The cost of mismanagement...

... is usually irreversible.
Just ask Sir Alex and King Kenny. Both picked the wrong teams for major matches - Fergie for the Man City derby and Dalglish for the FA Cup Final. Despite the wealth of talent at his disposal, Fergie opted for the safety route instead, leaving dynamic and major players on the bench, and it's almost cost Man Utd dear; Dalglish couldn't see that Andy Carroll was actually trying his best and was beginning to produce results - his interview after the game surprised me, as he seemed to have a different air about him. Yet Dalglish left him out. Carroll is Liverpool's Drogba. He was growing into it. That decision cost Liverpool dear.
Both managers made changes, but far too late. They are supposed to be experts in the field, yet in the heat of battle, or in the preparation for battle, both got it wrong.

Fear.

I put it down to fear. Not in their initial thinking, but in the final analysis. They got their edit stage wrong. Love to have been a fly on the wall when the teams were picked: who was there; who said what; who influenced who.
You know, when you look at the English players available, why should we fear anyone in the Euro Championships in the summer? Our new manager might get it right, if he doesn't follow the crowd and believes that Spain have it sewn up. We beat them 1-0 recently. They couldn't score against us. Why should we fear anyone after that? We need Scholes, though...  just leave him alone, let him dictate the play. He'll sort it out. No fear, Roy Hodgson...

bedtime-story@the-office.com

The biggest children's short story resource resides at the-office.com website. One of my short stories has been there for a few years. Suddenly, the place has come alive and new stories have appeared, with subtle changes to the site manifesting themselves everywhere. Even the Alice In Wonderland story has at last been posted, with original artworks as well as new. My email address needs to change there, which I've requested, but the 'new' sign against the story title has gone, which is pleasing. I hope this signals a new dawn for the site. There are stories there which are far better than mine and I always felt a sense of helplessness that some marvellous writers were not being recognised despite their being accepted on such a highly-regarded award-winning site. I certainly missed the emails from readers, not least the Italian grandfather of a newly-born grandson and the artist who wanted to illustrate for me. The site did a great job on the pics they supplied themselves, though, just we couldn't do any more once the site seemed to go quiet. I, certainly, could have done a better bit of writing, but was glad it was accepted anyway.
Marvellously interesting, and I've got lots of new reading to look forward to on the site.
Time to sleep - work tomorrow and writing during the week...

The Think...err

It's been a while since I posted here. To recap, I've reaffirmed my intention to finish writing this new story by the end of the year. I've been off work a week - time off work for good behaviour - and it's just as well, as I've not been feeling the greatest these past few months. Anyways, changing my diet (not fully vegetarian, and different types of quorn stuff - quorn bacon, would you believe, new breads, soya milk, honey, things like that) and simply doing nothing (as the song says) has helped a lot. Almost every day I've been getting up late, too, relaxing, and thinking about stuff without rushing. It's been good: I've revised the storyline, putting things into better places and thoughts/words. It's not a problem, finishing the book, though I did worry a lot about that. Writing more chapters will create a more 'rounded' effect and I'll be able to revise chapter and event orders more easily.
I've been on youtube a lot, which has caused me to ruin my headphones - I must remember to get a new set tomorrow. I've been looking at blogs and, generally, just wandering mentally in preparation for writing. The writing has happened! I'm a wiz! Hardly lol...
One thing I've noticed is that 'favourites' on youtube don't last very long - they're either recalled by some authority or another, or the owner has made them private and they can't be accessed any more. How dare they!! Good job there's plenty of Wizard of Oz stuff about, so I can indulge myself. I gotta look, now and again...
Getting back to this first book of this new series, I've endeavoured to stay with the hero. My idea was to intersperse his journey with the journeys of others, hoping to create a tapestry that travelled throughout until the end. This must happen, otherwise where can I go with future books if not to the past? Or if not carrying the past with them, revisiting when I need to. Flashbacks are proving difficult, though I have them and I believe them to be vital to conveying the history that has created the present situation, and shaping the intended future direction. I have said before, that the story must follow along the lines I saw quite a while ago. If the direction bends to another shape, or plotline, I'm probably finished...
One or two explanations are going to need careful deliberation if they are to enmesh with the plot. But, hopefully my fine band of dedicated readers will keep me write lol Thanks to Noel the Ultimate Proofreader, Dave Pimm (Solvey), Rich Howse and Becca (her twin girls are coming along fine and I'm working with her fella this week, which should be a laugh). I know I'm going to have to pass a rather rigorous literary inspection at the perceived midpoint of the tale.

