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Showing posts from 2006

What's within the within, within all of us?

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# "We are spinning, and spinning, and spinning, and now..." - Adam Duritz (Counting Crows) For quite a while now I've been really interested in my writing in the idea of "a story within a story" or the book within a book - the "Mise en Abyme" - where say the main narrative is influenced by, inspired by or parallelled to a secondary story told within the world of the same book or novel...

More writing updates - back to feature writing next time!

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# "It's all smiles and business these days and I'm indifferent to the loss..." # - Ben Folds " Another day another dollar", as my dad used to say (I'm English, remember - my dad can be a bit eccentric at times - maybe that's where I get it from!) Anyway, just another short post while I busy myself with loose odds and ends to do with my writing to tie up with a nice pretty bow before Christmas...

Two new stories and a load of links...

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# "All my life, I've been watching America..." - (Razorlight) This week, it’s just a short post to let you know that the facelift of this blog continues with the promised Moon Crater handy catch-up links list being added. So now there’s no excuse not to know what the heck I’m on about when referring to my novel! Anyway, if you scroll right to the bottom of this page, below the general links to my other stories blogs and main writing site, you can now read all the posts in order in which I’ve specifically talked about the book itself. It should help anyone new chancing on this blog too to get up to date quickly, with a bit of luck, too. ( Amendum - this links list has now disappeared and will reappear in a different form over at my official site at some point in the future... )

"The Rare Purple Fox Travels East In Winter"

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# "It's a new day, it's a new plan, I've been waiting for you..." # - Bryan Adams Wel come, everyone to my newly-improved and spy-errific writing blogspot. Hopefully you've all come along equipped with your waterproof watches, unmarked silver briefcases and dark glasses - Yes? OK, then, we can continue... For those of you wondering if you've stumbled onto the wrong blogsite, this is still the online writing journal of Chris G. Allan - it just looks a bit different to how it did last week. As I continue writing my first novel Moon Crater and develop the themes and events that occur within that story, I decided I wanted the look of my writing blog to reflect those themes - and so here we are with a mysterious "Top Secret" memo pad for me to post on from now on...

The files you shouldn't see...

Hi, everyone, I'm in the process of changing the blog template over, what do you think?! :> More tomorrow - stay tuned! Chris

# "I think a change... would do you good..." # - Sheryl Crow

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Autumn has gone and winter has clasped us almost overnight by the blink of an eye into its frozen grip, and so in the spirit of change on this cold, grey day, I'm going to start this post by advertising writing that's other than my own. Poetry isn't really my forte but there's a fantastic place in the city where I live that's been providing a quality platform for both new and established poets to perform their work for decades now. Morden Tower is part of the old Newcastle City walls, converted into a cosy home for literature of all kinds and they now have a blogsite for themselves - if you like poetry, you can check out what I'm raving on about over at: http://mordentower.blogspot.com/ Something else that I've been doing but which thousands of other writers have been involved in is the "one day in history blog". On October 17th, the History Matters website was asking anyone who cared about history to write a short journal/blog entry of what the

The Results of the 1st Moon Crater Fiction Decisions Poll!

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Well, it's a bit later than promised, but I've now got the results from the 1st Moon Crater Fiction Decisions Poll and I'm happy to be able to report them to you right here, right now. Loads of you responded to the call to help me decide what Billy and Jo, the main characters of the story, will look like and so without further ado, here's what the most popular results were...

The 1st Moon Crater Fiction Decisions Poll!

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# "I feel like a quote out of context, Withholding the rest, so I can be for you what you want to see" # - Ben Folds Announcing the 1st Moon Crater Fiction Decisions Poll! I'd like you to help me shape the appearance and characteristics of the two main characters in my story. This isn't me just being a lazy writer - I'd like to involve readers as much in the writing process as possible, (my website http://www.findthemissingreel.com/ is just one way I've already sought some feedback on my writing) but added to this is the fact that despite working on the story of Moon Crater for a good few years, plotting key moments and creating dialogue for a variety of characters, the central duo who drive the story forward are still faceless silhouettes to me. I only realised this whilst travelling across Canada on a sleeper train last month (it's weird what comes into your head at 3am after being kept awake by every bump and rattle on an old railway track!) B

Good things come to those who wait...

