Sunday, June 19, 2005
Back In The Saddle
Hello my lovelies. It's good to be back.
The last two weeks of my life have been hectic to the point that I was unable to blog. My full and hearty apologies to you each and every one of you, and even though the literary genius that occasionally oozes in short spurts has been in short supply, I hope you will accept my apology and forgive me.
To everyone who expressed concern and went out of their way to find out if I was okay - thanks and love to you all.
The truth is, I fell and knocked myself out. Yes, I cracked my head against a radiator, which then burnt some skin from the right side of my face. It sounds worse than it is.
Those of you who know me well are bound to ask, "But what about those ruggedly handsome good looks you are famous for, Colin?" Well fear not, for I am assured by Edinburgh's finest Doctors and Nurses, (and believe me, the nurses were FANTASTIC!) there should be no scarring once the injuries have healed.
Despite my being laid up and drugged beyond belief with various kinds of pain-killers and antibiotics, there has been some movement on the writing front, most of which, occurred only in the last few days.
I read Porno by Irvine Welsh - a review of which shall appear here in due course.
Heart of a Child was rejected by Gorlan Publications because it has - stopped publishing!
I am signed up to do an Internet chat for KIC in the next couple of months.
KIC have also signed up PR personnel who are taking on the job of promoting serials and authors. Should be fun as some of the ideas are exciting.
KIC are also starting a soap opera with the characters from various serials. I started working on this last night in fact once I figured out what the spec was. It's not in fact a soap, but a series of stories for a set of four characters, and each episode takes place in a different serial. So the heroes will find themselves in Jackie's world and from their point of view. Exciting stuff!
I have started work on A Friend To Die For. This is still a working title for a novel I started writing prior to Hunting Jack. I stopped work on it because HJ was contracted but now I have returned to complete it.
The first thing that stood out as I read over it was the diabolical standard of writing. It is a measure of how much my writing has improved, because the grammar, structure and plot arcs are all over the place. It is in need of some serious work to it and I will need to use the same methods I used for HJ to make it work but right now I'm submerging into their world.
I have also decided to approach it in another way. At the moment it is in 3rd person pov, but I am going to re-write it so that it is in 1st person pov - for each character. This will not only be a challenge but an exciting format, which will add to the story's excitement.
I'm not going to go back over the whole of the last two weeks, suffice to say the first 10 days was spent healing and the rest wishing I could batter my head every week so I wouldn't have to come in to work. I missed the entirety of the Leith Festival - totally outwith my control - but other marketing ideas have come to mind for the future.
In the meantime, I will give you a run down of my weekend.
It was a family orientated weekend. I was back through in Glasgow on Saturday to meet up with my Mum. We used to get together on Saturday afternoons for coffee but since I moved to Edinburgh this came to a stop. So we have decided to start them up again, and my Dad and youngest sister also joined us for lunch in Ingram's Bar in the city centre.
It was a glorious day and at times too hot but it was good to be back in Glasgow - as it always is - but I was happy to get home too as I was tired and exhausted from the heat. I'm just not a "hot-weather" person; I much prefer the freshness of a new winter.
Today is Father's Day and Laura gave me some aftershave and a Homer Simpson card. Not quite sure what she's trying to tell with that. We went down to her Dance School Award Ceremony in the morninig where she got her award for Tap 3 (some tap dance level for Juniors) and then in the afternoon we packed some stuff and headed down to the beach at Gullane on the east coast. It was a cracking day and we had a nice picnic and buried Gail's legs in the sand while she was sleeping.
I started work on the KIC soap; getting to know the characters and decide on a suitable point in which to write my chapter alongside Hunting Jack. KIC also going to do character sketches, which means I will be able to see Jackie's face for the first time in black and white and not just in my mind. That could be weird!
The Soap has thrown up a problem. One of their characters is called Katie, and this is also the name of one of the most important people in my serial. Obviously there are differences, but it might make it confusing to the reader to have two of them. So I'm not sure whether to include her in my contribution - but I would like to see a sketch of her. It all depends on what story I come up with. I sketched down several ideas last night and need to think about them some more before deciding.
That's about it. My head is almost healed but it will be a few weeks before the skin is back to normal. I'm recharged and believe it or not, the time away from the office was marvellous because, well, I wasn't IN the office. I didn't miss it, think about it, wonder what was happening, or divert my mind in any way to anything remotely related to it.
If only every day was like that. It could be of course, and I aim to do my damndest to make sure. If there's one thing I am going to work towards passionately - one small piece of non-fictional work - it is the writing and submission of my resignation letter. To get there I need to write, and write, and write, and then maybe one day.......
The last two weeks of my life have been hectic to the point that I was unable to blog. My full and hearty apologies to you each and every one of you, and even though the literary genius that occasionally oozes in short spurts has been in short supply, I hope you will accept my apology and forgive me.