I must consider it thus:
                                   No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking.  Voltaire.
Quite a guy...

The Man Who Fell To Earth

Well, I was supposed to have been off for a week in January. Work, of course, conspired to knock that idea on the head. I was going to begin the long run to finishing this new (!) story and see where it all led at the end of it. At the back of my mind, I can see 4 books: three relating to the immediate tale and the fourth showing the history before the first book – if such a book was requested. The ending of the first book has barely changed in my head since I first began to put things together. However, part of the passage has changed, mainly because the hero’s journey was being neglected (by me, who else? lol) and his love life, too – rather like me there, as well! Ah, I’ll snap out of it soon, I’m sure...


But, while waiting and thinking of what to do next, I discovered the DVD of Quantum Of Solace lying around, hidden under a pile of socks n stuff. I’d only watched it once, so decided to let rip, grabbing a couple of bottles of Carling and a bag of crisps to help me through. Help wasn’t needed, as I rediscovered how great this new Bond was. He beats Jason Bourne to the top of the nearest skyscraper, no problem, and can get back down to the bottom again after killing half the cast, and technicians with them, too. Great stuff! Come on fellas – where’s the next one??? Aha, it’s almost nigh!

Been loving the Dickens movie show, as well. Of course, the scriptwriters moved a few things around, dramatising things in different ways. I understand that. But sometimes I just wish they’d follow the book. I do wonder if the reason for change sometimes lies more in a particular director being unable to capture the essence of certain passages, so creates something else to compensate. I’m probably wrong. As an aside, I know trilogies are a natural control form of narrative, but surely the Lord Of The Rings deserved more than three films – and I still can’t believe Tom Bombadil was left out. His appearance was one of the most important events in the story. But then again, the third film won a boatload of Oscars, none of which were for acting, so perhaps the first movie was a taster for what was to come. I enjoyed the three films immensely, but still feel we missed out somewhere. Rant over lol

Oh, and I’ve discovered that you can watch music videos while writing into a word document by resting the cursor over a minimised item. You know, I always feel like I’m reprising Bowie’s alien invader, what with tapping away on my laptop, a video playing on-screen, Skysports on update and the tv showing a film of some sort, and replying to the odd text and email. Life mimicing art! ;-)

By the end of February, I’ll have more concrete evidence that I’ll finish writing this story this side of Christmas 2012. I’ve promised I will, so I will. The road does end once you’ve started it. The event of the year... for me, anyway lol

Women... the greatest mystery of the Universe...

Professor Stephen Hawking's theory on women is very interesting, given his fame and standing, not only in the scientific world, but in the 'normal' world itself. One or two comments on the Net had me laughing: "Couldn't we put two women in a Hadron Collider?" and "God is a woman. No wonder Hawking can't understand the nature of God!" The arguments raged in the comments sections over the apparent sexist nature of Prof Hawking's pronouncements.
But it was one of Prof Hawking's other theories that caught my eye the most, as revealed in his interview. His biggest blunder concerned the theory of Black Holes: he originally believed that Black Holes destroyed all information when something entered, or was dragged, into them.
Now, here's something: Prof Hawking says he revised his thoughts during a theory correspondence discussion. I have no reason to doubt that. I do wonder, though, if I also had something to do with his change of mind. You see, I wrote a short story as part of my training as a writer. It was viewed on both the Critters website and Litopia website after I had sent it to Professor Hawking in the early 2000's for his approval. He wished me luck!
The words have changed a bit, knowing his revised thoughts on Black Holes, but the sentiment and idea I had was still the same when I sent it to him.
Here is the latter part of my short story, entitled A Brief History Of Tim, based on Prof Hawking's best-seller A Brief History Of Time:
Just so you know, Professor Tim Hawke had just entered a time Machine - and, for you Trekkies, it was called an Energiser...

                                       Chapter X

Searing light. Fear. No time to move. As if he could. Time to die. In a box. Eyes shut. Flinching. Then - wow, the rush! Head - thoughts - spinning. Faster. Falling, falling in, into the light. Curling up, like a ball. Spinning. Spinning faster.

Moving now. Like the light. But quicker. Quicker? That's not possible. Whoa - out of the box. Free - free - no, more than that. Like light. Thoughts. Like light.

 Millions of thoughts - no! No, not thoughts: whispers. Someone's whispering. They're all around me. Over there - I-I'm there, too! Holy shit! I think and I am there!

