I should be used to it by now, I really should. It happens
every time. Yet this morning I sat down to start work on a new project and was
disappointed to find it had happened agai
I couldn’t remember how to write a book.
The fact that I’m planning to make this next one a novella
rather than a full-length book does not, sadly make it any easier to get into.
I have the title for the novella, which will feature my
series heroine Charlie Fox.
After much indecision I finally went for ABSENCE
OF LIGHT, which I hope is reasonably intriguing.
There are a few reasons behind this choice. For a start, the
books have all had two-word titles right the way through from KILLER INSTINCT to DIE EASY. The short stories on
the other hand tend to have longer ones—Across The Broken
Line and Postcards
From Another Country for instance. So for something in between I wanted a
different shape of title.
The story itself will see Charlie acting as a replacement
security advisor for a group called Rescue & Recovery—R&R for short—as
they deal with the aftermath of a major earthquake. R&R’s job is to go into
disaster areas to help rescue the trapped and injured, recover the dead,
maintain order and start to rebuild damaged infrastructure. She’s joining a
tight-knit team who trust each other with their lives. But their last security
guy was killed on the job in what can only be described as suspicious circumstances.
Is the rest of the team covering for someone?
I knew the story was going to start with Charlie and another
person buried underground following an aftershock. Will she be rescued or will
she have to fight her own way out of the darkness alone?
And from that image came the title. When I looked up the
definition of absolute darkness there it was—a total absence of light.
Putting the team together was fun. An uptight French doctor
and pathologist, a laid-back Aussie helicopter pilot, an ex-Marine Corps
structural engineer and a young Brit girl with a labrador retriever trained to
sniff out both the living and the dead. All have a past from which they’re
trying to escape and none of them are keen for Charlie to find out what that
is. But how far are they prepared to go to stop her?
Eventually I had to resort to pencil and paper to find my
way into the story of this tangled group. After much scribbling and
scribbling-out, the opening line eventually deigned to present itself to me:
‘The last time I died they didn’t get a chance to put me in the ground
for it.’
Whether it remains after the final edit remains to be seen.
Meantime, I’m shakily getting my writing legs under me and I think I might—just
might—be able to remember how to do this after all …
Wish me luck!
This week's Word of the Week is malversation, meaning dishonest or
unethical conduct in office, such as bribery, extortion or embezzlement;
corrupt administration of funds, from the Latin male badly, and versari to
occupy oneself.
