Tower Against a Red Sky

Following the Flow of the Amazon

2012-01-08T15:16:00.000Z

When I put my book up on Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing it was very much a last ditch effort, it represented my giving up on finding a publisher permanently. Putting it on kindle was in many ways simply a way of preserving it, so that it wouldn't fade away and at least be available somewhere as I moved onto other things. As the months went by without selling a single unit I was never really surprised, why would anybody buy it? The important thing was that it was there.

Selling one, or seven, but most importantly, one, made a difference. More than I would have expected. It's a sensation, I feel, completely tied with the knowledge that I've made a cent from my writing. Now, I have generated money from my blogs through advertising though it was never anything over a couple of Euro. That's different, that's somebody randomly happening across my blog (usually as a side effect of one of the images I use showing up in their google search) and clicking on an ad. When I sold a book on the kindle that was somebody browsing to my book, clicking add to cart and buying it. They were interested in my product, enough to throw three dollars down for the mere privilege of buying it. I take so much energy from that thought, especially as it's possible to preview the book on Amazon and read the first few chapters so it certainly wasn't a blind purchase.

They liked the first few chapters enough to be willing to pay to read on, that's amazing. To those who have either downloaded my book for free or, even more encouragingly, paid for it, I offer my sincere thanks. If you have any feedback at all you can leave a comment here or email me directly, I'd love to hear from you.

Of course, I mainly just hope that you felt the book was worth whatever effort or money you put into acquiring it. If there is ever enough interest to secure a sequel I'd love to write it.

An Ending

2012-01-03T20:52:00.001Z

Well, finished it...

Book 2, bang, shot in the head like a collared outlaw. Like the final god fallen at ragnarok. Dead.

Only, it's not because now I'm going to re-write the ever loving hell out of it and press gang some proof readers.

Going to start sending out publishing packs in the latter half of the month.

Yes. It all starts again, 2 years on. There's something deeply, right, about that.

Theme song time.

did you doubt us from what came before?
were you not a believer?
here and now all your doubts are no more
this is redeemer

This is Super Dog

2012-01-01T20:28:00.006Z

Hey, it's me, Super Dog. Hey, how you doin'? Welcome to the internet guy.

You good?

Right, well Eoghan can't be here right now you see. He gave me a tenner to post for him, gave me a message to give to you all, everybody reading this.

"Even the web crawlers, since they're where all your hits come from?" I asked upon receiving his orders. "ESPECIALLY, the web crawlers!" he said and returned to feverishly writing a ten page love letter to himself.

Well, somebody out there bought his book on kindle following a week of free promotion. Some punters seemed to not check their basket and ended up paying for the thing, talk about a waste of memory AND money. I'm waiting for the refunds to roll in personally.

Anyway, books currently sold for real money numbers 7. Well done Eoghan from all Super Dogs everywhere, may your book's sales one day pay for the electricity your laptop consumed while writing it.

Oh, and happy new year. Woof!

I'm getting that feeling

2011-12-26T02:29:00.000Z

It's approaching now, that feeling that comes every so often. That unfounded, irrational sensation that great things lie ahead. That next year will put all others into the shade.

And why shouldn't it, I'm building on something I know works. It might not be shiny right now, it might be in no way complete but there is something about the ground on which I now stand. Something about all that had decayed and washed away from it before, what remains has stood the test of time.

And those are words and words are what I'm swearing off. I'll build no more pictures, no empty hallucinations of meaning, I have no more time for them. I love to tell myself how far I've come, how my mere survival is something to be proud of. Of course age has taught me how shallow all of that is. It is not enough to merely be, it is not enough to merely want.

For me, 2012 will be a year of purpose. Where I discard words, mirrors and speeches for some form of action. It will not be an overnight thing but I will aim to exercise my executive will in whatever way I can. I will find purpose in the things I do.

What's more, I will record it here. To the future.

Posting to my Blog

2011-12-07T18:55:00.002Z

Hey, I said to myself. Why not drop the organization for a moment, why not give up trying to write something that somebody may want to read. After all this blog exists for one reason and one reason only.

It is my soap box.

You know, I've been accused of being a decent writer. It's true, people have said it. I've always secretly held that belief myself, that my, in many ways unique, perspective on the world combined with modicum of talent with the English language combine in a way that is somehow good.

But what does that mean? There's no cash prize, no career path. No interview to attend or cv to update, it's merely just the case. And I suppose that's the hard part of being better than utterly hopeless at something, it's intimidating. Sitting there in my living room playing games on my XBOX feels like a waste of something. Something I don't really understand.

It's just something I do every weekend now. Or try to do. That's all it is and whether I ever have a chance to do it professionally or not that's all it will ever really be. There is no quota of words or benchmark to meet, just what I do.

I find that hard to accept somehow. I seek structure in something that's inherently structureless. I have what I have and anything beyond that is a matter of chance.

Arby Quinn's guide to construction

2011-11-06T16:01:00.001Z

Sometimes in life a man can tire of living under a tree or a disused dog house. Sometimes a man desires a proper dwelling, in short; something with a roof. Now we've all heard the story about those pigs, about how stupid the first pig was messing around with sticks while the aryan super pig somehow lay his hands on a load of bricks and managed to build a house with them, first things first, that's all rubbish. Forget everything you think you know about building things, especially if it involves pigs of any kind.

Kick it down, missus brown. This is an old Irish tradition, the kicking test. Basicaly, if I can't kick it over it's grand. That's why the whole stick, wood, brick hierarchy is such a fallacy. If I find a load of bricks in a pile I can easily kick them over, however have you ever tried to kick over a tree? Well, I have and it really doesn't work. This tip is, once you think you're finished building something give it a solid kick. If your project falls over into a heap of crap, you need to start again; if it's still standing you did good. Bonus points for having broken toes. (A sign of a good builder that can't afford steel capped boots.)

How many animals are there inside it? Animals are rife in this part of the country and they tend to infest things as soon as you can erect them. "Oh" says the local heffer "Somebody has put up a new barn for me, how nice." Well, you've got to say no to that cow, no, you can't live in my new house. They mightn't listen to you but my god you've got to try.

Electricity. What is electricity? Lights are great but they aren't always an option, you've got to make the most of what's available. Water is good so if you have a river nearby why not build your house over it? People mightn't like the resultant contamination of their water supply but that's the price of progress. (Be sure to remind them of this when they turn up with the police.) Apple trees are nice, especially if you can build your house in such a way that the apples actually fall into your kitchen from the tree, I'm not sure how you would manage that but it's an idea. Then you'd never have to leave your house again, never be bothered by the rigours and agony of daily village life. Imagine.

Defense, because houses are enviable. Let's face it, the second you finish your house every local estranged husband, fox, badger or drug addict will be turning up at your door looking for free lodging. To them you are the kind man of the woods, you've got to put them straight. Simple ideas like putting up a sign that says "No, I am not the kind man of the woods" or keeping a few emergency bees handy sometime work but usually you need something a little more reliable. To this end I recommend an elaborate collection of pit traps and poisoned dart launchers, these should work every time as long as the inruder hasn't seen any of the Indiana Jones films.

Remember to enjoy your house! Once you've built that mother you've really got to enjoy it while you've got it. There are so many forces out there you can't control that would enjoy nothing more than to tear it down again so you have to take the moment. Treasure those moments in the rain storm where you remain completely dry, devour those times where you can escape the farmers dog without having to climb a tree and love those days where you have somewhere to keep your stuff that the sheep won't get into it.

Life Tips for Fire Cats 1 - Reproducible Results

2011-10-27T14:14:00.005+01:00

Now, you might think that I shouldn't really be writing life tips as my life is obviously a complete shambles. What you've got to remember however is that I've been through the blender a few times and I'm still rocking so why not share some of things that got me where I am in one piece.

My first tip might seem obvious but it wasn't that way for me for a long long time. My personality is such that I'm always seeking silver bullets and big bangs. I want my life to change overnight and I'm perfectly willing to expend colossal amounts of energy to make the happen.

I've written about this before but there are no over-night solutions. Your life is a long term problem and needs long term solutions. That evening you spend two hours pumping iron in the Gym until you almost pass out is all well and good but it's actually completely worthless if you don't keep it up over a period of a few months. The fact that you'll now associate exercise with almost dying is not going to help you stick to that regimen.

Take my writing for example, for the longest time I got things done piece meal. Very occasionally I'd hammer out a few hundred words while sitting on my couch before being distracted by some electronic device in my living room. So, while I might get a lot done now and again it was impossible to find a rhythm. It was very nearly a pointless endeavour.

Now I go down to star bucks and achieve repeatable results. I've found something that's reproducible and that's golden. I go down there with the knowledge that something will get written every time.

My other example is boot camp, I used to be a long time member of various gyms and the pattern I outlined above would always occur. I'd follow an initial burst of energy by falling off almost entirely and slumping into terrible patterns, eating and otherwise. Boot Camp is only twice a week and is right after work. I get reproducible results, even if I am terrible at it.

They're obviously my personal experiences but I think it's an important way to adapt your thinking if you are in any way like me. I naturally seek out things that I feel I can't do and try to prove myself, that's very important too but it must be hedged against predictable and reliable results from some other aspects in your life.

Like I say to my protégés at work. First get something that works, then we can focus purely on making it beautiful.

Start Again

2011-10-22T14:29:00.001+01:00

The birds they sang

at the break of day

Start again

I heard them say

-Leonard Cohen - Anthem-

I'm sitting in Starbucks at the beginning of my two week holiday. I chose the time randomly just as a way to use up some holidays I won't be able to carry over but I'm making good use of the time already, typing away on plans and books and blog posts.

I'm nearing the end of Moderately adventurous and I am so very mindful of my previous experiences with completing a book. The initial sense of satisfaction at completing such a significant piece of work. The following sense of hopelessness as you realized nobody in the world is interested.

I chose a subject this time that I hope will remedy the latter problem. It's more sell-able but of course the possibility is still there that it will go nowhere. What will I do if that's the case? Why, start work on the next book of course.

The first hit was hard, I'll admit that. Receiving endless rejection letters from publishers and agents combined with being stuck in a dead end job at the time felt like a death sentence. I learned something, however, I learned that the best solution was to throw everything away and march on. Try again from the very beginning and do things a little better this time.

A strange analogy but recently I bought a new game for my Xbox. It's called Dead Rising 2: Off the Record. Besides being great fun it has an extremely interesting mechanic. You see, you can't win the game. Not the first time at least.

It's impossible, the game's tasks are too much for you when you first begin. You don't have enough health or do enough damage. You're weak and yet you are playing a game meant for somebody so much stronger.

The mechanic comes into play when you fail, finally. When all hope of succeeding has gone. The game does something very interesting, it says, “Reset Story”.

So you start again, knowing the game much better this time. You keep all the strength you've accumulated from before but now have a clean slate. Things come so much easier the second time.

In regards to my novel, I'll do better this time and whether or not I make it to the end is irrelevant. I will start again until I do.

Arby Quinn - Merchandising

2011-10-02T14:54:00.000+01:00

Lads, when I received my inheritance of a quarter half acre I had plans. Big plans, well, as big as you could get when restricted to barely enough dirt to fill a pint glass. It wasn't enough to grow potatoes but there was an obvious alternative, a growing source of revenue in what was at the time a country fast embracing the tide of internationalisation.

Read any newspaper article on what makes this country tick, it'll mention tourism. All the Americans brought up on their grandparents tales of the otherworldly properties of their distant home. How fast they forgot the scorn of their English masters and the tight grip of the catholic church, every story they told their family centred around one truly Irish thing. No, it wasn't the green sweeping fields or the endless acres of wandering live stock. It wasn't the worry that hell was around every corner waiting and part of you looking forward to living somewhere warmer.

Guinness. Can any other country be so easily boiled down to a brand? People who visit buy it, get drunk and then visit the official gift shop too drunk to realize that the Euro is actually stronger than the Dollar and spend as much on a brace of t-shirts as they would an extension for their Summer home.

So, that was what was in my mind when I first received that deed for an area of land barely great enough for me to lie down in without trespassing on my neighbour. Arby, I said to myself, you haven't the horizontal to cultivate but you have the vertical to inebriate. It's surprising how little space you need to start brewing if you stack things correctly. And thus was born, Arby Ale and the Arby Ale gift shop.

Arby Quinn - The End of the World

2011-09-11T15:37:00.002+01:00

Now, lads. You all know that we're coming up to the end. And I don't mean the end of the month, or even the end of my potatoes. This is the end of everything. Sean the scorpion showed me his book, written by one late Paddy Nostradamus. I couldn't make heads nor tails of that git's English but Sean said it was very clear to him.

Next year, a chicken will escape from farmer Murphy's run and make his way to the post office. There, he will cluck three times and scratch the dirt a bit with its foot. A meteor will then strike the post office, ending the postal service as we know it forever.

Needless to say, that scared the bejazus out of me. No more letters, Sean? We'll lose contact with the outside world. Anything could happen and we wouldn't know about it. Sean just nodded his head grimly. There must be something we can do, I pleaded.

There could be, one thing we could do. Sean said. What if Murphy had no more chickens? I spent the next ten minutes pondering the implications of what Sean had said, indeed, what if Murphy had no more chickens. There'd be no more eggs, that much was for sure.

No more chickens, no more prophecy. Sean said. What was on my mind was the day only two weeks before when the Murphy kids pelted me with a salvo of those apocalyptic chickens' output. What can we do, then. I asked Sean.

Well, if we take his chickens and sell them on, we'll have saved the world Arby.

And, coincidently, that's also the story about how I ended up with Murphy's Buckshot in my posterior.

Amor Fati

2011-09-11T15:32:00.003+01:00

Amor Fati. It's an idea that I've come across that sums up a lot of what I've been thinking about lately.

I'm a big fan of the Eels older work. One of their songs is called P.S. You Rock my World. As a kid it was my favourite song, it was at the end of a very depressing album but seemed to balance it all out with a really uplifting message. I used to have it on repeat when my mood was especially dark.

There's a line in it. A careful man tries to dodge the bullets while a happy man takes a walk. Of course in my case you can replace the bullets with eggs but the idea's the same. This idea goes all the way back to philosophers of the past and is summed up in this concept of the Amor Fati.

Love of ones fate. That's what it translates to. Considered to be the key of happiness by a few of the big minds in history. I suppose the idea is that it frees us from worrying about what actually happens in life as we agree to love it either way, it makes logical sense to me. Why worry about things we can't control, how can we even determine what is good or bad? Love it all, why not?

It reminds me of the idea of Valhalla, where the Norse Men taught themselves to seek out honourable death. Actually embracing their almost inevitable bloody end.

So, I wasn't the first one with these ideas, I need to come to terms with that. But that's how things are and I guess I had better learn to accept it. It's funny how this runs at right angles to what I actually believe but I acknowledge how much more positive it would be be to accept Amor Fati. I think I'll modify it slightly and fit it into my own belief structure.

Arby Quinn - The Dickhead Dinos

2011-09-04T18:57:00.001+01:00

It all began a few weeks ago, dear reader. I was minding my own business, getting a drink of water down by the stream when the strangest creature emerged from behind some bushes. It was bulky and greenish blue, what could have been feathers flecked the sides of its body but it didn't have wings. I believe it was a dinosaur.

I stood motionless as it walked calmly towards me, as if I was the hallucination. He trotted right up to me, close enough that I could have touched him if I had chosen to and started eating the potatoes I had brought with me to wash in the stream. In shock I watched as this unreal creature devoured my lunch as if he had just paid me for it, as if it was his right.

He did one last thing before he left, and in all honesty it is the one action that haunted me most. He craned his flat and beaked head until we had eye contact and winked at me. The bastard winked at me. He then trotted off, slightly faster than he had arrived. I wanted to throw something at it, shout, something, but I didn't.

The danger is clear to me now reader, the danger is these Dickhead Dinos. They are coming to take everything we have as if it was rightfully theirs. For now I will try to learn more and take better care of my potatoes but I will not let them walk over me, not a second time.

Arby Quinn - A Guide to Investment

2011-09-04T18:37:00.005+01:00

Now I know what you're thinking, Arby, what do you know about the world of finance? Have you even seen an episode of Dragons' den? Well, the answer is yes, I have. I was over in Sean the scorpion's house a while ago and I saw a bit of it. I immediately started investing in local businesses and have learned a lot, mainly that it's a terrible idea. So, to help you avoid the pitfalls that I have found myself falling into repeatedly here's my guide to investment.

Get the numbers right. It was actually Sean who taught me this one, “Arby”, he said, “why not invest in my new business?” I was so revved up I immediatly invested ten of my potatoes only to be informed the next day in a high level business meeting with Sean that his company had just folded the night before when he realised he didn't really feel like having a business after all.

Remember what you invested in. This is an important one, two weeks of investment left me without a potatoe to my name but for the life of me I couldn't remember what I had invested in. I have an inkling that I threw a few the way of the young local apple stealer. He said he was going to set up a highly legal apple black market, although I didn't so much invest the potatoes as throw them at him, so maybe it doesn't count, I don't know.

