So Hard it could crack an egg

I’ve been writing…

 

My first draft of my “Regenerations” story is complete – and frankly it needs some serious work. The ending is awful, it’s there because something had to be – I sort of knew what had to happen in the end but wrote myself into a contrived confrontation. Still, it’s seven thousand odd words actually written down, which is better than nothing – though I’m not sure what it’s rambling about. Hopefully a week or so away from it may give a fresh perspective and help me figure out just what these people are doing. Rampaging Moas, errant teens, strange, super-powered girls? What the hell is going on? And I’m the writer.

 

As a kind of back-up, I’ve returned to an earlier story that could well fit the bill for the Regenerations book – a story I was convinced was definitely complete. A new look at it does reveal the need for a little more oomph and a bit of restructuring. I’ve been using my “technique” that I used for “The Royal Wedding from Hell” – which uses the Lester Dent Masterplot concept of looking at your story in 4 parts – which I think of as:

 

Intro – where we meet the characters and situation, and problems

Build-up – where we throw more problems in their way and reveal what’s going on

Blow-up – where the poor buggers get even more crap thrown their way and we reveal what’s REALLY going on

Finale – where everything gets sorted out

 

It’s not overly dissimilar to structure ideas explained superbly by Larry Brooks – his latest blogpost lays it out very well (he refers to the 4 parts as Setup, Response, Attack, Resolution). And I heard of Larry via Debbie Howell, interviewed in my previous blog as part of SpecFicNZ blog week.

 

So having done the “pantser” bit with both stories – in other words just getting some bl**dy words down which, at least, give me characters, places and some kind of idea – I can move on to the rebuilding bit, where we turn all that raw material into a coherent and (hopefully) engaging story.

 

In addition to all that, I’ve started plodding along with a novel – “The Camp” – I have a rough structure of 4 parts laid out, but am feeling my way forward, finding out what makes my main man tick to start with. 5000ish words so far, only about 45000 or so to go.

 

I’ve been watching…

 

Dr Who – the latest 5 episodes (Season 7, part 1) were an improvement on last season (“Asylum of the Daleks” was the best episode since Time of the Angels/ Flesh and Stone from a couple of seasons ago) – but, when you know that the Ponds are leaving at the end of episode 5, then the other 4 episodes have an air of just being there to fill up time waiting for the important one. Thankfully, Amy and Rory are gone now, as far as I’m concerned they royally overstayed their welcome, the new girl seems interesting (at least from her intro in Asylum of the Daleks) so we wait for Xmas and the other 8 episodes to come along. And it’s the big 50^th anniversary next year so who knows what excitement is planned?

 

The fun and jollies of the US Election - like most of the rest of the world, I feel relieved that our man Obama won. Romney, himself, doesn't seem like an idiot (unlike say, George W Bush, Sarah Palin or Rick Santorum) BUT, he has to swallow the rest of the party line to keep the support of all the other red-neck loons that make up his party. I've got more to say on the warped ideology of the American right, but it will take another blog for that.

 

With the weird atmosphere of untruth that surrounded the US election, I found myself re-reading 1984 - I read when I was about 18. It was superb then, but with the wisdom that comes with age, it is simply staggering today. I will bring these threads together in my next blog.

 

Okay, and now, this month’s drabble is more of a sort of prose poem – compiled from the subject lines of the spam I get about various pills and, uh, “enlargement” products. Do they form some kind of art work? I’ll let you judge. If anyone wants me to forward one of the spams, please shout. I offer no guarantees about their products….

“So hard it could crack an egg.

Saucy young college hotties.

Germany gets first strike with extra inch

Vids from Yacht party

Your love tool is set to thrill

Butts that look awesome

Girls at $200 a pop

What really happened on the Tonight show?"

 

So - has anyone else written several thousand words of story, get to the end and decide that it really makes no sense at all?

What did everyone else think of the latest part-series of Dr Who? Are you glad the Ponds have gone?

And can anyone see art in spam? Probably not.

 

Now - go and buy "The Royal Wedding from Hell"