Tag: Writer

365 Days of writing, 2026 – 110

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Day 110 – To write is to sit in judgement on oneself

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The Mirror on the Page: Why Writing is the Ultimate Act of Self-Judgment

“To write is to sit in judgment on oneself.” — Henrik Ibsen

We often romanticise the act of writing. We talk about the “flow state,” the “muse,” and the catharsis of putting pen to paper. We view writing as an act of creation—a way to birth new worlds, build arguments, or express the deepest chambers of our souls.

But Henrik Ibsen, the master of the modern realistic drama, offers a colder, more clinical take. For Ibsen, writing isn’t just an act of creation; it is an act of interrogation. To write, he suggests, is to sit in judgment on oneself.

The Inescapable Reflection

When you stare at a blank page, you are not merely filling space. You are deciding what matters, what is true, and what is worth preserving.

Every word we commit to the page is a micro-decision. We choose our adjectives, our syntax, and our silences. In doing so, we inevitably reveal our biases, our insecurities, our logic, and our moral compass. You cannot hide from a finished manuscript. When you read back what you have written, you are reading the architecture of your own mind.

If you write with honesty, you are forced to confront the gaps between who you think you are and what you are actually capable of articulating. It is a mirror that doesn’t just show your face; it shows your thoughts in their raw, unvarnished state.

The Courtroom of the Conscience

Why did Ibsen view this as a form of “judgment”?

Because writing forces a separation between the thinker and the thought. When a thought is just floating in the ether of your brain, it feels fluid and safe. Once you write it down, it becomes an object—a specimen on a slide.

In that moment of scrutiny, the internal judge wakes up:

  • Is this thought coherent, or am I deceiving myself?
  • Is this argument kind, or is it defensive?
  • Does this character reflect my own failings, or am I trying to look like a hero?

Writing is the process of putting our own consciousness on trial. We act as both the prosecutor, hunting for inconsistencies and falsehoods, and the judge, deciding whether these ideas hold up to the light of day.

The Burden (and Gift) of Clarity

This is why so many people find writing painful. It is an unnerving experience to realise that your “deep insights” might actually be clichés, or that your “logical stance” is rooted in fear.

But this judgment is also the greatest gift a writer can receive.

If we never write—if we never force ourselves to sit in judgment of our own ideas—we remain trapped in the echo chambers of our own internal narratives. We keep repeating the same habits, holding the same prejudices, and floating in the same murky waters of half-formed intentions.

By writing, we force ourselves to stand before the bench. We demand evidence. We call our own bluff.

Final Thoughts

Next time you find yourself struggling to find the right word, remember Ibsen. You aren’t just battling with vocabulary; you are engaged in a high-stakes trial. You are evaluating your own worldview.

Writing is not for the faint of heart because it requires the courage to judge oneself—and the even greater courage to accept the verdict, learn from it, and write the next sentence anyway.

So, what is your writing telling you about yourself today? Are you ready to hear the verdict?

What I learned about writing – Seeking answers in writing stories or novels

Would I? Yes.

I am in the middle of researching my family history. For a long time, I didn’t have any interest. My parents never talked of their relatives, and the only relatives I remember seeing are my mother’s mother, one uncle, my mother’s brother, and vaguely, my father’s older sister.

I knew that my older brother was dabbling in the family history over the last 40 years, and I got to meet and talk to a lot of people I never knew existed.

Then he sent me some family trees, and I was hooked.

There was stuff my parents said, perhaps when they never realised we were listening, that my mother had an older sister whom she was extremely jealous of, and I think I met her once or twice, that my mother’s father had committed suicide, and his son found him, still alive, and was traumatised beyond imagination.

I could believe it. We stayed with my grandmother in her country house, and it was an oasis away from my normal life, and it fed an imagination that inspired many stories. And that I began to live in lots of different worlds, any world but reality.

But…

My father’s mother! Wow!

What 25-year-old girl, in England, who was not wealthy, and in the year 1914 when the world was in upheaval and war clouds were gathering, left her safe job as a milliner in Gillingham, Dorset, to get on a ship with 1,300 other strange souls to spend a month with, and come to, of all places, Melbourne, Australia?

This was my grandmother, the adventuress!

There’s a story to be told, and I’m writing it.

So yes, I will be writing the story, based on fact, but a little embellishment, about someone I never knew, and I think if I’d ever realised who she was, I would have talked to her about it. I was sixteen when she died, and I never really knew her, or rarely saw her.

If I only knew then what I know now…

365 Days of writing, 2026 – 108/109

Days 108 and 109 – Writing Exercise

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Characters – Plot – Short Story

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Alexander Bartholemew Winston Jr was my real name, the one I hated with a passion.

My mother and father called me Alexander in that horrible way that you couldn’t tell if they were pleased or angry, mostly the latter.

My paternal grandmother and grandfather called me Bartholomew in public and Bart in private because Bartholomew was a paternal family name of reverence.

Half my friends called me Marty, after Marty McFly of Back To The Future fame, though they never said why, and the rest called me Alex, my preferred name.

So, today it was Alex.

“Alex?”

Samantha Davies had a far more elegant name, Samantha Elizabeth Davies Ramsborough, but had adopted her mother’s pre-marriage surname for anonymity.

We somehow, by a quirk of fate, finished up sharing a four-bedroom apartment in a city where accommodation for one cost a priverbial arm and a leg, and since we all got along so well at University, that camaraderie continued into post-university, and onto the various jobs we were now found ourselves with.

Sam, as she preferred to be called, was coming out into the kitchen where I had coffee, black, strong, no sugar, waiting for her.

“He’s not here.  Today it’s Bart.”

“Simpson?”

“If I had a skateboard, maybe.”

“There’s enough room in this place if you did.”

She was right.  The apartment was half a floor, the possession of an Aunt of one of the other two housemates, with so much room you could get lost. There were even rooms for servants.

