I’ve been away for the last few weeks.  On a wee holiday up east of Elgin at my in-laws.  The in-laws weren’t there leaving myself, Ruthy, her sister and the dog to deal with the bloomin’ awful weather.  Oh well, at least I wasn’t at work.  Small mercies and all that.

I was planning to do something for the New Writing Dundee competition.  I had two stories partly done but neither of them seemed right.  I’ll work on them in the meantime.  There’s always another competition or magazine I can send them to and I’d rather they were right than rushed.  Although they’ll wait until after this year’s NaNo I’d dare say.

As for NaNoWriMo 2009…

I’ll be writing Desert of Zin this year…

But wait, haven’t I already been writing Desert Of Zin?  Won’t working on an already existing work be against the rules?

Yeah, well.  It’s not a case of working on the original, that’s a dead duck.  I’ve been working on it for so long and it’s been going nowhere.  The story is lacklustre and I couldn’t care less for the characters.  A shame, as Planet of Snakes (last year’s NaNo) is good and worth keeping.

So I’ve started again.  A completely fresh story, with similar characters.  Something less Space Opera and something better.  Much better.

- Alistair

Back from Summer’s End.  (the title may have given that away…)

The weekend was great.  Prog Neil and I drove down on Friday, listening to 7 hours of prog to get us suitably in the mood.  35 tracks in total I think.  Heh.

Met with Bruce and Sharla, enjoyed some fine beer and went to the venue to enjoy some Steve Hackett.  Wow, he was something.  As an opener for the festival he was hard to beat.  Many albums were bought. 

There were loads of great bands on the bill, and the stand outs were Godsticks, Pallas, Karnataka and Pendragon.  All the rest were good but these guys rocked the house.

But it was good to get back to the familiar comforts of home.

And the familiar disappointments…

The Spires Of Midnight has been put on hold for the time being.  Neither Ruth or myself are totally convinced that it’s a good enough concept for the Dundee Writing Comp.  That’s fair enough but it does leave me in a bind.  But where there’s imagination there’s hope…

There is something, just in concept stages, which is where the vampire story is, that i’ve been pottering about with.  It might have the spark I’m looking for that Spires doesn’t quite have.  And I’ve got 3 weeks still before the story is due.  It should be plenty of time.

And then there’s the Whiteinch thing.  I don’t even want to go there.  Not yet anyway.  I’m still too disappointed about that one.

(Not that I’m disappointed about not getting accepted, as far as I know I’m in the book although official confirmation hasn’t come through yet, but this is something else…)

- Alistair

Working steadily away here, but time for a wee break… 

I’ve been plugging away at a project, an easier task since the re-acquisition of yWriter a wee while ago, and although I was working on Desert of Zin and an as yet unnamed vampire story (actually DoZ is being worked on steadily but just not this weekend…) I’ve a new story that has been keeping up nights.

I’m thinking of entering it for New Writing Dundee which is due on the 1st of November.  That would normally give me a month to get it done and edit it but I’ll be away for the last two weeks of the month, on holiday but working on plans for the upcoming NaNo, so I have little time to get it finished and in a state I’m happy with.

It’s called The Spires At Midnight, just a working title for now, and it may be fantasy/horror but I’ll have a better idea once it is finished.

Anyways, back to work…

- Alistair