Biblios Hokku – Gospels

It has been a while since I published anything from my Biblios Hokku project.  I have started with the four Gospels of the New Testament, and have tried to give them each a unique flavour, based on the content and context of that specific Gospel.

I will be posting in more detail about each individual book, and why the piece is written as it is, on Sharkbait’s Reef.  I will however only be posting one a day, because the readers there like to savour each chapter.  If you are interested in the process, please come back and check out the links.  Click on the title of each book to go to the explanation.

As always, if you want to read the whole Biblios Hokku to date, click here.   

MATTHEW
A King from Heaven.
The long-awaited saviour.
JESUS is his name.

MARK
A man of sorrow.
Our salvation bought by blood.
“Follow me, and live.”

LUKE
Salvation for all,
Through his great mercy and love.
So much more to come.

JOHN
In the beginning-
There before Heaven or Earth.
This is who I AM.

 

 

 

Editing again

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am busy editing two of my old manuscripts with a view to making one, coherent, novel out of them. 

With this is mind, I have been reading the drafts again, and I must say I am surprised.  My draft from 2005, Only Tuesday, has some interesting moments and observations.  On the whole the writing style is rather amateurish, and it is full of one-liners and amusing observations that seem more about the narrator showing off than advancing the story.  However there is one very compelling character, and I am trying to figure out how to transplant her from the novel into my next one.  Apart from that, not much worth saving.  She gets all the best lines I think.

My second attempt, from 2006, was much better.  By a factor of 10 I would say.  Don’t get me wrong, I made the Devil do it, is still a very rough draft, and the writing style needs a lot of work; but I am not  embarrased by it, and actually look forward to finishing writing it so I can see how it ends.  I even found it amusing, and laughed out loud in places.

Lessons I have learned from this experience:

1. Everything they say about your first novel being crap is true;
2. Once you get the crap out of your system, it is actually easier to write;
3. Leaving the novel(s) for three years gave me a new appreciation for how much good was actually hidden amongst the bad;
4. Nothing is scarier than thinking “I wish I had written that,” and then realising you did.
5. Don’t edit while you’re writing, because there is a lot I would have cut from the book, that I now think I can use with a little work.

So watch this space, and expect news about I made the Devil do it, but only on a Tuesday. 

Note

To the person who found my blog by googling “What are you babbling about?”…  I am afraid I can not help you with that one. 

I don’t know either.

2010 project

I have been trying to decide what to do this year.  I wanted to keep the momentum going on my novel, but I also realise that what I wrote last year is a pale shadow of what should be in the book.  More like a plot-line than an actual novel.

So I have decided to take a break for a while from last year’s project, and re-open an old one; or two.

I am taking the half-finished drafts of the novels I wrote in 2005 and 2006 and tieing them together into one.  I made the Devil do it, which I gave up in 2006 due to illness, is a fairly compelling story, and I liked where it was going.  Only Tuesday, which I gave up in 2005 due to boredom, is pretty crap, but it has a lot of good dialogue and a few workable characters.  I will be scrapping the plot (plot?  there was a plot?) and working the material into the 2006 one to make it more rounded, then finishing it this year hopefully.

And the plus side?  Both novels were typed, so I don’t have to re-type it from my handwritten journals like I would with my latest novels. 

Inkheart

Ever since I saw the movie last year, I have been dying to get my hands on a copy of the book Inkheart.  I was recently given the entire series by some friends of mine, and have been working my way through them. 

Very cool!

The story of Inkheart, which is the first in the so-called Inkheart Trilogy, is very simple.  Mortimer “Mo” has no idea that he is a silvertongue, a person with the ability to bring books to life, until he reads some villians out of an old fantasty novel called Inkheart.  Unfortunately for him, his wife Resa disappears into the fantast world as well.  For ten years he tries to find a way of getting her back, while the villains will do anything to stop him from reading the book again, liking the new life they have created for themselves in our world.  It is a beautiful story, and has some wonderfully rounded characters.

So why do I like it so much?  Because it is a book written for people who love books.  Mo is a book-binder, and has taught his daughter Meggie a love for books that goes beyond the normal.  Every page talks about writing or stories, or about books and how they are made.  Each chapter begins with a quote from a book, including well known, and obscure.  I loved finding passages from The Princess Bride next to Lord of the Rings.   

As a reader, I enjoyed this book.  As a writer, I loved it. 

 

Happy Anniversary

So it is now about six hours to go until midnight here in South Africa. Soon it will be New Year celebrations and what not.

I have never been a great fan of New Year; it all seems a little arbitrary.  We celebrate the fact that after hurtling through space around a flaming star, our pathetic little planet has landed itself exactly where it was a year ago. 

But this year, I do have something more exciting to celebreate.  Because 31 December 2008 marked the first post on this blog.  That’s right, Seven’s Heaven is one year old today. 

Did you get me anything?

 

One-Minute Writer – Elf

Since I won’t be posting anything special or profound for Christmas this year, I thought I would share with you all my winning entry in last week’s One Minute Writer Friday Fiction.

The prompt was to write a short fiction from the perspective of an elf, and this was what I wrote…

I watch the sleigh lift off, as it has every year for two millenia.

It never gets old.

As it gains height, and fades into just another glowing star in the festive sky, I wonder – not for the first time – what He did to deserve this job. I can still remember my own sentencing, all those centuries ago. 500 years of hard labour, and an embarrasing uniform.

I’ll be eligible for parole in 2100, but poor Nick still has a long way to travel.

I don’t know whose toes he trod on with those oversized boots of his, but it must have been someone important.

Oh well, breaks over. Only 32850 days left – but who’s counting.

Ho-Ho-Ho indeed!

Biblios Hokku – Malachi

MALACHI

You have lost your way.
Your faith you weaken in vain,
I will send my light.

Biblios Hokku – Haggai and Zecheriah

HAGGAI
Look first to my house.
From this day I will bless you.
Show your strength and work

ZECHERIAH
Turn to me I say.
You have made your heart as stone,
All will soon be gone.

Biblios Hokku

HABBAKUK

Trust God, and his plan.
The just shall live by his faith.
Just you wait and see.

 

ZEPHENIAH

Rejoice, we are saved.
God’s might in our midst.
We need know no fear