There didn’t appear to be anyone furiously scribbling away in notebooks whilst looking pale and consumptive, and nor could I see any signs with bizarre-sounding acronyms scribbled on them, so I sat down at an empty table with my coffee and started reading my book. At least, I thought, when they do turn up, the fact that I am reading will surely mark me out as a potential novelist.

By about five past two, I was beginning to wonder if I was in fact in the write place, but just when I was starting to feel I was going to spend an hour reading instead of actually speaking to people, up popped astroducky to ask if anyone else was here for NaNoWriMo. We were quickly joined by three others, including another blogger and storyteller — La Mouche.

We then sat around together as a fivesome wondering what we were supposed to be doing and whether anyone else was going to turn up before finding that a large group of NaNo people had gathered after us in a different corner of the room. Of course, by the time we became aware of them and joined them, we were kind of ‘out on a limb’ in terms of seats so I didn’t particularly feel we were fully capable of joining in as much.

It might have been helpful if the organiser had cast around the room somewhat before starting up, particularly since we’d been there on time, but also the problem was caused by the fact that there were really too many people to have in a small chatting group — you could maybe have got away with 10-12 people around a big table but 18 or so is not feasible. Hopefully there as people drop out (and I have no doubt some will), this group (which is planning to meet in Caffe Nero, 2pm, saturdays from now until the end of November) will become a bit more manageable.

But while I didn’t feel I got to chat with the main group particularly, our splinter group (for those with a Python bent, let’s call us the Judean Popular Peoples’ Front) did I feel get to chat, and I found out a little bit more about the backgrounds of other people, got some kind of feeling for what they were planning to write, and more than anything else, it was nice just to know that other people were planning to take part in the same sanity-threatening writing marathon.

I left a bit early (well, to be honest, I don’t know how early — I don’t know how long the thing was supposed to go on for) because I wanted to be away comfortably before people started spilling out after the match, and what with feeling stuck out on a limb, I felt I’d achieved as much as I was likely to that day — chatting to and swapping emails with the Popular Peoples’ Front — and so I thought I’d call it a day for the time being and call back the following week.

And there’s still time to join National Novel Writing Month. You are supposed to write from the 1st to the 30th of November, so you’ve still got a week or so. Indeed, I managed to persuade someone else to sign up yesterday. Please don’t feel you have to write 50,000 words either. That’s the ideal target, but just give it a go and see where you end up. Last year I took part and wrote no words, so this year I’m hoping to write more than that.

I’m also hoping to make it a bit of a social thing: to get to know some new people, to support each other trying to write our stories, and generally to have a bit of a laugh while we’re on. See y’all next saturday…

As you can see, these are not exactly two threads I could weave into the same plot. Eleven days to go before kick-off. Still plenty of time for the rest of you to join up, if you feel that you might potentially have a novel inside you (although this year my target is a bit lower: simply to write more words than last year, when I took part but managed none)…

I’m taking part in National Novel Writing Month (also known as NaNoWriMo, which sounds very Mork & Mindy) again this year. Well, I say again. Last year I signed up to it and I think I managed to write a total of approximately no words towards a novel, so this year I am hoping to at least get as far as putting pen to paper (or more likely finger to keyboard).

Basically, the premise is that you should write a 50,000 word novel between November 1st and November 30th, which equates to 1,666 words per day. Because this is quite a great deal of writing, and in quite a short space of time, it is intended to be seat-of-the-pants stuff:

…the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It’s all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly. Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that’s a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes.What is NaNoWriMo

If there’s anyone else taking part in it, you can keep an eye on how I’m doing by popping over to my NaNo profile. Meanwhile, if anyone has got any great ideas for a novel that they don’t mind me using, feel free to suggest them in the comment form below, otherwise I might end up with…

Once upon a time, there was a lovely little sausage called Baldrick, and it lived happily ever after.Baldrick’s novel in Blackadder III: Ink and Incapability

tweet your haiku to
@kingsplace King’s Cross Station
haiku competition

ThePickards [1]

(Although technically this is a cheat, as I make it 18 syllables upon manual checking [5-7-6], but one of the automated counters said 17 so I’m having it here…)

I’ve always liked the poetry form Haiku, where you basically have a 17-syllable poem in a three line format with 5, then 7, then 5 syllables. It concentrates the mind amazingly well and can present beautiful imagery. It’s also quite fun to play with, which is the main reason I like it.

