FFB - The Stalking

Robert Faulcon’s six-part series of Night Hunter occult novels begins with The Stalking (1983). The author is actually Robert Holdstock, an award winning writer of fantasy, his most famous novel being Mythago Wood. He wrote a number of series novels under different pennames.

 

The Prologue begins with an encounter between Ellen Bancroft and David Marchant in a London street. Both worked for the Ennean Institute of Paranormal Research, though Ellen had mysteriously gone missing for some weeks. She doesn’t want to speak to him and a short while later Marchant is gruesomely murdered by some invisible force that Ellen has been evading. That’s the explosive beginning.

Then we’re into the story about Dan Brady and his family, wife Alison, son Dominick and daughter Marianna. They’ve moved into a new Berkshire home, Brook’s Corner. Dan works for the Ministry of Defence, studying thought transference. Their children begin having bad dreams and seeing people who aren’t there… An idyllic pre-Christmas family evening is ripped apart as robed intruders break in, ransacking the home, abusing his wife and kidnapping her and the two children, leaving Dan for dead with broken bones and a crushed throat. (Not for the squeamish, perhaps...)

However, Dan survives and is hospitalised for three months. Eventually, he meets up with Ellen who has become an expert on the occult forces responsible for the theft of his family.

Holdstock likes to play with time, and in chapter 15 we revisit the attack on Ellen and the death of Marchant; so the earlier 14 chapters happened before the Pplogue.

Ellen experienced a similar loss of family and now explains that both she and Dan are prey to psychic attack by someone who knows them. ‘In its commonest form, psychic attack is simply the willing, from some distance, of debilitating and distracting effects upon the victim: headaches, dizziness, lack of concentration, depression, hallucination and physiological changes that result in death.’(p111)

Their plan is to create a defensive fortress at Brook’s Corner in the hope of trapping the psychic entity and thus finding a link to its manipulator. The suspense is well done, the tension building towards the confrontation. Fans of horror, satanic action and witchcraft should enjoy this – providing you can get hold of a copy!

Naturally, not everything goes to plan, but Dan Brady survives and learns that his family is still alive, somewhere in the north. The scene is set for his search for them and for vengeance; he has become the Night Hunter.  

The other books in the series are:

#2 – The Talisman (1983)

#3 – The Ghost Dance (1983)
#4 – The Shrine (1984)
#5 – The Hexing (1984)
#6 – The Labyrinth (1987)

… and I’ll be reading them too.

Robert Holdstock died 2009, aged 61.

Writing – research – fingerprints-01

Beloved of crime novelists and readers, fingerprints have figured in fiction for a considerable time. They still have a part to play, even though we now have DNA profiling.

For hundreds of years, a thumb-mark was often used as a signature, but little was made of its uniqueness with regard to criminology.

Fingerprint - Wikipedia commons

 

The ‘papillary ridges’ we know as fingerprints are formed during the fourth and fifth months of the development of the foetus in the womb, and no changes occur after birth, save in size. No two individual fingerprints are believed to be alike (observed by JCA Mayer in 1788.)

In 1858, William Herschel, a young administrator of a rural area in Bengal, India, used right-hand first and middle finger prints of workers as signatures on contracts and receipts; then he extended the practice to all legal documents in his area and finally gave orders for prints to be taken of all convicted criminals so that identity would not be questioned. Twenty-one years later, he retired from the Indian Civil Service, taking his collection of fingerprints with him to England.

In Japan Henry Faulds, while working in the Scottish Medical Mission, became interested in fingerprints in pottery and experimented to such an extent that he discovered that fingerprints retained their uniqueness no matter how the hands were treated (with pumice stone, sandpaper, emery dust and even Spanish fly). He took prints of all ten digits. He wrote to the British scientific journal Nature in 1880, stating that ‘bloody fingerprints or impression on clay, glass etc’ could be used for the scientific identification of criminals.’ He named the technique dactylography.

His letter gained little interest, save that Herschel countered that his use of fingerprints antedated Faulds’. Dactylography remained unrecognised until after Fauld’s death.

However, Herschel gained the support of Sir Francis Galton who studied countless fingerprints and arrived at four distinguishing types:

Those with no delta (a small triangular area where the ridges ran together); those with a delta to the right; those with a delta to the left; those with several deltas.

