Dabbling

In case you hadn’t guessed by the montage I made in yesterday’s post, I have had a lot on my mind lately. A lot of it hasn’t been my fault and whenever I get to that comfortably numb point something or someone happens again to throw me right off kilter.

It happened in that week after new years with that message that he probably never meant, because that’s the only way I can explain it without hurting all over again and driving myself insane. Besides, if he’d meant it he would have told her the truth, finally ended things the way they should have been ended and turned up to tell me how he actually feels no matter the time of day or where I was.

And yeah, if that happened he’d maybe have a chance.

Continue reading “Dabbling”

Midnight Workings Weather Down The Story Line

Firstly, thanks to whoever left me the formspring comment about some bad grammar in an excerpt of my first unpublished book. It was an honest mistake that I can only attribute to the dialect in the area that I live, because when it was pointed out I already knew it was wrong and I am subsequently kicking myself in the teeth about it. So whoever you are, many thanks. If anyone else sees any such error, please do tell me.

My intentions for today are to clean the kitchen up a bit, figure out what to cook for dinner and then make a start on uploading photos of my mother’s jewellery to her site. If I have any time, I may attempt to write a piece of flash fiction. One of the lovely people that follow my facebook fan page has provided a statement for me to base it on. It’s much nicer to get statements from other people because it feels so much more communal. I like getting people involved, too. There’s also the fact that when other people provide me with statements, they’re usually statements that provoke writing from me that I wouldn’t normally consider scribing. This, in itself, is fantastic because it makes me broaden my writing horizons. I love new challenges where my writing is concerned. One of the most recent challenges I faced, whilst finishing off Secrets, was that I’d never written a proper battle scene before and the last few chapters required this. I don’t mind telling you that it really worried me. They were critical scenes and I didn’t want to get them wrong. Around the same time, however, I noticed a post show up on my blogroll at the side. The post was from the This Business Of Writing blog and it was a how to on writing battle scenes. I may not have used everything it said, but it did help me to make sense of how I was going to sort out the scene. I figured out a basic choreography for it – who was injured, what their injuries were and when they received the injuries during the battle.

What made my battle particularly difficult, however, was that it had been foreseen by another character. She’d witnessed deaths in her vision and so I had to get these events in exactly the right place, making sure that the right characters were in the right place too! You could say that this was a bit ambitious for my first real battle scene, but somehow it worked. Admittedly, the scene still needs a bit of editing to polish it up, but I’m incredibly happy with what I managed to achieve. I think it managed to flow well and it got all of the correct bits in.

It may be slightly obvious that I get carried away when discussing how writing a scene has gone, especially if it’s gone particularly well. My favourite anecdote about my writing at the moment is that I managed to make Andrew queasy when he was reading a torture scene. If I can make it realistic for a reader, then I feel as if I’ve done well.

Speaking of realism, I had a very realistic dream in amongst other dreams. For a short while after I woke up, I was under the impression that the dream was real, which is dreadfully upsetting because I’d dreamt something that I wish with all of my heart and for a couple of moments I felt thoroughly happy. Don’t you just hate it when those things happen? I really do.

(Lyrics in the title are from Wonder by Megan McCauley)

We’ll Collect The Moments One By One

Andrew has made me a new book cover to go with the recently finished Secrets. It looks wonderful in my opinion. In fact, I think it’s my favourite of the covers that he’s made so far. It’s below if you want to see it. Feel free to comment on it here or go to my facebook page and give your say there.

Secrets is the third (as of yet unpublished) installation in my Jocasta Lizzbeth Moonshadow series. Andrew’s read it so I’ll let you read what he said about it:

“Secrets, the third instalment of the currently-unpublished (somehow) Jocasta Lizzbeth Moonshadow series, continues the storyline of Jocasta, a third-year at a magical high-school, her fellow pupils, her teachers and her enemies, as they set to wage war on each other. The book contains elements of romance, fantasy, horror, drama, and a fantastically written action scene towards the end which brings about the culmination of the aspects of the plot developed specially for this instalment (while furthering aspects such as relationships and other events seen throughout the series as a whole). It was by quite a way the most enjoyable instalment of the series yet, truly saying something considering how well I thought of its predecessors, and was a brilliant showcasing of its writer’s, Rebecca Clare Smith’s, talents.”

– Andrew S.R. McCluskey [Musings]
In other news, I heard my mother downstairs when I got up today. My mum is usually at work at that time. I’ve grown to recognise that whenever she comes home early from work it means that there is something very wrong. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that it frightens me a little bit. She suffers from depression which is brought on by stress at work… It worries me a lot. I don’t like the idea that my mum gets increasingly upset and stressed and can’t talk to me about it; though, I realise that’s unfair as I don’t talk to her about my problems. I have no need to; I know how she’d react to most of them. I just worry about her a lot. I don’t want her to fall apart again.
This is where my younger brother steps in to be his duly unhelpful and nasty self. We wanted to print some business cards off for her jewellery venture (I think this was more her trying to distract herself from how she was feeling) but, of course, the printer needs to be set up to the new network that we’re on. We are not the most electronically able pair. Ergo, we asked my brother to help. What did this produce? Nothing but abusive language, door slamming and my mother getting upset. One day, he and my eldest brother will both get a slap in the face and wake up from their selfish ways. 
(Lyrics in the title are from Mushaboom by Feist)

L-O-V-E’s Just Another Word I Never Learned To Pronounce

First thing is first, I wrote a piece for Leslee Horner’s (@lesleehorner) click stories (her blog is linked to on the right hand side of this page) and today it has been posted. So if you want to read it, then please feel free to check it out here: http://lesleehorner.wordpress.com/2010/04/13/rebeccas-click/

To those of you who may know me, please don’t get the wrong end of the stick and think it was about my last ex. It wasn’t. It was about the one before him. I shan’t say their names here because I don’t want them to turn up and hassle me about anything I’ve said. They may say things didn’t happen the way I’ve said them… but I’ve said them that way because it is my point of view and this is the place for my thoughts. I can’t help that and I shouldn’t have to. This is my place to store my thoughts.

Currently, I’m wondering if my contact lenses are in right or if this bad focus is something to do with the headache I’m harbouring. I’m making dinner later on, so I hope it dies down a bit before then. My original plan for the day was to take more photographs of jewellery today. My mum makes it, you see, as a sort of hobby. Since she can’t possibly keep it all, we decided that we would make a site to sell it on. Hopefully, this will all go well. Pretty much all of the pieces are unique. No two are alike. That was the plan, anyway. I’m thinking that I will attempt to find some paracetamol instead first.

I’ve somehow managed to get seventy-one fans n my facebook page, as well. I’m not quite sure how I’ve managed that, but it’s really nice to know that so many of you appreciate the things I come out with. You’d probably appreciate it more if I got some headache tablets as I fear that I may make a few typos in this and not notice. I apologise sincerely if I do. On another note, my myspace page has gained a lot of friends, too. I realise that most of these are bands trying to get noticed, but oh well. Isn’t everybody? I don’t know if it was just for me, though, that it went a bit odd recently. When I signed in, it said I was signed in but refused to take me to the page where I could see my activity stream etc. Instead it was just showing me the page I’d signed in on. I think there’s an internet conspiracy out to get me. That’s right. The whole internet is against me. If that were true, I fear it would be a bit too Matrix-style for my liking.

Anyway, I shall disappear for another day and let you get on with whatever you were doing before I interrupted you with my journal entry.

(Lyrics in the title are from Starstrukk by 3OH!3)