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# "Good authors too who once knew better words now only use four letter words, writing prose, anything Goes" # - Cole Porter Just before I post the biggie of the week on this blog which I pointed to at the beginning of last week - the vote for what the main characters of Moon Crater will look like, I just want to share some news about some prizes I finally received last week in the post from winning 3rd place in a writing competition in 2005. (See this post from me a few months ago for the lowdown on the competition: http://cgallan.blogspot.com/2006/06/razor-perceptions-that-cut-just-little.html and on this link you can actually read my 3rd place story if you scroll down to the "winners" section: htt p://www.theraider.net/features/contests/fanfiction.php - Indiana Jones & The Quest Of The White Knight )...

# "We're rockin' the suburbs! Around the block just one more time...!" # - Ben Folds

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I was going to do a long self-congratulatory blog to round off the week this afternoon over some prizes which I've finally received from a writing competition I placed in a while ago, but I'll save that for some other time, because I've had a humbling experience for ten short minutes today which I just have to share with you all... I don't think I've ever said on the blog what my "day job" is but when I'm not trying to be a children's writer, I'm a Broadcast Subtitler, working for a media company, helping create captions for the hearing impaired. If you live in the UK and ever switch on your digital subtitles or page 888 on teletext/ceefax, that's the stuff I currently do for a living...

# "And so it goes, and so it goes, and you're the only one who knows..." # - Billy Joel

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Well, I'm back, friends. It's been about a month-and-a-half since I posted my last blog entry here, advertising myself and my writing to the anticipated masses who would come flooding to read my scribbles after my official website was set up. And how did it all go? Well, the flood was more like a small trickle, according to Google Analytics, but hopefully I've caught a few more eager readers in my net of intrigue that surrounds "The Missing Reel"...

New beginnings or just returning to the start...

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Welcome one and all to my writing blog site! This is the place where I'm recording "journal" entries alongside the writing of what I'm hoping will be my debut novel as a children's writer... # "I've been flying high all night... So come pick me up, I've landed" # - Ben Folds I've actually been keeping this blog for about three months now, so apologies to my regular readers but I wanted to put a big "Hear, ye! Hear, ye!" type of post here now because the link from my official website should be alive and kicking any time and it'll hopefully bring a new audience to my ramblings on this blog. So a big shout out to my old friends and a warm welcome to anyone that's found their way here via my "Missing Reel" site. www.findthemissingreel.com is a website in progress. It is there to complement and work alongside the novel, but in a different way to this blog. Here, I'm recording my trials and tribulat

# "If you wrote me off, I'd understand it, cos I've been on some other planet" # - Ben Folds

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While the busy penguins chisel and chip away at their final masterpiece over at my official website, I have a progress report/update type thingy in that the homepage is now in full colour! The veil of the "night-vision" look to the holding page has been lifted and now you can see how the final site will look when you first hit onto the page. There's even new wording on there too, which will lead into the "unlocking" of the first page at some point next week - an introduction by moi (me, for those of you who don't speak Ancient Bottaian or some other Orionate language). Anyway, I'm pleased with Twig's achievements so far, he's leading his team of tuxedoed bird friends well, and we're on schedule for an end of July launch of the site proper... (Go to www.findthemissingreel.com to see what I'm on about!)

# "I remember when I found out about chemistry, it was a long, long way from here..." # - Dan Wilson (Semisonic)

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It's been a longish week sorting out the first elements of the main home page for the website and also a busy week with our wedding preparations suddenly taking a new and energetic spirit. We've been engaged for two and a half years and planned everything for so long but suddenly with only two weeks to go, the last-minute things need to be done quite quickly... Still, it'll all come together in the end, I'm sure. That's what I keep telling myself about www.findthemissingreel.com too - I've been considering what to actually put up as the first parts of what will be a "drip-feed" (in a good way!) /teasing site as the next year progresses that will with a bit of luck whet the appetite for what Moon Crater might bring... Anyway, the big unveiling will happen next week (date to be confirmed - check back here for breaking news!) and the main "desk top" page will have two or three clickable objects as well as some hidden links for visitors to t