Don't listen to people. I've learned the hard way that people are merely complicated vessels of lies and deceit. Whatever they tell you will be a lie so just reverse what they say. If they say you are gauranteed a return, forget about it. If they tell you however that investing may actually put your life in danger you might want to give it some serious consideration.

Don't invest in anything ever. Investing is for people who have more resources than sense. I invested everything I had left in “Porky Record Label”. A local farmer had an amazing pitch where he sold me the idea of recording the first ever Pig based rock music. He just fed my investment to the pigs and told me to get off his land.

So those are my tips for entering the exciting world of investment, I don't recommend entering it however. Shows like Dragons' den glorify it but in actuality it's rubbish.

Picture stolen from here.

Dodging Eggs

2011-09-04T17:53:00.004+01:00

I was the victim of a drive by Egging yesterday. It didn't hit me because the person throwing the Egg obviously suffered from some degenerative mental condition preventing them from developing proper motor skills but it certainly spooked me. What would drive people to do something so spiteful I wonder. General impotence I suppose.

Instantly the event made me think however, about life, about work and about writing. There are always Eggs flying around, little things we have to put up with. There's the fact that people are not always open to new ideas, a lack of free seats at Starbucks and there's the beginnings of a headache preventing me from finishing work on a spreadsheet.

Just one of these things stops us in our tracks and forces us to go back home and possibly have our coats dry-cleaned but we don't let it stop us. We're back the next day, working even harder. The thing is that it's easy for somebody to throw an Egg, that's why people do it. It requires no skill to provide a spanner in somebody else’s works.

Following many set backs I've finally revised most of my novel as it stands and I'll soon be starting the final section. It's good, really good. I've been reading through it with pride and you know. Despite all of the Eggs, there are no stains. In the end all of the barriers and little annoyances wash away and all that is left is what we strived for.

Our work has a permanence that the Egg throwers will never know.

Now What?

2011-08-13T20:29:00.005+01:00

Interview situation, I need to pick my single greatest strength. Well, that's got to be my goal driven personality. I like to think of myself as God's bullet, once a course has been set I will tear through anything to get to it. My writing is an example of that, it's a perquisite feature of any person capable of seeing a novel to completion.

It's also why I'm alright at my job. If I have a clear idea of what I'm trying to achieve anything that stands in way has its days numbered. I take immense satisfaction in achieving things that I considered near-impossible. I like to be proven wrong by my own pigheadedness.

The thing that bothers me now is, if one does achieve their goal. Then what? This question is at the core of my new-found interest in the art of project management.

The key of project management is to make something large and insurmountable into smaller manageable pieces. A Project Manager takes the ten year project of an absolute genius and transforms it into a six month task for a talented group of people. Well, that's the idea behind it anyway.

It's the big picture that drives us, people like me. The novel is the perfect example, I always have a strong view of where I am in the work and I always feel that at the end of every period of sustained work that I am closer to the end. The satisfaction at the end of every day is a piece of what I'll feel at the end and part of what drives me to it.

In a well managed project you feel the same way, that you've bitten off a bit of a larger whole. That satisfaction drives on every member of the team, day to day until victory is achieved.

But what if a project is badly managed? I suppose that's like writing my book if I had no idea how long it would be, what tone I was aiming for and who I'd imagine reading it. Every day I worked on it I would only feel more confused and demotivated, eventually the book would probably be abandoned.

Project management is everything to a person like me, as a writer, as a programmer and to every slave of goals. The Project manager is the king of the Now What?, the most important element of any project, big or small.

The worrying thing is that in my career thus far I honestly haven't witnessed a very high level of it. It seems the more divorced that Project Managers become from the actual work being done the less efficient they become. Is it such a rare skill set to be able to have a high level view of a project and have the positive energy to sell it to people and to make them feel that their piece is significant?

Ultimately, I think every person wants to feel part of something greater. The thing is that anything can be great and a piece can be as good as a whole. There are no excuses.

No Silver Bullet

2011-08-01T17:12:00.004+01:00

I've read a paper by a certain industry veteran recently, written in the eighties.

The title of the paper was “No Silver Bullet.” Now, it was about Software Engineering practices and the fact that there will be no big single breakthrough in the next decade in the Computer world that would for example, double productivity.

The interesting part, I think, is how this was described. The author outlined the fact that the No Silver Bullet idea was not only true but worthy of acceptance in and of itself. The search of a secret magic idea is akin to believing in magic or superstition. It's akin to waiting to see a special number before beginning work or seeking, as the author uses as an example, the philosophers stone. This is all wasted energy.

On accepting that no single thing will change our life, our writing practices or our professional duties we are left with the truth. I suppose I find the idea refreshing, so much of the world is consumed in the hunt for this quick fix. In every realm there is those trying to sell short cuts and a corresponding multitude forever willing to buy them.

There will be no advancement without hard work. We have our tools, we have picked up our craft and now we must make our path as a river does through a mountain. Slowly, interminably. And with each rivulet opened we flow a little stronger but the process continues the same.

Thinking in those terms one realizes that he must enjoy this step as much as he wishes to enjoy his last. Sobering thought.

Walking the Path Already Made

2011-07-30T18:04:00.000+01:00

I have bitten the bullet and started the very necessary task of working through my novel, cleaning it up as I go. I get to marvel at my brief moments of lucidity and good use of language, I get to despair at the plain laziness and lack of inspiration in many parts. But that's okay, the beauty of a novel is that parts are torn and rebuilt as fast as a replacement can be imagined.

What makes the journey hard is the length, my days work amounted to a very small part of a greater whole. What's more that's time in which I won't be adding to my holy word count, in fact that will be diminished as I edit out the parts I deem worthless and trim down sentences so they don't flow like a blocked canal.

It's certainly not glamorous, walking over this path again. Seeing my points of strength and weakness, often I can remember where I wrote each individual section. I remember how I felt then, I wonder how I would have felt then if I knew what fate waited for my work. The fate of rework and deletion.

My editor hat is on now, I have become that critical person every writer fears who descends on his work with a scalpel and cuts out all that does not match my expectation. I don't care how much I loved a particular sequence when I wrote it, if it doesn't come up to scratch it's gone.

And, ultimately, most interestingly, I am not bothered by this any more. I feel my experience has added up enough now that I look at a novel as a whole. It has strong parts it has weak parts, sometimes something that's not perfect needs to stay in place to support the greater whole, sometimes something great needs to go because it just doesn't fit the tone or structure of a chapter. That is the essence of architecture and I intend to build something greater than any single piece.

Feeling Roguish in General

2011-07-17T21:56:00.002+01:00

Well, updating one's blog is a vaguely important thing to do. So I've decided to spend some time doing just that.

Sadly my writing is not progressing as I'd like it to right now, I'll dispose with the excuses. It's just not. The banquet of life is proving overly chewy for me at the moment so I'm just gritting my teeth and making good.

What is going well however is that cauldron of ideas that is my mind. I'm finding inspiration and material in everything right now, building up my internal store of writing fuel for when I finally do get back into the flow. So I can't complain.

So, what do I do when I'm not writing? This weekend found me playing a few hours of this little game I came across through one of the invaluable Total Biscuit WTF is... episodes. It's a rogue-like with graphics. If you don't know what a rogue like is, well, it's beyond the scope of this blog to explain it so I recommend a trip to google. You can check out the video covering it here. It was a very pleasant distraction.

I've also been listening to a lot of a podcast called Three Moves ahead. I've always had this fascination with war gaming even though I've never really got into one. The podcast is excellent food for thought both concerning what makes those games great but also concerning what makes the whole scene impenetrable for most. The only person I've ever been able to coerce into playing a war game with me was my brother, I've always shyed away from pursueing the hobby beyond the safety of my own home. Still, you can have a look (or listen) at the podcast here.

I'll probably organize some writing for myself soon. Even if it is just a short story or perhaps a review of something. In the mean time, I'm happy to be able to distract myself for a time before I need to return the fray at work.

A Piece

2011-07-05T21:16:00.002+01:00

When I first started writing and it was a long time ago now, I was an ambitious little lout.

After a few short poems I soon had big ideas and started work on my great epic. There I was, at 15 years old, starting work on something that I dreamed would put Virgil to shame. I remember it clearly, it was about a piece of gold that a farmer found in his field. He had never seen gold before so was blown away by this shiny material. He didn't know what to call it, not knowing of a concept of god nor having a name for the sun. So he called it a "piece".

The story was then that this piece passed from the farmer to a poet, who likewise pondered the meaning of this "piece". I suppose the idea was that the story would follow it as it touched people in different ways, making them suddenly aware of something greater.

I wrote in free verse in a poem like language. Like Milton I guess, except of course unlike Milton I only got to the second page. I lost even that, I don't know where it is now.

Something earlier made me recall the farmers exclamation upon finding the lump of gold. "A Piece, I have found a piece." A piece of what he did not know, only that something so beautiful could not exist as anything but a part of some great whole. Well, I'm just being nostalgic, I'm sure my would-be epic would make me cringe now.

The part about this memory that bothers me however, was my ambition. I was a wide eyed lunatic of a kid, illusions of grandeur, more than a hint of megalomania. I remember wasting time during a Summer job thinking out the battle doctrine I would use to conquer the world. It's just the way I was. The Epic was part of these impossible dreams but it, unlike my dreams of sweeping victories and glory, was real. I wrote some of it.

I may have resigned myself to never ruling the world but that was easy, it was pure fantasy. I am comfortable with that, but my Epic, my writing. I have had a piece of that in my hands and once you have touched a piece of something like that, once you know there just has to be a whole, can you ever give it up?

The Fall of Dave

2011-06-06T14:42:00.002+01:00

When I was ordering my High Speed Internet almost two years ago I was asked if I wanted a TV package. One single thing influenced me enough to say yes. It was the channel called Dave.

This was the channel that offered all of the best BBC content. You had Dragon's Den, you had QI, Have I got News for You and drips and drabs of whatever else that BBC had produced over the years that was worth re-watching. (And yes, lots and lots of Top Gear re-runs. I'm not trying to say it was all watchable.)

They sold themselves as “the home of witty banter” and they held more or less to that for a long time. If I had my television on and I wasn't watching the simpsons it would be something on Dave. Their sensibilities I felt matched my own.

But that was then, it seems. A channel that I, obviously in error, thought that championed higher tier television has now started producing some of the most putridly imbecilic content I have ever witnessed. It turns out that they never aspired to BBC heights of quality but always cast a jealous eye in the direction of Dark Ages UTV. Although it must be said that they seem to be outdoing even them, at least the dregs of UTV's offerings tended to have a budget.

Now, we are faced with unfunny underaged comedians screaming nonsense for half an hour on a stage, prodded into performing like a chained animal. We are faced with lowest common denominator quiz shows hosted by fallen comedians. We can watch endless reruns of the humourless robot from Red Dwarf drive people around in their van and finally watch celebrities ride amusement attractions for literaly no other reason than the fact it's cheap and people will watch it.

Of course, maybe that's working out for Dave and at the end of the day it's a commercial enterprise and I do not hold that against them. I suppose I'm just disappointed that my Dave has officially become more unwatchable than the Nigerian Christian Rap channel. At least I can go back to day long binges of open all hours on GOLD but I'll be honest, it's just not the same.

Is There Anybody Out There?

2011-06-05T16:24:00.002+01:00

Well, I'm in insomnia today. The coffee isn't quite as nice as starbucks, it's roasting hot and I'm right beside a big buzzing drinks cooler. It's easy to see why the place is empty while I couldn't find a single free table in the former.

I was walking around Dublin 4 on my way here, doing a little circuit that took me through the park before I commenced writing. Something unpleasant struck me, I'm living in suburbia. It reminded me so vividly of Birmingham, that bothered me greatly.

I suppose it's one of those days today, there is something oppressive in the air. I'm sure people all over the world have that niggling feeling that something is wrong or out of place.

Well, I'm being negative, I'll write about something else besides my own personal demons for a change. I'm left wondering now what to write about.

It's not like I'm not working on other things, my new application idea or indeed my latest massive novel. I don't only write about myself, I suppose it's just when I think of my blog I feel about writing about myself. There's little I'm more qualified to write about.

I was thinking about one thing and it was about Irish writing culture and how completely invisible it is to me. Perhaps there is more I could do to seek it out, it's not necessarily inspiration I'd seek but I suppose general support. I've never met somebody my age who aspired to be a writer though I know I can't be the only one.

I have heard of some small independent publications and internet forums and such but I am surprised that there is nothing as simple as a society or club I could join. There is the Irish Writers Centre here but that's a commercial endeavour. They aim to provide courses for people which I don't knock the value of but ultimately do not provide a sense of community that I would like to find amongst others.

Perhaps it's an idea to consider, or perhaps there is such a society around here somewhere and I'm just not looking hard enough.

The Whim of the Tide

2011-05-22T20:38:00.000+01:00

I went down to Malahide beach today on a whim. I walked down the path that I used to take to work every day along the beach. It made me think about how far I had come, or really how little distance I had come.

Malahide is a beautiful town, I really like it. I was lucky to have to oppurtunity to work there and I definitely look back on my time there very fondly. I left the job there because I felt there wasn't much future and I suppose I was right. But I still wonder what would things be like if I hadn't left. I suppose that's normal.

It's funny how I've encountered the same problems however, just in different forms. The job I have now has taken the form more of an experience than a pure career move. I have filled a role I had seen others fill, I have met some great people and I suppose I've been pushed out of my comfort zone. These were all things I was looking for.

It's not perfect but it's making me think about things and though that isn't always pleasant it is fundamentally important. I continue writing, I keep trying to figure things out but work remains an interesting distraction. A nice difficult puzzle with it's own problems and solutions, I suppose the single greatest thing about work is that you have the fun of solving problems but ultimately they are somebody else's problem to solve. You are just being paid to solve them for him.

Whereas in life you are on your own payroll and there are no deadlines. Nobody will be breathing down your neck if you haven't grown sufficiently as a person, nobody will be denying you a raise if you don't sort yourself out and build a quality life for yourself. Does that make it hard to focus on? Sometimes. That's perhaps why I like to throw myself into work so much.

But it's more than that for me, I've noticed. When I was more passionate about my work it always seemed to pull everything around it into alignment. I found it easy to do other activities, I felt like I had coal in my furnace when I was doing something I was really passionate about. Even now I feel that drain away, every time I've found a brick wall for ideas, a lack of desire to improve at work I feel my passion drain away. You can't change the tide of an organisation, I know that from experience.

The question is, where does that leave me. I know I need fulfilling work to sustain me, that working for the weekend just will never work for me. What options does that leave me?

Walking around in Malahide was great. It's a nice place to visit. But I'm glad I don't live there any more.

A Question of Marketing

2011-04-30T14:58:00.001+01:00

It's hilarous really. How many years ago was it when I first attempted to get a book published. Just about two I think. It feels like an eternity.

Now I'm thinking about that again, I am torn on how to think about my first novel. I hate to abandon it, the single greatest thing I have ever finished. I dream sometimes of rewriting the whole thing from start to finish. Maybe one day I will.

It had great ideas in it, I think. Now, I know a lot of fantasy novels have magic as some externalisation, some metaphore for powerful emotion. I think where mine excelled was how the main character had to find singular emotions in himself, how he mixed them. The magic in my book was truly an art, not just something that burst out into the world by some contrivance. It was something the main character had to work hard and something the reader had a very strong understanding of by the end of the novel.

Another idea that the novel had was the idea of this unwilling king. A monarch who found power that he didn't desire through merely chasing his own desire for knowledge.

It was a decent book, really. I can stand by it. Now I'm really unsure of what to do with it, it's on kindle of course but there it's one of five hundred thousand self published books. My cousin recommended trying to find somebody to review it, I suppose I could try. What's the worst that can happen.

But I worry that I am being too sentimental. The single greatest thing I have completed is a failure, that's a hard thing to accept.

It's sold one copy but I would have bought a copy in any case, I'm biased.

I Will Never Give You Ground

2011-04-24T15:12:00.002+01:00

The title of this post is from a song I'm listening to as I write this, I wouldn't read too much into it. Or should you? The particular group behind the piece is called Machinae Supremacy and I spent my late teens being inspired by their brand of incredible optimism and positivity. Music doesn't always have to be about sadness, broken hearts and unfathomable longing. Check the lyrics to this song out:

---

So we're finally united here
at the crossroads of our fears
Now the voice of god is everywhere
in our heads and in our ears

Turn the world into an enemy
and believe in me
I will make you see

I will never grant you ground
remember me and why you all bow down
to a metal forge dominion
Silent in a heart of steel

the voice that speaks so any man can feel
You believe in our dominion

Now the terror is the other we
and their unholy deity
It's time to boost the notoriety
of our great society

----

Now that's poetry. God knows what was in the song writers mind when he put it to paper but god damn if it doesn't stir something inside me. Listening to it now I feel like I did the first time I listened to it, every time I listened to it. I feel like I'll overcome every obstacle before me with gusto. Good stuff.

