Looking Back...

As the decade clicked over* and we could finally start referring to a decade with a sensible name (no more 'naughties' or 'teens'), I noticed a lot of people on Twitter in the #writingcommunity were posting their achievements. Of course, with no achievements at all, I was pleased for them, but could easily ignore the trend to share.

And then I got to thinking about what had I actually managed to do since 2010?

So, I compiled a tweet, I was surprised, and so, I have decided to expand upon it here:

Nothing happened from a writing/getting published point-of-view until 2012.

In June 2012 I won a competition run by Biting Dog Press, Science in Fiction, for a while my story was available to read, but the post has gone and Biting Dog don't seem to have updated their website for sometime (2014 according to the copyright notice, so I'm unlikely to take them up on their prize, a free editorial of a novel).

In July 2012, I had my first piece of flash fiction published on the Paragraph Planet website:      

1st piece of flash fiction published on Paragraph Planet website

I would go on to have another 60 Paragraphs published on that site, the last sneaking in just three days before the end of 2019:      

Final piece of flash fiction published in 2019

Also in 2012, in November, I had a short story, Baby Babble, included in the Fantastic Books Publishing anthology, Fusion.

Finally, in December 2012, WordWatchers released their own Anthology, Out of Time, and I had a story, We are the Stranded, included in that.

2012 was a really good year.

I continued to have stories published on Paragraph Planet throughout 2013 (nine to be precise) and 2014 (eight). Also in 2014 I had two pieces of flash fiction included in the charity anthology, Ten Deadly Tales.2015 came and went and I managed to get almost one story a month onto Paragraph Planet (eleven in total).

In 2016, two more anthologies from Fantastic Books Publishing, were released, Synthesis, and this one included two of my stories, All in the Mind  and The House and 666, which included my 'Highly Commended' story, Headhunted.

In November 2017, the Role-Playing Game, Elite Encounters, by Dave 'Selezen Lake' Hughes was released and included five pieces of flash fiction written by me to act as chapter introductions/scene setters. As Elite Encounters was an officially Licensed product from Frontier Developments it's a good feeling to finally have something that is part of the official material of a game that I have loved since 1985.

2017 was also an 'interesting' year for me, having finished my novel in March that year and expecting to crack on with the edits post-critique from the wonderful writers in WordWatchers, I hit a wall in my writing. In fact, I stopped writing almost completely. I was finally diagnosed with depression in November 2017 and despite counselling and medical intervention, I didn't start writing again until the end of January 2018.

In January 2018 I wrote the short story, Elemental Sacrifice, at the annual WordWatchers Writers Retreat. Although the story wouldn't be published until July 2019, in the anthology, The Forge: Fire and Ice, in July 2019, its journey began there, and so did my slow and steady recovery from the worst of my depression.

Also in 2018, I had a piece of flash fiction accepted into a new Science Fiction magazine called, The Martian Magazine, but unfortunately that magazine never made it to publication. I did however, actually manage to get paid in 2018, a whole $10, for a story that appeared in the anthology, Chronos. This is the first time I've been paid for anything I've written in a very long time (pun intended).

Which brings us to 2019. As mentioned already, The Forge: Fire and Ice was released during this year. I managed to have four pieces published on Paragraph Planet, but that's OK, I was actually, finally, concentrating on getting my novel rewritten, which I'm very pleased to say I managed. Indeed, it is currently with the rest of WordWatchers and a few Beta Readers even as I type this. Its critique is just a few weeks away.

So actually, looking back, 2010 to 2019 hasn't been too bad from a writing point-of-view, I'm certainly not giving up the day job, but that's OK, I really like my day job (for the most part). As for 2020 and going forward, well, I plan to release my novel come what may. I'm going to take a tentative stab at offering it to a few people I've met in the Industry along the way, I'll show it to the excellent guys at Fantastic Books, but if there's no takers, I'm happy with it enough now, and confident enough in my own writing, to self-publish.

