I suppose that I could give this blog post any number of numbers, Only one really matters and that number is... ...some. It is the amount that I have written this year, It really isn't enough but I have had a hectic year in which many many many things have changed. Far too many to mention in a blog post. The upside of this is that I now have a dedicated writing space in my house. Now all I need to do is write in it.
Other numbers of note.
One - The number of times that I have blogged this year, the very entry that you are reading.
Four - The number of colossal life altering changes that happened to me during three weeks in February.
Fifteen thousand - The approximate number of clementines that I have eaten over this Christmas period.
Fifteen thousand - The exact number of glasses of whisky that I have drunk over the same Christmas period.
Four - Number of chapters that i have left to write in one particular story line, exactly the same as this time last year.
Sometimes trying to be a writer sucks.
DR
Tuesday, 30 December 2014
Wednesday, 24 July 2013
Headlong
Anyone who is a regular reader of this blog will no that I spend a considerable amount of my time trying to create the perfect conditions in which to write. It is absolutely mandatory that I have a pen (that is to say, the right pen), some paper, access to my notes in case of panic, a pleasing ambient temperature - let's say between seventeen and twenty-three degrees, the right surface on which to lean, a surface which can maintain itself at the right height from my pen nib without requiring my regular intervention, music pertinent to the mental state of the character and so on, ad finitum.
Yes, I know ad finitum is not really a word but I don't know what the opposite of ad infinitum would be. What I mean by this is that as much as it seems that I need many things to be in my writing headspace, it is not an infinite number of things and I find myself rushing towards a glorious opportunity.
Mostly I write on trains. I move around a lot for my job and I gather together these snippets of writing time to piece together as many glorious hours as may be found in the week. Of the available snippets, a large number of them may be found outside my writing zone and may be discarded. Sometimes these snippets may last several months. I will soon have a good amount of comfortable air-conditioned trains on which to write. I will have my leather bag, not my slippy nylon one, good pens and everything else I could possibly want. I am anxious with anticipation at the mere thought of it. Equally, like so many men, I find myself under pressure to perform.
I guess that I write in a Sir David Brailsford kind of way. Marginal gains. Everything I have been preparing has been leading me inexorably towards the ninth of August and this glorious opportunity to stake my claim.
I have been given every chance, I have neither stopped nor stinted in my preparation. This is my moment of destiny.
England Expects.
DR
P.S. This is only until something else falls of the wagon and breaks the whole damn system. Yet again.
Yes, I know ad finitum is not really a word but I don't know what the opposite of ad infinitum would be. What I mean by this is that as much as it seems that I need many things to be in my writing headspace, it is not an infinite number of things and I find myself rushing towards a glorious opportunity.
Mostly I write on trains. I move around a lot for my job and I gather together these snippets of writing time to piece together as many glorious hours as may be found in the week. Of the available snippets, a large number of them may be found outside my writing zone and may be discarded. Sometimes these snippets may last several months. I will soon have a good amount of comfortable air-conditioned trains on which to write. I will have my leather bag, not my slippy nylon one, good pens and everything else I could possibly want. I am anxious with anticipation at the mere thought of it. Equally, like so many men, I find myself under pressure to perform.
I guess that I write in a Sir David Brailsford kind of way. Marginal gains. Everything I have been preparing has been leading me inexorably towards the ninth of August and this glorious opportunity to stake my claim.
I have been given every chance, I have neither stopped nor stinted in my preparation. This is my moment of destiny.
England Expects.
DR
P.S. This is only until something else falls of the wagon and breaks the whole damn system. Yet again.
Monday, 15 July 2013
They Say Good Things Come in Threes...
...and that the postman always rings twice.
They say that everyone is unique.
I have no idea where I'm going with this actually. Well, that's not quite true.
I realise that my last blog post was called Hot Hot Heat. Subsequent to its publication online, I realised that on the first of July 2009, I wrote a blogpost called, surprise surprise, Hot Hot Heat. Now, I am tempted to write a third one, the last blogpost in the trilogy perhaps, but I don't want to talk about that. (Saying that, then I could write prequels.) I have found the blue skies above Paris relentless. I am an introspective extrovert, hunting for a place and I vastly prefer the thoughtfulness of the grey sky and the bouncing hum of rain. Always have. Probably always will do. I find that the flat blueness grinds me down. It removes all texture from the sky. The grey clouds present possibility. A possibility that on the other side of the clouds lives an invisible man. In those clouds we find the minarets raised to house the souls of those killed in combat. If you listen carefully to the sound of the rain and you learn its language it gives you the power to speak to birds. The blue sky gives you Rayleigh Scattering and sunburn.
The blue sky can fuck off.
So I haven't been writing. This evening has clouded over, there is a chance of storms. Lo! I am writing again. I hope that when I go away on holiday I will have fluffy white clouds that drift over from time to time each one following Chief Whitecloud, leading his warriors to battle storm giants in the mountains in the south.
To that aim, I will be going on holiday to the UK for one week to say farewell to my brother and his girlfriend as they emigrate. I may well write on the train there and back. I will take my leather bag to make sure. The lure of non-slip will be to much to resist.
After that I have two weeks in the south of France without a very good internet connection. I will set up a link via my mobile so that I can work on Google docs. I will try to tweet and blog etc. Mostly though I will sit on the beach and wonder whether those clouds on the horizon contain the invisible man. Until they blow over the land I will know he hasn't finished his fishing trip and that I remain under the blue millstone.
DR
P.S. For those who have stumbled onto my blog and want to know more, this is a good place to learn about Rayleigh Scattering
They say that everyone is unique.
I have no idea where I'm going with this actually. Well, that's not quite true.
