Day 27

Today it’s about writing English, the perfect words, the sentences, the paragraphs, the use and abuse of punctuation.

What is that we are supposed to start learning seriously in Grade 3 or 4 when we are 8 or 9 years old, and there are more interesting things to learn about.

Oh, and you start to write in ink, not those terrible biros that used to leak everywhere and smudge on the page, but a real pen, nib, and ink, with ink wells that an ink monitor would fill every Monday morning, and discover what the rodent children stuffed in them.

(Usually blotting paper).

I remember my first attempt was a disaster and the teacher sent me back to writing in pencil.

Then there were the words, adjectives, adverbs, nouns, verbs, subjects, predicates, etc.

That was four words too many.

Then there were commas, full stops, semicolons, colons, exclamation marks, question marks and other things that I think I have forgotten about.

Then there are all those words that are so confusing, they are spelt the same, spelt differently, but when pronounced are exactly the same to the ear. Blue, blew, so, sow, you get the idea.

I’m with Truman Capote, I do not practise what I preach!

That’s called writing style, and yes, I spell the words correctly, I review and correct any grammar errors, and then have an editor tell me it all runs like a well-oiled machine.

My Story Part 2

What are my ideas for this story? I generally write spy stories or thrillers, so I’m thinking that I need to put together the typical James Bond start, where you are hanging on for dear life and not knowing where it’s going to end up.

I have one: waking up in a hotel room in the Middle East, a fan above our spy turning slowly, churning the already hot air in the room. It’s the sound of the blades turning so slowly, with a creak or groan somewhere in the revolution, that wakes him, soaked in sweat and with a horrible taste in his mouth.

The attempt to drain the bar below of cold bottled beer didn’t go so well. There’s a headache to go with that, and it was all he could manage to get to the small refrigerator where he’d put a half dozen bottles of Perrier water the afternoon before.

The first went down his throat very quickly. The second helped the two painkillers go down though for a moment it felt like they’d stuck in his throat. A monetary shudder as the pills started to dissolve.

A knock on the door has him instantly alert and hand on the gun under the pillow.

“Who is it?” He yells out, not exactly the done thing in a hotel, but the last seven days of endless heat had finally taken a toll.

And today was going to be no different. The gun slipped in his wet hand, a sign that he was not sure if he would make the shot without missing by a yard or two.

“Room service.”

“I didn’t order room service.”

Silence, and then an envelope was shoved under the door.

…

What happens next, you’ll have to wait till next week

©  Charles Heath  2025

My Story Part 2

What are my ideas for this story? I generally write spy stories or thrillers, so I’m thinking that I need to put together the typical James Bond start, where you are hanging on for dear life and not knowing where it’s going to end up.

I have one: waking up in a hotel room in the Middle East, a fan above our spy turning slowly, churning the already hot air in the room. It’s the sound of the blades turning so slowly, with a creak or groan somewhere in the revolution, that wakes him, soaked in sweat and with a horrible taste in his mouth.

The attempt to drain the bar below of cold bottled beer didn’t go so well. There’s a headache to go with that, and it was all he could manage to get to the small refrigerator where he’d put a half dozen bottles of Perrier water the afternoon before.

The first went down his throat very quickly. The second helped the two painkillers go down though for a moment it felt like they’d stuck in his throat. A monetary shudder as the pills started to dissolve.

A knock on the door has him instantly alert and hand on the gun under the pillow.

“Who is it?” He yells out, not exactly the done thing in a hotel, but the last seven days of endless heat had finally taken a toll.

And today was going to be no different. The gun slipped in his wet hand, a sign that he was not sure if he would make the shot without missing by a yard or two.

“Room service.”

“I didn’t order room service.”

Silence, and then an envelope was shoved under the door.

…

What happens next, you’ll have to wait till next week

©  Charles Heath  2025

Free Day 1

What about my novel?

amind all these exercises, writing tasks, and learning the mechanics of writing, the title of this year-long odyssey is in the title, ‘writing a novel in 365 days’.

Well, 18 or so days have passed and where are we?

Nowhere.

But….

I have written three pieces and any of the three could become contenders for the next international best-selling book.

Never say never.

…

So, I have to decide on the genre. Well, that’s easy, espionage. I look up at my shelves and I can see at least six authors’ novels staring me in the face, and between them over a hundred stories.

I should get started reading, to see what it is that makes them eminently readable.

Oh, been there and done that. in fact, of a library of around three thousand books of various genres, I have read over three-quarters of them.

That includes the classics, like Dickens, Hemingway, Tolstoy and my hero Alistair Maclean.

