Yesterday slight niggly feelings about my finished Bloody Scotland Crime story, partly engendered by reading Ann Cleeves, spurred to greater dissatisfaction by Peter Temple. Not that I'd even dream about attempting his wonderful, laconic Australian bloke dialogue.
But something of the sort would make a difference. When I write DI John Pettinger [Change of Focus] I can do dialogue that sparks ... I just needed another tale to tell.
On waking this morning I realised I had a story. Wondered about telling it from Pettinger's point of view. The cop rather than the culprit. Try, for veracity's sake to stick to the same end result.
On my way to buy a paper I got the opening lines.
The carpet fitters arrived before nine. Hall, stairs and landing. I got marooned upstairs while they chatted, about girls and restaurants, while they knifed and peeled and pulled and unrolled and hammered and nail-punched stuff in place. While they hoovered and hoovered all the bits up.
Nearly three in the afternoon before I could get downstairs again. But I had two thousand of three thousand words written. Nowhere near the denouement, but I prefer to prune rather than pad.
A good day's work!
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