I'm really pleased to have received a number of emails - complimentary - about Holiday. Every author would join in that sentiment. it's also good to see nice comments here. Thank you.
The story was originally two. In fact I'd got to the end of the Amberdale holiday and was vaguely dissatisfied with its end which, as far as I can remember, as somehow different from now in that I had no idea what to do with either of them after James had gone home. So - as you do - I started on another story. English canals have always been an interest, and there have been certainl holidays where...
...nothing happened, though I really wish it had! But it seemed a good place to let my imagination start.
Then about halfway through, I ran out of steam, as you do. The imagination faltered. But gradually it occurred to me that the stories could be spliced together, with a little bit of judicious editing. So I sat down again...
There are probably quite a dew authors who say "the story almost wrote itself." When I wondered how to deal with the loose ends of Amberdale something clicked with my own period of adolescent agonies, when it was bandied about that homosexuals were cured by electric shocks. And the more I thought, and agonised (as an adult), the blacker it got, especially as I read about more and more teen aged boys who had taken their life rather than face up to reactions they feared but never knew. What waste. What tragedies.
So I watched, in horror, as the words describing Mark's end poured out onto the screen in front of me, seemingly without any conscious effort on my part. And other parts wrote themselves too, mainly to do with the canals.
And finally I wondered how to end it. A full circle seemed logical, so they booked to return to the Island near Amberdale. And I couldn't resist mentioning The Book!
Will they return? Maybe, but coincidentally, as adults of course.