And by that, I don't mean that you put the laptop away and decide not to write anything for the last day of your life...
I mean you finish the day with 4000 words more than you started with...
I've decided now that the sunday is when the word count is going to get updated, that way people aren't getting bored by the numbers going down slowly. However, if everyone thinks that a daily count would be a better idea, then I'm more than happy to adapt :)
Today hasn't been a bad day, just finished watching the last episode of the latest season of Sherlock, I can appreciate that they've decided to take it in a different direction, but I feel that the lack of a villain introduced till the last episode, the changes made in both characters, and the nature of how they've made Sherlock more accessible to the average person, somehow have lost something in the translation. For me, Holmes was never supposed to have been accessible, he shouldn't be understandable, he should be something more than that, something that remains distant from the reader (or viewer in this case) because when you have the reveal, it takes away the attraction. I know that some love the mystery so much that they'll tell people they're wrong even when they've got it right, just to try and keep something of the magic back, but the point here is to have something that people can keep working on and try and rise to the level of those who read the things you write, but keep things in the writing that can allow the reader to keep up.
One of my pet hates has always been Deus Ex Machina, whereby something hitherto unforeseen turns up in the last act with a big sign above its head that says "It was me...". It suggests that the writer couldn't be bothered to come up with a decent plot and instead thought it was acceptable to string the reader along before throwing in the big reveal.
Should anyone ever find me guilty of that, call me on it, I'll repent...
This is John Dodd in the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire and Goodnight England, wherever you are...
