Back at the office. But to balance the ☯️ I saw this 🌈
Penclawdd Industrial Revolution Slag
Sunday, 14 April, 2014
I took a walk out to the old rocks on the east side of the Penclawdd marsh this afternoon. These curious large boulders on the east end of the Penclawdd marsh are the industrial slag waste from the old metal works that were once located here and formed part of Britain's historic Industrial Revolution. During that time, coal, tinplate, lead, copper, silver and brass were all worked on this part of the Gower coastline. Today, as you can see, the landscape this industry once polluted to drive Britain's wealth is a scene of serenity.
I have been meaning to visit this area of Penclawdd for a while now, but I have always failed to take decent photos of these 'rocks'. I'm happy with the images I managed to harvest today, though. They will be useful for my Explore Gower book, Tidal Gower, which I shall be working on later in the year.
If you enjoy my creative work, please help support this blog and my other creative projects. You can buy me a coffee there to sustain me through the marathon. THANK YOU FOR YOUR KIND SUPPORT.
Links
https://goweros.blogspot.com/2013/06/penclawdd-copperworks-slag-boulders.html
Is this the end of my GNS Collecting?
The postie brought these two books to my hands today, the first having to travel the width of the Atlantic to reach my greedy fingers:
I have been after these editions for over a year, as they are by far my favourite editions of Guy N Smith's Satan's Snowdrop and Bats out of Hell.
I don't think there are many more GNS books out there that I am actively seeking now. Could this be the end of my collection? We'll see.
It's Official! Back to the City We Go
Writing Marathon DNF
Friday, 12 April, 2024
Well, what can I say? That was brutal. I started in good spirits, intending to complete the full 24-hour marathon. My hope was to complete a full novel's first draft in 24 hours. Did I fulfil this desire?
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| And we're off, with the positive messaging of the 1st hour's two hosts |
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| Here we go - let's get cracking |
I was working on a tough little cookie of a project - a novel I've had mulling around in the back of my head for several years now - my take on the teenage-girl discovers-the-supernatural-is-a-powerful-aid-in-navigating-the-adult-world trope. Although many hours had already been spent over the years trying to conjure a story to fit the title of the book I was set on keeping, Familiar, only a couple of key opening scenes had been mapped out on paper. The Writing Sprint seemed a great opportunity to force some meat onto the body of the tale. And so, at 8pm I sat at the desk in the caravan, opened a new Google Docs tab and began tap-tap-tapping at my laptop keyboard.
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| Christ, this is hard! |
Writing is a very solitary pastime, and it was interesting to write in the company of so many other souls tortured with the need to fill black pages with their words. The structure of the Writing Spring was that we gathered together to commiserate or congratulate each other at ten to each hour. Five to each hour was our break. Then, on the hour, we set our intentions for the next hour in the group before doing our next 45 minute sting of world-creating. All this, as you can probably see from the screen grabs I have included with this post, was done via Zoom,
Unfortunately, as the night drew late and I reached the stages of my story where I literally did not know what was going to happen next in the story, my brain started to stall, my eyelids became leaden, and my head began to droop. Encouraged by others in the group who were taking sleep breaks and giving up on the idea of doing the full 24-hour stint, I finally admitted defeat, from my original goal at least, and crawled into bed at 2am in the morning.
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| The state of me! By this stage, I even thought my laptop's touchpad wasn't working, only to find out I was stroking the table top lol, |
All in all, I completed eleven of my intended 24 hours of writing and ended up with four complete chapters rather than having the first draft of the entire book sorted. But, with a little mental gymnastic to wrestle some kind of success from cold failure, my next horror novel, my 9th, is in a much better place than it was just twenty-four hours earlier, and the story is a far stronger one for my having taken part in the Writing Space.
Will I participate in another Writing Sprint. You can bet your life I will!
Bufo Bufo
Thursday, 11 April, 2024
In the meantime, Me and fudj are doing some last-minute research on toads before my 24-hour writing marathon tomorrow.
If you would like to help keep me awake to draft a full 1st draft of my 9th novel in just one day, please help by buying me a coffee.
Guy N Smith Zine Cover Reveal
Wednesday, 10 April, 2024
I have a nice writing routine in the caravan, which has allowed me to make very good progress with my GNS zine/book. Unfortunately, this routine will come to an end this coming Friday, as the weekend will be taken up with my 24-hour writing marathon. I hope this will result in a full first draft of my 9th horror novel, Familiar. The two prime characters of this story are a teenage girl and a toad! Then, on Monday, I will be returning to the office after my mix of sick leave and, latterly, Annual Leave. God only knows what this will do to my schedule, though I am confidant of completing my Guy N Smith book within the 100-day project deadline. But, on the plus side of returning to the grind of working for 'The Man'... Well, I get to keep my job.
So, it's full steam ahead with my creative work this week. One of the things I worked on today was the cover design of the GNS zine - I hope you like it.
And, if you want to spoil the magic of how I created the above werewolf image, scroll down below:
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A Very Cold but Beautiful Penclawdd Sunset
Tuesday, 09 March, 2023
With a North Gower high tide coinciding with tonight's sunset, it would have been amiss for me to head down to my childhood home of Penclawdd and harvest the spectacle for your eyes.
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| High Tide made the Marsh Road route to Penclawdd a No-No |
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| The Car Park was full for tonight's sunset, with the cold keeping many in their vehicles throught |
If you enjoy my creating work, please help support my next project, a 24-hour writing marathon to create a workable 1st draft of my next novel, Familiar. You can buy me a coffee there to sustain me through the marathon. THANK YOU FOR YOUR KIND SUPPORT.
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