Book Review - Rattus New Yorkus

Rats take over New York! Loved it! Fast paced from start to finish, and action that runs up your leg and bites you in the face. I'm putting a lock on that toilet lid now.

Get it Here - Rattus New Yorkus - Hunter Shea

 

We Want Poetry

We want poetry

Words arranged that kiss our souls

Soothe our aching hearts

 

Book Review - VOX by Christina Dalcher

Beautiful and terrifying, twist after nerve-wracking twist, Christina Dalcher weaves a story, through the pages, of a tongue-tied claustrophobic world, where even talking in your sleep could have you electrocuted. Jean McClellan, an eminent Neurolinguist, and every other woman and girl in America, is silenced by the ruling patriarchal Theocracy. 100 words a day, is all they get, then the word counting bracelet they’re forced to wear starts to deliver an electric shock. What lines will she cross to regain her freedom? What would you do to keep your freedom? Must stop talking now, no more words left. READ THIS! [100 words]
#100words #VOX

 VOX - The Gripping Debut

Book Review - Manifest Recall by Alan Baxter

Just finished reading Manifest Recall. Brilliant! @AlanBaxter had me hooked from page one. Dragged me along on a brutal journey of discovery and vengeance, a journey that would not stop gently. Could not put it down. Thoroughly recommend! Available here - AMAZON

Twitter Review
Amazon Review

Closer

Just a little bit closer, every day. Keep pushing, keep having a stab at it.
Today's efforts were again aimed at Plot, this time at the "Five Key Plot Points".

1. INCITING INCIDENT
2. LOCK IN
3. FIRST CULMINATION (Mid-point Crisis)
4. MAIN CULMINATION (Main Climax)
5. THIRD ACT TWIST

From what I've been reading, and understanding ( 3 Awesome Plot Structures for Building Bestsellers ) , the Five Key Plot Points is a "Fichtean Curve" and links to Libbie Hawker's (Take Off Your Pants) guidelines on Pacing (Triangles, see my post of June 4th). Lots of crises in the rising action leading up to the climax, very short falling action.

Taking Libbie Hawker's advice, each of the little curves is a chapter, is problem-solution, which builds the pace - the difference between a book that you can't put down and one that you put down all too easily.

Shapeshifting

Yesterday I did mention things, shapeless things, threatening to break out. I managed to snatch one, something must've bumped into it from the other side, from inside the mist. It staggered out, disoriented, it tried to get back but no, we were too fast for it this time. Fire a few nets over the top, run a few ropes round the legs, bring it crashing down. Only problem, every time you look at it it starts to change. We do have a man with a big stick, says he's going to have words with it, see if we can't get this story to decide what it wants to be. Might have to have Pirates involved, no swashbuckling, just nasty armed thieving bastards on boats.

Something is Hatching

Pigeon War happening overhead. I chuck bird seed onto the roof of my shed. A while after I enter the Shed of Doom and close the door, you will start to hear the odd dull thud as a Wood Pigeon graces the Avian land of milk and honey above. I really should put a camera up there, it never takes too long and it turns into the lunch-time matinee at the Colosseum. The scrabbling about, flapping, more thuds (sharper this time, heck knows what these guys are packing), lots of kerfuffle and then all of a sudden everyone legs it. I guess someone won.
Well, in spite of the feathered frenzy overhead I managed to chew through a bit more of the Ninja Writer's/Shaunta's Plotting Workshop.
And something is starting to take shape, shapeless movements threaten to break out, pushing the edge out and then slipping away again. Doesn't look like it's going to be a horror story at the moment. No, that's called Editing.
More fun tomorrow.

Just Write

Right, just write. Stop thinking about not knowing how, stop thinking you'll get it wrong. Just write. Editing is for fixing what doesn't work well, once you've finished the draft (do not edit on the fly).

And plan your time, give yourself goals and stick to the plan.

Talking to myself here. Needless to say today has been here, there and everywhere. Finding excuses instead of just getting on with things. And now that we've run out of time, well now all of a sudden I'm in the swing of things.

But, tomorrow is another day, and it is incredibly counterproductive to tell yourself off. Acknowledge that mistakes were made, and tomorrow we start off where we've left off today, writing.

