Hi ho, hi ho, a-novelling we go

I can never work out whether I listen to Feeder because I'm depressed or whether it's because I'm listening to Feeder that I'm depressed. All that needs to be known is that at the end of a long week I'm listening to Feeder and feeling distinctly introspective and deflated. Something tells me I need to listen to something that'll get me fired up.

Unsurprisingly, I've not had much time for writing over the last few weeks. Work has had me exhausted and at the end of most days I've not wanted to pore over many words - it's my job to read thousands of pages of records every week. More often it's been a case of tea, kill time on the internet, watch an episode of Caprica and then bed.

But it's not stopped me doing a little writing. I've managed to get some sent off over the last few weeks, and I've been making sure that I'm gathering Lab Ways influences to me. This has entailed purchasing the full box-set of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and spending time making pointless notes before finally setting finger to keyboard and writing 300 words last weekend. This weekend I plan on writing more.

How much more? I really don't know. I've occasionally thought of trying to get someone as a reader to encourage me to produce more work rather than ditching the project a few weeks after I start it on grounds of frustration, having tried to draft the opening six or seven times and getting no further than perhaps 6,000 words in (out of a projected 125,000). But I don't really want to do that.

Instead, what I want to do is get rid of the frustrations I have with my own writing and just cut loose. I want a few sessions where I write 2,000 words a time. I want weeks where I write 15,000 words. But I have the problem where my own perfectionist nature will take over. I sometimes think if I can get a buffer of 30,000 words behind me I'll be able to crack on. And so it is once more that I try to get this novel out of the way.

I'll be having a full afternoon on it tomorrow, and probably an hour or two on Sunday. The target is 5,000 words, beginning with Chapter Two. Chapter One will wait until later.

General December update

It's all right. The lack of updates doesn't mean that I'm dead. It just means I'm a bit busier on account of having found some temporary (and voluntary) work. And that I'm hitting the trail for pupillage again.

NaNoWriMo fizzled out in the end. I'll be honest - I don't think the premise suits me and my style. Although the discipline is a good thing, having such high targets to hit is a nightmare, especially when I have a habit of writing only one day in three. Trying to hit my usual 3,000 words a week is more than enough for me! On the other hand, I've got some good work that I can take elements from to other projects.

I've managed to get submitting stories again, after a period where I couldn't finish a story for the life in me. The Strange Ways of Electronic Leprechauns went off to Daily Science Fiction last week, and I'm hoping for a response in the next week or so.

I mentioned that I'm back on the pupillage trail. My work at the solicitors has sparked something I thought was worked out of me, and since I started work there I've been phoning places like the CPS and downloading mini-pupillage application forms from chambers websites. And my applications for jobs have been honed down to being purely legal in nature. If I can get something like a paralegal post for a year or two while I'm waiting for pupillage opportunities, then I'll be happy as a pig in muck.

November writings

It's been a busy couple of weeks in my writing life. Not only have I kicked off writing a novel for NaNoWriMo (currently about 12,000 words behind the target, at 13,000 or so), but I've started a hatful of short stories, been planning another novel and I've even been doing workshops for Wrisoc. I wouldn't say I've been rushed off my feet - but it's been good to break the day to day monotony with a couple of hours a day of writing.

Nano first. I've wanted to have a go at it for the last few years, but thanks to uni commitments I've not had the time or the patience to sit down for a month. If I could write 10,000 in a day as some do, then it wouldn't be a problem, but if I get over 1,000 that's a big writing day for me - and one that's generally taken me a couple of hours. 50,000 words in a month is just too much to ask of a Bar Exempting student who just wants to crash when he gets home. This year, though, I've managed to get a good start, even if it has faltered. And it's helped to give me a kick-start to other projects. Although the Nano novel won't be finished, there's plenty for me to plunder for other works. And thanks to write-ins, I've become acquainted with a whole new group of talented writers.

Which brings me on to my second big writing project of this month: the Wrisoc workshop. Standing in front of a seminar room of your peers can be daunting, but when you know quite a few of those people have managed those workshops themselves and there are a few people with more experience present there's an extra edge. But the workshop - focussing on clichés, their identification, and how to avoid them in your work - went well. It was a little on the short side, but that wasn't much of a worry. Hopefully, I'll get the chance to go back and do another one at some point over the next few months.

