Monthly Archives: January 2016

Satisfied Saturday Six

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The SSS celebrates six things that have gone well, or at least okay, in the past week. It is the creation of Terry Egan, who is all things wonderful.

  1. Lovely Partner and I are going to Berlin at the end of next week, which has been taking up a lot of our minds this week. We now have money and tickets sorted, and are planning all sorts of places to go (plus meeting up with old friends, which should be excellent!), which is really exciting! (No SSS next week, by the way, since I will hopefully be Far Too Busy Having Fun!)

2. I submitted another couple of stories this week, which felt terribly brave. But I prefer having lots of things out so that when the rejections start rolling in, there’s still hope that something else may get accepted 🙂

3. I’ve also been in contact with someone about taking part in a festival later in the year. Nothing more to tell about it at the moment, and it may yet come to nothing, but it’s quite an exciting thought.

4. The story I started last week seems to have managed to get itself to 20,000 words. I’m not quite sure how it’s managed that (I anticipated it finishing at about 15,000; but there’s still at least another 1000 and possibly more to go) but it seems to be going well in its own sweet way, so I’ll just go with it.

5. Splendid Son and I are going to the football this afternoon, which is always an interesting experience. Sadly, our team almost never wins and is one of the worst in the league; however, there is something special about being there and feeling like you’re involved. We sit very close to the home dugout, too, which gives us an interesting perspective on things.

6. Ooh, I went clothes shopping this week after my best friend kindly gave me money and told me to go and buy something that fitted me for my birthday. I now actually own a pair of trousers which fit, and a very pleasing blue jumper which my cats will try and nibble holes in at the first available moment.

Friday Fiction

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Okay, so this isn’t exactly fiction. It isn’t exactly finished. It isn’t exactly serious. But I was having a frivolous moment and thinking about the editing process.  Just channel The Sound Of Music and think of some of your favourite things…:

 

Headings and titles, appropriate slashes

Full stops and commas and even em-dashes

Too few apostrophes make it confused

Is this some writing you wish to be used?

 

When the pen falls,

In the edits,

And you’re feeling sad.

Simply remember you’re writing at all

And then it won’t seem so bad.

 

Happy Friday, folks!

A Story Within A Story

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There are many funny things about writing, but I think one of the strangest is what happens to stories when you’re writing them. I rarely have a fully thought-out idea of what is going to go on, as my stories are generally character-driven so it depends what it turns out that they seem to decide to do.

But it’s also interesting the curious parts of a story to which one gets attached. In my current WIP, one of the main characters, Al, is a short film director. (He also works in a wine shop, but that’s another matter.) As a minor part of the plot, his film, Welding The Night Away, gets nominated for an award in an International Film Festival. (I don’t know whether the person I know whose film did indeed get an award in such a thing wishes to be mentioned by name here; I would love to give them the publicity but always wonder whether given my very different style of writing, it would be at all appreciated. However, I have been thinking of them as I write this part of the storyline.) I realised at this point that it would probably help if I had some idea what Al’s film had, in fact, been about.

So I thought about it. With the result that I am now totally dedicated to the idea of this wonderful film that Al made and am really rather sad that I can’t see it (since, let us face it, it doesn’t actually exist), and that it can basically only get a fleeting mention in the story I’m actually writing.

So. If anyone is considering making a short  film, can I propose the following plot (as described briefly in my WIP):

“Welding The Night Away was a thought-provoking story about a young woman named Helen, who struggled with severe anxiety which made her literally shake with nerves. Unable to sleep for more than a few hours at a time, she spent the rest of her night-times in her garage, welding together amazing artworks which never saw the light of day but which, for a few, peaceful hours, stopped her limbs from trembling and allowed her to get the little rest she could.”

 

Alas. The story which never was.

 

Satisfied Saturday Six

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The SSS celebrates six things that have gone well, or at least okay, in the past week. It is the creation of Terry Egan, who is all things wonderful.

 

After a few weeks off over Christmas, I’m finally getting my arse back in gear and getting back to writing my Satisfied Saturday Sixes 🙂 So here goes.

  1. I had a nice birthday on Wednesday: lots of very kind people wishing me well, and my health problems (which have been multitudinal this year, sadly) were obliging enough to give me a couple of days off from feeling ten different types of dreadful. So that was splendid.
  2. I heard back from the editor of Jane Austen’s Regency World that my article on Black Georgians is okay, which is relieving. I didn’t want to tread on anyone’s sensibilities, and I’m aware that I’m writing for an international audience where different countries have different appropriate terminology, so it was all a bit terrifying. It’ll be out in the March/April edition, so please look out for it!
  3. I managed to submit a couple of stories this week. This is slightly disconcerting because it’s been quite a while since I’ve been submitting things en spec rather than writing for specific commissions. So it’s very much a case of wait and see, and obviously the thing about being a writer is that you do have to put a brave face on rejections, so I may very well be doing that quite a lot in the foreseeable future. But it’s fun to be writing new things, and writing things which I’ve written just because that’s what I fancied writing at the time. (It’s all sex at the moment. No idea why, but it is. I’m going with it.)
  4. Talking of which, the muse is still buzzing along happily so I am still writing new things. Any good? Probably not, but that’s another matter.
  5. I went out for a meal with my parents on Thursday, which is always an enjoyable experience. I’m having a few problems eating enough at the moment (not a usual issue for me!) but nice food is still nice food.
  6. Splendid Son was invited out for a birthday treat with a friend yesterday, which was very nice for him and also very good timing for me as I had a migraine and it meant that I could spend all day in bed without needing to be anywhere at any time, which was a great (and much needed) relief. (Yes, I am scraping the barrel a bit at the moment to find any non-illness related information. Sorry.)