It will be interesting to revisit this log in a year's time to see if I held myself to the above commitment...I guess that just leaves me to wish you all the very best in 2020, whatever targets you've set yourself, large or small, I hope you achieve them. 

* for the pedants - technically the next decade doesn't begin until 2021, but we've lost that fight...

You don't have to be mad to be a writer...

I haven't really talked about what happened to me back in December 2017.

It's taken me quite some time (and quite a bit of therapy) to work it out for myself which means I can now cut to the chase and tell you that I had a breakdown. I was signed off work for three months with depression and spent another three months gradually building back up to working full time.

During most of 2017 I wrote not a word, save vomiting up the odd sanity preserving (or so I thought) piece of flash fiction. Each was a little darker than the last. Each a little harder to write.

Just before Christmas 2017 I started counselling with a fantastic lady called Julie.For six weeks I cried like I have never cried before.

Crying is underrated - it's incredibly cathartic.

Julie asked me what I wanted to get out of her sessions - I didn't have an immediate answer, but eventually we got to the point where I knew what I wanted. I wanted my head to be empty of the noise that filled my quiet place and I wanted to be able to write again.

It seemed impossible. I could not see how I would ever find my quiet place again, my brain a constant, torturing buzz of angst and doubt and failure.

Julie knew I had my writer's retreat just after our penultimate session together. Somehow, she got me to a place where the noise was at least subdued. A slim chance that I might be able to write something at the retreat. I didn't know what, just something...

I decided that I was going to try and write a story for the Fantastic Books Publishing Fire and Ice Fantasy Anthology Competition. Somewhere, amongst the dusty shelves of stories long abandoned and jars filled with the pickled remnants of old ideas there was a flicker of life. There was an old story, a really old story, that was the seed for a novel that I started when I was sixteen (but never finished), joined WordWatchers twelve years ago intending to resurrect (I never have). It was a story about Fire and Ice and, to get away from the buzz, I went back to my childhood quiet place and there was the story - dusty, tatty, neglected, but still alive, waiting for some love and attention.

So, amazingly, I wrote that story. I'm a much better writer now and I wrote the 1500 words over the weekend and was confident enough to read it out to the rest of the group on our last night at the retreat. We literally told stories around a roaring fire...

The story was well received, sensible suggestions were made. Edits were duly undertaken and then, with nothing to lose, I submitted it to the competition ...... then ... nothing. Months, indeed a year went by before I found out story had indeed made the longlist for the anthology. I waited with baited breath - would I make the final cut? It would take a couple more months, but yes, I would be in the anthology.

My edits came back from the FBP's editors at the end of April. They were reasonable and very doable. Unfortunately they arrived exactly when I was also struggling with my mental health again. I procrastinated for a whole month. Eventually I begged for, and was granted a one week extension to the deadline for the return of the edits and, reminding myself of something important I had promised myself, I finished the edits one Saturday morning a few weeks ago.

So, that's it. The Anthology 'The Forge' will be available in early August 2019, over 18 months since I wrote, 'Elemental Sacrifice'.

I'll be buying the usual number of copies to have on the bookshelf at home, but I'll be buying two extra copies - one for my GP who has been amazing during the last 18 months (and only discovered I was a writer during our more in-depth heart-to-hearts in his surgery) and, of course, a copy for Julie, who got me writing again, when I truly believed such a thing was not possible.

Before I go, I'd also like to say that I could not have done any of this without the support of my amazing family and without my brilliant friends in WordWatchers.

I love you all.

Last week (at time of writing) it was Mental Health Awareness Week - but every week should be Mental Health Awareness Week - we don't talk about it enough, it comes with all sorts of negative connotations, but, at the end of the day, Mental Health is just 'Health'.

Take care of yourself and, as always, thank you for your time.         

UPDATE (24th July 2019): 'The Forge: Fire and Ice' was released on July 14th in Paperback: http://www.wordwatchers.net/books/the-forge-fire-and-ice/ 

Author John Hoggard is smiling while holding up a copy of the Sci-Fan Anthology 'The Forge: Fire and Ice'

Post Retreat

So, it is Sunday February 3rd. One week ago it was our last night at Mill House Retreat in Devon.