Sam had a way of changing subjects, from trivial to serious to trivial again, without time to take a breath.  Half the time, I didn’t know whether I should take her seriously or not.

Which was why we were still just friends, even though she knew how much I liked her; it was just every time we got near the subject, she’d change it.

Maybe she didn’t like me as much.

“Thomas didn’t come home last night.”

If there was a rival for her affections, it was Thomas Aloysius Vanderbloot, an overly self-confident, sometimes smartass, mostly a person whom trouble followed close behind.

I had rescued him from countless scrapes, without thanks or acknowledgement, and, as far as I was concerned, he was now starting to wear out his welcome mat. 

Only it was his grandmother’s apartment.  We didn’t get the privilege rates, which I expected.  I was not one of those entitled sons of wealthy parents, even though they had tried to spoil me, and therefore had only the money I earned to spend.  My brother and sister let them fund their education and pet projects, and were the favourites.

It didn’t bother me.  I was, at least, living my own life.

“We shouldn’t have left him.”

It had been late.  Sam, a budding journalist, had a deadline for a story, and I had a deposition, first thing the next morning.

It was the day after the day after, and we’d all been too busy with different schedules to notice until now.  Philomena, our fourth flatmate, was a nurse, and we rarely saw her

She suddenly appeared, a trait of hers that we firmly believed she travelled through portals because she had a habit of just appearing out of nowhere.

“Whose missing?” she asked.

Sam jumped; the suddenness of her voice from behind her scared her.

“Tom.”

The thing is, Philomena adored Thomas, but he was oblivious to her affection.  It was a little different with Sam; they had a fling in University until he got caught cheating on her, though I knew I didn’t say anything, or ever would, but was there to help pick up the pieces after that first and most intense love.

“Weren’t you two with him the other night?”

Sam, like me, knew what was coming.  Blame.

“We were until he brushed us off.  He had recognised one of his childhood friends, now an investment banker, buying shots, getting drunk and chatting up a few girls.  You know what he’s like.”

“You should have dragged him out.”

Yes, and the last time I did that, I was still carrying the aches and pains from a robust bar fight and a night in jail, drunk and disorderly, and an acid tongue from Sam the next day.

It was always my fault when he couldn’t save himself from himself.

“He’s probably sleeping it off in some seedy hotel,” Sam said, and collected her coffee and flopped into a lounge chair.

She had a new story assignment from the editor and wasn’t happy.

Aside from that, she was well aware of Thomas and seedy hotels.  That was where she found him with another girl, one that Sam had despised because of her open invitation to a male who could be so easily led.

Philomena would not believe either of us, so I let it slide.  It was a day off from lawyering and I was going to make the most of it.

…

Here’s the thing…

Thomas had that way of imposing on your thoughts, even when he was not there.

Uppermost in my mind, and the message my parents, and the parents of the other three, was that we had to be careful, not look for trouble, don’t go to places where trouble could be found, do not be alone in a potential hot spot, and above all, know everything and everyone around you.

In other words, each of us, if anyone knew who we really were, was a potential kidnap victim, or worse.

Each of us, bar Thomas, heeded those words to the letter.  In my application to the law firm, I used my proper name, because I had to, knowing it might open doors because of the family name, and got an interview.  When they asked about the surname, I said it was a distant relative who likely had never heard of me, and the relationship was a coincidence.

I had no interest in trading on my family name.  I was going to succeed or fail on my own merits.  I felt like, at this point, I was failing.

I dropped into a chair near Sam and sipped the coffee, one that Tom had introduced us to, a very expensive taste to acquire.

“How’s your day looking?” I asked, not sure of where this conversation would go.

Her expression was contemplative, so I had to wonder if she was thinking of Tom.  I could feel the green monster sitting on my shoulder.

She looked at me in a way she hadn’t looked at me in a year.  The last time was after the pieces had been reassembled, and I mistook the signs.  I had a long time to try and work out what I did wrong.

Perhaps I was about to find out now.

“It was going to be terrible.  Not just the Tom thing, but I hate my editor.  I hate my job.  I hate my life.  Perhaps it’s time to go home and get married to Mr Dull as ditchwater, and try to be content.”

That said it all.  If she left, so would I.  Home wasn’t the ideal place to go, but I could hide there.  Or if someone hadn’t snapped up Mary Ann Kopeknie, I would.  She was my first love, and truth be told, if Sam wouldn’t have me, maybe Mary Ann would forgive me.

“Like to go for a stroll through Central Park and talk about anything but our woes?”

“Right now, a bar, getting totally obliterated, and ending up in a seedy hotel, seems more appropriate.”

“You don’t mean that.”  I hoped she didn’t.

“I do.  And if you’re offering, take me now, before I change my mind.”

…

When I woke, it wasn’t quite dark, the light from a digital clock casting enough light for me to see if it wasn’t in my room at the apartment.

A brief glance with the range of vision I had showed a curtained window with no light seeping in through the sides, which meant it was night.  There was a painting on the wall, a desk and two chairs.

A hotel room.

Instantly, my mind went back to earlier that morning, if it was the same day, when Sam expressed the desire to have a few drinks.

I thought nine was a bit early, but she had expressed the desire to go with me, so I didn’t.

She wasn’t joking about getting obliterated.  When she could no longer stand or string three words together, the bartender asked us to leave.

I called Tom’s ‘special helpline’ one he included us in on, and we were chauffeured to a hotel Sam just managed to tell us about, making sure we safely made it to the room.

That much I remember.

The rest was a dream I woke up too early from, that part where, in my imagination, we had found that magical connection, where no words were needed, and the love I felt for her was expressed.

It would only happen in my imagination, and not the first time I dreamed it.

I rolled over and discovered I was not alone on the bed.  It must be the rest of the dream, waking up next to the current love of my life.

My imagination would tell me, she would smile, kiss me once, gently, and ask the rhetorical question, how had this not happened before?’

