Tag: Challenge

Past conversations with my cat – 56

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This is Chester.  It’s going to be an interesting morning.

When I finally make it out to the writing room, I find him sitting on my desk, next to the keyboard, with a rather benign expression.

Remembering that cats can’t have expressive expressions, it worried me that he’s working overtime to make me think he has one.

I can feel his eyes boring into me, following me around the room, watching and waiting.

Waiting for what I wonder.

I also remember that cats are hunters and killers.  If he was a lion or a tiger I’d be in a great deal of trouble now.  He’d pounce, and that would be the end.

Is this we hat he’d be doing if I let him outside?

Is he sending me a warning?

I finish what I’m doing on the other side of the room and come over to the seat.

Are you done giving me the death stare? I ask him.

A slight shake of the head, and if I wanted to write anything into it, that would be a no.

A few seconds pass, then he jumps down to the floor and walks off.

Job done, I suspect he’s thinking.

Back to his least favourite dinner tonight, I’m thinking.

Short story writing, don’t try this at home (5)

This is not meant to be a treatise on short story writing.  Far be it for me to advise anyone on the subject.  I prefer to say how it is that I do it so you can learn all of the pitfalls in one go.

Now, there’s this thing called continuity, but it covers a whole range of writing sins, most of which I eventually get caught out.  Films sometimes miss a few items, like back in the roman days, there are plane trails in the sky, in a 1920’s period piece, there’s a mobile phone sitting on a desk.

Like one minute the hero has a gun, and the next he’s fighting for his life with a knife, and, hey presto, there’s that gun again.  The error might not be that big but you can’t pull out a weapon you don’t have or wasn’t there in the first place.

Similarly, the hero pulls out a mobile phone, but there’s only one problem, it’s 1980, and there are no mobile phones.  Our problem might be that we are so used to doing and using certain things that we might forget, for a minute or two, that were not available in the past.

The same goes for the fashion of the day.

And my all-time favourite, getting the right make and model of car.

Oh, and just for good measure, back in the old days they used acoustic couplers to attach to phones via a serial port to dial-up not a server, but a BBS, Bulletin Board Service, at a rate of 300 baud, or a little while later, 1,200 baud.

There was no internet in general use.  If you wanted to call the office when out, use a telephone box.  Or carrier pigeon.

And the use of language, there’s a lot of stuff relevant today that was not used back then, and there was a lot of stuff back then that isn’t tolerated now.  Some of it might be hard to get your head around.  It isn’t for me, because I can remember the 1970s and 1980s, but I’m not too sure about allowing some of what happened then to creep into my work.

So, you get the picture.  Try to use the past as the past, or leave it in the past.

Unless it’s a book about time travel, then all bets are off.

Short Story Writing, don’t try this at home (4)

This is not meant to be a treatise on short story writing.  Far be it for me to advise anyone on the subject.  I prefer to say how it is that I do it so you can learn all of the pitfalls in one go.

I find inspiration in the most unlikely places.

Shopping malls are great, there is so many things going on, so many different types of people, there’s often enough to fill a journal.

Driving on the roads, you get to see some of the most amazing stunt driving, and it’s not even being filmed, it’s just playing out before your very eyes.

Waiting in hospitals, waiting for doctors, accountants, dentists, friends, hanging around coffee shops, cafes, bistros, restaurants, the list is endless.

But the best source, newspapers, and the more obscure the headline the better, and then just let your imagination run free, like:

Four deaths, four mysteries, all homeless.

This poses a few interesting scenarios, such as, were they homeless or were they made to look like they’re homeless.  Are they connected in any way?

The point is, far from the original story that simply covers four seemingly random murders, a writer can turn this into a thriller very easily.

It could follow a similar headline in another country where three headlines could be found, say, in London, where a man is found dead in an abandoned building, a week after he died, with no obvious signs of how he died.

A woman is killed in what seems from the outset an accident involving two cars, where, after three days, the driver of the second vehicle just simply disappears.

A man is reported missing after not reporting for work when he was supposed to return from a vacation in Germany.

Where an obscure piece says that a man was found at the bottom of a mountain, presumed to have fallen in a climbing accident.

