The Finishing Line. Or Paragraph. Or Even The Finishing Eight Chapters.

Right, here goes nothing. About 125 pages of nothing, to be exact. The actual finishing date for nanowrimo is tomorrow,at midnight in your local time zone. But because tomorrow night,I'll be doing my first bit of stand up in about a year for a charity gig,I'm going to have a damn good go at trying to finish the nano book tonight. This, however, might be a bit of a push,since there's still about 15,000 words left to make the word count.

You can tell that it's not a prospect I'm looking forward to, because I'm procrastinating by doing this blog. Writers are an idiotic lot sometimes. Very few other groups of people consider that the best way to avoid writing is to do some completely different writing.

What's odd is that it still feels like a short story, despite the fact that its currently running at 35,000 words. I mean, let's not kid ourselves here: it's very much a hack job, a situation that ain't gonna change when I cough out the last 15 thousand words in - I hope - less than seven hours. Nobody's going to produce anything of real quality in that night, not even if their name is Hemingway. But, frankly, that's not important - getting down the main body is, and I can come back in January to the carcass and pick over the bones. As terrible as this draft is - and it is terrible at the moment, it hasn't even got up to the level of first draft yet - I (even I, normally hyper self critical ) find bits of it readable. And here's the ... Encouraging/Depressing bit (delete as appropriate) ... This terrible, badly written, incomplete book, at least six drafts away from anything I wish to show to anyone. much less consider publication, is already better than some stuff I've seen uploaded to the kindle. This is something I very much need to keep in mind in the wee small hours of tonight.

NaNoWriMo: Time Is Running Out

Only a few days left - a few hours, really - until the deadline for NaNoWriMo hits, and I've still got nearly 17,000 words to complete. Time is running out. It feels like an episode of 24. If, you know, it was an episode of 24 that mainly concentrated on a man with scruffy hair and glasses hunched over a laptop. Now, I know that there are episodes that feature exactly that character, but they usually turn out to be one of the terrorists, and end up having all their fingers snapped backward by Kiefer Sutherland, and I don't want that happening before the end of the week. Of, indeed, ever.

I try and knock out a few hundred words while on my tea and lunch break at work. This morning, I fired up the PC, slotted in my memory card with the story on it .... and everywhere plunged into darkness. Now, that really was like an episode of 24. There had been some kind of major power cut in the town, but annoyingly, it wasn't major enough to facilitate everyone getting a day off. In fact, the power came back on roughly twenty minutes later. You know, at the end of my tea break. So I'd missed a chance that I really couldn't afford to miss to add a couple of hundred onto my word count, but I decided that I would appease the inspiration Gods by writing a power cut into my story. It'll actually work quite well, I think, and might even give me a couple of thousand extra words to slot into the climax. We shall see. At this point, every paragraph counts.

As I hurtle towards the finish line, mindful of the fact that most of my nights are going to be taken up with other activities (Ghostwalk tomorrow night, kids), what's interesting is the way a lot of people who know that I've taken on this ridiculous task have chosen to display their support. In the main, it involves them shrugging their shoulders, and beginning sentences with the words 'Well, of course, now, it's impossible ..', with the implication that no matter what happens now, there's no way that I'm going to be able to finish a 50k novel by the end of the week. The tone is pleasant enough (you know, 'nice try', and all), but I somewhat wish they'd at least wait until I actually came up short before telling me that it's ok that I've come up short.

Unless, of course, it's reverse psychology. Maybe they want me to take umbrage, to prove their expectation of my lethargy wrong. In which case, I resent being played so obviously. I've half a mind to simply stop writing, just to show everybody that I'm not so easily manipulated. Yes, that's the plan. Anyone can write a novel in a month. But it shows real strength of character to resist doing what everyone else on social networking sites is doing.

Oh, by the way, Facebook don't have any legal access to your status updates. Or something. Pass it on.

Tash. And Nanowrimo Dash.

As well as attempting to hack out a novel this month, I've also been trying to produ a moustache as well. I'm still not entirely sure which one has garnered the most success. Certainly, both get me funny looks and sympathetic comments. Although, to be fair, only one of them has resulted in people telling me I look like a Mexican. 

The reason for the moustache, as I'm sure you're already aware, is to promote Movember, a charity that seeks to raise awareness of cancer in men. I did my first Movember last year, and was very gratified to raise over £100, which might seem like small pennies to you, but since I didn't really expect anyone to pay attention to me and my Mo, was roughly £107 more than I expected to be able to raise 

For various reasons (the NaNoWriMo book amongst them) I haven't been able to go on as much about Movember this year, so my fund raising page is significantly lower, and I'm fully aware that we're in the last week. If any of you lovely people wish to denote (and, indeed, promote) the fact that I've been spending the past month sporting a Mo, please see if you want to spend any time visiting my Movember page (the link for which should be above). I'm also fully aware that I'm somewhat late to the party with this plea, and that you've been bombarded for the past couple of weeks with similar pleas from the other men in your life also asking you for donations. At least you can take comfort in the fact that absolutely none of the men involved in Movember are in any way competitive, won't take it personally if you choose to donate to someone else over them, and in absolutely no way will take such a rejection as a slight on your shared friendship, on on their manhood. So, no pressure there, then. 

I'm fairly convinced that I don't really suit a moustache. I'll be brave and post a photo later, so you can point and laugh. It's alright for a couple of days around the mid-way point of the month, where it looks somewhat distinguished, like an English officer who still thinks of war as jolly good fun. I'd like to think that I get closest to this look when I'm wearing my high collared black coat. I bought this coat originally because I imagined that it looked a bit like the one that Benedict Cumbrbatch wears in Sherlock, and not a £10 end of season sale item from Primark, which it does in fact look like, and, indeed, is. 

