Operation Author: 365 Actions to Becoming a Successful Author
I will serialize chapters from Solomon's Secrets, 1 a day for 7 days.
Enjoy, and please leave comments. Thanks
Jon
Solomon scratched the base of his skull, enjoying the temporary relief despite
the knowledge it would be sore in the morning. His eczema always played up when
he came back to England. Within twenty four hours the dampness in the air was
already weighing heavy on him. He was counting the hours until his Gulfstream
G450 touched down back in Nice.
He was, however, looking forward to
seeing this particular speaker. He’d been following her career for a while and
had seen to it his company, Solomon’s Silks, sponsored part of this event for
Bristol Festival of Ideas.
He glanced at his Brietling watch. Less
than five minutes to go and people were still spilling into the auditorium. He
shook his head; why did so many people insist on arriving at the last minute?
Events like this should be savoured, not rushed at like an inconvenient
appointment.
He’d taken his seat twenty minutes ago,
keen to get a good position. He stifled a yawn, feeling the effects of the
Champagne.
The lights faded, and with it a hush
descended. A cough, someone’s mobile chirped and he tutted, then quickly checked the inside pocket of his suit jacket
to make sure his was off. He crossed his legs, threaded his fingers around his
knee and waited.
A bank of stage lights, suspended in
circles overhead, clunked into life, spilling light onto the far wall. The room
fell silent. The clack of stilettos as a tall, slim woman with bouncing blonde
curls crossed the stage and stepped up to the podium. She cleared her throat
and nodded towards the back of the room.
The lighting changed and a spotlight
pooled around the events keynote speaker.
She shuffled her notes, tapped the
microphone and split second of feedback pierced the room.
“Sorry!” she said with a nervous giggle,
“Good evening,” she smiled and nodded, hundreds of pairs of eyes watching her.
She took a sip of water, as if she could dilute her nerves, she cleared her
throat and pressed the clicker for the first slide.
“I am Doctor Sasha Blake. First of all,
I would like to thank the University of Bristol for inviting me to speak
tonight, at this, the spring season of the Bristol Festival of Ideas. Over the
next few weeks, the city plays host to many fascinating and inspiring people.
Experts in their field; writers, thinkers and the just plain curious, speaking
in a series of events. This evening I am going to talk to you about an ancient
manuscript and an even older mystery. I’ll do my best not to disappoint.”
A ripple of laughter echoed around the
paneled hall.
“For those of you who would like to find
out more, I have plenty of copies of my book on the subject and I am happy to
take questions at the end and sign books for you.”
Jon tugged at the thighs of his trousers
and sat up straight.
On the screen behind Dr Blake, a scanned
image of a photocopied document flashed up. It was blurred, faded and torn in
parts – but handwritten, unmistakably in Greek. She waved a laser pointer at
the screen and turned, leaning to the microphone, the pointer following her
gaze. He enjoyed her fluid movements, as she rested lightly on the podium.
“We have found what we believe to be an
unknown text written by the Greek Philosopher, Democritus.”
She let the revelation hang. Jon
expected to hear gasps or whispers in the audience, but it felt like he was the
only one who knew what this meant.
A copy of a manuscript two and a half
thousand years old. Things like that didn’t just turn up in people’s attic any
day of the week. The question was; was it genuine? Or an elaborate hoax? And
what kind of fool would place crumbling papyrus into a photocopier? But what it
meant was the original text was potentially out there and had been known about
since the invention of photocopier almost sixty years ago.
Jon felt his skin tingling. The thoughts
rattled around his head. He had an idea of what Dr Blake was going to talk
about this evening, but to see it…finally. His eyes stung from concentrating on
the illuminated screen.
“Democritus is considered the father of modern
science and was best known for his work with Leucippus on Atomic Theory – the
idea all matter is made up of discrete units called Atoms,” Dr Blake explained,
“The theory was adopted in the 19th Century when chemists began identifying elements,
but was popularised by the Romans. Of course, here in Bristol, we can lay claim
to one of the greatest modern thinkers in the field of Atom Theory in the shape
of Paul Dirac.”
He glanced around the audience. A few of
them reacted to the Bristol connection, which interested him far less than the
manuscript itself.
Then she looked his way. He swore she
was looking directly at him, as if she had zoomed in on him. Like she was
talking directly to him. That she knew, he knew…
A smile flickered across her face. A
connection. A real connection. His throat swelling.
For the benefit of the rest of the
audience she spelled out why the manuscript was important. But the words washed
over him.
“This text is one of the few known
writings in existence by Democritus himself. Most of the writings about his
life and his work had come from other sources, such as Plato and Aristotle.”
He felt himself nodding minutely.
She clicked to the next slide.
“Here you can clearly see the word
Atomos in ancient Greek, meaning indivisible. And here, he talks about a new
type of atom he cannot attribute to his senses. Democritus likened the
different atoms to what his senses told him – for example, he proposed water
atoms were slippery and salt atoms were sharp and spiny. Of course, I am no
expert on particle physics, I’m an Archaeologist, the existence of the text
itself and the clues it gives us about this man’s life are what fascinate me.”
She clicked to the next slide and
swirled the green dot around some clearer passages of text. He could see she
was into her stride now, her delivery becoming more passionate and fluid.
“More interestingly is this,” she aimed
the dot around at a faded sketch, “It appears to show some form of container,
and inside the container are layers. A package, or a box.”
She paused.
Jon swallowed and scratched at his neck
again, more from habit. This was it. This was what he wanted to know about. The
box. A box taken from a sacred site in 1998, and then disappeared - Sasha Blake
looked guilty as hell.
*
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| Inside the Victoria Rooms, Bristol |
If I could choose anyone to play the parts of my characters in the movie of the book,this is who I'd choose:
|
 |
| Sasha Blake, played by Kate Winslet (image from: http://www.hngn.com) |
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| Jon Solomon, played by Tom Hiddleston (image from: http://daisy104.tumblr.com/) |
Tune in tomorrow for the next chapter...
Coming soon - Solomon's Secrets is in the final stages of preparation for publication. Help me to see it in print by pre-ordering now.
- e-Books £3
- Paperbacks £10 (inc P&P)
http://bit.ly/SolomonsSecrets_Fund
Thanks :)
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