16 Beating hearts was originally written over a period of six days during November 2006. The central character: Jane has existed within the realm of my mind for over three years at the time of writing. She lives as a mortal on this earth but within a realm of fantasy I have been busy constructing through a series of stories titled 'The Pathfinder', into which she is not due to enter for quite some time.

I have a picture of Jane above my computer, or rather of how I have always imagined her. The picture is named 'scetch' by Luis Royo, although I would call it 'girl with sword, holding a gas mask with barbed wire wrapped around her arm'. I brought it while leafing through posters in 'Forbidden Planet'; Birmingham during Christmas of 2004. I had already written a 500 word short story that closed off the Jane story and this poster just jumped out at me. It is not quite typical of his usual art but I love it because she looks poised, utterly disconnected and very burdened.

With all this in mind then, you will consider that there must have been several events that transpired to have this fourteen year old incarnation of Jane crouched 'as if a rock atop the summit of some far off hill': as it was originally penned at 21:30(ish); Monday 13 November 2006.

It started with three unrelated 'first person' short stories: Day in the life of ..; Geordie and the The Long Walk. These worked real well but I now wanted to try and write something that flexed and evolved my skills into prose that sounded more 'bookish': accomplished.

Jane is ultimately a mythical character from Greek legend, with that mythical character pointed to very clearly within the story. Knowing it would be a while before I would see her in the time line of Pathfinder I wondered whether I might write a scene about her, that would also serve as a set piece for something you might find within a larger whole; Something I could later pilfer and slot into the Jane story.

Once I had decided this would be about Jane: initially as an adult, it was about the scenario. For that we have the standard military camp in the middle of nowhere and the assassins journey. Not hugely enterprising but I wanted this to be about the detail of her, how I could shape her and those around her. I also wanted it to be a dance.

The need for the dance comes from reading countless 'action' books and waiting through endless but breathless pages for some fisticuffs only for the author to have the opponents taken out in the beat of an eye and the action described in only vague terms. I wanted to know the moves, to be able to visualise. The books that spring to mind the most in this regard are James Clavell's Ninja series. Great stories though, in the main. I also did not want this to be the standard 'ninja' scenario by the way. Not sure whether this comes out but there are no Kung Fu moves, flying shurikens or running through air or across billowing fabric; all traits I adore in movies. I just wanted this a bit more base.

I came to her age because I had recently finished reading Vladimir Nabokov's 'Lolita' and had watched the enchanting 1998 movie adaption of the same the previous Saturday evening. Having felt heart heavy at the plight of Dolores, especially so because of the haunting Morricono soundtrack, I decided to incarnate Jane as a super empowered teenage heroine. The Morricono soundtrack was what lead me to think I could actually write this as if a dance.

The three primary beats I wanted to incorporate into the story, having decided her age were;

One: Her physical size. I wanted to make it clear how small she was and how vulnerable she would be if they got hold of her. I did not want her using hand or feet martial arts on any fully grown soldiers and taking them out, that just annoys me in any medium.

Two: Some sense that she is not the finished product. The fact she breaks down and cannot cope with her ability to feel their thoughts and their pain was meant to be some measure of her age.

Three: The 'baddies' are probably not actually stock fundamentalist terrorists. The dream of the guy in the tent coupled with the images in her mind just before she breaks down are meant to resonate point Two and give you some feel that these guys are soldiers. They believe they are on the side of good and have families and loves just like anyone else.

I had two major problems. The first was that there are only so many ways you can describe a tent, the billowing fabric wrapped around it and our heroine crouching. The second was to try and create some visual image in the readers mind of her physical location and her multiple positions within the camp. This is how we come to the clock face. I am not sure whether it feels awkward but it reads fine in my mind.

