Refresh

I decided it was time to change the look of my blog, so hope regular readers like the new look. It seemed appropriate too what with the end of BST and the long nights now firmly drawn in to have a change. I do hate the fact that it gets dark so early now. It was barely five before it became almost as dark as it is now. Will not be nice tomorrow coming home from work. At least the compensation is that its lighter in the mornings.

Today, I've been busy working on an essay that I've got a deadline of Thursday to finish. It doesn't have to be with my tutor until Saturday but I'll need to finish it by Thursday to get in the post in time. I've made a good start although I always find writing essays or for that matter anything, a chore. Even this blog! Although normally the results are pleasing and worth the effort put in.

A few years ago I used to write a lot of Star Wars fan fiction. I did dabble a couple of times in writing non-SW fiction but I kind of got stuck in a rut with the former and found it difficult to write anything else. Some of those stories I look back on now with some embarrasment. They weren't awfully good, rather silly some of them. I often think now of starting writing again, probably not SW stuff though. Trouble is, I need a hook to get me started and that I find is the most difficult thing, whether its writing an essay, a piece of fiction or this blog. What is the subject and what is that killer first sentence that immediately grabs the reader's attention?

Currently or should I say intermittently, I am reading a book written by a colleague at work. Its an unpublished first novel and although it needs some work to bring it to standard, I think its a commendable effort. What is surprising is just how much shows through of the person who wrote it. That is an unconcious thing whenever you write - that some of you comes through onto the page. Even if you try not to say anything much, which as Jamie will now, I try very hard not too, its all there. Its as much the things you don't write as the things that you do, that tell you everything about the writer. The main problem I have with this book though is that I don't much care for the characters. They are unengaging and that is where it fails. There is some rich back story to it but I just don't believe that it relates to these people. Their present day selves and actions do not seem to be connected to their history and if nothing else we are all products of our past.

There were only a couple of times when writing SW-fiction that I feel I nailed the art of a writer and that was when I was writing from personal experience. Not directly relating my life onto the page but engaging with parts of it; thoughts, emotions and fears. I found it easier to write when I engaged with myself like that but also far too revealing! I guess my problem is that I am a coward. I am afraid of sharing what really matters in a direct way, instead making oblique comments and probably leaving a doubt as to whether I am being serious. A bit like that last sentence really!

Anyways, tomorrow I'll be back working on the essay hoping to polish off a couple of drafts. If it goes well I should have it finished by Tuesday night and that leaves me a couple of nights to make some last revisions and improvements before I send it off.