Tag: Fiction

On renovations and editing

There are a lot of words in the English language that can strike fear into the hearts of even the bravest of men and women.

Two are renovations and editing.

We are currently deep in the first and it’s running something like this:

Firstly, we are updating the ensuite, and this has been relatively painless.

Secondly, we are fixing up the outside of the house.  The intention was to put in a retaining wall and build a stone garden with succulents.

Ah, the best-laid plans!

This led to, let’s render the walls, get rid of the unsightly bricks.

Fine.

But before that, we need to repaint the roof an appropriate colour to match the walls.

Fine.

Got the roof done, got the walls rendered.

Now we need a carport.  Fine.

Back to the garden, and so on, and so forth.  Much is still to be done.

It’s like editing, a chore that I’m beginning to like less and less because it’s taking on the dimensions of a renovation.

It isn’t a matter of correcting spelling mistakes, sentence structure errors, or badly place punctuation.

It’sd a matter of weeding out the superfluous text, cutting and more cutting, taking out anything that does not propel the story to a logical and unexpected end, let alone having to rewrite at the beginning because of an afterthought later on.

Starting to sound like the garden, rendering, roof scenario?

It’s harder editing than writing.

So many words, so much brilliance, ending up on the cutting room floor.

Perhaps it’s time to go back to the renovations.  They seem more fun than editing.

No?

 

 

I’m in training for NaNoWriMo

It’s frightening to think that I have to write 50,000 words in 30 days.

Yet I have done it before, last November in fact.  But I believed then I couldn’t do it and didn’t enter.  At the end of November, I surprised myself and finished up with a novel titled ‘If Only’.

Rather apt I thought at the time; if only I’d entered!

But this year, I’m in.

Usually, I sit down and start writing, not sure where it’s going to take me.  Some say a book needs to be meticulously planned,

Characters planned down to their foibles,

Plot lines to drive the characters, adding twists and turns until the surprise ending that no one saw coming.

Even me.

All in 30 days?

Another issue I have is that when I start writing, it is not necessarily the ‘start’.

Some of my stories in the rewrite, or even when I’m halfway through, suddenly cry out for a new start, something relative to the plot earlier, or a missed detail will come to you, usually in the most unlikely place, and this for me is the shower.

This can cause a cascade of rewrites of earlier chapters.

Nothing a little planning might have resolved, but there will not be time.

It’s going to be a challenge.

At least I have a title, The Enemy Within.

I have the basis for the central character, a man who doesn’t quite fit in.  I have a clear idea of where it will end, but that could change slightly as the story progresses.

I basically know where and when it will start.  I’ve always like the start to the James Bond films, that short period when the action of pulsating just before the credits, a small slice of what’s to come.

What’s in between?

That will be topis for November.  What I’ve written and where it’s going.

Stay tuned.

 

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

 

The Devil You Don’t

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 favour 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 ‘favour’ 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://tinyurl.com/Amazon-TheDevilYouDont

newdevilcvr3

Echoes From The Past

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.

Purchase:

http://tinyurl.com/Amazon-EchoesFromThePast

newechocover5rs

Sunday In New York

“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

A new story …

I write about spies, washed out, worn out or thrown out.

It’s time for me to go on with my next book.

The first sentence of a novel is always the hardest. Like I guess many others, I sit and ponder what I’m going to write, whether it will be relevant, whether it will pull the reader into my world, and cause them to read on.

And that’s the objective, to capture the reader’s imagination and want to see what’s going to happen next.

The problem is, we have to set the scene.

Or do we?

Do we need to cover the who, what, where, and when criteria in that first sentence? Can we just start with edge of the seat suspense, like,

The first bullet hit the concrete wall about six inches above my head with a resounding thwack that scared the living daylights out of me. The second, sent on its way within a fraction of a second of the first found its mark, the edge of my shoulder, slicing through the material, and creasing skin and flesh. There was blood and then panic.

Milliseconds later my brain registered the near miss and sent the instruction: get down you idiot.

I hit the ground just as another bullet slammed into the concrete where my head had just been.

It can use some more work, less commas, perhaps shorter, sharper sentences to convey the urgency and danger.

Perhaps we could paint a picture of the main character.

He tentatively has the name of Jackson Galworthy. He has always aspired to be a ‘secret agent’ or ‘spy’ and but through luck more than anything else, he was given his opportunity. The problem is he failed his first test and failure means washing out of the program.

What had ‘they’ said? When the shit hits the fan, you need to be calm, cool, and collected. He’d been anything but.

Maybe we’ll flesh the character out as we go along.

OK, I just had another thought for an opening,

Light snow was still falling, past the stage where each flake dissolved as it hit the ground, and now starting to gather in white patches.

It was cold, very cold, and even with the three layers I still shivered.

What surprised me was the silence, but, of course, it was a graveyard beside an ancient church, and everyone who had attended the funeral service had left.

It was a short service for the few that came, and a shorter burial. No one seemed keen to hang around, not with the evening darkness and the snow setting in.

