More Shadow

Well, it has been a surprisingly long and quite stressful week thanks, mainly to driving lessons, but now a new week has begun and, consequently, there is a new episode of Shadow for you to read.  In truth it's really this episode that starts the story off for real.  Episode I is more of an introduction, but it doesn't give you much idea what to expect from the series as a whole.  Episode II is much more honest and it introduces the character who I like most of all those I've ever written:  The Former Baron von Spektr.

As Shadow continues it will become clear that he is a very eccentric and enigmatic character, but despite his comic appearances he has a surprising amount of depth and history.  I don't know it all yet and I always enjoy discovering something new about him.  I suppose he's like my version of the Doctor from Doctor Who. In fact, since discovering classic Doctor Who I can now compare him with a somewhat more comical version of the First Doctor, although I was not familiar with that character when I created the Former Baron.

Anyway, visit Shadow, read it and tell me what you think.  I'd be really interested to know.  I'd also be interested in any advice people might have about getting the word out about it, although since I haven't even managed that with this blog, it seems unlikely that anyone will reply.

Or will you?

Drivin' and Larkin

Well I had another driving lesson last night and it did not go well.  I was in a new area, it was very dark and a little wet and I was quite tired and so it is probably not very surprising, when you consider how little confidence I have behind the wheel, that I panicked often with nearly disastrous consequences.  My instructor got annoyed with me and I got annoyed with him and in the end I snapped.  The result was kind of cathartic and in my remaining lessons booked with this company I hope things will improve, but I'm considering switching company anyway as I'm clearly a slow learner and it's getting too expensive.

The rest of the evening was better.  Eruntane and I had Haggis, Sneeps and Tatties (neeps being parsnips, as there were no neeps) and a little wine as it was Burns Night.  Neither of us are Scottish, although we've lived here for quite some time now, so I asked her to pick a poet to toast.  Apparently she'd had a bit of a bad day as well, since she picked Phillip Larkin.  I wonder if he'd enjoy being toasted, or whether the context would somehow confirm everything he ever believed about life and the human race...

Driving Business

So, the Shadow blog has had its first complete day of existence and, somewhat unsurprisingly, it has not become the No. 1 most read blog on the internet.

Don't worry, I'm not deluded.  I would, however, be genuinely interested in advice on getting the word out about the site.  There has to be a way to increase readership, other than just word of mouth and posting a link on Facebook, but I'm not really sure where to begin.  If I'm going to take this seriously, I need to consider my options.

In other 'news' I had a driving lesson today.  I think this was the seventh lesson, which makes fourteen hours so far.  I can't say that I enjoy them and I'm too stressed out by all that I have to keep remembering when I'm behind the wheel to really be able to enjoy the driving itself either.  Hopefully as I gain more confidence it'll all become clearer, but part of me (a part I have to kick into line everytime) just thinks it's stress I don't need.

Of course, I <i>do</i> need it.  Or at least it would be really very helpful.  Eruntane and I cannot spend the rest of our life relying on the kindness of strangers (and not just because that didn't work out too well for Blanche DuBois), or on the malevolent conveniences of FirstBus and trust me, I could write a whole other post about the things we have seen and/or heard on those diabolical conveyances!

No.  I have to learn to drive and I have to learn to do it well, but boy do I find myself marvelling at all those billions of people across the world who do it everyday without even breaking a sweat...  Seriously - how?

Argument

So, in an effort to keep my first post upon my return to this blog as something a little more 'pure' I've decided to leave all explanations to this post - a secondary post, but one which gets to the point a lot quicker.

Last night I watched Julie & Julia because my wife had just read the book and we'd just signed up to Love Film and a very sleepy friend had come over to visit and so this got put on. It was a good film, if admittedly of the 'girly' kind in terms of it's themes, but it was well put together and very well performed and I found something in its premise very challenging. Here were these two women, both with a connection to some kind of writing, trying to make something of it, putting so much effort into it that, in the case of Julie, it was actually destroying her marriage - which is obviously going a bit too far - but actually trying. And what have I been doing?

It was made somewhat more challenging by the fact that Julie Powell was taking charge of her writing career in the form of a blog, and here was this blog just sitting here, almost forgotten about, flooded with SPAM comments and links to sites I don't even want to imagine. (I'll have to work on deleting those, sorry).

So I guess the film was a bit of a call to arms. Now, as I said in my last post this is not about making grand promises or plans, despite the fact that I would probably work better under the same conditions as Julie, i.e. with a set deadline and target, but, to be honest, I can't really think of one right now. I'm too far out of my own stuff to be able to relate to any of that. What I can do, however, is try to blog more often. And I have another idea, one I might need to work on a bit to get going, or which I might succeed in starting up tonight - I'm not really sure. All I know is that this is probably worth doing - if I care enough about it, that is - so I'm going to give it a go.

Wish me luck.

EDIT:  The new project is 'go' - view it here.

Reintroduction

That last blog post was ironic. It was seeped in irony. Irony drips from its every typo and punctuation mark.

None of it was intentional.

You see Bebo came and went and with it (although in a somewhat more accelerated fashion) so did my blogging. I have barely blogged at all for 4 years and that includes my occasional journal updates on DeviantArt.

4 years is a very long time. Long enough for me to change job and change roles within that job. It's been long enough for me to stop writing almost completely and change the standards to which I want to write, even though I don't. It was long enough to get married, long enough to move into a flat which I actually own. Long enough to get a cat!

4 years is a long enough time to make me wonder if I'm still the same person who wrote this blog before, or if I've become something new. I wonder if that new thing is better, or worse, or if it's just a delusion born of a mind prone to pretentious delusions and self-deception.

4 years is very, very long time. I'm sorry I have not recorded much of it within the confines of this blog and sorrier still that I have fallen short on so many writing goals as to make a mockery of any attempt to call myself a writer. And yet, I do not regret any of those years. They are mine but, also they have been in the hands of one far greater than I and there have been many blessings to offset the disappointments I find within my own plans. I find myself in greater plans and in those greater plans, I think, I've found a little bit more of myself than I had before.

And so now I return here and wonder if I can start writing again.

No great promises. No grand commitment. No 12 step plan.

Let's just see what happens, shall we?