Travelling

Back on Tuesday from a week in New Orleans - my second visit but my husband's first.  Ate and drank very well, discovered hitherto unknown bookshops, went to a free BluesFest in Lafayette Square and had a thoroughly enjoyable time.
Then northwards, finding out how little we knew of how small town America functioned - only one restaurant open in the centre of Jackson on a Monday night - but also saw cotton fields, cotton picking and cotton bales.
Arrived at the Shack Up Inn in Clarksdale - the highlight of the fortnight - and met with the best sort of friends from Alabama who taught and showed us so much of the area, including a memorable lunch which Mike Handley wrote about here.

Now I'm off to Cardiff ... still working on latest novel, still with two end of year deadline short stories, so I'm not participating in NaNoWriMo this year either.

End of the game

‘The cellar is now empty.’

So.  A now-dry cellar, a once dry wit, now maudlin; a once beautiful, flat-bellied man now bloated and bald as the bassist from Queens of the Stone Age. 

Sans goatee, of course.

He’d got the hint that hirsute was unwelcome the night I super-glued it with extensions, using what the poodle clearly didn’t want, since she’d left it in her basket. 

Had lost nothing of his powers of observation though.

Unwithered by my scorn, he crossed the room.  Took me by the shoulders.  Turned me to face the glass that hung between two windows.  Forced me to contemplate the scraggy bag of loose-bound bones, barely fit for soup.  Set his hands beneath and lifted high the once-was-black, now white and wuthering swirly mass of elf-locks.

Briefly he touched his lips to my rarely-exposed neck, then, holding my reflected eyes in his, he said, unsmiling, ‘Checkmate after all.’

Ran out of time to write something new - this, part three of the 'Chess Pieces' posted a couple of days ago - was my response to House of Writers prompt 10, which was to write a tale which featured a hairless man, a big-haired woman and a  shedding dog.

Signs and portents to a new direction?

... or simply coincidences?

Yesterday I arrived early at the dentist.  Top of the magazine pile was a Travel magazine, quickly browsed and only articles on places I'd recently been were perused.  Next, one of those glossy aspirational ones, gorgeously scruffy, scumbled paint, sun-bleached wood, Suffolk farmhouse conversions.  Just about the only thing that has me panting for riches. And dishonestly - where would I find the time?

So, I turned to a short story, read it, mildly enjoyed it, then was reminded - was forcibly dragged back to a childhood when such stories had formed part of my staple diet.  My mother's magazines, and those of my aunt.  And the neighbour's. The stories, the serials, the accompanying, usually water-colour, paintings that illustrated them (and those I do remember, wanting to emulate, believing that was what painting was for.)

I've known since I started writing, I almost never do stories.  Briefly, as I followed the dental assistant into the surgery, I wondered why.   Then the news of Alice Munro, who I had heard of but it hadn't registered that she wrote only short stories.

This morning the first line of a possible short story popped into my head. But possibly, if it grows enough, I could turn it into a novel.

Chess pieces

He played chess like a politician in the midst of a crisis.  Drunk out of his skull and imitating two out of three of those bloody brass monkeys.  (Were they brass, originally?  The ones in my childhood had been, but God alone knows who they came from.  Or where they went.)

It was me that spoke evil.

But then it was me that gave him the problem.  He blew it up into a crisis.

I’d suggested the chess to create a breathing space.  Was a time I’d have used words like ‘strategy’. Was a time he’d’ve played me for all I’m worth (and, yes, I do know my worth).

Tonight all I needed was ‘checkmate.’

***

‘Zugzwang’

A guttural growl, which I first took for the Basset hound beneath his chair.  Realising it was him I checked again the pieces on the board.

He was correct.

I waited, poised for him to make the final move: not one in the book of course, but customarily an overturning of the table, an upsetting of the board, sweeping of the table, so that kings and queens; knights, bishops and rooks were scattered, black and white, across the red-tiled floor.

He surprised me.

Picked up the bottle he’d most recently emptied, (three more lay on the floor, rolling and dribbling as he was wont to do, after the fifth) and, squinting, read its label.

‘Two thousand and nine.  The last year Hooglangley Wines made anything decent.  And this the last bottle.  Three years drought has been the death of them.  But might have been the saving of mine.’

Focusing on my no doubt disbelieving face, he explained, ‘The cellar is now empty.  I’ve done what I promised myself I’d do.

I've drunk it dry.’

