I haven't been blogging because I haven't been writing. My cousin's daughter Rachael came to visit us and so my time has been otherwise invested.

DR

Hors de stilo

This weekend and to a lesser extent today, I have been hors de stilo. (Without pen) This is in fact a lie. I have been with pen but without fizzly brain. It gets this way sometimes. I think that I am a writer of habit. I have been on holiday and it seems to have clammed up my creative glands. To make it worse I'm about to go on holiday again. It may be some months before the creative juices really start to build up again. Probably around the end of August, just about when I'm due off in fact.

Ho hum.

I have also found out who my first mystery follower was, I'll leave that 'til next time though.

DR

I did, but not enough and not to a high standard.

I did write today but I don't like what I wrote. I also seem to have woken up dyslexic this morning. Words, letters and sentences have absolutely been a closed book to me today, bit of a handicap for an English teacher.

Today I was writing about some of the motivations of Ronin as we continue into his character. Suffice to say that I have introduced the character of Mémé who has a discussion with Ronin on possible responses to discrete prostitutes operating on board the Harlequin fleet. On the way to work I had a fizzly mind and it all went sparklingly, on my return, it was all a little flat. A disappointing day.

I fancy beer, anyone up for a night out on the streets of Paris?

DR

The words of Leo.

I was in a bar last night talking to my esteemed friend Leo and he asked me a very good question. He had been reading my blog, although is yet to leave a comment I note, and struck upon a thing.

"Who is Ronin?"

It's a good question. I don't want to reveal too much of course but Ronin is one of the principle characters of my book. He is a commander in the Harlequin fleet. I don't really know what else you want me to tell you. He is, naturally, a Harlequin and he is quite young. He is in an interesting position in his life and it has rather warped him. I like him as a character but I don't like him as a person. He would not be someone I consider a friend.

Ronin that is, not Leo.

Leo is lovely.

Today I have done some writing and prepared some groundwork for a tying together of several seemingly disparate statements. I started this yesterday but I didn't blog, I didn't feel that I had anything that I wanted to commit to screen. Tomorrow I have a long journey ahead of me, both there and back so I should have some more things to report. Maybe not of course...

DR

Shame on me.

I did very little today. I started again with Ronin on a new chapter which describes the Harlequin society in a little greater depth. I did a hundred words, two hundred maximum. But I'm quite happy with what I have written. it comes and goes I find. Some days I find I write two thousand words or more of complete and utter dross. On other days I write one tenth of that but I rate its quality.

Still, we're starting go get into the meat of Ronin as a character. He is, in fact, a bit of a cunt but we are starting to see some of the reasons for this. His upbringing and unique situation in the Harlequin fleet has made him overly ruthless I suppose. He is capable of making the right decision for all the right reasons when we, as readers, know he should make the wrong decision. He can be so charming and kind to one person and two breaths later have the very same person executed.

This is not to say that he is without emotion, but I think that all emotion can be displaced or at any moment be disregarded for those things he considers greater.

I'll leave you to make you own mind up as to his moral standpoints.

DR

Somethings and yet not others.

Today I have done no writing and only a little editing. I hope you will all forgive me. I have however done some thinking and have got further through various problems that I had. I still have other problems to resolve which will involve rewriting but each thing in it's own time.

I will try putting pen to paper again tomorrow.

On the plus side, I have discovered Tweetdeck.

I have got rid of Chirpr, for the time being.

DR

When things start to come apart at the seams.

Oh well.

Another day thinking things through having found more holes in my plot than a balloon in a pin shop. Missing planets, Ok, I can deal with that. Extra things, Ok, unforeseen but workroundable. (Perfectly cromulent that word) Missing character when you are hundreds of thousands of words in...

...A different sort of problem.

Still nothing that floods of tears and tantrums won't clear away.

Yes, I have edited out a vital character in the course of defattening, (leaning?), my plot. I have been going over things in my head and I think that I have found a way back in but we will see. Still a long way to go.

You know that fish thing I mentioned a few posts back. Wedll it turns out that it's more like a plague of frogs. Maybe like London Buses.

I am not a happy bunny.

DR

Comments

Hello Everyone.

Some people have had problems leaving comments and viewing my profile.

If you try again now, that should be working. They had foreseen an update but it ran over on time which is why it was out when it shouldn't have been.

Try again if you wish.

