Backwards Writing More No

As the title suggests I am no longer working backwards through the novel.

It was a great exercise and meant that the energy I have working on the beginning of the novel was this time applied to the end of it but there comes a point in the middle where it's just the same as the old-fashioned method. So now I'm back to writing it from the front as nature intended.

There are fewer things I'd like to change about the beginning so progress is going rather quickly and I'm still hoping to have things finished by the New Year.

Other than that, things are moving along. Me and the Electric Spec editors have finished going over Kids and it should be ready for publication on 30th November. You lucky things!

Magazines have practically been queuing up to reject Promises at the moment but I think it's one of my best stories so I'm persevering with it. I think it's the length that puts people off, a problem I'm all too used to (snigger).

I've also added the facility for comments on this blog (at least I think I have) so do get in touch if you feel the urge to do so. I've read a few blogs in my time that get rather whiny if people don't comment but I'm not one of them, so comments are not compulsory.

And for a little added fun I shall also include what I am currently reading each month. So today I am currently reading 15 Miles by Rob Scott as well as working my way through The Walking Dead comics, which I've read many times before but still enjoy. I'm loving the TV series at the moment and enjoy being surprised when they do something different from the comic just so long as they do That Thing At The End Of Issue 6. (Or was it 5?)

Anyway. Less blogging, Grey, more writing.

Thanks for reading.

The Fear of Success

I've just spent a while looking for the name of the phobia of success for the title to this blog. I couldn't find it, though I did learn that there was such a thing as a fear of corners.

Anyway, sometimes I think I have it or at least part of me does. Last weekend, I was approaching the end of the latest narrative restructuring of Part Two. What would follow would be printing out Part Two in its entirety and filling in all the little missing details that would turn a sketch into a picture.

But, as I approached the final scenes that needed fixing, my mind began to turn to mush. Words and inspiration stopped coming and though I knew what I needed to do, it simply wouldn’t take the step from my head to the page. It's like being so excited or intimidated by the oncoming next stage that my mind's hand started to shake, my mind’s eye began to blur. So, I had to stop and go back to some earlier stuff that I knew needed fixing, hoping that when I go back to the end I'll be in a calmer, more productive state.

There is little else to report. Magazines have yet to respond to / publish my work and life, as ever, is ticking along nicely, supplying me with what I need but keeping back many things that I want, which, in it's own way, is the sweetest life gets sometimes. It’s more potential than past.

Thanks for reading.

Back for 2009

Hello again,

I have been away for a while for the seasonal holidays and am feeling much refreshed. Over the holidays I finished The Old Factory Award, started on another (I know, again) draft on Act Two of the novel and Earworm Turns was rejected by Weird Tales. I also increased my material wealth, which was nice.

As before, it was the beginning to Act Two I didn't like. It just wasn't up to scratch. So I'm simplifying, concentrating on the more integral parts and doing things a different way. Old way just felt like the main character going around seeing things, this time I'm trying to personalise it, trying to keep it tied to the characters the readers know and (hopefully) care about. We'll see how it goes.

Anyway, Promises, Promises has gone to Weird Tales, now. Really hope Ann Vandermeer likes it, and Earworm is off to Murky Depths. Here's hoping. I want two things published at least by end of '09. That's the aim, and maybe a finished novel. That's the other aim. Here's hoping.

Good to be back over the holidays.

Thanks for reading.

Why is there so much vampire porn?

I'm getting later and later in writing these.

This week I've been having fun writing Outlined in Chalk, the sequel to last year's Of the Father. I can't say there was anything I really liked about the story itself but writing it was fun. The characters aren't right, the scenes aren't right. It all needs a lot of work, basically, but that's a worry for another time. Going to go back now and start redrafting / editing Old Factory Awards next week. Should be fun.

Other than that not much is going on. I'm a little annoyed at Amazon. I like to look through their Presellers lists especially Fiction, SF&F and Children's Books but SF&F is always so full of Manga, character stuff (Star Wats, Star Trek, Warhammer 40K etc) and vampire / werewolf erotica with names like Deep Blood and Dark Awakening that I rarely see anything I like. *Sigh* If that's what people like to buy, I guess...

Oh, well.

Thanks for reading.

To Write or not to Write?

A productive week has gone by, I feel.

