Giant Squid Creations

I know many will not believe my story; I can barely believe it myself, but it happened nonetheless. I’m not even sure where to begin telling it. She meant the world to me, still does, but when she told me she was pregnant then claimed it was God’s will so I shouldn’t be upset … and that she was still a virgin anyway – well, it was pretty hard to take. At least I thought she should be honest with me. Still, I loved her and didn’t want her to suffer for some mistake. I was going to break it off quietly, let her find a way out on her own. Then he, she or … I guess it, came. Now I know people won’t believe this. I walk into my room and there’s this person in there and it scared the daylights out of me. Possibly because it was like daylight only human shaped; bit more freaky than an intruder and somehow more convincing when they claimed to be a messenger from God. Turned out she wasn’t lying, the pregnancy was God’s will and she was still a virgin. I was going to be the step-dad of God’s ...

It’s been a long while since I wrote here but I’m back. The main delay was of NaNoWriMo as I worked away to write 50,000 words in November and get The Scarlet Ring really on its way. I have to say it was a fantastic experience and I’m very happy with myself for completing it successfully. It showed me a number of things, the first and most important one being that I can apply myself to write something and if I do it will actually come along. I went into it with the first part of the story written and a rough plan as to where the middle part was going, and while it dragged at times it generally came along fairly well and developed in new ways as it did. Characters suddenly sprung into existence which meant things shifted course ever so slightly and new scenes ran their course. I also noticed certain pitfalls I kept falling into and phrases I was clearly far too keen on using which I might not normally pick up on if writing more intermittently. Unfortunately with the looming deadline...

So tomorrow is the beginning of National Novel Writing Month. 50,000 words to be written in just 30 days. It's a challenge, it should be fun and it's the kick in the pants to get things going I've been needing. Prep is going all right. I have some plotting worked out - it's allowed - and I'm going to do a bit more shortly. Just finishing up getting my work area fairly clean so it's not distracting. Got coffee supply and tea, might need to invest in some nuts to munch, keep the grey matter ticking. Got tunes aplenty, from classical to rock depending on my mood, and the sound system is good. Yup, I think I'm ready. Wish me luck, and to anyone else doing it, good luck! Keep dreaming.

When Delibes' ballet Coppelia featured in ABC Classic FM's Classic 100 The Music of France it reminded me that I had written a response to Hoffmann's story, on which the ballet was based, so I thought I'd share it with you now. Warning - spoilers. You can find the story here . Hoffmann sets up the situation and the theme of the story straightaway through three letters. The first tells us of the terrible events in Nathanael’s childhood and the possible reappearance of the villain of those events in his life. The second is the rational explanation of Clara dismissing the whole Nathanael’s fears to his own mind and in the third he accepts them. The rest of the story revolves around, to a large degree, the irrational fears he has and the rational explanations that may dispel them – if they are irrational. We read how his conviction in the mystical is so fired up, and Clara’s adamant rationality is so fixed, that he almost comes to blows with her brother. This ends with ...

Thought I might do a quick review of what I've been reading this month - if for no other reason than keeping it clear in my own head. I already mentioned the Elric novels so that was a big portion of it. The other big one was Robert Chamber 's The King in Yellow . I got this from the University of Adelaide ebook site as it was mentioned in terms of Weird fiction and having influenced HP Lovecraft. It was weird all right but not always in the sense of the supernatural genre. It's a collection of short stories, the first four of which make reference to a fictional play, the eponymous King in Yellow. This play is so artistically wrought that anyone who reads it, or at least the second act, is mentally disturbed by it or downright insane. This concept Lovecraft liked and he referenced the play or the places mentioned in it a few times. He also liked some of Chamber's style at times. The rest of the stories in the book, which make up the other two-thirds or so, have n...

I said in a previous post that I might write about the Elric novels I've been reading and to stop myself from debating whether I will or not I am. Many of you will already know something about them even if you've never read them but for those who don't I'll give a quick idea. Elric is the last emperor of Melnibone, an ancient and decadent empire. He can summon aid from demons and elementals and has a sword of mystical origins which forms a love-hate symbiosis with him. All of this is part of Michael Moorcock's multiverse where Elric becomes just one facet of the Eternal Warrior. It's epic fantasy but in episodic form. Every novel (of the first five which is all I've read so far) is divided into three and each section is its own story which was published in a slightly different version (or not) in journals. At least that's how they're designed. So the chronology occasionally jumps slightly but the stories do follow one after the other even if some...

So I've been thinking today about my playwrighting and where it's going/hasn't been going. Aside from numerous personal factors, I think one reason so little happened for as long as it didn't, was that I can never seem to produce anything that would be deemed a full-length play. This strictly speaking shouldn't really matter - Samuel Beckett only wrote one, his first. After that his works got shorter and shorter as he tried to produce a pure theatrical image. However, outside festivals of 10-minute plays and the occasional special event of one-act wonders there's little call for shorter works. But I've also realised I'm not interested in writing a long play. I have stories to tell and theatrical images to attempt, and my style of telling these stories is generally very quick. My longest play actually suffers from its size I think - that and it has a light and a dark side that don't mesh. What does excite me is an idea I've tossed around in my...