I always start thinking about winter when football is played in August. At least this year September was good in middle England and Wales - dry and sunny, good to be alive kind of weather.
Made some good progress on the editing front running through some 30 small booklet format drafts of some 18,000 words each. Amazed at what I had written yet again. The full extent of the time I to commit is dawning. Ten years more or from when I started in 2010 perhaps to complete 900,000 words of fiction and 100,000 words of non fiction plus an undefined number of short story books. It is clear my writing which started as a series of scenes and short stories being joined up cannot now be changed fundamentally. I am not worried about this as the 18,000 novella format suits my capacity to work on these booklet chunks. I have decided to make each self contained with a beginning middle and end, although most will interlink through the characters and stories running back and forward.
Met Tony Riches in Tenby with his wife. Nice to meet Tony in the flesh after over a year of exchanging e mails and reading his Writing Desk blog. Click here
Purchased far too many books while in Tenby - three new and twenty one used - priced from 10p to £7.49 each. Many have already been recycled having been read or started and found to be not to my liking. This the subject of November TIPM blog.
Another TIPM post in October with contributions from writing friends. Click here >> October post TIPM
Attended local writers' groups The Inkplotters' - see www.leamingtonspawriters.org.uk and also the Bardstown Writers Group in Stratford upon Avon as a guest. I continue to find the task of preparing 1,000 word contributions for reading out aloud at the Inkplotters' useful writing practice in extending the scope and quality of my writing.
Finished reading "A Little Aloud for Children" and Pat Barker's "The Ghost Road" these two the best of recent reading. I seem to have forgotten about other books I have read in the last month including some on Kindle ... so not memorable. I am currently enjoying Ian McEwan's "Children Act", with its wonderful description and law background, and am also finding Pat Barker's "Regeneration" an informative read about WW1.
Best Film watched for some time ... "The Body" with sub titles from Spanish. Great ending and wife LOOKED a real a tease.
Most shocking event is self publisher writer Russell Blake's encounter with a hurricane in Mexico. see posts 28 9 14 and 4 10 14 click here >> Russell Blake Blog
Too little too late still EBOLA. Despite all the assurances I fear in six months time it may be out of control across the world especially if it mutates. This has been coming for years and if one sees the insanitary slum conditions on TV in which the people live in West Africa it cannot be a surprise. Even the poorest people in the UK have clean water and sewage disposal.
Sorry to end on a dismal note. I write and read on ...
Alexander
