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12 Books in 12 Months

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The Nephrop

Short story the first.  On Sunday I went to St Andrews to convene with my family on the grounds that birthdays were had by my dad and my brother and it was a good middle ground on which to meet.  After lunch we went for a drink at the Whey Pat, whereon I was entranced by the mad design skills of the Real Ale Society (there’s a university society for everything you can imagine at St Andrews because it’s not the most happening of places, so one’s own entertainment must be made).  This story was inspired by their poster.  Oh, and the word ‘nephrop’ means lobster in Latin.

Continue reading “The Nephrop” →

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I’ll Write You A Story

September zipped by pretty quick, didn’t it?  That must mean my ninth book is finished.

Well, finished is a strong word to use.  I’ve certainly stopped writing it for the time being.  I ended up with a word count of 21, 203 which is OK I guess, although a lot of the content was pretty un-good.  I’m not saying that to be modest, by the way, I am saying it because it’s true – there’s some real nonsense in there.  It didn’t help that I only really came up with a story that might work last Wednesday, with two days to go.  Perhaps there is something to be said for forward planning after all…

Anyway, let us draw a gauzy curtain over that because now it is October which can only mean one thing – horror.  How could I choose any other genre for the month of Samhuinn?

Continue reading “I’ll Write You A Story” →

17

Constructive Criticism

I’ve had some weird spam in my time, which stands to reason when you have as many blogs as I do.  But I’ve never had anything particularly cheeky before.  Till now!

‘Vacation International Travel’ left me a comment yesterday which I found a little hard to take.  It was left on the post about the Mills and Boon writing competition, where I mentioned they are opening their arms to new romance writers, and shared the first chapter of last year’s NaNoWriMo effort (a romance of sorts entitled The Single Mum’s Aristocratic Library Assistant). 

I’m all in favour of constructive criticism on my work, but when it comes from a bot it feels a little harsh.  It was pretty long as well, so I have deconstructed it as follows:

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Glempy’s Pictonaut Challenge: Grenade in the Rain

Not so very long ago I brought a thing to your attention, namely the intentions of writer, scientician and internet user The Rogue Verbumancer to begin a monthly writing challenge via his blog.  Every month he will post a picture, and every month The People of The Internet are invited to do a piece of writing around it, 1000 words or so in length.  My one for September will follow momentarily; but you should read the other entries too.  Only today Lord Verbumancer has linked to them all on his page.

Also before I post this, a disclaimer: I am so out of practice with short stories after all the novelling I’ve sort of forgotten how to do them – they generally read like a chapter from a book now.  I don’t think this one does, but I’ve been wrong before.  Captain Tact is the only other human to read it so far, and he pronounced it ‘weird’.  I’m not sure whether that is good, bad or indifferent.  If anyone has any further feedback, you know where the comments box is. 

Anyway, here is my take on Grenade in the Rain. Continue reading “Glempy’s Pictonaut Challenge: Grenade in the Rain” →

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Poisonous Mushrooms

Cats = Comedy

Lol. This post isn’t really about poisonous mushrooms, that was a cunning ruse to get you attention. It’s really about book 9 and why I’ve been finding it hard to write. I believe it’s a question of genre.

With specific genres, plots tend to come fairly easily once I have a character in mind.  The story grows up around the characterisation and dialogue – probably because those are the bits I like playing with most.  To give you a for instance, when I was doing fantasy in May I was given two character suggestions and knew immediately what I was going to do with them, so I sat and wrote it. 

Humour is not a very specific genre, and to be honest I don’t have a specific character in mind.  My vague plan was to write about the experiences of recent graduates living in the city in a sort of bubbly, chick lit way – Sex and the City but with real people who have real relationships, money issues, terrible flats, identity crises, whatever.  Not just any old real people, but real Scottish people. 

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Sweet Valley Confidential Review

For those who never read any of the Sweet Valley books, here is an overview: gorgeous identical twin sisters grow up in California. They may look the same but by jimminy their personalities couldn’t be more different.  Elizabeth, four minutes older, is serious and sensible and wants to be a writer.  The younger, Jessica, is the more shallow, cheerleadery type who is forever stealing her sister’s stuff (clothes, boys, etc).

I have been trying to pinpoint exactly when I read them, and I think I’ve narrowed it down to about Primary 5 for the Sweet Valley Twins and Primary 6 for Sweet Valley High – so around the age of 9 or 10.  I used to take them out of the library and I think I read most of the things, although I never owned one. Till now! Well, till July, when my mum got me a copy of Ten Years On: Sweet Valley Confidential for my birthday – a look at where the twins are a decade after the high school series ends.  Even though there were all kinds of books about what happened after that, including Sweet Valley University and a series where Elizabeth goes to live in England for a while.  I think they jumped the shark with SVU – I don’t remember reading many of those ones.

Anyway, “Haven’t you ever wondered what happened when Elizabeth and Jessica grew up?” the tagline asks.

I won’t lie, it hasn’t kept me up at night.  Continue reading “Sweet Valley Confidential Review” →

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