Setting goals and making rules

Happy Tuesday, bloggerbuddies! Today's been a thick and humid day in London, which was awful in the tube - cramped and sweaty and ugh - but otherwise quite lovely. We're in a wee bit of a heatwave, woop. I hope it sticks around and we get an actual summer this year.

This Friday I'm heading off to Munich for a long weekend, which I'm super excited for. I haven't been to Germany yet! And it'll be my first trip since Canary Islands at Christmas. Duuude. I'm jonesing for some travel.

Urm, what else. Lately I've been working on creating my own website - quite exciting, no? I'm muddling my amateur way through Wordpress and will be mashing up something hopefully halfway decent. When it's ready I'm gonna import the archives from this blog into it, and then continue on updating over there. So I don't know what might happen to thejamtart! I wonder if I can redirect it to my new site instead!

And I've been creeping along on In Finding, word by word. Phew. I've been pondering setting myself a goal around finishing the first draft. Because I've always wanted to finish the first draft this year - but, holy shit guys, it's JULY in two days and I'm only at 65,000 words! So maybe if I have a goal (say, finish the first draft by my birthday in October) then erm that might motivate me more? I could break it down to chunks of words per month.

However, part of me thinks that setting a goal like that may see me writing crap words just to meet the wordcount...!

I've had a new(ish) story idea stirring around in my mind for the last few weeks, to the point where I'd like to start jotting down some notes about it. But I'm committed to finishing In Finding first (Seriously! I am! Don't look like that, I am going to finish this story, for real!). So how about a writer rule: I can't type out anything about the new story until I've finished In Finding - but I can put down ideas in a notebook.

And here are a couple of interesting snippets about writing that I came across recently:

Making a monster: Janet Fitch, author of White Oleander, talks about creating a wicked woman, the debacle of film school, and becoming an overnight success after 20 years. I'm always heartened when I hear about writers taking 20 years to get published...!!

Erin Kellison, recently published author of Shadow Bound, talks about her writing path to getting published. I especially love the way it starts: "I had zero aspirations for the manuscript to be published. Zero. My goal was this: learn to write a book while having fun."

A very important vegetable!

Sunday evening and the clouds are high and pale and rolling past. It's been muggy all day and now they've broken and dropped some rain. I love days like this. Hell, any day where it's not freezing cold and pissing rain in London

The writing has been pretty difficult the last few weeks. I don't like to write about writing when it's a struggle! It was everything past the Big & Scary scene - none of it worked. So I chopped it all out, 3000 words excised and pasted into the "Poor Little Cut Words" file. And started again. Slowly. Figuring out every scene first and then, word by word, wrestling it in.

I like it better now. I'm not sure if it's right yet, but it's good enough that I feel I can carry on writing new scenes.

So now my word count still hovers around ~61,000 words. Sigh. Such a slow process, this writing thing.

I still haven't edited Piscky's Ascent, after a couple of good reviews from OWW. And I should deliver some crits to other members there too! Eek.

~ ~

Tonight I made lasagna for the first ever time. Big field mushrooms, little aubergines, red onions, layered with pasta, bechamel sauce and spinach, topped with grated mozzarella. I make a damned fine bechamel sauce, so it was the logical next step to turn it into a lasagna. It was alright, though I wished I could've made it with pumpkin.

You know, this puzzles me. I've never been able to find a decent pumpkin in the UK. It's all butternut squash, which I find tasteless, or - at Halloween - those orange things which are more suited to carving than eating.

I miss a good bit of roast buttercup pumpkin, with its dark green skin and tasty bright orange insides.


Oh! I just googled it and it's really a squash (yeah, don't ask me what the difference is, cause I dunno) and looks like it might be a Kiwi variety because check this out: there is a NZ BUTTERCUP SQUASH COUNCIL. Seriously!

They say: "Today, Buttercup Squash is the country's fourth largest horticultural export making it a very important vegetable to the New Zealand economy."

Yep, a very important vegetable.

A big fake foam shark!

This has been a strangely productive Wednesday after a couple of weeks of slackness on the writing front.

