Is A Third ‘Silent’ Novel Possible?

The original version of this book…

…was written by yours truly in 2004. It took a decade before I was ready to write the sequel…

Unfortunately the sequel’s ending was so convoluted that I found it impossible to get around the difficulties that I’d engineered into the plot. A third tale seemed unlikely. Then, nine years on, I came up with a scenario that might lead to an opening in the canopy of my imagination. I might – just MIGHT – find  myself in a position to concoct another bamboozling story featuring the teen-aged protagonists from the first two books. Gosh, I hope so: they are a joy to write. If my aging brain can fire on all thrusters, I plan to put aside the next Earplug Adventure, and begin the completion of the trilogy with Silent Existence. Wish me luck: the last time I tried writing a third part of a trilogy was the aborted follow-up to Present Imperfect in 2016…

I now include a tiny morsel from the second book. It has to be tiny because almost every potential extract gives too much away about (not only this book, but also) the original story.

“You’re different.” Tasman said to me immediately following our welcome back by the others.

“No I’m not.” I insisted as I watched our arsenal being taken away.

“From each other I mean.” He explained. “The two of you. You and Felicity. If I was in a darkened room with you both, I’d know one from the other.”

“In what way are we different?” I inquired with truthful interest.

“She‘s more…vulnerable.” He answered. “It’s why I urged her to seek out the alternative version of me. She needs his help.”

“Obviously.” I said as I began collecting up all the used harnesses. “I need you; ergo she needs her…” I almost said ‘Tasman’, but I quickly realised that Dexter and Shane were within earshot as they battled with a recalcitrant trolley upon which they were attempting to carry six bombs at once. “…Brian.” I finished.

“Two Brian’s, eh?” Kylie’s head appeared around the door frame. She winked. “I wonder if he’s such a whizz with the alien technology too.”

As remarks go, Kylie’s couldn’t have been more innocuous; but her words struck the same chords in both Tasman and I. We looked at each other; back to Kylie as she entered the room to collect another explosive device; then back at each other again.

“We’ve been so dumb.” I said to him.

“Speak for yourselves.” Kylie said as she passed us.

“I’m not arguing.” Tasman replied to me.

Kylie held aloft a bomb.

“No one’s dumb.” She said. “Not unless they drop one of these on their foot.”

I ignored her.

“We’ve not seen the woods for the trees.” I said.

“The obvious has eluded us all this time.” Tasman said by way of agreement.

“Sorry.” Kylie said as she laid the explosive device down again. “What’s this obvious thing that neither you have missed?”

© Paul Trevor Nolan 2014

P.S These books (plus Captive Echo) remain available as e-books. Check out HERE to have a look.

Making Art Out of Doo-Dahs and Thingamabobs: The Cafe Puke

The Cafe Puke has been mentioned many times during the saga that is the Earplug Adventures. Sometimes, during a tale, we might catch a glimpse of the interior of that most reviled emporium of the coffee bean, but never have we really been INSIDE an average Cafe Puke franchised outlet. Well that situation has been put to rights; and it all happened because I didn’t take enough shopping bags to Sainsburys. I shall explain. Quickly realising that I wouldn’t be able to pack all my goods into the solitary bag that nestled daintily in the bottom of my trolley, I took the display box in which the yoghurts I wanted  lay. The cashier didn’t mind, so a half-hour later this sat upon the kitchen table, which doubles as my writing desk…

Immediately I saw the possibilties. Ideas began fermenting in my aging brain. Quite a while later, and following lots of trips to the attic and shed, this was the result…

Want to look inside? Go ahead…

Look, it even has an air conditioning unit! Obviously that is why – when word got around the earplug world – it became populated very quickly..

Why, isn’t that Nigel, the King of Scroton, ordering for his wife Beatrix, Magnuss, and Hair-Trigger? Hob-nobbing or what? It can’t be the coffee that draws them in: it must be the decor!

And the late opening hours…

 

Surprise Package

Regardez vous the montage below…

Notice anything unusual about it? Yeah – a dearth of earplugs. Could this suggest an Earplug Adventure without earplugs? Well, no actually: without earplugs it wouldn’t be an Earplug Adventure. But, as you can see, the planned follow-up to The Epoch of Dung will include Nigel – The Golden One – and several Ethernet Cable End inhabitants of Scroton. The development of this story – even before the final episodes of The Epoch of Dung are posted on-line (which usually coincides with cerebral somnolence from the  author, following a prolonged period of creativity, hurried camera clicking, and manic typing) was kick-started by the appearence of this little artistic ditty…

Tooty asked himself – who are these guys? Does that have to be London in flames? Could the event depicted therein be twisted slightly and turned to good use in an Earplug Adventure?  Could that smoking ruin be Ciudad de Droxford – the closest city to the Museum of Future Technology instead? Might it’s destruction be a warning or threat to Cushions Smethwyke and the other curators of the museum? An idea began to form. How could (long-term ally of the MoFT) Scroton be involved with the situation? What if Nigel – The Golden One – decided to make a surprise visit to the museum…

…and found it entirely empty? Well discover what might happen, should these events conspire to tell a tale, dear Earplugger, by salivating over these hints of the next story – Surprise Visit!

