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Entry for 4th April, 2008
2008-04-05 17:29:00
The thing about having children is that you do not actually understand what the word "tired" really means until you have them. Three consecutive nights without sleep? Nothing. Just run the London marathon in a gorilla suit? Nothing. The mild fatigue that you without children feel is as nothing to the sheer exhaustion you feel after looking after two infants for five little hours. There is something about the attention that they crave that can utterly drain you. And here, I do not mean "drain" in the metaphorical sense, but more in the sense that Dracula Lord of the Undead "drains" the life force from you as he sups gushing red arterial blood from your lily white sleeping neck. However, there is a yang to the yin. And it is this: there is no better sleep than the power nap snatched when the kids drop off for a snooze simultaneously. It is like a shot of heroin into a junky's arm, or a transfusion of the blood of some frisky, nubile twentysomething into the body of an ailing octonage...
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Entry for 3rd April, 2008
2008-04-05 11:16:00
For The Round Faced Girl's second birthday, we bought her something called a "play hut". It has arrived, and has been constructed in the garden. I cannot help but feel that the clever marketing men at Garden Play Huts Inc have been burning the midnight oil. The "Play Hut" does not appear to me to be significantly different from a bog standard garden shed. I fear that my daughter's halcyon days will now be spent in the type of hut my grandfather used to store rusting spanners and mysterious tins emblazoned with a skull and crossbones. She seems to like it however. I deduce this from the fact that, after we showed it to her briefly this morning, we had to take her off to Granny and Grandad's for childminding. This provoked a tantrum of epic proportions. I had to prize her tiny fingers one by one off the door of the shed - sorry, play hut - whilst she yelled "My House! My House!!!" repeatedly. I waved cheerily to the neighbours as I carried her screaming to the car.
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Entry for 2nd April, 2008
2008-04-04 22:00:00
I am currently trying to finalise the cast for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. This is a bigger problem than normal, because it's got a cast of about fifteen. Now, if you were trying to put together a group of fifteen labourers to build a block of flats, then that would be relatively easy. Equally, if you needed fifteen guys to turn up to play rugby on a Saturday, that's be fine. A few phone calls; everyone checks their diaries and Bob's your uncle. With actors it is different. As their heads are full of marshmallows and marsh gas, they are incapable of returning phone calls. Some like you to pursue them like young virgins first stepping out for the London Season - you need to wine them, dine them, and tell them how good they look in their new velvet cloak and floppy hat. Others don't have diaries. Instead, they retain information about appointments using an array of conch shells lined up on their window sills in a variety of intricate patterns. Trying to line up fifteen acto...
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Entry for 1st April, 2008
2008-04-04 00:15:00
I am pleased to see that my very good friend David Bison has started his own blog. He is using Blogspot rather than 360, but do not let that deter you - his entry on the Law of Diminishing Returns is well worth a brief trip over to the Dark Side. I have not chuckled out loud at a blog entry for a while. Today, I wish I was seven months old. That is the age of the Round Faced Boy. The reason I wish it is this: I wish that my very favourite thing in the whole world was to have someone lift me high up in the air, and sing "A Life on the Ocean Wave" repeatedly. I think that it would be nice to inhabit such a world; a world where I looked down at a big person who loved me utterly and where the opening "Ohhhhhhhhhh a life on the..." would send me into paroxysms of squeaky giggles. That seems to me to be a world worth living in. Now I am all grown up. My favourite thing is lying on the sofa eating fig rolls and watching The Apprentice. It is not really a noble pursuit. I feel my mother is ...
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Entry for 31st March, 2008
2008-04-02 22:10:00
My harping sister JJ has been sending me irritating messages pointing out that I have failed to mention on my blog that I am not the only person who has succeeded in the month long novelathon. My sis also completed the task. More power to her I say. She did not even have the threat of the Couch Potato's forfeit hanging over her, so, in a way, her success is even more laudable than mine, as it is due purely to self-discipline. My own was largely down to the fear of being ritually tortured in one of the myriad orange lodges clustered arounf Larkhall Main Street. (That last sentence will make very little sense to any of my readers outwith the West of Scotland. There is nothing I can do to adequately translate this one either folks. Put it this way; if I had failed then the forfiet would have meant VERY BAD THINGS INDEED). At any event all hail to JJ!!! She is very talented. I suspect that her novel will be considerably suprior to mine. This will not be hard. My novel is the worst ever...
