Feast and famine

There's no rest for the wicked. No sooner did I start whinging about a lack of work, then Fate fills the void. That means little time for writing and editing, though I have been doing a little on 'Orb of Arawaan'. I even missed the F1 Grand Prix on Sunday, though I had Zoë record it to a DVD. Of course, then I had to spend the day avoiding the results. How incencitive of idiot journalists to try and continually broadcast the results on radio news without warning before the race has been repeated on television at a reasonable hour. It also did not help that two people on the night shift had been watching it in the Shunter's little bunker and kept talking about the results very loudly. Bah! Still, I watched it in the early hours of this morning when I finally finished work.

It certainly was an interesting race. But yet again the season kicks off being plagued by idiots in charge. Everyone knew that Trulli had made an illegal overtake before the finish whilst the safety car was out. Yet not a peep from race control, and they let Trulli pop the champagne. Only after that did they dick with the results. Who are these overpaid fools who could not organise a piss-up in a brewary? What other sport would tolerate this incompitant meddling with the results after the event? Would football supporters tolerate the winning score being changed in a match after the final whistle and the celebrations had started? No - they would be tearing the nearest town a new derriére if that happened. Why then do we have to tolerate such crass incompitance in F1? I do hope this isn't going to be another year of off-track decisions changing all the results. They lose track of the fact that it is only a game being run for the entertainment of the paying punters like me. So why are they trying to alienate and annoy the paying punters in this way?

The radio awards thing on Saturday was interesting. I knew things wouldn't be plain sailing when the first award short list was run though. There was a radio station from Grimsby that had the best promotional trailer ever. It was head and shoulders above the others. Did it win? No. Did it come second? Not even that - didn't even get highly commended. We sat and watched for the night as the same five radio stations vacuumed up virtually everything. In a lot of instances the entries that I thought were the best did not win. On 'best male presenter' I was certain that one chap by the name of Mr Bee (can't remember his first name) would win. He was smooth, yet it went to some-one else. Oh well.

And finally. I valeted my car last week. A nice deep clean inside and out. First time the paintwork has been washed in eight months and the inside hasn't been done for nearly four years! I even T-cutted the paintwork so it shined. Well, why bother? Within 24 hours, birds have been using it for aimed toilet training. They never used to crap on it when it was dirty.

The mystery of a comic mouse's head attire.

One of the side projects that I work on in colaberation with the cult comic writer and artist, Zoë Robinson, was updated online tonight here. She does most of the work, but I help with the scripting. It's a great zany and quirky comic, and the updating fell off a bit through the final preparations of the wedding, but it should be getting back up to speed now.

Nice work on the drawing and inking Zoë! My only question for Zoë is though: where did Nob T. Mouse's crash helmet go from the previous script?

A little updating.

Just a quick note to people that the website has had a little overdue tinkering. The main page has been updated to reflect my recent nomination for a radio award, and the Portfolio section has two new short stories: 'On the radio' which was recently published in a magazine and; part four of 'The long summer of war' which is being serialised over several months.

Unblocking the (brain) drain.

It happens, from time to time. Writer's block, that is. Of course, I'm actually supposed to be editing, so maybe it should be 'Editor's block' perhaps? At any rate, even at the best of times editing is a hated task of mine. I really do loathe it and find it so dull doing it on my own work. That's why usually I have an editor to do these things for me. But in the case of 'Orb of Arawaan' I have to do it, because I need to write the last two parts of the trilogy, and that means being refamiliarised with the plot and charectors. So that means I have to do the edit myself, as I think just rereading it would be not enough (I tend to speed read my own material far too much).

I've managed a couple of pages, and whilst what I've done so far hasn't needed too much, I've changed the odd word here and a little bit of sentance structure to make it flow better. It is just not enthusing me though; I want to get on and actually write something else. But then of course I would be worried about having multiple projects on the go at the same time; I never like to do that. It becomes far too easy to have a project or two fall by the wayside. One of my top tips when people ask me about the 'secret of writing' (if indeed there is such a thing) is to stick a project through and get it finished. I've seen too many people who start something, get to a difficult bit, then start something else and let the first project fall by the wayside. A lot of people are great starters but not good at finishing. You have to make yourself deal with one project to completion at a time.

