And so – my alarm didn’t wake me up until 7:15, which is 45 minutes after it was set for and 45 minutes after I should have got up and 15 minutes after I should have left the house, if I was to catch the bus.

Sorry Grete!

Well, on the day I should be going to bed early, so that I can get up early and get the bus in to work, to give Grete a well deserved break, I’m not tired.

Can’t sleep.

Stressed. Wound up. Whatever you want to call it.

I considered annoying the folk on the GemmellFantasy list with a long rambling post which goes no where, as I have done in the past, but felt they had also earned a break, so here I am, rambling into my diary.

Which I guess is exactly what diaries are for.

Got the pager, which may explain increased tension – I never thought it would result in such light sleeping or weird sleeping patterns, just lying there, waiting for it to go off.

Everyone with any sense in asleep, so there’s no mail or news to read, and I think I’ve read every web page there is worth reading[1]

I think another round of slashdot to see if it makes me sleepy.

[1] ok, probably not true.

Ok, so I’ve tried this writing lark.

It’s not easy.

I think I managed about 1500 words and then ground to a halt. And then I realised that I’d written the end of the book, not the start of it, so had to re-jig, and then I realised that my only scene so far (after the three scene, 1 page prologue) was totally wrong, so I ripped it out for later use and started again.

Hey, but at least I’ve started right? 😉

And then I read some more on-line writing advice, and discovered I’d fallen into every trap mentioned (including the not mentioning the character’s name in the vain hope of instilling some mystery in the character, and instead just annoying the reader).

Still, I quite enjoyed it, and I’m not totally dismayed at the results. It’s pretty rough, but I just wanted to get ideas down. Another 300 attempts at that and I might be moving forwards.

One thing I did find interesting, I wrote quite a bit and then thought that I hadn’t tried playing the scene in my head like a movie, and that’s when I discovered it didn’t work. Should I have done that first? The ‘inspiration’ made me write down stuff, but I hadn’t played it out first.

Another thing I noticed is that I’m not really sure where it’s going yet. David seems to suggest that for him, it’s not something he needs to know early on. But other authors and some people who offer advice suggest it’s essential to know where things are headed.

I’m sort of in limbo, not trusting myself to continue writing in case I’m never going to get anywhere. Should I boldly step onto the road with little idea where it heads, or should I plan my route on a large map before hand.

Only time and lots of practice will tell I guess.

Grocery shopping as a National Sport.

Think of the possibilities.

Things are pretty slow at the moment. Just leaving the heart of Winter, Spring showers and cool breezes to look forward to. February just around the corner, December a distant memory, January fading away slowly.

The house thing is progressing. Having a chat to the bank on Monday with numbers and figures to see about a Buy to Let mortgage. Still not sure it’s the best route, but if it means we can cover the mortgage and move forwards, then it must be good, mustn’t it?

Started doing a bit of writing, not very good, hard to keep the inspiration flowing. Will keep trying more.

Not painting any miniatures in half a lifetime, should do really.

Haven’t made any long rambling posts to the GemmellFantasy mailing list – some probably think that’s a good thing.

Yahoo are trying to annoy me – they’ve now taken over egroups.com, and are doing the same as they did with webring.com – you HAVE to have a Yahoo ID to use the egroups.com website pages. You can currently still post with your old e-mail address, but if you want access to the files or you want to manage your e-group, you need a Yahoo ID. That sucks IMO. I wonder if someone’s started a petition or a complaint website up yet. I’m already in the process of moving lists off egroups.com and onto my own machine. I e-mailed them to complain, we’ll see if they bother replying.

Ah well, onwards, slowly but at least finally we’re moving.

Another post to the GemmellFantasy mailing list in response to an Amazon feature by Stan Nicholls (here).

As I said earlier, I’ve been wondering about this [you’ll have to go and read the article for this post to make any sense, and even then it probably won’t], in the context of belief and religion. I hadn’t thought about it in the context of the decline of sci-fi.

But then I hadn’t thought about it in the context of an increasingly technical and ‘man made’ world either.

I think reading is a form of escapism, in the same way that music can be, or film, or dance, or anything you do which takes your mind from the real world for a moment. Good books are those that engross us so much we don’t notice the world, and bad books are those that keep jolting us back or never take us away[1].

I think we read fiction to either put ourselves in the story, to do in our mind the things we’ve dreamed of, or to at least watch someone else act out roles that intrigue us. Among other reasons probably.