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Entry for 30th March, 2008
2008-04-01 22:49:00
It has been a late night! My theatre company has got a venue sorted for our production of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" at the Edinburgh Fringe. When you're arranging Fringe venues, this time of year is a bit frantic. All the venues wait until very near the deadline (for entering the show in the Fringe Programme) before making offers of times to the theatre companies - obviously, they want to book the best possible acts. Then, as the deadline draws near they start to make offers, and are desperate to fill the time slots. They start to pile the pressure on to get the companies to sign contracts. We managed to get a really good time slot in a venue that's just the right size for us, but today was a day of frantic phone calls and form-filling, followed by a trip to the office after midnight to fax the contract in, to seal the deal. We still have to place the kids' show that we#re taking to Edinburgh, but that should happen over the next couple of days I hope. Anyway - mark up...
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Entry for 29th March, 2008
2008-04-01 01:52:00
Thanks to all those of you who sent me congratulations for finishing the 30 day novel project. I am disappointed to note, however, that there are some doubters amongst you who do not have faith in my veracity as a novelist and (more importantly) a counter of words (Kenny B you know who you are). Frankly, my faith in human nature has been dented by ye of little faith. In fact, I have now prined off my great work of fiction and it's currently sitting on top of the piano - all 217 pages of it. So, any doubters are welcome to come round and have a QCT (Qualifying Cup of Tea) and admire it. If they like to manually count the words, then they are equally welcome. In fact that seems like a reasonable punishment for their disheartening vote of no confidence. The book on top of the piano looks quite impressive. It actually looks like a real manuscript. It has a title page and everything. Of course, it only looks impressive until you try to actually try to read it. At that point the resembl...
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Entry for 28th March, 2008
2008-03-30 21:13:00
31 Days to Write a 50,000 Word Novel DAY 28 Wordcount 50,052!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I've done it. I've created a 50,000 word novel in 28 days. I am a novelist. Admittedly, it is not a novel that will ever be read, let alone published, but nevertheless I did it. It is sitting there on my hard drive, and I will soon print out all 217 pages of it. I may spread it out on the floor and roll around on it for a bit. Then I might have a little bit of a sleep. I am now going to buy a floppy hat, and sit in shabby cafes in Paris' left bank drinking dangerous amounts of Absynthe. People will pass by the cafe and see me sitting in the window, puffing on the stub of a filterless cigarette. "There he is," they will say. "There is Alan B." "Who?" "Alan B. The novelist." Then they will walk off into the night, and I will stare a little sadly out into the street, smoke spiraling from my cigarette.
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Entry for 27th March, 2008
2008-03-30 21:04:00
31 Days to Write a 50,000 Word Novel DAY 27 Wordcount 46,500 Another wordless day. I am a lazy novelist and entirely without worth. I am working hard in other ways though. For example, I have loaded 6 days worth of music onto my iPod. I am determined to fill its little iPod mind. I am like Robyn Williams in that film where he molds the minds of young boys, except that I am ensuring that my little iPod (Natasha) is imbued with perfect musical taste. When I am finished with our classes together, I will set her free into the world, where her exquisite understanding of songsmithery will make her sought after by the editors of musical periodicals the length and breadth of this fair kingdom. She will become editor of the New Musical Express. She will forget me in time but, when I am old and grey, I will sit in my leather armchair, and read her articles. I will have the quiet satisfaction of knowing that it was me who shaped her tastes.
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Entry for 26th March, 2008
2008-03-29 01:22:00
31 Days to Write a 50,000 Word Novel DAY 26 Wordcount 46,500 No words at all today as I was stuck working in the office until 11.30pm. That is not an entirely healthy state of affairs, and I cannot help but feel that if HM Inspectors of Weights and Measures came by my office today they would find a peculiar set of scales. On the one side they would find a blue whale with the word "work" painted in red letters across its side. On the other side of the scales would be a mayfly, with the word "life" shimmering in transluscent sparkling writing.
