Heartache

The interactive aspect of my blog begins tomorrow, but I thought I’d share a little true life short story.

A terrible thing befell me today, something I imagine a lot of you have possibly dealt with. Today I lost 25,000 words of my book. And my heart is broken.

It was such a stupid mistake. I was copying the file to Dropbox so that, laughably, I would have a backup safe from any computer problems. Rather than copying the file I moved it, when I moved it back the Dropbox file was an old backup.
It’s all gone.

My intention is to write a bullet point breakdown of what I remember of the book and more or less where things were (the more recent work will be easier to do) and then work from that to rewrite it. I think it’s going to be painful as what I want to do is rewrite it exactly how it was, but what I need to do is use the blueprint of what I remember to find it again. I figure it’s all in my head, I’ve just got to unlock it again.

The short story part of this blog will be a good diversion.

Remember, always make backups. But do it properly so that in doing so it doesn’t RUIN EVERYTHING.

– Andrew

Convenience, Contrivance and Cliché

Hello,

My novel-writing has been coming on well recently, the note I made at the start of the week unlocked a huge amount of content and I hit the 20,000 word mark yesterday. I’m still in the early part of the book and have been surprised that I’ve gone to some of the dark places that I have. I knew there would be some unpleasant moments along the journey but, well, I’ve surprised myself.

I have been thinking about conveniences, contrivances and clichés. To me all narratives are a series of conveniences, events that happen to characters are times that propel them forward through the story. Luke buying 3PO and R2 is a convenience. I also feel that these events fall under the suspension of disbelief umbrella and are protected from deep scrutiny.

Contrivances on the other hand seem like false godlike manipulation, forcing events to occur in a particular way to further the plot (I’d throw almost all of the Bond films into this category).

Clichés are a strange thing because they only become such through familiarity. I don’t necessarily believe they are a bad thing and can allow for some clever subversion. I’m particularly fond of an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Season 4, Episode 12 – A New Man) that finds the character Ethan Rayne hiding in a crypt and performing a sinister monologue after Giles leaves, only for Giles to pop back in and interrupt saying, “Is someone…?”. Buffy always worked best when it dissected the tropes of cliché.

This is a lot of talk about film and TV, my apologies.

My protagonist is called Evin and late in the story I intend for her to meet someone who I’m not looking forward to writing. He has always been there and is built into the final part of Evin’s story. Yesterday I wrote a section where she met an unpleasant character, intended to be a bit throw away role. I gave him a body, named him, surrounded him with people, and let him speak. And I really like the character, in the way that he’s a total bastard and I hate him. This left me wondering, would Evin meeting the same character again later spill awkwardly into contrivance? Would you read his reappearance and not believe that he would be there? The world I’ve created would not limit that sort of character to one person. My gut is that it would not be the same person she will meet again later, that I will work out a different personality and try to find a different way to be sinister.

Part of me is sad though, this horrific human got two pages and I can’t stop thinking about him.

– Andrew

One week to go…

Hello,

First off I would like to thank everyone for their kind words of support for this blog and my plans for writing short stories here. Also thank you to anyone who has shared a link to this blog. I follow this with a request that if you haven’t done so yet please let people know about it because it is officially a week until the launch of my first short story writing thing. I do need to come up with a proper name for it.

I’m trying to finalise, as best as possible, the structure for submissions. I’ve spoken to a few people about it and my gut is that the submissions should have a fairly similar structure for ease of reading and for being put up for vote. I’ll write a bit more about that before next Tuesday. I am 95% excited about it and 5% terrified.

If you follow my twitter you may have seen that I was at a preview screening of the new Hugh Jackman/Jake Gyllenhaal film ‘Prisoners’ last night and that during the screening I was struck by inspiration for a scene in my book. The part of the film was Jack’s character looking at a photo. This has little to nothing to do with my scene but it unravelled the knot I thought I had written myself into. I carry my notebook everywhere with me (it’s the one that is my avatar and banner on this blog), but it would have been a little awkward during the screening to try and scribble into it. I dug around for a pen (a pipe shaped pen no less) and scribbled a note on the back of my hand in almost pitch dark.

I get home, whack an episode of Breaking Bad up on Netflix (I am trying to watch them all before the end of the show – currently on episode 10 of Season 4) and translated those five poorly written words on my hand into a page of more detailed notes. It also unlocked a moment earlier in the book that I’m going to go back and add in that will relate to this and then to something that will come along later.

The things we do to stop a good idea from being forgotten.

– Andrew

My blog what I will write.

Hello there reader.

I am imaging you wearing a fine hat. Perhaps a bowler hat. Whatever the hat, in my mind you look suitably dashing to be reading this blog.

What is the purpose of this blog?

One word answer: WRITING.

I am attempting to write my first novel. It’s utterly brilliant and I’m sure you will love it. However, I figured that might not make for interesting reading on your behalf, and nor does it seem sufficiently interesting to warrant a whole blog about it.

SO WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THE BLOG?

You are impatient, dear reader, so let me tell you. Once a month I will write a short story between 500-1000 words (though that is an arbitrary figure and not to be taken as gospel) based on a suggestion from… YOU.

On the 1st of every month I will create a post for that month’s submissions where in the comments below you, most exquisite reader, can write a one sentence plot synopsis for a story. The top 5 ideas that I like will then be put to the vote around the 14th of the month. Voting will be open for a week. The idea with the most votes I will write as a short story.

That’s the idea of my blog in a nutshell.

The first post for submissions will go live on the 1st of October. If you have any questions please let me know, though the exact nature of the synopsis will be explained in that post.

If you think this sounds interesting please let your friends know otherwise the 1st of October is going to be a crushing disappointment to me.

Thanks.

– Andrew