Category: Updates and information

Another new year

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Well, it has taken a while to get round to writing my first blog this year. In fact, the end of last year was so hectic, I never got round to writing an end of year blog which I fully intended. This will have to act as both.

I was pleased with the amount that I read last year and with the fact that I completed the two reading challenges I signed up for. Both of which – eclectic reader challenge and TBR challenge – I have signed up for again. I read some excellent books – The Slap and Barracuda by Christos Tsiolkas spring straight to mind, as do The Absolutist by John Boyne and Complicity by Iain Banks and of course, Maddaddam by the amazing Margaret Atwood. I also read some authors that have been on my list for a while – Dorothy L. Sayers, Daphne Du Maurier and John Updike  – not all of which were enjoyed but it felt good to have read them at last.

This year I’m aiming to read more classics so half of the books I have picked for the eclectic reader challenge are pre 1950. Half of those are pre 1900. The first book I finished this year was a spy thriller which was a new genre and hopefully the eclectic reader challenge will continue to encourage me to read new genres.

I wasn’t sure that I was going to keep writing a blog post for each book I read but looking back over last year’s posts, I realised that it was making me think more deeply about what I was reading.

As for writing, while I still aim to write every day, it doesn’t always work. Time is the one commodity I lack at the moment.  I’m still in the process of editing / re-writing Choose Yr Future. It seems like an never-ending task at the moment. However, I’m sure I will recognise the point when I am happy with the storyline and structure and then I will be ready to let beta readers have a look at it. At the minute, I know it is not ready to be seen by other eyes. If I’m not happy with it, I wouldn’t expect others to be.

I’m not feeling downhearted though. I’m still trying to enter as many competitions as I can and while I haven’t won any yet, I’m not going to give up. If you don’t enter, you really don’t have a hope of winning. I enjoy the process of writing/re-writing even though sometimes I feel a bit like Sisyphus pushing the words into place only to realise later that they still don’t fit.

 

2014 in review

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The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 1,600 times in 2014. If it were a cable car, it would take about 27 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Bad Habits Created by Bad Technology

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It finally happened. I had to admit, my computer was unusable. If it wasn’t folding in on itself due to having unexpected errors, it was not responding. I’m not sure what made me cling on to it for quite as long as I did. Money, partly but also the thought of having to choose a new machine. Anyway, the upshot is, I now have a marvellous mac mini and I can actually work again.

I hadn’t realised exactly how much I was affected by my computer’s bad behaviour. I find myself unable to concentrate for extended lengths of time as if I was writing then Word would inevitably not respond or it would close down unexpectedly and I would sit with the IPad and play The Sims while I waited for it to recover itself. Now I find myself wanting to break off after I’ve written a couple of paragraphs. I’m having to be really disciplined with myself or I wouldn’t get anything done.

Still, it does mean I’m catching up on some of the editing / re-writing I need to get through with Choose Yr Future. At least part of my reluctance to get on with this was the soul destroying nature of trying to battle with a PC that doesn’t want to co-operate. And hopefully that means beta-readers soon. And then publishing. I’m feeling excited again.

An excuse or an explanation: Why I’m finding it hard to get motivated.

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As a teacher, I often find  myself pondering the difference between an excuse and an explanation and usually I decide it is dependent on whether you are the one making the said excuse or not. That is you give your reasons for the lateness of your homework or whatever and they seem solid to you and you know that they happened therefore to you they seem like an explanation. To the person listening, they seem less reasonable. They are focused on whatever it is that you haven’t done and also do not know whether you are telling the truth so it becomes an excuse in their mind. The other thing is time. At first, it may be an explanation but when the work still doesn’t appear and more reasons are given, they quickly turn into excuses.

I feel a bit like this at the minute whenever someone asks me about the follow up to Shattered Reflections. I truly expected that I would have a finished product by now. And Choose Yr Future is close to being finished – at least to the point where I would have beta readers look at it. That is what is particularly annoying. This hasn’t been an easy year for me – my mother died in January – but I’m starting to feel frustrated with my lack of motivation. I can no longer accept my own explanations. I need to do something to get back into the writing frame of mind.

I sit down with good intentions. Today will be the day I get back on track. But then I stare at the screen or the page and nothing happens. I can’t concentrate. I’m too tired. I feel like it’s been a year of getting nothing done. No writing anyway.

It isn’t just emotional problems either. It’s the many jobs you don’t realise you will have to do. It’s the still running up to Newcastle all the time in order to sell her house, sort out furniture removals and countless other jobs that need doing. It’s feeling like you never have a moment to yourself. And when I do have the moments then I can’t be bothered to do much.

So it’s a new term and I’m in the process of sorting out new students to tutor so I should have a good idea of how much spare time I will have. I’m setting myself small goals, moving towards the bigger one of having a completed novel. And hopefully I will stop feeling like I’m making excuses to myself when I can’t get anything done. Wish me luck.

