Saturday Night: Burning the Midnight Oil.

There are times when you just have to write. Last night a scene came to me out of the blue, and I just had to write it down because otherwise I would probably have forgotten it. So, around midnight, I ended up writing about 900 words of dialogue between the two main characters in the book that is my first attempt at fiction. 

I am finding that I am not writing the story from start to finish in one go, in that while I have the story in mind, a beginning, middle, and end, things tend to change as I go along. Then ideas for inclusion at any point in the story just tend to come to me. I start at the beginning of course, but at some stage, what I have already written, may need a re-write to include the new ideas. Seems like an anarchic way of doing things, but that is the way that I write. I suppose it is just the way that my mind works. It doesn't give me the whole story from the start!

That's what happened last night. The dialogue I wrote will be included in a later chapter that I am still some way off from writing. The scene is written now, and other than the inevitable editing, it is waiting to be included in that chapter, whenever I get to it.

I Guess That's Progress...

Ten Signs of an English Baby Boomer.

1) You ate sugar sandwiches, because jam was not available.

2) You had an aunt who would cut your hair.

3) The local library was the internet.

 4) You are old enough to remember when England won the World Cup.

5) You had to put money into a coin meter for electricity.

6) A cost of living crisis was the norm.

7) You watched television pictures of a man landing on the moon.

8) The girl next door was probably your best friend.

9) There were only two, then three television channels, and even then, the adults complained that there was nothing worth watching.

10) The toilet was outside, in the backyard. 

Such was life.

Charity shop book haul…yet another five for a pound haul (part two).

I went to the five for a pound charity shop this morning, and picked up another haul. However, this post is part two of my catch-up, pre-covid hauls. 

Another mixed bag, two non-fiction, three fiction, but as usual, good value for money at five for a pound!

Here's what I found.

Let's start with the fiction picks.

All the ratings are from the Goodreads website (as of writing). 

1) Don't Let Go, 2017, by Harlan Coben. 4.05 average review rating. 69358 ratings and 4613 GR reviews.

With unmatched suspense and emotional insight, Harlan Coben explores the big secrets and little lies that can destroy a relationship, a family, and even a town in this powerful new thriller.

Link: Don't Let Go 

2) Kill Baxter, 2014, by Charlie Human. 4.04 average review rating. 457 ratings and 39 GR reviews.

The world has been massively unappreciative of sixteen-year-old Baxter Zevcenko. His bloodline may be a combination of ancient Boer mystic and giant shape-shifting crow, and he may have won an interdimensional battle and saved the world, but does anyone care? No.

Link: Kill Baxter

I must admit, I picked this book up because of the cover!

3) Rumpole On Trial, 2014, by John Mortimer. 4.22 average review rating. 752 ratings and 54 GR reviews.

As Rumpole wends his way from court to wine bar and to the matrimonial home in Froxbury Mansions, listeners find their hero jousting with the Devil as he defends eight-year-old Tracy Timson against the dire threats of the local authority, is wooed by a beautiful violin player, watches Sam Ballard peer into the future, and appears before the Disciplinary Tribunal of the Bar Council.

I don't know about the book, but that's a long sentence. 

Link: Rumpole On Trial 

Now, for the two non-fiction. These are both by (former?) actress, comedian, and latter-day author Ruby Wax.

4) A Mindfulness Guide for the Frazzled, 2016. 3.77 average review rating. 3885 ratings and 300 GR reviews.

In A Mindfulness Guide for the Frazzled, Ruby Wax shows us how to de-frazzle for good by making simple changes that give us time to breathe, reflect and live in the moment. It's an easy-to-understand introduction to mindfulness, weaved together with Ruby's trademark wit and humour. Let Ruby be your guide to a healthier, happier you. You've nothing to lose but your stress…

Link: Frazzled 

2) How to be Human, 2018. 3.71 average review rating. 3223 ratings and 281 GR reviews.

It took us 4 billion years to evolve to where we are now. No question, anyone reading this has won the evolutionary Hunger Games by the fact you're on all twos and not some fossil. This should make us all the happiest species alive - most of us aren't, what's gone wrong?

Link: How to be Human

Slight embarrassment on the back cover of this book is probably the quote recommending the book from Russell Brand. I suspect that later editions will probably change that.    

A book haul...Finding crime in the park.

This is one of my catch-up posts. I found these books in a local park about a month ago.

I mentioned in a previous post that a generous individual was leaving books in the park, usually four or five at a time. With the weather being rain, followed by more rain, to leave them in the park would only result in them getting soaked. I chose to rescue them. If I did not want them, I could always re-deliver them to a local charity shop.

I get the impression that the person leaving the books, likes a thriller, suspense, mystery, and crime. 

Here's what I found.

All the ratings are from the Goodreads website (as of writing). 

1) The Cuckoo's Calling, 2013, by Robert Galbraith (a pseudonym for J K Rowling).  3.89 average review rating. 579328 ratings and 37427 GR reviews.

After losing his leg to a land mine in Afghanistan, Cormoran Strike is barely scraping by as a private investigator. Then John Bristow walks through his door with an amazing story: His sister, the legendary supermodel Lula Landry, famously fell to her death a few months earlier. The police ruled it a suicide, but John refuses to believe that.