The fire was roaring and we gathered in the main room to talk and to read. We talked about lots of interesting technical things related to writing. The use of the passive voice, the five act structure, our plans for the group in the year ahead...

Then we each agreed to read something to the rest of the group that we had written over the weekend. I think this is my favourite part of the weekend.

Pam got us going, reading a beautiful piece about using writing as therapy. As somebody who has a child who has used 'art therapy' as a coping mechanism for their anxiety and depression, Pam's reading really resonated with me. I really hope she turns it into a blog and you get to read it too, because it's wonderful.

I'm not sure who went next, but I think it was Julian, who read from a new chapter on his current WIP that he's been working on while on the Curtis Brown Course in London for the last six months. It was a wonderful insight into how the novel has developed since we critiqued it as a group last year. I like the change in direction and the reasons Julian has made it. There was some feedback from the group - positive plus some suggestions that Julian said he would take away and ponder.

I will pretend Helen went next who read from something very new for her - a children's story. Written from scratch over the weekend. At 1200 words long, she read the whole story out and it was engaging and fun and we can all see the potential for a long running series of stories from this single idea. It was great to hear Helen doing something new in the run up to her starting a new writing course with her main WIP.

I think I might have gone next - I read three pieces of Flash Fiction I'd written/rewritten/remastered from snippets of ideas I had trapped in the amber of my 75-word stories that I often submit to Paragraph Planet. All were well received, I particularly liked Helen's reaction to my final story about a werewolf. The thought of her expression will have me smiling for a long time to come. Of course the group made some very sensible suggestions and I edited the stories the following morning (just before leaving the retreat) and two days later I had submitted the entire Flash Fiction Anthology to the competition I'd been hoping to enter.

I have to say here that trying to chose from well over 150 pieces of flash fiction and then to down select, re-edit, re-write or just abandon some, to make what I hope is a coherent collection of Flash Fiction was much harder than I thought it would be. And, other than this blog, I haven't written a word since I submitted the collection, as my tank of creativity is empty and only filling slowly.

Right - back to the evening. John Potter read next (I'm pretty sure). He gave us a chapter that contained a thrilling, fast paced fight scene from his futuristic but low-tech WIP. The group's only criticism of the piece was that the fight was a little too long. John agreed and, like me, editing that section before he too, finally departed the retreat the next day.

Finally, Maurice, who has put himself in the unenviable position of having two novel writing projects on the go. The piece he read out that evening was from the first novel he started. As ever, Maurice is the master storyteller, he has a knack in both his writing and reading to spin you a yarn that on one level is somehow filled with the mundane and yet is absolutely real and engrossing. I'm really looking forward to reading the whole novel when it's finished.

So, that's it - a blog written almost as quickly as the weekend seemed to pass.I am very lucky to be in such an amazing group and to feel completely safe reading to them (something that I had only finished a few minutes before reading it!), knowing that an points or criticisms will be aimed entirely at making the story better.

Mill House Retreats is a balm for the bruised writer's soul and ego. It also seems to do the group as a whole a great deal of good too - we always seem to leave more invigorated, keener, with just a smidgen more self-belief our unofficial tagline - 'Serious about Writing'.

Elite Encounters

Elite Encounters RPG

Almost exactly four years ago (November 2013), I wrote a blog (here) about my trip to Manchester to meet up with a bunch of people who had all fallen in love with the computer game Elite or one of its many, later, derivatives. Well, a lot of time has passed since then. Elite: Dangerous was released in November 2014, just in time to still be '30 years since the original Elite was released'.

My friend, Drew Wagar, who I knew through one of those derivative games, Oolite, released Elite: Dangerous Reclamation, via my own publisher, Fantastic Books Publishing. Indeed, Dan Grubb, who co-owns FBP with his wife Gabi, had never heard of Elite until, Drew, plus a host of other authors (including BBC Click Tech reporter Kate Russell) produced a brilliant collection of themed special edition Elite: Dangerous Novels. Dan has now fully embraced the Elite: Dangerous family and his own Con, FantastiCon, is one of the many highlights of the Elite: Dangerous social calendar.

