Tag: Fiction

When you’re tired, anything can happen!

It’s late at night and there are twenty other story ideas that are currently running around in my head, instead of the story I should be working on.

These ideas are impinging on the current story, and somehow are finding their way onto the page.

Writing, cursing, deleting, re-writing, deleting, cursing.

I’m working on the latest book and it is not going well.  I don’t have writer’s block, I think it is more a case of self-doubt.  It’s why I can’t concentrate.

It’s why I’m thinking about the next story and not staying on track.

This leads me to be over critical of what I have written and much pressing of the delete key.  Only to realize that an action taken in haste can be regrettable, and makes me feel even more depressed when I realize the deletions are irrecoverable.

Damn.

I think I’d be happier in a garret somewhere channeling van Gogh’s rage.

Lesson learned – don’t delete, save it to a text file so it can be retrieved when sanity returns.

I was not happy with the previous start.  Funny about that, because until a few weeks ago I thought the start was perfect.

It seems it’s been like that for a few weeks now, not being able to stick to the job in hand, doing anything but what I’m supposed to be doing.  I recognize the restlessness, I’m not happy with the story as it is, so rather than getting on with it, I find myself writing words just for the sake of writing words.

Any words are better than none, right?

So I rewrote the start, added about a hundred pages and now I have to do a mass of rewriting of what was basically the whole book.

But here’s the thing.

This morning I woke up and looked at the new start, and it has inspired me.

Perhaps all I needed was several weeks of teeth gnashing, and self-doubt to get myself back on track.

 

NaNoWriMo – Day 9 – Real life impinges on my writing time

Today is the day I pick up the grandchildren from school, cook dinner, then take them home.

How does this affect the writing time, you ask.

It doesn’t help if you were up till 2:31 am the same morning and sleep in till after 10.

Still time before leaving at 2:30 pm to go to the school, you say.

Wrong.

Food to prepare, a potato bake, simple to make, but it takes time to prepare, and cook.

Chicken schnitzels, cut the chicken, and crumb it, simple, but takes time.

Before you know it, it’s time to go, and the potato bake has been in for an hour so far.

Oh, and one child requires handmade chips, not the bought kind, and neither like store bought schnitzels, so everything is handmade.

By the time the kids are back home, I’ve got the coffee from a drive-through cafe, it’s after 7:00 pm.

By the time I get to the computer to start, it’s after 11:00 pm

Tired.

Mind is a blank.

Just write

Two and a half hours later, 1,697 words.  Gibberish it might be, but it’s done.

Thank God tomorrow is a Saturday

Or not.

It’smind-numbingg shopping day!

“The Things We Do For Love” – Coming soon

Like Sunday in New York, this is another attempt at writing a romance novel.  I’m one of those deluded fools who believe in happy endings.

I guess that was a ‘spoiler’!

This is the description I’m currently working with.

 

Is love the metaphorical equivalent to ‘walking the plank’; a dive into uncharted waters.

For Henry the only romance he was interested in was a life at sea, and when away from it, he strived to find sanctuary from his family and perhaps life itself.  Tonbright, a small village by the sea, is one such a place, but he never expected to find another, Michelle, whom he soon discovers is as mysterious as she is beautiful.

Henry had long since given up the notion of finding romance, and Michelle couldn’t get involved for reasons she could never explain, but in the end both acknowledge that something had happened.  Plans were made, plans were revised, and hopes were shattered.

A chance encounter causes Michelle’s past to catch up with her, and whatever hope she had of having a normal life with Henry, or anyone else, is gone.  To keep him alive she has to destroy her blossoming relationship, an act that breaks her heart and shatters his.

But can love conquer all?

It takes a few words of encouragement from an unlikely source to send Henry and his friend Radly on an odyssey into the darkest corners of the red light district in a race against time to find and rescue the woman he finally realizes is the love of his life.

 

The cover, at the moment, looks like this:

lovecoverfinal1

 

NaNoWriMo – Day 8 – heading into the second week

The statistics are telling the story, in one sense.

After 8 days, 16,685 words, an average of 1,853 words a day, an average of 1,515 words a day to meet the 50,000-word target, and to do that I will be finished by Nov 27.

Of course, that would be true, but who writes a novel that is exactly 50,000 words?

It would be novel (pardon the pun) if you could do just that, it’s worth a moments thought before discarding.

The words are finding themselves being grouped into chapters, and the story is taking shape with the first section almost done.

Day 8 has seen the starting of the second section, and all I can say about the theme is be careful what you wish for!

“Sunday in New York”, it’s a bumpy road to love

“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

Sunday In New York

NaNoWriMo – Day 7 – A week is a long time in…

As the title, it is usually said that a week is a long time in politics.

And has it what.  I think a lot of people have discovered the power of their one vote!

But we’re not here to discuss politics, that’s boring stuff, we’re here to revel in the fact seven days have passed, and I’m still on track.

I know, I know, don’t start blowing your trumpet too soon, a lot can still go to hell in a handbasket from here, but at the moment I’m being optimistic.

I’ve written the chapter that was missing, and this, of course, had opened up another hole where I’ll need to add another chapter, but that’s under control.

For now.

But, the big news…

I’ve decided to break the book into three parts,

The reluctant friend

A friend in need

A friend avenged

These might change, but so far, so good.

“The Devil You Don’t”, a thriller

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’.

Purchase:

http://amzn.to/2o7ZtxZ

 

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NaNoWriMo – Day 6 – A new twist, when not distracted

You see, this commitment to writing so many words a day becomes a little like a pressure cooker.

Having a plan is one thing, writing to it is another, but to keep going, now, there’s the thing.

Like this morning, sitting in front of the computer, knowing only five minutes before sitting down what I wanted to write about.  A new twist in the tale.

Then the phone rings.

Up from the table, over to the phone, answer it.

A nuisance call, someone saying I had an accident when I didn’t, a new group of scammers trying to leverage money out of you.  On top of the telecommunication scammers, and the endless charities looking for donations.

Distractions.

I sit down again, but my mind has switched off.

The words are gone.

Breakfast is looking good.

“Echoes From The Past”, a thriller

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.

http://amzn.to/2F7gqAL

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NaNoWriMo – Day 5 – Adding to the word count

Which by the way, is the most important thing to be doing.

Today, day 5, the count is 1,862 words, making a total of 8,943 words so far.

What I have to be careful about is not to let the pressure get to me, I mean, I have to write about 1,700 words a day to maintain target.

If I miss a day, or the creative juices stop flowing…

OK, not something we need to think about.

Just a minor issue, though, I left a section out, to be written, because I was not sure what I wanted to write.  Perhaps what is coming may give some insight.

In the meantime, yet another yellow post-it note.

I’m thinking of getting a new color, perhaps a more soothing color like pale green.