I just watched Becoming Jane for the first time. While I know an inordinate amount of my love for it surely comes from the adorable beautiful presence of James MacAvoy, it was still a good film. It's kind of like Pride & Prejudice-lite, except it doesn't have a happy ending. I continued my trend of getting emotionally involved in films, and for about the last half hour I was going "No! Nononononono I HATE YOU HISTORY." But it's still really nicely shot, Anne Hathaway had amazing chemistry with James MacAvoy and made an admirable attempt at the accent, the costumes were preeeettyyyy, it just managed to not make me weep - and of course, James MacAvoy didn't hurt. He swung from scoundrel to utter adorability in way that I think it did irreparable damage to my ovaries.

And of course, the film was about a writer. Which was just all the better for me right now, since over the past few days I've been thinking about how I'm missing writing. I mean, I know I'm writing Sylinder, but that doesn't even feel like writing - just imagining scenarious and letting the crack spill onto the page. I can't believe I'm still constantly thinking about The Society of Illegal Scholars - I mean, it was inspired by a random poster on a walk through Durham! - but over this weekend, when I was pretending to be a nun and staring wide-eyed around the room looking scared, I was actually thinking about the story, and musing about plot and characters. Writing seriously, like the Sims, is something I don't let myself do during term time any more, because it's addictive - but I miss it.

Back when I first started writing, years ago, both my sister and my English teacher told me I wasn't a good writer, which didn't exactly start me off with the greatest confidence. Though looking back at the stuff I was writing then, I don't exactly blame them: horrific Mary-Sues, overambitious cliched melodramatic fantasy epics and mindless unfunny parodies of films. But hey, I kept trying. And now - after years of fanfic, two novels (one confused NaNoWriMo and one ambitious summer project that would get me carbombed by Christian fundamentalists) and now a slashy sitcom mostly reviewed in capital letters and smileys - my self-esteem is finally allowing that maybe I'm not the worst writer to ever dare approach a keyboard.

Being an author just seems like a dream career for me, and I actually think I'm going to go for it. I think I might have been inspired by reasonablycrazy - see, Jackie, your crazy is contagious. But yeah. I'm going to try to get a job somewhere with anything to do with writing - maybe journalism, maybe publishing, maybe just stay in academia till the end of my days - and write in my free time. Before then, I'm going to finally finish editing Don't They Know and give it to more people to read and get feedback on. (I've already showed it to two people - one of them already has ships and slash for it!) And then this summer, I will finally - finally - write The Society of Illegal Scholars. Because I have the opening chapter and main characters set up in my head, and a plot that seems to be writing itself, and I want to know what happens next.

In fact, since I'm in an ambitious mood and this entry's already spiralled on far longer than I was expecting, I'm going to post the first chapter here. Let me know what you think.


Moving swiftly on. Another film I saw lately? Was The Terminator. And it was AWESOME. I'm resisting the temptation to buy the entire trilogy off Amazon, and to hunt down every single film Michael Biehn has ever been in. Though one thing the film did was fill me with even more blank astonishment that Arnold Schwarzenegger could one day be president.

Oh, and my dissertation? It's now between the Apollo one and the Sci-Fi one. I think it depends on how many Classics references I can think of in Heroes in my lectures tomorrow.

.... and already my days suddenly seem that much emptier.

I mean, I know it's a Saturday, but I was just sitting at my computer thinking about what I had to do over the coming week - and it all seemed so SIMPLE.

I'm sure that this will be remedied tomorrow when I start that 'rhetoric of traditionality' essay and realise how difficult it is, and that I'm not just going to be able to easily slip it between lectures and preparing the stupid amounts of Latin I have to for each tutorial. Not to mention the Christmas social and entertaining Frankie (who's coming to visit, yay!)

OK, scratch what I just said. I DO have lots to do.

But... I already miss writing. I mean, I know it's only been a day, but I miss having a plot and characters to look after. Truman Capote once said finishing a novel is like 'taking a favourite child outside and shooting them'. Well, this isn't quite as bad as that. I've only known this story for a month, and we never really completely got along - we had arguments, and sometimes it went off and did things on its own I didn't approve of (like KILLING KITTENS) and it never liked to listen to me when I tried to get it to behave.

