There’s an eerie silence around the boneyard just recently. I have a few stories out in the no-man’s land of the submission process that I’m waiting to hear on, but no firm responses as yet. It can be really frustrating during the often long, long wait for a reply. Tomorrow… maybe tomorrow.
I generally try to hold on to the thought that the longer the pieces are out there, the more seriously they are being considered. Sometimes though, it’s the hope that kills and when that rejection finally comes it’s just an awful, shuddering anti-climax to it all. Then the process starts again and the waiting starts again and the hope… well, there’s always hope.
Meanwhile, I’ll keep tapping away at the keyboard; writing, editing or scouring potential markets and hope that some good news comes through the worn and rusted gates of the boneyard soon.
Monday, 9 February 2009 TMI
This new internet-webby thing all the hip kids are talking about is great, it really is. Access to pretty much anything you want is just a search and a click away, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Anyone can be an instant expert – just add Google. Nothing is beyond the reach of the mighty search engine and the enquiring mind. But, is it all just too easy?
Take medical sites for example; useful in short doses, but a prolonged spell trawling through a list of symptoms will pretty much convince you that, at best, you really shouldn’t be walking around right now as you died last Tuesday. Comforting.
So, when does information become too much information? That’s the thinking behind Search; read it here.
It’s short, very short, and it won’t bite. Promise.
Anyone can be an instant expert – just add Google. Nothing is beyond the reach of the mighty search engine and the enquiring mind. But, is it all just too easy?
Take medical sites for example; useful in short doses, but a prolonged spell trawling through a list of symptoms will pretty much convince you that, at best, you really shouldn’t be walking around right now as you died last Tuesday. Comforting.
So, when does information become too much information? That’s the thinking behind Search; read it here.
It’s short, very short, and it won’t bite. Promise.
Wednesday, 4 February 2009 Free-Stylin’
The other night I was doing some editing work on a story I finished a while back (I always think it’s good practice to set a tale aside for a few days before revisiting it with fresh eyes). While I was changing a word here, a phrase there, an exchange of dialogue elsewhere and just generally dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s, something popped into my head.
It was a line from a story I’d read earlier in the day, not a particularly original or significant line, or even a memorable line, but there it was nonetheless. And it wouldn’t go away.
In the end I did the only thing I could to banish the stubborn thing; open up a new document and write about it.
I had absolutely no idea where this one was going; no characters in my head, no plot structure or story arc, no metaphor, no reason or rhyme. Nothing at all, just a single line as a launch pad… but it came, and easily too (so far, anyway). And it’s still coming, taking on shape and form more or less at will.
The point here? Well, sometimes it doesn’t hurt to do away with everything you know, or think you know, and... well, don’t think, just write. Let the words come, listen to those whispers that guide you, let that dark muse take you by the hand and lead you wherever it will. Oh, and hope that it’s a good place, a rewarding place.
It may all end in tears, but so far, so good.
It was a line from a story I’d read earlier in the day, not a particularly original or significant line, or even a memorable line, but there it was nonetheless. And it wouldn’t go away.
In the end I did the only thing I could to banish the stubborn thing; open up a new document and write about it.
I had absolutely no idea where this one was going; no characters in my head, no plot structure or story arc, no metaphor, no reason or rhyme. Nothing at all, just a single line as a launch pad… but it came, and easily too (so far, anyway). And it’s still coming, taking on shape and form more or less at will.
The point here? Well, sometimes it doesn’t hurt to do away with everything you know, or think you know, and... well, don’t think, just write. Let the words come, listen to those whispers that guide you, let that dark muse take you by the hand and lead you wherever it will. Oh, and hope that it’s a good place, a rewarding place.
It may all end in tears, but so far, so good.
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