Happy Birthday Blog

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Well, it doesn’t seem like two minutes but WordPress informed me yesterday that my blog is indeed two years old. Back then I was so nervous and really unsure as to whether there was any point to blogging. Now I feel like I’m losing out in some great conversation if I don’t write posts or read them.
I really enjoy writing posts – particularly book reviews as obviously they have a ready made subject matter and aren’t just me wittering on. Or ranting. That’s always a possibility. And it still makes me crazily happy when someone likes a post or follows my blog. It also always surprises me that people might want to read my random thoughts. There really is no accounting for taste.
I haven’t had massive sales of Shattered Reflections but I never really expected to. I have had some four star reviews on Amazon and that is pleasing for the minute. Of course it would be disingenuous to say I wouldn’t like to make lots of money but at the same time I would continue to write even if every review I had was dreadful. It something I have always done and will always do regardless of sales.
Now I have finished marking exam papers and there is only a week of school left, I’m starting to look forward to getting some serious writing done over the summer. And I’m looking forward to the next year of writing this blog.

Say Hello, Wave Goodbye

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It’s a while since I’ve written a blog post that wasn’t a book review and, I admit, it makes me feel a little guilty. Like I’m not quite keeping up my end of the bargain. The modern equivalent of a pile of unanswered letters. There are reasons, of course – well, there always are.

So this by way of apology – for the past month and for the future. a brief hello to tell you I won’t be in touch for a little bit longer.

It’s that stupid busy time of the year again. Exams are fast approaching and that is the start of the extra work. Then there is the marking of them and I’ve doubled my workload this year so it is going to be even more difficult to keep the blog running. So far I have managed to keep the reviews going but whether I’ll be able to do that over the next month or so remains to be seen.

I have also been working hard on my writing. Any spare minutes go towards working on my two current projects. Hopefully, there will be some progress on that front to but again, not for the next month.

I’m looking forward to July. School finishes and hopefully I will be able to put my heart and soul back into the things I love rather than the things that make me money.

A general update: It’s been a while…

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It’s been a pretty hellish start to the  year. For various reasons, I’ve spent much of the last three months either emptying or filling boxes. Sorting things and throwing things away is another new pastime along with visits to the tip and the charity shop. It hasn’t really been conducive to making progress with my writing and it is only in the last few weeks that I feel that I have started to get back to normal.

In terms of blogging, I have managed to keep up with my book reviews and I am pleased that I have still been able to read a lot. (All that travelling around on public transport has to be good for something.) I’ve read four books from my TBR Pile which is in keeping with what I’d planned – one a month. And when I finish John Boyne’s The Absolutist, I’ll be halfway through the Eclectic Reader Challenge so that is all to the good.

I am finding time to write but I have been concentrating on existing projects rather than using writing prompts. Much as I love doing that, I feel that I have more pressing commitments. I have entered a couple of short story competitions and I am trying to prepare Choose Yr future for publication ultimately but beta readers before that. I’m also quite excited by my other project which now has the name of The Practise of Deception. So, at the minute, whatever time I can spare to writing is being used for these. I will get back to using the prompts, I’m sure when life has settled down a bit and when I need a new project. After all, The Practise of Deception grew from one of these prompts so they are useful as well as fun.

Books Read in 2014 – 18. Complicity by Iain Banks

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Genre: Scottish Fiction, Thriller

Narrative Style: First person narrator interspersed with second person descriptions of murders. Largely chronological with some flashbacks.

Rating: 5/5

Format: Paperback

Published: 1993

Synopsis: Cameron Colley is a drug and drink addled journalist with an obsession with a series of murders that happened a few years ago. He thinks he might have a lead from an inside source. However, when the police start to investigate his movements, he realises that the murderer might be closer to home than he thought.

Reading challenges: TBR Pile Challenge.2014tbrbutton

Time on Shelf: about four years. I must admit I was avoiding this one because the last two Iain Banks that I read (Whit and A Song of Stone) were disappointing. Banks has written some amazing books but also some that I really don’t rate so I kept putting off reading this one.

This is the sort of book I love. Sex, violence, a completely bitter and fucked up narrator and a story line that races along at a serious pace; I couldn’t put it down. This is the sort of book that Banks excels at writing. Cameron Colley is cynical and politically knowledgeable but too destroyed by drugs and drink to do anything about it. When he starts to get tip-offs about a series of murders from a few years earlier, he thinks his journalistic time has come.

