I am a dirty bastard

It's occurred to me on the bus home tonight (I was too lazy/tired to walk) that I love dirty literature...not that kind of dirty literature! (although I'll be honest and say I'm partial to that too...)

To be precise filth, squalor, decay and rust. Mouldering stonework, water stains, reeking cess pits, disease and depressive situations. I love corruption and fallen empires and particularly faded grandeur there's just something about it that I love to imagine and embrace. Let the pervasive stink of those horribly downbeat locales wash over me.

I find them the perfect origin for characters to wallow in and rise above.

The only time I like a utopia is when I have the option of bringing it crashing to its knees. Looking back over the vast majority of things I've written in the past I see a great deal of oppression and suffering. It's not a nice setting I like to create  by any stretch of the imagination.

But that's the weird part of it. To me, there is a great deal of beauty in the perverse and ghastly. At least when it comes to literature. The things I describe are not the sorts of things I want to see happen today in the world, this is strictly imagination based.

Having said that, suffering as a literary concept intrigues me. I want to hurt my characters, to truly make them suffer and bleed. I want to break them and see them come crawling through on bloodied palms before giving them the reward they need.

Through suffering and pain comes true character in fantasy literature. The noble lord on his shiny charger...that's the kind of character that I'd have gutted and used as a latrine by some filthy brigand as soon as possible.

My characters will have to earn their place in the world, or be snuffed out by it.

However, I suspect I need to find a balance between relentlessly miserable, and something which is also entertaining for other people...

Phill

Meet Mariya

Weeee, say hello to our heroine, Mariya!

Art by the fantastic Daniel Warren, if you like, go shower him with your money: http://goldendaniel.deviantart.com/

Phill

Mixed news

Last week, at the end of my fab long weekend I received news of a bereavement of a very close family member. I'm still not entirely sure how to feel. I'm not exactly the best person in the world for being able to handle grief, so maybe I'll only find out in time.

Perhaps somewhat unsurprisingly it has been difficult to write in the week following the news. My usually scatological brain has been at best slapdash and at worst...nonconstructive to say the least. Things have been picking up however. On Saturday I think my brain decided to catch up with the rest of my body and I ended churning out roughly seven thousand words.

I guess I was in the right mental state for the subject matter, pain, death and regret.

It does indeed seem to eased things up again, focus is still poor, but I'm writing again at least. Hit 70,000 words at lunch today. A cursory glance reveals that I need to sit down and re-read and re-shape some of what I've been churning out over the last couple of days, but for the most part, at least to my eyes, it's solid enough work.

I certainly need to go back to the dark section too. It's not...harsh enough. I need to stop treating my characters as if they were made of china. I want y'all to feel the pain, mental and physical that the people involved are going through. Without pain there can be no change, and one character is going to be going through an awful lot of change.

There's some other good news too, to counter all that negativity. Pretty soon I should have something truly amazing to show you.

Phill

So yeah.

I tried LARP for the first time yesterday. I don't particularly think I'm very good at it, but fun nevertheless!

And in other news, 60,000 words, hurrah!

Happiness.

Phill

Hurrah for viruses!

Somehow managed to contracted a virus which did a real number on my pc.  Was forced to re-install windows yesterday, and I lost a good deal of stuff. Ended up spending what should have been a 'write-happy' day turned into a grumbling, fucking about day getting my computer back into working order.

Such fun times I have!

Thankfully, the virus was lying about the hardware damage. Be on the look-out for a malicious piece of shit called S.M.A.R.T. HDD checker, or something like that. There is apparently, a legit program of the same name, but I certainly didn't install it!

Best part of a day wasted. Pleh. Especially when I was so geared up for writing. Karma? Fuck you! it's sod's law.

Hopefully today will be somewhat more productive :(

Phill

Long Weekend

Ah, it's a Friday morning and I'm not heading into work! Forgot to turn off my alarm, but, hey, that's not such a bad thing.

Long weekend beckons, here's hoping I can find it in my to write like an absolute demon. Admittedly, my back is totally knackered and my brain is like mush, but I've still got a good feeling about this.

Also, I'm a terrible person for not writing any blog posts for a week. Bad Phill.

Anyways. I'm going to grab myself a coffee and put some clothes on (that's right, naked Phill. Take a moment to picture that gorgeous image) and get writing!

Much love

Phill