Christmas Eve

And then, suddenly, it was the night before Christmas, with no warning whatsoever, the year barrels to an end. I had such good intentions of reading, and writing, and getting back into my blog and then work got busy and then I got a blood clot in my leg and the doctor packed me off to be still in bed so it didn't pop off and rush into my head or heart, making me feel like a ticking time bomb, while people stuck needles in me and I swallow ludicrously pink pills to thin my blood. Wierd.

So, I have spent the past week in bed, gorging on Downton Abbey, to which I am now completely addicted; reflecting on the year that has flown by; feeling overwhelmed with nostalgia of years before. House arrest is an interesting phenomenon, my thoughts flit, like birds from tree to tree, with wild winds fluffing their tail feathers.

December has been filled with things that should be blogged about, that should've been blogged about immediately, while my heart was exposed, my nerves raw, but I guess that's how it works, the stories are still forming, incubating, and in the meantime, I'm going to catch up on everybody else's stories, and then watch the last two episodes of Downton Abbey, which I'm trying to devour more slowly, to make them last.

Happy Christmas, all.

Yoohoo

I did it. I wrote 50 000 words in a month. I have to admit that they're not brilliant words, I have not written the next amazing South African novel, not by a far shot, but I wrote fifty thousand words in a row, to make a story. There will be no awards for this one, or any other I write after, but I did it. 50 000 words. In a row.

And now I'm exhausted, but I've missed being here. Mostly I miss Candy Sandwich's amazing adventures; I missed Livvy coming back, beautifully; Kitty admitting the painful truth, heart-breakingling (Precious Things, that's it for you, Kitty); Miranda, Tamara, Geli, I wait; Family Affairs, I long for you to be able to write freely again; and so, so, much more. I have words bubbling up again, though.

I'm back, as much as I can be. I'm waking up. A new year is beckoning, there will be things going on.

In the meantime I watched some Cape Town schmodels mingle with two Catholic priests, like something out of a ridiculously fabulous Tim Burton story. I'm back, I hope. I have a new soundtrack. It makes the words line up, a good soundtrack.

Tori Amos

A moment’s respite here in my little corner, which seems fabulously comfy when I face the last 15 000 words of NaNoWriMo. I hit a hump last week but luckily escaped to the countryside over the weekend and caught up. I fear the second half of the novel is really, really bad (as opposed to the first half, which is just bad) but I’m feeling inordinately proud of myself for pushing through. I must just not speak too soon. It’s far from over yet.

Last week we went to watch Tori Amos in concert. I have loved Tori Amos since she first appeared on the scene: I desired her red hair and many of my teenage relationships, and more importantly and aptly with her music, break-ups, were set to a soundtrack which featured her songs prominently. In fact, scrap the ‘teenage’ bit of that. Show me a good break-up since forever and I’ll match a Tori song to it. Not only break-ups, though, I love her music for its raw beauty, the piano, her voice, happy parts of my life include Tori Amos tracks too. You can see why seeing her live was such a thrill…

It is seldom that one can say that a person’s live performance is better than the CD. Tori Amos is. We, along with the biggest number of red-headed women I think I’ve ever seen in one place, and a large smattering of gay men, were enthralled by her voice, her piano playing (two, at one time!) I shed tears and, by the looks of some people after the concert, many people bawled. She is emotive, her voice is as raw as her lyrics. Incredible.

Just one thing saddened me. She is plastic-surgeried to the point of actually looking puffy. Botox? Collagen? Whatever. It makes me sad to think that someone so incredibly talented, who writes such real lyrics and puts them to music that can turn a thousand-strong audience into a gushing mass of emotion, should feel the need to “fix” themselves so.

My fandom, however, was only marginally minimised by this, as she sang ‘Precious Things’ and literally sent tingles coursing down my spine. The woman is a musical genius.

NaNoWriMo

I'm still alive, just so busy, with words flowing out of me in a surprising gush of completely trashy chick lit. I'm amazed and feel slightly schizophrenic, like my lead character has taken me over and is making me write. Bizarre, but very pleasingly so. I'm afraid to say it, in case I jinx it, but I'm really enjoying NaNoWriMo.

I fear that probably only 5000 of my (hopefully) 50000 words may, in some future where I really sit down and write a book, be useable in some form but that doesn't matter. At this point, what matters is that I've managed to get over my 1000-word block.

It's a different thing to blogging, and I feel a little tongue-tied here. I wanted to check in, though.

I'll be back. Maybe only in December. Forgive me.

NaNoWriMo

So, I signed up for it, and it's Day 2 and I'm loving it and I'm, surprisingly, on track. Like I said, it is but Day 2. I am, honestly, scared by the trash that is so easily flowing out of me and know that, if I do manage to finish it, there may, if I'm lucky, be about 8 000 usable words, the rest being relegated to the dirty corners of my computer. But I'm loving it.

