O'Hearn

There was a blog here that was written for the Military Sci-fi series main character I am writing but since I changed a whole lot of things about the story the story didn't actually fit in with the character and the path he was taking it just didn't work with the arc.

 

Writing, writing writing

So,

The first of the short stories first draft is done, there are three more on the list, yesterday I wrote a total of just under three and a half thousand words,just over two thousand words were on the Military Sci-fi book, working Title Running out of Space, because I suck at titles. This combined with everything else, made a very productive day.

Happy writer, and happy mind.

Been a While

Hey folks,

So it's been a while since I blogged, and I thought maybe I should about now.

My PC died it's final death after six years of use and the laptop died within a couple of weeks of that , not long before my back-up drive went caflooy with all my work gone, that which wasn't backed up in emails was gone, the whole second draft of Burn, Forest City, Burn which was a couple of chapters and fixes from completion, gone, the typing up of half a dozen other ideas, gone, dozens of short stories, gone, five years worth of research into various things, gone. So you can imagine I wasn't the most pleasant of people to be around for a couple of weeks until I had a new plan. Quite a bit of the writing was written down before it was typed up so all was not lost, but a hell of a lot was my usual off the cuff, fly by the seat of my boxers writing and that's all gone now, never to be seen again.

It took ages for them to figure out what was wrong with the Laptop and still aren't sure what is wrong with the bloody PC, I go the laptop back but still not replaced the PC yet, frankly I'm probably better off, I get more work done without the distractions, not able to play STO, LOTRO, Skyrim or Football Manager, that's a solid thirty hours a week that can be used towards doing other things. 

No PC meant no gaming, and it took me almost a month and a half to remember my Playstation 2 (Never bought a console from the last generation, never saw the point when most of the games on consoles are on PC anyway, the Xbox exclusives tend to come out on the PC a year later as well, so what's the point, and I like my keyboard and mouse controllers, much more flexible than a control pad). Still got about fifty games for it, with many classics like Prince of Persia, God of War, Hitman, Metal Gear Solid, Red Faction among others and the first game I play, Quidditch World Cup, I really don't know what's wrong with me sometimes, it's like I've got a compunction to do weird things. The next game I played was Masters of the Universe, which is an absolute classic (sarcasm), which I have no idea why I bought it. I think there was a 5 for £30 offer in Game at one point and I was stuck on the fifth game, I saw that and thought, I'll buy that.

That's enough of the past, currently using Dropbox for back ups, straight from the computer to the web, no more big ass usb external drive, no more fucking about with the little USB drives and if a computer dies, just install Dropbox on another 'puter and walla me files are all there. Also easily shared with the people that are alpha readers of my work.

Still can't even look at Burn at the moment, every time I try I just want to curl up into the fetal position and cry, fortunately a lot of the work was hand written and I know what needs taken out and where things need work, it's just doing it is the issue.

I'm working on a couple of other books at the moment, one a Military Sci-fi and the other an Epic Fantasy at the same time I'm got invited to do another submission for another Kristell Ink Charity anthology, this time based around the gods of Olympus, got a tailor made main character for that :). In addition, I've decided to write a whole load of submissions for magazines and anthologies of Sci-fi and Fantasy, which means the next six months are going to be a tad on the hectic side.

I'm also working on the rules systems for a space combat game for my military Sci-fi book series and a wargame for me epic fantasy series. It's hard, but I thought, I've been playing the games for twenty odd years I ought to be able to through together a couple of sets of rules, cross marketing them with the books when they get released. (I know most of the time I'm a pessimistic old codger, but with the writing I don't get pessimistic, even if sometimes the writing is pessimistic).

Oh, yeah, Star Trek: Into Darkness is fuckin awesome, as is Man of Steel, if you haven't seen either of them go see them, I don't know where the critics got the average ratings they've been giving Man of Steel, so it messes with the origin story a little, I think it was smart the way they've done it. Even if you are a Trekkie that hates the idea of the alt Universe, you must see Into Darkness, while it is not as good as Wrath (But come on, how could you better Wrath of Khan) but still an awesome movie with plenty of call backs to the old movies.

Anyway, that's going to be me for this post.

See ya.

Hello folks

Howdy folks,

Been while since I've posted, so lets get an update for you, my computer went ballistic on me, as in total fuckin Armageddon of the system, so haven't been PC gaming at all in almost six weeks, been using this netbook that I'm using to write this.

This is due to the fact that I realized that i spent far too much time gaming and if I can't game then I won't, though I still watch far too much TV for my own good. So, basically, I still fart about with too much time spent watching downloaded TV but I write more than I had been.

Netbooks suck ass though, they are waaaaayyyyyyy too small and waaaaaaayyyyyyy too slow, which is why I have my keyboard and mouse plugged into this thing and don't try and do too much at the same time.

Anyway, hoping to have some short stories up soon, and will update on status of Burn when I have any updates.