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Entry for 25th March, 2008
2008-03-25 22:23:00
31 Days to Write a 50,000 Word Novel DAY 25 Wordcount 46,500 Me and my little army of chapters have now crossed the Rhein, and we can see Berlin in the distance. We know that victory is in sight. We are a little battered and bruised. Our wrists ached from battering away daily at the keyboard, and our eyes are tired from staring to long at a laptop screen. However, we must recognise that nothing is over until it is over. We have further to go. There are more obstacles to overcome. We must not relax or the enemy Procrastination Army Group will have time to muster its men, and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Onwards men. Onwards.
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Entry for 24th March, 2008
2008-03-25 01:06:00
31 Days to Write a 50,000 Word Novel DAY 24 Wordcount 45,057 Less than 5,000 words to go, and only 7 days to do it in. I am beginning to harbour thoughts that I might make it across the finish line. Not only that, but I came up with a title for the novel today. Until now I have been saving it in Word using the working title of "My Magnificent First Novel". However, as I have worked my way through the speedy writing process I have come to realise more and more, that the working title is not entirely apt. I knew I had to change the title. I toyed with "My Unreadable First Novel" and "Destroy Me whe the Word Count Hits 50,000". However I have rejected these, and opted for "Ten Perfect Days". I feel happier now that my baby has a name. I think it is happier too. When I say the name it smiles at me and urgles a bit. Sometimes I cover the screen and play peekaboo with it.
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Entry for 23rd March, 2008
2008-03-24 00:05:00
31 Days to Write a 50,000 Word Novel DAY 23 Wordcount 43,549 I should not have bought the iPod. I have spent the whole day loading tunes onto it whilst subsisting entirely on a diet of Cadbury's Easter eggs. It has not been the sort of day that is likely to improve my chances of making the 4 by 400m relay squad at the Beijing olympics. Its similarities to Natasha Kaplinski go further than just the fact that it talks the same way (see my previous posting). Like Natasha, the iPod is very pretty. It is very tempting. They both look clean, functional and well-presented, but you know that just under the surface they would both lead you to doom as sure as a siren singing from that island with the big jaggy rocks. In fact if i ever see Natasha Kaplinski with an iPod I think that my marriage would be over, and Real Matasha, iPod Natasha and I would destroy ourselves in a hedonistic frenzy. What a way to go though, 80 gigabytes of your favourite tunes and a woman who know her current ...
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Entry for 22nd March, 2008
2008-03-22 21:24:00
31 Days to Write a 50,000 Word Novel DAY 22 Wordcount 42,089 I am into Week 4 and I am closing in on 50,000 words. I don't want to speak to soon, but it looks like I might make it I had promised myself a treat if I made it into Week 3 on target, and I finally got round to it today. I have followed the Couch Potato's lead and bought an iPod. It is sitting beside me on my desk, all shiny and new. It looks lovely. It looks like something out of Star Trek. It looks like something that every boy should own. It looks like it will be a thief of my time. I can already hear its little iPod voice calling to me. (It sounds a bit like ravishing newsreader/love-hussy Natasha Kaplinsiki). It is telling me that I must update my library, or its little electronic heart will break for want of love and attention. It needs to be fed, to be loved, to be needed. Oh little iPod, I love you already. We were destined to be together. I loved you before I knew you, and will love you when the very sands...
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Entry for 21st March, 2008
2008-03-21 21:14:00
31 Days to Write a 50,000 Word Novel DAY 21 Wordcount 38,760 My Significant Other and I were talking over breakfast today about how much Linda Barker annoys us. Her whiny voice and mad decorating antics are enough to send us into a murderous rage. Often when "House Invaders" is on, you will find the two of us ranting at the telly, shouting things like "Tope and aquamarine don't compliment one another Linda!!!" and "Shut your whining face you blonde she devil." Over breakfast we struck on an idea for a new TV programme called "Real House Invaders". The idea is that Linda is sent into someone's house ostensibly to do one of her stupid makeovers that always make the living room look like an amateur dramatic set for an Alan Aykeborne play. However, the twist is that while Linda is engaged in stenciling fleur de leys on the marble hearth, a team of Ostrogoths from the Fourth Century AD will steam in, sack the house, and kick the crap out of Linda. Now, that would be worth the lice...
