I have been trying to find motivation for this update, so if you only care about the book, then let’s get that out of the way. I got 12 pages of notes to implement ranging from “Add a dog to the sheep scene” to “Research mining related riots in 1929 Scotland“, and the book has remained at 65.000 words.
This is overshadowed by the news that I got made redundant. Not fired without pay, so not the worst way to lose your job, but not ideal at Christmas. This happened a little over two weeks ago and it definitely took the wind out of my sails.
Six years on and the recruitment business is having the financial sniffles, and the only way to survive is to burn out the fever, taking some talent with it. So I guess this is as good a time as any to reassess and reorient, get some rest in and fix the odd bit around the house.
The question that naturally arises is what to do next?
As a child I only had a few things I wanted to be: helicopter pilot, secret agent, and an author. Helicopter pilot was never going to happen due to bad eyesight. Secret agent was the work of silly movies with silly plots and, most importantly, is nothing like real espionage. Which leaves authorship the only viable dream.
My ongoing love affair with books started young for me. I spent more time at the library than in my room as a teenager, and to this day I remember where my favorite sections were at my local library. I remember rows of index cards showing where the good stuff was (Ninjutsu*, Greek myths and African Fauna comes to mind), and exploring shelves for hours just in case I missed something good (which I did. I didn’t read The Lord of the Rings until I was in my early twenties).
As I grew older, the idea of writing a book was something you had to do. In my head, anyone and everyone needed to write a book about something, anything, and add it to humanity’s corpus of knowledge. It’s silly, simple even, but it’s what I expected others would do and I would do the same. The great thinkers of our time had done so, why wouldn’t others try it as well?
Interest in writing and whether you had something to say, didn’t really factor into my logic at the time. Nor did the idea of publishing, building a plot, understanding sentence structure, format, intent or anything else. You just had to contribute. It was the most natural idea in the world, and while over the years I learned that very few people actually think the same way, the realization didn’t temper my drive.
This is the main reason I write. I may never get published and that’s fine, but I set myself the goal of finishing my book in 2026 and this unintentional career break will be a much needed space to get it done.
As this is the last post of 2025, I wish you all a joyful 2026. Happy New Year!
TL;DR – Book is going well, lost my job and I am looking forward to writing more.
Autocorrect does not like the word Ninjutsu word. While writing it suggested Ninjitsu, Jujitsu and Injurious as correct terms. Never trust your AI tools.
The book has now passed 65.000 words, despite culling over 8.000 words worth of fluff, guff and unnecessary shenanigans. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to work much on it over the next month or two as we are in the middle of moving, and the new place is in need of a loving hand and the occasional use of a sledgehammer. Very exciting.
Hope to have an update around Christmas when things are less chaotic and I can resume work.
That said, I just came back from a research trip in Edinburgh. If I had known a research trip would be that fruitful, I would have made up an excuse to go much sooner. There were a few objectives, but the most important was to visit key locations from the book in and around Edinburgh and get a feel for their physical context, and how their geography would affect the narrative.
Now, I’ve been to Edinburgh before (and I quite recommend it) but those excursions were for other, alcohol fueled, reasons. On this trip I got to examine the city from the viewpoint of someone building a narrative and it changes how you experience the city. It ceases to be a series of individual buildings or sites, and becomes a massive group of interconnected systems; roads and sewer connections inform how the city operates, smells and functions, parks become scenes instead of just scenery, and institutions become places of power and influence. Your characters start roaming the streets and the streets influence what they can do, both limiting in scope and expanding in opportunity.
The trip was simultaneously disheartening and invigorating. Disheartening that the real life locations for some scenes are simply not suitable, and invigorating that I could find alternatives sometimes just a few hundred meters down the road.
For example, I initially wanted to place a fictional bookshop at Arthur Conan Doyle’s place of birth, here if you are interested. What I envisioned was a lone edifice holding out against the encroaching dark, both literally and metaphorically, but after reviewing maps from the time period and visiting the location it became evident that it didn’t work. Feeling dejected, my wife and I wandered the neighborhood looking for an alternative, and while searching for a caffeinated beverage, found it. Just around the corner were several smaller, Georgian style buildings that would fit the imagined book shop, including smaller cobbled passageways for those illicit activities or escape routes.
It may sound silly, but grounding the story in a real location with real limitations feels like the correct approach. And this is just one example of many. We wandered about the old buildings of Edinburgh University, toured cathedrals and went strolling around the park near Blackford Hill. The Scottish Mining Museum was also a great experience.
