Ben Anderson's Blog

Today I was making a cake for my girlfriend Holly. It was meant to be a quadruple chocolate cake, I believe the recipe is Nigella Lawson's.

However I made some rather fatal errors; basically I missed out two ingredients from the cake and added one to the sauce by mistake.

So instead of getting a chocolate cake with coco sauce and chocolate chips we ended up with a sponge cake with a chocolate core and chocolate sauce on top. Personally I think it is far better this way.

But it reminds me of the way I wrote my first book; I basically came at it with a 'recipe' in my head and, completely by accident, new bits got added and old bits were forgotten during the process of writing. At the end the finished product was hardly comparable with my initial idea save for a few character names. But I loved it more as it seemed to have grown from me rather than having been produced.

I think it is something that can be applied to many things; not just cooking and writing though. - Have an idea in your head, build on it like a foundation. Then let your imagination free and see what the result tastes like!

Character List:

Fletcher : ex-soldier, discharged due to a brain tumour

Hamilton: Fletchers commanding officer

Secretary: Hamilton’s secretary

Joanna: Fletcher’s one night stand

John: Fletcher’s neighbour

Rose: Fletcher’s partner

Doctor: Fletcher’s radiologist



Scene One:

Open in a small yet well-furnished office, a flag pole with the union jack hanging from it stands in one corner to the left of the door and the walls are adorned with a mixture of tactical maps, medal cases, awards in frames and other such military memorabilia. Above the door an ornate sabre hangs, crossed with its scabbard. At a well ordered and neat desk sits Hamilton, he is old, yet well presented in full dress uniform. His expression is caught between anger and resignation.

Major Fletcher enters a small office in dress uniform.

Hamilton : Take a seat

Fletcher : Sir

Fletcher sits uncomfortably

Hamilton : You’re lucky you know Fletcher? A good number of men who served alongside and under you in Iraq spoke out for you in the hearing; they seem to have forgiven your actions

Fletcher : I’m grateful sir

Hamilton : As well you should be Major, or from this day; former Major. Without their support and the fact that what you did was not intended to be malicious you would have been facing a custodial sentence rather than an honourable discharge

Fletcher : With all due respect sir, they are one and the same in my mind

Hamilton : I won’t have any of that in here man. We have known each other long enough for me to ask if I may give you some advice, not as a passer of judgment or as a commander, but as a friend?

Fletcher : You may sir

Hamilton : Don’t let this destroy you; there are other things you can do with the skills you have learnt here

Fletcher : If I may sir, there is little a man can do with six months

Hamilton : The doctors say you have six months until you die then Fletcher?

Fletcher : Yes sir

Hamilton : Then make sure you make those months count, eh? That’s what I would do in your place; be sure you are not already dead of spirit before you become dead of flesh, I do not condone the chance you have been given but nor will I condone you to waste it

Fletcher : Thank you for the advice sir

Hamilton : You may go, good luck

Fletcher : Thank you sir

Fletcher leaves and Hamilton’s secretary (a young soldier) enters

Secretary : Do you think he will manage sir?

Hamilton : What do you mean?

Secretary : With all due respect sir it is hard enough for some soldiers to adjust to civilian life in normal circumstances, Major, sorry former Major, Fletcher is most defiantly not in normal circumstances

Hamilton: You think it will get to him?

Secretary: How can it not? Soldiers know they might die, and everyone knows they will die. But to be told how long you have? Then to lose the thing you hold most dear? What are the chances it will not affect him?

Hamilton: Indeed Private





Scene Two

Fletcher, unshaven, and a woman lie in bed, the room is obviously Fletcher’s from the décor, military items on the walls and the magazines scattered in one corner. Cloths lie scattered around the room and in one corner is a small pile of empty bottles.

Joanna: Urgh, what time is it?

Fletcher: Does it matter?

Joanna: Well no, it’s Sunday so I can stay as long as I want

Fletcher: Oh, joy

Joanna: Listen, where is your bathroom?

Fletcher: Down the hall, left (waves hand absently)

Joanna: Right, I’m off for a shower, don’t go anywhere!

(Joanna leaves and after a few seconds a shower starts running)

Fletcher: Arrr! (yawns, gets out of bed and starts dressing)

Joanna(from bathroom): You making breakfast?!

Fletcher: Whatever, sure! (finishes getting dressed and piles up Joanna’s belongings on the end of his bed, he flicks open her purse and looks inside) ah Joanna that was her name

Joanna(from bathroom): So what do you do then?

Fletcher Nothing much, no job

Joanna(from bathroom): You should be a soldier or something, grizzled looks and a uniform? Women would die for you

Fletcher(talking to himself as he writes words on the large mirror above his bed in Joanna’s lipstick): Lock up on your way out

Fletcher leaves house

John: Morning neighbour, not locking your door today?

Fletcher: If I did she might still be here when I get back

John: Another? You must have had twenty in the last month

Fletcher: A lot of free time in the last month

John: That’s what discharge does to you son, well I’ll be seeing you around





Scene Three

Fletcher sits cleanly shaven and well-dressed at a table set for two with a candle burning and obviously homemade food set out ready, Rose enters.

Rose: What’s all this?

Fletcher: You know all full well what it all is gorgeous

Rose: I may do, remind me?

