Back in Harness

We’ve just arrived back from a very enjoyable trip to
UK, happy now that we have chosen an area we want to go back to when we finally
return to the UK later this year. It will be Pagham: about six miles south of
Chichester in West Sussex. It’s an area we are familiar with, and close to
family. Not too close though. We can’t do anything until my specialist at the
hospital gives me the good news about my treatment, but now at least we can
talk more positively about where we’ll be living and know that we are both
happy with the idea. While we were home we were able to see our eldest son’s
new house and enormous garden (half an acre). The work he and his wife have
done in the ten months or so they have lived there is nothing less than
inspirational. Vince works away from home all week, and Jackie works full time,
but they have managed to turn and overgrown jungle into something to delight
the heart of all gardeners. And it isn’t finished yet!

We also spent a long weekend with two friends of ours
who moved back to UK after seventeen years in Spain. They live in a park home
at Ruskington, near Sleaford. It was a nice relaxing weekend and not having
seen them for about eight or nine months, it gave us a good opportunity to
catch up.

I hadn’t planned to spend any time on the PC while away,
except to check e-mails etc., which is why my blog is well behind. I have
thought about my next book of which you have all seen the prologue now. Any
bright ideas out there about where I might go with it? I intend throwing myself
into this project now that I have a lengthy road ahead of me, but my target is
to have the book complete within six months. And one thing I must make sure of
is that there are no mistakes or typos in it. The eagle eyed among you (my wife
included) will have spotted the mistake in my last blog entry. Despite reading
through carefully before publishing, I managed to say that “I am now 100% fit”,
whereas I should have said, “I am NOT 100% fit”. Its amazing how one letter can
make a world of difference: something all writers should be aware of when they
are reading through their proofs. I can say that because I’ve been there and
got the T shirt.

I am also hoping to have my revamped website up and
running fairly soon, but it involves a little more web design before I can
unleash it upon the unsuspecting public. More care too on how I promote and
market my books is part of the plan for the immediate future. I will also be
re-publishing my novels. It’s all part of the plan to take control of my own
affairs. Once again I will have to convince myself that the titles are typo free.
This means proof reading again before they go to print on Amazon. Some of you might
question this, but I recently read HELL’S GATE and found some mistakes: nothing
to spoil the story but enough to make me shake my head in despair. Proof
reading, you see: most important. Wish me luck.

Having a Break

We’re heading to UK on Friday, so will not be spending
much time on the PC or my blog, if any. I certainly won’t be writing, and
sometimes I wonder how I’ll manage to get back into it when we return. Whenever
I’ve been asked advice about writing, I’ve always recalled that Churchillian
statement: ’Never Give Up’. And that old, J.B.Priestley nutmeg about applying
the seat of one’s pants to the seat of one’s chair. It will be time to follow
my own advice. We can talk all we like about writers’ block and plot building,
research etc., but in the end it comes down to prevarication, or dithering
perhaps is a better choice of word. One sound of piece of advice I’ve come
cross is to simply write and not worry about the final result until you start
editing and getting the second draft prepared. I can’t use my struggle with
chemo as an excuse because it’s now eight weeks since my final dose. I’ve had
two subsequent medication sessions since then, but these are meant to improve
my system. I must say I have felt a marked improvement, and other people see it
in me too, but I also have to guard against complacency because I know I am now
100% yet.

Me and Pat are looking at our trip to UK as a welcome
break after the last, traumatic six months. We’ll be seeing our eldest son’s
new home for the first time. My elder brother is now living at a different
address, and two friends of ours, Brian & Pauline are living in UK after
about 17 years in Spain. We will also be travelling down to East Sussex to
spend a couple of days looking around, figuring out if we can afford to buy a
park home there. We’ll be in UK for ten days all told, and we are really
looking forward to it.

Getting back to the struggle to write; I thought it
might be interesting at this stage to put feelers out to my numerous readers
about the direction in which I should go with my novel. Bear in mind though
that I have completed a great deal of research and piled in about 40,000 words,
but I decided to let you all have a taste of the opening prologue; just to get
your thoughts on it. Here goes:

Charlie Picket woke but did not open
his eyes. He felt the dubious comfort of the hard mattress in the motel room
pressing into him, but preferred it to the squalor of the Mexican prison he had
just left. He hadn’t planned to stop on his way to the American border, but the
long drive had proved wearying, and he had finally succumbed and pulled over
for the night. He was in a small town called Los Montesinos, somewhere between
the desert jail that had held him and the border crossing at El Paso. The motel
looked like a dump, and there was nothing he found in there to change that
impression. The room was squalid, barely furnished and prompted thoughts of a
quick, morning departure barely minutes after he had stretched his weary body
out on the iron bed. But he needed something to eat before giving in to sleep.