It was more like an argumentative child I was babysitting than a favourite child.

But now it's gone away, and I miss it. I know I could babysit for it again, but I don't know if I want to bother with the hassle, when the lovely child next door - Don't They Know - could still use looking after, and there's that new kid down the street The Society of Illegal Scholars who I quite want to meet. But I still remember when we got along, and how much fun we had then, and I'll quite miss those moments.

OK, that analogy got a bit carried away. But I think it sums up how I feel quite well.

So what next? I actually concentrate on work for the next two weeks, and then, come Christmas holidays, I sit down to edit Don't They Know already. At least get it to a standard I don't mind being read by people who are not my self-professed fan club (love you, Thea and Clare, thanks for early comments).

I try to get that done by Christmas, or at least New Year's, and then in the New Year I get to start the Society of Illegal Scholars! Yay! My goal is to have that finished by the exam period. Yes, I'm actually going to take this one slowly. I'm still not entirely sure what it's going to be about, but I'm unashamedly borrowing elements from Heroes (not the superpowers part), Maelstrom, Stardust, the Song of Milman Parry and a story I conceived ages ago in great detail but never actually wrote. I have real high hopes for it, I can't wait to start!

And then? Stop for exams. Then, over the summer holidays, start a new one. Yes, I'm repeating the process that produced Don't They Know all over again. Because it was so fun last time. Maybe I won't be quite so anti-religion in this one. Who knows what issues I'll be going through by then?

Wow. I'm planning really far ahead. But I didn't realise till I started writing Don't They Know how much I've missed writing. I wrote loads before I came to uni - half my comments in my yearbook from school are people asking for first copies of my first published novel - but then in my first year, I kinda just stopped. I tried NaNoWriMo, but didn't get far. I was just concentrating on Treasure Trap and living life.

But now I'm back into it, and I've remembered just how much I love it. The sound of typing keys is one of my favourites in the world, and the thrill of realising your characters have taken on a life of their own and are flying free from your control is just the best feeling. Nothing really compares to it.

Well, this entry's gone on longer than I was expecting. I'll stop now.

I just realised while talking to Jackie. Latin isn't a dead language. It's not a living vibrant language, either.

No, Latin is an Undead language.

By all accounts, it should be dead. It should be dead and buried in the ground. And yet it somehow KEEPS ON GOING. It limps on, eating classicists' brains, and no matter how some try to bring it down, it just infects more and more and survives against all odds.

This is clearly why all scary rituals in movies are done in Latin.

In other news, my NaNoWriMo continues to go amazingly - but it comes at a price. I still have not managed to subdue my plot. And my plot is a sociopath. Not content with killing my main character, tonight it killed the Cute White Fluffy Kitten.

A KITTEN DIES IN MY NANOWRIMO.

THIS KITTEN RIGHT HERE: http://mfrost.typepad.com/cute_overload/images/litter_kitten.jpg

And whenever I try to subdue it and keep it under control, it just sits down in the middle of my brain and does nothing, sulking.

Maybe we need relationship counselling.

Therapist: "So when did the problems start?"

Me: "Well... it were a bit shaky from the beginning. I mean, it was a new relationship, but I couldn't put as much time into it as I wanted - I still had lectures, and banquet to organise..."

Plot: "She just kept me locked up for most of the day. I felt stifled. Ignored."

Me: "I'm sorry!"

Plot: "Bit late for that now, isn't it?"

Therapist: "So naturally, when she did you let you out for the night..."

Plot: "OK, I may have done a little nuts. I just wanted to show her how fun and easy everything could be if she'd just trust me to look after myself."

Me: "You killed my main character! AND A KITTEN!"

Plot: "Hey, you set up both those situations. I just carried them out to their logical conclusions."

Me: "Oh, do NOT try to load the blame on me for this-"

Plot: "You're the one typing! I just make suggestions!"

