More about my second novel

…

Rupert follows Worthington and Arabella to and from the concert, and then observes them over dinner, wondering what it is that’s missing in his life until they go back to the room for the night.

To him, it seems like it’s just a sex weekend with cultural embellishments.

Until he spies Worthington on the move at two am, leaving the hotel on foot.  It turns into a meeting between him and two other men in the park before Worthington returns to the hotel, business concluded.

It has to be something to do with John and Zoe; otherwise, the meeting would have been in the hotel, not the deep recesses of the park.  Rupert has photographs and gives them to Sebastian for identification.

At least they now know the reason for Worthington being in Vienna.  Arabella just makes it look more casual.

John breaks his plan to Zoe over breakfast, and she is surprised.  It’s a good plan, and once she had dealt with the problems, it would be a go.

And, she added quite sombrely, if they all survive.

The bad news was that she would be leaving the next morning to visit an old friend, Dominica, who probably isn’t so friendly now, to get information.  And, no, she was not sure what would happen after that, but if she could, she would call him.

With the two men identified and the danger they presented, Sebastian had to move to plan B and set it up.  He deliberately doesn’t tell either of them because he knows they would strenuously object.

The plan:  sniper to shoot them from a building across the road, not to kill, but to slow them down.  It would be difficult to be out plotting when in the emergency ward of a hospital.

But, as usual, things don’t quite go to plan.  Worthington is hit and wounded, though not severely as Sebastian had hoped, but Arabella moved slightly just before he pulled the trigger, and he couldn’t see what happened, but what he could see, it looked very, very bad.

…

…

Day 135 – Win the right contests

…

The Starving Artist Myth: Why You Should Chase Paychecks, Not Just Prestige

In the writing community, there’s a persistent, romanticised image of the “struggling artist.” We’re told that if we just sacrifice enough comfort—if we skip enough meals and keep our bank accounts sufficiently drained—we will somehow be more “authentic.”

But let’s be real for a second: You cannot write a masterpiece on an empty stomach.

If you are looking to build a sustainable writing career, you need to be strategic about where you invest your energy. When it comes to writing contests and submission calls, it’s time to stop chasing prestige and start prioritising your survival.

The Problem with “Prestige”

There is no denying the allure of a prestigious award. Seeing a fancy logo next to your name or receiving a pat on the back from a renowned institution feels incredible. It validates your talent and strokes your ego.

But here is the hard truth: Prestige does not pay the rent.

When you spend your limited writing time crafting pieces specifically to chase awards that offer nothing but a digital badge or a line on your resume, you are essentially working for free. Worse, you are trading the precious hours you could be spending on your long-form projects for a fleeting moment of hollow validation.

Why You Need to Prioritise the Prize

Writing is work. It is intellectual labour, and like any other form of labour, it deserves compensation.

When you seek out contests with cash prizes, you aren’t being “sell-out.” You are being a professional. That prize money serves a dual purpose:

1. It keeps you fed: You need electricity, internet, and groceries to keep the creative engine running.
2. It buys you time: If you can win a prize that covers a month’s worth of expenses, that is one month you don’t have to spend at a soul-sucking day job. It’s one month where you can focus entirely on that novel—the one that lives in your head and needs your undivided attention to finally make it onto the page.

The “Later” Philosophy

Don’t get me wrong—prestige has its place. But that place is later.

Once you have established your footing, once you have mastered your craft, and once you have a body of work that has been funded by the very industry you are trying to enter, then you can afford the luxury of chasing accolades.

But right now? Right now, you are building your foundation. You are cultivating the experiences, the discipline, and the financial stability required to produce your best work. You cannot reach the peak of the mountain if you are too malnourished to climb the first few hundred feet.

How to Strategise Your Submissions

Next time you find yourself browsing Submittable or a contest directory, try applying these three rules:

• The Bottom Line: Does this contest offer a cash prize that would meaningfully impact my life or support my writing time? If the answer is no, skip it.
• The Time-to-Value Ratio: If the entry fee is high and the prize is obscure prestige, save your money. Invest that entry fee into a book on craft or a subscription to a platform that actually helps your writing process.
• The Novel Priority: Is this contest helping you build toward your larger goal (your novel), or is it a distraction? If it doesn’t align with your long-term creative vision, don’t let it siphon your energy.

