News and blog from QlL

Countdown to completion: 35%!

jp — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 21:19:18 +0000

It's not quite as exciting as the days left till Christmas, but still....

Those of you reading this on the QlL blog might be able to spot a new addition to the site just to the right. As of today, it indicates that 10x10x100 is now 35% complete! That's 5% more than I managed to accomplish during NaNoWriMo.

Partial success of NaNoWriMo 2011

jp — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 19:51:29 +0000

30% more than if you don't write at all

Well, NaNoWriMo wasn't a total washout, as I had originally feared. Despite in no way hitting everyone else's target of 50,000 words, or even managing to land within the outer circle of 10,000 words (which was my own personal target) I've still composed... well, 3,000 words, or 30% of what I had hoped to achieve.

NoNoNoMo

jp — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 19:47:54 +0000

It could be worse: I could have an actual deadline to work towards.

I've been trying to take part in National November Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo) this year. I think it's fair to say the results are mixed.

How Queneau took over

jp — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 07:10:05 +0000

A quick summary of how it took so long to get here

In April 2008 I was starting to think about a new project, for Christmas that year. It was something along the lines of 10x10x100, although the exact details are difficult to remember.

This year it's all about the numbers

jp — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 19:15:31 +0000

This website suddenly wakes up every October, like the Australian pygmy possum. Like the possum, it's also somewhat endangered.

I've been working offline on a new project now for a few months. It's the same one that got away when Exercises in Song took over my life. It involves a lot of preparatory work, which would be hard to translate to things like blogposts, although I might well try to do so as we approach the end of 2011.

World Book Day meme

jp — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 21:39:57 +0000

Only a day late. Dare I say it's because I was busy reading?

The books I am reading: Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel; Getting Things Done by David Allen; Blake - A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. Northrop Frye; Schubert, by Mark Rowlinson; The Subterranean Railway, by Christian Wolmar; Finnegans Wake, by James Joyce; Six Degrees, by Mark Lynas.

The last book I read: The Vicar of Wakefield, by Oliver Goldsmith.

The book I am writing: Exercises in Song, by J-P Stacey.

Writing an exercise: Rhyming Slang

jp — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 07:21:15 +0000

You'd think concentrating on the rhymes would come naturally by now

The most liberating aspect of writing Rhyming Slang was being able to smuggle two swear words past anyone reading it. Three, if you include "cream-crackered". In fact, now I read it again, I realise it's a veritable cuss-fest from end to end.

All 99 exercises on one page

jp — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 20:52:51 +0000

We've done it, part 1

Since the last few Exercises in Song were completed around the new year, we've also quietly launched a proper index page for them. You can now see all Exercises in Song on one page, including the original song that inspired it all.

Does good writing matter in a doorstep novel?

jp — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 21:11:17 +0000

Down, down, Deaver and down to a new genre: fact porn

Over Christmas my parents lent me a Jeffrey Deaver novel. If you've heard of him, you've probably read him; if you haven't heard of him, then you might never have done so were it not for this blogpost. People who read doorstep thrillers read him in their millions, but you're unlikely to stumble across him if you prefer chick-lit or Bohumil Hrabal.

Nearly but not quite

jp — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 20:11:21 +0000

Snowpocalypse has put me behind schedule

I had almost written and published all ninety-nine Exercises in Song by the end of 2010, as I promised earlier. But just before Christmas I ended up travelling abroad—not unexpected—during the startlingly severe snowpocalypse—very much unexpected. Immediately afterwards I came down with a terrible, lingering cold with ear infections; then as that started to clear up, my laptop had connectivity problems.