Tag: Work in progress

Surprise!

On By Mick CanningIn family history, Fiction, research, Work in progress, writing38 Comments

For me, that is. A real surprise. And maybe for you, for all I know.

After faffing around with the manuscripts of a couple of works in progress for a few months, I suddenly decided to go through the manuscript of A Good Place, the novel I had supposedly abandoned a while back. I had low expectations – none, really – and came to it with fresh eyes. I took out one thread that was over-complicating the plot and one character who wouldn’t be needed if that thread didn’t exist. I then decided to just slightly change the emphasis on the different threads that remained. And after that, it suddenly became the story I wanted to write. But the real difference was the voice. I sort of knew the voice I wanted to use, but it wouldn’t play ball. My voice. And now, suddenly, I had a work that was complete other than for a bit of gap-filling and the voice seemed to be working.

Another few weeks or months of work still required, but I finally feel I’m almost there.

That’s not to say it will then be finished, just a completed draft.

And then there is my project to research my family history and write it up in book form for the family. I finally finished the draft of the book and emailed it off to a couple of cousins who are also researching our history, for them to look through and comment on. Obviously there’ll be plenty of work to do to format and print the book, but other than any corrections coming from my cousins, it feels complete.

For most of last year I was struggling to think of myself as a writer. Inspiration had upped and left me and I wasn’t even sure I wanted to write any more. I won’t go into any details, although I’ve posted about it so often in the past you must all be fed up with hearing about it. But I have so many works in progress of all sorts that it sort of numbs me when I decide I need to finish something. And as soon as I hit a snag I put the wretched thing aside and pick up something else. Which is obviously no way to get anything done. But now I feel I’ve all but finished one and am in the final straight with another, which leaves far fewer to work on.

It really does feel as though I can see a light at the end of the tunnel.

Now, should I start a new project or two…?

That Project – Into March, Now

On By Mick CanningIn Painting, poetry, project, Work in progress, writing16 Comments

February’s project was to finish the final draft of A Good Place. As you may have gathered from my last update post, this wasn’t going too well. By the end of the month, though, I had virtually achieved my aim. I’d chucked out some stuff that wasn’t working, rehashed what was left, and inserted a couple of ideas. It works, but I feel somewhat flat. As I said in that earlier post, it’s just not a story I feel particularly strongly about. If I hadn’t invested so much time in it by now, I’d just scrap it and be done with.

Actually, it’s possible I will do that eventually. I’ve put it aside and I don’t intend to look at it again for ages. Possibly not until next year. But March, I said, would be a month of painting and drawing. So what have I been doing? I’ve been writing poems.

Yes, writing poems. But before you all start jeering at me, hear me out. Our spare room is full of books and papers and God only knows what else. Bags and boxes of stuff that need sorting. To get it into some sort of order we need to get a new, large, set of shelves. But to make the most of the space we also needed to get rid of an old computer desk and a cupboard. That we’ve done, but that involved emptying said desk and cupboard, so even more stuff is piled on the floor and any other available surface.

So where on earth can you paint or draw?

Precisely! You see the problem! So, for the time being, change of plan. This month I’m fiddling around with some poems instead – you may have seen one effort on here last post – and leaving the painting for now.

Next month, then?

Um…not necessarily. I do have other plans for April. I’ll let you know what they are later.

January. A New Year, a New Project. Well…projects…

On By Mick CanningIn Art, New Year, Work in progress, writing42 Comments

Well, here we are again. A New Year. At least we’ve had a few sunny days, recently:

On Rye Harbour Nature Reserve, Sussex.

Heading up on to the South Downs from Clayton, Sussex.

‘Jill’ windmill, near Clayton, South Downs.

‘Jack’ windmill – no longer working, and now a private dwelling.

And another shot of ‘Jill’ – restored and now working

I don’t miss 2021 at all, although I’m sure I’m not alone in that. But I got off much easier than many people, of course. I’m still here, for a start. But I had a few health issues that I’m now stuck with, and these have slowed me down a bit and have forced me to alter my lifestyle in small (but annoying) ways. And I feel old. I am old. If you’re under twenty one, then I’m incredibly old!

And for various reasons I had a very unproductive year in that I found writing really difficult and just couldn’t get my head around any art. Although I don’t make New Year Resolutions as such, I’m tackling the uninspired non-productivity by setting myself, well, not exactly goals, but projects for each month of the year.

I have been researching my family tree, and instead of nice neat charts and tables, I have reams of scrap paper with partly legible duplicated notes (and a few charts and tables). For January, then, I am sorting all of those out and making those nice neat charts and tables, and trying to fill in some of the many gaps I’m discovering as I do so. It’s only halfway through the month and it’s going well, so that’s a success so far. But the rest of the year will comprise creative projects. For the next one – February – I intend to fill all the gaps left in my work in progress, A Good Place (the novel I’ve been working on for four or five years). I won’t get around to editing it, but I intend to complete what I am determined will be the final draft.