Tonight I made some minor edits to Piscky's Ascent, the short story I wrote in January. Then I renewed my membership the OWW (Online Writing Workshop for Sci-Fi) and posted the story for crits. I'm going to submit this story. Somewhere, not sure yet. Here's the thing: I've never submitted anything before. Apart from to writing competitions. But not anything for publication. And it's time to do something about that!

I'm going to get myself re-absorbed into the OWW and post some more crits of my own (only 2 more and I will attain "Veteran Reviewer" status!) I've been a member there, on and off, since 2001. Holy sardines, Batman! (I saw some of the original 1966 Batman movie tonight - I've never seen it before! - and it's just awful! I think it jumped the shark before the Fonze was even born - have you seen the foam-shark attack? It attacks Batman while he's hanging from the ladder of a helicopter. Luckily, Robin passes him a handy can of Shark-Repellent-Bat-Spray to ward off the shark, which falls off Batman's leg and then EXPLODES in the ocean. Yep.) Anyway, the workshop is brilliant and if you are an amateur writer in the sci-fi field I highly recommend it.

After the OWW sojurn, I added a few hundred words to In Finding and broke through the 60,000 word mark. A lot of the last 10 k words on that are crap but I need to write more of the story before I know how to go back and fix them. We.are.getting.there.slowly.

Sometimes the most frustrating thing about writing is just how slow it is. For me, at least. Knowing that I have to finish this first draft before I can even start editing, and that process will be lengthy enough too.

Then I played around with another short story that's been brewing since I dialled up some prompts on the story spinner. It doesn't feel as solid to me as Piscky's Ascent, but all short story experience is good experience.

Now, I'm going to publish this, brush my teeth, and settle down to read more of my latest book (Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse - a collection of short stories by some LEGENDARY writers - review will come when I finish it!)

A random assortment of updates

I owe this sucker an update! Should have posted during Easter. So, the weather is just luscious in London at the moment. Full of light, blooming blue skies. Promise of warmer weather still on the MetOffice website. Love love love. You all know how much I hate the darkness and cold of winter.

The Duffster & I have booked plane tickets -- many, many tickets -- for Christmas and New Years: Nelson for the former, Melbourne for the latter! It's going to be a whirlwind trip of 3 weeks but I'm already hyped up about seeing my family again (it will be 2 years since my last visit), and drinking up some southern hemisphere sun, and all the stuff I raved about last time - fish & chips, L&P, jellytip ice cream, taking the boat out for fresh fish and mussels and oysters and scallops... Plus a trip to Melbourne where I will finally meet Duffy's family!

This week for my writing night, I skimmed back through the short story I wrote in January, Piscky's Ascent. Made a few edits here and there. Now I want to write another one -- short stories are a nice way to work on something different without completely distracting myself from the novel.

I'm going to use this wicked brainstormer wheel to uncover some story prompts RIGHT NOW!


You can click "random" to generate three things, or use your mouse to turn each disc. I just got the following: miracle / rotting / cubicle. Hmm.

I wrote Piscky's Ascent using Notwelshman's prompts of "fish" and "escaping". I love how you can build a story from just a few words, a few ideas. They are the pieces of string you pick up, you pull up, and as you pull they bring more ideas with them, till you have a whole ball of string in your hands, along with other useless metaphors. Stories are everywhere.

50,032 words

Woah, it's Tuesday already. I've been meaning to make a "what I did this weekend" post but it's a bit late for that now. Apart from saying: I managed to break 50,000 words on In Finding! In spite of all my procrastination. A great goal like that is easy to motivate yourself to shoot for. A big ole round chunky number of words.

Honestly, I don't think I've ever written this many solid words on a project before. I mean, I've gone past 50k on a maybe 3 other stories, but they were full of holes and "write a scene here"s and all peterey-outy. In Finding is holding it together. And I feel quite well set up for continuing to the end (this is noncommittal because I acknowledge that I might just write myself into a dead end).

I hope the motivation continues, because I really want to finish this.

