The book without a title.

Here's an excerpt from the hand written story about Thomas. It's my first unplanned draft. Obviously I've typed it up for this...

"The television was stolen a month ago but they still stayed staring at the blank space. It was no wonder why the television was stolen, it was the only thing in the room obviously worth stealing. It was also the only thing not covered in a years worth of dust and rubbish. The television was kept clean. The television was God, until now. I pulled the envelope from my pocket.

Laurence glanced over and grunted. He'd probably try and argue that it was a 'what's that?' but it was definitely a grunt. Laurence grunted a lot.

I played with the torn flap for a while, wondering if there was anyway I could repair it without being noticeable.

Notice how I didn't look inside? I bet that shocked you, but do I rally come across as the type of guy who opens somebody else's post? Not me!

But if it's already open I'll have a quick glance.

I Inverted the envelope.

Keys.

A set of keys. One keyring and four keys. Two of the keys were Yale, the looked like standard front door keys, they also looked completely identical. The third looked strangely like the key I used to have on my old bike lock, back when I still exercised. Key number four was the really odd one out.

But then again I've never really conducted a study on different key types. My bad, really sorry and all that. It looked like a standard lever lock key but instead of just one edge it had three sets of teeth. That must have meant three independent internal levers. Three locks in one, very strange. Maybe if I sat and thought about it, dredged some distant memory I would have thought that I might have seen one of these a long time ago but I didn't.

I said 'what's that' Laurence asked, apparently for the second time. I jangled them at him.

'Just keys'

'Oh'

Disappointment, it wasn't anything he could eat, play or watch. I stood and headed for my room, leaving the boys to watch the grimy wall and hoping it would entertain them."

That's pretty much a direct transcription of my handwritten scrawl.

Thanks for reading,

Keep smiling,

Sx

Links

I dare say that more links will be added as time goes on but for the minute there are only a few. The majority of them are in some way relevant to this blog's output. Others I just like.

At college I made a freind whose name was Ali Somers. He's a, as he describes himself, 'Misanthrope, misotheist, poet and a biologist', he displays some of his work on his website, and I encourage you to take a look.

There's a blog about a boat, this one's updated by my mother and is her take on the inland waterways. Or, as she describes it 'one womans obssession with big fore ends'.

Celtx Homepage. Celtx is the program that I use for writing my screenplays/scripts. I was very impressed with this program as, not only is it free, but it's incredidibly simple, efficient and professional looking! I'm not being paid to say that... I really do recomend it!

Indymogul. For film makers and film fans alike, this site is the home of backyard effect. But I took more heed of their 'four minute film school' episodes. They hav a very intuitive and impressive way of remaking Hollywood style effects and have a huge range of ideas designed to encourage writers and actors alike. Thank you, Eric Beck!

Whenever the world is feeling too serious I like to take a jaunt over to the sarcasm society's blog for instant relief.

Next month I'm taking part, as I've alrady said in National Novel Writing Month. This is another non-profit organisation dedicated to inspiring writers into making stories. Their numbers grow every year with people aiming to wite a complete short story in just one month.

Of course there are numerous websites dedicated to hosting short stories but they're quite easy to find. Google is your friend....

All the links to these pages are on your right. Read, enjoy and share!

Keep smiling,
Sx

Tools of the trade? Part One

That title sounds a little pretentious but this is what I use the majority of the time that I'm writing fiction. Of course I own a word processor but I started writing in these little red books I picked up from WHSmiths and I rather like them It seems to keep what I write in them separate from anything I do for University or suchlike. It also frees me from wanting to hit the 'wordcount' button every six minutes and this in turn allows me to concentrate on the meaning of the words and not the number of them.


But I do, therefore, have to deal with my incredibly scruffy handwriting, hence the pen. It's a glass dip pen that works like a quill. It means that I have to write slowly or it really is eligible. Also I get a little extra thinking room when dipping the pen and waiting for the pages to dry before I can turn them! My mother bought me the pen in Lewes at the end of my first year of university (I'm a philosophy student at Birkbeck, London).

The yellow writing paper is also different from the white stuff I use for my lecture notes. I'm very unorganised and this helps differentiate between them at a glance!

Keep smiling,
Sx

Current works

I guess it's a fairly common thing when a teenager says that they write stories, or maybe that's just my imagination. Whenever it snows I always imagine how many people are writing poems about purity and whatnot but anyhow... This is what I've got right now. I'll give a little more depth and detail in later posts, this is just a quick overview on what I'm writing now and my short term plans for the future.

First off there's a story without a name. It follows a young man called Thomas who is sent, by a stranger, to deliver a set of keys to another stranger but soon finds himself out of his depth and has to work out just what he's been dragged into. I would give more information on this story but I'm afraid that as of yet I have no idea how it turns out! This story started as an exercise. At school, college and university teachers and lecturers insist that it's harder to write without a plan than with one, but I wondered where the story would take me if I simply drifted along with it.

Next there's a script called 'The last of the Angels' and it's now in its fifth (I think) rewrite stage. As it stands it's approximately an hour and forty-five minutes long. It follows two Angelic beings, Alex and Thomas, on earth and the struggles they face when one turns human and the other realises hat he's in love with his, now mortal, best friend.

A selection of short stories that I'm writing as a Christmas present for a friend are taking up the majority of my spare time at the minute, the finished works so far include 'Winnie-the-Pooh and the tall tree', ''Death in Colin's bookshop' and 'Louis' back story'. More on each of those later.

I have a plotline worked out for a teenager called Liam and a mystery female friend. She is the only person he remembers after a, rather horrific, car crash. But he doesn't know how he knows her. In his efforts to discover who she is he also finds out that he's not always the person that his friends think he is (namely a 'hard bastard') but has a softer side too. As I said, I know the plot of this, but haven't yet decided whether to write it as prose or in a screenplay. I might try and write both simultaneously for a challenge and see where I end up!

And finally a story that I cannot start to write for another four days... I'm joining in with National Novel Writing Month this year. My contribution will be a story called 'Elliot and Lilly'. But I'll keep you updated on this project as it gets Written.

Keep smiling,
Sx

This blog has a purpose again.

I welcome myself back to the internet without much aplomb or hope but nonetheless let's see what it makes of me, and I of it.

This blog was, once, a new home from my old blog. Both were fairly pointless and this died a rather sudden death. 'Fell stillborn from the press'? Maybe. Anyway, this blog is hopefully going to be reincarnated. I should still be filling it with useless twaddle that I accumulate but also these posts will become the homes to my writings... I like to write. Maybe you already knew this. I have several projects underway and this blog is an effort to keep me motivated in these works. This plan works in theory, but will only work in practice if people read this blog and expect me to write things, and me being to embarrassed to say I've not written anything!

I haven't felt like quitting yet but if I ever do, hopefully this will stand to show me what I've already done, what to improve on and to give me hope and ambition. But hopefully not too much ambition.

This is today's post. I doubt if this sentence is being read but if it is, then please come back tomorrow. I'll do another post then.

Thank you!

Sx