BIG SURGE

A mere 7,416 words today, a long write up of the flash process


999 075,997 Words TOTAL (32+4 Days)
999 002,923 Words Daily Average for 26 Writing Days
999 002,111 Words Daily Average Including Blank Days)
999 002,375 Words Daily Average (Year count, adding "freebie" pre-year warm-up words)


"Officially" I've been writing for 32 days

75,997 Words

3,200 Words Tonight

Four flashes and a poem so far tonight (3,200 Words)
and 1,065 Words on Saturday

999 068,581 Words TOTAL
999 002,743 Words Daily Average for Writing Days
999 001,959 Words Daily Average Including Blank Days
999 002,212 Words Daily Average (Year count, adding "freebie" pre-year warm-up words)


"Officially" I've been writing for ONE MONTH

68,581 Words


That 50K a month NaNoWriMo (or whatever it's called), prrrrtttt!

Gone Missing

I may have gone missing from the blog for a few days but lots ongoing.

A fresh Boot Camp session, a new computer, and now setting up Children in Need Flash Night (s)

So, though I'm slipping backwards on word-count, I expect to have some heavy-scoring days Tuesday, Thursday and Friday

Watch this space


If you are interested in joining a group, currently about 20 to flash till your eyes bleed then take a look at


http://children-in-need-writing-marathon.blogspot.com/

It's our 2006 site but the info is for THIS YEAR


alex

New Computer & Stuff

A few non-writing days (almost). Had a new computer as my old one was giving me hard disk trouble. Set the new beast up then fitted a new hard disk to the older one and set it up with three virtual disk. The house is networked. Geek's rule.

But these things cut into writing space and it is SO easy to have a blank day become a blank week.

Managed to slip in 1.000 words, a nice little story.

Here are today's prompts (but writing today will be hard)

A sponge, vinegar, hammer, nails
A starling frantic, from a blocked chimney
Anyone can press a button
At noon, dead centre of all I knew
At the beginning, if you say this doesn’t matter, is it dead?
Beowulf, but then again
Christmas is different for the childless
Demanding attention
Escalators
Every other Sunday they did dinner
First they came for the men who laid concrete
Geronimo!
Harry Lodge and the impossible dream
I am crushed into a corner
I read about a honeymoon in Bermondsey
I wonder sometimes about the jungle
I would like to have delivered milk in a cart
Is this the most cruel thing, the cruellest?
It was our usual Sunday walk
Jump you say. I jump
Kumquat, that sounds vaguely rude
Lead me with your cold, sure hand
Letters from mad people, and lovers
My biscuit-tin
Normal, an interesting concept
Oh for the muse of fire
Pennies squashed flat when the train passes
Queer, Queen, Quiet Now
Reverend Bryson, of whom we heard rumours, nothing proven
Roman ruins under a rubbish dump
See that he is living, and then quietly leave
Somewhere in London, I have family
Standing in the rain
The phone does not ring
The village virgin twenty-one, ambitious
To out mutual satisfaction
Undulate
Violets
We smelled them burning
We started swimming, what else was there?
What a fox does, how otters kill
What a mirror does is not reflect
When match day was a man thing, dignified
Why the world is not quite real from a train
X’s, eight in a row
You said it wasn’t worth the trouble
Your house is too warm
Zephyr Zodia, Ford Consul, Leather Bench Seats

Yesterday, Disaster: Today?

Here are today's prompts



A train, screaming
Beef stacked in vans, hanging with frost
Bloody men are like Lambrettas
Can’t get you out of my head, my head, my head
Christmas, and trust me to be late
Corduroy
Dying, dearest, is hardly the point
Fair cop
George, there are forty Zulus on the lawn
Had hung in darkness and smoke
Have a cigar
He put his wet coat back on, his hat
Her lower lip is beginning to quiver
Hey maybe you haven’t hurt me enough, not yet
Hundreds of women were looking
I am no longer my father, he is no longer my son
I dropped your body into the sewers, you weren’t supposed to come back
I had a lung X-ray. I have no heart.
I kissed a princess. You guessed it – frog.
I may have made her up
I should feel as big as America
I suspect that there were deaths
I want a filthy red dress
If I were you, I wouldn’t be me
In gun factories, when a pretty woman passes
In those days woods were woods, there were no signs
It was late that summer, we were drinking wine
Jenkins. I found the bastard
Like I am in an old film
Love your baboon
Men are chasing a piglet in the square
Mirror fucking mirror
My father burned his arm
My question, are you with us?
Not if you crawled, not if you begged
Now let us move on to
Running down corridors, corridors, corridors
Separate beds
There again, there is the clitoris
There are rules
There is a kind of love like painting rooms
They said, “Sweet,” and put a ribbon round my neck
When did kissing change?
When my father was still big
While while suffices whilst sounds cleverer
You can always kick a dog or shoot a bird
You do NOT touch my things
You wouldn’t let me live, or make me die
Your life goes into reverse
Zanzibar

Good Start to the Day

Day 29 (Day 25 of Year)

001 001,350 Words Story OK
002 001,095 Words Story OK
003 001,025 Words Story OK
004 001,158 Words Story OK
005 000,900 Words Story (Subbed) <<<< GOOD!
006 001,480 Words Story OK
007 000,850 Words Story <<<<<< GOOD!
008 001,491 Words Story Part-Done (Torturous Writing)
009 001,550 Words Story OK to good
010 000,850 Words Story VG!
011 001,145 Words Story
012 001,300 Words Story
013 002,000 Words Article
014 009,095 Words Article (part)
015 001,005 Words Story
016 000,660 Words Flash
017 001,342 Words Article
018 004,931 Words Article
019 001,151 Words Story
020 004,955 Words Article
021 000,276 Words Flash
022 002,554 Words Article
023 000,776 Words Flash
024 001,713 Words Story !!!!!!!
025 001,665 Words Article
026 004,465 Words Article
027 000,765 Words Story
028 000,565 Words Article

888 013,325 Words Other Writings



999 064,316 Words TOTAL
999 002,923 Words Daily Average for Writing Days
999 002,218 Words Daily Average Including Blank Days
999 002,573 Words Daily Average (Year count, adding "freebie" pre-year warm-up words)

01 Submissions
01 Rejections

Thoughts, and a load of prompts

Even the generation of a page of prompts "does something" if you let it.

You can either be cute and clever and TRY to write clever prompts you think make you look so smart, or you can crib lines of poetry and story-starts, and stuff from letters, be meticulous, really thinking about the choices.

Both methods have a large degree of left-brained, deliberation, determination

Or you can flick through pages, grab something the "PINGS!", then another, always ping-ful, but at the same time be allowing the poems glanced at, the words copied to themselves trigger wild, surprising lines of your own. Instead of slavishly copying exact phrasings you let the sick mind twist, invert or subtly change.

You find yourself on a certain track, realise you are choosing prompts all of a kind, you BREAK, grab a different book, write something very silly, or something mundane yet profound. You're trying to access the unconscious, to disturb the beast, to go where it's dark and manic, so you need a four dimensional map. You have to avoid the expected

I hadn't realised until i began to write notes after-the-fact that many of my "prompts-from-poems" are NOT the original line, but some spin off or bastardisation.

but remember that while this may be fresh, the poem, the original may be working, and 2-3-4 poems may be working together, or having a death-fight in your bowels.

Here are today's first batch. If I get a good story I'll try to write up the process again.


A barn in the day is a small night.
A rubber tongue
But what it is, what I mean is, I ache so
Charming! Fucking charming.
Does the twat in Spandex still bang that fucking drum?
Dull, dull as an old egg
Eight lucky breakaways.
Far off, the sound of blood and drums
For he's a jolly good driver
He though how much girls suffered.
Homicide: Life on the streets.
Hot tea, two days on the trot.
Hundreds of us, a football field of fish and chip lunches.
I have a pain, here, here.
I will not let you go until we are blessed
I woke one day to see you, mother
I would prefer to die with drama
If God forgot to have a man be dead
In porn films, they do what I do, mostly, and the women groan
In the vacant lot behind the old ice plant.
It's a football match for orphans. The referee's a bastard
Joan Edison, imagining her birthday
Murderers hide, and things illicit, mice.
My gums bleed
No, what I mean doctor, is it catches
Officiate. A man got sick because of a fish he ate.
On Sunday we will share the pigeon, and some water
On tip-toe, schoolgirls dance
Penny Packer's recurring bad dream
Probably the oldest case, still open, we'll get him
Running round the red-brick block leaping paths, a stag, a horse
Squeezed down, almost hidden
Straw has been strewn everywhere
That first time, something red in knickers
The fust, it is all organic, breathing
The kid, two, barefoot, walking in the rain, a grandmother now
The thing about bad haircuts. Once I shaved my own.
They have no idea
Too old now, but
Trucks have been unloading something all afternoon
Two dollars, nine cents
We roared, we banked the iron walls, we never stopped.
We were the potato-pickers, collected in dirty lorries, not Poles
We're there. Now what?
What if earth, a foetus, aborted
When they moved to Caerphilly, driving by cart
When they were hairy, not so neat
You have to trust me.
You'll never know, dear, how much I love you.
You're too literal. Be not so precise.

Well, if I was pleased yesterday...

11:40 and I have written a mere 6,130 words, two solid articles (Fiction Later)

That's not too bad for an old git.

63,186 Words total.

Day 28 (Day 24 of Year)

001 001,350 Words Story OK
002 001,095 Words Story OK
003 001,025 Words Story OK
004 001,158 Words Story OK
005 000,900 Words Story (Subbed) <<<< GOOD!
006 001,480 Words Story OK
007 000,850 Words Story <<<<<< GOOD!
008 001,491 Words Story Part-Done (Torturous Writing)
009 001,550 Words Story OK to good
010 000,850 Words Story VG!
011 001,145 Words Story
012 001,300 Words Story
013 002,000 Words Article
014 009,095 Words Article (part)
015 001,005 Words Story
016 000,660 Words Flash
017 001,342 Words Article
018 004,931 Words Article
019 001,151 Words Story
020 004,955 Words Article
021 000,276 Words Flash
022 002,554 Words Article
023 000,776 Words Flash
024 001,713 Words Story !!!!!!!
025 001,665 Words Article
026 004,465 Words Article

888 013,325 Words Other Writings



999 063,186 Words TOTAL
999 003,009 Words Daily Average for Writing Days
999 002,257 Words Daily Average Including Blank Days
999 002,633 Words Daily Average (Year count, adding "freebie" pre-year warm-up words)

01 Submissions
01 Rejections

Really Pleased!!

