Advice

Either I've been away from blogging  too long and my normal cult followers are no longer visiting, or everybody is suddenly shy and doesn't wish to offer up any suggestions or advice judging by the total lack of comments on my previous post - but that's okay, I get the message.

From now on, I'll simply provide only updates on the WIP and/or any interesting information I come across.

As for progress: I'm currently heavily into researching different modern forms of practising the Craft. In short, I have an idea for a character who is an atheist, believes in magic, isn't a very good environmentalist, and has an interest in a boy who loves physics. My problem is I can't find a line of Neo-Paganism that quite fits. She is not Wiccan, nor a cunning-folk, nor one of half a dozen other practises I've read about. I may have to take license and come up with my own. We'll see.

The story itself is still simmering along inside my head and I'm collecting a huge amount of notes around my bedside and next to the computer. At some point I'll have to collate them all and start writing I guess but I still haven't got my writing space sorted out.

In other news, I got an email from the very talented Gill Ainsworth the other day with a full copy of The Blackness Within anthology attached to it. I've decided not to read everyone else's stories yet. I want to get a copy of it in my hands and sit down and read them all. Apparently we're only weeks away from publication now. This is the longest story I've ever had published and something of a milestone for me to get accepted into a market like Apex. I was asked to reread my story one final time before it went off to the publishers to check for last minute changes. I've not read it for a long time so it was with totally new eyes that I went back through the now totally edited and polished story. In the end I was asking if that was something I'd actually accomplished.The story is very good. I expect all the stories within the antho to be even better. In short, I was totally stoked.

I've once more been on the sick list and stuck at home. I'll probably be off again tomorrow unless there is a vast improvement overnight. Unfortunately, I've managed to leave my chapter outlining work on the computer I use during my day job, and don't have access to it at home. If it's not one thing stopping me from writing, I can easily find another way, or excuse, to keep me from getting down to it. One day I'll get over this lingering malaise of apathetic involvement - just sitting down at the keyboard and forcing myself doesn't work - I just hope something sparks sooner rather than later.