Tag: Challenge

NANOWRIMO Day Eleven

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Like yesterday, the Maple Leafs are playing again, and as much as I want to forsake i and get on with the story, The fact that we are down by a large margin at the end of the first period given me the opportunity to turn it off, or watch the stage a come back.

Damn.

I stick with it.

Then, we make a decision to go and see a movie, Last Christmas, because it looked interesting when we saw the preview some weeks ago.

That means mossing half of the third period of the ice hockey if we’re going there.  Well, there’s always the live broadcast via the phone.

It is not easy driving a car and listening to a brilliant comeback by the Leafs, and the excitement in the car is almost at the same fever pitch as the commentators.

Alas, we lose.

As for the movie, it was everything we hoped for.  Two delightful leads who didn’t overact, Emma Thompson as a Yugoslav, and Michelle Yeoh in a restrained performance that I’m unused to seeing her in.  Perhaps Star Trek Discovery kick-arse was not needed here.

Christmas, no swearing, no killing sprees, a few songs, and a lesson hidden between the lines.  What more could one ask for?

As for the story, I’m having a coffee and then it’ll be time to get back into the groove.

Or watch Jack Ryan series 2…

Do you ever feel like you’re teetering on the edge of a precipice?

I am teetering on the edge of a precipice.

Of course, literally, that might mean I’m standing at the top of a craggy cliff looking down at a bed of rocks.

One that would hurt a lot if I landed there.

But there are many ideas of what that precipice might be, metaphorically.

It might mean, in an argument, you’re about to say something you’ll regret or can’t take back.

It might mean you are one action away from turning your parent. or someone else, into a green-eyed monster, and do something you thought you’d never do.

Pushing them to the precipice.

It might mean you are one thought or idea away from solving a problem.

Like the title of your next book.

Or the formula to create a warp drive.

Or perhaps a simpler problem like where the money is coming from to pay next weeks bills.

My precipice?

The next plotline for my current NaNoWriMo project.

And, no, I’m not usually one of these writers who plan the whole novel before writing it.

But ideas like this, they just happen.

I usually write my stories in the same manner it would be for the reader, not knowing what will happen next, but it’s hard not to.

It’s cold and wet at the top of the cliff …

Damn!  Just had an idea.  Got to go.

Conversations with my cat – 62

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This is Chester.  You wouldn’t think he would have an interest in horse racing.

But…

He does.  Today, in Australia, is the day the Melbourne Cup is run.  It seems to be the biggest thing on the racing calendar, not only in Melbourne but the rest of the country.

Chester, as usual, doesn’t seem to think it’s all that great.

He wants to know why the cat races are not televised.

What cat races?

It seems he had been watching Fox Sports, and there’s dog races, greyhounds he says.

I’ve heard of them, even went once or twice when we lived in Melbourne, where there was a dog race track.

\Well, he says, if they can race dogs, they can race cats.

I appear a little sceptical.  What are they going to chase?

Mice.

Isn’t that a little cruel, I mean, you’ll get the animal rights people up in arms.

Over mice, he snorts.  No one likes mice.  But if it’s a problem, why not rats?  Everyone hates rats.

So, I say, you’re up for it then.  We could make a killing.

A shake of the head, and nose in the air.  “Of course not, I’m a pedigree cat.  That’s for the alley cats.  I’ll be watching from the Royal box thankyou.”

NANOWRIMO Day Two

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Finally, the ship got clear of the wharf, avoided a collision with a barge the strayed a little too close, and had me as captain of the Titanic, worried about people drawing parallels with the barge becoming an iceberg.

But…

I got the first two chapters done, more or less as I wanted them, but, as you would expect, once you start writing, there are minor shifts in the way it plays out.

It’s fine, however, and I’m not going change it.

The story is running according to the script, and it worries me.  You know how it goes, everything’s great until the engines break down.

Perhaps I should be more optimistic rather than pessimistic.

But, sadly, not so much written today as I’d hoped.

Smoother seas tomorrow one hopes!

Conversations with my cat – 61

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This is Chester.  This is just before he jumped on the bed and started scratching at the cover.

In the first place, he’s not allowed on the bed.  Somehow he seems not to have got that memo.

In the second place, I don’t like being woken up with a rather shrill meow in my ear.

What, I ask, in a rather grumpy tone.

He sits on my stomach.  Maximum effect for a cat that’s heavier than it looks.

It’s national cat day.

Rubbish, I mutter.  I’d know if it was or wasn’t, it comes up on the computer.

It’s national cat day.  You have to do what I tell you.

As if that doesn’t happen every day.

I throw the cover over him and he disappears.  Get out of that, I say, and I’ll think about it.

In the meantime, I go down to the computer and have a look.  National cat day?  Not our national cat day, it’s in the United States of America.