Gone

Just four letters.
Gone.
Gone carries,
in some ways,
far more finality,
far more loss,
upon its wings
than does that five-lettered beast,
Death.
Death is witnessed.
Gone is nowhere to be found.
Gone carries worlds away,
Gone while you're not watching.

***

"I'm not from 'round here" he said, looking down at his hands, the lines and scars telling a story only he knew. "I'm from down there," pointing southward, still looking at his hands "and now it would seem that I'm not from there anymore either." He folded his hands in his lap, took a long deep breath, looked up. He looked me straight in the eye "Be careful, walk far enough and you switch worlds. When you try to go back, well," he took another pause, another long deep breath "well, you find things aren't the same. That world you walked away from, you walked too far son. All  gone."

Pacing

A main character, with a goal, has to struggle against something that gets in the way of that goal, and wins or loses the struggle.
Libbie Hawker, in her book "Take Off Your Pants", shows that this structure is the Outline of your story. Character Arc, Theme and Pacing woven together with the Outline, now we're talking.
Pacing was the theme of this evening reading, basically the outline structure repeated - for each chapter, for each scene, funneling the reader towards the Finale. Get this part right, and they wont be able to put the book down.
Nested triangles Libbie calls it. Reminds me of the (Math alert...) fractal tree outlining of a Sierpinski Triangle

The structure of the smallest part is replicated by the larger structure, and finally by the whole structure.

Sierpinski Triangle

Down Time

My apologies, to you and me, for my absence the last few days. A couple of big changes happening right now, so some Down Time was needed.

I did manage to give myWriting Shed a good tidy this afternoon, I have managed to fit another chair in. It will be my reading and musing chair, I can see a few naps creeping in too!

This week will be finishing off Libbie Hawker's book on outlining, and getting back to editing that Novel. "Breakout" I've entitled it, of course that could change. I've also a couple of Short Stories to finish off. As well as the Ninja Writer's Plotting Workshop (I might be trying to do too much at once...).

Thunder

Thunder, the echoing screams of a sky rent asunder.

I love thunderstorms, and there's one going on overhead as I type. I grew up in South Africa, and I spent most of my time there in the north of the country, not far from the Tropic of Capricorn. Summer time in South Africa is Winter time for Europe, December through February or thereabouts. And Summer time is Rain time, and being about on the Tropic of Capricorn, well the weather systems are invested with quite some vigour that time of year. Thunderheads reach up to 12,000 meters (somewhere around 40,000 feet) and the lightning displays are nothing short of awesome! Fork, ball, you name it. lightning illuminating the clouds from within, fork lightening dancing across the sky, lightning hitting the tree in our garden right next to my brother's bedroom. That was ear-splitting!
And that night-into-day flash, one-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, three-one-thousand (roughly 3 seconds to travel 1 kilometer). Such awesome power on display.
It's no wonder our forefathers saw thunderstorms as the gods battling amongst each other.

You can just imagine it can't you, up above, one invincible Collossus bringing its staff down on the head of another, the explosion splits the sky, the screams of the sky rent asunder echo across that massive amphitheater above our heads. They sweat, they bleed, their struggles spray their precious life-bloods down upon us, soaking the Earth and giving us life.

External Goals

No post yesterday, too much going on at the moment 👺, a break from everything was needed 😴.

Reinvigorated I have been getting on with working my way through Libbie Hawker's book "Take Off Your Pants" - all to do with outlining your books.

Fantastic stuff. This evening was spent focusing on Character Arc and relating character flaw to external goals. I do believe I've cracked that now. Which has given me plenty of food for thought for the editing I'm doing on my novel at the moment. It's not going to result in any major rewriting, tweaking certainly!

And have just started watching "The Handmaid's Tale" , brilliant. I love dystopia and post-apocalypse. Now just need to see the film and read the book - AMAZON - Handmaid's Tale

And for those of you that have issues with the TV series not following the book, please see Margaret Atwood's response

Old Random Post

Managed to get a little reading done this morning, then went out for the afternoon, spent some time out and about with the family.

Ah yes, the idyllic Oxfordshire countryside, you can almost smell the rural just looking at that (oh definitely). The kids, both teenagers, were bought off with icecreams, I do have a heart...

