It's That Time Again

Happy Xmas and Merry New Year!

Best wishes from Kev
(a tree-saving lazy bones)

Raw Material

Phew, that was hard work. I've just recently completed NaNoWriMo, writing 50,827 words in 30 days. I'm no stranger to writing novel-length pieces of fiction, but that kind of sustained rate of creation (just under 1,700 words per day, on average) is quite a bit above my normal output. Despite that, I can honestly say I'm glad I did it.

The trouble is, although NaNoWriMo has ended, the project is far from finished. In fact, the first draft is not even done yet. What I have is a huge, incomplete pile of raw material from which to obtain a proper first draft of the manuscript. Then, of course, the business of re-writing and editing will come.

A big well done to all my friends who also took part in NaNoWriMo. It doesn't matter whether you 'won' or not. Like me, you'll have thousands of words of material to work with, that you would otherwise not have written. If nothing else, NaNo is a great instrument for giving us writers a kick-up-the-backside.

Suspicious Behaviour

As promised, here are some excerpts from my NaNoWriMo story Seeing Sharp. I've incorporated some of the suspicious behaviour that some of you suggested in my earlier article. It's not going to win any prizes, but it might be amusing to read.

Excerpt from "ATM", Seeing Sharp

"It's a bit too public, isn't it," Sean commented.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, it's a busy part of town. The perps are not gonna risk it here."

Patrick thought about this. "You might be right, but the paper said the robberies took place in many locations, seemingly at random. And during different times of the day."

Sean nodded. "Doesn't seem like opportunistic attacks by teenagers, does it?"

"No. It smacks of being a lot more organised… Hello."

Patrick had seen something on the computer screen that raised his interest. He zoomed in on it.

"What have you got?"

"Just a sec…" Patrick played with the controls some more. "Have a look at this guy."

Sean craned forward and they both watched the display. A man in a boiler suit was very slowly making his way up the hight street. His head was moving all around as he appeared to be examining all of the shops on their side of the street, from top to bottom.

On his head was a old-fashioned pair of can headphones with their coiled lead disappearing into his back pack. He was carrying two instruments, one in each hand. In his left was a device resembling the business end of a medical stethoscope. In the right was something that looked like a drumstick with a small ball on the end. Both were also wired into the back pack.

As they watched, the two ExPose operatives saw the man perform irregular acts of strangeness. At least it was strange compared to normal high street behaviour. Every so often he would put the stethoscope against the wall of a building, then repeatedly tap with the drumstick. He would move both instruments around on whatever shop wall he was interested in. Then he'd abruptly stop and move on.

Sometimes he would squat down and look across the street. His gaze was not directly at the view that the lap-top showed, but nevertheless in that general direction.

"He almost looking right at us," Sean remarked, though their actual position was well out of Boiler Suit's line of sight.

"Do you think he could be… D'you think he's looking at the bank? The ATM?"

Sean inspected the screen, looked out of the coffee shop window, then back to the screen again, trying to judge the angles. "It's possible. He's coming this way, so if we wait long enough, we should be able to see him out of the window."

"What the heck is he doing, do you think?"

"Haven't the foggiest. Metal detecting, maybe? Looking for coins buried in the wall?"

"So why does he keep looking across the street? At the bank?" asked Patrick.

"We don't know for sure that it's the bank. It could be one of the neighbouring shops."

Patrick found this difficult to believe. The two premises either side of the bank were a restaurant and a women's clothing store. He couldn't think what Boiler Suit's interest in either of those would be. It had to be the bank. Whatever he was doing, it was definitely suspicious.

"Stay here and keep observing," Patrick said to Sean. "Make sure we keep recording. There's enough disk space for over two hours."

"Where are you going?"

"I'm going to follow him."

Excerpt from "The Orphanage", Seeing Sharp

Behind the park was a very drab looking council estate with sprayed graffiti on many of the walls. A man with a shaven head, walking a squat but powerful looking pit bull terrier, was sauntering over in the direction of the park. From a different street, a youth on roller blades was skating and nodding his head in time to the music on his headphones, also approaching the park.

Celia watched the skater and thought she saw something a little forced about his weaving and jigging, as though he were deliberately trying to act casual. He pulled the hood of his cotton top over his head, as he neared the park. Something else Celia found to be suspicious, as it was dry and not a cold day.

He skated along the path, right past where Celia was sitting, then swerved into another path to retreat again. He'd barely glanced at her, though Celia thought she'd look out of place here. Also unusual behaviour; why hadn't he checked her out like many boys of his age would do?

