49 - Is this a spatula or not?

So I was just in the pub with some of my friends and for some reason or the other, we started talking about spatulas. It soon arose that what me and my friends were referring to as spatulas were different things. What they referred to as a spatula is what I'd refer to as a fish slice. See below:What I'd refer to as a spatula they'd never heard of, or at least had no idea what I was describing. I researched this online and apparently this is a cake spatula or a frosting spatula or even a scraper. See below:Only a few hours before this my friend was discussing her gilet with my sister. Now I was ademant that a gilet was a nightdress. But it was quickly pointed out that what I meant was a negligee.

Basically language is a tricky thing. You can use the wrong word and still be understood and you can use the correct word and have people look at you like you're making words up as you go along. So what's right? Should we use words in contexts we understand even if the meaning we ascribe them is wrong?

Probably not. Never mind.

48 - Hallam Foe

What a cracking little film Hallam Foe is. It tells the story of a young voyeur who runs away to Edinburgh and lives on the rooftops, spying on a woman who looks like his dead mother. It's as disturbing as it sounds and yet it's an incredibly sweet, light-hearted film. It dances the lines between creepy and sweet very well and Hallam as a character is a very tragic and sympathetic boy. He's a sensitive cool-loser that are so popular in indie films. A social reject but someone we all want to be. And who wouldn't want to live on the rooftops, watching the world go by? Fantastic.

47 - Routine

Sometimes writing is spontaneous. Doesn't matter where you are, you have to write.

However, as much as I love writing, it doesn't mean that whenever I get a free moment I write. Even if I do want to write, it doesn't mean I will. Often I just can't be arsed. I used to think that writing when I wanted to write, when I needed to write, produced far better pieces than if I forced it, so I'd only write when I really wanted to. Maybe I was right, but writing in that way took a long time to produce anything.

So I've gotten into a habit and One A Day has been a huge help with this. By writing something every day I'm now firmly back in the routine of writing. I don't need to force it. I was worrying at the start of this month that One A Day had replaced my fiction writing. It hasn't. It took about 6 weeks of writing a blog a day but now this blogging has become habitual. I don't feel like I'm forcing these blogs out anymore. I now feel that I can sit down and write, in moderation, at any time. Having rekindled this 'ability' to write without needing the flaming desire to, I transferred this routine to my fiction writing.

As boring as this is, this has been my schedule each day this last week or so:

8:00 - Alarm goes off. Press snooze 5 times.
8:42 - Get out of bed. Have tea. Check emails, Twitter etc.
9:00 - Have shower. Put on comfy clothes. Eat bit of breakfast.
9:30 - With coffee, sit down and write.
10:30 - Have cup of tea and variety of cake.
11:00 - Write.
12ish - Finish.

This method's working really well for me. It's not as much as I could write but 2+ hours a day's not bad and I think it strikes a good medium for the time being between forcing it out and wanting to write. So yeah, thanks One A Day.

46 - Feeling sexy

So I was redrafting Chapter 12 of my novel today and had to write a sex scene. Man, I felt awkward. That's a pretty pathetic attitude to have, right?

I wouldn't include the scene if it didn't need to be there. Unfortunately it does. I don't want it coming across as a desperate attempt to be sexy. As long as it's functional, I'll be happy. Still, I was writing it feeling like a teenager whose dad was trying to have 'that talk' with him.

I tried thinking of other novels with sex scenes and only one sprung to mind as I wrote - American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis. If you haven't read it, then know the sex scenes, like everything else in the novel, are graphic but serve a point. They're not too sexy or ludicrous, just graphic. Oh, and they nearly all end with Patrick Bateman mutilating the women involved. Good stuff, but it wasn't much help.

Hopefully by the time I come back to this chapter on the next draft I'll have manned up a bit or done some actual research into better written sex scenes. For now, I'm sure the scene has been imbued with a great sense of awkwardness, and what's sex without awkwardness, right?

45 - Literary exchange #1

Me and my friend decided to do a literary exchange this year. The plan is to lend each other five of our favourite books that the other hasn't read. To start I lent her Flowers for Algernon and she lent me Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Now I've seen the films and pretty much everyone in the English-speaking world knows the story, but I thought I'd try and read it with an open mind. I can't lie; it was better than I expected.

So I thought in continuing the way I read it, I'd write a few words on the book as if it weren't some huge cultural phenomenon - as if it were an unknown story.

The first thing that strikes is how solid an imagination J.K. Rowling has, and how good a sense she has of what will appeal to children. There's a bit of something for everyone. There's classic escapism. There's a sense of there being more to life. There's some entertaining characters and best of all there's magic.

For a children's book it's a great little read. There are flaws, most of which I overlooked seeing as it's intended for children. Everything that happens is fantastically convenient. The writing isn't exactly brilliant and the dialogue is often clunky and full of clumsy exposition. Most of all I found the sense of right and wrong in the book to be too clear-cut. Characters are either very, very good or incredibly evil and malicious. But as I said, it is meant for children.

Overall I preferred Artemis Fowl. It has a better plot and the character of Artemis is far superior to Harry. Still, I really enjoyed Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and I'm sure if J.K. Rowling ever pens a sequel I'll give it a read.

44 - 1988.7.16 Tokyo

The only sound we hear is the wind.

The camera pans up and looks out over a huge, sprawling city.

1988.7.16 TOKYO

A pinpoint of light quickly grows and a nuclear explosion engulfs the screen.

All is white.

WRITTEN AND DIRECTED
BY
KATSUHIRO OTOMO

A picture fades in of the city from above.

A drum beat.

31 YEARS AFTER WORLD WAR III
AD 2019 NEO TOKYO

The picture fades to black and the camera pulls out of a huge crater; that of the nuclear explosion.

The drum beats continue and AKIRA in large, red lettering fades onto the screen.

---

That is why Akira has one of the best openings in cinema. That is why novels just can't compete with films when it comes to openings. Everything about Akira's opening is pure and simplistic beauty. It's shocking, powerful and provides the set-up for the rest of the story. My words don't do it justice. Watch the film.

43 - I'm my own grandfather. What?

Writing time travel fiction is a nightmare.

I tried writing a short story about a time traveller once and had to give up due to the fact that I couldn't keep a grip on the facts.

She travelled back in time just after her seventh birthday, lived for twelve years in the past then returned to when she came four years after she left.
How old is she again?

He just met for the first time a man that he's already killed.

What?

For him this is the ninth time they've met. For her it's the third. However she's aware of all fifteen times they've met due to the fact that the second time she met him was the final time of them meeting and he filled her in.
Run that by me again.

Quite.

So I've been playing around with it in my latest story and I think, I think, I've just caused a temporal causality loop. At least, I may have. I really don't know.

I think the key hope as a writer is that your readers won't be able to keep up either and so will just give in and go with the flow. Hopefully.