The fun of this, apart from seeing this gritty little character form on the page was in the research. The gun she carries is a Kahr P4543 Compact Polymer pistol: matte slide, black polymer base. The magazine really does hold 6 bullets which are .45acp caliber: much favoured by law enforcement agencies since the turn of the 20^th century. Her sword is visualised through the construct of the carbon steel blade. Her blade is not folded; a technique used by ancient Japanese because base steel in the time was too brittle. Modern steel has less impurity and does not require folding to make it strong. Much research was also completed on the smallest throwing knifes one might obtain and how they actually work: it is in the weight of the pointy ends. Layering this technical description into the story though, weighed down the flow so it had to be stripped away, a very painful process for yours truly. It did though, really help in visualising the actual movements. Somehow seeing all this in my mind helped make it more real, I think.

So Monday night I was looking up at this Luis Royo picture and wondering about the life Jane would have had to the point in that picture. That thought resulted in all the above and by the time I shut down the computer in the early AM hours of Tuesday, she had crawled to the edge of the perimeter and disposed of sentry number one.

During lunch at work on Tuesday she sorted sentry two and three and was on the verge of the tent. Tuesday night was a hard one and resulted in everything that transpired in that tent.

On Tuesday while doing the tent scene I had come to the conclusion that I would need to carefully choreograph the whole environment, her moves, the camp and the moves of those she interacts with. This was great fun for me and an exercise in tolerance for the infinitely patient Ms. Prideesh.

Wednesday lunchtime Jane worked her way to the edge of the compound and shot the two guys before running around the perimeter. Wednesday night was the fight that ends with the herbs and the walk down the corridor with the first two, then the third in the tent and then the cook with the wild AK47 and a torch. This night was huge fun.

The whole camp was drawn on various notepads, her arc around to the herb guy and the path down the corridor, where the different guys were, how far back were they? What was the trajectory of bullets? what were her movements?

Prideesh and I alternated roles as we stepped through all the movements in Jane's face to face combat, including me doing the downward pirouette complete with sword thrusts! At one point in time we had all the lights out, torch in hand and Prideesh crouched down to see how the semantics of a blurred image 'at the foot of lights pool' played out. Very confusing would you believe.

Thursday lunchtime was about cleaning up the corridor text, which was difficult. I also whacked Jane on the head while suffering her dilemma in the gap, as the triangle of soldiers walk by. Thursday evening was spent with Mr Bond at the Casino Royal.

Friday lunchtime I was mentally at an impasse, not sure how I was going to wrap up the four beating hearts. In my mind I wanted something physical with at least one that was the big boss character. I could not work it out, so I repeated the exercise that got 'Day in the life of ..' finished: I wrote what I wanted to happen at the very end.

At the end I wanted there to be the guardian character from the very beginning, he is mentioned in the first few pages although vaguely, himself an echo of Bowman from Pathfinder but not the same. I also wanted to step away from the usual surly relationship you get between tutor and pupil. So I tried to write something that showed the real tenderness between them and hint at what she really is and both their relationships with her mother. This section as seen in the final draft starts with the paragraph: “Adrenalin spent she climbed slowly to her feet, small and shivering, arms limp at her side.”, and continues to the end.

As it had in 'Day in the life of ..' this worked in bookending the story and helping to create the action conclusion in my mind. I finished the missing chunk starting with her laying on the floor, Saturday morning: Friday night having been an impromptu but very enjoyable meal in Wokingham with the Irish.

Sunday was about editing and seeing how the words played out in the mind of Prideesh. This showed a flaw in moment following the spray of bullets by the cook in the corridor; clarifying that her guardian had created the bird noise as she had earlier and the clarity of the guardians entrance: Prideesh thought he was one of the guards and that the chill wind meant that she had somehow managed to roll outside. These were sorted, I hope and the whole text was given the once over, mostly in changing my issues with tense.

Tuesday morning it was published to a writing forum and changed further based on feedback;

It is a really hard read to begin with: I went through the opening page trimmed down my vague descriptions and moved the camp description further down so there wasn't so much information straight off.

You have a problem with the genitive: Once I worked out what a genitive was I then went through and cleaned as many as I could find.

Man's reluctance to be in this place -- ???: Tried to make this a little clearer. It was supposed to be a play on the close of the first paragraph 'Only god's men travel to this place' It was changed to be more specific to the story location, I think it makes a little more sense now.