He published his results in his book Finger Prints in 1892.

And in India yet again assistant magistrate Edward Henry studied Herschel’s techniques, even visiting London and Galton on leave.  By 1897, still in India, he developed a workable system of classifying the prints of all ten fingers, identifying arches, tented arches, radial loops, ulnar loops, and whorls, as well as deltas. The government of Bengal established the first national fingerprint bureau in the world.

In 1901 Henry was recalled from India and was appointed assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, in charge of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID). He swiftly set up a Fingerprint Department.

A Hive of Wordery

We tend to forget that there are a lot more book outlets, other than Amazon, Book Depository and Smashwords. Here are a few…

Fascinating to see my books on the Waterstones and Blackwell’s websites – paperback and e-books for sale. 

https://www.waterstones.com/books/search/term/nik+morton

http://bookshop.blackwell.co.uk/jsp/search_results.jsp?wcp=1&quicksearch=1&cntType=&searchType=keywords&searchData=Nik+Morton&g=

… though three of them are supposed to be out of print!

Foyles only stocks my Write a Western in 30 Days:

http://www.foyles.co.uk/all?term=Nik%20Morton

While the Book Butler site has a comprehensive coverage, including again books out of print or unavailable (likely direct link to Amazon):

http://www.bookbutler.co.uk/search?keyword=Nik+Morton

Full marks to Wordery – they only show my Nik Morton books still in print (paperback, not e-book):

https://wordery.com/search?term=Nik+Morton

and top marks to Hive for showing all my in print Nik Morton books/e-books:

http://www.hive.co.uk/search/Nik+Morton/mediatype/all/

Happy browsing... and buying!

 

Book choice for you

A website devoted to books. Hmm, worth a look.

And I see two of mine are there, as well! [Catalyst and The Prague Papers]

http://www.bookchoice4u.com/

This website is a showcase of books in a variety of genres. As the site blurb says, ‘feel free to browse the titles on the various pages of this site, and if there is something that appeals click on the book cover and you will be taken directly to the Amazon listing.  There you will find a description of the book, a summary of the story, and pricing details. Then - if you wish - buy a copy.’

Genre tabs include children’s and YA, crime and mystery, e-books of many genres, and historical and non-fiction.

Have a browse.

I can recommend:

Due Date by Nancy Wood (113 reviews!)

Due Process by Nancy Finch (2 reviews)

Treading on Dreams by Jeff Gardiner (4 reviews)

Still Rock Water by Francine Stanley (13 reviews)

Hooked by Jim Baugh (14 reviews)

Writing – market – Shattered Prism

A new short story market in science fiction and fantasy will debut in November. The magazine is called Shattered Prism.

Wikipedia commons - a swarm of ancient stars

It will be a twice yearly publication, November and May.

They are currently accepting manuscripts for the November issue – the window is limited, but I don’t know when it closes; submissions won’t be passed on to the next submission window but deleted.

Payment is 6c per word for original fiction, 2c for reprints.

They’re looking for stories with a word-count of 1,500 to 5,500.

Their speculative preference is broad: hard SF, soft SF, military SF, sociological and psychological SF, fantasy, urban fantasy, folk tales, alternative history, and other sub genres too numerous to itemise.

Great chance to get in at the ground floor for this venture.

Full details for submission can be found on their site:

http://shatteredprism.com/guidelines.html

Response time is estimated to be about a month.

Good luck!

Writing – competition - short story

This short story competition is intended to ‘showcase the best short stories from around the world’.

Deadline – 15 September, 2015

Prizes:

First - £300

Second - £150

Third - £50

Entry fee: £5 (PayPal only)

Word limit: 1,000-5,000 (maximum). Email only; as a Word document or pdf.

No poetry, novel chapters, sci-fi, fantasy or stories for children.

Only one story allowed per person. 

All submissions must be original and unpublished.

This is the fifth year for the competition and some helpful advice is appended on the website in the ‘submission guidelines’, including: Show don’t tell, adverbs, ‘if you’re going to do death, make it original’, opening and closing lines, the story’s premise, the avoidance of sentimentality, real dialogue, and follow the guidelines!

Full details can be found on the website: http://www.theshortstory.net/

Good luck!