Now, onto my original intention for this post. Writing proceeds at a steady pace and my satisfaction from my progress grows in unison. Work is going good places, I can feel it. My personal goals and the goals of my employer seem like they will the same at least in the short term so I am expecting another Sun Burst of productivity on my part any time soon.

All in all, things proceed nicely. I'm looking at the chestnut, the one I picked up almost six months ago. I can't say that I've really grown much beyond what I was then, I still feel a good deal lost and unsettled but I have productivity and I have prospects. The garden has some seeds at last and there is potential in good quantity.

Parallel Progress

2011-04-10T15:48:00.002+01:00

Right, so I like writing my blog posts in the coffee shop now. I prefer writing down here in general really, it's strange. You would think that a nice quiet apartment would be perfect for writing in, no distractions and the fridge only a few paces distance away.

The coffee shop is awful in comparison, surely. People go there to chat endlessly about the stupidest thing, aided by the wonderful power of caffeine and those coffee machines are not the stealthiest devices ever devised. Outside there is the constant buzz of traffic, there's an old man facing me eating loudly. How the hell does this work?

And yet, I tune out everything. The people, the pop music they pump in. Instead of distracting me they feed the simian part of my brain so my higher self can get on with the matter of writing. It's amazing that it works but it does.

But let's not just write about that, as fascinating as I find it right now. Let's write about life. That's what a blog is supposed to be about, it's supposed to track a persons feelings about a particular subject. This particular blog is focused on writing, so here are my current feelings about that.

I've been writing a long time now, when did I start seriously, on my first novel? It was during my internship with Avaya as a software engineer that I first scribbled together the concepts and that I read the book that inspired me to start. So that was a nicely round figure of five years ago. That's longer than I've been professionally software engineering, so why am I making a killing doing that and I haven't made a cent off my writing yet?

Well, of course I had a degree in software and a burning need to succeed. It was something that I had to do, that some people told me that I couldn't. There were people that needed to be proved wrong. In writing I've never had that, funnily enough. People have always liked my writing, of course I've written pieces that people didn't like but my craft has rarely been questioned beyond one or two points that I have worked on.

Of course it is not fair to compare the two, the fact of the matter is that there is a shortage of software engineers and an abundance of people who can write. To some extent everybody is a writer, how many of us are coders? There are no adverts on monster for fantasy writers or people with a vision for the next big novel. There isn't the structure in place.

But still, I write. Just for the hell of it I suppose, just because I love it. I am developing so much, identifying things in my writing that I haven't before. In a way I am seeing it develope parallel to Software skills, both grow the more I do it and so I find myself becoming this dual threat, which is great. Software is this immediate thing, you can tell instantly whether the thing you have made works or not. It is logical in that there is right and wrong but most of all it is fun because it gets so stupidly complicated for the littlest reasons.

So far I am running two years for a single novel, so it is two years until I can finally see if something works or not but out of that emerges patterns and themes. Ideas beyond the writing that can emerge from a rewrite. A process is emerging gradually from my work, far slower than from software but that is to be expected.

What makes a great Software Engineer is both experience and the intelligence to learn from that experience. It is the ability to try something, fail and then know exactly where you went wrong. It is exactly the same, I feel, for writing. Have vision and be willing to fail and you will develope your art. A hacker can make anything work and while there is a hacker in all of us we must aspire to more.

We must aspire to make something great. Something that can inspire others to walk the same road as we have done and see the things that we have seen.

Coffee Blog Notes

2011-04-07T19:54:00.003+01:00

Change of tactic. I have a few minutes before running into work now, not enough time to start writing another chapter of my novel but perhaps enough time to throw something together for my blog.

It's funny, I always thought at the back of my mind how effective it would be to write at a coffee shop but there was always something so cliche about it that put me off. I imagined the people who worked there laughing at me and my little samsung netbook. “Haha”, they would say, “that's a funny looking mac.”

So I started just picking up coffee to go a few times on the weekend, feeling it out and seeing what other patrons did. Of course there is often another person in here with a laptop browsing the net or what have you. It was only after a week of scouting it out that I took in my netbook, picked a corner table and sat down for some writing.

I don't know how I ever did it at home now. The time is perfect, early before work, there's the best and freshest coffee available and especially there is a bit of life in here. Like most cliche it's so common because it's easy but that's what writing should be. It should just be a case of wandering in here every morning and cranking out a few pages, let the difficulty arise in the construction of the story, not in attempting to force myself to write.

I feel this is a little breakthrough, another step towards being where I want to be. It also means I turn up at work perked up and caffeinated so it seems everybody wins. It also seems reasonably economical, circa three euro for around fifteen hundred words isn't too bad. That means an average novel would come out at two hundred euro. And that's a price I'm willing to pay.

What Tower Is

2011-04-02T22:55:00.004+01:00

So somebody somewhere was wondering exactly what my half finished novel titled Tower is about. Since it makes up half of this blog's title I suppose it's worth explaining. Synopsis go!

---

Solitary, on the battlements of a tall tower he looks down on the night city. He picks out the various points of light, the greatest among them is the earth bound sun known as the Great Generator. MC knows it well because it was of his design.

There were other projects too, a ruby statue that captured the humble grandeur of the Empress and perhaps greatest of all, MC's Colossus. An impossibly powerful weapon of war which was now hidden somewhere deep underneath the earth by the Government.

Instead of pride at his work, MC realizes his tower and all his works now imprison him. While he still can MC must return to the city and undo what he has done, hoping to find himself again in the ruins of his past.

He discovers however, that some things can never be undone.

----

And that's it. I'll finish it one day!

Won't Stop. Can't Stop.

2011-03-27T20:52:00.001+01:00

Alright. I gave in. After the countless hours I spent working on my first novel it didn't seem right to just throw it away.

I'm on novel three now and while my focuses have moved on that doesn't mean my first work doesn't deserve my respect. Sure there are problems with it, it's got deep flaws and I'd be first to admit that. However, people have enjoyed it and it contains a lot of love from yours truly. I hope that my newer works will be more successful but I doubt they will ever be as pure.

It was a novel written in the most turbulent time I've ever lived through. The Fantasy was barely more than an incarnation of my own frustrations and ambitions. So hell, it's on Kindle now and that's the book cover I've designed.

So if you are reading this and like books, maybe you could buy it? Please? Or don't, what do I care. What would be really good is if you could review it maybe? Or show it to somebody who might be interested in it?

In any case, onwards! This Winter can't go on forever...

Back on Track

2011-03-19T19:24:00.001Z

Well, I turned the promotion down at work. It's a bit unpleasant but it was ultimately a decision that I had to make. The job wasn't right for me.

And it's funny, after the initial disappointment with what occurred a great relief came to me. More than that, it was a reaffirmation, a sense of freedom.

I was writing today and yesterday, for the first time in a long time. For the first time since I started my job, it felt good. I see now, my expectations were wrong. I thought a title would fulfill me, I thought the job could fill my life but no. I see now clearly that it won't.

No, there is more to play for than that. Much more. I was reading back through Tower, through my work and I realize that while it isn't perfect it has a heart and it is improving. It's a story that held my interest even though I knew what would happen.

So I don't know, in a way I might feel a little cornered but ultimately I just feel like I know where I am now. I'm at the beginning. Like at training I've got to just do my best to keep up but each time I push myself I get stronger, I get faster.

And that growth will take me where I want to go. Step by step.

Tower - The Philosopher

2011-03-17T11:54:00.009Z

The philosopher is a character who turns up in various forms in my books. Here's his appearance in Tower, written some time in 2009. It seems particularly relevant to me now.

Meeting the Philosopher

“Ah, MC.”

MC turned to look into a male face with cheek bones far too visible under the taught flesh of his cheeks. There was an un-satisfied look on the face, as if he had expected somebody else.

“Sorry, do I know you?”

“No, no, of course you don’t, no. You wouldn’t know me MC, but I know you. Or I know about you.”

“Who are you? Why the disappointed look on your face?” The man was taken aback for a moment unsure of how to take MC’s comment, finally he smiled.

“Oh, no, this is just my face. I’m Irons, unlike most of the men here I am not a scientist, you see, I am a philosopher. We are by our nature disappointed, part of the job.”

“Why would a philosopher be interested in a science convention.”

“Two reasons, MC. First is that I do have a passing interest in science and secondly I had hoped you would be here.”

Irons scratched his face with deliberate strokes of his long, bony index finger. MC cringed visibly but Irons gave no reaction, he looked like MC as if through a one-way mirror, as if he was a fish in an aquarium.

“So, here I am.”

“Yes, yes, there you are. I see that. You’re not what I expected, you know.”

“What were you expecting?”

“Well, if I can take some of your time. To explain my theory, or at least part of it, if I could take your time to do so, I could perhaps make myself clearer.”

“Sure. What’s your theory?”

“My theory is that every man has his energy to expend and that those who achieve so much in such a short time, like you, I hope you don’t mind me saying that is the case. You don’t, I understand, appreciate empty flattery.”

“Go on. I don’t mind.”

The man was becoming more animated now, a red glow introduced itself to his face, and alleviating the pallor and making him seem much more human. He coughed before continuing, excited by such willing ears.

“Well, it is, or perhaps now was, my theory that in doing such great works your energy would be expended. The story of your seclusion in your tower, I had attributed it to the fact you had run out of fuel, as it were. The good die young, you understand.”

“Kind of. So you expected what? A walking dead man.”

“Yes. I suppose I did, but it is obvious that this is not the case. May I ask then, why did you lock yourself in your tower? Why did you waste all that time you could have been achieving something.”

“Well, I suppose, power to do something doesn’t necessarily mean that I want to do it.”

“You lost your direction. Tell me, how do you lose something like that?”

“The greatest of inspirations are also the most fickle.”

Irons grinned again, nodding knowingly.

“And I thought my profession was full of obfuscators. I take it you mean you did it all for a woman. So the question is if you are anything without the inspiration.”

“Yes, I suppose it is. You know, I never really looked at it like that before.”

“Ah, that is my job, I might talk a lot, I mean, I am a philosopher. But our job is to see things from another direction.”

“So, what should I do?”

“Philosophy does not produce good answers MC, just good questions. Speaking of which, I suppose, here is another one. What other sources of inspiration are there? If that is truly the only thing holding you back, I wonder if we now, the two of us together I mean, here, I wonder if we can’t think of something. As an exercise.”

“It sounds like you already know where this conversation is going to end Irons.”

“Very perceptive, yes, of course, it’s an exercise in futility isn’t it. Rivalry, I was going to say. You need to find an equal.”

“It’s more destructive like that though, the beauty of how it was before is that I was doing everything to make somebody happy. If it was just to get one up over somebody else, well, you see what I mean.”

Irons nodded. “I was going to say that too. It sounds like you have everything good invested in one thing, maybe that part was unwise. In history great people have found purpose in serving nations, causes, less fickle things. Do you have anything like that?”

MC shook his head. “No, I don’t.”

“It starts with a word, MC.”

“What do you mean, it starts with a word?”

“I mean, your cause. You make one yourself, I know by looking at you, you have things you consider right. You have your own view of the world but right now it’s just your own, that is to say, it’s just inside you and you refuse to fight for yourself.”

MC scratched his chin, not fully following the old man. “So?”

“Externalize those ideals MC, turn them into something you can be inspired by. I think that would be best, from my perspective.”

“I’m not sure what you mean, Irons.”

“Maybe it’ll come to you later, but it’s the obvious philosophical solution. I must leave you now MC, I don’t want to wear out my welcome with you. I know I talk too much, you probably have so many more people to meet here. I suspect almost everyone here has an appointment.”

Irons shook MC’s hand. “It all begins with a word MC.”

MC nodded. “Thank you.”

Irons slinked back into the crowd, leaving MC to piece together the puzzle his words had left in his mind.

Negatory Honcho

2011-03-13T20:09:00.007Z

I'm just home from Airsoft, bleeding, sore and slightly philosophical.

It was my birthday yesterday and I really hate them though I suppose it also prompted some thought. Birthdays for me are a time where I am forced to ponder the direction of my life by the tick or clunk of the clock that is tied to my time on this earth. As I go from twenty-four to twenty-five what have I accomplished and exactly where am I going.

So here are my accomplishments I have made during my last year on this earth:

Got a nice job.

Got a nice promotion at that job.

Stuck with a workout regime and lost weight as a result.

Came third in East Irish Open Fencing Competition.

So I'm happy with that, I really am. (I'm really not.)

But looking at that I think I see a problem, it is all work related or fitness related. That is what leaves me now feeling a little empty, a little mindful of what it is I am really out to achieve.

I constantly think past to the things that kept me afloat in that regard and it was usually people. Special people that won't be replaced. So it will have to be something else, maybe I'll try to get back into the violin.

Strangely I am thinking of Ubik now by PKD. Thinking of that woman who could change time retroactively. That book really freaked the hell out of me. Onwards to twenty-five.

There is a lot of work left to do.

Dragons both Soar and Fall

2011-03-12T11:55:00.004Z

I played a very interesting game online this week, it was called choice of the Dragon. You are provided with various dragon like scenarios and make a choice, based on these your develop some stats. It was fun, try it out here.

I found the game interesting so I had a look around the creator's website, this eventually lead me to this blog post. In summation it's just some tactics of overcoming the main obstacle to creating anything on your own, your own mood. I feel like that now, I sit at my desk here with a whole free day to spend on whatever I like. The greatest impulse is just to go back to bed and sleep the day away.

These are the moments I work hard for, moments where I can work on my ideas but in the end I suppose I feel they have had their time. I know I need to change tactics but I don't know exactly what to do. I thought of going to sit outside a cafe to do some writing and I suppose that could work but if I could write there then why not here.

Well, there is no easy answer. But I'll tell you this much, when I first started writing I had no problems and that was because there was somebody in my life who was always to read more of my work. Every word I wrote I wrote for that person and it all was very easy. Now I'm writing for nobody and I think that's the problem.

I read it somewhere, it was in the context of the marketing of the Guitar Hero games but I suppose it's relevant here. You can have something great that will gain an audience but the opposite doesn't work. You can't create something with the aim of winning a fanbase.

I miss my audience but maybe its time to let go of writing for now. I don't know why I'm doing it any more.

Face The Enemy: The Autocannon - SRC G36c Gen 2 Review

2011-02-28T22:57:00.001Z

I wrote a little review for one of my new toys.

Face The Enemy: The Autocannon - SRC G36c Gen 2 Review: "When the fifteen lead technical engineers of the Sunshine Rainbow Company got together at the crack of midnight on the thirteenth day of Feb..."

Herding with Landmines

2011-02-19T17:58:00.005Z

A thought occurred to me today as I supped on my great Starbucks Americano. You can't herd with land mines.

Now, what I mean by that is that you can't punish yourself for not following the exact path you laid out for yourself. I mean, I look back on my life and yeah, I wish sometimes that things had gone differently. I wish something that fell apart had been stronger, I wish that today I could wake up to the world I had imagined then.

It's the core feeling of desire, or of vision even. It's a great thing to envisage an ideal world, with every smiling face you ever never wanted to lose and everything in that balance. That balance that should have been.

So, I failed, I'm willing to accept that. I should have been stronger when the chances were open, I should have found a way to make that world a reality but, and the point is this, I didn't. I did achieve other things, things I never would have planned or counted on. Where one thing fell down to my horror another sprung up proud and implacable. Everything I feared to lose is gone but I have other things now, in their place. Is there sense to that?

You can't herd with land mines. You can't write that pact in blood and expect it to stand. Things will come when you are ready for them.

So this leaves me trying to get back into writing, back into that old fight. When the next chances open before me I will be more prepared. And I can wait, like a wolf, I can wait.

A Seedling with Swords

2011-02-14T20:33:00.006Z

Things are going well, they are going very well indeed. I have now officially upgraded this life of mine to seedling status, still vulnerable but growth is apparent and there's still so much left of it to do.

It was always my desire to bring fencing back into my life and it is slowly happening. I'm fencing at least once every week along with my outdoor training and while I'm very rusty it is quickly coming back to me.

Last weekend even saw me competing at the East Irish Open. I had decided to compete at the last moment, unsure of whether or not I was ready. But after some persuasion from one of the organizers who I met by chance at training last week I gave it a shot and what a shot it turned out to be.

I have a technique, a little mental thing I do at competitions ever since I started doing well. I visualize a rock at the center of an ocean and each of my breathes become a crash of waves upon it. Each wave washes away some stone, infinitely revealing a new skin. I did remarkably well, of course experiencing a little luck along the way. I managed to secure third place and thoroughly enjoyed every moment of the competition.

It was also fantastic to support and be supported by new club mates. It's a while since I have experienced that as my old club of DCU washed away to the four corners of the earth a long time ago.