Scrivener - learning curve and procrastination

As I've said before, I'm using 'Scrivener' for this current novel, having realised that with three strands of story and the need to interleave events taking place on different time lines, some more flexible way of working was needed.  The quickly re-aligned index cards, colour-coded, with date in the title, have been invaluable, especially once I'd learnt that it made sense initially to separate scenes.

I don't like - or haven't yet learnt - how to match the appearance of the main Scrivener page with what I get in my Word document.  Appearance, of the document on the page, is important insofar as I get distracted if it looks wrong.  So, I am writing in Word and then, at certain stages - when a mental pause is needed - re-uploading section by section.

Each card has the option of allocating a status to it.  Naming the status is up to me.  I have 'first draft', 'revised draft' and there is a default 'final draft'.  Something has so far prevented me from allocating 'final draft' to a single one of the sixty-eight cards already written.
 

All in a name? - a ten minute piece of flash fiction

The keys were there, on the doormat.  Attached to the plastic tab with the ludicrous photo of herself, age four, covered in chocolate and laughing at the camera;  her brothers out of focus in the background. 

They’d rushed up straight after the photo had been taken, of course, each with a bucket of water, and had taken it in turns to throw some over her.  Not a lot; Mum – she’d been ‘Mummy’ then, of course – had kept a watchful eye.  Always said, if she ever did come complaining (and by four she’d learnt not to!) ‘You’re a Rose, not a shrinking Violet!’.  Similarly she’d brought the boys up not to be savages. 

But. 

The keys on the doormat. 

Evidence for sure that she should have been more shrinking.

If she had been she’d not now be standing here, in the hallway, scratchy from the stupid form-filling, the endless bladder-heavy waiting around, the patronising questions about ‘the father’.  And the smug looks of pity from all those feeble, unable to stand alone, brainless, do-anything-for-a-council house morons with their spotty sperm donors, none of whom ought to be being allowed to breed in the first place!

And she’d not be snivelling, snot down her face, bawling her eyes out.  Knowing that he’d been here.  Let himself in with the keys she’d given him.  Collected his stuff, locked the door behind him and dropped the keys through the letter box so as to tell her he’d never be coming back again. 

Take it away Tuesday:  'The keys were there' - todays prompt for Thinking Ten.  This, like so many other pieces, is a part-rehearseal, part character sketch for my current wip.

Triple benefit - prompt, novel and blog post

Last night, re-reading an earlier part of 'Susannah Elphinstone' (that's the working title;  it might end up as 'Longer Shadows Reach' if I can get permission from the poet to quote him) led me to realise I needed a description of the adult version of my MC.

I wrote a note to remind me and left it on my laptop.

This morning, an email from Kerry Logan of Thinking Ten telling me today's 'on location' prompt was 'a bedroom facing east'.

Perfect.

Mind mulling over possibilities as I walked up to buy a paper, scribbled phrases before I ate my breakfast, brain given its work out over the crossword, then upstairs to spend just a little more than ten minutes getting the bare bones down.

'Tis done.

Fits snugly into novel;  now posted on T10  - and I've also got a subject for today's blog challenge.

And it isn't even nine o'clock yet.

Everything come to she who waits ...

Not that I think, or am claiming, that it is a good way to progress a novel.

But, yes.  I've not been just waiting on this.  Thought I'd got the answer, more or less.  One of two answers anyway.  As I've said before, 'Susannah Elphinstone' began with a blurb challenge, utilising the name of the heroine from an in-progress novel. (Not Susannah:  Madigan.)  It sat for  while, then the premise suggested a story, characters began talking to each other, as they are wont to do, and the book began to take shape, my only input the decision to make it a thriller with a far smaller cast than I'd used before.

Progress was made by conversations:  Madigan with Baz, Baz with Luke, Luke with Madigan.  Ed became involved.  Then the action moved to where Susannah lived.   I remembered that it was a thriller I was supposed to be writing.  Someone had to die.  Actually, someone had died at the beginning, that was left over from the earlier book.  But I needed someone else.

Fifteen to twenty thousand words in I decided who that someone would be.  Next thing, of course, who did it?

Yes indeed.  Who did do it?  For focus' sake it had to be one of two, from up to seven possibilities.  I had to work out how, had to factor in red herrings and misinformation.  Input reasons, methods, timetable, confusion.  I eventually found myself continually see-sawing between two individuals, unable to satisfactorily plump for one over the other.  Unable to justify or even convince myself how.  Quite important that:  if I wasn't convinced I sure as hell would not be able to convince any reader.  Oh, and I also needed to inject pace, and manage a final, surprising, last-minute, totally unforeseeable twist to the tale.

