LAND OF FOG - chapter one

Sorry. I don't have time to edit this a bit and reformat it for this blog...
I'll do it when i get back though!

This story is 56 750 words. About 92 word doc pages.

Hope you like it!
peace

LAND OF FOG

DAY ONE
AFTERNOON
THE SUN OPENS
It was a sunny day. A gloriously sunny day. One of those where you know you could see till the ends of the Earth if it were at least flat and kept easy on the mountains. On the crest of the hill facing the sea, I could see from miles around. The sharpness of light and form searing silently into my brain as I breathed in the landscape, making it coalesce inside my mind.
The whole of the bay to the south shimmered in the sun like a mirror waiting for that final, god like polishing. I was standing on one of the green hills overlooking not only the bay but also a small village, tucked away to one corner, below and away of me, as if afraid of both the steep rocky hills ahead and the sea below with its continuous false promise of infinity.
I breathed the fresh sea breeze one more time. I grabbed my back pack and my old battered tent and made my way down to the small village. I made my way via a small path that ran along the hill and that I presumed would take me down at some point. I felt tired and I needed a good rest badly. So, even without knowing anything whatsoever about this town (I had stumbled into it by chance, after a ride that I’d hitched that hadn’t gone well and more than 5 miles walk already on my back). Seeing something like this. A quiet town by the ocean was more or less equated as bliss in my current disposition. Too many nights on the road, camping here and there – wherever I pleased really. I needed a shave, a bath, a warm meal and the deep ingrained knowledge that a real bed could last for more than a thought.
I kept going downhill amidst the oddly bent trees and scattered bushes. Did anyone ever use this route?
I entered the town through, I assumed, its northern side. From above the village had seemed like a well kept secret by the coast but now… now I walked through empty streets with more ruins than buildings - if I didn’t know better I would’ve said that the village had been abandoned at the height of the tourist season. Was I really going to find a pension or hotel or whatever it was this place had? Or merely the place where it once had been? Unwittingly I started preparing myself for another night inside my tent.
At least the sights were interesting. Most of the buildings were very old and decayed. The gums of time really showed here. Eating away the shell but keeping the core relatively intact.
Was there a single house where somebody actually lived? I was beginning to doubt it. It was either ruined sites or traces of ruined sites. The streets had no names whatsoever. There were no plaques. This was a ghost town for sure. But how could it be? It was so close to the sea. It was a beautiful beach bathed by a bay at least 5 miles in diameter. It was sunny and warm. Well, at least this time of year it was.
How could it be deserted? If not for anything else, some of those who’d wander here by accident would surely stay. I know I would.
The obvious conclusion was therefore: there must be someone. I just needed to find out where.
I really wanted a shower. A real one and not just one on the sea.
That’s what I’ve been having for the past week.
And, salt water and soap, if you don’t know, don’t really mix.
Try and make some decent foam with that.
And even if you dry yourself well, well, some of the salt still stays.
And it itches.
Especially after a week. The skin is permanently dry. And itchy.
I thought I’d get used to it.
I thought wrong.
But, since I was here, I decided to look around as best as I could. I mean if necessary I could always turn back and try to hitch a ride out of here.
Or camp out.

