The Word Cloud

We said goodbye to our 15 year old Staffordshire today, we took her to te vet at the allotted hour.
I carried her in as she was unable to walk properly, went in, had a quick chat with the vet and soon they were administering the injection for her, she  went under and her breathing became shallow, they put in more and slowly her breathing stopped.
My OH was of course very upset, I of course was very upset. But it was a dignified end for a much loved dog, now she resides under a slab on the lawn by the veg patch to one side and a flower border to the other, she will go back to the soil and the earth and hopefully will return as some feisty pup somewhere.
 Adios Meg we both loved you dearly.
 
One question was in my mind, why can't we have the choice for ourselves? 

Three Dimensions Of Time

This might be of interest to sci-fi and fantasy types.

Some of us have been discussing four dimensional space (Forum/Critiques/A Short Selective Journey Through Hell: Chapter 2) and the question of time has arisen. Is it a dimension like the others? I suspect not, because it doesn’t feel the same. So what sort of dimension it is?

Maybe it’s three.

1. The first dimension of time, I would suggest, is the normal straight-line time we usually experience: past-present-future. This is the equivalent of length.

2. The second dimension is more like a historian’s view, looking down, as it were, from above and seeing how widely separated events (say, in Tokyo and Aberystwyth) may occur at similar moments. This would be the equivalent of adding breadth.

3. When we add the third dimension (height) we make a time-world that can be moved around in. Just as we can go backwards, forwards, sideways, fast, slow or stop in our three spatial dimensions, so a Time-Lord (Hi there, Doctor!) can go any direction – or none – in his three dimensions of time.

4. I can’t picture a fourth dimension of time, though I can of space: “innerness”. However, I bear in mind Blake’s line: “to see a world in a grain of sand... And eternity in an hour.” So maybe that’s it. The secret, both of space and time, lies within – in which case, the fourth dimension of time may be eternity, which can be found inside outer time.

(Possibly a god’s eye view.) (Or even God’s eye view – but I wouldn’t like to presume too far in speculation.) (As Alexander Pope didn’t quite put it: “Presume not God to scan/ Shurrup Gerry, yer only a man!”)

Is all this old and familiar? After all, I presume Doctor Who ought to be based on some sort of theory. And Sci-Fi writers like going off in all sorts of strange directions. So, yeah, I’m probably just catching up on what everyone’s been talking about for ages. Have they?

Now no one said it was going to be easy. In fact, riiiight from the start I've been told that writing a story and all the trimmings that come with it, will be bloody difficult. So three and a half years ago when I began battering away at my imagination and my computer I was in a lovely naiive place, where all that mattered was having fun and enjoying what I do.

But now.

Now I am actually, maybe, possibly, absolutely, perhaps considering (after more editing and help ofc,) that I might send it off. So I start looking through different parts of this website other than the critique section and start reading the W&AYB 2011 - and then I nearly had a coronary.

I am not naiive (much) and am fully aware it is an agonising, rejected, painful, impatient process, but on top of that, I don't even understand it! I'm not one for sending unsolicited MS' because frankly, I don't see the point in this day and age, but at the same time, an agent?! Me?! You must be joaaaaking.

So ontop of the disbelief that I should be considering contacting agents, I also got lost at the parts where the W&AYB talked about "soundbytes" and "synopses" and "CV's" and "SAE's" - bloody hell!
You simply have to get this process right the first time round, or else risk being doomed to float in publishing purgatory for eternity.


Eek, I'm going to become a Koi Carp keeper.

I've been floating around various writing sites these past few years, and one thing that never fails to bring on a full-blown attack of the self loathings than those 'what are you sick of in *insert genre / audience* here' threads. I've just read another one (I am a glutton for punishment) where people are whining about hating the theme of destiny in fantasy.

Okay, it is an overdone theme - yes, I'll give you that. It can be used as a crutch to get the protagonists where the author wants them to be... but what's the harm if it's well written?

