Not Quite Coming

Sex scenes.
Better just to blurt it out.

People who are comfortable writing sex scenes are full of great advice. I would normally quote a few here, but treat yourself and put some keywords into your preferred search engine and watch your screen turn purple. Lately, if I want to procrastinate (and who doesn't?) this is my diversion of choice.
It's the kind of thing that everyone has an opinion about, and that's been a paralysing prospect for me in relation to poor Edwina. Early on I knew that this year's Nanowrimo project had to have plenty of sex. After all, I wanted to write something fun, and what's more fun than sex? (Ok reading, sure, but really that's a given in the writing of something). Trouble being, I've never been able to write a convincing kiss scene let alone getting down to the business. It was the first scene of the story I imagined, but here we are at 15 300 words and *I'm just getting to it* - and sadly, very little of that is foreplay! Plainly, I've just been putting it off. I've worked Edwina up into a hot, horny state and just left her panting because suddenly, I felt shy.
That's right, in the privacy of my own mind, I've had performance anxiety. I couldn't make it happen. Between the page and I was an uncomfortable tension. I didn't want to make a wrong move, but couldn't figure out what the right move was. The page waited, the moment started to go stale, I paced, the page turned on the tv, I'd lost it again.
There's so many darn things going on! Hair?! How many hands?! Every move or broad strokes? Physics - how's who's on top staying there? And this is just the mechanics - the stuff that needs to make sense but needs to be utterly utterly invisible. I can understand now why actors laugh when asked about on-stage romance under the cameras for their sex scenes and say "it's tightly choreographed" (tightly!). At the same time that I have these two wire-frame bodies twisting and shifting in my mind trying to maneuver into a docking position, I need to be evenly describing and building the emotional state, the physical arousal, the pertinent mutterings and exclamations. That's a lot to juggle, but it's not everything.
Aside from this is the thought that other people are going to read it. Are they going to cringe? Laugh? Read passages out to their colleagues in the lunchroom, just skip ahead, nominate it for a bad sex in fiction award? Or, worst of all, ring my mum and complain to her? (people did after Trojan Moments - Grandad in particular apparently found some of the poems "... a bit blue. Off". Great. Just what I don't need to know and can never un-hear).

ACK.
So, here we are, stuck at a frigid impasse. My characters are up for it - they're practically gagging for it. It's me, I'm the prude in the corner with the clammy hands and the self conscious attitude, and that's no fun at all, for anybody. I didn't have this problem with the murder scenes. Maybe I need to watch some more late-night SBS films, or just refresh my own docking proceedures.
Hold on Edwina - I'm coming!

A night aboard the "Private Dancer"

Today was meant to be solely dedicated to the formation of the perfectly constructed 3000 word essay on the managerial issues of problem-oriented-policing -programs. I could see this word-count perfect essay crystalline-pure and gem-like beautiful in my mind's eye. It turned gracefully there in the void of my imagination (yes, it's nearly all void in there. Handy for large models of things, but useless for ideas). It caught the light on its pithy, well-selected quotes. It rose above the choppy sea of interminable jargon and earnest justifications that I must trawl in order to form it. *Sigh* So beautiful, so ethereal. So fictitious. In reality, it was caught in the wake of the mighty plot engine I unleashed yesterday and the essay was swamped by the wash and has steadfastly refused to be written.
After the mad dash of 3 000 words in the previous 36 hours (oh Backstory - how I love thee) charting the formation of the (purely platonic!) relationship between Eddie and her Lawyer Henry Thornton (! charming story, really precious!), I have had to wrench myself away from the various saucy wenches of Eddie's world and come back to the plodding mundanities of justifying common sense and referencing it using the harvard system. It's ugly down here in the sea of Mandated Readings.
The trawler I'm on (the 'Private Dancer') is taking on water (in the form of many cups of tea - you want a nice steady, even stream of caffeine. At this point, a coffee would overload the delicate system and send us spinning out of control), and it's gone dark, the source material has merged into one amorphous morass (is that a tautology? Probably, yes, i think it is. too tired to fix it up) of meaningless italicised sections and bold headings with no content to hold them up. I've got some nasty drafts of the opening introduction and definitions section into the hold and on ice until I can gut and clean them, and so I am still needing about 2000 coherent words. I'm reduced to grinding out 20 or 50 stilted, dessicated words at a time, referencing them, and moving on. It's utterly numbing work. This friends, is the far from glamorous life of the essay ghost writer. No sushi here. No black velvet jackets and groovy knitted toys. Just sentences like this: "The management of community partnerships is of critical importance to the development, negotiation and daily operation of QPS's POPP initiatives." <> oh, I kid you not, and that's a tame one, and only 2980 more to go just like it.
I'm new to this game, and they're a tough and private breed the deep-sea ghost writers, they don't give up their secrets and tradecraft easily. In fact I wouldn't even know if there's any others out here - they run their ships dark to avoid detection. Only the wind, the waves and the steady drip of the word count to keep us company until we reach the cold dawn and shore - hopefully with a full hold and a properly formatted bibliography.

