Tag Archives: Writing

WIPs – The Trials and Tribulations of Works In Progress

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WIPs are works in progress otherwise known as the trials and tribulations of writing.This is the never ending search for the next book to read. Reading requires authors to write stories, meaning me, in this case. I look with envy at other writers with seemingly endless series that all seem to sell well, judging from the number of reviews they receive. My only criticism is the formulaic nature of the stories; however, it’s a formula that sells.

I’ve been wading through several linked series by Mark Dawson covering the John Milton character and two spin off stories with their own series – over thirty books I think. I’ve also been enjoying Mick Herron’s Slough House series. It is a recent Apple TV+ drama, renamed as Slow Horses from the title of the first book in the series. Having read that, I must congratulate the TV makers in their adherence to the story.

Progress

My own progress has been slow in completing my Coming Soon list. This remains a longer list on the dedicated page on this site. It also includes additions to one series. Except my sci-fi Space Opera The Observers, none of my books set out to be series.

As long as we don’t define soon, as anytime this decade, the tales may appear! It is high time I updated the list on the main page. Perhaps, it might lead to more focus on the actual writing. If I list what I have actually been working on rather than hoping to work on, progress may be inspired.

Showing some possible cover choices too. The other coming soon books have not gone away in terms of I have not thrown the files away. The list below is in closest to publication order but this of course can change.

Other books remain as WIP, including the third part of The Observers story. That has stalled. The never-ending search for the sequel to To The Survivors continues. It gets occasional single line updates.

Written

Written
A Novel of storms, secrets and relationships

Editors Note – Now renamed and published 1st November 2022 as Semblance of Storms

A novel of writing, lust, storms, secrets and relationships – A major effort and close to completion. It’s huge (for me). I have also tried to release it (so far unsuccessfully) via a formal route with literary agents etc. The draft blurb is below and will be on the dedicated page for Written when it is published

All that is required, by his publishers is to write a fourth book, not like the flop that was his third. His successful first two books bought him fame, some fortune and disputes with his terminally ill father. He wants his son to help with his half-sister. If only her mom, wouldn’t give confusing messages on what she wants; possibly him. A family friend and lawyer will help, as he always has done but there are secrets in his past too.


His new book will be a tale of boy meets girl in his usual elaborate and descriptive style. His agent, wants him to produce it soon but he has his own pressures from his new investors. There might be a movie deal to be negotiated. The new investor is represented by an attractive woman who is infamous for other reasons.


His editor, wants him to finish the book so she can stop his publisher asking for the advance back. She hopes he has written something as good as his first published book. He does too. He needs to concentrate on writing this book not drafting anything else. Old lost, and possible new loves and lusts, keep distracting him. The idle beach lifestyle diverts him as do post pandemic visitors.


Just when he begins to make progress on the last chapters a hurricane approaches his home in North Carolina. If he goes to visit his father, another storm may await in Houston. His neighbor and that family add further complications and there are more secrets to hide or avoid, especially from the FBI.

Sails

Sails Cover

The third part of the Sailing series with Sailing Clear and Sail Chains already out. The first chapters have been completed. The plot is outlined and progressing.

Recount

A follow up to Counter – first chapters completed Ben and Helen return a few years after the events in Counter.

Lines

A time travel sci-fi – first chapters written

Harvest Girl

Harvest Girl

A short story which is almost finished

Others

  • Three Parts Broken – Half dozen chapters
  • Last Cruise – First chapter
  • Help Me! – First two chapters
  • No Luck – Brief outline
  • I’m Dead – First few chapters
  • Salad Dressing – First two chapters
  • Saviour – First few chapters

Almost Retired – From Formal Work

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Today 31st March is a strange day. Following redundancy I have decided to retire from full-time employment. I wish I could say my working life has No Regrets like the song but there have been many. I didn’t do it all My Way either despite many positives.

History

I started full time work with a small company called Microwave Associates as an electronics technician before moving to British Aerospace testing missile components – which could be a lot of fun – I had a penchant for blowing things up.

