Tag: Writing

Putting the icing on the creative cake

I draw'd this
I draw’d this

It’s all well and good having a bunch of ideas floating around in your head, but getting the little buggers to flow out of there into a form that others can witness is a right pain.

I’m not sure if I have a novel’s worth of thoughts stuck in my grey matter, or just a bunch of scenes that might somehow clag together to form a cohesive story. Or a series of stories. It’s just hard to put stuff together in a cohesive form so that I can get them on paper.

Thoughts and ideas for more adult tales are mixed up with ones definitely more suitable for the younger audience. Which brings with it other problems… like the fact that any decent book for under-10’s needs pictures, and I can’t draw for toffee (or any other sugar-based snack). But, then I’ve seen kids’ books with really bad drawings in them that the author has done anyway and they’re quite charming. Or do I try to find a friend who doesn’t mind wasting their time slapping some paint down in exchange for getting a co-author / artist credit?

I’ve always thought that arrangement a little unfair as the author, generally, has the ideas but the time taken to write a 30-page children’s story must be far less than that taken to draw / paint the accompanying illustrations. However, the person with the word processor generally seems to win out in terms of both fame and financial recompense.

I’d like to say “back to the drawing board” but, as detailed above, that’s probably somewhat inaccurate.

Balls mojo post

Got a set of ping pong balls in for a project....
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I remember a punishment exercises one of my classmates got many, many years ago and I thought “I could do that”. So, after all those years, here we go…

“At least 250 words on the inside of a ping-pong ball”

White. Lots of white. Mindbogglingly white. I mean you may think it’s really white in the chemist’s… no, wait. That’s someone else’s line.

Actually, it could be quite dark inside a ping-pong ball. I guess it all depends on the lighting outside and how much permeates through the plastic. It could be pretty dark, or hazy.

Definitely cramped, though, unless you’re tiny. It could be fun being stuck inside there if you’re a miniature hamster. As long as there’s some kind of traction for your dinky hamster feet and you’ve no issues with not being able to see where you’re going, you could have a lot of fun. Rolling around, bouncing off walls, down stairs.

Of course, there’s an issue with possible concussion should someone not realise that you’re inside the ball and use it for an actual game of table tennis. How much does a ping-pong ball squish when it’s hit with a rubber-faced bat, anyway. And that spinning… wow. Can you imagine getting so dizzy that you throw up inside an enclosed space that small?

So we’re looking at an environment that could be light, dark, fun, dangerous, sickening, smooth and ideal for tiny hamsters. Does this make ping-pong balls unique? Better than a hollow cube, that’s for sure. I mean, they don’t roll. Not without being thrown anyway. And the bounce all over the shop. I don’t think any tiny hamsters would appreciate that. Normal sized hamsters don’t like being chucked around, or so I’ve been told.

I’m not a hamster-chucker, nor a hamster-chucker’s son.

Getting the mojo going

Writing
Writing (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’ve found over the last few months that I’m struggling to write, or at least to write well. Where I used to be able to rattle off a few hundred words without a problem, making full us of what used to be a pretty vast vocabulary I’m now finding myself dribbling out stilted, dull prose.

Whether this is down to a lack of reading, a focus on reviews (on the Moshville Times page), lack of sleep, or whatever else,  I don’t know. But given that I had a couple of short stories published only a couple of years ago, I’m finding it a little annoying.

So I’m setting myself a challenge. Not a New Year’s Resolution – I don’t do them – but something to try and help me dust off the writing skills.

Time allowing, I want to rattle something off every day and put it up here. Something harking back to ye olde days of this fine blog. I appreciate nobody reads blogs any more, which actually helps as no bugger will embarrass me about this. So maybe some rants, some short fiction, some mental splatterings or some utter nonsense. Anything to get the right neurons firing so I’m happy with my writing again.

The one thing I’m happy about is that I already have a few ideas. I just want to flesh them out – and in a time limited style a la Nanworimo on a smaller scale.

Feel free to comment or ignore.