Drew has gone on to write and publish the only authorised follow-up novel to the Elite: Dangerous game, Elite: Dangerous Premonition. I can see my own copy sitting on the coffee table from where I am sitting writing this. This novel is rather unique in the sense that events in the game determined the final outcome of the book. If the main protagonist Salome survived an event in the game she'd survive in the book, if not, she wouldn't...

Throughout all of this, I had a small vested interest in the fictional world of Elite: Dangerous - the Elite Encounters Role-Playing Game. My friend Dave 'Selezen Lake' Hughes, like Drew, had raised, via Kickstarter, the funds to buy a Writers Pack during the Elite: Dangerous Kickstarter. Now, I didn't feel I could write a whole ED novel and so had not considered trying to raise the funds to buy a Writers Pack. I had also missed out on the opportunity to buy my place in an Elite: Dangerous Short Story anthology when Frontier Developments announced that the anthology couldn't have any more than fifteen short stories in it. However, there was still the Elite Encounters Role-Playing Game. Dave had offered a limited number of slots to write a drabble (a 100-word short story) for the game and as you know, if there's one thing I love, and I'm good at, is flash fiction.

So, I invested in a slot for a drabble, knowing it would also go through the Frontier Developments vetting process, and that if Elite Encounters was signed off, then, so would my drabble. I'd be 'in', I'd have some of my fiction weaved into the Elite Universe - my dream since I'd read Robert Holdstock's, The Dark Wheel, way back in 1985, when I was just 14yrs old.

So, time passed, quite a lot of time actually. Elite Encounters was a massive project and Dave was working on it pretty much completely on his own. I was still writing my flash and so offered Dave a few more Elite themed drabbles that I had written, just in case he need some padding here and there amongst his own words. He took them and filed them away. Then Dave announced via Kickstarter that the project had properly stalled, his 'Lore', the backbone of the Role-Playing Game, reaching back into the original history of the original game had to go, Frontier Developments no longer considered it to be canon, or anything to do with the Elite: Dangerous universe. I was heart-broken for Dave (as were many other old-timers) and figured that would be the end of my drabbles too - figuring they wouldn't pass this new scrutiny and attitude from Frontier Developments.

Dave, pressed on, slashing hundreds of pages, hundreds of thousands of words of the old lore and content from the game. Eventually, finally, Frontier Developments said 'yes'.

Five of my six drabbles survived and are in the game.

At the time of writing this blog, the game has been available for purchase for three days. It's happened. It's real and for my friend Dave and all his hard, hard work and, no doubt, many tears, I am so very delighted to be even a tiny part of this amazing piece of work.

As those involved in the fiction side of Elite (Dangerous) fiction say - 'Write on Commander'

o7

John 'CMDR DaddyHoggy' Hoggard 

September 11th

Happy John

Out Of Time

Fifteen years ago I was driving back into work when I heard, on the radio, that a light aircraft had flown into one of the two towers of the World Trade Centre in New York. By the time I'd passed through security at the gate and pulled into a car parking space, a second plane had hit the second tower. I went icy cold. That couldn't have been a coincident.I went into reception and it was packed. Dozens of my fellow scientists and engineers were staring, transfixed, on the live pictures coming from the BBC. Smoke billowing from the Twin Towers, violent gashes ripped into them...

I went to my office. I rang home. Spoke to my wife, Vee, a few days overdue with our first child, oblivious to the moment that changed the world. We had the 'What kind of world are we bringing a child into?' conversation.

Milly was born three days later and I did what I always planned to do. I bought an armful of newspapers and put a four hour tape in the video recorder (remember those?) and selected BBC News 24. Those papers still make for a heartbreaking, tear inducing read.