 

FFB - The Shadow-Line

Joseph Conrad’s short novel, The Shadow-Line, is roughly the same length as his classic Heart of Darkness. Written in 1915, serialised in 1916, it was published in book form in 1917. The book is semi-autobiographical, echoing his first command some 27 years earlier. Its original title was indeed First Command. His son Borys was fighting in the First World War and Conrad comments, ‘It seems almost criminal levity to talk at this time of books, stories, publication’ and later added, ‘Reality as usual beats fiction out of sight’. He insisted that The Shadow-Line be published by itself, ‘because I did not like the idea of its being associated with fiction in a volume of short stories.’

The unnamed narrator is looking back on his youth, when a seaman in the Far East on a steam ship. He quits his position, feeling he needed something more, though he didn’t know what. Intent on returning to England, he is waylaid by the offer of his first command and jumps at the chance of becoming the captain of a sailing vessel. He goes to Bangkok to take command and immediately hits problems – his first mate Burns contracts a serious illness, and in the man’s lucid moments reveals that the previous captain lost his mind, cursing ship and crew before he died. Alarmingly, Burns believes he is possessed by the demon of the dead skipper. The young captain has no option but to set sail to meet his deadline but he is not at sea long before he learns that the majority of his crew have malaria. At about the same time, the wind drops and the ship is becalmed in the very waters where his predecessor was buried at sea. Only the young captain, the demented Burns and the cook, Ransome, who suffers from a dicky ticker, evade the onset of malaria. The youth’s mettle is sorely tested, but thanks to his innate humanity, gaining the respect and aid of his crew, he triumphs, appreciating that no man is able to stand alone.

At the outset, the story meanders, not going particularly anywhere. The young narrator is perceived as a competent seaman (highly thought of by his ex-Captain), but rudderless. ‘There was nothing original, nothing new, startling, informing to expect from the world: no opportunities to find out something about oneself, no wisdom to acquire, no fun to enjoy. Everything was stupid and overrated…’(p58) He is of sound character and mind, however, the youth observing, ‘… it flashed upon me that high professional reputation was not necessarily a guarantee of sound mind. It occurred to me then that I didn’t know in what soundness of mind exactly consisted, and what a delicate and, upon the whole, unimportant matter it was…’

As Conrad observed a long time before writing this book, ‘One always thinks oneself important at twenty. The fact is, however, that one only becomes useful when one realises the full extent of the insignificance of the individual in the arrangement of the universe.’(1892). He conveys this in the character of the narrator.

Of course the young captain gets his wish, and at the end of his two-week ordeal at sea he has gained wisdom and learned something about himself.

Conrad’s reminiscences about his time at sea inject realism into the story: ‘There is something touching about a ship coming in from sea and folding her white wings for a rest.’ (p64)

Deftly, he creates atmosphere: ‘The sparkle of the sea filled my eyes. It was gorgeous and barren, monotonous and without hope under the empty curve of the sky. The sails hung motionless and slack, the very folds of their sagging surfaces moved no more than carved granite… For a long, long time I faced an empty world, steeped in an infinity of silence, through which the sunshine poured and flowed for some mysterious purpose.’ (p113)

And when a storm approached: ‘The immobility of all things was perfect. If the air had turned black, the sea for all I knew might have turned solid. It was no good looking in any direction, watching for any sign, speculating upon the nearness of the moment. When the time came the blackness would overwhelm silently the bit of starlight falling upon the ship, and the end of all things would come without a sigh, stir, or murmur of any kind, and all our hearts would cease to beat, like run-down clocks.’ (p126)

The shadow-line of the title is a zone of transition between two states of being, youthfulness and maturity – the shadow-line that the young captain crosses.

This Penguin edition (1986) contains about 40 pages of introduction and notes (some of the latter mainly a glossary of nautical terms).

***

Note: One quotation from the book that could be applied to budding authors is:

 ‘All roads are long that lead to one’s heart’s desire.’ (p75) The moral is, persevere...

Writing – market – Muffled Scream

First Muffled Scream Anthology from Canadian small press Wicked Tales. Editor is Douglas Owsen.

Short Stories ranging from 3,000 to 20,000 words.

The theme = “Corner of the Eye”. 

Wikipedia commons

Deadline: August 31, 2015.

How to submit.

