A scintillating story of secrets, sex, and snowboarding, Taking the Plungeis the debut novel from J.B. Reynolds and the first book of the Small Town, High Country romantic comedy series. Here’s the prologue.
Taking the Plunge
Kate tipped the plastic can so a stream of petrol flowed from the spout and splashed over the collection she had stacked in the back yard. She was careful to lean forward and extend her arm as far she could — it wouldn’t do to set herself on fire as well as her husband’s belongings. It had taken her a couple of hours to gather the items together and mounded as they were, like rugby players in a ruck, the heap was not inconsiderable. Oh well, she thought, if the neighbours call the fire brigade I’ll just have to accept it. No doubt they’d charge for the callout but Lawrence could pay for that. The assembled items included a set of golf clubs, a mountain bike, all Lawrence’s clothes from their wardrobe, two sets of skis and boots (racing and telemark), fishing rods and flies, a wetsuit and dive regulator (she’d left the oxygen tanks, worried they might explode), a pair of water skis, his collection of awful, nineties techno CDs, a large backpack, hiking boots and the sail from his windsurfer (the board itself was a large, unwieldy thing, and she’d been concerned about the flammability of its foam core and how toxic the smoke might be. The CDs alone would be bad enough — she didn’t want to poison anyone). The windsurfer was functionally useless without a sail anyway, so she’d still get her point across. Kate was under no illusion that the collected items were ideal fuel for a bonfire and so had asked for and been given three wooden pallets from the hardware store that afternoon. When she shifted Corbin’s car-seat to the front of her Santa Fe and folded the back-seats down, there was just enough room to fit them in for the drive home. It had taken an hour of toil to break them up with a hammer and an axe and add them to the pile, toil that had brought on a profuse sweat despite the chill of the winter breeze. With the sun lowering in the sky, the breeze had died, and it really was the perfect evening for a bonfire. She completed her careful circle round the heap, sloshing petrol into it as far as she could, then backed away towards the house, dribbling a short trail with her. After replacing the cap and setting the can aside, she looked through the viewfinder of the digital camera she’d set up on a wooden stool, checking her framing. Satisfied, she set it to record. Then she took a matchbox from her pocket, struck a match and dropped it at the head of her trail of gas-soaked grass. The trail leapt into flame, raced to the pile and exploded with an onomatopoeic, hot and extremely satisfying WHOOSH. Kate watched the burning heap for a few minutes, mesmerised. A seething cloud of acrid, charcoal coloured smoke billowed into the air, but no neighbours poked their heads over the fence and no sirens sounded in the distance. She wrinkled her nose, then turned to the west, noting the sun had dipped towards the mountains. She checked her watch — almost five-thirty, Lawrence would be home soon — collected the camera and returned inside. Corbin was still asleep on the couch, a happy convenience that made her wonder if God was supportive of her measures. She roused him with a gentle shake, and while he came to his senses she placed another log on the fire and closed the curtains, leaving a gap by the dining table through which she could keep an eye on the fire outside. Gathering Corbin up, she plopped him into his high-chair, strapped him in and served him dinner, a mix of rice, casseroled beef and vegetables. He smiled at her, brandishing a plastic spoon and attacking his meal with gusto, slopping brown sauce over the side of his bowl and his face. Kate poured herself another glass of wine and was pouring one for Lawrence when she heard the familiar purr of his car coming up the drive. Sipping her wine, she listened to the garage door opening and closing, the grunting and shuffling in the hallway as he removed his coat and then his muffled footsteps, the pads becoming clacks as he stepped from hall carpet to the tiles of the kitchen. She turned, and for the first time since she had discovered the incriminating photos of Lawrence and she who shall not be named, greeted him with a smile. He looked tired — eyes dark, complexion pale, his forehead rutted with wrinkles. “Hard day? Here, have a drink.” His eyebrows reared up at the bridge of his nose, like a furry black caterpillar staring at its reflection in a mirror. He cocked his head and took the glass. “Thank you.” He looked at her, questioning, but she stared blankly back, giving no answer other than the thin smile tracing her lips. “Daddy!” Corbin saluted Lawrence with an upraised spoon that sent a dollop of brown goo flying across the table. “Hello, my beautiful boy. How are you?” He moved to Corbin’s side, bent and plastered his son’s cheek with kisses, blowing a raspberry that made Corbin shriek and giggle. He looked at her again, lips parting to reveal yellowing teeth, but her smile had vanished and his withered and died. He straightened, and with a shake of his head, said, “Greg was in again this afternoon. He’s impossible, that man. It’s like he thinks tax laws should only apply to poor people.” “Don’t they?” She arched her eyebrows and took another sip of wine. Lawrence snorted. “Of course not. There’s still laws for rich people,” he said, swirling the crimson liquid in his glass. “They’re just different ones.” She leaned over the kitchen counter, elbows and wine glass sliding across the granite. “Have a drink. It’s not poisoned.” His eyes flicked to hers, springing wide for an instant. The thin smile returned. He nodded, a tiny bob of the head, returned his gaze to the glass in his hand and sniffed at it, then took a sip. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but then paused, brow furrowing, and stepped towards the curtains. “What’s with the fire?” he asked, peering through the gap. She shrugged. “Oh, just thought I’d burn some rubbish I found round the place.” Another step. “You’re not supposed to have outside fires in town. Not without a permit anyway.” “It’s only a little one. And there’s no wind. I’m sure it’ll be fine.” A third. “That smoke’s pretty thick.” He parted the curtain and pressed his nose against the glass. The words that came to her then were strangely muted, as though they were being strangled in his throat. “Why are those flames green? Wait, is that my…?” He yanked the door open, a rush of cold air flooding in. His next sentence was short, but loud and clear. “What the fuck!”
A gritty and engaging story of human faults, fears, and frailty, What Friends Are For is the prequel short story to my tragicomic novel, Taking the Plunge. Introduce yourself to the characters from the novel and find out where it all begins for Kate, Tracy, Evan and Lawrence.
