When does it stop being Procrastination?

I have been writing my novel, "Endless Possibilities" (EP), it would seem, forever. I was easily distracted during the writing process by side projects such as John Chapman's, Jonnie Rocket where I ran the website and Twitterfeeds under the guise of Doctor Avatar for a while and then there was the various short story competitions and other projects that I fired up to keep myself busy. Busy not finishing the novel that is...But, actually, I did finish EP and so began the even more traumatic and apparently long-winded process of editing the first draft. I have found that it is even easier to be distracted during the editing process than the writing process.My major distraction has been, as you will have gathered from many of my earlier blogs, Paragraph Planet. I have used writing these little 75-word stories to justify so many things...They have improved my ability to capture the essence of an idea incredibly quickly and succinctly - like a skilled artist capturing a hasty pencil sketch to be used later to form the basis of a much grander painting.They have taught me how to make every word count, that there is a skill to using contractions, especially in dialogue that can completely change the way somebody sounds inside the reader's head. They have taught me how to avoid repetition or to use repetition to create a rhythm within the words.They have taught me that sometimes, one-word sentences are OK. True.They have taught me that I can write, at least in very small doses, not just the Science Fiction and Fantasy that I cut my teeth on, but drama, comedy, horror, tragedy and RomCom (to name but a few). Neil Gaiman said during his talk to RS Literature back in June that the world thought he was just a comic book writer. What they didn't realise was that the comic is just the medium used to tell the story and that his stories crossed all genres, that he could in fact write in any genre he chose. I am no Neil Gaiman, but I'm not as two-dimensional as I once thought!They have taught me how to edit and edit quickly. I've been sharing a lot of my 75-worders with the rest of WordWatchers via email. They only take a few seconds to read and quite often I'll get a quick one liner back saying "I liked it, but..." and that "but..." has been incredibly useful. I've tweaked sentences, rearranged words, changed POV, changed past tense to present tense, even rewrote entire paragraphs where only the underlying idea has survived the editorial process and not one word of the original paragraph remains. Endless Possibilities is already benefiting from this.They have taught me to make writing a habit. I managed this during the final days of writing EP because I was getting up at 5AM to write for an hour every morning. When you get up that early you do write something because otherwise you're very angry at yourself for not writing and missing out on an hour's sleep! So, I write at least one 75-word Paragraph a day and so I cannot wheedle my way out of this self enforced commitment, after I have sent them to WordWatchers for a sanity check I then submit them to Paragraph Planet. Richard at Paragraph Planet will presume that I have either lost Internet connectivity or have died if he does not find a Paragraph from me waiting in his inbox. Except for a few days when during my week long family holiday at the end of July I have submitted at least one story to Paragraph Planet every day since July 4th. (Occasionally I fall asleep before Midnight and have to submit two the next day, just to make it right)So, am I using my 75-word stories to distract me from editing Endless Possibilities? The truth is, I definitely was, but I'm not any more. WordWatchers as a group are currently helping me down select 92 paragraphs (which I had already down selected from 120) to the 75 I want to put into my first book. Not only that, but I have teamed up with a fantastic illustrator, Helen Withington, who is doing amazing things with some of my 75-word stories.So, while WordWatchers helps me turn 90+ random paragraphs into a genuine collection of 75 and Helen brings a selection of them to life with her amazing illustrations I'm already planning and writing the content for book 2. Why? Because, to put it simply, I want you to read my stuff. Not only do I want you to read my stuff, I want you to enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. A novel is a big thing, a big commitment, I would be asking you, as a reader, to take a chance on me having read nothing more than my tweet feeds, my blogs and a few short stories that are floating around the Internet. So, I'm not going to do that, I'm going to ask for an hour of your time, I'm going to ask you to read 75 tiny little stories, that will each take up a minute of your life, so that if you didn't like it, you don't feel like I've stolen anything from you...I'm going to hope that you will love every single story. Hope? Yes. Expect? No. I will be delighted if you find a connection with half of them. I will love you forever if even two or three trigger something in you that makes you think that I am worthy of future investment or persuade you to mention my work to other people who trust your opinion.So, there will be a book 2 of 75-word stories and, because writers love a trilogy, the inevitable book 3. At some point during this process I may ask you to make that time and emotional investment in Endless Possibilities and I hope we will know each other well enough by then that you will know what you're letting yourself in for.So, I finish by sharing one of Helen's illustrations with you (and the Christmas themed 75-worder that inspired it). I am so glad I let Helen have a free rein at which paragraphs she chose to illustrate and in what style because I would never have picked either the paragraph nor the interpretation.Helen can be found on Twitter as @HelenWithington and on her website: Here.

Jeff in the Benefits Office rubbed his throbbing temple. “Ok... Mary... if we could go through this one more time... You’ve left the name of the father of your unborn child off the form. While I understand this can be a delicate matter, it will help process the claim... So, if I could just have the name? Please don’t say ‘God’ with such an exasperated tone, I’m just trying to help you, really I am.”

 As ever, thank-you for your time.      

If it can happen to me, it can happen to you.

Alonzo and Molly the Mermaid

I have been within the welcoming bosom of WordWatchers for just over a year now, and my goodness, what a year it has been.When I joined I had delusions of grandeur of having a book published, but never in my wildest dreams, did I believe it would become a reality.My story is this.....I have a nephew called William, and a couple of years ago he asked me for a bedtime story. 'Not a problem.' I replied.'Which book would you like me to read?''No, no. I want you to make one up.' was his reply.And that, ladies and gentleman, was how Alonzo the chicken was born.I made up a story about a magic super-hero chicken called Alonzo, and quite frankly, I thought the story really wasn't any good. William, however, thought it was fabulous!'Tell me another Aunty Debbie. He was great!'The pressure was on.I was was overwhelmed by the realisation that William thought my story was good, even though he may have been slightly biased. The next day at work I asked my team what kind of adventure Alonzo should have next. 'Underwater' was the response.And that was how Alonzo and Molly the Mermaid was born.After going to a couple of WordWatchers meetings, and feeling completely and utterly overawed by the talent in the group, I took a 'brave tablet' and asked them to critique my book. This they did, and in their words, 'they tore it apart with velvet-clad claws and loving words'.Thank goodness for their honesty as my book is all the better for it.Through the people in the group I found my illustrator, Monika Filipina Trzpil. She is amazing, and I am truly blessed in meeting her.We talked via email, and then finally met up in a coffe shop in Trafalgar Square. It was just like a blind date!! I didn't know what she looked like, and visa versa! After a great couple of hours, she agreed to illustrate my, what was going to become a book. This was a surreal moment. Me? A book? With proper illustrations? Really?What she said next blew me away. ' Why don't you contact a small publishing company called Digital Leaf? I think they would love Alonzo. Give them a call.'So I did. One year on, and not only did I call them, but they had enough confidence in me and Alonzo to publish our first book In December 2012. I was, and quite honestly still am, staggered.After 6 months, not only has Alonzo and Molly the Mermaid been downloaded (albeit free), 1500 times in Australia in January, but wehave sold over 500 books and 140 of those were in the US. Alonzo is truly global! Whatever is next? Well apart from school visits and book signings, book two, Alonzo and the Meteorite will be released 1st October 2013.Who'd have thought it? I never dreamed this could become a reality, but it has. If it can happen to me, it could happen to you.Never say never.

