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Having now written books on various topics, it occurred to me recently that I’ve often referred to my time in retail and said, ‘I could write a book about it.’ It was, after all, my second career, which is why I’ve already used A Life of Choice as the title, with The Retail Years as a sub-title.

In less time than it took to drink a cup of coffee, I recalled the handful of companies I worked for, and each was different. Within the hour, I was strolling through the nearby woodland, my favourite place to free up my imagination. An abundance of anecdotes surfaced for each company.

Considering such a story is one thing, but would it a viable project?

My job title changed as I moved from one company to another, and with each title came authority and responsibilities. During my 23-year military career, I was no stranger to such things, and, of course, I understood organisation and the need for an established hierarchy. As much as I tried, nothing could have prepared me for the reality of working in ‘Civvy Street’.

Over the coming weeks I’ll create a framework for the story, and while it may cover a similar length of time to my military career, it will be compiled as one, or at most, two, volumes. The content will cover such things as Training, Customer Service, Staff Training, Discipline and the occasional foray into company and workplace politics.

The preparation will be my background project while I continue to work on my latest novel, Another Taste of Honey, and Harriet, a collection of short stories.

Like any author, I don’t know if an idea will work until I try it. As always, I’m open to feedback, so please let me know if you think the idea has any promise.

Okay, so things didn’t go exactly according to plan, but I’m happy with the result so far.

What was the plan?

My intention was to create a new character for a thriller, but invite input from anybody that wanted to put in ideas, for any aspect of the story. As with many things in life, it didn’t work out according to plan.

What went wrong?

I prepared and published an opening scene to try to inspire some ideas. Within a few days I had several contacts saying that folk liked the theory of it, and would like to take part. To cut a long story short, I got one concrete idea from somebody and a character name. I’ve used the character name, but the intention for the plot was too far off the mark. The only suggestion was good, but aimed at an international story. The research would have taken me until this time next year.

What went right?

I had my intro and a skeleton of a synopsis, but after several days of no feedback I set about inventing some more characters and started writing. By the time I’d written the close of the first chapter I knew where I was going and I’d discovered the pace at which to move the story forward.

I had responses from four people (fellow writers), who suggested I should go my own way to maintain my ‘voice’ throughout the story. If nothing else inspired me, then that certainly did and to come from more than one person was incredible for my confidence.

Where are we now?

1. In a little over six weeks I’ve written the first draft of the entire novel.

2. The first five chapters appear in this blog, still only at first draft. I have a lot of work to do.

3. I’ve already decided that there will be a sequel and have a working title.

4. There is a high possibility that in the sequel, certain characters from this new story will intermesh with the characters of the sequel to Beyond The Law.

5. I’m now leaving A Taste of Honey to settle for two weeks while I work on other projects, and then in mid-October I plan to start work on the second draft.

Is there a proposed publication date?

If I can work to my usual schedule and everything falls into place – mid-December 2014.

On that happy note, I’m now off to spend some time on the other novel that I have under construction, A Life of Choice.

Thank you for dropping by.

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The Retail Years