I realise that my last blog post was called Hot Hot Heat. Subsequent to its publication online, I realised that on the first of July 2009, I wrote a blogpost called, surprise surprise, Hot Hot Heat. Now, I am tempted to write a third one, the last blogpost in the trilogy perhaps, but I don't want to talk about that. (Saying that, then I could write prequels.) I have found the blue skies above Paris relentless. I am an introspective extrovert, hunting for a place and I vastly prefer the thoughtfulness of the grey sky and the bouncing hum of rain. Always have. Probably always will do. I find that the flat blueness grinds me down. It removes all texture from the sky. The grey clouds present possibility. A possibility that on the other side of the clouds lives an invisible man. In those clouds we find the minarets raised to house the souls of those killed in combat. If you listen carefully to the sound of the rain and you learn its language it gives you the power to speak to birds. The blue sky gives you Rayleigh Scattering and sunburn.
The blue sky can fuck off.
So I haven't been writing. This evening has clouded over, there is a chance of storms. Lo! I am writing again. I hope that when I go away on holiday I will have fluffy white clouds that drift over from time to time each one following Chief Whitecloud, leading his warriors to battle storm giants in the mountains in the south.
To that aim, I will be going on holiday to the UK for one week to say farewell to my brother and his girlfriend as they emigrate. I may well write on the train there and back. I will take my leather bag to make sure. The lure of non-slip will be to much to resist.
After that I have two weeks in the south of France without a very good internet connection. I will set up a link via my mobile so that I can work on Google docs. I will try to tweet and blog etc. Mostly though I will sit on the beach and wonder whether those clouds on the horizon contain the invisible man. Until they blow over the land I will know he hasn't finished his fishing trip and that I remain under the blue millstone.
DR
P.S. For those who have stumbled onto my blog and want to know more, this is a good place to learn about Rayleigh Scattering
Monday, 8 July 2013
Hot Hot Heat
This is not a post to extol the virtues of the Miami Heat. Despite LeBron James' return to championship winning form this is not about him. Nor is it about Dwayne Wade. Don't get me wrong, I like basketball and can still name the great Chicago Bulls starting line-up from the multiple title wining era. (Man that era was great. Jordan, Magic, Gary Payton, Stockton and Malone. *sniff, getting misty-eyed here*)
Even though I like basketball, this is still not about the Miami Heat, (the Spurs were damned close though).
This is not about Death Valley and wildfires in California. It could be but it isn't about Mr Heat Mechanical Inc. in the Toronto Area. (Go here for more information and reviews)
No no no no no.
This is about summer and its final and dramatic arrival in Paris, neatly coinciding with the Tour de France.
On a side note, I love the Tour de France. and is the reason that I haven't been writing. I have been obsessed, consumed and delirious with Tour de France fever. I am every year. I love it. I go almost every year to the Champs Elysees to watch the champagne stage. They go faster than italics. They really do go quite incredibly quickly. Naturally, they slow down for corners but they can hold an average speed of 55kmh through a TT stage. That means more than 60kmh on the flat. On the TTT, Team Sky were shown going at about 65kmh. If you are not obsessed by le Tour like I am, you should be. On the 14th July, the remaining riders will climb the Mont Ventoux. It will be Bastille Day, (the French just call it Fête Nationale) all the French riders will be going bonkers to win as there is nothing more glorious than winning atop a mountain, nothing more worthy than doing in the Tour de France and worth dying for to do that on the 14th July. The fact that the Mont Ventoux is iconic just adds to the insanity. Well, actually what adds most to the sanity is that on a cold, windy, bald headed mountain in the middle of nowhere, 500,000 spectators will line the road to cheer the cyclists on. If you only watch one day of the tour, watch that one. (If any/all of that went over your head, try this)
I digress.
I have been writing and I have finished another couple of chapters but once again I have ground to a halt. It's the heat. I don't deal well with heat, even on the best of occasions. The fact that I write on crowded trains, each one spending the day pushing its metal and glass form through the hatred of the sun, means that I write in a furnace. The sweat drips off my brow and onto my page and I can't bear it. So I have stopped writing again. I will try again tomorrow morning. Perhaps the train will not have heated up too much as it will be early in the morning. I doubt it. Nevertheless, I shall try. There are so many things that rip me from my writing bubble. I wish I could write gently and fluidly. I can't, it's like kicking myself in the armpit every other step. Monty Python would be proud.
Yours, sweatily
DR
P.S. I haven't changed my bag. This is not the best of circumstances I know but the bag is required for my day job. I don't know what to do about it. Answers on a postcard.
Wednesday, 26 June 2013
Work Surfaces
'You are where you work', said nobody, ever.
Today I had a moment of clarity about the standard of my work. The great problem I have is being in the zone and unless I am in the zone, I find it virtually impossible to write. I need to be in a comfortable space, free of distractions. I need to have a reasonable book for writing in and a good pen. I need to be sitting at the right angle and I need to make sure that people aren't going to distract me. It's a long list of things that can go wrong. Even simple things. For example...
I might not have enough battery on my phone to listen to music.
My pen might have run out/got lost/been stolen.
My wife, (Yes, I got married last summer, I don't think I blogged about it) may want to talk about Grey's Anatomy/Glee/X-Factor.
Any body else might want my attention.
My book may have run out of pages.
Anything else, like the temperature or a fly or the fact that the rosé I'm drinking on this warm summer's night is too sweet for my palette. (wine is almost as important as writing)
Actually, while we're on the subject, I never drink and write. I write much better when I've been drinking, though slower, I'm frightened of the idea of the alcoholism slippery slope. If I ever feel that I need a drink to create, I'll stop writing forever. George Orwell said that writing must come first and I'm inclined to agree. I would sacrifice a lot of things to follow my dream but a line has to be drawn somewhere. I'm writing the best book I possibly can. If it is not good enough, so be it. In the end, it's only a book, even if it's my life's work.
All that, however, is an aside.
