Sunday, 18 July 2010

G&T @@ JD and me

Have you played with the site that analyses your writing? 


Twitter's Guy Kawaski at Alltop provided the link.


It is called I Write Like.


This was the quickest piece of analysis I have ever done. It was a lot of fun too.



"Want to know who you write like? You can go to I Write Like, paste in a sample of your writing, and find out.  The site has analyzed approximately 1.5 million samples of text already. The creator of the site, Dmitry Chestnykh, explains how it works." etc
I got side tracked by my results.
I write like JD Salinger!
That will do for me.
Me and JD are like -x- that now.  :-) 

Saturday, 17 July 2010

MIS-TAKEN-CALCULATION

Will - has choices and a degree of self-determination


Night-walking
stalking -
head down -
out of sync, 
each step
out of line,
when fates align.


Pocketed hands,
closed fists,
torn
and tearing -
deeply disturbed -
out of sight
fighting what's right.


Counting grains,
sifting sand
shifting,
pendulum swinging -
choices and time -
heart breaking.


Heart attack.




Sabbatical started - 421 days until I need to go back to work again. 
What, apart from counting it down, shall I do with the time?

Monday, 12 July 2010

USURY - Double Desired




No. No, split it. 
It makes more sense when you break the thought down: what makes me? What makes me tick? Tick; like a time bomb?
What makes me? 
Perhaps it's more like what made me.
That, right there is... a problem.
It’s not what makes me tick. It's not who either.
And I do tick, slick and sick. Unbelievably sick, I tick.
Like Mr Grayson said in class everything can be traced back to some point in the past. Like he said it was “Nature verses Nurture?”
Well, that statement presumes too much. He means nature, as in the natural order of things? What if his understanding is limited -- based on preconceived ideas, that have no basis in reality?
When he said Nurture, he meant like the hands that held? The care given? Again, that suggests –
But, I do want to feel. Physically. I want to feel something without fee, or dues. I don’t want payment or rewards. I want to feel something real.
Hands are blunt weapons, they lead to plasters, bandages and hospital visits.
But, I do want to feel hands and arms. 
Or not.
When people connect - make a physical connection - it is more than complicated it's binding and blinding.
I want to feel simple touches.
Don’t give me that look; you said you’d listen.
I want to be free to feel.

I’m not free.


Don't you love it when bits of the book turn up when your asleep? If you are lucky, like I was last night, you have a note book and and pen (that works) by the side of the bed. I was relieved this monologue turned up in such a sensible place. I would have hated to have missed out on any more of Will's struggle to make himself understood.

Where is the oddest place an idea has occurred to you?

Saturday, 10 July 2010

Why write? For flowery reasons!

Why write?   
The easier question to answer is: Why read? Books are the great escape, only dreams can rival them. However, you get to select the books. 
Within the pages there are endless opportunities -- to be brave or depraved, grateful, or gratuitous -- to experience anything or everything, without the fear of prosecution or persecution. 
Then there is the learning.

But why write?   
Writing gives the writer the opportunity to live in more than one dimension at the same time (sometimes in multiple realities). Writers, who love their work, get to live the journey and enjoy living a life where their control is absolute. 
When my Beta readers are leafing through the pages -- or spinning the mouse – I love to watch their faces.  But, I know everyone who has read my work. Imagine knowing that people you have never seen are able to access the world and the characters you have created? Your creation? 
Imagine, at some later date, meeting people who have enjoyed it – that would be a whole different kind of life-adventure.

A little while ago, I discovered Robert Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions. It has become one of my main planning tools. (I need to know that I have considered emotion in-depth.) It is a check list I use when I am writing. 

Will is, currently, somewhere turquoise – between green and blue – anxiety caused by fear and amazement.

Why write? I write because I get to experience every one of those emotions, in the words that paint pleasure or pain onto the page.

I get to experience every one of these emotions in real life too. Take a look at the "Advanced emotions to Advanced opposites" table - see what I mean?

Tuesday, 6 July 2010

How to be a Gangsta Writer – already. The pen is mightier.

I know you know.
You with the flow,
Yo' writing is writing like the gangsta!

1 You have to master the stagger of the homies
            Check the hunched walk of the habitual homies who write: back breaking work innit?! CHECKLIST:
 Do you got the curvature of the spine, yet?
Neck pain from da’ repetitive strain that don’t come from wearing too much bling? See that’s what I’m saying!
Got the arm-sling, wrist-thing? Like what’s carpal tunnel?
If it’s all so, then you got the low.

2 Language
            This is important when attempting to fit in with the wip community. You must forget everything you have learned about English, like how it is spoken. Speechifying your writing is a serious impediment to yo’ work.  Contractions is a contradiction, don’t go with the diction, go back to school, you fool. Punctuate like the Oxford Comma – if you know where I’s at?
KEY VOCABULARY – I <3 Dawn Copeland for saving me time
Advance, Agent, Copyright, Credits, Electronic submission, Formatting, Hook, Manuscript, Point of view (POV), Query, Query letter, Record of submission, Rejection, Royalties, Simultaneous submission, WIP,  Word count, Writer's block
CHECKLIST:     
Do you write twelve pages a day and edit them back to two?
Do you think about where to put commas when you speak?
Do you obsess about words like - that, feel, felt, feeling, just, had, was, were,
amo, amass, amat (in the case of ancient, paranormal romance writers)?
Do you prune out -ly words more vigorously than Bind weed?
Do you know a split infinitive from a split-pin?

If not, then you is in trouble, Man!

