Jack Green: Blog

I had more responses to my mini rant than I get for most of my stories; my thanks to all those who took the time and trouble to contact me.

If a miss typed word was all that a reader found notable in my story then that is my bad. My apologies for being a wuss/wimp/prat. In my defence I was in a bad place when I got the e mail that fuelled my hissy fit.(Actually I live in Cardiff which is not really such a bad place). Foul weather, the country going to the dogs, the world heading to hell in a handcart and wrestling with my wip all contributing to my gloom. In fact it was the last named activity that kicked off my tantrum.

I have been posting stories on Sol for a dozen years or more and for most of those years it has a joy; words flowing from my imagination onto the page/screen as fulsomely and copiously as Brain’s Dark after a home win at the Principality Stadium. However, latterly the flow has become stuttered and interrupted, much like the flow from my bladder. I am of riper years -- mature verging on mouldy --and the winged chariot of time is hurrying nearer. I’m finding it increasingly difficult to translate and transpose what is in my imagination onto a page /screen; hitting adjacent keys to the key I aim at on the keyboard doesn’t help. Writing has become a slog and a chore instead of a walk in the park and a lark.
Subconsciously I must have been looking /waiting for a reason to hang up my quill/pen /keyboard and when I received that e mail I found the perfect reason to stop writing altogether.

My work in progress is The Mother’s Story, the final book in the Linkage series. I have several chapters written but I’m dithering, delaying and debating how to proceed, if indeed whether to proceed. The spirit maybe willingish but the flesh is certainly weak.
Of course the ennui I’m experiencing could be just one of the many manifestations of writers’ block and I might suddenly emerge from the dark tunnel of frustration and inaction to the bright dawn of inspiration and fervid flying fingers hitting all the right keys. On the other hand it might be a symptom of old timers disease.

Watch this space!

Best regards
Jack Green

I recently had an e-mail via the SOL system that informed me I had misspelt a word in one of my stories. Actually I had hit the wrong key on the key board -- K instead of L. It’s not that I have particularly fat or podgy fingers but I am blessed with rather dodgy eyesight and yes I should have found and corrected the error before posting the story.
The story in question, Demon and Demeanour; Book 4 of Poacher’s Progress, has over 77,000 words,-- 77,804 to be exact.
I replied to the e mail with Captain Mainwaring’s standard response.

It was only this morning,, as I wrestled with my wip, that a thought came to me. 77804 words and all a reader gets from the story is a misspelt word.

‘Have I been wasting my time with this writing lark?’ I asked myself.
‘Too bloody right you have,‘ I answered my self.

Sod this for a game of soldiers.

Jack Green

Old Rotorhead, editor supreme, has now edited and returned the final chapter of The Comrade’s Tale Part 3 and the posting of said story will commence on Sunday 16th July, assuming I’ve remembered how to load the Sol delivery system. It has been almost a year since I posted the preceding story, cannily titled The Comrade’s Tale Part 2, and I apologise to those of you who have been waiting with bated breath for Part 3, though anyone who had been waiting with bated breath would now be brown bread.

There are 15 chapters and I reckon to prolong the agony by posting two chapters a week, one on Sunday and one on Wednesday, with the caveat as above.

Regards
Jack G

It is the First if July and the more observant of the Sol readership will have noted the non-appearance of The Comrade’s Tale Part 3 in the New Stories list. Of course the vast majority of the Sol readership will not give a fat rat’s rectum if The Comrade’s Tale Part 3 was posted or not but at least one reader did note the non-appearance.(Thank you, Peter H)

I have no excuse for failing to deliver the goods. I continued writing but the direction of travel was not to the end of the chapter and the story but sideways and I now have a last chapter #15 rather than #12 but still incomplete.

The trouble is I am a scribbler rather than a writer.

A writer is dedicated and focussed. A writer takes the time and trouble to learn his/her craft and knows an Oxford comma from a plebeian uneducated one, the difference between third person limited and third person omniscient POV, how to show not tell, abhors adverbs, and can spot a gerund at twenty paces.

A scribbler like me has none of those attributes.

When a writer begins a story he/she has a story outline/narrative arc, extensive notes on their characters, spread sheets and Scrivener (whatever that is).
When I start a story all I have is a MC and an ending; how the story develops is in the Lap of the Gods, or in this case in the rectum of a fat rat.

I intend completing this story and when I do will give a heads up.

Regards
Jack G

I was surprised but delighted to receive several responses to my ‘Forgotten’ blog. My thanks to all those who wrote to me with an especial thank you to Vincent for his advice.

Best regards
Jack