Month: November 2007

Currently reading Myth of the Mousetrap, by Anne Miller, which despite obvious potential for thrillerdom is acksherly a book about creativity and getting your ideas adopted. I was sent a review copy at work and have found myself drawn in, despite the fact that it’s (a) work and (b) self-help. Although not self-work nor indeed semantic soup for the soul. Anyhoo, it’s tres enjoyable and a good kick up the cojones.

I have singularly failed to engage with NaNoWriMo. At least I registered. That’s got to count for something, right? I mean. At the end of the day whenever I do finish the novel and approach PFJ for representation they’re going to say ‘hey, this dude totally signed up for NaNoWriMo in 2007’ and they’re not going to say ‘poor choice of soup, feller, always go for a legume and pork combination’.

But anyhoo, the point of writing, ok blogging, is to remind myself that I can. And to remind myself that if I can write 40,000 words of this drivel (ok, I exaggerate, there was a post in February 2005 which was just ‘le bombe’) then I should be able to write 100k of stuff that I live, eat, drink and breathe. I call it Porterfiction. Because you can wear it. And drink it. And quite possibly ask it to carry your luggage like a mahout.

I was disturbed the other day to receive a whole sequence of spam messages that had titles not unlike my blog. I mean, one thing is reading Gibson/Noon. Another is being part of the pattern’o’t’ting.

Running another marathon on Sunday. I guess it makes up for not writing. If there was an 16 week writing schedule, perhaps I would stick to that instead. But the competition is so different. And you don’t get a medal. Or chip timing.

Beans.

So. I am writing a lot of things that start with ‘so’ nowadays. Which amuses me, in a kind of children’s hour style.

I finally dug out a copy of Tom, 19 days into November. And dutifully did what I do every single time I pick up the novel. I started editing the beginning. Again. Again. Again. It’s like sodding tellytubby land in my brain sometimes. Just move on. Move on. The beginning will sort itself out. It will. Accept it.

Sigh. I don’t like it at the moment. I’m still stuck between BBC2 comedy drama and um, I don’t know, something with some really weak Irish characters in it, like Bewitched.

Annoyed. But at least I can say I spent two hours writing in November. Ok. At least I can say I spent two hours repositioning buttons on toolbars in NeoOffice in November. And making tea. And polishing glasses. Similarly unused, except for these two hours in November.

Frustrating.

Baron Beelzebub was born on the fourth day of Ni-Gellah. The only festival on Urth where men were compelled to dribble and the females of the female persuasion where forced to point out that ‘she’s got a big arse, actually’ until they too started dribbling. And then everyone was dribbling. And lo, all the scrabble boards ran out of ‘B’s and the world was declared a disaster zone.

For anyone playing scrabble. Which at this time was all the Carpathians, Oxiz, Zeus and the Uqps, or at least this is true according to Miss Alethea Fillbottle, 93, winner of the last known game of scrabble before the universe exploded. Or she ran out of Tawny port. She’s not sure.

And these things can appear to be awfully similar sometimes.

Iain Banks is fepping brilliant by the way. Go read the Steep approach to Garbadale instead of this nonsense. Do it. Or I’ll play scrabble with you.

If they ever did made mouthfuls of words I guess I would have to be delivering them now. As it is, all I can process is the discordant dance of my four-finger typing on my keyboard, the gentle whirring of my Intel processor in the background (Mac temperature fans will be pleased that it is operating within normal parameters).

So…. NaNoWriMo. (Geronimo…)

As it stands, my life partner, while accusing bloggery of self-indulgence of the highest order (as it is), is trying to encourage me to Part. Ice. I. Pate. She wants me to be bald and cold. Witch. Which. I try. I really do. But. But. But.

Tumtitum. There is no critic bigger than the inner critic. Unless you’re successful. And then it’s Tammy Shalamar, editor of such illustrious tomes as ‘You always were fucked, you just didn’t know it’ and ‘Don’t eat cheese when you’re going to see the Pope’.

Shit happens. Then you die. And if you’re lucky. You’ve read Douglas Adams. The. End.