Tag: Reading

365 Days of Writing, 2026 – 229

Day 229 – Write a little every day

…

Write a Little Every Day, Without Hope and Without Despair: The Ultimate Mantra for Creative Resilience

“Write a little every day, without hope and without despair.”

Attributed to the brilliant Danish author Isak Dinesen (pen name of Karen Blixen, author of Out of Africa), this single sentence is perhaps the most liberating piece of writing advice ever committed to paper.

In a modern creator economy obsessed with viral hits, massive word counts, and relentless hustle culture, Dinesen’s words feel like a cool breeze on a fevered brow. They strip away the performance, the anxiety, and the delusion, leaving behind the pure, quiet act of creation.

Let’s unpack this profound philosophy and explore how it can completely transform your relationship with your craft—whether you’re writing a novel, building a blog, or working on any long-term creative project.

The Anatomy of the Mantra

To truly understand Dinesen’s advice, we need to break it down into its three core components: consistency, the surrender of false hope, and the banishment of despair.

1. “Write a little every day…”

The first rule of Dinesen’s philosophy is deceptively simple: consistency over intensity.

Many aspiring writers fall into the trap of the “binge and burn” cycle. You wait for the muse to strike. You clear an entire weekend, chug espresso, write 5,000 words in a manic haze, and then—exhausted and drained—don’t write another word for three weeks.

Dinesen advocates for the compound interest of creativity. Writing 200 or 300 words a day might not feel like much, but over the course of a year, you will have a draft of a book. More importantly, showing up daily builds a creative identity. You stop identifying as someone who wants to write and start identifying as someone who writes.

2. “…without hope…”

This is usually the part that makes people double-take. Without hope? Isn’t hope what keeps writers going?

Dinesen isn’t telling you to be a pessimist; rather, she is warning you against the toxicity of conditional motivation.

  • Hope that this sentence will be a masterpiece.
  • Hope that this chapter will go viral.
  • Hope that this book will get a six-figure book deal and land you on the bestseller list.

When you write with hope (in this specific, transactional sense), your self-worth becomes tethered to the outcome. If the writing is hard today, you feel hopeless. If the external validation doesn’t come, you want to quit. Dinesen urges us to detach from the result. Write because it is what you do, not because you are hoping the universe will grant you a reward for doing it.

3. “…and without despair.”

Just as we must let go of frantic hope, we must also release despair.

Every writer knows the voice of despair. It whispers: This is garbage. You have nothing to say. Everyone else is better than you. Why bother?

Despair paralyzes. It turns a blank page into a terrifying monolith. Dinesen’s antidote to despair is radical acceptance. Some days your writing will be brilliant; other days it will be clunky and mediocre. Both are a normal part of the process. By refusing to despair over a bad writing session, you keep the door open for tomorrow’s session. You remove the emotional drama from the craft.

Why Modern Creators Need This Philosophy More Than Ever

We live in an era of metrics. Every tweet, blog post, and video comes with a dashboard tracking views, likes, and shares. It is easier than ever to fall into the trap of writing for the algorithm rather than writing from the soul.

When you apply Dinesen’s “without hope and without despair” rule to the digital age, it acts as a powerful shield:

  • Algorithm changes? Without hope, without despair. You keep writing.
  • A piece bombs and gets zero engagement? Without hope, without despair. You keep writing.
  • A piece goes viral and your inbox is flooded? Without hope, without despair. You keep writing.

This mindset keeps you grounded. It reminds you that the work is the reward, and the validation (or lack thereof) is just noise.

How to Apply Isak Dinesen’s Wisdom Today

If you want to integrate this legendary writing advice into your daily routine, here are three practical steps to take right now:

  1. Lower the Bar: Commit to a ridiculously small daily goal—say, 150 words or 15 minutes. Make it so easy that you can do it even on your worst days.
  2. Separate Creating from Editing: When you sit down to write your daily quota, turn off your inner critic. Do not judge the quality. Just get the words on the page. You can fix bad writing; you cannot fix a blank page.
  3. Audit Your Motivations: Notice when you are writing for applause versus writing for the joy of expression. Gently steer your focus back to the simple act of putting pen to paper (or fingers to keys).

Final Thoughts

Writing is a marathon through a fog. You rarely know where you are going, and the destination is always changing. But if you can learn to put one foot in front of the other—to write a little every day, without hope and without despair—you will not only survive the journey; you might just find joy in the mist.

What did you write today? Let’s keep moving forward, one small word at a time.

…

365 Days of Writing, 2026 – 227/228

Days 227 and 228 – Writing Exercise

…

In my opinion, security was only as good as the people charged with maintaining it.

I had a security Chief, and he had minions.  I was not interested in the who, only that when he told me the house and grounds were secure, they were.

If you were to ask me, total security was impossible.  No one could be relied on to be one hundred percent focussed on the job, not when there were so many distractions.

I didn’t expect miracles.  I simply expected a modicum of professionalism.

In that I was disappointed.

…

I lived alone.

I never used to, but sadly the woman I married was not who I expected her to be.

Discreet.

I didn’t mind if she had other friends, so long as it never became public.  Even then it might not have bothered me, but it being a business rival, and involving stolen secrets, that was a step too far.

We did not part amicably.

And I don’t think I would ever trust another woman with any part of my life other than as an amiable acquaintance.

Thus my life, as described in a recent Sunday newspaper magazine article about me, was reclusive and a ‘frightful waste of an eligible bachelor’.

It was the last thing I considered myself to be, but it didn’t stop certain people from extolling the virtues of their unmarried daughters, or my friends from finding some available friends of theirs as a blind date.

They said it was a shame I didn’t have, at the very least, a full-time companion to accompany me as a plus one.

I actually thought that myself.

It was, in fact, the very reason I was still awake at two in the morning, staring at the ceiling and asking a rhetorical question: what was wrong with me?

And it was quiet enough to just hear a slight bump, like a book falling onto the floor.

Or it could have been my imagination.

Or it could have been once the clod hopper security guards doing his rounds in the dark.

Not for the first time.

I was awake anyway, so I must as well go down and see what was going on.  I’d been meaning to talk to Jameson, my head of security, and the guards assigned to the night shift.

I changed into gym clothes and shoes and, keeping the lights off, did my best to creep downstairs, remembering to avoid the fifth, eleventh and twentieth steps because they creaked.

The door to the study was ajar.  That was not how I left it.  Obviously the security guard had come and gone without shutting the door after him.

I was going to pull it shut when I decided I would go in, finish some business and then try to get some sleep.

I stepped in, shut the door behind me and switched on the light.

It was a surprise – no, more of a shock – to see I was not alone, and my companion was not a security guard but an intruder.  Dressed in black from head to foot.

There was only one way in and out: the door.  The windows didn’t open, though I had been contemplating changing that.

My eyes might have been playing tricks, but I swear my intruder was a woman.

She looked at me.  Surprise, but not fear.

Did she have a companion somewhere?  I would have to be careful.  I said, “Give me one reason I shouldn’t call the police.”

“I haven’t stolen anything yet.”

It was a woman.  Youngish. 

“What were you after?”

I couldn’t believe I was having a conversation with a thief who might turn violent at any moment.

“Not sure yet.  Something of value.  You’re that rich you wouldn’t miss it.”

“What if it had sentimental value?”

“You people don’t have hearts, just bank vaults.  You wouldn’t know what sentimental is.”

“And you do?”

“It comes with being poor.”

I looked her up and down. Nothing about her screamed poorhouse.  I recognised the outfit as being one the women wore at the gym I visited once a month.  They were not inexpensive clothes she was wearing.

I shrugged.  “Do you want me to give you a million pounds so you can become one of us, the un-sympathetics.”

“That would be a cop out and wouldn’t count.”

“Would you like me to find something worth a million pounds to leave with and become one of us?”

“The fence wouldn’t give me face value.  It would have to be worth a lot more, but even then I’d get screwed over the interpretation of what its value is.”

“I could come with you…”

She laughed.  “I see what this is.  You keep chatting while the security or police come.  I’d better go.”

“Empty-handed?”

“Shit happens. Especially to me.  Your security is shit too.  I’d sack the lot of them and get someone who knows what they’re doing.”

“Like you?”

“You’re annoying, you know that?”

“It’s been said.  Call me in the morning; we can talk about a job.”

She simply shook her head and barged past me on her way out.

The aroma of lavender lingered long after she had gone.

…

It was probably the most honest conversation I’d had with someone under the age of 50.  I was still sitting behind the desk in my study, trying to imagine what it was she was after.

It was not just random objects worth money.

She had been sent to get something specific.  It meant she would be back to try again. Or someone else who wouldn’t leave without it.

At eight, I went out to the cottage just inside the front gate where the head of security lived and ran his operation.  He had been recommended to me, and when interviewed had talked the talk

Now I had a breach.

I knocked; he seemed surprised to see me.

“Sir?  You up and about early.”

“What happened last night?”

He was about to say nothing but must have caught the edge of my tone.

“I heard there might have been a breach in the main house.  This morning the monitors are down, and a quick check shows some of the leads have been cut.  No alarms were disabled or triggered.  How did you know?”

“I had a conversation with a possible cat burglar last night.  I checked, and she hadn’t taken anything, but had she not dropped something on the floor, I would not have discovered her in the house.”

