ABOUT
THE AUTHOR
Sooz, Pseudonym: Kat Black: Katherine Black: Jane doe: Sue Simpson.
Lizards Leap: Kat Black Keepers of the Quantum: Sue Simpson Better The Devil You Know: Sue Simpson People on the Edge: Sue Simpson Rat-a-tat-tat: Katherine Black Dark Around the Edges: Katherine BlackMy Name is Jane Doe: Jane Doe
All available on Amazonuk and in local bookshops.
Sooz 44, lives in Barrow-in-furness with one dog, ninteen mad reptiles, one man and one of two sons.
[January 2008]
AUTHOR'S OTHER TITLES (20) A Time To Live (Short Stories) Challenge piece. It had to be drama and it had to contain an affair at work. This isn't drama and isn't really an affair! Oh well at least I got a story out of it. [1,504 words] [Horror] Enterprise (Short Stories) Flash challenge piece working on the inspiration word of 'Innovation' [343 words] [Psychology] Fag-It Girls (Poetry) Saw these two while I was out getting a butty. [189 words] Famous (Poetry) It's hard being famous! [92 words] [Humor] Figures (Short Stories) Observational [549 words] [Psychology] Friday 11th Jan 2008 (Non-Fiction) New lizard arriving today. [2,828 words] [Biography] Friday 18th January 2008 Some Sexual Content (Non-Fiction) *Decency warning* contains some sexual reference [2,151 words] [Psychology] It Ws Only A Name (Short Stories) Murder Mystery [2,440 words] [Mystery] Jane Doe Seven 2008 (Non-Fiction) New year, new book, here we go again. [976 words] [Biography] Jane Doe Thursday 10th January 2008 (Non-Fiction) The Ark is full, but what's one more lizard? [714 words] [Biography] Thursday 17th Jan (Non-Fiction) Ructions [1,252 words] [Psychology] Wednesday 16th Jan 2008 (Non-Fiction) - [1,252 words] [Psychology] Wednesday 16th Jan 2008, Bloody Kids (Non-Fiction) Jane doe .... and domstics [1,350 words] [Psychology] White Phantom Chapter Five (Novels) Unexpected visitor [2,555 words] [Horror] White Phantom Chapter Four (Novels) Repercussions...After killing a man, Beth decides what to do next .. and meets Phantom [4,663 words] [Thriller] White Phantom Chapter One (Novels) Sometimes we make choices that can ruin lives. [623 words] [Thriller] White Phantom Chapter Seven, The Body (Novels) removal [4,875 words] [Horror] White Phantom Chapter Six (Novels) I know what you did last night [2,328 words] [Horror] White Phantom Chapter Three, Rape (Novels) Decency warning graphic rape scene may be deemed offensive. [8,980 words] [Horror] White Phantom Chapter Two (Novels) Beth and Maggie go through with it. [2,109 words] [Horror]
Saturday 12th Jan. Sooz
Saturday 12th January 2008.
Assante is fine. Obviously I took the water away from her last night, not letting that happen again.
Normally I don't mess with her at all on morning check, I just see that she's alive and okay. This morning I woke her up and got her out. I wanted to check her breathing and see that there was no snotty nose or eyes. She's great.
But my God she was aggressive, poor love. Full open mouth threat and trying to get my fingers, haven't had any of that for a few days ... but then, I don't like being woken up either, so I don't blame her in the slightest.
From now on I take All of the waters out every night. It's just not worth the risk. I know Kimba had worm problems and I think the fact that we found her dead in her water dish was incidental but, a cold reptile can become immobile and not be able to climb out of their water when temps are cooled at night. Just not worth risking. Assante's in shed this morning so that's obviously why she took to soaking, and she may have been perfectly okay and woud have raised her head once I'd given her some privacy ... but it still shocked me. Over sensitive after Kimba maybe, but she did feel damned cold.
Monday 14th January 2008.