But now, I feel I have a lot of time ahead of me with the sport I love and that makes me very happy indeed.

Post #100

2011-01-01T01:33:00.005Z

We got there, we did it guys. We crawled our way through one hundred posts worth of life. Now comes the inevitable recap, the retread of the times that brought me here. It's the second hour of 2011 and this is post #100.

I just read back to post #1. Now let me remember, it was 2009 and I was unhappy. I was trapped in a job I felt would go on forever fruitlessly and I had just spent that last few months unsuccessfully searching for a publisher of my first novel. They were, at least comparatively, dark days.

The job issue has since been sorted, I've moved three times since then and have finally found some semblance of professional comfort but of course I was not to find a publisher.

My writing exploits too have run a strange course, heavily effected by my constant movements and the general chaos I have inhabited since that time. Last year I effectively wrote two half novels. The first, Tower, waiting patiently as I try my luck in the world of Mystery-Fiction.

My personal life has suffered too, the decay of the garden has not been reversed by the constant upheaval of the soil it was composed off. Moving around has not given any seeds much chance to settle but this may improve now. My plan for the new year is to get back into fencing and to continue my workout schedule. I'm going to work hard to make things work again.

I have never experienced a year like this before. It began with the chance of a new job in Malahide, a new chance of life but in the end it became much more than that. There was a string of trials that has left me utterly exhausted but also finally able to say that I'm happy about where I am. I can finally see, at least, a future for myself. I can get my writing back on track, I can work on my personal life to get something rolling again as long as I can see a way forward.

And that's what this year has brought me. Not a material gain or any single sweeping victory but it has shown me a way forward which is what I guess I needed most of all.

This morning I looked at some old letters, ones that used to hurt me to even look at. I was almost disappointed, all I felt was embarrassment that I had ever let them hurt me at all.

I will not squander all that 2010 has brought me. 2011 will be a year of hard work and I look forward to it as I never had anything before it.

Republic of Ice

2010-12-05T17:47:00.003Z

There's been so much ice, well, it used to be snow but it's now compacted by thousands of footprints into deadly treacherous ice. I've already slipped once and I hardly ever slip.

It comes at a really bad time too because I'm trying to get into airsoft but the ice seems to have effectively shut the hobby down entirely. Twice now I've turned up with my friend to locations hoping to get a game or two in only to find them completely deserted. What a pain.

Still, it's got me out of the apartment and onto the freezing streets. I'm unsure whether or not that's been a good thing.

My trips to Boot Camp outdoor training has been affected too of course. The last two sessions have been spent trudging through ankle high snow and freezing various extremities to the core. I'm keeping it up though, surprising even myself.

I even managed to squeeze a few hours of writing out of myself last week, some of my pain overriding techniques from boot camp are coming in handy in other areas of my life. All I have to do is fall into that zone where you are completely focused on the task at hand, sometimes it works anyway.

And now I will have my new discovery for dinner, Tesco chilli bean soup with a load of tofu in it. Stay warm everybody.

Major Inconvenience Never Looked Better

2010-11-28T17:59:00.006Z

The view out side my window today looked like this.

All my plans cancelled, all heaters up to eleven and I've been in siege survival mode ever since. I hate the cold with a vengeance and my new apartment seems to dissipate heat as fast as it's generated. I can't set foot into my bedroom right now without feeling as if I had just wandered into a huge fridge.

It did look nice though. As you can see.

The cold is a test to me, to my new plans. Cold is my enemy, it slows progress and halts change. It is like mud swallowing my boots or thorny weeds around my arms. I have done well to keep up my exercise regime, to remain active. Now is the greatest test though, when it's so cold I can barely drag myself out of bed on time.

So we'll thunder on, I suppose. My plan was to get some writing done this morning but I happened upon the most addictive game I've seen in a while. Download it if you have a few hours that you'd like to evaporate. Derek Yu makes good stuff.

I'll probably get an hour or so of writing in now, if I don't the cold has won. It can never be allowed to win.

Also, here's a thought for the day. Remember the good times but try not to envy yourself then. It was another part of the same road...

I'll stop now, I shouldn't be giving advice I can't follow myself. Stay warm everybody!

Gardens and Seeds

2010-11-13T13:08:00.003Z

I've been meditating on the idea of Gardens and Seeds lately. Now, the Garden is your life, or more accurately the available resources in your life. It's the energy you have to spend, it's the people you have around you. The garden is your world.

I spent a long time thinking in those terms, friendships factoring as this temporary thing that I would attempt to have endure forever. Vainly attempting to coax life out of what had become a life stealing weed in the center of my Garden.

You focus on the Garden of your life and you decide on what it needs, empty space. Room to grow is very important. It needs source of nourishment, challenge, the list goes on. The point is you look around and see fully grown flowers in full bloom, you see things that you want but think you can't have but you can't focus your efforts on uprooting something and plopping it in the center of your Garden and expect it to be healthy. You need to work on it, you need to create a place that Seeds will grow.

And seeds, well, they're my latest idea. Seeds is something we all come into contact with, it could be an interest in trying something new. Meeting somebody, doing something. But with everything that brings us into contact with something new, there is a seed. Most of these don't grow, are discarded, whatever. The point is, these are the things where what you want will come from, these small things of no immediate worth.

So! Work on the Garden, then the Seeds that fall in will have somewhere to grow and become something great. It's pure logic but the analogy works for me. Work hard on your world, features will add themselves once the soil is right.

The Invisible Truth

2010-10-31T13:14:00.003Z

It's hard to see the Truth, mostly because it's the thing we live in. It's the hole we are staring out of, the mountain that we're looking down from. The point is, it's invisible to us most of the time.

It takes a mirror. Sometimes these mirrors aren't pleasant but they are invaluable. I came across one such mirror earlier this week, it took the form of a thread on an internet forum. You can read it here but it might require an account.

The story was that a guy had a big idea and wanted everybody to help him make it happen. He had a vision for a community created MMO, a massively multi-player online game. Thing is that usually an MMO takes millions of Euro in resources to even attempt, never mind even complete. It was a pipe dream and his responses varied from brutally honest to completely hilarious. I read it at first with amusement but this quickly turned to horror. I realized I had found a mirror, it was me asking for help. It was me with the big ideas expecting somebody else to make them happen.

All the advice he received was advice for me, all the ridicule he received was ridicule for me. Big ideas are nothing. Now, I realize I have done more than he had, I've completed a novel at least but in the end I'm here expecting somebody to bring me the rest of the way.

What's the lesson? Start small, complete what you start, nothing new. I guess it's just time to accept the truth, there's a lot of work to be done. A life time's worth of work.

Hello from Luxembourg, wish I wasn't here

2010-09-26T18:34:00.002+01:00

Ah, my time here is almost at an end. As I write this some truly awful music is being projected irresistibly through my wall into my apartment from the shit-hole venue across the street. A month in Arlon has taught me well why it is a town to be avoided at any cost.

There's no life here, apart from the kind you find growing underneath your bath or on month old food you haven't got around to throwing out yet. I was walking through the residential areas today, all I saw was an old woman in her garden with two chickens. There's no children here, no laughter. It's all very children of men, if you've seen the film.

Luxembourg is not too much better, from what I've seen. It's just a commercial hub with no real personality...

That "music" is still hammering against my wall. It sounds like a ten your old hitting some pans while his friend twangs a rubber band. Yeah, but make anything loud enough and I guess the kind of person who lives here will think it's good.

Dublin, I love you. Take me back please. I'll never doubt you again.

Hello from Luxembourg

2010-09-04T14:03:00.003+01:00

Well, Belgium really (I'm commuting from a sleepy town across the border called Arlon). I've been out here a week already for training in my new job.

It's been pretty interesting so far but I guess I'm not really feeling the same thrill of exploration that I had experienced in Berlin or even London. Arlon itself is pretty sleepy and Luxembourg seems pretty laid back as well. It pretty much feels like one giant Financial Center.

There are some beautiful sights in Luxembourg and it is a really interesting city but I guess I just don't feel the depth that was there in the larger cities. Maybe it was because there isn't a subway. I do really like subways for some reason, they feel like the underbelly of a city, a circulatory system that feels like if you followed it long enough it would lead to that cities beating dark heart.

Maybe that's it, Luxembourg feels all to happy. I could just be jealous! It doesn't have the plague pits and sterility of London or the Failed Glory of Berlin. It's just Luxembourg, happy with itself and what it's achieving. The smug bastard.

Anyway, part two of my post now. I have sufficient time behind me to discuss something that happened in my writing course. (I documented my experience early in the blog.)

I had just received a rejection letter from a literary agent and I scribbled down a few paragraphs. I was quiet in the class the next day, I felt agitated in my seat. Eventually the time came to share anything we had happened to write during the week. I volunteered my piece.

Well, I let rip. I shared my feelings a little too effectively perhaps, reading out the lines in my epic voice. When I had finished I looked around the table. Everybody was silent. Whether they were silent because I seemed like a lunatic or because they felt something from the piece I guess I'll never know. But it was one of those moments I treasure. Where I felt understood.

The Piece:

What is my angle on this one? How can I ever seek to express the anger and disappointment I feel right now. The boiling sickness in my gut that sloshes about like an undercurrent twelve miles beneath the surface. Stagnant putrid water devoid of life and anything other than itself. How could I dream of committing it to paper. The hate. I hate myself, I hate the world and I despise, those denyers, those road blocks, those dead ends.

I want to fly, I need to. I keep wanting it, more and more. It commands me, my final escape, my flaw in the chain. I dream of it, I taste it, oh I want it. I would give blood, I would give life, I would. And more, for that taste of something. To feel redeemed. To feel purpose again.

I know I am trying to fill a hole. To find something large enough to replace the space of two eyes and a smile. Something impossibly significant and impossible to obtain, as she had been. I know I am weak, and I know I am a fool, but I can not stop and I will not stop. Want is my blood, want is my life, want is my loss to lose.

I got her and I will get this. Whether it will drop me as she had done, like the fickle goddess, I don't care. Each step I take forward is a stab into the neck of whatever it is I rage against, whatever it is that I am here to harm. I am throwing matches against the giant but each singe is glee. Each spark lights up my night.

Three Years for a Chance

2010-08-01T13:49:00.003+01:00

Moving again soon, new job and new life, again. Can't complain, if you aren't happy, keep walking. That's my motto.

But between all my frenzied worrying and rampant excitement I did have some thoughts about writing. I stumbled across this website that described a method of novel writing called the "snow-flake method". This, coupled with fiction writing commonly being used as an analogy for executing a heavily planned project I arrive at a significant and worrying problem. How much planning is enough and how much is too much?

Is there an answer to this? Some will tell you to start at the "tag-line", a sentence that can sum up the entire novel and work outwards from there. Some will say, like the inventor of this snow flake method, you should have every last page planned out before you even start writing.

Okay, so time to express my opinion. Planning is death for fiction. Here is why I think this is the case. It's a one word reason, characters.

Heavy planning assumes you can build a story and inject the characters at a later stage. Heavy planning results inevitably of breaking these characters. Every time I've tried planning on a large scale I have faced the question, who wins; the character or the plan?

You see it in fiction of all sorts, early iterations of great shows like Peep Show or Red Dwarf are heavily character driven. Nothing happens that is not believable and that is the source of their greatness. But soon planning, the need to make a predefined story work out wins out. Characters are reduced to a handful of traits and all of this greatness is lost. People will still watch it but the golden age is over.

In my writing I try to use this method. I think in terms of characters and events and then see how things resolve themselves in real time, so to speak. I suppose you could argue that you could plan in the same way, maybe that's something that comes with experience. Maybe, but given that most modern fiction is totally unreadable to me I think that might not be the case.

05/01/2009 22:54

2010-07-11T11:17:00.002+01:00

It was born in an instant. My sallow skin tearing on the scorched white of my sides. My sickly grimace fuelling a crumbling descent. I tapped a hollow vessel and the echo drove me to tears. I was empty now. I had been so strong, I had survived the storm. But it has taken everything with it.

In my veins I feel a weary pulse. My blood meanders through choice-less currents, it goes only where it has to. It may as well be cold, blue, frozen. It may as well be still. The toxic substance squirts through my body, pushing me on. A sad carcass shocked into reaction. I may stagger upwards, I may even walk. But it is not my will that puts me here.

My mind is still somewhere else, sheltering itself from the horror. It still lives in greens fields and looks into blue eyes. But it has surrounded itself with dust and shadow and grows blackened with the taint of past. I know, the illusion will break. I hope it that it will not take my mind with it.

The Desert

2010-07-10T13:14:00.004+01:00

And that's where I am now. My life is the desert, an infinitely vast cloud of dust and empty space. I don't know a way out, I'm not fully sure how I got here.

Was it some failing on my part, did I make the trees die? Have I not really moved and I am where I was before, its nature simply changed. Its nature merely decayed. They teach us in school that's how deserts start, over use, greed. Am I surrounded by nothingness formed by my own hand, did I do something wrong?

There is something to be said though, the calmness I feel now. The emptiness, this open space has no expectations, I have nothing forced on me. I form to my own expectations now, or at least am moved to wonder what exactly they are. Give a man a direction and he will march in it, whether it serves him or not. Deprive a man of any direction and then he must think, truly. Who is he?

So who am I? Hasn't that been the question this whole time, from the very beginning. From that moment I had a something click in my mind, from that moment my desires extended beyond my immediate survival. It's the question that hasn't been answered, even after so much marching.

Where there is emptiness, there is hope. My life is like a desert but that is only for now. There is the ability to contain, there is the ability to nurture. There is something unmoving beneath the sand.

Damn These Unproductive Daze(s)

2010-06-26T22:10:00.006+01:00

In the computer world you can't move memory and use it at the same times, right? You can't run operations on something without moving it into a location where you use it, don't ask me the details because I'm too drunk to describe them properly but believe me it's true.

And is it the same with writing, can I process a thought and write about it at the same time? Can I ponder the mysteries that I wish to explore as I describe them, as I express them. That sounds impossible, thinking in logical terms.

So are these unproductive days so bad? The days spent sitting catatonic on couches watching comedy DVDs and hopelessly searching for a mindless computer game that can hold my attention for longer than it takes to download and install. I have ideas on these days, well, not even quite ideas but I can feel something jumble around inside my mind, things move into new positions, new perspectives are assumed and spent in those mindless moments where I wish I was able to work on my novel or even do anything constructive at all.

For example, I was watching Falling Down today. I enjoy that film, I really do, some things about it annoy me but overall I like its message. It's a story about man fixated on the past, trying to use force to bring back his self perceived golden age. He ends up becoming the bad guy of his story, that's it isn't it. Fighting reality makes us the bad guy.

And then I was watching my comedy DVD, The Armando Ianucci Shows. He had a particular sketch that said everybody is pretty much the same, just with different knowledge and that we are all just basically twats using that knowledge to gain advantage. I liked that.

There is more, things that occurred while I was lying in bed staring at the ceiling that I can't even remember right now. Well, in summation.

A moment lived in rationality and good faith is never a moment wasted. Even though you might not physically produce anything something is moving beneath the surface, something that will show itself when you find yourself in a position to process it.

Philip K. Dick - I Salute You!

2010-06-19T20:54:00.007+01:00

I have to write this, I've been putting it off for over six months and I really have to write this. I've written about Philip K. Dick before in this blog but I've never really delved into how I really feel about his work. So here it is, Philip K. Dick - I salute you! I won't do him justice but I'll give it a go all the same.

Weapon of Choice: Some men fight with force, others are faster with their words but Philip has the ability to warp reality itself. The very fundamental rules of causality mean nothing to this man, parallel dimensions? No dimensions at all? Nothing is certain. Master of the feint Philip has you watching his left fist while his right obliterates your whole plane of existence.

Armour: How do you strike at something without form? Without rules there is no weakness, there is nothing to strike out at. Philip can reform at will because he taps into a deeper truth.

Special Move: Philip has pulled this one off against me a few times as I lay in bed at 5am finishing off one of his novels. There are few books that can make me interested in what's happening, fewer still that can invoke some kind of emotional response but there has only been one sort so far that can make my mind implode and lose a sense of reality, even for a few moments. Philip has been the only one to author this sort. There is craftsmanship in how he constructs his worlds, a terrible form of love that settles in every character. A cold displaced passion that echoes the real world while simultaneously mocking it. Worst of all it passes itself off as a possible legitimate interpretation. Philips special move is to inflict a literary hallucinogen on his readers and transcend the limits of the written word.

Weakness: Philip suffered a lot, and I'm not talking about his borderline poverty or constant stream of divorces. He suffered because he was trapped in sci fi and could never be taken seriously as a legitimate fiction writer. He was, in a way, a king trapped among fools. A heavy weight armor plated world champion class boxer stuck punching it out with feather-weights. Was this good for his work, probably not. In the long term the spark left his work and he never returned to golden age that brought us Do androids dream of electric sheep and Ubik.