Today, Facebook, is naturally, filled with untold numbers of images from that dark day, however, I have to thank Facebook for giving me one little glimmer of light. Six years ago, WordWatchers had one of its last in-house short story competitions, the theme was 'Stranded'. I won, with a Science Fiction story called 'We are The Stranded'. It was the only time I won, and given we don't do short story competitions any more (we talk about resurrecting the format again, but so far, it's just that, talk), it is likely to be the only one I ever win. That story went into our first short story anthology, 'Out of Time' (which I also designed the cover for*).

OK, I say first, but I mean 'only' because, although we had plans to do more, including one based around our first visit to Symondsbury Manor, we never did. The short story competitions and the anthologies, ironically, fell foul of the group's success. As key members moved on, others became agented or got publishing deals and the hamster wheels began to squeak, there was only time for writing that publishers wanted, the short story competition withered on the vine.

So today is a strange day. I look at my beautiful eldest daughter, sitting just across from me now as I write this, writing herself, a monologue for English homework, and I think of what a world she's being brought up in - that the 3,000 souls who perished on 9/11 are but the tiny tip of a huge iceberg, of the millions who have died in, or fled from, wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria. Her monologue is going to be about 9/11, so we have come full circle in that respect.

I think about the WordWatchers of six years ago, think about the success Katherine Webb, Charlotte Betts and Abbie Rushton have achieved since and I am immensely proud of what this tiny little group has achieved. Then I think about our summer and Christmas parties, the buzz of the competition results and I miss those things and I think the group is missing them too...

John* The background wood effect was added by committee - I remain unconvinced that it adds anything (fully accepting that I was, and still am, quite precious over my original, plain white background design).

A Christmas 75-worder #26

Christmas Sparkle by Newt Hoggard

If there was a hint of sentience about wrapping paper then perhaps this is the tale it would tell...

Only a few days ago it had encased a Christmas gift, adding sparkle to otherwise bland packaging. Then it was laid amongst others, nestling down beneath an ornamental tree to await the morning light. Then it was ripped asunder and cast aside, its purpose fulfilled. Now it sits, poking from the top of an overstuffed bin, twitching in the breeze like the death-throes of a silvery carp, but such is the life of wrapping paper.

We have recycled as much as we can, but the recyclers will not take foil/metallic wrapping paper and so, despite our best efforts, our bins, which won't be emptied for another 10 days due to the seasonal bank holidays, are approaching critical mass.Until tomorrow...

A Christmas 75-worder #25

Snowflake by Newt Hoggard

Unseasonably warm and sadly, for many, unseasonably wet, weather was the seed that grew into this 75-worder.

They found him sitting quietly on the sofa closest to the window. They watched as he gave the snow globe a shake, staring intently at the tumbling, sparkling flakes as they settled back over the fairytale castle. After a moment he turned away, stared out of the window and then sighed at the bright sunshine. His gaze returned to the snow globe and he shook it again. Perhaps it would snow tomorrow, they said hopefully.

Here's to better weather, more appropriate for Christmas, for us all.

A Christmas 75-Worder #24

Snowflake by Newt Hoggard

I wrote this last year on a wet and grey and miserable day not unlike today. My youngest still rides the scooter with as much relish and vigour as she did that first day, although the scooter looks a little smaller now...

Despite the rain and the icy wind the child persisted, nagging her father into submission. Dressed as warmly as possible in their new hats and coats, they ventured out into the street. The child raced away, a single leg, piston-like, driving her forward on her new scooter, seemingly oblivious to the rain, wheels curving sweeping arcs in the surface water. Dad watched on while water dripped from his nose and his feet turned to ice.

Hope you're all having a wonderful Christmas.Until tomorrow.

A Christmas 75-worder #23

The Deity Club by Helen Withington

This is one of my favourite 75-worders. I loved the idea of some ancient "Gentleman's Club" where the divine hung-out when they weren't being omnipotent. That idea seemed to get wrapped into the thought of whether Father Christmas would be allowed into such a club. He certainly has great powers, but it's pretty specific and that potential conflict became the essence of the story. I think Helen's water colour did a wonderful job of capturing the mood of both the chilled out Santa and the despairing God of Thunder.

