Truth be told, my compulsive pedantic nature is impacting my novel writing. I feel the need to fully explore and understand the backgrounds of my characters. Now I know that a lot of writing methodologies say that this is a good thing, but it so slows me down. As a result I ask myself “how can I turn this into a positive?” Enter magazines and anthologies. I stumbled across a call for submissions
Thanks Firstly a big thanks to everyone who follows or reads this blog. An even bigger thanks to those special few who have chosen to leave comments! To be honest, I really did not expect much interest. So imagine the surprise that I feel knowing that since
Today’s post will be some self-indulgent stuff that I am learning from this experience of chronic pain in my right arm. I will try to write it up in an interesting manner so as to practice my writing skills. I will also preview my proof-of-concept about using MS Excel for making cityscapes. Me and my illness, my illness and me… In the scheme of things, having some sort of temporary
So here I am, lying on my back with a pinched nerve causing the right side of my body to throb. I cannot use my right hand and so am patiently tapping away on my phone with my left hand. I am experiencing my normal drowsy and not particularly lucid response to painkillers. I have a video almost ready to publish on YouTube but cannot finish it until my right
Today I am writing a bit of theory on quality in writing. Just my opinion mixed with some
I am still working on my map and will show the progress so far at the end of this post. But I also continue to write the novel and research ideas relating to it. Indeed, in respect to Tempting in Shade I have reached 411 pages and can perceive that it is likely to end up almost double that. Will my mid-2015 deadline fall? I would not be surprised if
I’ve composed a second image in DAZ Studio using the church window I scanned as a 3D object using Autodesk 123D as per previous posts. I’m pretty pleased with the outcome. I’ve only got one fairly diffuse spotlight shining on the scene and that is a light blue light to give a slightly creepy mood. I
‘Slumming It’ is a documentary by Kevin McCloud whereby McCloud visits the slum of Dharavi in Mumbai, India. Here he finds a world that is so different to that which Westerners (like myself) experience. The children play among filth near toxic drains, Pollution is everywhere. Poverty is everywhere. Surely this must be soul crushing for the inhabitants. And yet there is a richness of spirit that is fascinating to watch.
This is two blog posts for the price of one as I have been dwelling on both of these things. The first is finding the villain that I find perfect for the novel. Yes sure, I’ve already named and described him in the first draft. But I really need to tease him out more. So I have been watching films and documentaries of actors who are known for characterisations
In the mid-1990s I read a book with an idea that captured my imagination. In Verner Vinge’s “A Fire Upon the Deep” I read of a canine gestalt-sentient species called the Tine. A gestalt-sentient species, as portrayed in that novel, was one that had a sort of group mind or group consciousness. So an “individual” might be made up of five or six beings who shared a consciousness. What really