I joined the Royal Air Force and was commissioned in time for the end of the Falklands War, luckily I didn’t go down there until later.

After 17.5 years I left to start a civilian career. I had lots of jobs with lots of different companies, some so-called permanent roles and then may engagements was a contractor. Some contractor roles lasted longer than the permanent ones. That was before returning to full time for the last ten years or so and now that has come to an end.

What Now

Of course, never say never, but… I have hectic plans for the next few months, and a very long list of things that I have been putting off. Now, I may I have more time. I’ll continue to write whenever I can or get the urge.

I’ll still take photos and post some. I hope to get my guitar and piano back to a decent standard (Not much hope there). Perhaps, I will finish digitising old photo albums.

My much better half has a few things planned, and we have travel plans too. Perhaps another long distance walk, now the memory of the pain of the last few days of South Downs has dimmed.

All these plans depend on maintaining our health and keeping finances in budget.

Reflections

This is a time to reflect, and I have been over the last few weeks. The clock has slowly ticked down. No more email and Teams meetings. No more deadlines and fighting corporate bureaucracy. I will miss work colleagues, but I won’t miss late night go-lives or security incidents.

None of us know how long we’ll have left to enjoy life. I certainly intend to enjoy what time I do have without worrying about booking leave and making sure that task is complete. So, a new chapter begins. That reminds me I need to get writing….

Translations – languages not English

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Lots of updates on translations of my books with dedicated pages created for Spansih, Portuguese, French and Italian copies. This includes links to the various translators via BabelCube, You can find the pages here

Span FlagPort Flag 2French FlagItaly Flag

More translations are in the works.. The current list is here.

Translated versions are available on multiple platforms including Amazon Kindle, Apple Books and Google Play as well as other platforms. These are all as e-books.

Counter Is Free On Kindle

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The spy thriller Counter is Free on Kindle from Saturday 22nd January to Monday 25th January, inclusive

Counter Cover

Ben Walker, The Count, is off the grid hiding because of what he took. A life in the shadows with covert military operations was terminated. He sought revenge. He tracked down the chain of command. LC is the man who tried to have him killed but he made an offer to be a different type of hunter.

Now, Walker has taken information and money and gone into hiding. LC wants Walker and what he took. He will take extreme measures to get it. LC has also disappeared. He is wanted too.

The hunters are now hunted.

Helen Lawrence is part of a team cobbled together from the maze of Government agencies. They set out to try to find Walker so that he can help find LC who has also vanished. The team members are not all they seem and if they do find him then the real hunt needs to start. She has her own problems and desires without an entanglement with Walker.

The missing data is valuable.

The motives of the agencies are unknown.

The bullets are real.

The Longer View

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We need to sometimes take a longer view. The media (social and mainstream) would lead most people to believe that the world has never been so dangerous or that governments have never been so incompetent or evil. Whether its the latest news on Brexit, Trump’s Tweets, Putin’s evil intent or the chaos that is Syria and Yemen. There appears to be a tendency to ignore even recent history.

It seems apt that I take a personal perspective. This year marks the 40th year (in August) since I entered full time employment. I left school at 17 (Much to my parents annoyance) half way through my A Levels. It was unusual then to even take A Levels. University was for less that 20% of the population. I was in the vast majority. The UK was a very different place. A Labour Government was in charge under Jim Callaghan as Prime Minister and his infamous ‘Winter of Discontent’ was to follow that winter.

I had dreams of being a rock star (don’t laugh) instead, I became an Electronics Technician earning (via a weekly brown envelope holding the cash) £29 per week. Equivalent to about £160 in today’s inflation affected money. The inflation rate was 7.8%. It would rise higher along with interest rates.

The UK was known as the sick man of Europe which was the trading block known as the EEC or Common Market as it was commonly known. The UK had joined the EEC with Denmark and Ireland in 1973 – there was no referendum. It did have a referendum to remain in 1975.

