I used to hate that saying. Time after all certainly does tick and I find it irritating when people feel the need to remind of such. It’s doubly irritating if it’s my own mind that reminds me.
The short story I am currently engaged in battle with is finally coming along quite nicely. I’ve reached the halfway point as far as word count goes and foresee no reason why I won’t hit the deadline for the first draft. Whatever the result sending this thing out turns out to be, I can honestly say it’s been worth it just for the experience of working to a deadline. Of course, I may change my mind depending upon the reviews I receive. The last time my mystical editors cobbled together an anthology it was quite well received and so I really hope my efforts don’t let the side down.
It’s been a battle. There is no doubt about that. The story-that-is-now-progressing-well was not so long ago in its fourth reincarnation until I finally got a handle on it. There are a few reasons I struggled with it and the top three are as follows…
Time travel is an enormously tricky subject that only really lets on just how tricky it is when you sit down and try to work out your plot. I’ve found the way around this particular hurdle was to just make shit up.
The POV (Point Of View) was all wrong in the first four versions I attempted. Seriously, that’s nearly forty thousand words that went nowhere. In the end I experimented with a combination of two which I think works rather well.
Before I found a POV that worked, I just had no love for the theme of the story, probably becasue of the two reasons listed above and seriously considered pulling out more than once. In truth, had I had other projects to be getting on with than I probably would have. It’s good now though.
Hmmm, I must digress a second. There are bits floating in my tea. It tastes funny too.
Right, well, bollocks to the tea. I think I have some Gin around here somewhere.
I am one exceptionally lucky chap. Did I ever mention that before?
As I write this I am sitting by a pool in Borneo. Here to be precise. The temperature is a cool 28 degrees Celsius and after I finish writing this I might have a dip in the refreshingly cool pool, or I might go and have an ice-cream. Hell why don’t I do both? Check this out…
There is at least one ninja in this picture.
Okay, its not a great snap but I’m using a Google nexus 7 and it has no back facing camera but you can get some idea of the kind of place I’m in right now. Palm trees, the sea just a stone’s throw away, cocktail in hand. Yup, it’s pretty damn nice.
This holiday is my birthday present from my wife. She’s good like that. Oh wait… Before you go off all ‘lucky sod, I hope you choke on a coconut’, I am paying for something. It’s a self-catering holiday and so I am paying for all our eats and drink. Oh, and souvenirs. I won’t equal the amount she has shelled out, but I’ll certainly feel I have contributed well. In fact, if you consider the fact that I bought her a really nice camera for Xmas then we won’t be far off being equal.
It’s been a truly awesome holiday and I’ll certainly be slinging up a kick ass review on trip advisor in the near future. Ever considered holidaying in Borneo? Stop considering. Just stop and go pick up a brochure. Then book your trip. We’ve seen some amazing sights including orangutans, crocodiles, fuckoff big lizard things and sea turtles to name but a few. Awesome. The landscape is simply spectacular too. You can look at pictures of a rain forest all day long but you’ll never understand what it feels like until your trekking through one – as we have – in search of those wonderful creatures listed above. But on top of all that, what has really been made this holiday great is the people of Malaysia. They are a really lovely, but genuinely friendly people who will go out of their way to assist you in anyway they can to make your visit something special. Alternatively if you are the sort who does not fair well with your space being intruded upon, they understand this too and will leave you to it. Regardless, I have yet to see one Malaysian fail to smile, even in passing. Fantastic people. Many speak excellent English (it is taught as a second language at school here) in fact, most signs and business display their information in English first before anything else. This makes getting around Borneo incredibly easy. They drive on the right too and even have roundabouts. I could easily think of this place as a home away from home.