But not all was lost, there was a Crow, kept wiping his/her beak on the dung festooned paddock as it wandered along looking for something else to nibble at. I missed seeing whatever it was it had eaten. Was it sweet, was it smelly, we'll never know. If you could have listened in then you would have heard the Carousel in the background. A bit random, there was also a little Hook-a-Duck stall, and a Circus. Yes, just the sort of thing you'd expect to run into, out in the sticks. But then where else would all the serial killer Clowns and demonically possessed fairground rides go for a little R&R? Perhaps I'm writing something like that at the moment.

Peering through the trees at the edge of the clearing you just knew all sorts of madness was afoot. There in the middle of the clearing stood a carousel, hobbies running that same race over and again, never seeming to tire, and that same piece of music repeating all day long.
"Just watch Ned" I nodded towards the whirling madness ahead, "in a moment there'll be a bunch of axe-wielding Clowns come rushing out from behind that Carousel, and then we'll be running like nutters"
There was a crackling of twigs on the forest floor behind us.

Yes, a possessed Carousel, luring people to their doom at the hands of axe-wielding Clowns from Cirque du Bedlam.

A nice day out.

JACK

Today, more working on plotting and outlining, and more reading (always reading!).

Not a particularly creative day, though the work going into plotting/outlining (oh, and character arcs...) is giving me ideas for the novel I'm editing.

Now, that novel has its roots in a short story I wrote a couple of years back, and this post has its roots in a conversation I'm having with fellow author PJ Sherman over on Twitter. I read a short story of his on his blog today, it's Post Apocalyptic in setting, something I have a particular love of. Go and read it - The Winter Stranger

My short story is simply titled

----------------------------------------------------------- 

Jack

“Jack” Carrie murmured, “Don’t leave the garden, I’ll be back soon”

Jack leaned forward, and sniffed her face, growling softly. A mouth full of impossibly sharp orange teeth snapped, snapped, snapped in Carrie’s face, and Jack skittered around the garden, before coming to rest in the flowerbed next to the front gate, looking outwards, sack-cloth tugging gently in the breeze. Carrie stood frozen for a moment, terrified, before closing the front door. Jack was alive, what had she done?

“No, there’s no Pumpkin out. No Pumpkin, No Knock.” The weight of Authority, hers by 6 months, sat comfortably on Claire’s shoulders. It was, after all, right that she should be in charge, Martin was a boy and boys were no good.

“We only need one more house, and they might have sw…”

Claire knew what was good, what was right. And right now that was whatever she said. “No pumpkin, no knock! And look, the next one’s got a Pumpkin out. We’ll go there.”

“But that’s Carrie’s house, Dad says they’s ‘Creepy fuckers’”. Yeah, and Carrie’s worse than creepy, no friends and people get hurt when they’re mean to her went through Martin’s mind, with a shudder for company.

“Oh, you are sooo dead when Mum hears what you just …”

Martin bristled, “Well maybe I’m gonna say it again, this time with your name at the end of …”

They were there, at the gate to Carrie’s house. Halfway up the path, looming out of the shrubs, was the meanest Jack o’Lantern they’d ever seen.

Evil blade shaped eyes, orange searchlights streaming out, seemed to follow them up the path, and that mouth… “Man, how’d they get so many teeth in there, that’s gotta be more than a shark” Martin murmured in awe, reaching up past the tattered old brown trench-coat Jack was sporting, not quite tall enough to reach.

“Martin! You’ll break it and then there’ll be trouble, let’s just get the sweets and go”, Claire insisted, pulling Martin away from the Jack.

They turned to the house, with pillage in their hearts, and tricks up their sleeves. “I want some chocolate this time” said Martin as Claire reached for the knocker, “Why’ve you got to have all the chocolate, Vampires don’t even eat, they just drink blood. Pirates eat chocolate!”

“Shut up Martin” said Claire softly, one syllable at a time, stuffing a Mars Bar into his bag and taking a Sherbet Dip, and a Swizzler or two.

“Hey! That’s not fair, why you…”

“Psshht fair. You know we always share them out when we get back”

“Yeah right. You should’ve come as a Goblin not a Witch, ‘gobbling’ all the chocolate on the way home, there’s never any to share. I’m gonna tell Mu…”

“Vampire. I’m a Vampire! Give me a broomstick and I’ll show you Witch! Boys! Always SO annoying!”