Geography is especially important to me. It’s a pet peeve of mine when liberties are taken with facts. If locals can call out on something because it didn’t exist as portrayed, such as a location or a distance central to the story, the book isn’t accurate enough. Unless explicitly excused (read: alternate timeline, genius inventor or similar), I simply prefer it to reflect reality.
Personally I enjoy writing around limitations, it tends to improve the reading experience. This extends to technology, use of historical characters, and so on. Taking liberties is fine, in context, but personally I try to stick to reality as much as possible. It grounds what could otherwise become a flight of fancy.
And interestingly, it turns out some of my choices in geography were dead on, so kudos to me, and the very lovely people at the Scottish Mining Museum and Edinburgh University who dedicated their free time, hospitality and were patient and helpful with my very specific queries.
Anyway, I wanted to get this post out before I shatter my spine carrying moving boxes. Here are a few tips I have been thinking about recently to help you tighten up your own writing.
Weasel words – “Maybe we could do something new.”
Anyone with an academic background probably had a conversation about weasel words. These are words that dilute your argument or commitment and that reduces the value of what you’re saying. Unless your aim is to dilute your statement or create a feeling of indecision, consider purging it from your writing. Make it something you consciously choose to use.
Filter words – “Jerry sensed (or thought or understood or spotted) the weather changing.”
Or maybe the weather changed. Similarly to ‘Weasel’ words, ‘Filter’ words are used to mediate or interpret a situation through the character, instead of giving the reader a visceral impression. Its the difference between seeing a recording, or witnessing it in-person.
As I am finishing this post, the word count is just shy of 53.000, which I am quite happy with. My initial goal for the book was at least 50.000 words, but that was by no means the end point. Especially not now that the scope has expanded, which is what I wanted to write about today.
First off, I would encourage any would-be writer to path out your narrative ahead of time. I spent a few hours plotting out my characters and created an Excel sheet to see just how good (or bad) my outline is. As it turns out, it was too simple. Or rather, there was a story and an arc for the main character, but there was little mystery, background and worldbuilding, only ideas here and there.
So I took a break from writing and listened to a few books for inspiration, specifically Rivers of London and Moon over Soho by Ben Aaronovitch (delightful reads and exceptionally well narrated by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith). I could gush over them for hours and I just might at some point, in audio <— Foreshadowing.
Like many others have said: the best way to become a better writer is to write. What helps immensely though is reading extensively as well. I love the writing and the performance of Rivers of London, so I wrote down, and tried to codify what is was that made the story come alive to me. None of the following realizations are revolutionary, but they pushed me forward and expanded the scope of my own project, so maybe it can help you.
The Need to Paint the scene… in a physical sense and, more importantly, what it feels like to be there. If you read the book, Peter (the main character) comments on everything around him through dialog with others and his own internal narration. He comments on the little things, what does or doesn’t remind him of home, how the lives of others changes how he views a scene? Whether something is a tired old hat, or new, or dangerous, or just background noise adds layers that texture the scene.
You get a closer, more intimate narrative that adds subtle texture to a story. It’s the difference between knowing there is a Circle line on the London Tube and telling the reader or explaining what it feels like to be sat boiling in the July heat en route from Paddington to Edgware Road Station. One is factual, the other experiential.
There is a part in Rivers of London where magic, something wildly exotic, is observed by the main character with near boredom. Taking you, the reader, into the mind of Peter and showing how he sees the world and his progression as a character, without over-explaining it through the events.
Reflecting on What Happened – The reader of a book has the privilege of consuming a series of curated events and experiences that tie together and create the plot. The characters in the book don’t know that, so you need to show how the character reflects on what is happening. In the moment, ten pages later, a hundred pages later, the way characters visit and revisits events showcases how they perceive the evolution of their own story and understand their place in it. Or in many cases, don’t understand it. Not the chain of events, but the causal links in a chain and how they interconnect.
If the character doesn’t understand where they come from and how they got to a certain place, the reader won’t be invested either. Exploring their hopefully growing understanding of what is happening in the story or lack thereof, the reader gets to understand them better.
Personally, I have a problem with rooting for two-dimensional characters that have no understanding, lack motivation or a goal. We need to see them engage with the plot, not adrift in it.
Having Opinionated Characters – Opinions are like assholes, everyone has them. So have characters that share their opinions to showcase how those opinions change over time. The experience of an event, banal or fantastic, good or bad, seen by someone in situ again adds more texture, more micro narrative to your story.
These can be small details like the taste of a cocktail, a preference for jazz music, or someone’s perceived reputation (truthful or not) or larger events, like the death of a character, the swing of public opinion or breaking a taboo; the latter is especially interesting when you have characters that are strongly invested in upholding that taboo.
