Nick Bryan

lifeblogging

WriteBlog #3 – The Short Pitch And Me

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As promised in the last one of these, I’ve been doing a few small projects in the buffer between finishing Part Two of my current novel last week and starting Part Three for NaNoWriMo. The main one I’ve found is submitting a few ideas for short comic stories.

In this case, they’re not looking for complete scripts, just short pitches describing your story. Now, some of you might be thinking this: “Great! Less work for you!” And although there was an element of that, it’s been harder than I expected too.

Because, to be honest, I’m pretty much used to sending in full scripts (or in prose submissions, full stories or substantial chunks of them) and knowing I’d be ultimately judged on my pacing, turn of phrase, etc – the brief description in the cover email is just there to get their attention.

Not that my story ideas suck, it’s just a different, more pressuring sensation trying to explain why your idea is brilliant in two paragraphs or less and knowing that’s all there is, rather than simply having to hook them enough to read the manuscript itself. After all, there’s not much time for immersion here – even two reasonably long paragraphs can be read in about a minute.

But it’s definitely a skill worth learning – after all, if I ever end up in the situation of trying to pitch my ideas to an editor one-to-one, I may not even get two long paragraphs worth of words to explain it in. Not to mention, I tend to be naturally over-wordy and it rarely hurts to cut down.

Mostly, I’ve ended up doing one paragraph in which I try and capture the mood of the story, then another where I explain how it unfolds. That seemed like the best use of space – we’ll see how it goes. If I can pull this off, it’s definitely going on the List Of Skills I’ve Totally Mastered.

All of which means that in the last week, I’ve spent almost a whole day on this project and produced… about seven paragraphs. By my usual standards, that isn’t much – hell, it’s probably less words than this blog post, which has taken about twenty minutes. But hopefully I’ll end up with individual paragraph-pitches that are so polished and shiny, you can see your face in them.

Should probably get back to them, really. If anyone has any time-honoured words of wisdom about the art of pitching in two paragraphs, definitely leave them in the comments.

WriteBlog #2 – Two thirds and working in the vacuum

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Today, the oft-hinted Satan novel hit exactly two thirds done, and even though I’m well aware it needs a lot of editing, this makes me immensely happy, because it’s the least troubled novel I’ve ever worked on. No huge gaps, no stumbles, nothing I’m convinced is shit. I live in hope that this is something I can either sell to agents/publishers or persuade myself is worth the effort of self-publishing.

Also, I haven’t hit the wall of telling myself I have no talent, because thanks to the reasonably successful antics of Hobson & Choi over at Jukepop, I’ve got a good strong round of positive affirmation coming in for my fiction. One of the big problems with working on a novel is that you get stuck in this inner world where you only have yourself and your book and the inner walls covered in your own dark scrawl.

The internet can help with this, as can a writer’s group if you’re so inclined, wherein you read them your work and they give you feedback, in return for your returning the favour. Yes, it’s terrifying at first, because exposing your work to other people always is – it might be less intimidating to just expose yourself, to be honest – but once I got past that initial fear, it became infinitely preferable to just slashing onwards and hoping it works out. Even listening and mulling over other people’s scribblings can help bring ideas out

.For more on why writing groups are a good idea, the excellent Chris Brosnahan (organiser of the group I attend) has written a blog post.

Otherwise, as I say, there is always the internet for affirmation via likes/retweets/votes/magic stars/whatever the kids are using nowadays.

Anyway: point being, even though it isn’t finished yet, two thirds seems like a lot of novel to me so I’m allowing myself this small celebration. The final glorious chunk, as I mentioned last week, I aim to write during NaNoWriMo – more on that in future blog posts.

But before that particular mega-storm kicks off, I get a couple of weeks in which I can work on some non-novel projects more intensively than usual, plus do some hard planning for the final third. Score.

The Most 1000th Post On This Website! Thoughts! Updates!

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Hello, everybody. This is the 1000th post on this blog (or at least it was on the old site, ahem), so I thought it would be nice to do a proper entry. So, let’s talk a bit about how things are going, a little about the future, maybe some thinking out-loud too. I’ve got a couple of topics to hit, but I’m allowing myself space to improv around the edges.

Hobson & Choi – Twenty-Five, Still Alive!

