Blog Entries from ramedrake

  1. Can anyone help? Having trouble posting.

    My profile has been inactive for a while but when I came back on I could no longer post stories in the community. Is this because I have been so inactive and if so what can I do? I've tried email administrators that I was in contact with before but got no response. Thanks.
  2. First response from Literary agent!

    I got this today: Dear ******, Thank you for your e-mail and manuscript. If you'd like to e-mail me a brief bio on yourself as well (including your postal address and contact details in ******), we would be glad to consider your work further for possible representation. kind regards, ****** I'm trying not to get too excited but this is only the second time I've had a positive response to something I sent off.
  3. Uncontrollable feelings of spite.

    I noticed recently with a certain amount of bitterness that a girl i went to school with has not only published several books but now is gathering quite a name for herself as a writer. This bitterness is pure jealousy you understand. I've no reason to sneer at the quality of her work, vile though it is, or resent the fact that she has never had a proper job (has spent the last ten years being supported at home while she is allowed to create). I can't help but be resentful and grumpy that she...
  4. Radioactive Urine

    The paper today announced on the front page that people in Fukushima had their urine tested and it was found to be radioactive. The government moving with customary speed has neglected to inform or protect its people accordingly and now they suffer. It's like a bad science fiction movie, instinctively I get the image of florescent green fluid, like that out of reanimator, when instead I should be rigid with horror at what these poor people must be feeling right now. Imagine knowing that...
  5. Great Story/No plot.

    After a kebab and a beer the other day my colleague started telling me an idea he'd had about a man with an animals head living in Tokyo and dealing with racism and police brutality. I loved the idea hurried home and wrote six pages of scene setting: The characters painful homesickness, his depression, and confusion in the Japanese society. However, once this was done I was rather stuck with where to take it from there. I named the animal after my colleague (he's not so impressed by...
  6. Fan Fiction, what to do?

    In one week I started writing a Doctor Who and Sherlock holmes fan fiction. My wife was horrified by the prospect of me touching the great detective, something of a purist she reads fan fiction but only ones that treat the great man with the uttermost respect and keep him pretty much the same as he always was in Doyle's originals (I mentioned the Lovecraft crossover collection and she told me to go f*** myself). The idea of me getting my twisted mind into Holmes' London was not a prospect...
  7. First story published!

    It's a still Sunday morning; cloudy but not cold. It's not to be a relaxing day off, there is work and shopping to be done, but thats ok, I'm feeling pretty good. On friday night several students of mine came up to me in the bar to thank me for helping me get the grades that allowed them to go and study abroad, and yesterday afternoon I saw my name in print for the first time. A small independant American publication published a short story I wrote nearly two years ago after a having a...
  8. The joys of second hand bookshops

    In the current turmoil of long work hours and stressful studies, not to mention the on coming heat of the summer (it's the third day of June and already Tokyo is like an armpit) it's nice to have some place i can kick back and forget about everything else. That place for me is my local second hand bookshop. Every time I go in there is like a delightful treasure hunt searching for unknown gems that lurk in every cranny. Having spent nearly two years living in a town where the only books in...
  9. Troublesome abundant ideas (part 2 after 'post' was pressed accidentally

    ... as I was saying (pesky Japanese keyboard) I once saw my father in a version of The Browning Version and it always made an impression on me. The play is about a retiring school master who maybe denied his pension and is being psychologically tormented by his wife. It's good stuff and I think it'll fit in nicely. I intend to make full use of this little weird inspiration and see it leads to anything.
  10. Troublesome abundant ideas

    Every time I sit down to try and write something short and sweet it gets bigger. Just taking a moment to flesh out character can mean that, within moments, I have his or her entire life planned out and don't want to leave out a single incident. Before long, the short splendid idea I had suddenly becomes longer and rapidly spins out of control or worse I realise its full of unrelated filler. However, sometimes it has unforseen and beneficial developments. I have five main characters of my...
  11. Best Hook ever?

    Just curious but in your opinion what is the best opening to a novel or short story? I'm going to have to go with the late great Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: 'We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like "I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive..." And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and...
  12. Original thoughts

    There isn`t much more annoying than having what you (at least) consider as a really good idea and intending to write it down someday and then finding that some one else has already had it. I had a friend in Nagoya who refused to read any Neil Gaiman as he kept pre-empting her ideas and being adored because of it. Now I have a new nemesis in the form of Mark Hodder who has taken an idea of mine (admitedly one that didn`t require too much of a stretch of the imgination) and turned it into...
  13. Standing in the Shower thinking.

    I was standing in the shower this morning singing to myself and suddenly came up with the idea of a story for a novel. It started with one word that I repeated over and over to myself as I washed my hair and cleaned my body. By the time I was washing between my toes the idea was 80% there. Haven't figured out the ending yet, but the begining is clear and I can see how events would follow from there. I've just written the first paragraph and already my spine is tingling. The novel is not...
  14. 10 years gone

    So unless you have been living in a cave on mars with your eyes shut and cotton wool in your ears you've probably heard that Osama Bin Laden is dead, at least according to the world media. He was shot two days ago and his body was buried at sea. Suposedly this was because no country wanted to claim his body, or that they didn't want any terrorists still out there to turn his grave into a shrine. Also Islamic custom demands that a corpse be buried 24 hours after its death. Desert culture,...
  15. The History of Erotic dancing

    I've just started reading Stripping in Time: The history of erotic dancing. Its really rather great and is inspiring me to write all kinds of things surrounding the people I've read about and the time when they were dancing. Some places still find it difficult to seperate myth and reality and thats something as a writing I like to explore. Whether the dancing girl is a goddess or priestess or just a naked woamn its equally evocative.
Loading...
  1. This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
    By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
    Dismiss Notice