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Entry for March 21, 2008
2008-03-21 02:13:00
31 Days to Write a 50,000 Word Novel DAY 20 Wordcount 36,443 Another slow Thursday. They are my lean and unproductive days in the Word Mines of Siberia. The regular badminton session knocks my ability to write. The time at the game is bad enough, but then I have to deal with the agony of old man's muscles thereafter. I am writing through the pain barrier. In many ways I am like an Olympic marathon runner, except I get to do my race sitting at a desk eating bits of Easter Egg and drinking coffee. I all other ways, I am identical to highly trained and dedicated athletes. I have thought of another project to do after the novel. I haven't told my Significant Other about it yet, because I fear that she may hit me if she finds out. Perhaps I shall not tell her at all. In a way I have started the next project. I was bored you see. And that is how I get into trouble: on evenings where I have a little time to speculate; and access to both a computer and a credit card. These are dange...
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Entry for 19th March, 2008
2008-03-19 22:52:00
31 Days to Write a 50,000 Word Novel DAY 19 Wordcount 35,666 I fear that those are the 1670 worst words I have ever written. Even some of the footnotes in the law book would make better reading. Some bank reconciliations I have srafted have more drive and energy. Frankly, copying out pages of the phone book would have had a better sense of narrative. Rather like the transvestite zombie problem from Chapter 3, I have got Gary (my central character stuck in another pointless scene), which appear to be going nowhere. He is currently at a wedding, where nothing is happening. Nothing. He is eating some cake and chatting politely to another guest. The scene is actually less exciting than going to a wedding. It is, probably, the worst scene in any novel ever written. And I have read some crap in my time. Tomorrow I will ensure that something unexpected happens. Perhaps a bomb will go off, or a terrorist will burst in, or somebody will fart loudly during the vows. One thing is for su...
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Entry for 18th March, 2008
2008-03-18 22:27:00
31 Days to Write a 50,000 Word Novel DAY 18 Wordcount 33,994 My novel is now nearly 7/10ths complete. I am not yet a novelist though, and there is some grinding to be done. In particular, my protagonist is running out of things to do. I think I know where he is going, but I feel he wants to get there a lot quicker than I need him to. What do I do, if reaches the end of the novel before I hit 50,000 words? I suppose I could write some acknowledgements and a chapter list, but even at a push that would be no more than a few hundred words. I am thinking about writing extensive title to the chapters in the following manner - Chapter3 In which our hero becomes engaged in a rather rambling adventure with some transvestite zombies, which does little to further the plot, but which pads out the exposition nicely
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Entry for 17th March, 2008
2008-03-18 21:50:00
31 Days to Write a 50,000 Word Novel DAY 17 Wordcount 31,850 It was always going to be a difficult writing day - a packed diary at work, and then straight up to my friend Laughing Boy's house for some retro entertainment playing dungeons and dragons for the second time in twenty years! I managed to squeeze in seven hundred very dodgy words by sending an e-mail to myself at 5pm. It was the only way I could find a spare half hour at the computer. Wil I make it my friends? It is touch and go. My characters are running out of things to do. My time is getting stretched. The television and the real world are calling softly to me.... I need your support my virtual cheerleaders... Help me make it to the finishing line. I hear that when I cross it I get a silver blanket, a botlle of lucozade and a medal. Tell me it's true.
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Entry for 16th March, 2008
2008-03-16 22:54:00
31 Days to Write a 50,000 Word Novel DAY 16 Wordcount 30,827 That's better! And yes - you have read correctly. I have today crossed through the rubicons of both 25,000 and 30,000 words of the novel. At 10am this morning you would have found me with an espresso coffee in a motorway service station tapping furiously away at my laptop, determined to put my novel back on track. It was pleasant out there - good coffee, barely another person in the cafe, and sunshine streaming in through the window. It was good to get the chance to write in the morning - I had more energy and enthusiasm. An odd thing also happened last night when i was lying in bed. I kind of got a flash f insight and realised what the book was about. It isn't what I thought it was about either.This seems very odd, but it is almost as if the story has a bit of an idea of its own that wants to get out. I don't really feel like I put it there. It's an odd feeling - like I'm just letting it loose onto the laptop....