On February 12th 2023, the upper North Island of New Zealand was hit by Cyclone Gabrielle. It was a major event, causing widespread damage and destruction throughout the upper North Island. Bridges and roads were washed away, power and communications infrastructure was destroyed and people were rescued from the roofs of their houses by helicopter as whole towns and suburbs were inundated with floodwaters. Eleven people lost their lives, thousands were displaced and in some areas, the recovery will take years.
Locally, the damage, although significant, was not as extensive as further south. A large slip took out one lane of the main road through the village where I live and, due to flooding, the surrounding roads in every direction became impassable for a couple of days to anyone driving a people mover.
There’s no way I’m taking my Mazda MPV through that.
Hundreds of trees blew over; the power was out for a day at my house and for several days in places nearby where the fix wasn’t quite so simple.
There’s no need to bow.
On our property, we have an old, two-bay, corrugated iron shed that is mostly used for storage. It’s located at a low point and floods on an intermittent basis. As a result, everything stored in there is raised off the ground and last year, after a couple of significant inundations, I constructed a shelving unit along the back wall to lift everything up even higher.
It was lucky I did because, in the cyclone, the water level in the shed rose higher than I’d ever seen it before.
If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.
I had some nervous moments as the rain continued to bucket down throughout the night and I set alarms every couple of hours to get up and check the water level. Beyond the fields next to our property, the land drops away into a river gorge. During the cyclone, the run-off from surrounding farms sent water rushing across these fields. The flooding around our house rose to a point where it also fed into this flow, so that it reached its maximum level early in the night and thankfully, never got to the point where it threatened our house.
I’m sure this is where I parked my tractor.
While the extreme winds continued for another couple of days, the rain had eased off and the water level had dropped a little by the following morning. When I ventured out to inspect the damage in our shed, I discovered the water had, at its highest point, got to within an inch of the bottom shelf of the unit I’d built. As you can see in the image above, the one thing that wasn’t lifted high enough was my cherished beer fridge. In the night, the water had risen above the bottom of the freezer door and into the space where the electric motor is located. By the next day, the water level had dropped enough for me to drag her out of the shed. I suspected she had probably cooled her last beer and that my next job would be to dig a big hole in the backyard and prepare a eulogy, but after leaving her in the sun all day to dry out and with the local power supply finally back on, I plugged her in to see if she still worked, standing back in case there were any sparks and/or explosions. There weren’t. Instead, my trusty girl gave a little shudder as her electric motor kicked in and then began purring away like a happy kitten. I was so excited to hear that sweet hum that I cracked open a lukewarm beer on the spot and chugged it down in celebration.
Now, six weeks later, I’ve got a fridge full of cold beer and, after cutting down the trees that blew over in the backyard, enough firewood to last at least the next two winters. While surviving Cyclone Gabrielle required my wife and I to endure the horror of our kids complaining for twenty-four hours straight about not having a wifi connection, aside from that, we came through almost completely unscathed. Many others were not so lucky. We’re feeling very thankful as a result.
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A gritty and engaging story of human faults, fears, and frailty, What Friends Are For is the prequel short story to my tragicomic novel, Taking the Plunge. Introduce yourself to the characters from the novel and find out where it all begins for Kate, Tracy, Evan and Lawrence.
I recently got the edited manuscript of my second novel, Staking a Claim, back from my editor. Prior to handing it over to her, I sent it out to several beta readers. Amongst the feedback I received out of that process were some comments about my protagonist (the heroine of the story, Kate), being unlikeable. This was not entirely surprising. Kate does have some troubling personal flaws and, while I’ve enjoyed writing about them, I can understand why someone might not enjoy reading about them. However, one of the central elements in the series is that Kate has a character arc and, learning from her mistakes, she grows along the way, becoming a better person by the end.
I’ve planned this arc over three books, so it could be happening too slowly for some readers. As a writer, it’s impossible (and completely unnecessary) to please everybody, but while I like Kate, having several readers say they didn’t was a sign that I needed to seriously consider doing something about it.
In response, I added a couple of chapters where Kate acts in a way I hoped would make her more appealing to readers. One of these chapters worked well and had the bonus of improving the setup for another part of the story. I was much less certain about the other. In this chapter, I have Kate agreeing to look after her neighbour’s cat for an indeterminate length of time. Why, you ask? Because people who adopt pets are likeable, right? (Yes, that’s about as deep as my thinking went). While I wasn’t sure about the outcome, I did enjoy writing the chapter and thought I’d throw it in and see what my editor thought.
Not much, as it turns out. Her problem is less with the cat and more with the neighbour (I’ve called her Tabitha). Deep down, I knew that adding a new character late in the story wasn’t the greatest idea. My editor agrees. I thought I could perhaps return to Tabitha in Book 3 but my editor has suggested I get rid of her altogether. She’s also pointed out that Kate only agrees to mind the cat after Tabitha begs her to, rather than doing something selfless of her own volition, thereby having less impact on her ‘likeability’ as a result.
If you’d like to read the chapter for yourself, you can do so in Part 2 of this post, here:
In my imagination, the cat looks something like this, except not quite so welcoming.
Anyway, my latest thoughts are that Kate should adopt a cat, but that she should do it in partnership with the hero of the story, and the cat should be a stray rather than being owned by someone known to her. I’m hoping it will indicate a generosity of spirit that might not have been previously evident and that it will also show a positive development in her relationship with the hero.
I’d love to know your thoughts on this idea. Do you think it could assist in making my protagonist more likeable? Would you think more of someone if they adopted a stray? And while I think about it, I’d also love some name suggestions for a cat looking something like the charming creature in the picture above. I’ve called him ‘Piddles’ in the chapter I’ve written, but that was as much to make a lame joke as anything and I’m by no means attached to it. Let me know in the comments if you’ve got something better!
FREE BOOK!
A gritty and engaging story of human faults, fears, and frailty, What Friends Are For is the prequel short story to my tragicomic novel, Taking the Plunge. Introduce yourself to the characters from the novel and find out where it all begins for Kate, Tracy, Evan and Lawrence.