It foundered ridiculous on mt head, and I suspect the large amount of alcohol had damaged part of my brain, and that part where reality lived.  She would never be with me in such a manner.

I think the more appropriate answer to my internal question would be that I put her on the bed and tucked her in to sleep it off.  I did not undress her or do anything without her being fully awake and aware of her surroundings and who she was with

There were no excuses for taking advantage of someone who was incapacitated.

I heard her groan and then felt her move.

Closer to me. 

That was when I realised we were both naked.

My heart rate nearly went through the roof. 

She put her hand on my shoulder and put her arm over me.  Then, a whisper, “You took me out of myself, thank you.”

Then drifted back to sleep.

So close, it was freaking me out.  What if she woke up and started screaming?  What if this wasn’t where she expected to be?  What if she wasn’t expecting it to be me?  There were so many scenarios that filled me with terror.

It is said that the moment you sleep with the girl, no matter how much rapport or respect you had for one another, that goes up in a puff of smoke, and everything changes.

She might no longer be my friend.

She may no longer want to stay at the apartment.

She might decide to go home, and that would be the end of everything.

This was the end of everything.

So, i started counting the seconds that this relationship had left.

A half out passed, and I hadn’t moved.  There were too many parts of her I could unintentionally touch.  And there were other thoughts that I would like to have and express.

She stirred again, but instead of jumping back in fright, discovering she was not alone, I felt her hand moving, and ended up taking my hand in hers and squeezing it.

“Bet you didn’t think you would be here today.”

It was a sultry, low, almost hoarse stone that sent a shiver through me.  It also may have had something to do with her slight movement.

“I didn’t.”

“Are you surprised?”

“Perhaps more elated than I should be.”

I turned my head and saw she had her eyes open, and she had a smile, one that extended to her eyes.

“Until I sat down in the lounge chair, with my coffee, and you sat opposite me, I didn’t realise how you felt about me.  That look you gave me after I said I was thinking about going home.  You were devastated.”

I thought I’d kept the emotion out of my expression, but with her, I could never quite keep the proverbial poker face.

She knew me far better than I realised.

“It has nothing to do with me what you do or don’t do.  I would be upset if you left, but you have your own life to lead.”

“It’s not much of a life.  The guy I thought I loved laughed outright when I told him I wanted more.  It hurt, not as much as the last time, and you know all about that, but what I didn’t realise until that moment, was that what I wanted was right there in front of me.”

I wasn’t going to assume that was me.

She had spent a fair part of that drinking session going on about some other reporter and how much she respected him, and how things had become so red hot between them, they reached the moment where he suggested they get a room.

Until right in the middle of a game where losing meant shedding a piece of clothing, his wife called.  She had seen his cell screen.  The bastard was married.  And in situations like that, she came out the worse off, being transferred and demoted.

I was going to offer her free legal advice.

That was the moment the bartender banished us.

When I didn’t say anything, she just sighed.  “You don’t have to treat me with kid gloves, Alex.  You didn’t for the last six hours, and you surprised me.”

Something clicked in my brain, clearing the fog.  It was one of those moments with the sudden sucking in of breath, and the whole event returns as clear as it was just moments ago.

There had been something tacit in the look she gave me, not long after we got to the hotel, and we were sitting at either end of the bed.  She was still drunk, but sober enough to know who was there and where she was. 

There was one simple question.  “Why do you hesitate?”

That was easy, because I had made a mistake, misinterpreted the signals, and ruined everything.  I did not want to do that again.

“You know why?  I want to be with you, even if it is only as a friend.”

“You can ask me one question, Alex.  One.  Anything.”

And there it was, the abyss that I wanted to cross, and knowing I didn”t have the power in my legs to jump over it.

But I could try.

“Do you feel the same about me as I feel for you? That is how I have felt about you since the first day I met you.”

She made one of those contemplative faces that made my heart sink.  If she had to think about it…

“Had you asked me that question a week ago, my answer would be very different.  As for asking me now, right this very minute, my answer would be the same as it would have been when we walked out the door of that apartment, before landing us here.  Yes.  I think I’ve known that for a while, but it never really occurred to me.  I don’t know why.”

I had to wonder why we went to the bar.  She was not the sort of girl who needed Dutch courage.

“So…” she whispered.

So, now I knew, and it was one of those defining moments, where suddenly everything clicked into place.

“You remember.”

“As i will till the day I die.  If you will have me?”

“Proposals, Alex, have to be done properly, not immediately after wild drunken sex, though I’m not ruling out having more before we leave this room, or if or when we decide to leave.  I’m not interested in going back to work, and I know you’re tired of being a gopher lawyer.  There’s champagne in the fridge, let’s toast our desire to get married, watch a little TV, get a little drunk and see what happens.”

Sam got the champagne and I turned the TV on.

She popped the cork, poured liberal quantities into the glasses, and we sipped.  I turned on the TV, and we sat on the bed.

I flipped through the channels until a local news station displayed the upcoming weather.  It was going to get colder, and she shivered.

Then the word ‘Missing Person’ appeared at the bottom of the screen, and seconds later a photo of Thomas Aloysius Vanderbloot was displayed, not a recent photo, but one from our graduation from University, three or four years old, not a recent photo and very different to how he looked now. 

If we had been holding the drinks, we might have dropped them.  Certainly, for me, I was sure my heart stopped.

“What the…”  Sam was as shocked as I was. 

For just a minute, then I could see a transformation.  Not from the surprise, but the fact that something was not right.

I think we came to the same conclusion at the same time.

“Tom.”

We said it together.

Back in university, a group of us created elaborate pranks on the others.  Some left people in almost dangerous situations. I had found myself in a rock ledge about five hundred feet up with only a rope to scale the remaining hundred feet or so, and Sam, well, she still had nightmares.

Tom’s pranks were the most elaborate and usually the most terrifying.

“This is because we left him at that bar,” she said.

