Yuletide Blog Greetings

Merry Christmas from the Screenscribbblers house. I am sharing a picture of our cat George, who as you can see is full of festive cheer.

Have a great holiday, and I'll see you in the new year

John x

November Summary

My NaNoWriMo awareness month is over and congratulations to all my friends who have completed this epic journey, especially Deborah.
Unfortunately, as a non-participant, a demanding day job would never allow me the time and energy to go for glory with my story. However, watch this space in about four years time.
Until then, November, for me, will remain a period of literary self-discovery.
I was born in November, So it's natural for me to reflect around this time ot the year. Blog writing is as good as anything  for helping me do this.
That's why this will be my fourth post this month.
So if 50,000 words in a month was not an option for me, what has November meant to me?
I have a short story and a TV script currently being judged in separate competitions with another short story underway. I have been inspired by a great comedy show in London and I have taken to using an iPad & pen with handwriting recognition software for my first drafts. My laptop is needed for subsequent edits.
On the negative side, work has been absolutely dire, so I have been lacking in time and energy and stress has sucked some of my creative juices from my bone marrow. My short story has suffered because of this and although I know where the story is going the pace is very slow. It may have to go on the back burner whilst I work afresh on something new.
Cosolidating the positives and the negatives, I think the overall picture is I have done enough this November to keep me motivated to continue writing through the festive season and into the new year.

Mid-November update

I can now declare myself as a Screenscribbler in every sense of the word, now that I am making good use of handwriting recognition software on my new iPad ( thank you Karen x).

My handwriting is not fit for human consumption and should carry a Government Health Warning. Indeed it is a serious challenge for myself as the writer to decipher. .

As a youngster I had a pen-pal (long before email was even considered to be science fiction), my great-aunt. 

Aunty Gertie, amongst other things, had once been an English teacher so my letters would not only have an interesting reply she would also correct any grammatical errors and send me handwriting exercises, both of which were lost on me. 

To find software that can make sense of my senseless scrawl is beyond science, it's witchcraft. If nobody has started a list 'Seven wonders of the technological world,' can I please reserve the number one slot for Handwriting Recognition Software? Okay it isn't perfect, but the amount of correction that I have to do. after my scrawl has been converted to text is minimal. 

Has anyone any ideas for the other six wonders can be?

Deathship 666

Today we went to the West End Premier of Deathship 666. It was a truly mad mad mad lovable comedy parody show experience. Not a second of stage time of this fast paced production was wasted leaving the audience totally captivated. Well done to Box Step Productions, Gemma Hurley, Michael & Paul Clarkson and their amazing cast. They are names to watch out for. Here's the link to book tickets before they all sell out. Deathship 666

 

November Diary (Off to a good start)

Good as my word, I am going to make November count in terms of writing, as best I can, considering I am unable to commit to NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month).^st.

I suppose for me my own personal NaNoWriMo alternative got underway about mid-October because I have been working hard on a script which had a deadline for submission on November 1

Since then, in between working 12 hour shifts and some fairly long distance travelling to catch up with family on days off, I haven’t given much time to my favourite pastime. So today on November 5^th I am starting off by a long overdue blog post.

I have another competition entry to be getting on with during this month and of course Ephesus to complete and publish.

For me reading is part and parcel of the deal, and I must say I am very excited to have discovered Linwood Barclay.Trust Your Eyes has been my best read of the year so far, and it has been an excellent year for me. It has been a long time since I have read a book so full of....STORY. It's a great read and I highly recommend it.
It’s a great feeling when you find a new author that can press all your buttons.

Long journey’s visiting family also is valuable reading time, and I have just finished my second Colin Bateman audiobook, Prisoner of Brenda…Curses, Nurses and a Ticket to Bedlam. 

Reading or writing, either way, I think I am keeping my literary juices flowing, and in my own way am going to make November count for me in a small way.

Good luck to all my writer friends on FB, Twitter and those who follow this blog (especially Deborah), who are entering NaNoWriMo. I don’t expect to hear from you until December.