I hear the jingling of his bird warning system coming down the passage, then a moment later he appears at the door to my office.

Got your wires crossed mate, I say.  It’s in America, not here.  Back to the boondocks for you matey.  I’m going back to bed.

I think I just noticed a cat can shake his head like a human.  Or maybe not, it’s too early in the morning to be bothered about it.

 

 

Conversations with my cat – 61

20160902_094127

This is Chester.  This is just before he jumped on the bed and started scratching at the cover.

In the first place, he’s not allowed on the bed.  Somehow he seems not to have got that memo.

In the second place, I don’t like being woken up with a rather shrill meow in my ear.

What, I ask, in a rather grumpy tone.

He sits on my stomach.  Maximum effect for a cat that’s heavier than it looks.

It’s national cat day.

Rubbish, I mutter.  I’d know if it was or wasn’t, it comes up on the computer.

It’s national cat day.  You have to do what I tell you.

As if that doesn’t happen every day.

I throw the cover over him and he disappears.  Get out of that, I say, and I’ll think about it.

In the meantime, I go down to the computer and have a look.  National cat day?  Not our national cat day, it’s in the United States of America.

I hear the jingling of his bird warning system coming down the passage, then a moment later he appears at the door to my office.

Got your wires crossed mate, I say.  It’s in America, not here.  Back to the boondocks for you matey.  I’m going back to bed.

I think I just noticed a cat can shake his head like a human.  Or maybe not, it’s too early in the morning to be bothered about it.

 

 

Conversations with my cat – 60

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This is Chester.  Once again we have a standoff.

This time it’s over the scratching post, and, I guess, where I’ve put it.  Silly me, I didn’t think it mattered where I put it.

But, you’d think he would be grateful I spent nearly a whole day building it for him.

And many more hours trawling the pet shops trying to find a replacement that was better than the last one.  It’s amazing just how much these people want to charge for something that I could make for a lot less.

So I did.

Is it possible that Chester wants me to spend a fortune on a new scratching extravaganza?  it’s not as if he knows anything about money, and costs, and effort.

Or does he?

I’m beginning to think this cat is a lot smarter than he looks.

Still, once again I pick him up, get the low growl because he knows where I’m taking him, and then put him on the top level.

Perhaps it’s the smell of the new carpet.  It certainly makes my nose wrinkle and doesn’t do much for allergy sufferers, but it is new, even if it is an offcut.  Surely he couldn’t be offended at that, could he?

Perhaps I’ve won.  He’s sitting there looking at me.

Now, if only I could read his mind!

 

 

 

When you’re not in the right headspace…

It’s late at night and my mind is drifting into other story territories, what I once thought was the realm of the writer’s mind, to be working on five stories at once.

Anything but what I should be doing.

These ideas are impinging on the current story, and somehow are finding their way onto the page.

Writing, cursing, deleting, re-writing, deleting, cursing.

I’m working on the latest book and it is not going well.  I’m gping through a serious bout of self-doubt.  It’s why I can’t concentrate.

It’s why I’m thinking about the next story, simply because I don’t think this one is good enough.  I’m not sure why; the editor is happy with the way it’s shaping up.

But these periods of doubt cause me to be over critical of what I have written and that leads to a lot of pressing the delete key.

And then to suddenly realize that an action taken in haste can be regrettable, and makes me feel even more depressed when I realize the deletions are irrecoverable.

Damn.

I think I’d be happier in a garret somewhere channelling van Gogh’s rage.

Lesson learned – don’t delete, save it to a text file so it can be retrieved when sanity returns.

I was not happy with the previous start.  Funny about that, because until a few weeks ago I thought the start was perfect.

It seems it’s been like that for a few weeks now, not being able to stick to the job in hand, doing anything but what I’m supposed to be doing.

I recognize the restlessness; I’m not happy with the story as it is, so rather than getting on with it, I find myself writing words just for the sake of writing words.

Any words are better than none, right?

So I rewrote the start, added about a hundred pages and now I have to do a mass of rewriting of what was basically the whole book.

But here’s the thing.

This morning I woke up and looked at the new start, and I suddenly feel my head is in the right space.

 

 

Where does time go?

NaNoWriMo starts in a few days time and I thought I had it under control, the preparatory work that is.

Nothing could be further than the truth.

I was looking at the outline last night, and it was as if I had the finished book in my hands and I was doing the second reading, part of the endless editing process.

Plot holes bigger than sink holes were appearing before my eyes.

The start is, quite frankly, lame.

There something missing in the middle and there seems some disjointed writing that seems to have no relevance to anything before, so..

Back to the drawing board and …

Panic.

What I need is some thing to hook the reader from page one, not put them to sleep.

OMG.

How the hell am I going to get this mess into some sort of shape before the start.

I guess there’s no time like the present.