Tag: NaNoWriMo

NANOWRIMO – April 2024 – “The One That Got Away” – Day 3

Suspicious circumstances

…

It’s a matter of getting from a normal busy life, running a very successful and very well-regarded institution, that from the outside was one everyone was envious of to where she is lying in an induced coma following an accident that is still being investigated.

Perhaps we get a glimpse into the detective who will be later called on for a more complex investigation into her life and sadly death.

The question we have to ask is, was this just an accident as a result of her poor health, some were saying a result of her wild childhood early years of dung and alcohol abuse (the privileged life of the youth of the elite wealthy being paid back in spades) or something else.

Is there something about charities that’s not all above board?  With a new management team installed by her father, is the money getting to those who need it, or is it to pat the names needed to be in the high-profile donors?

It strikes me that ages ago when I was talking to a group of others about making donations to a charity that had a high-profile person as spokesperson it had to be good if they spoke on behalf of it for nothing in return.

My illusion was shattered in seconds.  That personality was paid plenty to spruik the charity, drove around on a large expensive car provided, and hosted endless lunches and functions for those who seemed to live an already lavish lifestyle.

It’s a premise I am investigating and will use as a possible outcome to what should be a beneficiary-orientated charity versus one that is there to principally serve the high-profile spruikers.

…

Words today, 2070, for a total of 4867

NANOWRIMO – April 2024 – “The One That Got Away” – Day 2

One of those mornings

…

We’re unravelling the mystery behind the slow deterioration of our main character.

When did this mysterious malady first manifest itself?

The point here is that there is always a starting point or a catalyst.  It might not always be pinpointed by the person but by someone else who can look from the outside and assess all of the evidence.

And it’s not always an easy task when you don’t really know when it first began because it creeps up on you without you realising it.

Until one morning, you can’t get out of bed.

Of course, there are convenient answers to Amy’s question, and in moments of extreme paranoia, only one name will come to the fore, the name of the person you hate the most at the time.

And then it’s not difficult to attach the reasons to that name, correctly or not.  In her debilitated state, it was easy.  Whether she could prove it, was the hard part.

…

Words today, 1128, for a total of 2797

NANOWRIMO – April 2024 – “The One That Got Away” – Day 1

Paranoia is my friend.

Take all the paper out of the file, throw it up in the air, wait until it all lands on the floor, and then take the first piece of paper nearest to you to start.

Perhaps fate is being kind to me because the sheet had the word paranoia on it.

To begin the story, we need to paint a picture of a successful woman running a charitable offshoot that manages the money her inheritance had bequeathed to be used for charitable purposes.

Why not just hand it over to a proper charity and let them do the dirty work?

She did once and found most of it went to administration and very little landed in the hands of those who needed it.

There’s no problem with that except …

Her father thinks there are better things to do, and she has spent considerable time and effort to dissuade her from doing so.

Perhaps his ultimate motive is to get a hold of her money because his own investments are not exactly faring well with the changes he made years before and he does have a wealthy lifestyle and image to keep up.

Then there’s the problem with the mysterious illness she had contracted, making it difficult to work, and necessitates the employment of a new head to administer the charity while she finds out why she’s ill and then recovering.

Her mistake is trusting her father to find the right man.

Then there’s her children, twins, and trouble with a capital T.

The real problem I’d of course that the illness manifests itself in unpredictable ways making her behaviour erratic, her moments of lucidly shorter and her stays in care longer, and her paranoia that someone is trying to kill her slowly taking over.

Who can she trust?

Her lawyer friend, or is he?

Her best friend, who seems above boats?

Her father, who is more interested in his own life than hers?

The new manager has his own agenda and a lot of money to play with.

Her children hate her because she abandoned them to boarding schools.

The doctors keep telling her they can’t find anything wrong.

Or the private detective she had hired to deep dive into all her so-called friends’ lives and find someone who could tell her what was wrong with her.

Oh, and lastly, find her ex-husband Michael, the only man she ever really loved, and whom she now realises she pushed away.

That first chapter of setting the scene has just become five or six.

NANOWRIMO – April 2024 – The book for this month – “The One That Got Away”

As always there’s a beginning

…

NANOWRIMO has once again stuck up on me, and April is just around the corner.

While it is not the writing month, I always like to look at a story I’ve been puddling with over the last year and see if, in the month allocated, I can flesh out the story from the myriad of ideas and snippets that accumulate.

These accumulations live in folders some thicker than others, and yes, quite a lot of the material resides on paper, actual paper.

There’s about five or six on the pending box, so I pull out the top one.

Yes, that will do.

It’s a story that I started in the middle, though at the time when the ideas were flowing, it was the start.  The fact I did some shuffling meant that I got a few new ideas and started writing Blackstone’s which in turn became the basis for what would become the start of the story.