Right now, I am mid-way through this awesome scene... oooh it's a good one with drama and rain and rooftops and Big Reveals. I've had it partly written since the very start and now I'm getting to fit it into the story and complete it. Leaving the last writing session at such a point makes it easy to pick up the next time I sit down with the story.

Ten rules for writing

I loved this: "10 rules for writing", which I found on the Guardian site. It's a great collection of authors and their tips (of which there are frequently less than 10, and which in total probably add up to about 112 in total) (I think of them as tips, not rules) (that'll be my first rule as a writer, no rules, only tips)(also I should probably make a rule for myself about brackets).

Some of them are brilliant, some of them you already know, some of them aren't for me, some of them are simply writers saying how they write.

Here are the ones that speak to me. They're not my favourites (the funny ones by Margaret Atwood and Colm Tóibín) but these are the ones that should post-it-noted all over my desk:

Annie Proulx

1 Proceed slowly and take care.

Rose Tremain

5 When an idea comes, spend silent time with it. Remember Keats's idea of Negative Capability and Kipling's advice to "drift, wait and obey". Along with your gathering of hard data, allow yourself also to dream your idea into being.

6 In the planning stage of a book, don't plan the ending. It has to be earned by all that will go before it.

7 Respect the way characters may change once they've got 50 pages of life in them. Revisit your plan at this stage and see whether certain things have to be altered to take account of these changes.

Roddy Doyle

5 Do restrict your browsing to a few websites a day. Don't go near the online bookies – unless it's research.

Helen Dunmore

7 A problem with a piece of writing often clarifies itself if you go for a long walk.

Neil Gaiman

1 Write.

2 Put one word after another. Find the right word, put it down.

3 Finish what you're writing. Whatever you have to do to finish it, finish it.

PD James

2 Read widely and with discrimination. Bad writing is contagious.

Thinking over things

While walking to & from the tube in my new commute, I've been thinking over the current short story in progress, Piscky's Ascent (the title's growing on me). I now have an idea of the edits I want to make. Here are the questions I asked myself to get there:

So, what is this story about? aka, what do I *want* it to be about?
(My answer is the relationship between 2 people preparing to meet their deaths)

I think that is really the Big Question To Ask. Then, follow on questions from that were:

What would people do in the situation my characters are in?
Can I see my characters demonstrating those thoughts/actions?

Maybe I'll work on those edits today, since it is my writing night. (But I'm not going to start writing until I've had dinner because I just.cannot.concentrate on an empty stomach!!)

I've also been musing on In Finding, and its plotpoints (heartbeats). Funny how much stuff you need to unravel and knit together when writing a novel, no? Not only making sure all the threads get screentime but that as my character juggles those things, she is also developing as a character -- getting the tools & prompts, making choices, facing up to her challenges. All the while being consistent.

It did mean that when I sat down with the story in the weekend, I had to delete a scene I'd already written and do it again! Gah. So I'm still on the same word count. One step forward, one step back, it feels like! A while ago I told myself not to get hung up on word count, but yanno... it's hard not to. It's such a concrete measure of progress when everything else is so impalpable -- it's kind of hard to measure "story solidity & consistency" or "level of informed research" or even just "knowledge of this story"!

My brain is full of STUFF

Writing night this week was tough! I've just started a new job and so my head is crammed full of information. Coming home at night from the new commute and sitting down and concentrating on writing was really difficult. AND I'd run out of any useful 'writing aids' such as Maltesers or Baileys!

So I didn't do much but I did so *something*, and *something* still counts. I focused on the short story again (the 'fish' and 'escaping' one). I finished up the words at the end, so now I have a complete first draft! And I tentatively titled it Piscky's Ascent.

Like always I have this immediate burst of enthusiasm when finishing a short story draft. It's brilliant! Beautiful! I must share it with the world right now! But - I am going to put Piscky's Ascent aside and get some distance before approaching it for editing. And when I do, I'd like to go in with some critical questions. What critical questions, though? That's what I need to figure out. Or Google.

I reckon there must be, like, 5 key questions you can ask as you edit, and the answers tell you what needs fixing and what needs finetuning.

Any ideas? Or maybe I'm trying to find the easy way out when there is none...