So, where do I start…

An unassuming main protagonist, the quintessential spy who looks like anything but what he is. He’s a loner, doesn’t trust anyone, and works alone, though perhaps it’s time to throw him a partner and tell him the world is changing and not for the better.

He needs a handler who is old, crusty, never wrong, dresses impeccably, doesn’t have a life, works in a dusty dungeon, and is very, very ruthless.

Will it be a choice of saving the day or saving the girl?

Is he invincible or vulnerable?

Does he have a whiny mother, demanding girlfriend, odd friends, and even odder work colleagues?

Does he talk the talk, talk in riddles, or multi-syllable words that no one can make sense of?

And what is his real job?

Talk more on my next free day.

Free Day 1

What about my novel?

amind all these exercises, writing tasks, and learning the mechanics of writing, the title of this year-long odyssey is in the title, ‘writing a novel in 365 days’.

Well, 18 or so days have passed and where are we?

Nowhere.

But….

I have written three pieces and any of the three could become contenders for the next international best-selling book.

Never say never.

…

So, I have to decide on the genre. Well, that’s easy, espionage. I look up at my shelves and I can see at least six authors’ novels staring me in the face, and between them over a hundred stories.

I should get started reading, to see what it is that makes them eminently readable.

Oh, been there and done that. in fact, of a library of around three thousand books of various genres, I have read over three-quarters of them.

That includes the classics, like Dickens, Hemingway, Tolstoy and my hero Alistair Maclean.

So, where do I start…

An unassuming main protagonist, the quintessential spy who looks like anything but what he is. He’s a loner, doesn’t trust anyone, and works alone, though perhaps it’s time to throw him a partner and tell him the world is changing and not for the better.

He needs a handler who is old, crusty, never wrong, dresses impeccably, doesn’t have a life, works in a dusty dungeon, and is very, very ruthless.

Will it be a choice of saving the day or saving the girl?

Is he invincible or vulnerable?

Does he have a whiny mother, demanding girlfriend, odd friends, and even odder work colleagues?

Does he talk the talk, talk in riddles, or multi-syllable words that no one can make sense of?

And what is his real job?

Talk more on my next free day.

Day 17

Today’s topic is Words of Wisdom.

Can you find the words to describe what you think fiction means to you? Or even what it is for a particular novel?

One opinion, Russian, is that it’s aesthetic bliss. To me, most works by Russian writers tend to go on and on and on. Fyodor Dostoevsky is a case in point. I grant you that if you can sit through the novel, which is very good, your opinion might be a little different. Not so much Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and some of his works.

In my younger days of reading when a large book never fazed me, a thousand plus pages (And Quietly Flows The Don – War and Peace) to a few hundred (One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich) to mid-range five hundred pages (Doctor Zhivago) they all could tend to be tedious, though I have to say Doctor Zhivago as a book was fascinating, the film by David Lean, captivating, and the stage play, boring beyond words.

That is to say once you for past the Russians, there were British authors like Charles Dickens who could get up to that magic number of pages, and whose works could reach that lofty thousand. They were however perhaps more interesting, and most having been made into mini series for television, far more interesting as a spectacle than in reading the book.

And, of course, there is Jane Austen. Need I say more.

But there are times when you pick up a book and start reading the first page, and then stop. It tells a budding author that on the one hand it’s not going to be your genre, and on the other, that the opinion of the book is in the eye of the beholder.

Day 17

Today’s topic is Words of Wisdom.

Can you find the words to describe what you think fiction means to you? Or even what it is for a particular novel?

One opinion, Russian, is that it’s aesthetic bliss. To me, most works by Russian writers tend to go on and on and on. Fyodor Dostoevsky is a case in point. I grant you that if you can sit through the novel, which is very good, your opinion might be a little different. Not so much Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and some of his works.

In my younger days of reading when a large book never fazed me, a thousand plus pages (And Quietly Flows The Don – War and Peace) to a few hundred (One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich) to mid-range five hundred pages (Doctor Zhivago) they all could tend to be tedious, though I have to say Doctor Zhivago as a book was fascinating, the film by David Lean, captivating, and the stage play, boring beyond words.

That is to say once you for past the Russians, there were British authors like Charles Dickens who could get up to that magic number of pages, and whose works could reach that lofty thousand. They were however perhaps more interesting, and most having been made into mini series for television, far more interesting as a spectacle than in reading the book.

And, of course, there is Jane Austen. Need I say more.

But there are times when you pick up a book and start reading the first page, and then stop. It tells a budding author that on the one hand it’s not going to be your genre, and on the other, that the opinion of the book is in the eye of the beholder.