The sequel to Valentine’s 2013

Last year G, missing the point about hearts, flowers and St Valentine, had a heart attack on Valentine’s Day necessitating a journey through the NHS recorded here.  

It is not quite a year ago, but anyway it was time for the annual check-up. He has been declared fully fit and discharged from the system.

 To celebrate, we had fish for lunch.

And later joined the folks at Fantastic Books Publishing to celebrate the successful launch of their audio division.

Today I was a leg and my name was Rose

And no better start to the working day than to relax on a very comfortable hospital bed. Somehow you usually don’t notice the comfort, but that’s because usually being in a hospital bed means being in a hospital with all the implications that brings. But I was just a leg.

I shared the ward with an alarmed looking plastic dummy.

Probably he didn't approve of mixed wards. And to be fair he had more to be alarmed about than I did. I was just a leg to be bandaged. It was a bit odd to be called Rose, and even odder to have to refer to a crib sheet when asked a question such as, ‘How are you?’ but it was very comfortable and I could easily have nodded off.

But even clinical skills exams have to come to an end, and especially those overseen by two efficient examiners who won my approval straight away by offering breakfast and hot drinks.

If it weren't for having to catch up on the work that didn't get done, I’d happily start every day with a couple of hours dozing on a hospital bed.

Plotting the new novel

It’s vital that the back story works out. There’s nothing worse than disentangling a whodunit only to find a gaping plot hole in the back story that pulls the rug from under the whole book. Thus very important to act out that back story in detail and work out how it threads into the main plot. This is how I do it.

The main players gather.

And here comes a mystery couple to interact with one of them.

Agh! The murder...

And of course the detective with his spyglass.

Now for the clever stuff; the couple in the car...

The mysterious death...

The drive to the forest in the unlikely car.

And the guy on the bicycle at the Tube station is of course the red-herring.

So now it’s all straight in my head... off to Chapter One...

My Writing Process - Blog Tour #mywritingprocess

Today is Blog Tour Day where authors answer questions about their writing process. Fellow novelist, Linda Acaster posted hers last week. You can check out her writing process here.

A friend suggested that I use this blog to reveal the secret of how someone who is quite busy gets 100k words written and polished every year. Easy to say and sounds like a plan, but if I'm honest, I haven't a clue. All I know is that so far, the words keep stacking up.

What am I working on?

Having taken a sideways dive out of my Annie Raymond PI series, I ventured into the police procedural world. 

The agent who encouraged me gave his opinion a week ago. It wasn't a no. That's good. It wasn't an unequivocal yes. That's no surprise. But better than that, it wasn't the standard 'This is fine, can you just change the beginning, middle and end'. I only need to change the middle and the end, more or less. And no hurry. Any time in the next 5 minutes will be just fine. While I was awaiting the verdict, the series took root in my head so I started book 2. That's good, too, because it means I can dive back into book 1 edits with a real sense of distance from it. Watch this space.

I also have a contract to co-write a textbook. The last one was on commercial fiction techniques. This one is on academic writing techniques. Co-author, are you out there? We need to get moving!

On academic writing, I have all the research results for a follow up paper to one I wrote earlier in the year, and I have that to get on with, too.

How does my work differ from others of its genre?

I think just because it's me who writes it. I don't make any special effort to be different, but my experience is unique in the way that everyone's experience is unique and that must make a difference. 

Far from trying to be different or outlandish, I take a lot of trouble to keep things pinned to the real world. Outlandish things happen in my books but they're all grounded in fact or on a credible premise. Strange things happen in the real world. I rarely turn down a chance to research odd places and people. I draw the line at criminal activity, not least because I have no talent for it. I was once coerced into being a getaway driver for an activist group and ... oh dear... I've related that tale before. I won't go into it again here.

Why do I write what I do?

One answer is that the crime novels found a publisher. I tried children's, romance, fantasy, science-fiction as well as crime in all sorts of forms. Mostly it was crime and in the end, it was the PI whodunit series that took off. With luck, the police procedurals will too. There's a whole world of crime writing to explore once you get your foot in the door of the official investigation.