It's an interesting one, in summation what does make Philip's work so great. I think it may have been an uncertainty that every lead character he had that the world they were in was really real. Like the author himself knew what it was like to be a character in a book and have a world written around him as he went.

Marketing

2010-06-04T11:55:00.003+01:00

So my mind finally turns to the less glamorous side of writing.

Actually, no, it's not less glamorous. It's just less idealistic I suppose but it's not even that. I guess it's not as fun as writing novels and yet it kind of is.

Let's face it, selling work is hard. Out of everything I've ever done in the world of writing, from reading out my work to strangers, to having my work critiqued, the hardest has been writing blurbs. The hardest part has been writing those little ten line long introductions to your book. That's stupid isn't it?

I'm not that experienced but I have almost two complete novels under my belt now. I would have expected that sort of thing to be child's play, even too easy for me to bother with. So there you go, this must be my tenth post on this particular subject and I've never really found anything else nearly as difficult.

To your top right is my latest attempt and you'll notice I've changed tactics slightly. Gone are my attempts to encapsulate the entire mythology of the book, that definitely wasn't working. Gone is my attempt to introduce every single character. I've gone with two, a guy and a girl because I've realised something. When they say that sex sells they don't just mean in bed, it also includes love interests, female friends etc.

The human brain just naturally finds this interesting, don't ask me why. It reminds me of this time I saw two tourists who had obviously just met talking at a bus stop. If it had been two guys talking about what the Guinness was like nobody would have looked twice but because it was a guy and girl and they were awkward as hell everybody was looking and smiling like it was the most beautiful scene in the world.

And it kind of was, I'm just not sure why. Anyway, for that reason it's good to have that kind of energy when you want somebody to read something. Well, I'll report back if it works.

Let's do an Update

2010-05-31T14:40:00.003+01:00

This blog was supposed to be about my journey as a writer so it's about time I did a proper update on it. Where am I?

Well, I haven't given up just yet of course. The thing about novels is that they aren't something you can bang out in a weekend. My first book took two years to finish and wasn't particularly long, the second took about a year to get to half-way mark where it was temporarily parked in favor of a new project that emerged from out of the blue.

It wasn't too long after I had finished that writing class and I was still in my short story phase. Well, I was getting into a groove with one in particular and it passed the ten thousand word mark before I knew it. Where Redmond was my revolutionary take on the Fantasy Genre and Tower was my stab at a modern day Epic Moderately Adventurous lies somewhere between the two. It's primary influence is probably Catcher in the Rye but it's really nothing like it in composition.

The point is that it's about a guy working for a secret government agency in Dublin where the guy gets wrapped up with long legged women and violent shady characters but it's all in good fun and the main character is a bit of a loser but he doesn't really care. It's a story I think that could do well with the Irish audience. But I suppose we'll have to see.

I've taken this week off work to have yet another go at rewriting Redmond and to send out another wave of publisher payloads. My excuse for failure is that last time I tried looking for an agent/publisher it was the middle of a recession and I was but a bright-eyed naive fool.

Well, we are still trucking on this side, one year on. How about you?

Climbing another Hill

2010-05-22T18:14:00.005+01:00

It had taken me all week at work to complete a particular task. At at least three points I contemplated giving up, I felt like I was done, that there was no way to proceed.

But no, I pushed on and after meeting this same state of mind a few times I eventually completed the task. It was at this point that I looked back on what I had done, what had caused me to contemplate giving up so many times. The thing was that it had come down to a collection of small, even obvious fixes. What before that been achieving the nigh impossible as I navigated nebulous logic paths was now completely unimpressive.

So, why am I writing about it. Isn't life like this, my writing, my life, everything I've always done. Is it the limitations of my perception? My mind blowing things out of proportion or is it just a psychological thing, things seem impossible until you do them. Once you do them they're not worth anything at all.

One day I will look back and think nothing of what I had done, right now it all seems impossible. Truth comes only in those moments of victory, those brief flashes of satisfaction. Completing another section of a book, solving another problem at work, winning a fencing bout and maybe, one day, sorting out this life of mine.

Sand Moon - An Alternate Ending to Dune

2010-04-19T13:51:00.001+01:00

Paul lifted the glass of spice to mouth and took a mouth full. "This spice doesn't seem to be having any effect on me." His words emerged from his mouth along with particles of the spice which scattered all over the table. Eventually his words gave way to coughing.

Paul, why are you drinking sand again?" Chani had dodged aside to avoid the sand that Paul was coughing out. "You always try to drink sand."

"It's spice! It gives me powers, it makes my eyes blue. Don't you see them?" Paul pulled down one of his bottom eyelids exposing the entire lower portion of one of his eyeballs.

"You wear contacts Paul, I've seen the box they came in!"

"Silence concubine." Paul clapped his hands together and a man clad in a one piece suit of some leather-like substance appeared at the door.

"Oh god, not again." Chani held her hand to her face.

"Your orders mua dweeb?" The man did some kind of fascist salute and then stood eerily still.

"How does the production of Kryss knives proceed Aravhat?"

"Well, Mua Dweeb, it turns out that worm teeth won't make decent blades after all."

"What, haven't you seen them, they're huge!"

"No mua dweeb, worms are small invertebrates. If they have teeth they are too small for the naked eye to see, much less use to cut something with."

"What about that worm I rode to work yesterday? Use that one."

"That was me Mua Dweeb." All three in the room were silent, Paul avoided Chani's horrified gaze. The silence was broken by another clap of Paul's hands.

"You may leave Aravhat, but bring me more spice."

"You mean sand? Okay." Aravhat walked out, his strange suit squeaking with every step he took.

Chani started cleaning the sand off the table and forced Pauls cup of spice away from his hand. "Paul, who was that man and how did he get into our house?"

"That was Aravhat, leader of my first legion."

"That was somebody you met at a bus stop and talked into believing your messiah story, isn't it."

"well, yes, that too. You see, some people take me seriously."

"That's what worries me, it all starts with one reinforcing this nonsense, tomorrow you'll have started a cult."

Paul itched at his eye, his eyes had never adapted to his contacts. He was convinced at any rate that it was only a temporary solution until he had had enough exposure to the spice to regain the eye colour. Things had changed since he had left Arrakis, that much was for sure. In Arrakis he had been a celebrity, a god. Here he was nothing, such was the power of PR.

"Chani."

"Yes."

"Remember that time I killed Feyd Rautha Harkonnen."

"I do."

"I think that was the best moment of my life. That depresses me."

"Now Paul, you took over the Galaxy once, you have nothing to prove to anybody."

Paul eyed his cup of sand longingly. It had been a dry hateful journey but all that messiah rubbish had really made him feel like somebody. Sure, he still had Chani, all of his memories. But.

"Chani, I must drink the water of life again. It's the only thing that can cheer me up."

"Alright dear." Chani dropped a large clear bottle labeled "Water of Life." on the table. "But not too much, okay?"

Paul started knocking back the vodka, soon he was moving while staying still.

"Chani, put on some electric six."

Something Unmoving Beneath the Sand

2010-03-23T13:50:00.006Z

I often feel that the most moving and well, disorienting moments in life are those when we find a person who shares our views or ideas. Actually, more than that, we connect to them on a fundamental level. The things that we wracked our minds over in our youth for example.

I was always a thinker, not so much a reader or a learner but a thinker. This is the space that writers live in, it is an empty dark ignorant space that only becomes filled by extrapolations and correlations that are perceived through the mind of a thinker.

To learn without a teacher is dangerous and it leads to weird places, I'll admit. I used to walk forever, winding down passages in my mind, question, answer, question, answer. And I discovered things, of course, but found myself in an odd position. How could I direct somebody else down these paths, I didn't remember the way. Thinkers are lonely people.

So it's special when we find a commonality with another. When we see the knowledge that we thought was unsharable, and perhaps unique to us. When somebody else expresses it, in the same manner we hold it, with the same reverence for something that you paid so much for.

Well, I got that feeling today when I read this paper. The last time before that was with my erstwhile violin teacher, there was no time before that...

How to Build a Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later

The Challenge of Being in a new Town

2010-03-21T13:52:00.003Z

I've been in Malahide for almost three months now. I like the apartment, I love the sea and the new job is great. I do find myself having a problem however, there's not really all that much to do.

I'm really enjoying the pottery class I started but it's coming to an end in a few weeks and there doesn't seem to be much else. Of course, what I need is a fencing club, but I'd be willing to try other things like that; if they were available.

Malahide has tennis, and not much else. I'm not into tennis and I never will be, so what am I to do. It's a major problem for me, as I work in a job that doesn't really have much of a social aspect and I'm allergic to bars. Ah, what I'd give for a Malahide fencing club. What I'd give.

The Failure of Perfection

2010-03-07T20:24:00.002Z

I've been listening to the soundtrack of the 1984 film Dune a lot lately. I actually saw this film before I read the book it was based on so I wasn't outraged by it when I saw it. I was slightly underwhelmed however.

Well, it was a David Lynch film, even though he'd probably rather forget it ever happened. It had it's own weird look and the best cast possible for the time it was made in. It was an expensive production, based on probably the greatest sci-fi epic of all time. And it had, a beautiful, powerful soundtrack by Brian Eno. The music is actually really enduring but when I listen to it, I don't think of the story of Dune. I think instead of the story of the film itself, the struggle to get it made.

Ridly Scott was actually to direct it but a family member got ill so he went with Bladerunner instead. David Lynch turned down the opportunity to direct return of the Jedi for this, Dune. He claimed it was the moment where he "sold out", well, he sold out by attempting to film the unfilmable so its hard to knock him.

Dune was a mess, a disaster of a film. It had the weirdest atmosphere, but that was all it had. It makes one uneasy to watch it, drawing us into a world we really don't want to have anything to do with. Characters who were merely twisted in the book became true monsters living in what can only be described as a sweaty hell. (Reminds me of my time working in a zinc mill actually.)

The plot progresses through internal whispers or explosive action. It's a partially realised surreal world, with bizarre creatures portrayed with varying levels of fidelity. (Just read the imdb goofs for some hilarious goofs. It sometimes seems more Ed Wood than Peter Lynch.) This film so wanted to break barriers and to rouse something inside people but in the end it just feels so unbelievably clumsy that you can't take it seriously at all. The characters of Jessica and Paul, so powerful and believable in the book become unbelievable caricatures.

Ultimately this music, the soundtrack itself, leaves me with an image of what its composers envisaged. Their own picture of Dune, the almost but not quite classic theme pulling to my mind the rolling sand-dunes and the dry oblivion of Arrakis.

This picture never happened, the music is a great element of something terrible. And there is immense tragedy in that, I think.

I'm 24 next month

2010-02-28T19:08:00.004Z

Ah, the constant ticking of time. The common enemy of all men and all that. I hate birthdays because they always force me to think about what I've actually achieved, whether or not I'm still on track to achieve something with my life. Of course it's all rubbish.

It's just another year, just like the ones before it, but better. Things have improved for me over the years and they will continue to do so. It won't happen overnight in a bang or a flash, it won't creep up on me like that, no, I'll see it coming. As for now I feel I am on the right track, I haven't hit it big or really got any of my major goals but hell, worrying about it won't make a smidgen of difference.

I've learned a lot this year, there were a few harsh lessons but at the same time, one or two stolen victory's. All in all it's hard to complain about. On March the 12th I'll turn 24. I'll have left a few friends behind, a few old places and past times.

I'll have left behind a lot but I know there will be lot more to come.

It's a Ziggurat Guys, I see it now!

2010-02-22T18:23:00.002Z

This is my current plan of action and I write it here both as an affirmation of my commitment to it and also to share my plan, as I will eventually share the final result.

For so long I've known what I wanted, I've known it all too well but every time I reached out for it I found my reach lacking. I only got pieces, it's all I ever got. Momentary shards of happiness torn from the whole of the object of my desire. Why has this happened?

The problem, I think, was my reach. I have it, I do, the strength, the speed to catch these things but not to maintain my grasp. So, for the first time I look at my feet and at the foundations on which I stand, I realize bit by bit that these are not things beneath my attention, not secondary goals to be after my true goals, no, my foundations and my true goal are one and the same thing. If I do not find stability in my mind and my life everything will forever remain just out of reach, I'm accepting this now.

So my new goal is not to ride higher than everybody else, to burn to a cinder myself and anything that stands in my way. That time will come again, but when that time comes I'll have not only the ferocity of a tiger but also the stability of an elephant. Or so reads the plan.

Ayn Rand, makes me think

2010-02-15T13:29:00.002Z

Since writing the piece on Ayn Rand I have get back to reading Atlas Shrugged. She has to be one of the most famous authors in America, no doubt due to the use of her work as Republican propaganda and the more I read of her work the more I simultaneously like it and perhaps distrust it. Her infamous philosophy of Objectivism seems like common sense to me, the motivations and problems facing the main characters resound with me. Sometimes her style of writing does seem strange or inconsistent but it really doesn't matter, the message shines through.

So what does that make me? I've never really been affected by anything like this before, I've rejected the religion I was raised in and never really shared a view with anybody totally. I have always questioned things and now I am faced with an ideology that declares I should question things, I agree with it. It is not earth shattering stuff by any means but it is truly a new experience for me to encounter something that actually makes sense.

We live in a world where mans true nature is constantly obscured and painted over, as a race we are constantly trying to be something else. Our lies create vacuums of power, of weakness only transparent by the grace of others. We become dependent on others as they are on us to maintain this group delusion, power is defined by the swell and destruction of the vacuum while reality is an afterthought. We can see this in Ireland today, where favours, such as buying out certain banks become more important than actual sense and it goes a long way back.

For my part, my belief stands like this at the moment. Men must be dangerous, all of them. The second you cease being dangerous is the moment where your opinion ceases to matter, no government in the history of the world has ever respected anything about its people other than their ability to remove them from power. This is the nature of man, this is reality. That they care about anything other than that is another example of this paint, of this vacuum. With Haughy it became so thick it almost drowned the entire country, now we see the same thing again.

Ireland will survive however, with a highly educated populous, you have danger. We are not nearly as active as we could be but a lot of the Irish people will react when they are wronged because they know they can, because they know enough to know that they have to. This is what must be encouraged, this is what has and will save us. Ireland has always had the benefit of realising the true nature of their government but look still how difficult it is, how easily the paint infiltrates, things should be done about it.

So that's an example of what it has got me thinking about, but of course it goes deeper than that for me but all in all I am pleased to finally have read some real world sense.

By the Sea

2010-02-08T20:58:00.003Z

It's been a long road, one which now takes me by the sea in Malahide. The walk home from work has become one along the beach, sometimes I find shells.

But anyway, I've been given another chance at it all and I'm starting here from scratch. I've cataloged my errors and I'm resolved to do better this time. I've got to work out how to control this mind of mine and exist within my own limits.

But seriousness aside, I joined a Gym and am doing an Art class and a pottery class. I'm trying to take things easy and slowly and so far I think it's going okay. Once I'm settled down a bit more I'll try to get back into writing. I've been reading a lot lately, just finished The Double by Dostoevsky. Before that it was the penultimate truth by PKD, was very good, if obviously a bit rushed.

The Double itself was such a powerful insight into madness, it was chilling. A powerful message that you need to look after your mind I think. The kind of book that you find yourself thinking about for a long time after.

I'm back to Atlas shrugged now, will finish that soon. I have to admit Ayn Rand is a bit conventional coming from Dostoevsky but I'm reading more for the "moral". It's like a bible or something, the capitalist bible.

But all in all, I have a good feeling about things. I'm going to be patient and happy for a while.

A Guinness Advert

2010-01-19T20:28:00.005Z

The morning mist was just leaving the surface of the bay as I looked out through my binoculars. The waves lapped against the rocks non threateningly. Three weeks we had been stationed by the water, sitting upon a not inconsiderable amount of heavy guns and ammunition. Radar had picked up an alleged allied attack, it was beginning to seem it would never arrive.

But our training was good, our patience limitless as the sea itself and I stood by my fellow officers outside of our camp for most of the day, scanning the horizon with our viewing glasses until our arms gave way from cramp.

That morning was marked only by the whining of the wind through the rocks of the bay, it was even more sharp than usual, more piercing than was natural.

"Is that the wind, Kommandant?"
"Yes, of course. What else could it be?"

I once more lifted the cold rubber of the binoculars to my eyes, almost against my will I tracked the flight of yet another errant seagull onto a small dot on the apex of the undulating sea. It was a ship, I knew at once in my gut.

"Prepare the guns, the Allied flotilla is about to arrive. We will sink them before they set foot on German soil."

An Unteroffizier left my side to oversee the deployment of our weapons when I once again looked upon the dot, though it was no longer just a dot. I could see exactly what it was.

"Stop, don't fire!"

I shouted out at the men who only looked back at me like dogs confused by their masters instruction.

"Look!"