“Because we let our guard down.”

She slipped out of bed and put her shirt on, then went over to the door.  She opened it a fraction, and light from the corridor showed in the crack.  A little wider showed that at least we were in the same hotel we were delivered to.

She closed and locked it.

She walked across to the other side and pulled back the curtains.  A door and what looked to be a patio.  She opened the door, and cold air swept in.  She shivered violently.

I haven’t moved, but I could see lights in the distance.  She found the light switch and flicked it.

The patio area was flooded with light.  In the next instant, she screamed.

I saw it just after she did.  The body of a man, quite dead, is lying in a pool of blood.  Beside the body, a bottle of champagne, bloodied.

She turned and looked at me.  “We’re in a great deal of trouble, aren’t we?”

….

©  Charles Heath  2026

365 Days of writing, 2026 – 108/109

Days 108 and 109 – Writing Exercise

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Characters – Plot – Short Story

…

Alexander Bartholemew Winston Jr was my real name, the one I hated with a passion.

My mother and father called me Alexander in that horrible way that you couldn’t tell if they were pleased or angry, mostly the latter.

My paternal grandmother and grandfather called me Bartholomew in public and Bart in private because Bartholomew was a paternal family name of reverence.

Half my friends called me Marty, after Marty McFly of Back To The Future fame, though they never said why, and the rest called me Alex, my preferred name.

So, today it was Alex.

“Alex?”

Samantha Davies had a far more elegant name, Samantha Elizabeth Davies Ramsborough, but had adopted her mother’s pre-marriage surname for anonymity.

We somehow, by a quirk of fate, finished up sharing a four-bedroom apartment in a city where accommodation for one cost a priverbial arm and a leg, and since we all got along so well at University, that camaraderie continued into post-university, and onto the various jobs we were now found ourselves with.

Sam, as she preferred to be called, was coming out into the kitchen where I had coffee, black, strong, no sugar, waiting for her.

“He’s not here.  Today it’s Bart.”

“Simpson?”

“If I had a skateboard, maybe.”

“There’s enough room in this place if you did.”

She was right.  The apartment was half a floor, the possession of an Aunt of one of the other two housemates, with so much room you could get lost. There were even rooms for servants.

Sam had a way of changing subjects, from trivial to serious to trivial again, without time to take a breath.  Half the time, I didn’t know whether I should take her seriously or not.

Which was why we were still just friends, even though she knew how much I liked her; it was just every time we got near the subject, she’d change it.

Maybe she didn’t like me as much.

“Thomas didn’t come home last night.”

If there was a rival for her affections, it was Thomas Aloysius Vanderbloot, an overly self-confident, sometimes smartass, mostly a person whom trouble followed close behind.

I had rescued him from countless scrapes, without thanks or acknowledgement, and, as far as I was concerned, he was now starting to wear out his welcome mat. 

Only it was his grandmother’s apartment.  We didn’t get the privilege rates, which I expected.  I was not one of those entitled sons of wealthy parents, even though they had tried to spoil me, and therefore had only the money I earned to spend.  My brother and sister let them fund their education and pet projects, and were the favourites.

It didn’t bother me.  I was, at least, living my own life.

“We shouldn’t have left him.”

It had been late.  Sam, a budding journalist, had a deadline for a story, and I had a deposition, first thing the next morning.

It was the day after the day after, and we’d all been too busy with different schedules to notice until now.  Philomena, our fourth flatmate, was a nurse, and we rarely saw her

She suddenly appeared, a trait of hers that we firmly believed she travelled through portals because she had a habit of just appearing out of nowhere.

“Whose missing?” she asked.

Sam jumped; the suddenness of her voice from behind her scared her.

“Tom.”

The thing is, Philomena adored Thomas, but he was oblivious to her affection.  It was a little different with Sam; they had a fling in University until he got caught cheating on her, though I knew I didn’t say anything, or ever would, but was there to help pick up the pieces after that first and most intense love.

“Weren’t you two with him the other night?”

Sam, like me, knew what was coming.  Blame.

“We were until he brushed us off.  He had recognised one of his childhood friends, now an investment banker, buying shots, getting drunk and chatting up a few girls.  You know what he’s like.”

“You should have dragged him out.”

Yes, and the last time I did that, I was still carrying the aches and pains from a robust bar fight and a night in jail, drunk and disorderly, and an acid tongue from Sam the next day.

It was always my fault when he couldn’t save himself from himself.

“He’s probably sleeping it off in some seedy hotel,” Sam said, and collected her coffee and flopped into a lounge chair.

She had a new story assignment from the editor and wasn’t happy.

Aside from that, she was well aware of Thomas and seedy hotels.  That was where she found him with another girl, one that Sam had despised because of her open invitation to a male who could be so easily led.

Philomena would not believe either of us, so I let it slide.  It was a day off from lawyering and I was going to make the most of it.

…

Here’s the thing…

Thomas had that way of imposing on your thoughts, even when he was not there.

Uppermost in my mind, and the message my parents, and the parents of the other three, was that we had to be careful, not look for trouble, don’t go to places where trouble could be found, do not be alone in a potential hot spot, and above all, know everything and everyone around you.

In other words, each of us, if anyone knew who we really were, was a potential kidnap victim, or worse.

Each of us, bar Thomas, heeded those words to the letter.  In my application to the law firm, I used my proper name, because I had to, knowing it might open doors because of the family name, and got an interview.  When they asked about the surname, I said it was a distant relative who likely had never heard of me, and the relationship was a coincidence.

I had no interest in trading on my family name.  I was going to succeed or fail on my own merits.  I felt like, at this point, I was failing.

I dropped into a chair near Sam and sipped the coffee, one that Tom had introduced us to, a very expensive taste to acquire.

“How’s your day looking?” I asked, not sure of where this conversation would go.

Her expression was contemplative, so I had to wonder if she was thinking of Tom.  I could feel the green monster sitting on my shoulder.

