It’s been an odd week. Half the household has been abroad and with the resulting extra chores, life stuff and apathy most of my projects have been severely neglected as a result.

Writer

Writing 23 (out of 66) scenes complete – structural/continuity revision

Discussed in more detail in yesterday’s post. I’ve done very little editing this week.

Reading “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Verbal Self-defense” by Lillian Glass

This has turned out to be a huge disappointment and doesn’t live up to the promise of the blurb or the opening chapters at all.

The writing style often becomes hectoring and assumes that you are completely incompetent in every conversational scenario, not just coming across a couple of difficult people you need help to manage. There are some good tips, but you have to wade through an awful lot of fluff to find them.

The advice given in the majority of sections is vague enough to unhelpful at best and downright dangerous at worst, particularly in the scenarios where you could put yourself physically at risk – many of the tips here are contrary to the advice I’ve seen elsewhere and may make the situation much worse.

Fighter

Kettlebell: 8kg

I am continuing to focus on the beginner routines. They must be doing something, because I’ve felt really stiff this week, particularly in neck, shoulders, knees and ankles. Still taking extreme care and keeping reps low.

Geek

Current obsession: old episodes of Grey’s Anatomy.

Also have been sharing funny YouTube clips with my ten-year-old. His current favourite:

My current favourite:

I hope you had a great week!

I’ve hardly touched the book this week.

I could reel off a load of excuses: a ton of mundane life-stuff got in the way, I’ve been distracted and frankly my heart hasn’t been in it for a while. I know logically that I should have knuckled down regardless – next week is half term, so writing opportunities will be thin on the ground for a while.

But, today I watched the season finale of Grey’s Anatomy instead.

Then I started again from Season 1 Episode 1.

By the time I was half way through Episode 3, I realised something important: Grey’s Anatomy was the series I was obsessed over while I was in the discovery process for this book two years ago. I’m not sure whether I reached for it subconsciously, or it was just coincidence.

Either way, from that point on I started to pay more attention. I noticed how different plot threads were brought together to fit a theme. I noticed examples of external and internal conflict. I admired the excellent character portrayal and how dialogue was used to place higher significance on what wasn’t said than what was. I found myself getting excited about story again and thinking about how I would apply that to my own characters.

Of course, I’d love to retroactively claim that my day of slobbing in front of the TV was purposeful, guilt-free and well-deserved, but it would be a lie. However, sometimes it pays off to be lazy. I made progress on the book today, even if that progress can’t be counted in terms of scenes complete.

That’s good enough for me.

Inkygirl has written a great post about her battles with the temptations of the internet sucking time away from her creative projects.

It resonated with me a lot and I had to share her accompanying cartoon. I swear she’s been looking over my shoulder while I write.

P.S. I can thoroughly recommend the Leechblock plugin for Firefox!

What can I say, I have no willpower.

It’s been a much better week. I’m feeling much more well-rested and interested in projects again, which is a great sign.

Writer

Writing 23 (out of 66) scenes complete – structural/continuity revision

It’s been a difficult writing week. I’m struggling with the current scene – it was originally part of the previous scene and needed heavy structural reshaping. Then my characters wouldn’t play ball and each little part I fixed seemed to break something. However, in the last couple of days I seem to have made a breakthrough and it’s all coming together now.

Reading “Accelerando” by Charles Stross

Still reading this! The underlying story is good, but I find him a very dense writer and I have to pay lots of attention to follow the plot. Not always good for bedtime reading when feeling a little sleepy!

“The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Verbal Self-defense” by Lillian Glass

I’ve chosen a non-fiction book to alternate with “Accelerando” and this was a great choice. It takes a look at speech patterns/situational awareness/body language to give you cues on when you’re ‘under attack’ and how to most effectively defend yourself in those situations. It blends quite nicely with the situational awareness I’m learning for Krav – being able to use verbal early warning signs is an essential skill and good to have in the self-defense tool-kit.

Fighter

Kettlebell: 8kg

I’ve been looking at the final move in my arsenal of basic kettlebell exercises, the military press:

I’m now focusing on three different beginner routines with different emphases: cardio fitness, body shaping and power/strength. I’m keeping the reps small (only half the recommended, this week) to make sure my form is correct while I’m learning the routine and not going to do myself any damage.

Geek

I’m feeling decidedly (and shockingly) ungeeky recently. Probably because I’m between games and I’ve been too tired/busy to find anything else that holds my interest.

So what are you playing? Anything you’d recommend?

Some writer-related links – collected over several weeks but never quite made an actual dedicated blog post:

The Periodic Table of Storytelling – an inspired organisation of tropes into story elements. Funny at first glance but worth your time for a closer look.

