Starting a new story

 June 11, 2023

The first entry into this blog on writing and reading will not thrill you.  This is not a high-adrenaline event.  Writing is painful at times and rewarding sometimes.  I am working on a new novel today, perhaps a novella and the ideas are slow in coming.  So far, it’s about Ford Lancaster, a carpenter, who enters the dark world of gambling to save his friend, Double-down Dan.  Double-down gets into trouble with the gambling mafia and turns to Ford for help.  Ford, being a conscientious good friend, goes to talk to the mafioso, and gets into deep shit.  

More tomorrow.

The story so far...

Ford Lancaster built cabinets.  A carpenter since his teens, working with wood calmed his nerves and often gave him a feeling of peace inside.  Nothing like a well-made cabinet to give him a sense of accomplishment.  He had his own shop in his garage complete with table saws, a drill press, routers, and a fine collection of hammers and nail guns.  He was working on a project for Mayer’s Construction, cabinets for a kitchen; made of maple, these cabinets were some of the best he had ever built.  He measured thirty-six inches on the maple board in front of him with his tape measurer; third-six inches exactly.  He took his carpenter’s pencil and marked the line on the board with his T-square, and reached for his circular saw.

Ford was a tall man, six feet and two inches, with olive skin and fine, dark hair.  He was Hispanic; his mother was from Colombia and made sure he could speak Spanish at an early age.  Dressed in Levi’s and a long-sleeved cotton shirt, he had a carpenter’s pencil in his ear and a smile on his face.  He smiled because he knew that Ali was going to break up with him, and this pleased him immensely.  Ford could read minds, you see. 

He had always been able to read the minds of others since childhood.  He didn’t know how he did it; he just knew what other people were thinking.  Sometimes this annoyed him, as he didn’t really want to know what other people were thinking, so he was able to block out their thoughts, which accounted for why he was still sane at the age of thirty-one.

“Working.  Always working,” said Ali, his girlfriend. Shorter by half a foot than him, she had a killer figure, and she wore no bra.  Ali oozed sex whenever she was around him, and often he responded, but lately, it had become clear that she didn’t love him and didn’t respect him either.