So, that being the case, the story runs  ..

In the beginning the backstop to the main character, her life, her work, her friends and acquaintances, her enemies, and the mounting problems that make her life and work difficult.

The second part, her ex-husband of many years ago, got a message from the grave and went in to sort out the mess that was created by her sudden and until death.

Then there’s the investigation, and the detective involved, created with the intention as all authors must have in the back of their minds, to star in another story later in.

As you can see, it’s all part of a long and complicated process in my sometimes bitter and twisted mind.

It’s time to get on with it.

First Dig Two Graves – the editor’s second draft – Day 21

This book has finally come back from the Editor, so this month it is going to get a second revision, a second draft for the editor, and beta readers.

…

But, here’s the thing.

John and Zoe are nowhere near Vienna, Zoe having gone to Bucharest and then Zurich on her way back to see John who was going to pick her up from the airport, and then the both of them were going to Lucerne for a few days.

A reminiscing cruise on Lake Geneva had been on the cards, but there might not be time.

First, they had to do some work on charting who was trying to kill her, because she has finally come to the realization that there is more than one.  Her visit to Bucharest yielded another name, quite possibly the person who was masquerading as Komarov.

Second, John was intending to introduce her to the new members of their team, the team he hasn’t quite got around to telling her about, who will be dedicated to research, investigation, and, via Isobel and the dark web, organizing the hits.

John had decided that she should not have to be distracted by finding work, just doing the work.  He was going to take care of the rest.

Perhaps a good time would be over dinner?

Meanwhile, Sebastian and Rupert are on surveillance duties while Isobel is tracking down which hotel the lovebirds are staying in. As soon as she has the information, Rupert is on the job.

She then moved to track John, knowing Zoe will be with him because she has seen the passenger lists for flights from Bucharest to anywhere.

Both are thankful neither John nor Zoe was in Vienna, which then makes it a priority that neither Worthington of Arabella should leave, except to go back home.  Although they hadn’t established it was the reason Worthington was in Vienna, it was too close to the bungled attempt on their lives for them not to draw the appropriate conclusion.

Sebastian has a plan B that no one was going to like, not even himself.

Plan A was yet to be formulated.

…

First Dig Two Graves – the editor’s second draft – Day 21

This book has finally come back from the Editor, so this month it is going to get a second revision, a second draft for the editor, and beta readers.

…

But, here’s the thing.

John and Zoe are nowhere near Vienna, Zoe having gone to Bucharest and then Zurich on her way back to see John who was going to pick her up from the airport, and then the both of them were going to Lucerne for a few days.

A reminiscing cruise on Lake Geneva had been on the cards, but there might not be time.

First, they had to do some work on charting who was trying to kill her, because she has finally come to the realization that there is more than one.  Her visit to Bucharest yielded another name, quite possibly the person who was masquerading as Komarov.

Second, John was intending to introduce her to the new members of their team, the team he hasn’t quite got around to telling her about, who will be dedicated to research, investigation, and, via Isobel and the dark web, organizing the hits.

John had decided that she should not have to be distracted by finding work, just doing the work.  He was going to take care of the rest.

Perhaps a good time would be over dinner?

Meanwhile, Sebastian and Rupert are on surveillance duties while Isobel is tracking down which hotel the lovebirds are staying in. As soon as she has the information, Rupert is on the job.

She then moved to track John, knowing Zoe will be with him because she has seen the passenger lists for flights from Bucharest to anywhere.

Both are thankful neither John nor Zoe was in Vienna, which then makes it a priority that neither Worthington of Arabella should leave, except to go back home.  Although they hadn’t established it was the reason Worthington was in Vienna, it was too close to the bungled attempt on their lives for them not to draw the appropriate conclusion.

Sebastian has a plan B that no one was going to like, not even himself.

Plan A was yet to be formulated.

…

First Dig Two Graves – the editor’s second draft – Day 20

This book has finally come back from the Editor, so this month it is going to get a second revision, a second draft for the editor, and beta readers.

…

There’s a certain air of inevitability in the air, that the bad guys are going to succeed in tracking down Zoe, using the very person who wants to keep her safe.

It’s not exactly the result of a sneaky plan using lies and deception to get what Worthington wants, it’s more a fact that the woman he is about to use had already made a bed for herself that others would hardly want to lie in.

Arabella was not a woman who understood or practised monogamy.  She was always a rebel, always had more than one man on the go, and had only married for the convenience, and the money and lifestyle that went with it.

Having children had been a bore, and once they were delivered, they were someone else’s problem.  She was then able to go back to her jet-set lifestyle, touring and cruising the world.