My biggest project at the moment is the anthology. Shuffle is probably the biggest writing task I've ever taken on, and I don't think I'd be able to manage it without having the help of a band of talented co-editors, who will show their value to the project when we're getting regular submissions. Although it has been tough to get people involved on the writing point of view, things are coming together and soon I should be able to go back to universities and societies to demonstrate that this will happen. Shuffle will hopefully be released next June/July on the Kindle, so if you want to feature in the anthology, pop over to the website/blog (see link to the side) and find our guidelines.

And all of this without mentioning the short stories and other novel. My writing life is busy, indeed!

Writing update

Twelve minutes for an update. Right... I can do this...

What writing have I done recently? Not a lot. I'll be hitting the trail again tomorrow, though, kicking off Chapter 2 after starting Chapter 1 on holiday. Both Chapter 1 and the prologue need work on them (not to mention finishing), but the scene for Chapter 2 came to me today whilst watching Gladiator and feeling ill.

On the short story front, I have a few ideas to work on. I'll get round to those in due course. But first, I need to re-write The Noose after it made the shortlist for an anthology but ultimately fell short at the final hurdle. I like the idea behind it, but as it is, it doesn't quite pull it off to the extent I want it to.

The target for the week is 5,000 words of various things. Let's see if I hit this target for once.

The Anthology

Monday was a momentous day. Not only did I graduate from university after 4 years of toil, tears and sweat, I finally held in my hands a copy of a book with work of mine in it. I may be ten pounds lee rich, but I own a book to which I have contributed. An actual book. Proper binding. Proper cover.

It was an unusual feeling.

Of course, the book isn't purely mine. Far from it. The book was the result of the dedication and hard work of the Northumbria University Writers' Society (they of the blue hoodies). It was the culmination of 18 months of badgering the publisher and finally getting the collection released. There are some 20-odd talented writers represented in the anthology. Hours upon hours of work, finally realised in this book.

I'm about 50 pages in thus far, reading the 2009/10 part of the collection. Its theme is colours, and a broad spectrum of work can be found. Mostly, it's short fiction (my contribution to this half is a short story), but there is also some poetry to be found. Being a broad subject to write on, there's a range of ideas represented. It's worth a read, and I'm not just saying that.

It's a nice feeling, to be published at last. It's been the better part of a decade since I started writing (9 years, 5 months, if you want to be precise), and I finally feel like I've got a foothold from which to launch my writing career. But the pride isn't just there for myself. I'm proud of everyone involved in the writing and the editing.

I salute each and every one of you.

A love letter to the hardback

It's been some 4 years since I took the plunge and bought a hardback. I feel it needs justification before I go and do something like that; hardbacks are expensive, for one thing, and if I'm patient I can get the same content in a more easily-accessible format inside the year anyway. Plus, these days I have a Kindle - that gives me both cheapness and a more comfortable reading format for virtually any book.

Despite this, however, I felt the need to buy A Dance With Dragons on Tuesday, the day of its release. It's a hefty volume. At 1,016 pages - in hardback, to boot - it weighs in at almost two kilograms. It's also the best part of three inches thick. It's unwieldy, ungainly, difficult to get particularly comfortable with. Unlike the Harry Potter hardbacks its two-dimensional cover size isn't that of a paperback. In short, it's a beast of a book.

But it's a magnificent one. There's just a certain quality about hardback books. Whilst it's always gratifying to see a fresh paperback waiting to be read, hardbacks have that extra something which marks them out. You can't bend their spines, hold them open by resting them upside down, rip the cover off (sacrilege though that it, people do do it). They're books for show as much as for reading.

With the dust-covers, they look good. The granddaddies of books which will later morph into something more friendly. Without those dust-covers, they look magnificent. Gold lettering stands out proudly on the spine, lending an air of old-fashioned quality. The covers may be cardboard rather than leather, but they still have that rough texture marking quality. And they have their own smell. Like paperbacks, they retain that odour of freshly printed paper which grows sweetly stale as the pages age, but they also have another smell about them, something like that of cut wood.

There's a romance to hardbacks. Whilst I can't justify buying every book I want when it comes out in hardback, sometimes it's nice to buy one just to remind myself of the majesty of books. Perhaps it's harder to love books with an aura of magnificence, but it is easier to get sucked into their thrall in the first place. I will probably get The Winds of Winter in hardback when it comes out (sometime in 2017, based on GRRM's current rate of productivity), as well as one or two others.