Anyway, it’s quite clear I’ve enjoyed my stay. But holiday aside, getting away has been good in other ways too. Before coming out here I had been getting increasingly frustrated with my writing – I think mostly through weakness. The call of the procrastinator is a seductive and alluring melody that calls weaklings such as I to spend my time like currency browsing time sinks like YouTube and Facebook or all manner of other forums. I found I frequently had nothing to show for hours of time spent in front of a computer. Out here, I have had no access to Internet (this is actually untrue as I did not discover the free wifi by the pool and in the lobby until the last day of my holiday – which is today) and so I have had nothing to soak up my minds valuable story producing energy or to lead me astray. The result is that I have not one, not two but three stories outlined (on paper lol!) and ready for typing up into a something awesome. Well, it’s a plan. I’ll let you know if they come of anything or if I am actually just riding a high at the moment and dreaming…. again.
Still, it’s hard not to dream with a view like this…
Seventy ninjas...
Well, it’s time for me to go. I have this to devour…
* there was going to be a picture of an enormous cheeseburger here, with warm cinnamon apple crumble to follow…. But I ate it before remembering to photo it. It was very nice indeed. *
A strange week it has to be said. I began with the intent of completely changing my online existence but by the end of the week, well, I wonder how many of you who regularly view will even notice the changes I have painstakingly made. Oh, it’s not all about me. I do try and make things readable, enjoyable and pleasing to the eye so that the odd passer-by might stay longer then he or she perhaps intended. That’s the real battle these days as far as the Internet and social media is concerned. Speaking of which, I should probably change ‘these days’, to ‘these hours’ for the modern world does move at a frightening pace. I can remember web pages taking minutes to load. Now we get upset if the URL we click on doesn’t appear before between eyes in millisecond. Can you believe it? If there’s even a one second delay we think something is wrong. ‘Hmm, site must be down for maintenance… I’ll go somewhere else.’ It’s true, I’ve even caught myself doing it.
Okay, so I may have gone off on a tangent there but these are the kind of thoughts that led up to me wanting to change my online image. With tablets and smartphones being the average consumers medium of choice for viewing web content, web pages have had to become ‘responsive’.
That’s an actual term, would you believe? Basically, sites have to be able to ‘respond’ to the medium that calls them. They have to self adjust and arrange themselves nicely so that whether you are browsing on a phone or table sized tablet – the consumer gets a similar if not the same view and navigation experience on each device. You may think that this is all completely unnecessary but as I said above, people won’t hang about while your aging site struggles to squeeze itself onto Nokia’s latest handest or Apples newest iMustHave. (I’ve quite fallen out of love with Apple at the moment. The whole Apple maps fiasco has made me go almost entirely Android.)
So what did I do this week? Firstly, I moved from WordPress.com to WordPress.org. Eh? What’s the difference? Well, a lot. An awful lot actually. You should go and look it up if you want clarification on that. I’m not going to explain it here. The main reason was so that I could edit the CSS of my site and take complete control over how my site looks and most importantly, responds.
This transition meant I needed to get a web host to, well, host my new site. I chose bluehost.com basically because WordPress recommended them. They offered ‘one click’ set up of a new WordPress account with wordpress.org and surprisingly it was just one click. It also installed itself in about five seconds. Most impressive. Moving my old content was also a doddle. I simply exported from WordPress.com and imported to WordPress.org. Job done. All going well isn’t it?
Sadly, that’s about as far as the nice bits went. Shortly after signing up with bluehost I got an email through with the balance I had just paid. I nearly fell out of my chair. The offer had been something like $3.60 per month for 36 months. Sounds perfectly reasonable. What they don’t tell you until you’ve accepted is that they’ll be taking the entire balance up front. Bye bye $180 dollars, or about £111 in English money. Oh dear.
I hummed a bit and moaned a bit more for most of the morning before deciding, to hell with it, I’ll give it a go. I spent the next 24 hours trying to make my new web site look as snazzy and professional as all the other advertised sites and I’m not afraid to say that I failed miserably. I failed so badly that I actually went back to using my old WordPress.com account. I went back to bluehost and wait for it… they refunded every penny/cent. To say I was shocked by this does not do justice to the dance I did around the front room with a manic look upon my face. I was amazingly happy, and my dance looked something like this…
So, here is how it will happen in future if I do decide to go back down that road that leads to having my own website and domain name.
