Everything’s going to be okay, I promise myself.  Zipper’s right: Gorton’s miles away.  None of this can touch me or Mum or Nan or Grandpa.  It’s all stupid stuff.

            In the distance, a police helicopter scours the sky.  The noise begins like a group of buzzing bees, getting louder as the helicopter moves closer and closer.  The buzz merges with my thoughts and I fall asleep while the helicopter is still orbiting, waking just once in the night when I think I hear Mum, Lizzie and a man talking in the kitchen.   

 ***

The other house wasn’t a house at all, but a flat similar to a maisonette.  Everywhere there were long lines of two-storey buildings, grey-white buildings, some with satellite dishes and net curtains. There were no gardens nearby, just patches of faded green in front of the flats where girls played hopscotch.  The older kids used to kick a ball around in the middle of the street, but no one drove cars, apart from the bad boys who had lots of money and guns.  The grownups went everywhere by bus with buggies, pushing and sweating and swearing in the heat.  They would stop off for tea and chocolates biscuits in a café owned by a woman named Maria, and there the little ones would drink cartons of Ribena through straws.  

The buildings further on looked different to the lines of flats. They were brown and damp-looking, and all squashed together.  Many of the shops had boarded up windows and rude words sprayed on the walls.  

In the flat, the buggy stood in the hallway, next to the front door, and all the toys were kept neatly in a large plastic container by the cot, with a sticky red label on the lid.  

Meanwhile, my debut novel (Secrets by Lawrence Estrey) has attracted mostly positive feedback, and is available as a paperback on Amazon (Kindle form too) and Barnes and Nobel.

Meanwhile, I continue to work on my photography skills and the somewhat complicated photo editing software, Photoshop Elements. 

Some of the results below:

(Sherlock Holmes Museum, Baker Street, Central London.  Highgate Wood, North London.  Regent’s Park )

Meanwhile, I’ve taken a week off the new novel, a psychological thriller, to concentrate on digital photography and the various phones.  On Wednesday, I made a short video of myself  playing the first movement of Beethoven’s Pathetique on the piano, but I will need software to edit.  My debult novel – Secrets by Lawrence Estrey – continues to sell and has received another good review on Amazon. Already nearly halfway through January and things aren’t too bad in regards to the creative arts.

Meanwhile, I’m continuing work on another novel Silent Friends, a psychological thriller, and my debut novel Secrets by Lawrence Estrey  is available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.  

Things are quiet on the musical front at present, but I have several online recordings of my piano playing on Last.Fm, an internet radio site.

Happy New Year!

In the initial planning, I tried a demo free novel writing software program, but I found, as I have many times before, that these programs don’t get rid of writer’s block or help with plot progression (the question of what comes next), as the programs can’t actually write the novel.   The programs are fine for planning the story and organising scenes/chapters, but only the author can write the story.  Once I decided exactly what I wanted to convey, the story came naturally to me.

A sample:

That night, I woke with a jolt, my heart hammering in my chest. I’d been dreaming about Aidan again and something scary had happened on the landing, but I couldn’t remember what. Silence pressed in, tangible and sticky and laden with anticipation. I heard creaking on the stairs, then nothing.

            I must have fallen asleep again, for suddenly I was awake once more, my heart pounding like before. I sat up on the mattress. Dawn, Philippa and Veronica were knocking on my bedroom door, calling my name, their voices full of urgency.

Meanwhile my debut novel, Secrets by Lawrence Estrey, is available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

I have limited internet access over the next few days due to the holidays, but I wanted to wish readers a happy Hanukkah or a merry Christmas, depending on what one you observe.

Secrets -  Lawrence Estrey

__________________________

My first novel Secrets appears to have sold in three countries and the local library has agreed to stock it, so I’m now working on a new novel and hoping it will go to plan.  Again, I have chosen to write a psychological thriller.  This time, I want to concentrate more on the psychology and suspense and less on the crime elements. 

Here are some of the things I learned during the writing process for Secrets:

• Avoid changing viewpoint unless absolutely crucial to the story,
• Delay surprises until absolutely crucial to the story,
• In a crime thriller or psychological thriller, always introduce calming sections and contrasts. These allow for more scary/exciting scenes later on. 

Sounds pretty basic, yet I ignored my own advice many times during the writing of Secrets and previous works.