In other topics, we should say our respectful farewells to Mr Salinger. He wrote a pretty important book. I don't know much about the guy (does anyone?) except he was incredibly reclusive, so I hope he's at peace now.

I'm slowly making my way through It by Stephen King. It's a mahoosive book - practically square - that I find it difficult to hold in the tube! One of the chapters I just read is like an essay written by one of the characters, and it starts with the question: what if a whole town was haunted? I reckon it's the very question Stephen King asked himself as inspiration for writing this book.

My other reading material recently has been fashion & beauty blogs. My latest evening time-waster. I just love browsing product reviews and shopping updates. It's all quite girly and frivolous and fun. I'm a huge shopper at heart - I only just keep myself in check, to be honest - so these blogs are kind of dangerous!

Thoughts on a Thursday

I can't believe I only have 2 days left in my current job - it's quite weird to think next week I will be starting a new one. Looking forward to next week! Although I'm excited about starting a new job, I always dislike the first week as you usually don't *do* anything...! It's all setting up computers & email and reading employee handbooks and meeting people (and forgetting their names) and so on.

So, because we had girls' night last night, I had my writing night on Tuesday instead. I sat down with that 'Escaping Fish' short story and hammered out the rest of the first draft. All that's missing are the last few lines. But I've been thinking about the story and will probably rearrange some of the structure. I think I made an amateur approach to it in that I withheld some info from the reader until the end. I've decided I don't need to hide it; actually it will have more impact if I reveal the info before the end, so the reader will be fully informed of what the characters are doing in the last moments and what the implications are.

After I finished that draft, I tried to write more on In Finding, but found it hard to switch brains. So I'll probably pick that up again in the weekend. I'm still a little under 40 k words on that - I wrote quite a lot last weekend, but I also removed an entire scene! Argh, I hate going backwards! Although I did put together a list of 'things that need to happen' / scenes for the story, and I'm not sure in which order they should go. I guess I need to think more about how one thing could affect another thing, etc.

I also made a list of the short stories I want to complete:

- Escaping Fish
- Dancing at the Lilac Orchid (already done, needs rewrite)
- A Slice of Soul (already done, also needs rewrite, have to find the tension)

I think once I have those 3 to a point where I am mostly happy, I will rejoin the OWW (sci-fi & fantasy online writing workshop) and post them for review. And of course, start reviewing other people's work too. I have been a member of the OWW on-and-off since 2002 and think it has been invaluable for improving my writing. Learning how to crit another person's story will always help your own.

the time to train for any athletic feat is before, not after

A break in the writing today (lots of reading & editing, and a few new words, on In Finding).

This is a neat video from the Wellcome Collection -- a medical & science museum in London that's very close to where my new job is. "Childbirth as an Athletic Feat" (1939) shows a class of expectant mothers practising ante-natal exercises.

"fish" and "escape"

The scene outside my window at work is very pretty today: the graveyard covered in a light blanket of snow, with the winter yellow sun shining through the trees. Trails of fox prints through the headstones.

Two weeks left here and then I'll be starting my new job - very exciting!

Yesterday I wrote about half of a new short story, which was born out of prompts from my also-a-writer colleague Geoff ("fish" and "escape"). Love the rush of a new story idea. Title for this one will be something about climbing.

The evil television

After writing, I watched an episode of Celebrity Big Brother. Think it's an interesting dynamic between celebs because they expect everyone around them to know who they are and their body of work. Quite a few "look at me now" sorts of comments, and some barely-covered-by-polite-faces that say, "I can't belieeeve you didn't know that about me"...

Then I saw a TV ad for Ready Brek which has the leek spinning song on it. Which prompted more visits to the leekspin site and watching videos on YouTube!

There's a Basshunter remix of Leekspin here! (a nice connection, seeing as Mr Basshunter himself is in Celebrity Big Brother)

And here's the band singing the original song, a traditional Finnish folk polka:




Hypnotic and catchy, right? Right? Or is just me, obsessed by leekspin. I'm going to try and find the Basshunter remix to download.