Cross-cultural understanding is interesting, but cross cultural conflict between characters, factions, neighbors, parents, dogs, cats, whatever you have is so much more engaging.
I find that Aaronovitch is fantastic at weaving in the feel of a culture, how the characters understand their place in it and how they represent it through their built-in biases, ideas, hopes and dreams, by getting the cast to externalize what they see things, what they do and don’t know.
These initial takeaways helped to expand the scope of my book, hopefully in good way.
However, I have a problem managing scope. This is a common issue for me and as this is project will eventually need to end. It’s an issue if I keep adding ideas that pop into my head. I refer to it as Concept Creep and it has become the one thing I am desperately trying to curb before it overwhelms me.
Back when I wrote my theses, my first meeting with a lecturer on what the scope of the piece would be, the lecturer bemusedly informed me that what I thought was a decent, well defined, idea would take at least a Phd level project to explore fully. Two would be better. So this is nothing new.
For that reason, if you have similar issues with your writing, get your basics done first. Figure out the plot, subplots, the main themes, events and characters. If you have a lot of lore, keep a lore bible. It can be a notebook, some digital log or worldbuilding app. Once you have the basics figured out, you can focus on texturing the piece. Smaller backstories that get peppered in to flesh out characters, a comment here, a plot device there that pays off in the finale. And don’t be afraid to cut out segments that aren’t working.
My first 17.000 word draft included a very complex backstory and specific events for a character that wasn’t needed. For now, that piece is relegated to the lore bible, but once the book is finished it might get pulled back in, or even reused in another work. We will see.
TL:DR – If you are stuck in your own writing, go read something, take notes, compare it to your own writing and see if you can take inspiration from it.
Been a while since my last post due to regular day to day work, and having to rethink and rework my book premise. As of today I have around 15.000 words on my current draft, with some parts of a previous draft worked in, so it wasn’t wasted.
So, why restart a project? Now there can be many reasons and most of them end up being excuses not to work on hard bits of your book, be that structure, a dead end you wrote yourself into or just that its more fun to start something than finishing something. My shelf of in-progress miniatures are a testament to how bad I am at that personally.
In my case it was due to the sprawling narrative of the story taking place. My central trio of characters are traveling from Edinburgh to Cairo to complete a task, but the story I wanted to write was a personal one. One of men dealing with trauma, substance abuse and purpose, set to a backdrop of 1920s Scotland. The story didn’t need an epic backdrop to work, so I pivoted and made it smaller in scope and more personal, so the backdrop does not distract from the topic.
It is a similar problem that stories about Spider-Man or Batman face. These heroes are personal in nature, dealing with problems or challenges inherent to their identity and history.
When your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man is removed from stopping purse snatchers and foiling bank heists, to to be faced with world ending threats, he is not as interesting anymore. Fun, for sure, but the reason we love the character is because of the smaller problems he has, like dealing with girlfriends, and balancing school + work with being a hero.
Same for me with Batman. His psychological issues and damn near suicidal need to fight every lowlife in Gotham is more interesting and asks more foundational questions, than if he is tasked with extraterrestrial threats.
It is always the smaller personal conflicts that spark interest. If everything has to be as big and grandiose as possible, we miss out on much better intricate stories and moments. I often consider if some of the projects I have, that are on permanent hiatus, would have benefited from reducing their scope, rather than sticking to one big fancy idealized version that, for now, have never been finished.
I suppose this is partially the ‘kill your darlings’ part of writing. Ax the parts that detract, work with what you have to make it good enough. My finished novella will always outshine my unfinished trilogy.
Anyway, the rebooted story moves better, reads better and can now set the stage later for that bigger journey.
What I now do, if I get some fantastic bit of inspiration, is to add it to my Google Keep and then leave it there for now. Keep writing and check back in a month or two to see if anything interesting could come from it, and if not bin it.
If you are a fellow writer is this something you struggle with? Does your initial scope detract from the story you wish to tell, or do you disagree and does increasing the scope enhance your story? Would love to hear you thoughts.
Never stop writing!
Thanks for reading. Inconsistent post to come eventually.
Look, I’m not saying I am three beers in and struggling with this, but I am right now trying to decide if the names of my central characters should or shouldn’t be a direct reference to their central nature. For anyone familiar with history or generally with mythology would get any reference fairly easily and oh my, isn’t it fantastic that I hinted to the central nature of my character.
But is that really useful? Is it realistic? Is realism something I want to aim for?
This is what I’m musing over at the moment. Hinting at someones true nature is fun, but is it good writing? And its genuinely question I’m struggling with.