Feedback from some of the beta readers for my second novel, Staking a Claim, suggested my protagonist, Kate, was too unlikeable. My solution? Why, have her adopt a cat of course! Below is the resulting chapter.
It was raining. A cold front had come pouring up from the Southern Ocean, transforming the dry heat of the afternoon into a steady downpour that pounded a low and vigorous rhythm on the roof, a curtain of droplets sparkling silver in the light from the kitchen window. On the streetside corner of the house, the spouting overflowed, sending a slender waterfall crashing to the ground below.
Kate took her mug of steaming tea and collapsed onto the couch. Corbin sat on an adjacent armchair, watching a DVD. He should’ve been in bed but after the trials of her day, she didn’t have the energy for that battle. Considering it a win that she’d managed to get his pyjamas on, she was hoping he’d eventually fall asleep where he was and save her some trouble. Adjusting the cushion behind her, she leaned back and sipped her tea. The sound of the TV and the rain was comforting. She took another sip, closed her eyes and was wondering whether a short nap might be on the cards when a noise that sounded suspiciously like a doorknock interrupted her brief moment of peace.
What the… She opened a tired eye, wondering if it was her imagination. Who’d be dumb enough to be out on a night like this? It was the kind of thing Evan might do, but Evan was back at his flat in Queenstown. Besides, she had his car. Then the sound came again, more insistent this time, and there was no mistaking it. Muttering under her breath, she perched her mug on the nearest unpacked box and went to answer the door.
There was a figure on the landing but it wasn’t Evan, nor anyone else she recognised. She switched on the outside light but the weather and the corrugated glass panels of the front door obscured what little there was to make out. The only thing she could be sure of was the figure’s colour: a dark, olive green.
“Who’s there?” she asked.
“Tabitha,” said the figure, the reply almost drowned by the rain.
Tabitha? Kate racked her brain. The name was familiar for some reason but she couldn’t attach it to a face.
“From downstairs.”
Ahh, right, my mysterious neighbour. Works shifts, keeps to herself, Kate recalled. Not the night I’d choose to make an acquaintance, but whatever. She opened the door and was greeted by the sight of a short, plump woman covered from head to toe in a long, flowing, rain poncho. The woman’s feet were covered by the poncho’s hem, her face hidden in the shadow of its hood, and she could almost have passed for some demonic minion of the underworld were it not for the incongruous addition of the bedraggled ginger cat she held clutched to her chest. She’d grasped the sodden creature beneath its forelegs, leaving the bottom half of its belly and its back legs dangling. There was an evil gleam in its yellow eyes and Kate took a step backwards.
For a moment, neither woman spoke. Then the cat let out a pitiful meow and Kate remembered her manners. “Would you… like to come in?”
With a nod, Tabitha shuffled across the threshold.
Moving aside to let her pass, Kate closed the door behind her. “Can I take your raincoat?”
Tabitha’s head swivelled while the rest of her stayed in place, giving an uncanny, robotic quality to the movement. “Piddles!” she squawked.
“What?” said Kate, taken aback. “Oh, you mean the cat? You want me to… I’m not quite sure I… err, hold on then, I’ll grab a towel.”
Darting down the hall to the laundry cupboard, Kate returned a moment later with two of her oldest and ugliest towels. She draped one across both arms while Tabitha carefully placed the sopping moggy onto it. Kate squinted, half expecting to feel the pain of a slashing claw, but the creature remained compliant throughout the transfer. “You can hang your coat there.” Kate dipped her head towards a steel hook screwed to the back of the kitchen door.
Tabitha complied, removing the poncho to reveal an outfit consisting of a pair of baggy grey Nike track pants and a matching sweatshirt. The ensemble was well-worn, with the lettering on the sweatshirt cracked and peeled so that it now read ‘U DO IT’. Kate passed her the cat again, then used the other towel to mop up the puddle of water that had collected at Tabitha’s feet.
“Umm,” she said once she’d finished, “I was just having a cuppa. Would you like one?”
Tabitha’s round, pale lips, which had remained expressionless up until that point, broke into something resembling a smile. She nodded.
“I’m having peppermint. Will that do?”
Another nod.
“Right then. Come and sit down.” Kate arranged the towel at the foot of the door to soak up the water leaking from Tabitha’s poncho, then led her into the lounge. “This is my son, Corbin. Corbin, this is Tabitha, our downstairs neighbour. And her cat… Piddles. Say hi.”
“Hi,” said Corbin, sweeping his eyes over the visitors. Then, the appeal of a strange woman and her cat clearly not matching that of a talking steam engine, returned his attention to the TV.
“Here,” said Kate, removing a pile of clothes from the couch and placing them on top of a stack of boxes. For a moment, she thought the tower might topple, but it held fast. As Tabitha lowered herself stiffly into the vacated space, Kate headed back to the kitchen where she flicked the jug on and dropped a teabag into another mug. Tapping her fingers on the bench as she waited for it to boil, she asked, “would you like some honey?”
“No, thanks,” came the reply.
Kate filled the cup and, returning to the lounge, used her feet to guide another unopened box in front of Tabitha. She placed the cup on top and then, retrieving her own mug, settled into her seat at the other end of the couch. “Sorry about the mess.”
“That’s okay,” said Tabitha, her eyes on the curtains covering the sliding door to the balcony, their absent glaze suggesting she could see right through to the storm outside. The cat lay nestled in her lap, her hand moving rhythmically along the length of its back and by degree, the dangerous glint in the creature’s eyes mellowed, moving from murder to mere mistrust.
“So,” Kate ventured, “Piddles, huh? Is that because she—”
“He.”
“Right, he. And does he, you know, ahh—”
“Oh, no, he’s fully house-trained now,” said Tabitha sternly, transferring her gaze to meet Kate’s, “but he was only a few weeks old when I got him. I was going to call him Slayer but… well, you know what kittens are like. Piddles seemed more appropriate.”
Slayer? Kate doubted pursuing that thought would explain Tabitha’s appearance on her doorstep, so decided to get straight to the point instead. “Well, Tabitha, it’s nice to meet you, but I take it you’re not here to borrow a cup of sugar. So what can I do for you?”
