Cooking

I'm not very good at cooking. If left to my own devices I won't starve, but what I prepare isn't that impressive. The funny thing is I do watch a lot of cookery shows. I don't know why, but I do.

The Hairy Bikers are a favourite. They made a name for themselves by not being too “chefy” if you know what I mean. They have a more rough and ready approach to cooking. Their current series is more or less the opposite of that though, since they are doing “gourmet” food. Of course they have their own twist on it, by doing it cheap for people who deserve a treat.

Unsurprisingly it rather enjoyable to watch. I'm not likely going to be able to recreate anything as good as them. I've tried in the past, nothing to write home about but still better than a horse-meat ready meal.

Sleeping Too Long

Sometimes I really struggle getting up on a morning. I don't know why. The alarm goes off and I just roll over and ignore it. It's getting annoying because it feels like I'm wasting part of the day.

I've got an idea as to what might be causing it. Months ago I used to get up at 5am and do two or three hours writing before even getting dressed. Then I finished writing the core of the my novel and the need to be up at 5am somewhat lessened.

I can be creative at 5am, not analytical like you need for editing. I'm still predominately editing at the moment, so I guess that's why I can't get up.....or I'm just lazy. I'd say it's 50-50 chance either way.

The Builder of Bridges

So Pope Bendict XVI announced he was going to resign today. It's been nearly 600 years since that last happened. Back then the Catholic church was racked with schisms that threaten to undermine the authority of the Holy See. Popes have resign in the past but never, I believe, on the grounds of ill health. It's usually been dead man's pointy red shoes before.

Maybe what Catholicism needs is a good old fashioned schism. There hasn't been a really big one in ages. This may sound silly coming from someone who isn't religious but I think the big organised religions need schisms.

They need them to shake up the system, make people fight for what they really believe in. If it splits the church? Then so be it. Nothing last forever, this is as true for religious institutions as it is for nations.

Crumbling Roads.

You have to be brave to venture out on some of the road near to where I live. The roads are in a poor state, crumbling and rough. The potholes are spreading. You just have to be brave and pray they don't damage your car too much.

I know it happens every year. We've been through cold and snowy weather the last couple of months. So the roads have been assaulted by repeated freezing and thawing. That's never a good thing. The roads just seem to be particularly bad this year.

There are a lot of potholes, and a lot of them are quite large. It seems like the council isn't even bothered with trying to fix the problems. Oh they'll come along in two or three months and patch up the holes. However it'll do nothing to sort out the underlying problems. The holes keep coming back in the same places, year after year after year. There has to be a reason for that.

Down in the depths.

It is such a relief when the words flow. Those times when you sit down and you just write. There is an almost euphoric joy to filling up a page with fresh writing.

I have a little joke with my girlfriend. I call writing going down the “word mine”. My keyboard is the pick which which to extract raw word ore. You have to refine and smelt that ore down into pure sentence ingots. With them you can start building paragraphs. Of course you have to be careful not to expose any stinky gas prose, that can really scupper a trip down the mine.

The analogy seems so natural to me. My family is from a colliery village in the North East. I suppose if I was actually from the coast there would be something along the same lines with fishing.

I feel like I got a really good haul from the word mine today.

To make a myth.

How do you make a myth? It is trickier than you think. I've been looking at ways to create realistic sounding myths. They will play a key part to what I'm calling my “Offhand Project”.

I did a creative writing night class a couple of years ago. We did discuss myths in one of the early modules. Unfortunately I've completely forgotten what we talked about. So I'm going to have to make it as I go along.

There is a temptation to simple re-purpose myths from the “real” world. There are benefits to this. It gives a common frame of reference to the readers. I think this is a little lazy though. Better to try and come up with your own ideas.

I'm thinking something along the lines of creation myth involving a battle between multiple factions. Rockmen, iron golems and mankind. Needs a culture hero though. There is always more to think about.

Blurgh

I appreciate that this is going to sounds a little hypocritical, given that I railed on writer's block not so long ago, but sometimes the words just don't come. I tried a couple of times to write a blog today but nothing came. I just couldn't think of anything to write. 

I think it might have been because I had too much going on in my head. I spent most of the day editing one of my chapters, currently on the third version of my current draft. I've also had a new idea percolating away at the back of my mind. A theme I've wanted to explore before is myths having a grain of truth to them. I think it could meld quite nicely with an older YA idea I've had on the backburner for a while. Still needs a lot of work though but I think it could be good.

So with all that going on it was hard to think of something to blog out. In the end I picked the dilemma itself. Lazy? Maybe, but at least it was effective.

The King and the Loon

It has been confirmed that it really was Richard III under that car park in Leicester. This is a real momentous day; a definitive piece of history putting a 500 year old mystery to rest.

I was looking forward to Channel 4's hour and a half long documentary on the subject. I thought we'd get lashing of history and lashing of the science proving who this skeleton was. Instead we got the Philippa Langley show. She is a member of the Richard III Society, an eccentric bunch at times.

Now to give Philippa her dues she was the driving force behind the dig in the car park. It was thanks to her tenacity that the discoveries were made. My problem comes with the documentary. To me it felt a bit too light on fact and heavy on her “journey”. She came across as much too emotionally attached to Richard III, I mean obsessively so. It was quite unsettling.

I know that it's a bit rich for a writer to complain about someone obsessing over something. We are a notoriously compulsive breed. Philippa Langley, though, takes the biscuit and the packet, and the entire biscuit factory.

Hmmmm, Minister?

I'm still not really happy with the new Yes, Prime Minister. From what I've seen so far the story is supposed to be happening over one weekend. Indeed it seems like just one day given that Claire hasn't found time to change out of her LBD from the first episode.

The problem I have with this is that it feels like far too much is happening. The balance of power between Jim and Sir Humphrey keeps swinging back and forth. They both keep pulling out killer bits of information that will surely get what they want. I makes the show feel disjointed because these new plot points keep cropping up at regular intervals. It lacks the same fluidity you saw in the old series.

I was thinking of ways this series could have been made better. I believe a better route to take would have been to go a bit Star Trek: The Next Generation. I don't mean set it in space. I mean leave Jim and Sir Humphrey behind and move on to a new generation of characters. If they really wanted to keep a Hacker in there then why not use one of Jim's children? I could totally go with the idea of Jim's daughter following him into politics. They could have brought Bernard back in a Sir Arnold role, a retired Cabinet Secretary that advises the younger generation of civil servants.

You'd need to create a new Sir Humphrey style character but they've more or less already done that. So I don't think it would be much of a problem. Of course our new Hacker would have to start at the bottom again, a newly appointed minister.

I believe doing it this way would have worked better. Though, you might have had to source new writers. I'm not sure Jay and Lynn can really write modern women properly.