Sites and scares

The Website is finally up
It’s been a long three weeks. I’ve spent all this week scanning drawings. Some of the larger ones needed scanning in six parts and then assembling in an art program. It all takes time. I posted a thread on a couple of boards to get some feedback and it seems to have generated a positive response as far as the artwork goes. I’ve only been able to upload a few chapters of The Dark Destiny in the fiction section…I guess it’s better than nothing, though I don’t know if anyone has or will take time to read it. I still have photos of models and a few original masks to create galleries for and then I might be able to get back to some writing.

Well, I should be able to get back to writing, but as usual, real life is going to get in the way for a while.

Scary times
You see, at the end of October I am out of a work. I’ve had a job since I was sixteen, so the prospect of not having one at this time in my life is quite a frightening one. On Sunday the 25th September I am going on a Microsoft Certification course. It’s an accelerated learning course involving twelve-hour days and two exams. That scares me too. The course is not cheap and I can’t afford to fail the exam. I’m not even sure if I am doing the right thing. I just hope it’s all going to be worthwhile and helps me to get a job.

Best
Alan    

It's been a while since I had anything to add here. I was worried that might happen. My life is much too dull for a blog really...but what the hell.

Just about all I’ve done over the last two weeks is scan photos and make web pages. It’s surprising just how much time it eats up. Take the new Pumpkinhead gallery: twenty-four photos. And it’s not just a matter of scanning them either. They have to be resized and compressed and given a numbered file name so the gallery creator places them in the right order. I messed that up with Pumpkinhead and had to start over. It would happen with the biggest gallery too, wouldn’t it? Then each page has to be messed with so it has that cool textured background and a caption to go with it. It all takes time. But I’m getting there slowly.

While I was working on the site on Sunday an e-mail arrived. They’re usually newsletters, but I checked it out anyway. It turned out to be the editor of Thirteen Magazine saying he really liked Pin the Devil and wants to put it in the next issue. I sat back and smiled. Pin the Devil was possibly the second or third short story I ever wrote going back, hell, must be over twenty years ago. Can you imagine that? Oh, it was terribly bloated back then when I didn’t really have much of a clue what I was doing. It rambled on for 12,000 words. I remember a guy who I used to work with reading it. “That’s good,” he said. “It took it a while to get there, like, but it’s good.” Mick and I never really got on very well, but his comment made me do a double take. On the heels of ‘What the hell do you know?’ I thought, he’s right, it does take a while to get there.

That kind of thing still happens now. Right out of the blue someone will say something about a story, will look at it from an angle that I hadn't even realised was there. My friend, Ste will send back a story with comments and I’ll read one and think, ‘What the hell does he know?’ and then on the heels of that I realise he’s right. Pisses me right off. I do the same with his work, and he often feels the same way. It seems it's impossible to write a story without blinkers on; it's so very much easier to spot these things in other people’s stories than it is in your own.

A few years ago I gutted Pin the Devil. It runs at 4,700 words in the rewrite. What the hell did I ramble on about in those additional 7,000 words? And now it’s found a home at Thirteen Magazine. I feel very satisfied with that.

Best
Alan

Website is running!
Phew! I've spent all weekend learning about web design. It took a bit of head scratching, but I've managed to put a page together. I've created buttons and a banner and though I say so myself, I'm quite please with it for a first attempt. I have some more things to do to bring the site up to speed and then I might actually be able to get some writing done.

Gym days
I've been going to the gym with my 16 year old son, Mark since last Sunday. We've been doing free weights. I've been aching in varying parts of my body ever since. My right arm won't fully extend and when I get up after being seated for a while I hobble around like I've got lengths of wood down my trouser legs. I'm going again next week :) You see, I have this huge balloon in front of me that used to be a stomach. It's been there a long time...out stayed its welcome. Mark said it will be gone soon. I won't be sorry to see the back of it, or should that be the front of it?.

