Tag: flash

What I Really Need Is What Makes Me Bleed

No blog post yesterday. I bet you were all so very sad that you couldn’t read about my terribly exciting life (was that a roll of your eyes?) . To tell the truth, I spent most of the day covered in dust, trying to sort my desk out. You’ll be pleased to know that I now have enough space to house at least some of my junk. I need more, but this will have to do for the minute. I’ll probably take a photo of it in a minute and let you have a look at it. My walls are covered in photos, art, a family tree for one of my characters and plenty of other stuff that is either useful or has just been accumulated over the years. I live quite a cluttered existence. Perhaps that statement’s worth is increased by the simple fact that I have far too much stationary on my desk. I even have calligraphy quills and pots of ink. I have pretty much nowhere to put all these pens etc. They’re currently stuffed in two pen pots, a Christmas cookie tin, a red glass goblet and a metal goblet. My paintbrushes are all embedded into some foam that cushioned my laptop when I got it. Unfortunately, I really do have to create such structures to house my belongings. In the opposite corner of the room, for example, I have a shelf type thing on which my bathroom stuff stands (I can’t keep it in the bathroom because my brother is secretly a girl and uses more bathroom products than I have a care to count in a matter of seconds), which I created out of a shoe box and its lid. It’s not very sturdy but it serves its purpose.

So my major accomplishment yesterday was to create some more workspace. You can never have enough workspace. After that I went out for a nice night with a good friend. Sadly for you (yeah, I bet you’re weeping your heart out right now… not) there were no pictures of said night out as I couldn’t fit my camera in my bag. Weird events unfurled, but that was mainly guys trying it on and them definitely getting nowhere. Then there was dancing and then there was home. We saw quite a lot of people that we knew, last night, as well. It seems some people are home for the Easter break already. Some of them it was nice to see. Others weren’t so nice.

Shortly, I plan to get a cuppa rosie lea, as we say here (that means a nice hot mug of tea), and then I’m probably going to continue with the last two chapters of Secrets and maybe even write the epilogue. It might take me a lot longer than that, though.

In other news, I’ve joined technorati, which is a site to promote your blogs. It lets other people find them through their tag system and it also allows users to review your blog. Incidentally, if you have an account and wanted to review this then you can find a link to its technorati page on the right (where all my links are kept – you’re probably sick of me repeating that right now). That’s not to compel you to do so, by the way; it’s just so that if you want your thoughts to be heard about the content of this blog and whether you think others should or should not read it then you can. Obviously, I appreciate any comments you want to make below each post as well.

I haven’t written any more flash fiction yet, but it will be done when I get around to it. However, I do only have one more statement suggestion for it. So if you do want to give me a suggestion then I’d appreciate it either in a comment below this post or the post that outlines what flash fiction is so that you have an idea of what you’re getting yourself into. And this is my first piece of flash fiction if you wanted an idea of what will happen to your provided statement. My last post on here also highlighted how you can find the different pieces of flash fiction that I intend to write on here. I hope that helps you. And if you want to ask me any questions then please feel free to use my formspring (links to the right – again) account – you don’t even need an account to ask me questions!

(Lyrics in the title are from Volcano by Damien Rice)

Emerging from the Gentle Grip of Night’s Unfolding Arms

I’m considering writing some flash fiction on here in the future. If you’re unaware as to what that entails, then listen up, please:

Flash fiction is where you write a piece of fiction based on an idea or a statement that you are given. You go with whatever you think of when you get the statement, phrase, question or idea etc. Then, you complete a writing piece on it in either a set number of words or a set time.

Because it’s so quick and spontaneous (hence the name flash fiction) it’s supposed to be a really good way to build up your writing skills (as well as padding those portfolios!), which is why I’m going to start writing pieces. I’m going to add them here and each piece will be titled with ‘Flash Fiction No.#’ so that they will be easier for you to find. Not only that, but I will be tagging them with ‘flash fiction 500’ and ‘flash fiction 1000’ according to how many words I write of each. Pieces may not end up complete as these are literally just quick writing exercises, but hopefully you will enjoy reading through them. I don’t want to write just anything, though, so, if you have a suggestion for a statement that I can base a piece of flash fiction on, please comment below and I will write a piece based on it. These pieces may not be terribly long, but it will help me to improve my writing and for you to see what I can do.

Your flash fiction statement will probably end up being written about, so please comment with one!