The preparation

In case anyone's failed to get the message, I like to write. I also like to read. On this blog, I often write about both (if you could ever describe 'intermittently' as 'often). As it's summer, I'm doing both a bit more than usual.

Today's going to be a light reading and writing day. I barely slept last night and I can think of a couple of things I need to do before embarking in earnest on writing my latest project. Yes, I'm writing a novel - again. Or I will be when I'm up on the sleep.

But I am ready to go. Big style. Not quite to the point where the kettle's on in readiness for a cup of tea to sit cooling on the desk while I fail to think up imaginative ways of saying Character X has kicked the bucket, but I'm stocked up on sweets to suck, the template is there for me to type into and my notes are compiled and filed. Now all I need is to sit down and write. And write. And write.

To keep things varied, I'll have a couple of lesser projects on the go at the same time. I have a couple of stories out, so I'm waiting on those. Hopefully, when I need a bit of something different to occupy my creative time I'll have enough to keep me interested.

But for today, writing will wait. I'm tired, and that's not the best time to write. I want to be on top of my game tomorrow afternoon and do my opening scene justice.

The dark side of the Kindle

There are plenty of freebies to be had on the Kindle store. Many are old classics in the public domain, converted to Kindle format by enthusiasts so people can read them free of charge. But others are less well-regarded.

I'm talking about those released by writers without a publisher who want to see their name in print.

It's easily possible to release a book of your own on the Kindle. A Word document can be converted using Amazon's own programme, and then released (complete with artwork, provided you have some) at a price of your choosing. It's no-risk self-publishing. Amazon take from any profits you gain, but you can still get a load of money, as proven recently by one man who recently sold his millionth ebook on the Kindle.

The problem it that it's too easy. Why go through the effort of trying to find a proper publisher when you can just upload a file and have people download it for little or no cost? Why risk rejection when you can be guaranteed to see your name in print? It won't make much money, but it'll still be there. And for me this risks killing the legitimate publishing industry, with the standard of writing dropping.

If I want to read a novella, I'll generally look for something by a writer I know. I downloaded Sublimation Angels by Jason Sanford not so long back, for example. It had a cost (a couple of pounds, if I remember correctly), but I knew what I was getting. I knew I was getting something that had previously been published in Interzone and serialised on StarShipSofa. It had got the seal of approval of the industry before being released as an independent ebook. Needless to say, I enjoyed reading it.

On the other hand, if I'm cash-strapped, I might want to delve into the free ebooks. Some will have come from legitimate publishers, of course, and if they have that's a nice bonus, but quite a few have probably come via self-publishing. And having experienced a couple, the quality isn't great.

It's easy to go for self-publishing for the Kindle, simply because you don't have to improve your writing style and quality for a chance at making some money. The one I picked up recently wasn't bad per se (it had an interesting story), but the writing was lacking. There wasn't any flair or originality. It seemed to be a stock collection of clichéd dialogue and substandard action scenes ("No, Mr Bond, I expect you to die" etc). An editor at Interzone would have taken a look at it and thrown it out. On getting the rejection slip, the writer would have had the incentive to look at his work and improve. With this system, there isn't an incentive.

One of the biggest things I find worrying, though, is the potential to sideline major publishing companies and - even worse - smaller publishing houses and their imprints by the flooding of the market with cheap, substandard stories. A glance at the top sellers in SF for the Kindle at the moment tells me that there are a few 'big' titles from professional publishers selling well (Surface Detail is one; A Clash of Kings another), but will that last long?

And if people get used to less than mediocre fiction, what does the future hold for fiction in the future? We already see the Dan Browns and Stephenie Meyers of the world - complete with their advertising juggernauts - dominate bestseller lists, while more intelligent, better written books are pushed into niches. We're constantly told (or, at least, I am) that being a bestseller is a mark of quality, so are we going to find twenty years down the line that children, having been brought up on cheap, poorly edited ebooks, think of those as being the zenith of literature?

It's all hypothetical at the moment. But it's a worrying thought. It could be that a potential saviour of the publishing world turns into its destroyer, and that would be a real shame.

I should be writing, but...

Where's my motivation to write gone?

It used to be there constantly. When I wasn't writing I'd be thinking about it, formulating situations and characters that would find their way to paper at some point in the near future. Days would go by when I wrote 4,000 and 5,000 words. Sometimes at the end of the day those words would disappear, consigned to the dustbin by my perfectionist tendencies, but they would have been there.