More for 2010:

So, I want to do some Good Reading this year, of Important and Interesting books that I Haven't Read Before. Might build myself a reading list and tick them off as I go. Here's what I got so far:

(Currently reading) The Fire Gospel by Michael Faber

Dune by Frank Herbert

It by Stephen King

A new year, new hope imbued. Flow with it, while you can!

Happy new year!

I just finished reading a lovely book that my work secret santa got me: Orscon Scott Card's Writing Science-Fiction & Fantasy. It's well written, with good useful stuff in it, inspiring me to sit down and write. A tad out of date - 1990! - but worth a read just for that push to write. Thank you, santa!

I'm thinking maybe I need to read a "words of writerly wisdom" type book every couple of months. It'll be like a metabolic hit to the writing muse. Keep her in gear.

Shall we set some new year resolutions? Whenever I set them, they're always about writing. And I always fail! But, hey, in keeping with tradition...

This year:

- I want to submit stuff for publication.
- (That means) I want to write some short fiction.
- And, I want to finish at least the first draft of In Finding.

In order to maintain my enthusiasm and participation and achieve these, I'm doing the following:

- Writing every Wednesday evening, at least
- Subscribing / following online SFF magazines (Clarkesworld and Strange Horizons so far)
- Reading more "how to" books??

There's a lot of other things I'm thinking about doing, that I should do. But "should do lists" have the propensity to grow exponentially. So I'm not going to write that and then feel sad when I fail to achieve it all.

And a report on my recent writerly activity:

• Started writing a query letter for In Finding. I'm doing this as a tool to help me define the story and make sure I'm creating the strongest story it can be.
• Approached revision of short story, Dancing at the Lilac Orchid. Will start rewriting this tomorrow now - think I might switch it to first person POV, but will see how that goes.

christmas reading wrap up, and a dash of inspiration

Hope you all had a lovely Christmas! I went to Lanzarote, in the Canary Islands, with Duffy. We had a dreadful start to our holiday, with our flight being delayed due to the bad weather in London -- we eventually landed in Lanzarote NINETEEN hours after we should have! That was one big planeload of weary holidaymakers. Anyway, we suitably recovered and got some brilliant days. I didn't expect the weather to be so hot and glorious. However, aside from the weather, the Canary Islands as a destination isn't anything to write home about - a volcano that has vomited in the ocean, and 17 million tourist resorts plonked down on top, chocka block with fat sunburned Brits and Germans.

Now back in London. It's 23 degrees Celsius colder here.

No writing over Christmas (Holidays? Is that a worthy excuse?) but lots of reading and lots of thinking about the story.

So I read:

The Brightest Star in the Sky - Marian Keyes' latest book. I really love Marian's stories, they're so readable and she has a lovely voice. Truthfully, I don't like her early books that much but her writing has improved amazingly. I like the way her stories are crafted to unwind as you read them, and they're not predictable either. To date, my favourite one is Anybody Out There. It's heartbreaking & I recommend it.

The Rapture by Liz Jensen. Fairly absorbing, has a relevant story about climate change. Kind of post-apocalyptic drama set in the near future. I'm finding it hard to figure out why this story didn't grip me and I think it might be because I didn't care for the main character that much - I suppose for some reason, I didn't feel empathy for her, when I know I should have.

Old Man's War by John Scalzi. A fabulous space opera! I just looved the snippets of humour in this too. Some of the dialogue - so snappy, a delight to read. (You can read Scalzi's blog for more of the humour). And the science was awesome too. I looved the green soldiers. Looking forward to finding the sequel and reading that.

P.S. I Love You by Cecelia Ahern. I saw the movie for this and I enjoyed it. Not your average rom-com, you know the kind which methodically ticks off all typical scenes such as kooky best friend advice, getting drunk & falling over, the Big Misunderstanding, the mad run through city/boat/town to proclaim undying love, blah blah scene, etc. But the book? Meh. Average writing, really average. And I don't understand why it became so popular and won awards and got turned into a movie. But the funny thing about that, is it inspires me.

I can write a story like that. I can write a better story. If Cecelia can do it, so can I.