I finished the latest go on Act Two and put it away for a bit, allowing the dust time to settle before I look at it again. There's a lot I want to change but I want to see how the changes I've just made settle into the story first.

To keep my mind occupied, I've made another pass on my new short story, The Old Factory Awards, and written the fast draft of Kids Today, which came out rather spiffing, I'd say. What I'm going to do tomorrow, I have no idea. I might try writing another story but I don't want to end up with a massive backlog of unfinished stories when I go back to the novel. Or do I? I don't want to take a break, I'm enjoying myself but a lot of unfinisheds can be irksome.

Anyway, it's been nice working on some new pieces for a while.

Friend Rob read The Old Factory Awards. He said he liked it, thought it was clever, enjoyed many lines from it and thought the beginning needed tidying up. I agree with him on that last one, at least. I don't know if I'm getting better or he's getting softer on me. Oh, how I long for some harsh criticism just to reassure me that I'm actually quite good and the people who read my stuff aren't just being polite!

No magazines have got back to me yet. Damn. I'm getting itchy. Nothing makes me feel better then sending something off. It beats waiting.

Anyway.

Thanks for reading.

And just when you thought you were done...

Words cannot describe how happy and relieved I was to finally break the back of Part Two. Oh, actually they do. 'Very' is the answer. Late last week, I wrote a final big scene before the finale and now I just have to write a couple more small scenes before getting to the end.

I was very pleased with myself that day.

But bugger me if another even bigger hill didn't appear from right behind it. My mind suddenly filled with Part Three, also a big task, and as I thought on it I thought of a dozen ways Part Two could be improved. Bugger. Back to the drawing board.

Oh well. Keep going forwards. Blasted thing can't hold out on me forever. More I keep working, the happier I am with it.

Hopefully.

Like a Red Rag to a Bull

Today I thought I would talk about clichés.

From early on in my writing career (if I can call it that), and in most people's writing careers, I'd imagine, it was drummed in that clichés are to be avoided at all costs. Like the plague, if you will.

As I have progressed, I have found that this is not the case.

Case in Point. This morning while writing I conveyed my main character's anxiety by describing how he was taking his water in very small sips as it felt as though his stomach had 'shrunk to the size of a walnut'. Now, you might agree that the walnut analogy is a cliché. I think it is. But, you see, the thing is it gets the point across. Quickly and succinctly the reader will know what I mean. Walnuts: small, wrinkled, wouldn't fit much water. Anxious stomach, possibly small, possibly wrinkled, doesn't fit much water. Quick. To the point.

I could have tried to avoid the cliché. I could have sat and strained my brain for another way to say it, found another thing that it could have been as small as, but why, when there's perfectly good walnut phrases standing idle? Why strain over this small sentence when I have anxiety-ridden events to be describing? Clichés have their place, they've become so well known because they work, because everyone who has read them know instantly what it means, it conveys something everyone relates to.

There are books that avoid clichés at all costs. Though I haven't read many, the Star Wars books are good for this. "Cut through a ferrocrete bunker like a neutrino through plasma." Pardon me? 'Hot knife through butter' works just as well, better in fact. The reader will go 'yup, know what that means, what happens next?' instead of stopping midway through the action to think 'ferrocrete? neutrino? plasma? Oh! You mean like a hot knife through butter!'

There are of course better writers that will think of something better than a stomach the size of a walnut to describe my character's situation. I can't right now, and I'm too busy making sure the story works than putting in a clever little, original line that might jar the reader's attention from what's happening. Rather a good story that lasts in the mind than a good line, read, admired and discarded in the space of a half-second.

Ahem. Anyway.

No real news this week. F&SF rejected Promises, Promises with a standard rejection. Grrrr. I'm going to wait until Weird Tales rejects No Longer Living before I send it again. The novel is going fine, just put chapter 28 to bed and working on chapter 29.

Oh, and I came up with a title for my third novel. It's going to be called White Rose. I came up with it on the way to the shops and it works on a lot of levels for what the story will be about. Hurrah!

Anyway.

Thanks for reading.

Business and Pleasure

Good morning,

it has been a busy week this week. I am back on form and continuing to write away.