Maybe I should sacrifice some whisky and conjure the spirit of Hemingway to see me safely through to the dawn... Yes, that would take care of me, but it would be a shot in the arm for QPS's POPP initiatives. I'm not sure I'm cut out for this, no turning back now.
Wait, I can hear Hemingway!
"Lash yourself to the mast and hold tight to that fish."

WTF have I gotten myself into?

Weather update and Plot Engine Drama

The storms have eased back ofter the mid-week catastrophe which was very considerate and allowed folks to start clearing away the stinky muck that flooded their houses, pushed over fences, and basically terrorised the place. I didn't know what a big news story I was living inside of until friends rang to check I was alive (thank you!), and then I started to notice how many choppers were buzzing around the place. I decided not to participate in watching the news, the mild hysteria at work was (perhaps uncharacteristically) enough sensationalism for me. Today is blustery (yay for laundry!!) and hot. Expectations about the storm du Soir (? am I making that up?) are mixed, some say just thunder and lightening, some say a bit of rain and wind. I say, it's poker night, and unless someone can get a clue, we'll all be heading off shortly (well, not Rumi, he cares nothing for cards) to get a swim and a good spot at the table. Once we're there, we'll take any storm as it may (or may not) come.

My attention is really on Edwina, Lady Kenthurst and the agonisingly slow process of getting her into a lot of trouble with Soames. I've put them on a boat, I've removed the protective male figure from her life (mouldering in a Belfast cell awaiting his death by hanging) and I've got 10 600 words and still they haven't met!! ARGH!! Although it turns out the Captain of the ship might be up for some trouble too. Saucy types, those captains! I hope it turns out this is great tension, but of course from inside the plot engine it feels like we've lost power to the main thrusters and are dropping away from our target minor climatic peak. It's hot in the engine room where my oiled men in loincloths are shovelling coal into the furnace as hard and as fast as their lithe bodies possibly can, but there's something gumming up the cogs and we can't seem to translate this sexy raw power into plot traction. The editor is screaming down the tubes at me "DEADLINE AHEAD! More words!" the inner critic from the bowels of the engine is heard, "I *told* you the beginning of the story was shit, and now look where it's lead us. We're fucked, and I *told* you so from the start."
"Keel-haul that traitor!" I scream and two idea monkeys shoot out to drag the bastard off. Fuck I've been wanting to do that for years. The last thing I need in a crisis like this is sedition within the engine room. I also make a note in my day book to check the correct formation and usage of keel-haul for use in the third act.
It's hot in here, I can't think straight. Why can't we turn away from the deadline? I wonder, but that's not my decision. I have an idea.
"Let's try mixing it up - where'd we store the typewriter?" The men give a cheer, and in lifting their arms in encouragement, inadvertently flex and tense their abdominal muscles. I'm swooning from the heat and the sight of so many hot fictional bodies. I can barely spell, but taken on a wave of hope and pheremones, we bolt the typewriter into place, re-route the production crank and set the ribbon in place. This could just save us...
The words start to come, the ribbon spools, the cogs begin to inch forward, the little bell tings and the carriage return shoots back. Yes! We're still in with a chance.

