50k and a Winner!

First a quick aside: I start writing a blog generally on the day I think of the concept for one, but I don’t usually get a chance to polish it up to publishable standard it for days after – which is why you will see backdated blogs appearing beneath ones I’ve already published. I try to get the earlier one’s written and published before I publish the later ones, so you get them in chronological order, but I was just so chuffed and excited about reaching the 50k word mark that I published the one titled Wehehehe at the time I wrote it. Sorry if it got anyone confused.

But to continue on with the subject of this blog – it is official; I now have a couple of icons and a printable certificate to say that I have completed 50,000 words of a story.

It would be ridiculously easy to cheat the system if you really wanted to get a copy of the icon, but why would you? You’d only be cheating yourself. There are no prizes – I would have to print out and write my name on the certificate myself if I wanted it done.

So why do it?

I heard a great analogy for it the other day. The people taking part in NaNo are like the people who run marathons dressed in gorilla suits. Such a person is not in the race to win it. They’re there just to see if they can finish. They do it to discover whether or not they have the stamina, the mental strength and sheer will-power it takes to make it, and for the immense personal satisfaction that comes from staggering across that finish line.

I wasn’t in this to win any races. I don’t know if I’ll ever polish this story to publishable standard. I just wanted to see if I could do it. And I was really, really proud of myself when I did. My NaNo page is here with my final word count in case you're interested. It has daily word counts achieved on the stats page - pretty neat. The photo of the cat was there to remind me of the Marvellously Malleable Madame Mephistopheles – My Muse.

I am so glad I took this risk and entered Nano. It was very well worth it.

Wehehehe!

Ok, so I've been a very bad correspondent recently. I apologise profusely and I promise that I will rectify that lapse shortly. You can be assured that I am still alive, albeit rather delirious right now.

Deliriously Happy that is.

You see... I finally did it! I have reached the target, hit the mark, and completed 50,000 words of a novel in ...well, less that 30 days. Actually it's 50,031 and I intend to grow it further, but the pressure is now off, and I can return to normal programming...

So, you can expect some posts here shortly.

Can't really believe I've actually reached the count. Very surreal, in a very good way.

Wohooo! Yipeee! Wee he he he he.... It won't happen overnight but it will happen!

.... ok, now I REALLY need to get some sleep!

A Hairy Issue

Ordinarily, I get my hair cut every six months. I’m pretty traditional in my tastes. I get it cut dead strait to just below my shoulder in lenght so I can tie it back. That way it doesn’t get in my face and bother me. I like my hair manageable and not too styled. Dry and go, that’s me.

For various reasons, this time it had been about a year between hair cuts (one of which that it took me several months to overcome the fact that it was probably going to cost me £50 – that’s $125ish – for an ordinary hair cut…No. Will not be spending that much on what is essentially a trim… No!!!), so it was a lot longer than usual.

But finally I grew fed up. It was taking ages to wash and ages to dry in the mornings so I stopped thinking about the cost and just got it done. But this time, to shake things up a little, I gave the hairdresser room to move – give me layers I said. I wanted to be a little daring! After all, that’s what this trip is all about isn’t it?

It went from this (in Brighton)


To this


Bit of a difference hay?

Now… it annoys me. It is too short to tie back and it’s so in my face it’s making me sneeze. I do hope it will settle down soon and behave – it is so happy to be so light, it’s flying everywhere.

Grrr.

You Muppet!

Around my office I hear the word ‘Muppet’ used a lot as a swear word. It is generally employed as a substitute for the word ‘idiot’ as a less offensive way to describe a stupid person. ‘You Muppet!’, or ‘What a complete Muppet!’

Now, at first, I was slightly affronted by this. I admire the Muppets; it was one of my favourite programs as a kid, and love watching any Jim Henson production. Over time however, I have been converted, and it has become an essential part of my vocabulary. I find it a good word to use to describe stupidity without actually being offensive and it interjects an element of humour into what is generally an annoyed or frustrated exclamation. It is also satisfying to emphasise such a silly word.

I still admire the Muppets but, truth be told, they were intended for giggles, and it always makes me smile when I say ‘You Muppet!’. So, If you have to swear (and occasionally, that’s all you really can do), why not swear with humour?

Why don’t you try it? You Complete Muppet! You Absolute Muppet! It’s actually quite fun.

A life lived in blisters, I mean, Docs.

I was going to write this blog all about the amazing shoes know as Doc Martins – Docs for short. And how wonderful they are and how I can pretty much mark my life by the pairs I’ve owned… but I forgot their one very negative effect on my life… blisters!

