I’m choosing to believe that, given the deafening silence that resulted in their posting, that my first two attempts at creative writing since school were critically acclaimed. Don’t worry if that sounds a little needy – they were both useful exercises regardless. But I have a fragile ego as it is dammit. Somebody stroke it. SOMEBODY STROKE IT!
The inspiration behind The Gamblers came seemingly from nowhere while I was washing up. I hope that those of you who read it didn’t see the twist coming too far off. Re-reading it now (for the first time since I wrote it) there are random words I might change here and there, a couple of spots where I’d add 2-3 words to flesh things out or (more likely) give a sentence something approaching proper structure, but nothing I’d change dramatically. The reveal, even though I saw it coming, still made me smile.
The Builder came from a fit of desperation last week and was inspired by one of the paintings we brought back from Hong Kong. Hand painted, yet still showing the same scene as thousands of other paintings (including a second we brought back!), it shows a view across the harbour in Hong Kong, towards the towering skyscrapers on Hong Kong Island.
The piece was originally called The Architect, a name which had a nice resonance to my mind – but then Alison made the observation that it reminded her of The Matrix. Sure enough, there’s apparently a character called The Architect who features in the last 2 films. Hence The Builder, which doesn’t quite sound right, but the main idea behind it is indeed a bit Matrix-y, even if that wasn’t my intent.
Re-reading The Builder I actually quite like the writing technically, the descriptions flow nicely and I was obviously able to use a bit of ‘real life’ detail. 10 kudos points to anyone who knew what the Kehlsteinhaus was without having to look it up. What doesn’t stand up though is the logic behind what happens – the idea is there, but the plot isn’t. Fixing that is mostly a case of developing the humanity bit at the end, give some depth to what changes his mind I think. There’s also some continuity to address – you’d be right to be confused by the end about how many times he’d interfered with Earth’s development, given it varies from a couple to a thousand depending on the paragraph you’re in…
Before I sign off – for the record, the last 10 minutes of the series 8 finale of Scrubs – 10 minutes of the most beautiful TV I’ve ever seen.
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