charles barrow's writing

I really haven't got much writing done during August. My head has been full of other stuff, life stuff, family stuff, work, home. Everyday stuff. And I couldn't manage to carve out any large chunks of time for writing. I have been making notes on John Mann 4 (tentatively titled Fewer), and re-reading old notes that have been made over the past year, or so. I'm going to collate all these notes, type them up, and see how much of a story they add up to - plot wise, that is - and then I'll take it from there. The one thing I did get written was a short, non-fiction piece for a Brighton book, due for publication next year. No news yet on whether my story has been accepted, but I was pleased with what I wrote, and very much enjoyed writing it. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for good news.

I struggle with similes, and metaphors. I mean I struggle to invent them. Whenever I'm writing a sentence, and I'm on a collision course with one or the other, when I know I'm going to need to invent one in the next 5 seconds, then I start to sweat. When I reach the point of no return, I usually drop a couple of question marks as place holders, in lieu of the magic metaphor, and then move on with the rest of the sentence, fully intending to return once I've given the problem some thought. So, no, they don't come naturally. It might take me hours, sometimes days, to think of one that I'm happy with. Often I never come up with anything, and then I'll go back and restructure a sentence so as to avoid the need. Occasionally, though, one will just pop into my head, like the simile in the header here, that I really like, and that I think is a cut above my usual standard. Unfortunately, this one occurred when I wasn't writing anything. So this is an orphan simi...