I'm a day early to Rachel Bateman's Beach Scene Blogfest. But, as my weekend is going to be cray-zee (house-hunting, no Internet), I thought it best to post this now and come back and read everyone else's entries as soon as I get a chance this weekend.
Anyway, here's my entry below, and do go to Rachel's signup page and check out the other posts tomorrow!
I was originally going to post something from my completed ECHOES, but as I don't actually have any beaches anywhere in there, I decided to use a rough piece from my work-in-progress, HALF, instead. To the curious or confused, the titles will take you to a page about my projects, which will explain plot and background better!
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I watched Mrs. Warren carefully. She fiddled with her cup of tea. Her eyes drifted to mine and then away again. I tried to decide if she was preparing herself to lie to me - or if she was just torn.
"There was a day," she said at last, "At the beach, like. I took them because they told me they'd never seen the sea, bless them, the poor little things. Never seen the sea, can you imagine? Growing up on this island, never seen the sea!"
Given the way they had grown up, I could easily imagine it. "What happened at the beach?"
"There was a woman there," Mrs. Warren remembered, her face smoothing into that blank, faraway look people always seem to wear when they're remembering something. I decided she wasn't lying. "Lovely thing. Not quite so young, like, but not old. She was watching them, the two of them. Kenneth, mostly. She was watching them with this look. It didn't take long for little Seira to notice. Always the sharp eye, she had."
"And then?"
"That woman," said Mrs. Warren, dreamily, "Could of sworn I'd seen her before, somewhere. Such a familiar face. She stood by the edge of the waves, with the water at her feet and her dress drifting back, like one of those sea-creatures you read about."
"Mrs. Warren," I said, clutching my teacup, "Tell me about Seira and Kenneth Cross."
"Why don't you ask me yourself, Mr. Wade?" came a voice from the doorway.
I'm a poet, after all, so I have been known to be fanciful. But I had never been less fanciful than I was in that moment - and my nerve endings had never come so violently alive. The sound of her voice trickled ice shards down the back of my neck. I turned. I remember being afraid, though for the life of me I couldn't tell you what I was afraid of, or for.
I looked into the eyes of the woman I had set out to understand, the girl I had become addicted to, discovering the truth of her past and her story a quest burned into my soul.
Seira Cross looked back at me, and then she did something I didn't expect.
She laughed.
"Go on, Mrs. Warren," she said, her eyes as bright as jewels, "Tell the poet and spy what happened that day at the beach. I'd love to see what he makes of it."
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While we're on the subject of blogfests, please do sign up for my Character Interview Blogfest (see the sidebar for the signup sheet)!
Happy weekend, everyone!
Showing posts with label half. Show all posts
Showing posts with label half. Show all posts
Friday, 4 June 2010
Thursday, 1 April 2010
I'm a sucker for Greek gods
I've managed, by and large, to recover from my sleepless night. I caught a few hours in the late morning and am now looking forward to an early night.
Have just been into town with Lindsey, where we dropped into a bar for a drink or two. Minor hitch in this plan: apparently, I managed to walk all over Asda, town and the bar with a hairband stuck to my back (well, below my back actually) and only realized it was there when a group of older men with tankards of beer decided to ask me if it was deliberate. My face went so hot you could have scrambled eggs on me.
Steve's started a blog, and has a few posts up already. It's focused on sport and his opinion of current sport news and updates, so if you like that kind of thing, do see him. He manages to make it sound interesting to me, which is a feat, because I'm very un-sport-y. So I reckon someone who likes that stuff would love it.
I've decided to attempt an experiment in writing Half. There are certain things I absolutely love, and I've decided to include them all in the novel, and see if they work together. If I could read my ideal book, it would have all of these things, so I thought: why not write something with all these things I love? Can I make it work, even if they seem incompatible?
So into my slightly dystopian premise, I'm planning to infuse:
Have just been into town with Lindsey, where we dropped into a bar for a drink or two. Minor hitch in this plan: apparently, I managed to walk all over Asda, town and the bar with a hairband stuck to my back (well, below my back actually) and only realized it was there when a group of older men with tankards of beer decided to ask me if it was deliberate. My face went so hot you could have scrambled eggs on me.