Me: "And I HAVE to listen, because otherwise you completely ignore me! You just sulk, and it's impossible to do anything with you! We never go anywhere!"

Plot: "YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND ME!"

Me: "WELL, YOU'RE NOT THE PLOT I MARRIED! YOU'VE CHANGED!"

Plot: "Oh, oh, NOW it all comes out! You're still enamoured with the 'Society of Illegal Scholars', aren't you? You already had your eye on THAT slutty plot when we first got together. You'd been eyeing it up all summer while in your first relationship with 'Don't They Know'-"

Me: "Oh, don't start-"

Plot: "- and it warned me, 'Oh, she's flighty, she gets easily distracted by whatever bright young thing walks past, and she's still got a thing for 'Society of Illegal Scholars', she won't be entirely faithful', and how you were ignoring THAT now, after your fantastic summer relationship. But I didn't listen. It misses you, you know."

Me: "I know, I want to spend more time with it, but-"

Plot: "But what? You had your problems, and now you don't want to try to make it work! So you're running off with 'Society of Illegal Scholars' as soon as you're off uni for Xmas! DON'T TRY TO DENY IT!"

Me: "You don't understand! 'Don't They Know' and I, we - we had a very public relationship, and we've got a lot of history - I will go back and sort things out, I promise!"

Plot: "Oh, just like you promised to go back to the Elementals?"

Me: "I was a different girl back then... it was fun while it lasted, but in the end, it was wrong for me."

Plot: "Huh."

Me: "Please can't we work this out? Just... try to work together? Till the end of November? Surely we can live with each other for another 15 days?"

Plot: "... I suppose so. But! As long as I get to do what I want."

Me: "Yes, fine."

Plot: "I want ninjas."

Me: "OK."

Plot: "Yay!"

Good. All sorted.

PS To make up for not being able to buy the SHINY STEAMPUNK LAPTOP OF SHININESS (http://www.datamancer.net/steampunklaptop/steampunklaptop.htm WANTS SO BADLY) I ordered myself THIS: https://www.gelaskins.com/skins.php?Device=1&Category=4&Skin=138&ProductCode=257

*dances*

I haven't done much editing for my novel lately - I've had Frankie round, but also, I think my plot bunnies are taking a break. They're pretty worn out. Also, I've discovered it's quite difficult to approach your novel with the Delete key and vanish huge chunks of text which you know don't work but still took you ages to write.

But they haven't stopped completely. They're still buzzing quietly about the Society of Illegal Scholars, and I get the impression that something is taking shape back there, but they haven't deigned to tell me about it yet.

Also, they're plotting my NaNoWriMo. I had a dream last night where I was at Maelstrom, which was randomly on the seafront, and a stall had been set up there by two guys who weren't in kit, but were offering hand painting. Olwen and I went up to see them, and Olwen got a rose on her hand, and I asked for a little castle on mine, but the guy looked at me and grinned and said, "No, you want this design", holding out a Celtic-looking thing, like the brooches on cloaks. So I shrugged and said OK, and he painted it, and then I woke up. The dream had felt really real, so I looked at my hand, but surprise, there was nothing there. But I started imagining what I would have done if there HAD been.

So - yoink! Into the NaNoWriMo pile.

All I know for my story so far is that it's about these students, each of whose form of escapism suddenly becomes part of their everyday life - like, one who reads and writes suddenly has their life turn into a story, one who plays the Sims suddenly notices diamonds hovering above everyone's heads, one who LARPs is suddenly getting chased by vampires and werewolves, one who watches sci-fi has the characters turning up everywher, and one who just daydreams finds their daydreams becoming real... yeah, I have no idea how this is going to work coherently, but it should be fun.

I'm also playing with the idea of the Seven Basic Plots. Maybe the one who gets lost in literature has to try and work out which one she's stuck in to be able to survive.

But it's not going to be serious. In any shape or form.

In the middle of editing. It's tricky.

I also just realised I wrote about 6000 words in two hours.

WTF???

PS Latest weird NaNoWriMo idea - Ocean's 300...