Wait until its financially beneficial to have your own web site. If I’m honest, mine would only have been for vanity. I have zero web presence and offer no services to any customers. In this sense, why do I need a lovely looking web site if I have no one to impress/gain business from?
If I were to ever need a web site, I’m having someone write one for me. This experience has taught me that although I think I could do it, it would take me about a week to learn the coding languages and perhaps another whole week to write the page. I simply don’t have that amount of time right now.
If I ever need a web hosting service, I’ll seriously consider using bluehost again. Their customer service was quite frankly astounding and I can’t sing their praises highly enough.
So there you have it, I’m back and you didn’t even know I’d been gone. Not to worry, but believe me when I say, it’s good to be back.
A year ago I had central heating installed in my house. I can tell you, the day that was switched on was a truly happy day indeed. No more wearing two jumpers indoors. No more listening to your shit land with a slap on a sheet of ice. No more blinking through your own piss steam. Oh, good times.
Anyway, I digress.
The engineer who installed the system was up for review by his accrediting body last week. The assessor came round and basically told him he would have to change a few things if he wanted to keep his registration. One of those changes was the replacement of a sewer access panel for an airtight, fire resistant panel. Obviously it’s not going to be a simple change is it? No, that would make everyone’s life easier and leave much time for drinking buckets full of tea. No, a chamber has to be constructed to accommodate the new lid. You see where this is going don’t you? Yup, the sewer was open and exposed for most of the morning… and I needed a poo since 9am. By 10am I was convinced I was actually sitting on a poo. Seriously, you couldn’t have called that a turtlehead. A dog’s head would be more accurate.
Face it, if your poo looked like this you’d crap yourself again.
Anyway, after a happy inspection I discovered no shit in my pants. My glee was shortly replaced however by the simple fact that I just had to go. A pressing need to give birth to this ‘brown baby’ meant I could no longer avoid the toilet. My genuine fear that the workmen outside would not only hear my flush, but also watch my poo float by was soon overtaken by a sudden contraction in my lower gut. The baby was on its way.
I’ve had many scary poo’s in my life but this one takes the biscuit. There’s something particularly invasive about a workman, working on your property, who is also a friend, laying eyes open your poo as it sail past. I did think about wrapping it up in tissue, but I didn’t want him to consider for one second that I had taken the time to gift-wrap it.
Even if presented like this, it is never okay to gift-wrap a turd.
I’ve no idea if they did watch my faecal matter slither past, and frankly I hope they never mention it if they did.
On that strange thought, I shall adjourn for the time being and go and make a bacon sandwich. Oh, and a cup of tea.
Yesterday was a good day. I put down 3500 words and went to bed feeling pretty awesome. Woke up feeling pretty awesome too.
Then I listened to a Black Library audio drama called “The Stromark Massacre“. In particular, it was Andy Smillie’s “From The Blood” which is Disc 1, and by the time I finished it I was a seething mess of frustration.
That story was beyond awesome. Even as I write this I can feel my frustration bubbling just under the skin. I’ve never met Mr Smillie but right now I feel if I were ever to meet him, I can’t be sure if I would greet him a handshake or a punch. Perhaps, I should explain.
Or a handshake?
Normally, if another author makes me want to eat glass and nut a brick wall it’s because I discover they’ve already had my idea, already committed it to paper, and done it a lot better than I would have done. Not so with Mr Smillie. I think I’m passed that kind of reaction now. Too be honest, I hadn’t considered writing a Flesh Tearer story. I hadn’t even considered a black rage/red thirst spin on a Blood Angel story. In fact, I had no ongoing project that even remotely resembled this story. So why am I so downhearted? It’s because, in my opinion, Mr Smillie is in another authorial league; he makes my paltry efforts look like my niece’s first attempt to write her name with a crayon. Worse even. I feel mine would more closely resemble a potato print.
