Hippos are cool

Well I’m another year older.  Not sure whether I’m wiser.  Got some books and dvds that should keep me going for a while.  Enjoying being off work.  Definitely think I needed a couple of weeks off.  It’s been great getting up at midday and being able to spend the remainder reading or watching a dvd or whatever.

Off to Ireland this week to see my nephew which should be cool.  I hope he likes me.  I bought him a hippo to try and win him over.  I just hope he’s into hippos.  It’s hard to tell at that age (2 weeks).

The new novel is coming together a bit more in my head and I have an idea that I want to put into practice at some point (possibly tomorrow but if not will have to wait till next week).  Won’t say too much more about it (unless it works) but I’m hoping it will make me a bit more productive.  I’m sure I’ve read of at least one writer using this approach so it’s got to be worth a try.  If I don’t write about it ever again you can presume it didn’t work.

Go on, Click the links

The writing is going slower than I had hoped for the *new novel*. It’s time to face up to reality: I am in a writing rut. I think I’m one of those people who functions better when there is a real deadline in place. If I had a book contract I’m convinced I would be able to write a book no problem because, well, I’d have to wouldn’t I? If only it were as easy as going to a publisher and telling them that you will write a book as long as they tell you to do it. If only.

The problem with the *new novel* (I’m calling it that because at time of writing it’s still pretty hard to think that it isn’t just me dodging finishing the first novel) is that I don’t know enough about where it’s heading yet. I was able to write the first novel with a pretty clear idea of where everything was heading, which made it easy to connect the dots along the way. This time though I don’t really know where it’s going to end up other than having a couple of ideas in mind for things that might happen. It’s like the idea is still a while away from being ripe. But there are the beginnings of several interesting characters so maybe in time the whole thing will come together.

In other news I am off work for the next two weeks. I realised that since I started working at my job over two years ago, I haven’t ever taken two consecutive weeks off. That’s just sad. So I’ve fixed that. It’s my birthday on Wednesday and we’re going to Ireland next week to see my newly born nephew. Should be fun.

In more other news, if you’re a geek like I am then you might like the following links:

The Guild
Pure Pwnage
Awesome Video Games

The New Novel

Well the good news is that I’ve been novel writing again this week.  Quite a lot in fact.  There’s just one small caveat:  It’s a different novel.

I know, I know, but I couldn’t resist.  I just got an idea in my head at the start of the week and I couldn’t help but start playing around with it.  I mean, it’s hardly like I’m taking up time I would have spent writing the previous novel, because I probably wouldn’t have done any writing this week.  I don’t know how far I’m going to get with it, but I am a little excited about it.  Writers talk about finding their voices and I don’t know if I have yet, but I’m starting to think this idea might help me do that.  It’s a comedy, a geeky comedy, perhaps even a satire.  I haven’t got the whole thing planned out in my head yet but it’s coming together.  I’ve written the first chapter and I really like it.  I’ve made myself laugh a lot writing it.  There are a couple of lines in there that I’m quite proud of myself for coming up with actually.

Am I simply moving my focus onto something new in an attempt to justify not finishing the rewrite of the first novel.  Maybe.  Probably.  But what the hell eh?

Who put that wall there?

I pimped Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe last week, and for good reason because it’s brilliant.  This week’s show was a complete departure from the normal format of dissecting (read: taking the piss out of) television shows.  This week, Brooker interviewed a number of successful television writers, discussing a range of topics related to the writing of television shows.  As you can imagine, the appeal of this week’s show was limited to those interested in such things.  Luckily I am, so I enjoyed it.  And if you are, take a look on iplayer.

One of the interesting things discussed that seemed to be common for a number of writers was the feeling that, despite their successes, they always felt like at any moment they would be found out for not being that good at all.  This is something that I’m always feeling, be it working in IT or writing.  That sooner of later I’m going to be rumbled and politely asked to stop, for the good of everyone.  It’s reassuring to know that even established writers feel that way.  Although of course, just because they feel that way too, doesn’t mean it’s not actually going to happen to me…

Still pushing on with the writing, though I hit a pretty massive block last night.  I realised a pretty important part of the plot doesn’t actually make sense when you think about it.  It’s such a big logic hole that I don’t know how I managed to miss it.  So now I have to rethink it.  The problem is that changing one part of it has knock on effects elsewhere in the story, as in if this doesn’t happen this way, characters who need to meet, won’t.  I think I have a solution but I’m still thinking it over.  I don’t want to risk it coming off as contrived in trying to connect strands together.  If this were Prison Break, I would just leave it as it is and hope no one notices.  But sadly it’s not Prison Break.

Happy St Andrews Day!

With a month left in the year it seems pretty unlikely that I will have the novel finished by then.  Not unless I write at a rate of around 2000 words a day every day for the whole of December.  Anyone keeping score will appreciate that that probably won’t happen.  I am still writing, but at a rate that is not really helping myself.  I will finish the thing next year though.  Promise.

It’s been a bit of a trying week to be honest, glad it’s over.  It’s St Andrews day of course.  You knew that.  I quite like how the Scottish Government are really trying to push the day as a big deal in Scotland, in the same way St Patricks day is in Ireland.  Getting more money coming into the country can only be a good thing, even if it does mean avoiding more and more tourists taking pictures during my lunch hour.

Oh yeah, if you’re not watching Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe (BBC4, 10.30pm Tuesday) already then make sure you give it a look this week.  Never seen it before?  Youtube is your friend.

The (now) weekly update

Still haven’t got into World of Warcraft.  I’ll probably be cancelling my subscription soon I would think.

