Reflections from Christchurch Writers

The Christchurch Writers Guild has released it's first creative writing Anthology. It is a collection of poems and stories by local writers here in Christchurch, NZ. Each story and poem is a journey into the writers unique perspective and the anthology itself crosses many genres.

While it was being put together, I read through some of the works. I found myself entranced by Angela Oliver's haunting tale of Niamh's birth and early life, intrigued by Beaulah Pragg's, Caterina, and utterly stunned (in an extremely good way) by Jonathan Kingston-Smith's, Underglass. Jim's, Grounded left me smiling, it is a story that both adults and children can enjoy.  Shelley's story named, At The Water's Edge added that touch of romance which I longed for and the writing style was effortlessly beautiful. I've just mentioned a few of the stories here but there are many more to recommend.

My own short story, Ned's Hallelujah is amongst the collection, so here's a short, self-promoting blurb

Ned has problems, least of all being Mish, the likely spawn of some infernal under-lord. Day by day Ned's stuck cleaning up after imbeciles and sometimes it seems he's more a janitor, than the head of security on this star ship. Ned doesn't have a friend in the world, or so it seems, but sometimes salvation comes in pretty, and odd packages.


 
You can buy Reflections on Kindle here...

Link- Amazon

Denial- A six word story

I didn't do it...he did.

Picture credit- Unknown? Provided by a writers group as a writing prompt. I would love to credit the artist.                              If you have any idea of who created this inspiring piece, let me know. :)

The little writer who could...maybe.

It has been a difficult few months A lot of personal stuff has happened and I've found a sense of helplessness/paralysis has come over me in regards to my writing. I now have multiple works of varying length in progress and everywhere I turn, I see horrible, cringeworthy errors. I'm starting to wonder if I will ever, ever get anything to a state where  I would actually be happy to send it away to a publisher, agent... let alone an editor. I hear the phrase 'polishing turds' thrown about and... *whispers* I don't want to be one of those people who send a draft to an editor and expect him/her to work miracles.

 
Now I gotta be honest here. I'm still hit and miss at the whole proofreading thing. Sure I've picked up a few things such as using a consistent tense, how to avoid head hopping and to not put Inappropriate Capitals Letters in the middle of sentences (see what I did there. Hahaha...ha...ha). yeah, I still do that
actually, it's like a cute wee writing quirk except it's completely retarded. I really only use commas correctly half the time and Semi colons and em-dashes confuse me (Oh that looks right, lets just put that there for now.) But only half the story isn't it? What about a plot that makes sense, character motivations, depth, clarity of ideas...style, voice. My head is spinning right now.



As I slowly inch closer( and saying at a snails pace is being charitable) to finishing this fantasy novel number 1,  The Rising. I'm becoming  aware this monster is literally that, a monster, a kaiju, a leviathan, or a big fat purple thing...

The Fantasy novel is coming up on 200,000 words and she's not finished yet. Already that's an eff-load of words to rework, polish, tear my hair out over.  Seriously, I'm gonna end up bald with keyboard indentations in my forehead.

 I have trouble polishing a 700 word short story to the point where is vaguely acceptable...but this! WHAT WAS I THINKING!


I feel daunted just thinking about it. No, daunted isn't quite strong enough word...

And so I keep getting paralyzed by this sense of complete and utter overwhelm...ment???Is that even a word? Nope, I don't think so.

So regarding that fantasy novel. I'm going keep at it because despite its current lack of polish/prettiness, it has one hell of a story. The ideas behind it have held my imagination captive for years! Angels, revelations 20, nephilim, some gooey blood magic, lots of romance, a tonne of violence, and some wacky metaphysics. It's gonna be worth the slog in the end, I hope. I recently re-read the second part (which is 80,000 words long) and there were times where I was left speechless, thankfully in a good way. Oooooh shiny ideas, so much potential...lovelovelove. Did my worn out, scatty, toddler-harassed brain really write this? Whoa! Sparkly!

If you love big ideas and pondering the nature of the universe/creation then I think you would love this novel. It's unpredictable, dramatic and deeply emotive. More than once I have been shocked by the turn of events as I wrote them, yet somehow I've foreshadowed these unplanned events earlier in the manuscript. I honestly don't know how that works? The creative process is a mystical and crazy thing.
I wish I could share the scene I just wrote yesterday but I can't, it reveals too much, you have to be lulled into this dark world I've created, gently or else...
 

So I better get on with it shouldn't I? So people like you can read the whole glorious thing. My 10 tonne baby.
I CAN DO THIS! Write this thing, Yeah! *waves pompoms.*

Righto better get back to work...

I'll just leave this here...

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