She looked at me in a way she hadn’t looked at me in a year.  The last time was after the pieces had been reassembled, and I mistook the signs.  I had a long time to try and work out what I did wrong.

Perhaps I was about to find out now.

“It was going to be terrible.  Not just the Tom thing, but I hate my editor.  I hate my job.  I hate my life.  Perhaps it’s time to go home and get married to Mr Dull as ditchwater, and try to be content.”

That said it all.  If she left, so would I.  Home wasn’t the ideal place to go, but I could hide there.  Or if someone hadn’t snapped up Mary Ann Kopeknie, I would.  She was my first love, and truth be told, if Sam wouldn’t have me, maybe Mary Ann would forgive me.

“Like to go for a stroll through Central Park and talk about anything but our woes?”

“Right now, a bar, getting totally obliterated, and ending up in a seedy hotel, seems more appropriate.”

“You don’t mean that.”  I hoped she didn’t.

“I do.  And if you’re offering, take me now, before I change my mind.”

…

When I woke, it wasn’t quite dark, the light from a digital clock casting enough light for me to see if it wasn’t in my room at the apartment.

A brief glance with the range of vision I had showed a curtained window with no light seeping in through the sides, which meant it was night.  There was a painting on the wall, a desk and two chairs.

A hotel room.

Instantly, my mind went back to earlier that morning, if it was the same day, when Sam expressed the desire to have a few drinks.

I thought nine was a bit early, but she had expressed the desire to go with me, so I didn’t.

She wasn’t joking about getting obliterated.  When she could no longer stand or string three words together, the bartender asked us to leave.

I called Tom’s ‘special helpline’ one he included us in on, and we were chauffeured to a hotel Sam just managed to tell us about, making sure we safely made it to the room.

That much I remember.

The rest was a dream I woke up too early from, that part where, in my imagination, we had found that magical connection, where no words were needed, and the love I felt for her was expressed.

It would only happen in my imagination, and not the first time I dreamed it.

I rolled over and discovered I was not alone on the bed.  It must be the rest of the dream, waking up next to the current love of my life.

My imagination would tell me, she would smile, kiss me once, gently, and ask the rhetorical question, how had this not happened before?’

It foundered ridiculous on mt head, and I suspect the large amount of alcohol had damaged part of my brain, and that part where reality lived.  She would never be with me in such a manner.

I think the more appropriate answer to my internal question would be that I put her on the bed and tucked her in to sleep it off.  I did not undress her or do anything without her being fully awake and aware of her surroundings and who she was with

There were no excuses for taking advantage of someone who was incapacitated.

I heard her groan and then felt her move.

Closer to me. 

That was when I realised we were both naked.

My heart rate nearly went through the roof. 

She put her hand on my shoulder and put her arm over me.  Then, a whisper, “You took me out of myself, thank you.”

Then drifted back to sleep.

So close, it was freaking me out.  What if she woke up and started screaming?  What if this wasn’t where she expected to be?  What if she wasn’t expecting it to be me?  There were so many scenarios that filled me with terror.

It is said that the moment you sleep with the girl, no matter how much rapport or respect you had for one another, that goes up in a puff of smoke, and everything changes.

She might no longer be my friend.

She may no longer want to stay at the apartment.

She might decide to go home, and that would be the end of everything.

This was the end of everything.

So, i started counting the seconds that this relationship had left.

A half out passed, and I hadn’t moved.  There were too many parts of her I could unintentionally touch.  And there were other thoughts that I would like to have and express.

She stirred again, but instead of jumping back in fright, discovering she was not alone, I felt her hand moving, and ended up taking my hand in hers and squeezing it.

“Bet you didn’t think you would be here today.”

It was a sultry, low, almost hoarse stone that sent a shiver through me.  It also may have had something to do with her slight movement.

“I didn’t.”

“Are you surprised?”

“Perhaps more elated than I should be.”

I turned my head and saw she had her eyes open, and she had a smile, one that extended to her eyes.

“Until I sat down in the lounge chair, with my coffee, and you sat opposite me, I didn’t realise how you felt about me.  That look you gave me after I said I was thinking about going home.  You were devastated.”

I thought I’d kept the emotion out of my expression, but with her, I could never quite keep the proverbial poker face.

She knew me far better than I realised.

“It has nothing to do with me what you do or don’t do.  I would be upset if you left, but you have your own life to lead.”

“It’s not much of a life.  The guy I thought I loved laughed outright when I told him I wanted more.  It hurt, not as much as the last time, and you know all about that, but what I didn’t realise until that moment, was that what I wanted was right there in front of me.”

I wasn’t going to assume that was me.

She had spent a fair part of that drinking session going on about some other reporter and how much she respected him, and how things had become so red hot between them, they reached the moment where he suggested they get a room.

Until right in the middle of a game where losing meant shedding a piece of clothing, his wife called.  She had seen his cell screen.  The bastard was married.  And in situations like that, she came out the worse off, being transferred and demoted.

I was going to offer her free legal advice.

That was the moment the bartender banished us.

When I didn’t say anything, she just sighed.  “You don’t have to treat me with kid gloves, Alex.  You didn’t for the last six hours, and you surprised me.”

Something clicked in my brain, clearing the fog.  It was one of those moments with the sudden sucking in of breath, and the whole event returns as clear as it was just moments ago.

There had been something tacit in the look she gave me, not long after we got to the hotel, and we were sitting at either end of the bed.  She was still drunk, but sober enough to know who was there and where she was. 

There was one simple question.  “Why do you hesitate?”

That was easy, because I had made a mistake, misinterpreted the signals, and ruined everything.  I did not want to do that again.

“You know why?  I want to be with you, even if it is only as a friend.”

“You can ask me one question, Alex.  One.  Anything.”

And there it was, the abyss that I wanted to cross, and knowing I didn”t have the power in my legs to jump over it.