The moustache always takes a bit of getting used to, simply because I don't normally wear one. Until this time last year, I never did. My dad, on the other hand, always did, being a man of the seventies. Looking at the mirror today at my mo, I'm taken aback by how very little I resemble my dad. I think me and my mum are going to have to have a little talk .. 

By the way, before I forget: in aid of Movember, I'm part of the line up of a special charity edition of the Comedy Cooler, a stand up night at the Alibi in Hove, this Friday. It will be my first bit of stand up in almost a year, so come along if you want to point and laugh, or, in the surprising event that I'm actually funny, simply laugh. The compere is Aidan Goatley (10 Films With My Dad), and the headliner is Sam Savage. Just as a heads up, though, since it's a charity gig, it's a pre-booked ticket only event, so you're best advised to head along to this link here to book your tickets. 

Read This Blog Or The Puppy Gets It ..

A few films - only a few, mind - are able to stand apart from the rest of the pack that Hollywood produces each year via a rather dubious distinction. Through combinations of mishap, bad luck, and occasionally, simple lack of professionalism, these are the movies that are not allowed to end their films with closing credits that claim that no animals were harmed during the making of this picture. It now seems that my NaNoWriMo novel will suffer a similar fate, if, perversely, it's not finished. 

This is the deal. After my last blog speaking about my NaNoWriMo wordcount, which I've spent the last fortnight being horrifically behind on, a friend messaged me with the encouraging advice that if I didn't finish the novel, then she would take it upon herself to murder a puppy. As if that wasn't enough, she then went on to say that such an act was likely to result in her suffering bouts of guilt and post traumatic stress, neatly surmising that even if I wasn't going to be affected by puppy death, then I might well be persuaded by a pretty girl making puppy eyes at me. I wonder if I should be insulted that I'm so easily manipulated. 

Actually, the clock is against me: although today I broke the seal of 30,000 words, that means I still have to sink twenty thousand words in under seven days. Actually, of course, much less than that, because as well as working full time, I think there's about three of those evenings in which I'm not going to be anywhere near the computer. Plus, I've got a couple of workshops to prepare. So, it's going to be a bit of a marathon sprint to hack this thing out before next Friday (actually, Thursday, really - I'm going to be doing my first bit of stand up in around a year on Friday - damn, that's another thing I have to prepare for). I have, if not quite every faith, then certainly a bit of faith that it's still possible, though. 

Earlier this week, I went to a thing called Working Towards Performance (see, away from the computer again). This was the culmination of a series of acting workshops led by local actor Steven O'Shea. It's been a thing that I've been meaning to get along to for a couple of years now, but time and circumstance, as well as my own acting/directing commitments, have always conspired to get in the way. 

It was an evening of Shakespearian speeches, and the room - at the top of the Hobgoblin pub, in Brighton - which wasn't exactly small, was packed. It had a great atmosphere, making me think of the kind of vibe I romantically attribute to the San Fransico Beat scene of the Sixties. Not that I was ever involved in any of that, obviously. 

After the show, there was lots of meeting people - actors, directors, etc - who I hadn't seen for a while, and there were lots of conversations that began with the phrase 'what are you doing at the moment?' While it's good to be thought of as someone who's almost always involved in something creative, I couldn't help qualifying my answers with the lament that all these things, I do in my spare time - none of them pay any sort of a wage, not even this blog, which at this moment has precisely two subscribers. And of of them is on a free trail. 

Comedy Is Sketchy

On Monday night, I went along to the first in aeries of Acting Classes at the New Venture Theatre being led by Andy Thomas, a local actor and comedian. Over five weeks, he's exploring different aspects and heroes of sketch comedy, from he radio madness of The Goons to the more modern antics of Little Britian.

I went along partially because I have some interest in sketch comedy myself. I do earnestly think its about the most difficult type of comedy to get right. At least with a play, you have a certain amount of wriggle room while you lay down aspects of plot and character, and even in stand up, the audience will often allow you a surprising amount of time in which you don't tell a joke as long as you're engaging enough. But with a sketch, there's no such freedom. You only have one mission - get in, be very funny, get out. Preferably in four minutes or less.

I should know, I suppose. I myself have utterly failed to produce good sketch comedy. It was a few years ago, and the comedy group I was with at the time decided in a fit of foolhardiness and hubris to produce their own hour long sketch show. Due to a mixture of time and life constraints, the writing duties didn't get shared out as equally as they should have done. My memory dictates that I ended up writing about 80% of that show. In reality, it was probably only 60 or 70%, but you get ten idea: I was stretched, mad the material that I produced was weaker as a result. Having said all that, there's no accounting for taste: I had one sketch which involved Mary and Joseph being visited by Social Services, who were disturbed by the fact a baby was being brought up in a stable. I thought it was a bit of a hack job, and very likely an idea that had probably been explored by someone else already, in a much better way. But it was actually an audience favourite. Sometimes you shouldn't be allowed to critique your own work.

I remember reading an article years ago that opened with the rather bold claim that the Beatles had killed pop music. This doubtless confused the many thousands who had previously been labouring under the delusion that the combo had in fact invented pop. The argument after the contentious opening salvo went something like this: the Beatles come along at the tail end of the fifties, when the very concept of a teenager had not itself reached double figures. Pop music is only just beginning to kick in, after about a decade of rock. Then the Beatles comes along with their perfectly formed pop songs - three minutes, chorus, verse, chorus - and the pop song stops growing, right there, before it's even had a chance to start - there's no need to develop it any further when the Beatles have already got it so right.