Lying on the sunloungers, I thought a lot about In Finding (previously known as Molly) and figured out a few little things that need tweaking and scenes that need adding earlier in to balance the story better.

Tomorrow is Wednesday - writing day! - and I will start working on those amendments.

Lastly, here's a random piece of inspiration: Have you seen the new Chanel No.5 tv ad with Audrey Tatou? It's so lush and luminous and golden. I love Audrey Tatou. Ah! Here's an exciting I thing I just discovered when Googling it - the ad was directed by my favourite director, Jean Pierre Jeunet! (Now I know that, I see it too...) So, here it is:

one night a week, it's all i ask for

I have a plan for writing, and I want to feel hopeful and determined about it. I want it to make a difference. I'm not sure if it will, and that lack of confidence sucks. Why do we go through these cycles? These frenzied delightful periods when it's all about writing, so sure of it, followed by a time of inactivity, doused in guilt. A big hairy fuck off guilt monkey, sitting on our shoulders.

Will this up and down ever end? Will there ever be a time when I will just write, and continue to write?



Here my Latest Plan™: to write every Wednesday night. Wednesday is when I make words. Home from work, inhale food, whirl through shower, and sit down with whirring clunky laptop and just do it.

Schedule it in, like an appointment. Like my 'girls night' every Tuesday with Cara & Lou, like my gym every Monday and Thursday (only, well, more regular than the gym even).

It seems simple, right? It's just one short period of time every week which will be for writing. And of course, I can write any other day as well. Let's see how it goes.

So, I sat down last night to work on Molly / In Finding, and it went well. I haven't added very many new words lately but I have restructured it and I'm pleased with how it flows now. There are a lot of placeholder "write this here" sentences, but that's for the next phase of plugging the gaps!

I need to do some research on Dunkirk, and wartime & post-wartime Britain, to fill in Tom's story.

Hovering around 31.5k words at the moment.

oh hai!

Oh, oops, I have not updated here in a while. Erm, see previous post. Plus I had a wickedly busy while at work through Sept-Oct-Nov. It's calmed down now.

Wickedly busyness had an affect on the writing, of course (I did no writing, no blogging, no gymming, no friendling) but I'm back on board now.

First of all, I think I came up with an actual title™ for my Molly story: In Finding

'In finding' the title, I also located lots of themes of the story. So I need to do some edits. Now I know there are those who say, "no edits until you're done!", but I think in this case I will ignore them, and go back to the beginning.

What I'd like to do is rewrite quite a few chunks, making sure the themes are there from the start, that the story arc is supported by them.

Hopefully it won't take me too long and then I'll be back into brand fresh new words - plus with the added benefit of I know the themes when I'm writering them.

I've also been pondering about writing time. It's quite clear that my writing is affected by routine, and if I'm not consistent in a weekly routine then I don't get much writing done. I think I'm going to try setting aside a particular time every week which is dedicated writing time; such as every Wednesday evening. I think even just 1 timeslot like that will make a difference... The issue of course will be sticking to it.

STICKING TO IT.

Kind of the whole issue with writing, in fact.

words spread thinly

Haven't posted here lately. Badbad! I find it hard to spread myself across all these places for my words - the stories, my LiveJournal, this blog, the IWDTFM blog, not to mention our work blog, plus work, personal and IWDTFM tweeting. Phew. A lot of places to write in, and not enough time.

The IWDTFM blog is going well. Five months of archives now, and 77 posts. We've now beginning to build our network, which is a key way to increase readership - basically, make friends with other bloggers. Because we have such an undefined purpose, no set topic, it makes it difficult to connect with other similar blogs!

I'm still meandering along with Molly. I was going to put 'trudging' then, but it's not a chore, it's more like fleeting and bitsy. Meandering. I hit 28,000 words on the story yesterday, which was a nice marker. Plus I discovered a meaty plot point for the upcoming (and dreaded) middleofthebook. It was kind of an obvious place to take the story but I only realised it yesterday.

