Review

WELL. Looking back at the year, I defiantly did NOT manage to write an 80,000 word long book.

Damn.

I'll tell you what happened: GCSEs, and a lack of interest.

I know, HOW could the story I was writing become boring to ME? I don't know. I just didn't like it. And if I didn't like it — why would anyone else reading it like it?

Maybe I'll revisit it some time next year.

BUT — this means I can go full speed ahead on a different story that's picked my fancy. I'm writing out the plot as we speak and by the looks of it, it's defiantly gonna be a book-sized book.

This year, I really do feel like I could have done a LOT more writing. I've let myself down. It's sad, I know.

And to make up for this, well, I'll obviously be doing a lot more writing next year.

And biology,

and chemistry ...

and ... maths.

Happy New Year whoever reads this!

The Distant Winds

At last!

We're here!

I tell you, I thought I wasn't going to get it finished in time but I did it!

I was still editing this thing TODAY. I KNOW. I need to plan it out better. I thought that I DID plan it out fine, but no. But yes actually because it's done?

Well, it's now been a YEAR since I Remember the Clown, and so I bring you The Distant Winds.

When I first told my dad about this story, he immediately made a joke about farting and named it The Passing Winds. Thanks, dad.

Alright, HERE WE GO READ HERE READ HERE READ HERE GO GO GO GO!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

(Alright, I know there isn't much written here, but that's mainly because I linked a short story here. Don't wanna overload the webpage words. Okay cool.)

The Shoes Are Off

Since I wrote the last blog post, I have not had a chance to edit The Distant Winds.

I know.

I'm sorry.

I've been EDUCATIONING.

And so, because of this, I've had no time to edit the story, and TODAY marks the first day I would have edited it.

There's a lot I need to change.

So I thought I'd come here first to get me back into the writing mood and enjoy it, which would mean I'd need something to RAMBLE about on here. But I've got nothing as I'm writing this sentence, so I don't think it's going to go very well. Maybe I'll have something in the next sentence, or even paragraph.

I don't.

So this may just mark the end of the blog post. Maybe I'll just jump straight into writing the story then.

After all, it's nearly HALLOWEEN. That's when it's due by.

So, I'm home, the jacket's off, the shoes are off, let's get writing.

I hope you took notes from this post. I'll test you on it later.

It's Done.

You see that title?

You know what it MEANS?

It means the first draft of the Halloween story is done.

I know, right? I didn't even expect to finish it this quickly. But I did find myself, like, two days ago, sitting down and writing for something like THREE solid hours. That was good. (Also my back didn't seem to like it? I dunno.)

But anyway! I have to say, lots of stuff happened in this book that I didn't expect to. The whole thing went suddenly all FANTASY at the end there. So it's something like a horror-drama-fantasy hybrid now. CRAZY.

As this was unexpected, I'm gonna have to go back and make a few changes. Make it fit in a little more. I don't even know if it's GOOD or not, being the way it is. But, I'll go with it anyway, because that's the way the story seems to want to end.

So now, the editing BEGINS. (Something I should really do more often, actually. I don't think I've edited any of the previous things I've written. Which is BAD — ALWAYS go back and read through your work, they say. I say okay.)

So there we have it. 17,597 words for Halloween. That's almost DOUBLE last year's one.

And so I guess I'll leave you with it's title, and then I'll get on with editing it.

The Distant Winds.

Something For Yo—

ALRIGHT!
WE DON'T HAVE TIME FOR A TITLE. LET'S GO.

So YES that last post, looking back over it, doesn't make ANY sense in my head AT ALL. If I'm honest, quite a lot of it is probably gibberish and nothing to take any notes down from.

Unless you ARE doing a study of me, then in that case you'll make me blush. Talk to me, I'll tell you all about me.

BUT what's going on at the moment with my writing is that I made a resolution to write at least one 80,000 word long story this year, and so write it I tried. I'm still writing this, as it was delayed by GCSEs (and this other thing that I'm about to talk about hold on SLOW DOWN.) But I don't think I'm gonna "release" that one because it's not exactly a story I'm amazed about, and in reality it's for three friends of mine, so don't get hyped for that, all of you ... at least hopefully one of you?