My latest submission… surely they’ll want this one? Look, I’ve mastered the colour ‘blue’ this time.
I have felt like this before, namely when I first started getting serious about my writing. I’m sure everyone does. You know the ones…
‘I’ll never be able to write like that.’
‘This author is a God.’
‘I’m a tosser.’
‘Is my grammar any good? Is that how you spell grammar? Fuck, where do I put the full stop? A semi-what?’
‘I could never think up shit like this.’
Sure, we’ve all been there. It’s a difficult hurdle to get over. I guess I never expected to feel like that again. I thought I was passed all that. So, should I ever meet Mr Smillie, do I shake is hand on a job well done? Or, do I punch him for forcing me to raise my game?
Come to think of it, I’ve heard he’s secretly a ninja so I might have to give him a mind punch instead. Only fair, considering he’s just given me one.
Another story finished today. Hit the word count at about 8am this morning and damn but that felt good. This is the second story I have completed in a short space of time and I have to say, nay, I have to repeat… It feels bloody good.
This story is another Warhammer fantasy story, focussing on the Black Guard. I’m quite pleased with how it’s turned out but for now it’s going away in a drawer for a week or two. Its time to forget it even exists and get on with something else. When I do finally unearth it again it’ll be do read it with fresh eyes and begin the editing process.
A lot of people hate editing but I love it. Other than finishing a first draft I don’t believe there is any better feeling for a writer than re-reading a crappy sentence and then re-writing it as an awesome sentence. Yes, I’ll be trimming the fat and sharpening those key scenes so that when I come to read it again, it’ll be even better.
One thing I never do, and which I have been giving much thought to is letting others read my work. I still feel like something of a fledgling author (I call myself an author now, because I’ve actually finished shit. Okay it’s not published but, hey, it feels good) and I don’t want to be crushed yet. I don’t ever want to be crushed, of course I don’t but you know what I’m saying.
On the flip side of that, I value criticism so long as it’s constructive. I’d feel awful if some bloke read my work and his only feedback was ‘This is bollocks mate.’
Malcolm read his latest story review on WarSeer.
I was recently asked to read another chaps work and being something of a bumbling bumpkin I think I shot him down in flames. I really didn’t mean to. It was only afterwards when my subconscious was running over the conversation again that I suddenly sat bolt upright in my chair and said ‘Oh shit!’ I thought long and hard about that and how I meant to say that the story really was good, but I could see where it could be improved. I think what came across was ‘Meh, I don’t get it.’
Should I ever bump into that chap again I’ll buy him a pint or two – a kind of sorry for being such a thoughtless prick.
So, that was kind of cathartic. I feel like I’ve confessed in the worldwide confession booth of the Internet.
Right, time to be going. I have a story to bury at the bottom of a drawer and garage to paint.
Last night I attempted to stay up all night and write an entire short story from start to finish. Inspired by Jonathan Green, a Black Library author, I took this challenge upon myself for the following reasons:
1) Obviously, to see if I could do it.
2) To see if I had the discipline to sit down and hammer out the words to meet the word count whilst avoiding distractions.
3) To see if I really am serious about pursuing a career as a writer.
Where Jonathan Green did all of his planning and outlining weeks before, I included the outlining as part of the challenge. My hope was that not only would I succeed in completing the story, but I‘d also have done all the planning too, in just 12 hours. I didn’t have an idea for a story either, so that had to come from somewhere too. Clearly, had I succeeded I would have trumped Mr Green’s effort. I can’t imagine how chuffed and amazed I would have been had I succeeded. I would certainly have used it as a benchmark for future stories though. I mean, if I could turn out a complete story in just 12 hours, how many could I bash out in a month?
Well, the answer is irrelevant I suppose, because I failed.
I did get the outline and synopsis done. I also put down about 2500 words. Today I’ve hammered out another 1000 on it so in theory I should finish by the end of the week. I’d love to finish it sooner though. Last night, I think around 1am maybe, I really started to flag. If only I had taken Jonathan’s advice and bought a shitload of Red bull. Alas, I didn’t and instead I started writing at the speed of spastic tortoise, my brain unable to process more than one word at a time.