I pushed those thoughts away and continued to peer at the damaged structures all around me. Most were stone masonry. Most that still stood at any rate. One could almost see – or at least feel – the forces that had destroyed them. Each seemed to hold a unique story of destruction. All looked old. At least more than one hundred years old.
Here the remnants of what must’ve been a great stone farm house eaten by a great fire. There a meadow surrounded by a broken down wall, directing my eyes away from the village. Here a house of the late Italian Renaissance period. It was missing its roof and it was filled with sand and sea shells. As if it had spent years submerged and then miraculously brought back. Here remnants of small stone houses clustered together in a sort of circular shape. A smaller village within the village, probably pre-dating it. Here what looked like a small amphitheatre with a few stubs of roman pillars scattered around it. Here the only house I’d seen so far not half a century old. It was cracked in two, as if some strange earthquake had crossed underneath it or some giant hands had tear it apart like a loaf of bread. As if it had cracked after taking some serious beating from the weather.
And then the strangest ruin of all. I had to stare at it for a while to actually believe what I was seeing was real.
In front of me, and close to the steep stony crag I’d crossed minutes ago – I realised know that I’d been walking in a semi-circle without knowing it – was a house crushed by a gigantic stone ball. The wind clearly swirled around it for dust cavorted around the ruins, making it look as if the destruction had just happened moments ago, were it not for the weeds and ivies growing here and there.
Fucking sight, right?
I turned around and saw a man in his late thirties coming towards me, his blond hair waving in the wind but his eyes glued to the ruins.
Uh… yeah, I said.
Terry.
Hi. I said, forgetting to tell him my name. He paused beside me. Clearly more interested in what stood in front of us than in me.
Nobody knows what happened. He looked at me and smiled. Before you ask. Because that’s what always happens. People always ask how come that huge, almost perfectly spherical boulder came to crush this house? He paused.
And I always say that most people think it simply fell from the cliff face. But that’s impossible, of course. You’d have to carve it first. And then throw it for about 200 metres to get it where it is now. He paused again.
And, I don’t know about you, but I don’t know anything that could do that. Anything, that is, but the tide. He winked, grinning.
Yeah. Right, I said.
Come, he said, tapping me on the shoulder, as if nudging me awake, You must be looking for a place to stay, right?
Yeah, in actual fact I am.
I’ll take you to Anne Marie’s. It’s the only place in here where you can find a spare room to bunk for the night. And then, noticing what I was carrying, And it’s not expensive either.
Thanks. That was precisely what I was looking for. I smiled. Finally, some good news!
And you’ll love her cooking. Everybody does. He grabbed my tent that I had apparently dropped on the ground and started moving away from me.
It sure looks like you need a shower, he said. Been on the road for long?
I adjusted my rucksack on my back and hasted to follow him.
Does it show that bad?
The road always shows for those that keep away from it. He kept moving without bothering to wait for me. He walked fast. But so did I.
I can’t really thank you enough for this. I was starting to think this was a ghost town, I said, making conversation.
Well you weren’t too off the mark on that one. Only a few of us live here. It’s mostly ruins and silence. And the sea, of course. And the fog.
Why is that? This looks such a beautiful place.
We got a lot of fog around these parts. He stopped so abruptly that I almost bumped into him. He looked at me with eerie intensity. A lot. And started moving almost as abruptly as when he had stopped.
We walked for a while without talking. I kept gazing left and right, not only trying to see where the heck I was going but also what other surprises the ruins held. We passed by a street where all the houses on one side seemed devoured by vegetation. Trees sprouted from windows and doors and roofs. Ivy covered most of the walls. And yet, on the other side of the road, there were old manor houses side by side with the walls crumbling and no traces of vegetation whatsoever.
What happened here? I asked. He didn’t turn.
Sea breeze.
We continued to walk through the small village without exchanging unnecessary words anymore. I was sure that at the hotel, inn, whatever it was, I could always ask for more information about the village.
Even seeing a house toppled on its side and yet another whose outer walls had almost perfectly collapsed in four opposite directions, I kept my silence.
Finally we arrived to what looked like a small inn with a sign saying Bed & Break. The rest was missing.
He dropped my tent on the ground.
There you go. You’re here. Go inside and ask for Anne Marie. She’s the owner. If she isn’t inside it’s probably because she went out to Mavis to get some supplies or the post. And he began to walk away.
Uh. Thanks, I said, raising my voice slightly. Would you like a drink or something? I said, but he seemed not to have listened to my words and was simply walking away.
O-kay, I muttered. At least I’m here. Let’s get a room now and worry about whatever just happened later.