Mars - Jesus! Venus - Christ! Saturn - Hell's teeth! I don't believe this! And there's life. LIFE, do you hear me? LIFE! All of them - FULL of life! Own life. Not dust. Not volcanoes. Not just gas and rocks. Life! Can't you see it? They're alike, they're all alike. Own life. Own time. But different. Just different. Of course, you can't just wander along and expect to be a part of it, to belong. Speed, space-time - they change you, change everything.

Hey, no time now. Have to go. Someone's calling. But - but where? Where from? Wait a minute, what am I saying "someone's calling"? Who on earth-

"Not on earth, Tim Hawke," said a voice.

Tim at once slowed down. The voice - he thought he knew it, recognised it, somehow.

"Not on earth," repeated the voice. "But the Universe. Welcome to the Universe, Tim."

"Thank you," said Tim. "For a second there I was beginning to feel a little lost."

"You were not lost," said the voice. "Just disorientated. It takes a while to get used to your new state. We were watching over you."

"Ah," replied Tim. "You know, I had the feeling I was not alone. But - how did I get here exactly? I can remember where I was, on the planet Earth, and where I am now. It's just the bit in between I’m having difficulty remembering."

"That is understandable," answered the voice. "For the manner in which you came here would have scrambled the greatest of thoughts. Your contraption (the Energiser, as you termed it) created a black hole. This lasted for the duration of the power you allowed it. When the power ceased, the black hole reversed itself and threw up what it had drawn inside it - in another form, of course. A Big Bang in miniature, you might say."

"I remember now," said Tim. "The wood, the stone. They were altered, as though burned to a cinder. But the mouse - it disappeared without trace. What happened there?"

"Simple," said the voice. "Black holes, as violent as they appear, are not there to destroy. This is not a destructive universe. Nature creates. Yes, there is disaster, decay, death. But they do serve a purpose. Always from these comes something else. The beginning of anything can be found at any point. Black holes, Tim, are there to find this beginning. What enters naturally, intentionally, has to enter. It enters because it is done with. In its present form it has no future - its apparent uselessness, however, is far outweighed by its future usefulness. So life begins anew: from a black hole. But dead wood and stone do not have life. More important: they have no thought. Thought is the most powerful force in the universe. Thoughts do not enter into black holes and become something less. Only the physical can be broken down. Thought has no master. Thought is the true light of the world. We are the light of the world. For you, Tim, are now one of us."

"Light," thought Tim. "Of course. No wonder."

He did wonder, though. And Tim considered his journey across the Universe, across Space. The speed, the ease, with which he had travelled so far. No wonder? Great wonder. Great wonder, indeed!

"How, then, did I travel faster than light? I came here in next to no time."

"The speed of light," said the voice. "The speed of light as you knew it on Earth is such that you can measure it (to a point, I know, as the Uncertainty Principle dictates an element of probability, here). But this is not purely energy; lifeless, aimless energy. It has a purpose. Look how it spins from one star to another; from one planet to another. Linking all things. Why is Space so dark and Light so light? So that you can see it. So that you can follow it, walk upon it. Light is the highway of the World, and the stars are the streetlamps of the Universe. Thought is their Master, and thought travels swifter than any highway, any streetlamp."

Well, without putting too fine a point on it, Tim was struggling here. As brilliant as he was on earth, up here things were totally different: A horse of a different colour, as someone once so famously said, and in circumstances not too far removed from those here, either. Tim felt like the scarecrow without a brain, talking to the disembodied voice behind a curtain. But there was no curtain here.  

"Here!" thought Tim. "The word's popping up every five seconds. What's here?  I know how I got here. Though it was all a bit of an accident, really - a planned accident, maybe, but an accident all the same. The end result was totally beyond prediction - at least, it seemed that way from where I was standing. Of course, I had to try. Someone always has to take the jump, the final leap. How else was I supposed to have got here. I mean, how could anyone else get here? In fact, how did the voice get here?"

"In much the same way as you did," came the enigmatic reply.

Silence.

If you thought Tim was struggling before, then you can imagine the mother of all struggles he was having by now. His mind was wrapped in a blizzard of thoughts, half-believing, half-denying what he had just been told.

Then his head exploded.

WHAAAT!!!

SOMEBODY ELSE HAS CREATED AN ENERGISER?

SOMEBODY ELSE HAS CREATED AN ENERGISER !

MY  ENERGISER!

WORSE: SOMEBODY ELSE HAS CREATED AN ENERGISER BEFORE ME!

