I’m writing this blog on Oíche Shamhna from an old château in the South of France. Sometimes it really is a case of being in the right place at the right time. I’m well into the second week of my residency at La Napoule Art Foundation, on the coast in the Bay of Cannes, and I’m having a ball. It’s…
The process of reading through my current draft of Attrition continues. I delayed it by a couple of weeks while I worked on a smaller project, which I’m fairly happy with, and it was good to give myself some distance between drafts. I was hoping that this was going to be a read through, mostly focused on taking notes about…
As the flowers blossom and bloom all round me on my daily walks with Cody it seems somewhat at odds with my current writing practise. Rather than growing, I seem to constantly be cutting at the moment. It’s all part of my paring the story back and starting the story later routine, although now I’m worried that I’ve been over…
The second draft of Attrition is progressing well, although I’ve been re-reading it more than re-writing it at present. This is the part of the process where I veer from hating it to loving it on the flip of a coin. There’s a lot of note taking involved. Some of it is just tightening up the topography of the story…
Attrition continues to move in the right direction although I’ve conceded that I won’t get the first draft completed within 2018, barring a Christmas miracle. It really has become an action of attrition itself, in every sense of the word. Sometimes it feels as though the characters are goading me on “come on, I dare you to finish this” so…
With Halloween on the horizon I’ve recently been reading In a Glass Darkly, a collection of short stories by Sheridan Le Fanu. Le Fanu was a Victorian Irish writer who mostly wrote gothic horror and mystery. One of his best known works, Carmilla, comes from this collection of supernatural stories. Carmilla is an early work about vampires and pre-dates fellow…
We’re well into my favourite time of year; between now and January is usually my ideal season. I know it’s probably not the most popular opinion but I’m glad the summer is over. There seems to be a backlash against “fetishising” autumn, which is understandable when every second thing is pumpkin spice this and that, but that doesn’t mean that…
Once again the time has flown by since last month’s blog. I’m now, thankfully, a lot more mobile and have started physiotherapy for my broken foot. I’m also down to one crutch and weaning off that, so it’s all going in the right direction. I returned to my day job this week and after not being there for three months…
My bags are (almost) packed for my imminent fellowship at the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire and I’m more than excited. The time has just flown around and even though I thought it would never come it now feels like it’s arrived out of nowhere. Last year I decided that for 2018 I was going to try to take more…
The curtains have downed on the major theatre festivals for this year and I have to say the overall standard this year was very good. Of the many shows I reviewed, and the ones I attended for my own pleasure, there were some real dazzling gems. That’s not to say that there weren’t a few duds in the mix either…
David Keane 