Yesterday, completely out of the blue, the answer came to me.  Of course.  It wasn't either of them, that was why I'd been struggling;  it was someone I'd barely noticed, someone who'd been sending out his own misinformation.  And when I started looking I could see exactly how he'd done it, what lies he'd told, how he'd fooled all of them.  And me too.

So now all I have to do is write it down.   In the correct order.  Remembering that there are things which need not be said until the end.  Gosh.

Downs and Ups

Yesterday finished disillusioned, crotchety and, although not fully despairing, bad enough to need a sneaky, well-heaped teaspoonful of chocolate spread to attempt to restore my belief that, sometimes, when the moon and stars were right, and in alignment, I could write.

The reason for this was I'd finished reading through my most recent work in progress.  Had, for much of it, been quite impressed, especially at the bits I'd no recollection of writing.   But the end.  Oh the end.  Was wrong and self-indulgent, irrelevant and totally off-topic.  Brought in new characters who really did not deserve their place, took attention away from the main character (who in any case was struggling to assert himself at times).
And I still have not quite decided how the second body came to be dead.  Still do not know which of the two most likely was finally responsible for the dastardly deed.  The evidence mounts up quite nicely, tension builds between MC and rival, there is character development (though not quite enough) - but only seventy-four thousand words.

This morning, with a couple of yesterday's tried-but-failed, prompt-led diversions rattling round my head, an idea for each took root, grew shoots, produced a lovely phrase or two, a voice, a phone conversation and a couple of neat endings.
Having polished them successfully, posted them, and put the washing out, I'm now ready to tackle Susannah Elphinstone again.

Blind to the screamingly obvious

Woke this morning, before 4 a.m. (not unusual) and used the time before getting up to think about my current wip, always a useful exercise as I spend far too long sitting at the keyboard typing not thinking.

I use a dialogue a lot to progress the plot, and realised that thus far no-one has even mentioned that there is a four week gap between man disappearing and man dying, never mind wondered why.
I know what happened (mostly) but they don't.  You'd think they would ask, wouldn't you?
At least I have the word-room to write it - a tightening of style, a reduction of characters, a more focused approach means thus far this is still well under 80K.
Onwards.

Bad Book Learning

This reading for writing idea is not always as straightforward - or as easy - as it sounds, is it?
Parallel to me writing a crime novel I began, for the first time, apart from a few Ian Rankin's, reading them - both crime and thriller.  I discovered there was a huge variation in type as well as style, but that I really enjoyed a lot of them, especially those with characters who developed as book followed book.
I learnt that short sharp sentences add pace, that descriptions of fights are hard to do convincingly (and boring when they go on too long), that good sex can be told - or at least implied - in just three words.
And I've no doubt I learnt a lot unconsciously - or do I mean subconsciously?.
Since York, where I bought books by WW-connected writers, I've fully realised that when a book is really good I can only read with 100% enjoyment.  Even though I always mean to take note, go back, analyse how it's done, I rarely do because I am on to the next book.  Harry Bingham's wonderful 'Talking to the Dead' came into this category.
Two others were much more informative.  One, totally unreadable, but at least I now know that it would have benefited immeasurably from a bit of psychic distance. (Though I doubt that alone would have rescued it).  The other, fast paced and brilliantly-plotted, brought home to me that a superfluity of adverbs and too imaginative a deviation from plain old 'said'  are definitely to be avoided.  I'm grateful to 'How Not to Write a Novel' for that.

Prediction Fiction

Herewith the two latest episodes for Prediction Fiction, using the prompts alabaster, pore and waxwork.  The whole of the tales involving DS John Pettinger and the disgraced and disgraceful Tao can be accessed from the tabs above.  
 

A change of focus [57]

 Pettinger pored over the images Cherriman had smugly produced.  Spread across the faux-alabaster kitchen worktop their several lurid messages were shocking.

Not so much for what they depicted but that Cherriman knew such things had taken place

‘They’re fakes.’

‘You have to prove that.  In a court of law if necessary...’

‘I’ll risk that.’

Pettinger remembered a waxwork-buttocked judge, last seen handing wads of cash to greedy, now-dead, Gunita. 

He sighed.