The writing is still going slow, though for once that’s not been my fault as we have had relatives over for the weekend.  I did have a good idea though about the integration of the new character viewpoints which I’m quite excited about and as it happens has also led to me coming up with a new title for the book: ‘Beginnings, Middles and Ends’.  The name of the novel has never been something I’ve been completely settled on.  I can’t say that I entirely am with this one either, but it’s the best one I’ve had yet.

Hard to believe we’re almost in December now, but we are.  Christmas is nearly here.  We’ve actually got all but one of our christmas presents, which is a level of organisation I’d love to be able to apply to my writing but what can you do?

My kingdom for an orc

Unsurprisingly, still not a lot of progress on the writing as far as word count goes but there was some good news in that I finally finished the chapter that has been given me so much grief.  It was funny because I had planned to write a lot more for the chapter, rewriting the events of the scene I wrote in the first draft.  I reached a point though where I almost did a double take when I realised that I had written enough.  The chapter would be much more effective if I left the rest of it to the reader’s imagination.  So I did.  It was a relief to finally get it done but now I’m on to the next chapter with another new voice to write from and again I’m struggling to get it started.  Ah well, who wants an easy life anyway?

On the recommendation of a colleague at work I reinstalled World of Warcraft to try and see what the fuss is all about.  Because you know I’m sure that wouldn’t eat into my writing time.  I had tried it before and got bored pretty quickly.  I thought I would give it one more go but to be honest i’m still struggling to see what the big deal is.  The thing is, before you can do anything fun you seem to have to put a lot of hours into “levelling up”.  You do this by completing quests and killing things and selling things and It’s all a little too much like work.  I’ve paid for the month so I’m going to try to get into it but I can’t see it happening.  I’m too old for this shit.

Same old

Another nothing happening week of writing.  I am still trying to get my head into the character.  Perhaps it’s time to try and tackle a different chapter while I’m waiting.  I did a bit of editing to the last short story I read and I will need to get it sent off soon.

I’ve got the dentist this week which ought to be fun.  And expensive.  I haven’t been in years so I can hardly have expected anything different, although saying that I haven’t had any problems with my teeth in those years.

Had another idea for a novel for the future this week as well.  I know I need to just be concentrating on what’s in front of me now of course but I can’t help myself.  It would be based on a question I’ve wondered about whilst watching television recently.  The research alone would be rather interesting, for me at least, but I even wondered if there might not be a non-fiction book in it.  Not sure if I would really want to write a non-fiction book, but you never know.  It’s just an idea.

Hopefully this time next week I’ll have something noteworthy to report about my writing progress but please don’t hold your breath.

Double Fail, X-Box Live, Wedding Pish and a bit about shooting hypothetical Americans

If you figured I would bounce back from last week’s failure of not writing very much at all then you would be wrong.  Incredibly wrong.  The week started out well enough, got some momentum going on Sunday and Monday.  And then I finished the chapter, moved on to the next one and then… well nothing much happened after that.  At the moment I’m trying to split up one quite long chapter into three seperate ones.  The first chapter is completed.  The second chapter I’m having trouble with.  The main problem stems from the fact that the original chapter was written in the first person from a single character.  The new chapters are now in the third person but from the point of view of different characters.  Structurally, the new chapter has inheriant difficulties in that the story depends on him not being who he claims to be.  In fact, most of the characters in the book are like that.  I don’t want to lie to the reader so instead there’s a lot that I simply need to hide in the early stages.  Which is okay for the other characters as they will, to some extent, be redeemed in the end.  But this character won’t be, not really, so the things that I hide about him, I think I’m going to have to be careful that I don’t end up make the reader feel cheated.  It’s a thin line I have to walk.  I’m just trying to get the thing correct in my head before I get it down on screen.

So in the meantime I’ve been watching Pan’s Labyrinth.  Not finished yet but I’m enjoying it so far.  I’m also back playing XBox Live.  After two straight wins last night on Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 I got humped 4-0 today   What makes it worse is that you just know it was probably some ten year old.  Got the parents coming over tomorrow so I’m just taking a break completely from writing this weekend.  Hopefully I can start again on Monday.

We’ve been looking for inspiration for songs to have playing at our wedding.  One thing we’ve realised is that quite a lot of the songs we consider to be love songs AND are actually quite good are not actually very appropriate for weddings.  For example, I quite like the Pretenders I’ll Stand By You.  It SOUNDS like it’s an appropriate love song.  But when you actually listen to it, it’s quite depressing.  The first line is ‘Oh, why you look so sad?’  Even in context that’s a tricky opening for a song playing on what’s meant to be the happiest day of your life.  We’ve had to rule out quite a lot of songs for similar reasons.  I also have the ‘No Westlife’ clause which is pretty self-explanatory.  The problem is those Irish fuckers keep covering every song in sight.  Who can say say what songs they will have ruined by the time June comes round?  I wonder if I can file some kind of injunction against them to get them to stop.  Probably not, I would imagine if such a thing were possible someone would have done it by now.

Bit of a ramble today.  Time to go shoot some Americans now.  By which I mean go play Call of Duty 4.  I would never actually shoot Americans, except if it were in self defence or one of those hypothetical ‘Who would you kill out of x and y if you had to?’ situation and x was an American but y was someone I liked a bit more.  But the chances of that happening again are pretty slim.

Fail

Well I didn’t reach my target for the week.  I was probably was just under half of it, which would be around 2750 words.  I don’t have any excuses.  I had the time to write this week, I just didn’t do enough.  The majority was done yesterday.  Well it’s a new week now so we’ll see how I do this week.  I’m still averaging almost 5000 words across the three weeks so I’m still doing okay.

I’ve started to tell parts of the story from the point of view of some of the other characters now and so far I’m happy with the results.  Already I think the story is opening up a lot and I’m able to flesh out a lot of the characters stories now, as they no longer all have to be retold to the main character.  It also feels like I’m only now properly getting to know some of them.

Well, back to it then.