I wanted to talk about my bag. I put my bag on my lap and use it as a writing desk. I always have. Maybe eighteen months ago, I swapped a beautiful soft leather briefcase for a nylon computer bag. I wanted to work more on computer for the day job and I didn't want to destroy the leather case my wife had bought for me. Today, I use this nylon case as my writing desk and today I understood why I have been writing less. The nylon fabric slips. This may not seem very much but It throws me out of my zone. I am no longer at the right angle, comfortable and undisturbed and I think this may be why I have written so much less. Simply because I am not comfortable writing. I don't know what to do about it. I suppose that I am going to have to change bags. We will have to wait and see. I am trying to reclaim my mojo and this may be one of the steps that needs to be taken.
All that said, I have actually been doing some writing over the last few days. I made a start on the next chapter today and got through about half of it.
Just imagine what I could do with a bag that has a higher friction co-efficient...
DR
Sunday, 23 June 2013
Chromebook Updated
Well, how are you? You've changed. Something new? A haircut. No wait, you're wearing a different lipstick. You've had your dodgy knee replaced with a titanium one and now you're gambolling along like a race-pig.
Oh! You've changed OS. That's... ....interesting.
Well it is actually. It probably shouldn't be but it is. Here I am listening to The Orb and blogging while zootling (*real word*) along (*why doesn't blogger recognise the word 'blogging'? Or 'blogger' for that matter*) at 300kmh on a TGV while all the time existing in a state of 'writing'.
Don't get me wrong. Windows is a better product than many people give it credit for. Like many people, I have been irked for a long time by the lack of alternatives. I believe that competition not only stimulates innovation but that it drives that innovation through a race to the bottom. That innovation becomes the everyday standard which in turn leads to new innovation. It is one of the great problems with patents in a fast moving industry. I guess Apple was always an alternative but somehow I have never got on with Apple. I have been an iPhone user in the past and, surprise!, I really like Apple hardware. I don't like the cost but think people will find that Apple are getting along just fine with all that profit. No, Apple was never for me because of its closed ecosystem. Everything has to be Apple and I think that somehow, Apple's ideology got lost in the race to be cool.
This is what happens. The rising competition caused Apple to innovate. The came up with the iPod and their innovation was to be cool. That caused a race to the bottom and suddenly all their competitors became cool too. Next innovation please Apple. Well I think that the next innovation will probably come from a competitor. That competitor may well be Google. They have so many different projects and things going on that one of them is bound to catch on. Nobody expected Android to work but it has. When Google arrived people used lycos or yahoo to search. Google did it better. Now everyone follows Google. Facebook mail and Apple mail and Windows Outlook is being overhauled. Following Gmail. They do things really well which is what I like about them. Even if it seems too late. Too late to release a browser/operating system/email/social network/cloud computing system? Nope. We'll do it anyway and while other people rest on their laurels, we'll do it better and cheaper.
So Apple released a netbook? We'll release Chromebook. There are not too many Chromebooks on the market. I took a bottom of the range one. The Samsung Chromebook. It is small and not very powerful and has no Hard Drive Space. Normally, they cost 299€ but I bought one that had been returned. It was 279€. Samsung are offering 50€ off if you fill in a thing and send it off and I had 50€ in gift vouchers. 179€ for a new laptop and a complete change of OS.
OK, it's a first world problem thing, I know, but 179€ for a trial seemed OK so I have given it a go. It is innovative, I'll give it that. It is very light and very very fast. A lack of offline apps is a pain but I guess that Google is an online company so that is to be expected. I have offline Docs and offline Gmail and I suppose that's all that I need. I had some problems making sure that I am connected to Drive where I store all my documents but I have set up my nexus 4 as a WiFi hotspot. I open blogger and close my connection. When it is ready to publish, I will switch the hotspot back on and bingo.
The Apps are getting better and better and they are all written in HTML5, which means that theoretically they should soon work anywhere. Only having to write one app for all the different OSs that we have out there should reduce overheads and stimulate the next round of innovation. Native apps require a lot more tlc. I'm very tempted to learn how to write HTML5. It seems the way forward. That way, whenever I don't have the app that I require, I can write it myself.
The only app related problems that I have had are with twitter and an image editor.
I don't really like tweetdeck. I used to use it a long time ago but never really got on with it. I understand the point of it, in that it gives heavy social network users a greater amount of control, but I am a 'less is more' kind of guy. I like to keep things simple and would have used a twitter built app if they had one. They don't and so I am going to use tweetdeck. It's not the end of the world.
The biggest problem I have had is with an image editing app. I have a good number of bitmaps that I created in MS Paint. It was the tool that I had to hand when I started making these images and today the majority of my world maps are saved as .bmp files on Google Drive. Great. How do I edit them without MS. Paint? After a lot of trial and error and a considerable amount of advice from the Chromebook Help team in Google Groups I have started using Pixlr and it seems to work like a charm. I am still a novice in Pixlr, for example I haven't tried to copy and paste yet, yet I retain high hopes for it. Set your brush size to one and your brush hardness to one hundred and you can edit on a pixel by pixel basis.
So that's it. No more windows for me. I have moved over to Google completely and I hope that it works out. It has certainly inspired me to blog and tweet more. It has also got my pen elbow moving again. I finished another chapter just before I started writing this blog. If it doesn't work out, I can simply export it all back to windows again.
179€ is a first world experiment to see just how good a Chromebook is.
Google, it's in your hands.
D.
P.S. It's 23:11 local time and I was drinking steadily from midday to nine o'clock this evening. Both chapter and blog may be a little loose and rambling. Sorry.
Oh! You've changed OS. That's... ....interesting.
Well it is actually. It probably shouldn't be but it is. Here I am listening to The Orb and blogging while zootling (*real word*) along (*why doesn't blogger recognise the word 'blogging'? Or 'blogger' for that matter*) at 300kmh on a TGV while all the time existing in a state of 'writing'.
Don't get me wrong. Windows is a better product than many people give it credit for. Like many people, I have been irked for a long time by the lack of alternatives. I believe that competition not only stimulates innovation but that it drives that innovation through a race to the bottom. That innovation becomes the everyday standard which in turn leads to new innovation. It is one of the great problems with patents in a fast moving industry. I guess Apple was always an alternative but somehow I have never got on with Apple. I have been an iPhone user in the past and, surprise!, I really like Apple hardware. I don't like the cost but think people will find that Apple are getting along just fine with all that profit. No, Apple was never for me because of its closed ecosystem. Everything has to be Apple and I think that somehow, Apple's ideology got lost in the race to be cool.
