- Posts tagged A Boy of Blood and Clay
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Post-its and Planning
So I completely forgot to update last week. I can’t even remember why now, but let’s just pretend it was due to a flurry of productivity on my part, and not just huge laziness, which is more likely but less heroic.The Steel Walk is edging towards 100,000 words now and alarmingly enough, shows no particular signs of being near the end. At least I am well into the third act and having fun with the story; Eri is angrily traipsing through the swamps of the Green Jenny Council while evil things are afoot in all corners of Ferrum, and Saul has some difficult choices to make. I may even have some clue as to how the whole thing ends.Writing The Steel Walk has been an education in the process of how to put a book together, although I’m not sure I’m any closer to figuring out the best way of doing it. So far each book has been approached differently, and I have learnt different lessons.Bad Apple Bone- Started writing it before I even knew it was a book, and consequently I only had a vague idea of the plot by around the 30,000 words mark. An exciting if agonising way to put a novel together, it did however all fall together with surprising neatness. I’m sure this was a fluke, and unlikely to ever be repeated.Bird and Tower- When I started this one for NaNoWriMo, I was very clear on the beginning and the end, and had a vague structure for the middle (“Quint searches for other siblings, hijinks ensue”) but what with the fabulous by-the-seat-of-your-leg-hats* approach of NaNo, if I did any more planning than that I don’t remember it. A joy to write, quite honestly, even if I kept forgetting one of the characters existed.A Boy of Blood and Clay- A lesson in how it is wise to have, you know, even the slightest clue of how the plot will develop and who your characters are. Not sure what I was thinking with this one (I still believe that when it’s finished, it might be the best thing I’ve written)Ink for Thieves- This book was a return to a vague plot outline and detailed character notes, and thanks again to the backside-wallop of NaNo, largely quite fun to write. It had it’s moments of “I have shamed myself and my ancestors with this book” but the characters came to life for me and behaved in naughty ways, the plot headache of the Embers resolved itself and I got to the end of it. After A Boy of Blood and Clay, that was a big relief.So, what have I learnt? Mostly, that no planning is bad, except when it works, and over planning is good, except where it doesn’t. Does that make sense? I had detailed character notes for Eri and Saul before I started The Steel Walk, but they still went merrily ahead and behaved in all sorts of unexpected ways anyway, and Alice, a character who barely existed at the planning stage, has come to impact on the plot in all sorts of drastic ways.The next, as yet unnamed project, is a sort-of-science-fiction first person narrative with strong crime elements (and a girl called Zootsi) so I think I have no choice; planning will be done, notes will be made, and post-its will be wasted, until I can go into NaNoWriMo this year knowing that I just have to fill in the fun bits. I may restrain myself from drawing a map though.*for an explanation of leg-hats, please go and listen to The Soldiers of Tangent, the fab new comedy podcast from those behemoths of audio genius, Danny “The Accent” Davies and Marty “Churlish” Perrett. http://thesoldiersoftangent.mevio.com/
Blank-Spacing
A sort of updatey blog post today.Progress on The Steel Walk continues in patchy fashion. I have to admit, writing for an hour in the morning before work does appear to work, and I’m certainly getting more words done on a regular basis than I have ever done before. I’m up to around 63,000 words at the moment, which is traditionally where the story grinds to a halt and I wrestle with the idea of just jacking the whole thing in (A Boy of Blood and Clay imploded at this point). Fingers crossed, that hasn’t happened yet, but I do know from the previous two books that the last 40-50,000 is always a bitch, and it certainly isn’t going to get any easier. In happy news, I’ve had another short story accepted by The Hub, which should be in the next issue. Hurrah! I’ve been reading George R.R Martin’s short story collection Dream Songs, which is equal parts inspiring and daunting. I think what impresses me the most about his short work is that with many of them I could see an entire book written about the characters featured, or just set in the worlds he has created. I’d love to get this sense of scope in my own work, but I think that’s a way off yet. I have also