Steve's started a blog, and has a few posts up already. It's focused on sport and his opinion of current sport news and updates, so if you like that kind of thing, do see him. He manages to make it sound interesting to me, which is a feat, because I'm very un-sport-y. So I reckon someone who likes that stuff would love it.
I've decided to attempt an experiment in writing Half. There are certain things I absolutely love, and I've decided to include them all in the novel, and see if they work together. If I could read my ideal book, it would have all of these things, so I thought: why not write something with all these things I love? Can I make it work, even if they seem incompatible?
So into my slightly dystopian premise, I'm planning to infuse:
- Sherlock Holmes
- Greek mythology
- Clothes/shoes
- Slightly Victorian language
- A sexy love interest and an electrifying romance
- A man who growls. I love men who growl. See my previous mention of my love for Kevin McKidd. He growls, in a nice way.
Tuesday, 30 March 2010
Seira Struggles
In the interest of a tongue-in-cheek reference to a writer stereotype involving coffee addictions, I thought I'd include this picture with my post. Photographed by Suat Eman, it quite effectively captures my mood and condition right now.
Imagine the blank pages of the notebook and laptop, and the pen hovering in my head/my fingers hovering over the keys. What to write, what to write? Substitute the coffee with chamomile tea or Oasis citrus, and you have my desk at the moment. I sit, and I drink my drink, and I struggle. Yes, I struggle. I feel like Sisyphus, pushing the rock endlessly up the hill. Or Prometheus, with my liver being torn out repeatedly, such is this agony.
My struggle centres around my protagonist and narrator and key-est of characters in HALF. Her name is Seira Cross, as she is still named and hopefully will continue to be unless I take a sudden and violent dislike to the name. I've hit a roadblock in the writing of HALF, after a grand total of three pages, simply because of her. Don't get me wrong. I love this character. At least, I will once she's more real to me. But she's taking her time fleshing out in my head, and until she fleshes, I can't work well with mere bones.
I just can't quite get a handle on who she is. I don't know if it's because my mind's distracted with so many other things, or if reading a few lovely books recently has made me feel like my heroine must be like those wonderful heroines, or if it's simply just that Seira hasn't yet decided what she wants to be and who she is, and I'm waiting for her. What's she like? Is she rebellious, or quiet? Does she have a mischievous streak, or is she very naive? Is she proud and confident, or does she struggle with insecurities and fears? Does she like opera or rock? What does she dream of? Who does she love most in the world? Actually, I already know the answer to that one, at least for the beginning. So many questions and so many quandaries. I can't just choose for her. She needs to take shape in my head.
On a brighter note, there are many things I could try that will, hopefully, compel her to shape up faster.
I write this partly out of frustration and despair. I'm in that state where all I want to do is throw a boot at the door, or pour hot tea over my laptop and electrocute my characters. Much as I love them, electrocution is tempting. The only reason I am avoiding such drastic measures is because I can't afford another laptop, and I fear my beloved and slightly tattered boots will not survive a flinging at the door.
I needed to write this out and 'talk' it through. But I'm also posting this because I think it's a useful and hopefully interesting (compelling? Charming? Scintillating? Or just plain tripe?) insight into the kinds of struggles a writer must fight through during the course of writing a novel, especially in these early stages. Struggles with Seira is only one kind: characterization. There will be others: plot problems, pace struggles, editing operas... I always find it fascinating to glimpse authors' writing processes and see them overcome their challenges, so I thought I'd share pieces of mine.
Hopefully, this challenge will be overcome soon. I am nothing if not pigheaded, and I am also too impatient in nature to wait for Seira to make up her mind. I'll peel her back, layer by layer, if I have to.
Imagine the blank pages of the notebook and laptop, and the pen hovering in my head/my fingers hovering over the keys. What to write, what to write? Substitute the coffee with chamomile tea or Oasis citrus, and you have my desk at the moment. I sit, and I drink my drink, and I struggle. Yes, I struggle. I feel like Sisyphus, pushing the rock endlessly up the hill. Or Prometheus, with my liver being torn out repeatedly, such is this agony.