The troubles were 10 years old in Northern Ireland, and that year 82 deaths were attributed to the conflict. The next year would be worse. The UK was still supporting the new Oman regime but elsewhere was not directly militarily involved, except of course the day to day cold war with the Soviet Union. To give some context to Middle East troubles including Oman this is a handy reference – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_modern_conflicts_in_the_Middle_East

Jimmy Carter was US President having beaten Gerald Ford in 1976. Ford of course had become President after Nixon resigned in August 1974. (pence for Trump?) The Iranian revolution would follow in 1979, with all the troubles that caused Carter. Brezhnev was the leader of the Soviet Union and would be until Nov 1982. He would be in charge when the Soviet Union entered Afghanistan in 1979 – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Afghan_War.

It took the Soviet Union nearly 10 years to ‘get out’ of Afghanistan. The US supported the Mujahideen including Bin Laden with advisors and weapons. The US Ambassador to Afghanistan was murdered in 1979 initially blamed on a communist group. The US, UK and others still have troops there since the October 2001 invasion, and in Iraq since March 2003. How long will it be until we completely leave both countries.

In 1978, Germany was split East and West with Berlin a split city in the East. Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia, were still joined. Solidarity in Poland was still a couple of years off. The KGB was the security apparatus of the Soviet Union supporting the vassal states in the Warsaw Pact. A Bulgarian exile, Georgi Markov was murdered on a London Street by a poisoned umbrella pellet in Sept 1978. Odd murders by security services are not new.

The World Wide Web would not be invented until 1989 and have little relevance until the late 1990s. There were 16 million users world wide in 1995 when I was a military officer on an Exchange post in the USA. Now. there are over 4 Billion. The Internet of course existed in Military and scientific fields before that.

Writing this is has reminded me how much has changed personally and how little has changed world wide. Yes, names have changed and regimes have changed, but global politics is as messy as ever. We still have Middle East conflict, US Presidential politics, and rows about Europe. We can add in the mix a rising China and risk of trade wars, climate changes, and the risks from population growth. Despite the current issues it still feels a better world than watching uncollected rubbish pile on the streets whilst walking to work because of yet another strike.

One Morning In The Office Take 7

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One Morning in The Office – a satire @realdonaldtrump

"Welcome back Mr President."
"Good to be back, Air Force One's bed is too small."
"Compared to?"
"All my other beds and the hotels, even the UK Ambassador's residence was bigger."
"Do yo want me to get a bigger bed in Air Force One?"
"I've already told them to do it. The idiots claim they'll have to redesign the 747 or use that big Airbus thing they fly wings in"
"That would please the Europeans but haven't we imposed tariffs on them?"
"Yeah, still if they want me to have it they can pay for it like the wall."
"Sir, the Mexicans aren't paying for the wall. In fact, no one is paying for the wall."
"We're getting if for free?"
"No Sir. We have claimed to have built the walls that were put up in 2006 and California has added a few miles to the fences they put up years ago..."
"Zzzzzzz"
"Sir!" "Sorry I dozed off. Jet lag."
"Sir, what I wanted to ask is, what statement do you want me to put out about your meeting with Vlad."
"Did you check the thes, thees, tess, that dictionary thing?"
"The Thesaurus? Yes Sir.
"And?"
"Sir, would, would not, could, could not, should and should not, all have different meanings."
"You're sure?"
"I have it here if you want to read it?"
"Not fake news?"
"No, Sir."
"What about wouldn't and would?"
"They are opposites Sir."
"Damn, what now?"
"You'll have to apologise Sir or say you made a mistake."
"Out of context?"
"It's recorded Sir."
"Damn.... Still I can re-tweet something else afterwards, get the press running around in circles again."
"Even Fox were concerned."
"Give them another interview like we did with that British paper, that went well."
"You mean directly contradict what you said on audio and video after the event."
"Just like with Vlad. Anything from him?"
"Only the note about the extra service in the Helsinki hotel."
"What extra services?"
"The same as the Moscow hotel, it's on your preference list for that chain. The Secret Service would not let them in."
"Who told them to do that. I needed some relaxation these summits are hard."
"Remember Sir it was not a summit just a meeting to improve relations."
"Great success."
"With whom Sir?"
"All my meetings were a success."
"NATO, the UK, Germany, the EU?"
"All went perfectly. They all agreed to do what I told them."
"I'm not sure they think that."
"They don't matter. I've won the war in Syria, kicked out those Irises..."
"ISIS, Sir, Irises are flowers."
"You sure? Anyway, wall is going up, got the tax cuts done my poll ratings are up..."
"Actually they are not up."
"...Economy is great I did it all."
"Of course you did Sir."
"Who says different?"
"No one would dare Sir."
"You been watching that fake news again."
"No Sir. I read the Intelligence service brief and the report from the Federal Reserve. Mr Mueller is still investigating."
"Fake News, Fake News, Fake News. Vlad and Xi are happy."
"Actually Xi is not happy about the new sanctions."
"Why not." "He wants a bigger cut. So does Kim."
"Nice fella', A bit short. No dice, it's my deal take it or leave it. I got NATO to increase spending by buying American weapons."
"I don't think they actually agreed to that."
"I did. I tweeted that so it must be true."
"Yes Sir. There's another problem with one of your former er... acquaintances."
"Which one?"
"Karen McDougal, she was a Playboy Model."
"Which one?"
"Sir? Cohen had a tape of you and he discussing a payment to her?"
"A tape?"
"Yes Sir and the FBI have it now."
"Check that Thesaurus thing again on would and wouldn't."
"Yes Sir, anything else? I have to go and testify to the Grand Jury again."
"Yeah, more important things, can't Boeing build a bigger bed?" "Sir????"

