On publishing and complaining without reason.

It was a total surprise today to discover a short article I wrote in print in a magazine that I occasionally get. It's non-fiction, but I submitted it months ago and was told they wanted to use it. However it missed issue after issue, so I stopped looking out for it. Imagine my surprise when leafing through a copy of the magazine at lunchtime and finding that piece staring back at me! It was only a few days away from the next issue of the magazine being out, so I could have easily missed it completely.

I was talking with some-one the other day about swearing in print. I realised as we talk that it is something I have very fixed personal standards on. I don't think I have ever used the f-word in anything I have written and published. In this day and age when moral standards are on the decline, I still think that the f-word has no place in most things on the screen and in print. It is a vulgar word that often adds nothing but unjustifiable offence. Of course, sometimes it is acceptable in context. I never felt that the film Trainspotting or Lock stock and two smoking barrells ovwerstepped any mark. Their use of the word seemed somehow justified, but often in print and on screen the word isn't at all.

I do use other swear words such as 'shit' and 'piss' but then again, I swear in real life too - there is no halo over my head, I can tell you! I don't think anyone reading any of my stuff would wrinkle their brow and think: "This doesn't seem right: the f-word hasn't been used." Charectors don't have to be chavvy and vulgar for the story to work. All too often, frequent use of the f-word - especially on screen - seems to stem from an abscence of real plot and scriptwriting skill.

I see that the Mary Whitehouse wannabes are back jumping on the bandwagon. Now, I felt that Brand and Ross certainly overstepped the mark and were specifically offensive against two real people in a way that could never be justified. But Jeremy Clarkson wasn't, and it annoys me this breed of imbeciles who sit by the television waiting to be offended just so they can complain. We'll call them the 'Complaint Nazis' from now on. It smacks of having a complete sad and somewhat bullying outlook on life. They decide to get offended over nothing so decide they must foist their lack of taste upon everyone else. I'm sure Clarkson will shrug these fools off. I actually did watch Top Gear, and really cannot see what all the fuss is about.

Little Jenny Wren.

It's been a rather pleasent surprise this morning. The post came early. Actually, whilst that was a surprise, it wasn't the surprise. The post brought a copy of a magazine in which I discovered 'Bringing Home the Stars' in print, unabridged and forming nearly a quarter of the entire magazine. I had sent it originally saying it was unfortunately far longer than their usual submissions of a couple of thousand words. They had asked for something of a horror nature, and I thought there was a small chance that they might abridge it or serialise it. Instead they were impressed enough, it seems, to print it in its entirety!

It's day one of NaNoWriMo, and I've written approximately zero words so far. Well, plenty of time yet, but I must get into the habit. Work has picked up at the moment, so I might be rather pushed on time. We'll just play (or should that be 'write'?) it by ear.

Today is the Jenny Towers annual fancy dress Halloween party. We've been doing this for about four years now. The theme is fancy dress, but not necesserilly Hallowwen. Consequently in previous years I've come as a burlesque dancer, naughty schoolgirl and The Demon Drink. This year I may have secured a WRNS ratings uniform, and subject to the large box of old uniforms in the stores I am visiting this afternoon providing something serviceable that fits, I may just pull this off. Sexy Jenny Wren! I'm hopeful they can find a cap - which we affectionately refered to as 'lids' in my time in the cadets - that fits. I have a big head, and in cadets many years ago they had great difficulty in finding one that fitted.

I'm sure I had something else meaningful to say. I was thinking about it both yesterday and the day before. But it's gone now. I'm sure I might remember in time for the next blog entry.

Where have I been?

It's been a while since I lasted posted on here. The reason? I've actually been working very hard, mostly elsewhere. I roughly calculate that in the last six days I will have worked a grand total of over 75 hours, working not less than 12 hours in any one day.

Consequently I felt yesterday when I finally finished this mammoth task, rather tired. I just haven't had any time to do any writing, although I have been mulling over a few ideas. Tomorrow sees the first day of NaNoWriMo, so I'll be trying to keep to the daily target of something like 1,666 words. As long as I don't go off on some huge mammoth work-based bender again, then I'll be alright.

I'd like to think I had something more meaningful to say, but I've been asleep for nearly 14 hours (I was surviving on no more than 4½ hours a night for six days), and I still feel a little tired. Still, I just think of the money.

When we were Young

Actually, the title of this post reflects the title of a short story I've just edited, rather than anything more meaningful. I'm taking a quick break from writing 'The long summer of war' and having a look at some of the material I wrote a while ago and put to one side because I wasn't fully happy with it. One bit is the original opening to 'The Atlantic Connection' and the other is actually the remnants of a cut section from the first draft of 'Syndicate Dawn'.

