Hope you like it or I'm not playing any more.
- JPT
The lift doors opened and Ryan made his way across the lobby to the hotel bar. Since he had left his room, his mind had not let up. Question after brooding question flashed through it. What was he doing? Didn't he have enough problems with this Eddie thing, and especially with Caro, without adding further complications? He had done no more than leave his room and walk to the bar and already he felt more guilty than usual. Did even an intention to have a drink with another woman constitute something about which he should feel guilty? It's not like anything was going to happen? Caro couldn't have a problem with his having a drink with a work colleague, could she? After all, that other thing was over. It was in the past. It was just Caro now.
If Ryan had expected the hotel bar to be something other than hotel bars always are, he would have been wrong. It was too tacky to call bland but the bar had that soulless quality in common with any he'd seen. A sort of characterless character.
Ryan paused inside the door, scanning for the woman. His eyes took in the tasteful purple walls - mauve, he corrected himself, it's probably called mauve - and the bamboo bar stools and furniture. What is it with bamboo, he wondered.
There. Beyond a wall of palms or ferns or something he saw her. She was seated by a table and she was not alone. A man sat opposite her. He seemed very intent on whatever she was saying and, whereas she seemed relaxed and at ease, the man was sitting on the edge of his seat, leaning towards her as she spoke.
Ryan was considering whether he should forget it and just go back to his room when the pair appeared to finish their conversation. The man stood and walked towards the exit. Towards Ryan. Ryan watched him close the short distance between them and wondered whether he should offer some casual greeting. Most likely this man knew Phyllo or Feelo far better than he - should he say hello? The etiquette of situations like these had never been Ryan's strong point. The man solved Ryan's social problem by making no eye contact with him as he passed.
Phyllo, who had been watching her companion leave, caught Ryan's eye and waved. Ryan waved back and walked towards her.
Jesus she was beautiful. Ryan would be lying if he said that he hadn't noticed her figure as she left the meeting earlier that day. She was certainly no skinny, size zero catwalk model. Christ, what a body. As he approached, Ryan sneaked a glance at the curve of her crossed legs, her skirt above her knee. A cartoon image of himself, tugging at his shirt collar as steam escaped, popped into his head and he grinned.
"Hi," he said.
"Hey," she replied, "have a seat."
Ryan sat in the seat vacated by the man that had just left. "I hope I didn't interrupt anything" he said, pointing alternately to the seat and the door.
"No. That's all taken care of. Would you like a drink?"
Ryan looked at her glass, which was almost empty. It had an inch of something clear and fizzy remaining. He nodded: "that'd be great. Thanks a lot."
In the impossibly easy fashion of the beautiful, she immediately caught the attention of a waiter. He appeared by their table far more quickly, Ryan thought, than he would have if he'd been called by a man. Phyllo indicated that Ryan should order.
"Vodka and 7UP," he ordered, taking a punt.
"And I'll have another gin and tonic," she said. Gin, shit, thought Ryan.
"Certainly madam," said the waiter, smiling for just a little too long at Phyllo before leaving.
"So," said Phyllo, "how are you liking it so far?"
"It's fine," Ryan replied, recognising that the small-talk section of the night had commenced, "it's a bit of a culture-shock."
"I'm sure it is. What have to gotten up to so far?"
"Not too much." said Ryan, "Had a bit of a drive around. See the sights, you know?"
Phyllo laughed. "Seeing the sights, eh? What sights have you seen in
Ryan paused, slightly taken aback. He hadn't really expected to have to come up with a cover story so soon. "Yeah, well, not too many. I know that now," he conceded, grinning and hoping she'd buy it.
She smiled and nodded slowly.
"I'm sorry," said Ryan. "I'm not sure I caught your name properly in the meeting today."
"It's Philé," she replied.
Ryan, who had met his share of people with unusual names since he arrived in
"I think that it's Greek originally, but it's been bastardised along the way I suspect," she offered.
