Curious lost lines

Brain hurricane season is still present; I have had more ideas in the past few days than I knew what to do with.

This appears to be a long one and I blame it all down to the “Bluewater technique” I spoke about in a previous post.

I really did try to force myself to write something every day whether it’s going to be published or not, whether it’s more than a sentence or not and I got thinking about some very wacky things!

You’ll see them as posts such as “If I were a fairy” or “life of a mermaid” though the latter is due in the first week of June, so you won’t see that just yet.

Somethings I consider unpublishable or are unfinished poems or plays.

I don’t like to leave poems unfinished but it is a habit I am trying to get out of because a book I’ve been reading called “How to grow your own poem” by Kate Clanchy says, it is easy to lose a good line, never delete the line when you don’t know where its taking you, store them in a folder called “lost lines” and come back to them later, a poem doesn’t need to be rushed.

So I’ve done that and have accumulated approximately twenty unfinished and would be deleted poems in just a week!

They don’t even have to be poems actually; they could be good prose lines for a short story or a novel.

Who knows where those lost lines will lead us?

There is a whole paragraph which seems exciting, but I don’t know why yet.  But it’s very intriguing and it’s called “The Masters of Dream”.

I haven’t been able to add more to it yet, because in all honesty I was busy with other things today and working on those things with a raging head and ear ache.

But I could not ignore that paragraph, which started like that.

I hope I have time tomorrow to think about it and see what this is!

Thanks for reading!

Lucky life

My mum was raised in a slum

My dad was a gentleman

Two different worlds they did collide

And I came from them

Two different sides of the coin

I was born and raised

Learned elocution and etiquette

And fought in the street half-crazed

I learned to talk in many tongues

Just to survive, you see

I’m adaptable in every way

Because I had to be

There are many layers to my life

Many people too

Some are good and wholesome

And others will make trouble for you

I have gypsy kin, Italian, Catholic and Jew

Irish, Greek, Dutch and more

But you don’t have a clue

I don’t say these things to seek approval or fill a need

I’m sharing my life story, my culture and my creed

I’m lady and that is true, but I’m also more than that

I can hold my own in any argument, fight or spat

I adjust to what is needed at any given time

I was bred from both pedigree and hardship

I’ve lived through luxury and grime

I’ve held my head above the water and drowned in all the muck

I can’t complain about my life, because it’s filled with luck

And yet there it is in the cold and raw

And you don’t give a fuck!

But I hope you listened and didn’t ignore

My life is genuinely filled with luck!

A boy’s unconscious battle

Legs akimbo and arms too, laying on the bed a little boy fast asleep visiting the land of dreams as moonbeams paint the room a silver glow.

His white sheet alive with action slithers like a tentacle around his hips and the boy slowly and sleepily coiled in its clutches; teddy bears fall in line to pull the tentacle away and rescue the boy their friend.

The boy twists in and out and in again getting further and further tangled in the octopods tentacle as he too, grows tentacles to go into battle to save himself as he continues in his slumber – an unconscious battle for freedom done in slow motion in the moonlit sea of silver and blue.

Teddy bears thrashed to the floor all around helpless they lay motionless on the ground. 

When morning comes all is peaceful, the boy well rested springs up from his bed like he had been catapulted kicking his allies across the room knocking them into unconscious sleep for another day.

For tonight, there is a new battle!

Written 3:02am 3rd March 2023

The Hanged Man

Like the fool

I ran with the dog at the edge of the cliff

Like the fool I stumble to the ground

I am like a silly clown

Because I do not hit the ground at all

A branch has broken my fall

I am like the hanged man now

Hanging on this bough

The sun has come to laugh at me

Laugh at me because I’m not free

Dangling on this bough

The moon has come with her fears

The fear that I shall fall on spears

Down below my wooden bough

Afraid I will fall somehow

The ten of swords look up at me

I look down on them in glee

For they cannot touch me see

And the star knows too and laughs

Tee hee

The hermit has found me dangling here

He has come to end moons fear

He has sent a rope to me

To free this hanged man from this tree

The chariot also helps with ease

To pull me up from the tree

And settled me by the cups three

So we all can drink a cup of tea

For a job well done

In saving me!

