Christopher Hamilton

Things are not going well.

It could simply be because I realised how much I disliked the story I was writing, or the fact that I seem to be a master at avoiding doing any work, I’m not really sure which.

Either way, I’ve scrapped the story I was working on. I hated it that much, and hit a dead end with it really quickly. I’m off work next week, so I’m going to try to do the 50k words between now and the 30th, but I’m not really that confident of being able to pull it off.

I know I can write that much in the remaining 9 days, especially with a week where I don’t have to concentrate on anything else. But, the way my writing head is at the moment, I don’t know if I’ll be able to manage it.

Nano wasn’t this difficult last year, and I’m a little annoyed that it’s causing me so many problems this year.

It’s going to be a pretty crazy end stretch to this years attempt, and I’ll keep you posted on how it comes along. It’s going to be tough, and it doesn’t look like I’m going to be able to manage it, but you never know. I might get lucky.

Pauly recently released the latest edition of Truckin’. I’m a big fan of this e-zine, and hope that at some point in the future, I can polish up one of my travel stories, and have it published in an edition. Until then though, you should read those that have. This months edition is excellent, as always.

Go read some Truckin’. You’ll be thankful you did.

Truckin’ - November 2007, Vol. 6, Issue 11

1. Existentialist Conversations with Strippers: The Afternoon Shift by Paul McGuire

The club was just the type of seedy place where you might find William Kennedy Smith or any other soused heirs to the Kennedy name, knocking back cheap scotch at 3 pm while aggressively fondling the sketchy girls with visible c-section scars and multiple fresh bruises all over their cracked-out bodies…. More

2. Lonesome Cowboy Bill by AlCantHang

My comfort zone is a dive rock club where I can chain smoke, power drink, and have my head assaulted with decibels equivalent to a jumbo jet taking off. The next step down the ladder would be the pubs and bars the exist for sole purpose of its patrons getting blitzed on various hardcore drinks. Then comes the sports bars, strip clubs, snooty yuppie bars, and hotel watering holes. Near the very bottom would generally be any place that plays country music… More

3. Seven Minutes with Olga by Change100

Olga led me all the way to the back and sat me down. She took her top off and grabbed my hands, placing them on her very soft, very real breasts… More

4. The Sleep Deprived Memoirs of I by Sigge S. Amdal

I might as well go to sleep, I thought. And I thought about sleeping forever, the eternal sleep, and how it could feel – was it cold or was it cozy – had it not been for facts contesting life after death in terms of subjectively sensory experience… More

5. Their Father’s Love by Sean A. Donahue

Tying to explain the differences and the complaints of a failed marriage is too complicated for a four-year old to understand. I think I heard the phrase, “But why daddy?” more than I ever thought I could. But it wasn’t my kids’ fault… More

Technorati Tags: Writing

I’ve been struggling to get into this years NaNoWriMo. I’m not entirely sure why this is the case, especially when I had a huge portion of a story pre-planned, and a few others I could have written in it’s place.

I think I may not be so into this years attempt yet because I’m usually completely shattered when I sit down to do any writing. I’ve been coming home from work, and trying to do some writing straight away. When that doesn’t work, my thinking works along the lines of. “Maybe I just need to unwind for half an hour?” Then, once the half an hour is up, and I’ve spent the time playing the Xbox 360, watching TV, or reading, I sit down to write. The end result of which, usually consists of me staring at my laptop screen with the constant low level hum of inactivity bouncing around inside my head.

It’s been an especially frustrating few days because of that. I think what makes it a little worse, is I find I want to write at the most inappropriate times. Last night I woke up at around 3am, (I’d only gone to sleep about an hour before hand which annoyed me even more), with a few ideas bouncing around. Thankfully I keep a moleskine and pen beside my bed, so I was able to quickly jot down the ideas before going back to sleep.

Waking up in the middle of the night, when you have work in the morning, is one instance of annoyingly inappropriate times when the writing mood strikes me. The others usually involve me at work, and extremely busy, when I for whatever reason don’t have my laptop with me, or when I’m right in the middle of something important that can’t be left till later.

It’s quite frankly, fucking me off.

… and relax

Thankfully I’m heading off to London on Wednesday… did I just write that… anyway, it means I’ll have four hours uninterrupted writing time going down there, writing time in the hotel on Wednesday, and then four hours on the way back. That should get a my word count back on track, since it’s taken a huge hit recently.

****

One other thing.

There are also a lot of writers covering the strike on their blogs, and if you’re interested in writing for a living, or why the only American shows on TV are reruns, I would go check them out.

I completely support what the WGA are doing. The more I read about the situation, the more I realise how much of a shafting Screenwriters were getting.

Here’s hoping they get what they want and deserve.

Well this is slightly annoying.

I hit a wall writing this years NaNoWriMo novel. I’ve put so much thought into this years story, that I’m spending far too much time thinking about how each chapter was going to fit into the overall plot, that I realised I’m not going to be able to finish it in time.

A week into the writing is not the best time to become aware of this little flaw.

So what do I do?

I spent some time thinking about it last night, and come to a rather crazy solution. That story is being scrapped for the short term, I’ll come back to it after nano finishes, but it’s not something I can carry on with at the moment.

I’m going to start again with the approach I went with last year. I have a character name, a location for the first chapter, and a lot of coffee at home.

I have no idea what it’s going to be about, and no clue how many characters I’m going to use.

It’s how I approached, and completed last years effort, and I think it’s how I work best.

So this years nano, for me, is now only 22 days. It should be a fun packed, coffee fueled three weeks.

NaNoWriMo officially starts today.

I’m so excited to finally start writing the novel I’ve had gestating in my head for the last few months. I’m hoping that once I get it written, the slight backlog of story ideas I have in my head will be able to come forward. Recently, when I’ve tried to write anything substantial, my mind drifts back to the story I’m writing for NaNoWriMo, and I completely lose my train of thought.

Throughout the month, I’ll post word counts up here, but if you would like to see how I’m getting along, you can click on the Participant Icon over on the right, and it’ll take you to my user profile on the site.

If your trying this yourself, feel free to add me as a writing buddy.