Off To Meditatabout

The New Year has arrived.
I don't know what all of you have been up to but let me tell you that I spent most of my time during the holidays either playing Nintendo Wii with my little cousins or sleeping or seeing films or (yes, even a bit of that) writing.

So, how are things looking writs wise?

Well, I'm about to complete the first draft of my fourth book called LAND OF FOG.

(just give me an hour or so and you'll have another post in here with the first chapter)

And I managed to more or less type up everything with A VIEW OF THE MOUNTAIN.

But...
(the catch is...)
Tomorrow I'm off to Myanmar for a meditation retreat at Panditarama Forest Monastery!

http://www.saddhamma.org/index.html

Hopefully this will clear my head a bit more!

I'll be back in early february to continue with the writings. So, apologies if you try to get in touch with me in the meantime and I don't reply: I'll be without internet connection for a month.
And no mobiles either.
Or letters.
Thus giving plenty of room for contemplation.

Hope you all had a lovely holiday and that you are well and happy!
Always!

peace

Our Love To Admire

Yes. It's a rip off from the Interpol album.
But...
just the title!

Actually, this is my least favourite of the Interpol trilogy (so far...)
But I do love the title.
And, when I was writing the story (the initial title was Death At A Funeral - not very inspired, I know), this title just seemed to fit it all too well...

There's a lot of stuff that I like in this story. I like the way the characters are kind of dual. Even the father has his moment. And even Jeff, the main character, the guy who's supposed to know it all, wavers a bit, perhaps not externally, but internally.
As I was writing it, I was missing the subtleties. I wrote a first draft that was below 3000 words but, as soon as I started working on it it started growing. It's now just under 5000. Which is a nice size. I think it has all that the story needs.
Took me two days to re-write it. Which seems like an awful lot of time. Something like 12 hours to do something that only takes a bit over 2 hours to type...

The next phase is to read it out aloud, with a mic plugged to my computer and then see how it sounds. And I'll probably play some guitar as background as well - if it sounds alright.

I've done it before and, since lately I've been writing and playing guitar alternately, it kind of makes sense to put the two together once more. After all my guitar playing naturally divides itself between a "rock song" format and "soundscapes" so, why not use them?

So Land Of Fog and A View Of The Mountain have been on hold during these last few days. My excuse is that I've been running around quite a lot and I needed smaller things to focus on. So, Our Love To Admire and another smaller story (though it's now just above 8000) have been my two pet projects for this last week or so. As soon as they're ready (and I'm thinking tomorow and sunday to finish them off) I'll return to the two biggies...

Don't know if I'll be able to post a couple of mp3 tracks for Our Love To Admire (I'm not the most technical of persons - as you've probably noticed...) in this here blog but it would be fun!

Peace

Through the Fog, up the Mountain

The last few days hve been full of surprises, of various flavours and forms.

On thursday I went to a conference which helped me substantially with one of my projects where I made quite a few interesting contacts and learned some very interesting facts. And where a few ideas became clearer.



On wednesday I had found out that my gran had died in one of the strangest ways ever. While having some soup she choked on it, some of the soup went into her lungs, the firemen and the ambulance fortunately came in time and managed to keep her alive with oxygen, enough to take to hospital but, due to yet another stroke (probably her 6th or 7th major one) she was rendered very weak and, after a few hours, she passed away.

I was sad but perhaps not as much as I'd expected. After all, she'd been bed ridden for quite a few years and it was clear that she was never going to recover and that she was slowly drifting away from life.



So, on friday, early morning, i was on my way to luton, heading to Lisbon and then to Sao Martinho do Porto where the funeral was being held.

I started writing a short story on my way there that I finished on my way back. It mixed some of the elements of the situation and some lessons that sometimes I feel people could use with really learning.



The strangest thing happened while waiting in line to get into the airplane. Someone collapsed while waiting in line and, to date, i do not know if the person made it or not. I mean, there i was, going to my gran's funeral and, suddenly it seems that the subject of death comes "alive" somewhere ahead of me.

