Review - The Iron Tree

I've been trying to read The Iron Tree, by Cecilia Dart-Thornton. I struggled from the outset when I was introduced to Jarred, a beautiful and well-mannered young man, well-loved by the people of his small, remote, nothing-ever-happens-here village. He is protected by a mysterious amulet, and he's about to embark on a quest to search for his mysterious father.

Okay, that's about a half-dozen quest fantasy clichés right there, but nothing unforgiveable just yet. I came close to hurling the book, however, when I discovered that the protagonist is a blacksmith's apprentice. I stuck with it only because I enjoyed CD-T's previous work, The Bitterbynde so damned much.

Now though, I've reached page 47 and it's just passed the perfection threshold. Perrin Aybara Eric von Darkmoor Jarred is about to embark on his quest, and the ladies of the village are lamenting his departure. I quote:

'We shall lose our most enjoyable pastime,' they sighed self-pityingly amongst themselves, 'for 'tis our innocent delight merely to watch him go walking down the street with his easy stride, his hair flying down past his shoulders. 'Tis our joy to watch him kick the football, or play at wrestling with the other boys, or practise shooting at targets with the slingshot -- at which he excels above all others -- for he moves so gracefully and is so agile and assured. The way he moves,' they embroidered, 'could cause a woman to swoon.'

I have to ask myself: Can I really read another 550 pages of this?

THUMP!

That, in case anyone hasn't guessed, is the sound of a book being hurled. That is the sound of me saying, 'Hell no' with actions.

NaNoWriMo - Day 29

Day 26: 7102 words, 8 scenes
Day 27: 6475 words, 11 scenes
Day 28: 1747 words, 2 scenes

Progress: 51914 / 50000 = 104% (Winner!)

Total (Dearest . . .): 17787 words, 24 scenes

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. . . And it's over. Finally. If you do the maths, I actually reached the target on Sunday, but the word count verifier at the NaNoWriMo site has a tendency to disagree with Microsoft Wordupyomabitches, so I added another 1747 on Monday evening before I uploaded the text file for verification.

Well, I'm glad it's over. It's been a mostly fun experience, and I'm pretty proud that I managed to reach THE END on Home, something that I've never managed to do before. This past weekend -- which mostly consisted of me going, fuckfuckfuckneedtofinishthisweekendfifteenthousandwordsfuckfuckityfuckfuck! -- was less fun, but a valuable experience nonetheless[13].

I may well write a more in-depth analysis of the whole NaNoWriMo experience at a later date. I'll certainly write an analysis on the first draft of Home, as already promised, but for now there's a bottle or two of wife-beater waiting for me in the fridge, and they've never looked better.

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[13] And learning that I have in me to not only write 15500 words between Friday evening and Sunday evening, but also spend much of Friday evening and all of Saturday afternoon on the piss. It's both amazing and a little scary.

Not Brazilian enough for this

Friday: Went out for a few drinks with the Irish girl and a few others. Few drinks turned into lots of drinks, and we ended up in Soda for Brasilica night. Hmmm. Did you ever go to a club and feel completely out of place? Okay, so we weren't the only Western Europeans there, but it certainly felt like it. Had a good night, despite Soda being a dive[14] and that I couldn't dance to most of the music being played[15].

Saturday morning: Hung over, worked on word count.

Saturday afternoon: Went to watch the rugby with RB. Repeated last week's guinness-drinking exploits, but managed to get home a little earlier (and a little soberer).

Sunday: Hung over, worked on word count. Won NaNoWriMo (more of that tommorow).

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[14] The clincher for me is the fact that the fag burns on the bright red vinyl seats, of which there are plenty, have been patched with black electrical tape. Classy.
[15] Okay, you could say I can't dance to any music, but let's not split hairs.

Bits and pieces

Idiot TV has returned; further proof that you could have Chris Evans crapping in a bucket for an hour, and a live television audience would applaud it

Mr Miyagi dies; Wax on, wax off

Bosnia unveils statue of famous Bosnian

Is he cute, or is he British; further proof that I need to meet me some American women.

England defeat Manu Samoa

Argyle lose to Reading

NaNoWriMo - Day 26

Day 23: 0 words
Day 24: 563 words
Day 25: 1900 words, 3 scenes

Progress: 36590 / 50000 = 73% (behind)

Total (Dearest . . .): 2463 words, 3 scenes

Walking in a Swindon wonderland . . .

. . . um, well. Moving on.

Went to the Beehive last night with Andy and Jen.
Walking there: no snow.
Walking home: Snow! Snowball fights!

And the best thing about it? The snow was stil there this morning[12]. Okay, so I'm in work now, and can't play in it, but looking out over white is always better than looking out over grey.