So it's all over. My story is finished - now 76, 812 words since I went back and added one more sentence on the end, which I'd been planning on using from the beginning but just forgot to in last night's "BlibberWHA???" at actually managing to finish.

It seems a long time ago - well, it was, the end of the May - that I swore on Facebook to complete a novel this summer, knowing I'd never be able to back down from that. I didn't even have an idea of the plot back then. All I had was the memory of an idea which occurred to me back in Plymouth, over a year ago, when we were moving my sister into college down there.

Sometimes, just an idea is enough.

And now here I am. I've spent three solid months writing, churning out anywhere between 200 and 7000 words a day (the latter being on my rush for the end last night). I wrote on Brownsea Island, in Portland, in Vancouver, at Claire's house, at my house, on my bed and on my floor when my sister took over my bed. I kept completely changing the plot at a moment's notice, and often the plot holes I wrote myself into just made the story better as I wriggled my way out of them.

And it only took about four chapters before I realised the characters had taken over and were plotting it for me. That's faster than usual.

Thank you, everyone that helped me along the way.

I now have to go read through it all. Then I read through it again, adding notes of things I want to change. Then I change them.

It's not over yet, by a long way...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"So what do you imagine happens now?"

"I imagine it's up to us."

~ Danny and Meg

... It's... over.

I've done it. I've WRITTEN a NOVEL.

76,804 words long.

Bloody Hell. It's OVER.

I get the idea I'll be more excited and thrilled once a) it has sunk in and b) it's no longer 2:40am.

Oh God. This is it. The end has begun.

I'm finally here.

70000 WORDS!!! BOO YA!!!

Also, something very disturbing has happened. I started rewatching clips of Heroes, mostly looking for ones of Peter, because I was in a fangirlish mood. And it was good.

Then I happened to stumble upon the clip of Peter and Sylar fighting in Five Years Gone. And something strange happened.

I realised I preferred Sylar.

WTF WHEN DID THIS HAPPEN?????

Storywise, I'm at 69000 words! Woot!

But the main very important reason for this entry is the poster for the new Narnia film has been released. I will put it under a cut because it is quite large, but OMG PRETTY.

( Hello Dunstan. Oh my, you're a prince now. With long swishy brown hair. And a sword. And an intense look. And... eeeee. )

So I know Narnia is disgustingly religious, but I'M SO GOING TO HAVE TO SEE IT NOW.

About to start my day's writing. It really feels like there's not long to go now. It's a weirdly exhilarating feeling. But the plot bunnies are terrified at having to write an ending. I distract them with looking forward to plotting the Society of Illegal Scholars, and the NaNoWriMo, which now also involves a cannibal dreaming of eating Daniel Radcliffe.

In fact, I think it's time I made a list of everything I want to fit in my NaNoWriMo:

- The characters being students living in a house in Durham. Write what you know and all that.

- One being Udo Smutney, the boy in love with himself but too shy to say anything.

- One being Atobe, the gay gorgeous Japanese boy who is pursued by fangirls in denial, who is good at everything he tries.

- One being Charlie, the person none of the housemates are sure whether is a boy or a girl and too much time has passed for them to be able to ask.

- One being a geeky LARPer.

- And one being the central character, who has the amazing ability to turn every guy she fancies gay.

- A cannibal who only wants to eat Daniel Radcliffe.

- Vampires, Werewolves, Aliens, serial killers, Gods

- An object which turns your life, unknowingly, into one long game of Unfortunately/Fortunately.

- Jesus, the Re-born Ultimatum, returned to Earth with amnesia and hunting down members of the Catholic Church.

As for plot? Noooo idea. I did consider them all trying to win the Sausage-Flinging Championship in Faversham.

In other news - The Lies of Locke Lamora. I just finished it. And OH - MY - ZOD - it's AMAZING. READ IT. READ IT NOW.

And apparently, this guy I went out with in February for two days before realising I didn't like him in that way, I just liked the fact someone liked me that much, and that I just wanted to be friends? Yeah, his friend told me today that I broke his heart. Thaaat's great to know.