And then for March, I shall…well, I’ll tell you that in February.

So Little Time, So Much To Do

On By Mick CanningIn family history, publishing, writing23 Comments

The last week or so seems to have been ridiculously busy. All my own fault, of course. I’ve become exceptionally good at realising I’m doing rather a lot…and then starting a new project to add to it.

I’m making good progress on my current work in progress, A Good Place. Check.

Totally irrelevant photo, but one of my favourite shots. Small boy carrying dead sharks on a donkey. As you do.

Now that I have unpublished both of my books from Amazon, I have submitted Making Friends with the Crocodile to a publisher who will accept work that has been previously self-published and am waiting on a yes or no from them. Check.

I have edited two of the poems I wrote last month during my Poem-a-day-for-a-week experiment, and my talented friend Mark Prestage is including them in a pamphlet / zine / chapbook /call it what you will with some of his superb linocuts and photos. More on that when it’s out.

And while I’m thinking about that, perhaps I should have a go at another Poem-a-day-for-a-week soon, it worked quite well, really.

What I haven’t yet done is put my short stories and poem book, The Night Bus, up on a new platform. This will probably be Lulu, and I really ought to do that soon.

I haven’t been very good at visiting blogs recently, as you might have noticed. I need to do a bit more of that.

I was going to start a painting, which I haven’t managed to do yet. Really, I do sometimes set myself too much to do.

So, a new project? Really? Well, yes, actually. Forty years or so ago my father began a family tree, which I occasionally helped him with. It has sat in a cupboard since he died thirty years ago. And now I’ve had the urge to take it up and do some work on it, partly because I’m aware that there is a whole branch of my family which has died out, and only myself and one cousin would still remember any of them. And, we’re not getting any younger, you know. So I’ve begun researching that.

And I wonder where the time goes.

From Genesis to Tribulation (and Beyond!)

On By Mick CanningIn A Good Place, books, editing, India, Work in progress, writing32 Comments

Making Friends with the Crocodile was born early one morning – around 4 a.m. – in a Stream of Consciousness that demanded I get up out of bed and write page after page of notes on scenes and characters and the plot development.

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The whole novel was written in much the same way. Generally, I write as a pantser rather than a plotter – I’m terrible at planning out my writing, preferring instead to dive in and see where it takes me. But Making Friends with the Crocodile was written linearly, and other than the grammar and general tidying up, very little was changed in edit.

The book I’m working on now, though, had a far more troubled genesis. Maybe everyone has this problem with the second novel, unless it’s the second one of a planned series. I knew I wanted to write another novel that ‘said’ something, and that I wanted to set this one in India, too, but after that I went blank. I had decided to write about the English in India, or at least one of them, but had no plot.

We went on holiday, and for much of the week we were away I took a few hours out each day to work on the plot, filling my notebook with ideas and characters and working up a central theme, and once we were home again I started work on the novel.

But as I wrote, I found I was dissatisfied with the central plot. It seemed rather unlikely and, frankly, not that interesting. I didn’t even like my working title (I wonder how important that can be, psychologically?) I changed a few bits around, and turned the sub-plot into the main theme, and carried on. Eventually, I realised that I had lost interest in the whole project, despite the thirty thousand-odd words I’d written, and returned to an earlier, shelved project.

I worked on that for a while, but every now and again had ideas for the one I’d just abandoned, duly noted them down, and carried on. About three months later, I spent an afternoon going through notes and suddenly had an idea for two new sub-plots and a couple of new characters. These I liked Very Much Indeed.

I returned to the Abandoned Novel With the Uninteresting Working Title and got stuck in. I even had a new working title: A Good Place. It now stands at around seventy five thousand words, and the first draft is almost complete. There are a few gaps to fill in, but otherwise it is almost ready to put aside for a few months ready to edit.

So exciting!

A (Temporary) Farewell

On By Mick CanningIn blogging, break, Work in progress, writing83 Comments

I have decided to absent myself from WordPress World for a while.

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I frequently need to take a large step back from the world and give myself some time and space to re-charge my batteries, and also to think deeply about the importance I attach to whatever is going on in my life at the moment.

Those things that cause stress tend to assume a greater importance than they probably deserve to, while the things I do for my own pleasure tend to make me feel unreasonably guilty about giving them the time that others might want.

While there is so much going on, and so little time, I seem able to devote less and less of it to either writing blogs or following others. I have noticed I am leaving far fewer comments, and tending to skim read far more than I used to.

Clearly, I need a break.

But while I am doing that, I mean to write a number of blog posts without feeling under pressure to finish them by some sort of deadline, so that when I reappear I might have something to post that is worth reading.