A Damp State

Whatever the opposite of a drought is, it happened last night.
Flood is such a little word. It doesn't get across what huge stretches of angry brown water we're talking about. It doesn't get across the outside air turning into a wall of water for 8 or 9 hours and the resulting jostling for breathing space that causes on or in dry patches. You know it's wet when frogs are trying to get into the house.
Riley, Rumi and I sat on the bed into the wee hours of the morning. I was watching the rain turning into a lake on the front street and lawns and they were dozing - no biggie. The light would flicker off every now and then and each time spring back and that was comforting, but I thought "Somewhere, someone is really copping it" and sure enough this morning it turns out train tracks have been washed away, and we've gone from a state of emergency yesterday to a state of disaster today. I wonder what state we'll be in tomorrow after the next storm comes through tonight?
Perhaps a state of surrender.

Didn't need the Evac Bag this time

Nature really ripped out a corker of a storm on Sunday arvo. It didn't seem too out of the ordinary where I was - windy, rainy, a bit of hail, plenty of water - pretty much a standard summer storm. But it turns out that I should be (and I am) very very grateful that my house still has a roof, because a lot of places don't. The storm was a lot more intense closer to the coast and the region has been declared an emergency zone. We got a concerned PM walking around and being emotionally empathetic with folks. The news told me that in Brisvegas it amounted to a Class 2 hurricane.
Holy Snapping Duckshit Batman!

Apart from the sensationalism and wow factor, the basic news is that Riley, Rumi and I are safe, dry and well. The house is a little musty from the humidity and all of us in the place at once, but there's nothing that a bit of cleaning on the weekend won't sort out.

Also, I've realised that my evac bag and process needs updating, but there were plenty of candles!!

New Personal Best

Oh Happy Day!
I've hit 9000 words in the story!
Yay! I thought I was going to choke on 8000 for ever, but I pushed through and made my first ever literary kills (sorry Sir Simon Windemere, and unnamed wife and child).

How puny that word count seems. The NanWriMo official target for this week is 30 000. IN MY DREAMS!! But I could be in with a chance to make a new personal best, my next goal is to give the story an ending, not just leave everyone hanging.

If only I didn't have to work, do two assignments and my own laundry.....

Weeping on the First/Second Date

The severe cut-backs on media intake continue to be painful and are not yielding any improvement in mental capacities or creative output. Perhaps this is like that period smokers go through when they reduce the number of cigarettes a day hoping to gain the best of both worlds. I am merely prolonging the worst aspects.

On saturday I went to the cinemas again with The Jugger, and of his list of proposed films 3 were on war, 1 a surrealist montage and 1 about running marathons. The only one in english was "The Hunger", and I know enough about Bobby Sands to know I didn't want to experience any of that so I chose war: Waltz with Bashir. Partly because I had heard a little about the production and it sounded interesting. They used a similar animation process to 'Through a Scanner Darkly' and I find this blending of techniques interesting. Apart from that, I knew it was set in the Lebannon war of 82 via flashback. But I ask you - what's wrong with a romantic comedy for a second/first date? (I must mention the protocols of internet dating - first date is a coffee date. I can be over as quickly as it takes to say "Soy?! Decaff?! I'm outta here" and part of this arrangement is there's no hard feelings. It was just a coffee - no biggie. If that goes well, one may progress to the next stage - what used to be the first date - where as a couple you might tackle the challenge of formally dining together, or perhaps enjoying the air-conditioning of a cinema, perhaps seeing if that 'GSOH' actually translates into the both of you laughing at anywhere near the same things, people, lines, ideas and so on). Or even, what's wrong with seeing a film you've already seen if you know it's good? I've done that, I think it's polite, after all, the function is to spend some time together not to critique David Stratton's interpretation!

