Pressing on

Well I said I would so I will- I'm going to bring you more and more content from my officially deceased MSN space along with various comments from myself interspersed with out of date content. As for now, I recently attended Contagious aka Bible Bootcamp! Quite easily one of the best weeks of my year, loads of fun with great friends studying the greatest book ever written by the most wonderful author in the universe. This year we studied the cross, the central event of all history- it was a priviledge to learn so much about this incredible act of mercy and love, and a huge encouragement to me personally- the website (HERE) has some info on the week, as for the rest go into any bookshop and ask for a Bible, they'll have one somewhere.

OK, now here's what you're really after- some ancient article i dug up from behind the sofa, well here it is my pretties, here it is...

"A teen no more!

Greetings Address book people!

I am now 20 years of age, having had a birthday recently- I have left teenagerdom behind and am now a typical single twentysomething. Fortunately I am still a student so I don't have to be counted as a mature adult yet, but as I'm no longer a teen I have to drop the mood swings and the ASBO! On the whole, being 20 is a lot like being nineteen, though we'll wait and see how the year develops. I'm still at the stage where i think I'm 19 (well actually 18!) .and keep forgetting to tell people that I'm 20, but that always wears off eventually. I won't tell you what I got- we wouldn't want burglars to get wind of it would we! With this jolly birthdaying going on I'm in something less of a grumpy mood, so I might even talk about something more ordinary/positive.

I've officially finished lectures for the year (I'm shocked too!) I was suddenly informed that we would not be returning after the easter holidays untill May, when we hand in assignments, which kind of defeats the object of having an easter holiday as I see it, though I'm not complaining!! We finished the year by having an exam- how nice of the lecturers!!! You see, us writers don't have it easy all the time! However, it was nice to have pretty much all the students in one room together as we've largely been scattered around due to timetable changes this year.

I guess i should probably say something writerly, what with the post where I said I would and all that. I'm at the point where I've got to edit all my work ready for submission in May. I find this extremely tedious and sometimes painful, and I usually end up with some sort of disease at the end of it!! A lot of writers find it hard to cut into their precious creations and I still find it hard, but I don't have to much of a problem with it at the moment. This is helped by the workshop, when a roomful readers point out a problem to you, it's easier to see the need to cut that section out, change that paragraph around, or start again if necessary.

A recent workshop showed me that my screenplay isn't as great as I thought it was and the tone is changing very much in the next one into what will be a darker and hopefully much better story by May. I don't have to be as drastic as that with my short story as I got the verdict I got last time which is essentially good... for a first draft. Last year I was quite cautious, but this year I've gone all out to create the best, original mind-blowing science-fiction there is, and while i don't quite achieve that mark (yet!) aiming high seems to let me succeed without the fall being to far.

But now I'm on my own, just me and the computer screen, my eyes tired after an hour of gaming, ready to improve my work word by word untill I can bear to look no more at the bright lights and changing words and collapse into bed yet again. So I don't mind cutting my work to pieces and building it into something better as long as I can play master sowdsman and then ace sculpter, but while I'm clipping word after word off a bonsai tree, which looks almost perfect, but is missing something I can't quite see- that's what I hate!!

Well I guess I had start complaining at some point- but this is more about life, and giving advice to anyone else who might like to be a writer- not that I'm an expert or anything! You might think what you've written is great and your idea probably is, but in reality the chances are that your first draft needs some work on it. Don't despair, go to it- throw out the garbage and bring in the good stuff- treat it as though you are creating a new story, not destroying and old one, get some advice, keep the essential elements of your story, but shape them into a better creation. I imagine you have a computer- use copy and paste, keep a copy of your story, then take the new copy and fiddle around with that one, and make another copy if that one doesn't work. Computers can be handy- use them!

Hope that was useful and, if possible, interesting

The Figleaf

WotW- Heinous (A heinous crime) sounds great dunnit!"

See you soon everyone- try not to die or anything yeah?