My News Years Resolution!

Write.

Writing Journal: How I come to be here, my writing journey so far

I spent years 5 & 6 of primary school in a special class learning to read. It was right then that I wanted to write. It was right then that I made my first attempt.

A man came to our class. I remember nothing about him except that he listened to my desire to write and and gave be a workbook to write my first story. It was about man's first trip to Mars and I tried to write for about three pages of it before giving up. (I still have that first story in my head,but it has evolved a bit.) I found the book years later, it was unreadable. Back then I could just barely read, and could not write, but I love stories.

So I learnt to live stories in my head and learned to read. A first it was books, starting with the Hobbit and followed by other fantasy and Science Fiction, then I found comics. I became the ultimate Marvel Comics fan.I tried to buy every comic that Marvel put out, and succeed for a while. In the end I had a collection of over 6,000 comics. A few non Marvel, but not many. I dreamt of writing comics and created a whole bunch of Super Heroes, I still remember them all. I tried to find out how to write comics, but for a high school kid in Thompson Road, Speers Point (look it up) it was just to hard. So I kept making story's in my head.

The big problem was that I was just so bad a spelling and writing in general. I tried to over come this by asking my mum to buy a Commodore 64 for me while holidaying in Hong Kong. Instead, she got some computer that was really popular in Hong Kong but, not here. I tried to do stuff on it, but it didn't work out. I kept making stories in my head.

My choice to leave my job and go to Theological College forced me to learn how to write. I had to write a lot of essay, some up to 5,000 words, and I had to write the quickly. Looking back now, I realize just how much I learnt about writing through those years. A lot of my essays read like stories.

After College I got involved in children's Ministry. When you work with children you tell a lot of stories. Twenty five years later, I decide to have a go at being a Pastor of a church. My stories are a lot like stories, which everyone liked. However, the other parts of being a Pastor didn't work out to well for me. I also started making up bed time stories for my daughter.

I never forgot my desire to write, but it really come back to me just over three years ago. I had all the things I needed. Time, my job was only part time, desire and a computer that had decant spell check. Although it doesn't always work.

I started writing. I had my first story punished in an anthology in time for my mum to see it before she died. I'm still writing, but not much in the last six months.

My best guess is that it was 40 years ago sometime in 2015 that the man gave me a work book to write my first story.

This, in brief, is how I came to be here.

Book Review: Obsidian (Alex Caine #2) By Alan Baxter

This is another great read from Alan Baxter!

Book two picks up the story of Alex Caine and Silhouette not very long after book one. However, Alex is already feeling like a bit of a loose end needed direction. Along comes Armour! International secret society protecting the world from evil magic. I found myself wondering where these people were in book one. An explanation was given, but I found it a bit cliché. That was okay, the start of the first book was also a bit cliché and it turned out great.

A new character is also quickly introduced, Claude Darvill, son of the main villain in book one. His introduction, in hindsight, is also a bit cliché, but I didn’t notice while reading the book.

Also introduced early are a trio of would-be wizards seeking a mysterious magic treasure. As they hunt for the treasure, Alex (with friends) hunts them and Claude hunts Alex. They all come together and Alex’s special gem (stuck in his chest from book one.) triggers a trap that sends them all to Obsidian.

Obsidian is an interesting place and is well created. The rest of the story basically follows Alex, and friends, attempts to find a way out. This involves lots of all round action and drama; Another great roller coaster ride.

One slight disappointment, for me, was that I work out how it was going to end well before the end. This took a little bit of shin off the story, because I found it predicable, but I still enjoyed the read.

One other issue, for me, is the use of foul language. I get that Alex and friends are tough and talk tough. What I don’t get is an immortal creature that has been trapped in a pocket universe for some thousands of years also talking and swearing like someone from a pub in Kings Cross. It just frustrates me.

If you loved book one, you will like book two. However, book three is the best of all, and that will be my next review.

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Writing Journal: Getting Back Up

As the end of 2014 comes closer, I look back over my writing journey for the year and see one success, finishing the first draft of 'Loney Susan', my first novel.

Compared to that I see a lot of failures, to many to count. The most recent being my complete failure to keep my commitment to write every day in October. I lasted about a week and a bit. To make the most of it, I tried getting up at 4am to write for an hour before my usual 5am start. I was completely exhausted after just two days and that was it. The one positive was the writing day I had on the long weekend.

I really loved the writing day, it work. I wrote more than 2000 words and really enjoyed it. It got me thinking about how I write best. It is in clearly set aside blocks. I almost always get a good bit of writing done when I do the one hour Writing Race on Facebook on Wednesday night. Sadly, I often have other commitments and can't do it.

Now that I'm picking myself up again from another failure, what to do? Look for regular blocks of time to write. It has to be something concrete, not just I'll write for the next hour. (Although, maybe I should try that.) things like the Writing Race and having a writing day seem to be what works. I just need to find more of them.

On another writing topic, I currently have three stories out there hoping to be accepted. I'm really hoping for two out of three at least.

On more writing, I have two short stories and a novella to finish.

On Lonely Susan, I want to start draft number two.

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Writing Journal: A writing day.

I took the whole day out just toe write today. It's the first time I've ever done it.

It wasn't perfect, but it was fairly good. I did it at home, in the office, with the family home. So there were some interruptions. I could have gone out, but it would have meant writing on my little net book and it's not fun to write on and I would have needed somewhere I could plug it in for it to last the whole day.

I started the day with the big ambition to write a whole short story of about 6 - 7 thousand words long. I managed to write just over 2000 words. Looking back, I think it was a fairly good effort.

The best part is that I really feel that I've broken my writing drought. I really want to finish the story so I am planning to get up an hour early each morning to write.

This means getting up at 4am!

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Writing Journal: Writetober

I've had another good rejection. Although it took a long time, over three months, to come through. It one of my flash pieces sent to one of the daily fiction sites. It was good rejection because there was heaps of feedback. Paragraph long bit of feedback from three people who read it. They even had the names of the reviewers (So, I've found their addresses and hired the assassin..no...that is wrong...must not do.) they had something good to say about the story, but all found different reasons to fault it. I'm still processing the information.

In the mean time I have to get back to some writing.

So, here comes Writetober!

(I don't know if I made Writetober up or heard it somewhere?)

During the month of October I am going to do as much writing/editing as I can and tweet about it every day. I have set goals, which I'm not going to tell, that I will be aiming for. However, the main aim is just to do a real lot of writing type stuff.

My tweets will be with #writetober if you want to follow my progress for the month. I hope you do.

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Monday Writing journal: New House. New Start?

I've just move house. It's the ninth place we've lived in since I married Jane, my wife (of course).

I'm hoping that it will break my writing drought. Since finishing my first draft of Lonely Susan I've fiddle, procrastinated, set goals, missed goals and generally wondered if I've got writers block or that I'm just plain lazy.

So, will house number nine be the place?

For some reason I'm reminded of Revolution 9 by the Beatles.

So, I'm making a new start in the new house. I expect I'll still procrastinate, fiddle, fuss & a lot of other stuff, just as long as I write!

I'll let you know.

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