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Entry for 15th March, 2008
2008-03-16 22:32:00
31 Days to Write a 50,000 Word Novel DAY 15 Wordcount 23,424 Oh no. Another day of stasis. In spite of the words of encouragement from my virtual cheerleaders, Pati and Fish Face, the word count has not moved, and I am beginning to smell failure. In fairness, I was all ready to go today, but then, as I was settling down to spend a couple of hours writing, I got a text message from Learned Counsel reminding my that I was supposed to have been at his son's birthday party at that very moment. I am not only a crap novelist, but also a fickle friend. The party itself was fun. Unfortunately my daughter was the second child to be eliminated at pass the parcel. I gave her a stern talking to, and reminded her that losing in any form of competition is not tolerated in my household. I explained that pass the parcel is a metaphor for life, and in future she must use all means at her disposal to ensure victory. The ends justify the means, I stressed. She did not seem to understand though...
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Entry for 14th March, 2008
2008-03-15 00:13:00
31 Days to Write a 50,000 Word Novel DAY 14 Wordcount 23,424 No words at all today. None. Zero. Nada. Zip. My muse has ground to a shuddering standstill. Worse. I have had two pints of guinness and I don't care. My work of genius lies unattended. If I listen carefully, I can hear it calling to me from the hardrive of the laptop. "Alan. Alan," it cries. "I am here. Trapped. In stasis. I need you to awaken me. To stir my primordial soup and give me life. I need your spark of inspiration my creator. Make me your monster Dr Frankenstein, and I will love you back. Lead me on." But I do not listen, for I am a fickle novelist, carousing as I am with my Guinness. I blot out the plaintive cries from the laptop; the drink dulling my senses.
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Entry for 13th March, 2008
2008-03-13 23:52:00
31 Days to Write a 50,000 Word Novel DAY 13 Wordcount 23,424 A disastrous day! I am plainly a bad novelist and must be punished! I should be convicted by the International Wordcount Court and sent for a hundred days hard labour in the Fiction Mines of Siberia, where I will need to sit at the controls of my industrial laptop and mine for paragraphs for the next Steven King novel. I also got coffee grinds in my eye today. Fresh coffee and contact lenses are not the best of bedfellows. Unless you happened to be an outside observer who gets kicks out of useless novelists writhing on the kitchen floor shouting "Damn you Dow Egberts, how you sting."
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Entry for 13th March, 2008
2008-03-12 22:16:00
31 Days to Write a 50,000 Word Novel DAY 12 Wordcount 22,924 I am getting worried about the wordcount. There is an awfully long way to go. I need to bang out about 1,700 words a day if I'm going to make this,and that's really difficult during the week. I have struggled to notch up 1,500 tonight, and I seem to be hitting the Wordcount button every 15 minutes, On top of that I have badminton tomorrow night, and my dad's coming to visit on Friday, so I fear that things will come to a grinding halt over the next couple of days. In spite of all of this, I would commend the experiment to you. There is something about the discipline that is useful. The fact that I have to write something every night, frees you up in a funny sort of way. Instead of agonising over every last word, or reviewing the work, or worrying about plot holes, I am forced to jump head first into the writing each night. There is just no time for self-criticism. And it forces the writing into odd directions, that...
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Entry for 12th March, 2008
2008-03-11 21:55:00
31 Days to Write a 50,000 Word Novel DAY 11 Wordcount 21,442 Bow and scrape my faithful readers, for I have crashed through the 20,000 word barrier. Today, I have most definitely been concentrating on quantity rather than quality. The main priority was to get my characters out of the rather peculiar zombie-related sub-plot that was threatening to send them off into a very peculiar direction indeed. Fortunately, I think I pulled them out just in time. I am like Sylvester Stallone in Rambo, pulling the POWs out of imminent danger and getting them safely home. Sylvester uses a big gun; I use my laptop. Otherwise we are identical. My Significant Other and I have been awoken three nights in a row by a children's book. The Small Round Faced People have a pirate book with pictures on it. If you press the picture, they make a noise eg press a seagull - "Cawcawcaw"; press a pirate "Ha harrr Jim lad." However, for some reason the book has been going off of its own devices in the middle ...
