Yesterday’s new that Steve Jobs has died did not hit me with great surprise or emotion. After all, he was very ill for nearly a decade, visibly so for the last 5-7 years. The outpouring of conspicuous grief on all social networks has been overwhelming.

Now I’ve had time to reflect, I can see how and why people have behaved this way. He pioneered the personal computing industry, fell foul of a boardroom coup, watching his brainchild fall into the gutter, came back to rescue it and turned it into one of the most successful companies on the planet – and in history. Regardless of what you thought of him, Steve Jobs was a pioneer, industrialist and designer that affected the lives of billions: there are people around the world who don’t have running water but own an iPod or iPhone.

It can be said without exaggeration or hyperbole that his passing leaves behind a handful of pioneers who are household names that have fundamentally changed the course of history.

Most places in the UK have just enjoyed a phenomenal weekend of late/Indian summer weather, unseasonably warm at 25-30°C. So Sunday was Braai Day: an afternoon of BBQ, drinks and conversation with good friends, most of whom were South African (braai being Afrikaans barbecue).

It’s been a while since I’ve written a blog entry and even longer since I’ve written a story of any length. My writing group vaguely remember me, but it’s been nearly a year since I have attended. It’s about time I write something.

So tonight I got home from work, had dinner and did a couple of chores, then sat down with the sole intention of writing. On my main PC, which was probably not a good idea.

When it booted I remembered that I needed to take care of the various settings in this new blog installation, so took care of that.

While I was at it, I did the same for my other sites. It would be silly not to while it’s fresh in my mind.

Then I took care of a few data housekeeping tasks. While waiting I checked Facebook and Google+, and then… Well, you get the idea.

I must remember that the actual process of writing does not need an Internet connection. Research and brainstorming can require it, but neither of those are actually writing.

So instead of hunting around for a better deal, I’ve decided to move the blog to WordPress.com. The MattBruce.co.uk domain will point to the new location, so those reading this site via the web will see very little difference and not have to do anything. But as WordPress.com does not support Feedburner, anyone reading this through an RSS or email feed will need to resubscribe. My apologies for this.

As with all major changes, I expect there to be some housekeeping issues. Some links and images may be broken throughout the blog. Please let me know any that you find, and I’ll sort it out. Thanks for your patience.

As someone who constantly struggles with finding — no, making — the time to write, I just read with interest an article he wrote in 2009 for Locus Magazine. Each point in the article is useful, but this one in particular stood out:

Short, regular work schedule

When I’m working on a story or novel, I set a modest daily goal — usually a page or two — and then I meet it every day, doing nothing else while I’m working on it. It’s not plausible or desirable to try to get the world to go away for hours at a time, but it’s entirely possible to make it all shut up for 20 minutes. Writing a page every day gets me more than a novel per year — do the math — and there’s always 20 minutes to be found in a day, no matter what else is going on. Twenty minutes is a short enough interval that it can be claimed from a sleep or meal-break (though this shouldn’t become a habit). The secret is to do it every day, weekends included, to keep the momentum going, and to allow your thoughts to wander to your next day’s page between sessions. Try to find one or two vivid sensory details to work into the next page, or a bon mot, so that you’ve already got some material when you sit down at the keyboard.

Full article: Cory Doctorow: Writing in the Age of Distraction

If there’s one thing that puts me off writing on any given evening it’s the feeling that I need not bother unless I can achieve 3 or 4 hours of productive output and in order to do this I obviously need to get started straight after dinner, and if I get sidetracked for whatever reason then I obviously may as well not bother today. Twisting Jerry Seinfeld’s Chain System, I’ve successfully managed to keep a contiguous, unbroken chain of “I can’t devote 3-4 hours to writing tonight, so I’ll not bother now and will try again tomorrow” days that is quite impressive.