This is what happens. The rising competition caused Apple to innovate. The came up with the iPod and their innovation was to be cool. That caused a race to the bottom and suddenly all their competitors became cool too. Next innovation please Apple. Well I think that the next innovation will probably come from a competitor. That competitor may well be Google. They have so many different projects and things going on that one of them is bound to catch on. Nobody expected Android to work but it has. When Google arrived people used lycos or yahoo to search. Google did it better. Now everyone follows Google. Facebook mail and Apple mail and Windows Outlook is being overhauled. Following Gmail. They do things really well which is what I like about them. Even if it seems too late. Too late to release a browser/operating system/email/social network/cloud computing system? Nope. We'll do it anyway and while other people rest on their laurels, we'll do it better and cheaper.
So Apple released a netbook? We'll release Chromebook. There are not too many Chromebooks on the market. I took a bottom of the range one. The Samsung Chromebook. It is small and not very powerful and has no Hard Drive Space. Normally, they cost 299€ but I bought one that had been returned. It was 279€. Samsung are offering 50€ off if you fill in a thing and send it off and I had 50€ in gift vouchers. 179€ for a new laptop and a complete change of OS.
OK, it's a first world problem thing, I know, but 179€ for a trial seemed OK so I have given it a go. It is innovative, I'll give it that. It is very light and very very fast. A lack of offline apps is a pain but I guess that Google is an online company so that is to be expected. I have offline Docs and offline Gmail and I suppose that's all that I need. I had some problems making sure that I am connected to Drive where I store all my documents but I have set up my nexus 4 as a WiFi hotspot. I open blogger and close my connection. When it is ready to publish, I will switch the hotspot back on and bingo.
The Apps are getting better and better and they are all written in HTML5, which means that theoretically they should soon work anywhere. Only having to write one app for all the different OSs that we have out there should reduce overheads and stimulate the next round of innovation. Native apps require a lot more tlc. I'm very tempted to learn how to write HTML5. It seems the way forward. That way, whenever I don't have the app that I require, I can write it myself.
The only app related problems that I have had are with twitter and an image editor.
I don't really like tweetdeck. I used to use it a long time ago but never really got on with it. I understand the point of it, in that it gives heavy social network users a greater amount of control, but I am a 'less is more' kind of guy. I like to keep things simple and would have used a twitter built app if they had one. They don't and so I am going to use tweetdeck. It's not the end of the world.
The biggest problem I have had is with an image editing app. I have a good number of bitmaps that I created in MS Paint. It was the tool that I had to hand when I started making these images and today the majority of my world maps are saved as .bmp files on Google Drive. Great. How do I edit them without MS. Paint? After a lot of trial and error and a considerable amount of advice from the Chromebook Help team in Google Groups I have started using Pixlr and it seems to work like a charm. I am still a novice in Pixlr, for example I haven't tried to copy and paste yet, yet I retain high hopes for it. Set your brush size to one and your brush hardness to one hundred and you can edit on a pixel by pixel basis.
So that's it. No more windows for me. I have moved over to Google completely and I hope that it works out. It has certainly inspired me to blog and tweet more. It has also got my pen elbow moving again. I finished another chapter just before I started writing this blog. If it doesn't work out, I can simply export it all back to windows again.
179€ is a first world experiment to see just how good a Chromebook is.
Google, it's in your hands.
D.
P.S. It's 23:11 local time and I was drinking steadily from midday to nine o'clock this evening. Both chapter and blog may be a little loose and rambling. Sorry.
Tuesday, 18 June 2013
Trees, or, how to keep track of a plethora of Characters
As you may have noticed, this is another blog post.
I know, I know. They are like London buses. You have nothing for ages and now suddenly two crop up. Well the truth of the matter is, as I mentioned, that I bought a Chromebook. I'm enjoying it and trying to be more organized in my ways of working. It's why I bought the Chromebook in the first place. It seems to be working. I am on an organizing drive. Images, documents, mp3s and anything else that I can lay my hands on. I have done a reasonable amount of internal organization too. I have turned ephemeral ideas into things that are a little more concrete. I have started compiling my notes into something useful. I believe that it is Terry Pratchett, someone whose work I greatly admire, who has a directory on his computer called 'The Pit'. I have ended up with something very similar. A great morass of junk, duplicated documents and irrelevant information. I have been trying to render it less morass-y and more reclaimed-farmland-y. It has been going well.
George RR Martin, another writer I hold in esteem, has huge long lists at the back of his books in order to keep track of all the different characters. I think that I am going to need something similar. I'm not really stealing his idea, I certainly wouldn't want to include them as appendices, more that he has had a good idea that I could perhaps share relative to organizing my characters.
I know he can be spiky about people reusing his ideas so I hope that he is OK with my reproducing a little of his organization. I don't have houses per se in my book so I think that I will need to organise them in a tree structure relative to their geographical location. Different characters have different interactions in different places at different times which means that my geographical structure may not work. But a tree structure is almost certainly the way forward. I think I may colour code them. Principle Characters, Major Actors, Medium Actors, Minor Actors, Foreshadows and Mentioned.
For example, I have a character called 'Tom'. He is a barman and has been repeatedly been mentioned through the chapters as some of the action takes place in his bar in the town of Outpost. Other then pleasantries, I don't think he has much to say. He would be a Minor Actor but his two daughters, also mentioned by name and who have virtually nothing to say in the book would be Mentioned.
Why is this necessary? You do like to ask questions don't you.
The answer is because I am on an organizing drive and getting that organized and keeping it up do date will help me write. I haven't been writing of late and so I have tried to drive that inactivity to place myself into a situation where when I go back to writing, everything is where I need it. Plus, I can never remember names when it comes to mentioning them again and I don't always have the Notebook to hand.