Link: The Cuckoo's Calling 

2) Win, 2021, by Harlan Coben.  4.09 average review rating. 66715 ratings and 4865 GR reviews.

From a #1 New York Times bestselling author comes this thrilling story that shows what happens when a dead man's secrets fall into the hands of a vigilante anti-hero—drawing him down a dangerous road.

Link: Win

3) Pure Evil, 2023, by Lynda La Plante.  4.34 average review rating. 2546 ratings and 116 GR reviews.

ALL KILLERS WANT TO MAKE THE FRONT PAGE . . .

Link: Pure Evil

 

4) Victim Without a Face, 2014, by Stefan Ahnhem.  3.97 average review rating. 9311 ratings and 867 GR reviews.

Criminal investigator Fabian Risk has left Stockholm with his wife, Sonja, and their two children to start fresh in his hometown of Helsingborg. He has planned a six-week vacation before he starts a new job at the Homicide Department. But after only a few hours in their new home, he is asked to investigate a brutal murder.

Link: Victim Without a Face

 

 

The Writing Process: The Word Count.

I noticed on Twitter X recently that authors will occasionally mention their word count for the day. Some are quite impressive, writing several thousand words in a day. I'm not that productive, and I felt for some time that I was more of a binge writer than someone who could just write every day. However, I have tried to change this, and that was because of Covid.

When I tested positive for Covid, I decided that while under the weather, I would try to do two things. The first was to catch up on my reading. I have many books that I want to read, but just don't get around to it. Second, I was going to write more consistently. I ended up doing neither. I did some reading, but not much. Furthermore, I did no writing at all.  

For two to three weeks, I just waited for Covid to do its thing and then clear up. Fortunately, It did, but then I thought about all that wasted time. I did very little because I did not feel like doing anything, but this wasn't just procrastination. I did think about what I should be doing, and then I set a goal that I would write every day. So far, that is what I have been doing. In the past, I have never really thought about doing a daily word count, but now that is what I'm doing.

So, in the last four days, my numbers are 1050, 1183, 2286 and so far today, 1058.

This is writing on two WIP. One, is my first attempt at fiction. I will write more about this in due course. The second is non-fiction. 

Somebody posted on Twitter X the writer Ian Fleming's (he of James Bond fame), daily routine. Here it is.

Of course, it does help that he was a successful author and making decent money. For most of us, it is not realistic, but the general principle to write something each day if you can is a good one. 

What works about writing every day, if you can do it, is that the numbers soon add up. Average 1000 words a day, and that is 365,000 in a year, and potentially three or four books. Of course, you need to have the ideas, and then there is all the editing, the promoting, etc, etc. So, it is never that easy as life, and procrastination gets in the way. However, while there is not much I can do about life getting in the way at the moment, I can do more to avoid procrastination.

Charity shop book haul…yet another five for a pound haul (part one).

So, I'm now playing catch up. Having been under the weather for a while, there are a number of posts to catch up on, including several book hauls.

Let's see what I got this time from the charity shop that keeps giving with their five for a pound offer.

All the ratings are from the Goodreads website (as of writing).

1) The Fry Chronicles, an Autobiography by Stephen Fry. 3.84 average review rating, 22132 ratings, 1232 reviews.

“Stephen Fry arrived at Cambridge on probation: a convicted fraudster and thief, an addict, liar, fantasist and failed suicide, convinced that at any moment he would be found out and flung away.

Instead, university life offered him love, romance, and the chance to stand on a stage and entertain.”

Link: The Fry Chronicles 

2) Animal, The Autobiography of a Female Body by Sara Pascoe. 4.15 average review rating, 8839 ratings, 639 reviews.

“Women have so much going on, what with boobs and jealousy and menstruating and broodiness and sex and infidelity and pubes and wombs and jobs and memories and emotions and the past and the future and themselves and each other.

Here's a book that deals with all of it.”

Link: Animal, The Autobiography of a Female Body

3) Only Fools and Stories by David Jason. 4.24 average review rating, 805 ratings, 67 reviews.

“…in a follow-up autobiography, he tells us about the many other lives he has lived – his characters. From Del Boy to Granville, Pop Larkin to Frost, he takes us behind the scenes and under the skins of some of the best loved acts of his career.”

Link: Only Fools and Stories

The Blog: Giving it a New Look.

So, yesterday I decided to change the look of the blog layout and theme, and I think it now looks better. It has a cleaner look to it, no background picture. 

I also simplified the Son of My Father page, along the lines of chapter headings telling the story of what the book is about, so why not do it that way?

Here's a sample.

Chapter Nine — Son of My Father.

Chapter Ten — Big School.

Chapter Eleven — Related to a Film Star?

Chapter Twelve — The Family From Hell.

Chapter Thirteen — The Girl With Beautiful Eyes.

I also managed to write 2300 or so words yesterday of my new WIP (Really getting with it now, it does mean Work in Progress, doesn't it? Doesn't it?). 

I'm sure that one day I will be a proper writer.