Yay, I’ve finished the first draft of a short story. To be honest, I don’t think it’s very good, but I’ve got something I can improve later. More importantly, it’s the first new story I’ve finished for a while. I’ve done plenty of non-fiction and submitting, but very little fiction writing.
One of the advantages of being a writer is that they can’t put you in solitary confinement. Wherever they put me, my whole cast of characters comes too. When you talk to God, it’s called praying.When God talks to you, it’s called paranoid schizophrenia.When a headful of imaginary people talk to you, it’s called being a fiction writer. So I’m a writer because the voices tell me so. Which is…
Part of the secret of absorbing fiction is to make it vivid. After all, you’re more likely to remember that you’re just watching a TV programme if you see it on a black and white portable instead of a wide-screen colour TV. As writers, we don’t have colours and screens to work with, we only have words. And words or phrases the reader has seen a million times before get…
I plan to write a lot more fiction, and to blog about the art of writing fiction, and what happens? Gastric flu. I did at least get some research done into the history of knickers for a short story. Queen Victoria wore open-crotch drawers, with a 50-inch (127 cm) waistline. She was only 5ft (1.52 m) tall. Normal service will be resumed shortly. Coming soon: How to make your fiction…
Issue 15/16 of Electric Velocipede should be out by Halloween, with my story “Unreal Estate”. You can already pre-order it at the site, or enjoy three stories from the issue, free online.
I’ve been doing rather well. On Monday I had some new furniture delivered – cheap, because it was shop soiled. But one part provides enough storage space to tidy up the living room considerably, and the other part goes in the guest room (with the scuff marks hidden against the wall) which frees up a bookshelf, which is just the right size to fit in the gap in the pantry….