We take in so much information on a daily basis. It makes sense that certain things will just slide past our attention after we’ve seen them enough times. Building sites, shops, queues at bus stops. They’re in our world every single day. They become white noise, background details. Scenery. I had a moment yesterday when I noticed something on my wife’s desk at work that I had completely been looking through for months. Don’t worry, it wasn’t divorce paperwork.
Read MoreThey made accessories of themselves and others. They lived by aesthetics. The right physique. The right magazine left, unread but skimmed, on the right worktop. Their unused, designer golf clubs sitting next to their skeletal framed racing bikes. Bikes that would squeal and throw up their handlebars should mud ever touch their shiny paintwork.
Read MoreEither last week’s blog is incredibly late or this week’s blog is incredibly early. I’ll leave it up to you to decide. I’ve got other things to try and worry about. Like, for example, where to begin? Seriously, where do you start something like this? Last Thursday, in a little pub near the ring roads of Birmingham, I got on a stage in front of friends and family and launched my second horror novel. Which is not to say I threw a book at my friends at family. Well, not physically anyway.
Read MoreA great big hello hug to you from all of us here at The Blank Page Marketing Department!
As you’ll probably remember, we contacted you last month about organising some sort of trailer for your upcoming book launch. We sent you an email, a letter and a singing telegram. So far, we can’t help but notice we’ve not heard back from you yet. We were really looking forward to a sung reply.
Okay, okay. The rewrite is moving into the home stretch. It really is. I'm pretty sure it is, only it’s taking longer than I wanted. It was meant to be finished this week and the delay has not been too good for my nerves. For my attention span. For my patience. It’s been a week of feeling defeated by my own story, but I'm pretty sure victory isn’t too far off now. Next week. I’m pretty sure it’s going to be next week. I hope it's going to be next week.
So, as I make a push to get this final, final, final draft finally completed I thought I’d use this week to share something with you. As things stand, what follows are the first 900 or so words my second novel will start with.
In more ways than I can really express right now, I hope you like it.
I used to write after work. I’d get home from whatever office or shop I was working in, have something to eat and then try to write for an hour or two. It worked to an extent, but the finished result always felt sluggish. It suffered from a lack of energy as plot and characters became handy ciphers allowing me to moan about my day. Back then, I was very much one of those people who spent a lot of time talking about writing, instead of actually writing. Or, at least, writing happily.
Read MoreStep right up, Ladies and Gentlemen. Here it is, hot off the press (depending on when you're reading this). This is the second ever story sketch on The Blank Page. Instead of a long and rambling blog, Long Words proudly presents a short piece of strange fiction for your delectation. We hope you enjoy it. If only because there will be more.
Read MoreThings are getting hectic, they always do at this time of year. It’s like being trapped on a merry go round that refuses to slow down. Every time we ask someone to apply the brakes, it only accelerates. Sure, there are festive lights and catchy tunes circling around us, but this close to the event horizon of Christmas Day it all starts to get out of hand. The music deafens us. The motion makes us feel ill. The horses under us start to leer and grin as it all lurches past our control.
There are cards to write, presents to deliver. There’s food to hunt and gather, sometimes against shoppers who are racing against the exact same clock as us to the exact same shelf for the exact same final box of stuffing. The season of goodwill can get pretty nasty down a supermarket aisle.