Solidartiy has been temporarily been put on the shelf.  As the anniversary of Reconciliations and New Beginnings approaches (I have it in my head I began writing it this past January) it dawns on me that the birth of Reverend Justice wasn't very long afterwards.

And after re-reading The Recruit,  I had to wince.  Agreed my style evolved since, but as much as I'm happy with my other stories, The Recruit left a great deal to be desired.  Creating an original character was a lot of fun, but you could tell I was short of ideas coming up with the origins of Joey Luca/s /Reverend Justice.

My creation deserves better, so I put Solidarity temporarily on hold, and decided to overhaul The Recruit; the basic premise remains the same, but the narrative is greatly improved.

I am taking ideas I've used in following stories (the 'nagging' cell phone conversations between Joey and his mother for example), cutting out useless bits and re-writing others, adding new ideas and 'welding' missing scenes 1 and 2 from my short stories page to it, with a few rewrites to make them fit better.

Also I've decided to introduce Joey's brother Marc right there in the new version of The Recruit.  

When I wrote it, my plans weren't set yet as far as Joey's previous life in the fictitious town of St-François Qc, for instance, did he have any living relatives other than the parents that were briefly mentioned in the first version?

I feel that by adding Marc visiting Joey in the Hospital, it created a sense of continuity and avoided a lot of useless going back and forth.

I've done away with the emails and wireless laptops and swapped them with cell phone conversations and voicemail messages.  I'm still refining the end part of the story, but the "body" of it has greatly improved in my opinion.

I shall let you my friends be the judge!  So far at least, I don't feel as self-conscious of The Recruit ... and my pal Doc Wilson might get first glance at it, as he's RJ's godfather, he's the one who suggested I create an original character! ;-)

Ciao for now folks! :-)