Tag: Serial

Writing about writing a book – Day 14 starts

Colonel Davenport, the evil mastermind as I like to think of him, but in reality, he was a tortured soul on a number of fronts.

I’d like to say what happened to him was not his fault, but to a certain extent, people can go one way or the other, choose between right and wrong, choose the easy path or the hard path, and most of all, never take advantage of a situation for personal gain.

Most people.

But try having a reputation to live up to, and the expectations of everyone put on your shoulders, and you knew you would never be able to carry the load?

That was Archibald Davenport, first son of General Horace Davenport, the great, great, great, so many times grandson of the fearless and famous Walter Davenport, who was with General Grant, serving with honor and valor in the Civil War.

No such weight was ever passed on to his younger brother, Leslie, so, free to live his own life, and in doing so, far surpassing his older brother in respect and accomplishment.

Archibald Davenport managed to miss the Second World War, much to the disappointment of his father, kept to the fringes of the Korean War, but unluckily was in the wrong place at the wrong time when serving officers were sought to go over as advisors to the Vietnamese in the years before the conflict escalated.

Or, speaking plainly, his commander wanted to move the problem on by obtaining a promotion to Major and recommending him for service in Vietnam.  It was either that or dishonorable discharge and a few years in the stockade.

Knowing how it would affect his father, he took the commission.

But for an operator like Davenport, a man who could seek out and at the same time have trouble finding him, saw the conflict as a means to an end, and has latched onto an operative that he assumed was working covertly with the CIA, realized the potential for a man of his talents.

It didn’t take long before he was unofficially attached to the CIA, his army commander willingly signing the orders to ‘get rid of what will become a major (pardon the pun) problem’.  So began the empire, arms, drugs, information, whatever was needed by whoever had the wherewithal, he was the man to see.

How did Bill find himself under Davenport’s command?

You’ll have to wait and see.

In a word: Quick

Go get your stuff and be quick about it.

I’ve tried on many occasion to be quick, but it’s like my shoes have lead soles, or it’s like walking through water.

Perhaps I should just stop finding excuses and admit it’s old age and I am slowing down!

I’m guessing that in using the expressing the quick and the dead, I’ve got one foot in the grave.

But when you use the word quick it generally means moving fast or doing something at a rapid rate.

It could also refer to someone who picks up knowledge rapidly, that is to say, that boy is quick, maybe quick as a flash.

I’ve been cut to the quick. An interesting expression which basically means you’ve been hurt very badly.

It also makes reference to the more sensitive side to us, hence the above expression.

It has a more literal meaning, referring to the quick, under your fingernails, and you know how much that hurts when you cut the nail too short, or remove the nail from the quick.

And like most of us, I’ve been caught more than once in metaphorical quicksand.

It doesn’t pay to go near or test out what real quicksand is, but if you have to, make sure you tie yourself to an anchored rope first.

Sayings: Beyond the pale

I’ve often said, when espying an injustice that was so outrageously displayed that no one could miss it, as being beyond the pale.

The pale within a fence became an area of land within a boundary such as a county, and then to areas within Ireland that were held by the British. As these became smaller, those areas were deemed to be uncivilized.

This, in modern parlance, beyond the pale refers to someone’s behavior being outside the accepted norm.

 

There’s also…

In a word: Pale

Which is the color of the face of a person who is usually desperately unwell?

As distinct from a pale face, a white man is described by the American Indians. This, sadly, was learned from American westerns, motion pictures that told a rather interesting version of events between the Indians and the new settlers.

Paleface was in one movie, in particular, Bob Hope.

A pale can also be a single upright piece of wood in a fence.

Something could pale into significance, or be a pale imitation of a better quality article.

Not to be confused with a pail, which is a bucket, wooden or otherwise, that holds liquids.

The most famous of which is that which Jack and Jill went up a hill to fetch a pail of water, and, well, you know how that ended.

Sayings: Before you can say Jack Robinson

Once upon a time, you could have told me Jack Robinson was a jack in the box, the name meant nothing to me.

Not until Phryne Fisher came along, a rather brilliant 1920s private detective series set in the back streets of Melbourne, as well as more salubrious houses of the rich and famous.
In this series, there is a policeman, a foil for her detective moments, and a love interest that is always just beyond her grasp, a man by the name of Inspector Jack Robinson.

