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(This originally appeared in a, now defunct, writing newsletter so I thought I'd stick it here.)
Dear Sir.
Thank you for your application to become A Writer. We are happy to tell you that you have been successful on this occasion. However, it is imperative that we keep up standards and to this end we require you adhere to strict guidelines in order to protect our trade. I have supplied a copy of these guidelines. Please read these five simple rules carefully and do not let us down.
1) Whether at a dinner party or merely enjoying the waxing moon on a balmy night with a young lady - you must remember, at all times, that you are A Writer. Tell people, tell them as often as possible and with an emphasis on the dramatic. Suitable conversational cues for the beginner can be:
"I’m John, you are…?"
“Peter, I am (pause for effect) A Writer."
“What shall we order?”
“This menu is terribly written, it has no plot arc. I know, for I am - A Writer!”
“So what do you do then?”
“I am - A Writer!”
“A funny thing happened to me the other day.”
“Tell me of it, it may provide inspiration. Lack of inspiration is death to A Writer, for that is what I am!”
“Why haven’t you paid your credit card bill sir?”
“I AM A WRITER.”
“I’m tired now dear, I’m off to bed.”
“IamAWriter.”
2) A Writer and someone who writes are two entirely different things. Any fool can put words down on paper. A Writer is an artist, he is A Writer whether he has written a word or not. Be The Writer, don’t let technicalities hold you back.
3) Do not listen to the critic. They may try to make it seem like they want to be helpful. This is a lie. You know within your heart you are A Writer, a genius and above them all. Pillory them for their foolishness when they do not see the beauty in your words. Strike at them and know you are in the right for you, my friend, are A Writer.
4) Value your creativity beyond all things. Be true to your vision, Do not allow yourself to be fettered by earthly rules such as grammar or spelling. Fly high on the wings of what you know to be beyond all comparison. Some may not be able to read it, that is their loss not yours.
5) When you come across others whose talent may be near or even (however unlikely this is) equal. Hate them. Hate them well.
Your badge and complimentary fountain pen will follow in a separate post (you will need to sign for these).
Yours,
Nefariouos T Cumblepot.
Secretary.
For a mere £199.99 we now offer the 'Whisper, pause, stand with a finger in the air,' Workshop on announcing your profession to strangers. Sign up now or risk forever being ignorant!
P.S. If you are A Poet please follow the same rules but substitute ‘Poet’ for ‘Writer’. We work from the same office and sometimes the letters get mixed up.
Thursday, 3 February 2011
Monday, 31 January 2011
Why is this?
I started this as a place to write about tiny and how he interferes with writing. To my surprise I'm actually more productive since he turned up, which isn't saying much really, but still.
Thought I would also start using this as a place to stick stuff that won't go anywhere else (as evinced by the last post). With that in mind, apologies and all that but here's some poetry.
Icthus.
Suspended.
Hanging liminal in neoprene
regulated breathing
in
Pause
out
A wonder.
Illusion of flight stolen
Along physical faultlines
one
Aquamarine
memory.
Suspended.
Hanging liminal.
Thought I would also start using this as a place to stick stuff that won't go anywhere else (as evinced by the last post). With that in mind, apologies and all that but here's some poetry.
Icthus.
Suspended.
Hanging liminal in neoprene
regulated breathing
in
Pause
out
A wonder.
Illusion of flight stolen
Along physical faultlines
one
Aquamarine
memory.
Suspended.
Hanging liminal.
Thursday, 20 January 2011
Ruff n stuff.
This is a very rough first draft. Only really intended as a way of playing with characters and how they interact so it's only had a cursory readthrough. I thought I'd stick it here in case any Steampunkists found something to enjoy in it.
The Fosciliator.
To the casual observer the two men: One squatting one stood in the miserable drizzle as they examined the muddy ground before the barn - may have appeared comical figures. The one kneeling had a stocky, short body. His face, though hidden as he knelt facing the barn, bloomed with thread veins from years of hard drinking and opiates. A small, almost sensuous, mouth hid beneath a bristling moustache and beneath the brim of his preposterous, and ever present, porkpie hat gimlet eyes twinkled as they examined the dirt.