My struggle centres around my protagonist and narrator and key-est of characters in HALF. Her name is Seira Cross, as she is still named and hopefully will continue to be unless I take a sudden and violent dislike to the name. I've hit a roadblock in the writing of HALF, after a grand total of three pages, simply because of her. Don't get me wrong. I love this character. At least, I will once she's more real to me. But she's taking her time fleshing out in my head, and until she fleshes, I can't work well with mere bones.
I just can't quite get a handle on who she is. I don't know if it's because my mind's distracted with so many other things, or if reading a few lovely books recently has made me feel like my heroine must be like those wonderful heroines, or if it's simply just that Seira hasn't yet decided what she wants to be and who she is, and I'm waiting for her. What's she like? Is she rebellious, or quiet? Does she have a mischievous streak, or is she very naive? Is she proud and confident, or does she struggle with insecurities and fears? Does she like opera or rock? What does she dream of? Who does she love most in the world? Actually, I already know the answer to that one, at least for the beginning. So many questions and so many quandaries. I can't just choose for her. She needs to take shape in my head.
On a brighter note, there are many things I could try that will, hopefully, compel her to shape up faster.
I write this partly out of frustration and despair. I'm in that state where all I want to do is throw a boot at the door, or pour hot tea over my laptop and electrocute my characters. Much as I love them, electrocution is tempting. The only reason I am avoiding such drastic measures is because I can't afford another laptop, and I fear my beloved and slightly tattered boots will not survive a flinging at the door.
I needed to write this out and 'talk' it through. But I'm also posting this because I think it's a useful and hopefully interesting (compelling? Charming? Scintillating? Or just plain tripe?) insight into the kinds of struggles a writer must fight through during the course of writing a novel, especially in these early stages. Struggles with Seira is only one kind: characterization. There will be others: plot problems, pace struggles, editing operas... I always find it fascinating to glimpse authors' writing processes and see them overcome their challenges, so I thought I'd share pieces of mine.
Hopefully, this challenge will be overcome soon. I am nothing if not pigheaded, and I am also too impatient in nature to wait for Seira to make up her mind. I'll peel her back, layer by layer, if I have to.
Sunday, 28 March 2010
It really never rains, it...
A veritable heap of writing-related and like updates today. First, a note on this blog and blogging in general. I'm amazed by how much I enjoy doing it! It's really grown on me, and posting once a day (or more often) has been easy so far. Of course, there will be exceptionally busy days and days when I'm away, but it's been fantastic, and a big thank you to the small handful of people who have been reading my posts so far!
I've been meaning to write this post for the last two hours, but was repeatedly delayed by a number of extraordinary and bewildering factors: checking various accounts, reading other blogs, explaining to my mother how to comment on a blog (she worked it out eventually, as evidenced in my previous post), three different conversations on Facebook, a Twitter update, writing an article on a website... and, at last. I managed to work my way back here. My head reels. I kid you not, it spins and boggles and does peculiar things to my eyes. I glimpse worrying signs of crow's feet and forehead wrinkles, borne of the hours I spend frowning at the screen as a multitude of tasks continue to boggle my brain.
But let's steer away from my encroaching age and move on to the meat of the post, which I am rather excited about...
It's amazing how I can have dry spells for weeks, where I won't be able to write anything except what I have to (read: essays, dissertation chapters, portfolio self-reflections and other painful necessities), and then, out of the blue, I'll find myself with not one, or two, but three things to write.
1. This blog, of course, which readers will have known about already. While the elite may not count this as writing, I think it's very useful. It keeps me practicing, and it forces me to (try to) be interesting, scintillating, honest, witty, and more, all of which are key to writing novels. It also inspires me with ideas.
2. A website called HubPages.com, where people write up articles about just about any subject they can think of or find interesting. It's a little bit like blogging, only it involves being a lot more detailed, clear-cut and academic, in a sense. There's less freedom, obviously, than blogging, but it's a place where people go to find information about certain things and that's useful. I've just written my first article, which was, of course, about Sherlock Holmes and I hope anyone who likes the subject will go have a look.