He invited me in, and we went to the control room.

His man was idly watching about ten screens.

“When was this?” He asked.

“About half past one in the morning.”

There were more cameras than screens.  The operator ran through the camera feeds from one in the morning to two, in fast-forward, and when he got to camera 16, overlooking the area that led up to the patio that adjoined mt study, a blurry figure in dark clothing was barely discernible against the dark background.

It was as if they knew the limitations of the system.

You would not have seen it unless you were looking for it, and four hours into the night shift, your attention wandering towards the land of nod.  But odd, no alarms went off

It explained how the intruder got into my study. 

And earned a termination notice for the night operator, and an apology.  It would have been moot if I’d been killed.

“I’ll see that it never happens again.”

I just glared at him and went back to the manor house.

…

I had breakfast in the drawing room, also a reading room, and where I took friends and relatives when they visited.  It was much more informal than the room we used for formal guests

This morning it was just Elsie, the breakfast server, and I, though I preferred to put food on my own plate, let her pour the coffee, and let her scowl at me when I did let her do her job.

“I heard there was a prowler.”

News travelled fast in a house like mine.

“A charming young lady cat burglar.  I asked her if she wanted a job.”  I took a plate back to the table, and she followed with the coffee.  I waited until she poured a cupful.

“Why would you?”

“She circumvented our security system.”

“Anyone could.”  Then she realised what she said.  “Sorry, I didn’t quite mean it like that.”

She did, but I’d let it pass.  Elsie was prone to speaking before thinking, sometimes an endearing quality.  The housekeeper, Mrs Jones, wanted to let her go, but I liked her, so she stayed.

A knock on the door. Abigail, one of two personal assistants, put her head in the doorway.  “Sorry to interrupt, but there’s a caller who says she wants to finish what you started earlier this morning.”

The cat burglar.  Now that was a surprise. She came over and gave me the cell phone.  Both women left the room.

“Miss Burglar,” I said, “What can I do for you?”

“You mean what you said earlier?”

“Subject to a satisfactory interview, yes.”

“Where do I meet you?”

“Back here.  Only this time, don’t try to break in.  I have a front door; you can knock on it, and someone will answer it.”
–
“Later, then.”

She disconnected the call.

My first thought, she needed better access to steal whatever it was she needed to.  It meant she was not doing this because she wanted to, but because she had to.  Which meant someone had leverage.

My day just got less boring.

…

Just Jennifer arrives shortly before lunch, driving a beat-up Mini, a more modern version of an old Morris Mini I once drove.

She parked it with a flourish outside the front door, scuffing up the gravel surface and incurring a few wrathful remarks from the head gardener, a rather irascible Irishman called O’Rafferty.

She came to the front door, and Riley, the head of the household and head butler, answered it.  He did not suffer fools gladly, nor any others.

He had an old blunderbuss which he used to threaten church hawkers and door-to-door salesmen.  I had to bail him out of jail once.

He escorted Just Jennifer to the lunch room, which was still the drawing room used for all daytime meals, and afternoon high teas.

He announced her as Just Jennifer, told her to enter, and then closed the doors behind him.  Elsie was standing by the servery, fully aware of who Just Jennifer was.

Just Jennifer looked around the room, at Elsie in her finest morning servery clothes, the array of food and then me.

“This is ridiculous.  Do you know how many starving people there are?”

“Within the 10-mile radius of this house, yes.  We provide meals for as many who ask, as well as school lunches for every child who wants one.  Whatever is not used is given to several nearby homeless shelters where staff volunteer their services.  I visit them when I can.”

I said that not for the idea of getting acknowledgement; very few people were aware of what we did, and I preferred to keep it that way.  Someone once told me I couldn’t save the world, but I could help those nearby.

“I’m disappointed,” she said.

Surprising.  ‘Why?”

“Because I wanted to believe you were a heartless bastard.”

“It’s a free world.”

“Actually, it isn’t.”

I shook my head.

“Sit down and tell Elsie what you want, and she’ll get it for you.”

“I can do it myself.”

“That’s what I said, and Elsie took it badly.  She likes her job, and she’s very good at it.  And gets more appreciation than she did when she worked in a snobby men’s club in London.” I looked over in her direction, and she made a face that was less than the scowl she wore five minutes ago.

Just Jennifer sat and told Elsie what she would like.

Elsie served her first, then poured me a fresh cup of tea, then went back to her station.

“Is this what it’s like all the time?”

“No.  Sometimes I go down to the London residence.  Sometimes I go away for the weekend, you know, a change of scenery.”

“Why aren’t you married?”

“What woman could put up with all of this?”

“I could.”

“For about a week, yes.  A month tops.  Then you slowly go mad.  You love the idea of it.  That novelty wears off very quickly, once the media get a hold of you and then never let you alone.”

“If I work for you?”

“They’ll just ignore you.  Maybe as the hired help some enterprising reporter will offer you a large sum of money to betray me.”

“How big a pile?”

“A hundred to a thousand pounds.  They seem to think that’s a lot of money to someone like their impression of impoverished employees being taken advantage of.”

“What sort of job would you give me, given you know my talent?  And how much?”

“Are you looking for a job?”

“Since I failed last night, yes.  How quick people are to condemn you after one failure.”

“We live in a fickle world.  The job: personal bodyguard, which means basically all day, every day.  The pay: you get to live and eat free wherever we go, a dress allowance because you have to look the part, and an offshore account where you can deposit money for your retirement.  A lot of money.  I am buying your discretion.”

“No time off?”

“When nothing’s happening, yes, plenty of time off.  Which happens more often than not.  You have to sign an NDA, and not break it.  Everyone who works for me does.”

“Nothing bad; I have a line I don’t cross.”

I would like to see that line because breaking and entering and stealing seemed pretty bad to me.

“Nothing bad.  I hire an assassin to take care of those problems.”

She looked horrified.

“I don’t, but it’s a thought.  Some of those reporters cross lines and get away with literal murder.  I guess it goes with the territory.  You need time to think?”

“Over a second sandwich, perhaps.”  She looked at Elsie and nodded.

…

I didn’t believe for a moment she had come for a job, or that her one mistake had cost her her reputation.

She had come on a pretext, and hoping I’d be foolish enough to show her around.  It wasn’t the first subject she broached, but it came after the second sandwich.

And I hated to admit I liked her audacity.  Whatever she had been looking for, she had run out of time and needed a second visit.  And a list of possible places.

After all, I did have three separate safes in different places, scattered about the manor house, excluding a smaller one in my room.  I kept a gun there.

Just in case.

But as for what she was after, I couldn’t guess.  I was surprised I hadn’t got a call from Proctor, head of the London residence, about any break-ins.

I spoke to the lawyers earlier, and he said that it was probably an art thief, and that there were several canvases that were worth a lot to private collectors.

It had to be that.

I took her on a tour of the house and showed her the art collection, including the expensive pieces, but she didn’t seem that interested, or acted the part very well.  I did notice the surreptitious glances at the internal CCTV cameras and security within the house.  Maybe later I would ask her where the pitfalls were.

We ended up back in the drawing room, now cleared and back to being just a drawing room.

Abigail was waiting for me, a pensive expression meaning there was a problem.

“Can I have a private moment?”

“Is it top secret stuff?”

I knew what it was about, and it wasn’t.

“Not particularly.”

“Then don’t worry about Jennifer.  What is it?”

“Your plus one for tomorrow night.  Miss James is unable to get back in time from Santorini.  Shall I tell them you will be going alone?”

“Who can resist the Greek Islands in Summer?”

I looked over at Jennifer, who was trying her best to appear like she was ignoring us.  “Fancy going to a boring party.”  I looked at Abigail.  “Whose birthday is it again?”

“Lord Berenson.”

“Ah,  yes.  Lady Berenson had been trying to get me to take an interest in Tabitha.”

“It’s about time you settled down.”

“You are starting to sound like my mother.”

“She asked me to look after you.”

“And you have.”  I turned back to Jennifer, who was now looking at us.  “Care to go as my plus one.  It’d give you an excellent look at how the job would work, or not.”

“A plus one is not a bodyguard.”

“It is if you don’t want anyone to know you’re a bodyguard.”

Abigail simply shook her head.  “Let me know what you decide.”  And left.

“Who is she?”

“My principal private secretary, and de facto mother, apparently. Are you interested in going?  We’ll have to get you a dress because it’s a proper to-do, and dancing.  You do dance?”

“What sort of dancing?”

“Stuff an orchestra produces.  There’s no dangling disco balls and loud thumping noise that passes for music.  The cream of society will be there.  If you decide not to stay with me, you can research other wealthy prospects.”

“I’m done with that.”

“Are you in or out?”

“One night to test the water.  See if I like it or hate it.”

“Great.” I picked up the phone and called Abigail.

…

I wasn’t sure what sort of game I was playing, only that it could end badly. 

But it wouldn’t be any worse than the last time I was disappointed, given that I was the subject of the deception.

Maybe I wanted to unmask her.

Maybe I liked what I couldn’t have.

Maybe I was just tired of the life I was pretending to lead.  I understood now why my father collapsed under the weight of responsibility, trying to be everything all at once, and ending up master of nothing.