It was also a world that which Worthington and his brother had moved in, and Worthington had been and still was, one of her lovers.  It was what made it so easy for him to enlist her, though she was not really interested in what her son John was up to.  He was too much like his father, and she needed little reminder of him.

For Worthington, he could not believe his luck, for a second time.  It was as if the Gods were lining up the ducks all in a row for him.

But she agreed to a weekend in the best hotel eating the best food and going to a very exclusive concert, where they would be mingling with ‘almost’ royalty.  She loved to drop names.

However, the secret was not a secret the moment she was seen with Worthington by Sebastian, all be it by chance.  Sebastian would have to find John and alert him to the dangers that were about to present themselves in the benign form of his mother.

Could things get any more complicated?

…

Today’s writing, with Zoe languishing in a dungeon waiting for a white knight, 1,650 words, for a total of 52,769.

First Dig Two Graves – the editor’s second draft – Day 20

This book has finally come back from the Editor, so this month it is going to get a second revision, a second draft for the editor, and beta readers.

…

There’s a certain air of inevitability in the air, that the bad buys are going to succeed in tracking down Zoe, using the very person who wants to keep her safe.

It’s not exactly the result of a sneaky plan using lies and deception to get what Worthington wants, it’s more a fact that the woman he is about to use had already made a bed for herself that others would hardly want to lie in.

Arabella was not a woman who understood or practised monogamy.  She was always a rebel, always had more than one man on the go, and had only married for the convenience, and the money and lifestyle that went with it.

Having children had been a bore, and once they were delivered, they were someone else’s problem.  She was then able to go back to her jet-set lifestyle, touring and cruising the world.

It was also a world that which Worthington and his brother had moved in, and Worthington had been and still was, one of her lovers.  It was what made it so easy for him to enlist her, though she was not really interested in what her son John was up to.  He was too much like his father, and she needed little reminder of him.

For Worthington, he could not believe his luck, for a second time.  It was as if the Gods were lining up the ducks all in a row for him.

But she agreed to a weekend in the best hotel eating the best food and going to a very exclusive concert, where they would be mingling with ‘almost’ royalty.  She loved to drop names.

However, the secret was not a secret the moment she was seen with Worthington by Sebastian, all be it by chance.  Sebastian would have to find John and alert him to the dangers that were about to present themselves in the benign form of his mother.

Could things get any more complicated?

…

Today’s writing, with Zoe languishing in a dungeon waiting for a white knight, 1,650 words, for a total of 52,769.

First Dig Two Graves – the editor’s second draft – Day 19

This book has finally come back from the Editor, so this month it is going to get a second revision, a second draft for the editor, and beta readers.

…

We’ve reached the point where it’s time to take Worthington’s desire for revenge and turn it into a homicidal obsession, particularly after the last ‘easy’ exercise of killing her at the railway station failed so spectacularly.

Worthington is about to become a ‘by any means necessary’ person who will use anyone or anything at his disposal, and is about to use the one person John will least expect to appear on his horizon, one who will make him think twice about keeping Zoe from him.

However, our intrepid trio of Sebastian, Isobel, and Rupert, is also on the trail, who when leaving the airport just happened to see Worthington with this particular person, and realize what is about to happen. Sebastian also discovers why he is being sidelined and is not determined to stop Worthington.

Oblivious to all of this is John who has hired a car and is heading to Lucern where he is going to rendezvous with Zoe and hopefully get a briefing on what she intends to do next.

Needless to say, no matter what she says, he will be ignoring all that good advice and do his usual arrival in a nick of time to rescue the damsel in distress.

Of course, there are only so many times he can do this before he is actually killed for real.

…

First Dig Two Graves – the editor’s second draft – Day 19

This book has finally come back from the Editor, so this month it is going to get a second revision, a second draft for the editor, and beta readers.

…

We’ve reached the point where it’s time to take Worthington’s desire for revenge and turn it into a homicidal obsession, particularly after the last ‘easy’ exercise of killing her at the railway station failed so spectacularly.

Worthington is about to become a ‘by any means necessary’ person who will use anyone or anything at his disposal, and is about to use the one person John will least expect to appear on his horizon, one who will make him think twice about keeping Zoe from him.

However, our intrepid trio of Sebastian, Isobel, and Rupert, is also on the trail, who when leaving the airport just happened to see Worthington with this particular person, and realize what is about to happen. Sebastian also discovers why he is being sidelined and is not determined to stop Worthington.

Oblivious to all of this is John who has hired a car and is heading to Lucern where he is going to rendezvous with Zoe and hopefully get a briefing on what she intends to do next.

Needless to say, no matter what she says, he will be ignoring all that good advice and do his usual arrival in a nick of time to rescue the damsel in distress.

Of course, there are only so many times he can do this before he is actually killed for real.

…