Anyway, I must go write now. Last night I realised something for the ending that actually made me grin and wiggle my toes in glee.

Oh yeah. Go me. I wrote more!

68000 words! Chapter Twenty-Five! Looks like I might just be able to make it stretch to having nine chapters in each section, though I will need to go back and creatively edit the second section to break it down into nine.

I suddenly found myself in a massive plot hole. But I got out of it, and actually really liked the way the story changed because of my escape plan.

Basically, now the final battle isn't happening outside the cathedral. It's happening outside Castle College Bar.

In their most desperate hour, it's not the power of God they turn to, but the power of knowledge and of humanity itself. WOOT GOOD MESSAGE.

I managed to write more! I'm up to 66,500 words now!

And I've realised something important which explains a lot about me. I don't like writing endings.

I thought it was just because I'm always worried they'll suck and not resolve everything to my satisfaction. But one of the guys who writes Battlestar Galactica said somewhere that he was the same - writing endings was nowhere near as fun as writing the lead-up to them. He said something like, writing the run-up to them is throwing all your plots into the air and realising just how many there are and how they can all come together - catching them is nowhere near as fun, and you're always worried you'll drop one.

That's just how I feel. I'm definitely at the big climax now. The seraphim and the Fallen are about to appear and start fighting it out, demons are going to go for a renewed assault on the cathedral, Jesus is going to be trying to kill Kirsten again - OOOOH, just had an idea for that, and I LOVE IT, EEEE - and meanwhile, Kirsten and Dave and Danny and Paul and Ceph (who are finally all in the same room) are going to be trying to figure out what to do...

So that's all going to happen. That's daunting, to say the least. Big interlinking plots with lots of drama and fighting? Yeeah, not my best skill.

And then there's the actual finale. That's going to be really tricky to write well. It could so easily tip into cheesy schmaltz worthy of facepalmery.

But once that's all over, I get the actual ending. The last page. Where, finally, I know exactly what's going to happen. Er. Ish.

I can't believe I've actually made it this far. I think that might be part of the problem I'm having right now. Once I reach the end - that's it. It's written. It's a story. It's detached from my brain. Sure, I might go back and revise and make it Not Shit, but it'll be a STORY. All by itself.

For some reason, that seems really WEIRD.

If I make it - manage to finish it without my plot bunnies exploding - what will I do then?

... but every time I start to get into that mood, I start thinking about the Society of Illegal Scholars instead.

This has happened regularly since I got into writing again. New ideas occur, and I get excited, but I just throw the various ideas onto the NaNoWriMo pile and promise myself I'll get to them in November. At this rate, that story will just be plain ODD.

But I don't want to put the Society for Illegal Scholars on there. I feel like it could carry a story all by itself.

I already have a prologue fully formed in my head.

( Which I will cut for the sake of those not interested )

I have to tidy my room today, so I have room to sleep on the floor when Becca comes to stay. And I'm going to have to get dressed at some point, even though I've been awake for four hours now and still haven't gotten out from under my duvet, let alone get dressed.

But I'll try to do some more of Don't They Know today. Because right now, it glares at me every time I plan about the Society of Illegal Scholars, like I'm cheating on it. It's my long-term partner, but I'm ignoring it for some new hot charming young thing that's caught my eye. I've got to patch things up before it asks for a divorce.

Well, it wasn't actually that far. It took me about three and a half hours, and I kept stopping and getting distracted by something and scribbling notes about it on my arm.

KATIE'S WALKING TOUR OF DURHAM

I left at about 1 and headed along Gilesgate, then down a slope, across a metal bridge, up the other side, along the path there through some trees and came out at a park at the top of Gilesgate, which just has an AMAZING view. I love it up there so much I rewrote part of 'Don't They Know' just so that it could be a location in it.

So I sat there, eating my sandwich and looking across Durham, and trying to think as a considerate killer would about where I would stand my victim when I killed them so that she'd have the best view when she died.

