NaNo..WhyMe?

Right now, I seem to be asking myself 'why did you decide to do this (you utter nutter)?'

I'm referring, of course, to my decision to take part in NaNoWriMo.
The main reason I decided to give it a go this year was in order to give myself a good, swift, kick to finally write.

Not that the problem is my lack of actually writing, but, rather other people not leaving me alone and letting me get on with it. Thus, waving this official participant badge (and the website) at them makes me hopeful that I will be allowed to write and not be 'nagged' or disturbed.

That said, I'm also hopeful that NaNoWriMo will get me utilising my blog properly now.
Speaking of the blog, I'm not entirely happy with the layout and colourings, so they may be tweaked at a later date. I've also added my twitterfeed over to the side - my tweets are protected on site but appear in the feed, which is good ;)

So, for now that is all and let's hope I can get myself into a regular blogging mood now.

Should Libraries really be like this? (mini rant)

I went to my local library this week - in search of books on cartoon drawing this time around. Now, before this new LRC (Learning Resource Centre) was built, our Library consisted of the downstairs being split into two very large rooms - children's and adults' libraries - and the upstairs was just a massive study area with all the references books (that you weren't allowed to check-out.) Several years ago, they decided to build a new building, so a certain percentage of the books were put into storage while the others were moved to a temporary library in the town shopping centre. This is where things went wrong in my opinion.

During this time I didn't use the library because there were hardly any books - most I wanted, it seemed, were in storage. Then the new building opened. It truly is a massive building - boasting a children's library downstairs, a gallery area and what they call the 'express library' section...which I just don't get to be honest (and not many people do.)
Then we have the upstairs, where the adult library; along with seminar rooms and the like scattered around the place. It seems nice enough - although, admittedly, we could do without the bright primary coloured benches and tables. This is where I come to my rant.

The non-fiction books that you can check out take forever for you to find what you're looking for and (I know I hadn't used the library for a long time) but seemed to have dwindled in number when compared to the old building - the same can be said for the fiction books...except that, they're a tad easier to find due to the icon-sticker on their spines. The references books (the ones you can't check out) used to be in a big room where you could browse them and photocopy them without asking - just as long as they stayed in the library. But no, not now. Now they sit in the middle of the large room, behind the librarians desk and you have to hope you get someone's attention and ask if they have what you're looking for...which is a pain, when you can't see the books or know exactly what you're looking for - hence the whole idea of browsing.

So, one irritation - Where have all the books gone? And why are they harder to get at?

Second irritation. The loudest people in the room were two librarians chatting. You could hear them over the other side of the room. What happened to the quiet librarians that told you to shh if you so much as squeaked over a certain decibel?

And lastly, the thing that irritated me - no. Infuriated and wound me up immensely - the most? The lack of organisation on the shelves. I was looking for drawing books and when I found the section, I expect it to be easy to browse and JUST be drawing books - not a whole row of knitting books on the wrong shelf!
I then decided to browse the fiction side of the library; I was looking for Wilbur Smith books for my mum to read. Now, why was there a Dean Koontz book in with the 'S's? And another Koontz book in 'M' and finally an actual Koontz book in 'K' but between two authors with surnames starting with 'Ka'. There was one Wilbur Smith book and then ten books along the shelf later, another Wilbur Smith book - the two books separated by some other lesser known 'Smiths'.
And this sets the benchmark for the entire library. The more I looked, the more I noticed. For example; there were two fantasy labelled books (with a little blue unicorn icon on their spines) in the horror section (defined by a maroon monster's head) - a section which is two book cases away.

Is this the standard of Libraries and Librarians now, or just that of my local library?

On that note, I'm entirely tempted to ask if they want a part-time worker to just sit and rearrange the shelves all day, because, I would happily do that all day long. I was very tempted to do it while there...but as I have no job, being paid to do something that comes natural to me would be a nice bonus.

Opinions wanted. Constructive critism welcome.

I'm in the middle of writing a short story for the 'Writers of the Future Contest' and decided to put the opening of the story on my blog. I'd love any comments - positive, negative, constructive - I just want to know how the opening will be received and if it would compell people to read on.

The story is called 'Gemstones' and is fantasy in genre.

Anyway, without further ado (or at least prattle) here's the opening...

