Blog
Edging even closer
I haven’t had a chance to give you an update on my work in progress for quite a while, but that’s not to say that there hasn’t been a lot going on.
After I finished writing the first draft on my trusty old Olympia typewriter, I needed to get it onto my iPad, which I had assumed would be a relatively straightforward process.
This was based on the last book I typed up, my memoir My Life as a Dog, which had taken an age to digitise. I had thought this was because I had written the first draft long hand in an exercise book and my ‘interesting’ hand-writing had been difficult to decode.
It had, but that process masked the fact that I also spent a lot of time thinking about what I had written and, instead of simply typing up the first draft, I effectively wrote a second draft.
This time around, with my current work in progress, the same thing happened. Consequently, what I thought would be the work of a couple of weeks fitted around work and holidays, became more like four weeks, with two days of very intensive writing at the end.
But I got there. And then I sent it off to be critiqued. This could have been a difficult and stressful process, but the advice and direction I got back was incisive and easy to follow.
So now I have a full read-through and some important but not major changes to make to the text before I send it off to have it’s first major edit.
That and the small matter of writing the blurb and trying to capture the book in a few pithy sentences that will give direction to the designer for when he starts on the cover at the end of the month.
So nothing much then!
The end
Well, folks, I reached the end of the first draft of my work in progress. Only a few million further steps before it becomes my second novel.
I enjoyed writing this more than anything I have done before, and I hope it’s the sign of things to come.
Edging closer
I completed another chapter of my work in progress today. I am over the final hill before the end, and a complex part of the book has been navigated.
It was hard but, today, I loved writing and all it brings.
The ball is rolling
I wrote another chapter for my work in progress.
This was slightly easier than yesterday’s chapter, less like pulling teeth. And I am back in with my characters again, moving with them rather than trying to pull them around.
I am inching my way towards the end.
Finally back
After a month so overwhelmed by work that I didn’t get a single moment to write, I finally put down a chapter of my work in progress.
It was such a pleasure to be sat back in front of the typewriter, and such a relief to be writing again.
Weight
Life is a heavy weight that sometimes crushes my soul.
Friendship
For some, friendship is merely a form of advanced knowing, with no affection and no care.
I have no interest in this form of friendship. I care deeply or I don’t care at all.
Video
“Explosion falls upon deaf ears
While we’re swimming in a sea of sham
Living in the shadow of vanity”
The Motel, David Bowie, 1.Outside
Sorted
Her: “I have to say, I thought you’d be more sorted by now than you are.”
Me: “Yeah, me too.”
Video
“Oh no love! You’re not alone
No matter what or who you’ve been
No matter when or where you’ve seen”
Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide, David Bowie, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
Storm
I have tried so often to calm the storm inside my head, but I know I live most truly when I am lost within it.
Video
“The shallow drowned lose less than we’
You breathe
The strangest twist upon your lips
‘And we shall be together… ’”
The Same Deep Water as You, The Cure, Disintegration
The edge
I have never wanted to be at the centre but always on the edge,
safe in the shadows.
To be there but not there.
An observer,
a chronicler.
The middle is fleeting and transitory; nebulous and empty.
A treacherous eye.
Occasionally, people try to drag me there.
I soon slip back,
unnoticed,
to the edge.
Beware of intentions
“Beware, Be aware of intent-, intents, intent..ions.”
He stares at me, and then breaks into a smile.
“You’re a good man.“
Glass black eyes and jet black hair, lined with grey.
He reaches out and takes my hand in his. His skin is rough and folded. He stares at me, as much as his slippery eyes will allow. He holds on to my hand and asks me who I am.
“I’m a writer, from England.”
He pauses and thinks for a moment.
“Well, I’m a…musician, from Scotland. Very nice to meet you, son.”
He pauses. “You take care of yourself, and you beware, be aware of intent-, intents, intent…ions.”
He stares at me again, then smiles.
“You’re a good man.”
He pulls me into a hug and whispers into my ear: “You take care of yourself.”
He kisses me on the cheek and then pulls back.
He smiles at me, lets go of my hand, turns and stumbles on up the hill.
Image
Image
Video
All I want is to breathe
Won’t you breathe with me?
Born Under Punches, Talking Heads, Remain in Light
Ivy
I suppose there must be days when I haven’t thought of you,
but I cannot recall even one.
You are present in everything I see.
Our lives are already intertwined and inseparable.
I think you must be an ivy,
growing over my mind.
Image
Video
Quicksand, David Bowie, Hunky Dory
“I’m torn between the light and dark
Where others see their target
Divine symmetry”
After the rain
I find the world more beautiful after it has rained.
When the clouds stay, heavy, grey and unmoving, only the suggestion of sunlight beyond.
When the rain is still in the air, threatening to come down again.
When the drops still hang from the leaves and branches, and you hear the tap-tap from deep in the undergrowth.
A world in stasis, waiting between worlds, refreshed after the dry spell but not yet renewed.
Hope rising up from the deluge.