I rather liked not knowing who the girl was or how she got to be this way: That was cool, although I actually mention what she is twice, immediately before she dispatches the first guy and after the second guy in the tent. The same word used in both accounts is often used as its literal meaning but here it plays on both its literal and to the character from Greek mythology.

I found some of the camp descriptions confusing, though. The talk of corridors suggested to me buildings, but towards the end I guessed you meant the aisles between the tents?: Amazing how people bring up the same beats you are unsure about as you write but ignore and hope. Whenever I used aisles I just could not get Sainsbury's out of my head, so went with corridor. I have though moved the description of the camp slightly further down the text, hoping to make the beginning less challenging and have added a description of the corridors.

I'm not sure how long a piece I could comfortably read with such intense and almost poetic descriptions. For me it would have worked better if there were fewer to kill: Just as well I never stuck with the original title 'Dancing to the beat of 21 hearts'. I understand what this means though and is why it went down to 16. Eventually this will get used in the full story of Jane and will probably change in pace and numbers then but this is for now what it is.

I completed these changes, reread, Prideesh reread and we could not think of any changes that did not take it away from being what it essentially was.

And that is how it remained for almost a month, until a guy at work told me he had read the story (downloaded from my website) and we got to discussing the character and how her spirit comes across. He came up with three key suggestions that built on those I had already been given;

• Slow the pace of the action down half way through

• Slow the action down after she is captured, maybe with some dialogue between Jane and the green shirted captain

• Use references to the clock face more often as it worked

Slowing the action down also led me to come up with the idea of introducing the guardian before the end, which I had toyed with while writing the story originally but had wanted to give some indication that she really was at peril, so had only manifested the guardian at the end.

Despite these recommendations though, nothing changed. I was busy writing 34 & Forty Three all through December 2006 and having spent so much love and labour on 16 Hearts through November I just could not bring myself to make that mental leap, even after 34 & forty three was finished.

During the second week of January 2007 I posted this making of essay onto the same writing forum as the original story, where one of the original reviewers reminded me that she thought that Jane reminded her a little of 'Princess Mononoke': a character from a Japanese anime movie of the same name. Thinking it was about time I saw this I purchased said movie and watched it: great stuff. I saw what she meant. The Mononoke character is very different but shared Jane's feisty spirit and her grit. Re-motivated at having seen this little character running around the screen, I jumped back into 16 hearts on the 12 Jan 07.

The edit took 4 days, interestingly, almost as long as the original story. Writing 34&43 had been a good lesson and I now felt better capable in stripping away a lot of the heavy prose, removed a lot of the confusing stuff I had loved at the beginning and revisited the whole beat of story with a fresh look at punctuation (these three taking up much of the time).

The beginning really works well now for my mind. She originally took out three guys straight away, I chopped that back to two which didn't make the beginning feel so frenetic, the two guys in the tent scene got thinned out and the beat after the herb guy got added which gives you more indication of what's going on in her head, it also allows us a short breath. The clock face is used to detail her location before and after the quest corridor and we get the guardian having dispatched one of the guards waiting outside. We also get a dose of dialogue between the top dog and Jane where I wanted it to be a little wry in that they didn't conceive what had happened could have been done by only one man, let alone this girl. I also cut out an imagined fight just before she got knocked on the head.

In all these edits, a lot of the stuff I loved got changed, edited down or cut, which was a very painful thing to do but the proof was in the pudding: this incarnation, for my mind really does address a lot of the issues from the first one and is much better story for it.

So then it was really over, the dance was complete and this little warrior that had suddenly appeared in my mind after creating some image of a distant horizon had most definitely left her mark on me: bags under my eyes. It has given me impetus to finish the stories that prelude her making a re-appearance and which I am busy tapping away on.

Top Tip: Adobe Acrobat Reader (comes with most computers) has a facility where it will read your story back to you. Although it sounds a little like Ronald Reagon on a bad day, I found it of great use for going through and seeing how the whole thing hung together and many small improvements were made as a result. From Adobe Reader with your doco loaded, click 'view' and then 'Read Out loud'. Make sure your speakers are on, it can be quite a thrill, if you know what I mean.