Hoped to (at very short notice) run a 4-session flash thing in BC (because I was tired but need to do some work)

Almost nobody signed up so I got stroppy, said I'd work on my own.

Intended to scribble "any old flash" but ended up writing a full story that I think easily makes the top-ten from every thing I've ever done.

(I'll probably re-read it tomorrow and think it's shite!

ay 27 (Day 23 of Year)

001 001,350 Words Story OK
002 001,095 Words Story OK
003 001,025 Words Story OK
004 001,158 Words Story OK
005 000,900 Words Story (Subbed) <<<< GOOD!
006 001,480 Words Story OK
007 000,850 Words Story <<<<<< GOOD!
008 001,491 Words Story Part-Done (Torturous Writing)
009 001,550 Words Story OK to good
010 000,850 Words Story VG!
011 001,145 Words Story
012 001,300 Words Story
013 002,000 Words Article
014 009,095 Words Article (part)
015 001,005 Words Story
016 000,660 Words Flash
017 001,342 Words Article
018 004,931 Words Article
019 001,151 Words Story
020 004,955 Words Article
021 000,276 Words Flash
022 002,554 Words Article
023 000,776 Words Flash
024 001,713 Words Story !!!!!!!

888 013,325 Words Other Writings



999 057,056 Words TOTAL
999 002,853 Words Daily Average for Writing Days
999 002,113 Words Daily Average Including Blank Days
999 002,481 Words Daily Average (Year count, adding "freebie" pre-year warm-up words)

01 Submissions
01 Rejections

Catching Up After Teaching

Day 27 (Day 23 of Year)

001 001,350 Words Story OK
002 001,095 Words Story OK
003 001,025 Words Story OK
004 001,158 Words Story OK
005 000,900 Words Story (Subbed) <<<< GOOD!
006 001,480 Words Story OK
007 000,850 Words Story <<<<<< GOOD!
008 001,491 Words Story Part-Done (Torturous Writing)
009 001,550 Words Story OK to good
010 000,850 Words Story VG!
011 001,145 Words Story
012 001,300 Words Story
013 002,000 Words Article
014 009,095 Words Article (part)
015 001,005 Words Story
016 000,660 Words Flash
017 001,342 Words Article
018 004,931 Words Article
019 001,151 Words Story
020 004,955 Words Article
021 000,276 Words Flash
022 002,554 Words Article
023 000,776 Words Flash

888 013,325 Words Other Writings



999 055,343 Words TOTAL
999 002,767 Words Daily Average for Writing Days
999 002,050 Words Daily Average Including Blank Days
999 002,406 Words Daily Average (Year count, adding "freebie" pre-year warm-up words)

01 Submissions
01 Rejections

Saturday 04:00 Prompts

Up far too early, here are the prompts I've written for the course delegates


A beautiful building, an ugly one
A billion, more or less
A brave and rare man, Hungarian
A furious woman
A garden, a slum
A soldier boy, dark, and tall. He is marked with a target
Blodwen is pregnant
Does that explain it?
Double your money
Dreams must remain damp to lessen shrinkage
Driving West through Wales
Everyone prefers good looks to ugliness
Has anyone seen my sky?
He spent seven years in solitary, dreaming of fires
I am considering eating your budgie
I bitterly resented the way men grabbed me
I can, thenk God, walk forever
I cannot run more than a few yards
I have what every poet hates
I ought to be happy
I place my hope upon the water. It sinks
I think I had no self-consciousness
I took my looks for granted
Irish carpentry, American kindness
Lamplight, yellow windows, light bleeding
Love is liquid
May I borrow your gun? I have my own bullets
My body is wearing out
My friends started dying when I was quite young.
My immortal soul
Neither here nor there, and almost arriving
Now it strikes me as a huge joke
Outside yellow corn, yellow, yellow, yellow
Popcorn
Somehow made tolerable
Something is broken
Stone, harsh wind
The body, face, brain are all oneself
The dogs will stop me writing
The meteor is coming. It fills the sky
The street was lined with fish
The wife is twenty years younger
The world is emptier
War and the pity of war
What the hell did they mean wanting my body?
Whenever I phone, the answers come first
Where can I go to escape the smell?
Will there also be singing?
You decided to come in the back way
You know the people there.
You think of looks always in relation to sex. I don't.
You went out to buy cigarettes. I killed myself quickly then hid
You will know who they are by their absence
You wrote that a friend had died

Update, Brilliant Writing Day

Not expecting much (if anything) but managed a near 5K article while musing about today's course and completed a flash of 1151 words

Day 22 (Day 18 of Year)

001 001,350 Words Story OK
002 001,095 Words Story OK
003 001,025 Words Story OK
004 001,158 Words Story OK
005 000,900 Words Story (Subbed) <<<< GOOD!
006 001,480 Words Story OK
007 000,850 Words Story <<<<<< GOOD!
008 001,491 Words Story Part-Done (Torturous Writing)
009 001,550 Words Story OK to good
010 000,850 Words Story VG!
011 001,145 Words Story
012 001,300 Words Story
013 002,000 Words Article
014 009,095 Words Article (part)
015 001,005 Words Story
016 000,660 Words Flash
017 001,342 Words Article
018 004,931 Words Article
019 001,151 Words Story
020 004,955 Words Article

888 012,325 Words Other Writings



999 050,652 Words TOTAL
999 002,980 Words Daily Average for Writing Days
999 002,302 Words Daily Average Including Blank Days
999 002,814 Words Daily Average (Year count, "freebie" pre-year warm-ups used)

01 Submissions
01 Rejections

--

Teaching...

Teaching today through Sunday. Doubt there'll be much fresh writing.

Here are some prompts

A boy from Sparta
A cool small evening. Somewhere a car starts up.
A long, slow walk, slightly uphill
And will the flowers die?
Basically, he was a cunt
But in Sumatra they are thinking "Palm Oil! Palm Oil!"
Even cooking is a war with you
Every discarded foetus, every one, is marching
First, having read the book of myths
Free prescriptions
Further and further into the deep parts
I am silver. Exact
I had thought so little of her
I have decide to go crazy
I point to where the pain is, the ache
If I ate peanut butter I wouldn't like it
I'm in trouble, she said. We are.
It turns out mud will burn
It was June, 1962. Or May 1969.
It was like keeping a puppy in your underpants
John, George
Moonlight, horses rush
My father got up early
My father has to touch a page to fully understand
My mother says I am a negro
My shoes were polished.
My true love and I lay without touching
Not a prayer for the dying
Nothing unpleasant getting in, nothing of value out.
Nothing, nothing, can hold back the giggle
Roast a pig and follow the smell
Sluices. Ditches. Drains.
Somebody who knew him
Telling my son about the crash
The air was soft, the ground cold, dull
The anxious way you close the door
The back seat of my mother's car
The lunch-box by the body
The old tractor, a black pool under
The road was not deserted any more
The sexual advantages of loving a monkey
The truth is a crude instrument, fiction the scalpel
Twenty years before, thirty years after
What we were like then. What we will be like
Whatever it is you are struggling to remember
When he got out of bed the world had changed
When I was eight, I knew nothing
When they come for you
With a girl who doesn't speak English
Women stripped to the waist

SOME PROMPTS

I have two very busy days and fresh fiction-writing is going to be tough

But here are some prompts

A fat alarm clock
A fire is lit
A hedge
A hotel room in New York City
About to sit down with my half-pint of Guinness
And always tucked his daughter up at night
And the flesh of each other
Blue-backed, silver-bellied, half-imagined things
Brought back to me that September evening
Chanting, chanting
Drawn like a moth to the darkened black room
Dumb as a cloud
Her parents love her eyes, how hard she works
His donkey-jacket on the kitchen chair
I am sailing the world
I cannot speak to you.
I died first, I think
I thought we were sitting in the sky
I took myself on for the hell of it
I'm trying to remember as best as I can
Irish Daisies, Yorkshire Nightingales
It begins as a house
It's almost impossible to be here, you kneel
Later he moved quietly to deeper sleep
Light through trees
Like a dwarf on stilts
Men hurrying back across the river
My father decoded the world
My father, drawing the fire
My fellow inmates praise him
Nothing has turned the wood
Our baby's heart, fluttering
People stop me in the street
Right into the mountain
Rockall, Malin, Dogger, Finisterre
She moved him to the hospital
Sometimes in autumn
That other country? Where was it?
The boat chugged up to the little stone jetty
The doors between the days fall open
The past fades like newsprint in the sun
The Unit
The village gossiped
The voices carry from everywhere
Then dusk, and someone calls
Then I gave myself a fright
We were joined at the hip.
When all this is over, I mean to travel north
With ten minutes to kill and the whole place deserted
You do not scorch the sheets or wake your wife
You wonder if it's lovers

Writing Stuff: A Recent Boot Camp Thread

Recently a Boot Camper asked, "Does anyone else get scared?"

He was asking about writing from the deepest parts, how scary it could be.

My first answer was: it's a straight choice. How honest do we want to be? How true? I am only happy when I feel my work is lifting a rug (5% of the time, tops)

Later said:

It ISN'T necessary to directly use your own experience, however painful, however true, or deep or "drama-worthy"

And if you DO directly use something, it's IRRELEVANT whether it's therapeutic, makes you happier or sadder

What matters is the TEXT and what it brings to others

It doesn't matter AT ALL whether 100% of Ballistics is factual, only that it's TRUE. It can be true even if it's 100% fiction.


When you use "your past", your own pain, your own memories, really, the THINGS aren't all that important. What's important is the feelings, and what the events whether directly or indirectly used, SAY, make us feel.

If I use a personal experience directly and try to stay "accurate" I will lose truth. The world and exact accuracy usually kills message.

And later:

Lots of these things are hard to prove, but think like this.

When "a little brown dog" starts glowing, some memory or link to memory, either some maturing part of you thinks it's ready to discover, or some older part of you maybe wants to relieve an internal pressure, BUT THAT IS JUST ONE THING (presume for simplicity)

I suppose it's possible that the conscious and unconscious brain between them choose one single item. one discrete memory, but is it likely?

My belief is that the more we right, the more we try to unfuzz our history, the more we "go there" (I mean in that drifting, available, state) the more things might start to emerge.

The idea that I might isolate ONE and one only (one that might "REFUSE" to ever come out) seems crazy.


When memories and ideas come make sure that at least the emerging tip is not lost. RECORD THEM ALL.


many things may happen her



Example you are imagining/believing that this memory of a squashed cat REALLY MEANS SOMETHING but last week you remembered a
snippet of a song, or an image of an old radio, or someone's shoes, or a car. I have no idea. MIGHT IT NOT BE THAT THE CAT WAS A WAY IN BUT NOT THE KEY? Might it not be that one of you "lesser" ideas/memories will, in the end be more important?


