NaNoWriMo ShutDown

 Well, Hi!

It's been a little while since I wrote - and what I need to write needs to be said.

This NaNoWriMo Shut Down bites the big one!

I haven't been out of touch - I've been sick this year and not reading or watching the news. But it does. I sat down, looked up NaNoWriMo and there was nothing! 

Nothing!!

I didn't know what to do, so I Googled again... and read the news articles from The Guardian and other outlets - and they've been gone since April!! Um... okay... 

Soooooo, what now????

What are the people who actually took part in this great month-long writing exercise supposed to do now?! I got so much out of it!

I had my 50,000+ novel all planned out, ready to go, and nowhere to put it! I've spent 4 months organising my very first non-fiction book only to find out that the place I go to escape for a whole month of full-on, burn the candle at both ends, burn-myself-out type of writing until I fall down and sleep on the floor of my office site isn't around anymore!

I've won awards from NaNoWriMo!

I've slain dragons, killed off the bad guys celebrated the good guys, cried when the best characters died and revelled in the best parts, travelled through time, seen my home town from the 1950's and written the best fight scenes with NaNoWriMo ... and what's happened this year?! The best platform to get writers to push through that hardest times of their lives is gone, because of AI and because nobody wanted to donate.

Stephen King got me interested in being a writer, but this place made me push through the worse writers block I've ever had between 2018 and 2024 because my best friend killed herself... and between that great author and this platform, I really don't know what to do with the time I've now wasted on the topic I've decided to use... 

Well, except to write about it - of course.

NaNoWriMo will always live on as the best part of my life as a writer. 

I wrote the best novels in my life with that platform between 2013 and 2024 - and without a doubt, I'll keep on writing in the month of November, making it my own personal National Novel-Writing Month. This will never change in any way.

And if you've taken part in the past, I hope you keep going with it.

Happy Reading and Writing! 

Watcha Readin'?

It's been a while since I jumped on here and posted to you guys. But there's a good reason for this; as you know. I've been editing and writing a book. Well, okay... a few books. 

And I've been book shopping too.

However, my whole life has done a backflip and I've been getting back into the arts and have joined the Logan Artists Association so I can get my book-art back on track and I can sell my works to people... yep, I'm taking up my painting again. However, it's not acrylics. It's oil painting I'm learning; and it's wonderful!

Okay, oil painting is a lot messier than acrylic painting, but it's a lot more fun, the paint goes further and adds more character than acrylics. But while I'm doing my paintings, I'm also thinking about what books to read next, what to write next and I'm also still writing flash fiction as well.

My flash fiction book is taking shape and I'm working on it bit by bit (I'm up to story 11 I think) and I'm looking at how to get it all pulled together into a PDF. This is one huge file to make it a book. Then, there's the 5 or 6 hour day I'll be spending working on the book itself with CreateSpace.com. What a site! Hopefully I'll be able to sell my work through Amazon and people can either download it or order a copy - either way, I'll be making money in some way.

Then, just for the fun of it, I'll go and do that all over again... yay! Yeah, nobody ever got anywhere for nothing.

Otherwise, I'm still reading a couple of books. There's 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' by Douglas Adams and 'The Tale of Two Cities' by Charles Dickens. Woah! What a great choice of works, right? But the latter one was something I've heard people talking about lately and just wanted to know what the hubbub was about with it; so I dug it out of my classics section and began reading it. I'll let you know what I really think of it in a few weeks. Well, now you know what I've been up to lately. What have you gotten your nose into? Until my next post, happy reading!

Fan Fiction and Spin-off Storylines

Writing is a dangerous thing to do - just like art is. However, it's how you write a book or a story that really does get your idea across.

I recently wrote a flash fiction which took on an 'X-Men' theme and had some idiot out there leave a comment on my blog telling me off about it. This 'person' didn't leave their screen name or anything, they went under the 'Anonymous' name/bio and thought they'd be safe. 

When somebody does that to my blog, I immediately delete their comments, because if they don't have the gut - the courage - to tell me who they are, they don't deserve a space on my blog to comment.

Writing is a thing of the mind. It's a craft I've been working on since I was in high school and it's something I'll working on well after many people have made it big in the world. I'm not in it to make money, I'm in it to entertain people - and it's great for my mind as well.

However, when somebody goes and abuses the system, leaving abusive notes and comments on a person's blog, it makes you wonder exactly why they're following your blog in the first place? Are they there to see you stuff up and they can point out the problems with your work? Are they waiting for you to make a spelling mistake and laugh at how you didn't correct yourself? Or are they just there to make sure their narcissistic personality gets online and makes you feel like crap? 

