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  • Valkyrie

    Upcoming Site Events

    By Valkyrie

    Now that the poetry anthology is behind us, it's time to look forward to what's next.  Last week, Cia announced the forbidden secret author contest.   No, it's not forbidden to participate - just to announce that you're participating     We also have our annual anthology, with two themes this year, Horizons and Unspoken.   We'll round off the year with our annual Prompt Team event - details will be revealed later this year.   Should we make it a contest to see w
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A sad pre-Easter tale

Yesterday.   Half way through a boring day at work my other half phoned. She was in floods of tears. We live in the country and one of the four cats, Percy (Sir Perseus Plumb-Puss, a big black bruiser of a softy) had brought in a baby Bunny. Alive.   I arrived home in trepidation. I'm the man (chortle) and as such, and if required, I'm the bastard who has to put poor defenceless beasties out of their misery. Spiders I don't have a problem with: Glass on top, magazine beneath and then a swift

Camy

Camy

Why Blog?

I've been sitting here looking at a blank screen for nearly twenty minutes, and it suddenly struck me why? why do I feel the need to blog - as neat a euphemism for cathartic soul cleansing as one could hope for. Now the Church is in decline, perhaps blogging is the only true confessional left to us. Not that I've ever been to confession...   I blog because I think I have something to add to the day to day 'diary' of my life. But why here? Well... I feel safe here, in that I can say things abou

Camy

Camy

Hey, look, over there! It's Elvis!

Bah. Characters are a pain. I should be working on the rewrite of the last two chapters of Yankee, or on its sequel, or on Wild Life, or even (gasp!) actual Real Work. Instead... instead I'm cleaning out someone's basement. Metaphorically, at least.   At least this thing should be shortish, probably about as long as Firegrass was.   To tease, here's a bit of the beginning of this untitled thing:   Untitled Story   "William," Ben said, his voice thick with accusation. "What did you do?"

TheZot

TheZot

Sunday drear and damp

It's raining. It's miserable, and yet I'm ok, when to all intents and purposes I should be as miserable as the day.   I've got so much to do, and I can't get my head around any of it. So here I sit loitering, reading blogs, and trying desperately to find something to take my mind off reality.   I work, amongst other things, building websites. I have updates to three of them, yet it's Sunday, and I'm playing the 'Lords day of rest' card. Come tomorrow I know I'll probably regret the wasted ho

Camy

Camy

Colliding!

I got tapped to write a chapter of Collision, the round-robin murder mystery thing that a bunch of authors are working on. Chapter 14, "Running to Stand Still", is up on AwesomeDude, DeweyWriter, and CRVBOY. Enjoy.   (Amusingly, there's been exactly one piece of mail about it so far, asking when chapter 15's coming out, and that showed up about an hour after chapter 14 went live...)

TheZot

TheZot

It's a bad sign, but of what?

I'm not entirely sure which is the worse thing, the fact that iTunes has an unnatural fondness for the KMFDM in my music library, or that I find it fits my mood. One or the other's probably worrisome.   At least it's interspersing Evanescence occasionally, just for a change of pace.

TheZot

TheZot

Coolness and Delight

Birthdays are very peculiar things. When you're a small they're wonderful. You get STUFF, often a party, and mostly people are nice to you... You can get away with an awful lot of mischief too!   Then you get to a point where the Birthday becomes... a weency bit of a drag. You celebrate because you feel you should rather than wanting too, and you often find you're celebrating to make other people happy; and honestly, that's just perverse.   That's where I was: 'Jaded' would encapsulate the f

Camy

Camy

Inspiration comes from the strangest places

Yesterday was, on the whole, a crap day. Which was kind of strange, because it was also weirdly productive.   The crap part was entirely personal, as we took my dog to the vets and had her euthanized last night. This wasn't something that was unexpected -- she was 16 and had a slowly progressing neurodegenerative problem that was destroying the myelin sheathing around her nerves, and over the weekend we hit the point where she had no control in her hind end and only spotty bladder and bowel co

TheZot

TheZot

The B Season

The local Birthday season starts in just under five minutes. All my friends appear to be either Pisces or Aries... Is this odd? I must start reading horoscopes. Possibly. Anyway Tomorrow/Today it's me. According to my stats here I shall be 100. That's old! Gosh.   Camy (the old)

Camy

Camy

Sunday

OCD. Hmm. Both Kevin and Patricky think they have it, and I just wrote a reply on Patricky's blog saying it was all twaddle. Then it crossed my mind that I have it too!   Whenever I go to the beach I have to find a stone with a hole in it. I mean it's not a total compulsion, but I do get annoyed if I have to leave without finding one. Luckily there are lots of stones with holes in them, otherwise I'd probably need a straight jacket.   This 'stone with hole' thing started a year or so ago. N

Camy

Camy

Rocky Mountain Oysters

I was trying to think of another name for this blog: I ponder a lot, and really 'A bunch of Balls' wasn't doing it for me. So I googled, as you do, and damn me if the truth is worse than any of my putrid mental fictions.   Those who live in the good old US probably know already that Rocky Mountain Oysters are Bulls Bollocks cooked and apparently eaten with a side helping of Chips. I was, and still am frankly amazed, and feeling rather squeamish.   Yelch. Real Oysters are bad enough.   Cam

Camy

Camy

Art, science, and craft

Or "On the nature of writing". Or something like that.   I figured it was time to stop just bitching about the things in my writing I'm not happy about and actually start doing something about it. It's too late in the semester to sign up for a writing class at the local community college, but it's never too late to read about writing, so I've started.   A while back I picked up a copy of "Characters and Viewpoint" by Orson Scott Card (on the recommendation of The Pecman, who wrote the storie

TheZot

TheZot

Points to ponder.