It's a compelling argument, and I think it can be somewhat reasonably applied to sketch comedy via - somewhat predictably - Monty Python's Flying Circus. That team, and also Spike Milligan at roughly the same time - were infamously disinterested in the so-called 'punchline', and began to dismantle the very workings of the sketch within the shows themselves, meaning that sketches could be very long (the entire length of the show, even long after the title credits), or very short (but repeated, cropping up at random points later, sometimes only glimpsed in the background). But the fact is, sketches as we recognise them today hadn't really been around that long at that point. Even The Goon Show, and across the water and within a few years, Laugh In, don't precisely deliver sketches, as such: what those shows (and arguably, the entire satire movement of the following decade) have more in common with is the music hall and burlesque acts of the preceding fifty years or so. Then Monty Python comes along and literally puts a foot in to all that, a kicking that sketch comedy has struggled to recover from, although in the US, the torch has been carried on an almost weekly basis by Saturday Night Live.

In the UK, though, sketch comedy still can come in for a lot of flack. the Two Ronnies and Morecambe And Wise are still more closely akin with vaudeville - the latter going so far as to insist that their TV shows opened in front of theatre style curtains - while, perhaps surprisingly, the better Carry On films are really a collection of loosely linked sketches threaded together by a narrative plot.  Fans of sketch comedy will state that the last good sketch show in this country was Big Train, and while that show was indeed excellent (and contained some of the finest single sketches ever, while rarely resorting to the easy shorthand of repeated characters), it ignores - unfairly - sketch group duos like Mitchell And Webb, Armstrong And Miller, and, for much of the eighties, French And Saunders.

The last pair on that list is very much worth a mention, because there's something of a dearth of female sketch comedy on television at the moment. When F&S were on TV, the tired old argument about whether or not women were funny was irrelevant - French & Saunders were never sold as a 'female' sketch group: they were just funny. It's a pity that whenever a sketch group that contains only women happens to get anywhere near a TV show these days, that's very often what they're sold on, which seems to be counterproductive. Even the excellent Smack The Pony fell to an urban myth suggesting that their name was euphemism for female masturabation. The boys never had to put up with this kind of pony.

It's odd, actually, because away from the TV, on screen, a good deal of my favourite sketch groups are all-female. Partially it's because there's too many less confident boy groups who resort to be inh quite shouty, and joke about willies a lot (seriously), whereas the women will more often display a generosity of spirit, and celebrate something I'm increasingly thinking is vital to sketch comedy: joy. This harkens all the way back to the Goons, who delighted in being silly and smart at the same time, and, while their DNA is entirely different, that same joy can be found in the shows of groups like Lady Garden and The Boom Jennies. The joy is, I feel, really important to the success of your comedy sketch show. Even in sketch shows that purport to be ugly and dark benefit hugely from displaying a delight in the characters they put on stage. There's an excellent group (this time, all male) called Casual Violence! who, despite mining some very deep furrows of dispair, score very highly over other teams that attempt material about death, abuse, and imprisonment, simply because it's very clear that the writers genuinely like the characters they've created, and want the best for them, even if their lives are like something out of a 1950's Brand X Comic book. At a Casual Violence! Show it's not uncommon for audience members to be calling out a 'aawww,' pantomime like, when a grotesque villain has finally met their (well deserved) come-uppance.

I'm still considering hauling out some of the sketches I've already written,and coming up with some new ones (because, you know, I'm not quite busy enou already), but the near impossibility of the task gives me pause. Three minutes - be very funny - end. With, I'm now realising, characters that the audience can genuinely connect with and even love. Even if they are refusing to refund a dead parrot.

NaNoWriMo, Day 20: The Fork In The Road

Hitting what I suspect is the most challenging part of writing a NaNoWriMo novel. It's not about whether or not the finished product will be any good, or if I'm going to run out of ideas and narrative steam (although all those things are a constant concern). It's simply that, after several days in which I've only produced a couple of thousand words - I'm now about 9,000 words behind schedule - that nobody cares about this book. Nobody really gives a damn if I don't finish it. This in itself is not a fear or a concern. It's actually a highly attractive, alluring siren. I could, simply, stop writing the book. No great loss. The stuff that I've written so far is OK - not brilliant, OK - and there's the beginning of some kind of narrative skeleton there. Despite it being in a style that I've never written in before (and, indeed, rarely read) I have a suspicion that there's not an original thought in its head. 

But, it's somewhat fun, and I'm beginning to like the main characters, even if I still can't quite work out their actions (the central villian's motives might be a little too far fetched, I haven't decided yet). The whole plot is still overwhelming me, and I haven't been able to get my head around it all. 

Pretty much every writing manual you'll ever read will have a riff on the line 'the only way to write is to keep writing'. It gets repeated so often, it's like a mantra, and therefore become part of the background, like wallpaper. You forget what it actually means. Certainly, during this project, I've been re-discovering exactly what it means: if at all possible, don't stop writing. Whenever I've been away from the laptop, the book has felt too much like a chore, too much like hard work. The characters aren't working, and I have no idea what to do next. 