Debbie signs another book

Debbie signs another book

Debbie

Eulogy - Guest Post by Thomas Haynes

We are very pleased to introduce this guest post from Thomas Haynes, who is a frequent attendee of the monthly WordWatchers social at the Lock Stock and Barrel and also a member of : Newbury Writers. He is first and foremost an ecologist, botanist and nature conservationist, loves music, model-making, writing and photography.Thomas on TwitterI have a confession: Last night I killed someone. I knew I was going to do it. Today, the moment has played over and over in my mind and I thought I would share it.Writing my story 'Memories of Arma' has been difficult over the past few weeks, trying to rekindle the rapid flow from last summer. This year has felt less fluid, more mechanical, until last night.My deceased character was developed to support my plot line. He was first introduced in a flashback chapter as a background character. For some reason, when it came to develop my ‘plot-explaining’ character I called upon this background person to serve the purpose. I fleshed out his history. He went from 'random background scientist' to a leading neurologist, responsible for significant breakthroughs in his field. His research interests led him to make some very, very bad decisions. He has a difficult relationship with a young girl. He has spent the later part of his life trying to redeem himself from past mistakes. I even wrote a flashback of his time studying for his PhD, and there are at least two more flashbacks where he will play an important role in the future.But now he is gone.I was unsure how I was going to write the death scene, but I think that the characters were writing my story last night. I didn't really play a part in its creation; I was just some kind of medium. His final scene concluded with not one, but two deaths and I sat typing with tears in my eyes. Spotify played-out a song called 'Last Night' by Foals and the moment was fixed forever.This memorable experience has made me wonder about these characters we create and how they suffer the slow progress of their writer, but ultimately, when it comes down to it, they will live and die their way and sometimes it hits you hard.I will look forward to revisiting him in the two flashback chapters I am yet to write. R.I.P.

How I feel right now!

I'm not sure this is a blog, but more an observation. After two solid weeks of creating at least one 75-word paragraph a day for my book my brain has suddenly found a creative vein not previously tapped. I'm seeing stories everywhere. The simplest, most normal moments suddenly take on a fantastical, sad, happy, gruesome spin and demand to be written down. Capturing them in a 75-word paragraph is like trapping a fly in tree resin, eventually it solidifies as amber, a moment encapsulated forever.Some of these stories will never be more than what they are now, a self-contained tale, locked into their 75-word format, but others, well, I see characters, ideas, scenes that I want to explore in much greater detail...I've had to leave a notebook and pen in the bathroom because most of my stories come to me while I clean my teeth, or at least, ideas which have been there, but intangible, corner-of-the-eye things suddenly come into focus. I scribble while I brush and then in the morning type up my scrawl.Sometimes, I go to bed, lay there for a bit, then get up, get the notebook and then go downstairs and write it up there-and-then.My fellow WordWatchers have been great during this period too - I share most of my paragraphs with them - their immediate feedback is invaluable and very precious. They're finding the paragraphs I have intended to be funny, to be funny. I have found that it's easy to be grim, sad and terrible in such a concise format. If anything the 75-word format encourages it - nothing brings a 75-worder to a convenient close like a sudden demise. However, trying to be funny, trying to set-up a scene so that you can deliver a funny line, twist or situation is surprisingly tricky, but I seem to be getting there. When the book comes out, hopefully you will think so too.Tonight, I created the picture below, it's how I feel right now, so that's my smiling face in the picture.

Love me, Love my cat

This is the story of how stroking a cat can change your world. You have been warned...