Tin man’s heart

I love you and I will give you

A heart of gold so a new story can be told

Dorothy helped the tin man too

Gave him a heart to stop him being blue

Taught him how to use it and he used it well

Just as she promised the wizard did his spell

Only I am the wizard and I will mend your heart

Make it tick again and it won’t fall apart

Because I keep my promises and I love you so

I know your heart will be warm again, because I’ll make it glow

There is a happy story for your life quite soon

If you are bold enough to fly over the moon

If you are not, I will patiently wait

Because I know you think we’re great

I know you feel it, because I feel it too

That you and I will stick like glue!

A spider’s suicide note or…

I was looking for something today around the house, looking high and low and then I found a small folded up piece of paper with a dead spider on it.

I paused what I was doing and held my hand up to Paul who was talking to me “wait a moment” I said, “I have to read this suicide note from this spider”!  Puzzled he walked off half laughing. 

I opened the piece of folded paper tentatively to see if it was indeed a suicide note from a spider but it wasn’t!  I was surprised to find an excerpt from a story I decided to abandon for a while.  The spider either died of horror at the bad writing that was on the page or it decided to do a protest suicide to make me re-add this scene into the story, which one is true, I have no idea.

It could be just a case of the spider being in the wrong place at the wrong time and just randomly died on the page, but I like to be philosophical about things.

What do you think was the meaning of the spider?

Thanks for reading!

Feb 1st 2022 update

I kept my promise, despite having an ear and headache to keeping to my plans that from the first of February this year, I will write a minimum of 1k words per day towards one set novel, rather than a bunch of them; because I am trying to live by “The One Thing” principle for a while to see how much of a difference it would make to my productivity as a writer.

Today I have written 1354 words towards the dragon fantasy novel, but instead of working for two solid hours like I had planned, I felt in order to prevent burn out – I would stop any time after 1k words if I felt I am getting bored or tired of being in this writing position.  Therefore I wrote 1354 words in just one hour and twenty minutes, with a ten minute toilet break in that, so it wasn’t completely tied to the chair.

I have moved in a different direction with this dragon story, focusing more on character development and even added a drama scene in there, which is not something I am known for.

But to me, it works and has made a vast improvement to the plot in general.  I feel this story has a firmer future than before because of it and it has given me more freedom to give the characters a future in other potential books.  With that being said, this is going to written as a standalone; in case the publishers feel that there shouldn’t be an extension to this story.

Basically what I am trying to say is, this story is going to be more complete by the time I have finished it, without any questions needing answering if the publisher decides that this book should not be a series.

Also, I have noticed that my chapters are shorter than usual because I have learned to condense down a lot over the past few months, which means that the size of the book I am writing will not be epic as I used to fear.

This has not affected the quality of the book negatively, but has improved it tremendously.

I do realise, even now, that there will be another draft, even though this is supposed to be the final draft, because after I had written the previous chapter, I realised there was a certain element I forgot to include in the story, a build-up, the tension was short, the backstory almost non-existent, this will just mean when I have finished this draft entirely  in a few weeks’ time, that I will need to add around three pages to make up for the little bits I missed out.

But I am making notes after I have written towards the draft, so I am not distracted from the writing process – this is another thing that is new to the way that I work on my novels.

I am still keeping a spreadsheet on how many words and minutes I write per day, this is excellent in showing me just how much I actually do, do.

I guessed at the end of January that I wrote around 5 to 8k and only for around ten days of the month, but as it turned out, I realised going back to the spreadsheet that I wrote 36k words all told and wrote for fourteen days throughout the month.

Much more than I realised, it is a confidence booster, it also shows me that there was a time where I thought I didn’t write for two days last month but it was actually five solid days where I didn’t even type one word!

It is a real eye opener!

So, with that being said, I will keep you updated day to day as I am writing.  But remember, I have Fridays and Saturdays as my weekend, where I do not intend to write anything and I have scheduled in holidays where I allow myself the time off from writing altogether, unless I feel otherwise.  My first holiday from writing will be the last week of February, because this is the time Henry has time off from school and I would like to dedicate my time to him.

Happy reading everyone!

Crazy mind

My mind is above a joke lately.

I am getting so many new ideas for writing and art projects that it is affecting productivity in the past few weeks!

I have no idea what has happened to my brain, but today alone I have written down synopsises of nine new stories and I have too many ideas for artwork too!