RECORD THEM ALL. LET THEM INTERACT


And later still:

I NEED TO EXPLAIN SOMETHING, WARN YOU


Do NOT presume that all this "must be" an unearthing of your specific past.

It does not have to be YOU or something that happened to you.

Example. Imagine that once you saw, as a kid, a kid getting bullied. You vaguely noted it. It was "gone." Years later you also vaguely note that the kid committed a heinous crime or suicide, or became famous or rich (it doesn't matter). MAYBE you realised the two were the same. Maybe you didn't. Maybe you connected the two bits, connected the relationship, the cause-effect, maybe you didn't.

When these things are pointed out to us we can make a CONSCIOUS, intellectual cause-effect/wondering link. BUT WHEN THEY ARE NOT POINTED OUT TO US, ARE THE LINKS THERE UNDERNEATH SHAPING OUR FEELINGS, OUR EMOTIONS, WHAT WE CARE ABOUT, WHAT AROUSES OUR ANGER OR SYMPATHY.


so a thing might be part of our personal history, first hand

a thing may be part of our history second-hand, ie seen and heard in others

a thing may be part of our psyche THIRD hand, a news report of the above, a book, a play

a thing may, arguably be part of us FOURTH hand, cultural, like "paedophilia" and peadophiles loom so much larger in consciousness these days than they did when I was a kid... or "save-the-planet" or back in the sixties-seventies the fact that most of us went round half expecting a nuclear holocaust.



So memories do not HAVE TO relate to bad or good things you did or had done to you



Now whether or not you have a Hannibal Lecter past or lived with Jesus and ate honey and ambrosia every morning and your shit came out in perfumed bags, you conscious and unconscious pick up EVERY DAY the subliminal links to millions, billions of incidents.

When you read Alex Keegan you read (somewhere in there) HIS past, some of his sensibilities. How much of Dickens' psyche lurks in the bowels of his books... so the more we read and write the more we slowly accumulate "pressures"

if you read a current-vogue book about someone being abused, read absorb, "forget" how do you know, even if your life has been perfect, that this little nugget won't be eating away at you colouring your view of possibly EVERYTHING until you die?



We have many lives now. We absorb from news, poetry, shorts, novels, plays, films, video, TV, the web, in a way people never dreamt of even fifty years ago


but note this... what tweaks you, what sticks with YOU, does so because you are particularly susceptible, receptive to that image or idea

THERE'S A REASON FOR THAT and that's why you have to take an instant snapshot of the "thing" put it on a whiteboard and keep it alive.

If not, if for example, your psychic guardians 'don't want you to know" it will be gone, probably forever in 24 hours.

Think of it as a little fall of mud outside a cave. Mark the spot before mud covers it up.


But remember that it is not "inevitable" that the event or memory or feeling energising this connection is SPECIFICALLY something that happened (physically to you). It might be a combination of things. You might never have been touched by the creepy paedophile from next-door who hung himself when you were thirteen, but maybe you heard his name once when you were out drinking with the office-girls and a childhood friend went white, you FELT.... but the group were playing X and now when you hear X you feel torn, twisted.

It could be anything (or nothing, just an accumulation of juxtapositions and pressures from images, words, ideas from your reading/watching.

If demons made someone write Silence of the Lambs, The Exorcist, Apocalypse Now and hundreds of others, what happens to US when we watch them (even if we laugh)? IF those writers were exorcising their demons (if) what do we absorb?


And

So... I access a feeling, a hurt. a memory and I write about something else.


Yes, that's one way. Often directly writing about something merely energises the defences and we get shut down, anyway. But if we can sense the ache-pressure-fear-disgust (or exquisite pleasure) and find some literary outlet that seems to reflect the feeling, it may well be that what we write will be suffused with the "power" of the partly-unearthed memory.


Say I had walked in on my mother fucking the neighbour and not only that but she looked horrible, told me to fuck off (and then extrapolate)

Yes it may be possible to one day unearth the actual memories and write about them as fictional or actual autobiography but often these writings fai because the memories are bitty and we obsess on the missing parts "wanting to tell the truth"

But if, from the feeling we write about a parent betraying a child, a FICTION, we then can use the pain we felt.


Later someone asked, about these recorded "cues", should they keep one warmed up, ticking over, or should they have many?

Of one I said:

No

IT IS THE ABSOLUTE WORST THING YOU COULD DO

I have many things on the go so the one that wants to can begin to fester and expand. Second two things or more may choose to interact.

Note the verbs. the thing wants to, the thing chooses

NOT the author


One CCer posted this:

It might be worth reading this article which Alex posted on the BC blog.

It came from the notes from a Kingfisher Barn course a couple of years ago, and talks about using half-memories:

http://thebootcampkeegandiaries.blogspot.com/2007/04/little-brown-dog-in-rain.html

and then

http://thebootcampkeegandiaries.blogspot.com/2007/04/theme-truth.html

Note, I am not trying to write (or post) "perfect" articles. I believe that we don't learn so well from the perfectly-formed, but learn better from bits-and-pieces, spontaneous responses which generate questions and then, hopefully, answers.

Blanks, but Catching Up

Had a strange few days. Computer troubles, then bought new apple software which was "distracting", then it was the weekend and the soccer. Watched reading 2-1 Newcastle live and Liverpool 1-1 Arsenal on TV

NOT in the mood for writing and feeling empty but Boot Camp critiques (problems with 3 stories) gave me an article which I finished this morning so the word-count had a big boost.

If I get a story out today (if) then I should be getting close to my 2.5K a day target

Day 20 (Day 16 of Year)

001 001,350 Words Story OK
002 001,095 Words Story OK
003 001,025 Words Story OK
004 001,158 Words Story OK
005 000,900 Words Story (Subbed) <<<< GOOD!
006 001,480 Words Story OK
007 000,850 Words Story <<<<<< GOOD!
008 001,491 Words Story Part-Done (Torturous Writing)
009 001,550 Words Story OK to good
010 000,850 Words Story VG!
011 001,145 Words Story
012 001,300 Words Story
013 002,000 Words Article
014 009,095 Words Article (part)
015 001,005 Words Story
016 000,660 Words Flash
017 001,342 Words Article
018 004,931 Words Article

888 012,325 Words Other Writings



999 044,546 Words TOTAL
999 002,779 Words Daily Average for Writing Days
999 002,223 Words Daily Average Including Blank Days
999 002,779 Words Daily Average (Year count, "freebie" pre-year warm-ups used)

01 Submissions
01 Rejections

And then of course, Kingfisher Barn

In the first few days of November I have three Boot-Campers for two days, then a fourth and five on the last day, all at Kingfisher Barn for a face-to-face course. These are utterly DRAINING, for me (and the delegates) but they really do seem to make a difference.

There are some things that are damn hard to transmit over the web, no matter how many stories are written and critiqued. Bring some people together for a few days (with evening wine) and anything is possible, including tears.

A lot of BC 1-2-1 (Kingfisher Barn) is about finding stories, and finding the right way into them. They deal a lot with voice, tone, language, "colour" theme and character, and always focussing on that first page because if the first page is right, the rest follows. This time we have a day on editing, too.

The hardest thing to teach writers is how to let go and let the unconscious produce ideas while the fingers work on automatic.

Of course, for the latter to happen "without thought" you need to write so much, so often that the physical act of writing is automatic.


Alex

Struggling a Bit!

Lots to do today, family-wise (it's half-term) and woke later than normal feeling none-too-good, tired, hungry and "empty" for writing.

Have forced out a story (I daren't look at it for a while) - a flash-length thing, but at least it's not a blank day.

I have "nothing in there" so need to break now, eat, maybe go to the gym, break the depression cycle...



Day 17 (Day 13 of Year)

001 001,350 Words Story OK
002 001,095 Words Story OK
003 001,025 Words Story OK
004 001,158 Words Story OK
005 000,900 Words Story (Subbed) <<<< GOOD!
006 001,480 Words Story OK
007 000,850 Words Story <<<<<< GOOD!
008 001,491 Words Story Part-Done (Argh!)
009 001,550 Words Story OK to good
010 000,850 Words Story VG!
011 001,145 Words Story
012 001,300 Words Story
013 002,000 Words Article
014 009,095 Words Article (part)
015 001,005 Words Story
016 000,660 Words Flash

888 012,325 Words Other Writings



999 038,273 Words TOTAL
999 002,734 Words Daily Average for Writing Days
999 002,251 Words Daily Average Including Blank Days
999 002,944 Words Daily Average (Year count, "freebie" pre-year warm-ups used)

01 Submissions
01 Rejections

Prompt Posted Early for Friday

A rat crept softly through the vegetation
All day, all night, all weathers
April is the cruellest month
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks
Everyone suddenly burst out singing
Footworn and hollowed and thin
For I have known them all already, known them all
Groping along the tunnel, step by step
Had we been lovers
I believe there were no flowers then
I have come from the borders of sleep
I lay with my young bride in my arms
I lent upon a coppice gate
I love it as a child might love it
I see the image of a naked man
I thought we were sitting in the sky
I was much further out than you thought
It was after the war
Let us go and make our visit
Love without hope
Move him into the sun
No one is twisting her arm but there it is
Nothing but wild rain
Now it is autumn, falling fruit
Once we had toys, pretty toys
Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me
Ten minutes to kill
The darkness crumbles
The fascination of what's difficult
The flood subsides, and the body
The staggering girl
The trees are in their autumn beauty
The troubled midnight
The voices carry from everywhere
The whitewashed wall
The words we have for things that die
There is one story and one story only
There will be time, there will be time
They sing the dearest songs
This is my first time here, a stranger
Turning. And turning and turning
We are at the races now
We drank coffee, talked for an hour
We hired a private nurse
We shall pick his bones, whisper
When she rises in the morning
When you see millions of the mouthless dead
Why have you made this life so intolerable?
You did not walk with me
You would not know him now

The Finished Article

Day 16 (Day 12 of Year)

001 001,350 Words Story OK
002 001,095 Words Story OK
003 001,025 Words Story OK
004 001,158 Words Story OK
005 000,900 Words Story (Subbed) <<<< GOOD!
006 001,480 Words Story OK
007 000,850 Words Story <<<<<< GOOD!
008 001,491 Words Story Part-Done (Torturous Writing)
009 001,550 Words Story OK to good
010 000,850 Words Story VG!
011 001,145 Words Story
012 001,300 Words Story
013 002,000 Words Article
014 009,095 Words Article (part)
015 001,005 Words Story

888 012,325 Words Other Writings



999 037,613 Words TOTAL
999 002,351 Words Daily Average
999 003,086 Words Daily Average (Year count, pre-year warm-ups used)

01 Submissions
01 Rejections

Grinding Away

2.2K so far today (10:05)

At least "OK, so far..."