It was easy to say that I had to be an example to everyone.  That I learned quickly was impossible.

That I wanted to marry a simple girl with simple tastes and live in a simple house … no, none of that was possible.  Not when you have millions of people perched on your shoulders waiting for you to stumble.

My older brother ended his own life buried under the pressure of expectation, and my sister disappeared to New Zealand, leaving me the mess to clean up.  My parents died of natural causes, way before they should have.

I looked around the room and remembered that morning before my brother died, looking every bit the normal, self-controlled businessman who could absorb any amount of pressure and come out smiling.

I had no idea what he intended to do, only that a call from the police the next morning saying they had found him dead in his apartment.  An overdose.  He had never taken drugs in his life.  At least not that I ever knew about.

I closed my eyes, then opened them.

Just Jennifer was still there.  Looking a million pounds in the dress Abigail had ‘found’ and sent for a fitting.

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

Jennifer had tried not to show any feelings until the dress arrived.  One look, I thought, and she was hooked.  It was like Cinderella at the ball.

“It’s a peek into a world I could never be a part of.  All I’ve ever seen is the photos in magazines.”

“The photos lie.  That world is full of bitter and nasty people who look down on everyone.  Well, most of them. You don’t get to be as wealthy as they are without smashing a few heads along the way.”

“Do you?”

“I represent old money.  My forebears smashed the heads for me.  I just direct where it goes, the custodian till the next generation.”

“You have no children.”

“Don’t worry, there’s plenty of relatives who want me dead so they can claim the inheritance.”

“Then it’s a good thing you’ll have your bodyguard close.”

“They fix up a room for you?”

“It’s bigger than my flat, and that’s just the bedroom.  It’s like living in a fairy tale.”

I thought that too when I was old enough to realise where I’d landed.

It was late, and it had been a long day.  “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

…

Sleep wouldn’t come.

Trying to think about exactly what Jennifer was after was doing my head in.

I had hoped that keeping her close she might let something slip, but she had dodged all my questions so deftly I had to admit she might be smarter than me.

I had even considered the possibility she was an assassin hired by the obscure members of the family to kill me so they could get their hands on the inheritance.

The idea of inviting her into my room seemed just a little too forward, and a typical male thing when it came to considering a relationship, much the same as some would after a night in a pick-up bar, something I would never do.

My brother was one who fervently believed that was where he would find the woman of his dreams, rather than the austere and matronly types our mother found for us.  Nobility, she said, must marry nobility, her being the daughter of a Count.

I agreed with my brother, only I didn’t have his confidence, or his nerve to simply ask a woman if she wanted to have sex with him.

If she did come in, what would I do?  It was as much on my mind as why she was here.

Closer to just before dawn, I was lying in the dark, looking at objects just barely illuminated by the glow of the digital numbers on the clock.

The door cracked a little before it opened just enough to let a slim body pass.  It closed again, silently. 

I hoped death would be swift and silent.

Her white nightdress attracted the green light of the clock, enough to show part of her.  She stopped beside the bed, between the clock and me and looked down.

“You’re awake, aren’t you?”

Of course.  She had been listening for rhythmic breathing.

“How can I possibly sleep with you just down the corridor?”

“It should be easy.  I don’t mean anything to you.”

“Except as a plus one.  Why are you here?  To drive a dagger into the devil’s heart?”

“I thought we established you were heartless?”

I reached out and took her hand in mine.  I could feel a slight tremor, though that could have been me as much as her.  It has been a while since the last time I was this intimately involved.  Or not.

She didn’t pull her hand away.

“Really, why are you here?”

“Morbid fascination.  I didn’t come to steal anything.  I just wanted to see your house, the life you lead, the person you are, not what they write about you in the media.  You frightened me when you found me.  I thought you would call the police and have me arrested.  You didn’t.  That’s when I knew I had to see you again.  I’m nobody.”

“Well, later today you’ll be somebody.  If you want to be somebody.  I’m not joking when I say that your life could change dramatically, and not for the better.  There’s always a cost; it’s whether you want to pay it.  I have no choice.  You do.”

“I can’t sleep.”

“There’s a lot of that going around.  Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Let me stay for a bit.  I’m sure I heard ghosts rattling in the corridor.”

“It’s possible.  I’ve heard a few strange things in my time here.  Probably my disapproving parents.  Sure.  There’s room for four in this bed.”

She pulled back the covers and slipped in.  There was space between us. 

“I’m not carrying a hidden weapon.  It’s not possible in this nightdress I was given, and I don’t bite.  I reserved that for my sisters who were horrible to me for a long time.”

“Are you a car burglar?”

“Not a very good one.  You were my first victim.  And probably my last.  I’m thinking of taking up a career of being a plus one.  I’ll let you know how that goes.  Tomorrow, or perhaps it’s now, later today.”

She rolled over, facing away from me, then moved closer, then took my hand and held it closer to her.

“Good night.”

The only thought I had was that if she had come to kill me, I’d be dead now.  Either from a knife, but more likely from having a heart attack.

It was an interesting thought.

…

©  Charles Heath  2026

365 Days of Writing, 2026 – 227/228

Days 227 and 228 – Writing Exercise

…

In my opinion, security was only as good as the people charged with maintaining it.

I had a security Chief, and he had minions.  I was not interested in the who, only that when he told me the house and grounds were secure, they were.

If you were to ask me, total security was impossible.  No one could be relied on to be one hundred percent focussed on the job, not when there were so many distractions.

I didn’t expect miracles.  I simply expected a modicum of professionalism.

In that I was disappointed.

…

I lived alone.

I never used to, but sadly the woman I married was not who I expected her to be.

Discreet.

I didn’t mind if she had other friends, so long as it never became public.  Even then it might not have bothered me, but it being a business rival, and involving stolen secrets, that was a step too far.

We did not part amicably.

And I don’t think I would ever trust another woman with any part of my life other than as an amiable acquaintance.

Thus my life, as described in a recent Sunday newspaper magazine article about me, was reclusive and a ‘frightful waste of an eligible bachelor’.

It was the last thing I considered myself to be, but it didn’t stop certain people from extolling the virtues of their unmarried daughters, or my friends from finding some available friends of theirs as a blind date.

They said it was a shame I didn’t have, at the very least, a full-time companion to accompany me as a plus one.

I actually thought that myself.

It was, in fact, the very reason I was still awake at two in the morning, staring at the ceiling and asking a rhetorical question: what was wrong with me?

And it was quiet enough to just hear a slight bump, like a book falling onto the floor.

Or it could have been my imagination.

Or it could have been once the clod hopper security guards doing his rounds in the dark.

Not for the first time.

I was awake anyway, so I must as well go down and see what was going on.  I’d been meaning to talk to Jameson, my head of security, and the guards assigned to the night shift.

I changed into gym clothes and shoes and, keeping the lights off, did my best to creep downstairs, remembering to avoid the fifth, eleventh and twentieth steps because they creaked.

The door to the study was ajar.  That was not how I left it.  Obviously the security guard had come and gone without shutting the door after him.

I was going to pull it shut when I decided I would go in, finish some business and then try to get some sleep.

I stepped in, shut the door behind me and switched on the light.

It was a surprise – no, more of a shock – to see I was not alone, and my companion was not a security guard but an intruder.  Dressed in black from head to foot.

There was only one way in and out: the door.  The windows didn’t open, though I had been contemplating changing that.

My eyes might have been playing tricks, but I swear my intruder was a woman.

She looked at me.  Surprise, but not fear.

Did she have a companion somewhere?  I would have to be careful.  I said, “Give me one reason I shouldn’t call the police.”

“I haven’t stolen anything yet.”

It was a woman.  Youngish. 

“What were you after?”

I couldn’t believe I was having a conversation with a thief who might turn violent at any moment.

“Not sure yet.  Something of value.  You’re that rich you wouldn’t miss it.”

“What if it had sentimental value?”

“You people don’t have hearts, just bank vaults.  You wouldn’t know what sentimental is.”

“And you do?”

“It comes with being poor.”

I looked her up and down. Nothing about her screamed poorhouse.  I recognised the outfit as being one the women wore at the gym I visited once a month.  They were not inexpensive clothes she was wearing.

I shrugged.  “Do you want me to give you a million pounds so you can become one of us, the un-sympathetics.”

“That would be a cop out and wouldn’t count.”

“Would you like me to find something worth a million pounds to leave with and become one of us?”

“The fence wouldn’t give me face value.  It would have to be worth a lot more, but even then I’d get screwed over the interpretation of what its value is.”

“I could come with you…”

She laughed.  “I see what this is.  You keep chatting while the security or police come.  I’d better go.”

“Empty-handed?”

“Shit happens. Especially to me.  Your security is shit too.  I’d sack the lot of them and get someone who knows what they’re doing.”

“Like you?”

“You’re annoying, you know that?”

“It’s been said.  Call me in the morning; we can talk about a job.”

She simply shook her head and barged past me on her way out.

The aroma of lavender lingered long after she had gone.

…

It was probably the most honest conversation I’d had with someone under the age of 50.  I was still sitting behind the desk in my study, trying to imagine what it was she was after.

It was not just random objects worth money.

She had been sent to get something specific.  It meant she would be back to try again. Or someone else who wouldn’t leave without it.