Another thing to mention is my formspring account. I know that I keep going on about it, but I’d really like to hear if you have any questions. They can be about my writing or even just something you generally want help with. I’ll try my best to satisfactorily answer the questions that you pose. More questions, however, mean that I get to expand more of them on here if I think I can give you more information and, let’s face it, I clearly love rambling on here.

IMPORTANTLY, (yes I had to caps lock to make sure I got your attention) the poll finishes tomorrow so if you want to get your vote heard then please click on your favourite title on the right.

I thought I would show you the book cover for the first book in the JLM Series, Dark Side of the Moon, which has been designed by Andrew McCluskey (NALGames). This is the current design, but he’s said he’d like to edit it further. I’m not sure when he’ll get around to this, so you can have a look at it’s current state. Personally, I really like it, which is great as Andrew is the one in charge of the graphical content of my new site. He’s also going to be in charge of the flash content. Sean Buller (UnknownGamer), my lovely Canadian friend, is the one in charge of the coding. When they’ve finished my site and set up one of their own to promote their website building skills, I’ll give you a link so that you can take a long hard look at what they can do. What they can do is brilliant, though, and they’re willing to learn new skills to get you what you want. The design of the book cover below, for example, was taken from an amalgamation of ideas that I gave Andrew. None of them were very set because I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted, but he’s managed to come up with something I adore and, when he has a moment, he intends to edit it a little more to make it just that bit more awesome.

I’m still editing Dark Side of the Moon. Nevertheless, I am getting closer to the end of that. The last scenes of Secrets/Spilling Secrets are looking good, even if I say so myself. I’m taking it slowly, though, to make sure that I hammer out every minute detail and get it as perfect as I possibly can. If it’s not perfect, then it just won’t do. Lots happens in it and there are some tense and emotional moments. Furthermore, I think it will beautifully illustrate how much some of the characters have developed since Dark Side of the Moon and how they’ve grown up from the stroppy teens they were, amongst other things.

Anyway, please remember to comment with statements for flash fiction pieces and don’t forget to leave me some formspring questions. Thanks!

(Lyrics in the title are from You Are The Moon by The Hush Sound)

Ethereal Entity #28

Where: Sofa

Listening to: Die Hard – TV

Tabs open: SD chatroom, Twitter (no idea why since I have my plug-in)

Programs open: Msn, Chrome, MSWord

So, I haven’t written in here in quite a while. Decided to write this whilst I got Andrew to read through my edits. He and Sean are making me my own proper site for my portfolio and everything as a birthday present (yeah, 20 soon… oh great). Hopefully, it’s going to be really awesome. Don’t really want to push the boys too far, though, because, whilst I know they’re good, I don’t know quite how far they will be able to do some of the flash things that I’d like. I’ve given them a list of pages etc for the navigation bar and suggested quite a lot of the stuff I’d like to see in it as well as giving them a mock up of the layout. I may or may not be moving my journal over there, as well. If I do it will probably be to a blog spot thing. That way anybody who doesn’t have an account here will be able to leave comments too, but we’ll see. There will also be a steampunk (if you don’t know what that is, google it) style counter complete with clock. I’ve seen the design (so far) for this and it’s really excellent. Just needs a few more cogs and things adding until it looks a pinch more realistic and then the guys intend to use flash on it to get the features moving.

It’s the flash stuff that I’m more worried about them doing because I don’t think they’ve done that much flash in the past so this might challenge them. Hoping that it’ll add a lot of mystery and excitement to the site, though. I’m glad that they agreed to do it, to be honest, because they both know what I want, pretty much. Andrew certainly does, because he has even created an excellent book cover design for DSotM (Dark Side of the Moon) even though it isn’t yet in the hands of an agent. It looks really good. Couldn’t have done a better job myself. He’s got it almost exactly spot on, though I’d say it could maybe do with a slight daubing of blood too, but I think he plans to edit it when he’s finished reading DSotM. Either way, it should help him to see what I’d like for the site. Either way, my main desire is to have the site reflect the surprises I put in places in the book. It needs to be exciting things that will jump out at you and make you go ‘Wow’.

My head hurts quite a lot, right now. I’ve had this headache for three days. It’s really starting to bug me. Maybe it’s to tell me off for being so lazy when I was born. The 7th was the date that I was due to be born, but I was exactly two weeks late. Maybe I’ll have this headache until my actual birthday. Oh fun fun.

In other news, I’ve had the ‘flu. Been feeling dreadful for days. I don’t know whether or not it was swine ‘flu like my mum had, but oh well. I’ve gotten over it quicker than her, anyway. I guess that’s because I still had anti-bodies from my last bout of ‘flu.