Fletcher: Really? I spend my day over a hot stove and you play coy? You know all full well what it is for, and I require my congratulations

Rose: Well congratulations to my gallant chef for soldiering through his quest to work out how to use an oven

Fletcher: Careful there; mocking my efforts is a sure way to not get fed

Rose: Ah but what if that is my aim?

Fletcher: Then more for me (moves to take her plate)

Rose: No, no, I will soldier through it (Sits and begins eating)

Fletcher: Four months, seems to have flown

Rose: You are a lot different now you know?

Fletcher: I know, and I know who I have to thank

Rose: Ah it was nothing, your wayward ways simply needed a firm hand

Fletcher: It was far from nothing, you didn’t need to go through some of the things I put you through

Rose: It’s done and gone, losing your job hit you hard

Fetcher: Yeah, it did

Rose: Shame they had to let you go, what did you say the reason was again?

Fletcher: Over staffed; cuts to the department of defence, you know how it is





Scene Four

Rose sits alone in a living room watching television when the phone rings

Rose: Hello?

Doctor: Hello, is Mr Fletcher there please?

Rose: He’s out at the moment, can I take a message?

Doctor: Can I ask who I am speaking too?

Rose: Rose, his girlfriend

Doctor: Ah, please let him know that Doctor Roberts, his radiologist, called him. Thank you.

Phone goes dead, a few minuets later Fletcher enters towelling his wet hair

Fletcher: Did I hear the phone?

Rose: Yes

Fletcher: Anything important?

Rose: you tell me

Fletcher: What?

Rose: Who is Doctor Roberts?

Fletcher: ah

Rose: yes. Explain

Fletcher: he is my radiologist

Rose: For?

Fletcher: A tumour

Rose: Alex? Please tell me this is a bad joke?

Fletcher sits down heavily on the couch

Fletcher: I wish it was, I found out about it a few years ago, went through private treatment, radiotherapy and all that, it went away but then it came back, I didn’t tell my officers; that’s why I was discharged

Rose: But if it went away the first time can it not this time?

Fletcher: No, the tests said another treatment would be as damaging as it would be helpful

Rose: So you’re..?

Fletcher: Dying, a ticking clock? Yes.

Rose: How long?

Fletcher: I have about two months if I am lucky

Rose: You weren’t going to tell me?

Fletcher: Can you understand why?

Rose: yes, but that doesn’t make it right

Fletcher: I am sorry, you know I love you

Rose: Alex, I can’t do this, you could…at any time…

Fletcher: I see

Rose: Please, I understood what you did, can’t you understand why I can’t see this through

Fletcher: Yes, I can understand, see you around Rose

Fletcher stands, bends to kiss her then stops and walks out the door



Scene Five



Fletcher sits on a bed in a small hotel room with a phone in his hand and a gun on the bed next to him, he presses the green button.

Phone: hello you have reached Alex and Rose, we’re not in at the moment so leave a message!

Fletcher: Hi Rose, I hope you don’t delete this as it’s sort of a good bye. I was always meant to be a soldier, my father was and his father and his father. Dying like this, slowly is not the way I would have chosen and since I can’t chose my time, I can’t chose you and I can’t change anything I am going to choose the way I go. The house is yours, it’s not like I have any family, do what you want with it; it was never a home until you arrived anyway. Good bye Rose, love you.



Scene Six

Rose walks down stairs early in the morning, still in her dressing gown and picks up the mail, at the bottom of the pile is a letter to Fletcher from the NHS, she opens it and begins to read.

Rose: Dear Mr Fletcher we are sorry we were unable to reach you when we called we tried to leave a message but obviously it was missed. In regards to your recent test results that stated another session of radiotherapy would be of little use to you we had some other experts look over the data and we are delighted to inform you that the tumour is benign, you will always have it and will need to phone us to arrange regular check-ups but it apart from that you will be perfectly healthy. Yours Sincerely Doctor Roberts, cancer unit.

I sit here, typing avidly and aiming to do naught to please my readers, to bring you all glad tidings.

Are you struggling to find a good, no, a great book this Winter? Are the pages of your well worn favorite just holding no more suspense for you? And do the walls of your local book store seem lined with works of tedious boredom?

If so then I have good news! And well even if you have a reading list the size of a basketball player you should probably still listen because one can never have too long a reading list!

Now the genre of fantasy has been a bit, well…repetitive over the last few years with only a few gems standing out from the over done mud of ‘good fights evil – good wins’ so around a year and a half ago I sat down and decided to try my hand at writing myself; I can hardly judge the efforts of other writers when I hadn't so much as write ‘once upon a time’ myself could I?

The end result is, I believe/hope, something different; the characters have their own motivations and though honor exists it is no longer some mythical force that for some reason certain people have a lot of and the rest of the world non. No near invincible‘dark lord’ resides in some lair and just as in our world the border between right and wrong is not always clear.

War will come to the land, and the realms on men face threats from without and within. As the last Soulborn; a deadly amalgamation of death and passion, hunts down the Angels that struggle to lead humanity against its foes each faction seems bent on doing the right thing, at the cost of the others lives.

Blood will flow, but whose?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dancing-Soul-... The Dancing Soul of Fire