Those who had binoculars looked out at the bay, at the great green flag that cascaded above a small fishing boat. Upon the green flag shone a golden harp, shining beyond what would be assumed to be possible in the weak morning light. On the ship were a group of men and women, each with a tin whistle to their lips, it had not been the wind after all.

They had arrived and landed before I could bring myself to action and then I knew we were lost. Music and laughing broke out among my men as the guns were forgotten in favor of singing and drinking.

With my permission the men surrendered the next day, but I begged until I was allowed on that fishing boat. I wanted to ride out of the bay to the sound of thin whistles, I think I had never wanted anything more in my entire life.

Ayn Rand - I Salute You!

2010-01-10T16:21:00.009Z

Alright, time for part 2 of the "I Salute You!" series. Up next is a person whose work I've only encountered recently but who has made quite a powerful impact on my life. Again, I know a little about her personal life but this isn't about the person, this is about the artist, the writer. I came across this author after I found out the storyline of the recent computer game "Bioshock" was inspired by her work. Let's go.

Weapon of Choice: Ayn Rand goes into any battle having already won it, a believer in human greatness she can not be defeated. From all conflict will emerge the strongest, hence the only thing she truly fears is peace. When pushed into open conflict however she favors economic power and wits, always seeking to outstrip opponents in raw efficiency and vision. Truly, a fighter that operates on a difference scale to most.

Armour: How can you assail a person that believes in something so absolutely, Ayn's aegis is faith in humanity. It is something beyond a religion, no gods, no angels, just the paragon of human ambition and desire. To attack Ayn Rand is to attack humanity itself.

Creed: Ayn Rand is her Creed and her Creed is Ayn Rand, every word she writes is soaked in pure undiluted strength and unwavering belief. The individual will overcome the many, the light of one can not be allowed be extinguished by the weakness of the many.

Ammunition: History is her ammunition, around us we see the almost complete eradication of the Communist societies and the power of capitalism. Even following an immense recession it powers through. Money has proved itself again and again as humanities Saviour from itself.

Special Move: Ayn Rand's power is one of conversion. Like a missionary she falls upon the ignorant and undecided and shows them a superior path. Her faith lights a path to a higher place.

Weakness: I couldn't write such a positive piece without listing at least a single weakness. Of course fanaticism is something that should always be avoided. Though her fervor is to be admired her stories are always one sided in order to deliver her point. Lack of balance is certainly Ayn Rand's weakness but it is required for her great strength to shine.

So that's Ayn Rand. My piece might have read like somebody describing a prophet but that's the only way to describe her. Communism is death, my friends, I believe it.

Christmas and Onward

2009-12-28T10:47:00.003Z

It's been a bit of a blur lately, it's been late nights and long sleep-ins, presents and good hopes. I've done a lot of interviews and landed the job I wanted. Now I'm standing where four months ago I decided where I wanted to stand.

I'm excited, I believe anything can happen now. I am ready for the next part of life, the next batch of lessons to be learned and experiences to experience. Later today I am going to start ringing people about an apartment in Malahide and then at some point I'm going to move up there. Then, at some point I'm going to start a new job.

Everything will benefit from this, I tried the full time writing thing and I found I was not ready yet. Something is still unsatisfied inside of me, I want to go out in the world again. As Talking Heads put it, I want to live. I'll write about it later.

Blurb 2 - Tiernan helped with this one

2009-12-19T03:33:00.003Z

North of the Royal territories, the path of knives, three strangers meet under a red sky. A student of the art, an ex-royal assassin and their smiling guide.

Together they steal the diamond of fate but in acquiring it become pawns in an ancient conspiracy; setting in motion a series of events that leads armies to clash, ambitions to rise and a prince to fall.

A Lost Poem

2009-12-07T20:39:00.002Z

Caught Mother throwing out some of my old stuff today, among them was an ancient soggy notebook from my old work. Like anything of mine from that era it has a few poems in it, here's one.

Frustration, it's like some dirty word
When unhappy, be unheard.
You frown, so be alone
I will not call you on your phone
Do run, do hide, you do not fit
So find a rock and hide under't
You can not see the life I see now
Your dreams are not the same.
Why should I listen when you are so to blame.

My happiness is fragile
One moment and I could be you.
So keep your distance please
It's worse than any flu or disease
I'm really quite frightened, please
I want to help you but can not
You see, you remember,
What I forgot.

I've travelled to the other side

2009-12-06T15:39:00.003Z

I've done little writing in the previous few weeks and there's been little to report on unless you really like page by page recaps of constant study. Yes, I finally got around to taking that Sun Certification exam and I was taking it seriously. I took a chapter a day and yes, I got 75%, it's pretty awesome. I was damn happy with the result but less than happy with the massive head ache I was left with at the end.

The study brought with it a new wave of enthusiasm for technology, I'm making a new Java game now that has just reached critical mass and the design decisions are getting harder and harder... Anyway you don't want to hear about all that boring stuff.

I'm back on track now, I promise. My new writing project is going well and I really need to give Tower some TLC. It's been a difficult book to write so far because I probably made a little bit too personal. I can't go a paragraph without digging up some obfuscated personal truth that I need to spend the next few days galloping after like a fox in the mist. I do not support fox hunting, I just liked the image.

My other project is simpler, probably more fun. It's more based on an abstraction of myself, or to more specific an aspect of myself that doesn't get much attention these days. I'll write more about it once I have more done, although I'd really like to get Tower finished before I dive into it proper. Although perhaps they do form a dichotomy... (Awesome word, isn't it.)

I have walked the path of the super nerd and I have returned victorious but I shall not forget my other goals!

This Journey

2009-11-25T01:42:00.002Z

If my life had a meaning, I wonder, what would it be? Indeed, I am a man without a cause, a being without a purpose in many ways. I have opinions on almost everything but of 99% of these subjects I accept that I don't know enough for them to be valid.

I could never argue politics or philosophy, my beliefs are too polarized, too based on my personal beliefs and passions. I am certain, of many things, I am equally certain however that it is best to keep these ideas to myself for the most part.

Professionally, yes, I am driven. Not so much by money or even by knowledge but by a will to be everything I can be. A will that desires great challenges, a will that wishes to learn these games people play, a will to master them. To what end I have no idea.

It's maddening, potentially. Growing up I had meaning but was completely impotent, now everything is shifting towards the opposite situation. For every ounce of meaning I give up I get some power. For every compromise I make on myself I am awarded a moment of productivity. It's a sick game really.

Age has given me an amount of wisdom, though I would never claim to be wise. I think this allows me to see things as they really are, pick my fights more. And even though I am far from a situation where I am consistently productive or focused I have certainly made leaps in that area. In time I may well master it.

And will I ask why then, at the end, why I did it all? Why I worked hard where others might have relaxed, where I tortured myself when others might have just accepted their destiny. Where I fought when others might have turned the other cheek, or won where they might have lost.

Will I worry why I did it all. Will I remember? I'll write it here just in case I forget.

I do it for Joy, I do it for love, lost and yet to be found. I do it for fire, wind and rain. I do it for me, this is who I am. I don't want anything this world can offer me, I came with my pockets full and I intend to empty them somehow.

Writing a Blurb

2009-11-16T00:12:00.001Z

I'm going to do a blurb every day until I get it right. Here is tonight's effort.

In the forgotten past, chronicled only in ruined libraries, two ancient spirits maintained balance between the various powers of the Island, both political and elemental. Ultimately however, a great man emerged, becoming the favourite of both spirits. He used their combined gifts to defeat them both in turn, confining them to stones and dooming the world to continue in their absence.

Several life times since; Aster, an erstwhile student of the forbidden art that the man had created stumbles upon one of the stones and come under its irresistible influence.
Now, as a red sky dies above him, Aster takes his place as a pawn in what may be the last game ever played.

I've been researching blurbs and they are deceptively simple. Anyway, leave a comment if it makes you want to read the book! Otherwise my next attempt will be uploaded tomorrow!

Yes, I can use Photoshop Filters too

2009-11-13T14:31:00.002Z

I have a growing list of things I'd like to write about here but every time I motivate myself to make a post I'm left short in ideas. Nothing seems worth writing about, or impossible to express. I'm back in Navan now, away from the congested streets of Dublin and back under a clear sky. I am thankful for the chance to be here for a while, but I'm hoping it won't be for long.

I'm looking for another job of course but that ever present of dream of getting something published is always dancing in my mind. I don't have control over any of things however and I've always hated that.

I pass my time by studying for my driving license exam and for programming Qualifications, I have things to do but also plenty of time to write and I am making more time now just to sit in a quiet room, television off, and just writing. It's never easy, to focus. Only, I think my problem is the opposite, I'm too focused, too focused on jobs, on exams, too focused on the next big thing. I am impatient, egotistical, overdriven.

And then I will turn and put another plan in place, another scheme to set things right. But that isn't always the way. I need to start thinking more like a hippy, more like, that things are cool. I need to just be. I have no idea how to do that.

I do not know the future, I may have my chance at the things I desire, I might not but I do not serve myself forsaking myself in favor of my quest for meaning. It's like feeding the crew of an ocean liner into the engines, sure, it's extra fuel for free but now you are just an empty hulk of unthinking steel, pushing through the freezing waves for no other reason than because you can.

I take things too seriously.

2009-11-12T01:17:00.005Z

I just do. I need to stop.

Seriousness is a cruel addiction. If my pal Edgar is right and all we see or seem is truly a dream within a dream, well, we might as well make it a good one about unicorns and volcanoes.

Burn baby burn.

The Challenge of Creation

2009-11-11T15:21:00.002Z

We live in a world where the individual has his hands tied in many ways, films, games and animations are works of multiple hands. They are built of a co-ordinated host, not one mind.

I have attempted to make games before but it is not possible, each part can absorb your entire ability and switching back and forth is impossible without losing quality. I have attempted to make films before but you need actors for a start, or at least somebody to hold the camera.

There is also the synergistic nature of the human mind, a right match up of minds can prove to be beyond the sum of their parts.

But, in the real world it takes resources to get these people together. It needs time, commitment and money. It is something beyond one guy to achieve, at least to start with. The novel doesn't suffer from this problem and I love it for this fact but I don't want to restricted forever. Well, it's at least a place to begin I suppose...

In the Midst

2009-11-04T22:40:00.003Z

Well, half way through the only decent writing I've got done for a long time now. I'm back home and have space and peace and quiet. I can also have the television on in the room blaring comedy sitcoms that I already know off by heart playing in the background. (Seems to really help, don't ask me why.) I used to claim to need three things distracting me to be able to relax, perhaps it's true.

Writing is one of these things, it needs the right environment. I can't really claim to understand at the moment what helps me write but all I can do is play it by ear.

And I suppose it's not truly limited to writing, whether it's study or technical work it's always been difficult for me to get into a place where I can do it. I just often feel so unstimulated, sitting there focusing on a single thing which often incorporates consistent patterns and flat presentation. For this reason I find it hard to sit through most films and listen to most music, I think.

Anyway, the point is that this is something I've tried to brute force and it just didn't work. My mind is how it is and I have to learn to deal with its own eccentricities. I think in the end it will work out easier on us both.

Some Lessons from the Chinese Zodiac

2009-10-22T22:04:00.008+01:00

I never would have described myself as one interested in the occult but I have mentioned the tarot before, and today I am going to talk about the Chinese Zodiac. Make of it what you will.

Now, the tarot is something I have fun with now and again but I wouldn't go so far as to call it accurate or to have any supernatural power, for me it's a means of thought. A random card applies an external context to a factor of my life that is sometimes very illuminating, but I digress.

The Chinese Zodiac is extremely accurate and I have a large amount of trust in it at this stage. Time and time again its rules have proven themselves true in the interactions I have witnessed in my life, so if you have an interest in that sort of thing I recommend you investigate it.

My animal is the Tiger and my element is Fire, along with everybody else born in the Chinese year of '86. This would mean a lot of things, but one of them is that I deal in bursts of energy. Even when I was a kid I was aware of this, even feeling empathy with the Tyrannosaurus Rex when he was described as being able to attain very fast speeds temporarily while pursueing prey but in general being a pretty slow Dino. That image of a titanic beast hurtling forward as an unstoppable mass of sinew and teeth only to revert to a panting pile of used up Dinosaur really resonated with me.

But I like that, for a while he's something special, for a while he's an ace, a legend.

I feel I'm like that sometimes, wasted from my last great charge, from my last attempt at something. But I am a tiger, and part of being a tiger is being an exhausted lump of fur burnt out from the hunt. Every other creature knows however, that it will not be too long before the hunter is back on form. Until then, there's Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes to vegetate in front of.

Not so far from the Norm

2009-10-18T22:28:00.002+01:00

I've always looked down on those hooked to a particular form of entertainment, or mix thereof. I've poo-pooed televisual feasters and pa-paed people who play video games all day, but, am I so much better.

I was once what one might call "addicted" to a little internet based program called IRC. Or internet relay chat. Anywho, this little program let me go online in anoynominity and at worst have some fun messing with peoples heads and at best actually meet some pretty cool people and have night long conversations with them. I became aware of the addiction after a few years however and helped by the fact most of the people I had enjoyed talking to had gone already I was kicked the habit a few years ago.

So, I still chat to a few select people online, I don't really consider that the same thing. What I still do however is spend hour upon hour browsing from website to forum from newgrounds to something awful looking for something to laugh at or be amused by. This is normal right? The thought struck me tonight that it is in fact normal, normal as being hooked on a tv, normal as being dependent on any other quick fix, instantly gratifying form of entertainment. So there you go, I guess I'm not so better after all.

True, I do read the odd book, listen to the occasional piece of classical music but it is actually an effort to pull myself away from the internet. This source of information but, in fairness, mostly a source of quick laughs and distracting content. I've got another habit to kick, and it's going to be tough.

A Little More about the New Book

2009-10-17T20:06:00.002+01:00

“That’s possible. Maybe he is so convinced of his own superiority no amount of power could appease his ego, and he knows that. He finds himself seeking out alternate paths to fulfillment to other men. He find himself turning from the conventional, and towards the transcendental.”
-Crystal

So, we are moving into the deep end now. Who are these people, I wonder to myself, that I have created. It's certainly less cut and dry than my previous novel. The thread of the story is not contained and controlled as much, I find it is much more centered around the personality of a central character.

But that's quite cool, I think the psychology of the main character in my previous novel was certainly a weakness so this shift to the close third person is really making me work harder on fleshing him out. Before, the first person allowed me to justify decisions internally, if that makes sense. It was the situation that I used primarily to manufacture the story.

The same is still true of course but there is definately a dynamic shift. Also being able to fly over to other characters whenever I like is pretty cool too.

A warning to the potential evil of this method can be found in the the second Nightwatch book, the first book had me hooked on the massive energy of the first person and this was diffused so much by the use of the third person that I was really disappointed. Not to say that it wasn't great in it's own way but I did feel like something exceptional had been reduced to something all too mundane. But we will see!

New Post, New Post

2009-10-16T17:09:00.003+01:00

So, it looks like I'll be moving away from Dublin for a while. Mixed feelings about it but that's that way things turned out.

I am determined to stay on the positive side of things, maintain some momentum in all my pursuits but also keep my eyes open for a new direction. Something eludes me still, some vital ingredient of my life that has it left lacking something.

But these are questions that all need to be asked and solved, these are all things I need to face so I can not complain. Now is the time to mend and improve, now there is time to resolve the things I buried for so long. I am very thankful to have to chance and in the end I think it is going to make all the difference.

I'm planning to learn how to drive and get my SCJP qualification. Branch out into real world achievements. Try to find a mix that works, well, one has to keep trying.

Some Incidental Advice

2009-10-09T14:48:00.003+01:00

There was some advice on that slip which I've been thinking about over the past few days. It recommended that instead of using the standard query letter and synopsis that you just write out the blurb. (The bit written at the back of a book that encourages you to buy it by making the story seem exciting and interesting.)

Write out the blurb and stick some sample chapters on the end. Bada bing bada boom, right? It certainly makes sense to me, it does seem like a better approach in the Fantasy genre and it would be good practice for me so I think I might give it a go. Of course if you have been following my blog my previous incarnation of my query was essentially just this I didn't really go all the way.

Perhaps it will be different now that I am less personally invested in my first novel and will be able to perceive it more objectively. Well, we will see. I'll stick whatever it is I end up with on here.

How is the writing thing anyway?

2009-10-07T15:29:00.002+01:00

Well, I received another rejection slip in the mail today and that kind of reminded me of something. This blog is supposed to be about my journey to writerdom.

Okay, well, first of all, yes I am still writing. It usually takes the form of an hour or two every morning and a good amount of sitting around in a catatonic state pondering what the hell is going to happen next in the plot. I'm happy to be back in novel mode but hell is it harder. Sure, even if I do have a good idea does it fit into the storyline? Will it pull things in a direction I don't want to go in. Well, yeah, there's definitely more things to consider but yes, it is a lot of fun too.

I do wish I was doing more but I supposed I am still in a bit of personal turmoil but that looks like it's going to be a permanent fixture in my life so I'm going to have to figure out how to work with it sooner or later I guess.

