Another Monday, another chance for me to plug my book. Well, here it is:
“You used to be the better part of me, Crevan. You used to be my lighter side. Now you’re all gray and dark. Still, I don’t think I’m giving up on you quite yet.”
Crevan froze in the doorway. If he’d have turned, Mikhael would have seen how pale his face had become, how sick and anguished he looked. But he did not turn. He didn’t dare.
“No, don’t do that. Don’t waste your time on me.”
Yes, this is a Monday. Huge apologies for the delay, but I had a few problems yesterday to try and get past. So here it is anyways…
1. Kasabian – Narcotic Farm
This band has a really tripped out style, particularly on this song.
Come down lady flying eight miles high, You got the soul and you don’t even, don’t even try. Jet black tulip like a smoking gun. You got no rhythm but you know how to, know how to run. At the Narcotic Farm they will do you no harm. Hey, follow me down, to where the executioner will bring me back round…
2. Jeff Buckley – Hallelujah
I don’t really listen to him all that much, but Jeff Buckley’s cover of Hallelujah is beautiful. Like, really really beautiful. And the lyrics, while not his, are pretty perfect too.
Well maybe there’s a God above, but all I ever learned from love is how to shoot somebody who out-drew you. And it’s not a cry that you hear at night, it’s not somebody who’s seen the light. It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah…
3. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Red Right Hand
Okay, so Nick Cave and his Bad Seeds are really pretty dark, but I still love writing to them. I could have easily chosen O Children instead (the HP Harry-Hermione dance song from Deathly Hallows Part 1, if that helps you think) but I really like this one too. Probably because there was a book I read as a kid (it was Derek Landy’s brilliant Skullduggery Pleasant book) , where the author gave the villain a red right hand which could kill people, and listening to this song makes me smile about the book.
Take a little walk to the edge of town, go across the tracks, where the viaduct looms like a bird of doom as it shifts and cracks. Where secrets lie in the border fires, in the humming wires. Hey man, you know you’re never coming back. Past the square, past the bridge, past the mills, past the stacks. On a gathering storm comes a tall handsome man in a dusty black coat with a Red Right Hand…
4. Lana Del Rey – Young and Beautiful
Ignore the controversy surrounding the did-she/did-she-not have her lips surgically modified. Besides all that rubbish, doesn’t it always come back to the music? And here is one of my favorite songs by Ms Del Rey…
I’ve seen the world, lit it up, as my stage now. Channeling angels in the new age now. Hot summer days, rock ‘n’ roll, the way you’d play for me at your show. And all the ways, I got to know, your pretty face and electric soul…
5. Benjamin Francis Leftwich – Stole You Away
I do like Benjamin Francis Leftwich’s lyrics to write to. They’re quite poetic and heart-felt. Again, I could have picked a different song, but I went with my favorite as there’s one particular line that I love the most.
There was a change in the way you breathe, couldn’t believe you would change for me. And if you hear the sound of shooting stars, protect your heart ’cause it burns back and turns back around…
Okay, so I won’t keep on with the whole Saturday Brings You… (Insert Writer Here) Graffiti schlep, because I realize it’s probably pretty tedious. But today, that’s all I got in my head so, I guess you all just have to grin and bear it…
Well, that’s pretty much all I have for today. Apologies for the terrible-ness of this blog post, but my novel is snapping at me to get back to work.
Yes, it’s that ungodly time of year again, when I’m sitting there with a big fat manuscript and despair in the air around me. And I’ve finally realized, as I flick through 360+ pages with growing alarm, where I’ve went wrong.
Now, if you’re following my advice you need a friend or two to be a Beta reader. That’s a person who will willingly (or unwillingly) sit through your entire book and give you opinions. Grab an online writing friend if you can, or a real one if you’ve got one, someone who writes and/or reads a lot is probably your best bet, because they can offer a real opinion.
If you can’t find anyone like that, grab a friend and tie them to a chair and tell them they’re not leaving unless they read your book. Only do this with not-too close friends though otherwise a) you’ll get “oh, it’s wonderful” as a response to your work. “It’s the best thing I’ve read. You’re a fantastic writer! I can’t correct anything, because it’s so amazing…” and b) dude, you’re TYING THEM TO A CHAIR.
