A new place...

Well folks, I've moved house! I'm no longer by the River Tyne, which is great as it's so much more peaceful now. In this place, I will finish the first book of my latest work. (lol there I go again, writing sentences backwards!)
The area is quiet, even at its busiest, so I believe I will be quite productive. No excuses. No regrets. If I fail, then it is me at fault. Or with no talent, one of the two. Let's see, though. Now, where was I...

Words

A long, long time ago, a good friend of mine painted a rather striking picture full of words, originally entitled: Words.
Millions of years later, we bumped into each other and the first thing that entered my head was this picture. And yep, the picture still exists.
Funny that, as I don't have the opening words to the beginning of my second chapter. God, if I could have just dipped into this picture for a while and grabbed some! A friend in need... indeed!

The Words.

The Words.

It's not writer's block. There's a spark of inspiration missing. It's coming, I do know that, just it's hiding in a corner, somewhere dark, somewhere quiet, whispering to me, slightly out of earshot, tantalising. I'm listening, just not recognising. Yet!
I've got four days off next week, and I'm hammering at the door of creativity, believing the face of this book's devil will be reflected in the words of the 'good people' on the other side of the door. Good people? What is 'good'? It's all relative, I do assure you. I need to reassure myself - maybe that's the problem. I gotta think!
I took my time over the opening words of the tale, and I'm hoping, believing, that the story will write itself, like the beginning did. (Great english, that!)
I'm close to finishing this chapter. What on earth am I worrying about? Opinions, probably. I gotta live up to the hype. My hype, actually.
I'm cracking up. Probably, too.
Madness!
Writing life...

Lions and tigers and bears - Oh my!

Yep, I watched The Wizard Of Oz on Sunday, and before it Easter Parade. Two of my favourite films and in my top five list on Facebook, too.
I fully intended to complete my rewrite of Chapter 2, but this wonderful boost of light relief was very much needed: the darkness of my new work can have the effect of colouring my thoughts. It was great!
Another reason for not writing too much is the previously-referred-to Dickensian addition to the tale. Having now accepted that this must happen, a rather crazy conversation between two people in the story sprang up inside my head, which, if I manage to pull it off, should be illuminating as to the thoughts and attitudes of people towards the hero. A bit of show, and no tell!
Soon, Solvey, Rich and Noel the Ultimate Proofreader will get their copies of the new opening poem, prologue and first three chapters. Not because I'll be sending them off soon (they won't be sent, as I now understand I can't do that until the book is almost finished), but because I'm going to need their opinions. And these three opinions will count hugely towards my new thinking of the future of the story.
So, on with the show!!! Monday is gonna be a big day... a big writing day.

All I want for Christmas...

... is a green witch! Dontcha just love the Orange phone network advert? The wicked witch made The Wizard Of Oz so much more interesting. And she's come back. I just love witches - the star of Into The Woods is the witch, and the title of this blog is her song, which I had to play again.
I hope there are more adverts with this green witch. She's a star!

What the Dickens!

Ha! Something straight out of Dickens has entered my story. It kept flashing at me every now and then, and although I wasn't ignoring it, I kept putting it to one side to think about later.
Actually, it isn't from Dickens - that is, he didn't make it up, just it is an association with his memory, his work.
It's taking me such a long time to move on into the rest of this story, especially this Chapter 2, and I've been getting worried about the future: where would it lead, end, take me. Now I understand that my hesitation is probably founded in this new addition. It's also part of the middle section, the river. Hey! It's a result!
And probably means I'm still in the planning stage.
Perhaps.
Oh, what do I know...

Ghosts

Whilst finalising my thoughts about Chapter 2 (revised), I began to look through all of my notes. Checking things over in case there was something I had missed, I told myself, preparing for the movement into the tale itself. In actuality, I was re-familiarizing myself with the story and its inhabitants. Almost shaking hands with ghosts.
I surprised myself by what I had recorded in these notes with regard to the beginning and the end. I also surprised myself by what I hadn't written with regard to the middle.
I understand now that I have no middle, mainly the movement from the beginning into the tale itself, and then the ending (a possible choice of endings which I have yet to totally set out). I love what I have done so far, but I get a feeling that I may be hampering myself by not properly exploring the main event. Guess I've been too busy thinking about the beginning to have had many thoughts about the hero's journey after that. Then again, the beginning is vitally important, so I shouldn't be too rough on myself for that.
Perhaps, when Ch 2 is done, my mind will free up and I'll be able to explore what really should happen next. The flashbacks are great, for one thing, and hold up very well after looking at them with a fresh pair of eyes. Fitting them in should be fun, and I have to remember that I wrote them, so I shouldn't be worried I won't be able to write what is going to happen around them.
You gotta have faith, boy!
Cracking up? Probably...

You and I are yesterday's answers
The earth of the past come to flesh
Eroded by Time's rivers
To the shapes we now possess

The Sage, Emerson Lake and Palmer

Just musing while watching Alien Resurrection...
Were the stars put there so that we can admire them, or were we put there to admire the stars?
Either answer implies a consciousness behind the reason. That is, someone (?) must be behind it all.
The one constant I can find in anything - in the absence of the proof of life beyond our current knowledge - is 'light'. Light travels from one star to...... where, exactly? Where does it go after most of it passes by us? Does it stay together, or expand into next-to-nothingness, or is eroded by planetary forces as it brushes past, or all of these?
And what is the purpose of light? Is there an intended purpose? Just why is light?
I know we can say why to anything, making the question an almost redundant nonsense behind which particular smokescreen all answers to existence may hide. But light intrigues me more than anything - apart from emotions, because without them no reason of any kind could exist. Well, you wouldn't ask any question and care about the answer if emotions did not exist, would you?
So I wonder: does light have another purpose to those scientists know of? And could it be alive, organic? If it is not alive initially, does it become so while travelling through Dark Matter?
Are we actually part of light's own self? Is it possible that if we find the true reason for light's existence, we may find the answer to our own existence?
The words of Ed Wood JR spring to mind in one of his masterful (!) films. He hinted at the existence of the Solar Unite. A force that linked all planets across the universe. Silly, I know, to listen to the ramblings of..... But I guess he had a point. Is light some kind of solar unite?

The above was created without the use of alcohol or other substances of any kind. I promise!

Technology - Huh!

Can't seem to get Blogger and Youtube to agree to show the video I want. Oh well, maybe another day...

Happy New Year!!!!!!

Happy New Year everyone.
Would you believe it, I just opened a fortune cookie from a Chinese meal. It said: You have a potential urge and the drive for accomplishment.
Glad I don't write that way, but the sentiment's good enough for me lol

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.