When friends are gone...

Today, in 2006, my greatest friend was killed in an air crash at sea. Life does go on, but it kills you a little as it does it, leaving you trying to catch hold of some kind of meaning of life as it disappears over a far, non-existent horizon. I just needed to hear something from the past, something reassuring - though quite what, I couldn't tell you. I wished Les' wife Julie a Merry Christmas on Christmas Day, a sentiment I meant, but couldn't be sure had any meaning to her. They had two sons together, Lewis and Joel. Perhaps these two young fellas made it mean more to Jules than could really be expected at this time. I hope so.
Wandering through youtube in search of some kind of meaning (what a place to look for that!), I came across We Got The Funk. Wow! That was in the heart of our old nightclubbing days. It actually sounds like a Chic tune, so I haven't posted it up here with a Sister Sledge song already up, but please go to youtube and listen to it, by Positive Force. Of course, after listening to it, you'll probably do what I do and enter the labyrinth of songs posted up all over the place, stumbling across all kinds of stuff you had forgotten about. Have fun! Nothing lasts forever - a positive statement only if you believe that 'nothing' exists. 'Time waits for no man' is probably a better saying - a positive urging, if you like, to do something with your life.
Guess I'm only just holding on to this blog - the effort of writing my latest work, my own personal dreamworld, seems to be leaving little room for a blog in my life. I am beginning to wonder if blogs have the meaning they originally held. Are they no longer an end, but now have become a means to help further another, perhaps more important, end. And if they don't have that more important 'end', then it maybe has no useful purpose. Not sure.
Thoughts of a night...

What if...

Maria's wrestling with the 'what if' question has rung a few bells. I'm at that point right now, sorting out my second chapter whilst simultaneously exploring some different endings to the story itself. Sounds like a recipe for disaster, as I'm looking at both ends of the book at the same time. I can't help it - it just seems to be happening and I can't control it. Maybe there's something in the back of my mind that's telling me the one affects the other. I've got a great ending, but a slightly different one has entered my head. 'What if' a third one wanders along to threaten my sanity even further? I dunno. I'll suss it out soon, I guess. Maybe I don't need to and it's just a diversion, a distraction. I could, of course, be secretly wishing it was all done. Yep, I know the strain. Been through it all before and the brick wall I hit then could be right there at the end of this particular road, too. Always crashing in the same car, sung Bowie, and I'm trying my best not to. Ha! The fear factor... Maybe I could turn it into some kind of X-Factor and have you vote my next move!!!! All five of you lol
The replacing of the song-quote at the beginning has changed the central focus a touch. I'm happy with that, and maybe it's the domino effect, a bit of background re-programming, I'm experiencing. That was a good 'what if' that worked wonderfully, I gotta say! Solvey hasn't read that part yet, and neither has Noel the Ultimate Proofreader, so their reactions aren't known. They will be, though!
Presha...

King Street in South Shields this very night. It looks a lot more magical in real life than these mobile phone pics can portray, but I thought I'd post them anyway. When I saw this display, I immediately thought of someone from my new story who would have loved to have been with me, staring up at the lights. My problem, if I can call it that, is conveying scenes such as these, and also conveying properly the wonder felt by someone at the very moment she beholds them. Not during, not after, but at the very moment she would first see these lights. This is where my fantasy training would come in: I know I would have to believe it first before I could describe it. I would have to see it for myself. Then I must become the person I am portraying. The reader has to believe, too, that he/she is there, looking up at the lights. Wonder must be universal, it must be contagious, passing from the writer's vision, through the eyes of the person in the story and into the mind's eye of the reader.

Difficult.

But you have to believe you can do it. More than that: you have to know you can do it. This doesn't mean that you will never do it if you do not know if you can. It simply means that you must learn how to do it.

Practice and study.

Practice doesn't always make perfect. Nobody ever achieves perfection - not even me, your resident raving loony perfectionist! But practice helps you achieve a state of mind that allows you to write in a more lucid, more eloquent, way.

Studying your favourite writers always helps. Ask yourself how they would have done it. If they have done something similar, ask yourself how you yourself would have done it instead - what would you have done differently.

Then try it. And keep trying it until you believe you have done it the best way you can. Your only worry after that will be that it is good enough to get you published. Lol! That's worry enough! But at least you will have given yourself a better chance.