Final Thoughts

Your voice is valuable, and your time is a finite resource. Treat your writing like the profession it is. Stop waiting for the world to notice you through a gold-leafed certificate and start focusing on the work that sustains your life.

Feed yourself first. The masterpiece will come, but it will come when you are strong enough to carry it to the finish line.

…

Day 135 – Win the right contests

…

The Starving Artist Myth: Why You Should Chase Paychecks, Not Just Prestige

In the writing community, there’s a persistent, romanticised image of the “struggling artist.” We’re told that if we just sacrifice enough comfort—if we skip enough meals and keep our bank accounts sufficiently drained—we will somehow be more “authentic.”

But let’s be real for a second: You cannot write a masterpiece on an empty stomach.

If you are looking to build a sustainable writing career, you need to be strategic about where you invest your energy. When it comes to writing contests and submission calls, it’s time to stop chasing prestige and start prioritising your survival.

The Problem with “Prestige”

There is no denying the allure of a prestigious award. Seeing a fancy logo next to your name or receiving a pat on the back from a renowned institution feels incredible. It validates your talent and strokes your ego.

But here is the hard truth: Prestige does not pay the rent.

When you spend your limited writing time crafting pieces specifically to chase awards that offer nothing but a digital badge or a line on your resume, you are essentially working for free. Worse, you are trading the precious hours you could be spending on your long-form projects for a fleeting moment of hollow validation.

Why You Need to Prioritise the Prize

Writing is work. It is intellectual labour, and like any other form of labour, it deserves compensation.

When you seek out contests with cash prizes, you aren’t being “sell-out.” You are being a professional. That prize money serves a dual purpose:

1. It keeps you fed: You need electricity, internet, and groceries to keep the creative engine running.
2. It buys you time: If you can win a prize that covers a month’s worth of expenses, that is one month you don’t have to spend at a soul-sucking day job. It’s one month where you can focus entirely on that novel—the one that lives in your head and needs your undivided attention to finally make it onto the page.

The “Later” Philosophy

Don’t get me wrong—prestige has its place. But that place is later.

Once you have established your footing, once you have mastered your craft, and once you have a body of work that has been funded by the very industry you are trying to enter, then you can afford the luxury of chasing accolades.

But right now? Right now, you are building your foundation. You are cultivating the experiences, the discipline, and the financial stability required to produce your best work. You cannot reach the peak of the mountain if you are too malnourished to climb the first few hundred feet.

How to Strategise Your Submissions

Next time you find yourself browsing Submittable or a contest directory, try applying these three rules:

• The Bottom Line: Does this contest offer a cash prize that would meaningfully impact my life or support my writing time? If the answer is no, skip it.
• The Time-to-Value Ratio: If the entry fee is high and the prize is obscure prestige, save your money. Invest that entry fee into a book on craft or a subscription to a platform that actually helps your writing process.
• The Novel Priority: Is this contest helping you build toward your larger goal (your novel), or is it a distraction? If it doesn’t align with your long-term creative vision, don’t let it siphon your energy.

Final Thoughts

Your voice is valuable, and your time is a finite resource. Treat your writing like the profession it is. Stop waiting for the world to notice you through a gold-leafed certificate and start focusing on the work that sustains your life.

Feed yourself first. The masterpiece will come, but it will come when you are strong enough to carry it to the finish line.

…

Day 134 – Getting there is important too

…

The Art of the Detour: Why the Journey Really Is the Destination

We are obsessed with “arriving.”

In our modern, high-speed lives, we treat travel like a logistical problem to be solved. We optimise for the shortest flight, the fastest highway route, and the most direct train line. We view the time spent in transit as a tax—a boring, uncomfortable middle-ground that we must pay in order to unlock the reward of our destination.

But what if we’ve got it backward? What if the destination is merely the period at the end of a long sentence’s worth of experience?

There is a profound, often overlooked truth in the adage: The journey is the destination. When we prioritise the “getting there,” travel shifts from a task into an art form. Here is why the road, the tracks, and the sky are often more important than the hotel lobby at the finish line.

The Myth of Through-Hiking Life

When we focus solely on the arrival, we live in a state of suspended animation. We are waiting for the vacation to start, waiting for the weekend to hit, waiting for the “real” life to begin.

When you prioritise the journey, however, you reclaim your time. You stop looking at your watch and start looking out the window. Whether it’s a winding coastal road in Italy or a cross-country Amtrak adventure, the journey forces a state of “positive boredom.” It clears the clutter of our digital lives, stripping away the emails and the notifications, leaving us with nothing but the rhythm of the movement and our own thoughts.