Mind you, I get blisters from almost every pair of shoes I buy – I have strange shaped feet, so maybe it’s not such a hard thing to write after all. It’s just that, because they last so ruddy long and are so ruddy well made, Docs give me blisters for a hell of a lot longer than any other shoes … anywoo, here goes.

It was in Year 7 or 8 or 9, I can’t remember, that I finally acquired my first pair of Docs. They were made in New Zealand, and were a slightly different shape from everyone else’s (and cheaper, which is why mum bought them for me), but I remember being ecstatic that I had finally joined the ‘in’ crowed with Doc ownership. Of course, I was never an ‘in’ person, but I felt closer to the beautiful people by owning them. And they were a very good investment too; they lasted me for 7 years. They were very comfortable (once I broke them in), very solid and sturdy and I wore them every day, until they finally disintegrated.

After that, I bought a pair of good English docs. They were my first professional shoes if you will. I coloured in the yellow stitching so I could wear them to work and in gang show. They were really good shoes, and I think I had them for five years, but it took me two years of that to break them in! They were stolen from the back of my car at age five, so I’ll never know exactly how long they would have lasted. They were also very comfortable towards the end.

At age of 21ish, during my alternative university faze (it wasn’t much of one, but I did it anyhow), I bought a pair of 18 hole docs. I felt amazingly gothic wearing them, but they weren’t the best pair I’ve ever owned. They were Australian, and the leather wasn’t that good – it tended to crack and craze, and isn’t smooth any more, and they weren’t as comfortable as the other pairs… probably because I never properly broke them in. I still have them back home, but very rarely wore them. Mind you, I could still wear them now, they haven’t died or anything.

Next, after I had moved to Canberra, I bought another professional pair to replace the English one’s I’d lost. My second professional life if you will. They were Australian again. But this time… well, they are still back home too. I lived in Canberra for five years and I never managed to break them in! The problem was that I could only wear them once and then had to take two to three weeks off to recover from the blisters. I got rather board of that after a while, and so didn’t commit to the break in, so they are still almost as good as new.

Anyway, now we come to the present, and the reason I thought of writing this blog in the first place. I’m over here in England, where Docs come from, and suddenly they made sense to me. Those non-slip soles work in a place where autumn leaves become deadly slime and the attached tongues are a very useful invention where puddles are a fact of life. So I thought to myself, well, why not buy a pair of docs? They could be very good wet weather shoes and heaven knows there is a lot of wet weather over here. So I did – I bought my first ever eight hole pair Docs. These ones are made in China, the doc manufacture having been out sourced some time ago. It’s funny really; it’s the quintessential English shoe and I’ve bought five pairs now but the only pair of actual English doc’s I owned were the one’s that were stolen.

I did remember that I have difficulty breaking Docs in, so I was smart… I bought a soft pair. Unlike every other pair I’ve owned, this pair do not have the harder-than-steel leather of the original docs, but are malleable and supple. They still have the non-slip sole, the attached tongue, and hopefully, the durability of the original, but without the stiffness. And so I thought, these ones would be less likely to give me blisters, right?

Wrong.

Ah well. They are still good shoes and they do keep my feet dry on the one day out of the fortnight I can wear them. And when I have broken them in (which I might just do before I leave England, but I somehow doubt it) they will hopefully become as comfortable as my first ones…

Sigh.

Caught up... finally!

After the rather (for me) alcoholic weekend in Brussels, I fell behind in my word count for NaNoWriMo. I have just managed to catch up. Today I have made a massive effort. I wrote over 6000 words and I am very proud of myself, if rather mentally exhausted.

In the process I have discovered a couple of things about this writing business;

I can write about 1000 creative words in an hour. That’s not my actual typing speed, but seems to be the limit of my creative output, as it doesn’t matter whether I hand write or type, it works out to be the same. It’s the speed at which my brain and hands coordinate to make sense I think.

So a relatively good output level.

Unfortunately after about 2 hours, my brain starts dribbling out of my ears. I simply cannot sustain creative endeavour for longer. Obviously I need to build up my level of creative stamina. In order to get to the 6k today, I had to write in blocks. Two hours of writing followed by two hours of time out and total zombie-hood. And it was truly exhausting!

The creative life is also a lot about avoiding procrastination… it is really hard to make yourself sit down to write. And I am very good at procrastinating. But that is the amazing thing about NaNo and the target of 50k words in a month. The panic induced by the deadline and word limit makes you work. It forces you to just get stuff down, and forget and forgive yourself for all the mistakes you make. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that you park yr butt and DO IT!