3  You have acquired a Blogging and a domain name
            Check the ideas! Get Writing, Writer, Author, or Muse added to your blog name. See other things like adjectives: they are happenin’! Lil’JK, Shakes Will or Bigger Steph. See where I’m goin’? Keep with me, I’ll help you fit write in - lol!

 CHECKLIST:
            Does your Blog title sound literary or wordy? Well, as that is the only evident requirement you’ve got it nailed!

4 You have to be hip to what’s happenin’ in your genre at the moment
            Check the lists for the writers who are doing it! Their up is on the high side and you’s climbing it!
            For me, I know what I see:
PC, Sherrylee -n (lynn), Stephenie,
Make room for me

CHECKLIST:
            Have you read enough books in your chosen genre to fill all the shelves in Tesco/Walmart?
            Can you describe, in five, ten, fifteen words and pages what your wip is about?
            If you are you still writing when the sun goes down. Still at it when it rises again.
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same
(Oh, no that one's been done - already!)
Then you are not a plagiarist, my son.

5  Clothing – the mark of the G-writer – Good and tired Writer - Gangsta!
            Buy clothing, huge and vast: you is never gonna’ do much with yo’ ass except sit on it, anyways now. Sling it low. You need comfort on that slidy-plastic leather chair, innit?! Army pants, jeans, cargo pants, cut-offs – they all look good in the writing zone, and yo' ain’t going out. For the top half, go with the neon, it will keep you awake: keep yo’ finger on their toes – lol! Sweatshirts are well necessary in the night when it’s just you and the angle-poise in the dark. Like heating is for softees: we' gangsta, here. Keep a handkerchief on your head because, as well as it look so cool its like glacier - it will come in handy for rejections – sick!

CHECKLIST:
            Could you gain like 200+ pounds and not have it noticed when you are dressed? (What? You did? That’s dedication! R-E-S-P-E-C-T!)
            Could you fit all of the family into one single pant leg? Not that I’m recommending extra wide trousers for childcare but... if the leg fits... I say wear it. You'll know where they are when you're writing - sorted!

You got it.
You got the lot.
You is a fully fledgeling gangsta writer now – sick!

With thanks to Everything2 without which my format would have sucked!

Sunday, 4 July 2010

USURY - it is coming along

                                                                                                                                                                 Today was a good day. Chapter one is all but done and dusted. It's not shiny, polished to the nth degree, but it it ain't half-bad... for a first draft.

To recap: Rupert... ermm, Will... was created as an instrument of revenge. For the curse to be working after all this time, the deed must have been bleak indeed.

The Marcher Hundred of Maelienydd and Ewais - 1555


The older boy, a little more than six years of age, was held by the back of his jerkin and the scruff of his neck. He still flailed against the soldier who held him there. The younger, hardly out of skirts, stood still upon the block. His red hair, made all the more vivid in the bright, cold, morning sunlight.
Burning hatred of the bandit family flamed in the void created by his father's senseless murder. Yet Owyn lowered his eyes, looked away, as he passed the smallest prisoners who had been made ready so he could slake his vengeance – vent his wrath. He stormed across the wooden stage until he reached the Captain of the Guard, “Why is the prisoner not prepared for her hanging?”
“We cannot serve justice, Milord. Not yet.”
“CANNOT?!”
He turned towards the woman. 
She still strained towards the children who were near and yet so far beyond her reach. 
With his long stride, he was almost upon her. Arms outstretched to seize her, to drag her to the place where an empty noose drifted with the breeze.
“Milord. Wait. She is with child.” 
The Captain of the Guard’s shout halted  Owyn of Whoryshay. 
The Sheriff’s back, stiff in that moment, straightened to iron rigidity. He turned his head back towards the Captain. The seasoned soldier, who had served Owyn in many difficult battles, blanched at what he saw painted there.


No love lost at this moment.

WARNING: This book is, still, slipstream paranormal. No feathers, fur, fangs or claws will be attached, other than loosely, to any human being in this novel.

USURY
PAGES:  9/200
WORDS:  4,000

I also have the two random pieces I wrote when Will came knocking at my head, in the middle of the night!

Friday, 2 July 2010

USURY: a YA paranormal romance

My new paranormal romance is some way off finished. It so far away that you could say it has only just been started.  ; )  


I have done the planning: start, middle, end and twist. The writing is lagging behind. If I was to pitch it on a scale of 1:10 I have reached 0.01. That doesn't sound super encouraging when you do the Maths. But, it is a great feeling.

Will is still being impersonated by Rupert. I keep looking for alternative sad red-haired boys, maybe I don't look too hard.

Seventeen-year-old Will pays for being born. His life will only be his when he repays the debt with the blood of the enemy. He just can't live without the price he must pay.



USURY

CHAPTER 1
IN THE KINGDOM OF THE STRANGE


Heat lashed through him. When his jaw jarred open, oxygen flooded his lungs. Every cell in his body screamed. His legs were rigid and arms locked as he convulsed. Unimaginable pain was his reality.
            When the cold granite ripped the skin from Wyll’s heels, he registered this pain amongst the agony. The next phase began. He clawed upwards, curved his fingers around the upper edge of the stone sarcophagus. With slashing suddenness the stabbing pain made his body strain against the laws that governed nature, once again. His bowed back cracked. Only the grind of bone-on-bone grated through the cavern, until a loud thump disturbed the stillness. An intermittent double beat played out an uneven rhythm.

WARNING: This book is slipstream paranormal. No feathers, fur, fangs or claws will be expended in the making of this novel.

USURY
PAGES:  2/200
WORDS:  780