NaNoWriMo. 50 000 words in November. That's 1 666.66667 words a day. Every day in November. Write a novel, focus on quantity, not quality. That can come later.

I'm tired. Already. I keep waking in the early morning, words swirling around in my head, flying out of me into my dark bedroom, playing movies on the backs of my eyelids. Then, later, the words are gone, and mainly trash falls out onto the page. I'm exhilirated (how do you spell that? It looks wrong) by it, like a fire is burning, somewhere deep within. This will not be a beautiful, prosaic story, but it'll be 50 000 words strung together. All in a row, all together and, hopefully, in amongst it all, will be some bits, a skeleton, that I can flesh out, fill with blood and breath, and bring to life.

If I can just keep the momentum going.

Nowhere Boy

There is a moment in the movie where I literally lost my breath. I can’t remember that ever happening before. It’s not like it was some scary thriller perfectly suited to being watched on Halloween night, not at all. It was a sweet, beautifully shot portrayal of the early life of John Lennon, basically his adolescent years, before the fame of The Beatles, when he was just a naughty school boy in Liverpool - Nowhere Boy.

With stellar performances from Kristin Scott Thomas, as his strict aunt Mimi, who brought him up, and Anne-Marie Duff as his all-over-the-place but absent for most of his life mother, it tells a story of a boy discovering his roots, being adolescent, getting into trouble and causing his aunt much consternation and learning to love music.

I just got so engrossed in it that the completely unexpected moment, which I won’t divulge here, in case it spoils the movie for anyone reading this, took my breath away. Just like that.

I was saying to G afterwards that I always find it astounding, no matter how many times I am reminded by stories like this, that famous people, at least initially, are just like normal people. In fact, they are just normal people, famous or not. I hadn’t realised, however, how chequered John Lennon’s early history was. Let’s just say his wasn’t an easy time and a lot of the lyrics to his songs now make sense.

It’s a heartbreaking, interspersed with purely joyful scenes, story that reminded me that everybody, regardless of who they are or become, have amazing stories to tell. We all have our fair share of heartbreak and happiness, it’s what we do with it that matters.

John Lennon called his Aunt Mimi every, single, week, from the time he left home until he was assassinated. He was just a nice guy.

Writing Prompt Six: Thumblessly happy

So I've crazily signed up to do NaNoWriMo - write a 50 000-word novel in November. I don’t have the time, but I’m going to try. If it doesn’t work this year, I will try again next year when, hopefully, I will be in the place my heart swells and have plenty of time on my hands, and inspiration. In the meantime I fear this blog may be a little neglected for the month. Here’s another Writing Prompt for now – they are such deliciously bizarre prompts, see at the end, after my little story…

Alice had always known she was a little different. It had started with her not having thumbs, and the endless string of childhood taunts that elicited. Then that whole trip to Wonderland. Why she’d told them, she herself couldn’t fathom. The fact that she kept going back there reinforced her differences, despite her keeping her dalliance’s with the Cheshire Cat and what had developed into a rather passionate affair with The Mad Hatter, quiet. He really wasn’t all that mad, after all, and damn, he was good in the sack. It was the only place where people didn’t stare and snigger at her lack of thumbs.

It was just a pity that she had to work so hard to earn the money to go, and then pay to stay. Despite that sweet storybook tale, which made it sound free, her trips to Wonderland, like any fabulous holiday, cost. As sweet as the Old White Queen was, she had a business to run and staying in one of the hundreds of rooms in the castle added up. Alice had tried camping, once, but the campsite was owned by The Caterpillar and his incessant smoking had made her sneeze. It wasn’t free, either.

So she’d been going back and forth, conducting this long-distance relationship with The Mad Hatter, missing him when she was away, loving him there (but not enough to move in with him – he was a slob, she could never share a bathroom with him). Knowing this, he kept sending her e-mails from Red Heart Realtors with pictures of properties for sale, but they, too, were exorbitant.

And so it went, year after year, Alice being inconsolably unhappy each time she had to return to the Real World, slaving away, making doughnuts for a living, saving each cent, until she could return and then being happy as a lark for her time there. But always she had to return to the teasing and grey Real World.

And then, one particularly damp and miserable day, she won the lottery, packed her worldly belongings and moved to Wonderland with not a look back, where she lived thumblessly and happily ever after in a beautiful house with candy floss wall paper, next door to her love, The Mad Hatter. The sun shone all the time, unless they felt like a bit of rainy weather, and then it rained. The End.

Prompt 6: Imagine if your favorite character from 19th-century fiction had been born without thumbs. Then write a short story about them winning the lottery.