Her brows knitting, Tabitha took a sip of tea before answering. “I need to leave town for a while.”
“Err, okay.”
“Tonight.”
“Really? It’s not great weather for driving.”
“No,” said Tabitha matter-of-factly, “it’s not.” Her hand trembled for an instant, slopping hot water over her fingers, but she didn’t seem to notice. “However, I don’t have a choice.” Her expression morphed, becoming familiar somehow. With a start, Kate realised why — as a champion crier herself, she had plenty of personal experience — it was the face of a woman on the verge of tears.
“Are you o—”
“Mum’s had a fall,” Tabitha squeaked. “Broken hip. She’s in hospital.”
“Oh, God, I’m so sorry.”
“Dad’s a mess. Without Mum… he hardly knows how to boil an egg. I have to go.”
“Of course, of course. You poor thing, what terrible news. Is she going to be okay?”
“I don’t know.” Kate looked from her neighbour’s stricken face to her robotic stroking hand and knew what was coming next. “But I need… someone to look after… Piddles.” Tabitha sucked in a shuddering breath. “I was going to put him in the cattery, but he hates it there. He knew something was up as soon as he saw me packing. Ran away. Took an hour to find him.”
“You should have said something. I would’ve helped.”
Tabitha gave a dejected shrug. “I didn’t want to bother you more than necessary. I hate to ask, and if there was anyone else… but since moving here… well, I’ve found it hard to make friends. And you seemed like a nice person.”
Some would disagree. Including myself, at times. “How would you know?”
“Beth said so. And I… kinda watched you move in, through the window, a little bit. It’s clear you love Corbin.”
At the sound of his name, Corbin glanced over. Kate smiled at him. That I do. “Well,” she began, while spying on me between your curtains is a little weird; given the extenuating circumstances… “I’d be glad to mind… Piddles.” Although I might have to come up with a nickname. “How is he around kids? Tabitha?”
“Sorry, I… I’m just so relieved.” Wiping a tear from her eye, Tabitha continued. “To be honest, he’s not spent much time around children, but I’m sure it’ll be fine. He’s a very friendly cat.”
“Is he? That’s good.” From within the folds of his flannelette enclosure, the tabby’s glare remained one of suspicion. Kate couldn’t blame him. She’d have to be wary. In her experience, the first thing a toddler did when faced with any cat was to yank its tail. She could imagine Piddles’ reaction to that.
She sipped her tea in silence, not sure what to say next. Tabitha followed suit. On TV, a train derailed. Thomas came to the rescue, after which The Fat Controller assured him he was a Really Useful Engine. Then, upending her mug, Tabitha downed the remaining contents in one swallow, again proving her resistance to the effects of hot liquids. Maybe she is a robot, thought Kate. “I’d better get going,” said Tabitha, shifting in her seat. “It’s a long drive to Nelson.”
“Nelson?”
“Yeah, why? Is that a problem?”
“No, no, I just… how long do you think you’ll be gone?”
There was that look again. “I don’t know,” Tabitha croaked. “I’ve taken a week off work, but… once I get up there and talk to her doctors, if it’s going to be longer, I… I’ll make some other arrangements.”
“That’s not what I meant,” said Kate earnestly. She felt the comment required an additional gesture of support and, leaning closer, sent skittering fingers in the direction of Tabitha’s knee. But then Piddles cocked his head in her direction and in the paired stares of… what did you even call a person and their cat?Master and companion?Guardian and feline?Parent and pussy?No, not that… she lost her nerve, settling for her own knee instead. “You do whatever you have to do. But this weather… are you sure you don’t want to leave it till morning?”
“No,” said Tabitha, sliding the cat off her lap and onto the couch. Kate recoiled but, while remaining watchful, Piddles made no move to extricate himself from his enclosure. “The sooner I get there,” Tabitha continued, “the better. I doubt I could sleep anyway. And if I start feeling tired, I’ll pull over. It’s amazing what a good power nap can do.” She poked a pale hand into the pocket of her track pants. “Here’s a key to my flat. There’s some food for him in the fridge. And some money to buy more. I’m sorry, fifty’s all I’ve got on me, but if you give me your bank account number, I can—”
Kate gave a dismissive wave. “Don’t be silly, I’m not taking your money.”
“Are you sure? His tastes are rather… particular. He won’t do no Whiskas.”
“Oh, a Gourmet fan, huh?”
“At a stretch. He likes fresh fish. And eye fillet; that’s his favourite.”
This earned a raised eyebrow. Jeez, when was the last time I had eye fillet? Maybe I should take the money. But Tabitha had already slipped it back into her pocket.
Crouching in front of Piddles, Tabitha scratched behind his ear. “Kate’s gonna take good care of you, so you make sure you behave, d’you hear?” In response, Piddles gave a low purr, the gentle rumble only just audible above Ringo Starr’s sultry narration and the thrum of the rain upon the roof. “Momma’s gonna miss you, my beautiful boy.” She sniffled, then with a final scratch, departed for the kitchen.
Following, Kate fired a glance at cat and Corbin on the way, but neither one demonstrated an interest in the other. She exchanged phone numbers with Tabitha before she re-engaged the services of her poncho and Kate opened the door for her to leave. A wall of cool, wet air flowed through, tickling Kate’s nose. Outside, the rain was falling even heavier than on Tabitha’s arrival. The wind had changed direction, and a fierce gust sent a flurry of drops bouncing off the concrete landing and through the doorway. Tabitha swivelled on the dampened threshold, tears welling in her eyes again, then sprang forward and thrust a pair of stumpy but surprisingly strong arms around Kate’s torso. Seconds passed while the water from the still-dripping poncho soaked its way through the fabric of Kate’s top. The moment extended through awkwardness and into the surreal before Kate discovered there was just enough freedom of movement available for her to pat Tabitha on the back in a mildly condescending fashion, hoping she’d take it as a sign to finish squeezing. It took several before Tabitha got the message and, loosening her grip with a dramatic sigh, lifted her head from where it was nuzzled into Kate’s shoulder.
