This post is my 150th website post.

I can clearly recall the moment I started this website. I was sitting in a computer lab at London South Bank University. The rest of the class were publishing The South Bank Review, an online magazine created by Creative Writing students in their Third Year. I had finished my contribution, a short story titled Urban Exploration and a review of John Green’s Looking for Alaska (links can be found under my publications tab) and was putting the finishing touches on this website. Then I hit publish. This was back in May of 2015. Although the type of content, the regularity of uploads and the look of the website itself has evolved over the past five years I like to think that the style and essence has remained.

Looking back at my first couple of posts (which you can read here and here) it is interesting to see how much as I have grown as a writer. Although I’ve been writing since I was about ten I didn’t take it seriously until I was sixteen. I think younger Jack would be proud of current Jack. I’ve published a novel, Empty Nights, and read the opening chapter to a live audience at the Brixton book Jam in 2018 (it was also around this time that I celebrated my 100th website post), I’ve maintained this website for five years and I’ve had a series of publications.

Here’s is a quick writing update from me.

I’m still editing the manuscript for my next two novels, The Truth About Nicole and The White Wasteland. I’ve also prepared my website posts in advance so I have a month’s worth of content prepared. I’ve submitted fifteen short stories to competitions and I’ve booked my writing retreat for later in the year. I’m still on track with my 2020 goals and I’m currently happy both with my writing career and my job.

Once again, thank you for reading my work. Without you, this website would not be possible.

Hello everyone. Welcome to my first rant and rambles post. In these articles I’ll be talking about a topic that is somewhat writing related. Sometimes I’m complaining, sometimes I’m making an argument. Sometimes I’m ranting and rambling. Enjoy.

The first topic of rants of rambles is Trigger Warnings.

A trigger warning, also known as a content warning, is a message given at the start of something to warn that the following content may be upsetting. Although trigger warnings are more popular online than in novels, they are becoming more common, with some universities even applying trigger warnings to required reading texts. These include academic essays and classic novels such as Tess of the D’Urbervilles.  The rise in popularity of trigger warnings has sparked a debate on their necessity and their usefulness.

Here’s an example of a Trigger Warning from the BBC, taken from my iPhone. Note the trigger warning at the bottom.

Continue reading

As you’re reading this I am probably taking down the Christmas decorations at home. It is tradition that if you don’t take down all your Christmas decorations by 6th January  then you will receive bad luck for the rest of the year. I don’t believe in luck (to quote Obi Wan Kenobi, “you make your own luck”)  but I also don’t want to tempt fate.

If you have had any form of online presence, you would have seen the joke about twenty twenty vision flying around the internet.

Joking aside I do think it is important to plan for the future and I think 2020 is going to be a brilliant year. I have a full time job that I love, I have lots of creative projects on the go and I’ve entered the new year with great optimism.

Here are my goals for this year.

1. Edit The Truth About Nicole and The White Wasteland.

I have two completed manuscripts sitting on my desktop. The first is called The Truth About Nicole, stands at 80,000 words and is the result of NaNoWriMo 2018 and Camp NaNoWriMo 2019.  The second manuscript is titled The White Wasteland, is 50,000 words which I worked on during  NaNoWriMo 2019. I haven’t touched either manuscript since I finished them and I’m eager to work through those pages with my red editing pen.

Several people have asked me about my writing process. I think it is like a conveyor belt. First I complete draft zero. These are little more than words on a page. At this point, the manuscript is riddled with spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. Sometimes the sentences aren’t even legible. Afterwards I go back and edit through this draft, correcting any mistakes and applying the right formatting. This is draft one. Once this draft is complete I’ll start adding additional scenes and removing others. This is draft two. After another read through I’ll add more notes. I repeat this last step  until the manuscript is ready for submission.

It took me eight drafts, and three and a half years, to complete Empty Nights. I’m not sure how many drafts There Truth About Nicole or The White Wasteland will require but I hope it won’t take me as long.

I want to reach at least draft three on both projects by December.

2) Explore more of England/The World.

I love travel programmes and I love exploring new places. I want to see more of the world while I have the chance. Last year I did well in this regard by visiting Paris and Gran Canaria.  I have another Writing Retreat booked in near Easter on England’s south coast and I also want to visit York. I’m also looking at attending the Edinburgh Fringe festival although, I’ll admit, this may be pushed back a year.

3) Consume more media

This may sound like a strange goal at first. When I was in younger I always seemed to miss the popular shows. I never watched shows like Breaking Bad, Skins or the Walking Dead and as such I never understood many of the pop culture references my friends used. I don’t believe in the saying, TV rots your brain. It enriches your mind and as a writer you should read as many books and watch as many programmes as you can. Although I finally subscribed to Netflix at the start of 2019 I didn’t make full use of it until the middle of the year. I’m making a vow to myself to watch as many shows as I can on my commute to and from work.