I hope it works. If it doesn't, it will be George RR Martin's fault.*
DR
*Seriously George, it won't be your fault it will be mine.**
**What will be your fault is not getting the Winds of Winter out soon enough.
I know, I know. They are like London buses. You have nothing for ages and now suddenly two crop up. Well the truth of the matter is, as I mentioned, that I bought a Chromebook. I'm enjoying it and trying to be more organized in my ways of working. It's why I bought the Chromebook in the first place. It seems to be working. I am on an organizing drive. Images, documents, mp3s and anything else that I can lay my hands on. I have done a reasonable amount of internal organization too. I have turned ephemeral ideas into things that are a little more concrete. I have started compiling my notes into something useful. I believe that it is Terry Pratchett, someone whose work I greatly admire, who has a directory on his computer called 'The Pit'. I have ended up with something very similar. A great morass of junk, duplicated documents and irrelevant information. I have been trying to render it less morass-y and more reclaimed-farmland-y. It has been going well.
George RR Martin, another writer I hold in esteem, has huge long lists at the back of his books in order to keep track of all the different characters. I think that I am going to need something similar. I'm not really stealing his idea, I certainly wouldn't want to include them as appendices, more that he has had a good idea that I could perhaps share relative to organizing my characters.
I know he can be spiky about people reusing his ideas so I hope that he is OK with my reproducing a little of his organization. I don't have houses per se in my book so I think that I will need to organise them in a tree structure relative to their geographical location. Different characters have different interactions in different places at different times which means that my geographical structure may not work. But a tree structure is almost certainly the way forward. I think I may colour code them. Principle Characters, Major Actors, Medium Actors, Minor Actors, Foreshadows and Mentioned.
For example, I have a character called 'Tom'. He is a barman and has been repeatedly been mentioned through the chapters as some of the action takes place in his bar in the town of Outpost. Other then pleasantries, I don't think he has much to say. He would be a Minor Actor but his two daughters, also mentioned by name and who have virtually nothing to say in the book would be Mentioned.
Why is this necessary? You do like to ask questions don't you.
The answer is because I am on an organizing drive and getting that organized and keeping it up do date will help me write. I haven't been writing of late and so I have tried to drive that inactivity to place myself into a situation where when I go back to writing, everything is where I need it. Plus, I can never remember names when it comes to mentioning them again and I don't always have the Notebook to hand.
I hope it works. If it doesn't, it will be George RR Martin's fault.*
DR
*Seriously George, it won't be your fault it will be mine.**
**What will be your fault is not getting the Winds of Winter out soon enough.
Wednesday, 12 June 2013
Return of the Red
If there are any fans of the Mentalist on here; No, I am not Red John.
I have recently tried to compartmentalise my internet lives and in doing so have invested in a chromebook. I like it. It's much better than having multiple users in Google Chrome. Somehow all the information got mixed up.
Now It isn't and I have moved things to where they ought to be. This means that it is much easier to be me as an author online and I'm hoping that it motivates me to go and find new fans and new interests. This in turn should, theoretically at any rate entice me back into writing.
I'm rusty. I haven't written for a while now simply through a lack of facilities. Sometimes being on the train makes it harder to write and when I am at home I find it impossible to write. I need a dedicated writing space and a dedicated writing headspace. I am working back up to those. I hope to be more active everywhere. If you are reading this, I hope to speak to you again soon.
DR
I have recently tried to compartmentalise my internet lives and in doing so have invested in a chromebook. I like it. It's much better than having multiple users in Google Chrome. Somehow all the information got mixed up.
Now It isn't and I have moved things to where they ought to be. This means that it is much easier to be me as an author online and I'm hoping that it motivates me to go and find new fans and new interests. This in turn should, theoretically at any rate entice me back into writing.
I'm rusty. I haven't written for a while now simply through a lack of facilities. Sometimes being on the train makes it harder to write and when I am at home I find it impossible to write. I need a dedicated writing space and a dedicated writing headspace. I am working back up to those. I hope to be more active everywhere. If you are reading this, I hope to speak to you again soon.
DR
Monday, 2 January 2012
Mojo
It has happened.
I have got my mojo back.
Even though the words were flowing last year, I've never really felt that my writing was good. It has always been a case of write and then hopefully redraft into something worth reading. I realise now, with about half an hour's hindsight that I have been kidding myself to an extent.
I'll give you an analogy; It's been like walking around whilst kicking yourself every other step. You know that you're doing something wrong but you're not sure how to stop it. Even though it is excruciating, you keep going because you know that just ahead is the destination. Yes, it hurts but you'll get there in the end. Suddenly, on my way home, I realised that it's be a lot less painful if I stopped kicking myself. I started walking properly and lo! I wrote and it was good.
I am writing this blog post in a fevered state of excitement. It's like nothing that I can describe. A real sense of dreaming whilst lucid. I really don't have the words to describe this sensation without having the time to craft my words but my God, it feels so so good.
Today is a good day.
DR
PS. I make no apologies for anything wrong or incoherent in this post. I'm on an editorial high...
I have got my mojo back.
Even though the words were flowing last year, I've never really felt that my writing was good. It has always been a case of write and then hopefully redraft into something worth reading. I realise now, with about half an hour's hindsight that I have been kidding myself to an extent.
I'll give you an analogy; It's been like walking around whilst kicking yourself every other step. You know that you're doing something wrong but you're not sure how to stop it. Even though it is excruciating, you keep going because you know that just ahead is the destination. Yes, it hurts but you'll get there in the end. Suddenly, on my way home, I realised that it's be a lot less painful if I stopped kicking myself. I started walking properly and lo! I wrote and it was good.
I am writing this blog post in a fevered state of excitement. It's like nothing that I can describe. A real sense of dreaming whilst lucid. I really don't have the words to describe this sensation without having the time to craft my words but my God, it feels so so good.
Today is a good day.