I first met Greebo the cat (indeed named after his Discworld alter-ego) on August 10th 1998. He was laid on the grass outside the house of the girl I had met two days earlier. I approached, he rolled over, I stroked his tummy...“Is that my cat?” asked the girl stood in the door. At this moment, Greebo, who had enough of my attention, bit me. “Yup, that’s my cat,” the girl stood in the door confirmed.I bid my farewells, with no intent of seeing girl or her cat again...Ha! Little did I know that Greebo wasn’t nice to anybody, voluntarily offering his tummy was tantamount to a proxy proposal of marriage.  Despite living almost 300 miles apart, I saw quite a lot of that girl, Vee, (and her cat) and by November of that year, I had offered Vee a place to stay while she looked for work in London.It would transpire that the girl and the cat came as a package deal. “Love me, love my cat,” she said. And since it turned out I loved the girl, this wheezy, allergic-to-cats, tenancy-agreement-says-no-cats-and-besides-I-don’t-do-cats fool of a man agreed to this odd two-for-one offer.Of course, we hadn’t checked with Greebie (as he was affectionately known) if this was acceptable. Turns out, that being hand weaned from the age of 3 weeks old gives a cat a certain belief in ownership and he had no intention of sharing. He was the ultimate “jealous puss”.Shortly after Vee and Greebie moved in I found myself in A&E, with a towel wrapped round my arm that was turning steadily red.It was explained to the nurse that I had been attacked by a cat. The nurse was horrified and I think, suspecting some panther-like escapee from a zoo or circus, demanded to know the size of the cat. “Just a small domestic cat,” I replied sheepishly.Pumped full of antihistamines and antibiotics the two four inch gashes on my forearm stopped swelling up, the bleeding stopped and I went home. I still have two beautiful tram-line scars as a constant reminder of that particular disagreement.Oddly enough we got on much better after that and we moved from a flat to a house and we all had more room things improved dramatically and Greebie had pigeons to hunt and embarrassingly, on occasions, other families pets, such a couple of baby rabbits, but that’s another story for a different day.By the summer of 1999 Vee was now my wife and by Christmas 2000 we discovered we were going to be parents (She opened a WonderBra from me, I opened a positive pregnancy test from her. Vee never did wear that bra...)Given Greebie’s reaction to sharing Vee with me, we weren’t sure how he’d take sharing her with a baby, so, on the recommendation of a vet, we acquired another cat, Knut, to keep Greebie busy. She did, but that again, is a tale for another day.Romilly was born in September 2001, just a few days after 9/11 and we worried about what kind of world we’d be bringing a child up in, as I guess a lot of us did at the time.As Milly grew, Greebie became her constant companion and interactive play-thing, they were inseparable. So when Yvie came along in 2007 as the ultimate April Fool’s Day gag (two weeks early) we wondered how Greebie, now 11, would fare...Admirably, it turned out, almost kitten like in his enthusiasm to play, he had the full attention of an almost six year old and a new baby and he loved it. As Yvie grew into a toddler he was often found being half carried, half dragged from one room to another, completely content with his new role in life.Turns out Yvie was born with a hole in her heart (now healed) and Greebie became our early warning mechanism, refusing to leave Yvie’s side twenty-four hours before an inevitable turn for the worse and another emergency admission to hospital.So, in early 2012 when Vee started to feel unwell and lost her voice for seven weeks and Greebie refused to be budged from her side, save to eat and for comfort breaks, we knew something was up, even if then, we didn’t know what. The “something” would turn out to be a tumour in Vee’s Thyroid and in the weeks between diagnosis and the operation I would often wake in the middle of the night to find Greebie lying atop Vee, head tucked under her chin, purring for all he was worth. It was oddly comforting to know that he was doing his best.Vee is still recovering from the long-term effects of her Thyroidectomy and Greebie has been a feline drill in the darkness of the night, purring away still.Then, a week go, it was clear that Greebie himself wasn’t well, so Vee took him to the vets, expecting the usual, “it’s his age, he’s getting old. Give him two of these a day and he’ll be fine.” Alas, this was not to be. After a couple of days in the feline equivalent of Intensive Care, tests indicated that Greebie was very unwell. Kidney failure and, ironically, hyper-thyroidism, meant Greebie, Vee’s baby of 17 and a half years didn’t have very long.The vet boosted him up so he could come home for the weekend, so the family could love him, in the flesh one last time, so our beautiful two girls, who have never known a house without a Greebie could say goodbye. There have been many, many tears.Today, Tuesday, 11th June, 2013, as we lay cuddled in bed dreading the alarm, Greebie heaved himself out from underneath the bed, scrabbled up the duvet and dropped himself heavily onto the arm I had round Vee. A jealous puss to the very last...So, in a cold, wet, rainy and cliche ridden day we dressed slowly and with heavy hearts and glistening eyes took Greebie back to the vet. We held his paw and stroked his head and told him how much we loved him, how much he meant to us, how much he will always mean to us and after an injection by the vet waited for him to go to sleep. It didn’t take very long. It was awful, heart-wrenching and it was absolutely the right thing to do.It turns out I am a cat person. I will miss Greebie in ways I did not think possible until just a few hours ago. I will cuddle my girls and remind myself constantly that if that little black and white cat hadn’t rolled over and let me stroke him 15 years ago, I wouldn’t have any of this.Thank-you Greebie cat. I owe you everything.RIP my little friend.loveDad. x

A long time ago...