A part of me worries a little about recycling material that wasn't good enough to make it into previous books. I'm looking critically at these two pieces, and whilst I'm happy with the edit I've done on the first (it was cut because it just didn't fit with the direction or feel of the book), I'm not so sure on the second so that may get dropped by the wayside. It was written in 1999 originally, so it needs rather a heavy edit to come up to standard, in my opinion.

I'm nearly done on 'The long summer of war' and only have one little scene left to pull together towards the end. I've even got ahead of myself and written the very end page! But, I'm starting to get bored with it. It isn't sci-fi or fantasy, and marked quite a departure for me. I'm not sure how well the piece has worked, but it is certainly different. One thing is for certain that I won't be trying regular boring run of the mill fiction again any time soon. It was nice to have a change, but we'll just leave it at that. My 'day' job workload is impeding on my time a lot at the moment though, so it looks like it might be next week at the earliest before I get this wretched novella done. I've had to resort to listening to my Clannad LP collection to try and inspire me to the right setting. There's only so many times you can listen to them before you start accenting vówels and typíng wíth á lílt. It's a bit weird. I'll just be happy when I move back onto good steady sci-fi - you know just where you are with a huge robot from outer space ripping aliens limb from limb and pimping his futuristic spaceship ride.

I want to clear the decks of current projects in order to get ready for this NaNoWriMo next month that my silly PR person signed me onto ("It'll be good for your profile...." My arse, more like). I'll have to think about what story I'm going to try and throw 50,000 words at in thirty days. At least by the end of it my internal monologue might have lost this infernal Irish accent it appears to have picked up listening to Clannad albums.

On writing to a deadline and other strange creatures.

I've been prodded to update the blog as it was pointed out to me by some-one that it has been ten days since I did last. Time just flies by, though I have been very busy with me time. The weekend, for example, I really don't know where that went. I did two favours last minute on Saturday which meant that I worked twice; starting at 1:00am and 9:00pm and by the time I got to bed on Sunday I couldn't tell people what year it was, let alone what day. Working like that makes the mind increasingly confused.

I've been signed up by the person who deals with my PR these days to the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) for the month of November. I must say that left to my own devices, I'd not have done, but they said it's good for raising my profile. Apparently. I like to write stuff at my own leisure, but this will be a new experience for me. I will be expected in order to 'win' (this is a nominal term and everyone who reaches the target 'wins') I have to write 50,000 words or more between the beginning and the end of the month. None of it can be previous worked on material.

But I've been signed up, so here I am along with a few other authors and a lotof people who just write for fun. There must, actually, be several hundred thousand people who do this. If truth be known, I feel a little daunted by the idea. I don't like such tight deadlines, and one month from start to finish is actually a really tight deadline for a book. It can be done, and a lot of people do manage, but I now feel obliged to succeed to avoid looking like a failure as a writer.

So I've been thinking about ideas to write about. Now ideas can often be the hardest part of writing. What are good ideas and what are bad ones? Well, you certainly know which are which firstly when writing something then secondly when reading it. I've had a rummage around and come up with two immediate possibilities. The first is to explore the second book of the trilogy that the more eagle-eyed will recognise as starting with 'Orb of Arawaan'. Yes, I know there is currently only one book and a trilogy is conspicuous by its abscence, but there is meant to be three books I can assure you. I just got distracted after the first one by other projects and forgot to come back.

The other idea is completely new. I had a dream a long time ago and came up with the plot in it for a story involving children cast adrift on a desert island after the cruise liner they were on sinks mysteriously. They are rescued by what appears to be a mad professor in a time travelling hot air balloon (it was a dream, so humour me - the idea will get ironed out in the writing process). They have a series of adventures (I'm not going to give too much away here) which culminates in the children working out the truth about the professor that he is in fact one of the children who he rescued.

I would treat the exercise as creating a rough first draft which ultimately I could then revisit later on. The sequel to 'Orb of Arawaan' one would certainly ultimately need to be around the 140,000 word mark to fit with the length of book one. Either way, it might be a fun month to hammer out rough ideas. I may even elect to do a third story of whatever suggests itself, or expand on the idea of a short story I've written to take the story further - 'Bringing home the stars', for example, has a sequel that slumbers on my computer that is intended to expand it into a novella and beyond called: 'The Stars came home'. There's actually a lot of things I could do.

Apart from that, my life is rather mundane. Perhaps that isn't the best thing for a writer of cutting edge sci-fi and fantasy to admit, but it is the truth. The mould problem is no more, thanks to hard work, fungicide and a dehumidifier. The council also unblocked the drain outside at the front, which seems to help. Incidentally if you are struggling with mould I can heartily recomend the following page on t'internet that was invaluable for me when I declared war on the unwelcome green visitor.