At eight, I went out to the cottage just inside the front gate where the head of security lived and ran his operation.  He had been recommended to me, and when interviewed had talked the talk

Now I had a breach.

I knocked; he seemed surprised to see me.

“Sir?  You up and about early.”

“What happened last night?”

He was about to say nothing but must have caught the edge of my tone.

“I heard there might have been a breach in the main house.  This morning the monitors are down, and a quick check shows some of the leads have been cut.  No alarms were disabled or triggered.  How did you know?”

“I had a conversation with a possible cat burglar last night.  I checked, and she hadn’t taken anything, but had she not dropped something on the floor, I would not have discovered her in the house.”

He invited me in, and we went to the control room.

His man was idly watching about ten screens.

“When was this?” He asked.

“About half past one in the morning.”

There were more cameras than screens.  The operator ran through the camera feeds from one in the morning to two, in fast-forward, and when he got to camera 16, overlooking the area that led up to the patio that adjoined mt study, a blurry figure in dark clothing was barely discernible against the dark background.

It was as if they knew the limitations of the system.

You would not have seen it unless you were looking for it, and four hours into the night shift, your attention wandering towards the land of nod.  But odd, no alarms went off

It explained how the intruder got into my study. 

And earned a termination notice for the night operator, and an apology.  It would have been moot if I’d been killed.

“I’ll see that it never happens again.”

I just glared at him and went back to the manor house.

…

I had breakfast in the drawing room, also a reading room, and where I took friends and relatives when they visited.  It was much more informal than the room we used for formal guests

This morning it was just Elsie, the breakfast server, and I, though I preferred to put food on my own plate, let her pour the coffee, and let her scowl at me when I did let her do her job.

“I heard there was a prowler.”

News travelled fast in a house like mine.

“A charming young lady cat burglar.  I asked her if she wanted a job.”  I took a plate back to the table, and she followed with the coffee.  I waited until she poured a cupful.

“Why would you?”

“She circumvented our security system.”

“Anyone could.”  Then she realised what she said.  “Sorry, I didn’t quite mean it like that.”

She did, but I’d let it pass.  Elsie was prone to speaking before thinking, sometimes an endearing quality.  The housekeeper, Mrs Jones, wanted to let her go, but I liked her, so she stayed.

A knock on the door. Abigail, one of two personal assistants, put her head in the doorway.  “Sorry to interrupt, but there’s a caller who says she wants to finish what you started earlier this morning.”

The cat burglar.  Now that was a surprise. She came over and gave me the cell phone.  Both women left the room.

“Miss Burglar,” I said, “What can I do for you?”

“You mean what you said earlier?”

“Subject to a satisfactory interview, yes.”

“Where do I meet you?”

“Back here.  Only this time, don’t try to break in.  I have a front door; you can knock on it, and someone will answer it.”
–
“Later, then.”

She disconnected the call.

My first thought, she needed better access to steal whatever it was she needed to.  It meant she was not doing this because she wanted to, but because she had to.  Which meant someone had leverage.

My day just got less boring.

…

Just Jennifer arrives shortly before lunch, driving a beat-up Mini, a more modern version of an old Morris Mini I once drove.

She parked it with a flourish outside the front door, scuffing up the gravel surface and incurring a few wrathful remarks from the head gardener, a rather irascible Irishman called O’Rafferty.

She came to the front door, and Riley, the head of the household and head butler, answered it.  He did not suffer fools gladly, nor any others.

He had an old blunderbuss which he used to threaten church hawkers and door-to-door salesmen.  I had to bail him out of jail once.

He escorted Just Jennifer to the lunch room, which was still the drawing room used for all daytime meals, and afternoon high teas.

He announced her as Just Jennifer, told her to enter, and then closed the doors behind him.  Elsie was standing by the servery, fully aware of who Just Jennifer was.

Just Jennifer looked around the room, at Elsie in her finest morning servery clothes, the array of food and then me.

“This is ridiculous.  Do you know how many starving people there are?”

“Within the 10-mile radius of this house, yes.  We provide meals for as many who ask, as well as school lunches for every child who wants one.  Whatever is not used is given to several nearby homeless shelters where staff volunteer their services.  I visit them when I can.”

I said that not for the idea of getting acknowledgement; very few people were aware of what we did, and I preferred to keep it that way.  Someone once told me I couldn’t save the world, but I could help those nearby.

“I’m disappointed,” she said.

Surprising.  ‘Why?”

“Because I wanted to believe you were a heartless bastard.”

“It’s a free world.”

“Actually, it isn’t.”

I shook my head.

“Sit down and tell Elsie what you want, and she’ll get it for you.”

“I can do it myself.”

“That’s what I said, and Elsie took it badly.  She likes her job, and she’s very good at it.  And gets more appreciation than she did when she worked in a snobby men’s club in London.” I looked over in her direction, and she made a face that was less than the scowl she wore five minutes ago.

Just Jennifer sat and told Elsie what she would like.

Elsie served her first, then poured me a fresh cup of tea, then went back to her station.

“Is this what it’s like all the time?”

“No.  Sometimes I go down to the London residence.  Sometimes I go away for the weekend, you know, a change of scenery.”

“Why aren’t you married?”

“What woman could put up with all of this?”

“I could.”

“For about a week, yes.  A month tops.  Then you slowly go mad.  You love the idea of it.  That novelty wears off very quickly, once the media get a hold of you and then never let you alone.”

“If I work for you?”

“They’ll just ignore you.  Maybe as the hired help some enterprising reporter will offer you a large sum of money to betray me.”

“How big a pile?”

“A hundred to a thousand pounds.  They seem to think that’s a lot of money to someone like their impression of impoverished employees being taken advantage of.”

“What sort of job would you give me, given you know my talent?  And how much?”

“Are you looking for a job?”

“Since I failed last night, yes.  How quick people are to condemn you after one failure.”

“We live in a fickle world.  The job: personal bodyguard, which means basically all day, every day.  The pay: you get to live and eat free wherever we go, a dress allowance because you have to look the part, and an offshore account where you can deposit money for your retirement.  A lot of money.  I am buying your discretion.”

“No time off?”

“When nothing’s happening, yes, plenty of time off.  Which happens more often than not.  You have to sign an NDA, and not break it.  Everyone who works for me does.”

“Nothing bad; I have a line I don’t cross.”

I would like to see that line because breaking and entering and stealing seemed pretty bad to me.

“Nothing bad.  I hire an assassin to take care of those problems.”

She looked horrified.

“I don’t, but it’s a thought.  Some of those reporters cross lines and get away with literal murder.  I guess it goes with the territory.  You need time to think?”

“Over a second sandwich, perhaps.”  She looked at Elsie and nodded.

…

I didn’t believe for a moment she had come for a job, or that her one mistake had cost her her reputation.

She had come on a pretext, and hoping I’d be foolish enough to show her around.  It wasn’t the first subject she broached, but it came after the second sandwich.

And I hated to admit I liked her audacity.  Whatever she had been looking for, she had run out of time and needed a second visit.  And a list of possible places.

After all, I did have three separate safes in different places, scattered about the manor house, excluding a smaller one in my room.  I kept a gun there.

Just in case.

But as for what she was after, I couldn’t guess.  I was surprised I hadn’t got a call from Proctor, head of the London residence, about any break-ins.

I spoke to the lawyers earlier, and he said that it was probably an art thief, and that there were several canvases that were worth a lot to private collectors.

It had to be that.

I took her on a tour of the house and showed her the art collection, including the expensive pieces, but she didn’t seem that interested, or acted the part very well.  I did notice the surreptitious glances at the internal CCTV cameras and security within the house.  Maybe later I would ask her where the pitfalls were.

We ended up back in the drawing room, now cleared and back to being just a drawing room.

Abigail was waiting for me, a pensive expression meaning there was a problem.

“Can I have a private moment?”

“Is it top secret stuff?”

I knew what it was about, and it wasn’t.

“Not particularly.”

“Then don’t worry about Jennifer.  What is it?”

“Your plus one for tomorrow night.  Miss James is unable to get back in time from Santorini.  Shall I tell them you will be going alone?”

“Who can resist the Greek Islands in Summer?”

I looked over at Jennifer, who was trying her best to appear like she was ignoring us.  “Fancy going to a boring party.”  I looked at Abigail.  “Whose birthday is it again?”

“Lord Berenson.”

“Ah,  yes.  Lady Berenson had been trying to get me to take an interest in Tabitha.”

“It’s about time you settled down.”

“You are starting to sound like my mother.”

“She asked me to look after you.”

“And you have.”  I turned back to Jennifer, who was now looking at us.  “Care to go as my plus one.  It’d give you an excellent look at how the job would work, or not.”

“A plus one is not a bodyguard.”

“It is if you don’t want anyone to know you’re a bodyguard.”

Abigail simply shook her head.  “Let me know what you decide.”  And left.

“Who is she?”

“My principal private secretary, and de facto mother, apparently. Are you interested in going?  We’ll have to get you a dress because it’s a proper to-do, and dancing.  You do dance?”

“What sort of dancing?”

“Stuff an orchestra produces.  There’s no dangling disco balls and loud thumping noise that passes for music.  The cream of society will be there.  If you decide not to stay with me, you can research other wealthy prospects.”

“I’m done with that.”

