annanotbob's Diaryland Diary
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Born in the 50s
I didn't make it to the nano meeting, but I'm going to make reparation by writing at least a thousand words here tonight, to get my blethering muscles flexed and ready for the off. It may not be pretty - you may wish to step away now. Quantity is what we're after here.
Thanks for the supportive comments re nano, and the explanation of steam punk (not steamER, oops). Sounds ghastly to me, but I'm not keen on other worlds somehow. I can't imagine why my genre fiction needs have settled so firmly on crime/thriller, but they have. I don't think it's a matter of better or worse, just taste - some people like cauliflower, some like cabbage, some neither, some both - but it's a pisser for me that so many of the other nano-ers are into alternate reality stuff of one type or another as I have no sensible response to their ideas. Is this fantastic original never been done before, or yet another version of that corny old thing? No idea.
In case anyone's still reading who is unfamiliar with the idea of international group-speed-novel-writing, I have to say that this is not done in the anticipation of producing a readable work of fiction within the thirty days of November, but nor is it a purposely pointless endeavour. Plenty of writers are capable of working steadily over a period of time, and they have no need of nano. Nano is for those of us who have been saying forever that they will write a novel one day, but never seem to actually start. Here's a deadline, that's all. There's no checking going on, you can cheat all you like, but you're only kidding yourself and if you go for it, you'll be part of a big international online gang, if you want to be. The idea is to produce a very rough first draft which can then be knocked into shape. That's the bit I'm crap at, but never mind. I want to jolt myself into another place in my head and see what happens. The last couple of years have been crap because I've let myself loose in front of the empty screen with little more than a vague idea and a capacity to keep going, which has led me into dark corners of my unconscious mind, not conducive to speed novelling. Which is a word, has been every November since
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well, off I drifted to check that out and ended up reading and donating fifty dollars, because, hell nano is free to all, the web site is key to the sense of community and there are no adverts. I have recently come to value this more and more highly, as both Hotmail and Facebook bombard me with all singing, all dancing multi-coloured abominations, specifically targeted at who they presume me to be, when all I want to do is see what my pals are up to. It reminds me of when the kids were little and we were really skint. I used to detune the commercial channels (only two then, amazingly) in the run-up to Christmas, so they didn't get all fucked up over stuff that was never gonna happen. Hurrah for the BBC, whatever its faults and for Andrew here, keeping it a safe place, where we all fetch up in this same white box on a blue background, no matter who we think we are or think we should be.
Yes, I have had a spliff, now you come to mention it, she said, as if anyone might still be here in ... ooh, got a bit lost for a moment there with tenses and narrative voice. The first nano novel I wrote changed from third person to first after a few chapters when the whole thing was stagnating and I brought in someone new to stir it up a bit and have her own take on these dreary fucking characters.
Sam's been coming to yoga at the gym with me sometimes since he joined a few months ago and today he stayed on for qigong for the first time. I've finally managed to memorise a short sequence that I shall try and do every day as it leaves me feeling very grounded and the teacher always says a little every day can make a big change. He is one of the most mellow, limber people I've ever met, so I'm inclined to give it a go. Always up for the possibility of an easy way forward, that's me. Worth a try, what's to lose? Recently the qigong has left me sleepy to my bones, as if gravity had been turned up to eleven and I've slept through every Friday afternoon after the class. Maybe it will keep making me like that until I've slept some energy back into this poor old bod.
Sam took this picture of me on the downs the other week:
I counted my words then, only 830 in the two hours I've been here, listening to the Radcliffe and Maconie show on Radio 2's listen again page. I keep getting distracted by their chat between records - they've had a stupid thing going this evening about potential celebrity married names, like if Carly Simon married Bob Marley she'd be Carly Marley or Zsa Zsa Gabor and Jean-Michel Jarre. My favourite was if Isla Fisher married Barry White then divorced him and married Bryan Ferry she could be Isla White Ferry (that's probably one for the Brits).
And can I say, fuck Halloween. I know it's here, it ain't going anywhere, so what if it was American, things drift, they always have done, Christmas trees started in the nineteenth century, blah blah blah. We didn't do it like this when I was a kid, or even when mine were young and it gets on my nerves. The shops are full of shoddy Halloween merchandise, which will all be binned on Sunday. Sorry, but I am Ms Grumpy Brit, born in the 50s.
I think I saw in the paper that Grace Slick was 70 today, which is pretty mind-boggling
Grateful for: music; a good thriller to read - the new Michael Connelly; getting to 1000 words without wanting to kill myself; learning that I need to have silence if I'm serious about getting something written - and I do have a cunning plan to write this one in a way that will facilitate editing later, but I'm going to keep my gob shut about it for once in my fucking life because I do actually take it a bit seriously, in an experimental, what the fuck kind of way.
Happy weekend
|11:42 p.m. - 30/10/2009
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