Finally, I've been thinking about getting a newer car again. I've been reading up on energy storing technology which whilst in its infancy, looks extremely promising. I calculate that it will take at least four years for the technology to become used in easily available cars, then affordable on the secondhand market (never buy a new car - let some-one else pay the depreciation and run it in). So the Swedish tank will have to soldier on at least until then. I'm sure it will as my last Volvo managed admirably.

Fingers typing in a blur.

I'm actually amazed at how much progress I'm now making on 'The long summer of war'. I've written around seven thousand words in two days so far, and I really feel like I've got a very good handle where it is all going. I'm guesstimating that the finished thing will be around 15,000-20,000 words long; firmly in novella territory.

Along with 'Bringing home the stars' it will form the backbone of the new anthology. I've also taken a look at some of the other material I'll be working on next. It has no title, but it was cut from 'Syndicate Dawn' because I felt it strayed from the direction I wanted the book to take and slowed the pace down. It will be heavily rewritten and edited, but it might be interesting for some; it contains a charector written out of 'Syndicate Dawn', though I don't know yet whetehr he will find himself written out of this in the edit too. I also found a cut bit from 'The Atlantic Connection and whilst I'm as yet undecided, that might get edited and finished and make it in too.

This year has been exceptional in terms of my writing productivity. I only hope I can keep the pace up: despite effectively a few months largely off because of other commitments, I'm back on form and looking at completing a second book this year on top of two revised other books and a whole bunch of short stories (okay, small cheat in that some of the short stories are also part of the anthology! But shhhh!)

I've also been contributing a lot of ideas for the collaborative webcomic I've been working with Zoë on called 'All over the house'. We don't have a syndication deal, but it may yet get a website yet and we'll work on building it up in the same way that webcomics such as penny arcade built themselves up. Eagle eyed readers may also have noticed that the other webcomic that I occasionally help script has been conspicuous by its lack of updates recently. However, Zoë's other commitments have eased with the passing of her exams, so hopefully new strips will start appearing regularly again sooner rather than later (hint, hint!).

On writing and the environment.

'The long summer of war' continues very well. I haven't had a lot of time, but I've been trying to get a lot further into this story and get a good idea of the routemap for the plot. I have to admit that already I'm getting worried that I've spent too long on this one, though part of that is because of having to take a lot of time out to battle a mould infestation in the house and to work some rather strange hours for the day job.

Sometimes things click, and I write in a fury that doesn't stop until I'm done. I remember writing on 'Orb of Arawaan' and putting down some 145,000 words within little more than a month because it all just flowed. On the other hand, some things dragged on - 'Daytrippers' became like this for its second half; I was glad to get it finished in the end. I'm not sure though that 'The long summer of war' fits into this category though. When I am writing, the words seem to be coming. It's just the frequent interuptions that are stringing it out. I'll just have to see where it is going. Hopefully I'll be able to start work sooner rather than later on the next short story - that's just a major edit job rather than writing from scratch.

I was struck today by how much we recycle here. Things have come a long way in the last five years, and I suppose society as a whole should be making the effort. We now buy things here with a view to how easilly the packaging can be recycled. Consequently our black bin is rarely more than a quarter full on bin day, and we empty the kitchen bin when it starts to smell rather than when it is full.

We got a wheelie bin exclusively for card and paper some time back. It is surprising just how much paper and card waste gets produced. We actually fill this bin, and all of it goes for recycling instead of landfill. Beside it is the box for plastic, metal and glass and we regularly fill that right up too.

I do believe strongly that it has never been so easy to recycle and take some degree of stand on excess and unrecyclable packaging. I agree wholeheartedly with councils who fine people who stubbornly refuse to recycle even when the means to has never been so easy. At the end of the day, it is ignorance and laziness that provide the barrier rather than anything else.

Elsewhere in the home we take great pains to switch off electronics at the plug when not in use. How I abhor badly designed electronics that try and sit and waste so much power to be on 'standby'. The sooner that is outlawed in new electrical goods, the better. We also have all energy saving bulbs, and only ever have on what we need, and never any more. We disposed of an inefficient freezer because of the energy it wasted as well as the fact it encouraged us to stock up on unhealthy junk food because it became easy to store the stuff.

Finally, we conserve water by sharing our baths. That is, we share the water as the bath is too small for two people in it at once! There are also other measures we take and it makes our gas and electricity bills a lot lower than they might otherwise be. If only everyone else was as commited to energy reduction and recycling as we were then this country would not have the resource and generating capacity problem that it currently does.