I have, in the past, been able to sit down and spend five or six hours writing, where the story just poured out of me, for perhaps two or three days at the max. No conscious thought involved really, it just flowed. I thought that this was the way you were supposed to write. The problem was, that this only happened about once a year when the muse was feeling amiable. The rest of the time, it was sessions of a half hours flow or less, once a month if I was lucky. And these only happened when I’d actually been writing consistently – writing anything, not necessarily a story.

Not once has this happened this month… oh, for moments, maybe. For a flow of half an hour perhaps, but then, thought intrudes once more, and I plan and I stage manage and I think; character 1 needs to go over there, and maybe character 2 can come here. I keep waiting for it to catch fire. And it seems like it has been on the brink of doing so for ages. But it doesn’t.

I have had some interesting discussions with my characters… and a couple of arguments too, which is incredibly disturbing, but it has been a collaborative discussion, and each step along the road they all make has to be worked out in detail as I go along. No liquid gold.

BUT, and this is a big but, I think that what is happening now is the way a writing life should be, and the way it in fact actually is. There are occasional bursts of inspiration, but the majority of the time it is going to be all about planting your butt on a chair, and your fingers on the keyboard or around a pen, and writing. Come rain, hail or shine, hell or high water. Repeat. Ad nauseam.

In the end, it is all about perseverance. I am incredibly grateful to NaNo for giving me this insight. Oh, sure, there is the craft, and the story and a whole lot of other things to pay attention to, but if you don’t get the words onto the page then you don’t have anything.

I don’t care if I am never published, I love writing, and I love telling stories. They make my life greater than it ever could be. I can be a hero who saves the world in my own head. I can be a villain without actually killing anyone. I can be in love with a thousand people, and I can cry my eyes out in grief, crown kings, make people happy, and make people great, all without leaving my house.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not all about living vicariously! I’m overseas doing the city hopping thing every chance I get at the moment, and intend to have a lot of real adventures before my life is through. But I don’t think I’m ever going to get the chance to save the world… well, at least I sincerely hope not. It is fun to imagine I can though…

And I can do it through writing. Thank you NaNoWriMo.

Brussels without Sprouts

A quick summation of my Brussels Trip

Took the Eurostar from Waterloo station to Brussels Midi, with Richard and Hillary. Had Champagne on the train for H’s birthday – very sophisticated!

Met up with R the second – H’s bro – in the hotel lobby and then with Warren (friend of R1) and Anne-Claire, Warren’s better half.

Had 18yo Whisky then it was over to an Irish pub nearby, for a smoke-filled Drambuie.

At 2 or 3am ish, home to bed.

Got up too late for b’fast, sharing a room with R1 so that R2 and H could catch up.

Nice hotel, v comfortable beds, luxurious in fact. Supplied goodies included all the usual shower caps, shampoos etc, plus a sewing kit, shoe cleaning gear, comb, toothbrush n paste, facial cleansers, and tissues. But no soap. Huh?
Wandered into town. Met up with W & AC again, saw the Manneken Pis (a fountain of a small boy pissing), the Grote Markt or Grand Place (The cities central square – beautiful!), the female Manneken Pis, and then went to a bar of 2000 beers called The Elephant Delirium café, for a drink. Had an apple beer that was very good.

Went to see the Tintin shop, and bought some Belgium chocolate (yum!).

Made H, R1 & R2 walk all the way to the top of Brussels (it’s very hilly) to see the Palais Royal ‘cause I wanted to see it. It was my one and only attempt at a cultural experience for the weekend. The others didn’t want to see anything else, so we walked back into town.

Went to another bar called Sudden Death (the Belgium version there of). Had a framboise (raspberry) beer. Saw some interesting animatronics wolves on route to Sudden Death that Chris would have gone ga-ga over. (will be in the pictures when I get them loaded)

Went to yet another pub (do you see a theme in all this?) that I think was called Coffins or something. It was a bar with a death theme. There were coffins for tables, all the walls were black, and it was lit only by candles. A good thing too, because it was one of the dirtiest, rankest places I’ve ever been to. I mean, I’ve seen worse toilets, but not in a city. If they ever turned the lights on the patrons would die of shock from the realisation of the filth they had been sitting in. Ich.