All that he had thought, all that he had hoped, all that he had done, had come down to this: somebody had got there before him. Talk about being brought down to earth - if you could say that kind of thing about Tim any more.

Still silence.

Whatever had happened to Tim, whatever he had become, had not removed the human feelings (or at least 'human' as far as he could remember them) he was experiencing at that moment. Resentment. Anger - that someone had got there before him. The waste. The waste of time, of energy. Suspicion. Had he been shadowed, copied? Had he been manipulated? Could someone have directed his movements somehow? Nothing, nothing particularly came to mind. Nothing he could see, nothing he could tell. But it had happened. It had actually happened. And he had to accept it. Someone had got there before him. History had repeated itself, as it usually did. Oh yeah, Tim Hawke had made history all right. Only he wouldn't go down as the initiator. Tim Hawke was only a copycat. For good or bad, right or wrong, he had only done what someone else had done before him.

More silence.

A jolt. Like a kick in the groin. The obvious had escaped him.

How? How? he thought. Where in history? Who? Who had done this? There was no record of this happening. It's a lie! At best a joke - a bad joke. The voice was making fun of him. But why, for what reason?

Tim imagined the figure behind the voice leaning nonchalantly against a 'cosmic streetlamp', absent-mindedly checking his fingernails in some kind of mental abstraction whilst waiting for Tim to say something. But Tim would not speak. He was unwilling to speak until he had something intelligent to say, to reveal, to impress upon the voice that he, too, was intelligent, capable of intelligent thoughts, words, arguments.

Still Tim wondered who else may have created an energiser. All kinds of famous, celebrated people had disappeared over the centuries, and others not so famous, too. It could have been any one of them - even a few of them. But no contraptions had ever been left behind, discovered. He knew that. After all, no one had had better access to that kind of information than he.

And what about Rack? No, it couldn't have been Rack. Definitely not. But wait a minute, wait a minute: maybe not Rack. But maybe there was one other. Someone he knew who had been there before him. Ha! Now he got it; now he understood! In the same manner, the voice had said. Of course. Tim may not have been the first, but he had been the cause of it.

"You were the mouse!" he cried, almost shouting at the voice. "You were  Einstein, Einstein the mouse!"

"You have much to learn," said the voice. "And calmer thoughts would serve you better, Tim. You are as close as you are far from the answer. Think on it: how else could you be here with me now? One cannot break human flesh down to the smallest particle and expect to survive, to come out breathing, to live in another time. For that was your belief, was it not? The movement of the glass plate, the sound of something falling, and all your imaginations run wild. The droid Scott could have told you, if you had asked him. Still, you have not failed. You have left behind a message, a legacy. Someone else will take up your baton and run with it for a while to a newer, further point. Your achievement is there for all to see, Tim. The black hole, the wormhole; both, at least, did exist in your time, by your hand. Although your treatment of Jonathan Rack could have been a little less severe, I think."

Tim was not at all startled to hear the voice speak of the Einstein experiment. He was actually replaying it to himself in vivid colour right before his eyes. Sure enough, there it was: a small charred object spat out of the black hole at the exact moment the laser beam was switched off. This time, the sound of it falling to the floor after brushing against the glass was a more realistic click: the click of an identity tag. Tim had forgotten about the tag. He'd left it on the mouse. He'd forgotten about Scotty, too. Hiding things from Rack had become an obsession with Tim. And Scotty's programming had reflected that obsession pretty well.

Ah, Rack, thought Tim. Poor Jonathan Rack. He was all alone. In a small, sparsely-furnished room. The room had a small window and the light was bright and shadeless. There was a toilet of sorts in the corner and the door looked heavy, with no handle on the inside - a jail-room door.

How was Rack to know that Tim had re-rigged the power source to the energiser. And that this re-rigging had involved connecting the Energiser to the self-same grid which powered the systems housing the computer database of the Inland Revenue Service. A surge of energy at around the time Tim Hawke disappeared from the face of the earth and generations of financial details, along with their security backups, disappeared likewise. This, of course, was not as bad as the hospital 'deaths' which had purportedly occurred during the Einstein experiment. Tim knew that Rack had leaked them to the press. Rack had 'protected' him, blaming a droid failure. But he'd held it over Tim's head like the proverbial Sword of Damocles. Now Tim had got his own back. 

"But you stated that you had come to be here in much the same way as I had," Tim said, drawing his thoughts away from the flawed experiment.  "What did you mean?"