A long time ago (but not necessarily in a galaxy far far away), the Christmas of 1983 to be precise, my parents took the brave (and horribly expensive) decision to buy me a computer. A Commodore 64. I was 12 and I was utterly delighted, even the the fact that I would have to share it with my sister (three years my junior) couldn't take the shine off it.My parents did add a certain tarnish to that shine when they confessed years later that they were worried about my gambling habit and had bought me the computer in the hope that I would go out less! I was horrified of course, especially as I didn't have a gambling habit, which indicated they really didn't know me very well at all. They had mistaken my trips during the summer holidays to the nearby village/Seaside resort of Seaton Carew to do battle on behalf of the Rebel Alliance (Star Wars sit-down machine) and as a brave futuristic tank commander (Battlezone) as being exactly the same as that of the people who feed coin after coin trying to line up 3 cherries and drop a few quid out of the machine.Of course, even at the age of 12 I could reason well enough to understand that any machine which has written on it that it guarantees to pay out 72% of what it takes in, is effectively fixed and therefore was of no interest to me at all (then or now). No, my idea of winning was to appear on the first page of high scores of both Star Wars and Battlezone, so that as subsequent players fed in their 10p pieces, the initials JMH would briefly enter their thoughts and they might wonder who that player was and how did they achieved such an amazing score (because I did). Occasionally I would be "in the zone" and I would indeed end up in the top 10. Once, on Battlezone, I even got the very top score. Never has a few glowing lines on computer screen meant so much to a teenager.Of course, one could argue that, irrespective of my parents' reasoning, I still owned a C64...Ownership of aforementioned C64 lead to my life, from that moment on, splitting neatly into 3 strands:1) Playing gamesThe C64 was a beautiful games machine and while I owned a reasonable amount "shoot-em-ups" I eventually filtered my games collection down to the open-ended Elite (by Ian Bell and David Braben), my collection of SSI Fantasy Roleplaying games (such as "Shard of Spring") and Infocom adventure games such as Zork.2) ProgrammingI loved to tinker and when my school also got a couple of C64s and therefore a large collection of (expensive) supporting books, such as the "Programmer's Reference Guide" then I started to design games of my own.The C64 programming language was not fun and it turned out that I do not have a natural flair for coding, but I stuck with it and eventually produced a roleplaying game of my own. It used a mixture of graphics (like the SSI games) and text input (like the Zork games) and it was opened ended (like Elite) and it was mine, all mine...It was also rubbish. It was slow, buggy and eventually repetitive, but I loved it, because it was mine.3) WritingWhen I bought my Floppy Drives for my C64 I somehow I ended up with a new operating system for it called GEOS. It came with a proper WYSIWYG Word Processor called geoWrite. Of all the the things I have grown to adore about that time in my life, this, on reflection, was "the big one". I wrote all the time. I wrote with purpose and conviction and at some point, aged around 17, I realised that one of my stories had gotten away from me and that I had just written word and after word after word and had done this approximately 180,000 times.This was the story that eventually became "Three Brothers, Three Swords" (3B3S) a story I never actually quite got to the end of. It was the story I joined WordWatchers almost 20 years later, with the intent of finishing (having started to rewrite it as a 3rd Person Narrative (as the 1st Person Perspective had become too difficult and was the reason I'd stopped writing it in the first place) a few years earlier)."Three Brothers, Three Swords" is of course completely rubbish. It was written by an angst-ridden teenager and is stuffed full of clichés and huge great chunks of it could, at best, be described as "inspired by" The Lord of the Rings, and, at worst, sub-conscious rip-off. It's complicated, unfocussed, has too many characters, too many sub-plots and I was writing it for me, for the simple pleasure of writing so it meanders gently through the world I created (I still have the hand-drawn maps I made) like a tourist guidebook pointing out the best bits to visit...I don't think in the late 1980s there was such a term as "Young Adult" and certainly nobody seemed to be writing books for "us" specifically. How times have changed. So "Three Brothers, Three Swords" isn't dead, but it's certainly in deep cryo-sleep waiting to be re-booted (as JJ might put it) - with 180,000 words of dot-matrix print-out to work through, I've certainly got a lot of raw material and if I chip away enough of the bloat a reasonable YA novel may yet emerge. But not yet, not for a long time I think.So, we finally jump to the modern day, although we have to whizz back to about four years to a point where I've been in WordWatchers for about a year and it's clear that while I'm writing (short stories mainly) I'm not doing anything on 3B3S. At this time Katherine Webb was a full member WordWatchers and had joined with an impressive back catalogue of five novels, the sixth being completed during that first year she was in the group (her seventh novel of course became the well deserved success that was "The Legacy"). I was somewhat ashamed of myself, daring to call myself a writer when I had one uncompleted novel under my belt which I had been clinging to like a rotten corpse for 20 years...Katherine said three things to me (to be fair she said many things (and still does)) and none of them were anything the group hadn't said to me before, but they were delivered together as one neat, concise package: "Give up on Three Brothers, write what you like, write what you know."Of course, I did nothing of the sort, I continued to procrastinate with the best of them and then I unexpectedly got sent to a conference for a week up in Edinburgh. A city which I fell in love with immediately. Work had also booked me into a managed apartment, rather than a hotel. I was alone, I had no distractions and I had a work laptop. I started to write. Actually, that's not quite true - I started to plan.The first thing I did was map out the rules for a computer game called Endless Possibilities, the game I would have designed had I had the skill, had the Internet existed and had home computers had more than 1MHz CPUs and 64K of memory when I designed my own computer game all those years ago.Then I started to write. I wondered, if my computer game existed, who would be playing it and that's when Richard introduced himself to me. Then I wondered why Richard would spend so much time playing this game and a story started to emerge - about loss, and hiding and denial. And with a story, I needed a supporting cast and so I had friends, family and work colleagues and they had stories to tell too. By the time I left Edinburgh I was 8,000 words in to a new novel.Over the course of the next few months I could report to WordWatchers I was making steady progress and by the time I got to 15,000 words I did something I rarely do with a substantive piece of work, I handed it over to somebody else. I gave it to Katherine.She read it and to my astonishment she liked it - but she threw me a curve ball: "I hope Steely is going to feature properly, he's your best character."I checked through my notes and Steely was not going to feature much more than a few Chapters on from where I'd currently got to - he was effectively (supposed to be) a throw-away character, a plot device, nothing more.I re-read what I had written. It was clear, that some unexpected facet of my psyche had been substantiated on the page. Steely was real and he clearly had a part to play. I started to re-write what I'd already written, which was bad enough, but I failed to readjust my original plan/plot. I still had an end-point, but I was way off piste now.I battled on for 95,000 words over the next two years and ground to a halt. In the end I gave it to WordWatchers and demanded they did their worst. As ever, they were utterly brilliant. Every plot-hole ringed, every pointless sub-plot highlighted, every unrealistic interaction left high and dry. But they said I had a really good story it just seemed (to them) that I was 2/3rds the way through my intended word count but only halfway through my plot...They were right of course and if they hadn't seen the potential in the story I would possibly have killed it off there and then. Instead I foolishly promised I'd finish it by my 40th birthday.I lied.My 40th came and went and Endless Possibilities became my Elephant-in-the-room, even WordWatchers stopped mentioning (much).Then in March 2012 I bought myself a little netbook and fell in love with writing Endless Possibilities again (the exact details of this love-up are detailed here). However, I realised that I was stuck with where the story had gotten too at the 95,000 word point. So I jumped to the end, I knew exactly how the story ended and how to get there, so I started from there. For two months I got up an hour earlier than normal (5am), I took the netbook with me wherever I went, I wrote, pretty much, whenever I sat down. After two months I'd written 45,000 words and the story unexpectedly came to an end.That was a very strange moment (and is captured here) especially as I'd always known exactly how the story ended, but I hadn't consulted with the inner writer, I was just the person who loved to write (much in the same way as I had done with 3B3S all those years earlier). So, one morning while I was writing away, I finished a chapter and the voice went off that said "Perfect. Stop there." I sat there for ages because I had so much more to write, wanted to write, but this voice got louder and louder and louder and in the end the person who just loved to write conceded the writer was right and the voice went quiet.I'd finished the novel...Except deep down I knew that wasn't true, but I pretended it was.I had 95,000 opening words (written over 3 years) and 45,000 closing words (written over two months). There was a ruddy big gap in the story, I'd changed so much as a writer in that time, I had a single story told by two different people and definitely no invisible join between the two sections.I set off "editing" - I use the term loosely, because it could equally be described as "tickling". In the first 10,000 words I extracted 1000 I did not need. I figured this would be easy, 10% of a 140,000 word book would get me close to the self-imposed magic figure of 120,000 as being the right length for this story.The further I read, the closer I got to the obviousness of the chasm between the two sections. I edited less, I panicked more and in May 2012 I stopped. Completely.I returned to full blown procrastination. I started writing short stories again. Winning one run by Biting Duck Press in June 2012 just compounded the issue, allowing me to justify my avoidance of EP as honing my skills. When a short story of mine got published in a Science Fiction Anthology in November 2012 my complete denial about Endless Possibilities editing was complete. It was obvious I'd moved on.Except it was obvious I hadn't.WordWatchers knew it too.Finally, in the May 2013 meeting (yes a whole year since I'd actually done any editing of the novel) I promised I'd print the damn thing out and at least read it all the way through as one complete work (no, amazingly, I had never actually done this).Last week, that's what I did and I started to read.It appears to be easier to put a pen line through a word, the end of a sentence, a whole sentence, a paragraph and, as it turns out, a whole chapter (twice over).I have (re)discovered that I really like Endless Possibilities, it gets off to a fantastic start, I am really pleased with the end (there's a section that, one year after I wrote it, made me cry when I re-read it for the first time, which is a very strange feeling). I was, I think, "in the zone" for those two months of March and April 2012, but there's a big chunk of 80,000 in the middle that's messy and self-indulgent. It's not as bad as 3B3S, I have definitely improved so much since my teens, but there are some bits that have no place in a novel...I realise that this re-read was just the first pass and I have grasped the low hanging fruit only and once I have taken a step back after I implemented these initial changes there will be many more and each pass will get harder and harder both in terms of what to "fix" and how to fix it.I am, however, very lucky, because I have WordWatchers and they will not let me take this journey alone.There's one other thing of course, and that is fairly simple, I want "you" to read this novel. Love it or hate it, I don't mind, but I want you to read it and that is the biggest change for me and one reason for that is fellow WordWatchers John Potter, who had never seen EP before and picked up the printed copy and started to read it - he laughed right at the end of Chapter 1, just where he was supposed to. Although unless he reads this he may never know how much of a difference that has made to me, because in many ways, John Potter IS my target audience.Thank-you.JohnPS The irony of the fact that this blog is overly long and self-indulgent, is not lost on me.