“Are you in or out?”

“One night to test the water.  See if I like it or hate it.”

“Great.” I picked up the phone and called Abigail.

…

I wasn’t sure what sort of game I was playing, only that it could end badly. 

But it wouldn’t be any worse than the last time I was disappointed, given that I was the subject of the deception.

Maybe I wanted to unmask her.

Maybe I liked what I couldn’t have.

Maybe I was just tired of the life I was pretending to lead.  I understood now why my father collapsed under the weight of responsibility, trying to be everything all at once, and ending up master of nothing.

It was easy to say that I had to be an example to everyone.  That I learned quickly was impossible.

That I wanted to marry a simple girl with simple tastes and live in a simple house … no, none of that was possible.  Not when you have millions of people perched on your shoulders waiting for you to stumble.

My older brother ended his own life buried under the pressure of expectation, and my sister disappeared to New Zealand, leaving me the mess to clean up.  My parents died of natural causes, way before they should have.

I looked around the room and remembered that morning before my brother died, looking every bit the normal, self-controlled businessman who could absorb any amount of pressure and come out smiling.

I had no idea what he intended to do, only that a call from the police the next morning saying they had found him dead in his apartment.  An overdose.  He had never taken drugs in his life.  At least not that I ever knew about.

I closed my eyes, then opened them.

Just Jennifer was still there.  Looking a million pounds in the dress Abigail had ‘found’ and sent for a fitting.

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

Jennifer had tried not to show any feelings until the dress arrived.  One look, I thought, and she was hooked.  It was like Cinderella at the ball.

“It’s a peek into a world I could never be a part of.  All I’ve ever seen is the photos in magazines.”

“The photos lie.  That world is full of bitter and nasty people who look down on everyone.  Well, most of them. You don’t get to be as wealthy as they are without smashing a few heads along the way.”

“Do you?”

“I represent old money.  My forebears smashed the heads for me.  I just direct where it goes, the custodian till the next generation.”

“You have no children.”

“Don’t worry, there’s plenty of relatives who want me dead so they can claim the inheritance.”

“Then it’s a good thing you’ll have your bodyguard close.”

“They fix up a room for you?”

“It’s bigger than my flat, and that’s just the bedroom.  It’s like living in a fairy tale.”

I thought that too when I was old enough to realise where I’d landed.

It was late, and it had been a long day.  “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

…

Sleep wouldn’t come.

Trying to think about exactly what Jennifer was after was doing my head in.

I had hoped that keeping her close she might let something slip, but she had dodged all my questions so deftly I had to admit she might be smarter than me.

I had even considered the possibility she was an assassin hired by the obscure members of the family to kill me so they could get their hands on the inheritance.

The idea of inviting her into my room seemed just a little too forward, and a typical male thing when it came to considering a relationship, much the same as some would after a night in a pick-up bar, something I would never do.

My brother was one who fervently believed that was where he would find the woman of his dreams, rather than the austere and matronly types our mother found for us.  Nobility, she said, must marry nobility, her being the daughter of a Count.

I agreed with my brother, only I didn’t have his confidence, or his nerve to simply ask a woman if she wanted to have sex with him.

If she did come in, what would I do?  It was as much on my mind as why she was here.

Closer to just before dawn, I was lying in the dark, looking at objects just barely illuminated by the glow of the digital numbers on the clock.

The door cracked a little before it opened just enough to let a slim body pass.  It closed again, silently. 

I hoped death would be swift and silent.

Her white nightdress attracted the green light of the clock, enough to show part of her.  She stopped beside the bed, between the clock and me and looked down.

“You’re awake, aren’t you?”

Of course.  She had been listening for rhythmic breathing.

“How can I possibly sleep with you just down the corridor?”

“It should be easy.  I don’t mean anything to you.”

“Except as a plus one.  Why are you here?  To drive a dagger into the devil’s heart?”

“I thought we established you were heartless?”

I reached out and took her hand in mine.  I could feel a slight tremor, though that could have been me as much as her.  It has been a while since the last time I was this intimately involved.  Or not.

She didn’t pull her hand away.

“Really, why are you here?”

“Morbid fascination.  I didn’t come to steal anything.  I just wanted to see your house, the life you lead, the person you are, not what they write about you in the media.  You frightened me when you found me.  I thought you would call the police and have me arrested.  You didn’t.  That’s when I knew I had to see you again.  I’m nobody.”

“Well, later today you’ll be somebody.  If you want to be somebody.  I’m not joking when I say that your life could change dramatically, and not for the better.  There’s always a cost; it’s whether you want to pay it.  I have no choice.  You do.”

“I can’t sleep.”

“There’s a lot of that going around.  Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Let me stay for a bit.  I’m sure I heard ghosts rattling in the corridor.”

“It’s possible.  I’ve heard a few strange things in my time here.  Probably my disapproving parents.  Sure.  There’s room for four in this bed.”

She pulled back the covers and slipped in.  There was space between us. 

“I’m not carrying a hidden weapon.  It’s not possible in this nightdress I was given, and I don’t bite.  I reserved that for my sisters who were horrible to me for a long time.”

“Are you a car burglar?”

“Not a very good one.  You were my first victim.  And probably my last.  I’m thinking of taking up a career of being a plus one.  I’ll let you know how that goes.  Tomorrow, or perhaps it’s now, later today.”

She rolled over, facing away from me, then moved closer, then took my hand and held it closer to her.

“Good night.”

The only thought I had was that if she had come to kill me, I’d be dead now.  Either from a knife, but more likely from having a heart attack.

It was an interesting thought.

…

©  Charles Heath  2026

365 Days of Writing, 2026 – Beyond the second novel

Where the dynasty begins

…

Ground Zero for Greatness: Why Location is the Ultimate Character in a Book Series

If you’re going to write a book series, sometimes it will be rooted in one particular place—the place I would call home.

Dynasties need a place that is theirs, to start from nothing. And when you’re building a multi-book epic, a generational saga, or even a sprawling television-style procedural, it’s all about picking a location.

Before you plot your twists, before you name your protagonist, and long before you figure out how the story ends, you have to choose the dirt. Because in serialised fiction, geography isn’t just a backdrop; it’s the heartbeat of your entire fictional universe.

Here is why your series needs a definitive home base, and how to pick a location that can carry the weight of an entire dynasty.

1. The Power of “Home” in Serialised Fiction

Think of the most iconic series in literature and pop culture. Game of Thrones is inextricably linked to Winterfell and the stark brutality of the North. Lord of the Rings always circles back to the comforting, green hearth of the Shire. In crime fiction, Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch is Los Angeles—the asphalt, the traffic, the neon-lit grit.

When a series has a distinct home, it offers the reader a psychological anchor. No matter how chaotic the plot gets, or how many new characters are introduced in book three or four, returning to “home” provides a sense of continuity.

As a writer, establishing a home base gives you a baseline. You can’t show how much a character or a family has changed unless you show them against the backdrop of where they started.

2. Dynasties Need Dirt: Starting from Nothing

Every great dynasty—whether it’s the Corleones in The Godfather, the Roys in Succession, or a fantasy bloodline clawing its way to a throne—needs a genesis point.

To make a dynasty compelling, you have to show the climb. And to show the climb, you need a starting block that feels tactile, specific, and often, limiting.

  • The Mud and the Scaffolding: Starting from nothing means your characters are shaped by the geography of their struggle. Are they mining coal in a bleak valley? Are they scraping by in a crowded port city? The physical environment dictates their resourcefulness, their culture, and their desperation.
  • The Claim: A dynasty isn’t just a family; it’s real estate. The moment a group of characters stakes a claim on a specific piece of land—whether it’s an abandoned farm, a contested borough, or an uncharted island—the story shifts from mere survival to legacy-building.

When you pick a location, ask yourself: What does this dirt demand from the people who walk on it?

3. How to Choose the Right Location for Your Series

Picking a location isn’t about just pointing a finger at a map or making up a cool-sounding fantasy name. It’s a strategic choice that will dictate the trajectory of your entire series. Here’s how to nail it:

Give the Location Personality

Treat your setting like a main character. It should have moods, history, biases, and secrets. A coastal town isn’t just “near the water”—it’s salty, isolated, suspicious of outsiders, and at the mercy of the tides. The weather, the architecture, the local cuisine, and the regional slang should all bleed into the narrative.

Ensure Room for Expansion

A common pitfall in series writing is picking a location that is too small. If your entire story takes place in a single room or a tiny village, you’ll run out of narrative fuel by book two. Ensure your chosen location has layers: neighbourhoods, surrounding wilderness, political jurisdictions, or hidden undergrounds that you can peel back as the series progresses.

Make It Inhospitable (At Least a Little Bit)

Comfort breeds stagnation; struggle breeds dynasties. Whether it’s harsh winters, political corruption, economic depression, or literal monsters at the gates, your location should present ongoing obstacles. A dynasty is forged in the forge, after all.

4. The Location Evolves With You

One of the greatest joys of writing a series is watching the home base change over time.

In Book 1, your characters might be shivering in a leaky shack on the edge of town, dreaming of something better. By Book 5, that same shack might be replaced by a sprawling estate, or serve as the historic foundation of a massive corporate or political empire.

