Million Word Challenge: Week One

Posted: January 8, 2014 in writing, writing update
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We are already one week down in the new year, and so one week into the million words in a year challenge.  And so far I am doing better than expected.

For the week, I was aiming to do the following;

Block 1: 3500 words (Setting Document)

Block 2: 7000 words (New Drafts)

Block 3: 10500 words (Rewrites)

Total: 21000 words

What I did was;

Block 1: 3897 words

Block 2: 7218 words

Block 3: 19685 words

Total: 30800 words.

 

As you an see I exceeded all the targets and currently have almost 10000 words in the bank for slower days – and they will come.  Being on holidays does give more time to write than normal.

The Tomb of the Pharaoh’s Brewer

Posted: January 5, 2014 in History, Sir Richard Hammerman, Writing Ideas
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The Tomb of the Pharaoh’s Brewer – it almost sounds like the title of an old pulp style horror adventure.  But in this case it is a real place.

Japanese archaeologists working in Egypt have found a 3200 year old tomb belonging to Khonso Em Heb, a leading beer producer and head of the royal storehouses.

Such little insights into the past I always find fascinating, but also provide a source of ideas for stories.  This is one that could stir an adventure for Sir Richard Hammerman, seeking out ancient beer recipes while avoiding the menace of the mummy of the ancient brewer who guards them…

2014: Aiming High

Posted: January 1, 2014 in writing, writing update
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I haven’t posted much for a while, for a number of reasons.  I’d been studying full time most of last year.  Then three months ago I got married and moved across country, which was a big change to the system.  I’m now settling into the new life, and with 2014 just starting, are making plans for the coming year.  Program subject to change as they say.

One of my early projects is to tidy up this and my other blogs, to get them running again.  I plan to make this one more of a general interest bog, while the others are focused on writing.

As for writing, this year I am aiming ludicrously high.  If I fail, it will still result in a good output.  My main aim is to do the million word challenge.  That is, to write 1,000,000 words over the course of 2014.  It sounds a lot, but works out to around 2740 words per day, which is manageable.  To help this, I am breaking it down into 3 blocks per day.

Block 1: 500 words/day on the setting master document for a new epic fantasy series I want to write.  The setting master document will cover the setting, history, characters, plots and so on for the series, and by years end should be around 180,000 words in length.  More on that one in the future.

Block 2: 1000 words/day of new drafts. This is the writing of first drafts for new stories.  Very rough, getting down the core of the stories.

Block 3: 1500 words/day of rewrites.  Taking old and rough drafts, I will rewrite them, tidy them up, flesh out their skeletons and make them readable.

Depending on work/study/other commitments, these are rough guidelines.  Some days I may do more, others less.

That is the word count done.

I am planning to temporarily pull down my stories, fix them up and re-release them with new covers etc, along with a whole heap of new stories.  By the years end I hope to have 56 short stories/novelettes/novellas and 3 short novels up.  Of those I have 24 short stories and 1 short novel done.  So by that count I need to write 32 new short stories and 2 short novels.

It’ll be a challenge, but unless I set myself one I won’t aim for anything.

Hopefully I’ll provide weekly, or at least monthly, updates.

And the New Doctor Is…

Posted: August 5, 2013 in tv shows
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Peter Capaldi.

Oddly enough, he has been in Doctor Who before, back in The Fires of Pompeii, as the merchant Caecilius.

It is also interesting to note after going with young Doctors, they are reverting back to an older Doctor.

Stormraven Is Done

Posted: July 25, 2013 in The Oncoming Storm, writing, writing update
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The story that I have been working on over at wattpad for some time is now complete.

Stormraven comes in at around 65,000 words, a bit longer than I expected than when I started.

It can be read here.

At some stage I will have to clean it up and turn it inot an e-book – and work on the follow up stories.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Trailer

Posted: June 12, 2013 in fantasy, Movies
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The trailer for the second part of The Hobbit is now out – seems to take a bit of a detour from the books, but we’ll see more when it comes out.

Pantsing vs Plotting

Posted: May 21, 2013 in writing
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When it comes to writing, there are two main ways of doing it – pantsing vs plotting.  Each is a perfectly viable method, depending on the person involved.  What works for one doesn’t work for another.

Pantsing (or seat-of-your-pants writing) is when a writer has little to no idea of the plot of the story and just sits down and writes, seeing where the story and characters takes them.  At the other end of the scale is plotting, where often detailed notes are made before the story has even started, mapping every aspect of it out.  You can even do a bit of both, to varying degrees.

For examples of plotting there are these two images.

 

That is the plotting done for Catch 22 by Joseph Heller.

That one is for The Order of the Phoenix by JK Rowlings.

I’ve tried out both styles.  Tears of the Mountain was done by plotting – I still have all the noted pinned to a corkboard.  The rest have mostly come by pantsing, with some elements of plotting.  I may make a few rough notes, but in general, the story goes where it will.

The Most Cultured Flashmob Ever?

Posted: May 19, 2013 in Art, General
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The Rijksmuseum, in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, has just been reopened after being closed for ten years for renovations, which seems an awfully long time.

To announce and celebrate the reopening, a flashmob took place that recreated one of the most famous works in the Rijksmuseum – The Night Watch (or more officially The Company of captain Frans Banning Cocq and lieutenant Willem van Ruytenburch preparing to march out), by Rembrandt.  This wasn’t your standard flashmob however…

Sounds of the Past

Posted: May 5, 2013 in History, Music
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It amazing what you can find when you aren’t looking for it. The other day I was perusing youtube when I noticed something in the suggested video lists – something called The Oldest Known Melody (Hurrian Hymn no. 6 – c.1400BC)

Intrigued, I clicked on the video and was met with the following.

As always I did a bit of looking up on it, and discovered a bit more. In 1950 in the ancient port city of Ugarit (preset day Syria), a series of clay cuneiform tablets were discovered which contained fragments of noted music, the Hurrian Songs. The most complete was the Hurrian Hymn to Nikkal, or Hymn no 6, the oldest surviving substaitally complete noted music in the world. It turns out that while it is notated, no one can agree as to how exactly to translate it, and their are at least 5 rival, substantially different interpretations of it.

Even so, listening to something that may have been played 3400 years ago is an amazing thing.

The oldest complete musical composition in the world is the Seikilos Epitath, from somewhere between 200BC and 100 AD.

In the image of it, you can see the notations above the lyrics that accompanied it.

It sounds like this.

Doctor Who Meets Metal

Posted: April 19, 2013 in Games, Movies, tv shows
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I went to school during the 80s, so as a result I heard a fair bit of Metal – I even have a collection of it still on my old cassettes, which haven’t been played for years.

Yesterday I came across this – Doctor Who Meets Metal.

Needless to say I was deeply impressed – one of my favourite TV shows with the music of it done in metal style.

Took a further look at the guy doing it, and he has over 100 videos of various metalised versions of TV shows, movies, games and of course other forms of music.

Some of my other favourites so far are Skyrim, Lord of the Rings and BBC Sherlock.

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