Day 16 (Day 12 of Year)

001 001,350 Words Story OK
002 001,095 Words Story OK
003 001,025 Words Story OK
004 001,158 Words Story OK
005 000,900 Words Story (Subbed) <<<< GOOD!
006 001,480 Words Story OK
007 000,850 Words Story <<<<<< GOOD!
008 001,491 Words Story Part-Done (Torturous Writing)
009 001,550 Words Story OK to good
010 000,850 Words Story VG!
011 001,145 Words Story
012 001,300 Words Story
013 002,000 Words Article
014 008,502 Words Article (part)
015 001,005 Words Story

888 012,325 Words Other Writings


TOTALS INCLUDE THREE BLANK DAYS

999 037,026 Words TOTAL
999 002,314 Words Daily Average Overall
999 002,468 Words Daily Average for Actual Writing Days
999 003,086 Words Daily Average for Year (using pre-year warm-ups as bonus words.)

01 Submissions
01 Rejections

Up Early, but

Was up an hour ago but a few bits of BC admin, sort out some prompts (below) and it's 07:16

That should remind me that when you have a word-count to meet, DO IT FIRST.

I should KNOW that. I wrote and published an article saying so!

Ah, well, I've read the starts of twenty stories, listned to half a dozen MP3s, put the kettle on, talked to the dogs...

Isn't that what life's about?



Answer NO.

Not if I'm a writer.

That can all come, AFTER I've broken the back of the day's work.


Here are some prompts



This version of the story is in English. In Milan.

Sadness, that's normal, it goes with the territory.

Squinting against the late-afternoon sun as it cut through the birch trees
In the afternoons before the holidays Trish had started frequenting a restaurant a few blocks west of the apartment.

I loved a girl once. Every story starts that way, right?

There she goes. Who? That girl. What girl? You know. What's-her-name.

Florence Melnick went to the library every day.

They're married, but not to each other.

On the way home from hospital, Ava tells Charlotte that after her first husband was killed during a German air attack on Bari in 1943, she cried without pause for weeks, only to emerge from her stunning grief temporarily blind.

Once upon a time two men lived down the bottom of a nuclear missile silo.

Years before my sister Allie became the champion you know and love – winner of the International Matzo-Eating Contest, title-holder of the Conch Fritter Invitational, the girl who down nine sticks of butter in five minutes – she binged her way through a dinner dare that became her finest hour (and my longest).

Dolly's first big idea was the hat.

When I started out volunteering on Monday nights at New Day House, it was just me, Karen, and a rotating cast of eight or ten kids who, with their sticky marker-covered hands and mysteriously damp clothes, would greet us by lunging into our arms and leading us into the basement playroom.

From Wanda Farrelly-Johnson. Are we God's Children of Ham? And other Dilemmas of Black Historical Research (Pilot, N.C.: Lizard Ladies Press, 1983):

Tommy's cousin Gabe. Tommy's distant cousin Gabe from Stillwater, Minnesota. Tommy's cousin Gabe, related to my husband through divorce and remarriage, in lieu of actual blood, who arrives on my front porch at dinnertime with a duffel bag and fanny-pack. Industrial-sized.

Dear Doctor X, if I may call you that. Perhaps I should introduce myself.

I met Adam at the bookstore. He was in the section marked Biography/History.

You thought everybody in America had a car and a gun, your uncles and aunts thought so too.

Not Yet Midnight

More on Writing, not yet done...

A good day to partially compensate for three days out

7,389 Words (incl previous 1K story)



Day 15 (Day 11 of Year)

001 001,350 Words Story OK
002 001,095 Words Story OK
003 001,025 Words Story OK
004 001,158 Words Story OK
005 000,900 Words Story (Subbed) <<<< GOOD!
006 001,480 Words Story OK
007 000,850 Words Story <<<<<< GOOD!
008 001,491 Words Story Part-Done (Torturous Writing)
009 001,550 Words Story OK to good
010 000,850 Words Story VG!
011 001,145 Words Story
012 001,300 Words Story
013 002,000 Words Article
014 006,380 Words Article (part)
015 001,005 Words Story

888 012,325 Words Other Writings



999 034,904 Words TOTAL
999 002,327 Words Daily Average
999 003,173 Words Daily Average (Pre-year warm-ups used)

01 Submissions
01 Rejections

Words Who Can Stop This man?

6,244 Words (a 1K story)

Day 15 (Day 11 of Year)

001 001,350 Words Story OK
002 001,095 Words Story OK
003 001,025 Words Story OK
004 001,158 Words Story OK
005 000,900 Words Story (Subbed) <<<< GOOD!
006 001,480 Words Story OK
007 000,850 Words Story <<<<<< GOOD!
008 001,491 Words Story Part-Done (Torturous Writing)
009 001,550 Words Story OK to good
010 000,850 Words Story VG!
011 001,145 Words Story
012 001,300 Words Story
013 002,000 Words Article
014 005,239 Words Article (part)
015 001,005 Words Story

888 012,325 Words Other Writings



999 033,763 Words TOTAL
999 002,250 Words Daily Average
999 003,070 Words Daily Average (Warm ups used)

01 Submissions
01 Rejections

5,239

Day 15 (Day 11 of Year)

001 001,350 Words Story OK
002 001,095 Words Story OK
003 001,025 Words Story OK
004 001,158 Words Story OK
005 000,900 Words Story (Subbed) <<<< GOOD!
006 001,480 Words Story OK
007 000,850 Words Story <<<<<< GOOD!
008 001,491 Words Story Part-Done (Torturous Writing)
009 001,550 Words Story OK to good
010 000,850 Words Story VG!
011 001,145 Words Story
012 001,300 Words Story
013 002,000 Words Article
014 005,239 Words Article (part)

888 012,325 Words Other Writings



999 032,758 Words TOTAL
999 002,184 Words Daily Average
999 002,978 Words Daily Average (Warm ups used)

01 Submissions

4,617 But No Shower

Took a break to beat the dogs, then



Day 15 (Day 11 of Year)

001 001,350 Words Story OK
002 001,095 Words Story OK
003 001,025 Words Story OK
004 001,158 Words Story OK
005 000,900 Words Story (Subbed) <<<< GOOD!
006 001,480 Words Story OK
007 000,850 Words Story <<<<<< GOOD!
008 001,491 Words Story Part-Done (Torturous Writing)
009 001,550 Words Story OK to good
010 000,850 Words Story VG!
011 001,145 Words Story
012 001,300 Words Story
013 002,000 Words Article
014 004,617 Words Article (part)

888 012,325 Words Other Writings



999 032,136 Words TOTAL
999 002,142 Words Daily Average
999 002,920 Words Daily Average (Warm ups used)

01 Submissions

3,598

Another thousand words. I can get shower now and get dressed!

10:58


Day 15 (Day 11 of Year)

001 001,350 Words Story OK
002 001,095 Words Story OK
003 001,025 Words Story OK
004 001,158 Words Story OK
005 000,900 Words Story (Subbed) <<<< GOOD!
006 001,480 Words Story OK
007 000,850 Words Story <<<<<< GOOD!
008 001,491 Words Story Part-Done (Torturous Writing)
009 001,550 Words Story OK to good
010 000,850 Words Story VG!
011 001,145 Words Story
012 001,300 Words Story
013 002,000 Words Article
014 003,598 Words Article (part)

888 012,325 Words Other Writings



999 031,117 Words TOTAL
999 002,075 Words Daily Average
999 002,829 Words Daily Average (Warm ups used)

01 Submissions

Good Start!

Up about six and well into a long article (2,568 words) by 08:57, my day's target achieved. Good! Good! Good!

Now the rest of the day is a bonys (and I've fed the dogs)

Day 15 (Day 11 of Year)

001 001,350 Words Story OK
002 001,095 Words Story OK
003 001,025 Words Story OK
004 001,158 Words Story OK
005 000,900 Words Story (Subbed) <<<< GOOD!
006 001,480 Words Story OK
007 000,850 Words Story <<<<<< GOOD!
008 001,491 Words Story Part-Done (Torturous Writing)
009 001,550 Words Story OK to good
010 000,850 Words Story VG!
011 001,145 Words Story
012 001,300 Words Story
013 002,000 Words Article
014 002,568 Words Article (part)

888 012,325 Words Other Writings

999 030,087 Words TOTAL
999 002,006 Words Daily Average
999 002,314 Words Daily Average (Warm ups used)

01 Submissions

SOOOOO glad I managed 2.5K on Saturday because Sunday and Monday AND today were blanks.

Came back from overseeing some work on the Chapel (we have stairs and a first floor now), feeling a bit unwell.

Today rose and my computer decided to take a day off.

That makes me 7,500 words down on my daily targets (but I was 10K in front as I had four warm up days! But think now it will probably take me a month to get back in front.

Here are some prompts (00:30 Hrs) and hopefully, tummy and computer permitting, I'll start the long haul


A broken flower-stem, a broken vase
A man riding horseback raises dust
A thousand mountains without a bird
At last his guilt became apparent
Autumn in California, mild, anonymous
Before the end they chatted with friends over a glass
Careless for an instant How we edge away
Clean, white, starched sheets
Flung across a room An old man, black face
Four or five years ago Romance never returns
From the scrotum of the Yak
He doesn't care he looks strange
He let tears fall and wandered off alone
He speaks from the corner of his eyes
Hours are a small thing A lighthouse
I am a man with few ambitions and no friends
I can stare at him, ashamed, shameless
I have a standing order called "surrender" in case of war
I have surrounded you, I was as cold as stone
I must go back to her, to her embrace
If only we could throw you away
It is impossible to see anything
It is your loneliness, not mine
My head, my shoulders, my arms
Night came and they became more anxious
Nobody knows what love is any more
Pedro has the shoes
She poured the tea. Vaguely I watched her hands
She's big, and big, and full of love
So whisk me off out of here and down some road
Sympathy comes between shit and syphilis
The day before he died Rising from the toilet seat
The ebb run and the flood flow
The isolation hospital Suicide isn't always easy
The morning changed grew chilly and transparent
The nervous hum of danger
Then stand, say nothing; nothing you believe
Then the lights went out Unpacking
This was once an innocent country
This was the end of a man who also died
Twice daily, maybe thrice. It depends on luck
Under a winter streetlamp near a bus-stop
We banged on the pipes, but no-one knew the code
We beat it shitless
We know what's funny and unfunny
We look for communion A wind is blowing
We slept naked, on top of the covers
When I grow up I want to be connected
When she was still alive, we often walked

Words

Had to put the alarm on for five as we leave at nine, but...