*******

Keep running…don’t look back…just run. She could feel the adrenaline pulsing through her system, pushing her on despite the intense burning in her chest and limbs. The darkness was suffocating; she could barely see her own feet as they thudded across the ground, let alone anything else. Her foot stubbed something; she pitched forward and crashed to the ground. Turning over, she glared accusingly at the tree that had seen fit to throw its root out to trip her.

As the young woman lay there with her heart thundering painfully loud in her ears, a snarl alerted her to the presence of her pursuer. With panicked gasps she scrambled backwards, tears welling in wide eyes - threatening to fall down a too pale face.

It was the blood-red eyes she saw first, gleaming like rubies in the moonlight.

“You can't run from me.” The beast snarled, droplets of saliva running down its chin. “Your heart is mine!”

As it spoke, the beast extended a gnarled hand and very slowly and deliberately curled its taloned fingers into a fist. The young woman clutched at her chest, squeezing her eyes shut at the sharp cutting pain that suddenly ailed her. The creature skulked forward and plunged its hand into her chest, searching until it found what it was looking for before applying pressure to the vital organ. Her eyes went wide, a strangled gurgle escaping her lips. Her last sight before her eyes glazed over was of the beast’s hand emerging from her chest, clutching her still beating heart.

The beast began to drool at the sight and took a deep breath, savouring the moist warmth against its cold flesh. The sound of someone clapping echoed around the quiet copse, the beast spun round spotting a dark figure secluded in the shadows…watching. The figure stepped into the moonlight to reveal a tall man with dark hair, greying at the temples. He had coal-like eyes and was dressed from head to toe in black.

“Who are you?” growled the beast, narrowing its eyes in suspicion.

“I am Garentax.” A voice even deeper than the beast's replied. “I'm a collector of sorts and you, I think, will fit quite nicely into my collection.” An evil grin spread across Garentax's face, he raised one hand, fingers splayed pointing towards the beast.

A beam of intense red light shot out from Garentax's hand, enveloping the beast, before it disappeared from view. The man stood proudly, a wry grin plastered across his face, and in his hand he held a red gemstone. On closer inspection, something could be seen moving within the stone, for the beast was now trapped within it.

"Yes, a fine addition to my collection..."

Note to self: I have blogs

Since my knee injury in October, I seem to have forgotten that I have blogs. Which I'm a bit annoyed with myself about as I decided to do said blogs to keep myself writing, and keep track of how my quest for writing is going. And I use the term 'quest for' loosely.

Along with the novel, I've recently been working on a short story for the Writers' of the Future Contest which is currently in its first draft but still needs a lot of work. I've tried to put a time-scale on it, giving myself until the 29th of July (which is when I go into hospital for my MRI scan on my knee) to finish it. So hopefully, as long as all goes well, I'll have that done, dusted off and submitted for the final quarter of the year.

Taking the idea further...

It's only in this last year, after finishing my studies, that I've started my quest to write the novel. Subscribing to Writing Magazine and getting myself a copy of the Writers & Artists' Yearbook . I also bought myself New Novelist - a programme that many people I know bought it and seemed to think it would write the novel for them. Personally I like the programme being that it makes keeping notes a hell of a lot simpler than notebooks and scraps of paper all over the place, not finding them until weeks later - something I found I had a great knack for.

My ambition is not to write the next best-selling blockbuster but to just write down a six year old idea that won't leave me alone until the characters' stories are told. If it leads to me becoming published than that would be a delightful bonus.

Hard to ignore...

When an idea that popped into your head six years ago lingers around there and just keeps growing and growing, how can you ignore it?

Well this is what happened to me. At the age of 15 an idea for a novel popped into my head. At the time I didn't know what to make of it - I took out an old notebook and jotted down the few things I could and then put it aside.
I'd always written stories and had recently branched out into fanfiction, finally doing the unthinkable - showing other people how I wrote. For this time I ignored the idea and focused on writing fanfiction.

When I started my studies at school I hadn't thought about the idea for almost a year. When, on day, I was clearing out some old books and found a tatty old notebook - in which was the idea, along with names that had popped into my head. Reading it seemed to bring it all back and I found myself jotted down more and more notes. Eventually writing full character bios and even some scenes.