DR

Sometimes you just have to blog it.

I was idling my time away, I am on holiday after all when I discovered something that could not sum up my book in any better way. My book sits between the lord of the rings and star wars so to see this headline was something of a coup.

The Perfect Headline.

DR

Twitter & Stuff

I haven't updated the twitter feed because I am not at home, I must get round to it.

I will post more pictures the moment someone leaves me a comment.

DR

Timeframe.

I didn't. (See previous blog)

I'm sorry but whilst I have thought about timeframe I haven't actually done anything about it. Neither have I done any writing but I have eaten a considerable quantity of duck. I have also typed up one of the major chapters involving the plotters circle. I will do more as the week progresses. I'm not at all sure exactly how many words I have written but on reflection more than I think. Or thought anyway. I do not have them typed up so I don't know. When I have, I shall pass on the message.

Ho Hum, still a long way to go.

DR

To break.

Hello everybody,

I am on holiday on the French coast so in terms of both writing and updating this blog I may be a little wayward. Also some of you have noted that the red on black was too harsh, garish, difficult to read etc. I have changed it to pale blue but I am open to suggestions.

Yesterday I finished a section and I am going to start the next one but first I need to organise a bit of timeframe.

I might do that now in fact...

DR

Aha!

I both wrote and yet did not write today. I finished the last chapter of that particular section and then stopped to do some thinking. I need to make sure that I get my time frames right otherwise things will be happening at the wrong moment.

Anyhoo, I hope that you are all aware of the television series of Red Dwarf. I have read the books which are not as funny but a damn sight nastier. I think the TV series has less bite but there you have it. In the books, when the crew are still alive Rimmer takes his officers exam. Building up to it, he spends hours and hours and hours carefully designing and painting a revision schedule, a work of design beauty. The day before his exam, at a point where he has not done any of the revision planned, he discovers that in his timetable he has added September twice. Panicked he decides to cheat by writing the answers all over his body but being so nervous begins to sweat and all the answers are blurred. He responds to this problem by repeatedly rewriting the words 'I am a fish' on his officers exam going so far as requesting extra paper so he can carry on writing it.

I have had such a September moment.

I have had to very carefully construct a certain section of the book in terms of what happens and why it happens. It was specifically designed to built over six chapters.

I discovered the other day that I have written seven.

Watch this fis... ...space.

DR

The day that is today.

I finished another chapter today and have smashed straight into the next one. I'm pootling along at quite a lick. I have been writing for about 90 minutes today and I expect I will do another 90 shortly. I find that I write at about two thousand words an hour which means I hope that I will have written about six thousand words today. I will not have done. I will have only written about five thousand because various scribblings, musing and off-the-cuff ideas will also be put down. I wish I could write on computer that fast. I have stopped typing up recently but started again yesterday. Still I'm happy with the amount that I'm writing. When the pen is going full bore I find my days less wasted.

I'm gibbering today and for that I apologise. I should have thought harder about what I was going to write on my blog. I hope you can forgive me.

DR

Finding Me!

I wonder if I show up in a Google search.

DR

I have a follower.

I finally have a follower. In fact I've had them for some time but I have no idea who it is. I wish I did know then I would be able to write them follower love poetry. Saying that, now I have confessed, they are probably less likely to write me a response. Ho hum.

I have been neglecting my blog and for this I am sorry, but I have not been neglecting my book. In fact I think that I am probably about twenty thousand words ahead of where I thought I was and I guess I wrote another two thousand words today. That is I am writing not redrafting and editing and typing up. Just writing. I have been writing the opening chapters that introduce the character of Ronin. His first chapter is difficult. I always find it difficult to introduce a major character, his first chapter will need much redrafting. However his second chapter is rattling along and I'm enjoying writing it, or would be if; 1 I wasn't writing this blog and 2 I hadn't nearly finished it. Nevertheless where chapter two goes, chapter three must surely follow. Then four and five I hope. I would like to have finished Ronin's part of the story by the end of August but I know what I am like.

Here's to hoping.

DR

Restarting.

I have finished the section that I had started on so will start another one. Well I say start another one, in fact I have already started it. It is in fact the section that contains the five previous chapters. I rarely work in chronological order. Still you will be pleased to know that I have started. I was describing a war but it has become a bit of an albatross so I have put it to one side. I will edit it when this bit is done.

DR