2,500 words, Not bad for a blank day

Sunday will be near impossible though, Monday Tough,

Blanks will put me 5,000 words behind schedule



Day 11 (Day 7 of Year)

001 001,350 Words Story OK
002 001,095 Words Story OK
003 001,025 Words Story OK
004 001,158 Words Story OK
005 000,900 Words Story (Subbed) <<<< GOOD!
006 001,480 Words Story OK
007 000,850 Words Story <<<<<< GOOD!
008 001,491 Words Story Part-Done (Torturous Writing)
009 001,550 Words Story OK to good
010 000,850 Words Story VG!
011 001,145 Words Story
012 001,300 Words Story
013 002,000 Words Article

888 012,325 Words Other Writings

999 027,519 Words TOTAL
999 002,502 Words Daily Average

01 Submissions

About Prompts. Finding Stories

Some of my best work, most of my best in the last three years has come from randomness, a chance remark overheard, an odd image seen, but most typically from a Boot Camp flash prompt, or from a response to a poem.

Poems, by the way, a very good ways into a fresh idea. Reading a poem does not mean that when you respond you will write a prose version of the poem, or steal the idea, or "answer it."

Poems have that way of breaking through the skin, getting round your defences, slipping past the guardians of the (boring, up-front) psyche. Meat and life and joy (and pain) but always living is back there in the darkness, the unconscious. Find a way to get access.

When I want to come at my life at a tangent, find a different way in, see afresh, break the shackles, I read a poem, read smatterings of stories, look at pictures, or listen to random music. Even simply reading titles of books, looking at the spines, the colours, sensing what is within can rekindle deeply-set ideas, slowly awaken the unusual, the freshly-connected.

I believe that the more obviously we think, the more conventionally, consciously, logically, the more left-brained, the less interesting our work will become. I dislike carefully plotted, highly-researched work. I dislike the mechanical and perfectly-formed. What I want and need is surprise, shock, difference, the unexpected, the words or view that shake the tree make us see the world in another way.

If we read of a racist he's a bigot or a Nazi. Is he or she usually a beautiful, sensitive, loving person (who just hates a race or a colour)? What if we juxtapose these unusual combinations? Remember in Schindler's List (I think) where the vicious commandant listened to Mozart? The music heightened the horror, made us think, "It is not impossible, I could be like that."

Beginners paint things in black and white, they write stock characters, stereotypes and clichés. It's when we break away from these that we begin to see anew, to threaten to disturb the reader. Clichés wash over us. We "know" they don't matter too much. We don't need to pay attention. After all, we know what this means, right? We've seen it all before.

Even when we are intermediate writers or well-published, "established" writers, it's so easy to drift into obvious, overdone plots, easy to have characters everybody expects. One reason I use prompts is to randomly-associate, to make my mind leap about, to force connections which would NOT come conventionally, "typically" or in an everyday way.

I grab a few poetry collections and pinch lines. Sometimes these are direct takes, often I change a word or embellish on the fly. The point is the line is near random (but it has caught my eye or ear so perhaps not TOTALLY random, and of course I bought the book, so again, there's something deeply wanted…)

A fat, furry bluebottle.
And of course the passengers were right…
Dear Doctor X, if I may call you that
Do you want to know a secret?

These few are this morning's list, not even posted (and somehow I know not as good a list as usual as I'm off for the weekend and rushing.) I've already forgotten where they've come from (some of them.) I think the first three there are from a new paperback "This is Not Chick Lit" the next (I know) is a song title.


Everything is Too Loud
Fuck off Noah, fucking Doom Merchant
He was flicking through Gay & Lesbian Literature.
Hours and days and weeks and months, I worked on my persona

Top one here is a song title, the next was prompted by a song but is a spontaneous original. Strong, more definite prompts like this are actually a bit too "channelling" for my tastes. They tend, if used to force the writer towards a specific story. The gay line was prompted by the start of a story in TINCL but wasn't there. I made it up. The fourth is a stretched version of a line from a short-story in Seventh Quark

How can you expect to be taken seriously?
How you remind me
I am so cold. My bones are cold.
I met Adam in a bookstore.

Song, song, 7Q short, TINCL, the one that gave me the gay line.

I might have been a potter
I volunteered for Monday Nights.
I was saying how unusual your case is.
It was a very unlucky way to get dead

Random, set off by something, a distorted view from TINCL, random, random. By random I mean that as I copy others' words I often get a line "pop up"

It's been well-researched. It's guaranteed.
It's just a story. It doesn't have to be true.
It's not the end of the world
Max always shrugged off the idea of marriage

Random, random, song-title, extracted from a story by Lois Peterson

Michael Jackson's Dick
My second cousin's friend's step-father
Not for all of it, not for nothing
Outside McDonalds

The title of a Steve Almond story (was in 7Q), random, random, random. I should say here that the percentage of "randoms" is way, WAY higher than an average day's prompts.
Passing Through Smoke
Peaches
Perhaps I should introduce myself. I am an attorney for…
Save the life of my child, cried the desperate mother

Title of a 7Q story, song, a spam email, words from a Simon & Garfunkel song.

Seagulls fling themselves against the shifting winds
She is whirling, whirling.
She rummages in her purse
Some people thought you were from Jamaica

Excerpt from "Baby Beluga" by Lois Peterson, excerpt from a 7Q flash by Hazera Forth, ditto, excerpt from a story by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

Spotted East of
The carousel is old.
The Night Has a Thousand Eyes
The thing about making love to an alien is –

Half the title of a 7Q introduction, snippet of a 7Q story, song title, random.

The voices of old people
There are so many people, all tired and hunched over.
There was a terrorist on the plane, but
There's someone at the door

Prompted by Simon & Garfunkels "Old Friends", extract from a 7Q prize-winning story called "Sugar-Sticks" by Nancy Saunders, a random memory, random.

To all the girls I loved before
Today her brother rang
Walk Don't Run
We said we'd meet in Santa Monica

Song, random, song, from a chicklit story.

Who wants to live forever?
You could buy me a burger
You smiled lightly when they asked you those questions
You thought everybody in America had a car and a gun

Song. Play that Queen song on repeat, turn off your screen and write-write-write! Random, extract from Adichie, ditto.

Usually, definitely, around a third of my prompts will be poetry. Usually I will have opening lines from famous stories or novels (sometimes altered so as not to instantly make us think "Macomber", or whatever) sometimes not.

I also use letters. These are great. Simply copy a paragraph of a letter then use a carriage return to break it up, cut away a few words so the lines stand alone…

Then when I have all these prompts (plus once the wording of a snotty email, once my electricity bill) I sort them alphabetically. This "breaks the connections". Sometimes I will cut and past half a dozen prompts from the beginning to the middle. Just randomise, stop the brain making conscious choices.

Now how to get the story?

I read the whole thing top to bottom read bottom to top, read top to bottom. I am trying hard NOT to want to grab that prompt and go. What I am trying to do is allow all the prompts individually to "talk to me", prompts in pairs and triplets to "whisper". I am also hoping that the back-stories from those prompts are building connections, pressures deep in me.

Maybe that song title reminds me of a night. But that line from that story WITH the memory makes me think of a new way of connecting the world, a less obvious way. And these two with the drumming of that line of poetry there, and vague thoughts about Nigerian widows wanting to give me money, and and and…

I hold off as long as I can but now what I'm feeling for, waiting for is SOUND. I and trying to tune in to the musical and aural sense of an opening which just feels and sounds right. Am I going to write something sad, poignant, aggressive, lyrical? What does my soul want to do? (If I can get my BRAIN out of the way!)

I read through, mutter, wander, trying to be "struck" by a line, a juxtaposition. Usually 1-2-3-4 phrases will begin to glow. One might be from an ending I have no idea about, one from the middle, two (together) with a memory might be ready to form my story's start.

When you find a feeling, a voice:

After the service, some time well into the wake, I stepped outside.

They are queuing for their pensions when love strikes. It comes out of nowhere.


Dear, let me explain how it happens. There is clarity, but the moment of absolute clarity is brief, the world that was, the world that is to be, is mostly dark confusion.

I am eating a breakfast egg and listening to Otis Redding. When Otis sings "My Girl" I feel sorry for myself. I think about Kathy.

I would like to pretend this is a dream. I am in a country of bright, perfect light. I am with ALL my family, my brother, four sisters, Pat, Jenny, Barbara, Angela, my mother, my father. It's summer, the kind that as a child you thought belonged to you, was made for you. We even have a dog.

We are in a dim, hot, airless room with the blinds all closed, me and Albert Typo and Albert is making tea. He has already put out precisely seven chocolate biscuits, and one is wrapped in gold foil.

This is a story in which nothing need happen particularly, but it does. This story had a happy ending but it changed. It was going to be too long. It is about suffering.


Evelyn, dear, I thank you most kindly for your wonderful letter. I am sorry to see that it is still tough going out there, (I am sending you this little cheque) but at least you have good weather and open spaces. But Evelyn, when you write, "Oh, to be in England!" I am horrified, and I must speak to you both candidly and most urgently.

On October 14th 1998 I bought a fishing rod, some bait, a licence, a small fisherman's stool, and a keep-net.
A keep net is to keep a fish, in a net (in the water) so either you let the fish go at the end of the fishing day, or finally you kill it and take it home to your wife who will open it up, gut it, cook it, and then say it tastes of mud.


All of these are recent Boot Camp openings (first drafts) (not necessarily mine) but what matters is that they surprise the writer a little, take him or her on a journey that is not typical or expected. What matters is (I think) that just that opening carries the message, the story's "feel" its intent, the direction. It's a combination of seemingly random prompts that have interacted with the author's life, his/her psyche, his/her future, his/her needs, his/her education., religion, love-life to produce something NEW.

(Rushed not yet edited. Apologies.)

Counting

Day 10 (Day 6 of Year)

001 001,350 Words Story OK
002 001,095 Words Story OK
003 001,025 Words Story OK
004 001,158 Words Story OK
005 000,900 Words Story (Subbed) <<<< GOOD!
006 001,480 Words Story OK
007 000,850 Words Story <<<<<< GOOD!
008 001,491 Words Story Part-Done (Torturous Writing)
009 001,550 Words Story OK to good
010 000,850 Words Story VG!
011 001,145 Words Story
012 001,300 Words Story

888 011,825 Words Other Writings

999 025,419 Words TOTAL
999 002,542 Words Daily Average

01 Submissions

More on Critiquing

Further to this BC philosophy/explanation members should remember that just because a critique it 3,000 words, doesn't make it a good critique. For example I can quote the whole of your story back para by para, comment on each paragraph, point out typos, mention other stories your story reminds me of, include generalised comments like, "A common error with dialogue is.." then list ten errors and note you make error 4 and 7. That's padding out a crit to make it seem more worthy.