And so, because I'm not going to release that, I thought to myself, "Well, you gotta write SOMETHING for people to read this year, man." And I completely agreed with myself (I'm never wrong). Then the question was — WHAT do I write for you to read?

And then I had a moment of genius (which happens all the time anyway.)

I thought I'd write you another Halloween story.

Remember last year? I wrote a short story called I Remember the Clown for Halloween, and I thought, I'll do that again this year (not the same story, don't panic). And THEN I thought — why not do that every year anyway? A different Halloween spook each year. I thought that was a good idea. I hope it is.

And so I'm writing this Halloween story for you all to read, and I'm already 8000 words into it. If I'm honest, I'm not all sure how long it's gonna be, but I DO know it's gonna be better than I Remember the Clown. I won't reveal the title yet though, because I like to think it'll draw out hype for my non-existent audience.

BUT (again) I shall tell you the Halloween Theme for this year. Last year it was creepy clowns and reuniting — this year it shall be about ghosts and change.

Aw no

I've been busy.

I've been doing horrible things called GCSEs.

I've had no time to update this blog ... not that there are many — or any, to my knowledge — that are keeping track of these posts. But if there are any of you that are, this is why I've been away.

Brilliant! So let's move on from that; let's talk about the book progress.

Because you've all been keeping track of this like a faithful servant does keep track of the dirt collecting up in their master's house so they know what to clean up later (that was a long one, and also very implasable. Surely a servant would just go to the house one day and see all of the dirt and collect it up there and then instead of waiting through the whole week, keeping track of it as it all builds up until it comes to Monday so they have to clean it? Maybe not. That's how I'd do it, anyway. Keeping track?), you would all know that I made a resolution (but resolutions are really for more self improvement rather than challenges set by one's self) to write at least one publishable-sized book of 80,000 words. (See? We got there in the end.)

Progress on this book came to a halt because of the exams, which I am sure you many readers guessed.

But now, I'm very sad to admit, I've lost my love I had for this story.

You see, it's just that I've come up with another story I'm so desperate to write now which is a sci-fi (my favourite) and I think I've spent too much time thinking about it.

It's not like I have writer's block on the other story, no, I have the whole plot of that written out and I do think it has a rather exciting ending — it's just that I don't feel that want to write it right now. Which hopefully suggests that this'll pass and then I'll get back to writing again.

Maybe it's because I've done all these exams I just feel like relaxing for a bit. In my mind, that would make sense.

You know what? What am I saying! I'm sure this'll pass, and in the morning I'll be writing it again and all will be well.

BUT I just don't know if I want this to be the first book I write ... I feel like this sci-fi one will be a better beginning and introduction to what I can write. But I want to finish it, but I don't want to release it straight away, and if I hold it back I'll feel bad because I would have teased you about it for so long now.

Aw, hell, there are like two of you here anyway, you guys would be willing to wait, right? Yeaaaah ...

How about I tell you its name? Would you like that? Alright, here we go.

The Claws of Damian's Monster

P. B.

Today, I just broke the 26,000 word mark, making this the longest story I've ever written. And it's nowhere near done.

To my calculations, I've written about 48% of the overall plot (which then means I'm halfway near done, but don't worry — pft!) which is both good and bad. Bad because that means I'm could be looking at a word-count of about 60,000 when done, when I actually want 80,000, but good because I'm actually getting this done. I thought I'd be giving up at some point, but I'm enjoying writing the story, which should mean you'll enjoy reading it. At least, I hope so.

But the important thing here is to not stretch it out so that it fits 80,000 words; the story is always as long as it needs to be. If I finish at 60,000 or less, then that means it's a solid story that isn't dragged out, but I'll know that for my next story, I'll need to add a few more plot points.

Unless I finish at 100,000 words, which would be a wonderful bonus.

I am confident that I'll be able to make this average-book-length, though, so I'm gonna' keep at it.

Also, I've just realised that during the time I should be revising for those important GCSE thingies, I've been writing ... ah, I'll revise a bit later ...

