Good evening, Folks. Only 569 words today. But some nice growth in the story I was working on. There’s a couple I’ve been working on that are beginning to take shape nicely.
I did find it hard to get my head into writing today. I just couldn’t really get rolling nicely. I did like what I wrote, but it too a lot of work to get to where I wanted to today.
The problem is I’m eager to get stuck into editing on preexisting projects. I think that’s where I’m needing to spend my creative energies.
Right, short and sweet tonight. I’ve got an early tomorrow so I’m going to do a little popcorn, watch a movie and then call it a night.
After an emergency trip to the dentist I managed to write 1971 words today.
It was quite easy to get rolling and I found that I’m opening up the story a little more now. It started almost in at the deep end but now I’m filling it out a little and I’m feeling like there will be more I can flesh out at the start of the story when I come to edit it.
Right. I’m aiming for a solid day tomorrow! So rock on folks!
Good afternoon, folks! I hope everyones day is going well?
I’ve spent the last half an hour or so looking through files for an early draft of Penal Earth, which I found and printed out as I’m going to mine it for book two. I also printed off three short stories from that universe as since my mum read Penal Earth and The North Side, she’s been asking me for more of that world. That is part of the push behind bumping the second book up. Penal Earth is my most completed novel length piece as of this moment (just gotta save up for an editor to look it over) and I’m itching to get back into that world and play with some of the story lines that were in that original draft that I wrote for NaNo 2015.
Now, I’m not going to dive in and start writing right now (it’s tempting but no). I want to read it through a couple of times, make a few notes and kinda scribble out what I don’t want and then copy and paste it into a new file and then start connecting those all together and tying it into book one.
With NaNo just a few days away I’m tempted to say I’ll do it for next NaNo 2022, but I’m not quite ready to commit to next years project just yet. After this years NaNoWriMo I’ll have a lot of editing to do and I’d like to get Zombie, Black Blood, and Vampire done and dusted. Or at least to the point where I can have them off to an editor once I’ve got the cash together. Zombie is still my priority. The cover art is all but done, and once I’ve gone through and done what needs to be done I’m probably going to send it off to the editor again just to make sure I’ve not cocked it up even more!
I’ve mentioned that Leah Solmaz has adapted a short story of mine(Serial Pensioner) into an animated short. Well it’s now done and will be out on Sunday! Below is a video Leah posted on her YouTube where she talks about that and what she’s been up to the last few months and what she’s got going on in the near future. Please have a watch and check out her work. She’s not only a talented actor, writer, producer, director but she’s a fantastic person as well.
Good evening, folks! How are we all doing tonight?
I worked through my editors notes on the zombie book today. I have a lot more to do yet, but I’m feeling good about it. I can see what and where I need to change and I think I’ve got a good idea of how I’m going to do it.
I’m going to get working on that in December I think, because we are almost in NaNoWriMo season! Whoop Whoop!!! I’m not as ready as I’d like to be but I’ve got a few ideas that I can work from that’ll get me started nicely. I’m realising when I do short stories for NaNo its me basically throwing ideas against the wall and see what sticks. A lot of the ideas I’m thinking about are ones where they’ve been mooching around my head for a while and I never seem to get to them. Part of me thinks that if they were more important then I’d have written them by now, but I think I get a sort of get out of jail free card doing short stories in November. If one doesn’t take off then I can crack on with another one. If I get stuck I can hop straight into the next one.
I am planning to do a daily blog post during November with my progress again.
Now that the zombie edits are done I’m at a little bit of a loose end as I’m not sure what I can work on in the next few days. I might have another look at the Mermaid story and see if I can make that work, but I also desperately need to assess all the projects I’ve got ongoing and what stages they’re in.
Right, time for a movie. I hope y’all are doing okay!
And remember, be kind and have fun!
If you’d like to contribute to editing, cover art, server etc. costs please click the link to my Buy Me A Coffee page. It’s nice and easy to support someone through Buy me A Coffee. You don’t need to be a member, you can just go in and chip in!
I’ve got a lot I want to get through tonight, so let’s get cracking!
The anthology K is for Kidnap came out featuring my story ‘Mother is God’ and is available in ebook and paperback. Please hit the link and check it out!
Love this cover!
The fantastic Leah Solmaz is working on an adaptation of one of my short stories! (squeeeeee!!!!!) Please go and check out Leah’s Instagram page, where you can see the intro!!! I’m super excited about this. Not only because something I’ve written is being adapted into a short animated movie, but also because its working with Leah who is a fantastic human being and damn talented as well. If you haven’t watched Theosight please check it out, I’ll add it to this post.
I have started on reading through and making notes based on the editors read of ‘Is that a zombie?’ I started then got hit with a head cold that knocked me off my feet. I focused my energy on work and matters away from writing. I’m going to get back on track with it by the weekend.
I’ve had a beta reader look at some of my longer pieces and got some excellent feedback, including that one wasn’t as polished as the other, so I need to go back and put my editing head back on to look it over.
Something I’m going to do in the next day or so is sit down and get my bearings on the different projects again. I’ve got a few which are at different stages and I’m just going to write them all down and figure where they all are.
On top of all of that we’ve got NaNoWriMo just around the corner…..
I am struggling to get back in the flow, much more then I thought I would. But it’s there, and I know NaNo will give me a massive boost and help get the words wrangled.
Well, I think I did have the productive day I was aiming for.
I got up at a decent time, made tea and sat in the chilly morning air in the garden wand wrote some more thoughts down. I’ll put those in another post. After the tea and morning thoughts I ran into town for a few bits for my folks. I finally got Max a couple more balls for him to chase around the garden.