I also abandoned Writer's Cafe in favour of my dear old Excel, and plotted the story out on a spreadsheet:



I was using a trial version of Writer's Cafe, so I could only have 30 scene cards, and I am too skint to buy the full version. Excel does the job, luverly. Each row is a character (colour coded), and each column is a day.

I really want to get to 30k words. Maybe I'll try some today. I'm at home today, Monday, because I'm sick. Still doing some work as have logged into work webmail, but honestly, my brain is all over the place. Makes me think I probably can't write either. Flitting thoughts and difficulty concentrating.

I'm a big old gushbucket, sneezing + coughing everywhere. Extremely contagious! Watch out...

a writing competition to enter

~ ~ ~

The Royal Society of New Zealand Manhire Prize for Creative Science Writing

EDGE OF THE UNIVERSE

"I live at the edge of the universe, like everybody else."
--Bill Manhire

This year we are celebrating the International Year of Astronomy. Ever since Galileo first aimed his telescope at Jupiter's moons, technology has been enlarging our knowledge of the universe.

We now know our own insignificance and isolation and yet we have immense power to communicate as never before. The race of humans is isolated in space and time and yet where, as individuals, do we go to be alone?

You are invited to write about the place - past or present or future - of human beings in the universe.

~ ~ ~

Now, the fun part. What shall I write?

coffeecoffeecoffee and an excerpt

Yum! I just made an iced coffee in the blender. Delish. It's tropical in London today. Thick and humid and damp. Yesterday we had thunder storms. It's supposed to hit 30 degrees this week.

I'm so glad I don't catch the tube to work.

Here is the conversation I've been writing recently. It's been really hard. But I'm mostly happy with it at the moment. Enough to move on to the next bit (which is what? hmmm)

@ the surfery boy party:

She kicked off her shoes, and clambered up the ladder one-handed and awkward. Jake was at the top, reaching to lift her up the last part. The iron of the roof was rough and rusty and warm under her feet. It creaked as she followed Jake along the the rivets to the peak. There they nestled, where the ocean wind blew full of the scent of salt and ozone and seaweed.

"Why the roof?" she asked, hugging her knees.

Jake cracked a beer open, snick and hiss, and sipped the froth. "The view."

"But downstairs..."

"There's a party, sure. But sometimes, you want to get away for a little bit."

"Okay." She rested her chin on her knees and looked out. The grey beach, the black sea with its slick of moonlight. The sprinkling of lights around the coast, occasional cottages and cars and streetlights. The dense black edge of the cliffs, heavy arms that encircled the scene. She imagined what the two of them looked like. Human huddles, perched like seagulls.

"It is lovely," she said.

"You get a feel for a place when you're on the roof."

"I didn't know those brownies you made were special brownies," Molly confessed, ducking her head to peer at him, one-eyed. Cheek on knee.

Jake laughed. "Shit."

"Yeah. I was supposed to pick up my friend, Geordie. And I couldn't drive."

"You were giggling too much to drive," he said.

"Something like that."

"I'm sorry, Molly. Hope I didn't get you in trouble."

"Not too much trouble."

He sipped his beer. He looked sideways at her. "Why are you here?"

"Sometimes, you want to get away for a little bit."

"You're not drinking your beer."

"No... I guess I don't feel like it anymore."

A shriek from below, that was clearly Geordie having the time of her life. Molly shivered, as the wind cut through her clothing. Why am I here. What am I doing?

"You seem like an innocent person," he said.

"What?"

"I don't mean that in a bad way."

"The brownies."

"More than that."

"Then what?"

Jake shrugged. "Couldn't say. Not exactly."

She considered. Watched the beach. The shapes of people walking along the sand. Some of the boys were down there, yelling at each other about driftwood and building the bonfire.

It wasn't the word she would have thought. And if that was what he thought, then who was Jake?

"Why are you here?" she asked.

"Just living."

"You live here?"

"For the summer. Teach surfing to all the tourists, round the point."

"And then what?"

He smiled at her. "Back to the snow, Molly."

A man of the seasons, she thought. "A nomad."

"Something like that. You live anywhere in particular?"

"Londontown."

"City girl," he said.