I've always been someone who easily suspends disbelief and enters into the world of a film. Sometimes this results in a wonderful journey into a time and place I would never have access to otherwise, sometimes I get lost in that world and have trouble coming back (LOTR) and sometimes, it just really hurts because the story isn't a fantasy or an escape, or a comedy, it's a freaking documentary about a genocide. Heightened by my withdrawal from the world of moving pictures this was an arduous, painful 90minutes for me, and I was glad of my nana instincts to always travel with tissues, because I needed them. It's a great film, a well told story, visually interesting, political from a personal point of view and so on. I'm sure David probably gave it a great round up. He should have anyway, and there's some great humour in it, and some dream sequences, and a bit of german porn and I really loved the visual impact of the way they'd done the animation, it's just that I wept. It was sad, it was horrible and it was distressing because despite the animation and the other tricks, it was real. This man we get to know, he unearthed this memory, and it was his memory because he was there when this atrocity occurred. It. Was. Real. Bodies. Death. Blood. Everywhere.
BAM.
No getting around it. This is what bearing witness is all about isn't it?! To listen and feel with an open heart a story, a memory, a confession and hold it. Just hold it. I can't change it, I can't fix it, heal it or wipe it away. I can honour the memory of the people who died, and the pain of those who survived by acknowledging it.

So hours later when I got home and sat in the quiet room, I'm sorry memory of the people who died and pain of those who survived, but I really wanted to escape your reality and wash it away. So I used fire against fire. I watched another movie. The Fifth Element which is possibly the only intentionally positive, feel good, happy ending SF film.... oh maybe also Galaxy Quest. as distinct to SF films one laughs at (Starship Troopers!!). So much for giving up movies - two in one day!!

Maybe I should have chosen the marathon one afterall.

A Failure of Fun

I hit a wall this week. Ah, no - not in the car or anything. Emotionally. Is there a better way to say it? Plateau? No, it wasn't a levelling out. There's something that happens when tension builds up and frustration build up - and after a while you can't just keep working through it.

This week I had a nasty plot hump with the story, a bit of writer's block and "why am I doing this" and not reading, ok, well I'm sneaking some reading in, but no novels! Very little TV too and so it's just me and the blank page and the broken brain.

The word count has stalled at about 7300 (nearly my previous best of about 8/8500) it's hard not to wonder - am I choking? Do I really just not have this in me? Is this the best I can do?

Last night midnight saw me walking backwards and forwards throwing handfulls of papers into the recycling and asking Riley how nearly a whole nother year could have passed. He had no answers. How zen dogs can be. He's right of course, there are no answers, only choices and further questions.

Many other Nanowimo participants are already finished! Finished!! WTF?! Should I have chosen a different story? Should I too be transcribing song lyrics into my story or have a character count to a thousand? You think I'm joking, oh I assure you, these are but two of the fiendish tricks employed to plump one's word count.

Everything is taking so long to get out of my stupid head! But the time ranting and pacing last night was not completely lost. I had a little realisation. I'm missing the point. I've been clinging to my story and to my idea of what's ok. I'm at a writing version of Mardi gras with my metaphorical legs crossed and mouth closed. What a noob!

So rather than staying stuck on how to move Robin around Antrim, or what approach Soames will take to Eddie's abduction, I'm going to get back into it again and move through this invisible wall with my mouth open and my legs akimbo and get back to having a rip-sorting time.
And maybe just a few song lyrics.

Rapture of the Nerds

Today I steal my title from Ken McLeod, a marvellous SF writer.
I'm indulging myself this afternoon (try it a little while you read - maybe rub your belly or loosen your shirt. That's it, feel alive) as I found out that Michael Crichton has died and I am sad. It's not cool to like his books, but I do - the ones I've read at least (which is not all of them by a long shot) and I admired how he went about what he did. It kind of reminded me of John Grisham, but with research. I sometimes felt that he was a thwarted documentary maker, and I also wish I had his talent for creating page turning plots. No, not great with the character development, but he didn't really pretend to be anything he wasn't, and the books nearly read themselves to you. Maybe they made better movies than books (Rising Sun) but that's ok too.

I also came across a great interview with Charles Stross, who is creating fascinating novels and I think is great fun. Thankfully, he is very well, and not dead. He talks here about SF as a genre with it's self-imposed limits, but also his own ideas of what keeps it relevant and interesting. It's from this interview that I pinched the title. I've read my share of singularity rapture!

I'm sad to have another writer die. Somehow it seems fitting that aging movie stars meet their end, or racing car drivers or politicians. But aren't writers exempt in some way?
I guess not.

Well, I hope he's having a good nerd rapture now.
So say we all.

You don't know what you don't know (thank you Captain Obvious!)