One would never guess to look at him that he was one of the three most dangerous people currently alive on the planet.
The second figure was as different as could be and yet equally as dangerous in his own way. Where the former was stocky the latter was tall and slim. Where the smaller's skin had been worn by life the latter's remained porcelain smooth and his blue eyes sparkling and carefree. Exquisite clothes covered him and a tall, leather encased hat crusted with odd devices which whirred and ticked continuously crowned a head of thick dark hair that reached past his collar.
'Gilroy,' asked Sexton quietly, 'why on earth are you sniffing the mud?'
Gilroy took another great sniff of air into his bulbous nose and poked the footprint before him with a stubby finger before standing.
'Manure, Mr. Wylde, whoever stole your device had manure on their boots.'
Trying very hard to keep his voice level Sexton Wylde shook his mane of curls in mock wonderment.
'We are in the country, Gilroy, manure is de riguer around here,' he indicated the sheep dotted countryside around them; as bleak and lonely to his way of thinking as it was necessary. 'It is what everyone is wearing.'
'Yes,' Gilroy let out a heavy breath though his moustache and held up a finger in front of the taller man's face. A small oblong of hardened mud sat on the tip above the dirty crescent of his nail. 'But this manure's dried, see?' the oblong lifted nearer to Sexton's aristocratic and, somewhat disgusted, nose. 'It's raining, which suggests the thief works on a farm' he stared out into the drizzle as his voice tailed off, 'and one near.'
Gilroy's turned back to the younger man, locking eyes, bloodshot after a night in the local pub, with Sexton's who in turn wondered whether today would be the day he would be judged too dangerous to live. Maybe today Gilroy would act on the small piece of paper in the bottom of his steamer case. The one that had been carefully unfolded, read, and then carefully re-folded and put away again hundreds and hundreds of times. When Sexton Wylde spoke again his mouth was dry and his words less flippant.
'He could have come here in some vehicle, is all I mean. Dried manure is hardly specific to the area. In fact, it seems a mainstay of most of our more rural adventures'
'No, Mr Wylde,' a small smile crept in beneath the moustache and he flicked the mud from his finger, continuing in his thick Yorkshire accent, 'there's a right high percentage of buttercups and cowslip in the grass crop 'ere and it gives the sheep manure a very particular stench.'
'You've been going around sniffing manure?' Sexton lifted an eyebrow.
'First rule, Mr. Sexton Wylde, familiarise yourself with the area,' he rubbed his forehead, making his porkpie had bob up and down, 'I could right do with some hair of t'dog, by the way.'
Sexton retrieved a hipflask from the leather doctors bag he carried and passed it over.
'Here, I suppose you have earned a swig with your small deduction. One is all mind at this early hour.'
Gilroy took a swig, grimaced and then smiled, transforming his face and making the weary years drop away.
'Ta, Lad. Now, as it don't appear the Spaniard is on to us' Gilroy handed back the hipflask, though his yearning eyes never left it on its return journey to the younger man's bag, 'I reckon we should get your machine back afore we 'ave another tragedy, right?'
'Indeed.'
Gilroy picked up his heavy pack and slung it onto his back before striding off across the mud. Sexton watched him for a moment and reflected on their odd friendship. The two had met many years ago in India. At the time Sexton had been in the service of the Dread Spaniard, his eyes blinded to the dark ambition he served by the freedom he was given to experiment in. Gilroy had been part of a special force, together with a young RFC officer, sent to put a stop to the Spaniard's plans once and for all. They failed of course, all do. Gilroy took it badly. His fall from grace took him down into the opium dens of the same Hoogly pirates that transported Sexton's 'Yuga' Machines. The rest is, as they say, covered by the Official Secrets Act.
'Gilroy,' Sexton huffed a he watched the stocky man walk away, 'do you think we need anything?'
'I believe you need a haircut, Mr. Wylde,' for a supposed servant, Gilroy had adopted an intensely disrespectful style.