I was instantly consumed by the fear and the pain and the powerlessness of the situation. Even thinking about it now still bringsthat intensity somewhat back.



This whole situation helped clarify what I actually feel about death.



Inside me there is still some fear and quite a lot of resistance to the prospect. But, at the same time, there is also a core certainty of the beauty of the moment - if we are given time to contemplate. And this, I know it within my heart, transcends and overwhelms all the fear that I could possibly feel.

I've had some weird experiences in the past and they have all led me to the conclusion that death can be an amazing experience. In fact, that death can be (as Neil Gaiman so brilliantly put it) The Time Of Our Life. When the whole of our system knows that this is it, suddenly all the boundaries that have been in place to "keep us safe", can be discarded and the world's of experience can really be opened up. I firmly believe that in those last few moments we can live more than we ever thought possible. I don't think any experience whatsoever could possibly compare to it.



In any case, there I was, waiting in line, powerless as somebody fought for life. Hearing the despair, surprised at the inefficiency of response services within the airport. It felt as if it was more important to to keep up appearances than actually help the person (for a while people were crying out for a doctor or nurse amidst the passengers and, yet, there was no information on the speakers - or, rather, the speakers continued to blare the usual stuff about flights and delays).



What I felt was that it was the being in that moment, sharing that transition, and especially the fear and concern and pain and support that people were demonstrating with their body language, that really affected me.

I say this because when I was looking to my gran, lying in her coffin, I couldn't feel much. It was clear to me that she wasn't there. That that body wasn't her. That she was gone. It was so clear that I couldn't do anything about it that no attachment was present.



My relation with my family and with my own feelings has always been somewhat complicated. So many contradictions that sometimes I am lost amidst them.



This time I was so absorbed in being there that I didn't really notice the usual "they cry for themselves rather than the dead".



What I observed that really turned me inside out a bit, anger boiling alongside a somewhat cool contemplation of it, was with me listening to the priest saying the mass. This was the first time that I heard most of it. And I felt completely betrayed. I couldn't stop seeing and feling the deception being played.

(I'm not saying that it was, just that that was how it felt to me)

i understand everybody's need to come to terms with that indefatigable event taht no one seems to be able to dodge, but the way the priest was performing that service just felt, ultimately, as an act of subtle cruelty.

The key to all this was the tone of voice. So artificial and rehearsed that I felt at points like choking the guy.

I guess people prefer to listen to what they wish they could believe than in what they actually feel. I guess that, when confronted with death, we all need a supporting parent. But seeing someone taking advantage of that vulnerability was becoming unbearable. Feeling and knowing what I was feeling, both enhanced my ability to control my emotions and to more fully express them inside myself.



This is my issue of course. My inability to accept when people do not talk from their hearts or even from their minds but from something they simply have been told to believe.



So why am i enraged at everybody else's relinquishing of their inner freedom to find their own truth?



Partially beacuse I know that I am afraid of being exactly like them, only in a different way. Instead of having a seemingly solid external system to back me up, I have a, perhaps steam like interior system backing me up.

Also because I quite obviously and egotistically believe that my beliefs are better than other people's.

In sum, because i, like most people, have a warped vision of reality. This being caused by the existence of an ego, to a great extent. If there is an I, if there is something that recognises itself as being separate from the rest, then this I will tend to see itself as most important than the rest purely as a survival mechanism.



Why am I writing this?

I honestly don't know. For many reasons I guess. Probably all the ones you can think about are probably true to one extent or another. It doesn't really matter.

Partially I wanted to give a background for these last few days writing and to record in some way the transformation of my perception.



This probably has to do with a sensation/thought that I had on the 436 going back to lewisham this afternoon. I had the clear impression that after (or before) the funeral of my other gran, almost 3 years ago, that I had had a vision or a dream or something that i was at the funeral of this gran that died a few days ago. It was a deja vu, of course, but this one had a memory attached to it of actually having written down this sensation all this time ago.