The question then is, what genre? Crime? Thriller? Horror? Sci-Fi? Fantasy? Multi-genre? What draws us to read the genre we read most?

I read Fantasy just about to the exclusion of everything else. Oh I’ve read bits of other genre’s, the odd sci-fi book, some crime stuff, a bit here and there, but I stick to Fantasy mainly. And I have to wonder why.

For me, it’s perhaps logical. I was a roleplayer before I was a great reader. I fantasized about magic and myths and heroes. Did that lead to my selection of the Fantasy genre? Or was I led to roleplaying and mythology for the same reasons that I now read Fantasy books?

I’m not religious. I really don’t believe in any gods. I think I’m a sceptical realist. I talked long and hard in my younger days with a good friend, and we put the world to rights, formed our own opinions about life and how it works, and formed our theological beliefs, or lack of them. I concluded a long time ago that we (the human race) don’t really deviate from the normal animal requirements, I don’t need a ‘creator’ to explain my existence. I think evolution does a good enough job.

But I wonder if I’m missing something?

Is my lack of belief in the sources of religion the thing that drives me to seek other worlds or realities, or is it just something else I do.

Not sure.

I’ve said a couple of times that for me, David Gemmell’s books evoke a sense of old-world storytelling. The kind of storytelling that took place around a fire, outside of a cave, with the youngsters close by, and the ‘teller of the village relating the history of their small world through story and myth. Instilling confidence and morals into their young, through the use of story. Passing down knowledge in the form of legend, myth and exciting adventure.

David’s books evoke that imagery for me; I can imagine three thousand years ago, a group of people relating the story of how a Legend stood and defended the walls of their Broch against the invading Picts. I know how they felt. Energised, complete, confident, sure of their place in the world, because the story gave their life meaning.

I want the world to be a place where good wins, where evil and spite and fear are locked away for good[2].

Do I read Fantasy because it gives me that? Or do I feel that because I’ve read so much fantasy?

And the world is so hi-tech. My life is hi-tech. I’m a frustrated gadget freak[3]. My job revolves around computers, my hobbies generally revolve around computers, I met my wife as a result of computers. Am I lacking a closeness with nature? Am I missing out on the things that we always had in the past? Is there within me some urge to fight and defend and stand in the way of wrong[4]?

Do I read Fantasy because it returns me to how I think the world once was – dangerous, a place where you had to be strong to survive.?

Do I avoid sci-fi because my life is already science fiction? When I was a kid, sci-fi meant wrist phones and video phones. You can buy them both now. I can talk to anyone, anywhere in the world for free. And I can see them when I do it. In real time.

Flash Gordon never had it so good.

What do I need sci-fi for? There’s no-where to look to, everything they said would happen, has or is happening. I just _expect_ the colonisation of Mars. I just _expect_ holidays in space. I just _expect_ there to be life on other planets. What else can sci-fi tell me now? That there isn’t? That it won’t happen? Other dimensions and realities are the food of sci-fi now, and is that not fantasy with guns?

I have read some sci-fi in the past few years, one book in particular was interesting, Permutation City by Greg Egan. Good book, interesting slant on virtual reality. But was it really sci-fi? Half of it is already possible, and the rest? More like fantasy if you ask me.

Sci-fi doesn’t _give_ me anything any more. Even I can imagine the next 20 years. I’m sure I’ll be wrong, but I can already envision it.

But every Fantasy book is a trip into a world that never did and never will exist. Fantasy truly is speculative fiction isn’t it? In the way sci-fi used to be, before it became reality?

When they re-discover magic and elves, perhaps Fantasy will lose it’s edge and I’ll have to turn to Horror to fill the gap.

Whatever that gap is – which we still haven’t worked out.

Religion gives some people hope. I look around and I think it would be nice to have hope, to see a better future for us. And then I interact with people on and off the ‘net, and see spite, greed, ignorance, fear, hate, and wonder if there is a reason to hope at all.

And then I read, and discover there is perhaps hope. That spite can be quashed. That greed doesn’t always win. That the ignorant can be taught. That fear can be beaten. That hate can be turned and driven away.

Fantasy fills me with hope, wonder, excitement, courage. It’s not the only thing in my life that does so. Grete does. Sometimes my friends do. Occasionally movies do.

But surely Hope is the bread and butter of any Fantasy work? Hope in the face of imminent defeat? Hope in the face of hate. Hope in the face of fear.

