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.

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 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.

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.

Updating 1... 2... 3...

It has been some time since I posted, and for that I will start with an apology (if anyone actually reads this blog, of course). The simple fact has been that I haven't the time to write (or blog) particularly often these days, thanks to a degree and a course combination which has had me hit for six for the last two months.

Moving on from cricketing metaphors (we had quite enough of those in the last entry), the writing of late has been very, very slow. Labyrinthine Ways has had just 3 pages added to it in the past two months, while a new project has also been slow to get off the ground.

I should be pleased I'm still getting ideas. And ideas are something I can build on, whether I'm in practice or not. As things stand, I have some seven ideas to write, and two of those are active projects. When I have more time, I'll be more than capable of pushing on to get plenty of writing done. My latest project, an epic space opera going by the working title of Greatness Thrust Upon (after the Shakespearean quote - you know the one I mean) follows in the Dune tradition of men musing about power, only it has more spaceships and more gratuitous violence for the more blockbuster-inclined souls among you.

The story? I'm not giving that away just yet. Only a couple of people know I've even started work on this, and I'm keeping it close to my chest until I've got a good way into the project and I'm fairly confident I'll see it through.

If it's several months before I post again, don't be surprised, but, in the mean time, take care.

Nervous... Forties?

The well-known cricketing cliché goes that once a player gets into his nineties, he'll be a nervous wreck until he finally steers his innings to the hundred. 'How often,' a commentator will bark across the airwaves, 'have we seen it; a batsman having a fine innings until he hits 90, only to then start making streaky shots and for his run-rate to slow before giving his wicket away?'

Well, I'm not a cricketer of note (not the last time I checked at any rate), and it's not the nineties I'm in, but the book has finally gone past 45 pages and is now closing on the half-century, thanks to a long session this morning, where I added 1,000 words to Chapter Five. With just a short scene in the chapter to go, I've reached the bottom of page 49, and all being well, I've finally cracked the chapter.

It's a relief, to say the least. After a summer of struggling for writing form as badly as Ravi Bopara has struggled with the bat for England, I sat down with half a scene this morning to steer it in the direction I wanted to after a couple of aborted attempts to do so. It was worth the effort. Completing the Council scene gives me a platform for the short scene that follows, and I've also got the toughest scene I've yet written out of the way.

So what if the whole scene came in just short of 2,500 words? It was by no means easy, introducing new characters and having the first scene I've written in some time where more than two characters are in conversation, especially as it had various undercurrents and motives throughout. I should be able to build on this over the next couple of weeks to get another chapter or two under my belt.

Hopefully, I'll be able to push on to the ton as well.