The Platinum Ticket by David Beynon

The Platinum Ticket by David Beynon
Shortlisted for The Terry Pratchett Anywhere But Here, Anywhen But Now First Novel Prize

Tuesday 5 May 2009

Home again, home again, riggitty jig...

After a successful trip north and back again  - success being measured in NOT hitting wildlife with the car - I'm back home and climbing a mountain of things to be done.

It was a perfect spring day so I naturally was in the garden working on dandelion control for part of the day.  I worked a little bit on my Old-Timer project and read over some of the Middleman Acquisitions thing I'm working on.  I have a whole pile of stuff that didn't get done.  Tomorrow promises to be a busy "Deal with the stuff you've been avoiding" day.

One thing to mention - at my wife's urging I joined an online writing group - a sort of workshoppy-feedback sort of thing.  In order to have your writing reviewed you need to review other folks' efforts.  As expected, some of the writing is very, very good and other writing really, really isn't.  So far I have posted only one story and it has been well reviewed.  There is something gratifying about having total strangers validate a piece of writing.  One reviewer's first comment was simply "Delicious." The unexpected bonus of the on-line workshop is that I have very much enjoyed reviewing other people's writing.  I didn't think I would.  I chose some stories that I considered quite good and purposefully chose some that, to me, were weak, but showed promise.  There were a few I read that were quite poorly written which I chose not to review, remembering the old "If you haven't anything nice to say" adage.   I know how difficult it is to put yourself out there and I've been around long enough to know if I find a story impossible to read, maybe it's just me and perhaps I'm not getting it.

Well, kids are home, the sun blazing down and the dog wants out...