Day 204

Setting a story in an invented world

…

We are all born with an imagination.  It’s simply a matter of whether we choose to use it or not.

Some people have every reason to want to disappear into an imaginary world of their creation because life is too hard or impossible in reality.

I was there for two reasons.

The first, because I loved reading books, especially stories about brave people and children who had holidays by the sea, who got together to have adventures.

Of course, if you were like me, it was Enid Blyton, the Famous Five and the Secret Seven. I must have read and reread those stories over and over.

As I got older and the stories got more sophisticated, right out of the school library, my desire for adventure only grew.

Yes, we went on holiday, but there was never anything like what happened in those books.

Until…

We were allowed to stay at my grandmother’s house, who lived in the country.  It was by a highway, it was at the end of a lane, it was only a very large block of land, and it was a huge house, lots of rooms, and a place where an imagination could run wild.

My grandmother lived alone.  She was a hoarder.  She had lots of old musty books and stories that were much different from those I read.

She had a wing of bedrooms, one for my mother, her sister and her brother and a spare, rooms filled with stuff, which, while she went off to bowls and left us on our own, we used to explore.

Those rooms have files of magazines, old documents from the garage her husband, long deceased, had run.  History.

Then there was the outside, now in disrepair.  Two garages and old cars rotting away.  A workshop that had all manner of tools, an overgrown garden of the sort one usually found in towns.  There was an outhouse adjoining the laundry, very scary to go to at night, and almost as much during the day.

It was like stepping back in time, long before we had all the modern conveniences we have today.

Hers used to have a large fountain, a rose garden, a croquet lawn, a fernery, and a greenhouse.  We recovered some of it, particularly the fountain, and it was incredible.  Those gardens would have been magnificent.

Inside the house, there were tables, luxurious lounge chairs, 1930s furniture, cupboards, a wooden stove, and an ice box, an almost perfect reminder of what it had been like long before we were born.

My brother didn’t see it, but then he never really had an imagination.

The second, because of the horrible things that happened to us, if I hadn’t been able to escape, I don’t think I would have made it to adulthood.

A vastly different world was needed, one I could almost walk through a portal into, a place where I could escape.

A child in a boarding school in the English countryside, a pilot in a Sopwith Camel flying over the trenches of WWI, a seaman on a destroyer in action against the Germans in a great sea battle, and an Explorer in the middle of the jungle in Africa, going down the Nile, or the Zambesi.

Anything but who I was and where I was.

Day 204

Setting a story in an invented world

…

We are all born with an imagination.  It’s simply a matter of whether we choose to use it or not.

Some people have every reason to want to disappear into an imaginary world of their creation because life is too hard or impossible in reality.

I was there for two reasons.

The first, because I loved reading books, especially stories about brave people and children who had holidays by the sea, who got together to have adventures.

Of course, if you were like me, it was Enid Blyton, the Famous Five and the Secret Seven. I must have read and reread those stories over and over.

As I got older and the stories got more sophisticated, right out of the school library, my desire for adventure only grew.

Yes, we went on holiday, but there was never anything like what happened in those books.

Until…

We were allowed to stay at my grandmother’s house, who lived in the country.  It was by a highway, it was at the end of a lane, it was only a very large block of land, and it was a huge house, lots of rooms, and a place where an imagination could run wild.

My grandmother lived alone.  She was a hoarder.  She had lots of old musty books and stories that were much different from those I read.

She had a wing of bedrooms, one for my mother, her sister and her brother and a spare, rooms filled with stuff, which, while she went off to bowls and left us on our own, we used to explore.

Those rooms have files of magazines, old documents from the garage her husband, long deceased, had run.  History.

Then there was the outside, now in disrepair.  Two garages and old cars rotting away.  A workshop that had all manner of tools, an overgrown garden of the sort one usually found in towns.  There was an outhouse adjoining the laundry, very scary to go to at night, and almost as much during the day.

It was like stepping back in time, long before we had all the modern conveniences we have today.

Hers used to have a large fountain, a rose garden, a croquet lawn, a fernery, and a greenhouse.  We recovered some of it, particularly the fountain, and it was incredible.  Those gardens would have been magnificent.