University hasn't made it easy to write, but that shouldn't be impacting on my motivation to do so in any way. It hasn't quenched my thirst to read, so by the same token my writing should be similarly unaffected. I suppose the last few weeks have been more than a little stressful, with writing an entire dissertation in under a month, work in the SLO to complete and then revision and exam preparation to be getting on with, and it's only natural I want some time doing nothing but curling up with a good book, but I should still have the writing bug.

I have ideas as well. Three good ideas to sink my creative teeth into. So it isn't like I'm struggling for that spark of inspiration. I just haven't got the motivation.

Normally, this afternoon would be the perfect opportunity to do an hour or two in front of the iMac with Word open, bashing out a few hundred words of a short story. I've managed to get four chapters of my book on ADR revised thanks to having an earlier start this morning, and I'm giving it some time before I go back to work on that. Not one, but two story ideas are lodged at the front of my mind, and I have extensive notes on both easily available to me, just the click of a button away. But I just don't have the motivation to write at the moment.

It's frustrating. On one level I want to be fleshing out a new SF world, creating an alien landscape that would transport a reader to imaginary planes of existence. But on another I just can't be bothered with taking the time and effort to do that. I want some time of doing nothing.

Perhaps a short break will see me right. Once I'm through this exam on Friday, then the opening Advocacy exam on Tuesday (I think), I'll have a little time to recover myself. Most of that time will be spent scouting the jobs market, but there will still be time to sit and relax. Maybe after a week or two the bug will bite again. I hope fervently that it does.

Writing progress!

I feel slightly guilty. Today's been a slow day on the dissertation, with just over 400 words written, and yet here I am skiving off doing work to write about something completely unrelated. Perhaps it's a sign that the times they are a-changing, that I'm working like a lunatic. I was out last night for the first time in goodness knows how long, and yet rather than relaxing and enjoying a couple of acoustic sets in a chilled atmosphere, I was left thinking about referees and their duty of care in relation to a particular hypothetical situation.

Of course, I shouldn't feel guilty. I am allowed a break. I'm halfway through the dissertation now, and I'm through the toughest bit, pulling all the little minutiae of the law together to form a coherent picture. Next comes the fun bit of criticising it and then writing my conclusions. Besides, if I'm working all the time then I'll burn myself out at exactly the wrong time of year.

On this basis, I finally managed to get some writing done the other night. Admittedly, this was at one in the morning, but it was good to get all creative. Even if it was just the planning stage. It was even nicer that the plan I did manage to knock up for myself is of a good-sized project that should keep me busy a while with doing bits and bobs of research, then writing it (I reckon it'll be 20,000 words or so), then editing it. And the even better bit is that I have another project to work on in tandem.

Neither of these stories is small. The first one requires research and careful world-building. The second needs a steady hand. It'll be a case of subtly attacking current government social policy within the context of a fictional near-future setting, which makes it an awkward balance; while I want to get the story across (and it's a good story), I don't want the messages to be missed, and by the same token I don't want the criticism of the government to be overbearing.

But for now, it's back to the dissertation. Frustrating as it is, it has to be done. In order to make it a little more bearable, I have described it in videogaming terms to myself. And I'll do the same here. It's like I've been through the little minor bosses, and now here's the end of game boss. Can't fail at this stage.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are tonight's entertainment!

It'll be nice to put my feet up this evening.

That is, it'll be nice to put my feet up even if it doesn't involve watching the football. Arsenal are playing L**ds for the right to play Town in the fourth round of the FA Cup, but, despite having a vested interest, I'm not watching. Partly because I can't be bothered, partly for other reasons.

So I'm spending a rare evening engrossed in ideas. I'll be reading a bit of Perdido Street Station, China Miéville's 2001 steampunk novel, a bit of my short story collection (not a collection of my short stories, I'll hasten to add - that was a clumsy turn of phrase), and for the rest of my time I'll be submersing myself in notes and mind maps, trying to coax a story into being.

I have a couple of ideas I could go back to, but I don't really feel like it. After writing most of those stories once, I really don't fancy writing them again right now. With the last few weeks being spent immersing myself in uninspiring coursework, getting a new idea to work on will hopefully ignite my imagination. From there, who knows: I might finally rewrite Descent (to which WriSoc will be 'treated' tomorrow), or carry on with Under The Railway Arches.