It was easy to take to Cameron. While he was lazy, addled and unreliable, he was also funny and intelligent. His voice was totally believable. When he is picked up by the police for the murders he thinks he has been investigating, you feel sympathetic towards him and know, for all his faults, that it can’t have been him. IainBanksComplicityEarly

Without revealing the actual murderer until quite near the end, Banks lays a lot of clues, a lot of which were red herrings. I’m not ashamed to admit that I thought I had this solved quite early on, only to realise that I had been taken in by a very clever writer.

After the revelation of the murderer and the secret that he and Cameron share, the pace does slow a little bit but there is still the tension as to whether Cameron betray this person one more time. Cameron also has to face his own complicity in this story and the personal lives of those around him. It is interesting the way that Banks weaves personal and political complicity and responsibility. In the end, Cameron decides (I assume) that he is already complicit and so avoids one last betrayal.

The ending of this book was quite poignant and sadder than I expected although there were hints throughout the book of Cameron’s ill health. There is an interesting parallel with the computer game he is obsessed with named Despot. At the start, in the game, Cameron is master of all civilization and nothing can stand in his way. By the end of the book, all is in ruin, both in life and in the game.

So, a very enjoyable journey. In fact, the best fiction I have read so far this year.

Books Read in 2014 – 13. The Sociopath Next Door – Martha Stout

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Genre: Academic, Psychology
narrative style: first person, case studies and analysis
Rating:3/5
Format: Paperback
Published: 2005
Synopsis: Stout recounts examples of sociopathy from her practice as a psychologist and analyses what the origins of such behaviours are. 

This book was part research, part pleasure. I have always been fascinated by the psychopath or sociopath in fiction and film. As such, in my next book, I have a character who has some features of sociopathy and I have been reading around the subject for a while.

The book opens with a discussion of conscience and the way most of us react in circumstances when we might have to make a sacrifice in order to help others. This is called the seventh sense and according to Stout 96% of us have it. The other 4% are sociopaths. This seems quite a large amount. And it seems that most of us will have come across at least one in our lives. She then describes exactly what she means by living without conscience. This is by far the most interesting part of the book. Stout uses case studies to illustrate the symptoms of sociopathy and they are quite horrific to read. But also, I must admit, fascinating. Perhaps it is the thought of what it would be like to never feel any obligation towards another person – intriguing but almost impossible to imagine.
She also charts the origins of conscience in a few different ways – religious, evolutionary, psychologically – all of which are also interesting. Personally, I am most drawn to evolutionary theories – what’s good for the group is good for the species. After all, as Stout points out, if we all did exactly as we pleased, the whole species would very soon die out.
However, there are irritating things about this book. There is something deeply spiritual about Stout’s version of conscience which, as an atheist, I found quite hard to stomach. One of the later chapters is devoted to religious leaders who have suggested do into others as you would to yourself as a way of life. This is not really what I would have expected from a psychological all study. It all gets a bit subjective.
Stout seems to want to have her cake and eat it. She obviously feels that she can judge sociopaths lacking as they do not have the emotional connections that we good folk with consciences have. Which maybe true. But she also suggests that sociopathy is a mental illness and may be, at least partly, innate. If this is the case, the it is hardly fair to pass moral judgement.
Finally, there is a sense of either you are a sociopath or you are not. It is black or white. I would suggest that, as with most things to do with the mind, it is a lot more complicated than that.

Plans for this year

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I’m bit late writing this. It is now beyond the middle of January and I still haven’t posted my new year resolutions / plans for the rest of the year. Perhaps one of them should be getting myself organised.

In terms of reading, I am doing two challenges this year:

  • The TBR challenge – I’m excited about this challenge for a nu2014tbrbuttonmber of reasons. First of all, it is always exciting to be forced to read books you’ve been meaning to read for ages. One of the books I am reading for this (Death Comes to the Archbishop) has been on my shelf for twenty years. This really is ridiculous. If not for this challenge then I probably would never have picked it up. It becomes far too easy to ignore these books in favour of new and more exciting books. The other reason that this challenge is good is that it does not involve my kindle. It is all books from my shelf. It doesn’t involve buying new books either. This can only be a good thing.
  • The Eclectic Reader Challenge 2014 – I’m looking forward to theclecticchallenge2014_300is challenge for different reasons. I really enjoyed the way it took me out of my reading rut. This year there are even more genres that I don’t usually read so that should be interesting.

In terms of writing, I have a few things I want to do.

  • In terms of reviewing, I am going to try to write a review for every book I read this year, regardless of whether it is for a challenge or not.
  • I have a few final tweaks to Choose Yr Future and then I will be looking for beta readers and hopefully be looking towards publication this year.
  • I am going to try and use writing prompts to write more short fiction and also make more efforts to get what I have written published / entered in more competitions.
  • Finish my current project which hasn’t got a name yet but is about 60000 words long.

So an exciting year hopefully. Certainly a busy one with lots of challenges and lots of fun and hard work ahead.