What struck me about Cory’s article is that it sits perfectly alongside the “write something, anything — but do it every day” mantra and it allows us to have normal working lives. I am intrinsically lazy and I also have a tendency to “collect” hobbies and interests (there’s very little in this life that doesn’t interest me in one way or another) that I may discard weeks or months later, but writing is something I think about every single day — even when I’ve not done any that day. Especially when I’ve not done any that day.

So now I understand that I needn’t write a chapter of polished prose each day, let’s see how Cory’s modest daily goal works out.

For those wishing to be cool cats, NaNoWriMo is an annual event that challenges its participants to write 50,000 words on a story throughout the month of November. The point is to write. Not self-edit. Not realise 5,000 words into it that your 17th century period romance has oddly morphed into a zombie/vampire drama and could never cut it in the current market, saturated as it is with zombie and vampire stories. The idea is to start at the beginning and to reach the end — especially if you’ve never written a work of this size before.

NaNoWriMo is about finding a excuse to get that “I’ve always wanted to write a novel” out of you and onto paper or screen. It doesn’t matter if it’s tomorrow’s Catcher in the Rye or tomorrow’s toilet paper. The point is to take you through the process of creating an entire, rough first draft. Once you’ve completed it, you will ‘win’ NaNoWriMo and have a chunk of text that you can polish into some decent, extend upon, or use as a learning experience and move on to something better.

Sounds good, doesn’t it?

So after narrowly missing the boat last year, I resolved to do it this year and promptly forgot about it. Now I have a week to come up with some ideas, and I’m planning on using what I’ve learned from Plot & Structure. I probably won’t get a chance to finish the book, as each chapter ends with exercises that take time but are worth it, but we’ll see how things go.

I’ve now signed up for the NaNoWriMo website (as MattBruce) and posted this here, both showing my commitment and intention to write a 50,000 word novella or short novel. I’ll be showing my progress on the NaNoWriMo site as the site is designed for it and I’ll be too busy writing fiction to blog!

Hope to see you there. If you do join in, add me as a Writing Buddy as we can encourage each other. Otherwise, I’ll see you on the other side (or December, if you prefer).

Oh, for those who just need to see a progress meter, here’s something to whet your appetite:

Beginnings always excite me. So much promise and potential.

Imogen’s books to date are based in London in the 1780s, before police forces, and involve an unlikely pair of investigators: the wife of a naval officer and an anatomist. Her first two books are Instruments of Darkness (Amazon|UK) and Anatomy of Murder (Amazon|UK), her third book is due for release shortly, called Island of Bones, and she’s currently working on her fourth.

The talk that Imogen gave was based around her experiences as a writer (before, leading up to and after publication), the steps involved in the process, explanations of the people involved, the editing and release process, some of the research and minutiae involved in her current work in progress, and everything that an aspiring — and even published — author could want. She was friendly, engaging and honest, and felt very accessible. Most of us felt comfortable asking questions in the post-talk Q&A, as we did during parts of Imogen’s talk, and she answered all questions with patience and humour. If it’s any indication: Imogen brought a number of copies of her books with her, which were handed around for us to look at — we bought them all. Then it was to the lovely library-in-a-pub next door, Great Expectations, for some laryngeal lubrication. Where, I’m afraid, I may have monopolised conversation with her in the noisy environment.

The combination of the restart of the writing group’s season and the visit from Imogen has reinvigorated my motivation for writing. While I have spent the time well in catching up on my unread pile as well as studying the occasional book on the craft of writing — I’m currently reading Plot & Structure (Amazon|UK) — my creative output has been almost nil. This partly came about due to the last manuscript critiquing session I attended, as the (requested) criticism that was provided showed me that I did not understand all the necessary elements of a story, and that it was clear such deficit would not get me much beyond scratching the surface of the competitive fiction market. And there was the group break, summer, etc. Last night’s events gave me a kick in the pants and have set me on my way again.