'I shall have you know that the romantic poets style themselves almost entirely on my pale skin and flowing locks.' Gilroy did not answer and Sexton was forced to run after him, spattering his tight black trousers with mud from the field and muttering under his breath. 'By Black Kali I hate the countryside.' A lonely sheep eyed him suspiciously as he made his way past. 'I don't like you either,' he told it.
The two men topped a hill overlooking the nearest farm, Calve Fort. The place had clearly seen better days. The thatching on the main building wore a sheen of moss and in places was holed and coming away. The walls, built mainly of sharp flint in that way peculiar to southern England,' sported deep floor to ceiling cracks and the barn to the side of the main building had developed a worrying heel to the left.
Gilroy came to a halt and dropped to his knees, his arm shooting up, palm open and level with the brim of his hat, to warn Sexton to do the same. The well dressed Gent had already stopped, his mouth formed into a perfect, surprised, 'O'.
In a huge circle around the farm, the grass writhed. It twisted sinuously and at the edges of the circle nearest had reached waist height.
Gilroy reached back into his pack and retrieved his binoculars.
'It's like Innsmouth at t'Infernal Equinox[1] if this is more of them horrors out of America,' he scanned the clearing around the farm, 'I'll be needing t'elephant gun and a stiff brandy, not merely a swig o' gin, Mr Wylde.'
Sexton, however, was not listening.
'It works!,' he said delightedly and an unkind person may have said that at the moment all the grasses died, keeling over and drying to a comforting, familiar and above all still, gold, that he squealed like an excited young girl.
'Works?' repeated Gilroy in a voice that was decidedly less happy. 'What exactly works?'
'The machine, the Fosciliator.'
'It makes grass grow?' Giroy scratched under his hat again.
'No, the sun does that' he clapped his hands joyfully, 'did you not go to school? My foscilitor turns things to stone.'
Gilroy, who as it happens did not go to school but firmly believed learning never stopped and some people would do well to stop being quite as clever and start learning a little more, shook his head.
'That grass, sir, don't look very vitrified.'
Sexton stared hard at his companion.
'There's no need for that tone. Of course it doesn't, this is an early model. The Fosciliator works by making things become very old,' he grinned, 'it fossilizes them, or it is meant to,' he reached into his Dr's bag and retrieved two small medallions of dull metal. 'Now, you'd best put this on,' he said, throwing one to Gilroy, donning his own and starting off down the hill.
Gilroy looked at the small medallion and the sigil carved into it almost made him bring up his breakfast.
'Sexton,' he shook his head as he set off after the odd man, sniffing the air as he walked, 'does tha never learn?' he hissed into the odd smelling wind.
The nearer Gilroy got to the farm the more powerful the stench. It was a familiar smell, although one he always fervently hoped never to smell again; putrefaction.
Usually, Gilroy would have approached carefully, revolver outstretched as he ran from cover to cover but as an excited Sexton had loped ahead and was already in the barn it seemed pointless to take such precautions. He jogged , gun in hand, into the barn to find Sexton standing, stock still and quite aghast, in front of a small, humming, metal box.
In one corner, what had been a small flock of sheep slowly liquefied and near the entrance three skeletons lay where they had fallen as they tried to escape. Holed clothes and leathery skin hung from brown bones,
'I did not envisage this,' whispered Sexton regretfully as Gilroy approached. 'This was not my intention at all.'
Gilroy bent to examine one of the skeletons.
'Poor bugger,' he picked up a shoe and examined the tread, clogged with dung, then nodded to himself before dropping it. 'We'll 'ave a tough time explaining this, Mr Wylde. No terror weapons t' man from Diogenes said. I...Sexton are you listening?'
Sexton was not, he was moving towards the box as if drawn magnetically to his device all the time chattering to himself under his breadth in the rapid-fire manner of a repeating-rifle.
'I must turn it off, this was not what I wanted. I thought it would be a way to transport perishables, you see, that is all. A weapon! I never saw that. Never. Fool. Always thinking about the cause and never considering the effect...'
For a moment in Sexton's bent figure and wide blue eyes Gilroy saw once again the haunted man he had met on the banks of the Hoogly all those years ago and thought to be a figment of his own opium raddled imagination.