It’s all in the joining of the dots.

 

It’s that time again, the end of the month

This month had been unusually busy, with the NaNoWriMo revision exercise and the A to Z challenge.

The NaNoWriMo has been particularly challenging because I have had to pull together all the work done in writing a novel titled “The Will”. Like a lot of my writing projects this had been one that I wrote about half of it, then put it aside, either having written myself into a proverbial corner, or there was another project that needed completing.

Then in succeeding weeks I would go back and write another chapter, perhaps having had a brainstorm.  This would happen off and on with a number of other stories as ideas for them came to me.

Then I noticed the April version of NaNoWriMo and decided this was an opportunity to pull it all together, and over the 30 days, this novel has turned into a manuscript of 360 pages and 48 chapters.  Gaps have been filled, prior writing has had an edit, and continuity has been checked.

I now have another novel that will be sent to the editor for a first reading.

The other exercise, the A to Z Challenge, this year, is about a phrase, like You’ve got to be kidding, and turning it into a story, where, somewhere within it, the phase is used.

I had hoped that the stories would be short, and easily fitted in with everything else.  Well, you know how that goes.  Stories write themselves, and some have been 6 to 8 pages long.

Talk about making a rod for my own back.

Aside from those two exercises, there has been some time devoted to my episodic stores, and one in particular, the Treasure Hunt.  I have managed to write several more episodes which will appear in the coming weeks.

Any chance of getting a break next month will be impossible.

The episodic stories need more episodes, and three new books are just about at the stage where I can send them to the editor, two for final approval, so hopefully, these can be published in June.

But, as always, there is no rest for the wicked.

Camp NaNoWriMo – Day 30

The April version of the November write-a-thon is upon us, well, me actually.  I’m not sure hope many others are trying to resurrect an old piece of writing.

The truth is, I’ve been at this story off and on over the past three years, and every time I get a head of steam, something else comes along.

Now I’ve decided to use the April version of NANOWRIMO to get this thing finished, or at least in a first draft state.

Part 4 is now finished and it is onto the laborious work of getting part 5 in some sort of shape.  It’s mostly done, but so many other things got in the way, it is still not complete.

What I have to do now is not drop the ball, and stick at it until the first draft is completed.  This will probably take a few more days.

Today’s I continued with making some revisions, where words were struck off and words added, the net result amounted to adding another 1,328 words for a final total of 77,145.

 

 

 

At last, some good news…

If only it is one bright moment among heaps of darker ones.

We do not have a COVID 19 case in our house. Of course, we had to wait an agonizing 24 hours before we got the good news by phone.

She has something else, perhaps just the common cold.

It shows that our testing labs are getting through the tests, of which I heard in the news there were about 4,000, with only 10 or so new cases countrywide.

Queensland had none overnight, so if our case had been positive, we would have been in the news for all the wrong reasons.

But, you know, 15 minutes of fame and all that.

I’m looking at my continuously updating COVID 19 count, and it’s up to 3,223,596 cases worldwide and 228,195 deaths.

I feel a deep sadness for the families of those people who have died.

But, on the other hand, I feel somewhat angry that world leaders, instead of focussing on the job of saving more lives, are more interested in finding someone to blame.  Perhaps when this is all over everyone should band together to see what happened, what they did wrong, what they did right, and be prepared next time.

And there will be a next time.

One thing that should happen is, no blaming the opposition party but actually work with them, without politicizing the pandemic, make sure the right people are put in positions where they can do the best, and most of all honour and respect the health workers whose only mission is to save as many lives as they can.

Short story writing. Don’t try this at home! (2)

This is not meant to be a treatise on short story writing.  Far be it for me to advise anyone on the subject.  I prefer to say how it is that I do it so you can learn all of the pitfalls in one go.

I like to think I fly by the seat of my pants, you know, like the reader who takes up the story and starts reading, not having a clue where it’s going to go.

I prefer that blissful ignorance, of course, until I have to start editing it into something that resembles a logical story,

It was a revelation when I discovered there are two types (possibly more) or writer, pantsers and planners.

