September Already! The lateness of the year mirrors the life of one of my characters.

Down here in the southern Hemisphere September signals the approach of spring. Outside the room where I write, the plum trees I put in last year are in full blossom. Soon the olives will follow, the handful of sheep we have will lamb and we can look forward to summer. The bad news, from my perspective, is another month has vanished. I’m aiming for an end of the year finish for the novel I’m working on, which I’ve been calling The Mysteries. That’s going to be tight.

This is the second version of this story. In this one the principal characters are a married couple who live in Hampshire, England. The husband, Daniel works in the advertising business and is in the throes of a mid-life crisis. Here’s one of the opening scenes in the first draft:

“What are you doing this weekend?”

Daniel turned around from the window where he’d been looking at the leafy trees in the park across the road. Ryan was watching him, legs crossed, notebook on his lap, pen tapping loosely against the side of chair in an unconscious rhythm, like a song from the radio was playing in his head.

“Going home. As soon as we’re finished here.”

“You mean home to Hampshire? As opposed to the flat.”

“Yes. I told Elaine I’d leave early. I think she’s cooking something for dinner.”

“Are you looking forward to that?”

“What? Dinner, you mean?”

Ryan didn’t answer, just twitched his mouth to acknowledge the evasion. It was an unusual name for a psychologist, Daniel thought. Ryan. Or perhaps it wasn’t. Perhaps it just felt that way. He left the window and the park where mothers took their children.

“Do you like living here?” he asked his therapist, returning to the couch.

“Yes, I do.”

“We used to live in Kensington. Have I told you that? It was a lot like this. Near the park, nice street, not too busy, you know. The kids were young then.”

“How old?”

“About eight and nine, I think. When we left, I mean. We’d talked about it for years; moving out of town so we’d have more space, room for the kids to muck around. The rural dream, I suppose.”

“You sound…” Ryan hesitated, searching for the right term. “Disillusioned?” he suggested eventually.

“Do I?”

“Didn’t you like living in the country?”

“It isn’t that I don’t like it there. I mean it’s beautiful where we are. Not far to the coast. The New Forest is nearby. The kids went to good schools. I think they were happy there. I think they had good childhoods, happy memories, you know. Plenty of freedom to run around. I’m not sure they appreciate it yet, but they will one day.”

“Why do you say that?”

Daniel shrugged. “They both say they were bored living in the country. They would’ve preferred it if we’d stayed in London. That’s what they say anyway. Maybe it’s true. Who knows? Maybe living in the country was something I wanted.”

“You did? Not Elaine?”

“I think Elaine would’ve been happy either way. She didn’t mind where we lived.”

“So it was you that wanted to move, but now you’re not sure you did the right thing. What made you think you would like the country?”

“I grew up in a small village. I think I had a happy childhood. Maybe I wanted that for my kids.”

“Could there have been any other reason?”

Ryan was good at this, Daniel thought. When he’d first started therapy he’d found it irritating that Ryan asked so many questions. He was like a miner, or perhaps a better analogy would be a gem-hunter, somebody who used one of those small picks to chip away the rock to get to the gem inside. Of course, that was what a psychologist did; they asked questions and then listened, observed and interpreted all the minute signals a client gave out. A change in tone, a sideways glance. People didn’t always know what was bothering them, they didn’t always know why they behaved in the ways they did.

So that’s a sample. It may or may not make it to the final draft. The story sets up Daniel as a man in his late forties who’s questioning his life. He’s successful, but unhappy, though the solutions to his unhappiness that he’s so far turned to have only made him question himself more. Soon we’re going to meet Elaine, his wife. Something dramatic is going to happen to her and this event and its repercussions are what the novel turns on.

This story is based on some of my own experiences and feelings. Many novels of a certain type have a lot of the author in them. In this case I’m not talking so much about the events in the novel so much as the themes and the feelings of the characters. In this story Daniel starts off wondering about the value of the life he has built and lived, but as things progress he and the other characters are led to ask deeper questions, even the really big ones, like what is life all about. The story becomes a search to answer that question which is where the Mysteries eventually comes in.

The best novels probably come from somewhere deep within. In my own case The Snow Falcon, which changed my life, was a disguised version of how I felt about certain things in my life. I know the novel resonates strongly with people. I think The Flyer came from the same place. This one will too.