History, Grammar and Videos. Sounds intersting? It isn't.

Today is a good day. Weighed down by a cold, I still managed to register for a course with the OU (in case you are interested, and I bet you aren't, it is Ancient Cities) so I can now have the required pressure to actually learn some pure history. I can't wait for the 4th of November.

I trundled my way through my first database - it is small it is crap but it is almost funtional - at work.

I've also been doing some grammar studies... This taught me quickly that my education in this area wasn't just poor it was lacking. Don't get me wrong I instinctively can tell at least two thirds of the time when a sentence is written correctly, or incorrectly. I just can't work out most the hows and whys. This is a problem when reading The Elements of Style on the bus.

So I'm searching for a dictionary of grammatical terms to aide my comprehension as I'd like a little more depth than the glossary it contains. I may try to use this blog as a workbook, posting sentences or rules that confuse me and see if I can't come back to them with understanding later. Maybe I'll even sneakily gain help from generous passer-bys.

Oh and shamelessly plugging this; You Know. A relation of mine features in this.

Dreams

I certainly shouldn't be doing this at work but it is all part of the grand plan for procrastination. I'm also fairly sure I set up a blog a while ago but I can't find it or any mention of it so I must have been dreaming.

Well in that dream I started it because I was at the time not writing my book. My silence since does not mean that I've been anymore successful in this. In fact I took not writing to new heights; luckily by this point in gainful employment so I am not starving for my lack of art.

Starting one today is so that I can record the strange occurrence of a dream (this time I know it was actually a dream) that I had last night and I must not forget.

I dreamt that I was in a creative writing class, odd because I've never attended one, with a very excitable and animated male teacher. I didn't catch his name and the other students seemed not to have been fleshed out well and in fact may have actually been cardboard cut outs... I hope this doesn't translate into my writing.

In the course of telling this man the plot thus far, who reminded me of a tall and moustache-less Albert Einstein in that he seemed all white hair and excited animation, I got some really sound advice for my book. In fact it was incredibly specific.

One exmaple is when I was telling him the central scene that had occurred to me in its rawest form as the germ to the whole book and I was interrupted with a comic series of Churchill-Dog Nos. My imagined choice of magic creatures in this scene was thoroughly questioned and in fact I came up with another way to represent the idea that might work better.

We went on to discuss the importance of showing exactly how the main character gets from the starting place to this pivotal scene, no need to bore you with detail that won't make sense. Bearing in mind the dreamscape was now a windy slope with a waterway at the bottom, no sign of cardboard students - shall I assume I got invited for individual tutorage?

The dream had no particular end but when I awoke in the middle of the night furiously committing these details to memory I felt really good, utterly mad but happy.

I have lots more ideas for this now, with scenes and plot development fleshing out what I already had. Also some general advice on writing I had encountered previously I can actually apply to my own writing.

Now without analysing it too much it may just be the influence of this wonderful joint blog www.deepgenre.com and the things I've read there. This is at least my hope, Freudian crap gives me rage, and strange dreams are not all that uncommon.

Notes to Self: Scene discussing individual screening for world thread compatibility - how it is done, when and how one might fall through the net. Ayden's mother/town how that happens is there blame?