May the Force Be with Me

Happy Star Wars Day!

This time last year, I penned my first post for this website. This time this year, one year on, and I am pleased to announce that – fanfare of trumpets – the novel is finished. Fourth time lucky. About 7,500 words over this weekend – a personal best. The final total is about 111,000 words and most of those I have written in the past twelve months which is again a personal record.

Of course, now comes the hard part, the almost impossible part. The daunting task made more so because I have been through it all twice before. The trawling around literary agents trying to get a bite. The multiple rejections, which I am still not immune too even though I have had so many. First I have to write the synopsis, then I have to bite the bullet.

May the Force be with me this time.

Talking about duty done, what about ‘Line of Duty’ on Sunday night? I was a little disappointed. Not ‘Game of Thrones’ gutted, you understand, but a little let down after all the hype. They were bringing in H and all you could see was that it was a guy in cuffs, the tension was building, but … then we saw who it was and I went “Oh, is it only him?” He never struck me as a kingpin. I was expecting it to be the Chief Constable or even Carmichael, both who were adamant there was no institutionalised corruption even though this has been going on for years right under everyone’s noses. Maybe it is not the end but it felt like it when each photo of the previous culprits were taken down from the board and the camera focused on each one.

I had not even watched one episode of this programme up to 2019, then I watched Series 1 to 3 one after each other, so maybe the build-up of tension had been quicker for me than those who had been watching since 2012. I wonder how many others were dissatisfied on Sunday. Maybe it is not the end. Maybe it can be regionalised like ‘CSI’ – Line of Duty Manchester, Line of Duty Cardiff, Line of Duty Outer Hebrides – but with the same characters moving locations as they clean up the country bit by bit.

Let’s hope it is not over, because with the BBC thinking that cooking, dancing, dog grooming and sewing are good primetime viewing we need all the ‘Line of Duty’ and ‘Death in Paradise’ we can get.