Bug
When one is bitten by the short story ‘Writing bug’ it’s rather like having malaria. Even if you don’t do it for a while, the disease always recurs and the need to do something about it is quite intense. Rather reminiscent of an addiction. The need to polish and perfect surfs over everything else like a wave, washing ‘normal’ life out of the way. Thus it has been in the Sticker household. Repeated rewrites and editing before casting figurative bread upon the waters and hoping the big fish are biting. A comma here, a rephrase, a contraction and expansion, cutting some of the metaphors completely. It’s been quite obsessive.
When I’d finished, I was so bloody drained that I spent the next two days in a bit of a daze. That was before the copy went off to the publisher for further consideration. All this and patrolling too.
All said and done, the stories felt good before I began the rewrites, but now the characters have heartbeats. They breathe naturally on their own. There is flesh on the bones and a palpable chill in their atmosphere. They are not perfect, I don’t think I’ll ever please everyone, (Perhaps the publisher will reject them) but I like them, and perhaps that is all that counts.
As for the past day or so, I have been laid low by some bacterium or other. Don’t ask me what it is – I’m no doctor. Suffice it to say my bowels were liquefying and my head felt like it was ready to implode, vision was a bit foggy for half a day, but I’m over the worst of it now. A brace of paracetomol every four hours and ten hours uninterrupted sleep seem to have broken the back of it. Still a little woozy though. Some fresh fruit, fresh air and plenty of fluid should help flush the rest of the toxins from my body by tomorrow and I’ll be back on the streets looking for trouble as usual.
Post script: A couple of readers have asked for ‘links’ to my published work. Er, sorry chaps, but this is non-internet publication stuff which doesn’t appear on the jolly old interwebby thing, so links are not going to happen until said publications go online. There is the anonymity angle to consider as well, and I’d be a complete idiot if I, in effect, told everyone who I really am and left myself wide open to possible censure or dismissal for what I’ve written on this blog. I’d like to help, but it’ll have to wait until I finish walking the streets for my living. Trust me, I hope the wait will prove worthwhile.
To conclude; Some reciprocal links to some of the people who link here.
Down under
Dervish, a Muslim woman in Oz
Law Enforcement
Monkey with a gun
Personal
One nutty woman
Barmans Blog -
Everything is electric
I am not a drain on society - ph.D student
If I had it all
Jeyadev uncensored
Yorkshire lass in London
Politics
Wat Tyler’s excellent ‘Burning our money’
Public Service
More insanity via Diagnosis N.F.I.
and Wiping bums for fun and profit
New Address for the Enlightened Cavemen amongst us
Happy reading.
Regards
Bill
When I’d finished, I was so bloody drained that I spent the next two days in a bit of a daze. That was before the copy went off to the publisher for further consideration. All this and patrolling too.
All said and done, the stories felt good before I began the rewrites, but now the characters have heartbeats. They breathe naturally on their own. There is flesh on the bones and a palpable chill in their atmosphere. They are not perfect, I don’t think I’ll ever please everyone, (Perhaps the publisher will reject them) but I like them, and perhaps that is all that counts.
As for the past day or so, I have been laid low by some bacterium or other. Don’t ask me what it is – I’m no doctor. Suffice it to say my bowels were liquefying and my head felt like it was ready to implode, vision was a bit foggy for half a day, but I’m over the worst of it now. A brace of paracetomol every four hours and ten hours uninterrupted sleep seem to have broken the back of it. Still a little woozy though. Some fresh fruit, fresh air and plenty of fluid should help flush the rest of the toxins from my body by tomorrow and I’ll be back on the streets looking for trouble as usual.
Post script: A couple of readers have asked for ‘links’ to my published work. Er, sorry chaps, but this is non-internet publication stuff which doesn’t appear on the jolly old interwebby thing, so links are not going to happen until said publications go online. There is the anonymity angle to consider as well, and I’d be a complete idiot if I, in effect, told everyone who I really am and left myself wide open to possible censure or dismissal for what I’ve written on this blog. I’d like to help, but it’ll have to wait until I finish walking the streets for my living. Trust me, I hope the wait will prove worthwhile.
To conclude; Some reciprocal links to some of the people who link here.
Down under
Dervish, a Muslim woman in Oz
Law Enforcement
Monkey with a gun
Personal
One nutty woman
Barmans Blog -
Everything is electric
I am not a drain on society - ph.D student
If I had it all
Jeyadev uncensored
Yorkshire lass in London
Politics
Wat Tyler’s excellent ‘Burning our money’
Public Service
More insanity via Diagnosis N.F.I.
and Wiping bums for fun and profit
New Address for the Enlightened Cavemen amongst us
Happy reading.
Regards
Bill
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home