I also know how to write 3000 words on a story where, in fact, you can't tell what I think of it. That's easy. That's a common "crit" at XXXXXXX, for example:

I sat down with Shiela, my ever-loving, we were going to watch a repeat of The West Wing, but I said I had this story written by an Englishman about swimming the English channel. I'm a good standard college swimmer and my wife once swam across Chesepeake Bay so our interest was aroused. We left The West Wing on "record" (there are elements of dialogue in TWW that made me think of the character Hank, BTW).. so Sheila and I opened a nice bottle of Ernst & Gallo Cabernet Sauvignon and read your story together.

Reading "Swimming to Calais" made me think of all that training I did in college. It made me think about how if you want anything worthwhile you have to work damn hard (like I did for my degree in aeronautics and like Sheila did for her damn-tough MBA from Harvard (she's in municipal stocks these days, good basic, health care etc but can turn in a million bucks in commissions... so when it's time to say "let's have a baby" it's going to be tough to trade in the Porsche, right?")

CONTINUE THUS.

WHEN IN DOUBT DO A LINE EDIT. POINT OUT EVERY TYPO, EVERY MISPLACED COMMA. NOTE EVERY REPETITION OF A WORD.

WHATEVER YOU DO, DO NOT COMMENT ON THE ACTUAL STORY'S STORYNESS


Our critiques are not always long (but see a debate elsewhere).

THE PURPOSE OF THE CRITIQUE IS NOT FOR WORKSHOPPING.

THE PURPOSE OF THE CRITIQUE IS NOT TO GET TO AN ASSSESSMENT OF THE STORY'S "WORTH"

THE PURPOSE OF THE CRITIQUE IS NOT TO FIND EIGHT READER RESPONSES.

The purpose of the critique is to make the CRITIQUER make his statement, clearly, unambiguously.

"I think this could win a first prize as it is."

"I think this is already publishable on paper, eg in Cadenza"

"This might make it into an ezine, but it needs work."

"This has serious weaknesses and needs a lot of work."

"This is very ordinary, dry, telly, and drags."

"This is beginnerish."

"This is total junk and the author should be tortured to death."


WHY do I ask for Colin to stand and be counted, say what he thinks? Why do I want Tom to give a mark, make his view clear?

Because:

Going naked, making your statement forces you to decide, to clarify your opinion.

Without that public decision it's far too easy to "roll" and go along with the majority view. Without being forced you might think "Oh, it's probably above 90 and I doubt it's over 105, but it might only be an 87 and it could, I guess, stretch to 109..."

Vague, vague, vague.

So if you've not been forced to look, see, think, decide, if eight critters say 107-110, yeah you can go with that. If they say 89, yeah you can go with that too!

So in Boot Camp we don't allow members to discuss a story unless they have posted a formal critique. Argument after the fact without a crit is a way of cheating. With your crit up there you either argue your points and show you're right, or learn why differing marks have pegged the story better than you did.

By BEING WRONG you learn. By conforming you stand still or go backwards.

In BC the critique is not any individual critique but the whole thread, the GROUP of critiques, the summary grids (show weaknesses) and then the discussion.

It's the argument that counts. Stories that score 94-94-95-95-95-96-96-97 teach us nothing. If we all agree and give a bland middling score what it there to discuss, where are the learning points?

I have got into a habit, along with the longer part of the crit to quickly summarise each mark

Like this

11 Opening… Only just, very cold mechanical feel
10 Character… AUTHOR pulling strings, sometimes painfully
10 DV… Cold, telly, mechanical, forced. Much dialogue hammy and unreal
09 Plot … Structure killed story, melodramatic and very forced second half
08 Theme... Very confused thematically. Words forced in line. Yuck.
10 Show… Author aware always, forced dialogue, telly bits, planted showoffy words
10 Language... Ability to essay and dictionarise does not mean good language. No SOUL
10 Pace… Seriously slow, dragged out, made worse by total lack of real emotion
10 Ending… Like drama written by local rep. IDEA might be good but horrid execution.
00 Bonus…
88 Total…


This is to represent what it's like as a judge or an editor. We have little time. Our decisions are often fast (at least to narrow the field) and only when we are down to a handful of stories can we have time to STUDY them.

So in Boot Camp I ask for quicker critiques and longer discussions later. We need to be able to "see" stories fast because (a) that's how it is in the real world, and (b) seeing others teaches us to see our own. When we self-crit and adjust, the decisions need to be mostly automatic and instantaneous so we don't engage our left, analytical brain. This auto-edit-as-you-go should not be confused with serious editing and rewriting after the story has been set aside a while.

Loadsa Prompts

There's some of yesterdays here and some openings to novels.

If there's not something for you here, you're DEAD

At sunrise, the small expedition meets beneath a giant fig tree.
During the war years when I was still in school,
Fear presides over these memories, perpetual fear.
He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream.
I am a white man and never forgot it, but I was brought up by the Cheyenne Indians from the age of ten.
In order to pay off an old debt that someone else had contracted, King said yes when he knew he should have said no.
It was in the summer of 1988 that my neighbour, 71, confided in me that he was having an affair with a 34-year old cleaning woman
Light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul.
My name is William Warlick House, residing at Chokoloskee Island, in Lee County, Florida
On the went, singing "Eternal Memory", and whenever they stopped, the sound of their feet, the horses and the gusts of wind seemed to carry on their singing.
Sea birds are aloft again, a tattered few.
She was deeply embedded in my consciousness.
The day didn't begin well.

A stag, proud as a screaming penis
Aardvarks
Abracadabra
After all, he was Welsh
An itch
Avocado
Between you and me
But you, of all people, should not
Cats are contradictions
Chestnuts, Chestnut hair
Cold marble
Crawling
Do you remember an Inn, Miranda?
He was lost in thought as he steered his Sierra through the quiet streets
Hobson's Choice
Horses, snorting, sensing deaths in the field
Human ash is a fine fertiliser
I am considering becoming an astronaut
I count on you naturally I remember, I remember
I dream of gas chambers
I thought my youth would last forever
It's not my vault Let her finish as calmly as possible
Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner
Moira was in the computer room
My astrologer told me Saturn has been flopped over me like a giant cosmic fried egg
My five senses
No financial disasters
On the whole toads are more interesting than frogs
Of those at the table in the café
Once upon a time there were three little foxes
One for sorrow She must not be anxious
Richmond was a good hour's drive
She could smell it!
Steam spitting from stainless steel pipes
Sybille is in the hands of monstrous crooks
That sweet, watch-baking angel
The air electric The tiny fish enjoy themselves
The buggy lurches in frost-stuck ruts
The first movement is singing
There was a small maiden named Maggie
They get her as little as possible as late as possible
This is a secret final letter This is glorious news
Trees grow like insults
Visiting the poet
Which must absolutely be kept from that angel
Who will honour the city now?
Why soffits are brown, black, white and never pink
You without beginning, you always in between
Your official membership is enclosed
Your sweetness and patience and kindness

A BC Thing

I posted this post this morning


A large part of Boot Camp is about getting you to write fresh work, work that you can see is written here, under the umbrella of BC. You may put a story a week up, more if that's how it works out, but they should be NEW and your unaided work. Posting old work, whether it be rough stuff from the drawer or the best that you've ever done is pointless.



The BC process is one of immersement and a LOT of stuff flying backwards and frwards. Some things you will "get" like you might "finally" understand a technical explanation at work, but very much comes from an osmotic effect, (soak it up, baby) and possibly a shotgun effect!!!



IF that is allied to FRESH work, then we might see changes, you might see changes. But post OLD work and you are screwing yourself and BC



If you have older work that you want comments on you can us AKLS and pay for a detailed crit and blue-pencil job OR you can post here openly and beg the favour.



But REMEMBER (and this is the hardest thing to understand about Boot Camp)



WE ARE NOT A WORKSHOP. WE DON'T TRY TO FIX STORIES HERE.



Instead of worrying about ONE STORY or trying to make say, Lexie's "Dominion" become a better story (directly with editorial suggestions, typical workshopping) we try to improve LEXIE, partly by allowing her to see the errors in that particular story (10%) but mainly in the general arguments OVER her story (10-20%) and ALL the arguments and critiques over ALL the stories.



I say almost every month, THIS STORY IS IRRELEVANT, fix the writer.



Stories are fodder for learning.



Sales and prizes are side-effects, bonuses.






YES, we can fix "this story". I could suggest changes or edit the damn thing myself and the story would jump 5/10 points in a blink, up to 40 points with more considered effort.



And if we were VERY lucky, and I mean VERY, the author might have permanently improved a tenth of one point.



You see, she had her story fixed for her, or a master stood over her while she fixed it. 1-2-1 this is a very good way of teaching because we can repeat, repeat, pass questions back and forth. But get a student to point out the error in her own work and that's worth twenty stories' worth of ME pointing to the errors.



But what should be happening, to say, Russell, is he reads a Tom story, with say, an inconsistent voice. It makes him wonder about voice, about consistency, about his own stories. Then he reads, say,one of Colin's, a story which in its core values has a deep, painful poignancy, but (say) the opening is so blokey-lightweight, that we don't get to fully feel and get that poignancy. The theme music is wrong.



So he wonders about theme music and how to get it right in his own work.



Or he finds a story that blows him away and energises the thread by continually asking, HOW DID THE AUTHOR DO THAT, WHY THIS? Maybe he discovers, aided by me or not, that the key is that opening voice, how the character is placed, how the theme music suggests pain. Maybe it's a Napalm effect when the secret instead of being withheld is stuck in plain view at the beginning. Maybe it's language, maybe it's literary allusion or metaphor. Maybe the author makes things clear by not talking about them.



But 5-10 crits every week, a fresh story every week or fortnight, a flash at least once a week, and argument, argument, argument, that's what changes BCers and it takes three months to show a real change.



Along the way, if you don't bleed, you're not human

But..

A relatively poor writing day yesterday (1,500 words and I don't much like the story) but I did a huge pile of work sorting out my hard disk and managed to critique 7 Boot Camp stories (DELIVERY deadline is 8PM tonight so I'm well ahead!)