A prediction: if it snows again this weekend, my NaNo efforts will fail spectacularly. It's just too big a distraction.

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[12] When I got to my car, I discovered that someone had written 'POO' in the snow on my rear windscreen. I was quite disappointed; all the other cars in the street had much better cuss words.

The king of procrastination

Well, I promised some of the stuff I've been doing in the name of procrastination [entry], so here it is. This is what happens when I spend the best part of two weeks on my own in a flat with a digital camera.

There's only so much time you can spend typing words and watching two episodes of Neighbours a day. Just be thankful they were all clean :)

NaNoWriMo - Day 23

Day 21: 1286 words
Day 22: 2518 words, 3 scenes, 1 novel

Progress: 34127 / 50000 = 68% (behind)

Total (Home): 121780 words, 87 scenes

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Yes, I suspect the impact of this is going to be slightly diminished by the whole chaos of NaNoWriMo, but last night I wrote 'THE END' on my first novel Home. I have finished my novel.

I can't really believe it. I think I'm going to have to save any first draft analysis -- how good it feels to have finally finished something -- until December. I think the bottle of Dom Pérignon will have to wait. For now let me just say

Wow.

Of course, now I have to think of something else to write my last 15873 NaNoWriMo words about, but that's another story. Literally.

Taekwondo - Brown belt

Graduated after class last night [entry], going from green to brown. I'll say one thing for the belt system: I'll be glad when I'm a black belt, because I can barely keep up with changing colour every two months.

Cross-trained with the Jo Staff again last night. Am getting better with it[10], and pleased that we're actually concentrating on one weapon now, rather than all the chopping[11] and changing.

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[10] For 'getting better' read 'no longer ro sham bo-ing myself'.
[11] Pardon the pun.

NaNoWriMo - Day 21

Day 16: 2019 words, 1 scene
Day 17: 1594 words
Day 18: 0
Day 19: 0
Day 20: 6234 words, 2 scenes

Progress: 30323 / 50000 = 61% (behind)

Total (Home): 117976 words, 84 scenes

But . . .

. . . I'm catching up! I will do this.

Ro sham bo

Black belt: I'll ro sham bo you for it.
Me: What's ro sham bo?
Black belt: I kick you square in the nuts, then you kick me in the nuts, and the first one to fall over loses . . .

This is why you shouldn't spar with blackbelts. They get carried away, and someone ends up getting kicked in the nuts.

When I picked myself off the floor, I discovered that they'd taken my phone.

I'm not sure I like this game.

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Other than that, taekwondo training progresses well. The chaos of NaNoWriMo [last entry] hasn't affected me too much; I'm still managing to get up to the dojang 3 or 4 times a week. Bizarrely, I had a card through my door the other day saying, 'Haven't seen you in class recently.' I counted when I went up that night and discovered that I'd been to 17 classes in the last month. Because of this (and other things) I am becoming convinced that neither of the instructors actually know who I am.

NaNoWriMo - Day 16

Day 11: 465 words, 2 scenes[7]
Day 12: 0
Day 13: 0
Day 14: 549 words
Day 15: 2033 words, 1 scene

Progress: 20476 / 50000 = 41% (behind)

Total (Home): 108129 words, 81 scenes

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[7] This weekend I ha' been mostly procrastinatin' [entry]. Friday was done by hand, as was much of Monday. Shame, because it's never as much as you think it is when you write by hand.

Heading west

Watched the rugby (great game) and football (great game, apparently[5]) on Saturday afternoon, before heading into Kings for a beer with Coops, Big Ron and Tom. Tris was due to come out but he's channeling Duncan[6].

Good night, and it was good catching up with Tom and his gf because I haven't seen them in so long. Managed to resist the lure of the club (Fusion2), which was probably for the best; I was drunk enough and broke.

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Sunday, Dad and I visited my aunt in hospital. From everything I've heard about her in the last week it was wonderful to see her sitting up and talking. I've just heard she's been moved out of the ICU now, which is good news.

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[5] I say apparently, because I left before the last fifteen minutes of the match, and missed the best part. D'oh!
[6] Saying he was going to come out, and then wussing out with a rubbish excuse ;)

NaNoWriMo - Day 11

Day 9: 2049 words, 1 scene
Day 10: 1145 words

Progress: 17429 / 50000 = 35% (ahead)

Total (Home): 105082 words, 78 scenes

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I'm going west this weekend, so the novelling is going to be on pen and paper for the next three days. I suspect I shall be behind on word count when I return to the Concrete Kingdom.

Oh well. No avoiding it; I had to get out of the flat, I think two weeks with little human contact has sent me a little mad[4]. Maybe next week I'll post some of the things I've been doing in the name of procrastination.