‘Cherriman, now Raptor’s gone, surely we can re-negotiate?  I’ve no interest in Khakbethia...’

‘Me neither. I need a tame policeman here.’

‘It won’t be me.’

‘I think it will.’

Dirty tricks

Mutterings warned Drusilla not to approach too closely to the man whose gun threatened her daughter’s life, e’en as the mob parted to permit her passage.  Rarely seen in daylight she shocked the elders who’d known her, biblically, who’d pressed themselves against her alabaster skin, soot-pitted pores of which now close resembled leaf-mould.

She  halted twenty feet before them. 

Described some swift finger-writ message in the air, whereupon her daughter’s face became yellow waxwork.

‘She curses you?’  Tao, mildly incredulous.

‘I stole her magic...’

‘Then she cannot harm...’

Premature:  his pale passenger slumped against him, causing his gun to fall.

'The Blacksmith's Wife' (illustrated on the left) precedes Tao's tale.

The numbers game

This is my 547th post on this blog and my 47th wedding anniversary.  Significant?  No, of course not.  Just one of those things.
Yet when I woke, about a hour ago, one of my first thoughts was to remember the day, the date, and recall some of the supposedly significant things one ought not to do at the start of a marriage, not if its success is to be anything like guaranteed.  (But who really believes that everlasting happiness can be guaranteed, that the perfect marriage exists?  No-one who has been married for any length of time, I bet.)
That wedding day - a compromise (of course) between what we wanted, which was only to be married so we could live together; what my mother wanted, i.e. the sort of wedding she could endlessly discuss with her workmates (unkind, and only one aspect but one that I strongly disliked) and what his parents wanted, which was a) not yet (we were young) and b) in church, which we flatly refused, being non-believers and not wanting to begin married life with a hypocrisy.
And we broke another cardinal 'rule' - travelled in the same car to the Registry Office - two cars cost twice as much.
I won't even tell you about the proposal, which has to count as one of the most unromantic in the whole world.  I certainly never said 'yes'.

I'd better believe it!

No, not the report of a survey which reported that '36% of women prefer to have a tidy house to having sex' - done by a cleaning company, that's clearly biased! - but that I can do hooks, revelations, turning points - whatever is the preferred term for those things to insert in a novel to maintain the reader's interest.

In York, at the Festival of Writing, I heard the term 'reward reader's for their investment' for the first time. Their investment of both money and time, which has to be paid for with my providing them with interesting, entertaining, unputdownable characters.  The best way to do this is to have the above-mentioned hooks etc. scattered judiciously throughout, adding a page-turning element.

Now, I know that my Prediction Fiction serials (Pages tabs above), which are only a hundred words long, more often than not end with a hook;  which more than one commenter has referred to as a 'killer line'.

So why am I struggling so to scatter them throughout a novel?  And have the plot hang together?

Psychic Distance

Probably the best, i.e. most useful/exciting, workshop of the lot at York, for me, was Debi Alper talking about Psychic Distance.

Debi and Emma Darwin spend an entire week on the topic in their six week on-line course 'Self-editing your novel', which runs three or four times a year via the Writer's Workshop, but even the single example she made us attempt was an eye-opener.  And not only for writing, but reading too - I could recognise Psychic  Distance in action in Lesley Glaister's writing, and now know that it is one of the main reasons books totally fail to sparkle.

More information here:
http://emmadarwin.typepad.com/thisitchofwriting/psychic-distance-what-it-is-and-how-to-use-it.html

More useful, by far, than just listening was being told to do an exercise using Psychic  Distance.  We were given ten minutes in which to describe the reaction of a soldier just returned from war as he meets his father for the first time, handing him a photograph:

Steps.  Five of them.  Will I be able to manage them, with half a leg and the other barely functioning?  I’ll look bloody silly if I fall, land on my arse.  

Though it wouldn't be the first time he’d’ve seen my fucking arse either, from what Ma said.  Then I had all my fucking bits too ... but O Christ ... he doesn’t have a fucking clue who I am.

I grope for the photograph, leaning on the concrete wall, half my mind taken up in the looking at him.

Although I do already use it instinctively, it was hard to do, and the follow-up - the ignorant father's response, even harder:

Another wounded soldier.

You can only do so much, and this one so young, no more than twenty, twenty-two perhaps.  The age that ...

No.  Impossible ... even though his eyes are so like Mary’s.  So very much like hers, blue of cornflower.  Too long since they smiled at me.  I was a bloody, bloody fool ...

