Falldog

It’s quite a pretty number, and I wanted to make sure it’s recorded for posterity, before I take down the Nanometer on this site.

Today is the last day of NaNoWriMo, during which lots of people will be – rightly – slapping themselves on the back, having completed their 50,000 word marathons and found the end of their novels. I only got 11,000 words in (not a bad haul, considering), but am now living in a state of much greater understanding of writing and my relationship to it. Next year, I shall try again – and there is even talk of an independent Nano in April, where the Mrs and I (both drop-outs from this November) will team up with a keen friend who only learnt about the whole thing one week into this month. So, I may end up doing it twice next year. Well, you never know.

I would like to say a big “Bloody hell! Congratulations!” to all those in the little gang, whom I convinced to join me in this. The majority of them have succeeded (although one in particular has been very reticent, and I’ve no idea how far he’s come), and I am very, very proud of them – although I knew all along they could do it, even if one or two of them had doubts. I just think it’s bloody typical that I dragged everyone along in the wake of my enthusiasm, before leaping into the lifeboats halfway through the month!

Now, of course, it’s all about the Christmas shopping and getting through the tail-end of this calamitous freelance stint. (The office crowds are practically chanting, “Fight! Fight! Fight!” as I type.) But, if nothing else, NaNoWriMo did get my engines firing again, and in unexpected ways, and I’m feeling at least partly re-energised about my career choice. Nano is a great, great thing, even if it has defeated me, and you should give it a punt.

Uatu would appreciate the irony.

Batman wins! But probably not in the way you’re thinking…

I found mention of a 1954 report bracingly entitled The Seduction of the Innocent in this wired.com report this morning. Following a link, I found this page, where the whole thing is explained. Well, I say ‘explained’… It’s described; I don’t think there is an adequate explanation.

Turns out that a frothing Dr Frederick Wertham told the US government back in 1954 that comic books were the root cause of juvenile delinquency, saying that Hitler was “a beginner compared to the comic book industry”. You’ve got to love stuff like that. Nowadays, of course, it’s computer games: much of Wertham’s writing quoted on that page has echoes of the Daily Mail’s endless rants on the subject of the latest GTA clone and its threat to the moral bedrock of today’s polite society. Veils, hoods or d-pads… It’s all one to Middle England’s favourite paper.

As the writer of the page says, it would be funny if it wasn’t meant in deadly earnest. But at least those very echoes give me hope that, one day, such find-evil-in-everything people will move on to the next thing, and leave poor computer games alone.

The last two days, my head has just been mush. I blame the utter lack of drive in my creative life, now that I’ve no Nano to fall back on. (The Nanometer will stay there until 1st December, just so I can rub it in for myself.) I had half a brilliant idea for a pitch for something, but the other half just fell down the back of the metaphorical sofa at the back of my mind*. I’ll have a rummage around for it soon enough, but… well, fuff. Brainmelt.

I blame, in part, the discovery of a thrillingly inane game for the DS and a baseline feeling of ‘life is on hold until the Wii arrives’. Yes, I’m in a very Nintendo place at the moment.

Plus, it was a busy week last week, and I’m a bit tired out.

* As opposed to the real sofa at the back of my mind. See? Brainmelt.

Wired.com has posted a diverting piece covering the attempts of a number of writers to emulate Hemingway’s six-word story “For sale: baby shoes, never worn”. It’s quite entertaining, and some of the entries are lovely, but… A six-word story? No such thing, surely?

Hemingway’s has a certain sadness, and an amazing economy, true. But it’s not a story, it’s a mood, a scene-setting phrase. The best of the efforts at Wired are the same: Gregory Maguire’s “From torched skyscrapers, men grew wings”, or “Computer, did we bring batteries? Computer?” by Eileen Gunn. Like Hemingway’s shoes, they tell you something about the circumstances of a story, and your imagination does the rest.

Some of them come close – Margaret Atwood’s “Longed for him. Got him. Shit.”, which demonstrates a definite beginning, middle and end – but most are just playful little word games and not a lot more.

Hemingway described his six-word story as his best work, which is patently ridiculous. (Sorry, Ernest, but really…) There is, of course, a power in brevity, and in the wielding of it, but all the power in the world can’t make a proper narrative out of half a dozen words.

Believe me. I’ve tried. It doesn’t

Unbelievable.

Yesterday, I accepted a big booking to work from the beginning of next year through to Easter back here at the coalface of my old employers. I had some misgivings about it (by the time twelve months of freelancing rolls around, I bet you 90% of my work will have been back at my old employers!), but such a big booking means I can spend more time on my own things afterwards, in April and May. Plus, it’s helping out people I like who are in a pretty nasty situation (the department here is a bit… broken, shall we say), so I get the good vibes.

And then today, someone at a different company – one I’d really like to work at – emails to ask if I can do exactly the same dates over there. Crushing! I’d love to do it, but a booking is a booking and… well, timing is everything.

On the bright side, it’s lovely to not have to worry about work again now until next spring. But. Well. Gah!

I note that, before my little bit of excitement over The Greatest TV Show Ever Made… Probably (of which more – much more – in days to come), I hadn’t posted here for a week. Not totally unusual, but it’s not like I haven’t wanted to post, it’s just something has been in the way.