Introducing Stephen Alexander

You won't know Stephen Alexander and at 9pm on March 5th, I didn't know him either. However, by 10pm I knew him intimately and I'm going to tell you about him and how we met.We met at the WordWatchers meeting, he was, quite literally, a blank sheet of paper. Under the careful guidance of Julie Cohen, the sheet stopped being blank and Stephen was born.I am not going to tell you how Julie seeds the creation process, but I highly recommend that if you get the chance to do one of Julie's Workshops then you do so. If you're lucky, something quite magical occurs.Below, is a transcription of my scribbled notes (Julie drives you hard, no procrastination, no musings, no mulling over, just bang-bang-bang) - I have fixed the typos but not the style nor grammar. How I wrote the creation of Stephen feels as important as the words themselves.

Stephen is 30 years old, a little under six feet tall (much to his annoyance). He went prematurely grey, so dyes his hair regularly and experimentally, so now he has no memory of its original colour.Despite many expensive treatments his two top front teeth remain resolutely yellow, which is why he doesn't smile very much. His rather angular frame means his choice of fashionable clothes don't fit and he looks awkward.

So at this point I was already intrigued by Stephen, given we'd just met. He's clearly quite vain, he'd like to be taller and not have yellow teeth. He didn't like going grey and so has dyed his hair, but his choice of colours and styles perhaps to draw a viewer away from his awkward shape (and teeth?). I say he doesn't smile much, but I don't know if he's unhappy...But there's more, I got to write (and therefore observe) Stephen in a facet of his normal day-to-day life.

"Stephen slips into the still dark living room. He fumbles around on the coffee table in front of the sofa, amongst the beer cans and finds his wallet, battered and empty save for a few tatty family photos and a maxed out credit card. He doesn't disturb his drunken father asleep on the sofa."

Initially, as I watched/wrote, I presumed Stephen was sneaking away from a party that the beer cans were the visible detritus of a good night had, but this would appear to be Stephen's home, is he sneaking off to work? Is he trying not to wake his father to avoid an argument or fight? Or does he feel sorry for this man? There's clearly some significance to the wallet, he's recovering it even though it serves no function given it is devoid of both cash and credit. Why is it empty? Is this related to the drunken man asleep on the sofa. Is this a one-off or a permanent state of affairs? Given the problem with the credit card, permanent is implied...Stephen opens up to me, answering some of my questions.

The wallet was a gift from his mum on his 18th birthday and it had a £20 note in it, which he spent on beer that night, celebrating with friends. By the time he staggered home the next morning, she had packed and left. Never to be seen again.

Well, that was unexpected. Poor Stephen, carrying that wallet must be torture. A precious final gift (given with love?), a sign of manhood and independence? A constant reminder that its contents got him out of the house and drunk enough to not return in time to prevent her for leaving, or if that wasn't possible, at least say goodbye.He's opening up now, ready to tell me a little more.

Stephen is living hand-to-mouth. He is basically paying for his dad's drinking habit by staying at home and paying "rent". He's desperate to move out, start afresh but how does he abandon his dad ("like she did" he is constantly reminded, because, he is, after all, just like her)?But work has now offered him a promotion, but at the new office at the other end of the country. Can he, should he take the job?

Wow. What a dilemma, I wouldn't want to be in his shoes. If he stays, will he resent his father more and more? Really, never be happy? If he goes how long will his father last, will the drinking get worse without him to try and hold it in check, or, without the cash, will he have to drink less. I think Stephen thinks the last of these thoughts is wishful thinking.Finally, in this brief meeting, there's some navel gazing from us both to finish off.

Stephen's best quality: He's "reliable", "will always be there for you..." - for friends and, of course, for family (his dad of course).Stephen's worst quality: he's soft, a push-over, easy to manipulate to the benefit of others.

I think Stephen clearly has a problem here, how does he maintain this air of reliability (which he likes) without others forever taking advantage of his eagerness to please?Stephen doesn't know, because I don't know but, at some point in the future, I'm hoping to find out...So there you go. That's Stephen, a brief encounter, just an hour together and yet I found out so much about him and I really should thank Julie Cohen for introducing us.Julie's website is here: Julie-Cohen.comI can whole-heartedly recommend her workshop, WordWatchers without exception loved the experience.