It was Ryan's turn to nod. He felt awkward. Small-talk had never interested him greatly and this sort of forced conversation always made him a little uncomfortable. The waiter arrived back with the drinks, bringing a welcome distraction. Philé signed a stub with her room number and left five dollars on the tray as a tip. The waiter thanked her and, as he moved away, Ryan noticed him making a valiant effort not to look at her chest.
Philé sat forward and leaned towards Ryan, who began to feel some empathy with the waiter's dilemma.
"Okay," she said, "You don't seem very comfortable with the small-talk. I had hoped to ease you into this, but I'm just going for it."
"Eh?" Ryan was confused.
"Ryan. I know why you're in
Ryan started. What the hell?
"I know that you're looking for someone. That you're looking for Eddie Roberts."
"What, how?"
"It doesn't matter how, Ryan. It just matters what you do now."
Ryan felt like he'd been slapped in the face. He felt himself blushing furiously and he could feel the blood rushing in his ears. What was going on?
"Listen Ryan," Philé said, "I, and some associates, also have a very pressing need to find Eddie Roberts and we believe that you may be able to help with that."
"What do you mean," asked Ryan, still trying to figure out what was going on, "I'm not a detective."
Philé took a sip from her drink. "Detectives have already failed to find Mr. Roberts, Ryan. You, however, have something that they do not." She took another sip as Ryan stared at her blankly. She looked into his eyes briefly before standing.
"It is now in both our interests that you find Eddie Roberts, Ryan." She began to walk away. "I can make an excuse for you in tomorrow's meeting. We'll talk soon."
40 comments:
f me - that was fast. OK - who's next? If no-one else volunteers I will but I won't be able to get onto it till Sunday at the earliest.
No one is more surprised than me GSE.
I just hope that I haven't sacrificed too much for the sake of speed. I'd normally secrete anything I've written in a drawer for a fortnight before completely rewriting it or throwing it in the bin.
I'm likely to pop back here in a week, hate it and log on to delete it, leaving you without a second chapter (or bit thereof). Maybe you should disable my logon.
I'm going to be backing everything up.
Looking great so far. The dialogue works fine for me, at first read.
Shame he knows her name now though. That would have been fun ;-)
Dang! I am all up ons! That is great, JPT! I love where you are running with this.
I did the same thing — wrote in a screaming hurry. It was only later that I realized I'd neglected to put in any dialogue. Oh well, next round :)
BTW chapters are usually ~5000-7000 words, so we might want to make this chapter 1.2... though I admit I don't care a huge deal about convention.
Wow - these are both great! Congratulations to Valerie and JPT for a great start. I'm now feeling very worried about my own contribution. Apart from anything else I know bugger all about LA.
I suggest we don't worry too much about labelling the chapters as yet - we can go back and do that later.
Anyhow, we now need a number 3. Sign up here! If no-one else volunteers before then, I'll get to it on Sunday.
A fair point about the chapters, Valerie. I was originally set up to make this a run-on from your first part but it just felt like a new chapter to me.
Plus, I like shorter chapters as, since Baby Trousers came along, I've only had time to read in small chunks and small chapters make it easier to pick up where I left off.
I'm not at all fussy though and happily row in with GSE's idea of slicing the chapters up later.
Cor. Lots of intrigue and some lovely little touches, like the faint handprint on the glass... I like how you've put our hero right in there jpt, it all kinda reminds me of William Gibson so far!
I'm similarly worried about my lack of knowledge of LA. I may have to have Ryan jet off to, er, Barking or somewhere for my bit!
That's great. This looks like it's working. Not quite ready to run a lap but I'm getting my shorts on.
Just one thing that has worried me slightly since I posted and, on which, I'd like to get people's opinions.
I'm slightly concerned about moving too fast in the plot. With chunks of 1000 words each, there is, I think, a definite temptation for everybody to add something startling or tremendously exciting. I realised after I wrote this that, in order for this blovel to work as a whole, it may be necessary for some of our 1000-word chunks to be 'less exciting' - bits that may be exposition or back-story or whatever.
