A little video to say thank you to everyone who watched my videos this year.
Includes cameos from two people I’ve never mentioned before, but are very important to the channel.
I also finally censor that controversial swear in Rocking Around the Christmas Tree by Mel and Kim!
Sharing a video from Rachel Howells YouTube channel. She has a chronic pain condition and most of her videos are about that but she’s also an author.
In this video she talks about writing with Fibromyalgia. It’s a great video that’s worth reaching the end of because… at the end she’s recorded a Christmas/Fibro rap song, and it is brilliant!!
I have been stuck on Chapter 27 of Hell’s Ridge since the 16th November!
I’ve just looked back at my Instagram posts and saw that, on the 16th, I wrote, “Stupid chapter 27. I’ve been looking at your for nearly forty minutes now”. Well, that forty minutes turned into a month.
900 words in a month. It has never taken me that long. But, I finally broke through. I got it down and the floodgates have reopened. It was that 20,000 word hurdle.
I wrote a short story last week so I haven’t been unable to write, it was just that bloody chapter 27. When you come to read it, and you get to that chapter, you ‘ll wonder what all the fuss was about.
Now I’m back on track and ready to finally get this thing finished. Only 15k to go.
Sometimes writing is just hard. Every word is like hefting a lump of marble onto the page. For me, the rewrite is my enemy. What’s the hardest part of writing for you?
Worth watching for the bits with Rachel Howells in, because she’s just funny. Feel free to skip through my not particularly extraordinary day though…
Join me as I count down to Halloween with a new video each day. Every morning we open our advent calendar of the weird and discover an author who died in a particularly mysterious or unusual manner ending on the 31st October when we learn about the strangest death of them all. But who will it be?
In today’s video, number ten on our list… the bizarre life and curious death of Jack London.
When you’re writing a novel sometimes you have to do a bit of research, and sometimes that research brings up incredibly interesting and surprising things.
In this video, my beard (which I’ve been growing for a year and a half) gets the scissors! And then I talk about a new “Mandela Effect” that I have discovered while researching ostriches. Can you describe an ostrich’s foot without Googling it? Answers below!
Yes, coddiwompling is a word, and I’m bringing it back.
Last night was a bit mental. I had made a public declaration on here and on the Bestseller Experiment podcast group on Facebook, that I would complete a novella by midnight on the 31st Jan. On the 1st Jan I only had one chapter. Yesterday morning I still had six chapters to write.
I decided to document my race to the end with short videos on TikTok and shared them on Twitter and Instagram. I needed to give myself the added pressure of other people’s expectations.
Midnight came and I still had three chapters to go. I finally finished at 1:44 this morning, feeling frazzled and slightly nuts.
It’s done!!
Much polishing to do now. A cover is in the works which I will reveal soon.
The story is called Gnome. It’s a homage to creature feature movies from the 80s. Critters, Gremlins, The Gate, and Ghoulies. And the basic idea behind the story was inspired by a Brothers Grimm story of the same name.
This was only the first part of my public declaration. The second part is to complete a story called The Projectionist and The Wall People by 30th April. And then to finish a movie screenplay called Price of Life by the last day in June.
It’s going to be a busy year. I can’t wait!
Here’s the last video I posted at 1:44 this morning-
Andrew Chapman / Author and Screenwriter 