Inside the house, there were tables, luxurious lounge chairs, 1930s furniture, cupboards, a wooden stove, and an ice box, an almost perfect reminder of what it had been like long before we were born.

My brother didn’t see it, but then he never really had an imagination.

The second, because of the horrible things that happened to us, if I hadn’t been able to escape, I don’t think I would have made it to adulthood.

A vastly different world was needed, one I could almost walk through a portal into, a place where I could escape.

A child in a boarding school in the English countryside, a pilot in a Sopwith Camel flying over the trenches of WWI, a seaman on a destroyer in action against the Germans in a great sea battle, and an Explorer in the middle of the jungle in Africa, going down the Nile, or the Zambesi.

Anything but who I was and where I was.

Day 203

Writing exercise

You have heard this story a million times, but not quite.

…

It was a mad dash from the office to the airport, and like most times when it came to personal travel, I just made it, or I was five minutes too late.

Of course, this time, I had a legitimate reason.  Because I had to clear the vacation days, I needed to go home and be with my mother whose health had taken a turn for the worse, and it meant visiting HR.

And in HR was Adeline, the woman I had met at a staff function the week before and had spent a rather interesting evening.  I had a strict policy on not dating work colleagues, but for some reason, she seemed different.

It was not a date, and we had parted without any commitment to continue, though something inside me told me it might be worth pursuing.

I had to sign the vacation form, and she was the dury officer on the desk.  In the end, I had to run, but she had asked to exchange phone numbers.  I had no idea how long i would be gone, a few days or much longer, given my mother’s doctors wasn’t sure himself.

All I knew was that her time was almost up.  Stage four cancer was as unpredictable as it was relentless.  The only positive is that it had given me the time to get home and spend those last few weeks with her.

My brother and sister were on the other side of the world and wouldn’t be able to make it, though they were trying to get home.  The thing was, our mother was not all that keen for them to return.  It was an odd response and one I couldn’t understand.

Perhaps I would find out when I got there.

On a trip that involved two planes, one made at least a dozen times over the past two years without a glitch, was expected, given the circumstances, to be equally as easy.

Wrong.

It was like the universe was trying to tell me something.  A surplus bag left behind stopped my outward-bound first flight, delaying it to the point it was scrubbed and everyone had to return the next day.

That killed the connecting flight, so that when I was finally on the ground, the second flight wasn’t leaving for another eleven hours.

I finally got home two days after I started out.  I was glad she was not at death’s door, or I would have missed seeing her alive and have those last few meaningless words we say to people who are dying.

It was a given that I would automatically ask how she was, knowing she was never going to feel well again.  And yet there was no stopping us because we had been indoctrinated a long time ago with such human concern.

She was propped up in a comfortable chair by the fire, reading a book when I got there, fighting off the beginnings of a snowstorm, and driving an unfamiliar car.

At best, I was expecting to be snowed in.  My mother’s last conversation over the phone while I was waiting for the second plane was upbeat, though I could hear the pain in her voice. She was on regulated morphine shots to manage that same pain.

I dumped my bag at the foot of the stairs and went into the large living space.  In winter, it could get very cold, but it was the views in spring and summer that more than made up for the other two seasons.

“How could you read a book when the falling snow is so breathtaking?”

In more ways than one.  The intense cold outside could make breathing difficult.  It used to affect me when I was younger.

“Richie, at last.”

I went over and gave her a hug.

Mrs Davis, her carer, came in carrying a tray with tea and coffee.  My mother had never acquired the taste for coffee, perhaps because of her family origins back in England.  

She was, she always said, with a mischievous twinkle in her eye, that she should have been a princess, and only the thought of all that pomp and ceremony that came with the title had put her off, running away to America and a different sort of life.

And when we asked her what she meant, she would always say, ‘That’s for me to know and for you to find out’.  But it never escaped me that Dad always used to call her his ‘Princess’ with one of his enigmatic smiles, along with their story on how she came second in the Prom Queen stakes, and therefore would always be his Princess.

I never understood what he meant, and the others just thought he was simply crazy in love with her.

It was the sort of love I wanted to find, but so far, I had not.

Mrs Davis poured the tea and left us.  I sat in the seat beside her, where Dad always sat.  It was strange that he always called the living room ‘the throne room’.

“You were lucky.  The airport just closed.  The snow is going to set in for a few days.”