The Art of Scruffiness
My older son, Alan is downstairs at the moment building a PC for his friend, Danny. The room is full of plastic bags and packing. Somewhere in the middle of it all is Alan, Danny and Jenny, Alan's girl friend. Alan's a lot like me in that respect. I am a scruffy worker too. I need someone following me, tidying up after me. Debbie used to do it, but I think she got tired of it. I think she thought I did it on purpose just because she picked up after me. I don't though - I just don't see anything except the thing I am doing.

One of the worst things that can happen while I am doing any type of job involving tools is to have to go into a different room to find something. I invariably take a screwdriver or something with me and leave it in the most obscure place possible. Then I have to go find that. Did you ever see that Pink Panther movie where Clouseau has a vacuum cleaner and sucks up some papers, then tries to put those back and while he tries he sucks something out of the drawer etc? Well, that's me. And what's more, I rant and rave, demanding that everyone looks for whatever I'm looking for. Then Debbie usually finds it in a place I looked in a dozen times.

Even where I am sitting now is like a tip. Hang on, I'll take a picture.















I do hate it being like this, but no matter how many times I tidy it up it ends up like this again. I blame Debbie for it. Whenever she finds things I've left lying around, she collects them up and dumps them on my desk for me to 'sort out'. I know it's my own fault, but as you can see, I never do sort them out. But I will...soon...and when I do, I'll show you another picture.

Best

Alan

In the beginning....

Well, this isn't really the beginning. It's taken a long and winding road to arrive at this place in time. If I'd had a bit more about me I might have hit this spot many years ago.

I've started blogging and designing a website because I've decided to take myself seriously for a bit. And why, you may ask, has this turn of events taken place? Well, because two editors have taken my work seriously enough to publish it.

I'd always wondered how it would feel to get an acceptance letter. Truth is, I didn't feel much really. Apart from a deep down, warming the cockles of your heart, satisfaction that I can actually write something that someone would want to publish, I felt like I'd simply stepped on the first rung of a ladder, the top of which is way up in the clouds and undoubtably far higher than I will ever be able to climb.

Writing is a lot like painting the Forth Bridge - as soon as you've finished it's time to start all over again. It's a constant and neverending uphill battle, especially if you want to be published.

I've had but two short stories accepted so far, both within two weeks of each other. I'm hoping they aren't flukes. HALLOWEEN EDDIE'S will appear in Wicked Karnival's Halloween Special Edition which should be available on or around October 15th 2005, and FROM THE CORNER OF MY EYE which will appear in a future, as yet undetermined, issue of All Hallows: The Journal of the Ghost Story Society

When Wicked Karnival accepted my story, I thought it might be a good idea to get myself a web presence. Tom Moran over at WK asked me to write a bio and send a photo to go along with the story. "Yeah, sure, no problem," I said. Then I tried to write it. Ever written about yourself in third person? It is weird. I sat there with my fingers poised over the keyboard with what seemed like the most pretentious openings to the bio sliding through my mind. In the end I turned to my wife, Debbie and said, "What should I say?"

My wife is a nurse. She is the practical sort. When I read her a story and ask for an opinion she'll say, "Yeah, it's good." Stories are black and white to her: if she likes it it's good...if she doesn't it's bad. Anything more has to be teased out of her with leading questions. I didn't expect her to know any better than I, but she just looked at me and said, "Tell them what you've done. Tell them about the writing and the sculpting and the masks and models you've made."

I almost had to take a step back. Hell yeah, I thought, I have done some stuff over the years. If a few people like reading HALLOWEEN EDDIE'S, maybe they'll want to take a look at what else I've done (he says hopefully).

So I registered a domain and fixed a 'Coming Soon' plate to it. In a while, anyone with nothing better to do will be able to see some photos of the masks and sculptures I made in my 'sculpting period', and maybe some of the drawings I did when I was a teenager. Hopefully they'll be able to read a bit of fiction too.

I don't really feel comfortable with the things I am doing at the moment (taking photos, writing bios etc) to try and promote my writing, but it seems it’s something you have to do if you want to get noticed these days.

So though it has taken me a long time to get here, it is a beginning of sorts. If it all comes to nothing…well, little is lost, except maybe for a few dreams.

Until then, I hope the journey will be entertaining, if nothing else.

Best
Alan