When I was young, I loved it when a character had a name that aligned with their destiny or their powers, it was very fun to discover, but as I got older its started to feel more and more like an obvious spoilers at best or, god forbid, pretentious at worst.
An example; in a story where we are searching for “The One”. We have three characters, Jim, Natasha, and Adam. Gee, I wonder if it could be Adam, the first man. And sure, its fun if its not the case, a red herring is another great narrative tool , but choosing one or the other does give certain narrative expectations.
Another thing to consider would be what associations we have with a certain name. Often if we need a mundane simple character, we name them Steve, or if we need someone to be a bitch, we name them Karen, or should we need a terrorist, we name him Muhammad. Its a sort of cultural shorthand, that name A equals attributes B, C, D.
But this cultural shorthand is far from universal and in most cases will have very limited longevity. Karen as an example is hardly more than 5 years old at this point and will become stale eventually.
So the more I delve into it, the harder it becomes to select a name that does and does not have meaning attached that is acceptable. And honestly, I’m curious what you think.
Anyway, one my characters right now is Arthur Cane. I’ll leave it up to your imagination what his deal is. You can add your thoughts below, both on the topic and on Arthur Canes true nature.
Thanks for reading. Inconsistent post to come eventually.
As this websites has changed to basically be about my hobbies and creative projects, I thought I would start writing about my passion project, The Exodus (working title) that I have been mulling over for years now. I always wanted to write a book, it was that thing that everyone should, or at least my childhood seems to have pushed that on me. After spending an inordinate amount of time in the library reading everything from Yoko Tsuno to the basics of Ninjitsu by some american ninja fella who name eludes me today.
By now, I have writting over 15000 words in my lore/scene ideas file, but have decided to start afresh on the actual writing where I am currently at 1750 words give or take. And the promise to me, and I suppose to you, is to add 1250 words every week, 250 a day with the weekend as a natural break to muse things over.
The reason for the extremely low word count is that my harddrive is littered with failed attempts, drafts, ideas, characters and scenes that have served no purpose since I began my journey. For this reason, the aim is only to get words on page and routine established throughly.
Will this ever end up as an actual literary work, reviewed and possibly even published?
No idea.
The reason I am writing this is to at least keep myself somewhat accountable and to share some of the troubles and worries I have and have had since I started and to tell you, that its ok to go slow and just start. Maybe it will go nowhere, but at least I will know that I tried for real. At least this once.
That also means that you can start as well. Be slow, start with a notepad and a pen, or your phone and Notes. Does not matter. It only matters that you tried.
Now, if you read this far, I will now tell you about my book. Without spoilers and real plot, because that is still being worked on.
Basically, its a scifi retelling of a story a refugee friend once shared with me. The basics will follow what she shared, but take a bit more of a fantastical turn, despite the horrendous starting point. Where that will go will be interesting to see. If anything, I hope to touch on something in the human condition that, despite what she was forced to go through as a child, was very much present in her. A joy of being here, displaced but still here with us.
Today I decided to put Archi’s Diary on permanent hiatus. It’s been a hard decision for me, but a lot of things are changing in my life and truthfully, I’m having trouble deciding on a direction that I’m willing to commit Archi to. If the story is going to be written I want it to be the right story, instead of writing myself into a corner.
Although I left Archi on a cliffhanger, trapped in an air vent without food or water or a plan, fear not, I’ll keep working on his story. Hopefully he’ll be resurrected in the future, with a more elaborate story, but for now he’ll have to stand aside to make room for new projects and new ideas.
The diary format was supposed to be an experiment in episodic storytelling, and for me to find a way to build a writing habit by posting an entry every week. And it has done its job perfectly. I’ve consistently posted for 21 weeks (and I aim to keep that habit going), however I feel that the format no longer works for me. So for the time being I’ll go on without Archi.
While this may feel like a partial failure, this experience has taught me some very important lessons about myself and my writing, and I am looking forward to bringing you new content very soon.
End of Archi’s Diary?
Did you like and follow Archi? Let me know what you thought of it. About the story, the writing, the posting schedule, all of it. Whether it’s good, bad, ugly or strangely attractive. Let me know and stick around for weekly posts on reading, writing and life in general.
Welcome to the next episode of Archi’s Diary, a weekly entry in my favorite amnesiac’s journal as he tries to adjust to a world he doesn’t remember.
Episode 21 – May 2016
Last week has been full of pain and bad decisions. I arrived in Cancun on Sunday and rented a cheap room on the outskirts of town, planning to do some research, maybe get a tan and meeting with the reporter Susan Sanchez. That turned out to be more difficult than expected and came with spectacular unintended consequences.