God’s will, perhaps.

“Any word from the others?”  I could see the inadequate beside her, a sure sign she had been video conferencing with my brother and sister.

“I told them it’s not urgent.  They have obligations and children to consider.  Unlike you, free as a bird.”

It was a blessing and, ironically, a curse.  She had hoped that she would have at least one grandchild from each of her children, and I had disappointed her.

There had been several candidates over the years, but i was not what they were looking for, and in the end, I decided not to try.  If it was meant to happen, it would.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.  I’d rather she were perfect for you than second best.”

“You were, according to Dad, and that’s all I ask for.”

“You’re not a second-best sort of person, Richie.  She’s out there. You just haven’t met her yet.”

It was the same every time I came home.  It saddened me that this would be the last time and that it was going to be hard to remain upbeat.

Several weeks passed, and it was very hard to watch her slowly decline.  Her bed was set up in the living room, making it easier for her to get from the bed to the seat

A steady stream of visitors showed how much the townsfolk adored her, everyone coming to pat their respects while she had the strength.

Now it was deserting her, so she remained in bed and held court from there.  A different colour dressing gown for each day of the week.

Our conversations were of childhood memories, hers and mine, though there were hard any of my mine that she wasn’t aware of, and a whole swathe of hers I had no idea about.  I don’t think any of us did, Dad included

And, then, when I thought she had drifted off into a morphine induced dream state, she said, with conviction, “You have heard this story a million times, but not quite.”

At first, I thought she was actually talking in her sleep, but she was not.  She had opened her eyes and was looking straight at me.

“What more could there be?”

“More than you could ever imagine.”

…

©  Charles Heath  2025

Day 203

Writing exercise

You have heard this story a million times, but not quite.

It was a mad dash from the office to the airport, and like most times when it came to personal travel, I just made it, or I was five minutes too late.

Of course, this time, I had a legitimate reason.  Because I had to clear the vacation days, I needed to go home and be with my mother whose health had taken a turn for the worse, and it meant visiting HR.

And in HR was Adeline, the woman I had met at a staff function the week before and had spent a rather interesting evening.  I had a strict policy on not dating work colleagues, but for some reason, she seemed different.

It was not a date, and we had parted without any commitment to continue, though something inside me told me it might be worth pursuing.

I had to sign the vacation form, and she was the dury officer on the desk.  In the end, I had to run, but she had asked to exchange phone numbers.  I had no idea how long i would be gone, a few days or much longer, given my mother’s doctors wasn’t sure himself.

All I knew was that her time was almost up.  Stage four cancer was as unpredictable as it was relentless.  The only positive is that it had given me the time to get home and spend those last few weeks with her.

My brother and sister were on the other side of the world and wouldn’t be able to make it, though they were trying to get home.  The thing was, our mother was not all that keen for them to return.  It was an odd response and one I couldn’t understand.

Perhaps I would find out when I got there.

On a trip that involved two planes, one made at least a dozen times over the past two years without a glitch, was expected, given the circumstances, to be equally as easy.

Wrong.

It was like the universe was trying to tell me something.  A surplus bag left behind stopped my outward-bound first flight, delaying it to the point it was scrubbed and everyone had to return the next day.

That killed the connecting flight, so that when I was finally on the ground, the second flight wasn’t leaving for another eleven hours.

I finally got home two days after I started out.  I was glad she was not at death’s door, or I would have missed seeing her alive and have those last few meaningless words we say to people who are dying.

It was a given that I would automatically ask how she was, knowing she was never going to feel well again.  And yet there was no stopping us because we had been indoctrinated a long time ago with such human concern.

She was propped up in a comfortable chair by the fire, reading a book when I got there, fighting off the beginnings of a snowstorm, and driving an unfamiliar car.

At best, I was expecting to be snowed in.  My mother’s last conversation over the phone while I was waiting for the second plane was upbeat, though I could hear the pain in her voice. She was on regulated morphine shots to manage that same pain.

I dumped my bag at the foot of the stairs and went into the large living space.  In winter, it could get very cold, but it was the views in spring and summer that more than made up for the other two seasons.

“How could you read a book when the falling snow is so breathtaking?”

In more ways than one.  The intense cold outside could make breathing difficult.  It used to affect me when I was younger.