Because the location stays the same while the characters change, the setting becomes a measuring stick for time and ambition. Readers love nothing more than recognising a street corner, a building, or a landmark that appeared in the first book, but seeing it entirely transformed through the lens of the characters’ success (or downfall).

Final Thoughts: Plant Your Flag

If you’re staring at a blank document, paralysed by the sheer scope of the series you want to write, stop trying to plot the ending. Stop trying to introduce every character.

Instead, look for the place.

Find the town, the planet, the estate, or the street corner that feels like the epicentre of your imagination. Plant your flag there. Make it messy, make it real, and make it home. Because once you find the right location, the dynasty will build itself.

…

365 Days of Writing, 2026 – Beyond the second novel

Where the dynasty begins

…

Ground Zero for Greatness: Why Location is the Ultimate Character in a Book Series

If you’re going to write a book series, sometimes it will be rooted in one particular place—the place I would call home.

Dynasties need a place that is theirs, to start from nothing. And when you’re building a multi-book epic, a generational saga, or even a sprawling television-style procedural, it’s all about picking a location.

Before you plot your twists, before you name your protagonist, and long before you figure out how the story ends, you have to choose the dirt. Because in serialised fiction, geography isn’t just a backdrop; it’s the heartbeat of your entire fictional universe.

Here is why your series needs a definitive home base, and how to pick a location that can carry the weight of an entire dynasty.

1. The Power of “Home” in Serialised Fiction

Think of the most iconic series in literature and pop culture. Game of Thrones is inextricably linked to Winterfell and the stark brutality of the North. Lord of the Rings always circles back to the comforting, green hearth of the Shire. In crime fiction, Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch is Los Angeles—the asphalt, the traffic, the neon-lit grit.

When a series has a distinct home, it offers the reader a psychological anchor. No matter how chaotic the plot gets, or how many new characters are introduced in book three or four, returning to “home” provides a sense of continuity.

As a writer, establishing a home base gives you a baseline. You can’t show how much a character or a family has changed unless you show them against the backdrop of where they started.

2. Dynasties Need Dirt: Starting from Nothing

Every great dynasty—whether it’s the Corleones in The Godfather, the Roys in Succession, or a fantasy bloodline clawing its way to a throne—needs a genesis point.

To make a dynasty compelling, you have to show the climb. And to show the climb, you need a starting block that feels tactile, specific, and often, limiting.

  • The Mud and the Scaffolding: Starting from nothing means your characters are shaped by the geography of their struggle. Are they mining coal in a bleak valley? Are they scraping by in a crowded port city? The physical environment dictates their resourcefulness, their culture, and their desperation.
  • The Claim: A dynasty isn’t just a family; it’s real estate. The moment a group of characters stakes a claim on a specific piece of land—whether it’s an abandoned farm, a contested borough, or an uncharted island—the story shifts from mere survival to legacy-building.

When you pick a location, ask yourself: What does this dirt demand from the people who walk on it?

3. How to Choose the Right Location for Your Series

Picking a location isn’t about just pointing a finger at a map or making up a cool-sounding fantasy name. It’s a strategic choice that will dictate the trajectory of your entire series. Here’s how to nail it:

Give the Location Personality

Treat your setting like a main character. It should have moods, history, biases, and secrets. A coastal town isn’t just “near the water”—it’s salty, isolated, suspicious of outsiders, and at the mercy of the tides. The weather, the architecture, the local cuisine, and the regional slang should all bleed into the narrative.

Ensure Room for Expansion

A common pitfall in series writing is picking a location that is too small. If your entire story takes place in a single room or a tiny village, you’ll run out of narrative fuel by book two. Ensure your chosen location has layers: neighbourhoods, surrounding wilderness, political jurisdictions, or hidden undergrounds that you can peel back as the series progresses.

Make It Inhospitable (At Least a Little Bit)

Comfort breeds stagnation; struggle breeds dynasties. Whether it’s harsh winters, political corruption, economic depression, or literal monsters at the gates, your location should present ongoing obstacles. A dynasty is forged in the forge, after all.

4. The Location Evolves With You

One of the greatest joys of writing a series is watching the home base change over time.

In Book 1, your characters might be shivering in a leaky shack on the edge of town, dreaming of something better. By Book 5, that same shack might be replaced by a sprawling estate, or serve as the historic foundation of a massive corporate or political empire.

Because the location stays the same while the characters change, the setting becomes a measuring stick for time and ambition. Readers love nothing more than recognising a street corner, a building, or a landmark that appeared in the first book, but seeing it entirely transformed through the lens of the characters’ success (or downfall).

Final Thoughts: Plant Your Flag

If you’re staring at a blank document, paralysed by the sheer scope of the series you want to write, stop trying to plot the ending. Stop trying to introduce every character.

Instead, look for the place.

Find the town, the planet, the estate, or the street corner that feels like the epicentre of your imagination. Plant your flag there. Make it messy, make it real, and make it home. Because once you find the right location, the dynasty will build itself.

…

365 Days of Writing, 2026 – 226

Day 226 – Avoiding clichés

…

Tired Tropes: Why It’s Time to Retire “Smart as a Whip,” “Light as a Feather,” and “dumb as a rock” (And What to Use Instead)

We’ve all been there. You’re in the flow of writing a scene, drafting a marketing email, or chatting with a friend, and a familiar phrase drops off your fingertips.

She was light as a feather. He was smart as a whip. That idea is dumb as a rock.

They’re comfortable. They’re automatic. And, frankly, they are dead on arrival.

In copywriting and creative writing alike, clichés are the fast-food of language: they fill a craving instantly, but they leave your audience feeling uninspired and unsatisfied. When we rely on tired idioms, we trade specific imagery for lazy shorthand.

If you want to elevate your writing, boost your SEO engagement by reducing bounce rates (readers stick around longer for original prose!), and captivate your audience, it’s time to banish these three overused similes.

Let’s break down why they fail, and explore fresh, vibrant alternatives that will make your writing pop.

Cliche #1: “Smart as a Whip”

Why It Fails

Where did this even come from? A leather strap attached to a handle doesn’t exactly scream “cognitive genius.” While etymologists debate its origins—some point to the snap of a whip representing quickness, others to a “smart” (stinging) lash—the phrase has been beaten to death. It’s a vague umbrella term that tells your reader someone is intelligent without showing how that intelligence manifests.

Fresh Alternatives

Intelligence isn’t a monolith. A person can be mathematically gifted, socially brilliant, or quick on their feet. Show your reader the flavor of their smarts:

  • For quick-wittedness: Sharp as a tack, quick-silver, nimble-minded, brilliantly agile.
  • For deep intellect: Encyclopedic, sagacious, razor-sharp, intellectually voracious.
  • In a sentence: Instead of “She was smart as a whip during the negotiation,” try:“She sliced through the corporate jargon with surgical precision, anticipating counter-arguments before they even left the room.”

Cliché #2: “Light as a Feather”

Why It Fails

Unless you are literally writing a scientific paper about avian plumage, “light as a feather” is completely devoid of sensory detail. It’s a ghost of a description. It doesn’t help the reader feel the weightlessness; it just tells them the math of the mass.

Fresh Alternatives

Weightlessness can be terrifying, graceful, or magical. Tap into the physical sensations of air, movement, and suspension to bring your descriptions to life:

  • For physical objects: Buoyant, ethereal, gossamer, weightless, vaporous, floating on a breeze.
  • For people or movements: Effortless, floating, unanchored, graceful as a drifted leaf.
  • In a sentence: Instead of “The vintage silk dress was light as a feather,” try:“The vintage silk cascaded over her skin like a second atmosphere, practically floating on the ambient air.”

Cliché #3: “Dumb as a Rock”

Why It Fails

Aside from being unoriginal, calling someone (or something) “dumb as a rock” is a blunt-force instrument. It lacks nuance, and frankly, rocks have a lot of geological history going for them—they are much more interesting than this insult implies. Relying on this phrase misses an opportunity to inject humor, vivid imagery, or specific critique into your writing.

Fresh Alternatives

If you need to describe a lack of common sense, ignorance, or a thoroughly unwise decision, you have a wealth of colorful alternatives at your disposal:

  • For foolishness: Clueless, vacant, dense as lead, hopelessly out-to-lunch, playing checkers in a chess grandmaster tournament.
  • For bad ideas: Ill-conceived, half-baked, structurally unsound, a house of cards.
  • In a sentence: Instead of “That business strategy is dumb as a rock,” try:“That business strategy was about as seaworthy as a screen-door canoe.”

How to Spot Clichés in Your Own Writing

Writing without clichés isn’t about never using a common phrase again; it’s about developing an editor’s eye for autopilot writing. The next time you edit your work, run this quick mental check:

  1. The “First Thought” Test: If a phrase or comparison pops into your head immediately, it probably popped into a million other writers’ heads, too. Pause, delete it, and force yourself to brainstorm three alternative descriptions.
  2. Appeal to the Senses: Clichés are abstract. Real writing is sensory. Does your description sound, smell, look, feel, or taste like something specific?
  3. Show, Don’t Tell: Instead of telling us someone is “smart as a whip” or a concept is “dumb as a rock,” show us the action, the consequence, or the environment that proves it.