I came across this on BBC News:

Commuters fed up with the rainy weather can let off steam by “tweeting” poems about the summer which will be displayed at a London station.

All entries to the poetry competition will be shown on an outdoor screen at King’s Cross station until Friday.

People can send a message or “tweet” of up to 140 characters from their mobile phone to social networking site Twitter to enter the competition.

BBC News: Commuters asked to write haikus

Anyone wishing to take part might find — if you’re anything like me, and are not 100% sure how many syllables are in a particular word — that you aren’t entirely sure how many syllables make up a particular word. In this case you might want to use one of the syllable counters. But do treat them with caution, as they don’t all always return the same results…

thoughts turn to haiku
means of self isolation
on a crowded train

ThePickards [2]

send your entries now
competition runs until
friday of this week

ThePickards [3]

kings cross haiku fun
for competition details
follow URL
http://bit.ly/IpQGH

ThePickards [4]

…although obviously to ensure that the entries get picked up at the correct location, you need to direct them to @kingsplace. For the rest of the competition details, including the subject that the tweets are actually supposed to be about, see the haiku above…

However, they are in fact writing challenges. I’ll start with the simplest.

This is NaBloPoMo, which I am taking part in this month. This is National Blog Posting Month (the November 2008 flavour — I believe it runs every month), and the idea is to produce one blog post every day. As challenges go, this ought to be relatively straightforward — I produced 32 blog posts in October, and more than 30 again in September, so I am confident I can achieve this target.

NaNoWriMo, on the other hand, may be somewhat more complicated. The idea is to write a novel in November. Well, I’m not entirely sure: I read somewhere that you’re supposed to write 50,000 words, but I’m not sure whether that means you have succeeded if you have written this many words but your novel is not quite finished, or what. I’m working on the assumption that if I can somehow turn out 50,000 words of fiction in November — 1667 words per day — that I will jolly well feel I’ve earned the NaNoWriMo award, even if I am a chapter or two short of the end…

They even have a pretty little widgety thingummy which shows how many words you’ve written so far, colouring days in red or green depending on whether you’ve achieved your target (1667), failed your target, or done one or the other in spectacular fashion. As the site itself currently seems to be working grindingly slow (maybe there are more participants than their servers can comfortably cope with?) there is every possibility that I won’t be updating their site every single day with my current word count.

Don’t be too surprised if I therefore have a fair number of red days. As long as I’m averaging 1667 words per day, that’ll do for me.

With NaNoWriMo, you’re not supposed to do any editing until you’ve finished, which presumably means by the end the narrative might make no sense as a whole until you’ve had the chance to go back and edit it, but I think this is because if you’ve got to write 50,000 words in a month, you’ve not got time to go back and polish every last sentence, you just have to keep churning out the words.

Any references to “not being able to polish a turd” anyway would not be appreciated at this point, ‘kay?

At the point of starting NaNoWriMo (November 1st), I felt it might be useful to have a plot in mind; a rough sketch of the protagonists, what is going to happen, and some notes on the setting. But I also felt that would be kind of cheating, so I’ve started entirely cold. Let’s see how this pans out, eh?

These were:

• Chartroose’s The Sandwhich Whore (based on The Dunwich Horror)
• Softdrink’s where chartroose becomes a lovecraftian god (based on Nyarlathotep)
• And my own piece, Where do you get your ideas? (based on Pickman’s Model)

It’s not too late to play, should you want to — just drop me a line to tell me where to find your story, and I’ll add you onto the list.

Colour! As I lie here, feeling the cold — that awful, perpetual cold which now chills me to the marrow — I can remember how I was then. Then, I was in my prime, I was hale and hearty, bold and brash. Back then, I had confidence that I would be able to inspire others with my writing, and used my photography simply to help me find things to write about.

