scorpio

A late breakfast appointment in Surrey before a sunny stroll in the countryside.

As my picture shows, we enjoyed a look around the remains of a 12th Century Cistercian Monastery. Henry VIII had it closed down in 1536, although there's still a good portion of the Waverley Abbey remaining.

Then later, an evening back in Spitalfields, where we visited another chapel, this time from the Victorian era and nowadays a rather fabulous restaurant.

Time for some Michelin star gourmand dining, with accompanying sommelier wine choices.

But then, in fairness, it was my birthday.

Ian Rankin documentary in #nanowrimo month #nanolondon #nanoscotland

I think I owe Ian Rankin something.

It's not as if I've been a great fan and read all of his novels (though I have read a couple and seen some of the Rebus series on television).

But the other night on television there was a documentary (click here for the iPlayer link) about him and his writing.

I found it quite fascinating. Rankin is one of the best-selling UK authors and has written many principally crime-genre books, most of which climb straight into the top of the charts.

During the documentary there was a sequence at a Waterstone's bookstore and the assistant there was saying how much Rankin novels help keep them and other bookshops going.

The fascinating and quite generous spirited part of the documentary for me was the relatively raw access to Rankin's writing process. He'd been given a little camcorder to make a diary of his start on the latest book. He talks to camera quite a lot and that gives the whole piece something of a conversational feel.

We see him collect various scraps of paper with ideas, sift them, start writing and sketch out a first draft. He makes various asides about how good (or otherwise) it is, whether he's really worked out 'whodunit' by the end of the first draft and so on. Even a glimpse that this is maybe a kind of a road trip disguised as a crime fiction?

There's long start-up times in the morning, involving coffee shops and newspapers.

There's quite a lot of self reflection about the quality of the piece. There's clearly an ego, like the shot as he passes Ian Rankin Court in his home town, but there's also a good amount of introspection and critical self doubt.

Ian Rankin is a millionaire writer, so his credentials and popularity can't really be questioned. Nor can the long lines at his book signings.

What made this a fascinating piece in NaNoWriMo month is how the human process looked so similar to the one that most of us rather more amateur scribblers must go through.

Rankin makes no bones about how additional television presence helps sales and that he'll look at 250,000 units from a new novel, maybe aided by some on-screen publicity. Acknowledging his pre-Chrietmas book launch, it was still a good decision to schedule this episode of the "Imagine" series during the Nanowrimo month.

I think I know what to do to say 'thank you' to Mr Rankin.

Update:

clicked over 50k in #nanowrimo but still a way to go

Well, some of the characters have just been through Bluff in Utah in their pickup truck and are stuck on a farm track at the moment. They are still piecing together the government's cover-up.

I think someone shadowy will need to show their hand and then the full scale of what is unfolding will become apparent.

I've just flipped over the 50,000 word mark but there's still at least two or three chapters to run and I somehow don't think it is going to turn out well for everyone involved.

star wars meets angry birds

I know.

so tired, tired of waiting

I'm just a little intrigued by the delays affecting the Florida voting from the US election.

My original reason was somewhat trivially because I'd put together my own quick home made prediction of the final vote and wanted to see how it finally played out.

I'd guessed that Florida would go Republican, but maybe hadn't predicted the 'Miami factor' which could skew the result to the Democrats based upon the Latino vote. Look at how red/Republican Florida looks, although quite a few of the red squares are quite low populations compared with the few big blue/Democrat ones like Orlando, Tampa, Fort Lauderdale and Miami.

My quick look at the projections showed the gap between Obama and Romney in Florida was around 45,000, which is why, I assume, things are taking so long to stabilise.

I notice also that Florida has a particularly large number of voter exclusions, such that almost a quarter of African Americans in Florida are not allowed to vote.

So I'm wondering if, among the virtual hanging chads, there is now an examination of 45,001 votes for their authenticity? It would make quite a difference to the final Electroral College positioning.

Nanoprogress #nanowrimo #nanolondon

Gone Typing.

hey now baby, get into my big black car

I haven't written this scene yet, but it's the part where Clare gets taken away by the people in the black car. She's been in Santa Fe and got separated from the others.

Of course the black car can't be seen by itself, so there's another one behind in the manner of all good movie plots. They can drive away together to add some menace.

And the thing is, I haven't quite figured out what will happen to Clare next, but I'll bet she will have some ideas if I don't.

One thing I've noticed in this Nano novel is that the characters are getting to stay in some pretty fancy hotels as a consequence of the story line.


Of course, I'll make sure there's a few more rustic looking venues as well. I think this barn in Durango is going to show up later and probably that red truck as well.

And I'll still make sure there's a London end to the story. Just because the characters start in Arizona doesn't mean they can't have some scenes in London as well.

And come to think of it, a diner on Route 66 would be pretty essential.

trying to predict the US election with a few pundit numbers?

Nearly all of the US election commentary on UK television say that the American pre-election polls are too close to call. I can't help thinking that everyone is worrying about whether or not the electorate turn out in sufficient quantities. Given the billions of dollars spent by the two candidates then I suppose most people should show up at the polling stations.

I thought I'd take a bunch of the data based upon the US Electoral College voting system and try to crunch it to predict the outcome. I grabbed a range of predictions from a few diverse sources including some with obvious political biases in both directions.

The first thing was to sort the various random predictions into an ascending order. Then I decided to ignore the outliers like to 440/98 split that one prediction drives. That provided a core set of results which pivoted something like a 20% probability to Romney and 80% to Obama.