I need an editor. I thought I probably might need an Editor at some point but after reading some of the excellent prose on this site, and having read a lot of utter twaddle elsewhere it finally struck me that one of the main differences was Editor. With Editor good, without bad.   So now I want one, how to go about it? I know there is a thread about the subject, and having read it I'm no further forward. It seems to me that the relationship between Author and Editor is a bit like a marriage...

Camy

Camy

After A comes C, right?

So I finished the draft for the story that I've been currently blocking on (if you were in chat the other night you got to see me ambush Dio and Myr -- sorry guys. And no, the Jell-o pictures will never see the light of day ever! ) and sent it away to be poked at by folks who're good at poking things. I've already gone and fiddled with my index page to give it a spot, along with teasing about a few other stories in the same series that are in a sufficient state to figure they will be done, even

TheZot

TheZot

I have this picture in my head, see...

And I just can't get the !@#$ thing expressed right on paper. Or screen. Whatever. You know, actually written in writing. I hate that.   This may be the biggest problem I have as a writer, actually getting into words the things I see in my head. I can't draw them, so all I can do is describe them, and, well, words just fail me. Or I fail them. Something like that.   Feelings I can do, I can manage mildly poetic cadence that'll carry you along, and I'm pretty sure I can amuse, but damn me if

TheZot

TheZot

Blogging Schizophrenia

I'm rather like that parrot in the Monty Python sketch. I'm pining, but not for the fjords. I want... I want some defining person to enter my life and tell me that it's really all going to be OK.   I blog here (well duh) and elsewhere too. Here I am probably as whole as I can be, in that I'm reasonably happy to discuss my sexuality; or as happy as I'm going to be anywhere I guess. However, and here's the rub: I can't be completely 'me' without talking about what else I do, and that scares the

Camy

Camy

Albert's Day - Chapter 4

Albert's Day Chapter 4 This chapter contains my first real attempt at writing a sex scene. It was hard (pun definitely not intended) really hard, and I am amazed at how long it took.   I have a few notes I thought I'd share... Though please don't let them put you off reading the story.   1 - Never ever EVER write in the third person. It makes everything so much harder than it has to be. 2 - Here's an idea. Work out a plot before beginning 3 - Frequent shorter chapters are better than lo

Camy

Camy

Albert's Day - Chapter 3

Albert's Day Chapter 3 is up for its sins.   I was trying to work, and all I could think about was the story. I've come to the conclusion this is probably not good, but it is necessary. After all, characters, whether in real life or fiction, have lives; and those lives are important... Especially to the one writing them. Fail and they die; not on the page necessarily, but in the readers heart.   I've said that I hate serials because you never know 1) if the writer will bother to finish it, a

Camy

Camy

Albert's Day - Chapter 2

Chapter 2 of Albert's Day is up on the e-fiction section. Enjoy it or not, I care not a jot. Of course I do really, but we all need a cushion.   I must be addicted to writing.   Ok... So I'm Gay and addicted to writing. Neither of which I'd have dreamt of saying, even in an anonymous blog a couple of weeks ago. Possibly because then it wasn't true.   It's odd, damn odd; how this bit of me has leapt to the forefront of everything I'm thinking, and doing. It's even intruding into music, wh

Camy

Camy

Albert's Day

The problem with writing, or for that matter performing, is that eventually, if you're not insanely shy, you want to know if what you do is any good. You want, and in order to grow, need feedback.   I'm a musician, and I love performing once I get over the hideous stage fright bit. I also write both poetry and fiction.   Now I'm told that what I write is good, but I'm told that by people who love me, people who know me, and people who would probably not want to hurt me. So, honestly I can't

Camy

Camy

Laugh? I nearly paid my licence fee

I came to write a post about how miserable I was because I had to work all day; and I didn't get to see the last episode of 'Enterprise'; and I've lost the plot entirely with SGI... And I'm still laughing out loud over this entry in RHawes16's blog Typos are wonderful things, especially as I'm sure a lot of them are intentional, put in by bored copy typists. Ah well (wipes away a tear) where was I? Oh yes Miserable... Not. Thanks Rob.

Camy

Camy

Thanks

I have to say I'm totally blown away by the warmth of the comments left on my first post. I was sort of expecting to drivel on for a while before anyone said anything. Thank you. I'm honoured.   erm.. I would also like to add that I wrote this last month and didn't realise that it was on 'draft' mode. Duh. I'm stupid not impolite... Most of the time.

Camy

Camy

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