Ray Daley's Blog, page 62
February 10, 2014
Good news!
The good news:-
My story “Back From The War” has been accepted by Farther Stars Than These and will appear on their front page on March 20th 2014. My thanks to Earl Wynn for his appreciation and support of my work. It’s nice to finally make their SF site at last!
February 9, 2014
WRITERS! Would you like a challenge?
There is a great quote ”A picture paints a thousand words” which was coined by Frederick R. Barnard in 1921.
(thank you for that information Mister Google).
A picture is a snapshot, a moment frozen in time for all eternity.
What someones eye or mind saw or thought then committed to a hard image.
It’s a good quote, it’s also fighting talk though.
A writer should be able to take ANY image, photograph, drawing, painting, woodcut or whatever form and make a story of at least one thousand words out of it.
Could you do it?
Dare you try?
Ever writing!
Finished typing up “TV Times”.
Not exactly super happy with the ending. (When am I ever?)
It’ll do for the time being. 1439 words is an okay amount, it felt MUCH longer when I was typing it up though.
Moral there? Never type up on Open Office, just use Notepad.
Several outlines written down, some I’m quite happy about writing.
Hoping to do work on “Panic Over Metropolis” during the course of the next few months so I can finally release it this year.
Off for another Visual Fields test on Wednesday, hopefully the snow that’s supposed to come this week will hold off until I’ve been and then come home. It can snow its ass off after that.
Moods are up and down, also got the sniffles.
Surviving without a TV slightly better than I thought I would, it’s been just over 2 weeks now since it went phut.
Thought for the moment:- Never say “I wish”. Say “I will”.
February 6, 2014
A brief update on writing
A couple of days ago I submitted a story to Linguistic Erosion.
As suspected, story didn’t submit. It has now.
Thanks for the quick response to my email, Earl!
Typed up another Nine Regions story, it’s a bit on the short side so it might need a bit of work. Ideally, I’d like it to be double the length it is right now. I’m hoping for each of them to be at least 1000 words long or more. Ideally 2000 words but that’s a big ask to such self-contained stories.
According to my handwritten notes I have two fully mapped out storylines (not actual stories just frameworks or guidelines), 8 single sentence ideas, ideas for both a prologue & epilogue and a vague outline of the regions & the protagonist.
This could well end up being a novelette!
February 5, 2014
Ray Bradbury Challenge, Week 6.
Just finished a few moments ago.
1082 words including the authors notes from a concept art prompt on IO9.com.
Not a great ending, I was struggling to find a way out.
I’ve still got the idea I sketched down before I went to sleep if I want to write that as this weeks offering though.
I’ve got a few things to type up as well.
February 3, 2014
Writing update, I finished something!
Finished “TV Times” which I started back on 14th Oct of last year.
It’ll need some polish but it got to where I wanted it.
I’ll type it up later, hopefully. If I feel more motivated after food.
All the stories I found last week which have whole plots are now being reserved for the Bradbury Challenge so I don’t get stuck for ideas for a few months.
February 2, 2014
The end of A road!
I finished my prepper/survivalist story early this morning.
It finally weighed in at 4980 words having taken just over two weeks to write from start to finish.
Admittedly, a large amount of that was spent plotting it out ahead of time and getting down a bit of a framework to write around when I get to where I needed to be.
The end was a bit of a struggle but after I decided to cut a week out I found the motivation to finish it off.
Hopefully it’s entertaining and enjoyable, and that the stuff about survival and prepping are believable to those who actually practise it. Most of my information came from watching too many survival shows.
If that’s at all possible. ;-P
February 1, 2014
This months free ebook release is up!
#new #free #sf #ebook http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/404060 or http://www.feedbooks.com/userbook/33218/waking-up-different
This months free release “Waking Up Different”, hope you enjoy it!
January 31, 2014
General Update
It’s cold, wet, windy and generally bloody miserable out there today.
And I have a headache, just above the right eye. They seem to be happening there more often, yet I was given an all clear on the head MRI.
My solution is to have a chocolate biscuit, drink some flavoured water and chill the BLEEP out.
And if that doesn’t work, the bed is only 5 feet away.
***
Cool! This water is purple! (Strawberry & Kiwi flavoured. Nummy num!)
Please note, water only appears purple when viewed from above due to refraction of light.
This note has been bought to you by Physics! Physics, keeping you bored since always!
January 29, 2014
Ray Bradbury Challenge, Week 5.
Finished not long after midnight having written 1183 words.
It was an idea from the 26th that I’d scribbled down to avoid forgetting it. I think it worked fairly well and conveyed everything I wanted it too.
Zero desire to write today but I’m going to try to knock out a few paragraphs on “Survival” to get it a bit closer to completion. It was good to see the prepper tag attracted some attention to the blog, I’d also like to thank the people who responded to yesterdays post on depression as well.
I think the only way to cope is to try to keep living, focus on something you love.
I’ve got my writing and my goal to complete The Bradbury Challenge at least once.
I think we forget the benefits of such simple things, like a good hot meal when hungry, a nice cold drink when thirsty, a refreshing hot shower.
Even some soothing or ambient music to distract the mind from the jumble of daily life. All things that can lift you both physically AND mentally. Douglas Adams used to swear by the hot bath to relieve his writing-related anxiety.
The one thing I’ve noticed amongst people who have depression is we all appear to be high functioning creative types.
Any way, I’ve achieved my goal for today (and this week). Hopefully I can get a bit more writing done later.
I think lunch beckons first. Then a hot shower, once there’s some more hot water. ;-P
