Here’s the thing. I really want to post something here that isn’t one of my Furious Fiction entries or a story I wrote in a journal or on a napkin, paper-bag or air sickness bag in the past couple of years. I do have a handful of all-new stories that are at various stages of completion, but none of them are ready to be posted. Then there are bunch of rewrites or adaptations of old stories and screenplays, all of which are really more long term projects. And I have also thought about to posting some more critique style blogs – reviews rankings, list, and the like. Unfortunately, I may be suffering from that whole option paralysis/paradox of choice thing. Which is a good problem to have, in many ways, but is still a problem.

So, instead of any of those other things, what I am doing instead is basically journaling directly to my website in the hope that if I keep writing it might turn into something worth reading. What do you think the chances of that are?

Something I’ve been thinking about in recent days, is how the process of writing a story, from conception, through planning, execution and drafting, followed by the necessary feedback and editing loops, differs from the respective processes involved in the creation of other art forms – the visual arts like painting and drawing mostly. The conclusions that I have drawn from my thoughts are… well I haven’t actually drawn any conclusions. If anything I feel like I have less concrete ideas than ever.

Writing where the end form is the writing, a novel, a collection of short stories, a blog etc. differs from writing where the end form is some other medium. I’m pretty certain on that one. I really only write short stories and I really only write them to be posted on this site (or entered into competitions, but that’s neither here nor there at this stage). I have written a handful of short film screenplays, but they have never progressed past the screenplay stage. What I think I would really like to do soon, is write something where the end form isn’t the writing, something like a song or a script for a Podcast or YouTube video, and see it all the way through.

Of course, I think I would need to collaborate with some other people on something like that, and I have a non-existent track record when it comes to collaborations.

Actually, wait. Yes I do want to try all those things mentioned above. And I would really like to find some like-minded people to collaborate with on any project that could use a talented writer. But in the meantime, I think I’m going to try my hand at something a little different. What is it? You’ll have to wait and see.

Thanks for allowing me to vent.

James Farish-Carradice