Who knows, I may even motivate myself to get the rewrites published so they won't just be meaningless words on a barely-read blog.

You may not be able to tell, but I'm excited.

Long days, dark nights

It's been a stressful few days. Since returning to uni I've worked perhaps 60 hours on various aspects of uni work, and I've had very little time to myself. Last night's football was a welcome work-out to relieve stress.

Unfortunately it's likely to be the last time I play for some three months. Uni's timetable isn't conducive to any of the activities I like doing, so I won't get the chance to play and I'm also finally sorting out my long-standing knee injury. If I need surgery that'd put me out for about six months, as I reckon it's a cartilage problem that'd need more than just physio to cure. But I'm no expert, and it might just be residual problems arising from a dislocated knee.

But that pain would pale in comparison to my present workload. Two pieces of coursework, several SPSs to prepare, a dissertation and the SLO all going on at once makes for a very stressed and not particularly happy me. Especially seeing as one of those pieces of coursework is being redrafted after I made a mess of it the first time. And progress is sloooow, or so it seems; considering the volume it feels like I'm hardly making an indent.

Progress is also slow on the short stories I'm writing and the books I'm reading. I've only completed two in the first fortnight of the year (an unprecedentedly low number), and the Lovecraft collection has taken me almost 3 weeks.

I'm not sure I like Lovecraft. His style is hard work to read and he sometimes seems lazy in his descriptions. When he says something defies description it feels like a copout, and the multiple times he finishes a story in exactly the same way is just plain frustrating. Still, he has his moments.

On the short story front, I have half a dozen ideas I'm trying to work on, one of which is properly in the writing process, but it's just getting the chance. Uni is, unfortunately, a little onerous in its demands at the moment.

Mirror, mirror, on humanity's wall...

There's something so rewarding when you realise what you're really writing about. You might be writing an epic story about starships and planetary destruction, yet hidden amongst the detritus there will be the true human content of a piece, whether it's the value of friendship, discrimination and the value of equality, or the importance of being earnest (yes, that's a terrible joke, I'll readily admit it). It doesn't matter what you're writing; I'd like to think that every piece of writing has some way of reflecting on the human race, even if the author doesn't realise it.

I've been working on a piece for a month or so now, and it's been bugging me to death. It's a dark, dystopian piece that hardly reflects accurately on my normally-cheery personality, and I'd been struggling to get to grips with it. What if this isn't realistic? What if it's far too overblown and unlikely? My mind was proving more a hindrance than a help, until I realised I wasn't writing about a dystopian world. Not really.

I was writing about a human trait we all have in some form or other. Through the protagonist I was projecting a particular view on humanity, even if this was completely subconscious on my part. As a result, I expect the remainder of the writing I have to do on this particular novelette to be far easier. Well, until I have to start writing it again, of course.

December ramblings

After recently getting practically no time to do any writing whatsoever beyond scribblings in legalese, I may finally get the opportunity to get stuck in to a meaty bit of fiction over the next couple of weeks.

I'll freely admit that I don't expect it to be any good. It'll be a matter of bringing myself back up to scratch through doing a bit of editing and tinkering before starting on anything new, but then it's hardly my fault I'm shockingly out of practice. Uni takes priority, and it will continue to do so during the holidays (the target is to do both pieces of coursework - totalling 7,000 words - and at least 3,000 words of my dissertation over the three weeks off). But with no seminars or SPSs, I stand a chance of being able to get at least one story done, and I have an idea of what that story will be.

In other news, I got a rejection the other day for a piece of flash fiction I sent off. It had been previously rejected in perhaps the most pretentious manner possible (resulting in that website going on my blacklist - no, I'm not bitter at all), so to get this rejection back was a breath of fresh air. It was helpful, pointed out the flaws they believed the story had and seemed almost apologetic that they hadn't taken it on. I'm definitely submitting there again. As for the story, it's gone off again for the final time before time is called on it and it's posted up here.

One thing about uni has been that I've been able to get plenty of reading done in the evenings, when the cricket isn't on. Recent readings have included Isaac Asimov's Complete Stories (volume 1), Stephen Baxter's quasi-history Evolution, and, for my Law and Literature module, The Trial. At some point I may review them on here.