The world is an interesting place if only for the powerful, invisible powers that inhabit it. I'm not talking here about magnetic flux, or light being both a wave and a stream of particles, or gravity and their ilk - fascinating though they may be. No, I am talking about odd coincidences, the power of synchronicity as Jung described the "acausal connecting principle". I would love to know if there's a word for when the acausal connecting principle goes non-linear.
Yes, synchronicity is non-linear itself. I get that, but so many times people use the example of thinking of someone you haven't heard of in ages, and then they ring you. That seems pretty directly linked to me. How it happens is the off-the-hook, but the emotional/intellectual connection is direct. Some definitions make a bit more sense "...a colliding of the seen and unseen realities. Within the improbable events there will be layers of hidden meanings that ring true in your innermost being." It sounds more like magic to me.
Anyway, I digress. The story I wanted to share with you today was that almost 2 years to the day, I had a date on the weekend. Yes, two years.
(Strangely, my last date and I went to see the new James Bond film - Casino Royale, and guess what's in the cinemas next weekend for the (still theoretical) second date with the new guy? You guessed it! The new James Bond film - Quantum of Solace!! But that's not even the part!)
So here I am in the heated heart of post-week-one-euphoria (see Week One in Review) and now grasping at plot straws (I have a villain - I just can't seem to get him a big enough and evil enough Dastardly Plan). I am writing and reading crazy at the moment, and I have a date! Excitement overload. I can't wait to share my interests with him.
We rendezvous in a bookstore (reference section) and he says "I never knew this section was here." Not an immediately great sign, but not impossible to recover from. He's good looking, he's turned up, he's keen for a coffee. We proceed. He has manners, entertaining hobbies, a science degree, seems pretty happy to talk to me, likes arthouse movies and oh-yeah is dyslexic.

Dyslexic.

Thanks acausal connecting principle!

So, as I'm writing this story and therefore it's all about me, we can skip all the heartwarming stuff about how he's overcome this difficulty and what tricks he has to manage stuff and so on (bright as a button this chap) and instead dwell for a moment on how I was confronted by an assumption I didn't realise I had. We would not be able to share the pleasure of reading. Something so central to my life that I didn't even see it has no real place in his except as something worked at for a specific purpose.
Huh. Didn't see that coming.

After a while though, I started to see some benefits to the idea. No unwelcome comments about drafts, no fighting over categorisation systems for shelves, no long and pedantic disagreements about etymologies. God, it's sounding brilliant. No bad-mouthing of beloved authors or diminishing of children's books. Just coz I'm in love with spines and folios and fiddling around with pens, why should I assume that I need to always be around others who feel that way?

Apparently, he's a very good cook. Yes, thank you acausal connecting principle, I wouldn't have made this step on my own! Now, as long as he likes playing cards ....

Week One in Review

It was a great idea to come out to Ma&Pa's farm overnight. I wasn't going to, I didn't want to loose all that time driving, and I am no good at saying 'I have to go sit in my room and do other things than talk to you oh beloved parents who raised me and sacrificed that I might succeed in life' but logistical considerations for the rest of the weekend made it the logical solution, so I did. There was a meal together and an evening playing frustration on the new veranda. But in the perfectly non-linear way that the world actually works, this turned out to be relaxing, distracting, fresh and wholesome (in other words an antidote to a week of spitty gossip and petty work concerns). It also had the flow-on benefit that I could not guilt myself into doing chores before I wrote this morning (which I would have done at home). No indeedy. Here there's just the wind and the birds in the trees as much tea and left-over pizza (avocado, mushroom and corn) as I like and lo - I've done over 700 words and am not yet out of my jammies!

Riley doesn't know it yet, but he's staying here until Sunday evening. He needed a break from me, and a bit of dog time in the dirt always replenishes him. For myself, I am aware of how out of shape I am mentally and physically for writing. I have talked *about* it a lot more than doing it this year, and now I suffer for it. My wrist, forearm and elbow are sore. My mind is stiff, and my eyes are acting up (one keeps swelling and bruising. Maybe someone is sneaking up on me while I sleep and poking one eye with my thumb and laughing maniacally "that's for being you!! HAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!) because I cannot think of any other explanation for this phenomena. Which simply demonstrates even further how out of creative fitness my mind is. Lazy and slow - too many pizzas and movies.