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[4] And I suspect my flatmates will appreciate having the place to themselves, having been separated for a week ;)

Running - Not quite marathons

Inspired by Andy's recent completion of the NYC marathon[3], I went running for the first time in ages last night.

Killed myself. I really need to be more dedicated with this; a month or so off and my fitness has just disappeared (again).

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[3] And he run it in under 5 hours as well. Not bad for someone who did NO training ;)

NaNoWriMo - Day 9

Day 7: 1825 words, 1 scene
Day 8: 2286 words, 2 scenes

Progress: 14235/50000 = 28% (ahead)

Total (Home): 101888 words, 77 scenes

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Elsewhere, it turns out that we've killed the NaNoWriMo Progress Meter site. Oops :) So, there won't be any fancy progress meters from now on, just the total and percentage that I have shown above.

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I suspect the impact of this is going to be diminished by the chaos of NaNoWriMo somewhat, but on Tuesday I passed the 100000 word mark on Home. I need to take a moment or two to digest this:

100000 words, 100 kilowords, 0.1 megawords. Wow. I never thought I'd write 100000 words in anything.

Right, that's enough digesting. Back to the novel.

NaNoWriMo - Day 7

Day 5: 346 words
Day 6: 2857 words, 1 scene

Total (Home): 97777 words, 74 scenes

Friday night

We had another work night out on Friday. I allowed AS the privilege of organising this one; I couldn't do it because I've been off work for the last six days. It was a success as far as these nights go; we had about 15 out, whereas the last one only managed five. It's reassuring that it's not just I who fails to inspire any enthusiasm from the work crowd.

It was a pretty good night; went from the Wheatsheaf to the Spot to the new club over Studio. Jen came out on her own (Andy being in New York, crying on the Queensboro bridge). Drank far too much considering that I had to drive the following morning. Had a minging kebab.

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Fireworks night is great. If you take yourself somewhere high up, you can imagine that the Concrete Kingdom of Swindon is being shelled by some vast unseen army.

Unfortunately, it was all still here when I got up this morning :)

NaNoWriMo - Day 5

Day 3: 817 words
Day 4: 1385 words, 2 scenes

Total (Home): 94574 words, 73 scenes

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Just returned from the first Wiltshire/Swindon meet for NaNoers. Had a couple of awkward I-don't-know-who-these-people-are-or-what-they-look-like moments that you always get when you meet people you've only ever spoken to through e's or forums. Other than that it was pretty cool meeting some fellow idiots :) Seem like a nice enough bunch, and I'm sure that Penndragon's partner was reassured to find that we weren't all axe-murderers.

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Elsewhere, it's National Drunk Writing Night (or NaDruWriNi[2]). I shall not be taking part this year -- mostly because I forgot to get any beer in -- but I wish good luck to anyone foolish brave enough to try drunken writing.

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[2]Try saying that when you're hammered. It's not easy.

Review - Nocturnes

Nocturnes by John Connolly

Nocturnes is a collection of John Connolly's short stories, featuring two novellas. The first, The Cancer Cowboy Rides, is a Stephen King style tale of the shit hitting the fan in a small American town, and actually was pretty good.

It's a shame that the book started on such a high then, because I found the short stories that followed it mostly disappointing. They follow a pattern of long protracted build-ups followed by climaxes that are over too soon given the amount of time you've spent learning each character's particular foibles. A lot of the time I found I just didn't care about what happened at the end. Of the thirteen shorts in the hardback version (I'm told the paperback has an additional two or three stories in it), The Furnace Room, The Shifting of the Sands, and Miss Froom, Vampire stand out as being the best.

The book ends with another novella, The Reflecting Eye. Unfamiliar with the novels from which the protagonist is taken, I still enjoyed this story. It's told with a good voice and it avoids the pitfalls of the shorts. The chance of my reading any of Connolly's novels hasn't completely disappeared.

NaNoWriMo - Day 3

Day 1: 2553 words, 1 scene
Day 2: 2166 words, 1 scene

Total (Home): 92372 words, 71 scenes

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Elsewhere, we've arranged a meet up for the Wiltshire/Swindon NaNoers, to make up for the pre-NaNo meet that never happened. We'll be meeting at the Starbucks in Borders on Saturday. Should be good.

NaNoWriMo - Day 1

It's 1110hrs.

The email has been checked. The newsfeeds checked. The forums browsed. I've got my first coffee of the day and a couple of chocolate chip digestive biscuits. The sun is shining. I'm trying to ignore it.

I've just written: 'He looked at the route map pinned to the wall of the waiting room.'

14 words down. 49,986 to go.

I must be insane.