Hopefully, I will be able to make progress on my book, short stories and poems.

And the odd painting or two.

See you later.

Bilbo In The Breeze

On By Mick CanningIn poetry, weather, Work in progress, writing34 Comments

This is another standalone poem from my linked series, a work in progress, poems written around the theme of the weather.

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Please don’t ask me when the whole thing might be completed!

Bilbo in the Breeze

 

Tonight, there is no moon,

But I hear dry leaves,

Swirling and clattering on the path.

Fingers brushing my cheek,

Cold breath on my face.

 

Leaves, dry leaves,

Flung into the air and a voice,

A spiteful, hissing voice,

Whispering in my ear:

‘What has it got in its pocketses?’

 

There are nasty, cold fingers

Poking and prying around my pocket.

I feel a tug at my jacket,

A sudden push in my back.

 

I jam my hands in my pockets

To warm them and keep the nasty fingers out.

 

My fingers touch…

Something dry…

It crackles…

What have I got in my pocket?

Leaves

On By Mick CanningIn poetry, Work in progress53 Comments

This is another standalone poem from my linked series, a work in progress, ‘Breeze’.

So much work in progress! One day, I’ll finish one of these projects, but for now I hope you’ll be satisfied with a few extracts. Unfortunately, I just don’t seem to have a great deal of time at the moment…

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It is like a small dog,

The wind is.

Nosing into corners, and

Snuffling around piles of leaves.

Making them leap up in surprise,

And slowly come back down again.

All a-flutter.

 

Suspicious of the wind,

They cannot keep still,

But are continually on the move.

Looking this way and that,

And glancing over their shoulders,

Whispering…

Whispering ‘Did you see that?

‘Did you see it?’

Whispering…

Oh I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside!

On By Mick CanningIn poetry, Work in progress, writing17 Comments

A standalone excerpt from a work in process – a series of linked poems with the overarching title Breeze.

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You see, I never do things by halves. Unfinished novels, short stories and poems, too.

I’m sure a psychologist would have a field day.

On the late season sea-front we press our hats to our heads,

And shout to make ourselves heard.

The rain stings faces, and dribbles miserably down necks

It hoses noisily up and down abandoned streets,

As we struggle to stay on our feet between the chip shop and the variety theatre.

 

‘Shall we go for a drink?’

‘What? I can’t hear you!’

‘I said…’

 

Cables beat maniacally, ringingly,

Against rusting and white paint chipped flagpoles.

 

Piles of deckchairs like collapsed marionettes shift uneasily

On the shingle among the lolly sticks and sweet wrappers,

The bladdery seaweed and the old egg sacs,

Beneath the rounded overhang of the promenade;

Their fabric thrumming and whirring

And flapping.

 

The weather forecast said a thirty percent chance of rain.

 

An empty drinks can follows us noisily across the road.

 

‘That’s better.’

‘Gosh, that wind’s strong today!’

‘It’s almost like winter.’

‘What’ll you have?’

‘Better make it a strong one!’

‘Yeah. Make that two.’

 

Leaning on the bar, waiting for the drinks.

Staring gloomily out of the window.

 

Darting gulls,

Silver light,

Drinking silently,

Glancing at each other.

 

‘Tell you what. Why don’t we just go home?’

Bloody Weather

On By Mick CanningIn A Dozen Destinies, Making Friends with the Crocodile, short stories, weather, Work in progress, writing32 Comments

Yesterday I sat down to work on a section of my novel which is set in a hot, dry place. Outside, however, the skies were grey and the wind was blowing. It was becoming cooler. Autumn leaves drifted down. Everywhere was damp. Everywhere was muddy. Unsurprisingly, the writing refused to happen.

Fortunately, I have an unfinished short story set in a leaden, windy, wet and muddy environment – Britain – so I wrote a few hundred words on that. My hero was a bit wet and cold and windswept, but what the heck!

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I know a few hundred words isn’t much, but it’s more than I’ve managed for a while. Partly, because I’ve been unusually busy, and partly because I’ve felt a bit down.

But as a bit of a progress report on my forthcoming short story collection, A Dozen Destinies, a few more of the stories went out to beta readers yesterday, so I haven’t yet given up on the possibility of having it ready for the beginning of December. I’ve settled on a cover picture (big reveal to come!) and decided to release it as an Amazon Print on Demand and Kindle ebook only.

Last year, I spent a lot of time looking at other outlets for Making Friends with the Crocodile, as well as releasing it on Amazon, and I eventually used Kobo (ebook) and Pothi (POD in India), but neither of them justified the effort. So this time I’ll keep it simple.

Goodness me, I don’t know how any of you manage to contain your excitement.

And today it’s grey and windy and wet. And there is a real bite to the wind.

Oh well. ‘It was a dark and soggy night…’