Carrie was peering out from behind the door, red light streaming past, chasing Vampire and Pirate shadows down the path. “You shouldn’t have come, Jack’s not nice anymore”

Martin knew the rules, “You put a Pumpkin out, that means you’re doing Trick or Treat. So what’s it gonna be?”

“No, he came on his own, the Sun went down and he was just there, but he was over there when he first came”, Carrie pointing to the opposite side of the garden “He moves when you’re not watching”.

“What, like he’s remote controlled or something” Claire asked, looking back at that Orange will-o’-the-wisp hovering in the shadow, coat flapping gently in the breeze, “He can’t do diddly, scarecrow with a pumpkin for a head”

Carrie reached down to a bucket just inside the door, brought up two bags of sweets and held them out “No, it’s not a toy. He was there and then he wasn’t. I, I see him jiggling about out the corner of my eye s’s’sometimes”

“Why you stuttering now?” asked Claire, reaching over for the bags

“J’j’just t’t’take them and g’g’go” Carrie stammered and shoved the door to.

They stood staring at each other for a moment, listening to the muffled sobs coming through the door, “What was that all about?!” said Claire’s face. Martin was somewhat less tactful “Well Dad did say they were Creepy, gimme my bag.”

Dropping their loot into their orange lantern bags, they started to turn back to the gate. Froze, stopped dead. The Jack O’Lantern, the Scarecrow, that Scary-Jack, wasn’t down there anymore.

Jack was here, Jack was right here. Up against the path, next to the door, his coat flapping in the breeze.

It was all wrong, everything slowed down, stretched out, and then their happy little World really jumped its tracks.

Jack loomed, taller, wider. The sky, the trees, the world, all seemed to be getting bigger, darker. Dread washed over them, pushing that Autumn eve full of tricks, treats, and excited laughter six feet under.

Claire reached for Martin’s hand, there was no “Yuck”, no “Gross”, he just squeezed back. “We’ve got to go Martin”, she whispered. He nodded, tears running down his face now, trying to be his Mummy’s “Big brave boy”, trying so hard not to call her name. They turned, and bolted for the gate.

Jack’s withe hand, protruding from the end of his musty old coat sleeve, caught Martin’s bag full of golden, sugary loot, spilling its contents on the ground between them.

The gentle evening breeze picked up, now rushing and twisting through the trees arching over their heads,  “nooo sssttaayy” they soughed, “pleasssee sssttaayyy”

Not wanting to hear, longing for home’s warm embrace, “My Vampire, my Pirate, how did we do?”, they ran, desperately reaching for that gate.

The red-eyed Cyclops at the end of the path had beckoned, and now the Lion, the Witch and the Zombie stood knocking on Carrie’s door.

Coat flapping in the breeze, Jack had greeted them at the gate, arms out wide he welcomed them in, grinning manically at the world as they sidled past. For once that evening, they were silent. They could feel something there, something dark, something lurking. Those malevolent, glowing, orange eyes. Was that gore smeared across his maw, as if fresh from his last meal? Was that a hair clip stuck in the corner of Jack’s mouth, its orphaned lock wisping in the wind?

“That, is the freakiest, coolest Halloween pumpkin ever”.

The Zombie looked across at the Lion, Ron was having none of it from Gayle tonight “Whaddaya mean That’s the coolest, just now you said my cost…”, Gayle had knocked at the door. It opened a crack.

Only a crack, more closed than not, nothing would get in. “You shouldn’t have come, go now, run” whispered the silhouette.

“What?” Zombie and Lion shared a glance, “Pumpkins mean Trick or Treat, hand it over”.

The Witch was tugging, frantically, at the Lion’s mane “It’s gone, why’s it gone Gayle?”

The Lion was confused, who to slap first, Zombie or Witch. The Witch won the prize, “What are you…”

All thought of well deserved slaps vanished. Right beside them It was, dousing them with terror.

“I’m s s s sorry” was all the girl could manage, between sobs. Pulling back from the crack, she pushed that door to. The Moths drawn in, the light at the end of the tunnel faded, went black.

“Sslicketty-snakk sslicketty-snakk sslicketty-snakk…”, that sound was almost all around, near, far, above, below, always behind, never in front.

