Derailed

Hello all, apologies for the unexpected hiatus, this was caused by having an excessive amount of things to do and people to see for the past few weeks.  I know you've all missed out on my poorly punctuated onanistic ramblings but you should be pleased to hear that I'm in the process of alienating all of my friends and family so I should have a lot more time to sit alone and write.  

Whilst I was out and about not writing I had one of the weirdest train journeys of my life.  It was a Friday night and I was travelling to see my girlfriend on the 17:15 train from Leeds.  The train was as packed as a cattle truck and I found myself crammed into the luggage compartment behind the driver's cabin with about a dozen other commuters.  About fifteen minutes into the journey the train pulled to a halt, I assumed we were just pulling into a station but when I looked out of the window all I could see was a lonely patch of woodland that surrounded the train tracks on all sides.  Then the cabin door opened and the driver emerged.  He looked sheepish and confused as he said "I'm very sorry but I think we're lost."  

Until then I didn't think trains could get lost, I assumed they just followed the rails.  Now I think about it I realise one of the junctions on the tracks must have been set wrong or maybe there was something the matter with "the points" but on that evening, as I watched a confused train drivers climb onto the tracks and glance around frantically, trying to work out where he'd driven to all I could think was "Oh great, we've been whisked away to the world of the bloody faeries."  I had visions of my girlfriend waiting at the plat form for hours before asking a passer by (probably Rod Sterling or Vincent Price) when the 17:15 from Leeds arrived only to be told "there's no 17:15 from Leeds my dear, not since that crash where everyone died 10 years ago tonight!" Fortunately I don't live in a predictable urban legend so rather than never being seen again I just had to put up with a ten minute delay, but I quite like the idea of a phantom train that leaves it's passengers stranded somewhere unnatural, I might write something inspired by that journey one day if I can think of an approach that isn't a massive cliché.

The novel currently stands at 35,488 words or 47.3% of my target, although I'm a lot further than half way through the plot as I'm currently ripping what's left of my hair out trying to structure the ending.  My original plan was to have a complete draft done by mid April, but I'm probably going to have to move that goal post.  Now my plan is to finish the skeleton of the story (probably about 45,000-50,000 words) by the 19th of April and flesh this out into a full, functioning first draft by the end of May.  I'm really excited by what I'm writing at the moment as the book's various plots and sub plots are pulling together and shit's blowing up all over the place.  Come back next week to see if I hit 40,000 words.

Novel Update 05/03/2012

Greetings puny mortals.  I've suffered from a minor bit of writer's block this week; nothing major, but annoying none the less. Man Writer' Block perhaps.  I spent most of the first half of the week trying to get into a scene which is going to be fairly pivotal to the last third of the book and repeatedly changed my mind over how to approach it.  I eventually cracked it on Saturday night after a few pints of inspiration, it's not perfect and definitely needs a good proof reading/rewriting but it's there for now and I've found the subsequent scenes a lot easier to write.  Whilst failing at novel writing I managed to come up with a few pieces for the blog about creator owned comics and the gender politics of Earth's Mightiest Bums.  I also passed my driving theory test, take that crippling sense of inadequacy!

The current word count is 30,048 of 75,000 or 40.1% as I mentioned in the last novel update I've left quite a few gaps so I'm starting to see the end of the plot so I'm quite excited to be approaching the climax.  Come back next Monday to see if I hit 35,000.

Skin Diseases & Novel Update 27/02/2012

Hello again, how is everyone?...  That's nice, glad to hear you're all doing well. I've spent most of this weekend worrying that I'd caught impetigo from my three year old nephew.  I wasn't really concerned about the disease itself, as according to nhs.uk impetigo is rarely a serious condition and my skin's already pretty much a write off.  I was worried that I'd pass it on to my girlfriend, mostly because I'm a selfless, heroic gentleman but also because I was afraid that it would be really awkward.  I'd not heard of impetigo before this weekend but my  dad described it as "basically herpes for kids"  and I've been terrified of having to tell the missus "I've not been fooling around with anyone, I caught this pestilence I've given you from my nephew."  Which is pretty much the worst excuse I could have come up with and would almost certainly have got me in to even more bother.  Fortunately both myself and Mrs myself seem to have dodged the plague and the nephew's looking better.

I've been able to do a fair bit of writing since the last update and I've managed to reach 27,709 words, or 37% of the novel.  Having said that, I'm a lot further than 37% into the plot and there are lots of gaps that I'm going to have to go back and fill in/or paper over, so it's probably more accurate to say I've half written the first 75% of the book.  I'm going to update on a Monday night from now on, so I'll be able to spend all of Sunday night actually writing the book and not end up having a late night writing the accompanying blog post.  Next week's target is 32,000, comeback on Monday to see if I reach it.

Novel Update 16/02/2012

Well this week's been a bit of a write off.  The word count's currently at 21,662, a fair way short of my 25,000 word target, so 29% of the total target's been written.  I know you all expected more from some idiot dicking about with words on the internet, I'm sorry I let you down.  I'm away this weekend so it doesn't look like I'll be able to write many more (although I'm travelling by train so I might be able to get a few thousand done).  However the weekend after that is the one before pay day so I'll be too poor for adventures and should be able to get some cheap, cheap writing done.  The current plan is 27,500 by Sunday 26th February, which should put me back on track for my self imposed first draft deadline of mid-April, come back then to see how much I've done.