How does your writing process work? 

If I didn't have two day jobs and no fixed timetable, I'm sure I would want to work to a regular routine - X hours per day, up early every morning perhaps, or a late-night scribbler or maybe both. But I don't have that luxury. After years where my first appointment of the day can vary from early morning (up at 2 am to get to an airport, or 5 am to get the early train) to a more civilised 9 or 10 o'clock, and where the other end of the day is similarly diverse (5 pm and home with the rush hour, 1 am and home with the late-night revellers), if I'd stuck to being a writer who needed a routine, I wouldn't have written a word. But as it is, I write on trains, in waiting rooms, in hotels, at home and at any time of the day or night when I'm awake and have a gap.

When it comes to planning a new book, I've written a couple without having much of a plot to start with. The rewrites were painful enough that now I always try to plot my way through the major milestones before I start. But it's the characters as they develop around those major milestones who generate the twists and turns and many of the real gems. 

When a reader says, 'I didn't see that coming,' I often think, 'No, neither did I.'

I don't go for 'rules' of writing. Different things work for different people. I keep a summary of what helped me on the creative writing page of my website.

Thanks for visiting my blog. Please leave a comment.

NEXT WEEK

Sue Knight is a writer and poet who lived in the Middle East for 20 years. She was an invited contributor to the anthology, Ours. 

Ken Reah will see his debut novel published in late 2013 at the age of 84. I've had a sneak preview. Edge of Arcadia is worth the wait.

Beth Elliott is an established novelist who explores adventure and intrigue in the Regency period.

Gala dinner amongst cars, cats and planes

The gala dinner was held in a museum housed in something like an aircraft hanger at the side of the river. Cars were the main feature and they surrounded us at dinner...

On the way in we came past elderly (but polished to within an inch of their lives) railway carriages and the like. Later exploration found a room full of old computers and a display of those old diving suits that make you wonder why divers didn't spend the whole time on their heads. If you look carefully at the following badly crafted photo you can see a whole plane with its wing out above the diners.

Boats too, with a walkway so you could wander on high and see the decks and equipment polished to a level probably not seen when they went to sea.

When I went to explore, it was after the dinner and no-one else was in this part of the vast space so I was on my own, but kept being startled to come across figures bent to tasks such as sorting fishing nets, which wouldn't have been so surprising if the boats had clearly not been destined to set sail. But the figures didn't move and turned out to be models, part of the display.

Wandering further afield took me to the edge of the river where boats bobbed about on the tide and where I got my only mozzie bite of the trip.

On the way back towards the dining room, taking a different route past more shiny old cars, I was aware of being followed. A marmalade cat stalked from car to car, leaping ahead and onto a blue bonnet. As I approached it leapt down again but came to say hello and sniffed my hand. I patted the car bonnet and it sprang up again, consenting to be stroked until I ran my hand along its back. Far too familiar a move for such a brief acquaintance. It fired talons and teeth, but I'm used to cats so it missed. I said, 'Yah,' and it dived back beneath the cars, following me as I made my way back.

I returned from my adventure to find I'd missed the bus. I wasn’t inclined to stay for the late bus with the who-needs-sleep revellers (how do they do it!) so got a taxi which found its way to the hotel no trouble at all, which reinforces the belief that when in foreign climes one should take care who to allow into taxis. Some people just jinx things. M, you know who you are! 

(Istanbul blog 8 of 9) << previous: –: next >>

Separating the keys

Having weathered many different near-disasters related to business travel over the past twenty years, but having had a pretty smooth ride for the past six, I’m now alarmed to find myself suddenly struck with attacks of absent-mindedness that come close to unshipping otherwise meticulously planned outings.

A couple of weeks ago I forgot my tickets – a first in 12 years of regularly travelling to and from London. At the time I saw it as an annoyance, but also a useful nudge to take extra care on my forthcoming trip to Istanbul. No tickets, no trip!