been thinking about blank-spacing. You know how you often find that ideas occur to you when you’re doing some sort of monotonous physical task and you’re not thinking about anything in particular? It’s day dreaming I suppose, and it’s an important part of a writer’s life. I notice that a lot of writers talk on their blogs about going for walks (especially when stuck for ideas) and this often helps them on their way. Justin Cronin, author of The Passage (soon to be gracing tube carriages everywhere, no doubt) came up with most of that book while out running. I have found that I often come up with short story ideas while I’m in the shower or washing up (this rather suggests that I need wet hands to think of anything good…)Anyway, it appears that simply sitting and staring into space is not enough; we need to be physically occupied, as if once our bodies are distracted our brains can start thinking again. I have decided to call this Blank-Spacing- mainly because it sounds all business wordy and more official than Day Dreaming, and it sort of describes how you need to empty your head about before excellent ideas fill it up. When I was little, I used to ride my bike around the close on an endless circuit with one of my soft toys stuck in the basket, and I used to tell him or her stories as they occurred to me (usually it was Louie, Donald Duck’s green baseball cap wearing nephew, or Mousie. I think you can guess what sort of toy Mousie was).Ideally I’d like to go for a few walks, or perhaps take up skipping. Or knitting. Or kung-fu. Or break dancing. This blank-spacing/day dreaming period is quite vital I think, but what with life and writing already taking up all my time, it is very difficult to allocate a decent amount of time to it.I’d love to know how other writer’s handle day dream time. Is it vital to you? Does it happen when you’re supposed to be doing other things? Do you consciously pursue it? Tell me!
Book Meme!
Here we go! This one is doing the rounds at the moment, and it gives me the opportunity to waffle on about books for ages. Excellent stuff on this meme over at Unbound: http://hagelrat.blogspot.com/2010/07/meme-with-relish.html and at Adam Christopher's Blog: http://www.adamchristopher.co.uk/One Book That Changed Your LifeThe Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams- I read this when I had just started senior school I think. I’d had one life changing book previous to that; The Lord of the Rings had blown my tiny little mind the summer before, and caused me to dump the chronicles of Narnia faster than a very hot thing. LOTR opened my mind to the idea of epic adventure, of truly risking your life for a noble quest, of heroics and true love and all that good stuff. Hitch Hiker’s Guide had a more subtle, but altogether deeper impact, because it gave me an adult sense of humour. I don’t mean I developed a love of knob jokes, but rather that my idea of funny was utterly changed. Over the course of that book I think I grew up a bit, and it introduced me to science-fiction too.It’s also the sort of book you can read over and over again at different times in your life and get something new from it every time. Douglas Adams gave us a gem with that book, and he remains my hero because of it.One Book You Have To Read More Than OnceGood Omens by Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett- I’ve read HitchHiker’s Guide to the Galaxy around about 30 times now. Consequently, I don’t think I can read it again for a very long time without going slightly loopy, so for this one I’ve elected Good Omens. I have two copies of this book- the pristine one signed by Mr Pratchett and the copy that has since fallen to bits due to endless readings. It’s enormously funny, full of absolutely memorable characters and even has some nifty things to say about nature, nurture, and humanity. Odd phrases from this book continually float around in my mind, so that I will often think “Buggre ye alle this” when I’m stuck doing something boring, or think of Crowley when I hear Bohemian Rhapsody.How could I not adore a book that combines two of my favourite authors?One Book You’d Want On A Desert IslandThe Stand by Stephen King- Now, if I was really stuck on an island I’d want quantity as well as quality, and The Stand certainly has that. I love that King appears to have avoided all editing on this book (well, mostly. I’d make sure I’d have the uncut edition) and gives us the juicy details on all the characters and shows us the world falling apart in widescreen. This is King at his absolute best, introducing us to characters we know and love within a couple of pages, then taking us with them on a truly harrowing journey beyond the end