DR
PS. I make no apologies for anything wrong or incoherent in this post. I'm on an editorial high...
Friday, 25 November 2011
How Now Brown Cow
Wow. It's been a while since I blogged. I'm writing this on my mobile so I'm not going to check how long, but long.
I haven't written since the end of September and now here we are at the end of November. That should be shameful; rest assured that I think it is too. There has, however, been a very good reason as to my lack of writing be it blog, prose or tweet. Smartphone.
I had and once again have, though not for much longer, an HTC Desire HD. I love it. It's beautiful, powerful and has enough weight to feel important. It is also disfunctional, awkward and uses charge faster than an over zealous traffic warden. I have sent it to be repaired four times and it is still not working properly. In its place I have been given a sequence of temporary replacements, the highlight of which was a nokia's game of snake.
I write on public transport sometimes peacefully. In this endeavour my phone is only marginally less useful than a pen. I block out the world around me with my music, I check my notes with Evernote, I tweet, I blog and use the thesaurus. Not having my phone has been karmic punishment for something or other. I don't know what it was but it must have been bad. Two months without writing...
I have lost weight. I have trouble sleeping and I have become grumpy. I lie awake with a bubbling head, all the thoughts that go through my pen being forced to bounce and rebound through my noggin.
I intend to restart on Monday morning. I am ready to go, slowly at first but soon gathering up speed until Christmas whereupon I shall stop again.
Writing's a bitch sometimes.
DR
Monday, 25 July 2011
Well what happened there then?
I believe that my previous post should have been a lot longer. I do not understand why it is not except that perhaps when I posted it off my android phone, it seemed to have a little difficulty.
This is a shame as I was relying on this blog as a reminder of my plans.
I had plans to divide my day up into one hour segments in order to get everything I wanted to do done. I had worked out a specific schedule and everything and now it's all gone. *sniff*
Still, it hasn't really worked out anyway as my brother and his girlfriend have come to visit. My plans started at nine o'clock in the morning and now it's eleven and they are still here.
I'll try again after lunch.
DR
P.S. If anyone does find the remainder of my missing post, I'd be grateful to have it back.
This is a shame as I was relying on this blog as a reminder of my plans.
I had plans to divide my day up into one hour segments in order to get everything I wanted to do done. I had worked out a specific schedule and everything and now it's all gone. *sniff*
Still, it hasn't really worked out anyway as my brother and his girlfriend have come to visit. My plans started at nine o'clock in the morning and now it's eleven and they are still here.
I'll try again after lunch.
DR
P.S. If anyone does find the remainder of my missing post, I'd be grateful to have it back.
Friday, 24 June 2011
Sometimes it's hard to be a woman...
...especially when you have the genetalia of a man.
That's how the song goes anyway. It's hard to be a writer too. Life gets in the way. I'm totally envious of real life writers who have the opportunity to write for three or four hours at a stretch. If I could do that, I'd be a very happy man.
But I may not. I have bills to pay, work to do and a girlfriend to love.
Sunday, 22 May 2011
The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.
I decided that I wanted to be a writer at an early age. I don't really remember at what age that the desire gripped me, it's something that I've always wanted to do. I have never craved being published, the knowledge that I have completed a book is quite enough. The enormous sensation of success when I do it is what drives me to continue. At least the sensation that I hope I have.
However, I do remember quite clearly the realisation that being a writer actually required me to write. I was fourteen, (I think), years old and it dawned on me that I would probably need some practice before I started to be a bad writer. I'm a firm believer that the default position for starting to learn a new skill is 'scrote'.
So write I did and it was probably very bad. Bad enough for me to realise that it was bad whilst still in the scrote position. I think that that doesn't class it as probably very bad but as very bad.
Nevertheless, it was the first step and I realised that I wanted to be a writer simply because I enjoyed the puzzle of finding the right words to match the picture in my head and not have it be bad writing. I really like the actual process of writing so I decided to write a really long book.
That book is the book I am writing now despite it's many iterations and my occasional desires to burn the damn thing. It is the seemingly endless grind of word by word, chapter by chapter that seems interminable. Yet it is with the first step that I took all those years ago that I started and all the thousands of intervening steps that have been taken and that are yet to be taken, that the journey will be completed.
And so now I wonder, is it the desire of my destination that forces me on, or is it the journey itself.
After all, it's a really, really big book.
DR
Wednesday, 4 May 2011
The Hydra Story
Well, the truth of the matter is that I'm meant to be writing. I am, I'm writing this blog, I know. What I mean is that I should be writing a chapter. I wish I were but sometimes the hydra rears its many heads and prevents me from doing so. In a previous chapter I mentioned a number of street gangs and they are the hydra of my day. I want to refer to them again in a little more detail but I can't, I can't remember their names. I don't want to have a lot of blank spaces in my text is the first thing. The second thing is that I have a visual memory. If I can't see a thing, it's difficult to write about it. In order to see such a thing in my mind's eye, it needs to have a name do that it can be recalled. They do have a name and thus, when I discover what I named them, will be able to write about them.
They are a hydra because the problems of internal consistency are such that whenever you think you've solved a problem you actually find that you've created two more. The only way to resolve them is to take the problem and burn it all the way back to the mechanics of your universe. Sometimes this creates enormous problems that involve scrubbing out large portions of prose, plot points or indeed entire characters. It must be done.
I first tried to write this book at the age of fourteen. I still, somewhere, retain the first few pages that I wrote. I weep with disdain at my feeble efforts. Nevertheless, it contains a few seeds of the book now. I discovered fairly quickly that my universe was entirely inadequate and that everything I had written was suitable only for lighting fires. The second attempt went the same way. As did all other attempts three through forty-seven.
Yet each one has led me, inexorably, to the hydra that I have today. A many headed beast that needs constant fighting, each of the heads burning all the way down to the body of the underlying universe.
Ultimately, this is a battle I'm now winning. Many, many words have been written and it all stays strong. I will find those gangs, burn them down and keep going.