Potter's February in Writing

Right. It’s now 18:00 on the 5th of March, which means I have just an hour to do this blog and make myself beautiful for WordWatchers tonight. I could of course just go straight to cosmetics but it’s been a glorious month for the WordWatchers collective and I wanted to get this down, else I’ll just go off on some parallel vaguely related discourse tonight and, well, it doesn’t do, really.

Mahrie Kindle Cover

So apart from Charlotte being voted the best historical romance author in the world ever, or something very close, and John Hoggard’s heroics in social media, there is something I wanted to tell you. In fact a few things.

First, Mahrie is almost done. I finished the cover this month which I LOVE and I get editorial feedback from the group tonight. Then it’s two solid weeks to make alterations before it goes to the copy and proof editor. That process should take us to the end of March at which point Mahrie will be released, initially for free for a brief time. So keep your eyes peeled.

In trying to raise awareness for the Potter brand I thought I’d run a final KDP Select promotion for Chasing Innocence. I also wanted to try and up the number of reviews for the book, which I have found are more likely to be given when a book is given away for free. The promotion went extremely well and you can see in this video I created what the results were.

I have for the time being decided to shelf TMWWRWs as I've had to admit, after eight months of hard work, the main character isn't there for me yet. His (dead) wife is, but... It's heartbreaking because so much has been invested but I know when I do come back to Marcus Hangiman I will have written two other books, several novellas and hopefully been stewing his character development in the background all this time. We will see.Which means that Hunting Demons is well on it's way. Hooorah! Sarah Sawacki is back, she's not alone this time but she's got a whole lot of people making life difficult. Where Chasing Innocence was about Sarah protecting and surviving, Hunting Demons is about her evolution, her putting a foot in the ground and saying enough is enough. Facing down her demons. I'm so excited. The book starts in court as we briefly recount how we got to this moment in the series. I'm having SO much fun.It was always my intention to also write about Detective Boer's past and while we touch on this in Mahrie, I have another novella planned for the end of the year which focuses on Boer as the protagonist and excitingly (for me at least) shows as part of a bigger story, his POV in the Mahrie case, as opposed to hers.What else? Well the antagonist in Hunting Demons is particularly scary, So I can get some idea for what is acceptable in the particularly scary antagonist stakes I'm currently reading the first two novels in both Tess Gerritsen and Mo Hayder's Crime series. The first two novels because I'm also interested to see how they transition the key female character between book one and two.I also read the wonderfully literary but brilliant thriller writing of Helen Zahavi this last month. I loved Donna and the Fatman and would highly recommend you check her out. Especially if like me you have an interest in strong but put upon women coming to terms with particularly nasty men. Very much looking forward to Helen's Dirty Weekend.Time's running out. Now to put on my glad rags and get ravaged (editorially) by WordWatchers.Wish me luck, I'm going in. 

Potter's month (or three) in writing 2012

It's been about three months since I did one of these so there's a little bit of catching up to be done. First, I guess, we should start with writing.I had plans a year ago of finishing the first draft of TMWWRWs during 2012 and being well into Hunting Demons as we turned into the new year. The reality is I struggled mightily with TMWWRWs. I've gone on about the struggles through the year but round it up quite nicely in this post about emotional colour.In trying to raise my profile and that of Chasing Innocence I thought I'd publish some of the longer stories I'd written back in 2006. Only three were of a commercial grade and I wanted four, so I needed another one. The result was the devoted and quite enigmatic: Mahrie. You can get a preview for each of the stories including the cover art, in Snapshots are coming.During the last quarter of 2012 WordWatchers decided they'd publish their first anthology, which I'm pleased to say features my short story: 'Eye for an Eye'. Abbie Todd edited the stories and Chris McCormack produced the paperback via CreateSpace with cover design inspiration from John Hoggard. I did the Kindle conversion which I'm very pleased to say dynamically supports both the advanced features of the Kindle Touch and Fire devices, along with the basic features of the older Kindles. Chris additionally produced the iBook version.I love doing Kindle book conversions and am currently producing a number of tutorials you'll seen be able to see on my blog and youTube. Hopefully I'll have some links next month.As for writing this couple of months I've been busy editing Mahrie . The story is set between 1950 and 1980 and required a lot of work researching and then editing the detail from that time. In spare writing moments I've been editing the first part of TMWWRWs to reflect the slightly altered point of view.Because I've spent so much time struggling with TMWWRWs the next Sarah Sawacki book has had chance to ferment and really take shape. The story planning is so full of rich detail with three primary threads, with all the main characters from the end returning. There is a really great concept for the main bad guy: really, really bad guy. It makes my toes curl just thinking about it. I can't wait to start writing it, which is all the more motivation for me to finish TMWWWRWs.I've read some pretty excellent books these last couple of months, starting with Christopher Hitchens' memoir: Hitch22. There is something remarkable about Christopher Hitchens' writing that leaves me feeling somewhat wiser come the last page. Reading Hitch22 and Christopher's attempt to understand his mother's suicide led me to William Styron's incredible look at depression, titled: Darkness Visible.I love a book recommendation, which is how I came to the haunting dystopian 'Handmaid's Tale' by Margaret Atwood. It left me with an adjusted perception of the female mindset and for society's almost default stance of devaluing woman.If you're looking for a fun read then you can't go wrong with the very original 'Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out Of The Window and Disappeared', a compulsive tale not only of what the 100 year old man does after he climbs from the window, but also of the incredible life he has led. Very much reminded me of Forrest Gump in places and quite charming.My top pick for you though as a must read is David Mitchell's 'Cloud Atlas', the most innovative and brilliant pyramid of separate but related stories covering almost one thousand years of a single soul.Happy writing, see you next month.