“Richie, at last.”

I went over and gave her a hug.

Mrs Davis, her carer, came in carrying a tray with tea and coffee.  My mother had never acquired the taste for coffee, perhaps because of her family origins back in England.  

She was, she always said, with a mischievous twinkle in her eye, that she should have been a princess, and only the thought of all that pomp and ceremony that came with the title had put her off, running away to America and a different sort of life.

And when we asked her what she meant, she would always say, ‘That’s for me to know and for you to find out’.  But it never escaped me that Dad always used to call her his ‘Princess’ with one of his enigmatic smiles, along with their story on how she came second in the Prom Queen stakes, and therefore would always be his Princess.

I never understood what he meant, and the others just thought he was simply crazy in love with her.

It was the sort of love I wanted to find, but so far, I had not.

Mrs Davis poured the tea and left us.  I sat in the seat beside her, where Dad always sat.  It was strange that he always called the living room ‘the throne room’.

“You were lucky.  The airport just closed.  The snow is going to set in for a few days.”

God’s will, perhaps.

“Any word from the others?”  I could see the inadequate beside her, a sure sign she had been video conferencing with my brother and sister.

“I told them it’s not urgent.  They have obligations and children to consider.  Unlike you, free as a bird.”

It was a blessing and, ironically, a curse.  She had hoped that she would have at least one grandchild from each of her children, and I had disappointed her.

There had been several candidates over the years, but i was not what they were looking for, and in the end, I decided not to try.  If it was meant to happen, it would.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.  I’d rather she were perfect for you than second best.”

“You were, according to Dad, and that’s all I ask for.”

“You’re not a second-best sort of person, Richie.  She’s out there. You just haven’t met her yet.”

It was the same every time I came home.  It saddened me that this would be the last time and that it was going to be hard to remain upbeat.

Several weeks passed, and it was very hard to watch her slowly decline.  Her bed was set up in the living room, making it easier for her to get from the bed to the seat

A steady stream of visitors showed how much the townsfolk adored her, everyone coming to pat their respects while she had the strength.

Now it was deserting her, so she remained in bed and held court from there.  A different colour dressing gown for each day of the week.

Our conversations were of childhood memories, hers and mine, though there were hard any of my mine that she wasn’t aware of, and a whole swathe of hers I had no idea about.  I don’t think any of us did, Dad included

And, then, when I thought she had drifted off into a morphine induced dream state, she said, with conviction, “You have heard this story a million times, but not quite.”

At first, I thought she was actually talking in her sleep, but she was not.  She had opened her eyes and was looking straight at me.

“What more could there be?”

“More than you could ever imagine.”

…

©  Charles Heath  2025

Day 202

Start badly, end worse

…

I’ve always liked that expression, ‘I’ve painted myself into a corner’.  I did it once, not literally painting but laying tiles.  It was a weird sensation to discover I could do such a thing.

And yet, I’ve done it a few times when writing stories.  I get so far, and there doesn’t seem to be anywhere to go.  More than once, I have had to delete several chapters and start again.

In fact, at the moment, I have one such story, where we go through the crisis and on our way, and there’s another.  The fact that we’re in outer space makes it just a little more interesting.

This is one of the perils of panthers, you know, the writers who fly by the seat of their pants, as much in the dark as the reader moving forward.

There’s always a good argument for planning, but my problem is that I get an idea, I get it down and run with it until it’s exhausted.  Or I am.

Sometimes, there’s more to the initial story, and ideas come to write more, and, again, I will run with it.  If not, and there are further ideas, I jot them down and come back later.

It was how a short story I wrote for A-to-Z month two years ago turned into the November NaNoWriMo novel that same year.  I got down the story, but then the next part was fresh, then the next, and over the next three months, the whole story, all 52,000 odd words came tumbling out.

Oddly, the same thing happened the following year: an A-to-Z story just wouldn’t stop until the 50,000 words had been written.

But…

Like every writer, I have stories that I started and never ended, though in my case, I quite often have too many other projects on the go to finish them, rather than a lack of ideas.

Still, the reason why I didn’t go back?  Subconsciously, I must have thought they were not very good to begin with.

Perhaps this might prompt an article. Writers can be the worst hoarders! 