Part of me feels that I moved too quickly in the plot of my chunk to get to where it ended. It was fun to end it where I did though, but I now realise that (maybe) sometimes the overall structure/plot will need to come first. I just, selfishly, hope that it's not on my turn but if it looks that way, I'll take one for the team.
Am I making any sense? Anybody have any thoughts?
You are making sense. Maybe as we move along we'll go to larger chunks? We could start with 1000-word chunks just to get a bunch of stuff set up, then take longer chunks to get through the exposition...?
I hope I got things set up so that the action could move back to England when necessary. Starting it in LA made it easy for me, but obviously most of you are not here :)
oh yeh and people should write to me at valerie [at] grasslimb [dot] com if they have any questions about LA (like "where would he go to find a good diner" or "is there a part of town where X tends to happen" etc)
I was thinking the same thing JPT - I was considering volunteering to go next and thinking about what I'd do and then I thought that my idea would be a bit much considering we've just had a big Plot Thingy happen. I don't think you moved too quickly though, I quite like starting lots of threads of mystery unravelling early, gives people time to try to second guess what's going to happen and get interested. It's all a bit Dashiell Hammett.
deep breath
OK, I'll step in and do a more sedate bit if that's OK with folks? Looks to me like we'll need to take more than one turn each to make a whole novel any road. I'll go all descriptive and pondery and ease up on the action. Give me a wee bit more time than these whizzkids though, I will strive to post on Thursday, when I get in from work? Team?? whimpers
excellent - thanks violet
I don't really think anyone expects us to keep up the 1000 words/day pace, though in point of fact that would be cool because we'd finish the novel in 3 months. ;-) But, realistically, meatlife has a way of interfering with our online existences — pesky, that.
Huzzah for you, Violet. Break a leg (or whatever writers say to each other in these circumstances). If you're struggling to fit it in, I can heartily recommend a career break (work tends to interfere with actual life). It's working a charm for me so far (about five weeks out of five months so far). I'm doing things I've wanted to do for years (like writing stuff for instance).
The only drawback is the thought of having to go back in a few months. Bummer. This thing better sell - it's all that can save me now.
Oh yay for Violet - I won't be able to contribute until next week due to heinous work trauma so I'm just sorting through the sprintkit a la Dick Headley in anticipation.
This is excellent stuff, and I don't think it's moving too fast. I happen to like the pace.
I also think worrying about making it into the perfect novel is not the best line to take. After all, novelists revise - a lot. My spontaneous thought when I heard about this was that it would be fun, sort of like that game where everyone adds a sentence to the previous one, to make a silly story. Not to suggest that this should just be silly, but I do think it should be fun.
All that said, I'm pretty nervous about this because a) I'm not a big detective story aficionada and b) I'm neither in the US nor the UK so this is quite a stretch for me. Plus I've got some heavy, time-consuming stuff coming up in the next couple of weeks. Starting to have second thoughts, in other words. I hate to be a quitter, but perhaps I can just bow out gracefully??
Alda, you can bow out if you really want, but your input might be the best yet. What about introducing another character who lives in Iceland? Or take Caro on a trip to Iceland to meet her secret lover... there are lots of possibilities. Then you could write a romance chapter or a more mainstream or literary chapter. I don't see any problem with that.
Plus, I selfishly want you to stick around so I have someone to say hi to when we go to Iceland on holiday in 2008 ;-)
stick around alda and take your turn when we get to something that isn't US or UK centric - a bit of internal reflection or something like that.
JPT, if we put this up on Lulu I reckon we make at least 5p each out of it.
OK, twist my arm!
Excellent ideas, Valerie. I had vaguely thought of how I could get the protagonist to Iceland, but of course one of the secondary characters would do. Even Eddie himself. [?]
Oh, and I'll be happy to say Hi in 2008 :)
Arrgh - this stuff is bloody great. Feeling very nervous now about signing up to this, but never mind...