Stan suggests that Fantasy was always a little more cynical than sci-fi, I won’t argue with him, and I’m certainly often a cynical person, which is probably another reason why it appeals. But I read Legend and Hero in the Shadows and I feel that perhaps there is a chance. I read Tigana and I think that anything can be overcome if only we try hard enough.

I guess other people find that hope in the Koran, or the Bible, or the teachings of Buddha, or in the wonder of music, or the beauty of physics, or in the lines of a painting.

I’m left to discover it in the shelves of a thousand fantasy books, but I won’t complain.

[1] People may remember that I don’t usually define good or bad books, I think all books have value, so this definition is one possible definition of what a good book or bad book is _to_me_.
[2] Within reason, you should always fear falling 10,000 feet, it is rarely good for you.
[3] Frustrated because I’m also skint 😉
[4] Is this why I do Live Action Roleplaying?

Well, we did the deed. We visited our house in Stockton, and picked up the mail. Boy was there a lot, very little of it ours though.

Appears like our letting agency screwed up – the gas and electric are still connected 🙁 [although we believe the gas has been cut off for non-payment]. Strong words with them tomorrow. I turned the water off at the mains, which should help. And we had a very rewarding chat with the lady next door, including an exchange of phone numbers, which was very nice.

We’re very proud of ourselves, which is a bit silly perhaps considering the small step we’ve taken on what could be a long road, but at least we’re up and walking now and not just lying down.

Tomorrow involves contacting lots of debt management agencies and banks and telling them a whole host of people we’ve never heard of do not live in our property.

And then it’s onwards to doing whatever we need to, in order to sell it.

So, we’re going to keep out little guilty pleasure at what we’ve achieved, and feel good for the start of a new year. We will make things better this year.

To Do list for the coming week,

• Change phones over to pay-as-you-go
• Sort out letting agency
• See about part exchanging our house
• Other stuff!

[originally an e-mail to the GemmellFantasy list – I really should stop using them as a shoulder]

Yes, yes, if I annoy you, time to press the delete button. [Which is what that reference is about]

Some people are challenged by the success of others (‘ha! I can do that. ha! I can do better than that’). Others are daunted by it (‘oh my! I’ll never be that good’).

Does this have something to do with how competitive we are? Why are people more or less competitive? Are you more competitive if you grew up as part of a large family or with siblings of a similar age? Are you less competitive as an only child, or with much older/younger siblings?

Is competitiveness something you learn or something you inherit? [I know, I know, too much in that one question].

But competitiveness isn’t the only bit. Take writing. You could look at all the excellent books and take it as a challenge, and give it a go yourself. You could just love writing and be unaffected by the books around you. You could look at all the excellent work and think, jeeze, I’ll never be that good, so why should I even try. i.e. some people don’t feel the need to compete, while others do, but decide they will fail in advance [self-fulfilment?]

You might have spotted a theme here, with a previous rambling about writing or not writing. I’ve been thinking about it, and I’ve decided that there are a number of reasons why people might not pick up the pen an give it a go, and a number of reasons why I don’t or haven’t.

Am I looking at it too hard? Should I just accept that since I haven’t tried, it must be something I don’t want to try, or should I wonder about why I haven’t yet tried, and ignoring that, just get on with giving it a go?

I’d like to ask anyone still reading, who has written anything of a reasonable length, did you sit down and try writing, or did you have the spark of an idea and end up writing it out? Did you sit and idly speculate on what you would write about?

I’ve tried that – it feels false. I was lying last night in bed, awake, wondering what I could write about if I started writing. Thinking up scenarios and then dumping them, sometimes comparing them to already written works, sometimes because they felt contrived or false. Is the falseness a result of the method, does good writing only come from a spark of inspiration?

Is it actually possible to sit and think about an idea for a book and then just sit down and get on with it – oh it might be terrible, I’m sure the first few times it will be – but is it possible?

I’m not sure. I’ve certainly been thinking about it. I’ve also had to weigh in other factors, like being scared of success, and being comfortable in failure, which always play a part in stuff.

When I rambled last, I said seize the now, but I’m wondering, can you sit and contemplate stuff and then seize the result, or do you really have to wait for a spark to ignite before you can grab it with both hands?

jeeeeeeeeeeeez it’s cold

… and I think I’ll take the digital camera, some photo’s of the outside of the house might help if we can find some on-line house selling places.

Sort of a problem – we’ve got the house signed up with estate agents, which means we have to forward any potential buyers on to them for them to handle things.