Hobson & Choi!My ongoing detective serial Hobson & Choi hit twenty-fifth episodes on Thursday, and it looks like we broke the top twenty best-voted serials for the first time in July too. Exact placing still to be revealed, but thanks to anyone who did vote for us. The best is yet to come – seriously, I’ve read #26 and it’s great fun.

But aside from the broad progress update, how are things really going? I wrote a post a while back about the conflict inherent in me, a slightly awkward British man, having to aggressively plug something, and since then, I’ve played with a few strategies to get things working. I submitted an item to the EpiGuide podcast, I created the Official Hobson & Choi Twitter account, where I can ramble about the serial and play with hashtag promotion without feeling bad about infuriating old Twitter followers.

Surprisingly, we’re over 80 followers on that account, which is better than I expected it to do. People seem to be voting for the story on Jukepop, and not just the ones I force with guilt, so I gotta assume it’s going okay.

Still, there’s always more to do. In mid-August, Jukepop’s six-month exclusivity period on early H&C chapters starts to run out, and that means I’ll probably be slapping the first few episodes around other websites to try and raise awareness. May even play with formats beyond text – want to hear my beautiful authentic nasal-Essex accent reading out some Hobson & Choi? You may not have to wait long.

So in the meantime, you can read the serial on Jukepop, and if you know anywhere good I could post some Hobson & Choi in late August, let me know.

Writing About Writing More Or Less?

Not as many solid plans about getting more original content on this blog. I’m not a huge fan of declaring “tips” about writing – to be honest, I’m still learning what works for me, so although I’m happy to talk about it when I do hit on a winning strategy, they don’t come along often enough to keep this blog humming. I tried a slightly self-indulgent post about my creative process last week, and that was enjoyable enough.

And of course, there was always the Friday stories, which were fun and did get the hits/comments in, but honestly, the amount of writing time I was spending producing them was not good. Work on my non-H&C projects has sped up enormously since I cut those out.

I have a few other stories out submitted, and hopefully there will be positive news soon, but again not enough to run this blog single-handed. The TV reviews continue, though, and I might be doing some other podcasty work in that region too. Maybe. Hopefully. Anyway, enough thinking out loud for now, I think.

Thanks to everyone who’s been following the blog and/or the Twitter account for a long time, I’m aware there are some out there who read along happily and don’t say much, and your support means a lot too. Now, back to the “real” writing. I got another thousand posts to fill.

Look! Book! Fook!

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Latitude evidence

Picture the scene, if you will. I was at Latitude festival last weekend – evidence of attendance visible to your right – and arrived early for a talk in the literature tent. The previous speaker was still going. We had been sleeping in a tent and were quite tired (I pray thee cry us a river), so my girlfriend did the only sane thing under the circumstances and lay down on the floor, instantly falling asleep.

However I am a sleep-masochist, so stayed awake on the nice carpeted floor and listened to this man talk. And as I processed his words, something stirred within me. After some soul-searching introspection, I realised it wasn’t exhaustion or my lunch, but an idea. Not just a small idea either, a large one that I could write a fair bit of stuff on. Hell, this might even be another novel idea.

I already have one book I’m writing, another I’m sending out to people, yet another I might write next, and of course my detective serial Hobson & Choi continuing on top of all of that.

So, much as I enjoy a bit of inspiration, there comes a time when it all gets a bit much, and I think we’re nearly there.

Inspiration – A Probable Humblebrag

Nothing personal, Shiny New Book Idea, you have a lot of potential, but I don’t want to start going off my current projects because I’m two or three items down the line in my mind. I have to keep myself grounded, focused and staying in the present, or I’ll never achieve anything. I’m already not doing that good a job of sending out my finished novel, because it’s just more fun to focus on the exciting creative process of writing new stuff.

Not sure what the solution is to this. Sell my new idea to someone else? Quit my day job, so I might actually have time to write everything I want to write? Work faster and stop typing ponderous blog posts when I could be churning out fiction? Spend less time on Twitter? Stop doing as much lurking on internet comics forums?

Yeah, let’s not get too crazy. But still, I need to lock the brilliant new idea away in its box for now, before it destroys the genuinely productive creative process I’ve built over the last few months. I’ve got nearly a third of the new novel done, I think it isn’t too shit, Hobson & Choi seems to be doing quite well, let’s not rock the boat, or indeed soak the tent with water up and down the walls. And, you know, there are worse things in life than having ideas, really.

