Schrodinger's Publication Date

Planning is great. Other than the Saturday, on which I was working on a very hard scene, writing has been smooth sailing. It's been one of those weeks where, after all the weeks of worrying and stressing, writing has just come easy and you know exactly why this is the kind of thing you want to do (hopefully) for the rest of your life.

I've been writing and changing scenes in accordance with the new plan, some things have changes (for the better I hope) as they have occurred to me but the rest is ticking along nicely. I might even have finished by the end of the month!

Short story front is quiet. Murky Depths turned down The Old Factory Award.

"It's a very clever piece of wordplay. However, we're going to pass on this as it doesn't seem like a Murky Depths piece to us. "

So there that is.

Revolution SF have still to publish No Longer Living but I'm being patient and don't really mind not knowing when it will be. It's a philosophy that borders on quantum physics, Schrodinger's Publication Date, it is not defined or measured simply by the act me looking. It just is, whether I know the date or not.

Promises and Earworm Turns are going to get a bit of an update so I can start sending them again. Just re-read them recently and think they could do with it just to make sure that they're the best stories they can be. That's the worry about sending stories, you always wonder if they're turning it away because of a gaping plot hole they didn't bother telling you about, poor writing, the fact that you're a nobody when they could be publishing somebodies or a mixture of all of the above and more. This is just my little precaution so I can tell myself "It's all them, Tiger, it's not you. It's all them."

Thanks for reading

All in the Planning

A long while since I blogged.

Househunting and subsequent moving kicked my ass but it feels worth it now. I have a wonderful view of Canary Wharf, the Gherkin and the London Eye from my bedroom window, which is nice. The room is smaller than my last but that doesn't really bother my, as long as I have room for my desk and laptop I'm happy.

I've spent the last while reading through the whole book and writing out notes for improving Part One. It's quite old and not up to my current standard but still pretty solid. I'm worried the whole thing might be like painting a bridge; once you've reached one end the other end needs doing again. I'll have to make sure that doesn't happen.

But I also made a few notes for the first half of Part Two and then I actually planned what needs to happen in the second half. I've never actually planned before and what I've done seems pretty good. Perhaps I should plan more often. During the actual writing I also came up with a keystone plotting idea that should hold the entire second half of the second act together, give it some authenticity. Good stuff.

On the short story front, Rev SF are still to publish No Longer Living, should be coming soon and Murky Depths are currently 'enjoying' (my word, not there's) The Old Factory Award. Here's hoping.

They have a great writing competition coming up with Mike Carey (legend). I was going to save Promises for it, a story I was sure would win it, but it turns out that Mike has written a story starter and we have to finish it. A bit disappointing but I might still enter and see what happens.

Thanks for reading.

Planning

A delayed post again.

Luckily little has happened. I'm working hard on a scene in chapter 31, hasn't quite come together yet, just haven't found the right mixture of things to add to it to make it sizzle yet but I'll get there.

This week, before launching into chapters 30-39 I made a book plan. Now, normally I don't do plans, I just like to add ingredients and see how they work, I like to go with the flow, following my finger, find out what the characters want to do and steer things a little by just adding the right ingredients to alter their courses to where I want them to go, it is a very subtle manipulation that I hope will work out. But at the moment I needed a book plan, to lay out on paper all the themes and events I need to happen so I can set them up, add hints, think them through, sometimes it's nice to just brain dump onto a single A4 sheet of paper and make sure all the important things have been considered. So far it's worked quite nicely and once I've got past this scene I hope that chapters 31-39 will be fairly smooth sailing.

And now I've just jinxed them.