still doing that writing thing

This was something my friend said to me a while back. She'd come round to help me drink whiskey and shout at Disney movies, which we sadly don't do often enough these days. I've mentioned before that I don't have a set word count I try and hit each day--instead I write something each day, even if it's just a few notes or a funny line someone said. So, since this particular day was likely to be eaten up by whiskey and shouting, I snatched a few minutes while my friend was in the bathroom to write in my notebook.

It wasn't anything great, literally just: this is where the current WIP is going tomorrow, when hopefully you won't be too hungover to do anything and a few lines about the next scene.

My friend returned before I'd finished and I explained my "write something every day" policy. Her response was, "Oh, are you still doing that writing thing?"

This surprised me, because... well, what else would I be doing? I've never for one moment considered it was something I would stop. But why not? People quit hobbies all the time. I never progressed with playing the violin, or painting, or bread-making. There are things I really enjoy that I never have time for these days, like video games or sewing or Warhammer. So why was the idea of stopping writing so strange?

Just think about it... I could quit. I'd have extra time on my hands. I wouldn't forever be zoning out while thinking about characters or plots. I could rejoin the real world and not have to fret about stupid self-imposed deadlines or how many days are left in NaNoWriMo.

Oh yes, we're in NaNo month again. That's a whole separate post by itself.

But, obviously, I'm not going to quit writing. Not just because I'm stubborn, or because I want to be a proper, full-time writer, or because I'm pretty sure I won't find anything else I can do competently. It's just... I can't really imagine not doing it.

And that's the best thing about finally developing a good writing habit, I've realised. It feels odd when I'm not writing. I'd miss it. And for that reason, I can't see myself quitting that writing thing anytime soon.

HOME GROUND available FREE on Kindle this weekend

Wow, there're a lot of capital letters in that title.

To coincide with Manx Litfest 2015, my ebook HOME GROUND will be available to download for free between Thursday 24th September and Sunday 27th September 2015 inclusive:

On Amazon.co.uk

On Amazon.com

If you like zombies, history, horror, and getting something for free, please do check it out.

countdown to Manx Litfest 2015

This has really snuck up on me. Seriously, I thought we had a couple of months left to get ready, but suddenly it's next week. o_O

Anyway... WOOOOO the fourth annual Manx Litfest is almost upon us!!

Details of stuff are available on the official website. If you're on the Island and you like books, it's the place you'll want to be. Also if you like poetry, science, whiskey, zombies, and shrieking in fan-girl joy.

Last year I discovered that you really should come prepared to events like this, so here is my unofficial guide to essential Litfest gear:

If y'all are attending, come find me at the bar and I'll get a round in. :)

born to runner-up

Practice makes perfect.

We can probably agree, in general, that the above statement is correct. You start off rubbish, you practice for untold squillions of hours, you eventually get good. You're very unlikely to get good if you skip the boring, repetative middle part (anyone who instantly became brilliant at anything is free to ignore this blog post).

The more I stop to think about it however, the more I'm convinced it's not completely accurate, and the problem lies with the word 'perfect'. Can you really obtain perfection just through diligent practice?

An example: I can't sing. Well, I can sing privately in the car or over-enthusiastically at karaoke, but no one is ever going to pay to hear the sound of my voice. Now, if I practiced every single day; if I took lessons and learned techniques and really focused my mind... in a few years I could probably be competent. BUT... competent is a long way from perfect, isn't it? No matter how much time and effort I put into singing, I'm never going to star in Les Mis or get to the final round of X-Factor.

See, this is an issue I'm having about my writing. I would classify myself as a competent writer. I've completed about twenty novels, some of which are readable. I write every day. I take every available (affordable) course I can. I ask advice from anyone who'll tolerate my questions. I understand the basics of structure and plotting and why my characters shouldn't be so bloody passive all the time. I know how to use the word 'ameliorate'. I'm fairly sure I know what a gerund is.

BUT... competent is a long way from perfect.

If writing is a scale from 1 to 10, where 10 is Neil Gaiman and 1 is a drunk horse hitting the keys with its face, I'm probably... ehhhhh... realistically about a 6. Maybe a 7 on the best day of my life.

I'm definitely better than I was when I first started writing, at age 14, with a screenplay about killer mutated gorse bushes (it was called A Real Mutated One and was an unhealthy blend of The Thing and Reservoir Dogs, as far as I recall). I'm also pretty sure I'm a better writer than I was five years ago. A year ago? That I'm not so sure about.