On Monday I went to her office downtown to get a meeting, or maybe get access to a recording or something. Seems to work in the movies, so why not try. The bruises on my arms testify to the lack of success in this endeavour. When I got there I asked for Miss Sanchez. The receptionist, a nice lady in a frilly dress told me to wait, and was replaced by a humanoid mountain of steroids wrapped in a black suit. I say wrapped, since he couldn’t have dressed himself with his gorilla-like appendages. He gestured me to leave and when I reacted slightly slower than he fancied, he grabbed my arms, pushed me to the floor, punched me in the face and dragged me outside by my legs, clutching both with one hand if it matters. Outside he proceeded to kick me in the ribs a few times. That really pissed me off, but what could I do about it? He was big and ugly, smelled bad, was probably unloved by his mother and yes I’m bloody angry! Who does that? Who punches and kicks somebody for merely asking a question? It’s not like I offended him or anything.
Afterwards I returned to my lodgings to weigh my options and decided that I should break in and see if I could find Miss Sanchez’s office or an archives room, where they might keep the Chichen Itza footages. I’m blaming that particularly bad decision on watching Oceans 11 with Alvarez recently, and on getting punched in the face. Could have a concussion. I spent most of my time Tuesday and Wednesday planning my little ‘heist’ and procuring the tools of the trade in form of a roll of climbing rope and a crowbar. Not exactly up to scale with Ocean’s replica vault, but I figured it’d do.
A quick online search gave me the office layout. Also on my last visit I noticed that the building had an external fire escape, and I felt a plan taking shape. First, get to Susan Sanchez’s office, then the archive; I’ll leave the media room last if the other two don’t have anything. There seems to be some renovation going on on the fourth floor, which means I can use the scaffolding to get up and inside unnoticed. I noted that last night the building emptied around 10 PM. The guard-shaped Hulk who drives a red muscle car (go figure) was the last to leave, and only the occasional offices remained occupied. If I dress casually and stay calm I might be able to move freely. If I ignore that I’m white, and most people are usually familiar with their co-workers, I’m sure I won’t stick out as a sore thumb. In any case, turns out that wasn’t what caused my downfall.
Thursday I broke in at 23:22 assuming the place would be empty and went to Susan’s office directly, where I had my first surprise for the evening. Completely cleaned out. A desk, a chair and a lamp was all that was left. Cursing, I headed to the archives, which took me on a nerve wrecking elevator ride to the basement with the cleaning lady. She attempted small talk but was turned off by my lack of response. At least she didn’t call the police. Must be used to people working late. Didn’t ding anything in the archives either, so I used my laptop to connect to the network and started looking around. Zip. Absolutely nothing. AT that point I figured that hanging around was a bad idea. Found a stash of microfilms, but nothing relevant for my search (still, microfilm, how cool is that!). The media office was my next stop, located on the top floor along with the editing bay, which is where everything went wrong. Turns out, that’s one of the few places with very expensive equipment behind secured alarmed doors. I managed to get my crowbar in the frame before an ear-splitting ringing broke the silence. And I panicked.
I don’t mind admitting it, that in my panic I didn’t think straight. Instead of running down and out onto the scaffolding which might have given me an opportunity to escape, I decided to stay and hide. Where would you hide in an office building you have never been in? Well, I personally opted for the nearest air vent and climbed inside. And the air vent happened to be temporarily blocked off because of the construction. Fuck me.
Now it is Friday morning and I haven’t been able to escape because the office was crawling with guards and police after the alarm went off. Small piece of advice: DO NOT EVER SLEEP IN AN AIR VENT, if you can avoid it, that is. All the time I was scared that somebody would hear me snoring or I get discovered in some other way, and I really need the bathroom.
What was I thinking? What did I expect to find here? All I knew was that the reporter had been at Chichen Itza, nothing more. Not if there was footage taken or a report filed or anything. I have made an ass out of myself, based on a stupid assumption that I would find some incriminating evidence on her desk, like in the movies. This was stupid and dangerous and now I’m stuck here. I was desperate for any kind of information, and I put myself in harms way. Maybe I’m too stupid to know better. This would be hilarious, if it were happening to somebody else.
As of right now I have very little water or food left and I can hear construction workers starting work below. I don’t know what I should I do.
End of episode 21.
If you like what I do and know others that would love to get a weekly dose of Archi’s Diary and the occasional post on reading, writing and life in general, then please like, share and subscribe to follow.Stay tuned!
Torben Jensen 
Leave a comment