I’ve spent the day at my friend’s house though (where I was last night too), waiting to see if the flood in the road was going to get any worse, and then later, if it was going to go down again so I could go home. With not much else to do except check sandbags, take photos, and drink coffee, I got quite a lot of words done and haven’t finished yet.

So all in all, I’m feeling pretty damn good about my writing this year. And the flood’s thankfully receding.

© 2009 by Sharp Words; all rights reserved.

Feersum Endjin, Iain M Banks. Borrowed(?) copy, first read.
Another delivery from my Dad. Not sure I liked this one – it exposed to me how much I skim when I read, because of all the passages written phonetically. Plus I was ill, so found it hard to concentrate on. I actually found a post-it on the last page which read “Blah Blah Blah. The butler did it. The End.” – so clearly whoever had the copy before me wasn’t too fussed on it either!

The Blue Sword, Robin McKinley. Own copy.
More comfort reading. I had no idea how many times I’ve read this novel since I first got it out of the library when I was about 12, but I’d imagine that the answer is ‘quite a lot’.

Brasyl, Ian McDonald. Library book, first read.
Really excellent sci-fi, very imaginative and beautifully set in (of course) Brazil. And I’m meeting the author during November.

Excession, Iain M Banks. Borrowed(?) copy, first read.
Another of the deliveries from Dad. I liked this one a lot more than Feersum Endjin, mostly because it’s one of the Culture novels, and I find those fascinating.

Living with the Dead, Kelley Armstrong. Library book, first read and re-read.
A good addition to the Women of the Otherworld series – her first written in the third person and from multiple points of view. I found that an interesting change, and the story wouldn’t have worked in the usual first-person.

Sovereign, C J Sansom. Library book, first read.
The third in the Shardlake series; excellent historical mystery.

To Say Nothing of the Dog, Connie Willis. Own copy.
My favourite of the novels of hers that I’ve read, for its sense of humour and ridiculous.

Nation, Terry Pratchett. Own copy, first read and re-read.
I can’t believe it I’ve left it this long to buy this novel – not like me at all; I usually pounce on Pratchett novels as soon as they come out in paperback. (Too stingy for hardback.) Finally though… this is a fantastic book. Just the right touch of seriousness and comedy, with intriguing parallels and morals that aren’t shoved down the reader’s throat.

Unseen Academicals, Terry Pratchett. Own copy, first read.
Hopefully this won’t be his last novel… It’s more mature and thoughtful than the earlier Discworld novels, with less reliance on puns and silly situations (much like the last couple have been). And it’s excellent. (Plus it has plenty of the Librarian.)

Total for October 2009: 10 + 2 re-reads

Ongoing total for 2009: 160 + 7 re-reads

© 2009 by Sharp Words; all rights reserved.

This will be my seventh year taking part, and hopefully, my fifth time reaching 50,000 words in 30 days. Actually, this year I’m aiming for 75-80 thousand, since I managed 70,000 last year.

I’m extremely excited about it this year. I have a fun story idea to work on; I need to reach 50k on that, and then I can write some of my long-standing in-need-of-rewrite fantasy saga. Or rather, I’ve promised myself for every thousand words of fantasy saga that I write, I can write two thousand of my silly sci-fi. I need to reach 50,000 on a single project to properly fulfill the rules of NaNoWriMo, so that will be on my fun project. But this way, the other one gets a word count boost too.

One of the reasons I’m so excited is that for yet another year, I’m the Municipal Liaison (aka regional co-ordinator) for Northern Ireland. I’ve run a series of “Introduction to NaNoWriMo” sessions this year, both online in our chat room and face-to-face, and so far I’ve talked to 17 other WriMos – which is almost as many as I met during the whole of November last year.

Plus, we have a kick-ass kick-off party lined up for Friday, with a happy number of RSVPs – and even if they don’t all show, we’ll still have plenty of people and a good time. (And lo! the Pumpkin of Sugary Doom shall inflict destruction on all…)

And I can’t wait to get started actually writing on Sunday…

© 2009 by Sharp Words; all rights reserved.

I can’t actually remember the old name, but I think it might have had ‘pound’ in it. I could be wrong.

The new name, however, is SOME CHOICE.

And I smile every time I see it. I also get the urge to ask to talk to management and explain that they have quite a lot of choice, actually, and there really isn’t any need to be so self-deprecating.

I’m not sure if it makes it worse that the slogan on some of the stuff inside is ‘Some Choice, Some Value’….

And just because I don’t want to miss another one, here’s my Friday Flash 55, inspired loosely by a recent visit to a local fried chicken takeaway chain, as well as by the above.