Your short story and a small two paragraph bio of yourself, supplied with your manuscript, attached to an email entitled “Short Story Submission – Muffled Scream” indicating which anthology you are submitting (ie Corner of the Eye) to the email address in the website:

http://wickedtales.ca/submissions/anthology/

The email address is set to delete emails with no attachments. If you have a question, use the ‘contact us’ form. Don’t run the risk of not having your short story published. And do remember to include your bio; several short stories were received without one, and your submission will be returned if one is not included.

They will accept first time authors!

Payment

All short stories are paid at $0.01 per word (after editing) up to a maximum of $150.00. All payments will be made via PayPal and in the first quarter of publication. Then, if the issue your story is included in breaks a profit, 50% of the net profit will be shared between the contributors on a per word basis for two years after the publication date.

Rights

The author retains all rights to their submitted short story. The story may not be published with another publisher or self-published in any form for one year after the publication of the anthology’s release date.

Good luck!

Writing - Supporting characters (1)

While main protagonists are essential for a good novel, very few books can survive without supporting characters – those secondary individuals who pop in and out of the story. In most cases they’re necessary to help move the story forward. For a beginning writer, they can be used to slow down the action, create interaction that does not move the story forward. So these pesky characters have to be watched carefully.

Any given hero or heroine needs a sounding board, and that’s the secondary character. Otherwise, there’s a risk of little dialogue and worse, the main protagonist may end up either talking to himself or thinking instead of doing.

But how many subsidiary characters can you use?

That depends on the work. A fast-paced thriller will require few, while an epic fantasy may depend on many.

As a rule of thumb, a standard-length book might have six prominent named characters; there will be others, but they tend to pass through, perhaps never to be seen again. A long while back, I recall reading that our memories are most comfortable with remembering lists or items up to six in number.

There’s no hard-and-fast rule about this. If each character is memorable in some way, then the problem won’t arise.

Additionally, we don’t want character names sounding similar or even beginning with the same letter; avoid reader confusion wherever possible.

Your subsidiary characters can crop up for a variety of reasons, so long as they serve the plot.

For my ‘Avenging Cat’ crime series, there are the continuous characters, Catherine Vibrissae, Rick Barnes, the two dogs of law, DI Alan Pointer and DS Carol Basset, and the villains  Loup Malefice and Emilio Zabala.

In Catalyst (#1 in the series) we also meet the private eye Avril Bradbury, head of Bradbury & Hood private investigation agency, est. 1896. Though Avril won’t necessarily figure in future books, I am planning a series of Victorian crime stories about the setting up of that agency, featuring Avril’s ancestors! Other characters are required from time to time to help our heroes. In Catalyst, Rick’s contact Leon Cazador proves useful when they go to Barcelona. Cazador is the half-Spanish half-English private eye featured in Spanish Eye, 22 cases ‘in his own words’.

 
In Catacomb (#2, to be published by Crooked Cat in October), we meet Chuck Marston, a retired safe-cracker and jewel thief, aged 62, who tutors Cat in his techniques. In the same book, we also meet Detective Latifa Badouri of Morocco’s Sûreté nationale – and when I finished I felt that I’d like to meet her again, and maybe I shall... (#3, Cataclysm is due out in December).

For my Tana Standish psychic spy series (set in the 1970s/1980s, beginning with The Prague Papers), again there are continuous characters, namely Tana herself, fellow agents Alex Tyson, Alan Swann and Mike Clayton, their boss Sir Gerald Hazzard, the British SIS psychologist, James Fisk, the thoroughly unpleasant Professor Dmitri Bublyk and his two psychic stars, Karel Yakunin and Raisa Savitsky. There is conflict between some of these people, and each has a purpose in moving the story forward. Besides these, there are 36 other named characters in The Tehran Text (#2 in the series). Even minor individuals deserve to have a name, providing they have a speaking part, of course! (#3, The Khyber Chronicle will be due early 2016).

 
My co-written work in progress, To Be King, the fantasy sequel to Wings of the Overlord (#1 in the Chronicles of Floreskand), currently has around 70 named characters – so far! This is a fantasy epic, however, and many individuals will be sustained over a half-dozen books.

There’s a full chapter dedicated to character creation in my book Write a Western in 30 Days (Chapter 8, p87) and it covers minor characters too, even tackling their description and names (and is not solely geared to the western genre).

