Sitebuilder.Con?

Today I was tempted to switch my blog provider to Sitebuilder.Com

I wasn't actually unhappy with blogger, but I was looking around for something unconnected and saw the rave reviews that sitebuilder got.  I mean *really* rave reviews and such great features for a free site.

First Draft done - now the work begins!

Image courtesy of Kerem Yucel

I've just completed the first draft of my first ever novel and I'm feeling rather elated about it.  So far all my writing has been short form - short stories or poetry - tales that I can keep in my head all at once and shape mentally before ever putting pen to paper, at which point out they come fully formed and manageable.

This piece, working title A Step Beyond Context, is the first time I've ever completed a novel length piece, it's turning in at about 85,000 words.   I'm pretty happy with it and what I've done with it, and now comes the re-read and re-drafting.  Now that I know the exact end point I can go back and make sure everything leads tidily toward it and trim off the excess fat that no doubt clings to it here and there.  I fully expect to start disliking it and seeing all the warts and problems but right at this moment, right now, at this time and in this place, I am feeling good.

Under the Microscope - Building new worlds and histories

Something a little different today.   I’d like to recommend a game for you all.   A game that may well be the most useful tool I’ve ever come across for world building and for designing a setting for speculative fiction.

The Finishing Line is in Sight!

Image by Dark Power of FreeImages.Com

The extended silence from the rickety edifice known as Marlowe Manor has had a few causes.  One such is that I have been focussing most of my writing efforts on my novel.   It suddenly dawned on me a week or two ago that I was unexpectedly within a couple of chapters of finishing it.   

Landslide Victory

Do you remember when you were a child?  Alone and hungry and crying for a mother that was beyond hearing?

I heard you.   And I came to you and comforted you as best I could.   And I arranged for you to be found and pulled from the puzzle of rock and earth, the eager hands of the rescuers dragging you into the light and showing you off, teary-eyed and widesmiled.   I smiled too, and waited.

Election Night

The sound of the rain on election night was a constant demanding drumming on the roof of the car, like a radio station tuned to white noise whose signal cut out as I passed beneath every one of the seven bridges between work and the polling station.  It was, I knew, my democratic right and duty to cast my vote and much depended upon it.   The car park, I noted with dismay as I drove into it, was a long way from the entrance.   A long wet way under the wet white noise.    But still I had my mark to make, and make my mark I must.  I locked the car behind me with a brace of beeps.   A bundle of fly tipped garbage propped against the wall of the desanctified church that was now a community centre moved unexpectedly and spoke.

“buy your name, mister?”

Please allow me to introduce myself

I smiled, oh my brothers, but how I hated him.   He was head honcho, big cheese, grand panjandrum and didn’t he know it just.   He smiled the expansive smile of a perpetual winner and his happiness was sickening to normal, that is to say lesser, types like me.  Not that I let on, oh no.  Foremost of the archangels, and captain of the heavenly host my job was to look magnificent and adoring and to do his bloody will whenever he expressed an opinion.  He had a lot of opinions, cryptic and unknowable, but the ones concerning the physical realm, the human race, the dirtball little planet of water and mud and living clay, those opinions were sweet and smiley and joy joy joy.

Radio Silence...

It’s been a while hasn’t it?

Come in and sit down, make yourself comfortable.   I’d offer you a drink but the glasses are all a little dusty.   I haven’t been around much to keep an eye on things here at the Manor and there are cobwebs in the corners and an unpleasant scuttling noise from behind the wainscoting.   Rats probably.  Hopefully.   Make yourself comfortable.   Try not to worry about the noises.

Spectator Sport

image courtesy of freeimageslive.com

Alan finally managed the lock, hoping that the vodka would numb the impact of a too quiet house and painfully empty rooms.   It didn’t, and the silence prickled his skin.  He’d sleep on the couch he decided but needed the bathroom first.   Stupidly he wandered afterward into Megan’s room and ran a finger along the Disney princess border on the wall near the door.

Something gleamed on the floor, something dropped.  He picked up her funfair snowglobe and saw how dull it looked.

It only became beautiful when shaken up.

He wondered if that was how God viewed human lives.

In response to Light and Shade Challenge

Messenger

Photo by Lyssa Medana

My real name is Myer, but I go by the nickname Angel these days.

I’m not an Angel.   Not in the sense that most people understand, but I think it’s justified.  You see “Angel” means “Messenger” and that’s what I definitely am.    When my boss wants to send a message, he sends me.    When people see me turn up they get the message.   Of course by then it’s too late for them, because the message my boss sends is for the benefit of others.   The messages I deliver encourage other people not to make the same stupid mistakes as the recipient.

Am I being too coy?