Friday, June 17, 2011

Technology Hates Me

Everything seems to be going wrong at the minute, and I'm starting to wig out. Twitter on my phone keeps telling me my username and password are invalid, even though I can sign in fine through a web browser, plus it keeps losing signal, even though I apparently have a "boost" through WiFi. Stupid BlackBerry. I can't even get Facebook on it anymore as it kept crashing, and so I missed loads of events and social occasions as a result. I swear I'm getting an android phone as soon as my contract is up!

Work is uber busy, but despite this I have managed to work out the story for my Matti novel. I just can't quite decide at what point in the story do I begin - I hate flashbacks, but the beginning isn't really the most interesting part. Decisions, decisions.

I am hopefully off to Alt.Fiction next weekend, and going to try to do some of the workshops this year as I didn't go to any last time. I hope it's good.

Uh! Stupid phone. Now it won't even let me send a text message. I think I'd better go and calm down before I throw it at something. Is there such a thing as "phone rage"?

Tuesday, June 07, 2011

A Little Writing Update

I have been having a bit of a think about my Matti novel. I knew that what I had written for NaNoWriMo hadn't turned out as I had intended. It just didn't say what I wanted it to, and I have been flummoxed as to how to go about fixing it. After speaking to a couple of people at Speculators (the writing group that seems to have adopted me), I've decided to try again, starting with the short story that I wrote initially about Matti and Eva at the funeral of their mother, using this as the starting point of the story, rather than as a flashforward to the end. I know now what I want the story to be about (“sisters, and mothers and daughters, and loss”) but now I'm trying to put some plot to it, trying to find something that is fitting to the piece and won't threaten to take over the main themes, like my Whedon-esque plot did the first time around.

It has been a while since I've actually written something. I have done lots of planning, lots of rewriting, but not a lot of the 'creating' recently. So that's something I am trying to get my head back into. I think Matti and Dorcas are my main priorities right now, though I do need to write a new short story too. I have a lot of work to do, but I'm trying not to let that feeling of being under pressure and needing to rush consume me again. Trying to take it one piece at a time.