of the world. I remember them all, and what they went through, as well as if a good friend sat me down and told me the story.If nothing else, at least I could reflect that I’m only stuck on a desert island, which isn’t nearly as bad as dying of Captain Trips.Two Books That Made You LaughNotes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson- I don’t read much non-fiction. In fact, thinking about it Bryson is about the only non-fiction I do read, and that’s because he is both laugh-out-loud-on-the-bus funny, and incredibly knowledgeable. Small Island is my favourite because he’s writing about England, and even though I haven’t actually been to all of the places he talks about, the familiarity of the peculiar English character had me giggling like a loon. Gods, we are a strange bunch. An American with a deliciously dry sense of humour, he understands us better than we do, and managed the near impossible task of making me feel patriotic. Even if it’s only for our near obsessive love for stodgy puddings.The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists by Gideon Defoe- These little books have me in fits all the way through. Written for a bet to impress a girl (supposedly) they contain more thrilling pirate action, monkeys, and prize winning hams than you can throw your wooden leg at.One Book That Made You CryA Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R Martin- Alright, I’ve cheated slightly with this one, but I think it’s worth noting that as a whole, this series has caused more actual blubbings than anything else I’ve read- even a few in public! I read them only recently, finally giving in to the general hubbub of praise surrounding the books, and my goodness… they were an absolute joy. Apart from when I was crying, obviously.The thing is, Martin is excellent at creating characters you really love (Tyrion might be one of my favourite characters in a fantasy book ever) and then really putting them through absolute hell. I had the misfortune to read about the Red Wedding while on the way to work- I had to catch my breath and stare furiously out of the window so that no one else on the bus would see me struggling not to cry. Strong stuff. Excellent stories.It’s also worth noting that A Song of Ice and Fire has also given me the biggest number of “OH MY GOD WHAT THE CRAP- ??!” moments. Seriously good books.One Book You’d Wish You’d WrittenAmerican Gods by Neil Gaiman- One of my favourite books of all time, so yes, it would be lovely if I’d written it. It contains all the stuff I’m crazy about; mythology, gods, horror, mystery and weirdness. It’s the sort of book that pleases me deeply as a reader because it gives you credit- there’s stuff running all the way through that’s right there for you to figure out, if you can see it. Each time I read it, I see a little more. I would love to write something that has so many layers to it, and uses the wealth of folklore and mythology so well.Just before A Boy of Blood and Clay imploded in on itself, I realized it was my own sort of American Gods- a London Gods, perhaps. I hope I can finish it one day.One Book You Wish Was NEVER WrittenDark Tower 7 by Stephen King- I don’t want to speak ill of books really, especially not when two of the books in this series are some of my absolute favourites. But let’s be honest- this is an easy choice for me. The last book in a series of 7 written over, I dunno, a very long time indeed, this was the biggest disappointment I’ve ever read. I can’t really go into why without major spoilers and getting all narked about it again, but suffice to say that I’d rather have had no ending than the one we got. This is a book where Stephen King himself interrupts before the final chapter to tell you that you probably won’t like the ending, so maybe you’d be better off not reading the rest… The only book I’ve ever thrown across the room at the finish. And it’s a really big book.Two Books You Are Currently ReadingStorm Front by Jim Butcher, Dream Songs Part 2 by George R.R Martin- I’m also reading The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe, but I’ve finished the first part so I’m taking a little break (apparently “fantasy literature” means completely bananas, but I am enjoying it). The first Harry Dresden book is great fun so far, and G.R.R.M is a master of short stories.One Book You’ve Been Meaning To ReadSomething Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury- I’ve wanted to read this since I read Stephen King’s comments on it in Danse Macabre, but for some reason I’ve never gotten around to it. One of the panellists at Alt.Fiction mentioned it in the Genre Books You Must Read panel, so I really need to get my arse in gear.