 
I’ll return to this subject in another blog to discuss a handful of supporting characters who decided – nay, insisted – they wanted more than a small walk-on part and intruded on another character’s series of books...!
 
Catalyst – paperback & also currently a bargain e-book (till 27 August)
Amazon UK here                                  Amazon Com here

Spanish Eye – paperback & also currently a bargain e-book (till 27 August)

Amazon UK here                                 Amazon Com here

 

The Prague Papers - currently a bargain e-book (till 27 August)

Amazon UK here                                Amazon Com here

 
The Tehran Text - currently a bargain e-book (till 27 August)
Amazon UK here                                Amazon Com here

 Wings of the Overlord – hardback, (paperback due in December)
Amazon UK here                               Amazon Com here

Write a Western in 30 Days – paperback and e-book

Amazon UK here                              Amazon Com here

 

Blog Guest – Nancy Jardine – Secondary Characters

Today’s blog guest is Nancy Jardine, who has some interesting points to make with regard to writing about secondary characters in fiction. She is visiting again as her new book, Take Me Now, has only recently been published (June). The previous blog is here

Nancy is becoming a prolific writer with a varied stable of books:

The Taexali Game - time travel historical adventure set in Severan Roman Britain AD 210 (Aberdeenshire) for Middle Grade/ YA readers.

Take Me Now - fun contemporary romantic mystery featuring fabulous worldwide cities.

Monogamy Twist- contemporary romantic mystery set in Yorkshire, England; quirky Dickensian plot.

Topaz Eyes- finalist for The People’s Book Prize Fiction 2014 – romantic mystery thriller.

Celtic Fervour Series of Historical Romantic Adventures - AD 71-84. Book 1 (The Beltane Choice), Book 2 (After Whorl: Bran Reborn) & Book 3 (After Whorl: Donning Double Cloaks); Book 3 ends in Aberdeenshire.

***

Secondary Characters

Hello, Nik. Thank you for inviting me to your blog today! [You're welcome!]

I was once asked how I used secondary characters in my novels and I didn’t have a ready made answer. Since I’m mostly a ‘pantser’ author, my secondary characters appear as I write the story, some having larger roles than others depending on why I’m using them in the plot.

I also know some quite astute authors who are ‘plotters’. Those authors always ensure they plan the ‘arrival’ of a new secondary character with the view that that person might just be the one to feature in a sequel or subsequent novel in a series.

One reviewer for Take Me Now writes that she really adored Ruaridh, Nairn Malcolm’s father. Review comments like that are always great to read because I loved writing Ruaridh into the novel. He’s an incredibly likable ‘older’ man and at fifty-nine, he’s still very attractive to the local ladies. Ruaridh is so personable that he is, in fact, the creator of some jealousy between Nairn—the main male character—and Ruaridh. Nairn knows just how popular his father is with Aela Cameron—the leading female role— and is gutted that she could possibly favour his father more than him. A read of the story shows just how possible that scenario can be.

 

So far, I’ve not featured an older man as the main protagonist of any of my novels but Ruaridh would be a good character to feature if I ever wanted to make him a central character— romantic novel or not.
 
I’ve tried to make him a realistic old Scot, a man of the isles who loves his life at the boatyard on Lanera, a fictitious island off the west coast of Scotland. The weather there isn’t kind for much of the year but it makes for a pragmatic and tough older guy. When I wrote him into the story, I thought carefully about his age and the divorced situation between Ruaridh and Nairn’s mother. I know plenty of women who’d want to swap a windy and rainy Scottish west coast island for the much sunnier and milder climate of Barcelona, though Caitlinn stuck with the marriage till Nairn was of university age. That situation of sticking with trials and tribulations for a long time, I think, goes along with the almost Calvinistic attitude that still prevails in many parts of western Scotland.

Would a reviewer write that Caitlinn is a pleasant secondary character? I don’t believe so but it’s not because she’s a downright nasty bitch. The reader only learns about Caitlinn in the passing as she’s a very minor character, yet she does play an important function in eventually straightening out the jealous tension that exists between Nairn and Ruaridh.

 
Though this blog post is about the characters in Take Me Now, there’s also very likeable old man in Tully, the chief of the Garrigill Celtic Hillfort in my historical romantic adventure The Beltane Choice.
 
