Charles Heath's writing blog

A picture paints ... well, as many words as you like.  For instance: And, then, the words: It was a handprint, definitely a handprint.  Very recent. It had stopped snowing about an hour before I arrived at the cabin, and there were no other tire tracks leading off the main road, and up the track to where this, and several other cabins were located. I'd checked before coming, and no one else was going to be up here for the weekend. Just me. There were paw prints nearby, that of a rabbit or perhaps something a little larger, but definitely not something with a hand.  Yet there were no human footprints. So, perhaps I was wrong. I looked over towards the tree line, and then along it, as it disappeared behind the last of the cabins.  Nothing.  It was, I guess, my imagination running wild. Nor could I explain why I stopped the car at that exact point on the track because you had to be almost standing over the print to se...

A picture paints ... well, as many words as you like.  For instance: And, then, the words: I had just had a blazing row with Abigale, a girl I had known for nearly a year, and it was our first holiday together. It had been going very well until she received a phone call, one she said she needed some privacy.  I thought nothing of it at the time, but the next day I saw her ex-boyfriend. I knew it was him, he had a very distinctive haircut and thought it was quite a coincidence that he was here at the same time. Or not. Normally stuff like that didn't bother me, but when she disappeared without telling me where she was going, I put two and two together. I broached the subject, she went all defensive, we said words we shouldn't and I left. We were not far from a wharf, and a boat, and about to leave on the morning cruise of the lake, I bought a ticket and went on board. It was an old steamship, very quiet unlike its diesel counterparts, and after a...

A picture paints ... well, as many words as you like.  For instance: And, then, the words: We had always agreed, no matter whether we were together or apart, or anywhere in the world, we would meet back in the same place, where we met for the first time, all those years ago. Fifty to be exact. And for the last forty-nine, we had.  The same day, same time, same place. Right here. We were young then, very young, out of secondary school and moving into the next phase of our lives.  University.  We lived together, planned to get married after completing our studies, both doing law together, and we had great expectations. Until Jerry. A visiting, high flying lawyer from an international legal brand, at the University to do a series of guest lectures. He'd seem the same intelligence and ambition in Madeleine as I had, and I'd known from the beginning her star would shine brighter than mine, and then it was only a question of time. He had co...

When not to wake up screaming, it’s only a nightmare. Or it’s only the current story you’re writing. Our hero is between a rock and a hard place. It looked like a military camp, but the soldiers were not like my captor.  They were as I had expected, of foreign origin.  The woman driving the pickup was American, and also the last person I'd expect to see in what was quite obviously a military camp. The pickup stopped with the brakes squealing outside a large wooden building covered in camouflage netting.  The man sitting next to me got up, jumped off the end of the vehicle.  The woman got out, they exchanged words in quiet voices I could not hear properly, then she walked away. He walked down the side of the vehicle hitting the metal side quite hard.  To wake me up, perhaps. "Get down Mr. James.  I'm not buying the jelly legs anymore." I shrugged.  I hadn’t been pretending when the picked me up but maybe he knew my condit...

We're past the start now and moving on to the consequences. Our hero is in a spot of bother. This was supposed to be a milk run.  There had been no reported activity in our zone and the pilot had decided to go up just the log some more air time. He was hoping after reaching a 1,000 hours so he might be able to move to fixed wing aircraft and then move on to becoming an airline pilot.  Unfortunately, he was not going become anything now. That didn't explain why we encountered a convoy out in the desert, especially one with a rocket launcher and English speaking soldier types. Did we stumble across another outfit running a secret operation and mistook us for the enemy?  It didn't seem the case, our helicopter was distinctively marked just so we wouldn't be mistaken, and then there was the fact the man knew my name. How could that happen?  It would need someone back at the base to tell someone of the fact the helicopter was going up and who was in it...

Back to the desert, things are not going quite as planned. Yards were like miles, and I didn't have the time to reach the weapon.  I could see the pickup going around the burning wreck as he of the helicopter and approach me. But, being the optimist I was I had to try. And fail. The pickup was on me before I'd made it halfway, stopping about a foot from me.  Any further and it would have run me over. I got to my knees and put my hands on my head not giving them any immediate reason to kill me.  The man who had fired the rocket got out of the vehicle moments after it stopped. A man in military garb, not very old.  And not a foreigner.  I was expecting South American, but not ostensibly one of us.  A glance inside the vehicle showed the driver was a woman, in civilian clothes. A surprise, yes. "Mr. James I presume."  English, well spoken. Another surprise or more than one, that he spoke English and knew who I was. ...

I didn't get the last part of the opening sequence sorted until after we arrived in Vancouver.  I made a start on it before breakfast was served, though it was rather odd calling it breakfast when outside the plane it was nearly six in the afternoon. In finishing it much later, I think I've come up with a different direction to the one I planned, but in truth, I was never happy with where it was going from the start. That's why I prefer to plot on the run so that it doesn't necessarily get bogged down with a certain result in mind.  For me, that is the biggest bugbear is writing to a plan.  For some, though, I'm sure it works.  For me, not so much. So, what happened to the rest of the team? Just in case I'd made a mistake, I kept one eye on the target, who seemed to be consumed by the events unfolding, and another taking a wider search of the surrounding area to make doubly sure the team was still in control of the mission. They were not. A hundred ...

I've had time to think about the next part of this opening sequence. Long plane rides that leave in the dead of night are always conducive to working through plotlines because being on a plane in economy, the chances of getting any sleep is nigh on impossible. And yet, this time the impossible is possible, which means that sleeping has overtaken the thinking process, and it will have to wait till I've woken up. Of course, as usual, being in this interesting situation has provided another tangent, which is doing the impossible.  It reminds me of a saying I once heard, 'if you want the impossible it will take some time if want a miracle, that will take a little longer'.  Temper that with 'how long is a piece of string?' When we last visited our intrepid wannabe hero, we were left with a cryptic 'is anyone ever in the wrong place at the wrong time?' Sometimes, but not for our particular hero. It could be worse, I told myself, while the parame...

Back to the explosion at what was first thought to be at a takeaway.    Certainly , it had been  leveled, but so had several other building in the near vicinity, but we haven't got to that part yet. The boredom of the flight is still giving me an opportunity to explore the opening sequence a little further, where we left our man on the scene under tight police guard. In five minutes, perhaps less, the whole scene had turned into countless vehicles with red and blue flashing lights, screams from the victims, and yelling from the rescuers. I was still under police guard, but coming from the other side of the scene, a rather battered and bleeding street policeman came running towards us, stopping short of the man standing back, the one I assumed was in charge. “Tell me you've got them,” he gasped, then looking from the man in charge to me then back again, looking very concerned. “We have.” He looked very calm and pleased with himself. “What?  Him?” ...