Na Na Na Na Hey Hey Hey NaNoWriMo

I have just read an article in this month’s issue of Writing Magazine warning us that the time of year is nigh upon us again. No not Christmas, nor Halloween or Guy Fawkes Night. It’s NaNoWriMo time again. Many of us will recognise in less than a NaNo-second that the National Novel Writing Month the phenomenal annual writerathon is here to take the aspiring, inspiring and uninspiring amongst us beyond the limits of normal human output.

To achieve the necessary 50,000 words and output of 1667 words per day (around 5½ pages per day). Sounds like extreme shock therapy for the chronic procrastinator. November’s nasty medicine month, or perhaps NovNaMedMo. Two of my writing buddies have been past entrants, and they have, and deserve my respect and admiration for the sheer stamina it must have taken to achieve their goal. Myself? I’m not ready yet for the challenge. Work demands leave me little or no room for the daily challenge. Yes I think, in the short term, a more realistic 500 words after a 12 hour working day plus travelling time might be just about doable, but even this would be a severe interruption to my work-bed-work-bed routine which may have irreparable damage on the narrative structure of my story, albeit a rough first draft.

The article was written for people like me who would like to participate but for whatever particular reason is unable to commit entitled Ten inspiring ideas to try instead of NaNoWriMo, with ideas ranging from dusting off old manuscripts through to watching telly, reading books (I do that anyway), planning your next book and don’t write. xx Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey hey, NoMoWriMo (No More Write More)xx.

I think it would be a great idea to make November a personal writing event, and set your own goal, even if it is merely writing a line a two before bed after a hard day at work.

I haven’t yet set any specific goals for November, other than the goals I already have in place, and having thought about it I don’t think I will. However, I think I will keep a diary for thirty days during that month just recording each day, what I have read, researched, written, planned and thought about. November is going to be my writing (enhanced) awareness month. During December, I will evaluate the sum total of the 30 entries in my diary which hopefully will give me a clearer idea of my commitment and productivity and maybe will drive me to manage my time a little better.

Back to NaNoWriMo. Long may this competition reign. I want NaNoWriMo to hang on less than a handful of years more and wait for my retirement, and then I’ll show you what I can do.

Well that’s my 500 words for today… (no wait up… one, two, three…) perhaps not it’s four hundred and seventy seven, (note how I spelt out the numbers so 477 would count as four words instead of one, just to get my word count up.

Having explained all that my word count is now well in excess of 500 so I’ll say ta ra and if you’re entering this year good luck with NaNoWriMo.

http://nanowrimo.org/

Confessions Of A Writer

One of my earliest memories of writing was returning to primary school after the summer holidays and writing in our brand new exercise books, which had been issued for the new school year, a story entitled "What I did on my holiday." I took the word holiday to mean going away on holiday and not holiday as in a break away from school for a few weeks. The problem for me was that I hadn't been away on holiday. It was likely that my mother and father couldn't afford it. There was no shame in that during the 50's as I there wasn't a lot of money around in those days and it was likely that most of my class didn't go away on holiday. Day trips on coaches were most people's experience of the seaside. So I made up a holiday.
I remembered a trip to Llandudno, the previous year when we went to the Happy Valley open air theatre and my sister Jean got up on stage and sang with the ventriloquist Peter Brough and his dummy Archie Andrews from the radio show Educating Archie. (Yes a ventriloquist did have his own radio show. There was no danger of anyone seeing his lips move.) Jean's hand had been the first to go up when Archie asked for a volunteer. I would never have had the nerve, and 60 years later my bravery in that department has not improved one iota, whilst my sister continues to enjoy a good warble in her amateur operatic society. Her Llandudno stage debut did not go unrewarded and she was given some sweets. I based my "What I did in my holiday" story on this only in my story it is me that goes on stage and my sister doesn't get a mention. In my story, I was the winner of a talent show and was given the Grand Prize of £100, enough money to buy a decent used car.
I shouldn't have flinched at each of the three question marks my teacher added to her comment in red ink ''Did you really ???" Even at my young tender age her sarcasm was not lost on me.
Today, I like to think that she didn't think badly of me for writing that story. A piece of fiction disguised as non-fiction, but a piece of imagination from someone with very little life experience. I hope she secretly liked it. I know I enjoyed writing it.