So, end of the day, I’ve taken notes, so the brilliant new idea won’t slip away from me, and you never know, I may even get to write a few words of it by 2015. It saddens me that I’m already thinking that far ahead, but such is the slipping away of life.

Although the guy whose talk inspired me was an astrologer for the Daily Mail, so maybe it’s best this stays at the bottom of the to-do list.

The End Of The Year Is Nigh

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Believe it or not, when I posted my brief and innocuous Christmas message last week, I received a complaint from one reader that I hadn’t produced something more substantial. The fact I’d provided a 2000 word story about Christmas a few days previously didn’t seem to placate this guy.

So it’s really entirely his fault, the moaning bastard, that I’m about to inflict a full-length End Of Year blog post on you. I’m planning on listing my own 2011 highlights, then outlining the best cultural “stuff” I have enjoyed during the period. If that floats your boat, read on.

Me, My Writing And I

I generally don’t talk about my life much on this blog, because I already do that on Twitter, and at a length I’m amazed anyone can stand. But just for the record, here are the events that leap out at me from 2011.
  • First published fiction work! That was always going to top the list, really. If you want to buy said story, details are here. It’s 12,000 words long and I’m quite proud of it.
  • And in general, I entered the second year of my creative writing MA. Aside from the current life-ruining essay, I’ve enjoyed it. Some of the feedback has been intense, but in a good way. Mostly.
  • Left the British Isles for the first time in two years, for 48 glorious hours in Belgium. This has made me nostalgic for the days when I could afford real holidays.
  • Moved from Android phone to iPhone. Positive effects so far: Instagram and better games. Negative: having to use iTunes on a PC, which is an abomination.
  • Got new TV writing gig for Television @ The Digital Fix, as well as continuing reviews for Dork Adore. Made glorious podcast debut which, after about six attempts, I even managed to listen to.
  • Finally started noticing the recession, after living in a bubble of childlike simplicity for ages. Didn’t enjoy this one as much as most of the above.

Stuff I Liked

That last section went on a bit longer than intended, so this will be fairly brief.
  • TV: Not sure the world needs more long rambles from me about television. Some things were good, especially Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle, The Hour, Exile and The Killing.
  • Film: A raft of superhero films, many I suspect I only liked due to reading the comics. X-Men: First Class is the only one that might’ve been objectively good. Outside that subgenre, Studio Ghibli’s Arrietty was lovely, and I completely failed to catch most proper films at the cinema. Oh, Real Steel. I saw that. Um.
  • Music: Annoyingly, many artists I like released records this year, but often weren’t as great as I hoped. Best album probably England, Keep My Bones by Frank Turner. Suck It And See by Arctic Monkeys also very cool in a pop-rock way, and they’re not even a band I normally listen to. Collapse Into Now by R.E.M. was a triumphant rattle through their style, especially poignant since they later split up. Great if you’re a fan, others may not care.
  •  Podcasts: An art-form I’ve only recently started paying attention to, but Please Don’t Hug Me is very funny, and if you like that, consider The Daniel Ruiz Tizon Podcast, a solo effort by one of the presenters. If you like comics, I recommend House To Astonish most highly. Commenters: feel free to mention any other podcasts you recommend, I could use more.
  • Theatre: I went to see the Matilda musical the other day. It was fantastic.
That’ll probably do. If you’d like a short story themed around New Year as well, read this one from last year and pretend it’s called “Operation 2012”.

So, that was 2011. I could make some kind of prediction or publicly declared resolution for 2012 now, but I’ve learnt to stop doing that. Happy New Year, regardless. Hope it’s excellent for all of us.

Merry Christmas!

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I did consider doing a whole blog post, rambling for a few hundred words, but I’m not sure there’s audience or need for it on Christmas Day, really.

Stil, to anyone reading, hope you’re having a good time with whatever combination of turkey, presents and crackers you’ve ended up with. If you’ve had a crappy year, you’re not alone, but that’s the beauty of the bright colours and big garish ideas. Distraction, if only for a day.

If you do want season-themed internet content, I posted a festive short story a few days ago, so give that a look. Otherwise, have a great one, and I’ll be back here before you know it. That Doctor Who Christmas special won’t review itself, y’know.