There was a definite menace in the silence that followed. I don’t think I heard a front door close, which makes me wonder if I heard anything at all. Still, that silence pressed down on me. It wouldn’t let me close my eyes. I wasn’t scared. I wasn’t fearing for my own safety. My sleep, maybe; but not my safety. I lay there and waited for a violent encore. Raised voices. Doors slamming shut. Glass smashing. Or, worse, laughter.
Read MoreHere at The Blank Page, we like to try and keep our offerings to a fairly high standard. Sadly, this week, your erstwhile blogger is suffering from a mild existential crisis. He’s currently hiding in the attic and is refusing to come out. It’s been a pretty rough week for him and any attempts to blog about it have led to screaming fits, drinking and drawing on the walls.
Read MoreTime has been misbehaving this year. Or maybe it’s just me. I’ve certainly noticed it’s been toying with me, especially since the beginning of March. I had gone into Christmas last year feeling quietly confident about the draft of the novel I’d been working on for all of 2016. It felt like it was meant to be something special. A novel that was about something worthwhile. Social commentary was new to me, but I was giving it a go. I just needed to hack the first draft into a tighter version of itself. Hone the edges, kick the tires. It felt like it was going to be pretty simple.
Read MoreDeath is a neat little premise on the page. It’s whittled down to a tame plot point. It can be moved within the chronological order of things or simply used as a catalyst. It doesn’t even need to happen at the front of the stage. It can happen in the wings. It can happen before the audience have taken their seat.
Read MoreStorytelling is such a fundamental part of who we are now that I don’t think we could really separate it from our lives. Stories are how we talk to each other. They’re how we relate. They're how we relax, either together or alone. Let’s face it, social media is just one long, never ending story we’re telling to our friends. True, some of the character arcs are pretty vague and there are repeating plot points and bad grammar all over the place, but it’s a story none the less.
Read MoreWhat I’m trying to say is that a really productive writing session hinges on a particularly mercurial lynch pin. It depends on finding that certain kind of flow that comes from precisely not focusing on anything in particular. Instead, you allow yourself to be swept up in your own story. You’re trying to reach a moment where it’s no longer clear who’s steering: you or the story.
Read MoreI think I just spent too many years of my life assuming writing would be the solution to all my problems. I never realised back then how much of writing would be about other things. Selling myself being one of them. I never saw that coming as a kid. I just wanted to write. It felt like a clean and uncomplicated way to live. Writing seemed a way to keep away from the world, whilst engaging in it. I could hide in a pretty decent house, send my stories off for people to read and pretend that everything was A-Okay. Boy, was I wrong.
Read MoreSo, say you’ve gone to see the new Marvel movie; well, then you discuss that. You write your piece, tag it and put it out into the world. That would draw the, ahem, crowds. That would get people paying attention. You would not, for example, dump that idea at the last minute and decide to write about roughly the same topic you blogged about last week. That’d be crazy, right?
Read More