But getting something written, avoiding blank days, is the best way to energise the mind, keep the soul awake etc. Miss a day and it is so easily, 2-3 a week.

And then there are days when you can't get to a PC. You're hanging off a mountain or whatever. eg Sat-Sun-Mon I'm away doing all sorts and unlikely to be able to get 1-2 hours on my own. Three blank days at -2.5K a day. If I manage 3K a day after that (and no blanks), if I recover PERFECTLY it will be 15 more days before I am back on track.

So if we want to average 2.5K we must aim for 3K and hope for 2.6, 2.7, 2.8, 2.9

In the dark hours all that previous work will save you.



Alex

Word Count Redux

Day 9 (Day 5 of Year)

001 001,350 Words Story OK
002 001,095 Words Story OK
003 001,025 Words Story OK
004 001,158 Words Story OK
005 000,900 Words Story (Subbed) <<<< GOOD!
006 001,480 Words Story OK
007 000,850 Words Story <<<<<< GOOD!
008 001,491 Words Story part-Done (Torturous Writing)
009 001,550 Words Story OK to good
010 000,850 Words Story VG!
011 001,145 Words Story

888 009,825 Words Other Writings

999 023,119 Words TOTAL
999 002,539 Words Daily Average

01 Submissions

Update 2

I am now 1,700 words further n.

Meanwhile her are the 9PM Prompts



A stag, proud as a screaming penis
Aardvarks
Abracadabra
After all, he was Welsh
An itch
Avocado
Between you and me
But you, of all people, should not
Cats are contradictions
Chestnuts, Chestnut hair
Cold marble
Crawling
Do you remember an Inn, Miranda?
He was lost in thought as he steered his Sierra through the quiet streets
Hobson's Choice
Horses, snorting, sensing deaths in the field
Human ash is a fine fertiliser
I am considering becoming an astronaut
I count on you naturally I remember, I remember
I dream of gas chambers
I thought my youth would last forever
It's not my vault Let her finish as calmly as possible
Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner
Moira was in the computer room
My astrologer told me Saturn has been flopped over me like a giant cosmic fried egg
My five senses
No financial disasters
On the whole toads are more interesting than frogs
Of those at the table in the café
Once upon a time there were three little foxes
One for sorrow She must not be anxious
Richmond was a good hour's drive
She could smell it!
Steam spitting from stainless steel pipes
Sybille is in the hands of monstrous crooks
That sweet, watch-baking angel
The air electric The tiny fish enjoy themselves
The buggy lurches in frost-stuck ruts
The first movement is singing
There was a small maiden named Maggie
They get her as little as possible as late as possible
This is a secret final letter This is glorious news
Trees grow like insults
Visiting the poet
Which must absolutely be kept from that angel
Who will honour the city now?
Why soffits are brown, black, white and never pink
You without beginning, you always in between
Your official membership is enclosed
Your sweetness and patience and kindness

Update.

No fresh fiction today (so far!) but flash prompts tonight for three sessions.

The day taken up with various domestic issues and started trying t drag together all my unpublished work

Anyway, it will NOT be a blank day.


Here are the first set of prompts.

A brief sickness, a need to get to Paris
A cruising milk-float, the clink of crates
A gap between money coming in and money going out
An itch
As I know with my whole heart
Between you and me
Cats are contradictions
Crawling
Do you remember an Inn, Miranda?
Evelyn, dear
First there was silence
Heroes
I always have plenty of month left at the end of the money
I am a nice, affable woman
I am bored now, with the condescension of my inferiors
I am sending you this little cheque
I cannot ever thank you enough for your generosity
I count on you naturally
I do not want to leave
I gloat and also mourn
I remember, I remember
I thought the Nile was blue, and sane bright yellow
I wanna be a star, I wanna go far
It dripped off though on Octover 22.
It's not my vault
Let her finish as calmly as possible
Let me know if anything grave happens
My astrologer told me Saturn has been flopped over me like a giant cosmic fried egg
No financial disasters
Oh to be in England
On the whole toads are more interesting than frogs
Once upon a time there were three little foxes
One for sorrow
Saris hang on the washing line
She must not be anxious
Sybille is in the hands of monstrous crooks
That sweet, watch-baking angel
The air electric
The small things can ruin one's nerves
The tiny fish enjoy themselves
There was a small maiden named Maggie
They get her as little as possible as late as possible
This is a secret final letter
This is glorious news
Unless I am sure you two are OK
Which must absolutely be kept from that angel
Your sweetness and patience and kindness

More Prompts (for 8PM)

All these years and I still don't understand
Acorns
Black handprints
But let that wait.
Consider the escaped leopard
Dogs etc
Eggs, unfertilised
Fuck You
Great Britain
Woman much missed, how you call to me, call to me.
Hassocks.
I marinated it in soy sauce and champagne
Jesus Smith, Traffic Warden
King Fred
Lose it before you use it.
May a good wind blow him to hell.
Names so silly they must be made up
Oh for a muse of fire!
Pissing on the flames
Queen Anne
Roasted Hedgehog
Someone tossed a condom into it
He used a lot of vowels
UP
VERILY, verily
XXX Love Hilary
Yanks
ZZZZZZZ
Here I am on the Brighton Line
He's an excellent cook, especially of people
I felt like a quartered chicken
A year ago, I stood at the window, crying
I remember him best with my skin
An unfortunate accident with a circular saw
If they piss you off, shoot the fuckers
I think this is psychologically acute advice
If music be the food of love, what's a boy band?
My suffering left me sad and gloomy
So, while the light fails
The children are exploring by the stream
The naming of cats is a difficult matter
The ship sank
The sorrow will pass but not the conviction
The voices of dead children singing
This book was born because I was hungry
We do not die
To the Indians who died in Africa
Travel is a contrary thing.
We are an old and wise organisation
Well, romance is not unknown here
What we call the beginning is often the end
When I tell you a cat must have three different names
You have proved nothing
You may think, at first, I'm as mad as a hatter
Now that the year has come full circle

Another!!

Day 8 (Day 4 of Year)

001 001,350 Words Story OK
002 001,095 Words Story OK
003 001,025 Words Story OK
004 001,158 Words Story OK
005 000,900 Words Story (Subbed) <<<< GOOD!
006 001,480 Words Story OK
007 000,850 Words Story <<<<<< GOOD!
008 001,491 Words Story part-Done (Torturous Writing)
009 001,550 Words Story OK to good
010 000,850 Words Story VG!

888 009,1270 Words Other Writings

999 021,119 Words TOTAL
999 002,640 Words Daily Average

01 Submissions

SOME PROMPTS 1800

NO WORK YET TODAY. I MEAN NO FICTION

HERE ARE THE FIRST OF THREE SETS OF PROMPTS

In my craft and sullen art
In the undergrowth, a woman's clothing
In which nothing need happen particularly
It can't be October already?
It is the road now, but I know not where it goes
It isn't just one of your holiday games
Later, bikes leaning against an old tree
Lay your head upon my pillow
Let's go, knock on a good woman's door
A deer, trapped, the dogs loose
A sherbert fizz
About suffering…
After that it was a little easier
Alone, the last legionnaire, afraid
Apples, rotten every one
As the door closes, as the dark envelopes
Before, before there were souls, what then?
Black handprints
Brass Band
Bright and early, fine in his intent
But let that wait.
Consider the escaped leopard
Cycling for bluebells near St Mellons
Duct Tape
Hassocks.
He used a lot of vowels
Here I am on the Brighton Line
He's an excellent cook, especially of people
His was the first corpse I ever saw
I am not respectable or industrious
I felt like a quartered chicken
I had somewhere to get to
I had to move
I have been walking, walking
I have heard that freedom exists
I have seen the best minds of my generation destroyed by MFI
I'll come, no matter where you're going
In an effort to keep day and night together
Marrakesh
May a good wind blow him to hell.
Midgets demand their cake.
Miss Beatty's Moustache
Mr Justice Gray
My dad just left it by the shed
My mother waits too long
My suffering left me sad and gloomy
Names so silly they must be made up
Not everybody's childhood sucks
Of lovers whose bodies smell of each other
Passing strangers on underground escalators

07:46

Strange start to the day. The Mrs has a very early meeting cos everyone wants to get home to watch Russia v England, so she's clumping around at 05:30 and I wake up.

I'm up before six, thinking I'll have a story done BEFORE the school-run but I get waylaid by a story in Boot Camp and it gets me chomping. Then I generate a list of prompts for here, BC etc feed the dogs, wake the kids. Now in ten minutes it's the school run and I ache. I know I need a brief workout to get my body right so my head will follow.

And I need to clean my office.

This I do maybe 2-3 times a year.

It's a TIP (I'll take a photo for before and after shots)


In the end, yesterday turned out OK writing-wise. I have almost 2K of an unfinished story (95% of the time that means it'll NEVER be finished) but I compensated with a 1,550 word flash written by about 11 PM.

Today's a big decision, but I think it's admin and cleaning (and the soccer at 4PM)

I can do this because I've already booked an 8PM and 10PM Flash session.

I would like though, to break past 2,500 words again and keep the run going as long as possible.



Alex

A Blast!

I decided to wind up Boot Camp at very short notice and just three of us managed a flash, starting at ten o'clock

But I scored the three stories 117-113-107 meaning they can probably all place as they are.

Amazing stuff


My story was 1,550 words in 65 minutes

Today has been TORTURE, not very typical of my writing emotions.

Since starting this blog I've become far too aware of process and now I feel it's stopping me writing fresh stuff

Day Seven (Day Three of Year)

001 001,350 Words Story OK
002 001,095 Words Story OK
003 001,025 Words Story OK
004 001,158 Words Story OK
005 000,900 Words Story (Subbed) <<<< GOOD!
006 001,480 Words Story OK
007 000,850 Words Story <<<<<< GOOD!
008 001,491 Words Story part-Done (Torturous Writing)
009 001,550 Words Story OK to good

888 008,120 Words Other Writings

999 019,119 Words TOTAL
999 002,731 Words Daily Average

01 Submissions

OOPS!

This was posted in error on the Boot Camp Blog


Today has been TORTURE, not very typical of my writing emotions.

Since starting this blog I've become far too aware of process and now I feel it's stopping me writing fresh stuff

Day Seven (Day Three of Year)

001 001,350 Words Story OK
002 001,095 Words Story OK
003 001,025 Words Story OK
004 001,158 Words Story OK
005 000,900 Words Story (Subbed) <<<< GOOD!
006 001,480 Words Story OK
007 000,850 Words Story <<<<<< GOOD!
008 001,491 Words Story part-Done (Torturous Writing)

888 007,670 Words Other Writings

999 017,119 Words TOTAL
999 002,445 Words Daily Average

01 Submissions

Tail Between Legs, Head Lowered

Been an odd couple of days. Yesterday was distracted by Boot Camp stuff and trying to fit a shelf in the back of a pick-up truck.