Anyway, if nothing else, I’ve put a lot of words down over the past day which is really good practice and promotes discipline to the craft. It would be fair to say that learning has taken place. Not a whole lot mind because as soon as my wife works her next night shift I’ll be parking my fat arse in front of a keyboard for the night. I certainly won’t be spending my time abusing myself watching T&A flix either. Not this time.
I stupidly lay down a challenge today thanks to some dude called Jonathan Green. He’s an author type I follow on Twitter. I saw earlier that he’s posted the fact that he had finished and edited an entire short story in just one day. I immediately asked if that included planning and outlining to which he replied no, that that had been done months ago.
So why am I a fool?
I’m a fool because I said I was going to pull an all-nighter and try and write a complete story myself. Not only that, but as I didn’t actually have any on-going projects, I’ve had to plan and outline first. As it stands, I have a completed outline and synopsis and I’m about 2000 words into the story itself. The thought has occurred to me that if I do manage to finish I would have surpassed Jonathan Green’s effort. One major difference however is that he will likely get his published while mine languishes at the bottom of my desk drawer. C’est la vie.
I’m going to stop this post here as A) its eating up valuable story writing time and B) I am going to test something. Over the next hour I am going to try and hammer out 2000 words. That will bring the story roughly up to the halfway point and give me a major confidence boost. If I can’t and only average 1000 words an hour then I will admit defeat (for the night) and go to bed. Mr Green can keep his title and I will bow down out of respect as before.
My story is finished. I hit the word count today and it came in a little over 9.5K. This is an awesome day.
I’ve been chatting with various folks on forums and many agree that finishing a story is a massive hurdle many writers will never make it over. Some will face plant straight into it and not recover. Others will see it approaching and change direction, giving up for a while before returning with a new story only to fail again.
But what do I really have here? Have I really got a finished story? Have I fuck.
I’ve got a massive lump of clay.
That lump is now ready for the real fun to begin. The story’s there, hidden and lost in crap but I know it’s there. Over the next day or so I’ll dig it out and watch it take form on the page. This is what re-writing is all about, and if you ask me, this is the real secret that wannabe writers everywhere are really looking for. I should point out that I am one of those wannabe types so I am in no way using the word ‘wannabe’ in a derogatory manner. That said, I am of the believe that nothing worth having comes easily. I believe you have to work bloody hard to finish that story, before you can even begin. That makes no sense right? Wrong. It makes perfect sense. Half the battle is not knowing where your story is going. If you can get a beginning, middle and an end down on paper then you’re half way there. It really doesn’t matter if what you have actually written is utter guff, because this is where re-writing comes in to its own. It’s easier to re-write a paragraph than it is to make up one from scratch. That’s my view anyway and I believe it really is the secret to writing.
Well, I’m sorry to make this such a short post but I have a bottle of wine to crack open now in celebration of reaching my word count. Then with highlighter in hand and a pencil or two I’ll put the secret into practice.
M:-)
Will this work? Will getting up at the crack of dawn and beginning the tap tap tapedy tap regime stimulate my creative juices? Or will I sit here and stare at the dreaded white page for half the morning before doing all or a combination of the following…
Must get a 1000 words done/need a cup of tea first/just check my email/what’s up on Facebook?/click on that YouTube link/hmm its lunchtime/the muse is not with me… I’ll watch a movie to inspire me/perhaps going to the gym will help/I’ll never be a writer/I’m giving up for the day.
I suppose the fact that I am up and I am getting words down is worth something. I notice a hell of a difference in my ability to get those words down if I have so much as a few days off. Perhaps habit does feed the craft?
Well, I have a lot to do today. Today’s target is a meagre 2000 words but if I achieve that it will be double what I achieved yesterday.
Right then, I suppose the only thing left for me to do now is to crack on and get to work.
Captain's Log 