A Thriller That Is Not So Thrilling

Today it is a sunny but cool day, where I can be lazy in a more comfortable fashion. I've played the violin (ignoring my many mistakes), read some more Abenteuer des starken Wanja with my littlest brother, fetched the mail, had a little breakfast, written in my diary, and watered plants in the garden.

I also wrote another page or so of a spy story that I began to write perhaps in January. I've been able to be really absorbed in it as I write -- as a matter of fact I missed a German lecture because I lost track of time. But it isn't that exciting because I try to make it as truthful as possible, and I've only written some five single-spaced pages thus far. The story is about a British physics professor whose student tells him that, due to a breakdown in the six-party negotiations, the leader of North Korea is planning to defiantly fire a missile into the sea just off Japan. The professor must then travel to London and thence to rural Hertfordshire to tell the government about it.

I've already written a chase scene in the British Museum and a car chase through the streets around Chorleywood Station, but I may have to excise the latter because I still need to figure out a lot of plot points. For instance, was the professor already in the secret service, and would he therefore have contacts already? Also, why would he have to travel to London in person? And why would the driver of the car that picks up the professor at Chorleywood mind being followed? Other things to do are to make the characters more interesting, to make sure I've properly described the scenery, and to decide once and for all if I do want the professor to fly to London in a two-seater biplane in the dead of night. The one thing that does not bother me is that I don't know how British intelligence operates; I just try to use my reason and I don't mind making things up as far as it is concerned.

P.S.: I don't know exactly what "excise" means.