There's a lesson here somewhere. I measured VERY carefully... (measure twice, cut once) and had these excellent shelves, but there was no way I could actually get them INTO the cab where they'd lie perfectly. No amount of corner cutting sufficed and I gave up in disgust after three hours and forty quid.

Then I had a brainwave. tounge-and-grove floorboards. That eventually worked!

But WRITING?

It wasn't a blank day, but only 331 frsh words of fiction and 2,000 "Other Writings"


But am I a writer or a car mechanic, or a joiner?

Today is day 7 and I'm one thousand words on the way to proving I'm firstly, a writer.

Day Six (Day Two)

001 001,350 Words Story
002 001,095 Words Story
003 001,025 Words Story
004 001,158 Words Story
005 000,900 Words Story (Subbed) <<<<
006 001,480 Words Story
007 000,850 Words Story <<<<<<
008 000,331 Words Story Start

888 007,170 Words Other Writings

999 015,359 Words TOTAL
999 002,560 Words Daily Average

01 Submissions

Start of a Long Year

Of course I feel like crap.

I got an iPod Touch for my birthday (God the technology is exquisite) and I was up until almost three hacking away at my Music Library so i could also get all my photos on the beast.

Had a calf cramp in the night, thought it was gonna kill me. Feel a little hungover, have the school run and have to take PJ to the hospital. Might be a late start. So glad now that I got a bit of headway made in the arm up days.

SNAPSHOT

My office is a tip.

On my desk is:

Donald Barthelme 40 Stories
Donald Barthelme 60 Stories
David Foster Wallace Infinite Jest
The Essential Tales of Chekhov
Ruth Padel The Poem and the Journey
101 Sonnets from Shakespeare to heaney (Ed Don Paterson)
Staying Alive: Poems for Unreal Times
Doris Lessing The Fifth Child
The Letters of T S Eliot
Knut Hamsun Hunger
Saul Bellow Collected Stories
A DVD The Lives of Others
Better by Atul Gawdane
Katherine Govier The Immaculate Conception Art Gallery
Razorbill (mine)


a folder of my poems, countless magazines, an old newspaper, a mug, the new iPod, bills, soundsticks, Seventh Quark Magazine, a cheque book, bills, receipts, DVDs of photographs, a packet of pain-killers, the Complete New Yorker Portable Hard Drive


and yes it's a helluva mess


Today's prompts are:

Big isn't it?
Blue and Green is not unusual
By the St Lawrence
Cousins
Dark Blue Jeans, White T-Shirt
Does Your Mother Know?
Early Morning Coffee
Edward was explaining to Carl about levels
Even Better Than the Real Thing
Get Up, Get Up, Get Up
Goodbye Argentina
Grasshopper
He always wore one glove, carried the other
He had a heart attack and crashed his bus
Here, have this loaf of bread
I AM communicating with you
I am Old Enough to leave, So I Will
I think it was St Mary's but I'm not going to argue
I'm not DENYING anything
It was in those days when I wandered about hungry.
It's a nice addiction to have
Keep On Running
Learning Kung Fu
Leaving the Yellow House
Looking for Mr Green
Marjorie and Emily Short-cutting to school
Miss Jones wants to make love to me
Neighbours
Potassium Permanganate
Reading Chekhov
Sensible Shoes
She Came in Through the Bathroom Window
Sign Here, and Here, and HERE
Sometimes, I think I can hear him
Standard jewel case
Tears Flowed at the Chapel Funeral
They live in cracks, under, behind
Tigger!
Today we have a fire drills
What Kind of day Did You Have?
Whose side, your father's or your mother's?
Whose turn for the shit
Without Poetry it just isn't the same
A Silver Dish
A theft
A very small bone, broken
Air on a G String
Angel of the Great White Way
Bellarossa


I have to say today will be hard. Don't feel great, want to work out, have PJ to sort.

But I must chip away at that million.

Wish me luck.




Alex


PS I feel very old.

Yee-hah!

Empty of Ideas, hung-over, sore gut, loads to do, 'smy burfday and I should chill.

But it's 08:30 and I've just written a story good enough to win a comp.

Now I get to walk the dog, go to the gym with my son at ten.

NOT a blank day.

Day Five (Day One)

001 001,350 Words Story
002 001,095 Words Story
003 001,025 Words Story
004 001,158 Words Story
005 000,900 Words Story (Subbed) <<<<
006 001,480 Words Story
007 000,850 Words Story <<<<<<

888 005,170 Words Other Writings

999 013,028 Words TOTAL
999 002,606 Words Daily Average

01 Submissions

OK, I Read It

I read it.

I read it again.

I read it again.

I am VERY glad I don't write like that.

If it matters, I found it bowel-neutral, neither aided and abetted or caused blockage.

07:07

07:07 and no writing yet.

Should/Could be a day off but I'll feel so HOLY if I write something on my birthday.

First though, off to read Donald Barthelme's "On the Deck"


I may be a long time...

One Set of Prompts

I didn't write these!

Handkerchiefs from Auntie Maisie

Memories of Birthdays Past

Recycled cards

Bumps

Mouth Like a Parrot's Cage

Daddy, I made this for you …

Rumbleguts

Why Josephine Can't Come to the Party

Annual Excuses

How many candles?

Cardigans and Slippers

The Skin I'm In

Conspicuous Consumption

Four Weddings and a Birthday

Not Old, Merely Mature

The Man Who Saved All His Wrapping Paper

Forgetfulness

Sixty Years Ago Today

The sound barrier was broken by Chuck Yeager


Children in Need Night

I must be mad, I will be sick
but there are eleven of us now.

JOIN US?

One more, Ants Davies from Leeds

01 Alex, Berkshire
02 Claire, Cumbria, England
03 TomC, Yorkshire
04 Joel, Finland
05 Dan, England
06 Caroline, England
07 Britbird, Brighton, England
08 The Secretary!
09 Colin, England
10 Missy, England
11 Ants, Leeds, England

Words

Day Four (so far)

01 001,350 Words Story
02 001,095 Words Story
03 001,025 Words Story
04 001,158 Words Story
05 000,900 Words Story (Subbed)
06 001,480 Words Story

88 004,520 Words Other Writings

99 011,528 Words TOTAL
99 002,882 Words Daily Average (1,051,930 per Year)

01 Submissions

Paid in Blood

06:18 upset tummy, mouth like the bottom of a bird-cage, 1,500 words written, another day over and deeper in debt.

But the words keep coming, keep coming.

I have to say that this morning's "story" is probably crap, more a melodramatic, tearful, indulgent troll through a load of old guilt-wrecked memories.

But sometimes it's like that. Sometimes a story comes out word by aching word, sometimes they scream out like joyous, frantic music, perfectly formed. Sometimes the phrase is verbal diahorrea and it smells like it.

Sometimes it just doesn't feel like it's working.

It doesn't matter. The muscles are exercised, the pipes remain open. Even if just one sentence is worth it, it's worth it.

Remember, every blank day is a day nearer being dead. You never get those days back.

Today I have to pick up a car. I'm getting dropped at the garage two hours before the car is due to be ready as Deb & Bridie have things to do. This afternoon PJ and I are off to Wembley to watch England v Estonia. Tonight a family game of monopoly is booked (PJ cheats)


but I have WRITTEN and it's only 06:25

I might write while I wait for the car. I'll take the laptop and a couple of books.



alx

WHAT Time?

Woke twice in the night. Drank little in the evening yet felt seriously hungover and very rough. Third time I woke (04:04) i thought stuff this and got up, cleaned my teeth, shaved, came downstairs to write. It's 04:53 and I've walked the echoing empty corridors of Boot Camp, made seven fortunes from Nigerian benefactors, ate two pieces of toast, drunk a cup of coffee, flicked through half-a-dozen ancient poetry books (Penguin Modern Poets), created an alphabetical list of prompts for BC (and you dear reader.) In five minutes it will be 05:00 and I've run out of excuses. I have to write.

A breakfast egg and Otis Redding
A particularly hard stool evacuated from an aeroplane
At gravesides priest will say, "I don't give a fuck."
Bad dreams of old cars
Cream Crackers
Dermatitis
Everytime
Fish and chips on winter nights
Gathering
Girls in bikinis, moonbathing
How she sews.
I have, here, in my pocket…
I want to paint murdered kings
I was born in the village of Much Bickering
If I was ever faithful
It's not true, there ARE intelligent women
Jeffrey Archer, Poet Laureate
Jelly-babies
Kill the thing
Loose
Moths and Lamps
My father planting potatoes
Negro postmen, money, dreams
Old poetry books turn brown and make me remember sadnesses
On a tour of public lavatories
Pick yer Paris Tunnel
Please don't put out the light
Quickly, Press
Refuse
Schoolgirls waiting at a crossing
Since there is no help, let us kiss and part
The dead will quietly bury the living
The first daffodils of autumn appear
There it is, word for word
This line of thinking brought me back to his letter
Tiger!
Tonight at noon
Truth limits man
Untamed Danish Pastries
Virgin
We are waiting for the end of eternity when this guy turns up shouting
When the leaves fall upwards to the trees
When the room is emptied, heat remains
When vegetables retreat
X marks the blemish
Yesterday I believed
Zoo


Alex

The Life of Pi

I bought this in the original hardback, then in paperback, then a second time in paperback, then bought the illustrated version.

I HAVE STILL TO READ IT!

But help is at hand. Ten Boot Campers have signed up to read and share critiques, so that's my immediate reading.

Interested in joining us for a hard crit session, posta message in the public area of Yuku's BootCampKeegan


Other reading ongoing is:



The Essential Tales of Chekov (Edited by Richard Ford)

Yesterday I read "The Lady With the Dog" (the lad has promise)


and from the sublime to the ridiculous:

I picked up Jeffrey Archer's "Cat o'Nine Tales"

I've read two stories so far and they are appalling.


Also reading the quite excellent "BETTER: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance" by Atul Gawande. I picked this up thinking it was a book of short stories when in fact they are medical articles. Nevertheless I recommend the book strongly.

With my new-found direction (the NOVEL, Alex, the NOVEL) I've decided I want to be longlisted for The Booker within five years and (if I live that long) shortlisted within ten. That's not outrageous or egotistical, one Boot Camper already has been.

So I'm reading Anne Enright's "The Gathering"




BELIEVE.