'Oafs!' whispered Sexton as he bent over the box. 'Damned meddling oafs.'
Gilroy approached the man and the lethal box.
'What?'
'They have snapped the mechanism which turns the thing off, without that the field may well keep expending until, well, until...' he shrugged and straightened, smoothing down his jacket. 'It would be bad anyway.'
'Don't worry thaself unduly, Mr. Wylde, I have a solution,' said Gilroy and put a bullet through the centre of the strange mechanism, causing it to explode in a strange purple flame that fed upon itself for a moment before vanishing, leaving only an empty case.
'Oh,' said the surprised inventor. 'Of course, the direct method. I wish it was as easy to hide the rest of the evidence,' he raised his arms to encompass the farm buildings around them. 'My number may be up here, I fear.'
Gilroy grinned and held up the dynamite he had retrieved from his pack.
'Don't worry, Mr Wylde, I've got a plan.'
Sexton nodded.
'Gilroy, I believe that is worth not just a swig of gin but the full hipflask.'
Gilroy smiled though he'd been hoping to get the entire bottle.
The Fosciliator.
To the casual observer the two men: One squatting one stood in the miserable drizzle as they examined the muddy ground before the barn - may have appeared comical figures. The one kneeling had a stocky, short body. His face, though hidden as he knelt facing the barn, bloomed with thread veins from years of hard drinking and opiates. A small, almost sensuous, mouth hid beneath a bristling moustache and beneath the brim of his preposterous, and ever present, porkpie hat gimlet eyes twinkled as they examined the dirt.
One would never guess to look at him that he was one of the three most dangerous people currently alive on the planet.
The second figure was as different as could be and yet equally as dangerous in his own way. Where the former was stocky the latter was tall and slim. Where the smaller's skin had been worn by life the latter's remained porcelain smooth and his blue eyes sparkling and carefree. Exquisite clothes covered him and a tall, leather encased hat crusted with odd devices which whirred and ticked continuously crowned a head of thick dark hair that reached past his collar.
'Gilroy,' asked Sexton quietly, 'why on earth are you sniffing the mud?'
Gilroy took another great sniff of air into his bulbous nose and poked the footprint before him with a stubby finger before standing.
'Manure, Mr. Wylde, whoever stole your device had manure on their boots.'
Trying very hard to keep his voice level Sexton Wylde shook his mane of curls in mock wonderment.
'We are in the country, Gilroy, manure is de riguer around here,' he indicated the sheep dotted countryside around them; as bleak and lonely to his way of thinking as it was necessary. 'It is what everyone is wearing.'
'Yes,' Gilroy let out a heavy breath though his moustache and held up a finger in front of the taller man's face. A small oblong of hardened mud sat on the tip above the dirty crescent of his nail. 'But this manure's dried, see?' the oblong lifted nearer to Sexton's aristocratic and, somewhat disgusted, nose. 'It's raining, which suggests the thief works on a farm' he stared out into the drizzle as his voice tailed off, 'and one near.'
Gilroy's turned back to the younger man, locking eyes, bloodshot after a night in the local pub, with Sexton's who in turn wondered whether today would be the day he would be judged too dangerous to live. Maybe today Gilroy would act on the small piece of paper in the bottom of his steamer case. The one that had been carefully unfolded, read, and then carefully re-folded and put away again hundreds and hundreds of times. When Sexton Wylde spoke again his mouth was dry and his words less flippant.
'He could have come here in some vehicle, is all I mean. Dried manure is hardly specific to the area. In fact, it seems a mainstay of most of our more rural adventures'
'No, Mr Wylde,' a small smile crept in beneath the moustache and he flicked the mud from his finger, continuing in his thick Yorkshire accent, 'there's a right high percentage of buttercups and cowslip in the grass crop 'ere and it gives the sheep manure a very particular stench.'
'You've been going around sniffing manure?' Sexton lifted an eyebrow.
'First rule, Mr. Sexton Wylde, familiarise yourself with the area,' he rubbed his forehead, making his porkpie had bob up and down, 'I could right do with some hair of t'dog, by the way.'