Their world was gone, no twinkle twinkle up above, no clickety-clack of cellophane wrapped treasure filling up the bag, no tricks for the grumps. Now in the midst of some dark, bewitched grove, betwixt skeletons reaching for the burnt-out sky.

There, no more out of the corner, but from the darkness in front, skittered that burnt orange fiend. Orange embers and hideous maw, arms outstretched they were embraced. Maw turned horizon, reefs of flesh-rending spires.

Carrie, with the door ajar, her dark companion adrift in a golden sea, wished her curiosity was as dead as those three.

Trying to Finish What We Start

It is harder than it sounds. At least it's like that for me with writing. I wrote a 50k word novel last November, the draft that is. I still have not finished editing. And, as a Pantser, things like Chapters were irrelevant. I just opened the floodgates, as one should with the draft, and wrote.
Now, I don't think, or don't know rather, that the editing part of the job is necessarily harder than writing the draft? Is it? I guess I'm finding out.
What I'm doing first though, having already spell checked and looked for adverbs, is putting chapters in. Doing this while tired, having just had a few hotdogs, and a small bottle of beer, for lunch. I might need a nap.
(One nap later)
Some editing has actually taken place, and now that I've taken a closer look I see thet the chapter thing is not as bad as originally thought.
But, the rest of the editing, spotting lots of things that need attention, changing, tearing up. Not easy, daunting even. One step closer though. We will get there.

Five Key Plot Points

The focus of this evening's efforts

Inciting Incident

Lock-in

Mid-point Crisis

Main Climax

Third Act Twist

We've taken our main character, and thrown them into a situation. We have then fleshed that out using the five points above, call it a mini-plot if you will, follow the link below for more detail on this (I'm learning, let me leave the explaining to those that know better).

Plot Five Key Moments 

 And that's it! Ha, not by a long shot. Next is fleshing it out even more, Acts One, Two and Three. Then more fleshing out (adding scenes), and then the draft.
This is by no means easy, but I did read somewhere today that if a thing scares you, then you probably need to do the thing. Writing, the whole process, is not easy. But looking past the scariness, looking to where we're journeying, seeing how far we've come, love it!

Now, it is Friday evening. Time for food, beer and a movie.

Day Three - Plotting - Situation

Yes, subject to change.
Yesterday the plan was for the Plotting exercise to produce the backbone of a Short Story.
Today, delving further in, I find that there is simply too much material for a short story. So, a novel it will have to be.
The one question I must ask myself over the next few days though, as I finish the plotting course, and the plot along with it, is do I start the novel now. Or, do I leave it for November? NaNoWriMo...
I've another novel I'm now itching to get stuck into, and I'll plot that one as soon as I've finished plotting this one. The other novel is, like this one, one where I've written a short story or two while I've toyed with the idea and the setting. Call the short stories Back Story if you will. I should tidy them up and release them as tasters ahead of the Novels they relate to.
But, to get there I will need to finish writing and editing 😱 (Kill the Kraken...) something. However, I'm not entirely sure that starting a novel off before I've finished a previous one is an uncommon problem for a writer?

Day Two of Shaunta's Plotting Workshop

Decided to base all of the excercises around part of the back story for the NaNoWriMo novel I wrote (edit in progress) in 2017. Last night the exercise was about characters, tonight it was all about the Setting for the story.
Consistency of detail is key when working on a series, or collection, of stories involving the same characters and setting. This is perhaps where pantsing can fall down, I'm having to go through the 2017 draft to pull details out. The exercises are helping me to get these details all written down, concisely, and in one place.

The story I already know, roughly. As I said earlier it's back story, but well worth telling. And worth telling well.

I'm going to have a stab at a little pulp fiction with this, and will be using Lester Dent's 6000 word short story master formula. It's going to be interesting to see how I wed Shaunta's plotting course to Lester Dent's formula (Shaunta is gearing this towards a Novel, so things might change...).

The Lester Dent Pulp Paper Master Fiction Plot

Now, the author of the article linked above has left something out. At the end of the article we read
"Did God kill the villain? Or the hero?"
This is a warning against the use of Deus Ex Machina (from God the Machine). The Hero needs to kill the Villian with his own experience and skill, without resorting to some hitherto unseen device.

