Exciting news!

The Private Press are going to publish one of my poems in an anthology of David Lynch inspired work. See, an Honours Degree in Creative Arts was good for something after all.

And thank you to Julia, for the heads-up about submitting to this thing in the first place. You rock.

I blame the David Bowie Demons...

Oh dude, it really is true that each year you are out of uni more of your brain cells desert you or die or relocate into grey hair. Not that I've noticed any grey hairs on myself yet, but I notice the lack of working brain cells.

Either that, or the David Bowie Demons (who live in the ceiling) had actually borrowed my copy of Perfume - which you recall I was seeking in my last entry - and had only recently returned it to my bookshelf. Because I swear I searched the bookshelf for it before I posted that, and now, only now, can see it there, nestled up against Isabel Allende's The Stories of Eva Luna. Buggerations. But at least I found my book!

In other news, thinking about the David Bowie Demons makes me recall that just such a phenomenon was mentioned in that thing I fondly, indulgently refer to as "my novel". Even my mother has now taken up saying that I'm "pretending" to be a writer while also being a slave to cheese. Of course, if I would actually write something, then maybe it would be different. Maybe I should make the last so-far-unwritten chunk of the "novel" a Supernatural-style hunt for David Bowie Demons by the main characters (you will recall the dwarf Sam and the train-wreck Lola, who make up the band The Satanic Mechanics). Whoever said plots have to make sense? Also, why don't the boys on Supernatural ever hunt David Bowie Demons? It's almost like such a thing only exists inside my brain-cell-reduced head.

Yay! A novel!

Eep! I did it! I got to 50,000 words! In 30 insane days! I won! And it's also only a couple of chapters from the end of the damn thing. That is, depending on how neatly I was to wrap it all up or if I want to go with the idea I came up with today, which was: an alien spacecraft crashlands and kills all the characters. The End. No, it's not a scifi novel. Yes, I was watching Dr Who yesterday after I got to the 50K mark.

Right now I am so tired I want to gauge my eyes out with a spoon. And tomorrow I have to work my delightful 11 hour day at the shop, so no sleep marathons for me yet.

But it feels good to have written it. I've never written anything so big before, never stuck with characters for quite so long, never enjoyed them quite so much. I want to finish it, then print it out and start editing. Or at least, read it through to see how it reads. Because that's what I've not done much of: re-reading and editing. Slows down the writing process. And in Nanowrimo, it's all about speeeeeeed. So, no editing-as-you-go, which was my previous writing style. Damn slow, it was. Now I just write and move on. And when I happen to go back to check a name or a fact or something, I'm sometimes pleasantly surprised to read over bits of it. Did I write that? I think, I don't remember.

So I urge any of you who think you might one day like to write a novel, then do nanowrimo, next year, with me! It's such a rush. It's awesome. It really just makes you write. And isn't that what writing is all about? Who would have thought?!

Plus, I already have an idea for next year's novel: a group of survivors after a zombie apocalypse, a saviour figure rising from the dust: the Great Zombie Jesus! But is he (or she?) a zombie or a human bean? Half-half? And what if he (or she?) shags the Judas figure? Am I saying Jesus was a Great Big Man Loving Man Lover?

Yes, I think I am.

The Satanic Mechanics Will Rock You (if they ever exist)

Yep, you caught me - I'm procrastinating. I should be novel writing, but instead I'm blog writing. These be words that do not count.

But that's ok, because I'm well on track with my 50,000 word target. In fact, it's going surprisingly, almost alarmingly well. I'm expecting it all to derail at some point, the delicate fictional world I've built up to come crashing down. Someone will say, "But aren't dwarves genetically predisposed not to be musical?" and that will be it. No more novel about a White-Stripes-ish band called The Satanic Mechanics, drummer/keyboard/songwriter: Sam (a Kiwi dwarf), singer/audience-seducer: Lola (a trainwreck). Mind you, Sam and Lola haven't even met yet, let alone formed the band. So who know? It could still go off in another direction entirely. I could still write that zombie novel that's in my heart! Or Sam and Mohammed could fall in love? I know there's something there - what dwarf just admires another man's eyelashes without it meaning something? Better try and keep them apart.

So, NaNoWriMo aside, nothing much to report. It's gone cold again, while in Mt Beauty where the parentals were for the weekend, it was 30+ºC. Ah, global warming. Thank you, Mr Howard.

News from the Tobster is this: He's become a bit of a burrower. Under carpets that is. To chase corks. Or to just get from one side of the rug to the other in the more difficult route possible. So now the big fugly brown rug that covers most of the floor in my room has a cork roughly somewhere near the middle that I can't get out. I keep sending Toby under there to get it, but he only ends up pushing it further in. I will have to pull the whole thing up in order to stop stubbing my toe on it. But I was thinking about doing that anyway - ripping it up and banishing it to under the house or in the garage - because it seriously is a FUGLY rug. And we all know what the word 'fugly' means. Yes, fucking ugly!

So, back to my other procrastinatey activities, like perusing the NaNoWriMo forums. Apparently some people have already written 50,000+ words. In 7 days. How? I don't understand. Is it called cheating?

NaNoWriMo

I am now nanowrimoing - or going to be in November. That is: National Novel Writing Month. Which begins on Wednesday. It's scary. It's 50,000 words in 30 days. I can do it, I can, I can.

I've been planning. I have characters. I have possible-structures and maybe-plots. I have ways to break my 50K down into managable chunks, lumps I can chew off, bit by bit. I have potential tangents for if I run out of things to write. I have Roy Orbison wrapped in cling film.

I also have a "To Do Before November" list which is only getting longer and I still haven't crossed anything off it. It includes: Haircut, Clean desks (2), Buy Roo for Toby, Watch Velvet Goldmine (essential, obviously), Pay Bills. I just added: Buy chocolate and writing snacks. So I may come out of November 50K and 20kgs heavier!

And if I am an anti-social beast in November, please forgive me. *mutter, mutter, suffering-artist, etc, mutter...* But I will accept deliveries of food, alcohol and anything caffeine related. I am right now lurking in a Nanowrimo forum entitled: The "All My Filler Will Probably Be Porn" Thread.

So if anyone wants to join me in this madness-? Apart from the 50,000 or so already signed up on the website. Ah, it's nice to think of so many people going mad at the same time. Here's to collective insanity.