Sexton retrieved a hipflask from the leather doctors bag he carried and passed it over.
'Here, I suppose you have earned a swig with your small deduction. One is all mind at this early hour.'
Gilroy took a swig, grimaced and then smiled, transforming his face and making the weary years drop away.
'Ta, Lad. Now, as it don't appear the Spaniard is on to us' Gilroy handed back the hipflask, though his yearning eyes never left it on its return journey to the younger man's bag, 'I reckon we should get your machine back afore we 'ave another tragedy, right?'
'Indeed.'
Gilroy picked up his heavy pack and slung it onto his back before striding off across the mud. Sexton watched him for a moment and reflected on their odd friendship. The two had met many years ago in India. At the time Sexton had been in the service of the Dread Spaniard, his eyes blinded to the dark ambition he served by the freedom he was given to experiment in. Gilroy had been part of a special force, together with a young RFC officer, sent to put a stop to the Spaniard's plans once and for all. They failed of course, all do. Gilroy took it badly. His fall from grace took him down into the opium dens of the same Hoogly pirates that transported Sexton's 'Yuga' Machines. The rest is, as they say, covered by the Official Secrets Act.
'Gilroy,' Sexton huffed a he watched the stocky man walk away, 'do you think we need anything?'
'I believe you need a haircut, Mr. Wylde,' for a supposed servant, Gilroy had adopted an intensely disrespectful style.
'I shall have you know that the romantic poets style themselves almost entirely on my pale skin and flowing locks.' Gilroy did not answer and Sexton was forced to run after him, spattering his tight black trousers with mud from the field and muttering under his breath. 'By Black Kali I hate the countryside.' A lonely sheep eyed him suspiciously as he made his way past. 'I don't like you either,' he told it.
The two men topped a hill overlooking the nearest farm, Calve Fort. The place had clearly seen better days. The thatching on the main building wore a sheen of moss and in places was holed and coming away. The walls, built mainly of sharp flint in that way peculiar to southern England,' sported deep floor to ceiling cracks and the barn to the side of the main building had developed a worrying heel to the left.
Gilroy came to a halt and dropped to his knees, his arm shooting up, palm open and level with the brim of his hat, to warn Sexton to do the same. The well dressed Gent had already stopped, his mouth formed into a perfect, surprised, 'O'.
In a huge circle around the farm, the grass writhed. It twisted sinuously and at the edges of the circle nearest had reached waist height.
Gilroy reached back into his pack and retrieved his binoculars.
'It's like Innsmouth at t'Infernal Equinox[1] if this is more of them horrors out of America,' he scanned the clearing around the farm, 'I'll be needing t'elephant gun and a stiff brandy, not merely a swig o' gin, Mr Wylde.'
Sexton, however, was not listening.
'It works!,' he said delightedly and an unkind person may have said that at the moment all the grasses died, keeling over and drying to a comforting, familiar and above all still, gold, that he squealed like an excited young girl.
'Works?' repeated Gilroy in a voice that was decidedly less happy. 'What exactly works?'
'The machine, the Fosciliator.'
'It makes grass grow?' Giroy scratched under his hat again.
'No, the sun does that' he clapped his hands joyfully, 'did you not go to school? My foscilitor turns things to stone.'
Gilroy, who as it happens did not go to school but firmly believed learning never stopped and some people would do well to stop being quite as clever and start learning a little more, shook his head.
'That grass, sir, don't look very vitrified.'
Sexton stared hard at his companion.
'There's no need for that tone. Of course it doesn't, this is an early model. The Fosciliator works by making things become very old,' he grinned, 'it fossilizes them, or it is meant to,' he reached into his Dr's bag and retrieved two small medallions of dull metal. 'Now, you'd best put this on,' he said, throwing one to Gilroy, donning his own and starting off down the hill.
Gilroy looked at the small medallion and the sigil carved into it almost made him bring up his breakfast.
'Sexton,' he shook his head as he set off after the odd man, sniffing the air as he walked, 'does tha never learn?' he hissed into the odd smelling wind.