Deus ex machina - "a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem in a story is suddenly and abruptly resolved by an unexpected and seemingly unlikely occurrence, typically to the point of being perceived as a contrived plot point."

Tomorrow we'll be working on "Situation".

Plotting

Plotting to do something. I have started doing Shaunta Grimes (Ninja Writers) Plotting workshop, somewhat reluctantly. Reluctantly, I say, because I don't plot.

I am, at heart, a Pantser. So Plotting is an alien concept, but I want to know how, it might be a good thing to master? Shaunta basically says that a plot helps you to stay on track, stops the where-the-heck-does-the-story-go-next problem, keeps you true when distractions come rolling through.
The course, and plotting in general, introduces a lot of structure to the planned story, has to make editing so much easier... and will make the stories better.

I do believe that Plotting is one of those things that you can go into in as much depth as you like, or as little. I will probably Plot lightly once we're done, but we'll see. This is all part of the journey, the journey to improve my skill in this craft, Writing.

Read Shaunta's article here - Every Writer Needs to Know How to Plot a Story

There is a link to the course (it is a FREE course) at the bottom of Shaunta's article, don't forget to click on the green hands on the left of the article, it's how readers rate the articles on Medium

Kill the Kraken

Clash of the Titans (the remake, love the first one, love this one) is on in the background, giant Scorpions and all.
Today is day seven of my blogging adventure, part of my writing journey. I have been determined to, and have so far succeeded, write every day.
I always wish I'd written more, but therein lies a problem. I am quite good at telling myself off, somewhere along the line I had it instilled in me that anything less than 100% was a failure. Well, what a crock of you-know-what.

Because, you know what? I've written every day for the last seven days straight, two pages a day (about 700 words). Keep that up for a year and it totals 730 pages! Yes, it's early days, but you know what, I'm liking it. I put another mark down on the writing log, make another entry in my writing diary, and I'm liking it. I'm liking it, I'm doing it, for me.

I wrote a 50,000 word novel in November last year, that's no mean feat. It was not easy, some days I did not get a lot down (you need to average just under 1700 words a day), so the lst4 days I was needing to, and did, write 4000 words a day. This while going to work full time, so not a lot of sleep was had. It can be done, but you've got to do the work. If you want to convince yourself that you don't have the time to write every day, then you'll succeed, in not writing every day.

Make the goals small if need be, try ten minutes a day. That's probably enough for a page, but write without editing or even spellchecking. Editing, and spellchecking even, while you're writing, you will drive yourself mad, and guaranteed you will take a long time to get anything done. Write your draft, and then go back and edit.

Do remember though, you are only human. You will have off days, you are allowed to rest.

So, kill the Kraken, one day at a time.

Blackbird

This shows you just how often I've raised the blinds in my kitchen.

A Blackbird has had the time to build a nest on the window ledge, find a mate, and lay an egg (there is a small hedge just outside the window). I've now had to put the blind back down again (probably until the winter) to give Mr. and Mrs. Blackbird the privacy they need.

On Writing Matters - Did manage to get several hundred words down. Definitely need to up my game. That being said, I should have the draft of the short story I'm working on finished by Tuesday. Turns out it's a prequel to something else I'm working on. These things happen to me, maybe I should Plot more, and Pants less!

Comfortable

Up in the Peak District for the day, my son's rock climbing. And that's what I'm sat on at the moment. Fortunately it's more comfortable than it looks, maybe.

Have already been for a walk to Nelson's monument, a good view. Now, with a few hours to kill it's time for old-school, ye old scribble stick. Trying to type, one-fingered, on my Kindle, is a pain.

Casserole

(A little bit of Flash Fiction)

"Stephen? I'm sorry, I had no..." Mr. Dyne's words died in his throat.
Stephen cut him short, abruptly, rudely. "No more Mr. Dyne, no more! Our family lawyer for years, and you'd tell me you didn't see this coming?! I'll have your head for this!" Stephen's voice rose somewhat at that point.
Mr. Dyne said no more. He sat there behind his desk, cigar smoke twisting lazily up from his cigar toward the cloud-layer of expensive taste marking the temperature inversion near the ceiling. Mr. Dyne had just read Stephen's parents' Will to him. As a lawyer Mr. Dyne could have no opinion of the Will's contents, nor an opinion on the recipients’ responses. If the Lawyer that was Mr. Dyne could have voiced an opinion, then yes, he probably had seen this coming.

