Colin Harvey – author

Something significant happened at 12.27 today; at about the same time as I was submitting my first assignment, in Feature Journalism, the thermometer rose to freezing point. It’s the first time in I’m not sure how many days that it’s shown positive.  It’s still bitterly cold, but at least now I can leave off tipping boiling water into the bird bath. (No, we’re not parboiling the local sparrows — within a few minutes it’s barely above freezing again, but at least it’s drinkable)

Kate took some pictures yesterday, which will illustrate our wintry world far better than I can.

And in the same way as there’s a sense that the world is thawing gradually, so I’ve finally started to feel as if I’m getting on top of things, for the first time in quite a while.

Partly that’s because I’m about two days away from finishing the revision of Ultramassive.  I have one more pass to do a light edit of certain passages, but I’ve used the time freed up from working at the BEH to target this.

And, as I blogged yesterday, Film is done and dusted for a few days. It’s now onto the nice part, the concept stages leading to a screenplay.  And tomorrow night our core lecture will take the form of a screening of the Swedish version of Let the Right One In. Must remember to pick up the popcorn on the way in…

I’m spending a lot of time –so much time– analyzing and writing about the spreadsheet that I started to monitor my hours.

I spent a little under four hours a day on average on writing stories, blogging, reviewing and on ‘others.’ That excludes blogs and creative writing exercises for uni, such as the film blogs. So I wrote the first part of a horror piece in November, but because it was specifically for genre, I didn’t count it in this part.

I spent about three hours a day on specific uni work, and another hour a day reading.  That shouldn’t be work, but when it becomes the basis for other items, such as reviews, or is part of a set text, then it can’t be ignored.

Interestingly (at least to me!) was the revelation of how little actual fiction writing that I do, at least when the novel is at revision stage. As little as forty minutes a day, but it’s the crucial forty minutes — get that novel revision done, and I settle down; defer it, and I get twitchy.

There is also a reason for doing the revision in small, daily chunks; it allows my subconscious time to process, and enables me to really focus on the text in front of me. A friend of mine attempted a novel crit in one go and said;

Equally interesting is the split of academic subjects within a three hour day, but I’ll continue that over on the Film Making Mumblings blog, for those who are interested.

So what’s the point of all this navel-gazing?

The reason for all this analysis is that with such a scattered and diverse set of tasks to occupy me, it would be very easy to neglect one aspect of my work.  This way, if I’m spending too little time -say- networking (as if), I can rectify it.

I know that there’s a danger of going overboard on this, but I’ve decided to keep the sheet going, for that last reason. I just have to ensure that it doesn’t become an end in itself.

I started this blog post yesterday, but had very little time, so you’ll have to use your imagination and pretend that it’s Wednesday, and not Thursday. (Hey, why shouldn’t I demand a bit of reader contribution?) Anyway…

I had my first Genre session on SF yesterday. I wanted to approach it with the open eyes of a student with no previous knowledge of the genre, and have no preconceptions that might blinker me. But it was an odd feeling, because you can’t undo what you know.

The result was that I kept hearing things that I’d heard before in a slightly different  way, rather as if I was hearing echoes of voices. Delany on Heinlein and his dilating door, Adam Roberts and his definition of SF as “where the marvellous is framed within a materialist understanding of the universe,” and Darko Suvin and his Novum (the new).

The lecturer is Antony Nanson, who reviews for Vector among other places. He has a wealthof knowledge and understanding of genre in general, but of SF in particular. I haven’t volunteered that I’ve published work, and he hasn’t asked. But he must have some idea….

…especially as he put up four scenarios for people to use to create an SF-nal world. And scenario number 2 was Damage Time, to a tee.

I now have to write a short-story in collaboration, which will be a new experience.

Now it’s off to meet the BSFA in London.

 As I mentioned on yesterday‘s Film Blog, I didn’t plan on posting today due to lack of time (it’s the nine-hour lecture day…except that I just realized that I’ve been planning on catching the bus at nine when I should actually already be in the lecture!!!)

But it’s not every day that one racks up eight years living in the same house. So, happy anniversary, house.

And to justify posting this as a blog entry rather than a tweet, here’s a nice review of Winter Song. Because the novel came out last year, new reviews have been thinner on the ground than when it was first published in the UK. So a nice one now is an unexpected bonus.

This will be the first time that I’ve written a cross-blog post that covers all three –my general blog (this one), my specifically SF blog, and the Film-making blog- but since the exercise that it relates to covers all my activities as a writer, and a creative writing student, it’s particularly appropriate.