What?

What’s this? ... A photograph?... Mary ... oh Mary.

York day 3

At home I prefer to eat alone, but mealtimes here have been stimulating and the perfect example of how, if you sit yourself alone at a table, within five minutes you've been joined by three more folk and quickly find yourself discussing, for example, daft names for detectives, going blind and (inevitably) What Agents Say.

'Tension' followed yesterday's 'Pacing' - a bandying about of words such as conflict, claustrophobia, deadline and morality and a warning not to skim the surface of interleaving events.  Then, 'How to write a sentence' with some yet-to-be-properly-perused handouts.  Followed by the art of plotting.

Also some mild encouragement to continue with my second wip, utilising lessons learnt from the first, which, since it is a far less weildy plot might be simpler.   I say 'might' now rather than the 'should' I used yesterday, since I have been thinking for an hour on the balance/interweaving of plots and sub-plots and trying to decide which of the three main characters should become the mainest of them

Inevitably, if you choose all workshops on similar themes there is overlap.  Some are more properly called lectures, the giver of them reading from prompt cards, some (the best) get us working so the lessons they impart are better understood, but the hard work, enthusiasm of these and the behind-the-scenes work of the organisers - as well as the staff at York University itself - could not be faulted.

S.J Bolton, whose work I so much admire, said when her book is finished, before final submission, she takes four or five days to read the whole thing aloud.  I've just tried that with a couple of paragraphs of mine and seen where they stumble (although at times I think a case can be made for internal reading to be different from aloud)  She also talked of the desperation to see her books upon bookshelves, to the extend where it hurts to go into a bookshop.   I don't have that, not that burning passion about anything really, but I DO want to write the best book possible so I will write and re-write and by the time I'm done the desperation might be there.

After all Sheila Hancock is writing her first novel at the age of eighty!

Now to absorb all I have learnt.

York day 2

Didn't get back to sleep after 3 a.m. wakening so some of the day was a little blurred at the edges.
But Adele Parks address was so stimulating that I did not suffer for long - as she said herself, a ballsy, go-getting lady who has certainly put the effort in and deserves everything she's achieved.
Then I got waylaid by buying books ... whoops.
But one was by Adam Close, who I belatedly realised was Eve Seymour, who so kindly commented yesterday on my wip and who did an excellent workshop on 'Crime and Pacing' - in an over-WARM room (a rarity).
Second highlight of the day - and sufficient to revive me when I was flagging - was Debi Alper's 'Psychic Distance' - basically the best way to add life to writing and lack of it the reason so many books fall flat.  I'd bought one of her books too ...
And the evening Gala Dinner and much wine and conversation ...
                                                                          ... and so to bed.

York, day 1

Wet, wet and cold - it wasn't meant to be like this - and weird to have folk with unknown faces coming up, addressing me (by an almost unrecognised name, chosen in a hurry) and introducing themselves by unknown names.  As one of the ~50% who have a photo of myself on the WordCloud blog, I've made it too easy.  But friendly, yes indeed.

Both my one-to-ones this afternoon.  Both giving me the same message:  must be either/or.  Romance+crime is not marketable.   Also many, many useful points about too diffuse a start, over-long sentences, unidentified MC.  One was given with a lot more warmth than the other, with sweeteners such as I can write, and I do dialogue well - with humour!  Sweeteners enough to have me awake at 3 a.m. planning how to kill off at least 30% of my darlings so as to improve/rewrite.  For the fourth time.

Festival of Writing at York

Later today I'm heading for York.  My first Festival of Writing.  Pushed into it by a conscience which kept reminding me that my New Year's resolution was, deliberately vaguely, 'do something about finding an agent.'  So, at 2.40 this afternoon I have ten minutes with an agent.  Later, another ten minutes with a 'Book Doctor'  Both have had, since the middle of last month, the first 3000 words of what used to be 'Not Wanted on Voyage', is now 'A Step So Grave' - taken from Robert Louis Stephenson's ‘Virginibus Puerisque’:   'Marriage is a step so grave and decisive that it attracts light-headed, variable men by its very awfulness’

The programme for the weekend is stuffed with workshops, discussions and opportunities to meet other agents, writers and I, who am so used to solitude, will have to adapt to being surrounded by people, a great many of whom are much more adept than I at social communication.   Yet there will be at least as many of the same mind as me, since writing is a solitary occupation. 