Day 202

Start badly, end worse

…

I’ve always liked that expression, ‘I’ve painted myself into a corner’.  I did it once, not literally painting but laying tiles.  It was a weird sensation to discover I could do such a thing.

And yet, I’ve done it a few times when writing stories.  I get so far, and there doesn’t seem to be anywhere to go.  More than once, I have had to delete several chapters and start again.

In fact, at the moment, I have one such story, where we go through the crisis and on our way, and there’s another.  The fact that we’re in outer space makes it just a little more interesting.

This is one of the perils of panthers, you know, the writers who fly by the seat of their pants, as much in the dark as the reader moving forward.

There’s always a good argument for planning, but my problem is that I get an idea, I get it down and run with it until it’s exhausted.  Or I am.

Sometimes, there’s more to the initial story, and ideas come to write more, and, again, I will run with it.  If not, and there are further ideas, I jot them down and come back later.

It was how a short story I wrote for A-to-Z month two years ago turned into the November NaNoWriMo novel that same year.  I got down the story, but then the next part was fresh, then the next, and over the next three months, the whole story, all 52,000 odd words came tumbling out.

Oddly, the same thing happened the following year: an A-to-Z story just wouldn’t stop until the 50,000 words had been written.

But…

Like every writer, I have stories that I started and never ended, though in my case, I quite often have too many other projects on the go to finish them, rather than a lack of ideas.

Still, the reason why I didn’t go back?  Subconsciously, I must have thought they were not very good to begin with.

Perhaps this might prompt an article. Writers can be the worst hoarders! 

Days 200 and 201

Writing Exercise

…

Love strikes you when you least expect it, and quite often, not the person you thought it would be.

The thing is, I wasn’t looking and had made up my mind that studies came first, then a good job, save some money, and be prepared for anything.

But saying you’re not interested, and what seems to be the woman of your dreams appearing out of left field, you have to wonder if fate has something else in store.

I thought it did for me.

It came in the form of one Maria Cagnoni, year two of a four-year engineering degree, diversifying into Space, and the second day of the first semester at the university, the astrophysics lecture.

She was late and made an entrance.

Professor Moriarty, yes, right out of a Sherlock Holmes detective story, was not amused. A normal student would just sneak on and blend into the back of the room.

Not Maria.

She was like a stick of dynamite with a burning fuse. Bright red skimpy dress, long flowing artificial curly blonde hair, and a supermodel manner. My first impression is a Marilyn Monroe lookalike.

Not a word was exchanged, but we all knew what the Professor was thinking, and as for Maria, I would have said she was oblivious to what was going on around her, except she knew and by the supercilious smirk on her face, all too well the effect she’d created.

Brenda Bailey, the girl whom I’d been duelling for best student every year since the start of grade school, just groaned. It was going to be very interesting to get her take on Maria’s arrival.

Maria was a new student, transferred from one of those Ivy League universities, one I would have liked to go to, and had been accepted into, but then my mother got sick. I seriously doubted Maria was here to do astrophysics, but I was quickly reminded not to judge a book by its cover.

Brenda had missed out, or so she told me, but being every bit as clever as I was, I didn’t question the story, I just had reservations. I might have considered at first that because I wasn’t going she wasn’t, but after she picked another boy to go the the prom, I knew that whatever I thought we had, it didn’t go both ways.

It had taken a year to get past that, and it still rankled, though I kept it to myself. But it did teach me one valuable lesson: don’t get tangled up with any girls. They were all tarred with the same brush.

I was having coffee at the nearby cafe minding my own business when Maria appeared in the doorway and quickly scanned the room.

Looking for someone? She saw me, the only face she recognised, and came over.

“I know you.”

“I beg to differ.” I gave her the trademark ‘go away’ look, which didn’t work. She pulled up a chair and sat down.

“I heard you’re the resident genius.”

I glared at her. Radkin was taking the mickey again. She was definitely his sort.

“You heard wrong. That would be Brenda.”

“Your ex?”

Yep, she’d been definitely talking to Radkin. He sussed the tension first year and figured we had broken up badly.

“There is nothing between us but air. I asked her to the prom, she turned me down, it took me by surprise, I stayed a month in Tuscany with my aunt and got over it. Go annoy her.”