By the pricking of my thumbs
I realised an odd thing today. I identify with the witch. Or at least, I am drawn to witches more often than almost anything else (aside from possibly, uh, child sacrifice). I was reading a short story by George R.R Martin called In the Lost Lands, a lovely thing concerning werewolves and a woman who, although she is never named as such, is almost certainly a witch of a sort. It occurred to me that I liked it especially because Grey Alys was written with sympathy, and not entirely as a dirty ol’ monster. When I think about it, I come back to witches again and again in all of my work. Bad Apple Bone is the most obvious example, as it concerns a great many witches, some of whom are bad, some of whom are good, and some, in the case of Noon, who are just tremendously lazy. Even if I don’t have a witch by name in my story, I will undoubtedly have a crazy old woman who is more than she appears to be, such as Moony Sue in A Boy of Blood and Clay, a woman who is possibly an elderly wise woman and just as possibly the River Thames. Bird and Tower, and Ink for Thieves both have examples, and in The Steel Walk I have returned to big ol’ groups of proper witches, with the Green Jenny Council- and there’s not a single good apple amongst that lot. None of this was deliberate, so where has it come from? When I was a kid I was a big fan of the more gruesome fairytales, and most of those involved witches (Hansel and Gretel- when you really think about it, how deeply fucked up is that story? Love it). When it came to Disney films, I was always vaguely on the witchy side, and who can blame me? We had Marvellous Madam Mim, Ursula, Maleficent and the scary old bag from Snow White, all of whom were more interesting than the supposed heroes and heroines of the movies. And the Wicked Witch of the West had flying monkeys at her disposal! That’s pretty cool, if you ask me.And when I went to college I spent a lot of time reading about folklore and fairy tales, even writing essays on it- I might have many issues with my time at art college, but I can’t complain about the freedom of the course; you could write about anything you wanted to, as long as you did it reasonably well. My dissertation was even about witches, in a way; I wrote about the evil mother figure that features as the enemy in so many stories, such as Coraline’s Other Mother, or Yubaba from Spirited away. That research was enormous fun. But the biggest influence has to be, without a shadow of a doubt, the marvelous witches of the Discworld. I loved the witches novels the best I think, because it was always Pratchett writing at his best; about the conventions of folklore, and the strange and unfathomable ways of people. Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg were instantly deeply familiar to me, through my own Nan, through my aunts, various school teachers and even the dinner lady everyone was scared of- I knew these ladies, and they both scared me and made me laugh. They may seem like odd examples, given the dark nature of many of my own witches (Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg might have been fearsome, but they usually had your best interests at heart) but I believe that Pratchett’s witches showed me that witches were also people; capable of being good and bad, and therefore more realistic. And through that they became the characters I would be most excited to write about.Go on, tell me. Which is your favourite witch?
It's that time of year again...
Oh 2009, how shall we judge you?Annoyingly, I am something of an optimist and normally reluctant to judge a year based on perhaps the last six months or so; if that were not the case, I would merrily tell 2009 to take a running jump off a prickly cliff. But I’m always looking for the silver lining in the dark clouds (or the smarties in the dog turd) so I shy away from condemning it completely. It’s time to look, perhaps, at what I hoped to do in 2009 and what I actually did, as awkward and slightly embarrassing as it may be:By the end of this year I wanted to have finished Bad Apple Bone, written an entirely new novel, and a novella during November (which would also be finished). What I actually did: Well, I did finish Bad Apple Bone (when was that? May? I think it may even have been on Star Wars day…), which was a major achievement I suppose, after two years writing the bugger. It was my first book, and my first real attempt at writing anything, and remains the truest thing I have written, I think. I did start writing an entirely new book, A Boy of Blood and Clay, and even got 61,000 words into it, but made the rather silly error of mistaking research for planning, and found myself halfway through the book with only the slightest inkling of what was happening. Plus, I really loathed one of the main characters, and wanted to kill her off. Except she was already dead. Oh.
So that book remains at rest currently, “composting” as my favourite art tutor would put it. And the NaNoWriMo novella? Well that little bugger turned into an actual full length book, full of dirt and ooze and I’m-Not-Even-Sure-What-Happens-Next mystery, which made it brilliant fun to write, even as it grows in scope by the minute and I have no chance of finishing it this year.In conclusion then, I have one finished novel, and two unfinished full length books; not exactly where I wanted to be, but, I have to look the bright side (or the Skittles in the dog plop); this year I have written, not including finishing Bad Apple Bone or any short stories that popped into existence, around 120,000 words. And I can’t really complain about that. 2010 will be the year I learn to give up my time properly to this fabulous craft, and start treating it like I really intend other people to read it some day. This year is The Year of Writing Dangerously.
So that book remains at rest currently, “composting” as my favourite art tutor would put it. And the NaNoWriMo novella? Well that little bugger turned into an actual full length book, full of dirt and ooze and I’m-Not-Even-Sure-What-Happens-Next mystery, which made it brilliant fun to write, even as it grows in scope by the minute and I have no chance of finishing it this year.In conclusion then, I have one finished novel, and two unfinished full length books; not exactly where I wanted to be, but, I have to look the bright side (or the Skittles in the dog plop); this year I have written, not including finishing Bad Apple Bone or any short stories that popped into existence, around 120,000 words. And I can’t really complain about that. 2010 will be the year I learn to give up my time properly to this fabulous craft, and start treating it like I really intend other people to read it some day. This year is The Year of Writing Dangerously.