But I could try.

“Do you feel the same about me as I feel for you? That is how I have felt about you since the first day I met you.”

She made one of those contemplative faces that made my heart sink.  If she had to think about it…

“Had you asked me that question a week ago, my answer would be very different.  As for asking me now, right this very minute, my answer would be the same as it would have been when we walked out the door of that apartment, before landing us here.  Yes.  I think I’ve known that for a while, but it never really occurred to me.  I don’t know why.”

I had to wonder why we went to the bar.  She was not the sort of girl who needed Dutch courage.

“So…” she whispered.

So, now I knew, and it was one of those defining moments, where suddenly everything clicked into place.

“You remember.”

“As i will till the day I die.  If you will have me?”

“Proposals, Alex, have to be done properly, not immediately after wild drunken sex, though I’m not ruling out having more before we leave this room, or if or when we decide to leave.  I’m not interested in going back to work, and I know you’re tired of being a gopher lawyer.  There’s champagne in the fridge, let’s toast our desire to get married, watch a little TV, get a little drunk and see what happens.”

Sam got the champagne and I turned the TV on.

She popped the cork, poured liberal quantities into the glasses, and we sipped.  I turned on the TV, and we sat on the bed.

I flipped through the channels until a local news station displayed the upcoming weather.  It was going to get colder, and she shivered.

Then the word ‘Missing Person’ appeared at the bottom of the screen, and seconds later a photo of Thomas Aloysius Vanderbloot was displayed, not a recent photo, but one from our graduation from University, three or four years old, not a recent photo and very different to how he looked now. 

If we had been holding the drinks, we might have dropped them.  Certainly, for me, I was sure my heart stopped.

“What the…”  Sam was as shocked as I was. 

For just a minute, then I could see a transformation.  Not from the surprise, but the fact that something was not right.

I think we came to the same conclusion at the same time.

“Tom.”

We said it together.

Back in university, a group of us created elaborate pranks on the others.  Some left people in almost dangerous situations. I had found myself in a rock ledge about five hundred feet up with only a rope to scale the remaining hundred feet or so, and Sam, well, she still had nightmares.

Tom’s pranks were the most elaborate and usually the most terrifying.

“This is because we left him at that bar,” she said.

“Because we let our guard down.”

She slipped out of bed and put her shirt on, then went over to the door.  She opened it a fraction, and light from the corridor showed in the crack.  A little wider showed that at least we were in the same hotel we were delivered to.

She closed and locked it.

She walked across to the other side and pulled back the curtains.  A door and what looked to be a patio.  She opened the door, and cold air swept in.  She shivered violently.

I haven’t moved, but I could see lights in the distance.  She found the light switch and flicked it.

The patio area was flooded with light.  In the next instant, she screamed.

I saw it just after she did.  The body of a man, quite dead, is lying in a pool of blood.  Beside the body, a bottle of champagne, bloodied.

She turned and looked at me.  “We’re in a great deal of trouble, aren’t we?”

….

©  Charles Heath  2026

365 Days of writing, 2026 – My Second Story 15

More about my second novel

…

It’s time to delve into the past that Zoe tries so hard not to remember because the memories are painful.

It was a time before she became the emotionless killer she was now, and the people who had turned her into one.

Friends, lovers, teachers, mentors, but, in the end, all people who wanted her for one thing or another because they were selfish.

Alistair’s mother, Olga, was one, the woman who first had the job of training her, the first to recognise that while gifted, she would be trouble.

She had been recommended to her by a man called Yuri, the first of many to take advantage of an innocent girl who didn’t know any better.

Once trained, she was placed with Alistair, and he too, wanted her for himself, until he found her replacement, a man who wrongly thought she was so emotionless she would be happy to share him with others.

It was a mistake he wouldn’t be making again.

It was Yuri she discovered who had been in contact with the kidnappers in Marsailles, and perhaps inadvertently inserting himself into her quest for those seeking to kill her. He would know who it was seeking her, and who the name Romanov referred to.

After ensuring John was safe, she contacted him.

There’s a conversation, and he agrees to meet her, reluctantly, as being seen with a fugitive might harm his reputation.

It’s going to be an interesting conversation and reunion.

365 Days of writing, 2026 – My Second Story 15

More about my second novel

…

It’s time to delve into the past that Zoe tries so hard not to remember because the memories are painful.

It was a time before she became the emotionless killer she was now, and the people who had turned her into one.

Friends, lovers, teachers, mentors, but, in the end, all people who wanted her for one thing or another because they were selfish.

Alistair’s mother, Olga, was one, the woman who first had the job of training her, the first to recognise that while gifted, she would be trouble.

She had been recommended to her by a man called Yuri, the first of many to take advantage of an innocent girl who didn’t know any better.

Once trained, she was placed with Alistair, and he too, wanted her for himself, until he found her replacement, a man who wrongly thought she was so emotionless she would be happy to share him with others.

It was a mistake he wouldn’t be making again.

It was Yuri she discovered who had been in contact with the kidnappers in Marsailles, and perhaps inadvertently inserting himself into her quest for those seeking to kill her. He would know who it was seeking her, and who the name Romanov referred to.

After ensuring John was safe, she contacted him.

There’s a conversation, and he agrees to meet her, reluctantly, as being seen with a fugitive might harm his reputation.

It’s going to be an interesting conversation and reunion.

365 Days of writing, 2026 – 107

Day 107 – Six fundamental principles of writing

…

The Chekhovian Blueprint: 6 Principles for Crafting a Masterpiece

When it comes to the art of storytelling, few names command as much respect as Anton Chekhov. A master of the short story and the stage, Chekhov didn’t just write fiction; he dissected the human condition with the precision of a surgeon.

While Chekhov never penned a rigid “how-to” manual, his letters to fellow writers and his own body of work reveal a distinct philosophy. He believed that to create a truly great story, a writer must adhere to six fundamental principles. If you’re looking to elevate your prose, here is the Chekhovian blueprint for narrative excellence.

