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 tribulations of writing the novel, where as my official website will provide insights into just what
Moon Crater is all about... There'll be puzzles and clues to follow on the main site (there'll also be a lot more hints and clues on this and my other blogs sites, by the way), as each of the items on the desk top homepage are unlocked over the course of the next year. So stick with me, if you have the energy and enthusiasm and hopefully I won't disappoint!
I am very much on a writer's journey, sharing my experiences of writing here, as well as e-publishing my early short stories and other writing. I mentioned above that I have other blog sites (these can be found by clicking on View My Complete Profile above) and they all contain the different types of writing that I've done and want to do in the future. In the Archives (below, left) on this my main blog site, you can go right back to the beginning of my posts in May of this year and see where it all started. I rant about many different aspects of writing here - my influences, what inspires me, what I find curious about the world, but they all have a relevance to the ongoing writing of my first novel.
So, just what is Moon Crater about and what kind of a writer do I want to be? Well, on my main website, there's an introduction page that will explain more about the novel itself, but as I've already said I see myself for now as a children's writer. I love adventure, mystery and "oddity" stories, but I always want my stories to have a grounding in reality. I'm not really a writer of wizard or witch books, or far-away hidden worlds. The type of writing I feel comfortable doing, that most excites me and interests me, is that which shows what's actually possible in our own real world today. That doesn't mean I wouldn't write historical fiction - I have every intention of it in the future, and I also dabble in science fiction from time to time. But for now I want to explore this strange world we all live in and think we know so well, and mainly through a child's eyes.
Anyway, I'll sign off for now, but I'd appreciate it you've found my words intriguing and want to bookmark this, my other blog sites and my main website and come back and visit soon. If you have kids, or know people with kids, in the 8-14 age group, they might find my main website entertaining once the puzzles begin to show up there, so, please, help me to spread the word by pointing them towards it too.
Thanks for taking the time to read my many scribbles and any feedback or comments are definitely always welcome and read if they come to me via my writing email address at:
b_c_carden@yahoo.co.uk
Cheers, and once again, thanks for joining me for the ride...
CGAllan, 27th July, 2006.
" 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...
# "All my life, I've been watching America..." - (Razorlight)
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...
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/
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!)
"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...
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 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.
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.
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.
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...