The old man sat down heavily by the fire and patted his distended belly. “One Billion Calories an’ still only a fifty-two inch waist. Ho Ho Ho.” He pulled off his red hat, patting his sweaty brow with it. “I fear the million shots of whisky may have got the better of me this year!” he bellowed, snorting loudly. Thor shook his head and glared. Letting Santa into the Deity Club had been a terrible mistake.

Hope you're all having a wonderful Christmas Time.

A Christmas 75-worder #21

Snowflake by Newt Hoggard

Do I know somebody who tried this...? Possibly...

When Martha and Ronald arrived at their son’s home a little before Eleven on Christmas morning the tension was palpable. Despite the pleasantries towards them, the daggers Jessica, her daughter-in-law cast towards her son, Ron Jr, each time there was an ominous ‘BOOM’ from the utility room was rather disconcerting. Martha eventually enquired about the noise when handed a sherry by Jessica. “He’s defrosting the turkey in the tumble dryer,” Jessica hissed between clenched teeth.

Hoping that you have a flawless day and that your turkey is suitably defrosted.Merry Christmas to you all.

A Christmas 75-worder #20

Snowflake by Newt Hoggard

Last year, a few weeks before Christmas, several messages were left on my land line and mobile phone, urging me to ring back at the soonest opportunity. I did and I discovered I was a match as a potential Bone Marrow donor. As it was Christmas there was some concerns about getting me to a suitable location to have additional blood tests taken before the lab shut down. However, my wife, Vee, is a qualified phlebotomist and so they sent the kits directly to me. So then, sitting at the kitchen table, Vee filled a series of small vials with my blood and we hurriedly packaged them up and posted them back to the lab...

He’d almost forgotten that he’d joined the Bone Marrow Register years earlier. Their call, especially while he was distracted by preparations for Christmas, was unexpected. He’d gone through the questionnaire and they had sent him the blood sample kits. Now he was stood in the queue at the post office, returning those tests back to a lab, wondering if he was going to be the best match and give somebody the best Christmas present ever.

I can't believe that was a year ago already. It turns out I was not the best match and so I have no idea what happened. I must hope however, that, the person who needed the transfusion, is still with us and doing just fine...

A Christmas 75-worder #19

Angel by Newt Hoggard

Sometimes there is no story to write, sometimes the truth is all that is required, topped and tailed to wrap it neatly into 75-words. What you will read here is exactly what my then seven year old wrote in his hand made Christmas card last year. I cried.

They carefully opened the card and read it aloud to their son who had just presented it to them. ‘To mummy and daDdy. You are the bestest. I lov you very mucH. MeRry Christmass. Xxxxxxx’ Around the outside of the card there were many witnesses to the statement: Father Christmas, Rudolf, snowmen, angels, the family cat wearing a Santa hat. They scooped up their little child and they cuddled, knowing that such gifts were priceless.

Merry Christmas to you all.

Things are getting tense...

Dorset Ugly - by Emma Mauger

A few weeks ago I visited my friends Eddie and Emma down on their farm in Dorset. We've been friends for close to twenty years, but, due to circumstances we've not managed to actually meet up for several years!In the time since I lasted visited with my family, both Eddie and Emma have become self-employed, with Emma now responsible for the creation of Dorset Uglies.One such ugly caught my eye:This particular image conjured up the idea for a 75-word story, which I'm pleased to say I drafted in just a few short minutes and, while I was quite pleased with it, I felt there was something not quite right and shared it with the rest of WordWatchers via email. There's usually somebody else from the group online and this time was no exception.The original story runs thus:

It lurked in the darkness of the lake, eating only what the others found unpalatable. Occasionally it had slipped from the weeds, taken a bite of a tasty morsel and found itself hauled, gasping into the thin stuff where it could not breathe. It saw the look on the faces of the pink things. Sensed their horror as they quickly removed their hook from its mouth and allowed it to slither back into the abyss. 