1. Objectivity

Chekhov famously argued that a writer should be an objective observer rather than a moral judge. He believed that the author’s job is to present the truth of a situation, not to lecture the reader on what is “right” or “wrong.”

  • The Significance: By removing your personal judgment from the narrative, you allow the reader to draw their own conclusions, making the story feel more authentic and less like a sermon.

2. Truthful Descriptions of Persons and Objects

Chekhov had a disdain for flowery, abstract language. He believed that the world should be described through concrete details. Instead of telling the reader that a character is sad, he would describe the way the moonlight glinted off the neck of a broken bottle.

  • The Significance: Specificity anchors the reader in the story. It transforms a vague concept into a visceral experience, forcing the reader to see and feel the world you’ve constructed.

3. Extreme Brevity

If you’ve ever heard the advice, “If you can say it in one word, don’t use two,” you are hearing an echo of Chekhov. He was a master of concision, stripping away every unnecessary adjective and redundant sentence until only the essential remained.

  • The Significance: Brevity respects the reader’s time and intelligence. It sharpens the impact of your prose, ensuring that every word performs a specific function within the story.

4. Bold and Honest Declarations

Chekhov loathed “literary” language—the affectations and clichés that writers often use to sound clever. He advocated for honest, direct language that cut straight to the heart of the matter.

  • The Significance: Honesty creates trust. When a writer speaks plainly and boldly, the reader feels they are in the hands of someone who isn’t hiding behind a mask of artifice. It creates an immediate, intimate connection.

5. Spontaneity (Nature)

Chekhov believed that a story should feel like it grew naturally, rather than being forced into a rigid mould. He advocated for a sense of “spontaneity,” where the narrative flows organically from the characters rather than being puppet-mastered by the author.

  • The Significance: When a story feels forced or overly engineered, the reader notices the “gears” turning. Spontaneity preserves the magic; it makes the story feel like a discovery rather than a lecture.

6. The Absence of Falsehood and Rottenness

By “rottenness,” Chekhov meant the artificiality of sentimentality and forced happy endings. He insisted that writers should avoid the temptation to provide easy answers or sugar-coat the complexities of life.

  • The Significance: Real life is messy, often unresolved, and frequently bittersweet. By avoiding “rotten” shortcuts, you honour the complexity of the human experience. A story that ends on a note of ambiguous truth is always more powerful than one that ties every loose end in a neat, dishonest bow.

The Takeaway

Anton Chekhov’s principles are not just technical rules; they are a call to emotional honesty. He teaches us that the greatest power of a writer lies in the ability to observe the world clearly, describe it concisely, and let the characters live their own lives without interference.

The next time you sit down to write, ask yourself: Am I judging the characters, or showing them? Are these words necessary, or just pretty? Is this ending earned, or is it a shortcut?

Follow the Chekhovian path, and you won’t just be writing a story—you’ll be capturing a piece of life itself.

What I learned about writing – Don’t ease your way in

Don’t ease your way in; grab the reader’s attention by swarming them with flying bullets and dragging them on a roller coaster ride that simply doesn’t stop.

…

The bullet passed through my left sleeve, grazing the arm just below the shoulder.

I heard the shot, well, a volley of shots from the three men with automatic guns, and only realised one had almost found its mark when my arm started to hurt.

It was the least of my problems.  The three men were gaining on me, and their marksmanship could only improve as they got closer.

The darkness was supposed to cover us, but no one had predicted clear skies and a large moon.

“You said no one was home.”  The hissed statement came from the other person who’d been with me.

“Bad intel.  Shit happens.”

At the top of the hill, after running through a grove of trees to try and misdirect their aim, and skidding to a halt before going headfirst down.

Both of us were fit, but even so, the hard running, the dodging and weaving as bullets thwack into the trees beside us, we were still gasping for breath.

At least one part of the briefing had been right.

If we got into trouble, going down the hill and into the river would be the best escape route if things got bad.

“You’re joking.”  Alicia had stopped, bent over double, trying to suck air in and look at the slope at the same time.

“Death or glory,” I said.

A bullet hit the tree next to her head, and then I was following her down.  I doubted they would follow us.

A last glance back showed they had slowed down, and I got the feeling they knew something about the slope I didn’t.

Halfway there was a sudden explosion, the debris threw us sideways, and luckily, because there was another explosion just in front of where Alicia was heading.

“Mine,” I heard her gasp just before she started sliding on the loose scree.  I was right behind her.

A rocky ledge arrested the free fall, and we came to a sudden and abrasive stop.  Several bullets hitting rocks to the side of us forced us across and behind the dense shrubbery.

It was about another hundred yards to the water’s edge, but now, closer to the bottom, I could see a track.  We hadn’t been told there was a track around the lake.

And headlights in the distance.

Behind us, another two mines exploded, showering us with scree.

“Jesus.”  Alicia wasn’t used to being shot at or running through minefields.

“Better not look to the left then.”

She saw the approaching car.  “Oh, shit.  What else is going to go wrong?”

“Welcome to my world.  We need to be down and in the water before that vehicle reaches us.”

At that moment, a cloud covered the moon, and it went dark.  Or darker.

“Now.”

She didn’t need to be asked twice.

We were on the track before I could count to ten.  The headlights suddenly disappeared, perhaps going around a bend in the road.

“Ready to take a dip?”

“I always wanted to go for a midnight swim.”

The headlights started to reappear.

We slipped into the water and swam away from the shoreline, trying to make as little wake as possible, heading towards the island about eighty yards away, taking a circular track, keeping close to the rocky edge.

It took that car about forty-five seconds to reach the spot where we had got in the water, and by that time we had reached as far as the rocky outcrop that was the last cover before striking out towards the island.

At that point, we stopped to see what they were going to do.  Just as a light flickered to life.

