Forcing myself to forge ahead

I've been posting a lot of short fiction onto my blog recently. This is partly to give it a wider audience, but mostly to "use it up" so I am forced to write more. I have a number of ideas for new short stories but as ever find it difficult to get started. Perhaps this will give me the incentive to do so.

In the meantime work on the novel continues apace despite the official end of the writing course. I am if anything more enthusiastic about finishing it now, not least because I'm very keen to find out what happens in the end. I do already have a vague shape for the overall plot, but am one of those writers who discovers the story as they're going along rather than planning it all with military precision and post-it notes.

I'm currently working on filling in the gaps so I at least have a coherent completed first half. I'll then have to resist going back and changing everything and just strike out for the end. After that I can go back and change things, although when I get sudden ideas for additions I am tempted to put them in whilst I remember.

Last night my central character Genie actually appeared in a dream I was having. Sadly it was no help with the novel as she was stuck in the Big Brother house with a family of serial killers. I can't work out how to shoehorn that in.

Popular posts from this blog

The Weird Case of Weirdcase

Image
This may well end up being one of the oddest and perhaps most anal-retentive blog posts I've ever written, but it's an anomaly I noticed early in life and have never been able to find a satisfactory answer for.  Perhaps unsurprisingly it involves the London Underground tube map. As I've discussed elsewhere the iconic tube map captured my imagination at an early age and it was at this early age that the anomaly itself was in full swing.  It was all to do with the way the stations were labelled. Up until the end of H C Beck's reign as tube map designer the station names on the map were all written in uppercase. Presumably all the better to read you with – although not if you have dyslexia. Unfortunately at that time accessibility wasn't high on the list of London Transport's priorities, as can be seen from the fact no stations had step free access – despite the fact that so many of them had been originally been built with lifts. Nevertheless, the all uppercase pa
Read more

Talking shit

Image
One of the things people say about me is that I'm quiet. Sometimes this is a criticism, other times not. I've already explained that part of the reason for this is because I find small talk difficult . Well, not just difficult, I find it pointless. If there's something worth discussing, I'm quite capable of amputating the hindquarters of a member of Equus africanus asinus with my garrulousness. Some people just can't help themselves though. As Douglas Adams once said " if they don't keep exercising their lips, their brains start working ". I usually come across them whilst I'm out and about, on public transport or in shops. You can hardly call it eavesdropping; to avoid overhearing these types you really have to be listening to Napalm Death on your iPod. Its incredible just how much you can overhear without picking up any genuine content. It's all filler, conversational fluff designed to prevent the other person getting a word in edgeways and
Read more

The Invisible Sign

Image
For a long time I was conviced that I was simply rubbish at life. Throw me into a social situation with a whole bunch of humans and I didn't have the first idea how to even begin to attempt to join in. People would seem to collapse into these stable little groups of two or three leaving me floating around like a stray electron. Against my best instincts I often tried attaching myself to these groups but joining in with the conversation was impossible. Besides, I really felt like I was interrupting. It was rude . Even if I did dare to say something I'd get odd looks. I still consider my crowning achievement in this Biggest Outsider Challenge to be when I ended up spending time standing around on my own at the very bash being held for me leaving a job I'd been in for 16 years... Now that was impressive. Of course well-intentioned people kept telling me to try harder, giving me tips and tricks, but nothing really seemed to work. I'd hear variations of "We all feel aw
Read more