I'm not convinced I'm still improving as a writer. I think I may have reached a plateau. And that's irksome, because I would quite like to be brilliant.

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing intrinsically bad about competence. I'm a competent cook and that's fine--I have no ambitions above feeding my family every day. There is no aspiration for me to become a professional cook or bake a meringue on live television or learn what the hell a bain marie is. A decent level of competence is both admirable and worth working hard for.

But to upgrade from a 6 to a 10... is that even possible? Or does every perfect-10 writer in the world have some spark of genius that simply can't be replicated by wishing really-really hard? Not everyone who learns the guitar has the potential to be Jimi Hendrix. By their very nature, perfect-10s are a rare, singular event, because if everyone was special then no one would be.

This is what I'm currently fretting about. Am I happy to be competent in my writing? And if not, is there anything I can do about it? Hard work is a significant part of the process, sure, but I suspect the perfect-10s also have a blending of genius, luck, and good timing. Maybe lazy geniuses never reach their full potential, but equally, hard-working competents without that indefinable flair may never become geniuses. Is that true?

I think I have to decide what I want to aim for, what I can realistically achieve, and how I intend to get there. Hmm.

my other boys

Jakob and Elliott are helping promote my shiny new ebook.

(Jakob and Elliott Taylor featured in a fairly-rubbish webcomic I used to draw. Doodling this made me realise I haven't drawn them for a shockingly long time... probably not since the real Elliott was born. I need to do more drawing.)

It's here!

Delighted to announce that HOME GROUND is now available in ebook!

On Amazon.co.uk

On Amazon.com

childish things

When I was a kid, I would read just about anything put in front of me, with one exception: I never liked kids' books.

I should quantify that. I did read children's fiction that I didn't realise was aimed at kids--CS Lewis, Willard Price, Tolkien, stuff my parents read as well. The books I had no interest in were anything that dealt with the real-life, everyday stuff that young people have to deal with, like school and homework and other kids. Even now, stories with a heavy bias towards that sort of thing leave me cold. I never cared for Harry Potter, for example. Why would I want to read about a not-very-smart student and his struggles to get through school unscathed? We have enough of that in real life, thanks.

In case you haven't already guessed, I'm an idiot. For years I've assumed children's fiction (and here I'm lumping together everything up to and including Young Adult) is not what I want to read. Obviously some people like those books, but why should I bother when there are proper grown-up books to read?

Again: idiot.

I've belatedly realised my error. Frankly, not only do I feel like a wally for dismissing thousands of stories out of hand, but I'm also mad at myself for excluding all those books from my life, due to nothing more than pure snobbery.

One of our two local libraries is the Family Library in Douglas. It's a lovely place and is completely filled with children's books. And yet the "Children's" section (the bit I would've considered being for kids; the bit with the picture books, where our youngest son instinctively goes first) occupies one corner of the big room. Everything else is stuff I want to read.

It makes me a bit giddy to go in there. Where the heck do you start? For someone who's avoided Middle Grade and Young Adult books for so long, where do I jump in? In our local libraries (I'm not sure if this is standard or not), the children's sections are divided up by age range rather than genre. For adult books, I know exactly where my comfort zone is: right at the centre point between the horror, crime, and sci-fi/fantasy sections. Why would I need to go anywhere else?

But in the YA section there're none of these familiar boundaries. Everything is lumped together, horror and fantasy rubbing shoulders with gritty drama and sweeping historical epic. I'm already at a disadvantage because, a) I don't know which YA authors I like (due to my own ignorance, I'll admit), and b) I don't read back-cover blurbs. So, much of the time I'm choosing at random. I like this cover, I recognise this name, this illustrator is amazing, I saw someone reading this on the bus... it's a whole new thing for me.

Obviously I haven't loved everything I've read at random, but I'm having a pretty good success rate so far, and I've discovered a bunch of authors who I absolutely love. None of whom I would've ever read if I'd kept thumbing my nose at "kids' books".

I suspect I sound like one of those people who suddenly realise they can get internet on their phones, when else everyone in the world has known for years, but I don't care. I'm having a blast. When was the last time I was so excited to be in a library? Oh, right, when I was a kid. Gotcha.