Either way, I don't care for it. If somebody doesn't like my work, don't read it. If you think I've ripped off a trademarked works - like Marvel or D.C Comics or Thor or X-Men - well, take a good look around, there's plenty of people doing fan fiction (which is pretty much the same thing) and you're not bugging them about it. 

So what if I wrote something a little sub-standard and not against the grain? I thought getting in with the X-Men thing was something good... I hardly ever get my mind into it as it's difficult to do. And if I want to write stuff like that, it's something I want to write. And other people are writing something similar to it as well.

You see, 'Anonymous', I don't care. You're the one who is the problem in this society. You're a troll, you're a bully and you're the biggest problem going online. If you don't like my work, don't read it. Until my next post, happy reading. 

Ray Bradbury's House Demolition

I read recently that the famed - and one of my favourite writers of all time - Ray Bradbury's house has been demolished.  It was bought last year for over one million dollars and the person who bought his lovely yellow home had demolished it over the last few days.

I'm astonished that the fan of the writer didn't really care about what happened to the house, he just wanted to change the whole thing.  He said wasn't anything he expected and so went ahead and changed it... not expecting any backlash.

However, the people of the neighbourhood were astonished to find Ray's former home being pulled down was the most dreadful thing to have happened; as the writer lived in the house for over 50 years.

Find the whole article below.

The Rest of Ray Bradbury's Home

For The Writers of the World

Now, I know some of you guys'n'gals are writers and have been lurking around here reading my posts happily.  

Hey, I don't mind that... I do that too.  Yep, it's a guilty pleasure to just hang out on somebody's blog, read their posts and not say anything in the comments.  

So, I thought to jump online this arvo and do some hunting around for some hardcore writers blogs.  And you wouldn't believe it!  I found a list of The 100 Best Writer's Blogs & Websites for everyone to have a look at, bookmark some, or better still, subscribe to if you'd like.

Enjoy!

Happy Reading!

Flashing My Fiction!

Flash!

Flash! Flash!


Flash! Flash! Flash...!

Yep, I love flash fiction... reading it and writing it.  However, I love the creepy stuff, the reading and writing of it alike, right down to the bone, the nerve, the total and complete, leave your light on afterwards and wonder what the heck I was thinking when I was writing this kinda flash fiction.

Yeah, that kind of flash fiction.

I'm a member of Chuck Wendig's 'Terrible Minds' blog(find his link on the side bar and you'll be on your way!) about a year and half ago.  After a few goes - a few failures - I'm creeping out quite a few people out there very successfully.

And I love it!

And now, I have over 60 Flash Fiction stories up my sleeve, under my belt - and just about anywhere else I can hide the suckers - I'm seriously considering looking into them and turning them into a couple of books.  There's going to be the 2013 book 1 series of my first ones and then this year's book 2 series of the second ones.  I'll keep on going with them year by year, and see how I go... you never know, I may get a good following off line as well as online. Until my next post, happy reading!

Five Years and Two and Half Months

Last night, I crawled into bed at the ungodly hour of 1am.  Yep, I was up late burning the midnight oil to finish off writing a trilogy of books which have taken me five years and two and half months to complete.

Yes you read right!

'Fry Nelson: Bounty Hunter - Book 3' has been finally finished as of 12:10am this morning.  I wrote the last line, saved it and then read the last two paragraphs back... it was almost perfection.

Almost...

I was too bloody tired to do anymore work on it.  So, I closed down the computer and went to bed.

Today, I looked at it with my eyes hanging out of my head and a coffee attached to my right hand and found what I had written wasn't all that bad!  All it needed was a bit of fleshing out and... well... that was it - so far.

I'll save it again and leave it for a few weeks and go back to it later.

What is my next project?  Well, I have about 60 Flash Fictions I've written over the last 2 years I'd like to sift through and put into a book... but they need grammar checking and looking at by my writer's group.  So, after looking at which ones I'd like to put into the book, I'll start editing them.  This should take another year or two before publication.

Until my next post, happy reading!

On Writing ...

Now, you've all been reading my viewpoints of what writing is all about in my world.  So, I thought to search the net and find a few links to talk about what the written word - in all forms - means to the most famous writers in our world.

This first one is of Stephen King.  He's at a talk a few years ago at a university.  I got this one off YouTube and it goes for almost an hour.  So, be prepared for a good chat from him - and a slight warning:  it does have some cursing in it.

Stephen King

The next one is of Kurt Vonnegut - also from YouTube - and he talks about his rules of writing a short story.  I love how he speaks; and this only goes for a little under 2 minutes - but it speaks volumes about how to write a short story. 

Kurt Vonnegut

I hope you enjoy the first two I found... I hope to find more for you to listen to.  I'm watching Stephen King's one now, and it's great!  Until my next post, happy reading!