The Modern Dictator?

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Human beings seem to have a fascination with the strong man form of government. Sometimes this is masked by the appearance of democratic election but in most cases this gives way to pure dictatorship. We seem to be going through a period of such leaders now.

In the 1930s many of the great powers of the world had dictatorial leaders. In the intervening period the form of government has continued albeit the leaders have tended to be of smaller countries in terms of world power. That is not to underestimate the damage they have caused to their own countries and their neighbours. Although Putin appears below his leadership has changed a virtually collapsed Russia back into a global power

Now we appear to have entered an era of great dictators once more and a worrying trend in the behaviour of others. Turkish democracy on the surface appears robust with a near 90% turnout in the recent election. But the result of the election was to allow President Erdoğan to claim additional powers.

Combine this with further limitations on opposition leaders, the free press and total biased control of the state media and you have the trappings of a one party, one leader state. Throw in the hate for a minority group (the Kurds) that a German citizen in 1938 might recognise. Including direct military intervention across an international border.

At the start of WWII the dictators appeared to support each other Mussolini, Franco, Stalin and Hitler in Europe with Hirohito in Japan.  The USA was isolationist and the Smoot-Hawley Act not only worsened and extended the Great Depression in the USA it also angered its nearest neighbours and allies. Another lesson from history seemingly ignored by the current US President.  I am not claiming that the current 45th President of the United States of America is a fascist dictator he just seems to prefer their company and seems unconcerned with angering his allies.

There seems to be several common traits on the path to dictatorship.

  1. Limit and ridicule free press
  2. Ridicule then imprison opposition
  3. Appoint cronies to all independent roles
  4. Blame outsiders (Terrorists, immigrants, minorities, trade, stealing jobs)
  5. Take more powers centrally to help control the situation
  6. Appeal to lowest common denominator in electoral support
  7. Rig election
  8. Take more powers centrally
  9. Remove opposition and free press completely (Assassination, imprisonment)
  10. Use military force against outside opponents or threaten such
  11. Award oneself numerous medals and awards

Not Too Much – Out Today

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Not Too Much is out today

Alex has everything. He’s one of the most eligible bachelors in the world. He’s chased by the Paparazzi and once went out with a communist. Now he hides from publicity whilst trying to find a soul mate.

Victoria is a struggling waitress in a London restaurant. She shares a flat with Sophie an aspiring actress whilst trying not to give up a dream of making a success.

They meet and try to make it work in this contemporary romance