Witch Doctor and Novel Update 05/02/2012

I did a fair bit of writing this week, not only on my novel but also some general whining about the Watchmen Prequels which you can find one post down. Aside from writing I've spent most of this week working overtime, teaching my immediate family to use Skype (and relearning how to use it myself) and returning to York for drinks on Friday.  Since pay day was this week I also bought myself some comics.  All of which were pretty good but the highlight was probably Witch Doctor: Resuscitation.  

Witch Doctor was my favourite new comic of last year, a magical medical mystery about a maverick doctor (is there any other sort) who fights supernatural diseases.  The creative team behind the comic; writer Brandon Seifert and artist Lukas Ketner, have created a well thought out world of grimy monsters that are just about biologically plausible and each issue introduces at least one or two interesting scientific twists on classic monsters. I've seen Witch Doctor described as House verses the supernatural and  Garth Marenghi's Darkplace played straight and it's no where near as terrible as the Garth Marenghi comparison implies.  It's a fun comic from creators who know how to pace a story for single issues, there's a graphic novel collecting the first miniseries and a new series starting this year.   I'd recommend Witch Doctor to anyone who doesn't mind a bit of body horror in their comics, especially my fellow science/horror fans/geeks.

"But what about your writing Tom?" I hear no one ask, it's been another good week and my word count currently stands at 20,187 or 27.0% of my 75,000 word target.  Come back next week to see if I make 25,000.

Novel Update 30/01/2012

Hello all, apologies for the slight delay.  I've spent most of this weekend travelling about Yorkshire doing various exciting activities.  I was in Barnsley on Saturday to celebrate a friend's birthday.  We spent most of the day in various pubs including a nice real ale place and two Wetherspoons.  I'm a bit out of practice at daytime drinking and I was worried that I might be hungover on Sunday but we all paced ourselves and ate plenty of nutritionally dubious pub food so I ended up ok.

On Sunday I went to York to see Robin Ince perform his Happiness Through Science show at the Hyena Lounge Comedy Club.  I'm a big fan of Robin Ince; I've seen him live several times before (I once saw him twice in one day at the Edinburgh Fringe) and I subscribe to his many podcasts, so I was expecting to enjoy the show but worried he might reuse material I'd already seen. Fortunately he didn't, and I enjoyed two hours plus interval of an intelligent, likeable man shouting enthusiastically about really interesting topics and ranting about terribly infuriating things.  Robin Ince always seems to attract interesting audiences to his shows and tonight's was no exception, the room was full with various breeds of academic who were more than happy to contribute a fact or clarify a misunderstanding.  This could easily have been terrible but Ince had created a vibe of jolly interest, so much so that when he mentioned Bishop Berkeley he received two contradictory heckles and proceeded to compère a brief discussion about the philosopher without derailing the show.  I left the show feeling enthused and interested in the world and would highly recommend seeing Robin Ince if he tours near you.

I knew I would be having a busy weekend so I made an effort to get as much done during the week as possible and reached 14,500 words by Friday night. Surprisingly I managed to get a fair bit of writing down over the weekend, writing on various trains and whilst waiting in pubs.  I would have written more but my solipsistic friend James Sizeland selfishly distracted me with beer and interesting conversation.  I'm quite proud of my writing this week, I've finished a scene I've been thinking about for a while that is really pivotal to the course of the novel but until yesterday I'd been unable to articulate properly.  The whole thing will need some serious polishing but so far I'm satisfied with how it's progressing.

I've been using a moleskin notepad I'd received for Christmas.  The piece of paper moleskin arrogantly slip in the back of their products claims that Hemingway used a moleskin, that's got to improve the writing. I'm only a few bottles of whiskey and a bunch of slaughtered animals away from the Nobel Prize.  The total word count stands at 16,297 which is 21.7% of my target 75,000.  Come back next week to see if I can hit 20,000 words.

Novel update 22/01/2012

I've had a fairly productive weekend this week.  Today I woke up early (for a Sunday) and constructed myself one of the greatest breakfasts ever fried.  This triumph of pork and grease gave me the strength to write over 2000 words and get fairly lost in some local woods.  I took a break from writing this afternoon to go for a walk with my mum.  We walked to the evocatively named "Druid's alter rock" a rocky outcrop with some impressive views of the valley.  Although we didn't spend much time on the rock as the wind was becoming increasingly aggressive and neither of us felt like a broken neck.  To escape the wind we cut through some woods hoping to find the path to the river, but we got lost and ended up going back the way we came, still it was a good walk.  On the way back we walked past a local antiques shop called Curio Cottage, a tiny building overflowing with strange old things that feels like it should be run by a kindly, magical shopkeeper in a CBBC TV show.

This week I've met my target and written 10,048 words.  This means that the novel is the longest single piece of writing I've done.  It's closest competitors are two reports I wrote for my Post Graduate Certificate in Education Studies and my B.Sc project on "Laser trapping and cooling, featuring atomic hose-pipes" which despite (or because of?) having a title like a hip-hop collaboration, was the most successful part of my Physics Degree.  10,048 words is 13.4% of my arbitrary target word count of 75,000 so while I've got a fair way to go I feel I'm on track.  Next week's target is 15,000 come back then to see if I've made it.