It’s nice working with Max with me. Normally as I write upstairs it’s the cats hanging out.
I got some writing administration work done, then I got stuck into some words. A nice 710 was written on a short story. Then I gamed, took Max for a walk, read, then gamed, dinner, washing up, and now I’m watching a movie and writing this post.
I don’t normally break my days down like this, and looking back it doesn’t feel like I’ve done a lot today but that’s because I only wrote 710 words. I keep reminding myself its not just about words. It’s about progression of the story, and I progressed the story today.
I’ve got plans tomorrow afternoon, but in the morning I’m going to try and get some words wrangled again. I was planning on getting a lot of writing done this week, but I’ve spent the week working on myself. It’s been freeing this week, and I need to keep that forward progression of myself as well as my fiction going as well.
I was laying in bed last night and I suddenly had a revelation on his to make my story Homestead work. So at nearly one AM this morning I wrote maybe a little shy of 200 words. I added to that before work and ended up 684 for the day.
I know where this story is going to go now, I’ve got a good idea of some of the beats to it as well. I’m looking forward to getting stuck into it and getting it done.
Right, I’m set to ease of for the day. Gonna watch a little YouTube and then do some reading.
My plans changed for the day which meant I had the day. So I wrote this morning, hitting 1065 words. At one point I was going to be happy with 300 words. That’s the target I set myself because I really didn’t sleep well, but when I checked to see if I was at least close to the 300 words I was over 700 and figured I might as well just keep going for four digits.
After that I did some non-writing bits and pieces. I had a couple of phone calls that I was able to see to today. I was going to do them and the other bits tomorrow but as I had today I managed to get them ticked off.
Then it was a red-pen out loud read edit. I’m liking this story, called Sweet Danny, and I’ve got a good feeling for it. I hope it works. One person has read it and they liked it, I really hope the icky factor works for it!
Because of the fatigue from a couple of long shift at work and an ongoing issue with sleep, today could have been a washout but I’m glad I worked to make sure it wasn’t. When it comes to sleep, I’ve always had a lot of problems with getting enough sleep. It is something I’m working on (just realised my TV stand is at an angle (yes, welcome to how easily distracted I am)), but haven’t got it close to being figured out yet. I honestly think it’s going to be something that will be part of my life and will go up and down depending on what’s happening around me.
Not too zombified this morning!
A positive is I’m slowly picking up reading again. I am determined to finish Six Wakes by Our Lafferty this month. I’ve been reading this book since last year, and I’m enjoying it but with all the ups and downs of the last eighteen months I’ve really struggled to just sit down and read. It feels really good to be getting into the habit of reading again.
Howdy folks, yesterday I wrote 534 words on the vampire book and the rest of the day I chilled out a little. A lot of early starts recently and I was feeling more than a little drained.
Today I’ve got a few things I’d like to do. One of which is reading through the notes from my editor on the zombie book. I’m not ready to start making changes yet, but I am going to be making my own notes as I go. I’d like to get some words written today on one of the short stories I’m working on as well. I’m tempted to do that first as that’ll give me plenty of time to read through the notes for zombie and I can get it (hopefully) read through today.
A video I did a couple of weeks ago 🙂
I’m doing pretty well on my goals for the month. Two have been ticked off now, and I feel confident that I can achieve each one. Even the video one!
Right, I’m going to get started now. I hope you all have a fantastic day!
Yesterday I wrote 336 words on a short story but also did a lot of research for the same short story, and I’ve come to the decision that I’m just gonna go balls to the walls and yet loose. I’m not going to worry about grounding it in reality. I’m just gonna try and make it batshit crazy.
I’m having trouble letting go when I write recently. Stephen King said in On Writing that you have to write like an orphan, or words to that effect. I was reminded of this when watching the film M.F.A. recently. At the end of the film there’s a line where it basically says art shouldn’t just preserve the beauty of life, but also the brutality. Make art uncomfortable. I love this message. So many of us grow up listening to music about good love, or films where everyone lives happily ever after.
Art is different for everyone. Some people thrive on the uncomfortable while others thrive on a good old romcom. Everyone is different and we embrace different things. For me, what I write, people will find uncomfortable. But some will find it fun. I can watch Saw movies with barely a flinch at the content, but watched The VVitch and The Ritual, made me squirm in my seat. But there are different degrees of being uncomfortable. Listening to the audiobooks of The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum and What Good Girls Do by Jonathan Butcher made me very uncomfortable. Even to the point where I had to stop listening to them. M.F.A. falls into that grouping. Although not as extreme as I Spit On Your Grave, it’s still a content matter that is not pleasant and when done wrong, without the respect the topic deserves it just makes a whole other level of horrific.
For films like The Vvitch and The Ritual, these made me uncomfortable because there’s a witchcraft/cult elements to them. An unknown factor that made me uncomfortable in a way I’d yet to experience. It’s something I’m still trying to put my finger on exactly why I find it uncomfortable.
Another book that made me uncomfortable is The Silence by Tim Lebbon. This one I had to stop listening to three times. It’s got a quiet brutality to it, one which I can see happening. There’s three distinct moments in The Silence which I could see myself being in that situation. Having to make an uncomfortable decision.
Not being scared to write things which people will be uncomfortable with or offended by is something I need to be better with. I’m not going to write something just because it’s shocking. I don’t think that works and people tend to see through things like that. I’ll strive to write what the story is asking for.
Right, speaking of writing it’s time to get a few hours done.
Rock on folks, never give up on that dream. Never let someone take it away or belittle it or you. Just keep going.
Peter Germany's World 