There was a taverna
opposite the motel, its flickering, neon sign struggling to light up the
parched ground as darkness fell. Only the sound of music, faint but clear, gave
it life. Picket hadn’t eaten for several hours as he pulled into the motel, and
the thought of a meal and a drink to chase it down seemed to make up for the
paucity of life around the small town. Perhaps it was because he hadn’t eaten
for so long or had a beer for several weeks that he stayed too long in the bar.
The music was good, the guitarist accomplished and the señoritas happy to flirt.
Picket was an attraction some of them found hard to ignore, and he would have
been pleased to accommodate them, but he didn’t want to end up in some dried up
river bed with his throat cut. So he kept them at arm’s length and took comfort
in the ambience and the drink; so much so that when he stepped out of the bar,
the night air seemed to floor him. He staggered back to the motel room and
after clumsily undressing he collapsed on to the bed with the thin sheet pulled
over him.

He opened his eyes
and could feel the throb of pain beneath his skull. His bladder was full and he
had an erection that a cat would have found hard to scratch. He lifted his head
from the pillow and stared up at the sunlight filtering through the yellowing
curtain hanging loosely over the window. He groaned and laid his head back down
again, wanting the pain to go away and more sleep to come. But the nagging
pressure in his bladder forced him to push himself up on to one elbow and take
stock. He remembered where he was and groaned as the thudding inside his head
increased and the nagging discomfort in his bladder urged him to get out of bed
before he pissed himself. He pushed himself up on one arm and sat like that for
a while, his head drooping from his shoulders and his arm trembling slightly as
it supported him. The bed sheet slipped down to his waist. He grabbed at the
thin edge and was about to pull it off when he saw her.

‘What the f….!’

The expletive died in his throat as his
eyes fell on the young girl. She was sitting on an upright chair in the corner
of the room, barely three feet from the end of his bed. She could only have
been about twelve or thirteen; no more. She was wearing what looked like
pyjamas and was barefoot. Her hair was dishevelled and her pyjama top was torn
and stained with mud. But it was her small feet that drew Picket’s attention:
they were covered in blood. And she was sitting there as though she belonged,
holding a gun and pointing it straight at him.

Back to My Roots

There was joy in the Parker household last week because
I have started growing eyebrows and a moustache. For new readers to my blog I
must explain that this isn’t because I am searching for a new look, but because
my chemo sessions finished seven weeks ago and the hair is beginning to return.
It’s like the first shoots of spring. Pat is already looking at a long one she
can see, but I’ve told her there will be no trimming until I decide. For the
moment I’m enjoying the sight of hair and not having to look at a bald, white
face. We are off to England at the end of next week, so maybe I’ll look a
little more presentable when we go round visiting family.

Another kind of shoot is beginning to express itself,
and that is the development of my latest manuscript. Having re-worked it for
goodness knows how long, I have started again. Over the last few months of
deliberating and obfuscating, I knew there was a great deal wrong with the way
in which I was building my characters and the plot line: I needed a little more
realism. For that reason I have changed the backgrounds and lifestyles of a
couple of them, and also not pitched the plot at too high a level. This was
more for my own sake than anything else. I think there are times when you can
be influenced by other writers and forget that you should only write the kind
of novels you want to read. I also realised that I had made a technical error in
the way in which I plotted a plane crash. It would have been picked up by the
more observant reader. It wouldn’t have harmed the story at all really, but
sometimes I find myself complaining about the short cuts some top writers take
without giving much thought to facts and realism. Mind you; that’s what fiction
is about, right?

I have managed to edge further down the road with my new
website, but I have to confess that it is still some way off before I can ‘launch’
it, and much depends on my hard working son. Once we’ve knocked it into shape,
I’ll be happy. However, with regard to re-writing manuscripts and launching
websites etc., I will be hampered by our trip to UK. It’s only for ten days,
but leading up to it and getting back into the swing of things when we return
will eat into my writing time.

I’ve also made a promise to myself that I will try to
use the social networks more efficiently, and continue to spend money promoting
my books. At the moment my sales are very low, although fairly constant, but I
am nowhere near the stellar results some indie writers enjoy (and I’m not
talking about best-sellers). Time will tell though.

Our break in England is going to be a welcome release
for me and Pat after the last six months, which included selling the house with
all that it entailed. Pat did ALL the work because of my illness, and I thank
God for having such a caring, loving wife. My faith in God has also helped
through the dark times and I have felt His presence all along.