To everyone who expressed concern and went out of their way to find out if I was okay - thanks and love to you all.
The truth is, I fell and knocked myself out. Yes, I cracked my head against a radiator, which then burnt some skin from the right side of my face. It sounds worse than it is.
Those of you who know me well are bound to ask, "But what about those ruggedly handsome good looks you are famous for, Colin?" Well fear not, for I am assured by Edinburgh's finest Doctors and Nurses, (and believe me, the nurses were FANTASTIC!) there should be no scarring once the injuries have healed.
Despite my being laid up and drugged beyond belief with various kinds of pain-killers and antibiotics, there has been some movement on the writing front, most of which, occurred only in the last few days.
I read Porno by Irvine Welsh - a review of which shall appear here in due course.
Heart of a Child was rejected by Gorlan Publications because it has - stopped publishing!
I am signed up to do an Internet chat for KIC in the next couple of months.
KIC have also signed up PR personnel who are taking on the job of promoting serials and authors. Should be fun as some of the ideas are exciting.
KIC are also starting a soap opera with the characters from various serials. I started working on this last night in fact once I figured out what the spec was. It's not in fact a soap, but a series of stories for a set of four characters, and each episode takes place in a different serial. So the heroes will find themselves in Jackie's world and from their point of view. Exciting stuff!
I have started work on A Friend To Die For. This is still a working title for a novel I started writing prior to Hunting Jack. I stopped work on it because HJ was contracted but now I have returned to complete it.
The first thing that stood out as I read over it was the diabolical standard of writing. It is a measure of how much my writing has improved, because the grammar, structure and plot arcs are all over the place. It is in need of some serious work to it and I will need to use the same methods I used for HJ to make it work but right now I'm submerging into their world.
I have also decided to approach it in another way. At the moment it is in 3rd person pov, but I am going to re-write it so that it is in 1st person pov - for each character. This will not only be a challenge but an exciting format, which will add to the story's excitement.
I'm not going to go back over the whole of the last two weeks, suffice to say the first 10 days was spent healing and the rest wishing I could batter my head every week so I wouldn't have to come in to work. I missed the entirety of the Leith Festival - totally outwith my control - but other marketing ideas have come to mind for the future.
In the meantime, I will give you a run down of my weekend.
It was a family orientated weekend. I was back through in Glasgow on Saturday to meet up with my Mum. We used to get together on Saturday afternoons for coffee but since I moved to Edinburgh this came to a stop. So we have decided to start them up again, and my Dad and youngest sister also joined us for lunch in Ingram's Bar in the city centre.
It was a glorious day and at times too hot but it was good to be back in Glasgow - as it always is - but I was happy to get home too as I was tired and exhausted from the heat. I'm just not a "hot-weather" person; I much prefer the freshness of a new winter.
Today is Father's Day and Laura gave me some aftershave and a Homer Simpson card. Not quite sure what she's trying to tell with that. We went down to her Dance School Award Ceremony in the morninig where she got her award for Tap 3 (some tap dance level for Juniors) and then in the afternoon we packed some stuff and headed down to the beach at Gullane on the east coast. It was a cracking day and we had a nice picnic and buried Gail's legs in the sand while she was sleeping.
I started work on the KIC soap; getting to know the characters and decide on a suitable point in which to write my chapter alongside Hunting Jack. KIC also going to do character sketches, which means I will be able to see Jackie's face for the first time in black and white and not just in my mind. That could be weird!
The Soap has thrown up a problem. One of their characters is called Katie, and this is also the name of one of the most important people in my serial. Obviously there are differences, but it might make it confusing to the reader to have two of them. So I'm not sure whether to include her in my contribution - but I would like to see a sketch of her. It all depends on what story I come up with. I sketched down several ideas last night and need to think about them some more before deciding.
That's about it. My head is almost healed but it will be a few weeks before the skin is back to normal. I'm recharged and believe it or not, the time away from the office was marvellous because, well, I wasn't IN the office. I didn't miss it, think about it, wonder what was happening, or divert my mind in any way to anything remotely related to it.
If only every day was like that. It could be of course, and I aim to do my damndest to make sure. If there's one thing I am going to work towards passionately - one small piece of non-fictional work - it is the writing and submission of my resignation letter. To get there I need to write, and write, and write, and then maybe one day.......
Colin 1:14 pm
4 Comments:
Welcome back to the blog world, Colin! Glad to hear you are feeling better. :)
Big Man! Yer back! Glad to see the Edinburh nurses looked after you, however, I think the Paisley nurses are even better and I happpen to know quite a sexy male nurse myself...
Good to have you back, Col. Glad you're healing up nicely!
:-)
:-)
Wow - great to have you back! What a horrible event (hope you got some good drugs out of it, at least!) Missed your blog, too!