Thursday, June 02, 2005
A New Energy
Pouring with rain again! The weather more resembles October-time and not summer. It did nothing to raise my mood, especially when I went for the bus to work and it came early, thereby causing me to miss it and have to walk the half-mile to get another bus. I was soaked by the time I got to the office.
I got through some work over lunch and evening. I have started to chop up and reorganise the Robert Louis Stevenson article. Paragraph to paragraph is disjointed and I'm trying to inject some personal thoughts and feelings into it to help make it a more natural read. In places it seems like a fact listing essay, which is not what I want. I want it to be a tribute to a writer who I'm growing to admire daily the more I research his life and works.
I can't help but feel connected to Stevenson, though I'm not sure in what way. Possibly, it is the inspiration he got from Edinburgh, which I am finding is more and more the case for me also. Maybe it's the style of writing in both his poetry and stories; The Strange Tale of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and The Body Snatcher being two of my favourites. Or perhaps it is just empathy toward a genius who loved his hometown but was exiled for reasons out with his control, and then died far too young.
Heart of a Child is now on it's sixth submission, this time to Gorlan Publications. It would be easy to say I wish I had kept it with Wild Child, but in the end I'm happier I pulled it even though it is doing the rounds big style on the subbing circuit.
Loaded was fired off to the editors at The Barcelona Review. This is my first time sending anything to this organ and their estimate is a four to five months turnaround. Maybe I'll get lucky.
I moved my Hunting Jack research and work from the Serials directory to the Novels directory on my PC. A small, but momentous gesture. It will remain there untouched for a couple of months or until I am ready to novelise it. My energy's are recharged and refocussed and new projects are on the horizon. I don't see any reason on working on it just yet when I want to give it a break for a while. There are fresh and new exciting things on my mind just now.
I dug out the existing manuscript for my first novel. It was conceived and started at the tail end of 2002 and it's pretty poor by my standards today. It stands at around 43,000 words and was my first attempt at a novel. The advent of Hunting Jack meant it was put on hold, but now it is ready for completion and screaming at me for attention.
Many of the issues I had with it are not insurmountable any more, and much of the structure is obvious where it is lacking - as is the grammar. If nothing else, scanning over what I have written so far provided a graphic illustration of how my writing has improved over the last couple of years. I have a strong hunger in my gut over this, and I feel much more confident about being able to complete it.
I did some catching up on the phone in the evening. Spoke to my folks who have a wedding down in Irvine tomorrow and my sister. I've hardly spoken to her since she started training to be a schoolteacher. She's been mega-busy but it's all paid off with straight A's and a posting to a school near her home. Tomorrow is her last day in the school she is placed at, and then in a few weeks she will be earning a new kind of pay packet - teaching the youngsters of our nation.
I spoke to my old buddy Bobby Mackerel. He was one of the ushers at my wedding and we've not seen each other for quite a while so we're going to get a date organised for the summer. He just turned 36 and he's having a birthday bash on Saturday but unfortunately I can't go due to babysitting duty. I know he's a regular reader of this blog so - have a good one big man - ya old fart! :-)
I got through some work over lunch and evening. I have started to chop up and reorganise the Robert Louis Stevenson article. Paragraph to paragraph is disjointed and I'm trying to inject some personal thoughts and feelings into it to help make it a more natural read. In places it seems like a fact listing essay, which is not what I want. I want it to be a tribute to a writer who I'm growing to admire daily the more I research his life and works.
I can't help but feel connected to Stevenson, though I'm not sure in what way. Possibly, it is the inspiration he got from Edinburgh, which I am finding is more and more the case for me also. Maybe it's the style of writing in both his poetry and stories; The Strange Tale of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and The Body Snatcher being two of my favourites. Or perhaps it is just empathy toward a genius who loved his hometown but was exiled for reasons out with his control, and then died far too young.
Heart of a Child is now on it's sixth submission, this time to Gorlan Publications. It would be easy to say I wish I had kept it with Wild Child, but in the end I'm happier I pulled it even though it is doing the rounds big style on the subbing circuit.
Loaded was fired off to the editors at The Barcelona Review. This is my first time sending anything to this organ and their estimate is a four to five months turnaround. Maybe I'll get lucky.
I moved my Hunting Jack research and work from the Serials directory to the Novels directory on my PC. A small, but momentous gesture. It will remain there untouched for a couple of months or until I am ready to novelise it. My energy's are recharged and refocussed and new projects are on the horizon. I don't see any reason on working on it just yet when I want to give it a break for a while. There are fresh and new exciting things on my mind just now.
I dug out the existing manuscript for my first novel. It was conceived and started at the tail end of 2002 and it's pretty poor by my standards today. It stands at around 43,000 words and was my first attempt at a novel. The advent of Hunting Jack meant it was put on hold, but now it is ready for completion and screaming at me for attention.
Many of the issues I had with it are not insurmountable any more, and much of the structure is obvious where it is lacking - as is the grammar. If nothing else, scanning over what I have written so far provided a graphic illustration of how my writing has improved over the last couple of years. I have a strong hunger in my gut over this, and I feel much more confident about being able to complete it.
I did some catching up on the phone in the evening. Spoke to my folks who have a wedding down in Irvine tomorrow and my sister. I've hardly spoken to her since she started training to be a schoolteacher. She's been mega-busy but it's all paid off with straight A's and a posting to a school near her home. Tomorrow is her last day in the school she is placed at, and then in a few weeks she will be earning a new kind of pay packet - teaching the youngsters of our nation.
I spoke to my old buddy Bobby Mackerel. He was one of the ushers at my wedding and we've not seen each other for quite a while so we're going to get a date organised for the summer. He just turned 36 and he's having a birthday bash on Saturday but unfortunately I can't go due to babysitting duty. I know he's a regular reader of this blog so - have a good one big man - ya old fart! :-)
Colin 11:16 am
2 Comments:
Wish you and Gail could have made it to the party. It won't be the same without you!
You've sure been busy. Congrats to your sister and your friend. Sorry you couldn't make his BD party.
Good luck w/ all the writing submissions. I became inspired by reading so many "official" writer's blogs in the past few weeks, like yours, and began another blog dedicated to writing, rather than art-centred.
Silken Threads is where I am "SilverMoon" (Green-Eyed Lady)
Good luck w/ all the writing submissions. I became inspired by reading so many "official" writer's blogs in the past few weeks, like yours, and began another blog dedicated to writing, rather than art-centred.
Silken Threads is where I am "SilverMoon" (Green-Eyed Lady)
