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

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 they did that day to be sealed in a time capsule website for future generations. It's not too late to put your diary on there if you can remember what you did that day - History DOES matter in so much of our daily lives (it certainly informs me on a regular basis in every aspect of my writing - street names, place names, the natural features of the world of Moon Crater all get their influence from things past...) - so, why not pop along to the History Matters time capsule blog today and add your own message to the future?
http://www.historymatters.org.uk/output/page97.asp




Now, back to my own distractions and writing endeavours... These past weeks, I've been busy beavering away at re-writes of the first crucial 5 chapters of Moon Crater since setting the Fiction Decisions Poll in September (which you can still see the results of in my previous post below) - but still the chapter redrafting process rolls ever on - I've got 4 of my original 9 chapters left to re-write and overhaul, then I'm beginning afresh from Chapter 10 - but it's not all aimless meandering in a misty field at dusk - I've got my trusted "Moon Crater bible" completed now in which I know chapter-by-chapter exactly what I want to do plotwise...

Meantimes, Twig has been sent off on an epic quest to find an e-corkboard to use on the next page to be launched over at my writing website. He's managed, despite treacherous conditions and many sleepless nights, to complete the undertaking, but he's also taken up his own writing again along the way, so his penguin workers' flippers are pretty busy at the moment, juggling a lot of different things. Anyway, the gist is that by the end of November, the contacts and credits page (accessible through the mobile phone on the main homepage at www.findthemissingreel.com ) should, flippers crossed, be up and running... (For fun, click on the corkboard pic above, where I've pinned some miscellaneous Moon Crater tidbits...)

I've also started to write two brand new short stories for kids - they're my "stories on the move" in that I'm forcing myself only to write them when I'm on a bus or Metro, or out and about and not at home, slumped over my desk, worrying about the next line of Moon Crater... The first is called Strange, Strange & Gardener and is a sort of macabre tale of a quiet boy's visit to his old aunt's solicitor's office... The second is what might spawn a series of kids adventure stories, called The Last Week Of The Holidays... For now I'm only going to tell you the titles but, remember, you heard about them here first, and I might give some sneak previews to them on this or one of my other blogs soon...

The last big, big news as far as my blogging exploits are concerned is that I'm finally relenting and making the move over to "Beta Blogger" - a new and improved version of the blogging engine I use to create my online writing journals. "We resist change..." but hopefully the move will be as smooth as is promised by the promotional material Blogger puts out, and if anything, the appearance of my blogs should be improved and become more user friendly in future...

Embracing change to its fullest extent, I'm actually going to overhaul the look of this, my main writing blog (the others for now will stay more or less looking the same, with my short stories on them) - but to reflect the mystery and intrigue surrounding Moon Crater, which I've been trying to build through www.findthemissingreel.com , the "skin" for this blog is going to change from the pale beige to a new and exciting template, which should add to the "secretive" feel of the story I'm trying to tell... (Hint: if you've noticed a new blog of mine suddenly appear over the last few weeks regarding Laurel and Hardy and flippers, you may have already been given a sneak preview of how this blog will look now - too late to go looking for it now, though, that 'new' blog has been "wiped"!)

So after 25 blog posts, on the sort of "silver anniversary" of my online writing journal, and after emerging unscaithed from top secret meetings over doughnuts and Slush Puppies with Twig and his penguin workers (they now have a fully integrated union, you know) the new design for my writing journal will be unveiled here in the next few weeks...

Well, I feel well and truly exhausted now - you know what they say, you wait for one blog post to come along for ages and then a whole bunch arrive all at once! I hope I've sufficiently entertained you over a tea break or malted milk, but if you "need more input!", I'll be back here soon with more exciting news about my first forays into working with an illustrator/artist!