Monday, December 12, 2005
Chipping Away At The Block
I didn't enjoy my journey to work. It wasn't the darkness; I liked that. It wasn't the coldness; I liked that too. It was the people on the bus. Why do people think it necessary to barge and breathe on others when there is enough room for everyone? If just a little bit of patience was shown. I'm sick of a lot of the arseholes who travel on public transport and think the entire system was put there for their singular benefit.
This morning I actually missed being on a train. I used to commute 100 miles a day round-trip between Glasgow and Edinburgh. It meant I was up at 5am each morning and not getting home again until 9pm, but at least the trains were comfortable, warm and spacious. When they were running, that is. I could write a novel-length post about some of the trauma I have experienced on Scotrail services between the Capital and the West of Scotland.
These days, I am half an hour from work but the journey is a treacherous one. The Council are talking about reintroducing trams in the future. Wonderful; Lothian Buses on steel tracks.
I started editing the Rankin feature today but ended up rewriting most of the article. I decided it read much better turned on its head and as a conversation piece rather than a straight forward interview. The first draft of this, by the way, came out at over 11,000 words! It turned into Ian's life story, which is what it was originally meant to be, but I've cut it right back for the Scruffy Dog feature. It's looking good now but there's still some tweaking to be done before Thursday's deadline.
I wrote out tomorrow's entry for The Scruffy Dog Review Blog; a short review of Friday night with Smith, Rankin and Welsh. I had to fight this article, because although it was easy enough to put together, I was so tired my head was almost drooping at my desk. I didn't want to have to write it in the morning before work so I just kept going.
I completed another few issues of Hunting Jack taking me to issue 64 of the series. Once the first re-write is done - which is also acting as a refresher of the story - I am going to split it into chapters, submit the first couple to the Undiscovered Authors Competition and then really get my teeth into sorting out the plot in a more detailed and exciting manner. There are things I want to add in, whole chapters and events, and things I want to remove. The ending is pish for a start so I want to change that entirely.
I have finally made contact with The Leither magazine. After numerous attempts at contacting them with teasing press releases and emails over the past eighteen months, I discovered an avenue with a contact through their PR company. I sent a copy of the Fringe press release to the nice lady I had been given, stating exactly why The Leither should be interested in interviewing me. An email, my first response from them, arrived late this evening providing me with the name and phone number of the "boss" of the magazine, who was copied in on the mail, and who I was promised was excited by the idea.
I couldn't get to sleep for some reason tonight. Might have been the incredibly bright moon shining in my face, I don't know, but I ended up getting up and reading Irvine Welsh's story from the One Story book I bought on Friday night at the Festival Theatre. It's really very funny, typically Welsh with its use of phonetic East coast dialogue and very, very enjoyable. The ending was a bit strange. He went from present tense the whole way through to a kind of rounding off in a fairy-tale kind of way, using the opportunity to take the piss out of the joint Scots/Irish Euro football bid in two years time.
ORDER a copy of my latest book, FRINGE FANTASTIC!Click here to order securely using your credit/debit card.
For more information about Fringe Fantastic, please go to the website: http://fringefantastic.colingalbraith.co.uk
This morning I actually missed being on a train. I used to commute 100 miles a day round-trip between Glasgow and Edinburgh. It meant I was up at 5am each morning and not getting home again until 9pm, but at least the trains were comfortable, warm and spacious. When they were running, that is. I could write a novel-length post about some of the trauma I have experienced on Scotrail services between the Capital and the West of Scotland.
These days, I am half an hour from work but the journey is a treacherous one. The Council are talking about reintroducing trams in the future. Wonderful; Lothian Buses on steel tracks.
I started editing the Rankin feature today but ended up rewriting most of the article. I decided it read much better turned on its head and as a conversation piece rather than a straight forward interview. The first draft of this, by the way, came out at over 11,000 words! It turned into Ian's life story, which is what it was originally meant to be, but I've cut it right back for the Scruffy Dog feature. It's looking good now but there's still some tweaking to be done before Thursday's deadline.
I wrote out tomorrow's entry for The Scruffy Dog Review Blog; a short review of Friday night with Smith, Rankin and Welsh. I had to fight this article, because although it was easy enough to put together, I was so tired my head was almost drooping at my desk. I didn't want to have to write it in the morning before work so I just kept going.
I completed another few issues of Hunting Jack taking me to issue 64 of the series. Once the first re-write is done - which is also acting as a refresher of the story - I am going to split it into chapters, submit the first couple to the Undiscovered Authors Competition and then really get my teeth into sorting out the plot in a more detailed and exciting manner. There are things I want to add in, whole chapters and events, and things I want to remove. The ending is pish for a start so I want to change that entirely.
I have finally made contact with The Leither magazine. After numerous attempts at contacting them with teasing press releases and emails over the past eighteen months, I discovered an avenue with a contact through their PR company. I sent a copy of the Fringe press release to the nice lady I had been given, stating exactly why The Leither should be interested in interviewing me. An email, my first response from them, arrived late this evening providing me with the name and phone number of the "boss" of the magazine, who was copied in on the mail, and who I was promised was excited by the idea.
I couldn't get to sleep for some reason tonight. Might have been the incredibly bright moon shining in my face, I don't know, but I ended up getting up and reading Irvine Welsh's story from the One Story book I bought on Friday night at the Festival Theatre. It's really very funny, typically Welsh with its use of phonetic East coast dialogue and very, very enjoyable. The ending was a bit strange. He went from present tense the whole way through to a kind of rounding off in a fairy-tale kind of way, using the opportunity to take the piss out of the joint Scots/Irish Euro football bid in two years time.
ORDER a copy of my latest book, FRINGE FANTASTIC!
For more information about Fringe Fantastic, please go to the website: http://fringefantastic.colingalbraith.co.uk
Colin 10:07 am