“You always this prickly?”

“This is a good day. Try annoying me on a bad day. What the hell do you want anyway?”

Perhaps my brusque tone would get her to leave.

“What is your problem?”

OK, I finally got the response I was looking for. “What do you and Astrophysics have in common?”

“I would be here if I didn’t have the grades.”

She didn’t say it, but the intimation was loud and clear.

“Then I should be seeking you out as the resident genius. When I have a problem, I’ll come and see you.”

She shook her head. I don’t think the conversation went quite the way she had imagined it would. And if she were clever, the Professor would find some way of tormenting me. He had a reputation for creating groups of students and using them to create solutions to near-unsolvable problems.

Then she smiled and stood. “Challenge accepted.”

It seems I lost the first skirmish

…

©  Charles Heath  2025

Days 200 and 201

Writing Exercise

…

Love strikes you when you least expect it, and quite often, not the person you thought it would be.

The thing is, I wasn’t looking and had made up my mind that studies came first, then a good job, save some money, and be prepared for anything.

But saying you’re not interested, and what seems to be the woman of your dreams appearing out of left field, you have to wonder if fate has something else in store.

I thought it did for me.

It came in the form of one Maria Cagnoni, year two of a four-year engineering degree, diversifying into Space, and the second day of the first semester at the university, the astrophysics lecture.

She was late and made an entrance.

Professor Moriarty, yes, right out of a Sherlock Holmes detective story, was not amused. A normal student would just sneak on and blend into the back of the room.

Not Maria.

She was like a stick of dynamite with a burning fuse. Bright red skimpy dress, long flowing artificial curly blonde hair, and a supermodel manner. My first impression is a Marilyn Monroe lookalike.

Not a word was exchanged, but we all knew what the Professor was thinking, and as for Maria, I would have said she was oblivious to what was going on around her, except she knew and by the supercilious smirk on her face, all too well the effect she’d created.

Brenda Bailey, the girl whom I’d been duelling for best student every year since the start of grade school, just groaned. It was going to be very interesting to get her take on Maria’s arrival.

Maria was a new student, transferred from one of those Ivy League universities, one I would have liked to go to, and had been accepted into, but then my mother got sick. I seriously doubted Maria was here to do astrophysics, but I was quickly reminded not to judge a book by its cover.

Brenda had missed out, or so she told me, but being every bit as clever as I was, I didn’t question the story, I just had reservations. I might have considered at first that because I wasn’t going she wasn’t, but after she picked another boy to go the the prom, I knew that whatever I thought we had, it didn’t go both ways.

It had taken a year to get past that, and it still rankled, though I kept it to myself. But it did teach me one valuable lesson: don’t get tangled up with any girls. They were all tarred with the same brush.

I was having coffee at the nearby cafe minding my own business when Maria appeared in the doorway and quickly scanned the room.

Looking for someone? She saw me, the only face she recognised, and came over.

“I know you.”

“I beg to differ.” I gave her the trademark ‘go away’ look, which didn’t work. She pulled up a chair and sat down.

“I heard you’re the resident genius.”

I glared at her. Radkin was taking the mickey again. She was definitely his sort.

“You heard wrong. That would be Brenda.”

“Your ex?”

Yep, she’d been definitely talking to Radkin. He sussed the tension first year and figured we had broken up badly.

“There is nothing between us but air. I asked her to the prom, she turned me down, it took me by surprise, I stayed a month in Tuscany with my aunt and got over it. Go annoy her.”

“You always this prickly?”

“This is a good day. Try annoying me on a bad day. What the hell do you want anyway?”

Perhaps my brusque tone would get her to leave.

“What is your problem?”

OK, I finally got the response I was looking for. “What do you and Astrophysics have in common?”

“I would be here if I didn’t have the grades.”

She didn’t say it, but the intimation was loud and clear.

“Then I should be seeking you out as the resident genius. When I have a problem, I’ll come and see you.”

She shook her head. I don’t think the conversation went quite the way she had imagined it would. And if she were clever, the Professor would find some way of tormenting me. He had a reputation for creating groups of students and using them to create solutions to near-unsolvable problems.

Then she smiled and stood. “Challenge accepted.”

It seems I lost the first skirmish

…

©  Charles Heath  2025