I then set off down the hill, where the path leads along the river, over a bridge, past the sports ground and into the woods. We use those woods a lot for Treasure Trap adventures, and they're one of my favourite places in all of Durham. When you get far enough in, you can't hear anything else, and it's really pretty and there are squirrels and deer - and walkers, occasionally, which can get annoying in the middle of a line fight.

When I was walking through there, I saw a couple of squirrels seemingly in the middle of an energetic game of hide and seek and catch. They were tearing after each other through the undergrowth and up and down trees, occasionally hiding for a moment on opposite sides of the trunk, and then off again, round and round and round. Their feet were making this 'shooka-shooka-shooka' noise on the tree bark, like shaking dried peas in a matchbox. I stood there and watched them for ages.

Set off again, and eventually emerged out into Grey College. I saw a sign for 'The Society of Legal Scholars' - which my brain immediately seized upon for a story idea, 'The Society of Illegal Scholars'. About a secret society in a steampunk setting, where the government has realised knowledge is power and restricted it accordingly, and they meet once a year to discuss a forbidden subject, with honour and glory going to one with the most interesting story which they have clearly gone through the greatest adventure to retrieve. And, of course, one of them getting embroiled in something far bigger than he can imagine, and trying to stay alive, and also trying to decide whether to share the story with the others, where he will surely be heralded as that year's winner, or keep it secret and protect the people involved...

I actually got so excited when I thought of this I did a happy little jumpy dance. I stopped when three people came round the corner and saw me.

Thing is, now my brain was set onto 'noticing things' mode. I was taking photos of pretty things with my phone. A dog running up and bringing me a stick was the best thing ever. And when I stopped to read a monument next to the road, and saw it was the remains of a cross, and that crosses used to line all the roads leading into Durham, I immediately imagined a town surrounded by crosses trying to keep out vampires, and vampires hiring mercenaries to sabotage them so they could get in. My arm was getting covered in blue and red ink now as I jotted everything that occurred to me down. This is why I should always have a notebook with me.

So then I headed down onto Prebends Bridge, which is also beautiful and set me thinking about maybe switching one of the story locations to here, and up to the cathedral. I spent a lot of time here, walking around, getting ideas for the climax of my story, pausing to appreciate the irony of two professional photographers setting up their cameras right next to a sign saying 'No photographs please'.

Weirdest coincidence. In a little side chapel, where Bede is buried, they have a statue of the Annunciation - of Mary when she found out that she was having the son of God. In the cathedral where Kirsten finds out she's having the Second Coming. HOW. FREAKING. WEIRD. I doubt Kirsten'd appreciate that coincidence either.

Many other weird coinkidinks. There was a cloth banner for the Durham Miners Association, which said 'They being dead yet speaketh' - if I was filming my story, I'd so have that framed behind Kirsten when she first comes back from the dead - and a stained glass window which was a picture of what appeared to be someone holy descending from heaven on wings to reach out to a miserable looking mortal on a black raven, with the message 'As birds flying so shall the Lord of Hosts protect Jerusalem'. Very fitting considering there's being to be a massive aerial battle between the seraphim and the Fallen.

I stopped to look at Bede's tomb too. It has on it 'Hac sunt in fossa Baedae venerabilis ossa' - 'Here in this grave are the bones of the venerable Bede' - which is a pretty creepy little Latin rhyme, if you ask me. I looked at it and thought, "Hey, Bede. Weird to think there you were writing and praising God all those years ago, and now here I am, writing and saying he's a bastard. Times change, eh?"

Then I copied down the message above his grave, which was also oddly fitting,

'Christ is the Morning Star
Who when the night of this world is past
Brings to his saints the promise of the light of life
And opens everlasting day.'

It was very weird being in this place and realising most people were going to find it WEIRD, the idea of Jesus trying to cause the Apocalypse and kill God...

Then I saw some signs as tributes for people who'd died in two world wars. For people 'who died so that we may live', on land, sea and in the air. It was nice. But then at the bottom of each was 'Thanks be to God'.

Thanks be to GOD? How about thanking the people who actually DIED?

