Community witing
Just got back from my first ever “write-in” at the South Bank Centre, as part of NaNoWriMo 2010. Just enough time to chat to a few fellow writers, but then heads down for a “sprint” – 45 minutes of uninterrupted writing. The wine and another sprint. It felt very strange seeing the concentration on the 50 or so faces there, with everyone typing (or in my case scribbling) away furiously. Or joyously. Everyone working together with a community spirit, and plenty of camaraderie. But at the same time, everyone writing totally on their own, each focussed on their independent and wildly different works. Nice.
Today’s word count: 4326 (PB!) Total so far: 8296. On target, but it’s early days…
More novelling
Into day 3 of NaNoWriMo 2010. It’s fun when you give a character some random bit of past history, then put them in a new situation and think “What would they do now?” and realise that their past history gives you the answer. It’s not “My character made their own choices”, as I’m still in control, but it certainly makes writing fun!
Novel writing in a hurry
After having dabbled in bits of creative writing for years, I’ve never finished anything longer than a couple of very short stories. So this year, I decided to take the plunge and join in the “National Novel Writing Month” or NanoWriMo. The aim is “simply” to write 50,000 words of brand new material during the month of November. By 5pm on day 1, I’ve written a little over 1000, which is OK, but I’ll need to knock out another 500 or 1000 tonight to keep on track…
Anyway, besides trying to write my first novel, I thought I’d jot down one or two ideas here as I go along, but hopefully without distracting myself from the main task. So all I’ll say for now is:
Mood – Excited.
Energy – need another coffee.
Optimism – got plenty.
Hamburg – my kind of town
So just along from Davidstrasse, you’ll find Balduinstrasse. Like I said, my kinda town…
“I think I’m a Protestant atheist.”
From the ever-wonderful Matthew “vive la” Parris.
Conundrum
Here’s a modern dilemma for you: suppose you’re a political journalist for the BBC. You therefore have to repeatedly prove that you’re not biased towards the left or the right, that you will be impartial and disinterested at all times. Unfortunately, you happen to be rather left-of-centre politically, and indeed married to a high-profile Guardian columnist, with whom you have children. How to redress the balance? Simple: find a suitable centre-right political journalist, say one working for Murdoch’s Times, and have a child with her too! Nice and balanced, a plan without a mar.
But if you do change your mind, and decide that you don’t want to become known as a philanderer (or, to be fair, decide you want your private life to remain private), then you can just take out an injuction. Or better yet, a super-injunction…
Problem solved.
No good gags
I wonder if a judge will prevent me from linking to this story in today’s Guardian? Maybe if Carter-Fuck [1] had their way…
[1] Copyright Private Eye ad nauseum
Nominative predeterminism?
Story in today’s Guardian: “Let’s fix Britain’s drinking problem” by Stephen Ginn.
I have nothing more to say.
Sex sells, even to gardeners
I recently bought a little pot plant for my office, which is now sitting on my window sill, slowly dying in all likelihood. There’s no label on it, so I have no idea what it is. I decided to start googling for pictures of houseplants, thinking I’d recognise it visually. And then I stumbled upon “The Nursery at TyTy“. Like many garden centre websites, it has many pictures of flowers, plants, bushes – all lovingly described to help the customer make their purchase. For example, we are told:
The Domestic Nandina works well as as evergreen line of shrubs that always show berry colors of red or fragrant flower colors of white displayed on delicate lace-like, medium green leaves that constantly move in a breeze. Nandina’s size is 6 to 8 ft. tall, but only 3 feet wide, meaning it works well in narrow spaces.
Fine. But the picture to accompany this? Well, it (and more) is below the link.
Stalked by a bridge
I just got an email telling me that “London Bridge is now following you”. To be honest, there have been late-night walks across London when I’ve half-believed that unseen eyes are watching me, that someone’s lurking in *that* shadow *there* – “Come out come out, whoever you are!” I’ve wanted to shout, like Holly Martins after a few drinks. (CLOSE SHOT – KITTEN).
Anyway, turns out it’s just a Twitter update. The 21st Century is indeed “a very strange place“.