Then caught a tram thing and went to a Lebanese restaurant for dinner – had the smorgasbord which was really nice, but was way too much food to eat, and then saw some belly dancing courtesy of the restaurant. Interesting…

Next, went to a pub with a jazz theme just a couple of doors down, for afters. Had a lambic beer (one that ferments spontaneously on exposure to air) of peach, which was really delicious. And then another framboise. Came up with / invented a new pub game when R2 had finished trying to catch 25 coasters flicked from the table all at once. Took one of the coaster holders – which looked like castles – stacked all the coaster on top, balanced on each other (not exactly on top of one another, but balanced between and over each other, getting further and further out from the centre). Then H put the second coaster holder on top of the stack and we played a version of Jengo that was sort of like pick up sticks. You had to pull out a coaster at a time with out letting the top tower fall. Played two games before we got sick of this. R2 didn’t lose either time… which is not to say he actually won, but he just didn’t lose, so claimed victory over H and I.

Walked home. Went to bed.

Got up. Wrote 600 words. R1, R2, H and I left the hotel just at the time we had to check out (12pm). Left bags and went to visit the beer museum, only it was closed. So went to the comic museum instead (very big in this town, comics!) – which was very cool. Bought 3 Tintin omnibuses – which was silly. Met up with W and AC again and then went back to the hotel for a (huge) grand mariner and taxi to the train station, and pretty much walked strait onto the train.

Left Brussels, took Eurostar back to Waterloo.

Only got a couple of chocolates – very disappointed I didn’t have time to get more. Now very tired, but want to go back. Would like to spend less time drinking and more time looking around next time… and of course, purchase more chocolate!

Personal Pollution Problem.

This is yet another case of lemming behaviour for me I’m afraid. I am really going all out to prove that even though the Darwin awards are for feats of spectacular stupidity, it may be still possible to be eligible for one through sheer bloody minded persistence and consistent striving towards idiot-hood…

The air in this city is making me dizzy – literally. I have been feeling dizzy for a seriously long time. I kept wondering what on earth was wrong with me. I would get to work in the morning feeling ill and disorientated and with my balance shot to pieces… it was kind of frightening really. And it lasted all day. And yet I couldn’t find a cause for it. My diet was good, I was walking regularly both to and from work, and I hadn’t been overdoing it on the turps, so I really had no clue. It’s not as if I’m totally unfit either. I walked all around Paris and Amsterdam without ill effect… well, except for my feet… but I wasn’t then walking along a main road with constant traffic beside me at all times.

Recently, due to the damage I caused my feet in Amsterdam, I took the bus for a few days to alleviate the pain… and the dizziness went away. But did I notice? No. When my feet recovered, I dutifully recommenced walking to work every day, rain hail or shine, and … got dizzy again.

Then around the time of the Paris trip, I got sick, and so I caught the bus again for a period of time, and lo and behold, I wasn’t dizzy. I was coughing up a lung and felt like death warmed up, but I wasn’t dizzy. But when I recovered I went back to walking, albeit with the beginnings of a suspicion in the back of my mind that even though I was doing something healthy, it wasn’t as good for me as it should have been. The lemming behaviour kept asserting itself.

At the end of last week, I was feeling seriously sick. By the time I got into work in the mornings when I walked, I felt like vomiting. This really set the alarm bells ringing and so I finally paid some attention to my suspicions.

So this week, I have been conducting an experiment. I have been walking half-way to work and catching the bus the rest of the way one day, and then catching the bus the whole way on the other. I thought that I could get away with some exercise and yet avoid the most polluted part of the city – but when I walk I still feel off kilter. However, when I catch the bus the whole way, I am fine.

Finally it dawned on me this morning that I have to stop walking to work. This is really bloody annoying, because I like walking, I need the exercise, I like waking up slowly and the walk to and from work gives me all this. But the carbon monoxide from all those vehicles is making me sick.

Damn. And yet, you can bet, I’m going to continue to walk every so often. It’s almost a compulsion – one that drives me to behaviour which is not only counter intuitive but destructive to my health. Why, why, why am I so driven? I don’t want to become a lemming, nor less a Darwin award recipient. But I like walking… I just can’t help myself.

Silly girl.

Mary Poppins the Musical

Saw Mary Poppins the musical at the Prince Edward Theatre last night. It was lovely. I was perhaps a little too close to the stage (I was only four rows from the front) but it was fun and an enjoyable evening out. The set design was amazing, it all fitted together rather like Lego and flew in and out with precision. The costumes were lovely, and the singers were great – especially Mary. It’s not quite as good as the Mary Poppins movie I don’t think. Julie Andrews would be a hard act to follow in any case, but I also saw the replacement cast, not the original London cast, as it has been running for quite a while and is due to close in January next year. It was still very enjoyable.

Also learned something interesting from the program; P L Travers, who wrote the books, was Australian!