So, my week one word tally is 5 980. That's pretty good for an addled tryhard wannabe I reckon. Not great, not brilliant, but a fair effort. Shows potential, but plenty of scope for improvement. What I'm really happy about is that I don't feel bored. I can't believe how much fun this is! I still haven't got my characters off the fracking boat! WTF?! But I will dag-nammit! What's more, I'll get them off that boat and I'll get them into trouble, trouble they can not believe has rained down on their arses, and then I will twist that mother fucking plot on them! Oh yeah! and they will be in agony and things will be fucked up bad, man. Baaaaaad. And it will totally rock when, like a gentle ray of light from the high heavens, the characters think of a way to fight back, and they unravel the twist and they untrouble the shit and they fight the power. That is something I am excited about seeing, oh yes, and I have no fracking idea how the hell any of that is going to happen, or if it will be readable when the dust settles, but I don't care. We're in it together. If I keep writing, they'll keep doing and eventually, we'll have this adventure, or die trying.

You know, not die die, but just, maybe, well ....fail. But that's not the game plan! No, we're in it to save the Empire! (Questions about the value and validity of the empire can please be reserved for further projects on this theme should they eventuate).

Time to get out of the jammies.

Outcomes (bar chart this!)

I'm kinda feeling like today was a washout because I didn't write anything. That's what getting into the Nanowirmo does - starts pushing the orientation of priorities into the GET THE NOVEL DONE type order. But go over it again and the day wasn't a complete waste - I did a full day at work, I woke up to the aftermath of a pornographic dream and Dad lost at cards tonight. Overall - apart from the not-writing - a really well rounded set of outcomes!

Shame I can't cue up part two of that dream ....

The Rain, it Raineth Down

The rain indeed raineth down upon us last night, and all around for hours and hours. So very beautiful. Rain like that turns a house into a cozy retreat from the world. A safe place of contemplative refuge. A bit louder than the music, but not so loud you're worried it's going to pound through the roof. Very calming. This morning is very humid, and everything green has shot up about 2 inches. A little spider had ambitiously developed a web between the steering wheel and the gear stick.
Nature is utterly relentless.

What plot?

So lost the plot.
What book? Who am I? Where did I put that cup of coffee? What do you mean I have to report on that project at a meeting? My characters are stuck on a ship in the North Atlantic and you want me to concentrate on costings for a mailout and web updates?!
I'm shaking and I'm nauseous.
Forgeddit.

In other news - Well Done Obama!! Good work America!! Yay generally!! WOOT for HOPE!!

(ps. WTF is with not letting exclamation marks be in tabs? Get a grip people!)

(pps. Word count at 4300 and stalled)

Who's the Favourite?

The office is abuzz today with hats, sweeps, confusion over TAB forms, and anticipation of a feast for lunch. I've put a few bets on - it's almost un-Australian not to. Nothing unusual in how I chose my camels - I went with the three names I've heard most this morning on my way to work and in the kitchen.
So I've gone for Profound Beauty for a win or a place (what a beautiful name! Very Zen) and Zipping and Nom de Jeu for a place. ?I don't know?! But it adds to the frisson. Otherwise, I'd end up working through it and be totally underwhelmed by the whole thing. This is the lot of the office worker - bored by the eternal ennui of bureaucratesse (am I making up a word there?) and the blandness of our to-do lists and timesheets. So my bets are a token escape into a fantasy world of excitement, risk and glamour. Cheap oblivion. Bring it on.

In other news, some writing last night, and none yet today. I don't know what my word count might be. I also totally forgot about my reckless earlier commitment to audition for a role in the chorus of Oklahoma which has now come around this Sunday. Drat. It could still end up being hi-larious but i desperately need to write my fingers off to catchup my words! The good thing about being such a slow writer is that I am coming up with better plot ideas than if I was whizzing forward. When I say "better", I mean that in a relative sense. This story is very pulpy and unlikely. Increasingly so. Shockingly so. Bring it on.