She'd taken her eyes off the bald man, having been distracted by the skater. Now she saw him again, over by the wheely bins, crouching down. When he stood up again, his dog was trying to sniff something on the ground. Celia could not make out what it was from this distance, but it looked like small pile of parcels in brown paper.

The man dragged his dog away and then walked it out of the park, to return to the council estate. Several minutes passed, during which time Celia debated whether to go over to the bins and see what had been put there. She was about to stand up when the skater reappeared from behind the bins. He skated in an elaborate loop which culminated in him swooping low to snatch up the topmost parcel. He tucked it under his arm before zooming off back into the depths of the estate.

"You saw that too, didn't you?" a voice behind her said.

All I Want for Christmas

Buy on amazon.co.uk.

Beth Prince has always loved fairytales and now, aged twenty-four, she feels like she's finally on the verge of her own happily ever after. She lives by the seaside, works in the Picturebox – a charming but rundown independent cinema – and has a boyfriend who's so debonair and charming she can't believe her luck!

There's just one problem – none of her boyfriends have ever told her they love her and it doesn't look like Aiden's going to say it any time soon. Desperate to hear 'I love you' for the first time Beth takes matters into her own hands – and instantly wishes she hadn't.

Just when it seems like her luck can't get any worse, bad news arrives in the devilishly handsome shape of Matt Jones. Matt is the regional director of a multiplex cinema and he's determined to get his hands on the Picturebox by Christmas. Can Beth keep her job, her man and her home or is her romantic-comedy life about to turn into a disaster movie?

---

Greetings, Captain "Ebenezer" Black here. Just to be a bit different, I'm going to sub-title this article.

Bah Humbug!

There are a few things I really like about Christmas:

• You get to see lots of friends and family.
• You get to eat and drink a lot.

However, there are many more things that really annoy me about it:

• The commercial side of it drives me up the wall. Every year it starts earlier and earlier. I personally believe that Christmas related commercialism should be banned on any day that doesn't have a corresponding advent calendar window.
• People who are really "into" Christmas bang on and on about it, to the exclusion of all else, cluttering up the social networks with their drivel.
• Christmas is for kids. Grow up!
• Buying presents is too expensive. I don't even want any presents (with the possible exception of booze).
• You can't buy normal stuff in the shops, as it's been replaced with Christmas junk.
• Why is everywhere so busy? Get the **** out of my way!
• Call that music? What a load of droning, boring drivel. I hate carols. I especially hate that George bloody Michael song. Dose anybody actually want to hear that again?
• I'm not bothered by the religious aspects, since I'm an atheist.

So there you go. Call me a Scrooge if you like. Haunt me if it makes you feel better. All I want for Christmas is a large gin and tonic.

Suspicious Behaviour

This year I'm attempting to write a 50,000 word novel^* in thirty days – the annual insanity that is NaNoWriMo. The working title is "Seeing Sharp" and it's going to be a crime/thriller/mystery story. One of the questions often asked of NaNo participants is: are you a plotter or a pantser? In other words, do you plan and plot the novel before writing it, or do you write is as you go along by the seat-of-the-pants. This year I'm doing both!

I plot a bit, then pants a bit, then repeat as necessary, adjusting the plot as I "discover" new things happening with my characters. I'm attempting to keep the raw material, the plot notes and the storyboards all synchronised. This adds more time to the project during this creative phase, but I think it will save me time in the long run, helping me with editing stages once NaNo '11 is long over.

* Now I'll let you in on a little secret. Seeing Sharp is not going to end up being a novel. Instead I plan to make it a novella, or possibly something even shorter, once I've edited it down. It will then take its place as a sequel to Fugue in D Minus, which some of you may have read. Perhaps I'll write a third instalment to make it a trilogy. Nothing too suspicious about that…

…So what's with the title of this article? Well, one of the themes behind Seeing Sharp is the observation and detection of suspicious behaviour by a team of security specialists. So here's where you can join in. Inspired by Sally Quilford's plot ninjas, I'm asking if you might like to come up with some ideas to add a bit of fun to my story. Here how it works:

• Think of some kind of suspicious behaviour you've seen in the past. The weirder the better.
• Describe the details and post them in a comment here on this blog.
• I'll try to incorporate them into Seeing Sharp. Any that I use will be posted here in excerpts, for your reading pleasure and amusement.

Thanks in advance.

In other news, this blog is four years old today!

Sally Forty-Eight

In order to celebrate Sally Quilford's forty-eighth birthday, here's a little story I wrote.

Sally Forty-Eight

Some of you may recognise some of the characters.

And yes, it has been that long since I posted anything here.