Stephen grabbed his holdall, storming out of the office. He ranted to himself, tormented, if he'd been disavowed Georgia would get even less. He stomped off toward their apartment, the crowded sidewalk parting before him. It wasn't long before he was stood before his apartment, keys rattling in the door. Stephen opened the door, strode in.

The reading had started well. Stephen passed on his sister Georgia's apologies, "She's been in pieces, Ma and Pa's passing you understand. She doesn't talk about it, she was their favorite, came as quite a shock!"
Mr. Dyne nodded, knocked the ash off his cigar and balanced it on the ashtray to the side on his desk, "That's understandable, you both have my deepest sympathies. Georgia still has to come in to sign, but that can wait. Shall we begin?"
Minutes later Stephen discovered how much he hated his sister, his parents, and now Mr. Dyne was adding himself to that list. Stephen got nothing, except for the apartment he shared with Georgia.
"So Stephen, all I need from Georgia is her signature, witnessed by myself, and her share could be transferred to her account. You say there's no way she could come in?"
Stephen bit his tongue, a quickening tang filled his mouth. "Perhaps Mr. Dyne, you could come to dinner, to see Georgia? Really she's too beside herself to travel, and makes a mean casserole".
Another puff and Mr. Dyne declined, "My apologies Stephen, I have clients I must meet with this evening, perhaps another time?"
"That wont do" Stephen growled, reaching down into his holdall, "Georgia's been cooking all day long".

"Georgia, don't be rude, Mr. Dyne's come all this way to see you. No, nothing to say? Fine. Oh yes, the will, you get nothing, that I made sure of". Stephen reached into the holdall and pulled out the meat cleaver, dumped it into the sink. He then pulled Mr. Dyne's head out of the holdall, and put that on the fridge shelf next to Georgia's head. "Didn't see this coming?" he said, closing the door on them.
Stephen took a bowl and ladled some casserole out of the crock pot, sat down at the table. It was delicious, Georgia really did make a fine casserole.

Don't Stop

Don't Stop. A brilliant song by Fleetwood Mac - DONT STOP

Also, brilliant advice from the master

Day Five - Living the Dream

Yip, definitely living the dream. Going to work I could do without, but that necessary evil keeps a roof over our heads and food on the plates.
No, the dream is everything else (even this blog). Waking up in the morning to find that we've lived to see another day, Bacon, seeing those cheery faces on the kids' faces as they head off to school (they'll miss it soon enough when they've their own rents to cover), getting to sit down in my little space and write.

Most of the time I love writing. And I have been successful at writing every single day for the last two weeks (honest). As Shaunta (see NinjaWriters links over on the right of the page) says, just 10 minutes a day. Keep the goals small, then you're less likely to skip them, and most of the time I'll be here for an hour or more. I am definitely a night owl, so would happily keep going for quite a while. Towards the end of NaNoWriMo last year (2017) I was hitting about 4000 words a night, that showed me that it can be done. Yes, but only if you switch the Inner Editor off.
Don't edit on the fly, ever, and ignore spellcheck too! Just write, you're writing the Draft, not the final-submit-for-publication version. Just write/type everything that flows through your head, all of it.

Two times I don't like writing much, editing (aaarrggh!) and having to stop and go to bed. Basically I don't like not writing.
Editing, that is where you make the story shine, so I should cut it some slack, it's just all of that having to stay focused.
Having to stop writing so I can go to bed? Not too bad really, I read in bed, and writers need to read!

So with that, good night, now on page 88 of The Long Earth. It's good...

My Father, the Space Marine

My Father was (is) not a Space Marine (maybe in some parallel Universe, so awesome!). But he did have an awesome job (wonder why I never followed...). He was a  Helicopter Pilot, for a young lad, having a Helicopter Pilot for a father, awesome! He was also for a time a Combat Pilot, and has told me a few stories as we've both gotten older. A very serious business, that he was involved in back then (70's), people died. I now appreciate far more the seriousness, and the perilous nature of that part of our lives, my own military service coming a short while after.
So, I'm working on a short story which has nothing to do with anything I, nor my father, did during our service. I'll share a little bit shortly

