New Ideas

Right now I am developing a piece (I think as a short story, though it may end up as a dramatic monologue) about Calypso, the goddess from The Odyssey. It details what happened from her perspective when she held Odyseuss prisoner, seven years of 'sexual imprisonment', and then was forced to let him leave by Zeus. She's a little bit 'the woman scorned' but also it examines the double standard that exists even today where men are forgiven their infidelities whereas women are not - it's the whole stud/whore thing really. Well, the starting point of this story is anyway.
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I am also very tired right now, as this new job is draining. I may have to quit my second job just to have time to get my head together again, though considering I only earned £28 last month, giving up three Saturdays hardly seems worth it.
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*Picture is from http://www.flickr.com/photos/absolutechic/533955531/ by the way.

Being Lazy

Hi there y'all,

I am in an incredibly lazy mood at the moment, and seem to be stuck in a rut. My house is a complete sty, and I've not written anything for about a week, due I think to being tired and still adjusting to my new job and new routine. In my old job, I could write at lunchtimes, but I've not been able to yet where I am here. I know that's not much of an excuse, but there it is.
I've been up in Blackpool for work, and it was extremely windy and cold, and deserted. I was able to mull on a couple of ideas inspired by my location, but didn't have a lot of free time to execute them.
I am going to try to get motivated again soon. Guess everyone has peaks and troughs, right?
By the way, in case you were wondering, I decided to read The Glass Book of the Dream Eaters and am currently about half way through. 'Tis good so far, though has very long chapters, which isn't a good thing when you want to read a chapter before you go to bed.

Making Headway

I've been thinking lately about my Dorcas Grubb story. Seeing how it is set in Leicester, just wandering about the city inspires new characters and plot devices. It's all very exciting. I also had this great idea of developing Dorcas as a graphic novel (perhaps I've been reading Neil Gaiman too much), but I think it would work really well - it's basically an adventure fantasy story, with some really weird, sinister characters in it. However, my drawing skills never matured past the age of eight, and so I think I will continue to write the story in novel format, and then if when it is done I'm skill keen on the idea, then I will try to find some artists.

I am really enjoying mulling this idea around in my brain, and it's great because nothing is fixed yet (well, not really), and so I can alter plot and characters and philosophy at whim, and it is all now starting to swirl into something that I think, when it's finished, will be very cool indeed.

I have also completed the prologue and the first three chapters of Inter Vivos. I may, of course, need to revise them when the whole novel is written, but for now, they are pretty much as good as I can get them. I have also (drum roll ready) worked out how Inter Vivos is going to end. This is extremely exciting, because now I have something to aim for, rather than just writing randomly to see where it leads (which in my case was nowhere fast).

It's all coming together, and although there's still a long way to go, I feel a lot better about everything now.

I am currently re-reading Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows, and have made the monumental decision not to begin re-reading the HP books again straight afterwards (yes, I am feeling ok, thanks for your concern!). Instead I am going to read one of the several new books I received/bought myself over Christmas. Only problem is trying to decide which one to read first...

Wet!

At the moment, I have wet legs up to my knees thanks to the downpour outside; hard, icy rain that seemed to be impervious to my umbrella. Good old English weather!
I am currently working on rewriting the second chapter of Inter Vivos. It is not going very well. I know what I want to write, but I just don't seem to be very disciplined at the minute. It's the same old story with me, unfortunately. I am too easily distracted, or busy doing other things to give 100% of my time to it. Writing is hard work. Don't let anyone ever tell you any differently!
I haven't written any theatre for ages, and I'm thinking that I should start up again soon, especially if we want to get our Semper Festival project off the ground. I don't want to be distracted though by too many projects, so I think I'm going to just concentrate on IV now, and perhaps have another bash at Hoodies or Red in a couple of months.
Here is a link to a game I saw posted on Neil Gaiman's blog journal: http://www.freerice.com/index.php It improves your vocabulary and helps third world countries all at the same time. I am ashamedly poor at this quiz, though I'm hoping that if I do it every day, I will begin to educate myself (and feed starving folks around the world too!).

Chuckle

Just had to post a link to this. Some people are just having way too much fun reviewing pens!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000JTOYLS/ref=cm_rdp_product

Moan

Right, I'm having a moan now, because my writing seems to be crap again. Or perhaps it's just me not being able to get back into the swing of things after the christmas break? Anyway, I had a horrible dream, which I've interpreted as watching my ambitions of a writing career going (literally) down the drain, and it was horrible, and now I'm scared that I'm just crap and am going to be crap forever, or worse, that I just won't be able to find the time to write, and so will never ever be a writer. Am getting myself into a bit of a tiz about it all (so much so that I'm finding it difficult to concentrate on writing ... and so the circle goes on).

At least there is good news in the fact that even postwomen who have received bucket loads of rejection letters can win literary prizes.

New Year, New Job

Happy New Year to you all! I am now blogging from my new office, though I don't yet have a desk or my own PC... oh well! Hopefully by next week it will all be sorted.

Just a quick update really. I didn't do as much (ie any) writing as I had intended over the holiday period, and instead got depressed by how fat I've become, and worked on my letter to apply for a one-to-one with an agent at the Writing Industries Conference I'm attending.

And that's about all I've been doing, creative-wise, over the past two weeks. Time to put away the tinsel and get back to work, I think!