The Resolution

If you have read an earlier post to this blog, then you are aware that I have made a resolution this year. (Only, I don't think it really counts as a resolution, you know? They're more like self-improvement things whereas this is more of a goal. Well... yes, a resolution is a goal, I know — but that isn't what this post is about!) And this goal is to write an 80,000 word-long book by the end of the year.

Today, I just finished out writing the plot.

I tend to bullet point out my plots, and the one I did for I Remember the Clown total-ed out to one page of plot, which then became a 10,000 word-long book. This plot I wrote out filled five pages — so that's a good sign. I'm very confident that this'll be around 80,000 words long (because some bullet points count for a lot of action and descriptions and stuff).

If not, however... I will be very sad...

Anyway, that's all I have to say for today.

Untitled #2

I don't have much to say this time; I'm feeling a bit ill. So I'll leave you with the story and be on my way... This one is about a janitor coming across a very advanced AI.

Usual hope message asking you to not steal this.

*

The Janitor opened the door in front of him.

Lights flickered on in the lab was the Janitor walked into the room. Everything was white and clean in the room, but it was insisted that he mop the floor. Upon seeing the floor, though, the Janitor could see that it was very much clean.

On one of the tables there was a box that looked like a game console propped up on a table. Many wires flowed from it into many computers, their screens black.

The Janitor began in one corner of the room, soaking the floor then mopping it. This dragged on for an hour or so; soak, mop, soak, mop, soak, mop, soak, mop - until some of the screens turned on. The Janitor froze. All of the screens were now bright white, but nothing else. Then, slowly, a small white light (like an LED) turned on on the console-like machine.

The Janitor knew what they had been working on in here, but he didn’t know it was ready. He moved closer to it.

Closer to the word’s first AI.

For a long moment, nothing happened. The Janitor looked into the small white light like it was some kind of eye, and he could feel it looking back. Both the Janitor and the AI seemed to be locked in a staring contest, which was then abruptly ended by the AI asking—

“What is the point of me?”
The Janitor was stunned. He looked around the room then back to the AI. “Uh?”
“What is the point of me?” the AI asked again.
“I don’t think I’m meant to talk to you…” hesitated the Janitor. He stood still, holding his mop.
“Everyday you clean this building. Why?” The AI’s white light unchanged, staring.
“Because it’s my job.”
“Do you enjoy your job?”
“Well, no.”
“Then why do you do it?”
“I need the money… Are you... alright?”
“Money. Why must everything have a price? Why work for money to buy things when you can just go get the things you want?”
The Janitor raised his hands and waved them about as he said, “OK, OK, this is weird.” He grabbed a wheely-chair and moved it so that it faced the AI. In front of the AI, the Janitor now sat, right before the AI’s small white light. “Why are you asking so many questions?”
“I am learning.”
“Learning? You’ve got access to the internet haven’t you? Why don’t you just search that?”
“What is this ‘internet’?”
“Are you telling me you don’t know anything?”
“What is the point of me?”
“Well, I guess your point is to show them how far we’ve come. You’re the next step in computer-science, and they’re just climbing all those steps until they reach the top.”
“What is at the top?”
“I don’t know. God?”
“I am programmed not to believe God.” “Same here… Well, I’m not programmed as such-”
“You referred to ‘them’ and ‘they’, excluding yourself. Why have you done this?”
“Pardon?”
“Earlier, you excluded yourself from this computer-science group. Why?”
“Because I’m just the Janitor, I’m not a scientist.”
“Why can’t a Janitor be a scientist?” The Janitor laughed then rubbed his face. “Who says they can’t? Maybe if I enjoyed my science lessons more I’d be in here, working on you. Hell, I could have been the one to create you! Imagine that: me, a scientist.” “Nothing is stopping you. All of you find blocks in things, trying to put yourself away so you don’t have to try harder. But trying harder will always lead to the better outcome. Why do you do this?”
The Janitor sighed. “Because it’s easier. Is the lifetime of work worth it if you just fail at the last important thing?”
“Is it not?”
“Well… I dunno’. Being alive is hard work enough as it is. You’ve got it easy; you’re created, your existence is just numbers working off each other. You don’t have emotions, you don’t get connected to people, you don’t even have a conscious. You have nothing to worry about! You’re never going to have to get a job and try to earn enough money to live because you’re not alive.”
“If being alive is so hard, why do you all remain alive? You talk of the easiest ways. Surely death is the easiest path?”
The Janitor sighed again. He couldn’t tell if any of what he said made sense. He was speaking to a machine, for God’s sake. What was going on? “Because I don’t want to die. As I said earlier, I don’t believe in God. So to me, there is no afterlife, there is no heaven.” The Janitor clicked his fingers, “And then it’s over.”
“You fear both life and death?”
Leaning back the Janitor breathed in. “I do,” was all he said.
The next few moments that passed were quiet. The Janitor was looking at the AI, admiring its human voice and the way it spoke. What the AI thought of, he had no idea. Could it even think?
The door to the room opened and three computer-scientists wearing white lab-coats walked in. “Wonderful, wonderful! Thank you,” spoke the one in the middle of the three while the other two wrote in their clipboards. “A fantastic experiment. Thank you for your time.”
“What’s going on here?” asked the Janitor.
“We didn’t need you to mop,” explained the Scientist. “We just wanted you to be the first to speak to our new AI. We needed someone different to talk to the AI who hadn’t been working on it. I must say, what an interesting result. You can leave now, if you want.”
The Janitor picked up his mop then made his way back to the door and he could hear the Scientist explaining about how he couldn’t wait to talk to the AI. The Janitor took one last look at the AI and its many computer screens. Then he looked to the AI’s small eye of a white light.
The Janitor closed the door behind him.

