A big fake foam shark!

This has been a strangely productive Wednesday after a couple of weeks of slackness on the writing front.

Tonight I made some minor edits to Piscky's Ascent, the short story I wrote in January. Then I renewed my membership the OWW (Online Writing Workshop for Sci-Fi) and posted the story for crits. I'm going to submit this story. Somewhere, not sure yet. Here's the thing: I've never submitted anything before. Apart from to writing competitions. But not anything for publication. And it's time to do something about that!

I'm going to get myself re-absorbed into the OWW and post some more crits of my own (only 2 more and I will attain "Veteran Reviewer" status!) I've been a member there, on and off, since 2001. Holy sardines, Batman! (I saw some of the original 1966 Batman movie tonight - I've never seen it before! - and it's just awful! I think it jumped the shark before the Fonze was even born - have you seen the foam-shark attack? It attacks Batman while he's hanging from the ladder of a helicopter. Luckily, Robin passes him a handy can of Shark-Repellent-Bat-Spray to ward off the shark, which falls off Batman's leg and then EXPLODES in the ocean. Yep.) Anyway, the workshop is brilliant and if you are an amateur writer in the sci-fi field I highly recommend it.

After the OWW sojurn, I added a few hundred words to In Finding and broke through the 60,000 word mark. A lot of the last 10 k words on that are crap but I need to write more of the story before I know how to go back and fix them. We.are.getting.there.slowly.

Sometimes the most frustrating thing about writing is just how slow it is. For me, at least. Knowing that I have to finish this first draft before I can even start editing, and that process will be lengthy enough too.

Then I played around with another short story that's been brewing since I dialled up some prompts on the story spinner. It doesn't feel as solid to me as Piscky's Ascent, but all short story experience is good experience.

Now, I'm going to publish this, brush my teeth, and settle down to read more of my latest book (Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse - a collection of short stories by some LEGENDARY writers - review will come when I finish it!)

A random assortment of updates

I owe this sucker an update! Should have posted during Easter. So, the weather is just luscious in London at the moment. Full of light, blooming blue skies. Promise of warmer weather still on the MetOffice website. Love love love. You all know how much I hate the darkness and cold of winter.

The Duffster & I have booked plane tickets -- many, many tickets -- for Christmas and New Years: Nelson for the former, Melbourne for the latter! It's going to be a whirlwind trip of 3 weeks but I'm already hyped up about seeing my family again (it will be 2 years since my last visit), and drinking up some southern hemisphere sun, and all the stuff I raved about last time - fish & chips, L&P, jellytip ice cream, taking the boat out for fresh fish and mussels and oysters and scallops... Plus a trip to Melbourne where I will finally meet Duffy's family!

This week for my writing night, I skimmed back through the short story I wrote in January, Piscky's Ascent. Made a few edits here and there. Now I want to write another one -- short stories are a nice way to work on something different without completely distracting myself from the novel.

I'm going to use this wicked brainstormer wheel to uncover some story prompts RIGHT NOW!


You can click "random" to generate three things, or use your mouse to turn each disc. I just got the following: miracle / rotting / cubicle. Hmm.

I wrote Piscky's Ascent using Notwelshman's prompts of "fish" and "escaping". I love how you can build a story from just a few words, a few ideas. They are the pieces of string you pick up, you pull up, and as you pull they bring more ideas with them, till you have a whole ball of string in your hands, along with other useless metaphors. Stories are everywhere.

Thoughts on a Thursday

I can't believe I only have 2 days left in my current job - it's quite weird to think next week I will be starting a new one. Looking forward to next week! Although I'm excited about starting a new job, I always dislike the first week as you usually don't *do* anything...! It's all setting up computers & email and reading employee handbooks and meeting people (and forgetting their names) and so on.

So, because we had girls' night last night, I had my writing night on Tuesday instead. I sat down with that 'Escaping Fish' short story and hammered out the rest of the first draft. All that's missing are the last few lines. But I've been thinking about the story and will probably rearrange some of the structure. I think I made an amateur approach to it in that I withheld some info from the reader until the end. I've decided I don't need to hide it; actually it will have more impact if I reveal the info before the end, so the reader will be fully informed of what the characters are doing in the last moments and what the implications are.

After I finished that draft, I tried to write more on In Finding, but found it hard to switch brains. So I'll probably pick that up again in the weekend. I'm still a little under 40 k words on that - I wrote quite a lot last weekend, but I also removed an entire scene! Argh, I hate going backwards! Although I did put together a list of 'things that need to happen' / scenes for the story, and I'm not sure in which order they should go. I guess I need to think more about how one thing could affect another thing, etc.

I also made a list of the short stories I want to complete:

- Escaping Fish
- Dancing at the Lilac Orchid (already done, needs rewrite)
- A Slice of Soul (already done, also needs rewrite, have to find the tension)

I think once I have those 3 to a point where I am mostly happy, I will rejoin the OWW (sci-fi & fantasy online writing workshop) and post them for review. And of course, start reviewing other people's work too. I have been a member of the OWW on-and-off since 2002 and think it has been invaluable for improving my writing. Learning how to crit another person's story will always help your own.