“Chicken fillet burger please.”

“What do you want on it?”

“Coleslaw.”

“Sorry, no coleslaw.”

“Tomato and mayonnaise then?”

“We’re out of tomatoes.”

“OK, just mayo.”

“No problem! Oh. The tub’s empty. Let me check the fridge… No, none there.”

“What can I have then?”

“Ketchup.”

“Or?”

“Just ketchup.”

“Some choice! I’ll just have it plain.”

© 2009 by Sharp Words; all rights reserved.

The photo shows the notebooks I found in my study. (Which admittedly is a large room, and I don’t think there are too many other notebooks lying around the house; maybe just 3 or 4.) As you can see, I like my notebooks to be hardbacked, or spiral-bound, or preferably both…

Out of the 12 there, 3 have never been used, and another 3 are currently blank because I ripped out the old unwanted scribbles that they had. (I didn’t lose anything meaningful – just Italian vocabulary lists, a few pages of holiday spending, and some old work notes.)

All the ones that have been used have some sort of history. Even the ones that haven’t have something about them. That grey, blue and red striped one in the middle? Bought in Asda for £1 the other week just because I liked the look of it. No idea what I’ll use it for.

The little black one with the inset picture on the cover was a present from a friend 10 years ago, and never used because I couldn’t think of anything worthy enough to put in it.

That little blue plastic-covered one at the front was lost for a long time. When I found it in a box earlier this year, I was delighted to find some ‘lost’ poems in it, written about 7 or 8 years ago.

The brown striped one at the back has brown paper pages which look beautiful but don’t soak up fountain pen ink very well. I persevere though, because that’s my ‘official’ poetry notebook, and I like writing in proper ink with a proper nib.

The purple one with the elastic band and the NaNoWriMo stickers? Well, you can probably guess what that one’s been used for. It’s been my writing and note-taking notebook for a couple of years of NaNoWriMo, but since it’s mostly full, it’s been retired this year in favour of the mostly-white-and-flowery book over on the left.

The little blue one with a dandelion is my log of stuff (food, weight, to-do lists). It’s a journal of sorts, and I think that’s actually where my obsession comes from – the 8 years that I kept a journal, always in a hardback notebook of varying size (I think I got through about 6).

I like notebooks much too much. (And if anyone is ever stuck for an idea for a present for me…)

Anyone else have more notebooks (or pens or other writing paraphenalia) than they really need?

© 2009 by Sharp Words; all rights reserved.

Alas, the money won’t be for myself. I’m seeking sponsorship this year for my NaNoWriMo endeavours: 50,000 words (or more; I’m hoping for 70,000 like last year) in just 30 days.

What, you ask? National Novel Writing Month? Why do you want to be sponsored for that?

Well, NaNoWriMo – or more properly, its parent organisation, the Office of Letters and Light – is a nonprofit organisation which provides free resources not just to those adults taking part in NaNoWriMo and Script Frenzy, but also for the hundreds of schools which take part in the Young Writers’ Program. And I’m sure we can all agree that getting kids to write can only be a good thing!

Have a look at the NaNoWriMo ‘Where Your Donations Go‘ page to find out more.

Every I donate some of my own money to support NaNoWriMo – and all participants are encouraged to do the same, although sadly less than 10% do so. I also give my time as a Municipal Liaison (aka regional co-ordinator) – come to think of it, that costs me money to.

But this year I thought I’d give myself an additional NaNoWriMo challenge of getting ther people to contribute too. So, I’ve got myself a nice little official GiftTool page and am accepting sponsors (I’ve had my first one already, thanks Ken)!

Unfortunately, sponsoring me directly through the page can only be done by credit card and in specified dollar amounts. (And I ultimately have to submit all my gathered amounts as dollars too.)  However, you can also sponsor me directly in cash (pounds sterling) or via Paypal (currency of your choice) – any money coming that way is counted as a pending pledge until I pay it through, but it still registers against my total.

Please do sponsor me. Thanks.

© 2009 by Sharp Words; all rights reserved.

Susan tweeted yesterday that she was stuck for this week’s, so I tossed her a prompt of ‘gerbils’… and then decided to use it myself.

“You’re sure they’re both girls?”
“Definitely. £30 please.”

The cage was set up in the playroom.

“Clean the gerbils out before you watch TV. You wanted them, remember?”
“But they’re booooooring.”
“Doesn’t matter. You promised to look after them.”

The gerbils became more interesting the morning we came downstairs to find two had become eight.

© 2009 by Sharp Words; all rights reserved.