Serendipity Lives in the In-Between

The most memorable moments of travel rarely happen at the planned tourist attractions. They happen in the “in-between.”

Think about it: have you ever had a life-changing conversation with a stranger on a plane? Stumbled upon a roadside diner that serves the best pie you’ve ever tasted? Found a quiet, nameless overlook while your GPS recalculated a missed turn?

These moments are the dividends of a slow journey. When you take the long way, you invite the universe to surprise you. The “in-between” is where serendipity lives. A direct flight to Paris gets you to a croissant faster, but a slow train ride across the countryside introduces you to the landscape, the architecture, and the people that make Paris what it is.

The Psychology of Transition

There is a psychological necessity to the process. If you want to change your mindset, you need a buffer zone.

Travelling acts as a psychological decompression chamber. The time spent sitting in a car, train, or boat allows your brain to shift gears. You are physically detaching from the stresses of your home life and mentally preparing for the expansion of travel. If you teleported instantly to your destination, you’d likely arrive with your “home” brain still plugged in. The journey forces a transition, ensuring that by the time you arrive, you are actually ready to receive the experience.

How to Shift Your Focus

If you’ve spent your life rushing, how do you learn to savour the transit?

• Ditch the “Most Efficient” Option: Next time you’re booking a trip, ask yourself, “Which way would be the most interesting?” instead of “Which way is the cheapest/fastest?”
• Embrace Surface Travel: Whenever possible, choose trains over planes, or a scenic highway over an interstate. The lower your speed, the more world you get to see.
• Build in “Gap Days”: Schedule a day of transit that has no deadline. If you get into a town at 2:00 PM, let that be the goal. If you see a beautiful village at 10:00 AM, stop for a few hours.
• Curate Your Transit: Treat the journey as an activity. Bring the book you’ve been dying to read, the playlist you’ve been saving, or a journal to document the passing landscapes.

The Final Stop

The destination will always be there. The Eiffel Tower isn’t going anywhere; the beach will still be sand when you arrive. But the experience of the trip—the changing quality of light on the horizon, the shifting accents of the people at the rest stop, the feeling of crossing a border or a time zone—that is a fleeting, ephemeral moment that happens once.

Don’t just endure the trip. Experience it. Because when you look back on your life, you won’t remember the check-in time at your hotel. You’ll remember the way the sun hit the road, the songs you sang with the windows down, and the winding, dusty, beautiful path that led you exactly where you needed to be.

…

Day 134 – Getting there is important too

…

The Art of the Detour: Why the Journey Really Is the Destination

We are obsessed with “arriving.”

In our modern, high-speed lives, we treat travel like a logistical problem to be solved. We optimise for the shortest flight, the fastest highway route, and the most direct train line. We view the time spent in transit as a tax—a boring, uncomfortable middle-ground that we must pay in order to unlock the reward of our destination.

But what if we’ve got it backward? What if the destination is merely the period at the end of a long sentence’s worth of experience?

There is a profound, often overlooked truth in the adage: The journey is the destination. When we prioritise the “getting there,” travel shifts from a task into an art form. Here is why the road, the tracks, and the sky are often more important than the hotel lobby at the finish line.

The Myth of Through-Hiking Life

When we focus solely on the arrival, we live in a state of suspended animation. We are waiting for the vacation to start, waiting for the weekend to hit, waiting for the “real” life to begin.

When you prioritise the journey, however, you reclaim your time. You stop looking at your watch and start looking out the window. Whether it’s a winding coastal road in Italy or a cross-country Amtrak adventure, the journey forces a state of “positive boredom.” It clears the clutter of our digital lives, stripping away the emails and the notifications, leaving us with nothing but the rhythm of the movement and our own thoughts.

Serendipity Lives in the In-Between

The most memorable moments of travel rarely happen at the planned tourist attractions. They happen in the “in-between.”

Think about it: have you ever had a life-changing conversation with a stranger on a plane? Stumbled upon a roadside diner that serves the best pie you’ve ever tasted? Found a quiet, nameless overlook while your GPS recalculated a missed turn?

These moments are the dividends of a slow journey. When you take the long way, you invite the universe to surprise you. The “in-between” is where serendipity lives. A direct flight to Paris gets you to a croissant faster, but a slow train ride across the countryside introduces you to the landscape, the architecture, and the people that make Paris what it is.