I'll maybe be a bit frustrated too, since the follow up novel - working title 'Susannah Elphinstone' since that is the name that came first, but likely 'Longer Shadows Reach' - is going well,  But a break will likely not harm it.

Hopefully I'll be reporting Good Things.

Prediction fiction - serial update

I've updated the two prompt-led serials running since the beginning of the year.  To John Pettinger's tale, 'A change of focus', I've added episodes forty-five to fifty-two, to  'Tao escapes from Rhodes'  episodes thirty-one to forty-seven. [Links in the page bar at the top of this page]

As ever, the words supplied dictate direction, plot and the arrival and departure of  a variety of characters, mostly nefarious, and I am, as ever, immensely grateful to Colleen for the hosting of Prediction Fiction.

Next week's are muckrake, gloss and trappings.   Should be fun.

My space, today

Took this at 06.45 this morning, with the intention of posting it on a new group. 

 Not done that yet, but will.   

Tells it like it is - I write and I read - all the books on view are on my to-be-read pile.

Also tells you I don't do tidy.

Approaching the end ... off the map and a change of gear.

Earlier, in July, I sorted out who caused the death and why and how.  Where and what the implications were.
But I have struggled with the writing of it;  have not seen how it can be put down, spelt out, made convincing.
In the end I resorted to writing conversations.  Conversations Baz had, with Susannah and with Luke; with John and Col and Billy.  And with Adam.  Gradually, they are telling me what happened.  Not always straightforwardly: sometimes they lie, deliberately deceive.  Lead me to believe one thing, only to be tripped up when I realise that's not possible.  It's a lot of writing, deleting, and re-writing.  A lot. A ridiculous amount, when I am already guilty (no, I don't think 'guilty' either) of writing without prior thought to a considerable extent.
But, it's my time I'm wasting (and no, I don't believe 'wasting' either) - and anyway, what else would I do?

But it's more than a little disorientating, disconcerting, especially because the man I thought was guilty seems not to be after all.

Losing Faith - and accurately justifying it.

This is one of the eight books I picked up in New York, this from the wonderfully-named 'Mysterious Bookshop'.

A typical example of the title (spine only visible when I selected it) i.e. font plus colour initially attracting my attention, and then the blurb, which began "We are burying her today."

Speed-reading, I omitted the next paragraph and read the first line of the third: "Faith had been dark, disturbing, a Goth" which presumably (because I remember no conscious thought) removed all expectation that it would be at all religious.

Third paragraph of the opening page describes a breakfast which "sizzles and giggles to itself"; egg yolk described as "a malevolent yellow eye watching me from the plate."
And I am hooked.

And continue to be so throughout the book.  My Goodreads review was as follows:  "I did enjoy this. Disconnected. Fractured. Slow to start, hard to see for much of the time where it is heading. Not at all consecutive and the main character un-named and of dubious character, but a thoroughly engaging read. And one I'll read again."

And two novels more by Daniel Blythe are on their way from Amazon (despite the fact that I subsequently discovered he also writes Dr. Who books!!!)
He also kindly sent me the image for the cover since it does not appear on Goodreads

Prospective TV series for wanna-be writers ...

A short clip (twelve minutes) presumably from a pilot, can be seen here 

Delphine, with her very first manuscript, gets an opportunity to show it to Carol Blake, who has taken on just two writers in six years (from at least a dozen submissions a day)

Daily exercise

Oh! the pleasures to be gained from limbering up one's brain with an at-first-sight-impossible cryptic crossword .

New York books ...

My notes for this day say:  Pouring rain so sans umbrellas we head for Times Square - tiny - just a set of junctions;  its impact in the tallness of its surroundings. Colour flashing while we stand in puddles, rain in gutter, shiny drains and gridded, griddled covers of the subway.  Others had umbrellas, all to be avoided and several had shed new-bought skins as nylon litter.

Damply we lunched in a Brewery eating place; the sort of room and ambience we had expected (hoped for) of New York.  Copper vats, lots of wood and wallpaper.   Apricot Summer beer and a pile of chicken crispy-wrapped bits, orange sauce too spicy but the white a well-chosen accompaniment.   And, as always wonderful bread.

In the evening another place of the same ilk.  Serious, large b/w photos above picture rail height.

