Shores of Night

If you could make three wishes, what would they be? I started thinking about this partly because of the Split Worlds books, where the protagonist, Cathy, is granted three wishes and wastes two of them almost immediately. The third, turns out to be the truly defining moment for the character in one of those 'wishes versus work' sorts of ways that are so prevalent in modern fairy tales.Admittedly I finished reading those a couple of weeks ago and I've only just throught of doing this post... the wheels of my brain must grind slow. The other thing that made me wonder is the Museum of Curiousities, the BBC radio show that's currently on (and had both Amanda Palmer and Andrew O'Neill on in a brilliant episode, if you can find it have a listen). It prompted me to remember that both Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman contributing devices concerning time, or the lack of it. That's my starting point I have to admit: I wish I had more time.  In between work, commuting ...

So... Things have changed. A few weeks ago I withdrew from my gaming group. There were a few reasons, partially the fact that I want to focus on writing meant that having a day off during the week really disrupted the flow of the book, making it harder to get back into it. Given that I often have to force myself to write and fight off the distractions, I felt I was struggling to get anything done. The other reason was similar to the one my friend mentioned when he quit - though in my case it wasn't that it felt like we couldn't get a long game out of it but that in many ways it feels like all the games we play have become, 'bash things and get loot'. In some ways it feels like the first gaming I did, back in Uni, was more grown up and I miss the feeling of 'stretch' that came from playing games like Mage. It also makes games feel predictable, it 's just a matter of counting the minutes to guns being pulled out, swords drawn and the tedium that is combat ...

Hey, Its been quiet in my neck of the woods, there's been the Birmingham Literature Festival, but I only went to two events, Rosie Garland's book launch and the New Voices which featured Emma Newman. Beyond that I'm back at Uni, studying Screenwriting this time (and torn between doing a Viking Vengeance plot or a weird thing inside the head of a woman in a coma which is very Matrix/Inception like in my head). I've abandoned at least two ideas for my dissertation and it now looks as if I'm going to be doing a book of short stories spinning out of Sacrifices which I hope will allow me to have something to take to market once the course is over - I'm sort of terrified of having wasted two years. I'm ploughing on with Fatal Thirst and getting somewhere with it, albeit more slowly than I'd like. I'm sure it'll get there, but writing this post is making me glad that I've decided to drop gaming for a while as it's making me realise how much...

I saw this on my friend Cara's blog ( http://ohwedo.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/grossed-out.html ) and thought I'd throw together my own list. I'm not sure if these are things that really make me grossed out or just grumpy, but I think some of Cara's were possibly more in that vein than things that make her feel ill. I've tried for nine, but in all honesty I found it a bit hard to get a full list, so I'm not sure what that says about me. So I ended up with 7. 1) Interrupting - This is something I just think is rude to be honest and it makes me really annoyed, especially if I'm trying to get a point across. There's a point where I just stop caring what the other person has to say because they can't actually give me the courtesy of letting me finish my sentence. This is one thing I like about media like email or letters, they allow me to say my piece and then respond to what other people say without being talked over and made to feel like my point was a...

I've been working away at Fatal Thirst for the last week or so, trying to make it my top priority whilst I wait for course stuff to start happening. It's been interesting, as I've been ploughing through the part of the novel I wrote for NaNoWriMo two years ago taking the opportunity to expand pieces of it to add what I hope are more depth and flavour. Its giving me a chance to explain how things work and think through the consequences. I'm revisiting many of the characters - part of what I'm doing with the manuscript (it feels odd to call it that, when it only exists in digital format) is fleshing out the other character arcs in the book to make them fuller. Its quite gratifying one one level to see that the stuff I wrote two years ago isn't entirely rubbish, but it has needed a fair amount of tweaking and reading it back I find that questions arise - why did x happen, how does y effect the fall out? All of which suggests I need to do more planning and devel...