Tag Archives: creativity

Fortune Cookie

Short Stories For Fun

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The concept of doing a series of short stories keeps ticking over in the back of my mind. They’re not really a form I would usually consider, but I think it could be fun. Not only for me to write, but also as in funny ha-ha. I can’t quite see myself as a comedy writer, but I can see how the short story can be useful for short bursts of pithy characters full of wit.

One of the key elements in my head is a recurring character who is already quite well rounded in my imagination. I’d like to play with a little bit of darkness too; I can’t imagine getting away from that too much, no matter what form I was writing in.

Of course, there is the possibility that this is just a new shiny thing to distract me from the many current projects I already have on the go. Plot bunnies do always turn up, after all, when you least want to be distracted by them.

Perhaps I’ll just try one out to see where it goes as a lunchtime project or something.

Wow, that whole post was more stream of consciousness than I’d intended. Oh well…

Sheaffer 100 Fountain Pen Review

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Searching the interwebz, it seems as though this pen hasn’t got a lot of love from the pen community at large. Which is a shame really, as it falls quite neatly into the entry level bracket with some success.

I wrote with a fountain pen for years growing up, but then when you enter the real world, the standard Bic seems to take over a lot of the time. I was looking to get back into fountain pens, but without any current experience, I wanted to make sure I wasn’t blowing hundreds of pounds on a Mont Blanc just because I wanted one (still do).

I’ve been using the Sheaffer 100 now for two months, ever since I purchased it on a trip to Canada. The lovely lady at The Vancouver Pen Shop talked me through a whole range of brands and styles before we settled on this one.

shaeffer 100

 

Forgive both the terrible photo and the equally bad handwriting. It’s a dreary day with bad lighting and only an iPhone for pictures. The handwriting I have no excuses for.

Firstly, the positives. From a cost perspective, this was only $30 + tax, which for a pen of this quality is great. The nib and feed, by all accounts, is exactly the same as what you get in the more expensive Sheaffer 300, which makes it a good way to try it out for size.

The ink flow to paper isn’t too wet, which is also a bonus as I used a variety of notepads from Moleskines to Field Notes to El Cheapo supermarket brands, not all of which are good for fountain pens. It still delivers enough ink to not be too scratchy. In the time I have been using it, it has only skipped a handful of times.

I got the fine nib because my handwriting isn’t conducive to anything thicker, and I found that to work perfectly. Not really any flex as you would expect, but still a smooth write.

The barrel has that more expensive look and feel to it too. I have to be the only person in the world who doesn’t find the aesthetics of Lamy of Kaweco pens pleasing. I definitely prefer the more classic look that comes with this kind of pen. Of course, I still intend to try both of those now I know that I am really enjoying using fountain pens again, so I may yet still be converted.

The only negative for me is the the grip area is super smooth and about an inch deep. That means I have to hold the barrel at a point slightly higher than I normally would, up where the ridge gives a bit of traction. It by no means makes the pen difficult to use though, so I wouldn’t call it a deciding factor.

The best bit about using it has nothing to do with the pen itself. I’ve found a joy in writing creatively in long hand that I hadn’t realised I missed in this day and age of digital devices. It feels subtly different in the care taken for each word choice, and the sense that I am actually crafting something, rather than just banging down on the keys. Especially when I’m travelling, it forces me to slow down and really be in the moment.

Analogue certainly isn’t dead and gone, that’s for sure. If you’ve read this far, you probably agree.

World’s Cutest Library, Banks Peninsula

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I have officially found the world’s cutest library:

 

photo

 

How adorable is that? It’s in Tai Tapu village, which you can find on the main road out of Christchurch to the Banks Peninsula. In a country whose European heritage is actually not that old, it was quite a find. The building itself is not actually that old (1932) but having spent so much time in a place where pretty much everything has been levelled, I was thrilled to find it at all.

Plus the lady in their was lovely, offering to take out a book for me in her name. She was happy for me to just meet up with her in Christchurch and hand it back over at some point when I was done with it. This was the Kiwi friendliness that I remember from last time.

Plus, there’s a nice cafe on the corner, so you can completely justify making the trip if you have a nice brunch. Calories are free when you support local libraries, honest.

New Job and Writing

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Next week I will begin the tricky balancing act of starting a new job with that of being a writer.

Essentially, it is starting a new full time role in addition to becoming self-employed and starting a business. Many people would not think of being an author as also being an entrepreneur, but in a lot of respects it definitely is.

There is the act of content creation and development, marketing, accounts and finance, as well as any legal elements that might be included. Depending on how much available time there is after a full day at work, this might eat into virtually all of what would traditionally be considered ‘free’ time.

