What Next?

When writing novels, I typically work on two or three titles at once, at least in the early stages. That way, when one gets stuck or falls by the wayside (or if, perchance, I finish it), I can switch to another without too much wandering aimless in the desert wondering what to write next. Likewise, when I get to the difficult and tedious stage of taking one through to completion - with all the rereading and editing and soul-searching and compromise that entails _ I can relieve myself now and then by turning back to some real writing.

These are the stories that are currently active in some way or the other. Which, if any, will be the next to completion I don't at this stage know. Books have a life of their own and are not wholly at the author's command, as one of the stories at least tries to explore.

To read an extract, click on the button at the end of the summary.

Character Assassination

Under the tutorship of the author's alter ego, Dr Robson, six university students explore the labyrinthine paths of moral philosophy and the notions of love and freedom and truth. As they learn, their relationships shift and change, but with Dr Robson's guidance - and what might seem to be blind fortune - by the end of their degrees they pair up into what appear to be the perfect partnerships for life.  After university, their comradeship persists and they meet every year in celebration. But when one of them dies, the delicate balance of their relationships is suddenly upset, and all hell is let loose . . .  

That, at least, is what the author, Elliot Ruskin, intends. But what do the characters get up to when the author is not looking? And to what extent can an author keep control of his characters and persuade them to do what he wants, if they have other plans? And in the end, whose story is it, anyway . . .?

Works of Art and Love

Painting, it was often said, was a dialogue between the artist and sitter. There was truth in that, Frank could believe, but it was not the whole truth. To him it was more like a long process of negotiation, or a journey, that looped around itself and came back to the place it started, though changed by then. The travel of light onto the sitter, and from there back to the artist’s eyes, then into his brain, from brain to hand to brush, and then to the canvas. And on each step of the way, the image – the story it told – changed, lost something, gained something, was reinterpreted. So that the story the picture told was not just of the sitter's, or the artist, but of the relationship between the two, and of the space between them.
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As she prepares a posthumous exhibition of Frank Furley’s works, Elise – sitter, muse, perhaps the one and only woman he truly loved – tells that story, and seeks some sort of understanding of him, of herself, and of the true relationship they shared. 
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