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Jun 29, 2008 by

…And wireless, too. Did I miss anything good?


With regards to my notbook resolution:

I’ve typed up about half of the notebook; all of the Greenhelm stuff, and half of the short stories. There’s just a few odd bits otherwise, and a chunk of The Dark which is half typed up anyway. Some of the short stories I’m really pleased with as are, others need a bit of filling in. They’re predominantly ghost stories, which makes me feel anthology-ish, but I need to get at least some of them published in magazines first. There’s just a sad lack of English Ghost Story mags at the moment. There’s also an unexpected piece of mythological erotica that sprung itself on me towards the end of the book, about an artist who rescues a selkie. I’m now adding scenes to it, in a way that makes me feel like I could have a novella here, or even a novel, which is nice.

I started another in the new notebook, but I’m going to have to force myself to stop, because it’s not going anywhere and it’s dragging down a decent beginning. Too much RL Stevenson and M Shelley (and a little bit of EA Poe). It’s hard, to kill something after you’ve put effort in, but it’s stopping me from writing anything else; today I flipped the notebook round and started on an additional scenes for the above mentioned myth erotica, which was much easier and more fun. Obviously, I’m not writing the erotic parts at work!


With moving house, I’ve had a lot of DIY to do, and I’ve found myself listening to a lot of audiobooks and radioplays. I am utterly in love with The Avengers Radioplays (and the TV show, which I spent uncharacteric amounts of time and effort to obtain). I’ve also been listening to a bit of out-of-copyright Classic Short Stories (Vol 1) and War of the Worlds. It’s alright, but some of them are read by what seems to be a Mac Computer, which is incapable of pronouncing even the simplest Surrey place name, and has no variation in tone or grasp of pacing. But War of the Worlds is too good not to listen to.

I’ve never really listened to audiobooks of my own volition before; as a kid I’d listen to whatever my parents were listening too, though usually miss chunks, and for long car journeys my sister and I would get some say (usually Terry Pratchett, read by Tony Robinson). Actually, that’s part of the reason I started downloading them; because I had some long journeys coming up, and I wouldn’t have bothered with the radioplays if it wasn’t for next month’s holidays. It makes it harder to write while travelling, but I’d started out with some standup CDs and realised that I’m tired enough of music on trains to sacrifice the writing time.

I wouldn’t listen to an audiobook in the same way I do music – when I’m walking to work, for example – but for quiet but boring tasks, they’re great. In terms of my own writing, it makes me much more keen to submit to those podfic sites, and more interested in downloading from them, too.


Having mentioned holidays, I probably won’t be posting much during July. I have a family holiday 4th – 12th, and then I’m off to FatE from the 18th to the 20th (if I don’t get lost in Shropshire!). I’ll definitely post about that when I’m back; it’s a storytelling festival with some world famous faces. I attended a few performances during the York Literary Festival, which clued me in to FatE’s existance, and my general desire for a camping cultural festival that was affordable and manageable without a car pretty much confirmed for me I would go.

So, after all that moving kerfuffle, I’m probably not going to post for another month!

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