The nearer Gilroy got to the farm the more powerful the stench. It was a familiar smell, although one he always fervently hoped never to smell again; putrefaction.
Usually, Gilroy would have approached carefully, revolver outstretched as he ran from cover to cover but as an excited Sexton had loped ahead and was already in the barn it seemed pointless to take such precautions. He jogged , gun in hand, into the barn to find Sexton standing, stock still and quite aghast, in front of a small, humming, metal box.
In one corner, what had been a small flock of sheep slowly liquefied and near the entrance three skeletons lay where they had fallen as they tried to escape. Holed clothes and leathery skin hung from brown bones,
'I did not envisage this,' whispered Sexton regretfully as Gilroy approached. 'This was not my intention at all.'
Gilroy bent to examine one of the skeletons.
'Poor bugger,' he picked up a shoe and examined the tread, clogged with dung, then nodded to himself before dropping it. 'We'll 'ave a tough time explaining this, Mr Wylde. No terror weapons t' man from Diogenes said. I...Sexton are you listening?'
Sexton was not, he was moving towards the box as if drawn magnetically to his device all the time chattering to himself under his breadth in the rapid-fire manner of a repeating-rifle.
'I must turn it off, this was not what I wanted. I thought it would be a way to transport perishables, you see, that is all. A weapon! I never saw that. Never. Fool. Always thinking about the cause and never considering the effect...'
For a moment in Sexton's bent figure and wide blue eyes Gilroy saw once again the haunted man he had met on the banks of the Hoogly all those years ago and thought to be a figment of his own opium raddled imagination.
'Oafs!' whispered Sexton as he bent over the box. 'Damned meddling oafs.'
Gilroy approached the man and the lethal box.
'What?'
'They have snapped the mechanism which turns the thing off, without that the field may well keep expending until, well, until...' he shrugged and straightened, smoothing down his jacket. 'It would be bad anyway.'
'Don't worry thaself unduly, Mr. Wylde, I have a solution,' said Gilroy and put a bullet through the centre of the strange mechanism, causing it to explode in a strange purple flame that fed upon itself for a moment before vanishing, leaving only an empty case.
'Oh,' said the surprised inventor. 'Of course, the direct method. I wish it was as easy to hide the rest of the evidence,' he raised his arms to encompass the farm buildings around them. 'My number may be up here, I fear.'
Gilroy grinned and held up the dynamite he had retrieved from his pack.
'Don't worry, Mr Wylde, I've got a plan.'
Sexton nodded.
'Gilroy, I believe that is worth not just a swig of gin but the full hipflask.'
Gilroy smiled though he'd been hoping to get the entire bottle.
Monday, 17 January 2011
RJ Vs. The Mormons.
I like religious people. Well. Truer to say I'm fascinated by them I suppose. but if you knock on my door with your watchtower or whatever I'll invite you in for a bit of a chat and a cup of tea.
I'm quite upfront about it. I always lay out my table:
'I'm not a believer and I'm not going to be. But I am really interested in why you believe.'
Usually, they think I'm pretending and still go through their whole spiel until they realise they're not getting anywhere and make an excuse to leave. But the Mormons that came once. They meant it, they had their foot in the door and they weren't leaving until I Mormonised. This, dear Reader, is how I got blacklisted by the Mormons.
Firstly, I refused to call them Elder as I clearly had ten years on both of them. I did it very politely and we had a bit of a chat about how as I wasn't part of their Church and rather sceptical about God their title meant nothing to me and using it really made me feel a bit silly. They persevered for a bit until I explained I did have a legitimate claim to being referred to as 'Master' as I do little but read and reckon I can get away with calling myself a scholar*. At this point they gave up on the Elder and we all reverted back to Mr's.
Then we had a very long chat that came back repeatedly to how I should become a Mormon. Frequent mention of Hell was made.
Eventually. The youngest of the two (who I think was about eight) stood, gave me the most patronising smile I have ever seen and took my hand. Then he placed the Book of Mormon in it.
'You should take this and read it,' he said patronisingly in a patronising way. 'It has a lot of very valuable moral lessons in it and I think you might learn something.'
