50,052

So, at midnight ought six last night, I finally hit the fifty grand mark on my Nanowrimo project. I’m now one of the (so-far) 5500 people who’ve made it to the blue bar mark, and can show off with the sexy wee icon you see here.
The story won’t end there, in all senses of the word. I reckon the finished article will be close to 60,000 words, or around the 200 page mark. A good fast dirty read, which was exactly what I’d planned. I’ll spend next week getting the story finished, then put it away before polishing it and seeing if anyone’s interested. which realistically means the new year..
It’s been an amazing experience, and one where I only felt half in control of the story. It’s gone to places I’d never had expected. it’s been like hanging onto a wild horse, being able to control the general direction it’s galloping in, but being unable to prevent it from taking jinks and sidetracks along the way. So, yay me. I’m having a day off. Off out for celebratory drinks tonight, then back to it tomorrow.

Twenty Grand

After some frantic typing this weekend, I bumped my NaNoWriMo word count up to 20,000 words. Big glow of achievement there, but I still have an awfully long way to go, and the days are slipping past rather more quickly than I’d like.
But what an experience it’s turning into. The story has taken twists and turns I honestly wouldn’t have believed. Characters have changed, their motivations flipping 180 degrees. I’m loving it, although I still have to force myself to open the laptop sometimes. I could get into this writing every day bit…

On Cinematic and literary horror

The Frightfest all-nighter at the ICA last weekend was a huge laugh, and if some of the films were a bit on the lame side, one at least was very worthwhile.
My capsule reviews of each, in order of reverse order of suckiness:

5) Re-Cycle: the Pang Brothers watch Mirrormask and decide that pretty looking incomprehensible fantasy about the blurring between the real and the fictional world is a good idea. Muddled, disjointed, syrupy, maudlin, dull. It was saddled with the worst subtitling I’ve seen in a long while, that kept switching the sex of a fairly pivotal character. Although I had to smile at the writer’s report of a mysterious vortex in the alley behind her building. “The sucking force accumulates.” How very true. Everyone caught a nap while this was on.

4) Gone: Working Title move into the horror field, and come up with a thick slice of bland cheese on white bread, no crusts. Two British backpackers meed up with an American guy, who may not be what he seeeeems. Except he is, and is so unrelentingly creepy throughout that you wonder why any sane person would come within 50 yards of him, let alone drive across the Northern Territories in his skanky old van. The first half hour is effectively a promo for the Australian Tourist Board. Not much of anything, really.

3) Heartstopper: A serial killer comes back from the dead to hunt teens in an abandoned hospital. Directed by Bob Keen, the FX guru, so the goop quotient is high, but everything else is horror by numbers. The script is absolute bobbins, the acting not much better. Robert Englund’s in it. Once he gets killed you may as well not bother. (oh, sorry. SPOILER. Don’t read the previous sentence.)

2) The Raven: a reissue of Roger Corman’s 1954 horror comedy. Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, Boris Karloff and Jack Nicholson chew up the cheapo scenery on a bizarre little number exceedingly loosely based on the Edgar Allen Poe story. More charm, invention and bad jokes than any of the other three films put together.

1) The Chumscrubber: Not really a horror film, first of all. It’s been described as kind of like Donnie Darko. My feeling is more American Beauty, or maybe Brick. It’s a tale of dislocation, paranioa and psychosis in the American suburbs. The hugely impressive cast, including Ralph Fiennes, Glenn Close, Alison Janney and William Fichtner largely play caricatures. It’s down to the kids, Camilla Bella and notably Jamie Bell to pull out the realism and give this tale of a kidnapping gone wrong some heart and guts. Chumscrubber contained the one moment that made a room full of hardened horror fans cry out in disgust, which has to be a good thing. This was a last minute replacement for Turistas (Hostel in Brazil, pretty much). It’s a brave choice, and an absolute corker.

Recommendations when stumbling out of a central London cinema at quarter to eight on a Sunday morning – the Stockpot on Panton Street. A decent sized breakfast for under a fiver. And the look on the manager’s face when the living dead came stumbling through his door was just priceless.

In NaNoWriMo news: ticking away quite nicely, and just barely on schedule, although a weekend hammering away on the laptop couldn’t hurt the wordcount. Clicking on the participant logo in the sidebar will take you to my profile page (I’m calling myself Conojito online at the mo, don’t ask why, it’s a dull and pathetic story) where you can read the prologue and the first couple of chapters. You should notice a word count widget underneath that logo, so you too can keep track of my lousy progress! 23 days to go. Speaking of which, I’m out of here. I should be novelling.

Security

I was stopped by a policeman on the way out of Picadilly Circus station this morning, and questioned under section 44 of the Terrorism Act.

This is, unnervingly, becoming a regular sight in ticket offices, especially in the central locations I tend to have to go to. Seeing someone being questioned and their bag searched is one thing. having it happen to you is quite another.

The questioning officer was perfectly polite, assuring me that the only criteria for the search was that I happened to be the next one out of the barrier after the previous person he’d been questioning. However, I had to wonder whether the fact that I was wearing a leather jacket with the collar up, a peaked woolen cap pulled low and toting a rucksack made me a more obvious choice for questioning. Yeah, I know. Asking for it, right? I’ve been accused of being a bomber before, of course.

I was asked where I’d come from, where I was going, and the policeman got some details from my driving licence. He was chatty and amenable, spotted I had a birthday coming up, and wished me a peaceful day. That last was enough to thoroughly freak me out. Why would i not have a peaceful day? His reason for searching me had to do with ‘events over the last 24 hours in the vicinity.’ Like what? The global warming march on Saturday? Or was other shit going down that I knew nothing about?

Strangely, he didn’t ask to search my bag. Probably just as well. God only knows what he would have made of the section of “Satan’s School For Girls” that the laptop’s parked on.

If the intent, as the policeman put it , was to set people’s mind’s at rest that the police are protecting them, then frankly it failed, as the whole experience left me a little frayed and un-nerved.

Worse, I claim to be a free speech, anti-police state and freedom of information advocate. Yet, when it came down to it, I meekly handed over my driving licence for inspection without a word of protest. I certainly gave away my information freely enough. The whole thing has left me feeling foolish, and more than a little powerless.

*I was going to blog about NanoWriMo and my experiences at this year’s Frightfest allnighter, but frankly that’ll have to wait until I’m feeling a bit less angry with myself. *

Hi. It’s been a while. How you doing?

You look good. Damn nice to see you. I know, I know, I’ve not called, I’ve not written. I’m a bad, bad boy, and I need to be punished.

Look, this is hard to say, so I’m just gonna barrel on through. I’m just going through one of those phases at the moment, and things get moved aside a little. I still think about you a lot, but I just can’t be with you as much. Not for a little while anyway.

Trust me. I’ll be around. Who knows, maybe this is the thing both of us need.

Don’t think badly of me. Wish me well. It’s going to be a hard few weeks.