I realize I haven't mentioned Sherlock Holmes on this blog yet, which is a travesty considering my love of it. I am obsessed, addicted and thoroughly enamoured of the stories, the characters and the Holmes/Watson dynamic. Occasionally, I'll re-watch episodes of House just because the House/Wilson dynamic is so deliberately intended to echo Holmes and Watson. My ultimate quest is to one day write a detailed guide to the stories and the world created by Arthur Conan Doyle. What fun. One day. When I'm not a student, when I don't have a dissertation scowling at me, when I have that imaginary thing known as Lots of Free Time.
Anyway, I've started up on HubPages, and will hopefully enjoy writing articles and reading them as and when I feel like it. Sometimes, I think I deliberately add things to my plate just to distract me from the fact that Steve isn't here much.
3. And the third and, to me, the most exciting thing I'm writing: a new project! I began writing it on Friday and although I've only written about a page and a half so far, I'm very excited about it. It's not technically a new project, because it's sort of been in the works and stewing in my head for months now. But with ECHOES pretty much done, dusted and its sequels temporarily shelved during my quest for its publication, this is the first time I've really started a new project with the intent of plunging into it full-tilt.
It's tentatively called HALF at the moment, the title inspired by the enormously significant fact that the two protagonists are half siblings. I'd classify the novel as fantasy or science fiction, but it really only deserves these tags because it takes place in a dystopian future where Britain is ruled by the Lifeblood, a Nazi-like government that believes all people of colour and disability have no place in Britain. The novel is narrated by Seira, a half-Indian girl who struggles to survive in this world, builds fragile relationships and, ultimately, fights back. Key characters will also include Kenneth, Seira's half-brother; Isabella, niece of the Lifeblood's Prime Minister; and Remy, a poet and secret revolutionary.
Of course, all of this is subject to change, because I'm still in the early, first draft stage, but it's exciting to jump in and see where this goes.
Finally, a few other small writing-related updates. First, most people will remember my post where I talked about putting some of ECHOES online on WEBook. A few hours after that post, I put a page of the novel up for WEBook's PageToFame contest, where readers rate the first page of a story and vote whether or not to send it through to the next round. Although I had to pay a few quid, I thought it was a useful way to find out whether or not ECHOES (first page or more) is popular with anonymous readers. My first ratings on that first page were posted for me today.
*drumroll*...
...It turns out that, so far, 60% of readers want my submission elevated to the next round! Of course, in the interest of being scrupulously honest, I ought to add that 20% think my first page was 'not great'. Still, first pages can be polished and reworked, and I think the first statistic is pretty exciting! Will let people know how this goes.
On a different note, an update re. queries to agents. Of the ten I have now written to, only two have replied as yet. One was, as I mentioned before, a request for a partial followed by a rejection. The other response, received this week, was a rejection of the query. It stings, but the great thing about writing and being excited about HALF is that it keeps me optimistic and stops me from letting every rejection depress me for days.
And wouldn't you know it? I had at least one other update to post, but it has been swept clean out of my head. I really and truly can't remember! Such is my absent-minded brain. Ah well. I'll post again when or if I remember. Until then, I'll sign off with an apology for how long this post has been and with the hope that everyone has had a lovely weekend!
I've been meaning to write this post for the last two hours, but was repeatedly delayed by a number of extraordinary and bewildering factors: checking various accounts, reading other blogs, explaining to my mother how to comment on a blog (she worked it out eventually, as evidenced in my previous post), three different conversations on Facebook, a Twitter update, writing an article on a website... and, at last. I managed to work my way back here. My head reels. I kid you not, it spins and boggles and does peculiar things to my eyes. I glimpse worrying signs of crow's feet and forehead wrinkles, borne of the hours I spend frowning at the screen as a multitude of tasks continue to boggle my brain.
But let's steer away from my encroaching age and move on to the meat of the post, which I am rather excited about...
