William Turney Morris: Blog

I had a reader (from the US) comment to me about temperatures; there was one scene where someone was cooking, and preheated the over to 200 degrees. He couldn't understand that, until he realized that it was probably in degrees Celsius. 200 C is close enough to 400 F. Readers of the "Three Signs" series need to remember that at the time it is set, Australia had converted to the metric system, and unless otherwise mentioned, all measurements would be in the appropriate metric value. So when Will says "It was a nice 25 degrees outside", he's not acting as if he's from Minnesota, but saying that 77 degrees Fahrenheit is rather pleasant. It would be rare for someone to say "It was a nice 25 degrees C outside."

Now, in general conversation, sometimes units will be mentioned:

"How fast were you driving?"

"Oh, maybe 60 kays, I guess"

K = kilometres per hour. Also "clicks". But distance could be clicks, too:

"How far until we get to Newcastle?"

"It's another 60 clicks, I reckon."

The only thing that I never really adapted to was height in centimetres... I was always 5 foot 10 inches. Somehow, 178 cm just didn't jive.

There is one exception to the use of metric measurements, and that is in the sailing scenes. As is standard amoung sailors, wind speed is measured in knots (nautical miles per hour), distances will be in nautical miles - which was used as a measurement because one nautical mile is one minute of latitude. It's just a bit over a statute mile, and is 1.85 kilometres. When Will is sailing, he (and the others on the boat) might use either nautical miles - "It's another 3 miles up to Juno Point", or metres - "Fat Cat is maybe 100 metres ahead of us". Sometimes, elapsed times will be used, particularly at a race start - 'We're ten seconds from the line... 7...6...", or 'boat lenghts' - 'we're three lengths from the mark'.

I hope that clears up any possible confusion

Spoiler Alert: If you haven't started reading Book 3 - Janelle yet, you may want to skip over this.

I have received a few comments about the paranormal scenes - the appearance of Jillian's 'ghost' in book three, and I felt that I should give some background to my thoughts on those parts. It all stems from an event I experienced some 11 years ago; I was scheduled to go into hospital for open heart surgery - I needed to have a leaking mitral valve repaired. Now, a key part of that operation involves stopping my heart, disconnecting it, and plugging my body's circulatory system into a heart / lung machine. I was curious as to how the surgical team "swapped over" the heart connection in a pretty short period of time; but I really didn't want to see too many details about the nitty-gritty of the operation. Needless to say, prior to going in for the operation I was a little nervous.

Two nights before I was due to go in, I was lying in bed, sleeping. I woke up, and standing at the foot of my bed was my ex-wife - she had passed away 18 moinths earlier, from liver failure (her alcoholism was the main reason why we had divorced in 2000). However, she looked exactly like she did - right down to the dress she was wearing - on the day we got married in 1981. I initially assumed that I was dreaming; but the details of the room were too accurate, right down to the digital alarm clock next to the bed.

She moved closer, and spoke to me.

"Don't worry; in a few days you'll be back with me, there's nothing to be afraid of."

she then disappeared, leaving me very confused. My initial, rational thoughts were that I had just had a very vivid dream. My wife, sleeping next to me, hadn't woken up through it; surely if there was someone in the room speak, she would have woken.

Fast forward a few days, I go in under the knife, and wake up from the anesthetic in the Cardiac ICU; a breathing tube inserted down my throat; my chest causing considerable pain from where I had been cut open and my breast bone cracked so they could remove my heart to fix it. I coudl hear the nurses talking softly to each other; it must have been shift change-over. One of them - my original nurse - was talking to his replacement.

"He had a valve repair and a maze operation; it took them quite a while to start him up again."

He made it sound like they were restarting a car after an engine overhaul. But of course, once they've finished repairing the heart, they do the reverse of how they took it out, reattaching the heart to the connections that were on the heart / lunch machine. Then, of course, they use some small 'paddles' to give an electrical shock to the heart to kick it back in operation. I coudl only assume that it was this process - the 'kick it back into action' step that caused some problems. But, it restarted (before my body suffered permanent damage from lack of oxygen), and I am still here.