Upgrade Your Vocabulary Today

Language is a living, breathing toolkit. When we rely on clichés like smart as a whip, light as a feather, and dumb as a rock, we dull our tools. Swap them out for specific, evocative, and surprising alternatives, and watch your writing instantly transform from generic to unforgettable.

What’s your least favorite cliché? Drop it in the comments below along with your favorite alternative!

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365 Days of Writing, 2026 – 226

Day 226 – Avoiding clichés

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Tired Tropes: Why It’s Time to Retire “Smart as a Whip,” “Light as a Feather,” and “dumb as a rock” (And What to Use Instead)

We’ve all been there. You’re in the flow of writing a scene, drafting a marketing email, or chatting with a friend, and a familiar phrase drops off your fingertips.

She was light as a feather. He was smart as a whip. That idea is dumb as a rock.

They’re comfortable. They’re automatic. And, frankly, they are dead on arrival.

In copywriting and creative writing alike, clichés are the fast-food of language: they fill a craving instantly, but they leave your audience feeling uninspired and unsatisfied. When we rely on tired idioms, we trade specific imagery for lazy shorthand.

If you want to elevate your writing, boost your SEO engagement by reducing bounce rates (readers stick around longer for original prose!), and captivate your audience, it’s time to banish these three overused similes.

Let’s break down why they fail, and explore fresh, vibrant alternatives that will make your writing pop.

Cliche #1: “Smart as a Whip”

Why It Fails

Where did this even come from? A leather strap attached to a handle doesn’t exactly scream “cognitive genius.” While etymologists debate its origins—some point to the snap of a whip representing quickness, others to a “smart” (stinging) lash—the phrase has been beaten to death. It’s a vague umbrella term that tells your reader someone is intelligent without showing how that intelligence manifests.

Fresh Alternatives

Intelligence isn’t a monolith. A person can be mathematically gifted, socially brilliant, or quick on their feet. Show your reader the flavor of their smarts:

  • For quick-wittedness: Sharp as a tack, quick-silver, nimble-minded, brilliantly agile.
  • For deep intellect: Encyclopedic, sagacious, razor-sharp, intellectually voracious.
  • In a sentence: Instead of “She was smart as a whip during the negotiation,” try:“She sliced through the corporate jargon with surgical precision, anticipating counter-arguments before they even left the room.”

Cliché #2: “Light as a Feather”

Why It Fails

Unless you are literally writing a scientific paper about avian plumage, “light as a feather” is completely devoid of sensory detail. It’s a ghost of a description. It doesn’t help the reader feel the weightlessness; it just tells them the math of the mass.

Fresh Alternatives

Weightlessness can be terrifying, graceful, or magical. Tap into the physical sensations of air, movement, and suspension to bring your descriptions to life:

  • For physical objects: Buoyant, ethereal, gossamer, weightless, vaporous, floating on a breeze.
  • For people or movements: Effortless, floating, unanchored, graceful as a drifted leaf.
  • In a sentence: Instead of “The vintage silk dress was light as a feather,” try:“The vintage silk cascaded over her skin like a second atmosphere, practically floating on the ambient air.”

Cliché #3: “Dumb as a Rock”

Why It Fails

Aside from being unoriginal, calling someone (or something) “dumb as a rock” is a blunt-force instrument. It lacks nuance, and frankly, rocks have a lot of geological history going for them—they are much more interesting than this insult implies. Relying on this phrase misses an opportunity to inject humor, vivid imagery, or specific critique into your writing.

Fresh Alternatives

If you need to describe a lack of common sense, ignorance, or a thoroughly unwise decision, you have a wealth of colorful alternatives at your disposal:

  • For foolishness: Clueless, vacant, dense as lead, hopelessly out-to-lunch, playing checkers in a chess grandmaster tournament.
  • For bad ideas: Ill-conceived, half-baked, structurally unsound, a house of cards.
  • In a sentence: Instead of “That business strategy is dumb as a rock,” try:“That business strategy was about as seaworthy as a screen-door canoe.”

How to Spot Clichés in Your Own Writing

Writing without clichés isn’t about never using a common phrase again; it’s about developing an editor’s eye for autopilot writing. The next time you edit your work, run this quick mental check:

  1. The “First Thought” Test: If a phrase or comparison pops into your head immediately, it probably popped into a million other writers’ heads, too. Pause, delete it, and force yourself to brainstorm three alternative descriptions.
  2. Appeal to the Senses: Clichés are abstract. Real writing is sensory. Does your description sound, smell, look, feel, or taste like something specific?
  3. Show, Don’t Tell: Instead of telling us someone is “smart as a whip” or a concept is “dumb as a rock,” show us the action, the consequence, or the environment that proves it.

Upgrade Your Vocabulary Today

Language is a living, breathing toolkit. When we rely on clichés like smart as a whip, light as a feather, and dumb as a rock, we dull our tools. Swap them out for specific, evocative, and surprising alternatives, and watch your writing instantly transform from generic to unforgettable.

What’s your least favorite cliché? Drop it in the comments below along with your favorite alternative!

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365 Days of Writing, 2026 – 225

Day 225 –  The fear you feel when you write

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The Fear You Feel When You Write, It’s Normal: Embracing the Wisdom of Marguerite Duras

Every writer knows the moment.

The cursor blinks relentlessly on a blank, stark-white screen. The room is quiet, perhaps too quiet. Your chest tightens, a familiar knot twists in your stomach, and a voice whispers: This is terrible. Who do you think you are? You have nothing to say.

If you have ever felt this paralysing wave of anxiety before putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard), take a deep breath. You are not failing as a writer; you are simply doing the work.

As the legendary French novelist and filmmaker Marguerite Duras famously observed, the fear you feel when you write is not a sign to stop. It is normal.

Let’s unpack this profound truth and explore why fear is actually the secret companion of every great writer.

Who Was Marguerite Duras and Why Did She Understand Writing’s Terror?

Marguerite Duras was a literary force of nature. Best known for her autobiographical novel The Lover (which won the prestigious Prix Goncourt), Duras wrote with a raw, uncompromising intensity that cut straight to the human soul. She didn’t write polite stories; she wrote about obsession, desire, memory, and the dark corners of the human psyche.

Because she mined such deep, vulnerable territory, Duras understood the cost of creation. She knew that to write authentically, one must court vulnerability. And vulnerability is terrifying.

Duras famously spoke about the solitude and the terror of the writing life. She suggested that writing is not a gentle hobby or a neat profession; it is an expedition into the unknown. When you sit down to write, you are venturing into a territory that does not yet exist, dragging ideas out of the ether and forcing them into reality. Of course it’s scary.

Why Does Writing Actually Scare Us?

If we want to overcome writing anxiety, we first have to understand its roots. Why does a harmless activity like arranging words on a page trigger a fight-or-flight response?

1. The Gap Between Taste and Talent

As Ira Glass famously noted, beginners (and even seasoned pros) suffer from a cruel paradox: our taste is refined enough to know when something isn’t working, but our execution often falls short of our vision. That gap—between the masterpiece in your head and the messy draft on your screen—is where fear lives.

2. The Fear of Exposure

Writing is an act of self-revelation. Even in fiction or copywriting, your worldview, your obsessions, and your fears bleed onto the page. To share your writing with the world is to stand naked in public. What if they judge you? What if they misunderstand you? What if they simply don’t care?

3. Confronting the Unknown

Unlike math or accounting, writing doesn’t have a definitive formula. When you start a piece, you rarely know exactly where it will end. You are stepping into a fog, trusting that the path will appear as you walk it. The human brain hates uncertainty, and it interprets that blank page as a survival threat.

How to Make Friends with Your Writing Fear

If fear is a normal, permanent resident of the writer’s house, how do we coexist with it? How do we write through the terror instead of running away from it?

1. Stop Waiting to Feel Confident

Many aspiring writers make the fatal mistake of waiting for the fear to go away before they start writing. They wait for inspiration, for the “right mood,” or for unshakeable confidence.

It never comes.

Professional writers don’t feel less fear than amateurs; they simply’ve learned to act in spite of it. As Duras understood, the fear is part of the process. Expect it. Greet it when you sit down at your desk: Ah, hello anxiety, I see you’re here. Let’s write anyway.

2. Lower the Stakes (Lower the Bar)

Perfectionism is fear in a fancy tuxedo. We get terrified because we put immense pressure on every single sentence to be brilliant.

Give yourself permission to write badly. As legendary humorist James Thurber put it: “Don’t get it right, get it written.” Your first draft is merely you telling the story to yourself. No one else has to see the mess.

3. Lean Into the Discomfort

If you feel a little sick to your stomach or nervous about a passage you are writing, pay attention. That discomfort is often a compass pointing directly toward truth. If a sentence makes you squirm, it usually means you’re touching on something real, raw, and powerful. Lean into it.

The Ultimate Takeaway

Writing is an act of courage. Every time you face the blank page and refuse to look away, you are engaging in a brave act of creation.

The next time that familiar knot forms in your stomach, remember the words and the spirit of Marguerite Duras. Remind yourself that the fear doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong; it means you’re doing it right. It means you care. It means you are treading on sacred, uncharted ground.

So, feel the fear. Acknowledge it. And then, open your document and type that first sentence anyway.

Are you struggling with writer’s block or creative fear? How do you push past the blank page anxiety? Let’s discuss in the comments below!

