(31/10/15: For those wondering where "I Didn't Say It Was A Date" went to for a few hours - I deleted it after discovering that some who liked it were amongst those supporting the recent abuse of Toks Olagundoye and I am not feeling very happy with a subset of Castle fandom at the moment.

I don't care if people don't like Season 8 - I don't but the place to discuss that is in forums or on blogs and or even to write fanfic of better stories. It is not a license to abuse the creators or actors for any reason. If they want to enjoy their jobs and share it with others - let them.

However, I realise deleting the story because of the behaviour of a few was not fair to the rest of the people enjoying the story who gave me some necessary support while writing it these last ten months. I genuinely apologise to all of those people for any inconvenience.

I found out I can recover the story so I have done so.)

It has been at least two decades since I wrote any new piece of fiction but I had two stories I needed to read so decided I would have to write them. They changed in the execution.

I don't know if I have more stories to tell - I'll let time determine that - but I do know I am a better writer now then I was twenty years ago, even with all the gathered rust. Still, I know my reach outstrips my talent and if I hope to improve then feedback from readers, both positive and (gulp) negative, is necessary. Am I getting across the point I want to get across? Is my story-telling muddled? Are parts of my prose clunky or off-putting? Do I throw the reader out of the story at certain points?

So please, if you read, could you spare a few seconds to leave a comment. They will be appreciated even if I don't get the chance to respond individually.

Thank you.

Ed

(Updated: 24/05/15)

I just found the following when cleaning out some files on my PC. I can't even remember writing it, but this is how I felt halfway through my two-decade hiatus from writing new stuff. But I'm still working on the Castle stories.

Let Me Tell You About My Magnetic Octopus

Its father was conceived in 1977, its mother sometime prior to 1983, its midwife did the necessary at the end of 1984 and then it was passed to me to stagger with as it was expected to mature until I finally allowed it to wither from neglect sometime in the mid-90s. But it’s never really died and occasionally I’ll scrape off the barnacles, cut off or sew back an extrusion and try vainly to breathe life back into its struggling form. The major problem is I don’t know what to do to help it to adulthood, don’t know where to take it, have allowed my fears to constrain its growth and I no longer have any driving parental ambition to see it reach maturity and live vicariously through it. The need that led me to take on the responsibility for nurturing it has faded yet emotionally there will always be a connection, even if I was to wipe every last physical trace of it from the face of the earth. It haunts me, even buried carelessly away to be only occasionally glimpsed and coddled then shunted aside with its orphaned siblings. It is Banquo’s ghost and I am Joseph Grand from Albert Camus’ The Plague.

It is a script that I have had no new thoughts on for over 15 years, a script that was to be the beginning of a series of scripts of series that would rival Chaucer in its hyperbolic scope, a script that is simply a longer, less beautiful, less truthful version of Joseph Grand’s 20 year quest to complete his perfect novel but whose obsessive strive for perfection leaves him with having written and rewritten one sentence without ever being satisfied and moving to the next.

I am Joseph Grand and the millstone around my neck, my albatross, is my magnum opus, my magnetic octopus, my folly, my fear, my fleeting joy and fading memory.

And I still can’t let it die.

30 December 2005

Edited fifteen seconds after deciding I was finished with this opening tease and ready to continue the tale tomorrow. Am I a consummate example of an anal retentive?

30 December 2005 16:47