Obviously I don't have the faintest idea where I wrote this.

In any case, it was simple. I had the feeling I had dreamt or foresaw the whole situation around having to rush back to portugal for my gran's funeral after having been only a week ago.



i know that deja vu feelings are simply a way of dealing with our pain, with a situation that we feel we cannot resolve. But this one clearly felt different from the usual ones.



Anyway...



On wednesday I reviewed a bit more of LAND OF FOG. I had felt that I was spending so much time lately with A VIEW OF THE MOUNTAIN and not so much with this project (that I still want to have a first draft ready before the year ends - actually, before x-mas comes....). Not much and quite slowly. I spent more time playing the guitar (and recording various tracks) than reviewing. Sometimes it's just the way it goes. I didn't feel like I should force myself too much on that day. And so I played thinking of my dead grandparents and let what I felt out in my own way. Turning the emotion into some sort of grandeur. Death should not be small and squandered. It should be celebrated and be able to lift us up even closer to life. Those tracks were a bit a bout that. Starting with simple structures of half a dozen notes, repeating themselves in loops but with some rhythmic variances that gave them fluidity and vertigo. And then, at some point, thinking of The Go-Betweens, i shifted the scale and made them all happier and lighter. In some i returned to the beginning riff, in order i did not. Above all I just wanted to use that liberating energy that i was feeling and captured it somehow so that perhaps one day I can share it and help others reach that state. maybe telling them the story of how those songs came to be and then playing them so that we can all participate in an experience of communion and some degree of truth.



Today I finished typing up the rest of the stuff for A VIEW OF THE MOUNTAIN. There are still some more panels to write up but I think I can do them all in a day. Maybe this coming wednesday. It would be nice if, by the end of this weekend, I could have both first drafts finished. It's quite possible, but I have to be more focussed than I have been in the last week or so.



And this is how things are at the moment.



Hope you are well and happy.

Always.



Peace

A View Of The Mountain update

December is already rolling away fast and I'm simply trying to keep up!
I guess the more you do, the less time you've got to actually pay any attention to time itself... that's why we feel time is moving fast.
Perhaps time doesn't care if it's moving fast or slow. But we do. And our perception is always relative.

Always?

That's an interesting question and, thinking more about it would quite certainly take me to the fuzzy bordering regions between Buddhism and Hinduism.

(We are not the Dharma Initiative. We are not the Dharma Initiative. We are not th-)

(sorry... too much LOST viewing the last couple of weeks...)

Simply because the concepts of Buddhism and Hinduism are quite different. One defines the Void as the Absolute. The other, a god like presence that exists beyond this void...

I think it really is a question of words rather than of experience.

But various mystics have pointed out that enlightened beings seem to have access to a reality that isn't relative/observer dependent anymore...
Not food for thought, but more of subject matter to be experienced via spiritual practice.

Anyway...

This week I've been mostly writing...

(and yes, the Fast Show was one of the best british comedy show's ever!)

A VIEW OF THE MOUNTAIN
and
LAND OF FOG
I have kept to my commitment's...

The plan is to have readable first draft ready for the two scripts.
Don't really know about A VIEW OF THE MOUNTAIN since this script has been a journey in itself. But I'm confident that this will be the time of wordy deliverance!
I've got about 80-85% of all the panels. I just need to type up a few more pages. I'll probably end up with 200 pages of comics or something...
And that will mean a good revising.
In any case, as soon as all the sequences are ready I'll start assembling them with my famous cut and paste routine with scissors and tape.

It's the only way to do it...
(trust me, I know)

That will take me to a mock structure for the whole thing. Hopefully I'll be able to do the cut and pasting in just a day. Then it will be revising time. Which means reading the whole thing and figuring out what was left out, what isn't working, what is how, who is which, you know, etc...

With LAND OF FOG things seem to be going more slowly but with great determination!
I feel so relaxed about it that I'm not even too bothered editing it...