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Of course, actual number of available hours is only a part of it. Time is only valuable if you have the mental energy to use it effectively. That is why some times you can get more done in a single hour than you can get done in an entire day. It becomes about leveraging that mental energy to make the best use of your time to get things done effectively. It may also be having the courage to admit that you are doing a job poorly and it is worth stopping now before you make a bad thing even worse.

This is what I will try to remind myself of over the next few weeks, when I feel as though my writing is not progressing as fast as I would like. I always commit myself 100% to an employer, something I believe to be vital if you want to be credible and trustworthy as a human being. Obvious caveats apply if your employer is treating you unfairly, of course. But my free time is the the time where the hardest fought battles will take place, because honestly, watching TV is just easier than locking myself away and editing.

I guess the hardest fought battles are the ones most worth winning.

Letters From The Past, Thanks To FutureMe.org

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About 9 months ago, I was on a nice beach holiday, reading Quitter and Start by Jon Acuff. It was there that I first read about the FutureMe.org website. I made a note of it to investigate when I got back. Essentially, it allows you to type an email to your future self, sending it to arrive on a date of your choice. This can have all kinds of purposes. For me, I wanted to keep my future self going in the direction I want to be heading.

You see, the previous six months had been a roller coaster of life spinning out of control. The highs had been high but the lows had also been super low. Life does that to you sometimes. You have to learn to roll with the punches. But because of that, a creeping sense of dissatisfaction had begun to pervade my life. I knew I was heading towards a point where I might be able to make some changes. I wasn’t sure yet what they were going to be, but as I sat there, toes in the sand, honestly assessing my life and scribbling everything in my notepad to make me accountable, I was determined to do something.

Sadly, I’d done (to a lesser extent) the same thing on previous holidays. One of the things I had confessed to in my notepad was not having the courage to do some things, nor the motivation to do others. Therefore, when I penned my email to my future self, I wanted to be kind, but also realistic.

It arrived this morning:

Dear FutureMe,

So you’ve just come back from two sunny weeks in Spain, where you did a lot of talking and thinking and list making for the future. You often do that on holiday. But this time, you wanted it to be different. This time you really wanted to mean it.

I strongly suspect that when you get this, you won’t have made the wild progress that you want. Your dreams won’t have all magically come true via a lottery win. But over the next few months after writing this, you will have been making some of the biggest decisions ever. The ones that will shape your life. The ones that will start you on the road to being something and someone you want to be. Remember that.

Remember it, because I suspect when you’re reading this, then the reality you are living in won’t be massively different from the one I am writing this in. That doesn’t mean it’s time to quit. Just look yourself in the eye and ask if you’re really doing everything you can to make the life you want happen. If you can, then great. If you can’t, then pick yourself up and get going again. Keep taking the steps. Keep hustling. Keep going.

If, by some chance you are everything that you were thinking about during this last holiday, then congratulations. Keep being the best you can be. Don’t get lazy, arrogant or sloppy. Be the person you need to be for the people who love you most. Keep living your life so you can look yourself in the eye.

I hope, regardless of anything else, you’ve done those things you needed to do to get some self-belief.

Keep going kiddo.

That is it, completely unedited or censored.

Have I made some changes? Yes, I’ve got to spend six months in New Zealand really working on what matters most to me. Am I a published author yet? No, but I’m trying and I continue to try. I’m exploring self-publishing too, so that I can continue to grow and learn about the industry as it rapidly changes alongside me.

The reality is also that I’m heading back to the UK soon, at least for the immediate future. So perhaps if I had chosen to not have the mail arrive now, but instead a month from now, the geographical context might have made me feel differently. I don’t know. But that’s not really the point. It arrived now, and gave me a little bit of faith for the next steps.Today I will write another one. I’d recommend that you do too.

More info here:

Mistborn: The Final Empire Review

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So, I am a bit late to the game with Brandon Sanderson. I admit that much. I’ve known of him for years, largely because of the Writing Excuses podcast (which is supremely awesome – you should check it out). But when it came to reading his books, I’d never picked one up, despite my sister’s constant proddings to do so.

Confession time: I’ve always loved the concept of epic fantasy, but The Lord Of The Rings put me off. Not The Hobbit – I read and loved that as a kid. But I’ve lost count of the times I’ve started and failed to finish LoTR. As far as I was concerned, the best thing about it was that my Dad had bought an amazingly bound set that looked perfect on the bookcase. Don’t judge me.