I've started to look over the first chunk of Act Two. It's as thin as the paper it's printed on and makes me cringe so I seem to be basically rewriting it and a new character is going to be inserted to replace an older one that I don't feel fits in with the story anymore. It's annoying to have to do so much rewriting but I guess it has to be done. I can't believe I was really that shit a year and a half ago when I wrote it. Can't wait to improve even more and say that about the stuff I'm doing now.

Today, Sunday, I'll be taking it easy. I'm taking three hours to look over Earworm Turns and hopefully it'll pass inspection and I'll be able to send it to Interzone.

At the moment I've been finding it difficult getting my work / play balance right. You see I write an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening and so if I go out for whatever reason on a weekday then that's an hour of writing down the plug hole. That means that I get a bit panicky even though I'm having a good time that I haven't been keeping up with my writing.

I've been out twice this week; once to go on a pub crawl and the other to go see Iron Man (very entertaining) so that was two hours behind. So I've had to make it up to myself this weekend.

It's very much a damned if you do damned if you don't kind of thing. I feel annoyed when I don't have any plans to go out and when I do I'm worrying about my writing. The only two logical courses of action are 1) give up writing (yeah, right) or 2) become a best-selling, rich author so I can quit my job and have my evenings free. I'd best go for the latter, though there's the massive chance it will never happen and so I'll have to live like this forever.

Decisions, decisions.

Thanks for reading.

A Weekend of Two Halves

I'm completely shattered.

Camden Crawl was a real blast and I had a really good time running around seeing bands, celeb spotting, drinking, dancing and laughing with a good crowd of friends.

Managed to get some writing done. The redrafting of Earworm is going very well and I should hopefully manage to finish it by next week.

I received two rejections from magazines this weekend. Here's the first:

Dear Mr Freeman,

Thank you for submitting "RWBW" but I'm afraid I'm going to pass on it. This tale didn't grab my interest, I'm afraid. Good luck to you with this one, and thanks for sending it our way.

Sincerely,

Fantasy and Science Fiction

A bit harshly worded I'm sure you would agree but this was word for word the same as their last rejection so it sounds like their standard message.

Here's the second one:

Dear Graeme,

Many thanks for submitting 'Of The Father' for consideration by The Future Fire. We enjoyed this story very much, but have regretfully decided not to take it for publication.

Although this is a very moving, convincing, and well-crafted horror story with an ominous and poignant twist developing gradually (rather than slapping the reader in the face at the end as many cheap and patronising stories do), ultimately it is not quite in the social/political vein that we are looking for in The Future Fire at the moment. This is not a criticism of the story, and we hope very much that you will consider sending us more of your work in the future, as I strongly suspect we will find something appropriate that we can use one day.

Many thanks again, and hope to hear from you again.

Regards,

The Future Fire

Much more encouraging. I read this one over a few times. So what now? Easy. RWBW will go to Future Fire (once I've double-checked their submission requirements) and Murky Depths have started asking for stories up to 10,000 words long so I'll send Of the Father to them. Brilliant.

Back to work.

A Lonely Business

The redraft of part one is printing as I type, so that means I'm a third of the way through the book. I decided that now is a good time to go back and edit so for the next few weeks I'm going to be reading through the print out and trying to make the whole piece as good as good can be before moving on to Part 2.

Things have been moving so slowly recently to be bordering on depressing. My head's full of doubts is this any good, is it too long, am I wasting my time? All that jazz. I tried reading some online writer's advice pages to see if I could find anything that would cheer me up, convince me that all these hours I could be out having fun at the pub / generally bumming around isn't actually a complete loss. If anything they depressed me more; talk of how some agents don't even read the manuscripts they're sent, how unlikely it is to get picked up by an agent at all, they get hundreds of manuscripts a week. It does make me want to scream. It's like being one person in a vast herd, all of us screaming 'I'm different!' to the agents up on their balcony, just another face in the crowd.

But I suppose I've just got to have faith in myself. I'll never know unless I try, eh? Plus, I've worked a slush pile before and a good 90% of the stuff was quite rubbish, sloppy and only half finished. People who have written the first draft and been so excited at finishing they've sent it off already. So, I'm convinced that sitting here taking my time over it is going to pay off.

Well, I'm not convinced really. There's still the chance this is a pants novel and no one will like it and I really aren't that great. But I think that about all my work and those nice people from Murky Depths seemed to like it.

Argh, tis a lonely business this writing malarkey.

Thanks for reading.