A Novel Idea (or how Adam learned that a little ambition is only as good as his output).

So I decided that maybe my ticket out of this less than one horse town might be to try and conjure up some kind of creative powers and write a book.


Yeah, just like that. Its really that simple.



It isnt like I dont have time on my hands right now.

All you need is an idea,and by Jove I think I have one, or at least a cohesion of themes, situations and kooky characters, that could potentially become a new literary darling, a pulpy face-slapping, kick in the ass for the British writing community.

But why stop there.

Time to go global I think.

Here is the opening extract:


CHAPTER ONE


It’s funny, the random bits of information and nuggets of nothingness that you can recall at the most inopportune of moments. Like whimsical lyrics that remind you of a stolen kiss, with whatsherface in that place, or that piece of advice your parents gave you that you disregarded, in favour of the clearly more superior opinions of teenage counterparts, which will inevitably bite you in the ass when you’re doing something completely unrelated in your later years, like shaving or avoiding charity workers in the street.
A good story needs just two things; a girl, and a gun.
However intrinsically unrelated to my life this sentence was at the time, it has certainly just taken on a whole new poignancy, like a DANGER: SUDDEN DROP sign, noticed with an irony more painful then your physical state i.e. from the bottom of the cliff.
Where I heard it, I couldn’t tell you.
Just like I probably couldn’t tell you why a fully grown man is hiding out in a fridge, in a Swedish pantry, as a stray .45 hollow point (oh yeah, extensive firearms training, me) has just burrowed its way into a pound of butter on a shelf above me, whilst the woman I love is waging war outside on those who used to ‘own’ her.
Actually, I probably could tell you that, but the girl and the guns come much, much later.

* * * * * * * * * *
“Mr Patrick...”
I hear the voice, but my mind is over the hills and far away. I'm Dorothy, seeing Oz in all it's glory, with newly Technicolor-tinted eyes. I'm Hunter S Thompson at the wheel of a Cadillac. Hell, I'm Diana Ross in an airport security holding bay.
“Mr Patrick..”
Yeah, there he is again. Why can't I just answer him?
Nod. Wink. Give the kind of acknowledging cough that would be welcome in Parliament; agreement and the sense of disenfranchise in equal measure. Maybe I can stay in this mental limbo if I just nonchalantly reach into my pocket, pull out a fiver, and hand it to the man. Is that enough money for someone to forget your name? Or is even small-time bribery living under the gun of inflation?
Just five more minutes... I like it here... Put another golden oldie on the jukebox...
“Mr Patrick!!”
I'm up, I'm up. And boy do I instantly regret the wake-up call.
Ruby slippers dissipate into the furthest recesses of my head, and are replaced by my dog-eared trainers, upright and stood to attention. Of course. I remember. On this day in reality, I'm being psychoanalysed on that most fabled of settings, the psychiatrist's couch. Yeah, there's always room for a well placed stereotype and a well placed nod to the populist cult of cliché.




PLOT:



The main character is a man on the edge, who seemingly has nothing, emotonally as well as physically.

The opening chapter finds him on the psychiatrists couch, as he is either about to make an attempt on his life, or already has.

After repeated suicide attempts and none more successul sessions, his aptitude for failure is fully realised, and he goes about planning to end his life the only way that seems definite.

A hitman. A contract organised by him, on himself. Surely a professional isnt going to miss the mark?

But wait.. who have 'the agency' sent to carry out this human functionality-ending deed.

She's a trained killer going through her own existential crisis, who is wondering how the hell a nice girl with a non-complex upbringing has found her way on a blood-drenched path of commercial murdering (an increasingly booming industry, no less).

She observes her target, yet whistfully sees something within him that makes that extra pound per inch of pressure on the trigger so hard to apply.

As their two lives become intertwined, and long dead emotions are felt that have long been dormant, how far must the pair go to escape those who are funding the agency?

Are the ends of the Earth far enough?


***********************************
Im curently seeing it as a dark-comical amalgamation of Nick Hornby (Long Way Down) and Chuck Palunhiak (Fight Club), with some Luke Reinhart ( The Dice Man )thrown in for good measure.

Watch this space.