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Entry for March 10, 2008
2008-03-11 00:08:00
31 Days to Write a 50,000 Word Novel DAY 10 Wordcount 19,275 Only a pitiful 800 words tonight - easily my slowest day.To be honest I had to really struggle to get those done. I felt sluggish and untalented. I am tired, tired tired. I was marking papers for a university course that I teach from 7.30pm until after 10, so my reserves of energy for writing were almost dry. I feel my characters are currently stranded in a rotten scene, and it's very difficult to extract them from it. Maybe my muse will strike tomorrow, when I should have a bit more time available in the evening at least. In the real world, I have been asked to give a talk about my book to a crowd of lawyers. This might sound like a lovely opportunity to promote the book, but I can imagine few less sympathetic audiences than those composed exclusively of court lawyers eager to display their own knowledge at my expense. In my mind's eye, I envisage myself as a lamb lashed to the lecturn, baaa-baaaing my tutorial to ...
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Entry for 9th March, 2008
2008-03-09 22:18:00
31 Days to Write a 50,000 Word Novel DAY 09 Wordcount 18,400 I'm still on target to make 50,000 words in 31 days, but only just. I was going to take it easy today, until the Couch Potato sent me a comment yesterday reminding me that he is Keeper of the Grand Forfeit for Failed Novelists. He is not a potato to be trifled with. And with the thought of public humiliation burning in my mind, I dragged myself in front of the keyboard just before dinner, and managed to force out another 500 words when I felt like sleeping on the sofa. They were a very odd 500 words. I was not expecting zombies to turn up in the novel. I had a pleasant hour doing the gardening earlier today. It's badly needing tidied up. Very badly actually. Over the early spring, several film crews have approached me asking if it would be available as a location for the follow up to Day of the Triffids. I enjoyed the fairly mindless physical task of hauling the weeds out. Frankly, it's about all I'm fit for after...
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Entry for 8th March, 2008
2008-03-08 22:15:00
31 Days to Write a 50,000 Word Novel DAY 08 Wordcount 16,385 I managed to bag another Qualifying Cup of Tea in amongst my novel drinking. This is me, my great pal from university days Learned Counsel, and Mr Blobby. You all know which one is me, but can you distinguish between the other two. I have trouble, and I've known Learned Counsel for more than twenty years. We were at the soft play area today. It is the perfect venue to take small children. Essentially, it allows negligent parents to eat rolls and sausage whilst they abandon their children within a big room. I do not venture much into the childrens' room. It is a bit like Lord of the Flies in there. I am sure that there is a big kid with a conch shell, and sometimes there is the sound of feasting. I had a good day on the novel today, notching up nearly 3,000 words. I have discovered that drinking strongbow cider whilst writing improves my productivity. I may have to write to Tom Clancy and JK Rowling with this little tip.
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Entry for 7th March, 2008
2008-03-08 22:06:00
31 Days to Write a 50,000 Word Novel DAY 07 Wordcount 13,524 Another slow day for the writing I'm afraid. A hectic day at work did the damage, and by the time I got in the lure of a can of export was overwhelming. As a result I only just broke the thousand word barrier. I am clearly a lacklustre novelist and no good will ever come of me. The problem with the book now is that I've introduced the characters, and I now need to urge them to actually do something. I feel that having them sit around for the next 38,000 words drinking tea, is not going to make for a very saleable product. Perhaps in retrospect, it was a bit rash starting a novel when I had no plot.
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Entry for 6th March, 2008
2008-03-07 00:44:00
31 Days to Write a 50,000 Word Novel DAY 06 Wordcount 12,334 Oh dear. I have only just scraped over a thousand words tonight. It is easily my slowest day so far, and I can hear the Couch Potato singing his little song of delight as he readies The Grand Forfeit for Failed Novelists. In fairness, Thursdays are my worst day becasue I play badminton straight after dinner and helping bath the small roundfaced people. I wasn't even sure I'd get anything done. It was with a somewhat slumped and tired sigh that I sat down at the laptop. But oddly, the words seemed quite easy to come by tonight. On the positive side something which I thought was genuinely funny happened in the book tonight. It made me laugh anyway. My protagonist received an unexpected e-mail, which I think is going to take him in an unexpected direction. iI'm quite looking forward to seeing where he goes tomorrow. I'd really like to notch up a good quota of words this weekend. I feel I have to get them under my belt...
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