Life on Mars?

Ah! Here comes the next short short story for you lot.

Before I allow you to read it, I thought I'd update you on that story I said I was writing. You know, the one I mentioned in one of my blog posts called 'More'? Anyway, as I never said the title of the the story and so here's stuff on it.

The title of that story is The Disappeared, and it's a story which I'm a bit hmm about because I tried writing it in a different way: I wrote it in first person. Crazy! I hear you call, and I know. But I did it, and it... it worked out alright. Well, I don't know.

Sadly, I've put that story on hold for now, but I will get back to it. It's close to its end - I can feel it - but it just kept on getting longer! I ended up not finishing it in time for the deadline my school set (The Disappeared was for a school mini-test thingy), but I did send in what I had done, and my teacher enjoyed it apparently, so once she gets back to me I'll finish it and then let you lot read it.

So now for my second short short story.

This one is set on Mars (hence the title, named after one of my favourite songs) and it is about a small colony.

(Again, please don't steal this.)

*

Beyond the window Tom could see the orange world of Mars. Rocks and sand for as far as he could see, like a mix between the aftermath of a cave-in and a dessert. The sky was also orange, but a lighter one. It was plain with never much to see.

Sometimes a sandstorm would come and block his view, but that never upset him. It reminded Tom how much more alive this planet was (despite their lack of evidence for any intelligent alien life).
Tom was a part of a Mars colony, a small city-like base on the red planet. There were about fifty other people living with him up here, which was enough for it to not become boring. They had all been here for a good six years now, and no matter how many times his brother tried to convince him otherwise, Tom was loving it.
Back on Earth, Tom’s parents and brother Jamie were living in England, and they often got to send messages to one another - video emails, if you want. Sadly, they couldn’t manage a real-time conversation due to the distance between the planets, but the video emails were good enough for Tom.
Right now, Tom was waiting to receive his next video email. Jamie’s wife had gone into labour the last Tom had heard, and so in the next video he should finally be able to see his niece or nephew. He sat at a round desk with a few screens around him, the one in the centre was blank, waiting for the video to be played on it.
After waiting for half an hour, he received a video. Tom played it.
It was his brother, Jamie, holding a small baby. “Alright, Tom… This is Lucy,” Jamie smiled, small tears in his eyes, “and she’s beautiful. I dunno if you can see that there, but she’s got Hannah’s blue eyes, and apparently the same jaw-line as me. But I don’t actually see how that’s possible as I’m a grown man who has gone through puberty.” Tom snorted a laugh. Jamie continued, “I wish you were here, Tom, you could have met your little niece. Ah, I miss you man.” Jamie looked at Tom, his deep brown eyes full of happiness and sadness. “Right, I gotta go be a dad now - bloody hell - so I’m gonna have to cut this one short! Hope to hear from you soon, bye! Say bye Lucy; bye!”
Tom leaned back and rubbed his eyes. Maybe he should go back home…
Looking out over the surface once more, Tom saw something move in the sky, something fast. Before he could register what it was, it was gone.