The first step in this was my submission this morning of an entry into Reading Writers’ annual Autumn competition, judged by someone in the industry who is not a member of the group. Although I did not write a new piece for it (the deadline was this morning and I had to both sleep last night and go to work today), I did have a larger piece already done with an shoe-hornable theme that needed to be cut down to meet the word limit. Cutting a large piece down to 1,000 words — even if it’s just an excerpt, as this was going to be — is hard work! You can’t just copy and paste a chapter, as the start and ending needs to make sense as do the characters and their activities when the reader hasn’t had the benefit of prior explanations, introductions and foreshadowing.

It was a bit of a panicked rush, but I managed to get it in and accepted by the independent judge. Deep sigh of relief, and now back into the creative writing fray!

As part of my polymathic aspirations and the desire to inspire, I thought I would begin sharing the occasional book review. They probably won’t be news to those who are familiar with my Goodreads profile or occasional Amazon review, but I do hope that you enjoy them.

Today’s review is a modern war memoir recommended by a friend and a British Army officer. There may be a few such memoirs that end up reviewed here, but that is probably because he’s lent me some books and I don’t want to have them on my shelf collecting dust.

Danger Close: The True Story of Helmand from the Leader of 3 PARA by Colonel Stuart Tootal DSO

Review by Matt Bruce, 12 June 2010

This memoir from the commander of 3 PARA, the 3rd Battalion of The Parachute Regiment, details his experiences in Afghanistan during their tour of duty there in 2006, and their eventual return to the UK and his subsequent promotion up and away from 3 PARA. You may remember the author’s name from newspapers in 2007, as he resigned from the Army in response to the mistreatment of soldiers. This book is that story, but conveyed with pride of a job well done, not self-pity.

Unlike most war memoirs, this is written by not only an officer, but the battalion commander. As such, it gives both low level experiences that you would get from an on-the-ground soldier — such as that found in Sniper One — and the higher level picture of trying to do the right thing by your men while dealing with the politics and cost-cutting from above. It’s an unenviable task, clearly executed brilliantly, and written in a very engaging style.

The final chapter, “Fighting the Peace,” is the incredibly moving story of the return of 3 PARA to the UK, particularly the MOD’s treatment of the injured (now that the MOD shares existing NHS facilities rather than using dedicated military hospitals), and fighting to ensure that soldiers who have been disabled or mutilated in the service of their country aren’t just kicked out of the Army. Lastly, and perhaps more amazingly, although we have been aware of post-traumatic stress disorder for decades now, the chapter outlines that the facilities and procedures in place for dealing with it are laughable at best. If even half of it is accurate, it makes me ashamed to think that my votes and taxes are used to treat these people so badly.

In closing, it is worth mentioning that the book’s epilogue states that a number of situations and problems described in it and various newspapers have been, or are being, rectified.

This review can also be found on Goodreads and Amazon UK.

Academy Award Winning Movie Trailer

As with anything that plays on the formulae of scripts and stories, you can probably spot a dozen or more films to which just this few minutes of trailer could apply.

Actually, that may be a good exercise: go ahead and name all the films you can spot in this trailer.

I’ll start with the two most obvious: Rain Man and There’s Something About Mary.

Hat tip to Colleen Lindsay.

So here’s what I’ve done in the last month:

Submissions & Queries

• 31 January: The First Line (literary)
  
• 16 February: The Binnacle; The Bitter Oleander (both literary)
• 17 February: Boulevard; Confrontations; Glimmer Train (all literary)
• 18 February: Take a Break (women’s tabloid); Australian Woman’s Day (women’s general interest)

Rejections

• 16 February: The First Line
• 22 February: Take a Break
  

I’ve provided the names of the publications here to give writers of any level an idea of what’s out there. Your favourite search engine or one of the major market indices — such as Writer’s Market (Amazon|AmazonUK) and Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook (Amazon|AmazonUK) — will give you their submission guidelines and contact information.

Remember that — just as the Lotto catch-phrase says you’ve gotta to be in it to win it — you’re never going to get published unless you can submit your work and risk rejection. Acceptances are feathers in your cap showing you’re doing something right, whereas rejections are a good excuse to give that piece another polish using your increased skills and knowledge.

So… how many works have you submitted recently?