"The answer to that," replied the voice. "Is simply thus: you entered the Energiser and you died. I, too, lived as you did upon Earth. Then I died. That is our link - death. Simple death, that is all. Only our thoughts live on. Until there are no people left to hear them."

Tim gasped: his vision of the whole universe was suddenly changing right before his very eyes. His whole perception, his whole Theory of Everything, was being blown away like so many frail cobwebs on a stiff, cosmic breeze; made ragged by the words of this invisible entity standing (or not) before him. But who was it? Who was this speaking to him? He had to know. He just had to know.

"Tell me," said Tim, his voice sharp, eager, impatient. "Tell me who you were. Who were you on Earth?"

"Well, Tim," said the voice. "I did not say that I was not Einstein the mouse, as you first guessed. For my name once was Einstein. But understand me now, Tim Hawke, when I tell you that not only was I Einstein the mouse, but I was also Einstein the man. And before him I was Mozart, too, and yet Beethoven after him. I was also Churchill, and before him Abraham Lincoln. I was Boadicea, and Joan of Arc. Once I was Millheim, inventor of the skatejet that carried you so effortlessly around the floors of the Zenith laboratories, and Llavand, developer of the very laser you used in the Energiser that brought you here. Ha! And once I was the dreaming Dorothy and her Aunty Em, and the little dog Toto who tried to get away - and yes, even the scarecrow who didn't have a brain.

I am the writer of every book, and the actor in every scene; the old man who sits at every street corner and the old woman who rests by every stream. I am every child who plays by day and flies upon imaginary clouds at night. Every thought that has ever been and every thought that ever will be; every dream that is ever dreamed, every wish that is ever whispered. I am all of these. And you, Tim Hawke. You. I was also you. For I am Thought. Thought. All thought. Thought is the true light of the World, Tim Hawke. In death are you now released. For you are thought now, Tim. Pure thought. Welcome to the Universe. The whole World now belongs to you."

To be, or not to be...

... I must never try to evade the question.

:-)

Sometimes I overdo it

I wouldn't say I've been writing a lot in this two weeks' break. I've been thinking a lot, though, which is more than enough to give me a headache at the best of times! But I haven't been feeling all that great - the first day off found me lying on the settee, watching tv. It was Fred Astaire, so it did perk me up a bit.
But throughout the week, while I was thinking, I was a bit listless and rather lacking in energy.
By and by, it took a lot of doing, but I began to put pen to paper - or finger to keyboard, as it was. Instead of actual writing, I began to record, step by step, the pathway to the end of this first book. Now, as I said, it took a lot of doing, as it is rather alien to me to write things out in that way. I've never done that, though when writing Sword I did write temporary notes to get me through a chapter, or to remind myself to amend a previous chapter. Here, I found myself writing dialogue, postures, movements, to the point where I had to bring myself out of things in order to get the story to pan out before me. The need for more clarity was uppermost in my mind. I had to get the story out of my head and in front of my eyes.
It was amazing how the storytelling took over whenever I allowed it. I know, now, that when I write each future chapter, the writing will come into it quite naturally again. Only, I'll get more of it right instead of tripping over things like a novice.
However, I'll have to be careful. On Wednesday and Thursday I did two nights in a row, writing until around 5 a.m. both times. I almost did myself in. Never felt so tired, and no amount of 'good' diet since and extra sleep has brought me round. I had a birthday party to attend on Saturday, but I've had to give it up. I just couldn't do it. I did a quick shop and came back home. I'm at work on Monday, so perhaps I'll be out on Sunday for a few hours. Hopefully, young Kyle will be there and I'll be able to buy him a drink. You're only 21 once. Jeez, once you're past that milestone, time flies like crazy. Don't I know it - I feel 101 right now.
Cue the music: Just a young man, by an old road, by an old road he chose...

4000 Holes In...

Have you you seen that new contraption invented in Japan? The yellow ball that you are supposed to climb into if another flood comes along? It comes with built-in holes and costs £2400 each!! Built-in holes!!??? So it's not just our guys who study how much milk it takes before cornflakes get soggy lol Still, it's true what they say: you can't take your money with you when you die - not if you spend it on stuff like that! I'd love one, though, to roll downhill to work... ;-)