But in the mean time, Christmas is coming. X-Factor number ones, socks from your grandmother, dodgy Christmas specials on the telly and the inevitable Boxing Day murder of an aunt by your sister after she bought the wrong colour bobble hat.

Oh joy.

It's the gom jabbar

Another day, another rejection. Some would ask why I bother; it isn't as if I've got any proper success yet.

Ah, I say to these people (generally in an annoyingly high-pitched tone of voice), but you forget: persistence is the answer to the world's ills. Just as a persistent striker will eventually discover a chink in a defence's armour, there will at some point be an opening for a writer such as myself to get his first professional publication.

Persistence and not giving up is also important from a confidence perspective. Some people get a rejection and instantly think it's because they're not good enough, never will be good enough, etc. This isn't the case. Maybe that particular story genuinely wasn't good enough (and if you're a particularly young writer it's fairly likely to be the case, just from a lack of maturity and range in your writing), but often it's the case that it isn't the publication's style, the publication takes only the very, very best (I'm thinking Clarkesworld here - an outstanding magazine, no doubt about that, but the bar really is too high for most first-time writers), the publication is full for this month...

If you give up after receiving a rejection then you've failed the biggest test that befalls a hopeful writer. Again, this is a problem more for the younger end of the writing spectrum. Confidence is so important for a young writer, and a rejection really can knock the belief right out of you. Just think of what I said above. And also read the rejection letter/email itself. Chances are it will be form, but it'll encourage you to write elsewhere and submit again. It'll give a list of potential reasons for the rejection.

Don't fall victim to the writing gom jabbar. Keep your self-belief high by constantly submitting and resubmitting stories. When amendments are suggested (even if it is by a pretentious pillock of an American spouting psychobabble - not bitter at all...), make them and submit elsewhere. It's a long, frustrating process, but it'll happen in the end. Think positive. You're not a bad writer.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a rewrite to make on a short story. And then I'm submitting it elsewhere. Unlike others, I haven't failed the writing gom jabbar and I'll try until I'm successful.

The greatest society in the world

Last night was workshop and karaoke night for the Northumbria WriSoc (there being a tremendous amount of overlap between writing a sequel for A Midsummer Night's Dream and Frank Sinatra), and, as usual, it passed off in a blend of a sublime and the ridiculous. Mostly the latter, it has to be said.

I could go into detail about the president and her statement regarding top hats and chlamydia. Or how, two weeks ago, the secretary managed to mention Hermia's tentflaps. Or even our esteemed treasurer and his Brian Blessed impressions. But the point is this: we're not the usual.

One of our newest members said possibly the nicest thing it's possible to say about a collective of writers last night: that we're not pretentious and we accept all types of writers. And it's true. The aforementioned member writes (very good) screenplays, one of which we were treated to last night. I write SF. A few members write poetry, others write prose, others scripts. It's an eclectic mix, and we work well together, especially when we band together and do projects as a group, as we are with the sequel to A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Kate's script is brilliant. From the Shakespearean opening, it moves into more conventional modern prose, but it keeps the essence of Shakespeare in the way it can be acted. We have monologues, passion and fire. Unfortunately the 'kick your ass' line has been omitted, but a 'ooh, she's feisty' comment has found its entertaining way in.

Thanks to a stripey commitment I can't make it to the Newcastle Book Festival, where the prologue and opening scene (at least) will be performed, alongside readings of members' work (perhaps including some of mine!). But it's just the latest in a line of events happening down to the hard work of the committee and the other members since the society formed last year. We've got the anthology coming out (hopefully), in which members' work will be exhibited. And in February there was an open mike night down at the Head of Steam by the train station in Newcastle. The year was topped off in April when the society won best new society at the Union Awards Night.

So we're quirky. We're busy. We're eclectic. We're entertaining. We say odd things. We do odd things. And occasionally we write.

Nothing like patting yourself on the back, eh?

Let's do the time warp again

I've now been back 7 weeks (to all slackers elsewhere, that's 7 weeks of intense, demanding work. Unlike your Media Studies degree), and by now I should be settled back in to the demands of Northumbria University and her LLB Bar Exempting degree. Of course, this being the fourth year the workload is now larger than an obese elephant, and it feels like I'm trying to shift it using a single shovel made of damp papier mache.