WordWatchers quickly confirmed my suspicions - that the word 'occasionally' didn't really work and it was suggested that I try the story in the present tense. Now, I do sometimes change tense in my 75-word stories simply to free up a few words to squeeze a story into the 75-word limit, but to change the tense of a story that was already exactly words...? Well, that was crazy talk.However, I gave it a go and to my delight, a much better story (in my opinion) emerged, not least down to the tense change, although, changing the sentence that started with 'occasionally' did the story no harm at all.

It lurks in the darkness of the lake, eating only what the others find unpalatable. Driven by hunger it slips from the weeds, takes a bite of a tasty morsel and finds itself hauled, gasping, into the thin stuff where it cannot breathe. It sees the look on the faces of the pink things, senses their horror as they quickly remove their hook from its mouth and allow it to slither back into the abyss. 

So, much more immediacy in the present tense I think.I am however curious to have your opinion too. Please feel free to comment below.As ever, thanks for your time.

Editing my novel

Way back in 1994 I graduated from Sunderland University with a Joint Honours Degree in Computer Science and Physics.

1994...

A world before Google, before the iPhone, before the 'XBox Generation'.

In those days, I played a lot of Roleplaying Games (RPGs) on my C64 and Amiga A500 but the idea of Massively Multiplayer Online Gaming (MMOG) was a long way off, so I played 'Me v The Computer' and dreamed of an Internet where I could play in a world were the other characters' behaviours weren't just created by clever algorithms from a programmer but were other human players. (I'd have to wait 10 years for Warcraft: Orcs & Humans to become the MMOG 'World of Warcraft')

In those Halcyon days post-uni, single with plenty of time outside of my new job with the MOD, going to Science Fiction and Gaming conventions with my friends I had an idea for a game. An online, massively multiplayer online game. I started to make notes, sketch out my concepts, plan the structure...

It turned out that I wasn't a good enough programmer to do what I wanted to do, and, as my work with the MOD picked up I had less opportunity to try and become one. So I put my ideas away, knowing (hoping?) that one day I'd get chance to revisit them.

Many years later I found a couple of old disks, they were PC disks but they contained files I'd rescued from my old Amiga. Quite a few of the files were unreadable, their formats long since unsupported, but many of the documents I had saved were in Rich Text Format and here I found many snippets for the idea of that game I had many years earlier.

So, in 2008, knowing my programming days were long behind me (like any language, if you don't practice, you forget, and I was out of practice) I decided to turn my game idea into the backbone of a novel and save it from obscurity.

So, while at a Conference in Edinburgh in 2008 I started Endless Possibilities. The apartment I was staying at had no TV, so over five nights, I wrote 15,000 words. I had a lot of ideas and I'd have written more if I didn't need to get some sleep while I was away.

I quietly slipped those first 15,000 words to my fellow WordWatchers member, Katherine Webb (who was soon destined for incredible success) whose opinion I greatly respected (and still do). She liked what I had written, but at the same time threw my a curve ball. "I hope we're going to see more of Steely," she said.

At the time, Steely was a throwaway character, a plot mover and so I was puzzled by Katherine's query. So I re-read the start of Endless Possibilities and I'm glad that I could see what Katherine could see, that Steely was no throwaway character.

I wrote intermittently over the next few years reaching 95,000 words in 2011 when I ground to a halt. I knew how the novel ended but I didn't know how to get from where I was, to where I needed to be.

In March 2012, I bought a little Asus netbook as a belated 40th birthday present having decided I would write the end of the novel and then work out how to join the two bits together. I started getting up regularly at 5am, writing until 6am, which is when my alarm would have normally gone off and I'd begin my day properly. During a 2 month purple patch I'd written 45,000 words and unexpectedly finished the novel (or more precisely, I'd reached a natural conclusion to the overall story).

It has taken me a long time (almost three years) to get to the stage I'm at now. At WordWatchers recent visit to Symondsbury, I barely slept, editing Endless Possibilities at a somewhat manic rate, cutting the 140,000 words of the two separate sections down to 129,000. Since I got back, I have written the section that joined the two parts together, this turned out to be 8,000 words in length, bringing the novel back up to 137,000 words.