Anyhow, once you have Beta readers (3 or 4 at least is a good number) you shouldn’t just send them your work as it is. No, start on the editing, doofus! If you send them chapter 1 in first draft form, then edit and send again, then edit and send again, you’ll only bore them with over-familiarity and probably stop them picking up useful changes like a spelling mistake. At the very least, proof read it.
If you’re not up to editing yet though, then there’s some hope for you. Because here are my super-amazing-fantastic tips to stop you going insane in advance:
1. Use the advice of a published novelist: write with the door closed, re-write with the door open.
Stephen King said that. And I completely agree. Having people throwing in their cent’s worth before you have a chance to finish your book is always such a bad idea.
2. Resist the temptation to read what you’ve written.
It sounds crazy, but if you read it, you can either think you’re the most amazingest writer that ever lived, or get completely disheartened. Either way is walking down the path of Writers Block. Don’t do it! It also makes editing even harder, which brings me to my next point…
3. Also resist the temptation to edit what you’ve just written.
Okay, it does involve reading what you’ve just written. But please resist from doing it, not only because it breaks my first rule, but my second too. Because editing straight away can wreck what you’ve written. Instead you should…
4. Finish, put your manuscript away and let it breathe.
Think of your book like a fine bottle of wine. Once you’ve written your little heart out, you need to give it some time to relax, so you can get your mind out of the story. If you leave it long enough (I left mine for about a month), you should be able to notice some of the errors you’ve made. Spelling and grammar mistakes are easier to pick out, and you start to see that that amazing sentence you wrote in chapter 8 actually has nothing to do with your book. And that brilliant chapter 10? Passive. You’ve gotten bored reading it back over. Don’t edit it just yet though…
5. Read it all through, preferably in one sitting, before starting to edit . And write a list of everything you want to edit.
Speaks for itself really, because you can’t edit everything in one go. Read it over, start to notice the faults and the good bits. Don’t correct/change anything, but do maybe put a little mark on the top of the page. Printing the novel makes a lot of sense, because you can hopefully read it without thinking Facebook! Twitter! Coffeeandmissingstars! Get back to work! Writing a list of changes you think you want to make is a great way to start. Mine usually looks a little something like: More description of scene D, Develop relationship between characters A and B, reduce tension between characters C and D in chapter 8, include necklace earlier in book, cut pace, rewrite chapter 2…
6. Now go through again, and decide which bits you need to completely re-write.
There will be some. Do them in chronological order, if you can.
7. Add in some of the stuff you never got around to writing.
There will be some things, such as funny speeches, or more dramatic description, that you never got around to putting into your manuscript. Do it now.
8. Now go through again and make any changes to the continuity.
Did you make your hero have brown hair, only for it to be red in chapter 3? Did you maybe kill someone off, and forget about finding the killer completely? (Apparently, that has happened before, and to a successful author.) Did you maybe get bored with a name and change it half-way through? Or forget to input an important item early in your story? (Remember the dramatic principle of Chekhov’s gun? “If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it’s not going to be fired, it shouldn’t be hanging there.”) Of course there’s some, so go and sort them out!
9. Now write down the word count and divide it by 10. Got a number? Right, now delete at least that many words.
It’s a tip I learned from Stephen King’s On Writing book (which you completely should read, if you’ve got a writing bone in your body.) Your novel, no matter what size, should be slimmer and more compact. If you delete 10% of it, you’ll make it more streamlined. Think of it like wood carving: you have a rough block of wood. By taking a knife and cutting away the bits of wood that you aren’t using, you’re starting to create the shape of the novel you want.
10. Now, you probably hate your life, and want the stupid, smelly old novel to just go away. This is when you go through and proof-read.
There wasn’t much sense in doing it earlier, if you were going to add and delete some stuff. So do it now. And then you’re nearly finished.
11. Give it over to your Beta Readers to destroy.
Now it’s almost out of your hands. This is the bit where you actually open the door. You don’t have to change everything they suggest, but trust me, as a reader, they probably know as much as you. If they’re telling you character A isn’t realistic, trust them, unless your second reader says character A is believable. Then, just leave it. If it’s a tie, it goes to the writer.