And if anyone wants to comment with a theme I can use for a poem to be written today, please do!

Baby Birds

My fledgling aspirations tumble from their nest.
Woven of words and wordless longing,
lined with hopeful fluff,
it can shelter them no more.
They are pushed out into the wide-open spaces
and left to fend for themselves.

Cruel nature takes them one by one.
They succumb to the cat’s pounce of jealousy,
to the bleak cold of apathy,
to neglect and self-derision and a lack of confidence.

Found years later,
a lone feather reminds me of what might have been,
of the beautiful things that might have flown free
if only I’d learnt to nurture my dreams.

© 2009 C Sharp

© 2009 by Sharp Words; all rights reserved.

Back in February, it was revealed that they’d written more than 50 tickets for driving offences to one person (see the BBC News report at the time) – one Prawo Jazdy, presumably a Polish national (of which there are many in Ireland, driving legally on their Polish licences).

However, Prawo Jazdy is actually the Polish for driving licence…. Can we say ‘oops’? (And either well done or tut tut to all the drivers who got away with those offences.)

© 2009 by Sharp Words; all rights reserved.

Gods Behaving Badly, Marie Phillips. Library book, first read.
Comic fantasy, with the Greek gods alive (if not well) and causing trouble in London.

Stranger Than Fiction, Jim Murdoch. Review copy, first read.
Liked it, I really did, and I owe Jim a review – coming some time in October, promise. I think I want to re-read Living with the Truth first too.

Bellwether, Connie Willis. BookMooched copy, first read and a re-read.
Brilliant and intelligent; it’s technically SF although it’s all pretty contemporary and rather plausible. I love Willis’s stuff and I wish I had more of it. In this fairly short novel (I read it in the bath), scientific studies into fads and chaos theory produce an interesting outcome.

Across the Nightingale Floor, Lian Hearn. Borrowed from Marion, first read.
Really nice YA fantasy with a strong Japanese flavour. Looking forward to reading the other two in the series.

The Visitor, Sheri S Tepper. Own copy.
One of her more recent novels, and one that repeats many of her familiar themes though as always, mixing them up and blending them around and coming out with something different.

Pigs Don’t Fly and Master of Many Treasures, Mary Brown. Own copies.
I still don’t like these as much as The Unlikely Ones, though I enjoyed them more this time I read them.

Dark Fire, C J Sansom. Library book, first read.
The second of the Shardlake novels; I found it harder to get through than Dissolution but still good. Annoyingly though, after weeks of the next books being in the library, they’re no longer on the shelves. Reservation time, methinks.

The Summoning, Kelley Armstrong. Library book, first read.
Kelley’s first YA novel, with the same setting as her Women of the Underworld series. Very good; dragged me right back to being 15.

Saturn’s Children, Charles Stross. Library book, first read.
I wasn’t sure what to make of this, although I’m glad the copy I had wasn’t the one with the very blatantly sexual cover. It reminded me of some Heinlein novels though in its scope and especially its protagonist.

The Sword of the Lady, S M Stirling. Own copy, first read.
I thought this was going to be the 3rd book of the trilogy – but it ended on a cliff-hanger, and I was left to assume (and hope) there’s another. Just as good as the rest though, with a very detailed post-Event America. (The Event in this case being a complete breakdown of all modern technologies… It was the alien space bats wot did it!)

Poison Study, Magic Study and Fire Study, Maria V Snyder. Own copies, first reads.
A great little fantasy series. Pretty light, but enjoyable.

Friday, Robert Heinlein. Own copy.
A friend and I were debating this book earlier in the month, but I couldn’t remember the whole plot. So that was an excuse for a re-read, and a re-evaluation of my relationship with Heinlein’s novels, which I shall be writing about at some point.

Un Lun Dun, China Miéville. Library book, first read.
Fabulous YA novel, set in and around an alternative London – UnLondon, just one of many abcities in the world. I’d love to see Miéville write about some of the others! Shades of Gaiman’s Neverwhere of course, and also Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, but still beautifully original (carnivorous giraffes!). I love Miéville’s stuff though, so am very biased.

Inversions, Iain M Banks. Borrowed copy (I think), first read.
The reason that I’m not sure whether this is a borrowed copy is that my Dad bought it for me and had it delivered to my house… and I’m not sure if he wants it next. Probably. Good Banks though, even if I’d consider it more fantasy than SF – there’s a lot going on underneath the obvious linked stories.

Total for September 2009: 20 + 1 re-reads

Ongoing total for 2009: 150 + 5 re-reads

© 2009 by Sharp Words; all rights reserved.