However, when I force myself to fire up the laptop, I find myself presented with a narrative problem that I simply have to write my way out of. No planning, no character profiles - just reaction, and action. The rules of NaNoWriMo itself dictate that - just write, no matter what. Those rules, on a bad day, become not a shackle, but a release: for instance, the opening scene of my book ('Set Up, Punch', just in case you haven't been paying attention) has never really worked all that well for me. It sets up three of the main characters well enough, and it manages to smuggle a digestible amount of exposition in a engaging enough fashion, but nothing actually seemed to be ... happening. It was almost literally people standing still, talking. Added to this, I still haven't really decided if my main character is thrown into events blindly, if she's in control of events from the top of the story, or even, somehow, a combination of both (there are advantages and disadvantages in all three).

However, as a writer - and as a actor, and a director, come to that - I've become a passionate believer that if something in your narrative simply isn't working, if it's causing you a problem, then it's very likely that you've already written the solution to it. There are probably more intelligent and experienced writers out there who can explain the dynamics, logic, or just plain alchemy of it all, but I've long ago decided to simply surrender to it, and trust that things will work themselves out. It has, so far, without exception, always worked. I'm fully aware that by typing the words 'it has always worked' mean that, if it is alchemy, I've just cursed myself to never being able to solve a narrative problem ever again. 

It's not alchemy, of course, even though it feels that way. I still have to work hard at solving the problem, even if I'm not always certain what work it is that I have to do to unlock the doors. Occasionally, I will have to write out a full character profile, but just as often, I find myself simply transcribing what I've already written by hand, altering a word or paragraph her or there, switching around the order of scenes, until something clicks. Artistically, it's no more profound than wriggling the top of your tongue at a wobbly tooth until it finally drops out. and often, just as satisfying. 

Curiously, I'm still not all that worried about falling behind on the word count, even though the NaNoWriMo website is currently warning me that at my current rate, I'll be finishing seven days late.  But I'm fully aware that the main reason I'm not concerned about being behind is the dangerous one - the one I mentioned at the top of this blog. Nobody cares. Nobody's waiting. I just have to remind myself that this is the literal cut off point, the fork in the road. Leave it now, and I'll have 100 pages or so of somewhat incoherent plotting. But if I can come up with just 25,000 words in the next (gulp) ten days .. Well, then. That has the potential to be a real, actual book. 

Not Making The Wordcount

This has been a bit of a below par week when it comes to keeping up with the NaNoWriMo novel. In the past six or so days, I've produced a little under two thousand words. And one thousand, five hundred of those were yesterday, at an official write-in. Apart from emphasising just how useful those things are, it indicates how very little I've been working on the book this week. I'm now about four thousand words behind schedule.

I'm being slightly unfair on myself. It's not like I've done nothing at all on the book in the past week. I've come back to it, adjusting things, shifting scenes around, differing the order on events. I had to print out a copy of the work in progress, just so I had a physical copy that I could scrawl all over, annotate, and jot down ideas. I find that for my muddled mind, this works very well. You're not really  supposed to start editing and re-writing until after Novembet 30th (or completing 50,000 words, whichever comes first), but I found that I was slamming into a lot of narrative walls, because I simply didn't know what my characters were doing, or why. To be fair, that's still the case, but at least the events themselves have some kind of narrative logic to them now, and are beginning to suggest whole new scenarios all by themselves. I don't know when I'll catch up with the target word count, but it's still an education. I'm realising just how difficult it is to write even one of the most terrible books I read on the kindle.

The improv workshops (at the Iron Duke) continue to go well, although it'd be good to get a few more regulars. There's a few people who have been continually trying to get along, but life, plans and financial constraints keep getting in the way. We have about six more workshops (I think) before we take a break for Christmas.

And finally (for this blog, which is just me getting my groove on after not writing in it for a week), I have two ghost walks this week, on Friday and Saturday. The nights are getting colder now, and so the crowds are getting smaller (again, there's only about five weeks left before we close up for Christmas). But the crowds are getting more interesting. One night, I had two drunk couples who heckled me for the hour (I've never been heckled as a stand up before, it was surprising to be heckled as aguide on a Ghost Walk).

But, I'll leave this blog for now. The theory is that I'll write a bit more of the novel. And, in theory, so etching vaguely intelligent for tomorrow's blog.

NaNoWriMo, Day 11: Throw Away The Key

Still, somehow, slightly ahead of schedule for the NaNoWriMo book. This more impressive when I didn't manage to write a damn thing yesterday. What's also comforting g is the fact gang , while I seem to have spent most of today's session writing only to top up my word count, I don't think I've quite gotten into the region of waffling just yet. Yet. I'm not saying the story makes any sense yet, or is even worth reading, but it still - remarkably - looks like its got some potential. 

But here's the thing. While it might have some potential, it's still, and at the same time, quite terrible. It's logic judges all over the place, the main villain (and the main character, come to that) are horrifically underwritten, and I still - still - don't know the main engine of the piece, the macguffin, the actual reason why all these events are happening. Knowing that would solve a couple of other problems and unanswered questions, which, in turn, would begin to provide story threads all of their own (for instance, I'm entirely unable to work out if my main character is new to the town in which this story is set, or knows the streets well. Equally, I can't decide if she has history in some secret shadowy organisation - which would provide her with the skills she needs to survive the plot - or if she's simply managing not to die through a mixture of wit and dumb luck. 

However, in the last couple of days, I've come to the conclusion that none of it matters. Nobody has to read the damn thing anyway. Quite often, you're told to lock what you've written away in a bottom drawer before taking it out again a month or so later before attempting re-writes. Nobody, as far as I'm aware, has yet discussed the freedom inherent in choosing to leave the manuscript in the bottom drawer with absolutely no intention of reading it again. You might consider that hacking out 50,000 words with no intention of tailoring it into a finished, readable piece, might be a waste of time, particularly if the hack draft (that isn't even a first draft, not really) is already better than some things you've already downloaded onto your kindle. 