The Bells

I went off to Newcastle, first to visit Noel the Ultimate Proofreader and his lovely wife, Chris, for coffee; then to look for a new winter coat.
At Noel's, I was served soup and then strawberries n cream - and coffee, of course. Marvellous, though I could only stay an hour. Such great company and I'll be heading back there next week for a longer stay. I hope there'll be strawberries n cream again!
Off I went to look at coats. A simple task, one would think, with a million shops to choose from. Not so - jeez, they don't half sell a load of rubbish when it comes to coats. In the end, I gave up, deciding to just go and buy one in Shields when it became too cold not to have one. That'll be next week, probably lol
It was about then that I recognised the sound of church bells ringing from the Church of John The Baptist at the bottom end of Grainger Street. I couldn't resist and went through the gate and into the grounds. The sound of the bells was amazing and I rang Noel so he could hear what I was hearing. The churchyard is the scene of an important part of my new story. I felt like I was being heralded for being there. I began to record the sound of the bells. For about 15 minutes I held my phone to the clock tower while the chiming went on. I couldn't stay much longer, though, and I thought about keeping the recording going only as long as a fade-out into the traffic of noise as I walked away. Two steps out of the church gate and the bells immediately ceased. Ha! That was a spooky moment in the dark of the night. I felt I was being told, in no uncertain terms, that the peal of the bells was only for me! I mean, why did they chime as I approached the church, then stop abruptly the moment I left? To attract me? Persuade me to pay a visit? Then to inform me that they had chimed only for me as I was leaving? A shivery thought! A lovely one, too.
I noticed there were only three daisies left on the lawn as the dusk drew in. There are three people in the story associated with the churchyard...
I've got the recording on my new phone, which uses bluetooth to transfer files to computers. I have to investigate how to do that now. I'm sure it's simple enough, though I'm preparing myself for the usual idiotic error messages...
A day to remember x

To do, or not to do

Well, it's Saturday and the first day of my two weeks off. Just as I was about to go out, I discovered that a Fred Astaire film was starting: The Gay Divorcee!  I ask you, what a name. Of course, it meant something different then, so don't let it put you off!  Fred's version of Night And Day is not that great, but it was the dancing with Ginger that I was looking forward to. It never disappoints, though I sometimes wonder what it would have been like with Eleanor Powell, instead. There's a dancer! Still, Ginge could cut it, so why ...  but that's me, always wondering.
And so, from Monday, I will be writing like crazy for two weeks - or should that be: writing like a crazy man? Because that's how I feel. I've not been the the most clear-thinking of writers, lately. It's probably to do with my notes: some of them are unclear. Some of them don't go far enough, and some of them just aren't there! It'll be fun, though, which is how it should be.
The engine's running ;-)

It's not all bad

The brilliant Noel the Ultimate Proofreader and I headed off to Lindisfarne, or Holy Island as it's also called. Noel's wife Chris couldn't come, which is just as well as we probably would have had to carry her up some of the dunes. I swear someone's changed the layout. Jeez, it was climb every mountain the closer we got to the beach. I fell, Noel fell; he fell again, I fell again. Even the Vikings would have given up their invasions the way things are now. We were shattered by the time we got to the shore, accompanied by the sound of seals 'laughing' at us from the water. Same to you lads - I bet our fish n chips in Berwick tasted a lot better than your raw fish a la Gollum lol
Still, it was windy enough to blow the cobwebs from my head and I began to feel a bit better about my latest work. And I also needed some space, and a chat with Noel, once I'd rediscovered that my writing heroes (Tolkien/Dickens/Koontz/Banks to name a few) did the same things I did. Or was I doing the same as them??? Well, they came before me, so I guess I must be just a copycat. ;-)
All in all, it was a great day. A step forward mentally, and the company and conversation was great. Positive...

Editing

I'm breaking rules.
I'm breaking POV rules. Breaking 'interest' rules. I'm boring the ass out of everyone because I'm looking at the things from the wrong angle. Sometimes, that is, but that's all it takes. Sometimes is too many times.
You know, I've never sent or presented anyone loose work. I'm not a rough writer. Yet I'm so proud of this new story, I believe I can show any one of my readers an unedited chapter and it will stand up to scrutiny. Totally forgetting it has never worked for me, and never will. No matter how good I think it to be, this story won't be going anywhere in a hurry unless I edit it first. And by 'edit', I mean rewrite. I've always written stuff loose. But then, when I need someone to look at it properly, I give it the works.
The only chapter that has had the works is the first chapter. And it's the only one that works from start to finish. It took a blast from Solvey before I galvanised myself properly to write it the right way. After that, Solvey said it was 'focused'; Noel said it was 'self-contained'; Becca said it was 'uncluttered'. A result!
The rest must be done the same way.
Note to myself: without the need for prompting...