And that’s about it. I’m off to wreck my brain over editing. Pity me, fools.
Okay, so I just got accosted by two chavs on the Metro, inquiring about what I was looking at. In a not particularly friendly fashion. However, what actually came out of their mouths was something rather like “What choo lurcking art, like?”
Oh, Lord. How can I begin to respond? I thought, sitting there and mildly reading my book (and not staring at some weird 18 ton girl in a crop stars and stripes top (okay, I did peek once!) ) I don’t speak the same language! Thus, I invented this perfectly brilliant guide to how to translate and even converse if one wished to (though I really doubt it):
1. Hippie.
Hippie, to a chav does not mean a person obsessed with the sixties, protesting world peace and uttering “far out man,” in bell-bottom trousers. Oh no. In modern day chav, it means anyone who is not a chav. This includes: goths, skaters, emos, indie kids, punks and kids in jeans and t-shirts. So use it extensively when talking to a chav, and remember, if they aren’t a chav, they’re a hippy (even if they’re 80 years-old).
(Old hippy)
(The new wave of hippies)
2. Insults
Along with hippy, your next biggest insult should be ‘oompa loompa’. This has a particular bonus, because it can be used against chavs too. The alternative (if you feel you’re insulting Willy Wonka’s helpers) if tangoed. Tango now isn’t just a drink, it’s an insult! So insult away!
3. Bling
Bling is the word for jewelry in Chav. Usually, it refers to hoop earrings (and if you want to look the part, check the picture below for size guides) or gold rings.
Just remember, when dressing like a chav, bigger is better. And NEVER EVER refer to bling as jewelry. Just remember, they created a new word because they couldn’t spell it in English. Don’t antagonize them by using such a difficult word.
5. The Park
Don’t be fooled by the phrase ‘going to the park.’ It hasn’t got the same meaning as the English phrase. In Chav, ‘going to the park’ really means ‘getting drunk and intimidating kids.’ If you make the mistake and find yourself getting dragged along, just remember- if you see anyone looking at you, even momentarily, ask them “What choo lurking art, like?” The chavs will immediately applaud your superior knowledge of their language, even if you’re asking that of a two-year-old.
6. Leggings
Girls, you may know leggings to be black tights-like-things you wear with a dress or t-shirt. You wear them to cover over your knickers, right? Well, Chav language is remarkably similar to English here, so don’t be confused. Leggings, in Chav actually mean black tights-like-things you wear with a t-shirt (never ever a dress) but here’s the difference- they’re not supposed to cover anything. In fact, the more you can see under them, the closer to the original Chav meaning you are. So if they ask you if you want to borrow their leggings remember, just say no.
Oh well, I realize this isn’t horrifically close to a topic about writing, but I guess it may come in useful. You could always use this as a guide for creating a stereotypical character…
And for all you Americans out there who didn’t get what a Chav is:
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Picture this a young lad about 12 years of age and 4 ½ feet high baseball cap at ninety degrees in a imitation addidas tracksuit, with trouser legs tucked into his socks (of course, is definitely the height of fashion). This lad is strutting around, fag in one hand jewellery al over the over, outside McDonalds acting as if he is 8 foot tall and built like a rugby player, when some poor unsuspecting adult (about 17/18) walks round the corner wanting to go to mcdonalds for his dinner glances at the young lad, the young lad jumps up in complete disgust and says “Whats your problem? Wanna make sommin of it? Bling Bling” when the adult starts to walk towards the young lad, the young lad pisses himself and runs off to either his pregnant 14-year-old girlfriend or his brother in the army crying his eyes out.
My mate has become a chav what can i do? answer is shoot him before it is too late
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And if that doesn’t clear it up:
Commonly thought to be of inferior intellect, the Chavette surprises us with its cunning plan to avoid taking up a professional career and provide itself with free accommodation supplied by tax payers by spawning multi coloured mini chavs at a early stage in life, usually mid teens.
