http://www.cementum.co.uk The Creation of a Novel Wed, 16 Jul 2008 22:42:04 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en This is a post I’ve been meaning to do for a while now, considering all the traveling I’ve been doing with work and such. I got the urge again after a recent Anchored Author post by Tracy, so hopefully this will come in useful to a few people, but also ... http://www.cementum.co.uk/32/writing-a-novel-on-the-move/ Time for assessment I think. It’s been a few weeks since I last posted, in that time I’ve completed the first nine chapters, totaling 55,643 words. I’ve had it tidied up by an academic, sieving all the grammar and punctuation mistakes and generally cleaning it up, and I’ve sent it ... http://www.cementum.co.uk/31/following-your-dream/ I love walking into my local G&D's cafe in Oxford, grabbing a cup of tea, opening up my laptop, sitting down in the middle of the room, sticking my headphones in, looking at faces and letting go. Controlled breathing, a straight back, lots of sugar, appropriate music, and letting my ... http://www.cementum.co.uk/30/surrealist-writing-good-for-a-novel/ The duality of man is a subject that philosophers and authors have fought around for some time. I doubt my 8500 words in Chapter 8 really do the subject much justice when you've got masterpieces of literary history like The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. But I've ... http://www.cementum.co.uk/29/writing-about-the-devil-within/ Arh, now, there's a subject, if not THE subject. To end, to beat, to change all other subjects, topics, themes. I'm finding writing about it almost as difficult and pleasurable as the actual experience. Through the fire so to speak. Love. It's intrinsic to human nature, yet, not everyone has experienced ... http://www.cementum.co.uk/28/writing-about-love/ On an instinctual level I like to believe books are there to raise questions, to grip you by the throat and make you challenge everything you every thought was right. They can make you surf an emotional tidal wave of epic proportions, bringing forward all the greatest horrors you had ... http://www.cementum.co.uk/27/finding-answers-with-my-writing/ “Why are we here? To have fun, or get the job done?” Approx quote – Hunter S Thompson – Fear and loathing in Las Vegas Well, as Dr Gonzo so infamously replied - 'To get the job done of course'. But still, a difficult question to answer at this juncture. In my ... http://www.cementum.co.uk/26/why-am-i-writing-a-novel/ I generally find inspiration in everything, literally everything. I guess you have to be like that when writing, take a look at an object or person, animal, anything, and take something from it, steal part of it for yourself. Always be thinking, always be contemplating, always taking that little twist ... http://www.cementum.co.uk/25/finding-inspiration-for-the-novel/ I'm extremely happy right now, I just broke 42k words. This basically marks the 3/5 point of the novel. It's probably just over half way, but not quite three quarters, that's why I went with that slightly odd fraction of three fifths. All I can say is that it feels ... http://www.cementum.co.uk/24/having-a-breakthrough-with-your-novel/ Last time I quickly looked at painting a person, creating a being, with words. I thought for this post I may as well look quickly at actually creating an environment, surroundings, a landscape in which to place that person. A setting they can and have to react to, a place ... http://www.cementum.co.uk/23/painting-a-landscape-using-words/