I'm rambling.
DR
Friday, 15 April 2011
Books, Pens & Other Instuments of Pleasure
I know that one of these days, I will get to the very end of the last chapter. On that day I do not know what I will do. The easy answer is, of course, to start writing another book straight away. That is the problem. I enjoy the physical aspects of writing; the creation, the tender flow of ink on paper. It's soothing.
And into this heaven strides the devil himself; Redrafting.
And that is what I'll have to do. I will feel obliged to take what I have written and to put it into a coherent format ready to be mailed, published etc. I really don't want to. But the more that I write the closer that mountain comes. The more I write, the higher the pile of paper that needs to be typed until at last!
No more writing but a wealth of notebooks looking snidely as I procrastinate endlessly over the hateful job of typing up.
One of the big problems of typing up is the joy of writing, it's pleasure heightened by an increasing sucession of Pilot G-Tec-C4 pens. They write extra-fine with a 0.4 gel ink nib. I have also bought today, for my guilty pleasure, a new notebook, having finished the previous this afternoon. Chapter, Pen and Book my own private intellectual tennis victory. It's narrow ruled, firm backed with a little pocket at the back for my notes. Oh! woe is me, it really is too much to suggest that I resist the succulent tempatations. So I shall continue to write.
At least until someone comes up with a computer smart enough to read my handwriting...
DR
And into this heaven strides the devil himself; Redrafting.
And that is what I'll have to do. I will feel obliged to take what I have written and to put it into a coherent format ready to be mailed, published etc. I really don't want to. But the more that I write the closer that mountain comes. The more I write, the higher the pile of paper that needs to be typed until at last!
No more writing but a wealth of notebooks looking snidely as I procrastinate endlessly over the hateful job of typing up.
One of the big problems of typing up is the joy of writing, it's pleasure heightened by an increasing sucession of Pilot G-Tec-C4 pens. They write extra-fine with a 0.4 gel ink nib. I have also bought today, for my guilty pleasure, a new notebook, having finished the previous this afternoon. Chapter, Pen and Book my own private intellectual tennis victory. It's narrow ruled, firm backed with a little pocket at the back for my notes. Oh! woe is me, it really is too much to suggest that I resist the succulent tempatations. So I shall continue to write.
At least until someone comes up with a computer smart enough to read my handwriting...
DR
Thursday, 10 March 2011
The Unexplained Explained
Hello everybody,
I know, I know. I haven't been blogging, nor tweeting. In fact I haven't even been writing. Cardinal sin I feel.
Well, I intend to start again. Today in fact. I suppose that I should write 'intended' as i have left my book at home. So I'm taking this opportunity to write this blog and to expose my mystery silence.
When I write, like many writers, I require an uninterrupted moment of peace. It is why I put on my headphones and listen to music when I write. I can block it all out.
About ten days ago, I went on a weekend break. Despite having to change trains I hoped to have an uninterrupted three hour space in which to write. I had not counted on my indomitable girlfriend who continually signalled to me that I should remove my headphones and give her my opinion on anything from a pair of shoes to Lady Gaga. It was not appreciated but it continued and destroyed all my concentration.
During that weekend, we were busy in foreign parts so I didn't tweet. Upon my return I had to overcome a break in routine, the restart of my normal life and a change of books. As people might remember, It's not that I particularly suffer from white page syndrome but not having a weight of pages for me to go through and feel the flow of the story slows me right down. At the minute I'm actually having to carry around two writing books; one for writing and one for continuity.
Equally troublesome has been my evolving work routine. I have not had the long journeys, wrapped up in my own mind with nothing to do but put pen to paper.
So i said, 'bugger it, I'm going to have a little break.'
I know that there will come a moment where my stomach will say to my brain, 'get a bloody move on, we've got things to write so why aren't you doing it'.
That moment is coming.
So my silence is due to a lack of writing environment. I shall get in contact with greenpeace directly. I believe that the environment falls into their remit.
I know, I know. I'll do better next time.
DR
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
I know, I know. I haven't been blogging, nor tweeting. In fact I haven't even been writing. Cardinal sin I feel.
Well, I intend to start again. Today in fact. I suppose that I should write 'intended' as i have left my book at home. So I'm taking this opportunity to write this blog and to expose my mystery silence.
When I write, like many writers, I require an uninterrupted moment of peace. It is why I put on my headphones and listen to music when I write. I can block it all out.
About ten days ago, I went on a weekend break. Despite having to change trains I hoped to have an uninterrupted three hour space in which to write. I had not counted on my indomitable girlfriend who continually signalled to me that I should remove my headphones and give her my opinion on anything from a pair of shoes to Lady Gaga. It was not appreciated but it continued and destroyed all my concentration.
During that weekend, we were busy in foreign parts so I didn't tweet. Upon my return I had to overcome a break in routine, the restart of my normal life and a change of books. As people might remember, It's not that I particularly suffer from white page syndrome but not having a weight of pages for me to go through and feel the flow of the story slows me right down. At the minute I'm actually having to carry around two writing books; one for writing and one for continuity.
Equally troublesome has been my evolving work routine. I have not had the long journeys, wrapped up in my own mind with nothing to do but put pen to paper.
So i said, 'bugger it, I'm going to have a little break.'
I know that there will come a moment where my stomach will say to my brain, 'get a bloody move on, we've got things to write so why aren't you doing it'.
That moment is coming.
So my silence is due to a lack of writing environment. I shall get in contact with greenpeace directly. I believe that the environment falls into their remit.
I know, I know. I'll do better next time.
DR
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Wednesday, 2 February 2011
The Trouble with Mechanics
As anybody who follows my Twitterfeed will tell you, I haven't been writing over the last 10 days or so due to something that I call Mechanics. More correctly I should say that I have been having problems with a specific Mechanic.