A searchlight.

The beam slowly tracked out over the water towards the island.  Then, it slowly tracked back to the point where we had just slipped underwater.

Seconds later, we came back up for air, and I could see the search light reach the point where we had entered the water.

“What now.  They’re going to see us if we try to get to the island.”

“Go around the point and out of sight, give us time to consider options.  At the very least, get away from them.

We reached the other side just before the searchlight picked up the point where we had just been.  Around the corner was inky blackness, but it wasn’t going to last.  The clouds were breaking up, and the moon would be out again.

We climbed out and sat on the rocky ledge.  The slope leading down to the waterline was a rock climber’s paradise.  It wouldn’t have been too hard to climb up.

The thing is, we now have a new problem.

A motorboat was heading towards us, and in the distance, we could see a flashlight. At first, we pointed at the lake surface, then, when close to the shoreline, pointed at the cliff.

“We go up,” I said.

A few seconds later, we were climbing as fast as we could.

A few seconds after that, bullets started pinging off the rocks below us.

At the top and over onto the flat surface, bullets were still pinging off the rocks, but now harmlessly.

Alicia took a minute to breathe, as I did, that last part of the climb turning my legs to jelly.

“Are we safe now?”

“When we get to that treeline, about fifty yards, or a little more.”

She started running.

We’d both heard it, the thumping sound of a helicopter rotor.

These people were never going to give up.

…

©  Charles Heath  2026

365 Days of writing, 2026 – 107

Day 107 – Six fundamental principles of writing

…

The Chekhovian Blueprint: 6 Principles for Crafting a Masterpiece

When it comes to the art of storytelling, few names command as much respect as Anton Chekhov. A master of the short story and the stage, Chekhov didn’t just write fiction; he dissected the human condition with the precision of a surgeon.

While Chekhov never penned a rigid “how-to” manual, his letters to fellow writers and his own body of work reveal a distinct philosophy. He believed that to create a truly great story, a writer must adhere to six fundamental principles. If you’re looking to elevate your prose, here is the Chekhovian blueprint for narrative excellence.

1. Objectivity

Chekhov famously argued that a writer should be an objective observer rather than a moral judge. He believed that the author’s job is to present the truth of a situation, not to lecture the reader on what is “right” or “wrong.”

  • The Significance: By removing your personal judgment from the narrative, you allow the reader to draw their own conclusions, making the story feel more authentic and less like a sermon.

2. Truthful Descriptions of Persons and Objects

Chekhov had a disdain for flowery, abstract language. He believed that the world should be described through concrete details. Instead of telling the reader that a character is sad, he would describe the way the moonlight glinted off the neck of a broken bottle.

  • The Significance: Specificity anchors the reader in the story. It transforms a vague concept into a visceral experience, forcing the reader to see and feel the world you’ve constructed.

3. Extreme Brevity

If you’ve ever heard the advice, “If you can say it in one word, don’t use two,” you are hearing an echo of Chekhov. He was a master of concision, stripping away every unnecessary adjective and redundant sentence until only the essential remained.

  • The Significance: Brevity respects the reader’s time and intelligence. It sharpens the impact of your prose, ensuring that every word performs a specific function within the story.

4. Bold and Honest Declarations

Chekhov loathed “literary” language—the affectations and clichés that writers often use to sound clever. He advocated for honest, direct language that cut straight to the heart of the matter.

  • The Significance: Honesty creates trust. When a writer speaks plainly and boldly, the reader feels they are in the hands of someone who isn’t hiding behind a mask of artifice. It creates an immediate, intimate connection.

5. Spontaneity (Nature)

Chekhov believed that a story should feel like it grew naturally, rather than being forced into a rigid mould. He advocated for a sense of “spontaneity,” where the narrative flows organically from the characters rather than being puppet-mastered by the author.

  • The Significance: When a story feels forced or overly engineered, the reader notices the “gears” turning. Spontaneity preserves the magic; it makes the story feel like a discovery rather than a lecture.

6. The Absence of Falsehood and Rottenness

By “rottenness,” Chekhov meant the artificiality of sentimentality and forced happy endings. He insisted that writers should avoid the temptation to provide easy answers or sugar-coat the complexities of life.

  • The Significance: Real life is messy, often unresolved, and frequently bittersweet. By avoiding “rotten” shortcuts, you honour the complexity of the human experience. A story that ends on a note of ambiguous truth is always more powerful than one that ties every loose end in a neat, dishonest bow.

The Takeaway

Anton Chekhov’s principles are not just technical rules; they are a call to emotional honesty. He teaches us that the greatest power of a writer lies in the ability to observe the world clearly, describe it concisely, and let the characters live their own lives without interference.

The next time you sit down to write, ask yourself: Am I judging the characters, or showing them? Are these words necessary, or just pretty? Is this ending earned, or is it a shortcut?

Follow the Chekhovian path, and you won’t just be writing a story—you’ll be capturing a piece of life itself.

Harry Walthenson, Private Detective – the second case – A case of finding the “Flying Dutchman”

…

What starts as a search for a missing husband soon develops into an unbelievable story of treachery, lies, and incredible riches.

…

It was meant to remain buried long enough for the dust to settle on what was once an unpalatable truth, when enough time had passed, and those who had been willing to wait could reap the rewards.

The problem was, no one knew where that treasure was hidden or the location of the logbook that held the secret.

At stake, billions of dollars’ worth of stolen Nazi loot brought to the United States in an anonymous tramp steamer and hidden in a specially constructed vault under a specifically owned plot of land on the once docklands of New York.

It may have remained hidden and unknown to only a few, if it had not been for a mere obscure detail being overheard …

… by our intrepid, newly minted private detective, Harry Walthenson …

… and it would have remained buried.

Now, through a series of unrelated events, or are they, that well-kept secret is out there, and Harry will not stop until the whole truth is uncovered.

Even if it almost costs him his life.  Again.