I left then. I'd already annoyed the photographers by walking down the central aisle while they were trying to take a photo. By the time I was across Palace Green, I'd decided to make my point about not only cathedrals being good defences against demons by having college bars acting as defences as well. I've been hardpressed trying to think of somewhere that inspires as much hope and relief from despair in people as religious buildings, and then it came to me - college bars! Where you moan about your problems to your friends and they get you drunk and you're happy again! Perfect!

So, I'm going back with a notebook some time to take proper notes. One important thing I noticed was that the pews aren't solid blocks, so Kirsten couldn't hide behind one. She'd have to hide behind a huge pillar.

Then I headed down into the city, got this week's More and the SFX Heroes special - many pictures of the pretties, yay! - then got back home, where I am cooking for everyone tonight. Joy of joys.

1. I have many more shiny Stardust icons. Sigh. I think the sooner the film comes out here, the better. Then I can go watch it repeatedly till I get tired of it and stop going on about it. Maybe the FEEL!THE!DRAMA! music will finally kill me through drama.

2. I've just noticed that, in my story, Kirsten and Danny go through practically the whole adventure in their ball clothes. So Kirsten's in this pretty swishy green dress, and Danny is of course in a DJ. (Dinner jacket, that is, that always used to confuse me as a kid...) So, since Danny is Charlie Cox in my head, this makes me happy, because I can picture Danny doing all these things in formalwear and getting steadily more rugged.

.... ok, don't worry, I'll go and find the help I need...

OK. When did it no longer become a big deal to write 1500 words in one day?

I'm up to 65000 words, which means I've written over 1500 today - which for some reason seems to me like a paltry amount and I should be doing better. Even though it was an IMPORTANT 1500 words. HUGE in terms of plot and getting me carbombed by Christian fundamentalists.

That's another thing. I just hit another +5000 milestone. Again, this is no longer a big deal. WTF?

But I've been sending pages to Thea and Clare, and so far, feedback has been positive. Yay! It's been helpful they've chosen good pages though. Clare was majorly creeped out by the bit with Toth. As was I when I was writing it. It made me feel icky.

My days are pretty quiet right now. I go on the internet, I write, I play Sims (far too much), I read the Lies of Locke Lamora (which is amazing and I got nearly halfway through before, but then I lost it and forgot what had happened, then I just found it again), and I try to find some excuse to go for a walk every day just to get out in the open air and get vague imitation of exercise. Usually I find something I need to buy at Tescos. Today, it was Clarityn. But, huzzah, my fireplace is taped up! No more dusty wind! There were already three layers of duct tape on it, seems like it's been broken for a while...

What kinda sucks though? Is that we have no tumble dryer. My wet washing is hanging around my room. It still isn't completely dry after 24 hours. Including my pyjamas. Gah.

Anyway. I'm going in search of dinner, then afterwards, maybe I'll write more and feel actually proud of what I've accomplished - or maybe I'll just end up playing Sims and trying to get my slutwhore to sleep with 30 people. Who knows.

I have just discovered very strong evidence as to why pulling all-nighters is not a good idea.

I was tempted to try again this evening. I however got distracted by reading the entire archive of the webcomic 'Shortpacked', which took... longer than I was expecting.

Then I returned to idly wondering about how I was going to justifiably get Kirsten to leave the cathedral long enough to be attacked by demons without making her look like a dumb heroine and have people tsking at her.

And my brain came up with this solution.

She has to leave the cathedral because the demons blow it up, or set it on fire.

...

As if this was not enough, my brain then got carried away, and then returned and presented me with the wacky comedy,

'Lucian the Vampire Tries to Blow Up a Cathedral' aka 'DEMONSPLODE!'

Lucian would have lots of incompetent minions who'd mess up whatever they did. Like, they'd hold grenades for too long and explode. They would throw their Molotov cocktails in the wrong direction and hit each other. They'd try to get plastic explosives and just come back with plasticene. They'd steal nuclear warhead carrying aircraft but not to able to fly them properly and crash into each other.

