Expurgated

It seems to be a character flaw. I could attribute it to low attention span, or a lack of commitment, but whatever the reason, I find it difficult to concentrate on just one thing at once. Reading my history, you can see the pattern emerge – was in a band, was writing, was making films, etc. I play the guitar and sing occasionally at the local open mic night (in a coffee shop – an inspired choice of venue), I write, direct and edit films (such as the one I’ve had in post-production for almost a year. Don’t judge me, I’ve had other things come up), and I write stuff here and there. Don’t get me wrong, I am a film maker. That is me. However, I also sing, and I also write prose.
From time to time.

In my previous blog entry, back in November, I vowed to complete a 50,000 word novella in one month. The first week went well, and I was almost ahead of schedule, until the inevitable happened. It always happens in November, and always when I’m trying to write – I ended up with two weeks’ work. Usually, when this happens, I find myself at the beginning of December with less than 10,000 words. Not this time. This time I set my jaw, and had completed the whole thing by the early hours of November 29th. 50,027 words! Looking back, scripts included, I think it’s the longest thing I’ve ever written, and I feel a huge sense of achievement. Of course, it’s all very well throwing thousands of words into a document, but quite another to have them make any sense. I wasn’t expecting much; it was, after all, my first successful attempt at writing such a large piece of work (compared to short stories and screenplays, anyway – full novels tend to be at least 80,000 words). I passed it on to a few people for feedback, and to my surprise and delight, they thought it was pretty good! I corrected all the errors and typos I could find (and that my proofreaders pointed out), and finally, it’s here. In a few days, it will be available from Amazon, but in the meantime, it can be found at this link: Expurgated

I might take a copy with me to Cannes this year, and try to get it adapted…