Cheers

David

It's ma Birthday

Yes, today I turn 30, and unlike most people I'm sure would do, I'm not going to look back at my life so far with nostalgia, I have plenty of that when I bump into old workmates or friends that I haven't seen in ages, and I get nudged towards the nearest decent pub for a quick drink and a blether before they have to go meet their significant other or get their sprogs. Me on the other hand, I just go to my pub, the pub that I tend to end up in even if I've been elsewhere in Glasgow on a night out, Rufus T. Firefly, my spiritual home, where half of my best writing is conducted, while heavily under the influence of Pints of Strongbow Cider or very occasionally double vodkas.

No, today I am looking to the future, and hopefully by the time I hit 31 being on my way to publishing Burn, Forest City, Burn, (since I haven't bothered my ringhole doing any editing, because I've been busy on other stuff, in the past four weeks, I really have to get on that) or one of the other novels I'm in the midst of writing.

Also by that time maybe I'll have met my future wife, but I highly doubt that, you have to actually bother your arse chasing skirt to do that, something I can't really be arsed with. I'm as shit at it as I ever was, well maybe not as bad as I was when I was a spotty, bumbling 16 year-old with no clue about life, all I could talk about was Football, Ice Hockey and RPG's but at least now I have added several more topics to my repertoire, like more sports, different types of games, comics, fantasy and sci-fi in general, but also current affairs and by that not who the lastest media darling is dating, instead why on the Gods' green fuckin Earth would the Congress of the United States which in my opinion is filled with the biggest bunch of backwards, moronic, Right Wing Conservative and Bleeding Heart Liberals yahoos you could ever meet, would take two weeks off that would coincide with their fuckin government going broke

 Yes, I am a massive geek, so what, I'm also highly intelligent, just foul mouthed and never know when caution is the better part of valor, the number of jobs or units I've been removed from for saying far too much or bollocking the wrong person, is more than I can count on my fingers and toes.

All I want to do today is veg and booze, so I will bid you a good day

Bored

Yeah, so it's been a couple of weeks since the last post and I have been writing but I still have not even bothered editing Burn since I decided I'd have this round of edits done by my 30th which is on Wednesday, so I'm not holding my breath on that one. I've been working on other things, but also I've been reading a lot, mostly stuff that I've already read, re-read the Vatta's war books, and some others, but a few things for my friend who runs a publishing imprint, read some good stuff, some not so good stuff and some truly terribly written crap.

I've been re-reading the books by a guy called Clive Owen, former Bobby (that would be Police officer in Great Britain, not that it's so great), he wrote four books about Police and policing in the late 70's, and they are top of the drawer fan-fuckin-tastic, they are hilarious, at times a little disturbing but I read them and can see in the cops in the book cops I personally know, and pine for the good old days when crooks got what they deserved and got treated like the scum they are.

 Most people who know me know I'm a fairly liberally minded person but I come down on the fairly harsh side of law and order, scum should be treated that way, and should reap what they sow, but then we have had too many bleeding heart liberals campaigning on behalf of us all that say criminals are humans too and should have all the rights everyone else, WRONG, they are thieving, murdering, raping scum and thus they should be treated accordingly. But thanks to bleeding hearts we are in a position where Criminals live far better lives in prison, they get there TV's, there games consoles and their satellite TV and three square meals a day, so they commit crimes they go to back to the cushy life. I mean shit, there was a massive kick up by bleeding hearts in the last election how prisoners weren't getting to vote, nor fuckin should they, they're criminals, personally I think if you've been convicted of any crime that requires any jail time at all you shouldn't get to vote at all, no matter if you've done your probation, voting should be the right for behaving like a proper member of society your whole fuckin life but what the fuck do I know. 

Anyway, got off on a tangent there. So, Clive Owen's first book in the series is called Horse's Arse, read it, it's good. And I'm going to go do something else, like got to sleep maybe since it's after twenty past three in the am.

Interesting

Yeah, so, for the last say 12 hours, (yes, it's after 6 in the morning here) I've been working on nothing other than huge amounts of back story for My Military Sci-fi series (not got a name for it yet, as we all know I suck at titles) what I've been doing was firstly set up the way that the main character's Star Nation's Navy was set up, how each individual section of a fleet from a fleet all the way down to the lowest possible level, which is a huge amount of planning for me, and I actually enjoyed it even if I've just realised I screwed up with the other organizational chart I made up, for the particular section of the fleet that the main character is about to start serving with at the beginning of the book, but I've got every CO for every ship that I've set up so far, every flag officer for each of the fleets, but what's so interesting to me is that this has got me wanting to go forth with writing this despite the fact I've still got the next draft of Burn to finish (I left it alone to do this because part of it was doing my head in, I know the bit I was working on does work because I had the additions and the subtractions to make it work written down, but I can't find the damn pad that has it.

My normal thinking is write, write, write until I sparko from sleep deprivation, if I don't start seeing things and convince myself I've had conversations with people I haven't, one time I was convinced a week had gone by, this is after 4 days of no sleep working on a project that I should have had finished weeks before I did, that was funny, but I have taken a step back and allowed myself to digest everything, that I'm doing, I'm adding character that otherwise, if I just wrote as I always do, wouldn't be there. Don't get me wrong, every single named character I write, even if they're barely in a page of text, all feel real, but this makes the whole world feel more real, and it's weird.

If this seems rather rambling, I've been up since half five Tuesday afternoon, so it's fairly sure to say that I'm a bit tired.