“Thank you. I really appreciate this. I don’t know how I’m going to make it up to you.”
“Oh, it’s no problem,” said Kate stiffly. “After all, what else are neighbours for?”
“Not everyone would be so accommodating. It’ll give me some peace of mind knowing I’ve left Piddles in such capable hands.”
Don’t be too sure. The last pet I had ended up getting flushed down the toilet.
Raising her hood, Tabitha stepped outside. Kate drew the damp folds of her top away from her skin, watching with an uncertain frown as her new neighbour descended the stairs into the rain-slicked night. Maybe it was her imagination, but she thought Tabitha had spent the duration of their friendly embrace breathing a lot harder than was strictly necessary.
As it turns out, my editor doesn’t like this chapter, so I’m going to make some changes as a result. I’m still going to have Kate adopt a cat, but significantly adjust the circumstances around how it happens. However, I’m still curious about this scene as it’s written here. And while I know it’s hard to make a judgement out of context, I’d love to know what you think. Do Kate’s actions in this scene reflect positively on her as a character and help to make her more appealing?Was I (at least somewhat) successful in making my protagonist more likeable? Let me know in the comments.
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A gritty and engaging story of human faults, fears, and frailty, What Friends Are For is the prequel short story to my tragicomic novel, Taking the Plunge. Introduce yourself to the characters from the novel and find out where it all begins for Kate, Tracy, Evan and Lawrence.
These last few weeks have been all about family. I grew up in a household of six children (I’m number five). Only four of us currently live in New Zealand and this Christmas and New Year period was the first time we’ve all been together in the same country in five years.
My sister was visiting from Norfolk Island. If you’ve never heard of it, it’s a tiny rock located in the middle of the South Pacific, approximately halfway between Australia and New Zealand. A former British prison colony, it’s a fascinating place with a colourful history and well worth a visit if you ever get the opportunity.
My youngest brother was over from the UK. He’s one of many whose return to Aotearoa was delayed by the COVID pandemic and it was wonderful to spend some time with him and his family after their extended hiatus. He has two lovely daughters who are of a similar age to our twin boys. Their shared love of swimming, trampolines and video games saw the four of them bond remarkably well and it was a joy to watch them play. One particularly entertaining activity they devised was to view episodes of Teen Titans Go! (if you don’t know it, it’s a cartoon about five superheroes who live together in a T-shaped tower) and then head outside to re-enact them, complete with dialogue and musical numbers.
In today’s episode of Teen Titan’s Go!, the gang ride a dragon!
Like many (all?) families, the Reynolds clan is a dysfunctionally functional one, encompassing a wide range of ideological stances, which means that discussions of politics and religion are generally best avoided. We’re not as young as we once were and the conversational topic du jour seemed to be our respective medical conditions. Still, I like to think that, like fine wines, at least our inner qualities have improved with age. As a sign of this maturity, I finally apologised to my youngest brother for the merciless bullying I subjected him to as we were growing up (to be fair, I was only mimicking the punishment that my older brothers bestowed upon me) and while we laughed it off, I think deep down he genuinely appreciated the gesture.
I drove him and his family to the airport yesterday day for their return flight to the UK. We’re hoping it won’t be another five years until we see each other in person again, but if it is, at least we’ll have lots to talk about. By that time, our list of medical conditions will be pages long.
Did you catch up with any long-lost loved ones over the holiday season? Let me know in the comments.
FREE BOOK!
A gritty and engaging story of human faults, fears, and frailty, What Friends Are For is the prequel short story to my tragicomic novel, Taking the Plunge. Introduce yourself to the characters from the novel and find out where it all begins for Kate, Tracy, Evan and Lawrence.
As I write this, it’s the first day of the summer school holidays and boy, am I glad to be able to say that. It’s been a gruelling year. 2020 and 2021 were challenging enough, but even without the disruption of COVID lockdowns, 2022 has provided its own special brand of crazy.
To put the cherry on top, the silly season is now in full swing at our house. I enjoy Christmas, but I prefer the celebrations to start at about 7:00 pm on December 24th and finish approximately 24 hours later. My wife, on the other hand, goes a little bit nutty at this time of year. I arrived home from work on December 1st to find our kids putting the final touches on the tree and Wham!’s Last Christmas blasting from the stereo (and yes, the exclamation mark is part of their band name, which makes punctuation a challenge).
“Oh, God,” I groaned, “please don’t tell me we have to listen to this every day for the next month.”
“What’s that, Grinchy?” she replied. “I can’t hear you over the music.”
The next morning, I woke up to discover these three naughty boys had been up all night playing video games. I’m pretty sure the one in the middle is the ringleader; he’s the silliest of all!
The other thing I discovered this week was the songs I’ve listened to the most throughout 2022. It’s the season of ‘Spotify Wrapped’ and this year, I’ve somehow managed to avoid having the algorithm contaminated by my children’s penchant for songs about bodily functions and video games and the resulting playlist is pretty good. I do have reservations about a big tech company knowing such intimate details about my personal listening habits, but I also find the information fascinating. According to Spotify, I’ve listened to 6,286 minutes of music this year, which is more than 43% of Spotify users in Aotearoa. The artist I listened to most wasLCD Sound System and my most popular song was their release, Someone Great, which I played 11 times.
This pales in comparison to my wife, who has spent an incredible 72,928 minutes (more than fifty days) listening to Spotify this year, putting her in the top 4% of Kiwi listeners. Her musical taste is poppier than mine and so her most popular artist was Kylie Minogue. The song she listened to the most was not, amazingly enough, Last Christmas, but rather Kylie Minogue’s A Second to Midnight, which she played a whopping 150 times! Typically, she did NOT manage to avoid having her algorithm contaminated by the musical selections of our children, so amongst all the love songs from pop icons in her top 100 playlist, there’s a generous serving of tracks about video games and bodily functions.