I’m actually wondering if the fact that I can see so many productions, pretty much on demand, has cheapened their value in my eyes. That, because I don’t have to wait for one to come to town, and purchase the ticket and plan for the night months in advance, and have that anticipation of a special evening out to look forward to, I no longer value the show as I might once have done? I’m finding myself more of a critic here than I ever was back home, and I’m sure that the quality of the productions is as good if not better than any I saw in Australia. Interesting thought.

Mind you, although the production didn’t completely overwhelm me, I’ve had the music stuck in my head ever since. So it did actually have an impact, one that I’m hoping will go away soon! :-)

I am verifiably insane...

I really am.

I am talking to my characters, and they are answering back! I was having a conversation with one of them, and another interrupted, shoving the first out of the way. She is very annoyed with me, and is telling me off.

Help!

Harry Connick Jr.... yum

Saturday night at the Royal Albert hall again,this time to see Mr. Harry Connick Jnr. A slow start with the star hardly looking at the audience, but he and we warmed up and then boy did that man swing! It was amazing. He was funny and personable and seemed to be genuinely happy to be there and humbled by the audience’s response. The more vocal we were, the more of a show he put on. And I was about 10 rows from the front, so had a really good view!

The theme for the night was My New Orleans, or Nola (New Orleans Louisiana) which is his home town apparently, so all the pieces were from there. He recorded the album as a response to hurricane Katrina and urged us all to come back and visit to help the place recover.
I recognised some of the pieces, but most of the material was new to me. It didn’t matter though, as just listening to that velvet voice, and his incredible band, was treat enough. He also had the most astounding trombone player join him - Lucian Barbarin. Wow, what a staggering talent! I’ve never heard a trombone played like that. It was mind-blowing.

All up, a very enjoyable evening. I went home humming his final tune and didn’t get it out of my head until Monday. Pretty awesome.

Battle of the choirs

Thursday night with Jason and Paul; The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in The Royal Albert Hall, conducted by Leonard Slatkin playing The Planets Suite by Holst, and Belshazzar’s Feast by Walton.

Wow…. Wow wow wow wow wow.

I mean, I love The Planets, I know it backwards, so it was always going to be a really enjoyable night for me. But hearing it live, seeing the French horns, watching the two sets of kettle drums being beaten to within an inch of their lives, and feeling the reverberating pure SOUND of the organ in the Albert… wow. We even had the final women’s chorus coming from up in the gods – the Albert is about 5 or 6 stories high, and has a viewing promenade on the top level, and the women were way up there, with their backs to us, singing into the void, so it echoed brilliantly, and they walked away still singing in a physical fade out… it was amazing.

Slatkin seems to prefer the 19th century style of orchestra set up with the second violins directly opposite the first, the cellos and violas sandwiched in between. The more common way is to have firsts, seconds, violas and cellos in a fan in that order around the conductor. But the older arrangement gave a more balanced sound to my mind, especially in a piece which has so much juggling of the melody between sections. Oh dear…I am afraid my years of playing in an orchestra are showing. I really am not a music critic! It worked and was lovely, so that is all that matters!

Belshazzar’s Feast (a piece, to my knowledge, I’ve never hear before), requires two full choirs, and two extra compliments of brass. It is an oratorio about the death of the King of Babylon when he is disrespectful of the Jews sacred objects, and it was amazing.

The choirs (probably about 2 to 3 hundred people!) were positioned on either side of the organ and the extra brass sections were positioned in the boxes to either side of the stage. Throughout the piece, the orchestra sections and choirs play catch with the tune, bouncing it from one side of the hall to the other, from one choir to the other and this gave a remarkable stereo effect the music. It really was almost surround sound.

The impact of two choirs, three brass sections and the full power of the hall organ was incredible. We were overwhelmed by sound. At one point the choirs sing the single word ‘Slain’ in unison, and it pierces your heart, so loud, so sudden and so violent is the chord. It was really wonderful. Wow.

Thanks again for that Jase. A truly spectacular evening.

Stadust

Saw the movie Stardust last night with Jane.

It was a lovely movie. A bit scatty I thought, but an enjoyable interpretation of Neil Gaiman's novel none the less. I'm sure it will become a cult classic like The Princess Bride, to which it keeps getting compared. It's a feel-good fairy tale and worth paying for in the cinemas just to experience the magic of the film and I really enjoyed it but I didn't fall in love with it.

However, it did enervate me and inspire me to stay up so that I could start writing my NaNoWriMo story on the dot of midnight... I only wrote 200 words mind you, but I did write!!

Anyway, I recommend seeing the movie if you have a fantasy bent like I do. 4/5 stars.