The 12 75-worders for Christmas Part 3

There was some discussion on the radio this morning that 12th night was actually last night and therefore all things Christmas related should come to an end, lest 12 months of bad luck is visited upon the perpetrator...However, undeterred I have decided to push on, risk it and share with you my final four Christmas themed paragraphs:

Midnight Matt: Heavy snow cut Lucy’s remote farmhouse off from the rest of the world on Christmas Eve, by road and later power and her generator refused to start. Late that evening she sat with a tin of beans and some flickering candles and hummed Carols to herself. On the stroke of Midnight the driveway was filled with light and the splutter of old Land Rover. It was her Matt, clutching a takeaway, wine and present! (This one was inspired by a mis-typed Tweet by Richard who runs Paragraph Planet, who had meant to type Midnight Mass) When they couldn’t find the brandy Grandpa brought out a dusty old bottle from the back of the larder, after sniffing the contents, he poured it onto the Christmas Pudding. As dad approached with the lit match there was a white flash and a scream as a high velocity silver sixpence hit Granny on the forehead. Scattered across the kitchen, superheated sultanas went bang. Of the pudding itself, nothing remained, save a charred sprig of holly. (This was my personal favourite of the paragraphs I submitted) At 12:01am PST, those still awake, felt suddenly bereft. Children awoke, wailing, from their slumber. It was as if millions of Furbys cried out and were suddenly silenced. CNN quickly started to show wreckage scattered across the landscape as Governments denied involvement while simultaneously terrorists groups claimed to be responsible. However, in the wake of the incident an autopsy pointed to pilot error, induced by alcohol, given the red suited man was 10,000x over the limit. (This was published by Paragraph Planet on Boxing Day, Richard thought it safest not upset the children before the big day...) Margaret didn’t hear the whistling noise to start with, singing along to Christmas Carols on the CD player. When she did hear it, she began a search of the kitchen, listening to the pan of boiling potatoes and the dishwasher. Then, from the oven there was a ‘thud’ and the whistle change to a scream, as foam started squeeze around the door seal. “Roger! I think your fancy recipe for the turkey has gone horribly wrong!”

 Well, that's it, I hope you enjoyed them? I certainly enjoyed writing them, some of them have even given me ideas for future longer stories (and this is one of the main reasons for doing these 75-worders to capture snippets of ideas for stories).Comments, positive or negative are much appreciated.         Thank-you.John

The 12 75-Worders of Christmas Part 2

Yesterday I shared the first four seventy-five word paragraphs I submitted to Paragraph Planet in response to their request for Christmas themed submissions.Today, I share the next four with you:

When Bob returned from his work Christmas party, Margaret was rolling out the icing for their Christmas cake. His novelty tie played “Silent Night” as he crossed the kitchen and tried to steal a piece. It played “Jingle Bells” as Margaret turned, kissing her husband and, with a glint in her eye, undid his tie laid it on the work surface. As “The Snowman” started Margaret turned and battered it into silence with the rolling pin. Jeff in the Benefits Office rubbed his throbbing temple. “Ok... Mary... if we could go through this one more time... You’ve left the name of the father of your unborn child off the form. While I understand this can be a delicate matter, it will help process the claim... So, if I could just have the name? Please don’t say ‘God’ with such with such an exasperated tone, I’m just trying to help, really I am.” On Christmas morning Patricia watched her husband with something close to astonishment. He was being attentive to her and the children, he seemed happier, almost human, not the vile monster he had become over the last few years. “I know you said not to spend much, but I decided to go really big this year,” he said, handing her a gold envelope. She tore it open eagerly. Inside were divorce papers. “Merry Christmas,” he said quietly. The doorbell rang and David, not expecting Christmas visitors, answered with a sigh. Opening the door David stared agog, awestruck, while the Angel, in stereotypical white, complete with glowing halo, explained that He needed to borrow a couple of double-As as His SatNav’s had run out. Ruefully, the Angel continued to explain that He had tried the shop, but Mr. Patel couldn’t see Him and of course it was wrong to steal, even in an emergency.

 The last four will be shared tomorrow.John

The 12 75-worders of Christmas

As Christmas draws to a close, we drift, sometimes reluctantly, back to work, take down the Christmas decorations and push away the plate with the final scraps of Christmas pudding clinging to it, there is a small window of opportunity to share something with you...In the run up to Christmas, Richard Hearn, who runs Paragraph Planet, put out a plea on Twitter for seasonally themed 75-worders. So, inspired, I took it upon myself to write not one but twelve of them.I am very pleased to say that Richard ran two of the twelve, including a particularly dark one on Boxing Day which pleased me immensely. (I used to blog for NewburyToday and used to write equally dark Christmas Drabbles* - but we fell out a few years ago and they refused to run one, which, having refused to run other blogs I'd written, was the final straw for my blogging for that particular site).So, with 12th Night rapidly approaching I have decided to share all 12 of my 75-worders with you, four a day, until Sunday. I hope you like them!

For the record, Santa didn’t “...come to me and say...” He begged, do you hear me, dropped to his knees, sobbing. That’s right, to me, his first born, the outcast. Yes, I could fly like the rest, but my genetic anomaly was to have a nasal cavity that emitted photons at 630nm. Saved Christmas I did, because I can see in moderate levels of water vapour and the rest couldn’t and they dared call me freak! 

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.

Under the flicker of white flashes and the pulse of blue from the lights on top of their cars the Chief of Police spoke earnestly into the television camera. “It is true that we have arrested an elderly gentleman in relation to the following charges: No CRB check, animal exploitation, breaking and entering, border crossing without a passport and keeping a list of children who are naughty and nice in violation of the Data Protection Act.” (Published on Paragraph Planet site on December 20th)

Father Christmas Inc (FCI), a Division of Santa Claus Enterprises would like to make the following announcement: After the 15th consecutive year-on-year drop in the number of children classified as “Nice”, FCI hereby declare that the following behaviours will no longer be classed as “Naughty”: Not tidying your room, not doing your homework, breaking something (under $50 in value) and not owning up. However, after some boardroom discussion, outright lying will still be classed as “Naughty”.