But actually, that approach gives you a remarkable amount of freedom. Nobody's expecting this finished novel, frankly, nobody cares. Getting those 50,000 words down is just boot camp, an education. It's well known that Stephen King has a couple of completed novels locked away somewhere, that he has no intention of publishing. These date back from before the publication of 'Carrie'. In many ways, those novels were a way of paying dues, of sharpening pencils, before the 'real' work of novel writing began. There's no real reason why the novels written all over the world this month can't serve the same purpose. It means that if you're half way through a book that is merely 'ok' - but probably will never be good enough for an actual book deal - can still be completed. This isn't about the novel, it's about the writing. 

And, well. If it is actually pretty good .... 

Well. That's a different story. 

NaNoWriMo Word Count: 22,237

NaNoWriMo, Day 9. This is when sensible people leave.

Oh, right now? It's painful. Last time, I was talking about how the expanded word count was actually a boon rather than an albatross around my neck. Even as I wrote those words, I knew I was placing a curse on myself. I knew that I was about to dive into literay quicksand, where I would suddenly come to a point where I had ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA why my characters were doing the things that they were doing, or indeed what they would do next. I can't work out the logical transition between one set piece and the next. The motives of absolutely everybody involved are suddenly very weak at best, contrived at .. uh, second best. I haven't managed to write my lead character as well as I'd like (she's either a typical pulp fiction type 'dame', which is what I'd originally envisaged, which means that she gets quite violent with the long line of villains lining up to attack her - or she's an innocent, struggling to keep up with events as they threaten to overwhelm her. Both have their merits, but the second arguably makes her more likeable, albeit with a story that will be more difficult to write. The former option is much more dynamic, and more fun to write - and read - but I haven't yet worked out how not to put her across as a bit psychotic. All of this, of course, shouldn't detract that in this blog entry I've been using brackets much longer than is grammatically helpful. Hang on ... ). 

The comforting thing about all of this hack writing, weak story telling, and unbelievable characters, is that I was warned about it. Everyone expects this in week 2. It's proudly claimed as a right of passage, a badge of honour. It merits a chapter all of its own in the official NaNoWriMo book, aptly called 'No Plot? No Problem!' So I've spent this evening hacking out a couple of thousand, forcing myself not to think about plot or coherence for longer than eight seconds. It's been writing that has felt more like a chore - this is the NaNoWriMo equalivent of eating your broccoli before you're allowed loose on the toffee cheesecake - and it's the only time working on this that my body has claimed the usual writer's complaint of a locked back. But, somewhere, vaguely, at the back of my mind, I'm aware of some good foundations being laid down. 

Even so, I'm having difficulties with my lead character. She's a beautiful, witty and dynamic woman - but I have to tread a very fine line between depicting a character who just happens to be all those things, and not just simply some hack male writers fantasy of what feminine strength is. Too many of us have suffered the clumsy scene in amateur writing when the heroine steps out of the shower and takes a moment to admire her perfect body in the steam tinged mirror, an event that has pretty much NEVER HAPPENED IN REAL LIFE, EVER. Depressingly, I've seen it in at least one book written by an author respected enough, and with a career that was long enough, that you'd have thought he'd have left that thing behind long ago. What makes the task slightly more challenging in my case, however, is that what I'm writing is, for all intents and purposes, a pulp novel, a dime paperback, where such tantalisation is pretty much part of the party. I'm just trying to find a balance of a character that's genuinely sexy, without all the tiresome gratuitousness. That's not even a real word, but frankly I don't care. That's what NaNoWriMo does to you. You complete an entire novel, but the trade is that you can no longer write in your native language. Or any language, for that matter. 

Pleasingly, however, I'm - just - ahead of the word count schedule. Once I've got past - say - thirty thousand, I feel that I might have a good sense of the surroundings, in the same way that you might feel on your first day in a new town. I've got the keys cut, and I staked out where the local coffee shop with free wi-fi is. Over the next few days, I've got to start going down some dark back streets. 

Look, I'm tired. I don't know if that last paragraph was real, or a metaphor, either. 

Word Count: 19,128

NaNoWriMo, Day 6

Day six of NaoWriMo, and the second day of trying to fit in the regular day job in around it as well, and, somewhat surprisingly, I'm still enjoying the whole experience, and still even being energised by it.  I'm very confident that I'll hit a wall sooner or later (my guess is towards the end of next week), and so I'm doing everything I can to keep ahead on my word count while I still can. This really is the main difference between writing at any other time, and writing in November. This month, you can't stall because you're waiting for inspiration to kick in, you just have to write regardless. Of course, that's what every how to write book tells you anyway, and it's been said by so many famous authors, you could re-tweet it fifty times over in fifty different easy to digest quotes. but it has to be said, the actually being forced to get down and do it is very instructive. 

Tonight, I'm discoveri g where my first 'seal' is. There's probably already a term for it that's better than seal, but sin I'm discovering this for the first time, since this is my blog, and since you and I are the only damn people who actually stop by this place, then 'seal' is what we'll go with. For me, it was around the 12,000 word mark. I imagine it can vary wildly in any direction for various writers, but for me it was 12,000. While working on my novel, it was getting to be a bit of a struggle to get past 10,000. There were still some major scenes I hadn't even started yet, but I knew this story couldn't possibly get up to 20,000, and I wasn't just going to fill it with waffle simply to get to the 50k mark. Plus, I still didn't really know why the things were happening, were happening. Getting past 12,000 .. Well, it wasn't exactly meandering, but it was certainly getting to be a hack job as I struggled to find out what was going on in my heroine's head. 