How coincidental.

But…

As for the saying, before you can say Jack Robinson…

It has nothing to do with Phryne Fishers Inspector.

Instead,

There is one story of a politician, Jack Robinson, in the late eighteenth century who was accused of bribery on the floor of the house of commons in England. His accuser was another MP who was asked to name the culprit, and thereby coined the term, ‘I could name him as soon as I could say Jack Robinson’.

The second was a Jack Robinson, the hero of a story written in the nineteenth century who came home to find his intended wife married to another, and to assuage the pain of it was back to the sea, ‘afore you could say Jack Robinson’.

I’m sure there’s a ton of other saying that could be attached to the name, but these seem to be the accepted reason for the term ‘before you can say Jack Robinson’.

Writing about writing a book – Day 13 supplemental

I was going to say ‘Captain’s log supplemental’ and add a stardate, but the analogy might get lost because not everyone is a Star Trekker.

Needless to say, there’s always more to say about an event, especially when the mind is casting about for ideas to add or enhance a story.

It comes down to, does art imitate life, or does life imitate art?  It’s an interesting question because, in this instance, art will be imitating, to a certain extent, life.

Perhaps what is lost in the telling is the inability of newly divorced people in working out where the boundaries are, whether or not they are entitled to know about the other person’s private life, and how that will make them feel.

I’m guessing when a marriage breaks down, there’s always a cause, and while the word amicable gets bandied around a lot, it’s said, but quite often not meant.

Does mummy have a boyfriend?

Does daddy have a girlfriend?

What generally happens is the children are the only ones who know what’s really happening to each of the parents, because they get transported between the two, as neither parent would want to be seen stopping the other from seeing them/

Of course, where the children are grown up and leading their own lives, the situation should be a lot easier.

But, where does this fit in with the story I hear you asking.

 

Marriages fall apart for many reasons.  In the story, Bill acknowledges that it is largely his fault, and one suspects it’s probably an undiagnosed case of PTSD that back in the sixties and seventies was not really understood.

It led to both he and Ellen leading individual but separate lives whilst keeping up appearances for the sake of their children.  There’s no doubting who brought them up, Ellen, and who had the greater influence over them, although, for the sake of this story, both couldn’t wait to leave home and live somewhere else.

They do, and together.  They are not married and do not have children.  They were not the cause of the breakup, and fortunately, neither of the girls blame one or the other parent.

But that doesn’t mean, over the years, that either parent hasn’t tried to use them to glean information about the other.  It is how Bill discovered, some time ago, that Ellen had ‘a special friend’.

Yet, neither of the daughters have seen him, and not surprisingly, he had made sure that Bill has never seen him.  It’s for a particular reason, one that will become obvious later in the story.  It is, I think, a rather clever twist.

Also, Ellen is not a bad person and certainly wasn’t bad to Bill, perhaps more long-suffering.  She did stay with him for a long time, mainly for the children, but also because she genuinely cared for Bill.

And Bill had not had another woman friend, not until he discovers his feelings towards Jennifer and even then, he keeps that to himself, even when he really doesn’t have to.

Sigh.

Time to return to my fictional world.

In a word: Piece

Aside from the fact that it really means part of something else, we’ve got to remember that it is one of those ‘i before e except after c’ things.

I have a piece of the puzzle.  Well, maybe not.  You know what it’s like when you’re assembling a 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle.  Yes, you get to the end and one piece is missing.

\You’re so angry you want to give someone a piece of your mind.

Just remember not to give too many people pieces or you will become mindless.

We might be listening to a musical piece, which can be a movement, I think, in a symphony

Or we might piece together the parts of a child’s toy, especially on that night before Christmas when everything can and will go wrong.  I’ve been there and done that far too many times.

I’ve been known to move a chess piece incorrectly, no, come think of it, I’m always doing that

Some people call a gun a piece.

This is not to be confused with the word peace, which means something else, and hopefully, everyone will put away their pieces (guns) and declare peace.

And, every Sunday, at the church, there’s always an opportunity to say to the people around you ‘peace be with you’.

I wonder if that works very well if the person standing next to you is your enemy?

The story behind the story: A Case of Working With the Jones Brothers

To write a private detective serial has always been one of the items at the top of my to-do list, though trying to write novels and a serial, as well as a blog, and maintain a social media presence, well, you get the idea.

