Grey Freeman - Honourable Writer of the Future

It took a few moments to realise that the first word in the email I received this morning was 'Congratulations!'

The Writers of the Future award have given my short story Earworm Turns an Honourable Mention. This means that while I didn't make it to the quarter-finalist stage the judges considered it good enough to be worthy of a mention for being well-written.

I've been told the certificate is in the post. Now I need to send it somewhere else to see if I can get it published!

If you need further proof you can find my name here.

Right, now I really need to get back to work.

Dodge and Fukkit make it Big (or they will one day)

So, as of this evening, it's back to the novel.

It was fun writing Dodge & Fukkit, think I'm on to something there, but unfortunately it had to be curtailed when I realised that it had become over 20,000 words in length, probably didn't count as a short story any more and I still had miles to go with it. Maybe it'll become a novel one day but for now it has to go on the backburner along with a number of other stories.

Going back to Machinations is a bit intimidating this morning. It's this big monstrous thing with plot-tentacles and an as yet ill-defined character and I don't know where to begin making it better. I'm thinking the best way might be to print out everything I've got and work through it page by page taking notes.

Yeah, that might work.

The grass is always greener...

The novel is on the back burner at the moment. It needed a rest and now it's having one until I get my Machinations muse back.

Right now, I'm working on a new side project; my first detective story, which I might call Dodge and Fukkit if a better title doesn't come along.

It's nice to be writing something new. When I’m editing or reworking and not writing new stuff, having the words flow out from under my fingertips, I begin to wonder whether I’ll ever be capable of writing something new ever again or whether that particular talent has deserted me.

But then I sit and start something new and there it is, the skill just comes back and I find I can still write at the same pace as I can create.

Then I have an idea too late, something that should have happened before this or that bit or a new thread or theme or plot point pops into my head and I think ‘that’d be an awesome thing to do’ and I begin to wonder if I still have the ability to edit and polish, to work a short story and incorporate new ideas and make the language flow and sparkle; basically turn a nice short story into a great one (great, here, being a relative term. For you, dear reader, read 'ok').

I guess there's just no winning with me. I always feel I'm losing the skill I'm not using at the time.