It's amazing how I can have dry spells for weeks, where I won't be able to write anything except what I have to (read: essays, dissertation chapters, portfolio self-reflections and other painful necessities), and then, out of the blue, I'll find myself with not one, or two, but three things to write.
1. This blog, of course, which readers will have known about already. While the elite may not count this as writing, I think it's very useful. It keeps me practicing, and it forces me to (try to) be interesting, scintillating, honest, witty, and more, all of which are key to writing novels. It also inspires me with ideas.
2. A website called HubPages.com, where people write up articles about just about any subject they can think of or find interesting. It's a little bit like blogging, only it involves being a lot more detailed, clear-cut and academic, in a sense. There's less freedom, obviously, than blogging, but it's a place where people go to find information about certain things and that's useful. I've just written my first article, which was, of course, about Sherlock Holmes and I hope anyone who likes the subject will go have a look.
I realize I haven't mentioned Sherlock Holmes on this blog yet, which is a travesty considering my love of it. I am obsessed, addicted and thoroughly enamoured of the stories, the characters and the Holmes/Watson dynamic. Occasionally, I'll re-watch episodes of House just because the House/Wilson dynamic is so deliberately intended to echo Holmes and Watson. My ultimate quest is to one day write a detailed guide to the stories and the world created by Arthur Conan Doyle. What fun. One day. When I'm not a student, when I don't have a dissertation scowling at me, when I have that imaginary thing known as Lots of Free Time.
Anyway, I've started up on HubPages, and will hopefully enjoy writing articles and reading them as and when I feel like it. Sometimes, I think I deliberately add things to my plate just to distract me from the fact that Steve isn't here much.
3. And the third and, to me, the most exciting thing I'm writing: a new project! I began writing it on Friday and although I've only written about a page and a half so far, I'm very excited about it. It's not technically a new project, because it's sort of been in the works and stewing in my head for months now. But with ECHOES pretty much done, dusted and its sequels temporarily shelved during my quest for its publication, this is the first time I've really started a new project with the intent of plunging into it full-tilt.
It's tentatively called HALF at the moment, the title inspired by the enormously significant fact that the two protagonists are half siblings. I'd classify the novel as fantasy or science fiction, but it really only deserves these tags because it takes place in a dystopian future where Britain is ruled by the Lifeblood, a Nazi-like government that believes all people of colour and disability have no place in Britain. The novel is narrated by Seira, a half-Indian girl who struggles to survive in this world, builds fragile relationships and, ultimately, fights back. Key characters will also include Kenneth, Seira's half-brother; Isabella, niece of the Lifeblood's Prime Minister; and Remy, a poet and secret revolutionary.
Of course, all of this is subject to change, because I'm still in the early, first draft stage, but it's exciting to jump in and see where this goes.
Finally, a few other small writing-related updates. First, most people will remember my post where I talked about putting some of ECHOES online on WEBook. A few hours after that post, I put a page of the novel up for WEBook's PageToFame contest, where readers rate the first page of a story and vote whether or not to send it through to the next round. Although I had to pay a few quid, I thought it was a useful way to find out whether or not ECHOES (first page or more) is popular with anonymous readers. My first ratings on that first page were posted for me today.
*drumroll*...
...It turns out that, so far, 60% of readers want my submission elevated to the next round! Of course, in the interest of being scrupulously honest, I ought to add that 20% think my first page was 'not great'. Still, first pages can be polished and reworked, and I think the first statistic is pretty exciting! Will let people know how this goes.
On a different note, an update re. queries to agents. Of the ten I have now written to, only two have replied as yet. One was, as I mentioned before, a request for a partial followed by a rejection. The other response, received this week, was a rejection of the query. It stings, but the great thing about writing and being excited about HALF is that it keeps me optimistic and stops me from letting every rejection depress me for days.
And wouldn't you know it? I had at least one other update to post, but it has been swept clean out of my head. I really and truly can't remember! Such is my absent-minded brain. Ah well. I'll post again when or if I remember. Until then, I'll sign off with an apology for how long this post has been and with the hope that everyone has had a lovely weekend!
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