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Nano finish

Despite a higher than average intrusion of real life I managed to finish my novel for Nanowrimo this year. It was a close thing though. I found myself ten thousand words (one fifth of the target!) behind come yesterday morning. I started by spending some time planning that last ten thousand words and then got stuck in. I wrote six and a half of them yesterday, leaving me with a smaller target to hit today. I kind of went for it because I knew I would be out for this afternoon at my parents to see Debbie and family. And it paid off.

But is it any good? Well, probably not. It's quite a different story to ones I've been writing recently. It's not science fiction, but more of a straight, literary novel set in China in the early 20th Century. A time and place that I still find fascinating, and probably stranger than anything I could dream up for SF, it gave me a historical structure that always meant I could find some inspiration. The main pattern of the story came to me pretty much fully formed and I've mostly stuck to it. Despite deviations here, and the odd surprise, it's pretty much the story I had in my head and, looking back now I think that yes, it is good. Not in a letting anyone else read it kind of way, just yet. At the moment it's more like a pre-viz, or storyboard, for a movie. All the pieces are there, sketched out, but the actual film is yet to be shot. That's the next stage. Move it from the flat, cartoony writing that describes what I want it to be into the thing that it actually is. I'm looking forward to it. But for now it's time to read that Hellboy comic I treated myself to yesterday.

(b)ankers

From Doonesbury -

"Marshall Plan, Louisiana Purchase, Race to the Moon, S&L Crisis, Korean War, The New Deal, Invasion of Iraq, Vietnam War, NASA."
-- list of government expenditures which, combined, are still less than the current bailout

We could probably end poverty and go to Mars if we closed all the banks. Hmmm...

Nanowrimo begins

The nice thing about starting on the weekend is that you have plenty of time to do all those things you really have to do before settling down to write a novel. Things like installing a new, untested operating system on the laptop you need to use to write on, catching up on Facebook and emails, trying out the new features of your new operating system and playing with your colour scheme. Downloading some new desktop backgrounds for your PC. Reading about the Royal Australian Navy because it's the Wikipedia article of the day. Still, it has been a successful weekend and I'm even a little ahead. Back to work tomorrow but hopefully I can just keep plugging away at it in the evenings and get to next weekend with a reasonable word count. My mistake last year, when I failed to get much past the second week, was having days where I simply did not write. While that was not entirely my fault once you get behind it is a big challenge to catch up again.

Long time

Took a long break from doing my writing blog but finally broke the dry spell tonight with a silly new thing. Almost tempted to write about the spider from my dream last night but managed to avoid it. It was about a foot across, with legs like gnarled tree branches and strange, bright orange nodules on it's underside that excreted some kind of pus when it launched itself with a thud against the window I was standing next too. But this is much nicer.

Honeymoon

We had a brilliant time in Crete for our honeymoon. Mostly we didn't do very much apart from eat a lot, lie on the beach and read but it was much needed. The hotel was nice and it was easy to get into the old town to have a look at the tacky shops or go for a nice meal. We did manage to do a couple of things; Visit the Minoan ruins at Knossos and walk the Samaria Gorge. By coincidence the walk day was also the worst weather we had - frequent drizzle - but as we were hiking that wasn't much of a problem.

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We visited Knossos the lazy way, on a tour, and that was a bit disappointing. Half the tour was in German meaning that you just stood around half the time wishing you could be exploring the site more and also the route through the site was pretty constrained so I feel that there was more that I could have seen. Serves me right - it wouldn't have been hard to get the bus, just laziness.

I also had plenty of time to research my new book which I am getting really excited about. I've decided to save starting it until Nanowrimo in November.

Wedding

Quick description before heading off to honeymoon.

Woke up. Had bacon and eggs cooked for me by Dad and then headed out to collect the cake and pick up Emily who needed a lift into town to get ready with Zak. Was a bit late meeting up with Anthony at the train station but that was ok because his train was late. Next went to the Palace Hotel to drop off the cake, the various other bits we had and Emily. Headed back to my parents where Anthony suggested going for a pint. Waited a bit for Debbie and Simon to turn up with new baby Oliver and then we went to the pub while Dad went to pick up Alan. Had a Guiness, which I haven't had for a while and really enjoyed. When we got back there was a bit of rushing around while everyone got ready and then the minibus taxi turned up. After a lot more fussing everyone finally got on board and we collected Lucille and Bob, and then Vicky John and Alice. Got stuck in traffic on the way into town which was a bit worrying as it was the Labour Party conference and a Stop the War demo next to the hotel that afternoon but everyone was actually going somewhere else, traffic cleared up and we sailed into town with plenty of time to spare. Checked the room over, came down and had another drink, went back to the room to see if the registrar had turned up and found the seats had been rearranged again. Confirmed I was who I am with the registrar and then people started turning up. Ceremony was supposed to start at four. At five past there was still no sign and someone came to say there had been a slight problem and the bride was running late. Finally, at twenty past, the registrar came in and announced that things were starting. Alice, as flower girl, came in first and did a marvellous job covering the aisle with petals. Finally Zak walked in looking absolutely stunning. Andy did a brilliant job of the reading and then the ceremony started. It didn't feel rushed, it felt just right. We went out to the theme from Once Upon a Time in China and drank champagne as we walked downstairs where everyone shook our hands. Drinks done it ws time to try and get photos organised which was pretty chaotic (but based on a quick look through yesterday it all worked out) and then into the meal. Slight problem with the seating arrangements but that got sorted. Food was really nice, although it was pretty late. By the time we finished a number of the evening guests had arrived so we decided to move the speeches downstairs, which was really nice. Anthony's speech was also great, not too embarrasing or too formal. After that we had our first dance to Israel Kamakawiwo's version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow and after that it was just more drinking and lots of dancing. I had a really, really good time and Zak did too. Thanks to everyone who came and made it a fantastic day.

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