I'm heading up to Dublin soon and will prepare another wave of query letters for my previous novel. This is the game we are playing, still. Keep firing until the guns glow red!

Almond Filibostron

2009-10-05T14:17:00.002+01:00

No, it's a trap. The explosion rattled the fillings in his teeth as he dived through the resultant wave of glass. It washed over him like a sharp rain as he reached for his deaver pistols.

One shot will reign in the apocalypse. They ripped through the building the rocket had come from reducing it to rubble. He heard the rattle of gun-fire however and he dragged himself behind a wall as the spinning balls of lead crashed into the ground around him, tearing the earth into clouds of brown and green.

He was stuck now. There was another explosion and the gun-fire stopped.

Slowly, he stuck his head over his cover to see his old comrade Bundwurp holding a soviet era rocket launcher and a grin that said, "You owe me one."

He leveled his pistol at bundwurp and said.

"Trust is something I never give, to soldier, politician or otherwise."

So much for game theory.

Back on track - If I could figure out where the track went

2009-10-02T15:25:00.002+01:00

So, I've been out of work for a while now and I've had my holiday and I've had my sleeping in and constant relaxation and it's been great I can't complain.

I do realize that the time is now upon me to get back on track with everything, most of all my writing. While there has been some progress I really need to start focusing on it more and get into a real routine. Hopefully I'll be able to write more easily in wherever I live next (lease is coming to an end soon.) But we'll have to see.

I should also try and get another wave of query letters out, I still haven't used any using my new format and there's never any harm in trying. Today I got an email response to one I sent out months ago so there's no harm in keeping that cycle going.

Finally the job will continue, it's been pretty slow so far to be honest which to be fair I kind of did expect. The main thing is to keep myself out there and stay focused on what I want.

I enjoyed lying around in bed but it's something that rule, less is more, stands truer than ever. Have to get back to work building that track to where I want to go.

Meanwhile - At Cregan Towers

2009-09-30T20:24:00.004+01:00

I've been having a tiring day of excessive leisure. I've slept until 1am, drank my own weight in delicious coffee and listened to my favorite music while vegetating. It's been good. I'm so relaxed I might try to get some writing done now, if I can just be bothered.

It's okay to be self reliant, it's okay to not need others for a good time. I'm a misanthrope and it's time I accepted that about myself. I'm a misanthrope on a phisological and philosophical level. The reasons are quite clear in my head but here is the one that I'm focusing on at the moment.

Nothing is Real: Your average person believes things or has things they hold to be true beyond their own ability to defend it. The moment where an argument ends in "I don't know why it's true but it is." In reality, something is only as true as our ability to make it true in that instance of time, people don't seem to be able to accept this. If you fail to convince me of something, it is not true until at which time I become convinced of it. And while I do accept that it is not necessarily false either, that itself does not mean it is true either.

Anyway, that's it in the nutshell. By extension of course, anything can be true and true knowledge does not exist beyond our own ability to manufacture it. Now, you can disagree with that, and that's fine, but until you can convince me otherwise I believe it to be true.

If I can believe in something, it might as well exist, if I can reach inside of myself and find those principals I hold over everything else and believe that they are right, they are. If I believe, they are real. See? There is no universal right or wrong, but I can create instances of them myself.

How does that tie into the human race at large? I will fight them on everything they hold to be true, it is my nature, I will challenge their perceptions for both our well being because stronger truth arises from conflict. Most people don't enjoy that, and it isn't worth partaking with a large number of people who do not even have any of their own truths but partake of somebody elses. I am not speaking out against something, if there's something I learned during my time on this planet is that being angry at something doesn't change it. People are the way they are, and so am I. It's time to accept this and move on.

So my goal now is to create my truth, develop it, sharpen it and then, through my work; unleash it on the world.

If I can just be bothered...

After the Rain 2009

2009-09-28T14:54:00.004+01:00

Well, here's an innocent plug. I'm not sure how many people come through my blog but any exposure is worth it.

I've just put together a website for an event a friend is currently organising. I encourage you to go have a look if you live in the Dublin area. Link to it here. The details of the charities it is in aid of etc. are on there as well as the list of acts that will be attending.

So, if you've got any kind of enjoyment from this blog I order you to check out this website! My friend knows good music so it should be worth the money.

And... We're back...

2009-09-28T11:28:00.005+01:00

I come back from Berlin with a head full of new ideas, it really was such a worthwhile experience. The architecture, the people and even the space I found myself having there all contributed to some really valuable introspection and inspiration. Inspiration was even directly offered by the statue of Demeter in the Pergamon museum and the gendarmenmarkt square together matched my imagination when I created the so-called "Government Square" in my current novel. It was a beautiful experience beholding them.

I got to use a bit of German too, which was great. I took the policy of opening every encounter in German and only falling into English when I had to. I found myself getting further and further. Though, doubtless still not very far. I definately have much more confidence now, and a lot more tolerance for my own mistakes, so I'm really glad I made the effort.

The city itself was so interesting, from the laid back drivers to the psychotic cyclists it was definately another world entirely from Dublin. The size is the most striking thing about it, apparantly it is eight times the size of Paris so even among large cities it's huge. From the air it was a city built within a forest so it definately seemed very environmentaly friendly.

I probably did not find it as strange as I expected to. In many ways I found it more like home than London was. The experience of just hanging around in a cafe drinking beer and enjoying the architecture was something new to me. I found it very enriching. Of course it did help that the concert I went there to see (VNV Nation) was the greatest thing I have ever attended in my life.

I have so many theories and feelings about Berlin, it is definately a city that has seen so much in its time that it really has a life of its own. I hope I'll make it back over there (perhaps for some fencing) some time soon.

Off to Germany

2009-09-24T02:28:00.000+01:00

Hi-ho silver, AWAY!

A new short story

2009-09-22T22:13:00.002+01:00

Hello! I've set up a nicer word-press website to save myself the bother of building the thing myself. I've changed the short story link to point at it and you can also get to it here.

Well, I'm excited right now. Heading to Germany for the first time on Thursday, going to see my all time favorite group VNV Nation in a huge, sold-out venue. It's going to be terrifying but I can't wait. Hopefully the trip goes well and I'll start making my way out there for fencing competitions, I'm sure those guys could teach me a thing or two. Losing is a pain but we learn best when we are utterly crushed, right.

So, I'm buzzing from that. My website game thing made some progress too and I've written some articles on it on that respective blog. I'm up to three blogs now, (four if you count the Word Press) but what the hell. The logic is that I'm basically a freak for incorporating an interest in gaming, literature/philosophy and programming so why not break it up a bit to increase the chances of something clicking. It's not a big deal anyway, I find myself being able to write plenty to keep them ticking over with plenty of energy left over for my short stories and novels.

Alright so, big things ahead. One more thing, I made a little video, it's pretty stupid but I was so moved by the desperate writing in a particular recent video game that I made a video of myself deriding it. It might be a bit cringe-worthy to most but hell, give it a go if you dare: Me in front of the Camera.

Well, I can't say more without breaking the informational tone of this post so I shall cease!

Video, games and interlaced story telling.

2009-09-19T22:50:00.002+01:00

There's some machinations processing in my mind at the moment. Cogs are turning, equations are resolving and I do feel like I am moving towards something. My life is a long line of ideas, concepts I've come up with but with such limited implementation.

I have so many fully formed ideas in my head but so few have ever made them into reality. Perhaps it is how, in a way, that they are already completed in some form that makes them so hard to work on. It's a difficult subject.

I am also guilty of being struck by a specific sensation and become obsessed with devising a method of its synthesis. A game, a story, a book but soon the sensation is gone and I am left only with this project. It's difficult going.

Of course I am still working on it and I am making some progress. I need to be patient, I need to learn the skills I need to make my ideas a reality. Like the Buddha apparantly said, "A jug fills drop by drop".

I just read something on Wikipedia

2009-09-16T15:32:00.002+01:00

Did you know that Orson Welles once appeared at the Gate Theater in Dublin? Apparently he was just in the neighbourhood and barged into auditions claiming to be a Broadway actor. They didn't believe him but he was so good they took him on anyway.

Orson Welles' story is a great one. He went from job to job, constantly aggravated by realities interference with his visions. He was one of us who could see what he wanted to do so clearly, so vividly that any transgression against it was abhorrent. But time, money, public opinion, they all stood in his way. That was the nature of the media industry, it still is I suppose.

The list of projects that Orson threw himself into only to have crash and burn is astounding. And such a shame. Genius versus reality. It's definitely a high point, at least in theory, of being an author. You have time to get things how you want them to be. I know once things get commercial you don't but it's not like making a film where every day of work costs thousands of dollars.

I think that's a strong reason why written literature is still the primary source of originality and creative properties, time is there to develop something new. The unorthodox can't be so easily be destroyed by an uneasy patron.

What's this, anticipation for something?

2009-09-15T14:13:00.004+01:00

I'm always seeing my own doom and destruction in the pipe-line, but here comes something nice. A new computer game that I can't wait to play. Here I announce my anticipation in a scripted fashion.

My Best Idea Ever - Please don't steal

2009-09-15T13:28:00.002+01:00

It's the year 2040 and the Irish populace has now turned to cat worship.

The rest writes itself. Really what is with women and cats, why do women want to be cats? It's crazy!

Anyway, in the book everybody worships cats but something is rotten. The director of animal control has been slipping psychotropic drugs into the nations cat food supply, making the cats more suggestible to his pervasive cat hypnosis. Cats begin killing their masters brutally with shovels and all hell breaks lose.

It's down to a young trainee veterinarian, Bladen Harchwip and his band of weight watching dieters to hunt down the source of the cat crazy and save the country from complete meltdown. Using only malnutrition know-how and some automatic weapons they must rise against the sea of conspirator fur and get the true rotten center of the Irish cat house (The Dail!)

Rated 18.

We Have Video Now!

2009-09-13T21:23:00.003+01:00

Text is dead! Video is the future, or that's what they're telling me. Join me on my first adventure into moving picture vision!

New Day, New Post

2009-09-13T14:36:00.002+01:00

So, it seems there is a dichotomy between one's hatred of old women and one's attendance to classical events. Ha ha ha.

But wit aside, I might write some personal stuff. Nobody's reading this anyway. I feel fantastic I have to say, since my recent unemployment I have started enjoying life again. I'm playing computer games, watching shows, all the stuff normal human beings enjoy. I've also cut out caffeine from my diet and that's really contributing to a new healthier me. In a nutshell, I'm feeling better than I have in as long as I can remember.

And it's now that I wish I had money to be able to support this life. I'm writing away, but there's no way of telling if I'll be able to get anything published in the near future. I'm not sure what the future holds for me but I do hope that I'll be able to hold onto this new joy I've found.

I do feel like I have hit a foundation, a fundamental sustaining energy and that's very reassuring. I will strive to build on this.

I went to see the RTE National Symphony Orchestra

2009-09-12T19:03:00.005+01:00

It was good fun. Played some Brahms first and then Beethoven's 5th in the second half. For the most part of it was excellent soul nourishing fare--

Apart, that is, from the old woman that was SNORING beside me for most of the second half. I looked over and it looked like she was asleep, but no, she didn't even have this excuse, she had been awake the whole time. The woman knew what she was doing, I don't have words, I really don't.

I won't dwell on it, but if you are incapable of breathing silently please do NOT attend classical performances. Also, die.

But yeah, I'm still kind of annoyed over that. But that's just people for you, they just don't give a crap. How would the performers on stage feel if they saw somebody obviously snoring and oblivious to the world around them. Not good. But, I didn't say anything, should I have? Comment now please!

As for the performance itself, very enjoyable first half. Didn't think they had enough "umpf" for the Beethoven but it was still enjoyable. The NCH seems a bit on the small side for a full orchestra and the setup with the piano was a bit strange. Can the pianist usually not see the conductor? I felt that lead to a lack of synchronization between the piano and the rest of the orchestra but maybe that was just me.

So, looking forward to Germany and their concert orchestra and see how it stacks up. Hoping to be blown away!

A Non-Entertaining Update

2009-09-09T10:43:00.005+01:00

An update on my writing efforts, finally I have started to realign myself with my novel goals and have left a few short stories to stew for a while, unfinished.

I have rewritten my query letter for Redmond, again. You can have a look at it here. Any feedback is very welcome.

I've gone for a more "sales document" approach and incorporated some of the CV writing skills I have developed during my current job seeking.

I have also written another novel opening, it's fiction and its got an interesting protagonist so I'll just have to see how that goes. I probably won't take the plunge until Tower is complete. It will have to wait along with Whitespace, another fiction concept that I developed.

And Tower proceeds nicely, I have all my main characters in place and things are picking up pace. I am about to enter that phase of a book where you are done awkwardly navigating a reef and find yourself out at open sea. Some favorable winds and it will be done before I know it. It's a more personal work than Redmond and I'm definitely finding it therapeutic. Tower is going to either be my masterpiece or my great folly but I think I'm going to be proud of it either way.

And that's how things stand at the moment. Still getting a steady trickle of rejection letters, still writing and most of all, still waiting.

Melora Creager - I salute you!

2009-09-01T18:34:00.006+01:00

Ladies and gentlemen it's time for some more hero worship. Today it's Melora Creager. Now, I'm not her stalker, I don't know her life history or anything, she could be pure sunshine evil for all I know. I'll focus on what I do know about her and is the source of her title of awesome person.

Weapon of Choice - Melora is armed with the most advanced form of weaponry available from your local music shop, I speak of course of the Cello. This thing can lay waste to armies with its melodious dark tone. Some others have had the idea of using electric cellos but Melora has given it distinction, making it something unique by its own right.

This is backed up by one of the most beautiful voices I have ever heard. I think they refer to it as a vibrato voice, unique and piercing. Some people don't like it when I make them listen to it but those people are philistines! If some kind of ancient and magical violin started talking, it would sound like Melora Creager. Ooh, book idea.

Armour - Melora adorns herself in authentic Victorian garb. Apparently it helps her get over her stage fright or something but it looks amazing. I haven't been lucky enough to see them live but they look like something out of a dream in their videos. They are a true musical anachronism, their look behind their time, their music ahead of it!

Creed - Melora sings about history. This leads to great songs about Rose Kennedy and Howard Hughes. She also has a habit of creating bat shit crazy interludes in her albums where different characters bicker or history plays out before you in stereo. Funny, educational and with Cello goodness Melora is a woman on a mission to amaze and obfuscate historical happenings with her own haze of entertaining confusion.

Ammunition - Melora has a lot of albums, some of which, I believe were produced by a certain Marylon Manson. Now, don't hold that against her, her stuff is original and well written. I've got ten of their albums here which includes their excellent live album, they've got a catalogue of epic proportions.

Special Move - Their special move, in my opinion, is an excellent version of the Pink Floyd classic "Wish you were here." Melora somehow managed to craft a cover that is in many ways superior to the original. It seems like a song that was always meant for the Cello as opposed to the guitar. I can't talk music so I won't try but I can just say that it hits a spot and does real justice to an amazing song.

Well, if that isn't enough to have her sent a pre-paid ticket to Valhalla then I don't know what is. Man, I'm sure those vikings would like her music after a long day of killing each other.

Anyway, even Vikings aside, Melora Creager has achieved so much and I really admire her and her music and hope to continue listening to her stuff for a long time into the future.

By the way her band is called Rasputina, you should check it out.
http://www.rasputina.com/

The Spoon in the Coffee

2009-08-31T12:15:00.002+01:00

Officer Harcourt always kept his thermos with him. It was a trademark, an idiosyncrasy, it was an element of his day to day that made him feel like he was a real person and not just another face behind a uniform. He had a long spoon that he kept in the thermos, using it to stir the miraculous liquid, the fuel that allowed him to do his job without going insane. The spoon imparted the coffee with a nasty metallic taste, but Harcourt took the hit just to be different. He found that these days he was always having to watch something, a house, a shop and tonight an office tower. There had been a bomb threat that morning from some kid, nothing had happened. Harcourt was suffering from a soured relationship with his superior officer, and for the last few weeks had been sent on every job like this that turned up.

Were they expecting that kid to turn up on the scene of the crime, for literally no reason? It was routine to keep an eye on a place after any report had been placed, but a useless type of routine, one that sounded great on paper but ultimately offered no value to anybody and only served to be an element of the constructive dismissal of the officer involved. Harcourt stirred his coffee agitatedly, noting how much resistance the spoon responded with, how much of that vital liquid remained. It was never enough.