I like a novel that gets me wondering about lots of things right at the start, there's always time later to catch your breath and let the reader do likewise.
Nice piece, jpt. The hotel bar is perfectly described.
Can I get a place in the queue? I'm more or less ready. Just waiting for the next submission to see how it fits.
OK, dh goes after Violet. Don't forget to answer the author invitation I sent you.
Ooh, I like the idea of Eddie being in Iceland, Alda.
The more I think about it, the more I like it, too!
Can I go after dh?
OK, I am really really rubbish and really really sorry but I haven't got it done because of some horrendous work stuff - many people misbehaving out of the blue so I was at the office til 9 yesterday filling out all the forms I need to do to a warrant out to get the cops think about maybe arresting them in a few months time if they can be arsed, and I still haven't finished it all now. Tomorrow's gonna be just as bad. I just got in from work and am too knackered to think properly now so what I'd do really wouldn't be up to standard.
Enough of the excuses though - I'm sorry but I need to pass. And to take that career break methinks, JPT.
Ooh, I am enjoying this (and am also very glad I didn't sign up for it). Bravo Valerie and JPT! I loved 'what is it with bamboo, he wondered'.
Violet: it seems slightly more Raymond Chandler than William Gibson at the moment, but I won't be complaining if you move it into some gritty cyberpunk near-future!
Mine's ready to go. It's actually easier for me to post it as Chapter 3 without seeing violet's. Up to you.
OK, dh, that sounds a good plan.
Alda, ready yourself...
I'll go after Alda
coming into this VERY late, we could just go with our chunks and if the back story bits are back story anyway then we could always stick them in between the plot bits later on. what? flashbacks and dream sequences very useful....
ooo also, possibly a lame question, GSE have you tried sorting posts in reverse order? im SURE there is a way.
Patroclus: I was thinking of a specific Gibson really, Pattern Recognition - I can't quite put my finger on it but there's something about particularly Valerie's style and JPT's plot movement that made me think of that book... I admit with a little shame that it's the only William Gibson I've read all the way through. Lots of boys have eagerly pressed battered copies of Neuromancer into my hands and assured me I'll love it but I just couldn't bear to encourage them.
Did you get my chapter OK GSE? I've had 2 emails from you...I've replied to both of them....but heard nothing.
Ok, I'm chomping at the bit!
When I'm going to find the time, is another question ... ach! who needs sleep, anyway? ;)
Violet: You're doing better than me - I've only read Neuromancer, after the lovely Mr BC eagerly pressed a (brand new) copy into my hands at Paddington Station and told me I would love it. I didn't love it, and in fact I couldn't finish it. I loved the *idea* of it, but I find his writing style almost unreadable; far too jerky and arrhythmic.
Oh, and I've also tried to read The Difference Engine, but in that one I found the dialogue so awful I couldn't get much beyond about page 12.
I am enjoying the blovel, though!
dh - in the email there should be instructions for registering as an author for the blog. You need to follow those instructions and then you'll be able to post directly to the blog. I'll go off and check my spam bin but I don't think I've had an email from you.
Pattern Recognition is a bit different in style, I found it so much easier to get into. The story's insane but in a slightly more believable way: lots of sinister stuff about the evil advertising industry, all interwoven with the search for the origins of a series of video fragments on the internet. Loved it, but tried Difference Engine next and had a similar response to you.
What is it with boys and Neuromancer?
Phyllo?
Not *the* Phyllo who, along with her sister Puff, would have us all hanging on her every word, punting slowly down the Isis, a cool drink in one hand a vial of mescalin in the other - all Afghan fur and Che Guevara as we plotted this, that and the other insurrection and mad, dope infused folly in those never-to-be-forgotten, hazy days of '68 when she and her darling twin were probably the two loveliest, most seditious creatures in the whole crazy, mixed-up world......?
I'll never forget the Pastry sisters...
L.U.V. on ya,
Bob
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