Back then, the only problem was that I couldn’t always work out what I should be writing about. Now, my head is full of awful, abominable ideas which wriggle and squirm and attempt to push themselves to the surface; wicked ideas full of blood and pain that I can’t help but visualise, and it is all I can do not to write the worst bits down. Simply because I stepped into the wrong bar.

The bar was old: the grimy windows let in barely any light, and the single bare bulb hanging from the middle of the ceiling illuminated only the hook-nosed barman, scowling across at the shadows. The shadows were occupied; you could see movement within them from time to time, although it was not possible to see the people themselves.

In light of what I now know, I even doubt whether all of the shadow booths were filled with what we would call ‘people’. There was one chair left obviously empty, in the booth nearest the bar. The dim light illuminated only this chair and a few inches of the table beyond: the rest of the booth was an inky impenetrable darkness.

I took my drink and sat down, thinking to myself that this was “atmospheric” and could serve as the setting for some kind of story. But once I sat down…

I became aware of what I can only describe as a presence across from me. I heard a rustling sound, as if old, dusty parchment was being unrolled. A wizened, twisted white hand emerged from the darkness across from me and a scent redolent of decay assaulted my nostrils, just as I noticed the small flaps of skin which extended between each finger.

The voice that emerged from the darkness was strong, but cracked and somehow wet-sounding.

“I know the place where the stories are made.”

I looked across, but the velvet darkness blocked my sight of all but the cadaverous blue-veined hand.

“The centre of all the stories. Where they live.”

With the word “live” came what I can only describe as an exhalation of moist fœtid air. I felt the warm dampness on my face, but again, that stench of decay…

I ventured that I may indeed be interested to find out more about this supposed life of stories, although I was somewhat wary that my unseen companion would be unable to actually lead me to anywhere, nor did I particularly wish him to.

“I can tell you. But I want something in return.”

That was the time I began to feel cold. A chill rippled across my shoulders as I contemplated what the person behind the white, almost translucent, dusty and yet somehow oily and clammy looking hand actually wanted. Whatever it was, I felt it would be something unpleasant.

And yet, while I dread the turn my life has taken since I stopped in that god-forsaken bar, in an uncanny twist, I have achieved those burning ambitions that I took into the bar. My fiction, while banned in several countries for being too graphic, too violent and too horrific, is on the whole very successful. But I cannot sleep.

The dreams: oh, the crimson flows, the butchery. Dreams from which it seems I will never awake; dreams that torment me long after I’ve written them into my next novel.

The hand jumped, spider-like, and seized my wrist. A terrible cold burned into my wrist where this touched me, and long after the touch had receded I could still feel a damp powdery residue.

“Finish it. You will know what I mean when you see it; just make sure you finish it.”

With that, the hand receded into the darkness. I waited for several minutes, but nothing more was forthcoming. Listening closely, I could hear nothing from the corner near me; low mumbling and bar noises from around me, but nothing from the dark recess. Nothing at all. No sound of movement; no glass clinking, not even a sound of breathing.

Leaning forward, I discovered that my companion was no longer there, but there was a door in the darkness. An old, wooden door, from which a faint breeze emerged.

Leaving my drink behind and stepping through the door, I found myself in a dark alley. The buildings rose so high overhead that almost all of the light was blocked out, but on one side of the alley there was a sign marking a station for the “City and South London Railway”. I’d never heard of this; the London Underground was surely ubiquitous here. Perhaps I could investigate this and make some story from the long forgotten tunnels of “Ki … lliam Street”, from what I could read from the sign.

I do not know how, or even why, I pushed aside the sheets of metal and wood which blocked the entrance to what turned out to be King William Street station. The journey down to platform level was made in almost pitch darkness: I was stumbling, sometimes falling headlong, as I was inexorably drawn to something below with only the light from my mobile phone to guide me.

Something below which made a certain wet sound. I remember the wetness of the walls; the feeling that the they were slick with an oil; the smell of old copper, and the creaking underfoot as I walked across rotting wood, and then I was at the platform.

There was a signle central tunnel, with a platform and lines on either side. These platforms were either decayed or demolished, and the ground underfoot was treacherous, but I stepped across the rubble, down to the level of the original line where no tracks remained. Or rather, no metal tracks.