(the problems of over confidence...)

Actually I lost some good pages that I had revised.
You know, one of those things when the computer just decides to switch itself off...
But I found the file, managed to retrieve it and convert it, even gave it a new label and everything.

AND THEN ERASED IT WHEN I FORMATED MY COMPUTER A COUPLE OF DAYS AGO

This is how my brain works.
Can you see now why I have to write this stuff down?!
Even when I do, I forget!
(but if I didn't... god help us...)
I mean I spent a couple of hours trying to figure out how I could save that file, etc, etc, searching for it, etc, etc, and then, after doing it, after doing everything right, I FORGOT TO SEND IT TO A DIFFERENT DRIVE
or simply save it on my pen drive.
BAM!
Lost.
And now, definitely nowhere to be found.
Lesson learned.
(hopefully... please work brain, please! I'm begging me here!)
This probably means, in our Great Cosmic Plan, that that revision wasn't that good.

I'm quite sure of it.

Maybe...

Peace

THE PLAN (excerpt)

Since November was a month spent writing a lot but not that many comics, I decided to post here another script excerpt.
This is a script that I did a while ago. It's about teenagers and drugs and making your dreams come true.
It's also about getting what you want and finding out that, no matter how close you are to someone, you can never really know what will happen inside their heads.

Hope you like it.
Peace.


THE PLAN
(17 script pg. for 24 comics pg.)

SCRIPT

COVER
Mid shot as Amy holds Jack from behind. They are naked. Jack makes a face, showing his tongue sticking out, clearly having fun and Amy’s head moves towards his mouth, about to touch his right ear. She’s smiling too. A happy couple as they lie in bed. White background.

NOTES
All texts in italics are thought captions.

CHARACTERS
AMY
A blond early twenties girl, shoulder length hair. A piercing on her nose and on the opposite brow.
JACK
A mid twenties guy. Black hair drizzled over his eyes. Clean shaved.

TONY
Late twenties. Well dressed. Posh looking. Clean cut.

MALCOM
Black guy, early twenties, intellectual looking, determined looking.

LARISSA
A provocative young black girl. Overly dressed, all sparkly with jewellery.

RICK
Blond guy, late teens. Small moustache and stoned out of his face. Barely keeping his eyes open.

ROBERTA
A Brazilian girl. Late twenties. Top and shorts to show her trim body.


PAGE 1
This is Amy walking through a huge party. A private residence so big that it has its own dance floor and bar. Amy walks through the crowd. Amy’s POV all through this first page.

Close up. The face of a guy stoned out of his face, dancing, barely noticing us.

AMY
Tonight’s the night.
Or so they say.

Close up. A girl dancing, her long blond hair hiding her face as she looks down.

AMY
So the story goes.
Though, who or where I’ve never understood.

Close up. A guy with shades looks up. A poseur.
AMY
People like me, I guess. Places like this.
And most that aren’t.

Panoramic. The dancing crowd in front of Amy. To her right lies the bar. A ver compacted crowd.

AMY
Until now, from wreck to wreckage, I’ve built my days as best as I could.

Close up. Behind Amy. Waist high shot. As she moves through the crowd it slightly parts for her, creating a kind of tunnel.

AMY
Guess it’s time to give the night another shot.
Kill it dead.

PAGE 2
Same shot only at eye level now. Amy’s a beautiful blond girl in her mid twenties. People don’t notice her, dancing, smoking weed or drinking. She wades through them now. On her right, Tony, holds a glass of red wine while talking to an overly produced girl. Tony looks posh but hosts a very dismissive stance. Laid back.

AMY
I’ve been hearing these stories, you know, that y-
TONY!

Close up. Tony openly smiles seeing Amy.

Medium shot. Tony and Amy embrace. He spills a bit of wine without noticing.

Medium shot. As Tony talks excitedly with Amy the other girl looks annoyed. She’s being totally ignored.