A Mechanic is a system, either in the writers head or codified on paper, that retains the internal consistency of the universe in which the writer is writing. Sometimes the Mechanic is no different from the premise or the setting. The book 'Fatherland' is a good example. The Mechanic is also the setting in that Heydrich survived and the Nazis won the war. The internal consistency must be continued. If the Nazis won the war then alluding to Italian liberal arts could detract from the suspension of disbelief. Something that is very important not to do.
In my book, the characters are capable of creating wonderous effects that in our society would be classed as magic. Having a character who one moment creates flights of birds but at the next moment claims not to have the power to bake a cake requires explanation. This explanation must be level headed and logical in 'real-world' terms as the explanation is not for the characters but for the readers.
Tolkien remarked that he wished that he had explained how magic worked. In his head, I'm confident he had a Mechanic. I have also had a Mechanic and it has worked very well. Until now of course.
Suffice to say that I will have to go through my work to implement my Mechanic but other than that, I should be restarting my writing tomorrow.
Hopefully I won't break the universe this time.
DR
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
A Mechanic is a system, either in the writers head or codified on paper, that retains the internal consistency of the universe in which the writer is writing. Sometimes the Mechanic is no different from the premise or the setting. The book 'Fatherland' is a good example. The Mechanic is also the setting in that Heydrich survived and the Nazis won the war. The internal consistency must be continued. If the Nazis won the war then alluding to Italian liberal arts could detract from the suspension of disbelief. Something that is very important not to do.
In my book, the characters are capable of creating wonderous effects that in our society would be classed as magic. Having a character who one moment creates flights of birds but at the next moment claims not to have the power to bake a cake requires explanation. This explanation must be level headed and logical in 'real-world' terms as the explanation is not for the characters but for the readers.
Tolkien remarked that he wished that he had explained how magic worked. In his head, I'm confident he had a Mechanic. I have also had a Mechanic and it has worked very well. Until now of course.
Suffice to say that I will have to go through my work to implement my Mechanic but other than that, I should be restarting my writing tomorrow.
Hopefully I won't break the universe this time.
DR
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Wednesday, 12 January 2011
Back, Again.
Once again I haven't been blogging but my (late) new years resolution is to try and to spend a little more time on my Online existence.
I have had a few ideas on how to make myself more available to the online world and I am going to try doing that.
This means, more tweeting, more blogging, more flickring, more tumblring. (OK, the last two aren't real but you know what I mean. More facebooking too I suppose.
What's new? Well I haven't been writing since Christmas. Instead I have been reading. I have been reading a wide variety of things just as fast as I can devour them but that seems to be now finished. I shall start writing again tomorrow whilst I travel to work.
Currently I am winding through the tangled threads of three particular characters. Normally I take each character to a point where they interact with another character and then I take the other character and also take them to that point. Then I write their interactions and carry on. However, these three principle characters are currently working in unison and so I have taken to writing chronologically. I find that I don't write as nicely when this is the case but in the end it doesn't make any difference. This first draft is a simple hewing into shape. Beyond that the sanding down and buffing up takes place at a later date.
This maybe as I don't really know how I write; don't know who my inner voice is. When I have found it, I will, redraft to my heart's content.
It is on my 'to-do' list.
DR
I have had a few ideas on how to make myself more available to the online world and I am going to try doing that.
This means, more tweeting, more blogging, more flickring, more tumblring. (OK, the last two aren't real but you know what I mean. More facebooking too I suppose.
What's new? Well I haven't been writing since Christmas. Instead I have been reading. I have been reading a wide variety of things just as fast as I can devour them but that seems to be now finished. I shall start writing again tomorrow whilst I travel to work.
Currently I am winding through the tangled threads of three particular characters. Normally I take each character to a point where they interact with another character and then I take the other character and also take them to that point. Then I write their interactions and carry on. However, these three principle characters are currently working in unison and so I have taken to writing chronologically. I find that I don't write as nicely when this is the case but in the end it doesn't make any difference. This first draft is a simple hewing into shape. Beyond that the sanding down and buffing up takes place at a later date.
This maybe as I don't really know how I write; don't know who my inner voice is. When I have found it, I will, redraft to my heart's content.
It is on my 'to-do' list.
DR
Tuesday, 19 October 2010
Hello Everyone.
I know that I haven't been blogging and that it is unacceptable.
I'm sorry.
But now I'm back and for those of you who follow my twitter feed you'll kno that it isn't because I have been lazy. I have written a huge amount and am that I am simultaneously writing three characters. This is because the three interact alot and I need to get them all to a point where I can add a fourth character to their interactions. It's how I write. I write a character and only that character. where the character then starts to interact with another character, I write the two characters together. The reason I write like this is because the book is a multitude of small chapters that overall create a mosaic of the overall story. Each chapter is written from the relevant character's point of view. As I find it difficult to change character rapidly, I tend to stick with one character as long as I can.
I have taken almost all of the characters to a point where they are now interacting with each other one way or another. Some I have taken a lot further. One character has had virtually nothing written about him because he is a little special.
I have no idea how many words I have written since I last blogged back in February but I would hasard a guess at more than a hundred thousand. It is rough in places and the whole thing needs redrafting. One step at a time.
Looking forward to winter.
DR
I'm sorry.
But now I'm back and for those of you who follow my twitter feed you'll kno that it isn't because I have been lazy. I have written a huge amount and am that I am simultaneously writing three characters. This is because the three interact alot and I need to get them all to a point where I can add a fourth character to their interactions. It's how I write. I write a character and only that character. where the character then starts to interact with another character, I write the two characters together. The reason I write like this is because the book is a multitude of small chapters that overall create a mosaic of the overall story. Each chapter is written from the relevant character's point of view. As I find it difficult to change character rapidly, I tend to stick with one character as long as I can.
I have taken almost all of the characters to a point where they are now interacting with each other one way or another. Some I have taken a lot further. One character has had virtually nothing written about him because he is a little special.
I have no idea how many words I have written since I last blogged back in February but I would hasard a guess at more than a hundred thousand. It is rough in places and the whole thing needs redrafting. One step at a time.
Looking forward to winter.
DR
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