Short Story Voting: December

The results of the poll will be hidden after voting. The result will be announced on 26th December 2013. Votes received after that date will not be counted.

Last Chance For November Submissions

Hello WordPress friends,

Tomorrow is the 14th which means, if so called “calendars” are to be believed, today is the last day to make suggestions for November’s short story.

Your suggestion can be anything: serious, funny, romantic, sad, abstract, whatever you feel like to be honest. Please check https://ardavidsonwrites.wordpress.com/2013/11/01/november-short-story-submission/ for details.

Share this post and help me get some suggestions for my November story. I can’t do this without you.

– Andrew

 

Structure For The Blog

Hello Blog-fans,

I probably won’t use that term again. It makes me feel unwell just looking at it.
Moving on…

I have been thinking more about what my plans for the blog are. You may have noticed that the banner at the top has changed slightly, I’m trying to give the blog more of an identity and structure. I sometimes have ideas for things to blog about, in the same way that I often think of things to tweet about. I don’t want this blog to become an expanded twitter page (if you look at my tweets to the right, you will be grateful for that). I want a way to compile those ideas into the blog in less of a scattergun approach.

I have decided for now that the structure of the blog will be: On Mondays I will blog about things that I have been thinking about regarding writing, so this is where the blog about music would be found, or the piece about clichés. On Thursday I will blog more generally. I’m being deliberately vague regarding that at the moment as it may change over time and can fit a few ideas I have regarding the publishing of the short stories.

So there you have it Blog-fans (last time, I promise!). For the time being, until I come up with a better plan, this will be the way the blog will work around the dates of the short story.

– Andrew

Story Submission – October 2013

Hello,

I was unable to post yesterday because of reasons, sorry this is a day late.

The idea should be that on the 14th I post my favourite submissions for you to choose which I should write as that short story. However, we only had one submission this month. Therefore I will be writing the following as October’s short story.

“A goat. Who is an author. But as soon as he finishes a page, he subconsciously eats it.”

Submitted by J

I will get the story up by the end of the month.

– Andrew

PS If you have Facebook you can follow my Facebook page to receive notification when this blog is updated. Click your mouse to: http://facebook.com/ardavidsonwrites

Musical Inspiration

Hello,

First up, let it be clear that this post exists as a pretence to talk about the Danny Elfman’s Music From The Films of Tim Burton concert at the Royal Albert Hall last night.
Sorry.

The show was fantastic and consisted of largely new suites written from themes from each of Burton’s films (anyone with either of the Music For A Darkened Theatre albums will have recognised the Edward Scissorhands and Batman suites) with illustrations by the director projected onto a large screen behind the orchestra. The show ended with Elfman himself appearing on stage to sing live for the first time, so he says, a number of songs from The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Above is a picture of my friend Alexandra in our box.

For a massive film score nerd, particularly the works of Mr Elfman, it was a fantastic night of some of his best work played by a stunning orchestra. It was nice to see a theremin being played live during the Mars Attacks! suite. Edward Scissorhands was as timeless and beautiful as ever. And I have lived to see Danny Elfman sing “What’s This?” from Nightmare live to the scene in the movie.

This bring me round to writing.
I can’t write to songs because I listen to the words and can’t concentrate. I can write in silence, but I find it a little oppressive. I listen to film scores as a means of inspiration. There are a few video game sound tracks in there too, Jesper Kyd’s score for Assassin’s Creed 2 is phenomenal. I just checked and iTunes tells me that if I were to listen to all my soundtracks continuously it would take 5 days to listen to them all.

Whilst writing my book I have been mostly listening to Michael Giacchino (Star Trek, Super 8 and M:I Ghost Protocol in particular). I’m often to be found wandering the back catalogue of John Williams’ work. I’ve said it before, but this is a man who composed three of the best film scores ever over three consecutive years:
The Empire Strikes Back, 1980
Raiders of the Lost Ark, 1981
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, 1982

You probably have favourite works of his: Harry Potter? Jurassic Park? Jaws? Catch Me If You Can?
Ergh, the list is endless.

Ennio Morricone’s work on countless Westerns; his theme to The Mission (oh my god, the love); his haunting, sad, edgy score for Adrian Lyne’s Lolita. There’s Thomas Newman (hello Silence of the Lambs, Lemony Snicket or The Green Mile) or Howard Shore’s everything. Who isn’t stirred by Alan Silvestri’s Back To The Future theme?

I love Alexandre Desplat’s Girl With A Pearl Earring, Clint Mansell’s Requiem For A Dream, Steve Jablonsky’s work on the Transformers movies, Eric Serra’s score for Leon, Stephen Warbeck’s Shakespeare In Love.

Perhaps the best score in recent years is Daft Punk’s soundtrack for Tron Legacy. If you don’t own that you’ve got to get a copy.

I’d be remiss not to mention my dear friend Steven Coltart who composed such wonderful things for my short films. He elevated Autumn Heart is ways that I can never fully explain, and to him I am indebted.

This is not a definitive list and I’m sure in half an hour I’ll think of something I should have added. There are hundreds. You’ll have your own favourites, post them below, I’m always open to suggestions.

What I’m getting at is these are the things that help bring my work out, that fuel my creativity, give it rhythm and pace. I lose myself to the emotion of the music. It helps me write.

How do you write?

– Andrew

 

Interactive Short Story feedback

Hello,

As you can only post submissions in the main post I thought I’d open this incase you want to leave any feedback or ask any questions about the process.

Thank you for your interest in my blog.

– 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