Life' s gone a bit mad

Why is it that when one aspect of your life finds calm waters, another always finds a storm?
I have essentially three aspects to my life. There's my home life, which at the moment is just fine thank you very much. My little family unit (me, my wife and our son) have our ups and downs but on the whole, I've got very little to complain about in that department.
Then there's my online life - his one, my blog, website and, of course, my writing. They say good writers are also good readers, but there is so much to read at the moment that I feel as if I'll never get through it all. I don't seem to have time to take part in the fishtank - I haven't even been able to respond to points in individual reviews of last story there, which I feel awful about. I did a general response, but it's not the same.
Then there's my subscribed blogs at myspace - there seems to have been hundreds of posts this past weekend. If I start at the bottom and work my way up, it'll take all bloody day. Same goes for Soulcast. And as for actually finding time to read other authors offerings - hah, you're having a larff, int ya?
Of course, the main reason for my lack of online time is the third area of my life. Work. April sees the end of our financial year, which is always hectic. Our fee earners always see fit to leave it until the last second to bill the work they have done in a mad attempt to hit their targets and earn their bonuses. These invoices come up to me in accounts for checking, processing and posting to the computer system. Normally, I'd expect 5-10 bills a day to be a lot. Friday I did over fifty - ten times my normal amount. God knows how many I'll get today and tomorrow.
On top of that we have a quarterly interest run on client's monies, bank account to be reconciled and hundreds of reports to produce. That's in addition to the conveyancing side of the business going mad as people rush to buy/sell before the government bring in HIPs later this year. (Home information packs - Don't ask). And, as usual, none of the computers work properly and so I have to rush around trying to show people how to do such difficult things as print and open documents (okay, I'm exaggerating, but I'm allowed - I'm a bloke).
This week I hope to be able to post two extracts from stories I'm working on. One will be from "Six-thirty Sleeper to Paris" and is a brand new scene from the middle of the story. The other will be an extended scene from "The Method" (formally Little Miss Movie Star) which shows a snippet of how I now plan to use the character "Kim".
I would also like to post a couple of recent photos I've taken of my garden (if I get time to upload them to Flickr) including the very fist radish of the season, fresh from the ground! And very tasty it was too.

I've been working!

Recently, I've actually been doing some writing. Wonders will never cease! At the weekend I read through what I've written so far in my "Little Miss Movie Star" story. I'd reached a point where I didn't know if I needed or indeed wanted to include a particular scene, which is why I stalled. I could have written the scene and then deleted it in the edit, but they may have left me with a hole in the story. Instead I found a way to get across the important information that would have been in the scene, and at the same time include a smooth(ish) transition to the next important part of the story. I'm quite pleased with what I've been able to do there. Now I need to get on with it and drive the story forwards. I know where it's going, and I know how to get there, I just need some keyboard time, that's all.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I've been dissatisfied with the title to this story ever since it was conceived. I've think I've found a solution that not only sounds cool (IMHO) but could also influence me to make minor changes to one of the characters.

I'm toying with the idea of calling the story "The Method" which is a reference to "Method Acting". Most people I've spoken to regard method acting as when an actor 'becomes' the character they are playing, or where actors go and try out what it's like to live as the character. According to Wikipedia, the definition of method acting is slightly different to this, but I think I'll play on people's perceptions or, more importantly, the perceptions of the characters within my story.

What I want to do is to make the 'other woman' in the story, Kim, act as the voice of the reader in expression concerns over Chloe's motivations, in particular the belief that Chloe may be researching a part she is going to play because she is a 'method actor'.

I don't need Kim to ram these opinions down the reader's throat, but if she expresses them at two or three occasions throughout the story, it should be enough to plant a seed of doubt in the reader's mind over Chloe. Obviously, I can't tell you if Kim is right or not – it would spoil the story.

I've also picked up a story I put through the fishtank in October last year. It's been sitting on my hard drive since I amended it based on fishtank comments because I wasn't sure if I wanted to develop it into a much longer story or not. Then Chloe came along and everything else sort of got forgotten about.

I've been through the story and made a few significant changes to the characters and, importantly, to the ending and added a new scene. I now feel the whole thing is much more satisfying. I just need to go through it a couple more times, once to give it a thoroughly good edit and once more to deal with the formatting. Then I can get it subbed and see what Ruthie's make of it.

Mr Spud Head

I couldn't help it. There I was, in Cora (big French hypermarket), stocking up on cheap wine and beer when I saw this and had to buy it for my son. It has seen become his favourite toy. Don't they say the old one's are the best?

Rights & Responsibilities

Yesterday I saw an interview with the leader of the opposition, David Cameron, and I have to ask the question – when did he start stealing my ideas?

For many years now, I’ve told anyone who’ll listen (which isn’t very many people, admittedly) that what is wrong with our society is a lack of individual responsibility. People hark on about their “rights” but never talk about the responsibilities that go with those rights. For example, we all have the Right to an education, but we have the responsibility to make the most of it.

Trouble is, for years now successive governments have been giving us reasons to absolve ourselves of our responsibilities. It’s always someone else’s fault. In the above example, the reason little Jonny didn’t do well in his exams is down to the teachers. But it’s not their fault, it’s down to the lack of resources, and that’s not the schools fault, it’s down to lack of funding, and that’s not the local education authorities fault, it’s central government who set funding, but it’s not their fault as they don’t have enough taxes to properly fund schools. In other words, it’s society’s fault. Not once did anyone think to say that the reason Jonny did badly is that he’s a lazy git who never did any work.

And this can be applied to everything and anything you can think of. Ultimately, people no longer take responsibility for their own actions and shortcomings, instead blaming society as a whole.

But now, Mr. Cameron is harking on about just this – he wants us to start taking individual responsibility again. I say it’s about time someone picked up on this – after all, it’s bloody well common sense. But it was still my idea, and I’m livid with him for stealing it – he should take responsibility and apologise to me on his “Web-Cameron” blog. (but I don’t think he will somehow).

Still, just goes to show – Let me run the country and we’d all be a damn sight better off.

Lost & Found - The conculsion

Head over to Ruthie's Club this week and you'll be able to read the dramatic conculsion to "Lost and Found" - again illustrated by Brett Empty.

Last weeks first two parts saw Chris Austins fly across the Atlantic to comfort his cyber-lover Beth Burnett on the eve of her little brother's funeral. This week, see the continuation and dramatic conculsion to this long distance love story. Oh, and there's a fair bit of smoking hot sex in it too.

Also at Ruthie's this week you can read the latest Nightgirl story, by one of Britains best - H.L. Berry. Nightgirl stories are always great fun and this is no exception.