So instead of forgetting something vital, I did the reverse and took with me something it was vital I left behind. The car keys. Both sets plus one door key.

First thought: I must be sure and keep these safe, mustn’t lose them in Turkey. Well, no, that’s not quite accurate. First thought ‘Aaaaagh!’ but next thought was all about keeping them safe.

Second thought: I can’t take these with me. G will be a week without a car and it’s not as though we live in striking distance of any shops.

Third...: I’ll leave them at the Airport Info desk and ring home. There won’t be anyone up but I’ll leave a message saying what I’ve done and what I plan to do when the Info desk place opens. Did that.

Then I thought about the airport taxi firm that had brought me here. What if they had a fare heading our way? If they went back to town they could take the keys to within 30 mins of home. My reasoning at this point was that Son was there with his car and heading off to a different airport later in the day. He could easily pick up the keys from somewhere in town or, less easily, take a detour to my airport. Thus leaving G without a car for only a long as it took him to make the round trip.

Went to the taxi office, failed to recognise the driver I’d been chatting with for an hour on the journey in as he’d put on a pair of specs. He listened to the tale, took the keys, and promised to phone G or Son as soon as he knew if he had a fare ‘back across the bridge’ which would be after the 10 am flight.

Left messages to this effect on mobile phones by voicemail, email and text. Ended up feeling very annoyed with myself but satisfied that I’d done enough to retrieve the situation.

Not so. What I hadn’t remembered was that the car I had the keys for was blocking Son's car and there was no way to leapfrog the one over the other, thus no way to get to the other airport never mind do a round trip to collect the keys. Son reached the point of researching hot-wiring on the internet thinking in terms of damage amounting to one smashed window if he could find a way to start the car. Given the layout of drive/lane, it wouldn’t even have been possible to have pushed it out of the way because of the steering lock.

Anyway, he rang the taxi firm and got them to take the keys all the way back; just in time for the second flight not to be missed. I got to Istanbul despite an incoming storm and learnt the differences between a taxi and a taksi.  

The longer reaching consequences are that the keys are now kept separately, and I am subject to airport-style security when I leave the house.

(Istanbul blog 7 of 9) << previous : –: next >>

Istanbul – Agatha hotel

First night in Istanbul we took a stroll down from Taksim Square to find a hotel that had had a nice olde worlde look to two colleagues who'd arrived the day before and already been exploring.

And it did have an air of old-fashioned elegance. We were the only diners in the upstairs restaurant but it was a hotel and we reasoned that they probably did a brisk trade with their guests. We hoped so because if this were the norm, we were eating in a place avoided by the general populace, locals and tourists alike, and heaven alone knew how long the 'slow-cooked' beef might have been cooking. I got to know too because I ordered it. It was wonderful. All the food was wonderful, the place was spectacularly grand, the service was exceptional as we were the only diners.

It wasn't until the end of the evening we realised we were in the Agatha restaurant of the Pera Palace Hotel - the place Agatha Christie wrote or plotted or first thought of Murder on the Orient Express. We should have visited the station, too, but didn't.

Ataturk had stayed there, also, and the hotel now includes an Ataturk museum in the room where he stayed. An inadvertently appropriate choice for dinner at the start of the IFRRO conference.

The place was just in sight of the lights of a huge football stadium, where a huge match was in progress. Some in our party suggested opening the windows to see if we could hear it. Apparently it was significant in the football calendar. I understand someone won (or not).

A peaceful start to the trip and just the ticket after being battered by storms on the long journey in. 

Later in the week we tried a kebab house - all squashed in on the tiny third floor with 60 other people. The lower floors were already packed when we arrived, but we'd booked in via a recommendation. Another wonderful meal. And our final evening was in one of the many restaurants that crowd the numerous alleyways of Istanbul and where the proprietor allowed me to have the candle holder to add to my pointless box collection. 

(Istanbul blog 6 of 9) << previous : –: next >>