But at one end of the line there was a greenish-yellow glow, as though a luminous fog had taken up residence at one end of the tunnel. There was also an unpleasant wet spattering sound from there.

Drawn on legs that seemed to step forward of their own accord despite my body and mind urging me to run, I clambered across the rough surface of the original line, wondering how many years had passed since the last human soul had been down here.

And then, through the yellow mist, I saw a cowled and hooded figure, mostly in silhouette. Back then I assumed that my previous thought — that another human soul hadn’t been down here for a century — was wrong, but later… later I would begin to suspect that the figure I met down there was possibly not human, or possessed of a soul.

“You came.”

Those two words were spoken by the cowled figure before me: the figure from the bar.

“Come and see my handiwork. My … stories. All those little tales to tell.”

I stepped forward into hell.

Deep underground, it starts to get warm. Where you get warmth, and you get food, you get rats. This … charnel house … was something poisonous and cold, so cold that the underground warmth and the rats had not penetrated. Some ancient coldness held this place.

There were bodies everywhere. I don’t know how many bodies were there; most of them were in small pieces — a few feet of intestine here, a hairy leg severed at the ankle just there, a glass jar full — full — of ring fingers with wedding bands, and everywhere, everywhere the blood. The redness, filtered through the yellow glow imprinted itself on my vision.

I do not remember what happened next, only that when I came to my senses, I was back at the surface level; my hands were covered in blood, that I held that accursed wet, webbed and batrachian wizened hand in mine — no longer attached to any arm. And, God help me; that coppery taste…

…that coppery taste which wakes me from my crimson dreams; when I awake in the night and journey direct to my typewriter to pour out the poison onto the pages. Pages of disembowelment, of viscera, blood and gore. And in my dreams, the empty paint tins in my garage aren’t quite so empty anymore. The fact that each morning I look closesly at the skin between my fingers, wondering whether it has thickened since the previous day. And always, always, that coppery taste.

It would be nonsense to make any connection between this and the spate of missing persons of course. Unless you want to come and look in my garage, ha! Only joking, but there is a place where I get my ideas from. A place full of all the little stories. I know where all the little stories live. Where they are made. Would you like me to show you?

[Inspired mostly by Pickman's Model, the disused london underground stations that I've always found fascinating (see Wikipedia's article and Underground History), and a few hints of other Mythos stories. Written for JackP and Chartroose's Cthulu Halloween Challenge.]

The basic premise is that you have to rewrite one of H. P. Lovecraft’s short stories and publish it on your blog. For Halloween, so you’ve got just under a week. And on the bright side, now I now what books I’m reading next — I have three volumes of Lovecraft to look through before deciding which story I’ll go for. For those of you who don’t already own some, you can find many of the texts on something called Dagon Bytes, which I’m presuming is perfectly legit, since according to Wikipedia:

…all works of Lovecraft published during his lifetime, became public domain in all 27 European Union countries on 1 January, 2008.Wikipedia: HP Lovecraft; Intellectual Property

So in that sense, we’ve picked a good year for it…

Well, what are you waiting for? If you want to take part, tell either of us (or both of us), and we’ll compile a list or something of the eventual entries. I don’t care whether you want to write in a Lovecraftian style, or something entirely different. Just write a story based on one of HPL’s ones.

Take one of the characters you made up a history for in the last exercise and write a monologue for that character of about 200 words. When you’ve done this, see if the way they speak has something unique about it. Take another character, one who is very different, and do the same again. Have the character react to their environment.BBC Get Writing: Character, not Caricature

Hmm. Let’s think back. We had Cider George, Pinstripe Danny, American Teen, Chav Girl and Snobby Si. Well, I did say it would be interesting to see if I could do something with the character of Chav Girl, so let’s give that one a shot.

Chav Girl

It’s not like it’s easy, yunnow? I mean, I sees the way they looks at me, don’ I? I mean, I know I dint get all me qualifications an’ that, but when I found out I was gonna have little Britney, I weren’t gonna get riddover. It’s like it’s summat important to be, bein’ a mam.