I stood, not far from the filled grave looking at it, but not looking at it. Was I expecting it’s occupant to rise again? Was I expecting forgiveness? I certainly didn’t deserve it.

The truth is, I was responsible for this person’s death, making a mistake a more seasoned professional might not, and the reason why I was shown the door. I had been given very simple instructions; protect this man at all costs.

It was going to be a simple extraction, go in, get the target, and get out before anyone noticed.

A pity then I was the only one who got that memo.

Any thoughts?

The story behind the story – Echoes from the Past

The novel ‘Echoes from the past’ started out as a short story I wrote about 30 years ago, titled ‘The birthday’.

My idea was to take a normal person out of their comfort zone and led on a short but very frightening journey to a place where a surprise birthday party had been arranged.

Thus the very large man with a scar and a red tie was created.

So was the friend with the limousine who worked as a pilot.

So were the two women, Wendy and Angelina, who were Flight Attendants that the pilot friend asked to join the conspiracy.

I was going to rework the short story, then about ten pages long, into something a little more.

And like all re-writes, especially those I have anything to do with, it turned into a novel.

There was motivation.  I had told some colleagues at the place where I worked at the time that I liked writing, and they wanted a sample.  I was going to give them the re-worked short story.  Instead I gave them ‘Echoes from the past’

Originally it was not set anywhere in particular.

But when considering a location, I had, at the time, recently been to New York in December, and and visited Brooklyn and Queens, as well as a lot of New York itself.  We were there for New Years, and it was an experience I’ll never forget.

One evening we were out late, and finished up in Brooklyn Heights, near the waterfront, and there was rain and snow, it was cold and wet, and their were apartment building, and I thought, this is the place where my main character will live.

It had a very spooky atmosphere, the sort where ghosts would not be unexpected.  I felt more than one shiver go up and down my spine in the few minutes I was there.

I had taken notes, as I always do, of everywhere we went so I had a ready supply of locations I could use, changing the names in some cases.

Fifth Avenue near the Rockefeller center is amazing at first light, and late at night with the Seasonal decorations and lights.

The original main character was a shy and man of few friends, hence not expecting the surprise party.  I enhanced that shyness into purposely lonely because of an issue from his past that leaves him always looking over his shoulder and ready to move on at the slightest hint of trouble.  No friends, no relationships, just a very low profile.

Then I thought, what if he breaks the cardinal rule, and begins a relationship?

But it is also as much an exploration of a damaged soul, as it is the search for a normal life, without having any idea what normal was, and how the understanding of one person can sometimes make all the difference in what we may think or feel.

And, of course, I wanted a happy ending.

Except for the bad guys.

 

Thoughts, maybe

I’ve been thinking ….

… and that could be a good thing or a bad thing.

An idea had popped into my head, fired up from seeing the news on television.  I don’t normally look at the news if I can help it because usually its all bad, deaths, fires, drugs, and worst of all, politics.

This item was the equivalent of a two paragraph ‘mention’ buried on page six of the newspaper.

It was the umpteenth variation of a common story, wife having an affair, wife murdered, and, after seeing so many American and English cop shows, assumed the husband would be the number one suspect, no children involved mercifully, but there was something else going on, something I thought I could read between the lines.

No names were mentioned.

I’m not sure why it captured my imagination, but it did, and it swirled around in my head for about a week.

Then, out came a pad and pen and I started to write.

I put myself in the place of the husband and tried to imagine what it was like.

It is a work in progress.

A week or so later, another small paragraph appeared on page five, getting closer to the front page.

No names still because I assume the relative had not been tracked down.

But this alluded to something else as being the cause, and it was the manner of the death that warranted further investigation.

My imagination went into overdrive.

Rest assured I’ll be scouring the papers for the next ‘clue’.

 

Thoughts, maybe

It has any number of names, from Leave of Absence to Vacation, but it is meant to be a time where you can rest and relax.

And by the time you finally get to go away, preferably somewhere as far from home as possible, you are sure ready for it.

Those long days at the office, the decisions, the deadlines, the endless pressure of having to achieve the impossible all melt away when you walk out the door, and what a feeling it is when you tell everyone, ‘I’m off on holidays, see you when I get back.’

As anyone will tell  you, it’s not wise to travel the next day if at all possible, because you need some time to decompress before tackling what sometimes can be an arduous getting to the final destination, especially if it is at a peak holiday period, or on planes where anything and everything can go wrong very quickly.

Been there done that.

We traveled the next day, nothing went wrong, and all is fine.

Except …

As a writer and having spent the last few months finishing off my last novel, I was looking forward to some down time.  The editor has the final draft, and I’m happy.

Then, as it always does, the best laid plans of mice and men …

It all comes unstuck.

Inspiration often comes out of left field; something happens, a piece in a newspaper, an item on TV, or just lying down staring at the ceiling, when ‘bang’  it hits you.

The start of a story, a theme that you can run with.

Damn.

I’ve been away for four days now and written seven chapters and the words will not stop.

If only …

Hey, what a great title for the story.

Sorry, got to get back to work!