'Okay,' I told the Mormon and ran upstairs. I returned with a copy of the novelization of 'Star Wars'
Placing it in the Mormon's hand I smiled beatifically at him.
'You should take this and read it,' I told him. 'It has a lot of very valuable moral lessons in it and I think you might learn something.'
They didn't stay much longer. And they left the book, which if you ask me was just rude.
*not of anything useful mind, but they didn't know that.
I'm quite upfront about it. I always lay out my table:
'I'm not a believer and I'm not going to be. But I am really interested in why you believe.'
Usually, they think I'm pretending and still go through their whole spiel until they realise they're not getting anywhere and make an excuse to leave. But the Mormons that came once. They meant it, they had their foot in the door and they weren't leaving until I Mormonised. This, dear Reader, is how I got blacklisted by the Mormons.
Firstly, I refused to call them Elder as I clearly had ten years on both of them. I did it very politely and we had a bit of a chat about how as I wasn't part of their Church and rather sceptical about God their title meant nothing to me and using it really made me feel a bit silly. They persevered for a bit until I explained I did have a legitimate claim to being referred to as 'Master' as I do little but read and reckon I can get away with calling myself a scholar*. At this point they gave up on the Elder and we all reverted back to Mr's.
Then we had a very long chat that came back repeatedly to how I should become a Mormon. Frequent mention of Hell was made.
Eventually. The youngest of the two (who I think was about eight) stood, gave me the most patronising smile I have ever seen and took my hand. Then he placed the Book of Mormon in it.
'You should take this and read it,' he said patronisingly in a patronising way. 'It has a lot of very valuable moral lessons in it and I think you might learn something.'
'Okay,' I told the Mormon and ran upstairs. I returned with a copy of the novelization of 'Star Wars'
Placing it in the Mormon's hand I smiled beatifically at him.
'You should take this and read it,' I told him. 'It has a lot of very valuable moral lessons in it and I think you might learn something.'
They didn't stay much longer. And they left the book, which if you ask me was just rude.
*not of anything useful mind, but they didn't know that.
Monday, 13 December 2010
Tum, tum ti tum..
Er. yes. There was a huge gap. I cannot help being flighty, inconsistent and most of all so unbearably tired it is untrue. However, the book is up to 69000 words and about two thirds of the way through. The child is crawling and generally getting into everything and (hopefully) just less than 1/80th of the way through.
He is currently learning about 'NO.' Much like his Father, he doesn't particularly like it and tends it ignore it completely and do what he wants anyway. Apparently leaving a bottle of Tabasco in one of the places he's not allowed to go and saying, 'NO' is bad fathering. Who'd have guessed?
List of things he likes.
Getting as near as possible to the marble fireplace.
Chewing wires. (Electric)
Sucking plugs.(Electric)
Fire.
Hot drinks.
Anything above him that is heavy enough to crush his head.
Remote controls.
Plastic bags.
Mobile phones
Bits of fluff that he somehow seems to spontaneously generate from his mouth.
Cat litter.
Obsessed with my computer. Absolutely obsessed.
He has an uncanny knack of getting hold of either a remote control or the computer and finding a button that brings up a screen you've never seen before and can't get out of. I have no idea how, maybe all babies are electrical engineers by instinct.
Anyway. Short update. other stuff is going on that's quite interesting but I can't talk about yet. Soon.
He is currently learning about 'NO.' Much like his Father, he doesn't particularly like it and tends it ignore it completely and do what he wants anyway. Apparently leaving a bottle of Tabasco in one of the places he's not allowed to go and saying, 'NO' is bad fathering. Who'd have guessed?
List of things he likes.
Getting as near as possible to the marble fireplace.
Chewing wires. (Electric)
Sucking plugs.(Electric)
Fire.
Hot drinks.
Anything above him that is heavy enough to crush his head.
Remote controls.
Plastic bags.
Mobile phones
Bits of fluff that he somehow seems to spontaneously generate from his mouth.
Cat litter.
Obsessed with my computer. Absolutely obsessed.