See the Nanometer over there? After a little spurt a few days ago, it’s been stuck around 11,000 words for quite a while. At this point in the month, I should be hitting 35,000 words, so it’s clear I’m a long way behind. I wish I had a good reason, too. I’ve had a series of what have felt like busy weekends, and reasonably packed weeks (plus the kind of work stress I thought I had avoided by going freelance – plus ça change…), but I have had the time to be doing that magical 1667 words-per-day. Considering the glorious headstart I had on day one, I feel like I’ve royally messed it up, really. Because there is no one and nothing else to blame: I just didn’t sit down every day and make myself write.

This coming weekend, too, I’m off to Dublin. Way back, I had planned to drag the laptop with me and write out there – but, on reflection, why should I spend time trapped in a hotel room in a city I’ve never before visited?

On top of this, I’ve been almost studiously avoiding the blog (something I’m quietly quite proud of having continued for this long already, after many aborted attempts in the past), because pangs of don’t-write-that-write-this guilt have struck every time I considered tapping out a few bits of nonsense for falldog.com. And I like this blog, and don’t see why it should suffer too!

Basically, the Nano – annoyingly – is off for this year. I’m very chuffed that I’ve got 11,000-odd words of fiction written that weren’t written before, but disappointed that it’s not the whole thing. I’ve learnt a lot about how I write, new ways I might be able to write, and about what I might expect when – not if – I do this again. So, it was by no means a total waste of time.

And anyway, I now want to write about a girl group who investigate supernatural crime. Because… well, why wouldn’t you?

ITV2. Ghosthunting with Girls Aloud. Oh, yes.

The online controversy (!) surrounding my Doctor Who Magazine feature has intensified. They’ve started to say that my piece of writing ‘displays racist sympathies’. Oh, yes. This is because I said that a human viewer of a drama might find it more difficult to relate to an extraterrestrial character than they would a human character. Therefore, I am suggesting that people find it impossible to empathise with anyone who isn’t just like them, further suggesting that all humans are racist – or, at least, that my own view (that I am projecting on to all humankind) is that people can’t understand the way other people of different… Oh, I can’t go on. It’s hurting me even to try to articulate what they were thinking.

WE’RE TALKING ABOUT FUCKING ALIENS IN DOCTOR WHO! YOU CAN’T BE RACIST ABOUT THINGS THAT DON’T EXIST!

In the end, I posted a message saying I was horrified that my writing had been interpreted in such a manner, explained what I was getting at in painstaking obviousness, then scrambled my password and logged out. I can never return to the lunatic world of their internet freakshow, and will never have to hear another one of their frighteningly mad opinions.

Meanwhile, NaNo has stalled horribly, but I’m being guilted into further progress. After a night out at the cinema, anyway. Which I think I need.

The new issue of Doctor Who Magazine (#376) is released tomorrow, although I managed to grab a copy on my way home this afternoon. Inside, you can find a feature by little old me on rubbish aliens in the old series and why Russell T Davies seems to keen to avoid them in the new (sort of… oh, just go read it). Clay and Tom have done a lovely job in bringing it to the page, but – CRIME OF CRIMES! – they cut a bit out of the box-out where I highlight some of the old series’ worst examples of alien races. Exclusively to falldog.com, you lucky sods, I present the entries on the inhabitants of Metebelis 3 and the shonky Bandrils:

The natives of Metebelis 3
Planet of the Spiders
CRIME: DUFF!
Oh, dear. This story is great fun while the Doctor is zipping around the English countryside, dodging nasty spider-piggybacks, but as soon as he takes a trip to the other side of the universe, it all starts to fall apart. While the natives of Metebelis 3, living in the wicked thrall of the ever-so-shrieky Great One, may be explicitly stated to be descendants of human colonists, they act like anything but. Dodgy dialogue and worse costumes hamstring any effort to make them convincing – and then along come Neska’s grief-fuelled collywobbles over her husband Sabor. It’s a wonder there was anyone left watching to see the Doctor regenerate.

The Bandrils
Timelash
CRIME: PUPPETS!
The Borad is manipulating the Bandrils so that they will start a war, launching a benalpyse warhead against the Karfelons, thereby wiping them out. Benalpyse? Sounds like cough mixture! And the Bandrils? Sock puppets! Next!

Kudos to Clay and Tom again, though, for taking out one horrible cock-up about the Daleks’ first appearance (and being wise enough to get what I meant, though it couldn’t have been less clear from the feature as it was given to them!) and for tidying up a few other odds and ends. Although why they inserted such a random word as ‘rheumatic’, I will never know. I’m quite proud of the finished feature, though I am certain it will be met with widespread apathy, if not antipathy, by fandom at large.

EDIT: Oh, and look! Over here on the Outpost Gallifrey forums, someone is calling it “simply the worst article I’ve ever read in DWM”. (The poster has obviously never read my DWM feature on Bernice Summerfield.) Anyway, it’s being lost among a barrage of bitchy sniping about typos, against which Tom is mounting a valiant one-man rebuttal. You’ve got to love fans.