Ben Hennessy's Blog

We feel like we’ve melted that part of the brain that allows us to correctly think and produce ideas. All the time spent staring at a tiny screen or a medium screen or a large screen, filling my head with text and flashing lights and noises and voices. Even now the flashing cursor waiting for my next key stroke blinks as the whirling violence of creativity flashes and wanes, nothing to produce but guilt and haze. There’s too much going in and not enough coming out. Focus is lost. Attention is...

I’m writing this because Facebook reminders that I’ve been radio silent for over a year now is starting to upset me. Here’s an update on what’s happening.

– Sin is edging closer to completion in the sense that the manuscript has more words now than the last time I posted, though that isn’t saying much. I’m less than ten thousand words from finishing, but sitting down to hammer them out is quite frankly torturous. I’m stuck in this place where it’s been so long since I started the project that...

Sitting alone in a land of fiction

With the slightest and softest of quiet inflections

As the sky above bears a startling infection

Of clouds drawing hope from the dreams of the section

Yearning for greys and tears, while the strays

Biting at dusk squeeze gentle displays

From those who would beg and those who still pray

Despite the expressions of Gods who can’t stay

And leave us to flounder in bitter devices

Excited by silence and cowed by the prices

We pay into loathing and insufferable vice...

The two occupants of the gloomy cockpit stared out through the view screen into open space. The galaxy hung before them, a plethora of stars covering an expanse of space too colossal to fully comprehend. They had both seen such stars up close, along with the planets and moons and belts of asteroids which orbited them. Both had witnessed the sheer energy involved. And yet, so very, very far in the distance, the universe appeared frozen in place.

Max looked at his watch. It was a replica antiqu...

It’s taken a long time to come to terms with it, but at this point I believe it’s safe to say I am experiencing full blown writer’s block.

Writing that down, with the cursor blinking next to it, is strange. I mean, I’m writing this blog post, aren’t I? Admittedly it’s the first one I’ve done in months, as I’ve been purposely putting it off as long as possible. Also I’m on a coach to Essex and I forgot to bring something to read, so this is very much just filling time. But still, look! Words o...

In my new houseshare I spend a fair amount of time in my room.

I’m not an anti-social person. I enjoying hanging out with people and talking, watching films or whatever. But after work I like to make some food, stick on a film, browse Reddit or something on my phone and just switch off for a bit. Also, of course, I’m preparing to embark on the second attempt at BOOK THREE THE BOOK I HAVEN’T WRITTEN YET BUT WILL DO EVENTUALLY EVEN IF IT TAKES AGES. The first chapter of which is currently haunti...

Cor. What a difference a month makes.

So the last time I updated was the hospital stint where I was giving out about being sick and my swift recovery. Welp, I wasn’t joking. Not only was I discharged in six days, I walked straight into a job back in Cambridge.

Yep, the same Cambridge where I spent fifteen miserable fucking months working permanent night shifts in and around 2013. But fret not, for now I have a regular 9-5 job. Monday to Friday. For the first time in my life. I wake up and go to...

The first part of this post will be another depressing slog, but then it’ll hopefully become much better to read. (Just like my books, doh ho ho ho.)

My last proper update, all the way back in September, touched on some health issues of mine and discussed the fact I live with Crohns disease. I want to elaborate on that to put my current deal in perspective. I’ve been slowly slipping in condition, to the point where I’ve spent the past two-and-a-bit months basically laid up in bed. With the exc...

It’s simple, sometimes.

We try to focus ourselves, subconsciously, into a scenario we’ll succeed within. Our dreams take us to places we want to be and linger just long enough after we wake up to make us realise we’ll never be there. Not exactly. Who’s ever ‘lived the dream’ down to the finest detail? The yacht crossing the ocean, the champagne glasses each with a strawberry inside, the camera passing overhead to give a panoramic view of the wealth somehow gained off-screen. Maybe, instead, wr...

Writing at length is tricky.

I’m not saying the putting of words down into a piece of work is difficult. That’s the fun part. If it wasn’t fun nobody would do it. Writing comes easier to some people than others, of course, but on the whole we write because we enjoy writing. The pen and paper is our guitar, you could say. The word processor our brush and canvas. But let me continue my point before this gets too wanky.

I say at length because a manuscript or a screenplay generally takes a long ti...