But one thing is clear; I am becoming predominantly a science fiction and dark fantasy writer; if there is such a thing as dark science fiction, well I think I am that too!

I have only managed to write plans down in the past few weeks, because of intense pain and medical emergencies – the laboratories seem late in the results, I only hope there isn’t another laboratory accident as that would be the fourth one in the last five years, where I had have to have tests redone!

I have never known a hospital that is so accident prone!

Sitting at a desk is agony and the sofa is not that good either, but it is much better than the dining chair or office swivel chair.

I am trying to force myself to work on my writing and this is scaring Paul, because I am pushing myself a lot and I have been near collapse.

I am sedentary and yet I still can’t cope?  I don’t get it, I don’ know why the pain is getting so bad, but all I know is, it is getting worse every few days!

One of the stories came to me at 3:30am on Tuesday; a Christmas fantasy in Christmas tradition and that took me two hours to write by hand, the next day my hand was swollen.

I wrote three chapters since to that project, but I wouldn’t call it hard work, because the chapters are small for me. 

Usually I’d write 3k words in a day towards an interesting subject, this Christmas story is only around 1k at the moment, Paul reckons it looks like it could be a children’s book the way I am writing it, as it is very child friendly so far.

I love the story, but I am worried about how long it should be if it is deemed to be a children’s book?  I don’t know… I am not known for writing specifically for children!

Paul thinks it could be a slightly larger than average children’s picture book, because he would like to see a lot of pictures in this story – I am uncertain personally.

I know the story has the potential to be very popular, but I am not confident on how to market this.

Anyway, thank you for reading and if I don’t post before then, have a very merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Category for current projects

This is a new category which will enable me to share more of what I am doing as a writer.

I will not tell vast details of the plots I am doing but I will talk about what kind of things are going to be in the story and if there are any major changes in any rewrites.

By doing this I am hoping that people who are interested in stories like the ones I will mention will cheer me on and spur me to write faster for them!

It is always nice to know that there are people out there who need a book I am writing!

I always do better when I feel that there are people out there who are genuinely interested in my work!

1st, 2nd & 3rd drafts

In a discussion at the NaNoWriMo forum, somebody asked whether adding “what ifs” were something that people do when they are stuck on the event?

My reply was pretty long for a forum post, but nonetheless I hope it was helpful for them and I hope it would be helpful for you too – here is a more fleshed out answer to my response.

When I am writing a novel, my first draft is usually part of the ideas and planning process.

In the first draft I ask questions and try to answer them as strongly as I can to help me develop strong characters and scenes that make sense to the plot as a whole.

I ask questions such as, what is the relationship of this character to the main character.  How will this characters existence help move the plot along?  What vital actions would this character do to play a part in the plot of this story? 

I would also write alternative paths for the story as a whole as they come.  This is made easier by love for lists and random.org.  For example, if the story is a fantasy where people are going onto a journey, are the characters turning towards the forest, the farm or a shadowy path into a darkened valley?  This is usually done at times I feel stuck about how to progress – when this happens, for me it is important not to stop my flow of writing by overthinking it, but to get all possible ideas down on paper and then pick one later on, when you have run out of energy to do more for the day; or if you are truly desperate for a decision to move your story along, use random.org to force a decision for you and you will often come out with some surprising alternatives you’d never thought of originally for your story!

The second draft is all about the elimination of the stuff that didn’t survive your story in the first draft, then sewing all you have kept together as neatly as possible.  But, I am a psychopath, I have been known to write similar plot stories based on two to four alternatives, to see how I feel about them several months down the line, then I choose the best one to continue onto the third draft with!

The third draft is all about tidying things up and cutting scenes out or adding new ones, for me it is the preparation for polishing the finished product, because for me, it is rare that a story gets past a third draft.

It can be a nightmare trying to sift through the first draft in between the chunky messes that appear out of nowhere, but for me it is worth it and it is the only way I manage to stay productive without feeling frustrated or coming to a dead end.

I am a chaotic thinker, I understand this is not for everyone, but this system works for me. 

I think too many people try to make the first draft too pretty and polished immediately, novels don’t work like that.

I can be found in the UK, Leicester region of NaNoWriMo throughout this month.

Good luck in your writing ventures everybody!

Happy reading!