There was a thud from somewhere down the road, perking Harcourt up. He raised his head until it touched roof of the car as he tried to make out the source of the sound but all he could make out was the dusky sidewalk. There was nothing. The sound had been tinny, like an old style dust bin falling over. Harcourt sat back down into his seat and unbuckled himself. He decided that he might as well investigate, it wasn't like he was going to miss anything at the office block. The first gust of cool air over Harcourt was soothing as he left the stagnant atmosphere of the car. He savoured the moments between opening himself to the air and the first wave of shivers. He was in a cold grey wasteland, the only light was from his phone, blinding him as he checked the time. The rest of the world was in bed and Harcourt was bitter. The street wound around the office block and constricted into a tight alley that stank of refuse and decay. Harcourt held his thermos close in order to absorb the precious joules of energy which were otherwise leaking into the night through where the plastic and the metal met at it's peak.

The alley was perfectly empty. There was nothing but a dubious puddle that reflected an unseen street lamp. Harcourt was disappointed but his breathing at once settled, there was one last puff of visible mist from his lungs before he turned back to the car. Turning, his eye was caught by the faintest hint of movement for the crease of the alley, where the smooth curves of the cobble stones met the straight lines of the building walls. It was something metallic and round, like a discarded hubcap. Usually, however, hubcaps didn't quiver like a freezing child. Harcourt approached it, slowly, sure that it was a trick of the twilight eye. Or perhaps a rat had made the hubcap it's home. A rat living in a hubcap would definitely have cause to shiver on a night like this, at least until the pneumonia kicked in and made it an ex-rat.

Harcourt reached for his torch, with a click the object was bathed in yellow light. It wasn't a hubcap, it was more oval in shape with four fork like protrusions at each pole. It was deadly still. As Harcourt got closer however, it moved slightly. It's little hands clawed at the wall it was leaning on, turning its face to Harcourt. It's mouth moved, slowly, as if frozen. It produced words like a marooned man who hadn't met another human being in living memory, slowly mouthed, deliberate and desperate.

"Heat."

Harcourt looked at his discovery. Its metallic face had a small hole in the centre, though it never moved Harcourt assumed that's where the voice came from. Its voice was tinny but, unusual for a synthetic voice, it really had emotion. The thing sounded like it was dying. Harcourt stayed at a safe distance and bent his knees, looking into the yellowed metallic face of the creature. Harcourt was caught up in the moment now, excited that he had found something the break the monotony. He called out to the object, convinced that it had to be some kind of child's toy.

"What? Did you say something?"
"Heat."

The word was drawn out agonizingly. A marooned man gasping for water. Of course, Harcourt thought, tonight heat was as rare as water on a desert island. Harcourt stepped back, had it answered him? He threw the light from his torch around the alley searching for some other source of the sound but there was nothing.

"Hello? Is anybody in there?"

His voice echoed in the alley before dissipating completely. There were no answers, his eyes picked up the same shivering as before however, from the small round object. He snapped the torch light back onto it and it stopped moving again. He stepped closer, pulling his coat tighter around himself. The light from the powerful halogen bulb of his torch was now focused on the round object and it was moving again, pushing itself closer to the torch. Harcourt decided that it must be some kind of no gadget, reacting to light by crawling towards it. They had those didn't they? Harcourt laughed at his own fear as he went to pick it up.

As his fingers closed around the disk he felt a shock of cold travel up his arm, like he had just plunged his hand into a puddle of liquid nitrogen. Instinctively he tried to let go but found his fingers frozen in place. He shook his hand frantically as the cold spread through his body, he was experiencing some odd sensation, like his blood was freezing in his veins. He fumbled with his free hand and screwed off the top of his thermos, the hot coffee washed over his captured hand and he was able pull it free. His hand was burned and frost bitten, and thankfully, completely numb. He turned to run back to the car but was stopped in his tracks by the sight of the small disk scuttling to block his path.

"Heat."

He tried to walk around it but every time it just moved to block his path. It was fast, too fast for Harcourt to outrun on foot. Why wasn't it touching him, Harcourt thought, it would easily catch him if it had wanted to.

"Heat."

That was all it said, over and over. Harcourt needed all his heat for himself. He lifted his thermos defensively.

"You want this?"

The disk just stood in one place, suspended by its tiny claws. The thing wanted his thermos. Harcourt couldn't believe it, he was being mugged by a hubcap.

"From my cold dead hands."

Harcourt leaped onto the disk, he shoe freezing in place. Sipping his foot free he ran out of the alley and to the car, as left the alley it shot underneath him, pushing him off his feet. He landed on his front and he watched in horror as the precious liquid poured forth from his thermos and onto the concrete path. The creature walked over to the thermos, the shoe still frozen onto its top and bathed itself in the steaming coffee. It made a slight chattering sound and visibly grew before the prone Harcourt. As the coffee depleted itself from the thermos the creature began to curl itself awkwardly into a tube, shedding the shoe which slid off it's flat top and towards Harcourt. Harcourt sat back up, away from what he perceived as some kind of death ritual. Where was there more heat than in Harcourt's freezing body?

It continued to curl tightly and then contracted until it's body was a short metallic tub with claws. Harcourt backed away but stopped as the tube started squeezing itself into the large thermos. Harcourt watched it, like some kind of alien nature documentary until it had full placed itself in the thermos and diligently pulled the thermos cap back on. He sat and watched it in the silent freezing night, waiting for it to do something. Eventually, the cap popped off once again and a claw emerged from the thermos. It threw a spoon at Harcourt's feet before placing the top of the thermos back on and rolling back into the recesses of the alley.

Fencing!

2009-08-26T17:18:00.005+01:00

I haven't done it for a while but boy I really love fencing. Thought I might write a little informational piece on it, just in case somebody wandering onto my blog might not be educated on the sport. It's basically playing with swords, but there's more to it than that my friend.

I've never liked sports, I found them boring. Kicking a ball around a field, tennis, or well, the rest, they just never clicked with me. When I first tried fencing in college though, I knew I had found something special. There is an art to it, an undefined art. It's got some kind of simple grace, a game of poking the other guy first and amazingly fun.

Sometimes fencing feels like writing, if that makes sense, just making things up as I go along and yet constructing something at the same time. The movement of the blade and knowing that the other guy is so focused on it, this danger, this weapon. Well, it's blunt of course, the damage it does isn't physical. The fencing weapon pierces egos and strikes down confidence. It feels real in that context, that it could be real.

Anyway, that's a look into why I love it but let's learn a little more about it.

This is my weapon of choice, the Epee. The game is this, hit the other guy before he hits you. Anywhere on the body counts and hits within a few milliseconds of each other count as a draw. There are more rules of course but that's the basis of the game and essentially all there is to it.

It's a game of catching the other guy out, you see, your hand is covered by that guard thing and anywhere on the body is vulnerable so the attacker is at a bit of a disadvantage. If you are predictable or too slow and that could be the end of you. This is also the best weapon for just messing around and having fun with, I've had plenty of swash buckling Errol Flynn moments with this weapon where the game is forgotten and it turns into a life or death duel complete with last minute evasions and the clash of steel. Well, it was like that in my head anyway.

Some days you can turn into some kind of unhittable beast as well, I love that. It could be something small that your opponents just can't figure out for some reason, but it's good fun when it happens.

It's one of these things that is just fun in its purest forms. If you don't take it too seriously, but people always will I guess. I've been guilty of it at times myself. Somebody once said to me "Having fun stops where taking it seriously begins." It's true. Almost destroyed the sport for myself with that carry on.

See, fencing is cool.

Irish fencing has been destroyed by the whole ego thing and it definitely puts me off it. It's essentially non-existent here, mostly practiced by students who give it up after they're done. I often joke about moving to another country just for a larger fencing community and well, it's not really all joke, I really would.

Fencing is fun, get's you fit and the rest. But it's a beautiful game so if you get a chance to try it out do me a favour and do. Main thing is, just have a good time.

Remember, a true warrior is always learning and the world is his teacher. And, if somebody doesn't ask for advice, keep your mouth shut!

New things!

2009-08-23T17:30:00.002+01:00

I finally got around to doing the painting that I had had in my head since I made up the name for my blog. It came out okay, so that's pretty cool. You can see it adorning the head of my blog now.

I've also put together a simple website to be a home for some of my short stories, I'm going to put the link in the side bar with kriegsland so maybe you might check it out. I've put up a single story so far but I'll put up more soon.

Well, that's all for now. It's nice to get something concrete done for a change. Back to writing now!

Uploading some stories

2009-08-22T20:36:00.004+01:00

I came up with the idea of uploading a few of my short stories to my blog.
But why not go one step further? Update on this coming up soon.

Also, I've decided to open up the topic of this blog. We all know how the writing thing is going by now. New novel is trotting along nicely and I can't seem to pull myself away from the endeavor of writing as many science fiction short stories as is humanly possible. Anything too short for possible publication I'll stick online later.

Anyway, the other project that's taken up my brain time lately is the top secret project: kriegsland.

I've had the link to this on the side of this blog for a while now but I'd like to talk a bit about it. Kriegsland has been something that has been growing in my head for a while now. So far the only material that has been produced the logo and basic php website but I have a lot more planned.

Ultimately, one day, it will be an online war game. For now it's just a concept. Still, if you like the concept or whatever why not drop me a line and help me bring the kriegsland to life.

Otherwise, stay tuned for this and more.

Hot off the press - What I'm writing right now

2009-08-14T20:35:00.003+01:00

Well, I've had more time to write lately. Thought I might stick up some of my raw output that I've just done. It's the latest chapter from my new project - Tower.

MC couldn’t stop looking at the statue. He looked through the viewscreen at it, remembering every facet every curve that he had crafted. He had been utterly inspired, it had been a labour of love. Looking at it now made him feel like that again, he wanted to destroy it, to sweep it away, but in that statue was everything he wanted, everything that he could aspire to.

What had begun as a few idle comments that had met the right ears had lead to his spear heading the restructuring of the government. It had been his idea for there to be an Emperor or Empress, somebody that everybody could follow over the usual elected government. In the current climate it worked perfectly and everybody was happy with the safeguards that were in place to prevent any abuse of power.

MC hadn’t always been an advocate of theocracy but all the changed with he met the future empress. There was a power in her that he had never witnessed before, an overarching order that MC at once was swallowed up by. MC’s Empress did not represent any great powers in the universe, she was one herself. When MC met her she was a Senator, happy with her position. Such was MC’s mind however that it instantly saw the great things that she was capable of. They had been close for a few months, while things were being put into place. But MC had wrought his own destruction, the position of Empress was to take all her energy, all her power. There was no time for anything else, there was no time for MC. That had forced him to find other ways to go forward, inferior ways.

MC looked on the statue as if it was the best part of himself. As if it was a lost part of himself that he could never really join with again. The statue was a crystallisation of his better part and all that was left was now sitting in the colossus. Possessing unlimited power in that moment but no direction to turn it to. The last thing he could do now is put an end to that, he needed that part of himself now more than ever.

But what did that leave him with. He was now stuck, his plan half completed. He didn’t feel free, he felt like a monster. The colossus had just become like the tower, it was a place for MC to hide in. It had to go.

“Empress, they found Klinb.”
The Empress turned, fixing an authoritive gaze on the messenger. A gaze which said, tell me all you know and then disappear.
“They did, where?”
“He was running from the colossus.”
“What did he tell us, was it MC?”
“Apparantly not, Empress. He said there was some kind of malfunction with the colossus, that he was trying to fix it but failed, he said he gave up in the end and decided to escape with his life.”
The Empress touched her chest, the hand guided by emotion long since pushed into the subconscious, into the area reserved for parts of her not required for her purpose.
“So it is still a danger.”
“I’m afraid so Empress, but it hasn’t moved for almost an hour now. Nobody knows what to do.”
“Send somebody up to MC’s tower, if he’s not involved with this then we could use his help. To my understanding nobody knows more about the colossus than he does.”
“Of course Empress.”
The messenger turned gracefully and walked quickly from the Empresse’s office, leaving her alone again. Her table was strewn with reports and scribbled notes, nothing of any use. She wasn’t looking forward to seeing MC again, there was something about him that antagonised the Empress so much. In her opinion, he was an agent of disorder to his very core and unrepentantly so. The soft spot she had for him was just another useless fact of her personality, something that she had no business feeling.
She looked down at her desk. In one of her drawers, hidden away, she had a picture of herself with MC. She didn’t feel she could bear to look at it again, it was another time, now far behind them both.
“Empress.”
She looked up sternly, with a mix of rage at having been torn from her thoughts so abruptly and embarrassment at having had those thoughts at all.
“What?”
“The colossus is gone.”
“What do you mean, gone?”
“It threw itself into the ocean Empress. It’s gone.”
The Empress looked down for a moment. Allowing her mind to relax, allowing her time to fully absorb the information that she had been given. She stood up and out the door, passing by the messenger as she walked to the main meeting room and found Gertrand with a group of his cronies.
“What happened Gertrand? Did this have anything to do with you?”
Gertrand in his untouchable self confidence but shook his head.
“No, I wish it did. But it sounds like whoever took the colossus had other plans.”
“So one of our neighbours is going to have control of that thing.”
Gertrand looked around, avoiding the Empress’s eyes as he calculated an answer.
"Potentially, yes. But we will be prepared.”
“There is only one thing we can do.”
“What’s that, Empress.”
“We’ll have to build something bigger. Get me MC. We don’t have any choice.”
“I’m sorry Empress, but is having one more colossus in the world really going to make us safer.”
“Look, Gertrand. Right now we have nothing. Your little foam plan was a disaster and frankly there is nothing else that can stop that thing. If it falls into the wrong hands we are as good as done for. We can start thinking about alternate solutions when we have something bigger and more dangerous, until then we are at the mercy of providence.”
“What do you want me to do.”
“Gertrand, take your lackies and find me MC. Something in my gut tells me he won’t be in his tower.”
“He hasn’t left that tower in years Empress.”
“Yes, but something tells me he has now, I certainly wouldn’t want to be found after my creation had just run amok. We need to find him, fast. In the mean time bring me Klinb, maybe we can work on some kind of deterrent until we can put something more permanent together.”

Writing Challenge Results

2009-08-13T20:43:00.003+01:00

Well, the results are in ladies and gentlemen.

And, what can I say, the writing challenge was a complete and utter failure. To be fair to myself though, after 2,000 words I hit a major speed bump. Well, less of a speed bump, more of a brick wall.

I ran out of room within my concept, I was really happy with what was there but the "glue" I mentioned in my previous post didn't spread quite as far as I might have expected. Some serious thought needs to be done on my book before I can get into those numbers.

And I guess that is the reality of writing in the end of the day. You can't really measure it in words all the time. A lot of it is planning, thinking. Running through story paths in your head, layering the characters. Deciding whose perspective to give priority to, perhaps elevating a background character to a pseudo protagonist. These are all things running through my head at the moment. Among other things.

I've got through a lot of it today so hopefully I'll have made some solid decisions by tomorrow. We can talk about the next challenge then!

Breakin' the Writing Barrier

2009-08-12T09:15:00.002+01:00

It's 9:15, I'm still yawning and today is the Writer's challenge. I, Eoghan Cregan, will attempt to adhere to a new expectation of output. A grueling marathon of passion fueled finger tapper-y.

First I'm going to sit down here and write out 2,000 words, starting now. No break until those numbers appear. Then after a short break I will write again, another 2,000 words and so on until I reach the holy grail of 10,000 words.

I realise now that output is quite low and it has nothing to do with lack of ideas. Hell I already have my new book essentially all planned out, as long as I keep throwing in new events and characters when my instinct tells me to I should be able to blitz through it. I know how it ends, and I know what the main character will have to do before the end. I think I let a fear of running short put me off, like I'm not sure I'll have enough to fill the book with, but I'm expecting that, just as occured in my previous book, it's actually the "glue" that makes up the meat of a book. You begin with a hand full of plot points, alone they could never fill a book, maybe not even a page. Writing is a process of filling the space between those points, making them real and meaningful and that is something I can do quite fast with minimal error. (And it's not like I was never going to go through it again, revising is also good fun.)

So, wish me luck. Today will be hard going but I will do my best to make it to the other side. Break the writing barrier!

Another Post

2009-08-10T15:42:00.002+01:00

Well, it's been a long bloggy road, that's for sure. There's been thrills, spills and a complete lack of success all round but who am I to complain.

I saw a documentary on a website (www.cinemassacre.com), it chronicled a movie makers history of making movies. I really felt the love he had for it, the addiction he experienced in the process of producing movies. The thing that struck me was how bad his old stuff seemed. It didn't reflect his current talent at all.

It occurs to me that we all begin with this picture in our heads about how something must be. Whether it's a book or a film or a short story we can only hope to meet what we expect from it, what we already see made in our minds. In that documentary I saw a journey from where he was to where he wanted to be. And that process was one of just doing what he loves, learning, growing and yes, I believe he got there in the end.

It was a journey of learning how to produce something, translating what was in his mind to the screen. And that is something I am learning too, how to translate ideas into books. I don't really want to think of my older stuff as bad, but maybe in the grand scheme of things it is. I just have to keep learning and growing, and to keep my mind on why I am doing it. One day everything I see in my mind will be made real, the books I imagine people reading will exist and then, well. Hopefully I'll be published by then.