So far, I've clocked up people claiming to be sick of the following things (bear in mind, I write fantasy, horror and sci fi, so my examples are derived from those genres): Destiny as a theme, vampires, werewolves, love triangles, love triangles involving werewolves and vampires (granted, that one has been done to death recently...), sex scenes, describing facial expression, quests, the 'violent beginning / swearing revenge' as a theme, anti heroes, stoic characters, damsel in distress (damsel can be male or female), dragons, faeries, cybertech, using jack points for cybertech, the Singularity, dystopian themes, too many female protagonists (mainly in urban fantasy), inter species romances, romance in general, hurt / comfort, dreams (especially prophetic ones, nightmares, waking up as a beginning, prologues in general, normal person finds out they aren't normal after all, normal person discovered secret world and gets involved...

And this is just what I can list off the top of my head!

I'm not saying I don't agree with some of them. I'm not saying people don't have the right to dislike certain themes. But, oi vay, the negativity that abounds! I'm surprised we get *anything* done, considering how much we supposedly hate!  Absolutely everything and anything that has proven vaguely popular in the last  X amount of years (where X stands for the amount of vitriolic bile people spew about it - in terms of Twilight, I think that's going to be for the next thousand years or so...) is hated upon with impunity, and what makes it even worse is that the validity of people even thinking about including these themes is often brought into question (often without the questioners ever reading the said story, or even a clip of it) - after all, how can you possibly construct a good story around such blatant hackneyed, tired crap?

It also makes me wonder:  if they are hated so much, if they are so tired and so hackneyed, why do these themes keep reoccurring? And not just once, but over and over again?

Take writers out of the equation, and just stick to readers. That's readers who do not write. Ask those readers what they think of those themes, and they will almost universally say 'yeah, I really like that. That was good / fun / epic / disturbing' etc. The reason these themes keep reoccurring is because on the whole people like them. 

As writers, we probably dissect what we're reading more than people who don't write, so I expect we recognise reoccurring themes and ideas more than someone who is, for example, just reading for fun. (And I do wonder if some of this 'I'm really sick of XYZ' is sometimes 'DAMN! I wish I thought of that...')

So, why the blog? Because I know my book is chock FULL of these 'I'm sick if it all' themes. I used to worry massively about this. I used to deliberately try to make sure I wasn't including themes that had been singled out by these people. And guess what? I stopped enjoying writing.

Now? Bugger it. Here comes the cliche train, and I am riding it all the way. Why? Because, my dear friends, despite my story including destiny, revenge, anti heroes, dragons, romance, a female protagonist, a 'normal person finds out she isn't normal after all', alternate realities and dreams all in one tidy packet (I'm sure that's enough to give some of the 'sick if it all' brigade an aneurysm of some kind), I'm *enjoying* creating my tale. I'm enjoying putting it all together and finding out what happens to these created people. If I get to share it with others and they enjoy it too, then, well, that's just an added bonus.

And isn't that what it's all about in the end?

*skips off merrily to write more nonsense about chips in a fantasy setting and socks on a swordsman... because she can. Who cares if it doesn't survive the editing process? Right now, it feels good! Ner ner de ner ner!!*

The Bank Holiday Many people are of the belief that its ‘those’ three words that can reduce a man to a quivering jellyfish….that can make him consider selling his organs in order to buy that one way ticket to South America…that can prompt the ultimate fallback of its not you its me ok… Granted, I love you is scary but it’s a moment- it’ll pass. However the more fearsome two words in the British vocabulary that are not as quick in their passing and rear their ugly heads in the months of May…August… have to be Bank Holiday. Is there no more a fearsome, daunting reality to a man who wakes up on the Bank Holiday Monday having consumed the obligatory brewery on the Sunday (because you’re off work on the following day) to hear the immortal words from their partner…’lets have a drive out somewhere’…..’doesn’t our (and select your own torturous insert) garden/kitchen/dining room/bathroom look dated!!!’ Lets face it Bank Holidays don’t work. Many things are blamed for stress…moving house, financial difficulties, family conflict etc but let’s not rule out the good old Bank Holiday. Only in this lifetime would we get Monday as our holiday. Our bodies are not conditioned to being happy on a Monday. The mind more often than not develops man flu type symptoms, regresses to our youth asking our mum(or the now adult equivalent of a flatmate, best friend, work colleague) to ring in school, sorry work, to declare our impending death or in keeping with modern noughties times a sleeping related injury be it a twist, spasm, strain etc.. Why is it a British obsession that on a day off from work…a time to relax...unwind we choose to scrum down with the masses in the DIY, Garden, Shopping centres of this great nation of ours. That is of course after we’ve had the foreplay of sending our blood pressure into orbit with the traffic chaos. Why not get up….have a leisurely breakfast…walk to meet friends, have lunch…a few drinks…watch a few DVD’s…although brace yourself that the few drinks will inevitably land YOU in trouble meaning you’ll have to concede to a chick flick DVD…curse that Sarah Jessica Parker. However if we were to follow this simplistic itinerary what would we all moan about at work on the Tuesday morning!!

