More writing updates - back to feature writing next time!

# "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...




For a little while now I've been going through the stories that I uploaded a while ago on each of my sub-blogs (see the first links list at the bottom of this page) and gradually adding small commentaries after them all to explain where I was coming from when I wrote each of them. Well, I'm happy to report that all of my stories across those blogs now have their commentaries completed. The final two are now sorted and are up on my sci-fi stories blog and my literary-type writing blog. As well as this, there's also more moving art provided at my lit blog by Vanessa Stafford - her watercolours really are something else, so if not for my writing, you should check out the lit blog for her paintings alone! Anyway, the updated version of The Evolutions of Man complete with commentary and illustrations by Ms Stafford are here now:

http://tryingtobeliterary.blogspot.com/2006/07/evolutions-of-man-short-story-by.html

And this is the link for my sci-fi blog where the new commentary is on my original story Click, Click, Click at:

http://explorestrangenewworlds.blogspot.com/2006/07/click-click-click-short-story-by.html

(Incidentally, if you want to read the other stories on those blogs looks at the Recent Posts links in the side bars as the links above will only show the direct link for the individual stories I've just mentioned.)

Well, it's getting very near Christmas now and I'm planning to do two new seasonal pieces of creative writing that'll appear on my Children's writing blogs - one is a new poem called Meticulous Nicholas and the other is the second adventure in "The Kittiwakes Chronicles", entitled Kyle's Companion. It's funny how writers' minds work - I find that often a title for a story comes to me before the story itself, almost like a signpost to another land, pointing the way... Anyway, stay tuned here and I'll let you know when they're finished and ready for public viewing.


I also have an apology that the promised Contacts page for my official website isn't up and running by now - I think I originally forecast by the end of November it'd be done but I'm afraid there have been delays. This is mainly because of me actually getting down to write more of Moon Crater for a change and also because Twig and the penguins at his design factory held their Christmas party early, and had a three week lock-in at The Frosted Icicle tavern in Coalbottle, (ever been there? It's a quaint olde worlde pub, but just don't order the fish!). Anyways, we're now working on a timetable of the turn of the year to get that particular page up and running at www.findthemissingreel.com - just so that the design team have time to work off their hangovers (Polar Porridge is one heck of a cocktail and that's all the penguins will drink when they're on a night out).

OK, that's all folks, for now, at least... Suffice to say, next time I'm planning to get back to the basics of what I like to do best on this blog - actual "writing" about creative writing rather than reporting about it! I really enjoy writing the little features I've done every so often here, like this one about my home village:

http://cgallan.blogspot.com/2006/06/hydro-field-cuts-through-my.html

Remember that? Well, anyways, in the spirit of feature writing, next time, I want to talk to you about the tradition in novel writing of "a book within a book" - Intrigued? Check back here over the next few weeks for more... ;p