TONY
Hi girl!
Welcome to the fun!
This is gonna be a wild one I tell ya!

Close up on Amy. A knowledgeable grin on her face, provocative.

AMY
Aren’t they always?!

Medium shot. Amy grabs Tony’s glass. The girl behind Tony turns her back to them.

PAGE 3
Close up on Amy as she sips. The other girl moves away from them. Tony just gazes at Amy in the background. Infatuated by her.

Medium shot. In between Amy and Tony. Tony is more pensive now.

AMY
Jack around?

TONY
He’ll show up later. Says he’s gonna bring something special…

Close up. Tony puts a challenging stance on his gaze towards Amy.

TONY
But only for the worthy.

AMY
Don’t worry.

Close up. Amy whispers in Tony’s ear.

AMY
We can always kill him if he refuses.

Close up. Tony smiles as he whispers back at Amy’s ear.

TONY
You're not under some kind of psychopathic control are you?

PAGE 4
Pull back. Amy moves away from Tony, smiling. Neck up.

AMY
Ditched those guys long ago.

Full shot. Amy holds one of Tony’s arms with her hands in a friendly way. We’re behind her.

AMY
Having a family is hard enough.
Catch ya later.

Medium shot. Amy looks back as she once again wades into the crowd, continuing in the previous direction. We’re next to Tony’s wine glass.

AMY
Be sure to tell Jack I wanna see him.

Amy’s back POV. Tony waves back awkwardly with the hand holding the weed.

PAGE 5
Down shot. The crowd dances. Amy lost amidst them, still piercing through.

SOUNDTRACK
“Hell bent on self destruction… Our torture is the key…”

Pull in on Amy.

AMY
I mean, all this, right, it must mean something.

Pull in more.

AMY
I’ve considered it for a long time and here are the brilliant conclusions I’ve come up with.

Pull in some more.

AMY
These parties, filled with people and sound, with consciousness altering substances merely point in two directions.

Just above her head.

Close up on the roots of her hair.

AMY
The misery where we’ve come from-

PAGE 6
Full shot. As if looking through a tunnel, we see a huge network of neural synapses underneath, glowing.

AMY
-into the hope inside.

Long shot. We float amidst the infinite depths of the brain. A neuron stands out up and to our left, like a fortress, its connections fading into the distance.

AMY
The breaking of the boundaries
and experience what we’ve been lacking all our lives.

Portuguese Trips

Spent the last 8 days or so in portugal. And, until sunday the 30th of november, I was almost completely absorbed with nanowrimo and ML.

I finished a mostly unreadable first draft over 151 000 words long.

I feel that I am now ready to start writing the book proper but it will have to wait. I need a rest from ML!

I've had a couple of ideas since then, namely one for a short theatre play under the current alias of TRAIN OF THOUGHT.

And a few ideas for a trilogy of films for Marvel starring one of their characters. I started writing the synopsis for the stories (it was only one film in the beginning, but then I got a bit carried away...) still on the airplane and then, whilst riding the 436 to Lewisham, as I wrote some more, it started to become clear where the first film could end and the second one begin.
And, while having some food, round about 1am, already home, already in bed, already glad that I could switch on my computer and use that well known keyboard for as long as I'd like, I added a few more ideas, some more lines, planned very roughly the first two films and finally a third came in. Kind of rounding everything up.
Which is how I like it to be really.

So this is December. The month where christmas happens, either you believe in santa claus or not.
The month where some people buy presents, others expect to receive them and still others, like me, only buy if they really feel like it.

(I prefer to give presents whenever I feel like it, not because of any specific date - call me a present intuitive...)

And, in this month of consumerism and family (and food and tv and many other things) I'm planning on spending most of my time revising LAND OF FOG in order to have a readable draft before the year finishes.
And continue working on A VIEW OF THE MOUNTAIN.
And probably write some more on a few scripts and odds and ends that my mind will take me to.

Be well,
Peace.