Now I'm going back through the novel again, beginning to end, fixing the mistakes (today I discovered I had introduced an eight day week for example), creating a consistent style (I've changed a lot as a writer since 2008) and putting my skill as a 75-word story creator to good use to tighten the whole thing up.

As of this morning, Endless Possibilities stands at 129,400 words and I'm very close to the end of this edit. Soon, Endless Possibilities will actually be finished and by finished I actually mean 'Ready enough for WordWatchers to read' - which of course means it's not actually finished at all!

For the first time in a long time I think there's a chance that you might actually get to read this!

Thank you for your time.

John

PS - Other blogs that capture facets of this semi-tragedy can be found (in chronological order) here: http://www.wordwatchers.net/tag-youre-an-author-and-youre-it/http://www.wordwatchers.net/a-long-time-ago/http://www.wordwatchers.net/a-procrastination-of-writers-part-2/

PPS Thank-you to those on Twitter (you know who you are), who have been Favouriting, Retweeting and commenting on my recent run of #amwriting tweets as I try to bring this crazy ride to a halt - you're the reason that I have written this blog.

Banishing the tumbleweed

It's been a crazy couple of months for WordWatchers as a whole. Julian has been frantic to finish his Work-in-Progress Sundial ready for the group to critique it in our May meeting. Sundial arrived in our inboxes a few days ago, not quite finished, Julian is hoping to get the last few paragraphs written as we read the main story...

He described it as that wonderful scene from Wallace and Gromit's The Wrong Trousers where Gromit is desperately laying track ahead of the speeding train on which he's riding....

Charlotte has been desperately trying (and succeeding) in meeting her Publisher's deadline for her fourth novel. I take my hat off to Charlotte, I really don't know how she does it, she's a superstar of perseverance.

Abbie, having secured her publishing deal back in January has been working her way through her edits with her publisher with little time for anything else.

Debbie continues to seek out every possible opportunity to further the brand of Alonzo the Chicken, while simultaneously finishing book 3 and dabbling in a rhyming book for younger children.

John Potter (along with Julian) has started a new job, bringing his writing bromance with Julian to an end and also, inevitably reducing the amount of time available for writing...And so on and so forth, and this, I guess, is why there's been tumble weed blowing across the WordWatchers blogging area for the last two months.So this is a mini-blog, until normal service can be resumed and hopefully the rest of my fellow WordWatchers pitch in with a blog of their own.Since my last blog my adventures in 75-word flash fiction has continued and I had my 21st  story published on the Paragraph Planet site on April 11th. Helen Withington, my illustrator for our WIP 75 Squared, continues to produce wonderful work for the book. We've been spurred on by the opportunity to present the finished work at the Yeovil Literary Festival in November (organised by fellow 75-worder James Brinsford). There's a chance that some of my 75-worders will appear on bus stops around the city, the idea of which, just makes me smile every time I think about it.I also entered a short story into the Bath Short Story Award (BSSA), I finished and tweaked one of my old WIPs and was very glad to have something to draw upon because I didn't start working on it until a few hours before the midnight deadline. Why did I leave it so late? Well, I wasn't planning on entering, but during the day BSSA tweeted that they were short of Science Fiction stories and I can't resist a challenge to write something in my preferred genre.Finally, today, I entered five stories into Mashable's "Tweet a complete short story in 140 characters" (details here: http://mashable.com/2014/04/15/twitter-fiction-contest-bj-novak/) I suspect they won't win any prizes, but to come up with five different ideas in 20 minutes and squeeze them into less than 130 characters (you had to include the #MashReads tag thus removing 10 characters from your 140 character tweet/story) really does make you think about not just every word, but every character (at one point, in one story, I changed a past tense story to the present tense to save three precious characters).Of course, all of this is tied up with the fact that my wife, Vee, continues to not be very well, so I find it easy to distract myself from the editing of my novel Endless Possibilities which is what I'm actually supposed to be doing...Of course, I've managed to distract myself still further by writing a long overdue blog.Until next time.

John