Hello word seekers. I noticed that my visit count for the ol' rant-o-meter here has just passed the 10,000 hits mark - woo hoo! I find this extra impressive as I haven't posted much recently but it is super appreciated. Thank you to all of you that come on here regularly and a smaller but no less grateful thank you to the fly by night, blink and you'll miss-em visitors.
A quick catch up is probably in order. Today I submitted a short story to an anthology publication (deadline tomorrow - I just love cutting things as fine as possible) and will now wait to see what they say. Oddly, I wouldn't mind a rejection, if it comes with some feedback. But we will wait and see what happens. I admit I would much rather it be accepted... I must also mention my fabulous friends who took on the role of beta-readers for it. I got some excellent feedback and it really helped make the story better than I could have managed on my own. Thanks guys! (You know who you are - I owe you all at least one drink.)
In other news I'm coming out of a chest infection (another one!) that caused some never experienced side-effects before. Turns out not being able to breathe isn't much fun, and the steroid pills they give you for that make your stomach burn like you've just eaten the hottest chili in the world, with an added dash of molten lava. But I am on the mend, and that's been the primary reason the blog's been so quiet these last few weeks - writing in my cold office was on my list of "things I can't do until the drugs start working". But I'm back, and looking at my writing schedule again so should have a few more regular posts in the coming weeks.
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I'd remove those scissors - that amount of writing block
can result in plucking out your own eyes. |
I've also had a bit of a rethink re. "The Tome that Never Ends", otherwise known as my attempt to write a novel. I have realised a painful truth - it needs a lot of work. I mean a lot. At the moment the ending just sorta happens, and doesn't feel like it's due to the protagonist's decisions. Which we can all agree is not good. The problem is a lot deeper than that though - earlier on I just don't give her enough to work with. So... I am keeping what I've done BUT the stakes are being made that much bigger, huge in fact, so that failure really isn't an option for the main characters. I realised all this due to writing the short story I mention above; the first version of that was too safe, so I made it nastier. That in turn led me to think about my longer work and I realised I had done exactly the same thing; playing it safe resulting in uninteresting beige stuff. I'm glad I've realised this though, as it should result in a better, faster paced and enjoyable read. It's got me quite fired up too and that's normally a sign I'm onto something.
So more words to come, possibly in a couple more short stories to throw out there while I totally rejig the novel. Who knows what the next short story might teach me?
- Jo Anderton - 464 pages - 2011 (Kindle version)
My quest to read books I don't normally read led me to the debut novel of Jo Anderton, "Debris", a steam-punk-esque, sci-fi/fantasy tale of class divides and technology gone wild. It isn't a book I would normally pick up, as I'm not a huge fan of steam-punk (it feels too forced and cliched at times) and a book's description that involves words like "architect" ,"pions" and "powersuit" are not normally that attractive to me. But as this is my year of pushing myself I bought an e-book version from Angry Robots and have to say I was pleasantly surprised.
- Christopher Hitchens - 2007 (Kindle 2011 version reviewed) - 320 pages