"Stab them in the face!"
And indeed, the rest of November went as quickly as the first week!Much to my own surprise, I am still on schedule with NaNoWriMo; up to 37,000 words today, and I'm hoping to squeeze in a bit more later too, so I can go into this week slightly ahead (exciting social things happening on Thursday, and then a day off for a hangover on Friday). I did mean to update the blog around about halfway through, but free time shrinks down to miniscule status during November, and every time I found space to write the thing, it was about 1am. So as a short round up, here are some things I have learnt so far this month:It is perfectly possible to write 2,000 words a day. Yep. It's just that I have to put the time aside for it. Part of where I was going wrong with A Boy of Blood and Clay was that I was trying to fit the writing time around other things, so I would only get a few hundred words out here and there. I wasn't dedicating a chunk of time to it, but rather writing it in between other commitments. What this left me with was a story that was stilted, choppy and very difficult to get back into each day.It's difficult, because the only time I have is in the evenings, and what I really like to do in the evening is read, have a snuggle with my bloke, and fart about on the internet. The fact remains though, if I want to get these books finished, I have to write everyday, and I have to write a decent amount.I've also learnt that Ink for Thieves has a life of its own, and my chances of actually finishing the story at 50,000 words are very slim indeed. I have now accepted the fact that I'll be working on it into the next month, and have a new vague sort of deadline of the 13th December. This is the end of my week off in December, and I'm hoping to get a lot done (in between the hideousness of christmas shopping, of course. Argh)And now it's time for a gravy dinner. :) Guido Foss waits for me, covered in bug juices and about to discover that the Embers have even more unpleasant surprises for her.
ps) I put an extract of the novel up on my NaNo profile (it's under Novel Info). It's very rough of course, but it was a passage that made me laugh, and I think you should only put up extracts that don't give too much away.
ps) I put an extract of the novel up on my NaNo profile (it's under Novel Info). It's very rough of course, but it was a passage that made me laugh, and I think you should only put up extracts that don't give too much away.
The First Week of November
...has sort of zipped by, don't you think?It's one of the weird things about NaNoWriMo; it makes November both the longest and shortest month of the year. On the one hand I've still got a ridiculously large number of words to squeeze out of my head, but on the other it feel like only yesterday that I was tidying up my writing space for the kick off. A quick run down of how things are going:Heating fail. In a great example of the fabulous timing of Sod's Law, our central heating packed up at the beginning of the week, leaving us slowing freezing in our drafty old victorian terrace. It's amazing really how depressing it can get, being cold all day. I survived by buying new hot waterbottles and keeping mine tucked down the front of my dressing gown while I typed. On Friday, the Boiler Magicians came and sorted it out.Word count win! So far this year, the writing has been fun, and it has been reflected in my word count. As of tonight I'm at 17,222 words, approximately two days ahead of where I need to be. This is good because this upcoming week contains at least two days when I suspect getting anything done will be difficult.I'm enjoying the story and I'm beginning to wonder if this is a full length book rather than a novella. :s It's always difficult to decide this; ideally, I'd like to have finished this story by the end of the month, so I can get on with a) finishing A Boy of Blood and Clay, b) editing Bad Apple Bone or the rogue c) option, starting another book. ;) But if I'm really getting somewhere with the story, perhaps I should consider continuing into December. Hmm, it's all about the pacing...I have been surprised by the cynicism of some people. It's not a huge deal, as most people seem to "get" NaNoWriMo and what it's all about, but there does seem to be a little flicker among some who seem to think it's a bit silly and deserves a bit of mockery. My initial response to such people would be "Come back and take the piss when you've written a book in 30 days, dude. Or anything longer than your facebook status update". But I have been good, and ignored any such comments. It's my folly and I love it.And that's where I am at the moment. :) Guido Foss has made it to the Flats, and is about to find out just how unpleasant life can be out in the desert. I shall enjoy making it difficult for her.
Where I am now...