# "It becomes important for me to get up and see their last second curves toward flight!" # - John McRea (Cake)

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"Copy cat, copy cat, sitting on the door mat..." As a writer that old school playground rhyme sticks in my head because I get quite paranoid about people stealing my work. It's a stupid worry, really, because a radio writer I once heard in a lecture said, "Nobody can really ever steal your story - ideas can be taken but the way an individual puts their own stamp on a story is what makes it their own." But still I get anxious about what kind of copyright I have on my work when it's let loose in the "public domain", especially now that I've actually put my stories onto the net proper with my new blog sites... I make sure I always put the "©" symbol with my name after anything I e-publish myself and of course do the old trick of posting all of my stories to myself and I recently found this useful page on the UK Patent Office site about what they call "Intellectual property" - http://www.patent.gov.uk/patent/info/ideas.pdf S

# "Due to a construct in my mind that makes their falling and their flight symbolic of my entire existence..." # - John McRea (Cake)

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Rolling ever onwards (and hopefully upwards) I've gone blogging mad since I set up my second blog to put some of my other children's stories onto the internet a few days ago. I've now got four other blogs apart from this main "writers journal". This isn't out of any sort of narcissism (Oh, OK, maybe a tiny bit) but more so that I can actually take out those "early stories of CGAllan" from the bottom draw of my desk, shake the dust off them and at least get them read by as wide an audience as possible. And at the very least, if I'm lucky enough to get Moon Crater published in the near future, readers will be able to see where I'm coming from, and how my ideas and themes were formed when I first practised my art with these formative tales...

# "Birds fall from the window ledge above mine, then they flap their wings at the last second..." # - John McRea (Cake)

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I'm in the mood for trying new things this week... The weather has finally changed to a nice summery temperature and even though this morning I almost had a heart attack when my old laptop seemed to have wiped my memory stick and most of the up-to-date notes for Moon Crater I'm in a postive mood. (Incidentally, my old laptop lied to me - checking my stick on another PC all of the data is there - thankfully!) I've got a four week deadline for a few things in my life at the moment - and they're all writing-related. I get married at the end of the month and so among the many preparations the two of us have, I have to write a speech - "Easy for a writer", you say? Well, I'm finiding it more difficult than it probably is, and I think it's because I've never had to write in that format before. But I'll get there in the end, I'm sure. The other is the big mound of Post-its and scraps of paper with ideas for Moon Crater which I did a post on las

# "I'm gonna surprise them all when they look and I'm gone, gone, gone..." # - Dan Wilson (Semisonic)

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I like Lost . It's one of those shows you either like or loathe. For me, though, the writing on the show is fantastic, and I particularly admire the plotting of the series as a whole (apprarently they originally conceived it as a four-season show) and that there's a whole story-arc running through it. I'm the kind of writer who needs to plot and plot and plot my stories before actually putting pen to paper. I admire the brave people who can just sit at their desk and reel off chapter after chapter with pure inspiration as their guide. (But I question whether this really ever happens at all - surely they still need a whiteboard or something to do some good old-fashioned brainstorming sessions onto?!) I say some loathe Lost because a lot of people I talk to say they can't stand the endless cliffhangers, the red herrings and the unanswered questions. But for me, that's fast turning into the fun of the series. As a children's writer I'm always on the lookout

# "I've been hangin' around this town on the corner, I've been hangin' around this old town so long..." # - Adam Duritz (Counting Crows)

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I visited Dublin last weekend. One of my best friends lives there and he's an usher at my wedding soon - so it was a kind of "pre-stag do thing", cos he can't make it over for my official stag party in a few weeks' time. I first met Damo at work about five years ago and we hit it off straight away. He's moved back to his home country now but we still keep in touch a lot and travel back and forth across the water to visit one another frequently. I think that's probably the true mark of a friend - making that extra effort not to let things slip, even when there's a lot of distance between the two of you (or even when there's not). Anyway, apologies to Damo, but this post is really about Ireland as a whole being an influence on me as a writer (of which, my good friend is a part, of course, but my association with the Emerald Isle goes back a little farther than when the two of us first became friends at work.) Historically, I have links with Irela

The difference between advertise and publicise...