Now, I would be tempted to pass all that off as a vivid dream, caused my my subconscious concern about major surgery. That's what my logical, rational brain kept telling me. But... what if it did actually happen to me? What if somehow, the spirit of my departed first wife actually was able to appear to me, and try to reassure me they there was nothing to really worry about (by saying that I wouldn't survive the operation, and she and I would be back together in some sort of spirit world... yeah, pretty reassuring). There were some other things that I thought I heard and saw while I was recovering in hospital, but those were explained by all of the drugs and stuff that had been used as anesthetics while I was under the knife.

So, nothing all that conclusive - but it did make me think about things. When I returned home, I started wondering, what if my 'dream' of seeing the ex-wife wasn't just a dream, but actually happened - somehow her spirit (or soul, to use the term that I have in the book) was still around, and somehow she made herself look like she did as we were leaving our wedding? Over the next few months, I fleshed out that concept, and it's been something that been on my mind since then. So I'll be using that aspect of the story to explore my ideas on 'what happens to a person's soul when they die?' further. If you have any thoughts on the topic, use the feedback facility. If all you want to say is "When you're dead, that's it, there's nothing after that", that's fine... but I'm not going to do away with that part of the story - it's going to be a crucial part of the plot development. Sorry.

The next chapter of "Janelle" is about 90% complete, but it's likely to be delayed a little. I've spent today at the local hospital, and about to go back in. The wife has been having trouble breathing - we thought it was a recurrence of the congestive heart failure that led to her heart attack earlier this year. Turns out her red blood cell count was way down - the blood thinner that she has to take to prevent clots forming around the two stents in her coronary arteries has caused some internal bleeding. We thought that after having the pacemaker /defibrilator implanted last week, she would start to improve... but not yet.

My apologies for all those hanging out to see what Will's next big cock=up will be - I mean, how he starts dealing with the issues that have been thrown at him. Suffice to say,he gets it on with [redacted] and [also redacted] and learns how to [you'll have to guess...]

It seems like only a few weeks ago I reported on the passing of George Young... now his younger brother, and AC/DC founder and guitarist, Malcolm has died. Sadly, dementia had prevented him from performing for the last year or so, making him unable to remember songs that he helped write.

Sydney Morning Herald Article

Well, the first chapter was posted back in February, 2015, and now, some 850,000 (almost) words and 33 months later, the story is done. Compared to the first book, Cathy - that was approximately 770,000 words, and took just over 12 months to post all of the chapters (but I had started writing it back in 2006!). I just hope I don't get the same volume of hate mail that I received at the end of book one, when some people thought that I had killed off Will. Sure, this one also ends with a cliff hanger, but I promise, the next book will be posted Real Soon Now (TM).

I would like to thank each and every one of my readers; while I'm not addicted to the stats, I do check them pretty much every week, and I'm gratified to see a decent number of people download each chapter. of course, there are those who respond with emails (the new system is not as convenient as where SoL would forward emails directly to my personal account). I try to answer everyone individually; and to those who provide edit information, showing me where typos have crept through my (not very) rigorous proofreading process, an extra big thank you. I do apply those corrections to my master documents, and will update the version here at SoL.

So, loyal readers, don't worry, Will and his friends will return very soon. As a teaser, book three is titled "Janelle" - and it shoudl be no surprise that it will feature everyone's favorite sex-crazed nurse, Janelle Ward (well, Janelle is more than just that... but that's how I view her at times.) Just a word of warning, Janelle will not reappear for a few chapters, and the first part of this book will be heavy going for some readers - and you may even be pissed off at me, with what's about to happen.

For those who are dying to know who Will ends up with permanently... RAFO (Read And Find Out). There's still a metric buttload of words to come.

WTM