28 - Stand on Zanzibar

Two months and 650 pages after I started reading it, I finally finished John Brunner's remarkable Stand on Zanzibar.

The novel is set in 2010 where crippling overcrowding has lead to widespread eugenic legislation as well as frequent instances in which people simply go mad and run amok in public, killing dozens. Written in 1968, many parts of the novel are eerily prescient.

But the most fascinating facet of Stand on Zanzibar, in my opinion, is its narrative style. There are four types of chapters. While 'Continuity' chapters follow the main plot, 'The Happening World' chapters do no more than provide snippets of conversations and information that give us the wider view of the world. 'Context' chapters provide just that, often via excerpts from newspapers and 'Tracking With Close-Ups' chapters generally focus on minor characters.

Though the plot therefore progresses fairly slowly, the pace is pretty consistent throughout and the world Brunner has constructed is beautifully rich. This isn't just down to length. I've read novels twice the length that still don't come close to Stand on Zanzibar's depth. It's possibly one of the most deeply constructed novels I've read.

The narrative style, John Brunner's prescience and the dark and philosophical plot are all equally strong reasons for reading it. It truly is remarkable and I strongly suggest giving it a read.

27 - Last episode

Last episodes are tough to get right. They have to match the tone and the style of the show and yet go beyond it. They have to resolve enough issues to keep you satisfied and yet not try and tie up every loose end and become drawn out and convoluted.

Most of all, I find that a great last episode of a TV show should stick with you. It should really resonate and keep running through your mind for days after. It should leave you sad that you will never see those characters again in new situations and yet happy that it was so excellent.

Last night I finished Battlestar Galactica and though I see some people weren't too satisfied with the ending, for me it was perfect. It got the tone just right and I can't get it out of my head. It's up there with the last episodes of Spaced, The Shield, The Wire and Arrested Development. Every time I go back to these shows, their last episodes deeply affect me. Cracking TV.

26 - Writing music #1

Crystal Castles - Crystal Castles
Christmas 2008, like every Christmas, saw my brother receiving a heap-load of obscure albums and not a lot else. I have a pretty poor music taste and knowledge. His is apparently overwhelming and vastly superior. He forces albums upon me all the time and generally I never get round to listening to them, because I like sticking with what I know and I just don't like what I hear coming from his room.

Anyway, that Christmas he forced Crystal Castles by Crystal Castles onto me. Determined to give it a go, I stuck it on while I did some writing and it just worked. It fitted perfectly. It's a simply extraordinary album that somehow manages to both play along unobtrusively as I write, and yet affect me and spur me on. Particular favourite tracks are Alice Practice, Crime Wave and Black Panther.

Unlike other albums I put on when writing, this doesn't have a specific association. I'll play it when I write fiction, when I write non-fiction. I'll play it at night, during the day and especially when I'm sitting on my bed with a notepad jotting down a hundred and one bad ideas.

25 - Sam & Wikus

My two favourite films from last year were Moon and District 9. Both sci-fi, both made incredibly well and both had a fantastic, original story to tell. But more than anything, it was the central character that made each film remarkable.

Sam Bell in Moon (played incredibly by Sam Rockwell) and Wikus Van De Merwe in District 9 (played superbly by Sharlto Copley) are fantastic to watch. Each man faces a tragic, truly saddening, if far-fetched, story. Both of them are caught up in really dire events that neither of them is to blame for.

These aren't perfect men. Sam has moments of selfishness, combined with a clear deep-rooted anger problem as well as a tendency to be immature. Meanwhile Wikus is even more selfish, self-centred, a coward and as xenophobic and crooked as the rest of his co-workers. All aside, neither man deserves the tragic events that happen around and to them.

We might not be able to fully empathise with each man, but we can certainly sympathise with them. These are very human characters facing extraordinary events and we the viewers are helpless. We can only watch each man 'cope.' This more than anything, makes these films compulsive, repetitive viewing in my eyes.

Faultless, good-looking heroes are great for action films. Amoral/immoral men with sadistic streaks are great for TV* but sometimes the best stories are told with a helpless man at the centre, trying his best to cope with the tragedy of his own existence.

*See The Wire, The Shield, Dexter

24 - 4265

As much as I'm enjoying One A Day, it had near-enough replaced my fiction writing. Since starting, I'd only written one short piece and that was it. I love the fact that I'm writing something new every day, but I was using One A Day as an excuse not to get back to the slog of rewriting my novel.

Last Summer I gave myself a target. From June until September I planned to write 500 words a day and end up with 60,000 words at the end of September. I finished September with 59,451 words and a very rough, largely forced first draft of a novel. Though I hit my target, I'd often gone days without writing anything then caught up at the end of the week. One week I wrote literally nothing. Another I wrote near-enough 7,000 words.

The plan was to then read over each of the twenty-one chapters throughout October, taking notes on what needed to be improved, changed, deleted etc. That I managed easily enough in a similar fashion.

The final part of the plan was to spend November, December and January redrafting two chapters or so a week. This was a foolish idea but the plan was to have it finished by February 3rd - today. Why today? Well, it's my friend's birthday today and seeing as she wants to be the first person to read my novel, it seemed as good as any date to aim for.

The end of the year came and I'd rewritten five chapters. The end of January came and I'd rewritten one more chapter. So today I forced myself to write - a strategy that rarely works for me. Today, it did.

I redrafted all of Chapter Seven and part of Eight. A grand total of 4,265 words, which is fantastic by my standards. Now I doubt this is the start of some huge push that will see the novel rewritten by the end of March, even, but I know I can do it. I'm going to keep forcing myself. It won't always work. But if I do it enough, I should get back into the swing of it. Hopefully.

23 - Klaatu barada nikto

I started this blog with the hope in the back of my mind that it would help me achieve something. What? I don't know, but it fits in with my greatly delusional life view that everything's leading up to something big. That there's something out there. That this is by no means all there is. That I'm in some way special.

The novels I read, the films I watch and the games I play further compound this belief. They're about other worlds, or exceptional events happening, or quite often about a nobody with a destiny.

Occasionally it hits home that nothing exceptional will happen to me or anyone else. We'll never make contact with another world. I'll never mutate beyond my own colourblindness. I'm never actually going to get a novel published. And I'll probably end up becoming a teacher.

22 - Remember Sammy Jankis

Memento is one of those films that sticks with you. A film that gets inside your head and fiddles around violently. It's one of those rich tapestries that reveals further detail and depth every time you watch it.

For those who haven't seen it (and therefore haven't lived) it tells the story of Leonard Shelby, a man with short-term memory loss trying to hunt down the man who killed his wife and gave him brain damage. The genius part is that the story is told backwards. We start at the end, then skip to a few minutes before that and so on and so on. These parts are divided by black and white sections told forward in which Leonard tells us all about his condition.

By playing the main story in reverse sequence we get brilliant moments of perspective shift. One such scene starts with Leonard staring at a bottle of liquor in his hand. He remarks that he doesn't feel drunk and so hops in the shower and a moment later a stranger enters the apartment and a fight ensues. The story then skips back and we see that Leonard has broken into this man's apartment, waiting to ambush him. He grabs a bottle as a weapon, then his memory fades...

In terms of playing with the chronology of the story, it's done perfectly. I'm always a little wary of stories that mess around with time, but Memento wouldn't work if it didn't. Pulp Fiction is another story told out of sequence that works better for it.

Then again there's a shit heap of films that try it and fail. The list of films that begin at the end then work back up to that point is countless. Sometimes it works, often it adds very little.

I've never played around with chronology myself. I believe there has to be a reason for it like in Memento. That and I'm not competent enough to cope with it.