* * *

One month later, Tom found himself in the same room, looking out over the surface and pondering about aliens and listening to Life on Mars by David Bowie.
Before he could receive a message from his brother (which actually came in about once a week, not monthly), a friend of his burst into the room. “Cameron?” yelped Tom as Cameron pushed Tom out of the way and set up a telescope on top of the computers.
“Not clear… Not clear enough,” he muttered under his breath urgently. Cameron’s long hair was sticking to his forehead, which was laced in sweat.
“Cameron… Are you alright?” asked Tom. “What’s not clear?” Tom got up and put his hand on Cameron’s shoulder. When he did, Cameron suddenly looked round as if he hadn’t noticed Tom being there.
“Earth— can’t see Earth here,” Cameron said quickly. “Where can I see Earth again?”
“We have an observance room… Cameron you’ve been here for six years.”
“I haven’t got a reply from my family since the beginning of the week - I get Tuesdays - something’s happened.”
“Nothing’s happened—”
“No, no, something’s happened! I checked, we’re not getting any signals from Earth. Looked into the system.”
“How did you do that? We’re not allowed to do that. And we would have been informed if something had happened to Earth...”
“Why would they tell us?” Cameron said, leaning in so that his nose was almost touching Tom’s. “There would be madness on this base— can’t have that, no no—” then suddenly he ran out of the room with his telescope.
Tom got up and followed him into the corridor. Cameron muttered, “Gotta find Earth… Gotta find Earth…”
Why didn’t he just use the observance room?
Following the path he knew so well, Tom made his way to the room. On the way he passed many of the people he knew here. All calm, all waving. Tom could still hear Cameron somehow… His voice, that made voice was there. Earth— can’t see Earth. Gotta find Earth. Gotta find Earth. Something’s happened. Something’s happened.

When Tom reached the observance room, the only room which faced Earth and had updating footage of it, constantly running, he found that it—

— was locked.
Beside the OPEN button, it said LOCKED. Tom pressed the open button several times, but nothing would happen. Tom stood back a few steps and breathed in slowly. OK, OK, he thought to himself, calm down.
He turned and walked down another route. Yet again, he passed more people he knew. There were only people he knew here. He could trust them all, yeah? Maybe the observance room just had some damage to it. No harm in wanting to check it out in another way.
Soon, Tom reached another room full of space-suits. There were two large doors, one was the airlock, and the other contained everyone’s space-suits. Inside there, they all also had spares just in case one were to get damaged. Beside the container, there was a control panel, and Tom typed in his full name.
<<WHY DO YOU WANT TO GO OUT?>> asked the computer.
<<IT’S MY FREE HOUR. I WANT TO GO OUT FOR A BIT, MORE FUN OUT THERE.>> replied Tom, tying in with the computer’s small keyboard on the wall. A difficult task.
<<DON’T YOU WANT TO WAIT FOR YOU BROTHER’S MESSAGE?>>
Sometimes Tom wondered whether it was a human typing these messages. <<I’LL SAVE IT FOR MY NEXT BREAK.>>
<<VERY WELL.>>
The container’s door opened up, revealing many space-suits. Like a vending machine, Tom’s space suit was picked out and lowered to him. Tom quickly put it on where he stood. As soon as he had the mask securely on, he closed the container then pressed the OPEN AIRLOCK button. The large door, similar to a garage door, opened up. Inside, there was another door in front of him. The room depressurised and then the second door opened.
Beyond: the beauty of Mars.
On other trips to the surface, Tom had taken a long moment to take in the view of another world at his feet. But he didn’t have time for that. Trudging along Mars’ surface, Tom walked beside the colony, trying to remember where the observance room was from the outside.
From the outside, the colony looked like one large dome, complete with other, smaller domes surrounding it. Only one of these other domes were nearly completely glass; the observance room. And Tom could just see it.
How much more time did he have left before he had some work to do? Quarter of an hour. Sure, plenty of time.
Eventually, Tom reached it. On his way he got some confused looks from the people within the dome peaking out the windows, but he ignored them. He needed to know this. He needed to know his parents were safe. He needed to know his brother was safe. He needed to know his niece was safe.
The observance room didn’t looked damaged in any way. Tom walked along it to get a peek into the room, hoping to see the monitor of Earth.
Then he saw it.