And then ... Well, she didn't tell me, not exactly (she's actually a frustratingly private indidvual, which, as it turns out, is becoming a major plot point), but I began to understand her more, and why she was reacting in a certain way in certain situations. And that expansive word count .. It suddenly became - not a burden, not a chore - but a boon. A blessing. Suddenly I have all this elbow room, which is vital. It's good to have it as a goal, because it forces the novice writer to have something to strive for that can't just be hacked out in one draft and sent off to a short story competition. But as well as a target, it becomes something that I absolutely wasn't expecting: a foundation, a bedrock, a support. That's taken me somewhat by surprise, although I still maintain I may not be able to get anywhere near the 50k target when it comes down to it. 

(the other thing that's taken me surprise is that the cafe where I'm writing this is playing obscure Gloria Estefan songs. I don't think I've thought about here in, like, fifteen years. Not outside of a joke by Chandler in Friends)

Terrifyingly, I'm still having ideas for short stories, which need at least some of them written down before the fade out of the memory, but frankly, as writing problems go, this is small beer. I've managed to write at least something on each day so far, so hopefully I've squirrelled away enough nuts (that's a saying, right?) for those inevitable days when I'm going to come up with absolutely nothing. 

In non-NaNoWriMo news, I've just had a haircut. I've had a bit more cut off than I intended, but that still means that I have longer hair than most other men I know. I just couldn't have neck-length hair in Movember. I looked disturbingly like Tony Ferrino, which is a look I really can't pull off. I have enough problems pulling off my own face. If you know what I mean. 

NaNoWriMo: What Happens Next? Cause I Don't Know ...

I suppose there's other stuff going on in my life that isn't NaNoWriMo related, but it's difficult to be sure. I had my first full day back at work today after a week away (I work in a school) so there was always a chance that my word count, on which I've been managing to keep slightly ahead of, would drop quite dramatically. Luckily, however, I managed to hack out a bit in my morning break,  and in the lunch break, and I'm still reasonably ahead. If I can serve up another 500 words by the time I fall asleep tonight, then I'll feel like I'm on the right track. 

Having said all that, the story's not quite working yet. I'm not too sure why all the major events are happening, why my main character is being thrust into the midst of it all. Obviously, I'm aware that I'm not going to be producing great literature here ('Bring Up The Bodies' this ain't), but I still want there to be a believable, logical narrative. I've got certain restrictions on my plot, such as the fact that my lead character can't leave the town, and somehow she's getting away with murder without the police getting involved. When I set out, these things weren't such a big deal, and maybe in a story that was done and dusted in, say, twenty thousand words, it wouldn't be a problem. You might not even question the logic until long after you've put the book down, by which time of course, it's too late - the job is done, the story has been told. But with an actual novel, you have time to get to know the characters, the opportunity to question their motives. Mostly, things can't simply 'happen' to them. Well, alright, that's not strictly true - in fact my 'in' on this story was just that, that things were happening to my main character, and she was surviving by simply reacting - think Harrison Ford in The Fugitive, Cary Grant in North By Northwest, Jodie Foster in ... uh, pretty much Amy Jodie Foster film. But, it made my main character slightly too passive, and that doesn't quite work for the plot. Which, as I've mentioned, has a contrivance meaning that she can't leave the town, and the police aren't getting involved in her clearly illegal activies. Obviously, I could just 'fix' those problems by not writing them in the first place - if it's awkward to have my main character restricted to one city, then seemingly the obvious thing would be to let her go wherever the hell she wants. But, that means an entirely different story, and risks spiralling  out to something a bit rambling. And .. well, here's the thing. Whenever I've worked on a story, and there's been some narrative problem I can't quite get my head around, I've always -emphasis on always - found that the problem is its own solution. Therefore, she can't leave town because she's following orders. And that in turn, begins to indicate why the police are turning a blind eye. But suddenly, my entirely innocent woman in jeopardy has to get all Liam Neeson on everyone's ass, and 'aquire a certain set of skills', indicating she's a professional .... something. I didn't know that when I started writing this. Hell, I didn't know that this morning. It's good, though, because it's beginning to give her a history and background which she didn't have previously. However, it might just mean I may have to start doing some research, which I had been intending to strenuously avoid. Damn. 

As I said, there's gotta be other stuff going on that isn't NaNoWriMo. 

Uh. 

I'll get back to you. 

Nanowrimo, Day 4: I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

Whenever I'm not working on the Nanowrimo novel, it's defeating me. I can't see a way through it, the plotting seems simplistic, the characters badly sketched out, and, most crucially, I have no idea what I'm going to do to progress the story further. It's so easy to get a bit scared off, and run away. Gibbering. What tends to happen, however, is once I've managed to force myself in front of the computer, with the understanding that I really am going to write something, no matter about the fear that it could well be terrible. Writing without looking back is remarkably focussing to the narrative flow. 

However, I'm saying that on what's essentially my last day off before returning to work. It's not really, I was doing the youth theatre yesterday, and I had my improv class tonight, but that's not like a full day at the office. It'll be interesting to see what I come up with - if I can come up with anything - after 8 hours of an exhausting job. My parameters of what's acceptable about the fear of writing something that's terrible may well have to be widened. 