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# "Tell me where is fancy bred? In the heart or in the head?" # - William Shakespeare I think I may have been getting a little too obsessed with advertising the website for Moon Crater ... There's a motto I read online of the filmmaker Ted Turner who says, "Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell and advertise" and I think recently I've been living by that motto a bit too closely. As I said the other day I've been monitoring my site with google analytics and have been posting my web link onto lots of forums and sites just to advertise, advertise, advertise...

# “It’s the small, small, small talk that makes it all happen...” # - Per Gessle (Roxette)

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I find it really difficult to write "precis" most of the time. In my writing I edit a lot and enjoy working through many drafts of stories and chapters - I guess it comes from the journalistic background I've had in writing articles and editing later to fit to space on a magazine or newspaper page... But even when writing features I still found it difficult to keep to the word limit. Practise on this aspect of writing is good, particularly for me, and right now I'm thinking of entering a "short short story" competition that's being run locally to myself. It calls for a story with only 60 words which still has a beginning, middle and an end. Yesterday I was walking to work and heard a snatch of a conversation (a great way to get inspiration or starting points for stories!) from a couple at a bus stop, and as I continued walking to my metro for work, I composed this 60-word story which I'm printing here for your enjoyment:

Agent Gone Dark - a foretelling...

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# "Someday, I'm gonna stay,... but not today..." # - Adam Duritz (Counting Crows) Just adding a short post here today to let you all know that the new design for www.findthemissingreel.com is moving nearer to completion - there's a new teaser holding page up now which I'm hoping will add more intrigue to the site and story - questions a visitor to the site might ask are: "Why a backwards clock?", "Just what is the 'Institute'?" & "What have Laurel & Hardy got to do with the whole thing?!" Been using google analytics to track the traffic onto the site too and after a slow start it seems to be going through the roof! At the weekend I had 59 visitors on Saturday alone. ("Ooh, big deal!" you might say - but considering I'm not a big organisation with multi-million-pound advertising campaigns, I'm pretty happy with this steady climb...) Anyway, analytics is worth a look if you have your own website -

# "Adjectives on the typewriter, he moves his words like a prizefighter, The frenzied pace of the mind inside the cell" # - John Mcrea (Cake)

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My dad's a fantastic photographer. He's been taking wedding photographs for about 20 years now on and off, as a hobby and professionally, and I admire the talent and keen eye he's been given to create such beautiful compostitions on film. This comes to mind because this morning I spent about two hours trying to get a photograph taken with my digital camera which will act as the basis for the homepage of my writing website - www.findthemissingreel.com - two hours for one photograph! Well, it was actually about half a dozen photos just to get the one that I was finally happy with. The idea isn't original, really - I've seen it done on quite a few websites, but I've adapted it to suit my own needs and story content. Basically, without giving too much away, there'll be a scene of a desk with various mysterious objects on it - each will eventually be clickable (one object will be unlocked at a time, perhaps every month or so) and will reveal another piece to t

# "A hydro-field cuts through my neighbourhood, somehow that always just made me feel good..." # - Barenaked Ladies

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I want to tell you about the village where I grew up. This isn't one of those rose-tinted perspectives, years later, looking back and dreamily half-remembering how it was. It's only in the last year that I've moved away from there and it still has its problems of wandering gangs of kids, drugs on street corners and fast cars just looking for the next slow pedestrian to put a foot onto the road. But I lived there for most of my young life, growing up with that sort of thing surrounding me, and I still love the place. You'll always remember the good AND the bad things of any place you go to, but part of truly appreciating somewhere I think is seeing past the crap that seems determined to ruin the great things in this world. And so that's how I intend to remember Westerhope.

"Fortune and glory, kid,... fortune and glory."

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# "The razor perceptions that cut just a little too deep..." # - Adam Duritz (Counting Crows) I mentioned a little while ago that I'd written and won a prize in an online fan fiction writing competition. (The link to the story is in that previous post if you scroll down through my blog or look in the Archives. Or you can find it in the Fan Fiction section of http://www.theraider.net/ - I'm was the 3rd prize winner of their 2005 fan fic contest.) Apart from the annoying fact that it's now over a year later and the guys who run the site STILL haven't sent me my prize, the whole experience was very positive for my writing. I'm not in writing to win prizes anyway, it's more about getting my work read and entertaining people as much as I enjoy well-created stories myself. I'm a huge Indiana Jones fan anyway so conceiving and plotting Indiana Jones & The Quest of the White Knight was hugely satisfying for myself, and hopefully it shows. My sens

Ever tried "touch-texting" like a whizz kid?!