A Thousand Bucks of Grog

My sister won a raffle on the weekend - I arrived at her place to see the pool table groaning under what appeared to be the full contents of a working bar. Name a type of spirit - there was two bottles of it. Including 3 different types of sherry.
"Yeah, I won a thousand bucks of grog at the fundraiser on the weekend. There's 10 cartons of beer to come yet, I couldn't fit it all in the X-trail."

Cool, but sherry? Oh, and they'd topped it all off with 2 or 3 casks of cheap and nasty wine.

Writing not so good on Sunday - about a thousand words. The addicted niece turned her nose up at the typing option. Apparently, she prefers earning pocket money in ways that allow her to continue to watch the tv while she 'works'. That bodes well for her employement future.

However, I had a swim and played a round of 'cranky pants' with KA and went home and fell asleep again. I seem to need an extra 3 hours in the afternoons of the weekend. Word count is at roughly 2650 and I'll have another session tonight. My PB previously was just 8 000 words, so this year if I can get to 25 000 I'll feel pretty stoked. (please don't tell me if you think 8k is pathetic. I already think that!)
Day 3 - attending my day job is cramping my style.

Bonnie RIP

Sad news for the family this week.
Our old dog Bonnie has died. She has been increasingly slow, deaf and stiff in her joints and it seems certain that these were contributing factors in the circumstance of her death.

She was missing last Wednesday and late Thursday she was found. Burial took place on Friday.

We remember here as she was in her youth - loving and active - and also her miraculous recovery from the nasty incident of falling from the ute tray and being dragged some distance by her leash.

She is survived by her daughter in residence, Zara, and an unknown number of other descendants living happily on other farms in the region.

“In sudore vultus tui vesceris pane, donec revertaris in terram de qua sumptus es: quia pulvis es et in pulverem reverteris”
[“By the sweat of your brow you will eat your bread, until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken: for dust you are and to dust you will return”].

Many Questions

As soon as I started trying to explain how Edwina was on the train, I was deluged by questions. Utterly flooded. What kind of train? How are the seats set up? How long will the trip take? What station is it going from? Can she walk from one carriage to another? Would she have a thermos of tea in her basket?

I didn't really think through the consequences of choosing to set my novel in Victorian times, I just wanted to write something that I would enjoy reading. But now of course, I have to figure out what year it probably is, so I know if trains even run to that city. Unless of course I don't and just keep going with making things up and all the poeple who actually know these things can rant and curse all they want about idiotic people who don't know the first thing about rail history between the period of 1830 and 1890. I can tell you - I know more than the average person on the street, and I don't know nearly enough to write this scene! So I'm going to stop worrying about it. I don't have time.

I'm about to bend a whole lot of other things, so I don't see I should worry overmuch about details like train timetables. But where things can be plausible, they should be. ARGH! How does anyone every write anything?! But she has a manservant, and seems to be independently wealthy, oh, and educated. I think I'll just stick with the old "it's different for the rich" excuse until I get a clue.

I slept poorly and had nightmares last night. Was it something I ate or just the heat? No matter, today Edwina must get to Belfast and discover that Ireland is a seething mass of political foment, not the idyllic pastoral retreat she had imagined.

Meet Edwina

As usual the decision to write today made me strangely motivated and productive in doing all sorts of household chores that I would normally be happy to allow to go begging for months on end. However I have managed so far to have two sessions (utilising the best writing tool ever - the egg timer) of half hour and one hour and produced about a 1000 words. It's a humble start, but a start nonetheless. I say "about" because I've started longhand and so the word count is manual. I am going to find someone to type it up for me... perhaps I can pay piece wages to my niece who always needs cash now to support her SMS habit. Addicts are so easy to exploit!

The weather is not co-operating either. It was 35degrees today. Days like this I think what a good idea it would be to put a big shade sail above my entire house. I've checked that Sis will be home tomorrow, I'm not risking another day like that without being near a pool! That's the good thing about taking the project longhand, I could write anywhere. Note the use of 'could'. We shall see. I am looking forward to getting to know my character more. I think she may turn out to be a bit of a spunk. Can we still say that and be understood? Edwina, Lady Kenthurst is pretty spunky in a librarian-meets-Lara-Croft-mid 1800s kind of way, but right now she's stuck on a train with two horrible bores and I need to get her to safety.
Pip pip!