Oh all right then

“Yeah, you keep talking Olezka, and you’re so ugly that when you lie down at the beach the cats try to cover you up!” Pyotr shouted over the sound of the shells bursting around us “but really I was just thinking…”
“Stop, you’re just going to hurt yourself…”
There were explosions going on all around us
“Was just thinking that now was as good a time as any, and you’re strapped in, you’re not going to be able to get at me”, he laughed at that, and then an uncharacteristically serious look crept across his face.
“Pyotr, what the fuck have you gone and done?”
The rest of the guys in the drop ship, including CPO Semetov (yeah, if he was involved then things were going to be rough down there) were now turning their heads to take note of proceedings.
“Well Olezka, it’s like this, I’ve asked your sister to marry me”
“Marry me” came through quite loudly, the explosions seemed to stop for a few seconds, just then.
And they came back with a vengeance. Cracks, Bangs and Clangs as shrapnel bounced off the ship, Phwumps and Krumps as the sounds of the explosions shot past us, we were tearing through this rather hateful atmosphere at quite a pace.

But now is time to wrap up for the evening, off to bed, to read Terry Pratchett / Stephen Baxter "The Long Earth". Good Night.

Back to Plan B, that was Plan A, ...

Well shoot. Was going to do the 6 month Write-a-book-athon, but it costs a little more than I can manage at the moment (note to self - put money by for next year), $400 for the course with discount for early application, and monthly payment is also available. I'd love to do it, but life is what it is.

So, plan B it is. Though plan B was plan A. So really it's back to plan A. which became plan B at the beginning of the paragraph.

Focus on Shaunta's 31 day challenge for now, it sets up some really good habits to carry forward. I wont spoil anything, just head on over to 31 Days of Ninja Writing and work your way through it all, one email a day with a small simple task to complete. The tasks build on eachother (nothing's a one-off, you'll see), well worth the effort.

Write a Book in Six Months

Was planning on doing NaNoWriMo this November ( https://nanowrimo.org/ ),

I might still try, and might just go into melt-down if I do try to do both NaNoWriMo and what I've just discovered below

https://medium.com/ninja-writers/you-can-write-a-book-this-year-really-5015336a3902

To quote Shaunta Grimes -

"Here’s how it’s going to work:

I’m going to write my book and bring you along with me. The systems and methods I teach are actually the systems and methods that I use. If you follow along, you’ll be able to see me implement them in real time.

We’re going to start at the beginning and go from idea development (which is actually happening as part of our 31-Day Challenge at the end of May), through plotting, writing, and self-editing my book.

You and me, baby. Every step of the way. Because if you commit to the NWAL and you actually do the work, you’ll have a book finished at the end of the year, too.

It’ll be designed to be completed in about one concentrated hour of work a day. You give your novel a well-structured hour a day, where you produce two to three pages, and you’ll have it finished by the end of 2018.

You can do that. You can."

I will try to give daily updates (brief, and so long as life doesn't get in the way), of my duel with dual challenges.

Take Off

Take Off

I've been hiding from this for far too long. There isn't anything out there, that I can see, that's going to stop me now. Not now that I've started, writing. If anything tries to stop me, well, someone's going down in flames (and that someone is not going to be me), or having something nasty happen to them, I'll write them into shark-infested waters.

We've taken this space-freighter out on the quiet a few times now (OK, it's my shed, at the bottom of my garden, but this is my dream, my imagination, willing suspension of disbelief is required), and she handles quite well. We've traveled the length and breadth of the Styx, met invisible Elephants living in the hedge, had my father's lawyer to dinner, scoured the wastelands for a birthday present for my son, worked for a government as a hitman. Also rescued an android from a gang of post-apocalyptic scavengers and then had to drag its goddam heavy ass for miles and miles, and there was also that one time with the possessed Jack 'o Lantern, though that keeps cropping up, so not really one time.

It's quite fantastic really, truly astonishing what crawls out of the woodwork, one letter after another, then throw in some punctuation and, far too many Macchiatos later, hey presto you've got a story.

I will start sharing a few short stories soon enough. Do subscribe, I wouldn't want you missing anything!

If you're of the opinion that I could've done better, then please send me a message (be constructive), I'll read, I'll pay attention, and we'll go from there.

Looking forward to having you along for the ride!

Regards

Jack