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# "Got a call from an old friend, we used to be real close..." # - Billy Joel I've got music and mobiles on my mind at the moment... I write best when I've got music playing the background (as I write this, I'm listening to a Billy Joel song called The Night Is Still Young ). It's always been the way from being young and at school - music has helped me get on with whatever work I was doing - my art and design homework from school always seemed to fly by when I had a good tape (remember those?!) playing at the same time. These days, whenever I'm writing a story, I mostly have film soundtracks or scores playing. With being an adventure and mystery writer, this type of music really helps tap into the mood I want to get as a writer (some of the soundtracks I like most are from - Apollo 13, Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Last Crusade and the Young Indiana Jones TV series). Music is important to me - I love specific artists who don't necessarily get very

# "Can you tell me the things you remember about me?" # - Adam Duritz (Counting Crows)

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Post-It notes and scraps of paper are the bane of my life so far as a writer. I've been an amateur writer for ten years and still haven't been able to find a reliable way to record the random ideas and notions that I get as I walk around from day to day. Ideas and inspirtation I find come from everywhere and anywhere, and most of the time, without warning. Because of this and the paranoia of not wanting to forget or loose that fantastic idea I just had ten seconds ago, I usually force myself to write it down somewhere, anywhere, so that it's recorded and fixed in a more concrete place than the sieve that is my brain. I used to write key words onto the back of my hand (a "policeman's notebook" a... policeman once informed me) - those keywords would hopefully later spark off the rest of the idea for a story, when I'd have time to write it out more fully, sat in front of my keyboard at home. But the key words and my handwriting scrawled across the back of

As one curtain rises, another descends...

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# "I'm off on a rocketship, prepared for something new, I'm off on a rocketship, ecstatic with the view" # - Guster OK, well, it's done... The unveiling of my website happened yesterday June 1st, 2006. You can find it at http://www.findthemissingreel.com/ - Twig has done a brilliant job of designing a holding page until the main homepage is set up and hopefully it provides a bit of intrigue and anticipation for whoever stumbles onto it in the meantime... Perhaps I should say a little about Moon Crater - it's an adventure book for 8-14 year-olds, it's sci-fi but it's based in the real world, it's set in a fictional place but I take my inspirtation from my own life and experiences growing up... Cryptic enough for you?

# "..when you try to see the world beyond your front door..." # - Ed Robertson (Barenaked Ladies)

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These are exciting times despite having just come back to work after a long bank holiday weekend and recovering from a sore throat which caused me to almost lose my voice. Exciting times because I get married in a few months and hopefully this week I'll have my own website for my writing registered and set up! It's all a bit hush-hush and strictly on the qui vive but watch this space and I'll keep you informed of it's progress. The creative person desiging my website is going to be another Chris who likes to be called "Twig" - go to www.phluff.com to see Twig's design talent... Back to myself, this post is really just to give an introduction about what I've written before and where I'm heading with my writing in the future. On the aforementioned website, there'll appear my complete and unabridged short story efforts since begining my writing life about 10 years ago, but if you can't wait that long, here's a couple of links to whet y

# "I've been thinking a lot today..." # - Ben Folds

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So the journey begins... But first things first - which is it? "BCCarden" or "CGAllan"? That's sort of still a mystery to me as well, really. My real name is CGAllan. BCCarden is a pen name I've had ever since I knew that I wanted to have a life of writing. He's also a character I've created in my head - this mythic, successful writer, who's renowned the world over and... OK, before I sound really narcissistic, let me just say that the two are one in the same, perhaps Carden is what I aspire to be, the dot on the horizon that most days seems to be getting further away the faster you run at it - but that doesn't mean you stop running, right? I mean, in those god-awful dreams where you're running and running and not moving, did you ever stop to realise that you also never get out of breath? I suppose my point is that in our minds and dreams we're super humans, the heroes we aspire to be in real life... Perhaps that was all a bit too de