I’ve tried both.  Both work.  But in the case of the latter, you need to know where it’s going to start what’s going to happen in the middle and have the end firmly planted in your mind.  Not much good if a rotten character is pissing you off and you want to kill him, excruciatingly.

Flying blind gives you a little more creativeness, and be able to go around a corner and see what’s there.  it also allows for those complete changes of direction you come up with in the shower, that place that is a fertile ground for new ideas just when you’re running out of them.

But, it can sometimes play havoc with word counts and if you’re trying to fit into 2,000 words, 5,000 words, or a lot less, taking the story where it wants to go is not a good idea, and sadly, I tend to let stories run their course.

And sometimes I like the idea of writing three different endings, and then can’t choose which one I like the best.

So, role model I am not.  I like writing, and when I’m in the ‘zone’ it’s like I’m in another world.

But, then, isn’t that the case for all of us?

More unclarity tomorrow!

Camp NaNoWriMo – Day 29

The April version of the November write-a-thon is upon us, well, me actually.  I’m not sure hope many others are trying to resurrect an old piece of writing.

The truth is, I’ve been at this story off and on over the past three years, and every time I get a head of steam, something else comes along.

Now I’ve decided to use the April version of NANOWRIMO to get this thing finished, or at least in a first draft state.

Part 3 is now finished and it is onto the laborious work of getting part 4 right.  There will be about ten chapters in this section, and then a short Part 5 which is yet to be written.

Today’s assignment was to go back and make some revisions, where words were struck off and words added, the net result not amounting to much and certainly does not justify the amount of work put in.

Today’s word count adds another 632 words for a total of 75,817 so far.

We are going to exceed my original estimate of 75,000 words by at least another 5,000.

 

 

 

Conversations with my cat – 97

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This is Chester

Still hiding away.

Like any wise, old, skeptical cat, he’s not believing the good news.

We do not have a COVID 19 case in our house. Of course, we had to wait an agonizing 24 hours before we got the good news by phone.

It shows that our testing labs are getting through the tests, of which I heard in the news there were about 4,000, with only 10 or so new cases countrywide.

Queensland had none overnight, so if our case had been positive, we would have been in the news for al; the wrong reasons.

So, after broadcasting the news, that is, walking up and down the passage saying it was safe to come out, there’s still no sign of him.

But…

I have a cunning plan.

I bought a can of his absolute favorite food.

Come dinner time I’m putting it out.

 

Of course, food trumps fear every time.

He walks past me on his way to the tasty treats, the tail movements indicating he is not a happy cat.

The things I have to suffer at the hands of you humans, he mutters.

So, I say casually, we have guests for dinner.

He stops, turns his head in that dismissive manner of his.
What else can you do to me?

COVID 19, Grandchildren, I suppose you’re going to let me outside.

Do you want to go outside?

With COVID 19 lurking on every corner?

It’s under control.

Right. I’ve been watching TV. You do realize there’s good news and fake news, and there’s more of the latter than the former.

So, he’s going with the confuse the poor human with blather.

It’s working. I say, Go back into hiding. I was quite enjoying the silence.

After dinner, he says, ending the conversation with the angry tail swish. Yes, we are not amused.

Camp NaNoWriMo – Day 28

The April version of the November write-a-thon is upon us, well, me actually.  I’m not sure hope many others are trying to resurrect an old piece of writing.

The truth is, I’ve been at this story off and on over the past three years, and every time I get a head of steam, something else comes along.

Now I’ve decided to use the April version of NANOWRIMO to get this thing finished, or at least in a first draft state.

Part 3 is now finished and it is onto the laborious work of getting part 4 right.  There will be about ten chapters in this section, and then a short Part 5 which is yet to be written.

Today’s assignment is the fallout from the reading of the will.  There will be more until the various inheritors finally accept their shares, which inevitably they have to.

Never have so many waited so long and got so little.

Today is going to be one with a smiley face, for all the wrong reasons, I’m enjoying writing this bit too much, and then there will be a sad face, because there is so much more to do, and so little time.  This chapter was also fun to write.

Today’s word count adds another 3,167 words for a total of 75,185 so far.

We are going to exceed my original estimate of 75,000 words by at least another 5,000.