Another Snippet

So, writing is going well. I'm still building up my stamina and today have managed to pull of twenty minutes or so - hopefully will manage thirty or forty before I go to bed. Reading, too, is carrying on as well. I am looking forward to reading the new Harry Potter book here in a couple of day's time.

In any case, I've a new snippet for you to read! Yay! This is from early on in Chapter Two. Enjoy!

But none of it really started to sink it until the sun began to set. He had found a place to camp - by a wide, shallow stream that wound lazily through the grasslands, out of sight. The grass was shorter here and he could see better. He laid out the bedroll and stared up at the stars. The moons rose and the stars emerged. He flinched. Moons. Two of them - a larger blue one, deep blue but striated with bands of paler hue and a smaller burnt-orange crescent, hanging below and somewhere off to the right. He stared up at the sky, suddenly feeling very, very small; very, very lost; and very, very frightened.

Whether it be some scrap of memory remaining, or some base instinct somewhere buried in his soul, he knew. The sky was wrong. There wasn’t supposed to be two moons - just one, silvery, small and distant. Staring up at the sky, his whole situation well and truly began to sink in. He was on another world. Some other planet, some other dimension -

Does it really matter? I can’t even remember where I’m from. But - its wrong. Wherever it is, its so far, I can’t even really get my head around how far away home actually is. 

And he was utterly alone, cut off so completely off from his friends and family that he couldn’t even remember their names and faces. It was a uniquely horrible feeling as he sat underneath the vast, uncaring alien sky.

Reading?!

So, I am slowly but surely re-establishing my old writing habits. It's an ongoing process - learning once again how to silence my doubts and internal editor, trying to maintain momentum by writing every day, focusing on one big story and seeing it through all the way to the end and, most importantly, actually concentrating on writing instead of getting sidetracked by the internet..

All these things take time. Right now, I've started small. I'm writing for ten minutes here, ten minutes there - the plan being to gradually increase the time I spend writing as I continue to build up my focus for projects. It seems to be working so far. I managed nearly twenty minutes today (not counting the time I spent writing this blog - and some time I will probably spend afterwards on the project). One step at a time, I say. It's rather like exercise. You have to do it consistently and, over time, you'll gradually get faster - stronger or, in my case, able to actually concentrate instead of run off to the Internet after ten seconds.

But that's not what I wanted to ramble about today. I wanted to talk about...reading. You see, when I was a teenager I read constantly. All the time. Whatever looked interesting - primarily fantasy and science fiction. I was drawn to book jackets and interesting covers, drawn to new stories, new frontiers, new ideas, characters and settings to process.

And then I sort of...stopped and I suspect that my lack of reading has at least something to do with the decline in my writing habits. Oh, sure, I still read. But it was always old favorites, very rarely anything new. Well, I arbitrarily decided a couple of days ago to charge up my tablet, buy an e-book and sit down and read it. I then followed that up with a couple of graphic novels (also purchased digitally, by the way.). I felt that, afterwards, the writing I did was of better quality than usual: the words came easier and the quality was a lot better - something I was actually fairly happy with.

But what's more? I enjoyed the stuff I was reading. Sure, it wasn't deep masterpieces or anything. But it doesn't need to be. I just have to like it. It just has to appeal to me. So I'm going to start reading again - consistently. It could be old stuff I've read before - but I mostly want to expand my horizons with new books. Fantasy, sci-fi and perhaps a smattering of non-fiction. No quotas on genre or anything like that.

Whatever appeals to me.

I will, of course, have to rely a lot on my local library and Overdrive (the e-book library app for those uninitiated) because books cost money which, unfortunately, I don't have a lot of. I will likely allow myself a purchase or two every payday. And ebooks, unfortunately. I'm generally okay with e-books but I much prefer physical copies. And with the local bookstore in my area going under...

Sad day.

But anyway! That's no way to end this blog entry. Things are looking up. I'm getting back into the swing of things, the new novel is shaping up well and I am enjoying my life.

Till next time!

The Beginning

 I wrote this today. Trying to ease myself back into writing on a regular basis. Enjoy the mindscrew! =D (It's the opening part of Chapter 1.)

Daniel Stevenson stood alone, surrounded by thick coils of undulating fog that swirled around him like a vast white serpent. He could, at least, see - a sourceless white light illuminated his surroundings, such as they were. Occasionally, the coils of mist parted and he saw beyond. And then wished that he hadn’t. For beyond the white misty tendrils spanned an infinite void. It wasn’t merely empty space, he thought, but Emptiness itself - a blank pale gray stretching on and on to forever. There was no land or sky, no up or down nor left or right.

It felt simultaneously an infinitesimal distance away and, at the same time, so close that he might as well have had his nose squashed up against it. But then, thankfully, the mist covered it and he didn’t have to look at it anymore. He didn’t want to see anymore.

But he was still here, stranded in…wherever this was. He had a dim recollection that he should know - but that memory was getting fainter. Noises drifted to his ears. He had felt certain that he was alone but - now, he wasn’t sure. The sharp sound of a slamming door. Wild raucous laughter mingled with the sound of a flute. An angry conversation in an alien tongue - one he somehow recognized as speech, despite sounding like a three way blend between revving lawnmowers, whistling teapots and guttural dinosaur snarls.