My calculation gives the result to be something like 303 Obama and 235 Romney.

But hey, this is just playing with numbers.

UPDATE Weds, Nov 7th, 12:00GMT (coffee break): Well, as the morning arrived and the votes had been counted, astonishingly, I had the Obama number accurately pegged at 303. The Romney number was light though because Florida's votes were not in.

I seem to remember Florida has featured in previous voting lateness.

Whats that old joke? When will your count be ready? - How many votes did you say you need?

On this occasion, I'd assumed that Florida would tip to Romney, which would have made my forecast spot on. What I think will happen (Florida's vote count is still not in) is that actually Obama will also get Florida by about 45,000 votes. This will mean the last 29 votes go to Obama instead of Romney. Instead of 303-235 it could be something like 332-206. Therefore my calculation will be out and an even more extreme win for Obama will have ensued - probably courtesy of Miami and environs.

It will be good to see if Obama can deliver 'the best is yet to come' without the pressure of having a further fight for office. Also whether the Republicans in the House of Representatives can avoid the pettiness which can otherwise stop sensible decisions from being made.

time portal discovered in London?

I decided to try to get a bit ahead on that novel writing month thing because of work next week. It's made the last couple of days a little bit strange, but as I was a bit cold-ified in any case it meant I could blend Lem-Sip with typing.

I've even printed a google map of the route my characters are taking around part of America in my story. It bears an uncanny resemblance to some of the places I visited a while ago, which will help when I need to fill in some detail later on.

At the moment I'm trying to get the main chunks of plot blocked out and conveniently the characters are all being most helpful in directing the way to solve problems.

So I haven't had to spend time discovering time portals in London or anything similarly improbable to keep on track. And I'm secretly rather pleased that I've managed to get somewhat ahead of the targets.

Although I'm equally sure that when I eventually look back over what I've been doing, there will be some major remediation required.

But so far the need for a time portal lies dormant.

it landed outside City Hall #nanowrimo #nanolondon

I know, it looks like a ready made plot line, but it's not the one for me this year.

I've decided to hang in there with the desert caper which I originally considered for NaNoWriMo a year ago. Not that I did any work on it at the time though.

It didn't make sense for me to attempt it last time and I used the time instead to re-edit some of the work I'd produced previously. There was no point in counting the words at that time, so I quietly dropped out of the NaNoWriMo system after about a day.

This time I have started with a completely blank sheet of paper and a stuttery beginning, but now the story is up and running I can see some of the ways to drive it along.

I'm using the most basic structure ideas based around setup/initial problem/bigger problem/biggest problem/resolution/finale this time and trying to drive out the plot more than the descriptions of weather systems. As was the case the last time I wrote something, the characters all have minds of their own again.

I've genuinely surprised myself so far. Although it may be limping along with a need for many running repairs (like when I changed a character name part way through), it does seem to be stacking up word count.

Because of work commitments I've decided to blitz this first weekend to get as far ahead as I can because of the inevitable slow down as real world kicks in on Monday.

Literary masters may scorn the rapid creation approach, but I think it helps to get the creativity running and I know the subsequent edits may overturn some sizeable chunks of the initial piece. I think Hemingway had a famous quote about first drafts.

And if anyone else is seeking inspiration and wants to borrow the scene from my photograph...well I took it last week and the 'Thing' is still there - right next to London's City Hall.

split between London and Scottsdale

I've dropped the characters into Arizona this time. I decided to give them a short lived treat at a luxury spa hotel before I sling them out into the desert with all manner of problems.

Some of the smaller problems have already started. They've already got split up and at least one of them is quite the worse for wear.

I've only got the vaguest idea of a plot and was just sketching out a few ideas so that I have something to write about during the weekend.

The first 500-600 words came quite slowly, but it is picking up speed now. I'm even slightly ahead (around 4k), but I think I'll feel better if I can use part of the weekend to build up some word count.

I should really be writing it now, but this is a few minutes break whilst the kettle boils for a cuppa.

skyfall

We braved the lashing 45 degree rain, strolling zombies and caped crusaders on our way to see the new James Bond film yesterday evening.

Actually we were served by the green witch in the pizza place before heading to the late evening show and on the escalator encountered some blood streaked and very pale faced leather-clad people.

But oh, yes, the same cinema was also screening a late night Rocky Horror Picture Show.

So what to make of the Bond movie?

I don't really want to say too much about the plot, which has a suitably fast paced start, with plenty of action before the opening credits roll. We also get some good locations like Istanbul and Shanghai which feature casinos, skyscrapers, fancy bars and glittering hotels. And Bond meets his fair share of intriguing women along the way - oh and a good villain of course.

So I guess plenty of the James Bond franchise boxes are ticked. There's also some references to old school spying versus more modern interpretations. A kind of action hero meets 21st century global spook technology stripe through proceedings.

There's also some good London Town moments, with MI/SI6 on the Thames, plenty of running around Whitehall and some tube trains thrown in for good measure.

Come to think of it they are some of the exact streets I've been along today for work.

I could say more but there's some pieces best left as surprises for those that intend to see the film. I quite enjoyed it although I felt there were a few slightly lengthy scenes that slowed the pace.

I noticed they have re-introduced a small amount of the humour too, which I think adds to the enjoyment of Bond movies.

Were there some plot holes? I think so. One did sort of bug me, but I won't describe it here. Did it matter? Not hugely, I think we had a good experience watching the film as mainstream entertainment. A fitting ramp into my own scribbling as November arrives and NaNoWriMo kicks off.