And every time something went wrong, the demons - singed - would grin goofily and hold out their hands in a 'Whatcha gonna do?' manner, and Lucian would just facepalm, and the 'WAH-WAH-WAAAAAH' trumpet sting would play.

Clearly, my brain should not be allowed near any unfinished piece of fiction in this state.

I know I'm going to have to get out of bed and go out at some point. I need to get Clarityn, because my room is dusty and I'm sneezing like crazy, and duct tape, to tape around my fireplace and stop dust blowing out the chimney whenever the wind blows, because that's why I'm sneezing like crazy. I also have to finish unpacking and wash my clothes and probably take a shower too.

I'm least looking forward to the shower, because the shower here is quite possibly possessed by a demon. It only has four temperature settings, and the happy medium is somewhere between two and three. Two is freezing cold, three is scalding hot. So basically I have to switch from one to the other, jumping in and quickly washing while it cools down/heats up, then jump out again and start all over again.

It kinda sucks.

So I didn't get to pull my allnighter. The plot ground to a halt, and I didn't have the energy to kickstart it again.

Then I ended up having a dream about the next story I want to write. I have no idea what it's going to be about yet, except I want vampires and oracles, but my dream was full of some wizards who'd been transformed into rats and were being kept in a pet shop. That was kinda awesome. Plus Tristan Thorn was there being heroic. That's always good. Plus, it was set in Roman times, which was something I hadn't thought of, but I kinda like. And there was also this thing from a nightmare I had when I was younger, a dark cloud with a face that enveloped you and you vanished. I never found out where you went though, because the moment I was, I woke up. Oh, and it could take human form sometimes. It was pretty freaky.

It's so great to be writing again. My first year in university, I didn't write anything, except an attempt at NaNoWriMo. But now I am, and the weird dreams are coming back, and the random ideas in the middle of the day which leave me scrabbling for a notebook. I know I can't stop again now that I've got going again.

My NaNoWriMo is going to be my utterly strange one, with Udo Smutney, Alcibiades: Zombie Executioner and Jesus, the Re-Born Ultimatum. It's basically going to be my break from serious plot, where I can just write whatever comes into my head. I can have rocks fall and everybody die if the mood takes me. Then, over the Christmas holidays, I will try to get started with this new one that's fermenting in my head. As I said, I think it will have vampires and oracles, maybe even the Greek gods, and it might be steampunk era, because I like the look of it but I've never tried writing anything in it. I'd need to do some research into it first.

And now I know I'm just babbling to avoid having to get up, so I'm going to go write 'Don't They Know' instead to be valuable procrastination.

1. 62000 words!! Writing is lovely and easy again! It feels like I'm running downhill yelling "WHEEEEE!!!!" I'm actually tempted to pull an all-nighter and see how much I can write.

2. I can get away with pulling an all-nighter because I'm back in Durham, away from tutting parents and in the company of Barnas, who, at 9pm, doesn't even think it's 'evening' yet. And I have comfy bed to sit on, Lindor to snack on, and a lamp that gives me a nice amount of light. BRING IT.

3. And I'm a good creative mindset, because I just watched one of my favourite Battlestar Galactica episodes - Maelstrom - and managed not to weep!! Possibly because I was chanting before I started it "I WILL NOT CRY. I WILL NOT CRY."

So. A possible all-nighter is afoot. It's going SO WELL at the moment - it hasn't been this great since I was in America and stayed in the hotel room all afternoon writing about Kirsten's Wacky Adventures with the Vampires.

It's odd. I think I've grown in my views of religion since I started writing it. Now Jesus has turned into who I was then - blaming God for everything and determined to make him pay - whereas Kirsten and Paul are where I am now - somewhere in the middle, happy to listen to both sides, not sure either is entirely right.

Which means the ending could be interesting. I still have a last scene in my head, which I like, and will continue to play with and aim for.

Also, I've realised events in the story are already falling into place for the climax, and the plot's gathering speed towards it. It's quite scary, but kinda thrilling at the same time - like running down a hill shouting "WHEEE!", as I said before.

Only problem is, if I finish this tonight, what am I going to do for the rest of September??