Making Light: A digression on literary categories – possibly the clearest explanation of literary genres I’ve ever seen. I also had a lightbulb moment reading it – my story isn’t near-future sci fi, I think it’s more of a techno-thriller.

How to Steal Like An Artist – a wonderful presentation on how artists get their ideas.

And finally, Born Like An Artist – cute but also rather poignant.

This time last year, I had just finished the first draft of my book. It was 75,000 words long and had taken my just over six months to write. Back then, I thought that the hard part was over – all I needed to do was polish it – perhaps another six months to a year’s worth of work? (Cue hollow laughter)

A year later, I’m only a third of the way through the first revision pass – with at least three further passes to do after I’ve finished this. It still has massive flaws, despite being an exponential improvement on the previous draft. I won’t be showing it to anyone quite yet.

I could try to devote more time to writing, I suppose. Reorganise my life to prioritise the book. I suspect that would become a quick road to misery. Most of my best progress has been using the “little and often” approach, frequently chipping away and allowing myself the mental space to figure things out. Also, I need a balance in my life with other interests in order to stay sane and have worthwhile experiences to bring to the page. It’s all too easy to dismiss the work that goes on away from the keyboard as insignificant.

I won’t deny that it feels like a blow. I expected to be much further along by this point. I’ve invested a lot of time into this with very little to show for it. In addition, I’m feeling very unmotivated about my writing as a whole.

But then I realise that it’s this year I’ve learned the most. Nowhere near enough, but a lot. I still love the underlying story and I really want to learn how to make the narrative shine and gain its own life, outside of my imagination.

It’s enough for now.

These weekly posts are always so much easier to write when the week has gone well. Unlike this one. I’m still battling low energy and apathy, although I’ve felt a bit brighter in the last couple of days.

Writer

Writing 23 (out of 66) scenes complete – structural/continuity revision

Managed to put in some good effort on the latest scene, but annoyingly found that it needed to be split into two separate ones – the goalposts have moved back a little further.

Reading “Accelerando” by Charles Stross

Have neglected reading along with everything else.

Fighter

Kettlebell: 8kg
Deadlifts: 10
Two-arm swings: 15
Left-arm swings: 15
Right-arm swings: 15
Alternating swings: 10
Turkish Get Up: 1
Squats: 10
Clean: 10

Same place as I was last week. Maintaining rather than progressing.

Geek

The high point in the week was meeting up with the Worcester Flickr Group at menickstephensorg‘s garage studio. I’m very rusty with my camera (I’ve got into point/shoot/fix later bad habits) but it was great to experiment with different lighting and have fun in the process.

“A muse is a fickle creature. She’ll promise to stop by, then decide to go to her violin lesson instead. Meanwhile, you just opened your laptop and…nothing. She knew this was your only available writing time! And when did she start playing the violin, anyway?”

– Summoning the Muse, noveldoctor

Mine’s currently stropping and declaring that I “never really understood” her. If you see her, send her back. She has a scene to finish.

It’s been a busy week, not helped by server outages, power cuts, 10-year-old birthday parties, and my own lack of willpower.

Writer

Writing 22 (out of 65) scenes complete – structural/continuity revision

Now over a third of the way through the first round of edits. Depressingly, it was a year ago today that I finished the first draft and it feels like I should be further along by now. I’m also suffering a crisis of confidence that I don’t really have the skill to pull this story off. Meh.

It hasn’t helped that I’ve been very bad at getting started this week, to the extent I’m now actively looking for ways of banning myself from the more addictive areas of the internet during working hours.

Reading “Accelerando” by Charles Stross

I’m sure I’m missing half the references in this book – and I thought I was quite technologically aware and geeky. Still, the world building and description is fabulous.

Fighter

Kettlebell: 8kg
Deadlifts: 10
Two-arm swings: 15
Left-arm swings: 15
Right-arm swings: 15
Alternating swings: 10
Turkish Get Up: 1
Squats: 10
Clean: 10

Ticking over. Again, procrastination has badly hit the amount of training I’ve done this week. Hopefully, I’ll get back on track next week.

Geek

LeechBlock – a handy little Firefox plugin that blocks websites you specify either by specific time period, time spent per hour, or both. There are also multiple ways you can ban yourself from accessing the plugin to avoid cheating, too. Guess what I’ll be using next week.

I know it’s not been long since we’ve moved house, but am rather won-over by the first zombie-proof house. Do you think they’d accept part-exchange?

A great interview with Neil Gaiman about piracy, the internet and how it relates to the publishing industry.