This cannot be allowed to continue. And before anyone starts feeling terribly smug that they’re British, and thus the government isn’t guilty of attrocities like that, I advise them to read this, too.
No Time For, Well, Anything, Dr Jones.
Hugely busy weekend coming up. Out Friday night, out all day Saturday, write 15 or so pages of script on Sunday to catch up on missed Friday and Saturday, which should take me comfortable past one third done nicely ahead of schedule.
As always happens during periods where I have a lot of work going on, I find myself spontaneously generating ideas at a rate of knots so I’m amusing myself a bit at work by kicking around a pulp romp with zombie dinosaurs and fucking big snakes and Aztec gods, and wondering if I haven’t finally found a setting for a character I’ve been tinkering with for years called John Dials. The whole thing would play like Indiana Jones, if Indy made time for tea and scones every afternoon, and followed the cricket. And as I think about it more, I finally might be able to use the title BIG DEAD BONES…
Also toying with the idea of condensing some of the first ten pages of Stormbreak down to two – it’ll remove a small element of show and replace it with tell, but it might also excise a fairly weak sub-plot, and the replaced items won’t hurt too much, I think. Either way, it’ll wait to December…
Y’Gotta Treat Yourself…
Well, I’m fifteen pages into Stormbreak, it’s going almost exactly to plan, and I’m taking a bit of a break. In celebration of the fact that my current rate of work, I’ll be be finished with a few days to spare, I have opened the Bushmills 12.
You have to understand – this is my favourite whiskey. It has the smoothness of the Bushmills 16, but balances the vanilla and citrus notes that mark Bushmills out a bit better than the 16, which sometimes looses them in it’s sweeter, port-influenced flavour. But with that, the 12 also has the sherry warmth and spice in the aftertaste that you find in one of my other favourites, the Glenfiddich 15.
For the last year and more, I have had an unopened bottle of the stuff. I have not opened it because whiskey doesn’t keep as well, once it’s been opened – it starts to oxidize a bit, and you loose some of the subtler notes. Not a problem for cheap, everyday stuff, but the really good stuff should be drunk in a few months.
And the reason I am more careful with my supplies of the 12 year old is that you can only buy it from the distillery shop. But I bought another bottle last time I was there, so that’s OK.
Like I said: Y’gotta treat yourself.
Because, yeah, I don’t have enough to do this month.
I’m insane. I have to be. It’s the only possible reason I could decide to do 26 Things while also doing NaNoWriMo, in a month where I have two weekends completely spoken for already.
Actually, I’m not. No, honestly. I just know how I work best at this time of year. My creative muscles wake up in the Autumn, after hibernating all summer, and they’re itching to be used properly. So I give them room to stretch.
So. Yeah. 26 Things. The gallery is here.
“We’ll trade faces with the shadows…”
Halloween. I like Halloween, strange melange of religions that it is. It’s celtic, it’s voodoo, it’s christian, it’s a bit of everything. It’s a celebration of that little shiver of superstition that makes life much more interesting. I like it’s history (forexample, trick or treating’s origins in the medieval practice of going ‘Souling’ for ‘soul cakes’ given in exchange for prayers for the dead can be a marvellously macabre notion if you roll it around you head a bit) and I like it’s present, although I’m disappointed to discover that the horror stories of razorblades in apples and poisoned sweeties are just that – stories. Next year, I’ll have to lay in the ground glass and the strychnine.
Mostly, though I just like the ghoulies and the ghosties and the long-legged beasties. I like the idea of people hurring home after dark, afraid of the things like bump and slither in the shadows behind them. Because in this day and age, where everyone’s a pagan, or a thelemite, or knows some kind of ‘magician’, I like the idea that we should be frightened of these things, that they do have teeth, and that we should treat them with a bit of respect…
Food, glorious food…
Toasty and warm.
I’m a bit lacking in ideas about what to do for this last piece of NaNoWriMo warm up. I’ve written a bit about Emma and Tim, and if I write about the opposition at this point I’ll spoil some of the surprises in the thing, ditto writing about their friends, and besides, it’s only Emma that has any, so I’m not entirely sure what to do. I did toy with the idea of putting the original first draft opening up here, but that’s not actually me writing anything, or warming up in any way. And besides, I just looked at it again, and it’s toss.
I can’t even share the idea I had on the bus this morning for a sequel to STORMBREAK called HARD RAIN that’s even more berserk and explody than the second half of this one, because the sequel has it’s genesis toward the latter half of the story.
But on the other hand, I can cheat a bit. Here, then, with the names removed, is a rough possible opening sequence to HARD RAIN. It probably won’t get used – my first ideas for opening sequences almost never do, because I tend to start writing them before I’ve got the thing fully plotted, but still…
MAN AT CONSOLE: HE’S INCOMING.
GENERAL: IS EVERYTHING READY?
ASSISTANT: YESSIR.
GENERAL: GOOD. REMEMBER, BOYS, NOTHING TO MAKE THE LITTLE BRITISH COCKSUCKER SUSPICIOUS. EVERYTHING NICE AND FRIENDLY.
MAN AT CONSOLE: SIR? I’VE GOT ANOTHER INCOMING. ON AN INTERCEPT COURSE.
GENERAL: WHAT-
The room shakes. Plaster dust falls. Console boy falls out of his seat.
GENERAL: THE FUCK WAS THAT?
MAN AT CONSOLE (pulling himself back to chair): IT’S IMPOSSIBLE, SIR. THERE’S *TWO* OF THEM.
The room shakes again. This time, a huge crack opens in the ceiling and down one of the walls. The lights flicker crazily. Sparks fly from some of the equipment.
MAN AT CONSOLE: THEY’RE FIGHTING. AT LEAST, I THINK THEY ARE.
GENERAL: SEND A LOG OF EVERYTHING YOU HAVE ON THEM TO WASHINGTON, THEN SOUND THE EVAC.
I’M GOING TO WATCH.
Meet Emma Chappell
Soundtrack
If you’re a designer, you’ll be familiar with the concept of a moodboard – a thing to which you stick elements that you’d like to see in the finished product, ideas and inspirations. A thing to refer to back to as the project continues, just to be sure that you’re moving on the right lines. I do much the same thing with music (as, I understand, do any number of other writers) I put together a soundtrack to listen to as I write, to keep them me playing the right emotional tune, make sure that I’m not diverting from the plan too badly. (Obviously, I have notes, and written plans, but I find the music helps just as much.)