...and counting... #nano Day 17a

I could really do with a 3000 word day, to cut myself a bit of slack, but at least I am steadily hitting the numbers, and leaving myself half finished chapters, which give me somewhere to start that is not a blank page.

I've had enough for now, though.  My evening treat will be to watch Hitchcock's Vertigo, because it recently overtook Citizen Kane in some random voting system of critics at the BFI, as the greatest film ever made.


I have to admit, that is not how I remember it, but I am willing to be surprised.  I suspect that it may look different now that David Lynch has increased our sensitivity to atmosphere and Freudian ambiguities.

Hitch doing his walk on, at Pier 70

Excelsior! Day 17 #Nano

"Ever upwards!" 
Although, as Bucky never tired of pointing out, "up" is a local co-ordinate in Universe, you can only usefully say "out" (from the centre) or "in" (towards the centre) - that way, people in UK and Australia can agree...

Ahem.  Avoiding chatting on FB makes me gibber here in the blog, to soak up the nonsense before trying to write a book. 

Actually, I haven't entirely avoided reading, and picked up "Vineland" again the other day, to immediately become absorbed in the story.  For anyone who thinks of Thomas Pynchon as 'difficult' I would recommend Vineland, if you enjoyed The Great Lebowski for instance,  as Zoyd Wheeler seems like a second cousin to The Dude, and equally bewildered by the machinations of those around him.

There are PynchonWiki entries for all his books, but do you really need the cross-references for a hilarious read like Vineland?  Useful for the hard stuff like Gravity's Rainbow, maybe.

And if you have already enjoyed Vineland, I would also recommend Inherent Vice, there's a touch of The Dude in there, too.

Of course, reading a master of the language can prove a bad idea when trying to write your own stuff, but I need a break from my own wordage sometimes.




Smoking Dope with Thomas Pynchon: A Sixties Memoir

A superior ten things list...

from Debbie Millman...

Number One:
Fabulous talent is equivalent to operational excellence

Number Two:
How you lead and what you represent is as important as your ideas

Number Three:
You need to know what you believe in, whether or not it is popular.

Number Four:
Vision is easy, strategy is much harder.

Number Five:
Know what you are talking about

Number Six:
Common vocabulary is not always equate with common behavior

Number Seven:
One day working on a creative brief is worth (minimally) one week of design time.

Number Eight:
Be aware of “artificial harmony”

Number Nine:
Seek out criticism

Number Ten:
Design Matters

#Nano Day 16 - non sequiturs

You do get words of encouragement, both from accredited writers, and from the team.  Here's a halfway message from Chris Baty, the founder of NaNoWrimo.

If I can't keep going in sequence, this is when I start with the non-sequiturs (shooting random scenes that we can maybe make sense of in the edit).  Scenes we'd like to see (Mad magazine) or rather I would like to write.

Of course, the actual editing time comes later, and sometimes I have had to be quite vicious in the cutting and editing...and that's the time for secateurs (you can tell I am struggling when my head just throws out weak puns...

Gotta find some free time today, gotta find some free time, gotta find some free time...

Neither Up nor Down #Nano Day 15

OK, it's the half-way point, and I have battled on to cross the 25K mark, just.

I don't mind just keeping level, although it is great to get in front, of course.  What I hate is falling behind, which is rather like being in debt, and you start running to stay in the same place.

Anyway, for all the stumbling about, trying to carry on with everyday life at the same time, I have got this far, so figure I deserve a small ripple of applause from myself, not, of course, for the quality of the words, but the sheer quantity.

I have definitely had a few good moments of writing, and like my context, locations and general idea, but it does feel very diffuse right now.  I can't tell if that comes from a lack of ideas, or having too many and not really entrenching any of them.

The 'papers' everyone is after (the MacGuffin) still puzzle me as much as they do the characters, and I can't tell if (as in Hitchcock) it finally doesn't matter - as they are merely a plot device - or whether I will ever find out, or satisfactorily invent, some  contents significant enough to justify the action.

Or perhaps, like The Maltese Falcon, all the imagined gold is long gone, and all that is left is merely a lead weight.

PS: 
I forgot to mention that some people take it as an opportunity for other forms of creativity, why not?

Which side are you on? #NaNoWriMo Day14

In order to clarify the teams, to line up the opponents on the chess board, I decided to make sure each of the secret groups (real and imaginary) meet up, at least briefly, today.

It helps me decide who belongs to which group (or more than one group if someone unexpectedly turns up) and what they know or think of each other.  I am not sure it will progress the plot that much, but it will add to the complications.  Bearing in mind "The Man Who Was Thursday", and "Cat's Cradle."  ;-)

Yoko Ono's white chess set

The instructions with this chess set seem relevant: "Chess Set for playing as long as you can remember where all your pieces are."

Portmeirion  - Prisoner fan convention - human chess match

As well as the modern world, I want to draw parallels to earlier centuries...implying either that some alignments have survived that long, or that the same sort of patterns tend to re-emerge within societies and ecologies of belief, etc.

And just score another couple of thousand words, one way or another.

Current music playing for writing:

You took a part of me that I really miss
I keep asking myself how long it can go on like this
You told yourself a lie, that’s all right mama I told myself one too
I’m trying to get closer but I’m still a million miles from you

You took the silver, you took the gold
You left me standing out in the cold
People ask about you, I didn’t tell them everything I knew
Well, I’m trying to get closer but I’m still a million miles from you

I’m drifting in and out of dreamless sleep
Throwing all my memories in a ditch so deep
Did so many things I never did intend to do
Well, I’m tryin’ to get closer but I’m still a million miles from you

Day 13 - Decisions, decisions

Although the characters have done a lot of talking, they seem to still be skirting around exactly what the plot of Columbus skulduggery might have taken. I need to decide on a version soon, I think. Knights Templar (look at his sails) or Portuguese Jew (on of the feasible stories)?


 I definitely want to get back to NO8DO, the icon of Seville, and Columbus's strange sigils and signature, and the Alumbrados.

I need to know if the treasure still lurks somewhere, of it is just the story that has remained secret so long must come out? Is the link to the communal graves of Franco's time going to return? Are any of the players descendants, or ones with a separate agenda of their own?

I keep stumbling over unexpected connections, too, including real mad suspicions, like Leonardo Da Vinci putting Columbus in all his pictures, telling the story of his affair with the model for the Mona Lisa (Queen Isabella).

You couldn't make this stuff up.  Could you?     DaVinci Sfumato.  Jacques Abenaïm