I am better than I was.As some of you might know, I've had a shitty few months. Ongoing problems with a tooth, a chest infection that may or may not have been swine flu, an unusable bathroom for weeks, and very sadly my Nan passed away.I suppose that sometimes strife doesn't line up in an orderly queue, sometimes it just shouts "BUNDLE!" and lets rip. The good news is, I feel like I have, to some extent, come out of the other side now. Although my chest is still a little weak and I have a very sensitive gag reflex now, I'm over the mystery flu. We now have a bathroom with an actual door and sink (you don't realise how important a toilet door is until you don't have one for weeks). We've had my Nan's funeral, which was as difficult and painful as you would expect, and there will be more pain to come as the house where I grew up in is emptied of all the things that made it home, and is sold; but you take the memories that you can and you soldier on, always the walking wounded.The tooth that was lingering on has been removed. Hoo-fucking-ray! The horrible thing about that was the waiting for the appointment; even when I was feeling myself again, and relatively happy, always at the back of my mind was the tooth problem, sucking away any ability to relax. Now it's sorted, it is genuinely like a black cloud has stopped hanging over my head, and has gone off to bother Charlie Brown or Calvin or someone.So I am better than I was. :) A side effect of the crap of the last few months has been that my writing has taken a serious knock. I can't concentrate when I'm anxious, and a number of problems with A Boy of Blood and Clay that I had been trying to write around suddenly became insurmountable, and I lost my way with the book. Shitsticks. I forced myself to write for a while, and stopped again when I realised I was hating it, hating the characters, and hating the story. The problem is longwinded, but the short version is this; with Bad Apple Bone, I had the main character in my head for some time, years even, before I started writing. I might not have known the plot, but I had a good idea of what Noon was like. With A Boy of Blood and Clay, I did the briefest of outlines and character sketches, and then threw myself into it, assuming I'd be able to make it up as I went; after all, it had worked with the last book.It turns out, that was a slightly silly idea.So I've put A Boy of Blood and Clay to one side for a while. I don't know the characters well enough, and it needs a hell of a lot more research before I can get the story into the shape I wanted in the first place. I'll come back to it (if only because I've written 63,000 words of the bugger already!) and Mike and Faye and Gushel and the terrible Eustace Cream will certainly get an end to their stories one day.In other news, NaNoWriMo is two weeks away! I had a great time last year writing Bird and Tower, and I can't wait to do it all again- this time with more planning and research, obviously. ;) More about that on the next blog post.
fly by postings
Well. Well! August has been both busy, and poxy, and it has to be said very little good appears to have come of it. Skipping over some of the shitty stuff I will launch into a hastily written update of where things are and where they may or may not be going...Firstly, there's the new forum! Well, not quite so new now, we've probably taken the plastic covers off it by this point and scratched the cover a bit when we put it in our pocket with the keys without thinking, but it's up and running and groovy, and we're having plenty of good discussions, sometimes even Box Room related. We had some troubles with the url because it got fiddled with, so here it is in case you need it: http://theboxroom.phpbb3now.com/index.phpI now have three short stories up at scribd.com and they've had lots and lots of views! Whee! I've had some interesting feedback about them, so big huge sweaty thanks to all the people who read them and risked their delicately balanced sanity. The newest one up is Goose, the short story I originally wrote for this very blog- yes, this very blog! Here's the link so you can read it in non-brain achey text, and marvel at a picture of me with a lovely basin haircut: http://www.scribd.com/doc/19017865/GooseA Boy of Blood and Clay has somewhat ground to a halt. The maelstrom of cack that this month has been took a lot of time away from writing, and also put me in a bit of a depressive funk. The writing has started up again, hesitantly, but I'm starting to look over what I've written and where I'm going and... I'm concerned that I might have bitten off more than I can chew. I love the ideas in A Boy of Blood and Clay, but I have a terrible feeling it's all a bit ambitious. I'm beginning to wonder if this is the book I should have written three or four books down the line; at the moment, I'm not entirely sure I can pull this off.I have two months to finish it. Two months before the manic, sugar fueled craziness of NaNoWriMo. I'm going to give it that long, and see what happens.
Life sits on the writer and squashes her a bit
Alright, I've been rubbish at updating this thing lately (I wonder how many blogs across the blogosphere begin with that?) so it's time for a quick sum up of recent weeks. If that's possible.In my last entry I was very excited about my week off, and all the tremendously writerly things I was going to do. Every day. Yep, every day, I would do writerly things.