Clearly recognisable by their distinctive tribal Burberry they congregate in town centres and on street corners, Chavs have a reputation of being creative with public property and motor vehicles, building themselves Chaviots out of mechcano sets and strip lighting, and providing us with humorous banta written on toilet walls like ‘Shit’ and ‘Tasha woz ere’ in an attempt to relieve our boredom while urinating.
Their language is a basic form of English thus avoiding any words they cannot spell or pronounce, even to the extent of creating new words only they know the meaning of.
Hunting in large groups Chavs will single out the weakest, smallest prey and attack it without mercy avoiding any personal injury and insuring victory.
Chavs unfortunately don’t yet fall into the category of rodent and in effect cannot be bludgeoned to death under the guise of pest control. Darn!-
I think I speak for everyone when I say thank you Chavs for the great contribution you’ve made to this country, you’ve made it what it what it is today – a shit hole.
A little section for self promotion, if you don’t mind. Well, I do have to make as many of you fall in love with my book as possible, so when it’s finally published, you’ll actually buy it. Hehe, see I’m smart.
***
Anyhoo, here is today’s quote:
His voice trembled as he spoke. “I never meant for it to happen. And I think that, even if I lived forever, you would be my greatest regret. Because I didn’t want to hurt you. Never.”
*** In all honesty, I’m not at all in this for the money. I just thought I would make you laugh by lying 🙂
Okay, so I see most of the people who follow me are writers, so you’ll probably understand the particular urge that most writers get when they hear some damn good lyrics 🙂 Anyhow, since I’m a lovely sharing person (insert snort of laughter here), I thought I might post a couple of videos, with little snippets of the lyrics, so you can see how uber-brilliant my taste in music is. And, it does actually help me.
1. Ben Howard – Black Flies:
Actually, I could post absolutely anything by this guy, because he’s fantastic and you should go obsess over him now! I mean it, go and download absolutely everything by him, and sit in floods of tears thinking about how damn poetic and haunting his lyrics are.
See the sky as no-man’s land, a darkened plume to stay. Hope here needs a steady hand. Not a fox found in your place. And no man is an island, this I know. But can’t you see oh? Maybe you were the ocean, when I was just a stone…
2. Willy Mason – We Can Be Strong
Okay, this is a KT Tunstall cover, but still. The guy is a genius.
Signed myself out today, sent a letter far away, said Baby I’ll be good someday. Gonna try again tomorrow. I couldn’t take that sterile place, in those rooms I lost my face. In the end they couldn’t sell me grace. And they can’t sell me tomorrow…
3. Daughter – Youth
I couldn’t decide for a long time between this and their song ‘Still’, but I figured both were amazing. Seriously, check them out, before I come over and tell you myself 🙂
And if you’re still breathing, you’re the lucky ones. Cause most of us are heaving through corrupted lungs. Setting fire to our insides for fun. Collecting names of the lovers that went wrong.
4. Arctic Monkeys – Do I Wanna Know?
Speaks for itself really. Arctic Monkeys are brilliant. This picture proves it:
And of course, they’re awesome because of Alex Turner, but let’s not get me started on that subject, because this is supposed to be a G Rated blog (oh god, I didn’t get that wrong and accidentally suggest it was full of porn or something, did I?)
5. Muse – Hoodoo
Unconventional, I know. And I could have gone with almost anything they’ve written, of course, but I just like the lyrics in this one.
I’ve had recurring nightmares, that I was loved for who I am, and missed the opportunity to be a better man.
And that’s it really. Have a nice day, and peace out fellow writing nerds.
There’s a certain myth that writers actually write better when drunk. F. Scott Fitzgerald did it, Ernest Hemingway did it, as did Oscar Wilde. Hell, Lewis Carroll supposedly dabbled with Absinthe and narcotics.
Don’t do this.
If you want proof of how badly you will write when drunk, just look at your phone. You’ve likely either sent one like this:
Or gone one step further and sent a text like this to your mother/brother/sister/father/ex…
Therefore, trust me when I say YOU ARE IN NO FIT STATE TO WRITE NOW. I know this from experience. Last month, after having about 4 Jack Daniels and cokes, I decided I was in a perfect position to write. I can do this, I thought. I can!