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365 Days of Writing, 2026 – 225

Day 225 –  The fear you feel when you write

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The Fear You Feel When You Write, It’s Normal: Embracing the Wisdom of Marguerite Duras

Every writer knows the moment.

The cursor blinks relentlessly on a blank, stark-white screen. The room is quiet, perhaps too quiet. Your chest tightens, a familiar knot twists in your stomach, and a voice whispers: This is terrible. Who do you think you are? You have nothing to say.

If you have ever felt this paralysing wave of anxiety before putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard), take a deep breath. You are not failing as a writer; you are simply doing the work.

As the legendary French novelist and filmmaker Marguerite Duras famously observed, the fear you feel when you write is not a sign to stop. It is normal.

Let’s unpack this profound truth and explore why fear is actually the secret companion of every great writer.

Who Was Marguerite Duras and Why Did She Understand Writing’s Terror?

Marguerite Duras was a literary force of nature. Best known for her autobiographical novel The Lover (which won the prestigious Prix Goncourt), Duras wrote with a raw, uncompromising intensity that cut straight to the human soul. She didn’t write polite stories; she wrote about obsession, desire, memory, and the dark corners of the human psyche.

Because she mined such deep, vulnerable territory, Duras understood the cost of creation. She knew that to write authentically, one must court vulnerability. And vulnerability is terrifying.

Duras famously spoke about the solitude and the terror of the writing life. She suggested that writing is not a gentle hobby or a neat profession; it is an expedition into the unknown. When you sit down to write, you are venturing into a territory that does not yet exist, dragging ideas out of the ether and forcing them into reality. Of course it’s scary.

Why Does Writing Actually Scare Us?

If we want to overcome writing anxiety, we first have to understand its roots. Why does a harmless activity like arranging words on a page trigger a fight-or-flight response?

1. The Gap Between Taste and Talent

As Ira Glass famously noted, beginners (and even seasoned pros) suffer from a cruel paradox: our taste is refined enough to know when something isn’t working, but our execution often falls short of our vision. That gap—between the masterpiece in your head and the messy draft on your screen—is where fear lives.

2. The Fear of Exposure

Writing is an act of self-revelation. Even in fiction or copywriting, your worldview, your obsessions, and your fears bleed onto the page. To share your writing with the world is to stand naked in public. What if they judge you? What if they misunderstand you? What if they simply don’t care?

3. Confronting the Unknown

Unlike math or accounting, writing doesn’t have a definitive formula. When you start a piece, you rarely know exactly where it will end. You are stepping into a fog, trusting that the path will appear as you walk it. The human brain hates uncertainty, and it interprets that blank page as a survival threat.

How to Make Friends with Your Writing Fear

If fear is a normal, permanent resident of the writer’s house, how do we coexist with it? How do we write through the terror instead of running away from it?

1. Stop Waiting to Feel Confident

Many aspiring writers make the fatal mistake of waiting for the fear to go away before they start writing. They wait for inspiration, for the “right mood,” or for unshakeable confidence.

It never comes.

Professional writers don’t feel less fear than amateurs; they simply’ve learned to act in spite of it. As Duras understood, the fear is part of the process. Expect it. Greet it when you sit down at your desk: Ah, hello anxiety, I see you’re here. Let’s write anyway.

2. Lower the Stakes (Lower the Bar)

Perfectionism is fear in a fancy tuxedo. We get terrified because we put immense pressure on every single sentence to be brilliant.

Give yourself permission to write badly. As legendary humorist James Thurber put it: “Don’t get it right, get it written.” Your first draft is merely you telling the story to yourself. No one else has to see the mess.

3. Lean Into the Discomfort

If you feel a little sick to your stomach or nervous about a passage you are writing, pay attention. That discomfort is often a compass pointing directly toward truth. If a sentence makes you squirm, it usually means you’re touching on something real, raw, and powerful. Lean into it.

The Ultimate Takeaway

Writing is an act of courage. Every time you face the blank page and refuse to look away, you are engaging in a brave act of creation.

The next time that familiar knot forms in your stomach, remember the words and the spirit of Marguerite Duras. Remind yourself that the fear doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong; it means you’re doing it right. It means you care. It means you are treading on sacred, uncharted ground.

So, feel the fear. Acknowledge it. And then, open your document and type that first sentence anyway.

Are you struggling with writer’s block or creative fear? How do you push past the blank page anxiety? Let’s discuss in the comments below!

…

365 Days of Writing, 2026 – 224

Day 224 – The trashy novel

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Guilty Pleasures & Best-Sellers: Why “Trashy” Novels Sell (Even When They Make No Sense)

Let’s be honest: we’ve all done it. We’ve stood in an airport bookstore, eyes scanning the spinning racks, and pulled out a paperback with a neon-hued cover, an impossibly sculpted torso, or a plot synopsis that sounds like a fever dream.

We roll our eyes. We scoff at the clunky dialogue. We lambast the predictable tropes and inherently “bad” writing qualities. And then… we buy it. We devour it in a single sitting, hidden behind a polite book cover or glowing dimly on our phone screens at 2:00 AM.

The phenomenon of the “trashy” novel is undeniable. But it goes deeper than mere guilty pleasures. History—and modern publishing data—shows that even when authors intentionally write disjointed, hastily stitched-together, multiple-author novels that make absolutely no sense, they still sell far better than anyone could possibly imagine.

Why? What is the dark magic behind the poorly written page-turner? As a copywriter and consumer psychologist, let’s dissect the anatomy of the trashy novel and uncover why we keep feeding the beast.

1. The Psychology of Cognitive Relief

High-brow literature demands work. When you pick up a Booker Prize winner, you are signing up for an intellectual workout: dense metaphors, unreliable narrators, deeply nuanced character arcs, and social commentary that leaves you pondering the human condition.

Sometimes, we are too tired for that.

Trashy novels offer cognitive offloading. Because the stakes are immediately clear, the villains are cartoonish, and the prose requires zero decoding, the brain can finally switch off. It’s the literary equivalent of eating a bowl of sugary cereal while watching Saturday morning cartoons. There is no guilt in low-stakes entertainment—only pure, unadulterated escapism.

2. Emotional Fast Food (The Dopamine Loop)

Good literature builds tension slowly, like a masterclass in suspense. Trashy novels, however, operate like a slot machine. They hit you with constant, cheap dopamine spikes.

  • A shocking betrayal on page 3? Ding!
  • An implausible romance trope introduced by page 10? Ding!
  • A cliffhanger at the end of every single chapter? Jackpot.

Even when a book is disjointed or nonsensical—especially when multiple authors contribute in a chaotic, Frankenstein-esque fashion—the pacing rarely slows down. If plot logic gets in the way of a sensational scene, trashy fiction simply discards the logic and moves straight to the next explosion, bedroom scene, or plot twist. Our brains are wired to chase that next hit of resolution, even if the overall story is falling apart at the seams.

3. The Power of Subverted Expectations and Camp Value

Sometimes, a book doesn’t sell in spite of making no sense; it sells because it makes no sense.

We live in an era that deeply appreciates camp. Think of the runaway success of The Room in film or the viral TikTok reviews of wildly unhinged self-published romance novels. When a book is so convoluted, absurd, and disconnected from reality that it crosses the threshold of “bad” and enters the realm of the surreal, it becomes an event.

Readers love to be in on the joke. Sharing the most ridiculous excerpts on social media creates a viral marketing loop. A nonsensical, multi-author disasterpiece becomes a badge of honour to read, talk about, and mock lovingly with friends.

4. The Illusion of Speed and Instant Gratification

Modern attention spans are fractured. We scroll through TikTok feeds featuring thirty-second clips of entirely unrelated content, jumping seamlessly from a recipe to a comedy sketch to a DIY project.

In many ways, the disjointed, multi-author, wildly chaotic “trashy” novel mirrors the modern digital feed. Because it lacks a rigid, slow-burning traditional structure, it reads like a rapid-fire sequence of viral moments. For readers accustomed to fast-paced digital consumption, traditional pacing can feel agonisingly slow. Trashy novels keep the velocity high, ensuring you never get bored—even if you have no idea who the secondary antagonist is anymore.

5. Zero Pretentiousness, Total Accessibility

Literary snobbery can be exhausting. The moment a book feels like it’s trying to teach you a lesson or prove how smart the author is, a wall goes up for many readers.

Trashy novels have zero pretension. They make no promises other than to entertain you for a few hours. This radical accessibility makes them universally appealing. You don’t need a degree in English literature to enjoy a book about billionaire shadow-beasts fighting rogue cyborg assassins. You just need a pulse and a willingness to suspend your disbelief—way, way up in the stratosphere.

The Verdict: Long Live the Trashy Read

We may continue to mock them in polite literary circles, but the trashy, nonsensical, hastily assembled page-turner isn’t going anywhere. It fulfils a primal human need for stories that thrill, shock, and entertain without demanding too much in return.

So, the next time you find yourself sliding a trashy paperback onto the checkout counter, don’t blush. You aren’t falling victim to bad taste—you’re simply participating in a time-tested tradition of joyful, unapologetic escapism.

What is the most delightfully ridiculous “trashy” novel you’ve ever secretly loved? Let’s talk about it in the comments below!

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