Hmm. Maybe I do need to give the ‘older’ man a role in a future novel?
 
Do you have any favourite strong secondary characters in a novel you’ve read…or in one that you’ve written?

***

Thanks, Nancy. I wonder if your question will get any responses! Indeed, I’ll blog about this aspect myself, I reckon.

***

Find Nancy at the following places

Blog:  http://nancyjardine.blogspot.com  Website:  http://nancyjardineauthor.com

Facebook  LinkedIN   About Me    Goodreads   Twitter @nansjar  Google+ (Nancy Jardine)   YouTube book trailer videos   Amazon UK author page   Rubidium Time Travel Series on Facebook  http://on.fb.me/XeQdkG

 

 

 

Plenty of good coppers about

Lately, there’s been a lot in the news about the reduced presence of police in UK. Yes, they may be involved in a game of political football, blaming ‘the cuts’, but the bottom line is that crimes are not reported, or recorded as such, and now we learn that some so-called forces are only responding to burglaries if your house is odd-numbered! Other forces won’t respond at all, and will expect you to email them with the details. Talk about encouraging thieves! Of course if any hate crime is perpetrated, possibly by a toddler in the playground, then they will log that ‘crime’.  Soft option; beats chasing criminals.

The writing has been on the wall for some years, doubtless beginning with the political correctness that crept into their function, from the top down. The police have grown further apart from the populace they are supposed to safeguard, resulting in distrust; they are no longer held in such high esteem. Catch criminals, prevent crime? No, they’d rather indulge in social engineering. This is a generalisation, but the effects of so-called modern political policing seem widespread and insidious.

Broken Britain? Yet without effective policing anarchy is not too far off. Worse, still, freedom of speech is already threatened and the concept of the thought police is no longer science fiction, but with us now.

Broken Britain? If criminals are caught (a muted hurrah!) then don’t rely on the justice system to put them out of circulation… The judiciary are to a large extent living on another planet – or at the very least a protected insular world.

Broken Britain…? If the police prove incapable of enforcing justice and standing up for fairness, then it seems almost inevitable that vigilantism, no matter how undesirable, will rise.

Into this mess arrives one such vigilante: Sudden Vengeance.

 

The e-book is on sale on all Amazon sites until 27 August; the book has a fair number of good reviews online and inside the covers. Don’t forget to cheer as the criminals get the justice they so richly deserve!

When justice fails, a vigilante steps forward

In the broken Britain of today, faith in the police is faltering. Justice and fairness are flouted. Victims are not seen as hurt people but simply as statistics.

Paul’s family is but one example of those victims of unpunished criminals. In the English south Hampshire coastal town of Alverbank, many others are damaged and grieving. It cannot go on. There has to be a response, some way of fighting back.

 
A vigilante soon emerges and delivers rough justice, breaking the bones and cracking the heads of those guilty individuals who cause pain without remorse. Who is the vigilante?  He – or she – is called the Black Knight. The police warn against taking ‘the law into your own hands’. But the press laud the vigilante’s efforts and respond: ‘What law?’ Will the Black Knight eventually cross the line and kill?
 
Paul and his family seem involved and they are going to suffer…
 

***

However, in mitigation, even now, there are plenty of good coppers about:

Reg Owen climbed down from the pantechnicon’s cab. He felt the cold breeze on his unshaven face and was glad of the tam-o’-shanter.

The truck driver gave him a couple of pound coins and a packet of crisps. “Don’t spend it all at once, mate.”

“Thanks. And thanks for the lift.”

“Hope you have better luck here, mate,” the driver said, and drove off.

This was a new town for Reg. He could do with a bit of luck.

He walked alongside an old brick wall set in alternate courses of Flemish bond, keeping to the shadows, then turned down a narrow passage, which he later learned the locals had nicknamed “Squeeze-gut Alley”. He was fifty-eight, slightly stooped, in a grey pinstripe suit that had seen no dry cleaner in many months.

His hands were covered in black woollen gloves and he wore a tattered dirty old school scarf, but he still shivered. Winter was not the best time to lose your business, family and home.