I need to have me time, to get out and have a drink and a laugh wi’ me mates, like. Everyone needs that, dunthey? But she’s like the most important thing in me life, and I hate it that I can’t give her the best stuff, that she’s got like a second-hand pram and clothes off me mates kids, but I can’t do nothin’ else — but what I can do is be there, and love her.

It’s like when she’s off to school, there’ll be all these other Mams and Dads that look at me like dirt, but like I give a fuck what they think ‘cos they’re all with their flash cars an’ holidays and posh nursery schools and all the best after school clubs but I’m the one who actually sees my kid, and she’s not going off with no-one else, is she? No, ‘cos she’s mine, and I’m looking after her, not no-one else. And that’s bein’ a Mam.

[Hmm. Not exactly easy -- the notes made her somewhat of a caricature to begin with, so I just tried to focus on something to differentiate her from the caricature -- in this case the acceptance that while she couldn't give her child what some other parents could, she was going to make sure that the child got her time. Also, I missed out the bit about 'reacting to her environment' as I was too busy trying to get her voice -- where I think I've used two things from the person I remembered -- a tendency to run words together, and a tendency to end sentences with a question. I'll have another go, and this time I'll make the person react to something about their environment]

Snobby Si

I can’t believe this. I cannot believe this. I distinctly said that I wanted a first class ticket to Kings Cross. First class. What’s the point of me paying the dozy bitch to book my tickets for me if she’s not going to do it properly? These seats are just dirty. They don’t even have the replaceable head covers on them. They will be crawling with headlice. I’ll just have to sit up and make sure that my head doesn’t touch the fabric, and I’ll get some lyclear when I get off.

I’ll have to have a shower before the meeting now. What’s in the paper?

Tcch. I cannot believe this government. They say they’re going to help out business, but instead of actually helping it, they’re just diluting the value of our shares. It’s virtually forced nationalis-

I can’t believe she’s doing that. Does she not even realise she’s doing that? There’s all the little bits of spit coming out of the side of her mouth when she’s talking. That’s nauseating.

She’s just gone and bloody spat on my face, is what she’s done, and she doesn’t even know it. I have got an important meeting to attend today, I’ve got God knows what germs dripping down the side of my face — she’s probably got cold sores or something and I’m going to get herpes — I cannot believe this. I’m going to be sick. I swear, I’m going to be sick.

I need a shower now before I do anything. My skin, my suit will be filthy, all covered in germs, and ticks, and lice and…

[I enjoyed that one a bit more... a bit of reaction to the environment, a touch of the old Meldrews, with a big splash of a cleanliness mania thrown in to give a bit of a reason for his reactions. He starts off as a very unsympathetic character, but I was imagining that if this one was to go on, you'd realise that his unpleasantness is actually just because he's a big bundle of neuroses and it's only through the vitriol that he's actually able to face the world at all...]

Go somewhere public, like a café or a shopping centre. Take a notebook with you, and spend half an hour making notes on some of the interesting people that you see around you. You might want to start with a physical description, then go on to create a short imagined history for each one. Make notes on at least five different characters.BBC Get Writing: Making Characters Unique

The First

Man; late forties or early fifties. Covered with a patina of dirt, he appears grubby. Sat by the edge of a building near Manchester Picadilly. He has unkempt hair, brown but looking blacker because of its greasiness. His beard extends several inches below his chin, and is ragged rather than neatly trimmed. The assumption is that he’s homeless. What is less of an assumption is that he appears to be either drunk, drugged or otherwise disturbed, shouting “Hello Miss” at most of the ladies who walk past, and then unleashing a torrent of obscenity — not overtly sexual in tone, just randomised hatred and swearing — at the one who does happen to glance in his direction.

We’ll call him Cider George.

The Second

There’s a young man on the train, trying to present the image of a high-flying businessman. He’s wearing a sharp pin-stripe suit; dark blue with a thin stripe. As he is moved from where he is sat by someone pointing out that they have a reservation for that seat, he ostentatiously remarks that he knew his reservation was for Coach C but he hadn’t checked which seat, because he’d had a busy day and the office was high-pressure.