Right, if that hasn't put you off, there will be four more tomorrow!John* A Drabble is a story of exactly 100 words

The WordWatchers VERY short story competition

WordWatchers holds two short story competitions a year, nominally one in the summer and one in the winter. Generally, we pick a theme (or if there's a competition out in the "Real World" we'll align with that), give ourselves a month to write the story, a month to score and critique them and then we generally have a little party and announce the winners. We also have a good laugh at how bad we generally all are at guessing which of us wrote what story.However, this winter what was clear was that we were in great danger of not having a short story competition! Unthinkable, but true. So, it was decided that we would have a very very short story competition instead, based on the format found on the Paragraph Planet website. We decided we could cope with that because even if everybody entered there would only be 750 words to read.We were also very fortunate to persuade Richard Hearn who runs Paragraph Planet to act as an external judge. This wouldn't affect our own "internal" scoring but it would be interesting to get the input from somebody who has to pick a new paragraph every day. Richard also wrote us a very nice little blurb (which is included verbatim within this post) about the competition and, to our delight, he also offered to run his favourite three on the Paragraph Planet site.What Richard had to say was:"Thank you to WordWatchers for inviting me to judge their annual writing competition, and I’m touched that the competition has been inspired by Paragraph Planet. (The word count means I'm also very much in my comfort zone!) I’ve been impressed by the strength of your entries and have genuinely struggled to whittle the entries down to a top 3. It’s always going to be a subjective decision, especially when all the authors have really got to grips with the demands of the format. I myself keep changing my mind, and I am sure others will have their own, different, favourites. However, a judge cannot reserve judgement forever. Before announcing the winners, I thought I’d reflect on what makes a good piece of flash fiction. What do I look for? I look for 75 words that work. They somehow need to be working together, towards the same goal. That goal is different for each submission - it might be a mood piece, a mini story, a comedic moment, or, probably the most popular when done right, a twist-in-the-tale - but somehow it’s about all the words working together consistently to achieve their own aim. (Scratch that. ‘Consistently’ sounds too dull. It’s often the jarring word that makes the paragraph. Let‘s just say, the paragraph has to work as a whole in a specific, original, and unexpected way.) I think all the entries from WordWatchers members were successful, but these final three are the ones that I felt stayed with me just that little bit more after reading. It was a close run thing but my top three will go on - in reverse order - on Sunday 2nd, Monday 3rd and Tuesday 4th December." So on Sunday 2nd, Richard published Abbie Todd's entry:On Monday 3rd, Richard published Debbie Smith's entry:And on Tuesday 4th, Richard published his winner, the story by Julian Dobbins:What's interesting is that this is quite different from WordWatchers own results announced at our Christmas Party last night (7th).Our own results were as follows:Joint 3rd: Julian Dobbins and John Hoggard2nd: Abbie Todd1st: Mel GerdesAs you have seen Abbie and Julian's stories already, John and Mel's stories are reproduced below.John Hoggard's story:"Poor old Douglas flinched as the squawking voice of his ancient mother, upstairs in her bed, penetrated his thoughts. He poured the boiling water into the teapot and arranged the buttered toast neatly on the plate. He then laid out her vast array of pills, once again swapping her heart tablets for the identical looking ones prescribed to her festering cat. He didn’t know if the exchange was having an effect, but he hoped so."And Mel's winning (as far as WordWatchers is concerned) entry:"It wouldn't have happened if he'd made that one call home. We had an agreement you see, he'd call to let me know he'd arrived safely. But he got drunk and forgot so I spent the night awake, fearing the worst. When he finally walked through the door I lost it - grabbed the nearest pan and walloped him. The trouble was it was Le Creuset. Out stone cold. Sometimes it doesn't pay to buy quality..." It will certainly be interesting to discuss with Richard why we had such differing results (although it could be argued that two stories both featured in the top 3 of both decisions).WordWatchers would once again like to thank Richard at Paragraph Planet for his time and expertise.Merry ChristmasJohn H

75-worder part 2

This is the third seventy-five word paragraph I wrote for Paragraph Planet (they published my second entry, which came as a shock, but set the bar very high - a 50% success rate!). It was inspired, in part, by my eldest daughter who is very dyslexic, but takes after her parents and has developed a love of science and got a school report which certainly indicated she was doing very well in this particular area.It's certainly interesting to see how she copes with her dyslexia, memorising stuff seems to be her weapon of choice at the moment. When she was very young and we thought she was reading just fine, it was because she had memorised all the books we had read to her and she just regurgitated as she turned the pages. It fooled us, it fooled some of her teachers too.Now she's keen on drama and theatre and is finding learning lines is hard work, but if they're read to her, she remembers them, so she may yet crack that particular nut and wanting to read (anything) when you're dyslexic seems to be half the battle won.So, here it is, my daughter inspired 3rd 75-worder:‘“Just as well lungs work autonomously Pike, because I doubt you’d have the brain power to breath otherwise,” noted my Comprehensive school Physics Teacher Mr. Jenkins. Fortunately it turned out I was dyslexic not stupid, but my rage against this man here,’ he said gesturing to the old man sat in the front row, ‘focused me to this! A Nobel Prize for Physics! Thank-you Mr. Jenkins!’ From the back of the auditorium somebody started to clap.

Telling Stories in just 75 words

A few months ago I discovered via Twitter a wonderful Website, with a wonderfully simple premise: tell a story in exactly 75 words. The name of this website is Paragraph Planet and it can be found here.I use this site to practice the art of editing because it's a serious head scratching moment when you've written a story only to find it's not 75 words long but, for example, 83. Trying to edit ten percent of the content out of a story that short is challenging to say the least and makes every word earn its keep. I am hoping that this honing of my editorial skills will come in useful when I return, in anger, to editing Endless Possibilities.To date, I have submitted 12 seventy-five word paragraphs to the site and have been lucky enough to have three paragraphs accepted. They're on display for a single day before they're replaced by another snippet of story-telling concentrate.I'm going to keep submitting stories to Paragraph Planet, but I've decided I like those little nuggets that Paragraph Planet have passed over and I'm going to share them here - one at a time.So here's the first:He whimpered like a kicked puppy, the gag in his mouth prevented him from actually speaking, to whisper his soft lies. He tugged against the cuffs that he had used on her only a few hours earlier. She looked along the barrel of his gun. It was sticky with her blood. Her cheek smashed open while she had been handcuffed. Her fingers reached up and touched the gash. Never again. She pulled the trigger and relaxed.Not sure where this story came from, but the imagery was so strong in my mind as I typed it up that it took less than a minute to create and another minute to tweak to 75 words.If you're on Facebook you can find Paragraph Planet here and if you're on Twitter you can follow them here.