Nano Day 3

I've just passed the 5,000 word mark! Yesterday was a bit difficult because I got in late, had to build a fireplace to give the room a bit of atmosphere for the first of our Christmas Movie nights, and then watched Elf, so the only writing I got done was what I managed to cram into my lunch hour, which meant today I was playing catch up.

Didn't get the opportunity to do any lunchtime writing today, but I go to watch the kids diving on a Thursday so I took my laptop along and knocked out 1,000 words there. Came home and managed another 1,000 (the last 500 words flew out.)

So, over the first three days, I've got an average of 1,800 per day. No idea where this novel is going but really want to keep pushing and see what happens. And to be quite honest, if it wasn't for the need to keep up with NaNoWriMo, I certainly wouldn't have done that last 1,000 words. In fact, today would probably have ended up as a non-writing day.

Nano Day 1

Finding time to write is the key, and it really isn't that hard. By some smashing stroke of luck, my dog woke me up at 5:00am this morning, quickly followed by the cat. Unable to get back to sleep I started thinking of my Nano project and the scenes began to flow.

At 7, it was time to give up on any further chance of sleep and get out of bed. Quick packed lunch for my youngest, a bacon and egg sarnie for me, check Facebook (quickly, because I really wanted to write a few notes) and then managed about fifteen minutes writing. Doesn't sound like a lot but it was enough to get about 150 words down.

It's a start.

I work during the week, so I couldn't do anything more until my lunch break. I nuked leftover pasta in a the staff room microwave, found an empty class and began tapping away. I knocked out around 1000 very messy words.

This evening, I managed a bit more time behind the keyboard. This was easy enough - really just time I usually spend scrolling through Facebook and watching videos of cats falling off tables and such. Went over the stuff I'd written earlier and watched a documentary on Victorian bakers, wrote a little more, watched a bit of an old movie, the news and QI. Then an early night and a few pages of current book (Midnight by Dean Koontz).

Total words today - 2168. Not bad considering I haven't really felt like I've had to tie myself to the laptop.

NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo - or, National Novel Writing Month is described as "A fun, seat of your pants approach to creative writing."

The idea is to knock out a novel as fast as possible to avoid getting bogged down in planning and plotting.

I've tried this technique a few times but never registered for Nano. Thought I'd give it a go this year as I'm just about to start writing what I hope is an adult thriller.

All I have at the moment is a title: Daniel's Daughter, and a one line synopsis. Nothing else.Going to start writing tomorrow. Let's see how far I get.I'll blog updates along the way.

Teenage Cancer Trust

Had a great night on Saturday night at the O2 Academy in Newcastle. 18 different acts performed on two stages - the main O2 stage and the upstairs acoustic room None of the acts took a fee to raise money for the Teenage Cancer Trust.

Most of the photos I took came out a bit poor so I knocked a few video clips together to give a hint of the general atmos. Fantastic. Can't wait till next year.
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The Hidden People by Alison Littlewood

I'll make this short because I didn't get very far with this at all. The reason is simple - reading it was just too much hard work. I'm sure there are people out there who love quirky writing peppered with forgotten vocabulary to really add authenticity to the voice of a historical narrator, but I found it tough going. I tried to soldier on, and then hit the phonetic Yorkshire dialect - there was a little touch of this early on, but when the MC went up north it was used continually and the book died right there.

The problem I have with written dialects is that the written word is unfamiliar, so you have to slow down your reading in order to sound out the phonemes to decipher the word. As a reader, this shifts my focus from the story to the written word and the illusion of believable fiction is broken. So there's no point reading any further.

The Fire Child by S.K. Tremayne

I loved The Ice Twins so as soon as I saw the author name, S.K. Tremayne, I had to get this.

In short, it looks like Rachel has landed herself a perfect family life, rising up from the underclass of London to the stunning grounds of Carnhallow House in Cornwall. She has a husband rich enough to keep and maintain the house, and she has fallen in love with Jamie, the perfect stepson. But Jamie is still grieving the loss of his mother, and Rachel's arrival at the house seems to have a significant effect on that grief. Jamie becomes convinced that his real mother is alive, is in the house... and that Rachel will be dead by Christmas.

Creepy and atmospheric with hints of the paranormal, The Fire Child is a brilliant psychological thriller. The setting is rich and convincing without being overly descriptive - there are lots of snippets of the horrors of mining, slipped in seamlessly into the story so that it never feels like clunky info dumps. All very nice and skillful, but for me, what S.K, Tremayne does particularly well is play the characters off against each, chipping away at their flaws and secrets, toying with the reader as who to trust. My only negative comment is that I would have liked a few more David chapters.

Overall, superb. Definitely an author I'll be following.

Review: Thin Air by Michelle Paver

Thin Air follows the story of five mountain climbers going for the summit of Kangchenjunga, the third highest peak in the Himalayas and considered at the time, the biggest killer of them all. Told from the point of view of a young medic, the group plan to follow the route that ended in disaster in 1907. The book opens with the medic receiving a stark warning from the last surviving member of that expedition.

Set in 1935 with a style deliberately dated, Thin Air has a feel that might appeal to fans of H.P. Lovecraft - in fact, it's very reminiscent of At The Mountains of Madness, (written in 1931!) not only in the setting and atmosphere but in the gradual and cumulative climb towards increasing fear.

Attention to detail is a major part of the book, from equipment to diet to medical treatments. It helps pace the story and make it feel like a genuine memoir of a 1930's trek. The story itself is gradual in development and the initial moments of unease are just a little too subtle, but these moments increase and gather momentum as the main character becomes lost in his own fears and culminate in a few final scenes which really deliver.

Thin Air is a steadily paced, slow-burn ghost story. Atmospheric, well researched and has some great moments of isolation, confusion and madness.

Thin Air is due out October 6th 2016, published by Orion. 
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Colin Mulhern