It is therefore a pleasure to be able to say I enjoyed being eased back into the genre by Sanderson. I mean, who wouldn’t be tempted by this cover?

 

final-empire

The one thing I knew about Sanderson was his strength when it came to creating magic systems (use that google thing to find all of Sanderson’s Laws – much of it can also be applied to other areas). In this book it is Allomancy, which is one of the most engaging magic systems I have ever come across. It is handled with elegance and balance, not once causing the reader’s suspension of disbelief to waver. Even the action scenes are handled with a deft touch, rather than I have magic, I can beat you, BAM! VICTORY!!!!! which means the main characters never become so competent that they also become boring in the process.

For me, having a female main character rather than just dudes in cloaks walking with elves made it more relatable too. Not that I can’t enjoy books with elves in, in fact I read one very recently (When Elves Attack), but I think there is still an element of masculinity to the genre that is only just beginning to loosen its hold. Which is a good thing, I think.

I’m not going to spoiler it, but the storytelling and pace, along with the characterisation, makes it worth the time investment to get through the hundreds of pages. Sanderson is not exactly known for his brevity, but I was happy to see that it wasn’t just words for the sake of it. To complete something as grand in scope as the vision he has for his worlds, well, it’s going to take a bit longer than your average novel.

If you haven’t already read it, you can buy Mistborn: The Final Empire here.

Fortune Cookie

Let there be stories

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Yesterday was devoted to getting back to the mortgage-paying kind of paid work, as I’m coming up to the end of my little writing sabbatical. Today will be back to the writing. I don’t need to tell you which one of these activities I prefer.

Of course, even writing has elements I don’t like and these are the ones I try to focus on when I get free time that isn’t first thing in the morning. 6am is my writing time. Not my ‘creating’ time (I’m an outliner) and certainly not my editing time. I actively make my stories worse if I try and edit them before coffee.

Generally I have 3 books on the go at the same time. One in the planning phase – this can be as little as an idea knocking around in my head or completed outline and character development.

The second will be in the writing phase. This is the most enjoyable phase for me. Just sitting back, making the story appear from the outline.

The third will be in the editing phase. Definitely the least favourite. Not to mention the one that gets progressively worse. There’s the first read through that can have some pleasant surprises (hey, that’s not actually awful after all!), to the line edits where your brain has read the damn thing so many times and is looking at it in such detail that you get your its confused with your it’s and you want to tell passive voice that it can go and be shoved.

The writing dream is definitely a hard slog. People don’t see the years of hard crafting and sacrifices that go into whipping something into a state where there is a glimmer of hope that a publisher might snap it up. But aren’t all dreams that way?

You can’t guarantee publishing success, but if you can put your hand on your heart and say you tried your best, then that is something to be proud of.

Moleskine vs Field Notes – Pocket Notebook Review

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It seems that pocket notebooks are definitely back in fashion at the moment. The world, thanks to the internet and kickstarter, has become awash with them. As a writer, I’ve carried a notebook around with me for most of my life, so I decided that this is one area I definitely have an opinion on.

Despite the countless brands, the current two front runners are Moleskine and Field Notes. I’ve only recently succumbed to buying Field Notes as they are quite tricky to get hold of outside America without making a bit of an effort. However, I’d heard so much about them that I thought I would have to give them a try.

Both notebooks discussed below have gone through a complete lifecycle in my handbag (purse to any US readers, obviously). Despite all those hardy, manly, everyday carry instagram shots, I don’t think anything competes with the assortment of crap I carry around with me on a daily basis that these notepads have had to survive next to.

Don’t Judge A Book By Its Cover

Except in this instance. The hardcover pocket size Moleskine stands up well to most environments. It’s still got a lot of trend factor, as well as standing up to approval in the boardroom meetings. Because I use a hardcover one, it makes it easier to grab and write if there isn’t a surface available. Oddly, out in the field, using Field Notes is actually more difficult in this sense. Field Notes as a brand has a definite cover cool factor right now, especially some of the limited addition colours ones. But by its very nature, it is more casual; while it might provoke a bit of interest in meetings, it’s not going to be taken as seriously in a corporate environment. Especially after a bit of use. Which leads me to…

Field Notes Moleskine Cover

 

Durability and Longevity

Field Notes have considerably fewer pages than Moleskine books, meaning that this one was only on rotation for about a month. The Moleskine, on the other hand, was in my bag for around six. One looks hardly touched, the other looks well loved. I don’t have to tell you which way round that is. Again, that beat up look has a bit of cool factor to it, but as I keep all my notebooks and constantly refer back to the content in them, it does make me question if they will stand the test of time like the original concept they were based upon.

Paper

In the bid for market share, the quality of paper actually often seemed to take second place to design factor. A lot of brands have started to realise that as more and more people turn away from an entire dependence on smartphones and yearn for the analogue capture of yesteryear – often with a fountain pen to go alongside it – paper matters. On the whole I don’t use fountain pens, largely because I have a mythological perfect one I am still searching for, but I do use a variety of ballpoints and rollerballs. Despite a lot of people complaining about Moleskine paper quality, I would say that the two of them match up pretty well. If anything, the Field Notes have a little bit of show through (but not bleed through) on the back. I’ve yet to try out the Shelterwood edition, which has considerably thicker paper, but in the interests of fair comparison, I’m reporting here only on the standard book. Both brands have options of lined, plained and grid, so pick whatever works for you and knock yourself out.

Field Notes Moleskine Pages

Features

I love the Moleskine back flap for storing bits of paper and the bookmark is definitely a great feature. These are both missing from the Field Notes, but with considerably fewer pages, the bookmark becomes less of a necessity. I’d recommend using a modified to suit your needs Bullet Journal system with both. I recently went back and actually did this to all my notebooks that had a couple of blank pages at the beginning or the end and it makes a huge difference to usability. Field Notes has a built in ruler along the back sleeve and some  fun uses. Both have a user information page at the front, although both brands clearly approach it in different ways.

To Sum Up

Which side of the fence you come down on will always depend on how you use your notebook. For me, the pocket notebook isn’t for work – but when I am working I will use it to capture things so I don’t want it to look too out of place. I love the look of Field Notes especially when I am travelling; there is definitely something of the open road about them. The first real test will be on a road trip around the US and Canada next month, where I’m much more likely to be shoving them in my pocket for practical reasons, rather than just creative ones. After this first run through though, I am still slightly on the side of Moleskine for the way I can actually use them in any environment. If I had an idea last month, I don’t need to go and find the other book because I’ve already run out of pages and moved on.

Finally, I’ve used a cheap supermarket brand (£3/$4.50 US) and found that once you take the ‘street cred’ element away (the ‘look at me, I’m a writer/hipster/adventurer’ element) it works just as well on all fronts as the others, at a fraction of the cost:

Notebook

I Hate Titles

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As I’ll be moving on from New Zealand shortly, I have a few weeks where I can be completely devoted to writing.  This has led me to the realisation of how much I hate coming up with book titles.

Sometimes, I know from the beginning, which is great. When I don’t, I come up with a placeholder, because every file needs a name, right? Then I get to the point where I need a title and nothing seems to work. Nothing seems to fit. Worse, the more I think about it, the more ridiculous my brain gets until I just feel frustrated. In the end, everything sounds like a bad porn movie.

This past week, I have had to come up with two new titles for books in very different genres. The first is one I am submitting to agents to try to take down the traditional publishing route. I know that if I am lucky enough for it to go somewhere, then the title will no doubt get changed anyway. But I still need something a little catchy to begin with if I want to grab attention.

The second is for the first book in a series I am intending to self-publish under a pseudonym. That means there will be no team of professional title-makers to come up with one for me. Annoyingly, the second and third books have had their titles from the start, but this has been stuck with it’s placeholder for nearly a decade. That’s made it hard to shake in my own mind. I finally had the breakthrough last night, which means I can finally think about getting the cover art done. Yay.

Titles. I hate ’em (apart from when I love them).

So, in the spirit of the writing focus and the coffee I have ploughed through to keep going:

IMG_5474

 

Writing…

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Whilst I was over in the States, I finally managed to pick up my intro pen back into the world of fountain pens. The idea being to see how much the act of physical writing changes my creative process. Hopefully my modified bullet journal approach will help me keep track of these bits and pieces.

My general practice is to get up every morning at 6am and keep typing until I hit at least 1000 words. Some days it is still a struggle, but I have essentially turned it into a habit. In some ways, the hands and some part of my brain do the work, while the remainder of brain and body just wait for the third cup of coffee before coming alive. I have no idea how it works, don’t ask.

The act of writing is automatically slowed by the return to pen and paper. A fountain pen, so the theory goes, will slow down the process even further, if I want it to be legible and not a series of scratches across the paper.

Today I found myself a nice little coffee shop and hand-wrote a 26 page short story. So I’m happy.

I couldn’t imagine writing a full length novel this way, because typing it all up would seem agonising. I don’t see the payoff for me at that volume. For short stories though, I could see this becoming my new process.

Definitely a good way to finish off the week.