Musical taste is highly subjective and I won’t flatter myself by imagining there’s anyone on the planet who’d want to listen to my 2022 Spotify Wrapped playlist more than me, but if you’re a fan of indie rock, there could well be some tunes on it you’d enjoy. If you’re curious, here it is:
If you’re a Spotify subscriber, let me know in the comments what your top artists and tracks for 2022 were.
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A gritty and engaging story of human faults, fears, and frailty, What Friends Are For is the prequel short story to my tragicomic novel, Taking the Plunge. Introduce yourself to the characters from the novel and find out where it all begins for Kate, Tracy, Evan and Lawrence.
I’ve read a couple of Botur’s short story collections (True and Lowlife) and he’s a masterful practitioner of the form. While the stories in these collections are eclectic, they are connected by both Botur’s powerful and distinctive personal voice and a focus on life at the edges of contemporary society. The Devil Took Her is a little different in that it’s Botur’s first horror-themed collection. That organising principle alone makes it more focused than previous works, but Botur is certainly no one-trick pony and the eclectic nature of his imagination still shines, with the requisite monstrosity of the genre appearing in different guises, from actual monsters (most notably the giant and voracious spirit bird of The Day I Skipped School), through to monstrous people, and on to people trapped in monstrous situations.
In The Devil Took Her, the focus is again on characters operating (or perhaps struggling to operate) on the fringe, isolated from society proper. This makes sense, for isolation is one of the key conventions of the horror genre, and even in stories where the protagonists aren’t physically isolated, they’re psychologically or emotionally isolated; there’s something about them that means they just don’t fit in, no matter how desperately they might try.
Along with the monsters, the tone of these stories is also eclectic. Some are gross and gory, some are haunting, some are creepy, some are threaded with Botur’s trademark black humour. All of them are disturbing. This is not a criticism. I enjoy watching horror movies, or at least ones fueled by good storytelling and genuine scares rather than blood and guts. Watching movies tends to be a social activity and in that environment, being scared can be fun. Indeed, that would be one of the major factors in my judgement of quality — that I enjoyed myself, that I had fun. I know I’m not alone in thinking that.
Reading, on the other hand, is not a social activity and (aside from Underground, the story of an ambitious record label exec’s descent into hell), the stories in The Devil Took Her are not fun. What they are is disturbing. It’s a mark of just how disturbing that my reaction to them was physical. At times, I found myself short of breath, mouth dry, skin literally itching, as if I’d been for a bush walk and brushed up against some evil, toxic plant. At other times I felt sick, my stomach clenched tight, on the verge of nausea. It got to the point where after a few daily sessions I had to take a break from reading because I couldn’t deal with the physical symptoms anymore. Yet compelled, I returned a few days later to finish off.
So, in the end, it’s a challenge to make a judgement call on The Devil Took her. Did I enjoy reading it? Ahhh… no, not really. Does that mean it’s bad? Oh God no, quite the opposite. Would I read it to my kids before they went to bed? No I wouldn’t, but then they’re a little young. Your average older teenager, being the strange, twisted creatures that they often are, could get a real kick out of it. Do I want to read more short horror stories by Botur? Hell yeah, but not today, thanks. I’m more in the mood for something comedic, perhaps even with a touch of romance. I’m just gonna have a squiz in our DVD cupboard. I’m sure there’s a copy of The 40-Year-Old Virgin in there somewhere.
Have you read The Devil Took Her, by Michael Botur, or any of his other books? Let me know in the comments.
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A gritty and engaging story of human faults, fears, and frailty, What Friends Are For is the prequel short story to my tragicomic novel, Taking the Plunge. Introduce yourself to the characters from the novel and find out where it all begins for Kate, Tracy, Evan and Lawrence.
A review of Forever Dreams(The Montana Brides Book 1), by Leeanna Morgan
I was lucky enough to meet Leeanna when she was presenting at a writers’ conference a few years ago. She was bubbly and vivacious and full of good advice. She’s a Kiwi and lives in NZ but writes romances set in and around the town of Bozeman, Montana. She’s a prolific writer and has published more than fifty books in several different but interconnected series. Forever Dreams is her first novel.
It’s about a Kiwi primary school teacher called Gracie Donnelly who travels to Bozeman on a mission to find her long-lost father. Trent McKenzie is the handsome cowboy who works the ranch she’s arranged to stay at while she’s in town and as soon as he picks her up from the airport to bring her home, the sparks begin to fly.
As it turns out, Trent is also searching for someone special; a new wife. Despite her attraction to him, Gracie makes it clear that she’s not interested in filling that role. Until, that is, the couple end up in Vegas together, Gracie gets rolling drunk and they decide that the best way to ice the cake of their Vegas experience is with a spontaneous wedding.
In the cold light of the morning after, that decision doesn’t seem so clever, but rather than letting what happens in Vegas stay in Vegas, they compound the calamity by bringing it back to Bozeman. The pair forge a deal; Gracie will continue with the marriage charade so as to get Trent’s meddling matchmaker of a mother off his back in return for his help in finding her father. If that seems like an unnecessarily complicated arrangement, it gets worse. Despite their utter failure to keep their hands off each other up until this point, they instigate a no-touching rule in their shared marital bed.
It’s a preposterous setup and it’s not helped by having a hero and heroine who are somewhat clichéd — she’s a feisty, red-headed city girl who doesn’t know her ass from a donkey while he’s a strong, silent country boy who struggles to communicate his innermost feelings — but it’s an easy, breezy read with some genuinely amusing touches and a smattering of steamy moments. Besides, who doesn’t love cowboys? And descriptions of wild, Montana mountain scenery? After reading it, I know I wanted to have a holiday in Bozeman.
Have you read Forever Dreams, by Leanna Morgan, or any of her otherbooks? Let me know in the comments.
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A gritty and engaging story of human faults, fears, and frailty, What Friends Are For is the prequel short story to my tragicomic novel, Taking the Plunge. Introduce yourself to the characters from the novel and find out where it all begins for Kate, Tracy, Evan and Lawrence.
