You may remember my blog post of a fortnight ago, where I unveiled my plans for NaNoWriMo 2012. Well, I’ve done some writing today, so have time to post a midway update. As I slap this up on the blog, at nearly-midnight on the fifteenth, NaNo is exactly halfway over.
But it’s nearly November, which means NaNoWriMo, and writing bloggers across the world breathe a sigh of glorious relief. Because, hey, no need to think of a topic for the next few weeks. Just start with NaNo and go from there!
And I’m not one to turn down easy inspiration, especially because it’s the 31st October (Happy Halloween!) and I haven’t done a shred of planning yet. Or even decided my exact approach. So, let’s talk about that. (This blog post totally isn’t an excuse to put off planning. Shut up.)
Nonetheless, that damn comic has been a huge influence on my stuff, in terms of both character and story structure. (In terms of actual prose, yes, I had to read some books.) So I’m going to talk about it a little.
So, for this week’s blog post about writing: the painful art of commentating on your own work.
You might think blog posts about writing might prepare me for the 2,500 words commentary I have to produce about my 16,000 word portfolio. I hoped so too, but it turns out I never talk in detail about my own work, only that of other people, mostly in broad strokes. Nonetheless, here is what I have found so far whilst commentating my own material.
For every craft, there is an easy shortcut. In cooking, you can just add salt. In fashion, just wear black. In warfare, just launch a nuclear weapon.
It may not be as long as usual, I can only apologise, but it is going to tackle a writing impulse I get whenever I go away: the urge to try and be a travel writer.
Hello. Am going on holiday in a few hours, but nonetheless, there’s still time to produce some kind of Friday story. In fact, this is the one I was trying to put out last week, before I got hit by mass distraction.
Vaguely inspired by a conversation I was having with Laura on Twitter about zombie animals, here is… a quite short story about zombie animals and the implications of same.
Equivocators, qualifiers, half-arsed fence-sitting non-words that do nothing except sound clunky and damage the meaning of whatever you were trying to say.
But I remember when this damn book was everywhere, so I’m hoping a few of you have read it. Let’s talk!
Does this count as another stab at science-fiction? Not sure. The concepts are certainly in there. It’s something, none the less.
So, yes, I am an ereader convert. But some people, my so-called friends, are behind me on the development scale and keep lending me books made of dead trees. I finished one such novel the other day and thought I’d share some thoughts on my re-entry onto paper.
Close followers of my work here, specifically the Friday stories, might note I’ve done a few in an all-dialogue format. Like this one quite recently. Or this one, also one of my only “science-fiction” stories. Or kinda this one too. And the new one I’ve just written for Friday. So clearly I’m a big fan.
Many authors would rather be kicked in the crotch by a centaur (or a binary camel - see illustration to right) than incorporate any of that modern nonsense, but it’s increasingly hard to avoid. Everyone is obtainable all the time, so what’s your excuse for any character being out of the loop when they could call, email, text or tweet someone? Isn’t it funny how they keep losing their mobile phones?
As I hinted in my awkward-yet-strangely-touching intro post, one of the problems with suddenly deciding to blog about writing is that everyone else has been doing it for some time, and many of them have more experience in the field.