I've had a concern that while I know most of the events that occur in my novel, I don't really know why they're happening. There's not yet a logical catalyst to everything kicking off. Certain things have begun to slide into place today, but it's still doesn't quite make sense. I'm having to make. Y characters work against what they'd logially want to do in order to make the story work. That's not always a great way to work, but given the time constraints, I don't have much choice. Now, one of two things will happen: either my plot will simply snap, because it just doesn't want to go that way (which, despite what you might think, is actually a good thing, because it means that the characters are developing strong personalities), or that I will have forced myself to have thought of a good reason why my characters are doing things they don't want to do. In my downtime, I've been re-watching old episodes of 24, and quite often, Jack Bauer (or someone else) is acting under duress, being forced to act the the bad guy for a greater good. That's begun to stir things in my imagination as to why my main character is having to act the way she is. If nothing else, it's a good enough reason for me to claim that watching box sets comes under the banner of 'research'. 

I'm hoping to hit the 10k mark before the weekend, well, ends. In the very strictest sense, that's not going to happen, because at the time of writing this sentence, it's about three minutes from midnight, but I'm going to play the Christmas Eve defence, and say that it's not Monday until I've slept. I figure I've got about a hour before fatigue takes me like a six foot mugger in an alleyway. My main stumbling block this week is going to be finding my 'macguffin'. While it isn't - and shouldn't be - the actual motor to the narrative - the way all the characters act will inevitably be influenced by whatever it is. But, bottom line: in the past four days, I've produced nearly 10,000 words more than I would have done otherwise. By the end of the week, I'll have more words in this story than are currently in my entire short story collection. And for that, I can only be grateful. 

Nanowrimo Word Count: 9347

Nanowrimo: What Makes You Think You Know What You're Talking About?

Here's the other, really important thing about Nanowrimo, the international thing where thousands of people attempt to write a novel in the space of just a month: the simple fact that it's just about possible. The idea that I'm developing for my story, Set Up, Punch has been fluttering around my head for a couple of years now, but I've never gotten around to completing it, or indeed, even starting it. Too much effort for too little reward, I felt. Would it be any good? What if I didn't know what the hell I was writing? What if there was no real logical transition in between the scenes I was writing, and they clearly only followed each other in that order because that was the way that I, the writer, wanted them to be - but they didn't actually have any narrative coherence? What if my lead character was quite sketchily written, with no strong personality traits for the reader to latch onto?

Well. Two and a bit days in, roughly 5,000 words, and I'm guilty of all of the above. But, I'm two and a bit days in, and I've written 5,000 words of a story that simply did not exist on Wednesday. It's actually a giddily remarkable thing. This approach to just go blindly forward, telling the story in much the same way that you imagine 19th Century explorers to have gone hacking through jungle vines, is very freeing. I haven't even read back more than 100 words from wherever the last section I'd left off writing at any one time. I simply do a quick scan to remind myself of where I am in the plot, and then go forward. Always forward. 

Which brings us back to the opening line of this blog entry. If I wasn't doing this as part of a national event, my internal editor would have kicked in (and kicked me) ages ago. Probably within the first 100 words. More than that, whenever I'm not writing - when I'm not at the pad or laptop - the whole scale of the thing overwhelms me. It's a novel, for crying out loud. One that I have just 28 days to complete. And it's not even 28 days, not really, because life and work are going to get in the way. So I find, somewhat to my surprise, that I'm not actually thinking over plot problems when away from the computer. Usually, with other projects, I am. I will have written myself into a corner, and will spend a few days not writing, just mentally trying to untie the story knot. With this novel, I find myself incapable of doing that - my mind just shrinks away from the problem like a shell-shocked dormouse under a flashlight (no, I have no idea where that image came from either, just work with me here). So, as I say - if it wasn't for the fact that this is under the umbrella of nanowrimo, my panic and writer's block would have encouraged me to jump ship at the first hurdle. (ships? Hurdles? And you thought the shell shocked dormouse was a tortured metaphor). 

But I've found, forced with the idea that I have to hit a reasonable word count every day, that simply flexing the fingers and ... typing - actually provides the storylines that I haven't been able to think of when I've been away from the computer. At least, that's the way it's gone down so far. I very likely won't be quite as clear-headed in the middle of week three, when I find I've sunk 200 pages into my characters running on the spot. Perhaps literally, if I'm particularly stuck. 

It should be ok, though. In one of my other lives, I'm an improviser, and in improv, you learn to live in the present moment - just always moving forward, only reacting to whatever's going on at that precise moment. The theory is that you won't have to worry about coming up with a decent ending, because whatever story you're telling in the present will lead naturally to that ending. That's the theory, anyway. I mention the improvisation only by means of a tenuous link to the fact that to or row (Sunday), I'm holding the second of my improv drop ins at the DukeBox Theatre on Waterloo Street in Hove, which is as good a place as any to come up with a new story or idea. They're purely drop in, so newcomers are welcome at any time, regardless of what experience they do or don't have. There's all manner of different types of improv and skills that are looked at each week, so it's always worth coming along to see what we're doing. 

Now. As the more astute amongst you might have guessed, this entire blog entry was a delaying tactic, avoiding that fateful moment when I finally go back to the novel, and hack out the next couple of thousand. As ever, right now, I have no idea what happens next. Hopefully I will within the. Ext half hour .... 