This book was suggested to me by one of my subscribers, Tom. Thank you, Tom, for your suggestion. It’s a romantic comedy about a recently divorced romance writer called Jillian Grayson and her developing relationship with her son Rob’s best friend, Brian Nash.
Jillian has done well in her writing career. She owns a nice house with a swimming pool and a tennis court. She first meets Brian when Rob brings him home from college to stay for Spring Break. When Rob heads out, leaving his mum and best bud at home, Jillian and Brian play tennis. They also go swimming. It turns out Brian loves swimming and tennis just as much as Jillian and despite their age difference, an intense mutual attraction soon develops.
Initially, for Rob’s sake, they attempt to keep a lid on their feelings for each other. This proves to be a challenge and Jillian’s best friend, Victoria (who also likes to swim), doesn’t make it any easier. Victoria doesn’t seem to serve much purpose other than being brain candy and the sexually liberated foil to our sexually frustrated protagonist, but with her encouragement, Jillian and Brian strike a deal to become somewhat more than just friends. Soon after, their physical play moves from the tennis court and into the bedroom.
The blurb says it’s a laugh-out-loud comedy. I’ve learned that whenever a book blurb makes this claim, it pays not to believe it. This isn’t because I’m a curmudgeon — it’s because laughter is a social behaviour, while reading isn’t. Like yawning, laughter is infectious and it’s easy to laugh when you’re in the company of others. When you’re on your own, it’s much harder. I love reading comedy, but any author who can elicit an out-loud-laugh from me is doing very well indeed. I treasure the few that can.
Based on my reading of Friends with Partial Benefits, Luke Young is not one of them. That doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy it. It’s easy to read, chugs along at a steady pace and there are some genuinely amusing moments in the story, amongst all the swimming and tennis. There’s also a fair whack of sex, and some of that sex gets pretty steamy. Intriguingly, Young has written an expanded version of the book, under a pseudonym and with a different title, with even more (and more explicit) sex scenes. I haven’t read it so can’t vouch as to whether it makes for an improved reading experience. As an author, it seems a little like cheating to me but I guess it’s one way of getting more bang for your buck.
As an aside, in writing this post I did a little browsing to find a suitable image to go with it. The picture below is what you get when you combine ‘tennis’ with ‘sex’ as image search terms.
I get the ping-pong paddle (although God only knows why you’d hold it in this position — perhaps she’s trying to suppress a fart), but what is with the bikini and jandals (flip-flops, for those unfamiliar with the Kiwi vernacular)? I assume she’s supposed to be at the beach, but have you ever tried playing ping-pong at the beach? I don’t recommend it. In a stiff onshore breeze, the ball swirls around all over the place.
Anyway, if you’re the kind of person who’s into sweat, both of the John McEnroe-related and bedroom variety, then Friends with Partial Benefits could be right up your alley. There are also several sequels featuring the same cast of characters, so if you do like it, there’s plenty more to whet your appetite with.
Have you read Friends with Partial Benefits, by Luke Young, or any of his otherbooks? Let me know in the comments.
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A gritty and engaging story of human faults, fears, and frailty, What Friends Are For is the prequel short story to my tragicomic novel, Taking the Plunge. Introduce yourself to the characters from the novel and find out where it all begins for Kate, Tracy, Evan and Lawrence.
This last week has been notable for the passing of two somewhat momentous occasions. The first of these was my daughter’s twelfth birthday. I’m writing this post from a room strung with a multi-coloured array of mylar and latex party balloons. There would have been more of them but for the fact that we’re currently suffering a global helium shortage, exacerbated by the Russia-Ukraine war, and so there was a limit of two per customer at the party store. Apparently, Russia is one of the world’s top helium suppliers. Who knew?
To be honest, there was a part of me that was glad about that, because as I was blowing up balloons the day before her birthday I couldn’t help thinking what a waste it was that they were all going to end up in landfill in a few day’s time. I kept these thoughts to myself because my daughter loves decorations and was super excited about waking up in the morning a whole year older than she was when she went to bed. She already thinks I’m Chief Sargeant of the Fun Police because I won’t buy her a smartphone. There’d be tantrums if I told her she couldn’t have any balloons on her birthday.
The other momentous occasion of the past week is a little more sombre: the passing of Queen Elizabeth II. I was driving to work when I found out. I switched on the radio and the Prime Minister was speaking about the time when she gave the Queen a gift of a framed photo taken of her younger self when she was touring New Zealand in the 1950s. That’s weird, I thought, why on earth would the Prime Minister be talking about the Queen on national radio? Then it clicked. Responsible driver that I am, rather than texting my wife myself, I told Siri to. What did I want to say? Siri asked. “I think the Queen is dead”. “Whaaaaat?” came the reply, and then a few minutes later the radio discussion confirmed my suspicions.
“How do you know it’s wax? Looks pretty real to me. ‘Specially those eyes. S’like she can see right into m’soul.”
I knew straight away it was going to be one of those ‘what were you doing when you heard such and such had happened’ moments.When I first heard Kurt Cobain had died, I was walking back to my flat after purchasing a three-pack of sports socks at the nearest department store. Listening to the radio while driving to work is on par with that in terms of excitement levels, so when I tell my grandchildren the story I think I’ll spice it up a little. I’ve come up with three options:
I was riding a motorcycle upside down inside a steel globe that had been set on fiyaaah.
I was fending off a great white shark which had attacked me while I was attempting to break the world free-diving record off the coast of Costa Rica.
I was playing the accordion and eating a spicy shrimp gumbo while wrestling alligators in a Louisiana bayou (or, alternatively, playing the accordion and eating alligator gumbo while wrestling shrimp in a Louisiana bayou).
They’re all infinitely more impressive than the truth, but which do you think sounds the best?
I’m no royalist by any means, but I can honestly say I was a little bit sad when I heard the news. Counting the volume of blood spilt in the name of British imperialism would be enough to make anyone cry but it was nothing to do with that and anyway, I’m not sure you can blame the Queen for the historical actions of her countrymen. One can get cynical about these things but by all accounts, she was a pretty decent woman who did her best to make a positive impact on the world while trying to cope with a dysfunctional family, just like most of us.
