Egotism – Page 5 – SciFiFootball

‘Journalism’ on the LeakyWiki.

December 1, 2011July 3, 2014 David Stringer

I’ve recently branched out my writing, and have started to do a little bit of journalism, on the up and coming American news website The Leaky Wiki.
Already I’ve covered the scandalous emails showing that the Qatar World Cup was not chosen as the result of corruption, and sat down with a leading member of the American Tea Party.
Hopefully there’ll be more to come in the coming weeks, I’ll do my best to keep up the habit of regularly updating my blog and twitter accounts when a new edition goes up.

Journalism lesson number one - place your laptop at a jaunty angle, not solidly on the desk. The possibility of it falling and breaking will keep you on edge, and keep the thoughts flowing — Me at work

There are two editions a week at present, Monday and Thursday, if anyone reading wants to bookmark the site and check back regularly. The site has just started up over the past few months, and is becoming a very good site, which already has a lot of entertaining articles.

The LeakyWiki.com

Egotism

My use of NaNoWriMo

November 24, 2011January 18, 2013 David Stringer

Like many across the world who want to be writers but keep putting it off, I’ve been taking part in NaNoWriMo.
But rather than using the month, as intended, to get an entire novel written, I’ve used the thing for two different purposes – to get a short story written, and to get started with writing a blog.
The blog so far has been a partial success I’d say – got a fair few things down there, starting to get into a rhythm.

The short story, a science fiction story set on a space ship in the distant future (I never said it was anything profound) is something I’ve went back to on and off for a few years.
I’ve had greater problems with this. Mainly around self-consciousness – I tend to feel, when I’m writing, ‘did I do this right? Does this work?’
So I’ll obsess over whether jokes are funny, action sequences are exciting enough, and so on.

An actual line from the opening infodump in Phantom Menace. I may have changed the punctuation. — The taxation of trade routes to outlaying star systems is in dispute!

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Egotism

Self Doubt & My Writer’s Contract

November 11, 2011January 18, 2013 David Stringer

I started writing a blog with the intent of getting myself writing regularly. The idea was that if I blog regularly, take a look at different stories from an analytical point of view, as well as finally completing a version of a story I’ve referred back to a few times over the past couple of years, giving me the momentum to keep myself writing regularly.

I’ve been looking at an old TV programme, an old sitcom episode, analysing and applying the various bits of story structure I’ve picked up over the years.
I’ve more or less written notes out, but I feel like I’ve got nothing new or interesting to say, and take a long time saying it.
So yeah, my habitual, ingrained self-doubt is still there, nagging away at me.

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Egotism

About the Name

November 8, 2011January 18, 2013 David Stringer

You may recognise that my blog name is a paraphrasing of a Samuel Johnson quote – ‘No man but a blockhead ever wrote, but for money.’

I first came across this quote, probably when I was a teenager, in a ‘Thought for the Day’ section in a local paper. I accepted this as being correct, despite how easily it falls apart under scrutiny.

I’m not completely sure what connotations the word ‘blockhead’ will have held in the 18th century, but I think it’s fairly safe to assume it means foolish, stupid, and so on.

Blockheads monkey — Or an oddly feminine monkey

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Egotism

My very first blog post

November 7, 2011January 18, 2013 David Stringer

I’m an aspiring writer.

I’ve heard it said that anyone looking to get into writing should stop thinking of themselves as ‘aspiring writer’ and just think of themselves as a ‘writer’, regardless of whether they’re paid. But my stories tend to fall apart halfway through, so unfortunately, I think that word, ‘aspiring’, belongs up there.