I’ve often quoted the hours that I work in broad approximations, but starting on the 1st of November, I started to keep detailed records covering writing (for publication), blogging, reading and ‘other,’ (ie everything that doesn’t fit in those boxes) and of course, my four uni subjects. I’ve been as honest as I can be, since it’s really for my own records.

I’ll post up the results at the end of the month when I’ve correlated them all, but the interim results at the mid-month mark are surprising…perhaps even shocking.

Last week was actually a pretty good week to be ill, insofar as there can ever be a good time for that. But it was reading week — the idea being that we catch up on reading set texts, textbooks and general reading. So since for a lot of the week all I had the energy to do was read, it fell out quite well.

But this week it’s back to reality with a vengeance.

Well, here we are; Sunday night is already falling on the first night of winter time, and I’m just about done.

Four reviews, five guest blogs and a post of my own on Suite101, culminating in a review of the third anniversary Black Static, which is maybe the best issue I’ve read yet.  The lowest I gave any story was one of the three Highly Recommendeds, an Outstanding, and a Year’s Best contender.

Plus a horror film blog over at Film Making Mumblings.

That’s about three hours work this afternoon. More on that later…

Tomorrow I’m going to start posting extracts from Dark Spires, if I get time, I’ll do two a day — if not, I’ll do one. So expect actual blogs to be thin on the ground for another week, at least until after Bristolcon. But next week is not only post-con, but it’s Reading Week as well, which gives me about fiften to seventeen hours extra to…well, read.

Have fun this Hallowe’en night….mwahahaha…

Another day of reading and writing and blogging ; I finished Iain Banks’ excrable A Song of Stone and wondered why I’d bothered with it; then turned my attention to the contents of Black Static, which was much more enjoyable.

On the writing front once I’d finished revising Ultramassive, I turned my attention to Suite101 where I have a procession of guests traipsing through the visitor’s lounge to celebrate Halloween weekend, while I’ve posted the daily update over at Film Making Mumblings. 

I have a horrible feeling that the blog yesterday may have been an academic own goal. It seems that if we use something that’s been published and then use it in an assignment, we’re guilty of self-plagiarism. (Wtf?) So my thoughts on writing to brief are out, or I have to re-work them substantially.

Hmm, interesting…

Monday evening at the beginning of week 3; I’ve just about caught up after the landslide at the start of term. Home at 7.10 pm — after an 11-hour day, I really needed Worst Bus to fail to turn up like I need a chocolate fireguard.

I guess that if I can keep that going, it’ll be the pattern — swamped by the end of the first Monday, holding on the Tuesday, and then gradually catching up over the next twelve days, with a second mini-deluge.  With a reading week to come in November, that may give me a bit of a breather.

I’m going to need it, I suspect. I’ve found the last two weeks really stretching;  in the last two weeks –on top of working on Ultramassive– I’ve had to read Joe Hill’s 20th Century Ghosts which must count as one of the best collections of recent years, Stephen King’s Carrie and On Writing, and Greg Egan’s Zendegi, and  I’ve had to review and/or critique every one of them.

Today’s highlight was watching Brendan Donagh’s short film Six Shooter, which had me holding my sides at times. I couldn’t add it to my Film Making blog, since there’s no available footage, but if you get a chance to watch the exploding cow, I urge you to take the opportunity.

Definitely an in and out, black and white, up and down, good and bad kind of morning.

My old pc –not the Toshiba of Satan’s Arse, which is usually the cause of my tearing my hair out– which is normally pretty good, decided to lock up this morning. Nothing worked, so eventually I had to cut the power and reboot. And lo! The file which I’d been saving faithfully every ten minutes since creating it an hour earlier was blank, and I got a message which basically said ‘this file is corrupt; you’re stuffed, mate.’ Grrr.

Eventually re-wrote it, despite interruptions like the veg man coming, and being greeted in the usual shouty fashion by Tourette’s Dog. While I was outside bringin the veg, I photographed our crop of chillies which was nice (they would be those red things on the right, but for the fact that I’ve lost the connector cable with the phone – so you’ll have to make do with yet another look at Chris Moore’s cover for Damage Time) .

And the nice thing was finding another nice review or two. First there was Eric Brown’s review in Saturday’s Guardian, then an even better one in the Falcata Times. Actually that’s reverse order of writing, since the latter one was posted last Thursday, but it’s the order of writing.

So a mixed morning, which isn’t yet over — I have to go and read a script…