The Psychology of Transition

There is a psychological necessity to the process. If you want to change your mindset, you need a buffer zone.

Travelling acts as a psychological decompression chamber. The time spent sitting in a car, train, or boat allows your brain to shift gears. You are physically detaching from the stresses of your home life and mentally preparing for the expansion of travel. If you teleported instantly to your destination, you’d likely arrive with your “home” brain still plugged in. The journey forces a transition, ensuring that by the time you arrive, you are actually ready to receive the experience.

How to Shift Your Focus

If you’ve spent your life rushing, how do you learn to savour the transit?

• Ditch the “Most Efficient” Option: Next time you’re booking a trip, ask yourself, “Which way would be the most interesting?” instead of “Which way is the cheapest/fastest?”
• Embrace Surface Travel: Whenever possible, choose trains over planes, or a scenic highway over an interstate. The lower your speed, the more world you get to see.
• Build in “Gap Days”: Schedule a day of transit that has no deadline. If you get into a town at 2:00 PM, let that be the goal. If you see a beautiful village at 10:00 AM, stop for a few hours.
• Curate Your Transit: Treat the journey as an activity. Bring the book you’ve been dying to read, the playlist you’ve been saving, or a journal to document the passing landscapes.

The Final Stop

The destination will always be there. The Eiffel Tower isn’t going anywhere; the beach will still be sand when you arrive. But the experience of the trip—the changing quality of light on the horizon, the shifting accents of the people at the rest stop, the feeling of crossing a border or a time zone—that is a fleeting, ephemeral moment that happens once.

Don’t just endure the trip. Experience it. Because when you look back on your life, you won’t remember the check-in time at your hotel. You’ll remember the way the sun hit the road, the songs you sang with the windows down, and the winding, dusty, beautiful path that led you exactly where you needed to be.

…

Day 133 – Why certain books are famous

…

Beyond the Syllabus: Are the Classics Still Worth the Hype?

If you were to walk into any high school English classroom in America, the odds are high that you’d find a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird or The Great Gatsby sitting on a desk. They are the twin pillars of the high school literary canon—books so cemented in our cultural consciousness that we often forget they were once just new novels written by fallible people.

But this ubiquity brings a modern question: Are these books actually deserving of their “Great American Novel” status, or have they simply become victims of relentless repetition?

The Case for the Classics

To understand why these books have stayed at the top of the pile for nearly a century, we have to look past the “assigned reading” label.

To Kill a Mockingbird: The Emotional Anchor

Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is rarely praised for its narrative complexity; it is praised for its moral clarity. In Atticus Finch, Lee created the definitive archetype of the righteous outsider.

The book is “deservedly famous” because it serves as a masterclass in perspective. By filtering the ugly realities of systemic racism and injustice through the eyes of a child, Lee forces readers to confront the loss of innocence. It remains relevant not because it solved the problems of the American South, but because it captures the agonising gap between how we view ourselves and who we actually are. It is human-centric, empathetic, and—crucially—very easy to read, which has kept it in circulation for decades.

The Great Gatsby: The Mirror of Aspiration

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is a different beast entirely. Where Mockingbird is built on morality, Gatsby is built on atmosphere. It is, quite simply, one of the most beautifully written novels in the English language.

The prose shimmers with a kind of desperate glamour that perfectly encapsulates the “American Dream.” It is famous because it is a tragedy of scale—a critique of wealth, obsession, and the delusion that we can repeat the past. Every time economic inequality spikes or a new generation obsesses over the “hustle,” Gatsby feels freshly minted. It is the definitive autopsy of the American spirit.

The Argument for “Just That”

However, there is a valid counter-argument: Familiarity breeds fatigue.

When we label a book as “The Best,” we often create a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because these books are famous, they get taught. Because they get taught, they remain famous. This cycle can make them feel dusty, rigid, or exclusionary.

Critics often argue that these books dominate the conversation at the expense of more diverse, newer, or more challenging voices. Is The Great Gatsby the “best” book about the American experience, or is it just the one that happened to be selected by mid-century literary critics who looked, lived, and thought exactly like Fitzgerald?

If you are forced to dissect every sentence of Mockingbird for a grade, you are inevitably going to grow resentful of the prose. It’s hard to fall in love with a book when you’re being tested on its symbolism.