P.S And, oh look, I’ve already begun snapping pictures: we can’t have them go to waste, can we!

 

It Must Be In The Genes

I have a daughter with special educational needs. She has more than her fair share of disabilities – not least the inability to communicate properly. We’ve been together for twenty-nine years, and (even with all my experience) often I have no idea what she is trying to tell me. But she isn’t stupid, and can find ways and means of getting the message home. One of these is the use of her little Sony Cybershot. They say a picture is worth a thousand words:  well since she doesn’t have a thousand words, that’s doubly true for her. So, recently, as she sat at her bedroom window, she spotted an aircraft flying at high altitude. Instantly she knew she’d seen something I could use in one of my Earplug Adventures. A couple of minutes later I was presented with this…

…and told that it would look great with a spaceship on the end of it – though not quite in those words. I duly obliged…

…and the Gravity Whelk had launched. I then took it a step further…

By the time I’d finished, some clouds had blown in and the vapour trail had dissipated. Noting that the clouds appeared as if they were being viewed from above – as though from an aircraft…

…my daughter had another creative idea: the wispy vapour trail was obviously caused by a falling aircraft or space ship. She brought the picture to me immediately. This is the result of our co-operation…

I placed the Gravity Whelk in exactly the position she indicated it should be.

 I rather think this is a case of (what they used to call) ‘a chip off the old block’. I couldn’t be more pleased.

 

The Unexpected Result of 365 Days of Mourning

I am writing this at 9.00pm on the 15th Sept 2021. Exactly one year previous, though four hours earlier in the day, my wife’s body had been taken away to lay in a local funeral director’s establishment. I had become (and remain) a widower. I’ve been dreading the approaching anniverary for some while, as has my daughter, who took the day off from her day care centre to stay home with me. But I had already resolved to treat the day like any other. It is simply the 15th of September, just as the 14th was a regular day, and the 16th will be tomorrow. Just another day. And, by and large, both of us were successful. We spoke of her, of course; but we never dwelled upon the subject. That’s been done enough during the intervening twelve months. I also knew that I needed something to keep me occupied, lest my mind wander back through time. So I decided that I would make a model out of used household ‘stuff’.  ‘Stuff’ such as lavatory cleaners and anti-persperant containers. You know, quality ‘stuff’. I knew what sort of model I wanted to create. A space ship for the next Earplug Adventure. More specifically a honeymoon spaceship for Magnuss and Hair-Trigger.  So, having previously purchased a huge tube of contact adhesive, I set to work. Many hours later…

…the ship took on form. And what a nice colour it is too. Toyota Carina E metallic blue (which I found in the shed behind the windscreen washer fluid) and some nattily scissored pieces of yellow sticky-back plastic…

Okay it doesn’t really look much like a spaceship; but you wait until I’ve taken a few shots of this baby and played with them on my computer. Then you’ll be convinced. You will swear you can hear the hyperspace drive motors whine as it streaks across the screen. And it already has a name. Rather ironically I discovered it on an old gravestone. It belonged to a boy who died during infancy in the late Seventeen hundreds. It was a wonderful name – though not really for a little boy. Or any human being for that matter. I don’t know what his parents were thinking when they gave him that moniker: but it’ll make  a great name for an earplug spaceship. It’s called the Tankerville Norris. See, how silly is that? So I’m not going to  shed a single tear today: instead I’m going to smile. She won’t be upset, of course: I told her I was going to do it, when I woke up this morning. Of course I can’t be certain that she heard; but she knows  what a silly old Tooty I am, so she’ll figure it out. And she was always happy to help out with an Earplug Adventure. I believe I can feel her smiling wryly behind me as I type.

 

Wallpapers of the Tooty Kind

Having concluded my important task of the day (I can do only one per day: two taxes my memory too much), I sat myself in front of my laptop and began fiddling with some pictures I took whilst on a wander through a tranquil graveyard the day previous. This is what caught my attention…

A novel step over a flint wall – complete with hole for slipping a foot into, or allowing a small dog to pass. The scene itself makes a pleasant wallpaper. But I felt that the hole was the real star. So, on my first pass I created…

…a scene through a window on an ice planet. Hmmm, might use that in an Earplug Adventure. My second pass brought forth…

…the interior of a defensive position during battle. Hmmm, might use that one too. And on my third pass I created…

…the view from a cell in an alien prison. And it was this one that gave me an idea for another Age of Stone story. If, during the Age of Stone, all technology is based upon rocks and stuff, then  surely they would make their star ships from stone too!  Have to put my thinking cap on now. Could this be the forty-second Earplug Adventure e-book in the making? Bloody hope so: I don’t have any other ideas!

Desperate Measures

What does one do when a darned security door keeps locking, and in doing so, stops people entering?

One calls in Tooty Nolan and his creative brain, that’s what. Result? The Tuti Stop…

A design of devilish cunning, I think you’ll agree. And look…

Somehow I doubt that there is much of a market for it though. A bit like my books, I guess.