Anyway I’m going to be spending quite a bit of time on the train on Monday travelling to and from London so hopefully if the train isn’t completely rammed (I’m nothing if not an optimist) I’ll be taking along a fully charged notebook to lay down a few more words and move things along.
This week is going to be a good week for Exiles I’m finally at the point where I’m ready to write one of the two remaining key battle scenes. It’s been a really frustrating time since going back to the day job as I’ve had a pretty good idea for a while now about how I want to shape the final third of the novel, with some plot lines more fully developed than others. The challenge is not to rush through the linking passages, in the limited time I have available for writing righting now, and just focus on the bits screaming to get out of my head onto the page. Especially as my style is to write in a linear fashion from beginning to end and allow the story and characters to evolve as events unfold. To borrow a phrase from the military ‘No plot outline survives contact with the page’.
Anyway I’m going to be spending quite a bit of time on the train on Monday travelling to and from London so hopefully if the train isn’t completely rammed (I’m nothing if not an optimist) I’ll be taking along a fully charged notebook to lay down a few more words and move things along.
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Well this isn’t the blog I was planning to write this week for a number of reasons.
First of all events have reinforced the need to do something we all know we should do but few of us bother too, back-up important files. Shortly after writing last week’s blog Dropbox suffered an outage due to some technical difficulties (Not hackers as was suggested at the time). Dropbox is a great little tool I’ve use for couple of years now to keep important files synchronised across various devices and locations without having to worry about carrying external hard drives with me or the ever present risk of losing a memory stick/thumb drive. So imagine my horror when the Dropbox app stopped syncing my files across my devices! The good news is that when it does sync with my PC/Laptop, it always leaves a local copy on the device so even if the service/internet connection is down you still have access to your file. Still the message is clear if a file is important to you however you access it, where ever store it, always back it up on a regular basis. Secondly I’ve recently acquired a taste for jalapeno peppers which has led to some strange dreams of late. The latest was that I went on a hike with my parents (both sadly departed for a number of years now) to discover the source of the River Olney which as it turned out was in the kitchen of a house a couple of doors up from the one I grew up in. To fully appreciate how bizarre this dream is you need to know that Olney is a small market town in the south-east of England on the River Great Ouse famous for its annual pancake race dating back to 1445 and a popular location for wild swimming and my childhood home was a terraced house in central Birmingham (Google Onley, Milton Keynes and the UK Post Code B16 8BA to see what I mean). Oh yes and I nearly forgot amidst all this I’ve just about added another chapter to Exiles. Hi All, as predicted with the return to 'normality' and my first full week back at work after the festive break the rate of progress on Exiles has slowed somewhat.
Gone is the luxury of getting up and spending several hours at the keyboard, its more a case of grabbing the odd half hour here and there usually first thing in the morning or last thing at night. This is really frustrating as it means I am just warming up and getting into my stride when I have to switch off the PC and go to work/bed. It also means that where I am on the page is some way behind where I am mentally, with several chapters rattling around in my head demanding to be let out onto the page, but not to worry I'm sure it will all come out in the final edit. On the plus side I have to say on a personal note that publishing Rebels last year and working on Exiles now has got me through a very difficult period and helped keep me sane. Having gone through a very messy restructure and having to reapply for your job is never easy, especially when you know its a process that's likely to be repeated year after year. So thank you all for all your downloads and feedback its given me a real lift. Anyway thats enough navel gazing for one week I've got a book to write. Welcome to my weekly update, a number of developments this week.
First off I’ve decided at long last to join the world and his dog on Facebook you can find my profile here and I’ve also given ‘Rebels’ my debut novel its own page. So feel free to drop by take a look and leave a comment. I’m still getting the hang of it so there isn’t an awful lot there at the moment and this blog will be the first port of call for news and updates for the foreseeable future, but I have uploaded some scenic photos of my favourite walks of 2013 for you to enjoy. Secondly I’ve used the extended Christmas and New Years break to crack on with the first draft of Exiles which is now around 50% complete. Unfortunately it’s back to the day job (for now), so the other 50% might take a bit longer. However Exiles will expand the Ark Word universe with new starships, characters and locations, so watch this space for further updates. Thirdly I’ve begun scoping out some new projects that I hope to start in 2014 and 2015. Reunions the third novel in the Ark World series, which I hope to include a teaser for in Exiles, Jed Stone PI a futuristic private detective, Joel’s quest a light hearted fantasy, and possibly a full length Lost Ledged novel. |
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May 2017
RichardHiker, hillwaker, Indie author of sci-fi and fantasy. Writing a novel is like climbing a mountain; no matter how many times you do it each journey is different. Categories |