The Verdict: Are They Overrated?

The truth likely lies in the middle. These books are deservedly famous for their technical mastery and their ability to capture specific, enduring aspects of the human condition. They were influential for a reason, and their impact on the literary landscape is undeniable.

But they are also “just that”—they are just books. They aren’t sacred texts.

The best way to honour these classics is to stop treating them like homework. If you haven’t read Gatsby since you were sixteen, pick it up again as an adult; you might find that the tragedy feels much heavier when you realise you’re closer in age to the characters. If Mockingbird feels like a relic, read it alongside contemporary voices—like Jesmyn Ward or Colson Whitehead—who are expanding on the conversations Harper Lee started.

Ultimately, these books deserve their fame, but they shouldn’t be the end of your reading journey. They should be the starting point. The “Great American Novel” isn’t a static title; it’s a living, breathing conversation—and it’s a conversation that is still being written today.

…

©  Charles Heath  2026

Day 133 – Why certain books are famous

…

Beyond the Syllabus: Are the Classics Still Worth the Hype?

If you were to walk into any high school English classroom in America, the odds are high that you’d find a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird or The Great Gatsby sitting on a desk. They are the twin pillars of the high school literary canon—books so cemented in our cultural consciousness that we often forget they were once just new novels written by fallible people.

But this ubiquity brings a modern question: Are these books actually deserving of their “Great American Novel” status, or have they simply become victims of relentless repetition?

The Case for the Classics

To understand why these books have stayed at the top of the pile for nearly a century, we have to look past the “assigned reading” label.

To Kill a Mockingbird: The Emotional Anchor

Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is rarely praised for its narrative complexity; it is praised for its moral clarity. In Atticus Finch, Lee created the definitive archetype of the righteous outsider.

The book is “deservedly famous” because it serves as a masterclass in perspective. By filtering the ugly realities of systemic racism and injustice through the eyes of a child, Lee forces readers to confront the loss of innocence. It remains relevant not because it solved the problems of the American South, but because it captures the agonising gap between how we view ourselves and who we actually are. It is human-centric, empathetic, and—crucially—very easy to read, which has kept it in circulation for decades.

The Great Gatsby: The Mirror of Aspiration

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is a different beast entirely. Where Mockingbird is built on morality, Gatsby is built on atmosphere. It is, quite simply, one of the most beautifully written novels in the English language.

The prose shimmers with a kind of desperate glamour that perfectly encapsulates the “American Dream.” It is famous because it is a tragedy of scale—a critique of wealth, obsession, and the delusion that we can repeat the past. Every time economic inequality spikes or a new generation obsesses over the “hustle,” Gatsby feels freshly minted. It is the definitive autopsy of the American spirit.

The Argument for “Just That”

However, there is a valid counter-argument: Familiarity breeds fatigue.

When we label a book as “The Best,” we often create a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because these books are famous, they get taught. Because they get taught, they remain famous. This cycle can make them feel dusty, rigid, or exclusionary.

Critics often argue that these books dominate the conversation at the expense of more diverse, newer, or more challenging voices. Is The Great Gatsby the “best” book about the American experience, or is it just the one that happened to be selected by mid-century literary critics who looked, lived, and thought exactly like Fitzgerald?

If you are forced to dissect every sentence of Mockingbird for a grade, you are inevitably going to grow resentful of the prose. It’s hard to fall in love with a book when you’re being tested on its symbolism.

The Verdict: Are They Overrated?

The truth likely lies in the middle. These books are deservedly famous for their technical mastery and their ability to capture specific, enduring aspects of the human condition. They were influential for a reason, and their impact on the literary landscape is undeniable.

But they are also “just that”—they are just books. They aren’t sacred texts.

The best way to honour these classics is to stop treating them like homework. If you haven’t read Gatsby since you were sixteen, pick it up again as an adult; you might find that the tragedy feels much heavier when you realise you’re closer in age to the characters. If Mockingbird feels like a relic, read it alongside contemporary voices—like Jesmyn Ward or Colson Whitehead—who are expanding on the conversations Harper Lee started.

Ultimately, these books deserve their fame, but they shouldn’t be the end of your reading journey. They should be the starting point. The “Great American Novel” isn’t a static title; it’s a living, breathing conversation—and it’s a conversation that is still being written today.

…

©  Charles Heath  2026