Streaks, Deadlines and Vlogs

Streaks

I'm cutting my current writing streak short. Two reasons - firstly, it's getting way too complicated. As I said at the beginning, I've taken an old script and tried to breathe some new life into it. The book is a puzzle/treasure hunt kind of thing, and I focused so much on the puzzles and solutions that I never stopped to wonder what the antagonist's motive was, and in trying to address that, it's become a monster. The second is that it's beginning to drift away from what I want to write right now - comedy horror. This had both initially, but in trying to deal with the first problem, the central theme of the story became so much darker, which made the comic relief moments more of a distraction than a natural part of the story.

Is it time wasted? Of course not. Every sentence written makes you a better writer, and regular writing streaks increase stamina. It's all about keeping the machine ticking over.

Deadlines

Buttercup #2 edits are underway and need to be done as soon as possible so I can work on the illustrations over the summer. Most of the weekend is going to be spent doing that. However... there's a however attached to this. which leads me on to...

VLOGS

I've been watching a few of these lately. Most are by young, unpublished writers but that doesn't make them less valuable. In most cases, they burst with enthusiasm, and that's infectious. They are often fun and honest - a real warts and all reflection of the hurdles that regular people face on their journey, and because it's done during that journey, it gives a better insight into the creative process than a blog or an interview written after the event. It's like seeing an artist's portfolio - the rough sketches are always so much more interesting because they give you a better appreciation of the final product. They reflect the struggle, the persistence and development that forms the heart of the creative process

I think vlogs like these are important because they help other writers realise they are going through the same difficulties. I include published authors in this too, because when it comes to that first draft, there isn't a lot of difference between me struggling with a new idea and a young writer doing exactly the same. Experience makes the journey easier because you get to know the pattern of the game, but you still have to sit down and turn out the words. Seeing other writers in the same boat really gives you that inspirational buzz.

I keep meaning to dust off my own YouTube channel. But right now... I'm going to watch the Hobbit. I started watching this on DVD last night, then discovered our Jack has got the lot on BluRay. Now I'm going to have to start all over again as I feel cheated on quality. Laters...

Colin Mulhern

Comments

Writing on a Chromebook

I've been playing with a budget Chromebook for the past few months and have to say, a Chromebook is a pretty good choice for writing. I'm using an Acer CB314-1H which cost me a whopping £79 (thanks to a £100 cashback deal). It has a bright, crystal clear FHD screen, a fantastic keyboard (much better than my HP laptop) and it is super lightweight. As far as the keyboard goes, on first impressions, it seems that the keyboard has no delete key or CAPS lock, but both are available with help from the ALT key. It also seems that there is no way to turn the Trackpad off. This takes about ten seconds on Google to enable debug shortcuts, but to be honest, even with the option available, I rarely use. I catch my laptop trackpad all of the time, but hardly ever on the Chromebook. The next thing to consider is software. There's Google docs. You can waste time searching the internet for alternatives, but this means enabling Linux and playing about and it's really not worth it. I man...

Rock Music, Stage Diving and a Fire Crew - It's the Clash Launch Party

Thursday 3rd March was one of the craziest nights of my life. Rather than launch the book in a shop or library, I booked a theatre and got local teen rock band, Hell's Marauders , to play. There were a few surprises during the night. The first was the cake Paula had made, with the full clash cover printed on the icing. The second was the fire engine in the car park.The third was being dragged up on stage to sing Anarchy in the UK with the band. I think I might be the first author to do a stage dive at a launch party. The fire crew were there thanks to Nev. Nev gave me some help on a few technical details in the novel. He was on call on Thursday night but wanted to come along, so he turned up in a fire engine with the whole crew. Catnip editor Non Pratt got up to do a truly wonderful introduction, then I jumped up, grabbed the mike and screamed out, "HELLO FATFIELD!" - proper rockstar style! I calmed down enough to do a short talk about YA fiction and a read...

Writing Challenge Day 3 - Back to Scrivener

Sorry Scrivener, all is forgiven. I've actually been using LibreOffice for about a month because I was using for a different project over the holiday period, and generally, everything was fine. But then today, right in the middle of a sprint, it started acting a little weird. I tried to undo a few things only to see it replace chunks of text with error messages. Then it crashed completely. Thing is, this document is less than 5,000 words. That's not a lot for a word processor to handle. And while it autorecovered the file, it's still one too many crashes for me. Going to back to Scrivener, I suddenly remembered the Session Target tool. This makes life so much easier, as I can see, as I type, my progress. In LibreOffice I'd have to paste the word count into the spreadsheet I'd made. Project targets window It also displays as a line bar at the top of the project with the Manuscript Target at the top, above the chapter title, and the Session Target below, so there...

Colin Mulhern

Search This Blog