I'm still developing that horror idea though in my head - that is allowed. I'm unlikely to commit anything other than the occasional note to paper for now though. Some of my ideas in development took years to reach the point where I ever wrote a word, or at least more than a page. 'Orb of Arawaan' is, incidentally, one such example. Just a short story of around a thousand words and a few odd ideas in my head in 1997, and finally written in 2004. All the time in between was development in my mind. Remember kids: daydreaming whilst lying back on your bed with a cup of tea at your side is valid work for a writer. Honest.

Weddings and back to the grindstone.

Married life continues, and I still possess that warm, smug glowing feeling inside that I've finally made that move of ultimate commitment! Above is one of the pictures that I've so far seen from the wedding (I'm sure I'll get told off by the web designer for breaking the blog, but as she is my wife, I'm sure that she will forgive me).

On the writing front, I'm now working on an edit of 'Orb of Arawaan' as well as developing a short horror story. No idea of timescales as of yet.

After the wedding the work continues.

So this is what married life feels like. In the most it isn't really that much different, but on the other hand it seems that there is a deeper unexplainable bond between myself and my new wife (it was a civil partnership in case anyone is confused). This bond is probably borne out of the deeper l;evel of commitment for each other that we have shown publically. Indeed, we have even started making arrangements to get rid of duplicate books that we own - now that is commitment to each other to give away copies of Terry Pratchett books that we have owned from University.

With the wedding over (and what an amazing wedding that was!) my thoughts are slowly returning back to writing. I have started work this morning on the editting of 'Orb of Arawaan' ready for a better revised edition. It also will serve the purpose of refamiliarising me with the plot , story and charectors ready for writing the long awaited sequel.

I have also begun jotting down other ideas. One of these is another horror book set in a housing estate. It comes from a very surreal and creepy dream that I had last night. The dream was so vivid that if I had been a child I would have described it as a 'mightmare'. I think that means it should tick all the boxes for horror. Unlike 'Bringing home the stars' it will be pure horror and not have a sci-fi theme to it. I need to keep developing the idea on paper and in my head though to get enough of a vivid idea that I can sit down and write something from it. Like 'Bringing home the stars' though, I may be tempted initially to try it as a short story and see how well it goes. Possible a radio dram too?

On the subject of radio dramas, the awards ceremony is coming up the weekend after next. I'm looking forward to it, as it is a chance to wear another posh frock (I do hope it fits; I've been hitting the food of the good life over the wedding weekend rather a lot). I still have fingers and toes crossed for whether I might be in the running.

And finally, we bought a Wii fit yesterday. We were so incredably lucky to get one. As those in the know know, these things are still like golddust. Some people have even bought them second hand for more than double the rrp. We popped into Argos in Manchester on the off chance. They must have just received stock, because when we checked their computer terminal, it listed two available. By the time we were paying, that had dropped to just one, and I suspect that there were several very disappointed people in the queue behind us. I can't believe just how fortunate we were. Even the guy who served us said that we were lucky getting the last one. Zoë has now found the skiing game, and I have a feeling I'm going to quickly become a Wii fit widow as she will never be off the damn thing!

Wedding stresses

I apologise for not writing much here at the moment. The wedding, with less than a week still to go to it, is soaking up all my time. Not to mention trying desperately to hold down a job with unpredictable hours. It all makes for a very stressed out Jenny. I'm told that this stressfulness is normal this close to a wedding, but that comment does not help me much. Still, I'm sure I'll feel much better on the day; I still have to write that speech I'm giving though. Bah!

On the writing front, two more short stories have appeared in print in a magazine. I'm doing quite well on that tally. I still haven't heard back from the agent though; I guess he is quite busy too. I'll give him to the end of the week then see whether he has had a chance to have a look at it by then. Fingers crossed.

I'm coming across more and more people who have read or are reading my books. That's quite an ego-swelling feeling. I'm not sure yet which of the six in-print books are coming out tops, but for some reason 'Syndicate Dawn' seems to be mentioned quite a few times. Also the short ebook of 'Bringing home the stars' (the short story version) seems to be prooving very popular - all the more ammunition to convince an agent to take it on! Until after the wedding though, don't expect knew material from me; there simply isn't time and I am stressed like an elastic band at full stretch. Bah!

All stop for wedding

The wedding is getting awfully close, so not much time to write. At least I got 'Bringing home the stars' completed though. I haven't had a single moment since to looks at the next project or write anything, and I suspect that until after the wedding that's how it is likely to be.

It's all very stressful!