The Life Creative with Chris G. Allan

# "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 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 )...

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...

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"...