Something jars here: if you have a reservation, you tend not to sit in a random seat with a reservation ticket in it – you’ll either find your seat or one which isn’t reserved. Once sat down – he ends up taking the seat next to me: he shows off his iPod nano; the case; his case and his flash-looking mobile phone.

It’s like he’s trying to be Mr. I’m More Successful Than You.

I’m reading my book and listening to my iPod, which from the half-mangled headphones that just about work, won’t look nearly as flashy as his. I look up to see an inspector looking for tickets. I hand mine over. The ladies opposite hand theirs over.

Pinstripe is resting his head against the carriage window, eyes closed.

“Tickets, please”.

No response.

The inspector pokes his shoulder. No response. Lifts his arm and drops it. No response. Pokes him in the thigh.

This time there’s the stretch of the head, the “mmmm…whaaa?” sound and the slight shake of the head that signify to everyone sat near him that he has been pretending to be asleep.

Not surprisingly, he doesn’t have a valid ticket. He turns out to have a ticket that expired last sunday, which is in itself only valid when accompanied by a travel pass — which he has — except that both the ticket and the pass were only valid for off-peak travel anyway. Which it isn’t.

He has to show some identity and get written out with some kind of penalty ticket thing, all the while protesting that it wasn’t his fault – the people who sold him the ticket didn’t tell him when it was valid or when it expired.

Only the whole thing — the story about having a seat reserved on this carriage when he obviously didn’t, seeing as he didn’t even have a valid ticket — the pretending to be asleep, the protesting that he didn’t realise the ticket wasn’t valid — was obviously a lie.

So, was he just down on his luck, or was he a con-artist, a grifter, trying to present an image that will carry him further?

This is Daniel P. Alston. Or Pinstripe Danny, depending on which avenue we decide to take him down…

The Third

She’s young, but carries herself with confidence on the train by herself. She knows where she’s going, and she’s confident she knows how to get there without help. She’s wearing a green v-neck jumper, a white blouse with a red and blue tie, and a plain black skirt. She’s probably between about fourteen and sixteen. She has small rectangular glasses with visible shiny metal bits — some sort of decoration? — in the top corners.

She’s talking to a younger child next to her: someone not in the same uniform. Possibly a sibling, but as she is talking with an accent that is part American and part soft Manchester, and the other kid obviously doesn’t have an American twang, maybe not siblings. I would have contemplated exchange student, but I wouldn’t have thought that these would wear uniforms…

The Fourth

Now we’re down to the last two who were little more than a sketch, because I didn’t have time to observe these for as long. First is a young woman, late teens to early twenties, with that bleached blonde-almost-white hair, and without any apparent irony, with scrunchies in her ponytail, and an ensemble made up of mixed shellsuit and Burberry accessories.

She also has a pushchair which contains a small child — called Britney — probably around fifteen months old. The child is awake and looking around, but is otherwise placid. Everything about this person screams “Chav” at me, including the cigarette hanging from her lip and the somewhat … industrial … language she is using to her friend to describe exactly how fucking shit-faced drunk she was the other night.

In short, this appears very much to be the real-life Vicky Pollard. In fact, that’s what drew my attention to her in the first place; the fact that she looked more like a caricature than a real person.

I don’t know what to call her yet, other than ‘Chav Girl’, but it would be interesting to see if you could actually do something with this character which moved her away from the stereotype she very much appeared to be occupying.

The Fifth

Another businessman — well, I tended to make notes while I was travelling, so all of these people were either located at railway stations or on trains. This chap has a smart suit; he’s reading something which looks like the Financial Times, and he has an array of gadgets on the table in front of him. He’s got what appear to be two mobile phones, an iPod and a Blackberry resting on the table.

He also has quite a tremendous look of disdain on his face; I’m presuming that he is disgusted that his secretary has made an error and has booked him standard tickets with the common rabble. You can see the way he holds himself stiffly that he’s not happy about the people he’s sat next to, and it’s not like they seem scruffy or unpleasant or anything — they just look like they are about to go on holiday, which considering the train ends up at Manchester Airport, isn’t that unlikely.

Oh, and he looks like a Simon to me. Not that I’ve got anything against Simons, it’s just that I’m sure that’s what he’s called. Or maybe Si.