This doesn’t mean I will cut down on the number of books I read. As well as reading books (both physical and on my kindle) I’ve also started printing screenplays of my favourite films to read. If you have an interest in screenwriting there are thousands of screenplays drifting around in cyberspace, most of which are free. It’s very interesting to see how the story changes from page to screen. I have also started an Audible account so I can listen to books while at the gym. If you follow me on Twitter you will see that I’ve started the Goodread’s 100 books challenge. I’ll be keeping a record of my reads on Goodreads which will share across on my Twitter feed.

Those are my three main goals of the year.

I’ve also made some slight changes to this website. Previously each article has come under five different categories. Writing Posts, Spitfire Reviews, Inspirations, Interviews and Odds and Ends.  I’ve added a sixth category called Rants and Rambles, the first post of which will be out later this month.

What are your goals for 2020? Do you think it will be a good year? Let me know and I’ll see you next time.

I’m wrapping up this website slightly early this year due to the fact that December is a very busy month for me. Aside from Christmas, December is also my birthday month, I need to finish all my tasks at work and I promised my friend I would proof read his novel manuscript. I also need to submit my own manuscript to a competition in early January and plan to spend the month licking it into shape. As usual JackDowd’sWritingBlog will emerge in January, this time with a few new features…

Let’s reflect on my goals of 2019.

1. Empty Nights related events

My first goal was to turn Empty Nights into an Ebook and have it stocked in my local library. I used to have a joke with the school librarian that, one day, my books would be on her shelves.  Sadly none of these things have come to pass… yet. Empty Nights is not currently available on Kindle or as an E book and although I started research how to put it into my local libraries I was unable to follow through with the plan. On a positive note I have had to order more business cards because I gave away my first two hundred and fifty and I do attempt to bring my novel up in conversation.

2. Holidays

I’ve had a very successful traveling year.

In February I attended Paris for a fencing competition. If you want to know more about my journey I created a travel vlog which is on the StartingAsStranger’s YouTube channel. The video can be found below:

I also visited Gran Canaria with two university friends.  I was splashed by a dolphin whilst at sea and explored two shipwrecks in a tourist submarine. That was the highlight of my year.

3 Complete a creative project

After dedicating most of 2018 to Empty Nights, I wanted to take a break from writing prose and tackle a different medium. While on my writing retreat at the south coast earlier this year, I wrote a spec script for a TV series titled Gatekeepers. It’s in the same vein as The Sarah Jane Smith Adventures (if anyone remembers that brilliant program?) and I throughly enjoyed my time on it. I’m hoping to submit this script to various competitions  across the UK next year.

4. Submit short stories.

I’m ashamed to say that I have had nothing published in 2019. I’ve written ten more tales to add to my writer’s arsenal and I have also removed some old stories from circulation so I can tweak them for the new year.

5. NaNoWriMo 2019

If you’ve read my previous post then you’ll know that I completed NaNoWriMo 2019. I wrote 50,000 words in thirty days and have a rough draft of a new novel manuscript to work on in 2020

Four out of five goals. I’m happy with that.

Merry Christmas everyone. See you in the new year.

Hello everyone,

As you can tell from the above picture I am suffering for my art. I’m currently at 32,000 words which means I’m just above target. I’ve found that with my new routine I work best on Monday nights, Friday nights and over the weekend. Although this means my word count slumps mid week I can normally catch up.

Last weekend I participated in Nanorilla (rilla as in a gorilla campaign) where we jumped from tourist spot to tourist spot whilst avoiding the rain in Oxford.

Hopefully I’ll be able to post again on December 1^st with good news

Happy writing!

Hello everyone,

I think this is my third year of doing NaNoWriMo in a row and I always enjoy the experience. Although I find solace in writing… I also find it fun to write with like minded people.

In case you are unaware NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. The aim  is for a writers across the globe to jot down 50,000 words in the thirty days of November. This works out as 1600 words a day but you can raise or lower your end target as you see fit.  These words do not have to be of good quality. You can edit them in December or in the following year.

My project this year is called The White Waste (working title). It’s a horror novel set in the Antarctic Circle. I haven’t written a horror story in years and after reading Robert Falcon Scott’s Terra Nova Expedition (You can read my review by clicking anywhere in these brackets) and visiting several artic exhibitions the idea for this novel popped into my head.

Because I’ll be focusing solely on NaNoWriMo this month there won’t be another top five article this year. I’ll be posting a update on the 15th, half way in the month and another post on the 30th when I would have hopefully reached my 50,000 word target.

Wish me luck.