Freedom From The Mundane

Image: Facebook

So even if I wanted to close my Facebook account, now I can’t. And the rights to all the images I uploaded now belong to them, too? Can’t say I’m all that impressed with FB making the announcement after they’ve closed the deal without telling anyone. Now nobody can pull out or object. It [...]

February 18th, 2009 | Tags: Big Brother, Blood Ties, cancer, copyright, Day Job, Facebook, Fiction, Gordon Brown, Jade Goody, Labour, marketing, South Shields, Travel, Writing | Category: Day Job, Editorial Comment, Fiction, Internet, Publishing and Marketing, Travel, Writing | Comments (3)

Image: Max Talbot-Minkin

Bit of a busy day today.
The day job kept me on my toes but I got some editing work done on a couple of shorts I’ve written over lunch.
I spent most of my evening catching up with my Ranfurly Review submissions. I’m not drastically behind but I needed to tend to them before [...]

February 11th, 2009 | Tags: Blood Ties, cold, Day Job, Editing, Fiction, health, novella, novels, Publishing and Marketing, Ranfurly Review, Submissions, Writing | Category: Day Job, Fiction, Publishing and Marketing, Reading, Writing Process | Leave a comment

Image: Melle Plante

It took around 20 minutes from waking up to remember that I sold Stella yesterday, and that it is going to be published. It’s a great feeling, and today when I actually signed the contract, I felt like I had achieved something; an unexpected step forward at a time when it couldn’t have [...]

February 8th, 2009 | Tags: Blood Ties, Books, Fiction, novella, promotion, Publishing and Marketing, rugby, Scotland, Six Nations, snow, Stella, Wales, Weather, Website, Writing | Category: Fiction, Publishing and Marketing, Scotland, Writing, Writing Process | Comments (1)

Image: BBC Online

It’s not that I’ve been too busy to blog over the past few days, I’ve just had nothing to say. I didn’t see any reason in filling up these pages just to tell you something meaningless, so I took a break. I never broke off from writing, just from blogging.
My time spent working [...]

January 26th, 2009 | Tags: 30, Binny, birthday, Blogging, Blood Ties, break, Day Job, DI Lennox, Family, Fiction, Glasgow, Homecoming Scotland, meal and drinks, novels, poems, Poetry, Short Stories, thirty, Writing | Category: Day Job, Edinburgh: the City & the Festivals, Editorial Comment, Family, Fiction, Food, Drink, and Bevvy, Glasgow, Poetry, Politics, Scotland, Writing | Comments (1)

Image: Dave Apple

Laura and her pals never woke until later in the morning. Not surprising given the time they were up to last night. I eventually fell asleep around 1am, though it wasn’t easy.
When I got up this morning I made some lovely fresh Columbian coffee, ate a bagel, then went round to the shop [...]

January 18th, 2009 | Tags: albino, Aquarium, Blood Ties, coldwater fish, computing, Fiction, goldfish, mini-lops, novels, poems, Poetry, Rabbits, TFT monitors, wireless, Writing | Category: Animals, Family, Fiction, Poetry, Writing | Leave a comment

Image: Reuters/BBC

I couldn’t believe my eyes this morning when I logged on to my PC, morning coffee in hand, to read that a US Airways plane had ditched into the Hudson River. The first I knew about it was the sight of the plane floating on the water, and people standing on the wings waiting [...]

January 16th, 2009 | Tags: aeroplane, Blood Ties, Day Job, Editing, Fiction, Hudson River, Muang Thai, Muse Conference, New York, novels, poems, Poetry, restaurant, Short Stories, Thai food, US Airways, Writing | Category: Day Job, Editorial Comment, Fiction, Food, Drink, and Bevvy, Poetry, Writing | Comments (1)

Image: clspeace

Murder is a thought not often contemplated by the sane and the civilised, but it crossed my mind today. This probably only serves to prove my theory, that if you had to work with some of the wallies that I do, you’d also be as insane and uncivilised thinking as I am. Trust me.
Lots [...]

January 15th, 2009 | Tags: Blood Ties, Day Job, Fiction, Hunting Jack, Leith, murder, novels, Ocean Terminal, poems, Poetry, publishers, Starbucks, Submissions, Writing | Category: Day Job, Edinburgh: the City & the Festivals, Family, Fiction, Food, Drink, and Bevvy, Poetry, Publishing and Marketing, Writing | Comments (1)

Image: WordRidden

Back in the swing today; no dodgy tummy, no feel crappy, although still not much of an appetite but I can live with that for now. And an early start meant high levels of creativity, particularly since I’ve done so much thinking, reading and planning of late.
Stopping to work out the plot links and [...]

January 14th, 2009 | Tags: Anita Govan, appetite, Blood Ties, deslexia, Fiction, fire, Graham Stringer MP, Greyfriar's Bobby, John Gray, Khushis, Labour, Liquid Room, novel, plotting, Poetry, Writing | Category: Edinburgh: the City & the Festivals, Editorial Comment, Fiction, Poetry, Politics, Writing | Leave a comment

Image: Wonderlane

I didn’t sleep much last night, my stomach still turning over in spasm and gurgles. I tried to eat some bread and consume a cup of tea about an hour before putting out my light last night, but it didn’t sound like it was sitting too well. I hardly ate yesterday at all, and [...]

January 13th, 2009 | Tags: AL Kennedy, articles, Blood Ties, blue hours, Books, chapbooks, dawn, Day, Day Job, dusk, Edinburgh: the City & the Festivals, Fiction, Food, Drink, and Bevvy, GDR's, ill, novel, poems, Poetry, Reading, Scruffy Dog Review, SDR, Sick, Writing | Category: Day Job, Edinburgh: the City & the Festivals, Fiction, Food, Drink, and Bevvy, Poetry, Reading, Writing | Comments (1)

Image: nxb

I don’t have that much to say from this weekend, other than I wasn’t feeling myself and I’m not sure why. I’m not depressed or anything clinical, just pissed off with certain things, which when it happens, affects my writing and that pisses me off even more. It’s a vicious cycle and one I [...]

January 11th, 2009 | Tags: Blood Ties, buffet, Doors Open, drinks, Family, Fiction, Ian Rankin, ill, Lennox, novels, plotting, Reading, Sick, synopsis, visiting, Writing | Category: Family, Fiction, Food, Drink, and Bevvy, Reading, Writing | Comments (1)

Image: Precious Khyatt

The sub-zero temperatures that have gripped the country over the past few days have finally begun to lift and it was mildly warmer this morning as a result. I noticed it wasn’t quite so cold when I got up at the back of 4am this morning for work, and instead of seeing frost-coated [...]

January 9th, 2009 | Tags: Blood Ties, Day Job, Fiction, Lennox, novels, Scotland, Weather, Writing | Category: Day Job, Fiction, Scotland, Writing | Comments (2)

Image: a2Gemma

I probably shouldn’t have done two things today, but I did. First, I went back over and read everything I’ve written so far on Blood Ties, and did some straightening out and redefining edits. I just wanted to get it all straight in my head everything I’ve written over the past three days (there’s [...]

November 10th, 2008 | Tags: Blood Ties, crime fiction, Editing, fantasy, Fiction, NaNoWriMo, novel, spy adventure, Stella, Writing | Category: Fiction, Writing, Writing Process | Comments (1)