move billions of illegally gained money around.  That’s better.

Now, having got that, our ‘hero’ has to ‘discover’ this network, and the people behind it.

All we need now is to set the ball rolling, a single event that ‘throws a cat among the pigeons’.

Yes, Bill is on holidays, a welcome relief from the problems of work.  He dreams of what he’s going to do for the next two weeks.  The phone rings.  Benton calling, the world is coming to an end, the network is down.  He’s needed.  A few terse words, but he relents.

Pen in hand I begin to write.

 

© Charles Heath 2016-2019