Well, as often happens, life intervened that week, and I ended up not doing quite as many of the little jaunts that I had planned. Pyra, our small and cheerfully destructive cat had to be taken to the vets to have stitches removed, and this turned out to be more traumatic than I expected. She had a bubble of fluid under the scar, which the vet proceeded to remove with a needle (much to the combined horror of both Pyra and I. Having to hold her down while he carried out this procedure meant I felt like the evilest cat-mummy that has ever lived). It wasn't the cleanest scar, and I spent the next couple of days watching Pye constantly, convinced she would start leaking or something.Also that week, the electrics in the flat started to play up wildly, resulting in a few days of electrician visits, a further traumatized cat, furniture turned upside down and ripped up floorboards. Oh, and me being stuck in the flat making tea for electrician chaps (who were very nice but, you know, I sorted of wanted to be elsewhere).All this meant that my writerly trips were rather cut short, but, I got enough done to feel like I had a good week off. I went for a wander up Ludgate Hill, where an important scene happens in A Boy of Blood and Clay, and actually went all the way up to St Paul's (I've never been close enough to touch it before). I walked down Cannon Street to look at the London Stone, which is both tiny and largely unremarked- I peered through the grill to look at it only to find a man looking back at me from behind it; apparently it's just in front of an office window. I went to Monument, looked at some old street names (Fish Street Hill, Pudding Lane) and spent a long time in some pubs writing and writing and writing (the London Stone pub has it's toilets hidden behind a fake bookcase, if you happen to end up in there).I also had a few trips to our local pub, which is becoming one of my favourite places to write; it's light, spacious and usually quiet, with an "interestingly" arty clientele. I find that I get much more done away from the flat, where the temptation is to watch telly, read or listen to the radio.So that was my week off. In the week since then, we've had builders in to rip out our bathroom (*sigh*) and having been chucked out the flat early every morning, I have been spending a couple of hours before work writing (in another pub) and consequently, A Boy of Blood and Clay is coming along nicely. Now, if only I had the discipline to get out of bed early every day to do that. Oh, and blog regularly.
Well, as often happens, life intervened that week, and I ended up not doing quite as many of the little jaunts that I had planned. Pyra, our small and cheerfully destructive cat had to be taken to the vets to have stitches removed, and this turned out to be more traumatic than I expected. She had a bubble of fluid under the scar, which the vet proceeded to remove with a needle (much to the combined horror of both Pyra and I. Having to hold her down while he carried out this procedure meant I felt like the evilest cat-mummy that has ever lived). It wasn't the cleanest scar, and I spent the next couple of days watching Pye constantly, convinced she would start leaking or something.Also that week, the electrics in the flat started to play up wildly, resulting in a few days of electrician visits, a further traumatized cat, furniture turned upside down and ripped up floorboards. Oh, and me being stuck in the flat making tea for electrician chaps (who were very nice but, you know, I sorted of wanted to be elsewhere).All this meant that my writerly trips were rather cut short, but, I got enough done to feel like I had a good week off. I went for a wander up Ludgate Hill, where an important scene happens in A Boy of Blood and Clay, and actually went all the way up to St Paul's (I've never been close enough to touch it before). I walked down Cannon Street to look at the London Stone, which is both tiny and largely unremarked- I peered through the grill to look at it only to find a man looking back at me from behind it; apparently it's just in front of an office window. I went to Monument, looked at some old street names (Fish Street Hill, Pudding Lane) and spent a long time in some pubs writing and writing and writing (the London Stone pub has it's toilets hidden behind a fake bookcase, if you happen to end up in there).I also had a few trips to our local pub, which is becoming one of my favourite places to write; it's light, spacious and usually quiet, with an "interestingly" arty clientele. I find that I get much more done away from the flat, where the temptation is to watch telly, read or listen to the radio.So that was my week off. In the week since then, we've had builders in to rip out our bathroom (*sigh*) and having been chucked out the flat early every morning, I have been spending a couple of hours before work writing (in another pub) and consequently, A Boy of Blood and Clay is coming along nicely. Now, if only I had the discipline to get out of bed early every day to do that. Oh, and blog regularly.
If this works, here are a few pictures of the London excursion:
