April 4th 2017: I have reached chapter 21, maybe another 3 or 4 chapters will get us to the end of this story. To finish this chapter, I have to stop and research how séances were faked in the Victorian days. The first half of the chapter went pretty well, but I had to think… Continue Reading
Strong-hearted stories, dark & funny
Category Archives: BOOKS
33. WRITING THE CHILD CEPHALINA… I’m on the home run.
April 3rd 2017:- I now have 60 thousand words, so even if I only wrote another 10 thousand, it would be a novel-size manuscript. I really do feel as if I am on the home run now. I remember when I first decided that I had thought about the idea long enough, and that I… Continue Reading
THE BELLBOY – ZAGAVA 2018
In 1932, young Walter Matthews finds life in Battersea with his sneering father and simpering mother close to unbearable. His only solace is his passion for all things Egyptian and his adoration for the manly figure of Howard Carter, whose splendid discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb is constantly in the news. When he starts work as… Continue Reading
32. WRITING THE CHILD CEPHALINA
April 2nd 2017:- Another good writing day, although I started off plunging into a scene which didn’t belong where I had put it, but I finished it, and then when back to the beginning of the chapter and put in the more important scene in which the main character works out a way to find enough… Continue Reading
31. WRITING THE CHILD CEPHALINA… a good writing day.
March 31st. 2017:- Today was a good day, I wrote fluently throughout most of the day until 4pm. The writing flowed, it hadn’t been doing that for a while. I don’t know what changed, but I woke up in an odd emotional mood. Perhaps I’d dreamt something weird that I couldn’t remember, but I was… Continue Reading
30. WRITING THE CHILD CEPHALINA… dealing with a matter of logic.
March 30th 2017:- Today I spent a few hours working out how to make a reaction by one of the characters credible. It seemed as I wrote it that there was nothing in the background of the story which would indicate that she would be willing to consider a particular idea that comes up in the… Continue Reading
OSCAR WILDE UP CLOSE
I discovered Frank Harris, the writer and friend of Oscar Wilde’s the other day, and started to read his biography/memoir of Wilde. It’s captivating in its plain honesty. I find it very hard to read ‘modern’ fiction these days, because the hype around books is so excessive and ill-considered. On the few occasions I sample… Continue Reading
29. WRITING THE CHILD CEPHALINA… struggling today
March 29th 2017:- I have slipped behind my 1,000 words per day. It is now day 54 and I’m averaging out at 990 words. I should be able to make it up in the next chapter, which will be nineteen. Today’s work was pretty hard, as I feel totally lacking in energy. I struggled, but… Continue Reading
28. WRITING THE CHILD CEPHALINA… a hole to mend and a lucky break
March 23rd 2017:- What a battle today’s writing was. Something wasn’t quite working with the logic and I had to go back a couple of chapters and read out aloud, and I realised that I had missed out how my main character would have felt when he saw the ghostly child at the séance, and that… Continue Reading
27.WRITING THE CHILD CEPHALINA… I feel like I am on the home-run
20th March 2017: I have completed chapter sixteen and written half the book at around 47 thousand words. This chapter was one of those treading water chapters in which nothing happens particular to the onward movement of the story, but it adds to the pacing of the whole and draws two of the main characters… Continue Reading