But I made it happen, from a bunch of episodes I wrote a long, long time ago, used these to start it, and then continue on, then as now, never having much of an idea where it was going to end up, or how long it would take to tell the story.

That, I think is the joy of ad hoc writing, even you, as the author, have as much idea of where it’s going as the reader does.

It’s basically been in the mill since 1990, and although I finished it last year, it looks like the beginning to end will have taken exactly 30 years.  Had you asked me 30 years ago if I’d ever get it finished, the answer would be maybe?

 

My private detective, Harry Walthenson

I’d like to say he’s from that great literary mold of Sam Spade, or Mickey Spillane, or Phillip Marlow, but he’s not.

But, I’ve watched Humphrey Bogart play Sam Spade with much interest, and modeled Harry and his office on it.  Similarly, I’ve watched Robert Micham play Phillip Marlow with great panache, if not detachment, and added a bit of him to the mix.

Other characters come into play, and all of them, no matter what period they’re from, always seem larger than life.  I’m not above stealing a little of Mary Astor, Peter Lorre or Sidney Greenstreet, to breathe life into beguiling women and dangerous men alike.

 

Then there’s the title, like

The Case of the Unintentional Mummy – this has so many meanings in so many contexts, though I image back in Hollywood in the ’30s and ’40s, this would be excellent fodder for Abbott and Costello

The Case of the Three-Legged Dog – Yes, I suspect there may be a few real-life dogs with three legs, but this plot would involve something more sinister.  And if made out of plaster, yes, they’re always something else inside.

But for mine, to begin with, it was “The Case of the …”, because I had no idea what the case was going to be about, well, I did, but not specifically.

Then I liked the idea of calling it “The Case of the Brother’s Revenge” because I began to have a notion there was a brother no one knew about, but that’s stuff for other stories, not mine, so then went the way of the others.

 

Now it’s called ‘A Case of Working With the Jones Brothers’, finished the first three drafts, and at the editor for the last.

I have high hopes of publishing it in May 2020.  It even has a cover.

 

PIWalthJones1

Writing about writing a book – Day 13 extra

There’s nothing worse than an interrogation by children, particularly when they are brutally honest.  To make matters worse, I had two inquisitors, and it was clear they had spent some time before getting in the car to organize a coordinated plan of attack.

But, first, a little history.

Back in happier times, in other words before the eventual separation and divorce, we were known as nanna and poppy. I was, most of the time, referred to as grumpy poppy, and the two, girls adored their nanna.

She always had a way with children, and, it was also the case, with our own two sons.  They preferred her to me, for obvious reasons, I had to be bad cop all the time.

When we separated, and this was an eventuality that we both agreed on, and it was, I thought, quite amicable.  There was no underlying reason, like one or other of us cheating, but that we had, over time, simply drifted apart because we had separate ideas about life.

Since I was the nonpreferred grandparent, I decided to see less of the children and allow them more time to be with their nanna.  Sometimes we appeared together, like at birthdays and Christmas, but normally I kept my distance.

No one seemed to complain about my absences, least of all my own children, which spoke volumes, to me, about what they thought of me.

Now, out of the blue, I get this call to pick up my granddaughters from school. It was not as if their nanna was as so overloaded with things to so, so it seemed to me it was some sinister plot, but to what end, I could hardly imagine.

I’d find out soon enough.

The girls were waiting in the drop zone and got in the car.  It didn’t phase them that it was me, and I had thought they may have a problem since I was in a different car. But they seemed to know what to look for.

There was silence until we exited the school grounds, they went to a church primary school and perhaps they didn’t want to risk God’s judgment on me.

The older child fired the first salvo, “Nanna says you have a girlfriend.”

Ok, not the first question I was expecting.

Then the younger girl followed up with the second salvo, “is she going to become our new nanna?”

To them, these were serious questions.  But had they been inspired by their current nanna, and they were to get answers.  She’d know I wouldn’t lie to them.

I stopped at the traffic lights.

“If your nanna saw me with a friend having lunch the other day, then it’s quite possible it may have looked like that, but, no, I don’t have a girlfriend, and for what it’s worth, I’m not ready to embark on that journey again for a while.  As for the other question, there will never be a new or any other sort of nanna other than the one you have already.”