On the plus side, I am ahead with Law and Lit by about 3 weeks and the SLO's yet to really bite hard with its workload, so I've been able to get my dissertation synopsis sent off. I still have to complete my provisional bibliography (referencing about 60 cases and articles is proving to be somewhat problematic and exceedingly boring), but it's a start. Now to get cracking with the wonders of the introductory chapter. All 2,000 words of it.

Seeing as I'm meant to write about writing, I may as well give an update on that. In the past week I've managed to get one story finished and sent off (OK, it was 9 days ago, but hey), as well as make a start on another new one. I'm not much into the second of these, but that's entirely because I have a massive workload and no time at the moment.

It's also a major reason my reading volume is down this week. Normally I manage 50-0dd pages a night. This week the average has been 20, although I envisage that going up this evening after WriSoc's weekly karaoke sesh. Where we'll be doing the Time Warp. Again. The evening has the potential to be momentous, mostly because there is a chance I'll be singing. After Enter Sandman in the epic win of a fortnight ago, I need something to top that. Ace of Spades, anyone?

Oh, look, update...

Hurrah! My first Drafting session is down and it wasn't a complete disaster! For a first effort, I don't think my Particulars of Claim was too bad, to be honest, seeing as when we were doing them in second year I was laid up 120 miles away with my knee in a brace after dislocating it for the first time.

But it is another sign that uni is going to be the death of my writing. This is only the third/fourth week back (or fifth, if you're me) and already the amount of time I have to sit down and write something interesting is extremely limited. And this is without the SLO munching up my time like there's no tomorrow. Do this now, do that now, you can't do that you have a client, this letter needs writing, have you written that attendance note yet, do your research, have you liaised with your firm about this, jump through this hoop, you see that cliff there jump off it...

There's a taster of what is to come. Fortunately, I've got most of the rest of today free, and so I'm going to fill it with WriSoc (complete with an intriguing turn of events - tune in later to find out what happened when the censors said I couldn't report on it beforehand) and this story about evolution, when I'm not getting cracking on the bail appeal for next Monday and whatever drafting I'm meant to be doing for next Wednesday or doing dissertation work.

Ah, yes, the joys of university and a proper degree. None of that cushy Media Studies rubbish here. You actually have to have talent to be here (and I make no apology to those people on the Mickey Mouse degrees). Well, talent, and a certain amount of insane stubbornness.

Peter uses motivator: it's not very effective...

I've been struggling with writing for a week or so now. Ever since I finished the article about cricket, I don't think I've written a single word, and I'm not sure why. It's not as if I've not had a bit of time on my hands, outside of having a dissertation to write, but for whatever reason I've not been feeling anything like creative.

It's hardly professional of me, I know. If I'm to be professional about the whole thing I should at least sit down and work on one of the half-a-dozen stories I have on the go, even if I'm not feeling particularly motivated. But I haven't been, and those stories have been neglected as a result.

Is it a loss of confidence? Hardly. I'm still in the figjam mindset, and I know it. Perhaps it's just that I've needed a break from writing short stories for a week while I continue to digest more and more of them. Of late, I've been reading them at an increased rate as well as listening to them through the podcasts. I'm subscribed to Daily Science Fiction. It's not unknown for me to download PDFs of magazines these days. My level of exposure to short form SF is as high as it's ever been.

And having half-a-dozen stories on the go at once hasn't exactly helped matters. I probably need to focus on just one at a time before going off and writing another one. Jumping from one idea to another isn't good for an organised mind.

This is a promise to myself: I'm going to use this next few weeks to get the stories I've been working on finished. When I'm not disserting my topic, I'll be found constructing SF and horror short stories, starting with finishing the one for the 2013 anthology. This promise starts tomorrow: at least an hour of work while in uni, waiting to meet the third years.

Or maybe not

Right, so the first draft is finished. 486 words of me spouting the usual nonsense. But it's nonsense I like. And it's nonsense I want to try to get published. With apologies to all who might actually have been in the slightest bit interested in reading it (apart from people who I live with, obviously, who might as well have a free pass to my work once I start getting vaguely enthusiastic about it), I'm going to send it off.

The editing process is starting tomorrow morning (or later this evening, once The Inbetweeners has been on telly - I have no doubt that there's a blog about them coming on at some point fairly soon). By this time tomorrow evening, it'll have gone off to the first of the three ezines I have earmarked as potentially publishing it.

Once again, apologies. I'll get to work on a different one instead, just to satisfy the masses (both of them).