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

A shag down at the quay

He blogs again after about a month.

I live in Newhaven, that's a town on the coast with a bad reputation.  But it really isn't as terrible as people like to make out!  Today's post has something to do with it, but also to do with people's political correctness, which is rather amusing.  Let me tell you a story...

A few years ago my mum was on the town council and during her time there the first of the houses built along the west quay were, er, built.  This was all well and good but then the difficult part came, what on earth should it be called?  An inspired council worker suggested the name "Cormorant Quay" after the birds that sit there.

Then a great man (the resident naturalist) named David Harris pointed out that the birds in question were not cormorants, but black shags, and thus it would be wrong to name the buildings after them.  My mum's suggestion of "Black Shag Buildings" wasn't accepted and we are left with the safe, but uninspiring name of "Christchurch Court".

It doesn't even sound rude unless, I concede, you're about 8.    It's a pity, at least with her suggestion you knew what you were getting, there isn't a church down on the quay, but I think that many people would have bought a house there to watch a black shag by the river.

Love,

Sx

Hello,

Hope everyone's new year (2008) has got off to a great start.  As per normal all of my resolutions are not so much resolutions but vague ideas that will probably get forgotten any time soon.

Sam Collard: my dear actor friend, as he is affectionately known (by me), turned 18 on Saturday, his formal masquerade party went down well with his parents as waiters and mixers, plenty of masks and some helium....

That's him (in the mask) and his charming girlfriend Sarah.  Hello there!

one more thing....

It's Fry and Laurie, and they're Kicking ass!

Sleep well,

Sx

Absence...

This can be explained from my going to ESYO and up to Ramsey, from Christmas day till new years eve, on warrior.  Actually, mum's done an interesting post on there about a cucumber.  Christmas gave a few interesting quotes; ("alright, I admit I may have been wrong about the buffalo" being one, said by Jim whilst talking about my sleeping habits. That didn't clarify anything did it...) some nice photos and a few great cruises.

Mum just found a bit of a surprise on the tree, another present!  I rather like it when this happens, it just prolongs the excitement!  Mum unwrapped it, what could it be!  I think it's great.

It's a board!  That's fair enough, but that's not why I like it. Here it is again with my cup of tea, to give it a sense of size....

It's a mini board... but more than that. 

It's a fun mini board, i amused myself greatly thinking of just some of the many funny things i could do with it.  :)

Life looks promising,

Happy 2008

Love Sx

Brighton Centre

I had a concert yesterday, It was very painful.  Parts of it were good (e.g. The ESAM academy voices choir) and other bits weren't quite as good: over a thousand primary school children shouting (literally) about shopping, there were a few good bits of tune sung when they weren't yelling "shop".  I'm not religious but that trivialised the nativity story something chronic!

I'm off to get some more milk, meanwhile here's a website, keep the feminism going...

Sx