Speech timed to perfection.  The lights changed to green.

I let that sink in and then after a minute asked a question of my own.  “How come your nanna is not picking you up today?”

I notice the two give each other a look and wonder how young does a child have to be to understand what a lie is or be able to keep a secret.

“We were told that you would be collecting us today, that’s all.”

A question then for whoever is at home when I drop them off.

I notice a rather prolonged look from the younger girl, perhaps searching for a truth of her own in my expression, or that she was trying to read my thoughts.  Whatever she saw, she asked, “Do you still go to work?”

“In a manner of speaking.  I work for myself these days.”

“With computers?”

“Not anymore.  I thought I might try writing a novel.  Before, there never seemed to be enough time in a day to do anything, but now things are a little easier.”

Then the older girl chimed in, “Nanna says that it’s a bit late for you to become a writer.”

Yes, I can see it now, the rest of the family sitting around the dinner table saying that I’d finally lost my marbles doing what I always wanted to rather than what I had to.

And my ex had always said I would be wasting my time from the very first time I’d mentioned it to her.  So much for confiding your hopes and dreams in your so-called lifelong partner who is supposed to support you.  I know I had supported her through various career changes, no matter what the consequences.

“What do you think I should do?”

It would be interesting to get their perspective.

“If you don’t have a real job, how do you pay the bills?”

A practical question.  Just the sort my ex would have posed if she was here.

“You’d be surprised what you can do when you put your mind to it.  I manage.”

There was no doubt a dozen other questions to be asked, but the capacity for a child to remember was about three or four.  And then they had to remember my answers so they could relay them.

Hopefully, the interrogation was over.

In a word: Spark

So, as far as I’m concerned a ‘spark’ can happen when electrical wires cross and the resultant ‘spark’ can start a fire, or the fire is already alight and ‘sparks’ fly making it worse by starting more spot fires.

But…

Another meaning is that a ‘spark’ is created by a ‘spark plug’ in order to force the pistons of an engine to drive the crankshaft

This leads to…

There is no spark in this relationship, so perhaps it’s going nowhere.  No, we’re not looking for a fiery spark, but a small amount of very intense feeling

Spark?

I was watching God Friended Me last night and I’m sure like many others we were waiting to see that spark that would change their relationship from the friend zone, to something else.

And…

it’s there, but something seems to be holding them back.

As for the word spark, well there several different meanings, one of which I am familiar with when I was young.

Being called a ‘bright spark’

Depending on who used that remark, it could either mean you were clever or you were a smart ass, which I suspect the latter was the reference to me.

Then, moving on

Saying something inflammatory ‘sparked’ the crowd into action.  A single remark can be equated to a literal ‘spark’ that can ignite a reaction.

A lynching perhaps?

And what about, once upon a time, a ship’s radio officer, he was called ‘sparks’ or ‘sparkie’, also a name that sometimes refers to an electrician.

I can see plenty of uses for this word in a story.

Past conversations with my cat – 84

 

cat-1

This is Chester.  He is looking out the door at the rain.

After a long spell of heat and humidity that was practically unbearable, we now have rain and cold.

I’m standing at the back door watching the near torrential downpour, and both of us are watching the river of water flowing from the back yard down the side of the house.

Chester looks at me.  Is that the look that’s asking me to let him outside.,

I’m toying with the idea.

He turns his head and looks up at me.  Is that an imploring look to stay in or go out.

The hell with it, I open the door.  If he wants to go out in the rain, that’s his business.

He stands up and turns his head to look at me.

OK, I get it.  When you know I can’t go out, you let me out.  That’s just not right.

What’s stopping you?

You know exactly what the problem is.  Water.  You know I hate water.

That’s every other cat.  A while back you convinced you were not like the other cats.  Fearless, you said, able to take on any challenge.

Open door, it’s an invitation to paradise.

He takes two tentative steps towards freedom.  The rain comes down harder as if someone up there is playing a mean joke on him.

Another step, just about through the door.

The wind blows and we both catch a spray of water.

He jumps and scuttles back inside so fast, and I’m left alone at the door.  I close it again.

We will be discussing invincibility sometime soon, I yell out.  But, he’s gone.

I shrug and go back inside.  I will savor this victory for the next few minutes.

Or for along as he’ll let me.