On a related note, given the general atmosphere of the times, I decided it had been far too long since I’d listened to The Smiths’ seminal 1986 album, The Queen is Dead. As a typically awkward teenager, The Smiths were on high rotate through my headphones in the early to mid nineties, but it’s been ages since I listened to a whole album from beginning to end. So I dialed it up on Spotify and blasted it on the drive home from work. Boy, it’s a cracker of an album, especially the second half. It brought back some wonderful memories and when I got home, I almost wanted to go straight to bed and cry myself to sleep, just like I used to when I was seventeen. Here’s the title track, live at the University of Salford from back in the days when Morrissey was fun. What a great gig this must’ve been.
What were you doing when you heard the Queen had died? Let me know in the comments (if it’s interesting, that is; otherwise, you can keep it to yourself).
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A gritty and engaging story of human faults, fears, and frailty, What Friends Are For is the prequel short story to my tragicomic novel, Taking the Plunge. Introduce yourself to the characters from the novel and find out where it all begins for Kate, Tracy, Evan and Lawrence.
A review of the online writing tool, the Hemingway App
I’ve been working on what is, depending on how you want to measure such things, the fifth or sixth draft of my current manuscript. Called Staking a Claim (it’s the sequel to my first novel), I’ve been tweaking some minor but important details to do with word choices, particularly my use of adverbs. Now, I love a good adverb as much as the next man (‘frantically’ springs to mind), but it’s easy to overuse them and doing so only serves to weaken your writing, rather than strengthen it.
The general writing advice is that you should always aim to use a strong verb rather than trying to zhuzh-up a weak verb with a sparkly adverb. Take, for instance, the sentence, ‘She ran quickly down the road’. It’s not an inspired sentence by any means (and certainly not as entertaining as ‘I grapple with my groots and shoot down the grovelers and medicine men with my trusted blunderbuss’, which was my favourite line from the novel I just finished), but if you were writing a story where it was necessary to move a character from one point on a road to another point further along that road, then it would do the job. However, by simply replacing the verb and adverb pairing of ‘ran quickly’ with the single verb ‘sprinted’, you’d have, ‘She sprinted down the road.’ Okay, so it’s still not inspired, but it is more concise, and the picture it paints in the imagination is more focused and vivid.
To assist in this process, I’ve been using the Hemingway App. Created by brothers Adam and Ben Long, there’s a desktop version for Mac and PC which you can buy for twenty US dollars, but I just use the free online version. The app is named after the 20th century writer, Ernest Hemingway.
The Old Man and the Sea: Hemingway on his boat
Ernest Hemingway Photograph Collection, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston
Hemingway is well known for his clear and forceful writing style and these two goals underpin the design of the algorithms the app uses in analysing a piece of writing. Among other things, it automatically highlights all the adverbs in a piece, as well as indicating an appropriate adverb count for that piece based on its overall length. So, if you have a passage that’s excessively adverbial, it’s easy to go through and see where and whether any of those adverbs could be removed. Personally, I find this the most useful feature of the app and it’s primarily what I use it for.
You can write text directly within the app, but since I use Scrivener for my fiction writing, I just copy and paste out of that. I pasted every chapter of Staking a Claim into the app. To my surprise, the biggest issue it highlighted was my overuse of the adverbial ‘just’, as in, ‘I’m just going out for a walk,’ or, ‘I just want the patty; no pickles, no sauce.’ Like any adverb, ‘just’ has its place, but I had characters ‘justing’ here, there, and everywhere. On closer inspection, many of these were unnecessary, obscuring my prose rather than clarifying it. It’s not a habit I was previously aware of, so out of curiosity, I pasted a few chapters from my first novel into the app for comparison. The result? Too many justs. Oh well, you live and learn.
Handily, the app also highlights passages written in passive voice. Just like adverbs, there’s a place for passive voice but it’s generally preferable to use active voice as it makes your writing more forceful. What’s the difference? Active voice is when you have someone or something doing something else. Passive voice is when that someone or something is having that something else done to them. Clear as mud? An example should help:
Carlos hit the cricket ball. This is active voice. Carlos is doing something; he’s hitting the cricket ball. The cricket ball was hit by Carlos. This is passive voice. The cricket ball is having something done to it; it’s being hit by Carlos.
The above example of passive voice is clearly a bit weird; it’s not always that obvious and, as I said, there is a place for it. It’s when it’s overused that it can become a problem. According to the app, the overuse of passive voice is not an issue in my writing. I didn’t have a single chapter where the number of instances of passive voice was anywhere near the number the app suggested as being problematic. This is good to know; at least I’ve got that right.
Another useful feature of the app is its analysis of the readability of your writing. It gives you a readability score based on the number of ‘hard to read’ and ‘very hard to read’ sentences within a piece of writing. The score is based on the educational grade level a person would need to understand that piece. So, a score of 6 would indicate someone with a Grade 6 education could successfully navigate that particular passage of writing. This is where you have to be a little careful. Getting rid of all your ‘hard to read’ and ‘very hard to read’ sentences might make your writing more accessible, but it’s also likely to remove all its personality and make it exceedingly dull. I don’t pay too much attention to this feature. Generally, the chapters of my manuscript came in somewhere between a 6 and a 9, which the app considers good. Roughly speaking, about ten percent of my sentences were ‘hard to read’ and another ten percent were ‘very hard to read’. I guess this means eighty percent of my sentences are ‘easy to read’, which seems perfectly acceptable to me.
After toning down my justing, there were only a few chapters from Staking a Claim that came up as being overly adverbial. I tweaked those, tidied up a few other details and then, ta-da! I was done. Time to cross my fingers and send the manuscript off to my editor.
Are you a fan of adverbs? What’s your favourite? Let me know in the comments.
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A gritty and engaging story of human faults, fears, and frailty, What Friends Are For is the prequel short story to my tragicomic novel, Taking the Plunge. Introduce yourself to the characters from the novel and find out where it all begins for Kate, Tracy, Evan and Lawrence.