I'd taken Philip Roth's 'Exit Ghost' to read but from the firs three pages I suspected it would depress me.  Soon after my daughter finished Colum McCann's  Let the Great World Spin 'Let the great world spin' - a tale of a tightrope walker in New York, written in beautiful language.
Equally beautifully written, with nastier characters but an eventually positive sort of ending was Vince Passaro's irresistably-title Violence, Nudity, Adult Content: A Novel
Followed this with another  Colum McCann - This Side Of Brightness  picked up, to my surprise in a local charity shop.  This was more harrowing than enjoyable, yet the writing kept me reading. 
And yesterday, at the Tynemouth Station bookfair, a copy of Jesse Kellerman's The Brutal Art

Musty in here isn't it?

Yes, it's been a while, but I have been away and have not yet got photos, notes in any sort of order, plus lots of catch-up to do.
HOWEVER I was directed to this site which amusingly deals with one of my bêtest noirs: book cover clichés

Tending the plot

On Wednesday morning the plot of my most recent, still-in-progress novel revealed itself to me and although much  of what I wrote on Thinking Ten, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday this week have been attempts to develop a single scene, much of it will doubtless be discarded.
 
Because, I’ve realised, now I know how the second death came about I need to knot the cords of coincidence which connect this second murder with the first.  A staggered sort of sheepshank, a clove and two half hitches, any of which, provided they are sufficiently subtle, will convince the reader of his cleverness in solving all before the end
.
First there is the wife, the mother of the victim’s son:  having made her bed she’s lain in it for seventeen years, but sees her chance for happiness slipping inexorably away.

There’s his brother.  Guilty of a number of things – manipulation and adultery – and holder of a secret he never should have been told.

Less likely, there’s his son, at seventeen like any son, he needs to free himself, and the recent jeering accusation of his peers that he might have inherited his father’s homosexuality makes adolescent shame a good enough reason.

There’s an unseen, unknown, presumed lover, heard arguing with him the night he disappeared, the same night that an adulterous DI had an assignation with his wife.  Was this DI lying when he said he’d only met to end the affair?

There’s a fellow-victim, who shared the first ordeal and is being encouraged to tell all, for the sake of fame and fortune – was murder thought the ideal response to a refusal to cooperate?

And this victim's uncle has perhaps the most to lose should the deemed-essential-at-the-time deception come to light.

The biggest problem of all, of course, is that it is me who has to solve it all before revealing it to the waiting-to-be-entertained reader.

Phew - a plot emerges ...

It started life as 'Susannah Elphinstone' a name which came to me out of the blue.  She and Luke Darbyshere became reacquainted and Baz and Madigan got involved too.
I always hoped it would be a psychological thriller.
And this morning, some fourteen months after I began writing it, I woke at 2.45 this morning with the knowledge of who did it, why, and some good ideas also about how I was going to be able to conceal the knowledge from the reader - is it any wonder I leapt out of bed to scribble it all down?

Initially, I'd written 15000 words before I knew who'd been murdered, and a further 40000 since,  getting to know some of  the newer characters: Stuart and Adam Randall, John and Michael Rendlesham and  Col Washington, along with Baz's Mum and Dad.  But I really did not know who was responsible for the second murder until today.

An invitation to come and play

The bandstand, round and somehow forbidding, but I’m sure I remember pale sun-bleached ecru deckchairs and once, a band.  Trees and a low brick wall between park and road and the other side a concrete path - ochre with orange and white pebbles - between grass and the drop down to the sand.  It was a run-down part of town, midway between two otherwise touching towns, gentility on a third edge, in the guise of a Grand Terrace of houses, forlorn and peeling, which sort of said it all.

Oh! and the octagonal little thatched house in the trees with it's pointed-top door which, no matter how often I asked, never became anything,according to my mother, other that "the place they keep tools in."   (Then it made me think of a charity money-box;  today I'd say it would be perfect for 'cottaging')

It was there I witnessed my first eclipse of the sun, entered a fancy dress competition and was eclipsed by a dark-featured boy dressed as Noddy.  It was there I had the conversation which ended, my mother aghast (it was the Fifties when no-one spoke of what was before their eyes) “You mustn’t ever mention it to her.”

And it was there I embarrassed as much as shamed and irritated my mother by climbing the steps to the slide only to become transfixed with fright at the necessity of sliding down the other side.

A response to an  invitation from Thinking Ten - a place I've too much neglected lately, whch is a shame because as somewhere to limber up, to have ideas come sparkling from unexpected places, it can't be beat.   I will try and go there more often.