He has an uncanny knack of getting hold of either a remote control or the computer and finding a button that brings up a screen you've never seen before and can't get out of. I have no idea how, maybe all babies are electrical engineers by instinct.
Anyway. Short update. other stuff is going on that's quite interesting but I can't talk about yet. Soon.
Wednesday, 27 October 2010
Decisions.
I have been so ill. I'd forgotten how absolutely murderous flu actually is. I've still not eaten for the last two days and I don't feel hungry at all. So I have been thinking, when the mind-fug clears, anyway.
I'm at a point where I have a decision to make and I am in two minds. In the Novella there was, what is best described as, a 'Huge Reveal'. It came right at the end and changed everything that had gone before for the reader. And I think it worked reasonably well in the novella.
However, with something the length of a novel I'm wondering if it would leave the reader feeling cheated if they don't know of this earlier. At half way through I'm in a perfect place to reveal this thing and I kind of think I should. But if I do it and it's wrong it will probably mean a complete re-write from this point onwards. I think it's right. I will probably try and write the reveal scene by teh end of this week and see what I think.
I'm at a point where I have a decision to make and I am in two minds. In the Novella there was, what is best described as, a 'Huge Reveal'. It came right at the end and changed everything that had gone before for the reader. And I think it worked reasonably well in the novella.
However, with something the length of a novel I'm wondering if it would leave the reader feeling cheated if they don't know of this earlier. At half way through I'm in a perfect place to reveal this thing and I kind of think I should. But if I do it and it's wrong it will probably mean a complete re-write from this point onwards. I think it's right. I will probably try and write the reveal scene by teh end of this week and see what I think.
Friday, 2 July 2010
oops.
I have just written a thousand words of complete and utter toss.
This is all my own fault. I can't blame tiny, he has slept and been remarkably good. So good in fact I can't even fill in the 'vomited on' thing as he has learnt remarkably good manners (he is asleep by me as I type).
So what have I done?
Well.
I have quite strict rules. I generally know what is going to happen and who is going to do it to whom and where and when. I do not deviate. I don't hold with this idea that characters take on 'a life of their own' at all. You sign up to be in something I am on with then you are a soldier in my army. You will go where you are told and generally when you get there you'll die in a horrible but inventive fashion.
But.
I deviated. I didn't mean to but I did. A character who was purely meant to answer a door suddenly became more than that. Now, it was quite a cold blooded decision. It allows me to flesh out a lot and add lots of detail but it has also cocked up what I wanted to do somewhat. And as the whole bit I've written hasn't been thought through at all it's all over the place, badly written nonsense at the moment. Which I know sounds rather negative but it isn't as it's a thousand words that are all very useful just very raw. They can be massaged and the only reason I did it is they contribute far more than they cause trouble.
I hope.
Gonna be a long rough edit to do at the end of this chapter but I think it will be worth it.
Maybe.
(All errors courtesy of excessive tiredness.)
C7 at 3800 words.
This is all my own fault. I can't blame tiny, he has slept and been remarkably good. So good in fact I can't even fill in the 'vomited on' thing as he has learnt remarkably good manners (he is asleep by me as I type).
So what have I done?
Well.
I have quite strict rules. I generally know what is going to happen and who is going to do it to whom and where and when. I do not deviate. I don't hold with this idea that characters take on 'a life of their own' at all. You sign up to be in something I am on with then you are a soldier in my army. You will go where you are told and generally when you get there you'll die in a horrible but inventive fashion.
But.
I deviated. I didn't mean to but I did. A character who was purely meant to answer a door suddenly became more than that. Now, it was quite a cold blooded decision. It allows me to flesh out a lot and add lots of detail but it has also cocked up what I wanted to do somewhat. And as the whole bit I've written hasn't been thought through at all it's all over the place, badly written nonsense at the moment. Which I know sounds rather negative but it isn't as it's a thousand words that are all very useful just very raw. They can be massaged and the only reason I did it is they contribute far more than they cause trouble.
I hope.
Gonna be a long rough edit to do at the end of this chapter but I think it will be worth it.
Maybe.
(All errors courtesy of excessive tiredness.)
C7 at 3800 words.
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