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12 Books in 12 Months

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In Which I Discover I Am Not Superman

The night of writing dangerously was not as successful as I had hoped – although to be fair, my hopes were ill defined and woolly round the edges to begin with.  I think ideally I wanted to bash out 30,000 words and be like HAH, TAKE THAT INTERNET!!!!!  But that would have involved typing 125 words per minute every minute for the solid four hours, which was never going to happen.  Unless lack of sleep helped me evolve into Superman.

Pic from transportationnation.org

Between 2am and 6am I wrote just over 5,000 words, but I had hoped to manage more.  There again I did claim I would write from 12-12 (because it’s 12 books – clever, no?), which didn’t happen.  Had I actually done that, rather than catching up on the drafting of some STV articles and wastefully falling asleep for 2 hours, maybe I’d have got closer to achieving my unspecific catch up goal.

I think I have to resign myself to the fact that 50k will not be reached this month.

But on the plus side, the following sites are great if you’re too spaced out to concentrate, or just want to laugh.

Hyperbole and a Half

Hark, A Vagrant

Also, have you filled out the census yet?  I have!  I was sad to see there wasn’t a box for any other info into which I could put I was writing 12 books in 12 months, but I still feel it was worth my time.  For more on that, read my interview with Edinburgh-based genealogist Kirsty Wilkinson.

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A Night of Writing Dangerously

For various reasons, some of which I mentioned in the second 12 Books post for Mslexia Magazine, I am very behind on book 3.  I have therefore decided to embark upon a night of writing dangerously.

Between midnight tonight and noon tomorrow I am going to write as much as I can without my brain exploding.  It’ll be exactly like what Jack Kerouac would do, except my wife won’t bring me pea soup and I don’t have a typewriter so I’ll have to make do with a laptop, a jar of coffee and half an Easter Egg.

You can follow my progress on Twitter @12books12months, if you’re up.

See you on the other side…

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#WIP – Tandy

I looked around for a phone, but couldn’t see one anywhere.  It looked like I’d have to go all the way back down to the concierge’s office and call for help from there… but I didn’t fancy waiting around and having to admit that I’d lied to him in order to get up here.  Equally I didn’t want to keep up the pretense to the authorities, and wind up organizing a stranger’s funeral.

I turned away from Mrs Kerr and moved towards the doorway, when I thought I heard a door close.

“Wayne?” I said, “that you, son?”

“Wayne’s gone,” came a voice, as the door opposite this one creaked open.  “Mum kicked him out weeks ago and we’ve never seen him since.”

The voice belonged to a small girl, very skinny, who was clad in a ballerina tutu, pyjama bottoms, and a denim jacket.  Her hair hung lank about her shoulders and her face wore the remains of her last meal – which looked like it might’ve been chocolate and baked beans.

“And how long’s your mum been like that?”  I asked.

“Three days,” the girl replied.  “She gets like this, sometimes.  She’ll wake up soon though.”

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#WIP – The Highrises

With no idea of how far up flat 159 would be, I pressed the button for the top floor and waited.  It took a few moments for the lift to creak into life, and when it did there was a horrible crunching of gears before it juddered asthmatically upwards.  I’d never been more grateful to live in a bungalow.

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#WIP – Mhairi Mclennan

“It’s they kids,” she stated flatly.

I wondered whether Mhairi Mclennan could read minds.  It wouldn’t surprise me if she could.  Folk from up north are always more magical, I’ve noticed.

“I’ve seen them outside your house, throwing things,” she explained when I didn’t respond.  “They target me, too.  Ring the doorbell and run away.  Put things through my letterbox.”

She paused.

“Nasty things.”

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#WIP – An Incident

My wife would’ve had me to call the polis in a situation like this.  She’d have been awake now, quivering with indignation on my behalf.  She’d head to the kitchen, ranting and raving about speaking to that boy’s parents and him being a bad influence on all the other kids in the neighbourhood, especially Julie.  She’d fix us a cup of tea – or something stronger – and start drafting a letter to our local councillor, whoever that was.

I did none of those things.

Instead, shaking my head in confusion, I climbed back in to bed and reopened my copy of Riders of the Purple Sage.  This would never have happened in Zane Grey’s Wild West.  If someone wanted to call you out, they would have just gone ahead and done it.

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