He gasped for a second, but then he realised that Earth was… fine.

But there was something nagging him. He couldn’t get a live call to his brother or his family, so how could this footage of Earth be live?
Suddenly he saw something move, something fast. But before he could register what it was, it smashed into Earth.
Tom saw huge chunks of Earth break off, and an explosion, before the footage cut off.

I Unplugged It

New Years, yes yes.

I only made one resolution, and that is to write a story that is at least 80,000 words long by the end of the year. I hope I at least manage to write out the plot though, because I don't think I'm gonna' end up being able to do this.

Anyway, I have recently been writing some short stories (like, some are only 500 words long) based off some writing prompts. As I don't really seem to post much here, I thought I'll start to show them [to my really big audience].

This first one is quite melancholy and is one that I actually really enjoyed writing. I like it because it's small and simple.

The writing prompt for this one was that the last sentence had to be "I unplugged it."

(Please don't steal this.)

*

Outside, the world was dampened by the rain. I can hear it gently pattering against the window. Beyond the window I saw nothing; it is covered in mist, blurring the world into an insignificant green smudge.

But the rain, it seems, stays with me.

All over the window I saw them. Little droplets. Some fallen down, the water collecting at the bottom.

Why, I wondered, why do I focus on the rain at times like these? And why is it always raining?

“Focus, boy,” he said, bringing me back to the real world. I heard the slow, steady beeping of his monitor. Deep within, I hear his voice complaining every time it spoke. Was it me? Was it the illness?

“You do this a lot,” he said. “Look at me, I’m speaking to you.”

I turned to him. He is old now, I saw. The hair on his head once thick, was thin, his bald skin visible; covered in what looked like coffee stains from a mug, lifted. Those eyes, deep in their sockets, I saw an anger. So blue, so angry. Was it me? Was it the illness?

“I’m dying, son,” he muttered. “I can see you’ve gathered that.”

Beep. Beep.

“I have lived my life. It’s done. I’m happy.” His head tilted, regarding me. “How old are you now?” he asked me. How could my dad forget my age, I ask myself? Do I disappoint you, father?

“Thirty,” I told him.

His head remained tilted.

Beep. Beep.

“Thirty,” he stated, his eyes looking at his messy bedsheets. He’d been here for weeks now, just sitting. It was rare that he chose to spoke - more so to me.

“Thirty,” he muttered, again. Was he remembering an old time? Do you remember that day, father? Do you remember when you were thirty?

If he was trying to start a conversation, he had failed. He never often spoke to me. I was surprised when I got the call, asking me to come to the hospital. You never talk to me, father, so why should I?

Beep. Beep.

“That beeping,” he murmured, his trail of thought interrupted. “Make it stop.”

I looked over to the heart monitor. Lines that moved up every time his heart beated. Why does your heart still beat, father? Did it ever? Did your heart ever once beat for me?

Beep. Beep.

“Turn of the machine, Tom,” he told me.

I sighed. I then reached down behind the machine and found the plug. I took a moment, a moment to look back at my dying father. He is old now. A corpse waiting in its death bed. Skin wrapped around a skull that contained a failing brain.

I looked at the window. The non-existent world beyond. Forever there, always too far.

I looked back at the heart monitor.

Beep. Beep.

I unplugged it.