Wrong. What resulted was a garble that not even Google Translate could interpret. It looked something a little like this: Elkie looojked at Leah, sifdsging like a bill.
Now, I think what I was trying to say was: Ella looked at Leah, sighing like a bull.
But honestly, does that really make any sense? Finally, I began to cry and turned off my computer in high dudgeon. And when I woke up the next day, I felt like someone had hit me between the eyes with a sledgehammer and I couldn’t look at my screen for longer than five seconds without wanting to throw up.
My advice? Unless your name actually is F. Scott Fitzgerald, leave Jack and his friends at home when you’re writing…
Yep, you heard right. I was recently wandering around a section of my home town where graffiti artists are allowed to go ape-shit with their spray cans and stumbled across this beauty:
Now I am seriously considering inventing a time machine just so I can go back and show Shakey an Instagram pic of this art (though I’m sure between a girl arriving in Elizabethan England with a smart-phone that can take pictures, and graffiti of himself, old Will will be more freaked out by moi). Not that there aren’t a dozen other things I could be doing with a time machine, of course. And amazingly, this isn’t the only bit of Shakey graffiti out there. Oh no:
Actually, I’m bored, so I thought I might list all the things one could do with a time machine:
1. Stop John Lennon getting assassinated.
2. Discover what the crack was with the JFK assassination so History programmes don’t try and fill us with crap about Oswald being part of a mafia hit to intimidate JFK’s little bro.
3. Ditto Tutankhamen.
4. Bring a copy of Harry Potter with me so I can copy it all up and become an instantaneous multi-millionaire.
5. Pull faces at Hitler while his back was turned. And maybe shave off his mustache while he was sleeping for good measure.
6. (Temporarily) be on board the Titanic before it sank so I could grab the nearest guy, go to the front of the boat, put out my arms and scream: “I’M ON TOP OF THE WORLD!”
7. Pretend to be a God
8. Tell everyone not to vote for George Bush
9. Ditto the UK with the Lib Dems and Nick Clegg. There’s no better liar than a politician. And I have to pay for everyone being suckers with higher uni fees.
10. Prevent Justin Beiber’s mother from ever meeting his father, so he wouldn’t exist. Except maybe this would be counter-productive. Maybe instead of Beiber we would have some other horrific ‘musician’ who was worse…
11. Get a piggy-back off a dinosaur.
*No, I do not know why I decided to call the dinosaur Dennis.
Oh well. Do let me know if you find anymore Shakespeare graffiti out there. Or invent a time machine!
Yes, I have recently been going through a Stephen King obsession. I blame my dad, who a few months ago wheeled two huge piles (up to my hip!) of SK books out of the attic, put them in my room and told me to get on with it. He recommended books, starting with Needful Things. Some of those recommendations, I actually read. Most of the books though, have been sitting in my room, gathering dust.
Yes, I admit it, I’m ashamed. But the blurbs on those things look so damn UNINTERESTING.
Still, I was drawn to the daunting pile of really thick hard-backs that weighed more each than I probably did as a baby. These were the Dark Towers books. I’d encountered them before, in the spare room when I was about eight. They were on the top shelf of the bookshelf, away from my curious fingers. My dad told me I was too young to read them. I plotted dastardly plans to kidnap those books and read them. He found out and banished them to the attic.
It’s probably just as well. I took the first book, The Gunslinger on holiday with me last year. It was a short book, and I could kind of see where it was going… but it was dull. Still, my dad told me to keep on with them. So I reluctantly picked up the next, The Drawing of the Three.
And HOLY FUCK! It’s BRILLIANT!
Okay, so, as the series goes on, I understand less and less of it. But seriously? King’s managed to make allusions to almost every writer I actually like, from J.K. Rowling to T.S. Eliot and of course, Robert Browning. The way he does it is no short of genius either. And the characters are so flawed that they seem to peel themselves away from the pages. Right, Kking’s still got some pacing issues, but come on! The guy puts himself into his own book and then proceeds to screw around with concepts of reality. It’s like the Matrix, crossed with a Spaghetti Western.
Seriously, pick it up and risk your mind being totally and utterly blown away.
coffeeandmissingstars 