"Something like that." She shifted on the iron, trying to find a more comfortable spot. "You snowboard."

"Good guess."

"And how's that for you?"

"I'm trying to make it. This year. This year's my year."

"How do you mean?"

"I'm trying to go pro. I'm going to make pro."

"Wow. You must be good."

Jake grinned again. "I'm excellent."

She grabbed the other beer and opened it. Guess she did feel like it after all. "So how do you make pro, then?"

"You get yourself known. Make a name for yourself. Get sponsored."

"I assume a level of skill is involved."

"There is a measure of skill involved, yes," he said.

"How long have you been doing it for?"

Jake shrugged. "Since I was little. Started skiing when I was kid, then switched to boarding. Do you board?"

Molly shook her head. "I've been skiing a few times, but haven't tried snowboarding. It looks a little... fast."

He laughed. "That's only a problem if you're not in control."

"Exactly."

"But you have to lose control to get good at it, you know."

"Really?"

"You let go."

"Maybe I find it hard to do that," she said. She sipped the beer. Fizzy, malty, and cold enough to make her shiver. Rested her lips on the edge of the can. Let go.

"I'll show you."

"What?"

"I'll take you boarding, in winter. I'll show you how." He smiled sideways at her. She couldn't quite tell how much he was joking.

"The best way to learn is to follow someone who knows how," he added.

Molly grinned. A vision of herself shrieking in terror, hurtling down the mountainside, and poor Jake below suddenly realising what he'd got himself into.

an update and a new blog

Not a lot of writing -- on Molly -- recently. I am still working on the scene with Molly & Jake on the roof. In fact, I may even post an excerpt here...

But I have been doing other writing, on the new blog! This is the blog I have set up with my workmates. It is a total blast and we're having so much fun playing with it. Our general theme is 'money'. Yeah, that basically means we can write about anything, because everything has some kind of tenous link to money, finance, being paid, cost, etc...

Here it is: iwilldothatformoney.com -- go visit and marvel.

Our top keyphrase right now is "dumbasses with money". I had a giggle this morning when I saw on the stats that someone found our blog by Googling "what a crackhead will do for money".

I have started a series of posts about Kayleigh-Anne Boyd, a fictional Big Brother contestant now on the path of fame. She's a total riot. Hilarious to write about. We found a free photo stock library which had these awful, just awful, photos of this woman with frosted pink lipstick posing in over-the-top-sexy mode. She has become Kayleigh-Anne.

Next up will be something like, "The Wannabe WAG Pregnancy Trap, a guide by Kayleigh-Anne Boyd, aged 22 and one half". I am also starting some posts around UK NHS dentistry, and "litigious lifestyle choices"...

We would love to have other people contribute to the blog, so if you have something you want to write about (usually in a bitter or scathing kind of way) please give us a bell...!

it's something like a poem, jim

I wrote something. It's something like a poem. It's a scene from Molly, one I haven't got to yet, cut down and made in to... something like a poem.

~
Sick urban stone

Melting water halos in the neon
Dusting in her eyelashes, running her mascara
And she tastes in the back of her throat
The scent of a wet city at night
Coiling trickles along her collar bone
And down
And drips off her fingertips
The eternal man stands crying beside her
He told her his secret
It's too big for her to hold right now
~

I haven't moved forward with Molly yet -- she's still at this surfery boy party at the beach cottage, waiting for me to send her up to the roof and talk to Jake. I'm dragging my heels because I want it to be this note perfect scene and I'm not sure what they are going to talk about yet. I'm thinking -- brownies, and music, and some kind of confessional? I want it to be all about the things that aren't said.

Have you watched Sex & The City? There's an episode in season 4 where Carrie meets Aidan again, after they broke up because she was cheating on him. It's at the launch of his new bar. There's this scene -- really short. They're outside, and they talk. It's sad and jagged and underwritten. Everything is in the spaces. Everything that's being said is not in the dialogue.

I wanted to find a clip, or at least a script of the dialogue, but I can't (curse you, internets). It's season 4, episode 5, "Ghost Town", if you want to check it out.

I want that kind of dialogue.