Hi,

I'm gonna try and post on here regularly and include new sketches now and again. There are already a few on the Comedy Sketch group if you'd like to see our style.

We've written enough sketches for a six half-hour series, however living in Sunderland we are stuck for an outlet and are short on contacts to forward our work on to.

We have a couple of irons in the fire but nothing solid as yet.

If nothing else, this blog will be a catalogue of our failure.......

Jamie (Magictorch), Andrew and David. (MKM).

I really should start writing again. 

Since finishing my novel I am in that strange limbo land.  I know it still needs editing, and I do tweak in frequently.  Sometimes you can't see the wood for trees though.

So, I should start on a new project.  I have a few ideas.  Don't all look so surprised!

There are a few early stage pieces littering my laptop, but I am bored with them.  I think I may go back to one of two stories that I almost finished years ago, see if I am inspired.

Or I could pick up my guitar again.  I haven't played properly since a gig in early July, and that is criminal.  Use it or lose it.  I tend to get the urge when we have another gig looming, and panic sets in.  Of course my finger tips hurt like buggery afterwards and I always vow not to leave it so long next time.

There is a pub not far from us.  A forty five minute walk along the beach and I have an inkling there may be live music there tonight, it being a bank holiday.  If we go I will slip a capo in my pocket and a few picks, and if anyone asks I will do a few songs.  Or not!

I'll let you know.

Last night, I began work on a novel I want to write about past life regression / children believing that they are someone else or have imaginary friends. Why schizophrenic's choose the characters that inhabit their minds, telling them to perform certain tasks / have inner conversations. All of these subjects have fascinated me for the majority of my adult life. Seeking explanation; I have studied various psychological text books / internet and interviews.
This will be a fictional novel and centres around my interest in Noetic Science and what happens to the energy we release immediately after death (known as the soul to some). This energy cannot disintegrate, therefore, sits in the atmosphere all around us (do you see where I am going with this), my fictional tale has the energy being absorbed into a childs brain at birth, hence giving them a multiple presence in the mind. Past life regression uncovers details of the "soul energy" contained within a person, details of that energy's previous life etc, not our own pre-existence. Without this energy (from the dead), life of humans on this planet would not be able to continue.
Obviously this is a fictional tale with a great deal of scientific fact thrown in and is centred around the lives of four main characters, one being a child of six yrs. My niece; Sophie, believed for many years that she was somebody else. She re-named herself, dressed a certain way, even spoke in an odd accent sometimes. This worried some members of the family, but I found the whole thing interesting and because she was not scared or misbehaving, advised that they let it run its course. Oh, and she knew songs that she could not possibly have heard / learned. Sophie does not remember any of this now (six years on), though she still has bizarre dreams - just like her Aunty Kiki.
A dream has brought this all together for me and i'm really excited about writing it, so much so that I stayed up most of last night consumed in it all, neglecting my current WIP!! (Could have been the wine)
Is this something that people will read??
My brain would not settle until I had written down all of the character information / scenes / details. It's still buzzing now and I am beginning to think that I am going mad.
Anyway, I have now opened up my current MS in an attempt to re-immerse myself in the world of angels.
Anyones opinions would be greatfully received before I go and spend more hours / pages / words on this idea (though not until mu current MS is finished). I have already written 17k words on the idea as detailed above!

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I've come to the conclusion that whatever I write only manages to reach 65,000ish words and then seems to come to a natural end!

I've only ever  wanted to write a novel so none of that short story novella nonsense, but it is so frustrating because I need to write more but if Ido then I'll just be padding it out for the sake of an acceptable word count.

Plus when I go back over and edit my count will go down even more!


I give up, writing is poopy.