I had such a bad year last year where writing is concerned. In fact apart from one Jane Doe, I didn't write a thing. I made a decision early on in the year that I was finally going to finish my novel, White Phantom. Phantom has been a strange one right from the beginning. Whenever you begin a new novel there is a buzz involved, beginning and end chapters are always great to write. Usually about half to two thirds of the way through you hit sludge and have to fight your way through it. However, with Phantom the bog was lying in wait for me very early on. I really don't know if I've just become lazy where my writing is concerned, there always seemed to be something else to do and when I did force myself to write it, I found it extremely hard going.
Because of this I was always amazed when it came to reading through what I'd written that I was really pleased with it, you'd think that if it didn't flow in production it wouldn't flow on read through, but, after the first two chapters, it did. Several times I abandoned it and had to really push myself to pick it up again.
At the beginning of last year I gave myself a good talking to and decided that hell or not I was going to finish the bastard thing. I'd come to hate writing it. I dropped my minimum, one thousand word a day, word count on it and decided that if I only wrote a couple of paragraphs it was better than nothing. It grew and I continued to be pleased with the results.
By June I was at a real nitty gritty part of the story, we were deep into the action and it was a pretty critical place to be ... when my computer went bang.
It was a big bang.
I lost the lot.
Of course I had back up. I've lost work too many times not to have my stuff backed up. But, I was stil backing up on disk and could only be bothered to do it on the last day of every month. I figured that if I did lose work it would never be much and could easily be redone.
As it happens it was a disaster. I'd been writing flat out that month and lost over thirty thousand words of White Phantom and twenty five thousand words of Jane Doe Six.
I was devastated.
It really did throw me into the doldrums. Losing some of Doe was bad enough but I picked up from the next entry, gave a brief explanation and carried on regardless with that. I could have cried about the entries lost .. but what good would wailing do.
I went out and bought myself a new laptop... and... a memory key.
Now I back up evrything I write the minute I've written it.
The damage to Phantom was far greater. Thirty thousand words that I was really pleased with are impossible to re-write. Doing them the first time was hard work and I felt drained after each chapter. Trying to recreate them and keep the standard up to the rest of the book is going to be horrendous.
I've seriously considered writing Phantom off. How easy would it be to delete all trace of it and forget about all the work and hours that I've already put into it... but I can't. It would feel too much like failure.
So I have a cunning plan. UKAuthors run a support workshop, the idea is to write a novel in a year. I have some very good friends on there and asked them if I could break all the rules and come into the forum with a half written book. I'm lucky in that they agreed.
So I'm going to go back to the beginning. I want to make Phantom better than it was before. I'm looking at each chapter in turn, seeing where it can be improved and giving it a good edit and tune up. I'm still disappointed with the first couple of chapters but I can't think what to do to make them better. They are just a way of getting into the story and as such they serve their purpose.
Hopefully when I get to the point where I lost my last chapters I'll just carry on writing with barely a second thought ... fat chance. I deeply resent having to do that work again. I'm also terrified that I'll lose the plot and not be able to remember how each sequence of events came about, but we'll worry about that when and if it happens. For now I have a new positive attitude and with help and support and a good kick up the backside I reckon I can do this. At the beginning of last year I said that my goal was to have Phantom finished by year's end ... this year it will be.
Col, Sandy and Daisy-ann, my granddaughter came to see us last night. As usual Kane, my grandson was, “Too busy.” It's very hard work being two years old you know, and he has a lot of social commitments, which usually involve sitting at home and watching cartoons with his beloved Granddad. Baby is growing fast. She's teething and giving mum and dad a bit of a hard time but she's a little stunner.
Dreading the end of the month. I have to do the annual stock take. It's a pain in the bum and I only did one in August when Dave, my assistant, started working with me. It's going to be an ordeal, but at least this year I know that it will be right and that I've got nothing to worry about. Last year I strongly suspected that Barry, my previous boss was heavily on the take. I was scared of the stock take results and worried that somehow he could transfer the blame to me. Indeed it was literally thousands of pounds down .. but he's in prison for his sins now, and I'm running the shop.
Have you noticed that I haven't mentioned the L word yet today. I suppose I better had before the shakes and the withdrawal sweats begin.
Lizards ... there, I feel better now.
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