Nanowrimo, Day 2: Heading For A Wall

All throughout today, I've felt exhausted. Like I just want to fall asleep. And it's not even as if I've had a long day at the office. I just met up with a friend who, incredibly, I hadn't seen since about Feburary. We chatted about that, about love lives, and about green eggs and ham (not because we were at a Dr Suess convention, but because it was on the menu, and neither one of us have had it before). And, of course, we talked about nanowrimo. It's inevitable, now. People are going to often ask me over the next 29 days how it's going, and if I've hit today's word count. This is what happens when you constantly put your word count up as your Facebook status update, or on your twitter feed. 

And that, of course, is the whole point. 

I'm about to hit the the first bump in my story. I know what will happen in, say, twenty, thirty or maybe even fifty pages time. At least, vaguely. But I have no idea how to get there. I have no idea ow my character is going to get from where she is right now to the next set piece. Now, given today's exhaustion, this would be the point at which I'd normally decide to sleep on it, and get caught up on some box sets that I still haven't gotten around to watching yet. And that's where the whole insanity of nanowrimo really comes into its own. There's no hiding place. There are thousands of people all across the globe all hacking out their little novels right now. As you read this, there's probably someone within ten miles of you who should be finishing chapter 3. There's every chance that that someone should be you. Normally, if writer's block (which is sort of what I'm about to hit) trips you up, then that can be as good a reason as any to throw in the towel for a couple of days. But then a couple of days can very quickly become a week. After all, real life is very good at getting in the way. But with nanowrimo, if you tweeted that you'd delivered a 1,000 words on day 1, and 700 words on day 2, followed by a storming 3,000 words on day 3 .... Well, people are going to notice if your word count suddenly goes quiet for a day or so. It's sheer ego and embarrassment that can galvanise you to keep up your count. Let's face it, the whole producing a novel in thirty days is a plan of infinite stupidity in the first place, so it can be quite chastening if, once you've committed to it, you then bail out after only a couple of days. Everyone will know. And from now on, whenever you respond to the question 'so, what are you doing at the moment?' with the reply 'well, I'm working on that novel', you will have to accept that your companion is going to smile politely, nod, and change the subject to something else. Like how they're getting promoted. You know, like a grown-up. 

I've already hit a minor bump in the story already. Same problem - I didn't know what my character should do next. That time, it was an easier solve, since I simply wrote my inability to progress the story into the narrative: in other words, I had my character realising that she didn't know what to do next. That clicked something, because she went to ask advice from an old friend (who turned out to be a burlesque dancer, which, a, is so something that wouldn't have happened if I hadn't had a mild case of writers block, and, b, probably indicates something about where my mind wanders if it doesn't have something to occupy it). I don't want my character to be constantly not knowing what to do next, however - that makes her passive, and she's certainly not that - so I can't use that trick again. One of the major challenges is that I don't yet know why the major incidents of the novel have occurred (there's some Big Bad in the background, but I don't yet know why my characters are mixed in events), but I'm trusting that I'll work that out as the month / novel progresses. 

As to what happens to my main character right now - or what she makes happen - I still have absolutely no idea. I guess there's only one way to find out .. 

Word Count: I forget. But currently I'm ahead of schedule ..

Nanowrimo: Day One Is Done

A reasonably productive day, and a surprising amount of it wasn't actually concentrating on hitting today's Nanowrimo target. That being said, I'm slightly ahead of schedule, which is somewhat to be expected, as I'm currently in the relaxed mind set of a Person Who Has Had Some Time Off Work. I fully expect my ability to form coherent sentences to reduce quite dramatically from next week onwards, so the further ahead I can get on my word count now, the better. Speaking of which, there was a moment a few minutes ago when I thought I'd managed to reduce my word count quite dramatically by the simple expedient of just losing everything that I'd written today (over three thousand words), but it turned out that I'd saved it in the wrong folder. It's the sort of mistake that would make you consider pulling the plug on the whole affair right from day 1. 

But, as I say, I didn't spend as much time in front of the computer as perhaps I expected to on Day 1 of nanowrimo. This was mainly because I got to spend some time having coffee and conversation (well, hot chocolate, too) with some very dear friends. Which is not to say that the subject of writing didn't come up. In fact, I found myself at a writing group. I've been meaning to get along to this particular writing group for the best part of the year, but something had always fallen on the same day which meant that I couldn't get along to it. There was one week in the summer that I was finally able to get along, and I turned up half a hour early, armed with pens and paper. Nobody else was there. It took me almost a hour to realise that I'd arrived on the wrong date. You'd think that if I wanted to join a writers group, I would have at least learned the basics. Like reading. 

But finally, tonight, I was able to make a session, and was glad I did. The group, which meets every first Thursday of the month on the third floor of the Waterstones in Brighton are a friendly and supportive bunch, and it seems like an ideal place to kick start new ideas into life. Certainly, I came away with the first draft of a brand new short story that didn't exist in any form whatsoever before this evening. Because that's just what I need this month: yet another story to complete. 

Of course, this month it's all about nanowrimo, and 'Set Up, Punch'. As I've probably mentioned before, it's a lot more grimy pulp fiction than I would normally write, with a great deal more violence and swearing than usually finds its way into my writing (it's only day one, and already two of my characters have met rather nasty deaths). Still, the whole pulp fiction feel seems to suit the hack-it-out  atmosphere of nanowrimo. I figure I've got a couple more days where I can continue to write pretty much free form association. And then I'm going to slam quite hard into a narrative blank wall. But for now: I think I've done as well as I could have hoped. Oh, and got another short story that I wasn't expecting. Nanowrimo might be an unashamed hack job, more about the word count than the actual quality. But there are moments when you are writing, unguarded and unconcernedly for the best part of a hour, when you actually feel like a writer. 

And that, of course, is the whole point.