Suddenly, he stopped, alarmed by the black shape ahead of him, framed by the end of the alley. He’d been homeless six months, maybe longer; long enough to learn how to steer clear of trouble. He glanced back the way he’d come – it was still clear, so perhaps there weren’t any hoodlums out to beat up an old tramp. He was about to turn and walk the other way.

The stranger spoke. “You’re new in town, aren’t you?” The voice was firm and deep, but there was no threat, only the hint of concern and interest in it.

“Yes.” Reg relaxed a little. “Hitched a lift on a lorry. I’m hoping my luck might change for the better – somewhere fresh...”

The stranger stepped closer and now Reg made out the hat and glint of badges on the uniform. A police constable on his beat. Still a few of them about, then; thought they were an endangered species.

Just my bad luck, he groaned. He had no wish to be moved on for vagrancy. He was cold and tired.

“Have you eaten?” the policeman asked.

Reg patted his pocket gently. “I’ve got a packet of crisps, courtesy of the lorry driver.”

The policeman stood about a foot away. Clouds moved and the disclosed moon lit up a face of strong intelligent features. “I’ll take you round the block, there’s a good cafe – Ron’s Place, it’s called.”

Moving to walk alongside the bobby, Reg said, “Er, thanks, er–”

“Paul. Paul Knight.”

“Reginald Owen. Building Contractor Brackets Failed.” He grinned. “Much appreciate it.”

“The recession hit you bad, then?”

“Yes. That and a crooked partner! Lost the home. Wife and son left me – couldn’t blame them, I’d failed...”

“I’m sorry. Do you want to talk about it?”

Reg chuckled. “Thanks for asking, Paul, but I already bored the pants off the poor lorry driver. Too many uncomfortable memories, you know.”

“All right. Where will you stay tonight?”

“Don’t rightly know.” Reg shrugged. “I suppose your small town doesn’t take too kindly to vagrants?”

Paul sighed. “We have more homeless people than we’d like – an overspill from Pompey.”

They stopped outside a shop window set in the wall of a half-timber building. Sacrilege! Reg thought, observing the cracked and dirty clay and brick between the wooden framework, all in need of renovation – like himself, he supposed. A sign over the door announced RON’S PLACE.

“Ron here will take you in for one night till you get the chance to look around.” Paul put a hand in his pocket, smiled. “If that’s all right?”

“It’s good of you to suggest it, but I’ve only got a couple of quid. I’ll need that for food.”

Paul held up a five-pound note. “Ron’ll take you in for two-fifty – to cover the laundry. A fry-up’ll cost a pound.” He handed over the note. “Just tell Ron I sent you.”

Feeling dampness prick the corners of his eyes, Reg turned to look inside the cafe. There were no customers. A large black-bearded man waved at him. Presumably Ron.

Reg turned, said, “Thank–” and was startled to discover that the policeman called Paul Knight had gone.

Reg Owen pushed open the door, the overhead bell tinkling, and entered the welcoming warmth. Perhaps his luck had changed, after all.

- Sudden Vengeance, (p109-111)

Amazon UK here

Amazon COM here

Amazon Canada here

Amazon Australia here

Writing – competitions – resources

Today, I’m writing about writing for competitions! Why bother?

Improving as a writer is an ongoing process. There’s never a time when the learning stops. There’s a lot of truth in the saying, the more you write, the better you become. Providing you keep honing the craft. None of us has achieved perfection – otherwise editors would be out of a job! – so we must persist in writing regularly, often and be critical in our self-editing phase.

That’s all very well if the work runs smoothly and comes to an end. What if you’re stuck for ideas? Or can’t move forward on a particular piece?

One way to recharge the writing machine in you is to leave the current problematic work and try something fresh. An ideal choice is a competition; particularly if the competition has a theme. Competitions have deadlines: that also proves helpful to the writing soul – instilling in us discipline to finish to a deadline.

Throughout the year there are plenty of competitions for writers of short fiction, poetry, and even novels. Some have modest entry fees (about £5 or equivalent), while others are free to enter. Useful resources for being notified about these are the magazines Writers’ Forum and Writing Magazine (revamped to now contain a Writers’ News section).

In addition there are a good number of online sites that alert you.

Here’s a very comprehensive site, definitely worth subscribing to:

http://compsandcalls.com/wp/

Good luck with your writing – and your competition entries!

PS - http://completelynovel.com/articles/how-to-win-a-short-story-competition