An advent calendar of sorts Day 1. (Also a Thursday extract.)

To start off the countdown to Christmas (or in my case Yule) I'm giving you one last extract from my NaNo novel Seaviews. I finished the first draft a couple of days ago and do not plan to touch it again for several weeks, when I can give it a fresh eye.   Here's a description of Santa. Not the real one of course kiddies - we all know he's far too busy at this time of year to attend children's parties!

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Children’s entertainers are sometimes quite awful with kids and grown-ups alike.  Some perform OK for parents but they actually terrify the tots. Sometimes they work wonders with children but they can't convert to an adult crowd. This guy gave fun for everyone. In fact I would go so far as to say he was great with the little ones, when we had youngsters around. He really seemed to love them. And his costume was a dream. It wasn’t shabby and thin-looking like some of them. He had a proper red suit made with what looked like a woollen cloth and trimmed with soft, white fur, that moved in a convincingly real fashion. He styled himself on the American style Santa, with trousers and fur-topped wellington boots and a wide belt with a huge black buckle, rather than the traditional British long-coated one, but that didn’t matter to the festive folks. Part of his act involved handing out presents to all the guests and he carried them in a real sack slung over his shoulder. His ‘ho-ho-ho’ voice reached deep enough to challenge that mountain climber-actor chap.

FFF55. More NaNo. Meet Bill

Sorry to keep throwing bits of my NaNo novel at you - but it's rather time consuming at the moment.
Here's another of the cast from the Sea View Hotel.

He dressed casually and his general impression suggested tweed. His outfits gave off a sort of browny-green aura, as if he had been carved from a part of the landscape, and they had the kind of texture that conjured up pictures of moorland and bracken. Sometimes I swear I could hear grouse calling around him.

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It's the usual Friday challenge for the G-Man. Go visit him to see more!

Thursday extracts: More Sea Views

My narrator waxed a little lyrical yesterday. I think he might be doing that a lot over the next six days!

Of course they’ve been saying for years that a trip to the seaside does you good. They used to recommend a sea retreat for most things that ailed historic folks. All kinds of people were sent here for the good of their health back in Victorian times – the graveyard’s full of them. You think I’m joking don’t you, but I’m not. Just take a stroll up to the parish church and check out their inscribed list of renowned residents. Writers, musicians, people who were famous just for being famous, seems all very familiar really. These days they end up on a reality TV programme when their careers are dying; back then the less-than-great and not very good were sent away for a coastal sojourn when they were fading.

Some of them took the waters, as they used to say. That meant they draped themselves over plush couches in ornate halls and drank glasses of smelly stuff dripping out of a cracked cliff. They got around to putting a tap on eventually so it appeared more official but however you market the stuff you can’t alter the fact that it’s little better than untreated sewage. You can even try the cure today if you like, the tap’s still working, though no-one makes ludicrous claims about it any more. Those Victorians believed spa water would solve everything from a hangnail to the Black Death but the only thing it actually affects is your digestive system. The quacks and sawbones thought bloodletting and extracting other bodily fluids improved your chances, so they probably believed in beneficial effects of the water. It certainly clears out your system. I tried once. That was quite enough.
 
They didn’t just drink grimy fluids, though, they bathed in them as well. Doctors told people their ailments would improve if they just lowered themselves up to their waists in ocean water; cold ocean water. Can you imagine suffering from consumption and coughing your lung linings out while you stood shivering in your undies and the tide lapped in around your personal bits? Gives you the creeps if you think too hard, how all those sickly types came for their treatments but never went home. Kill or cure must have proved fatal much more often than it offered a reprieve. I think we probably have the healthiest bunch of historic corpses in any cemetery up and down the country.

FFF55. All aboard. More from my NaNo novel.

OK - you all know what's going on by now so I'm not going to explain.Here's 55 words for the G-Man's weekly challenge, that tell you a little bit more about my novel's narrator, who was sent off to boarding school at an early age.

There were a number who enrolled at the same time, all very young, and dumped on the teachers and domestic staff for a variety of reasons.  A few of the lads came from places where their parents genuinely could not look after them, but most of us shared the dubious honour of being simply unwanted.

NaNoWriMo 12 days in.

So I worked out that I was a bit behind on the NaNo. Since then I've been trying to write at least 2,000 words a day because the daily target is 1,667 if you do it every day from November 1. I am hoping by the end of today that I shall have caught up to the NaNo target. (Or the 'if you're going to make it to 50,000 words in 30 days you really need to have written this much by now' point.) My best so far has been 2,736 in a day, which was a chapter I LOVED writing. My worst was 2,027, which I thought I'd enjoy but in practice found much harder than anticipated.

Funny old thing, this writing lark.

I missed three days right at the start because I was arranging a big meeting in London. The meeting was a success. Several people have said it was good. The people who actually do the managing (ie. provide what I organise) said that my efficiency made their job much easier than it was with the other person who used to arrange it. Even my boss eventually got round to emailing me, although it took him five days and he didn't actually say well done. A message to say 'you did it' is what passes for praise in our office.

55 words from my NaNo project

As you all know, I'm doing NaNoWriMo again and I'm typing furiously to catch up with the target because my day job got in the way and I started late. So here's 55 words taken straight from yesterday's declared 2080.

The book is about a guy who lives in a hotel because he's spent his entire working life as a theatre dresser and has travelled so much he's got nowhere that he thinks of as home. He's finally settled down, in retirement, in a hotel he stayed in while he was working at the local theatre.  

There are a lot of advantages in living in a hotel, but it has its downside too. Take Christmas, for example. No sooner have we taken down the black and orange streamers and binned the pumpkin lanterns, than we have to declare the festive season and put out the tree and tinsel. People expect it.

Friday's 55 words are, of course, for The G-Man. Go visit him by clicking here.

Thursday extracts: Old Henry

I'm busy doing NaNoWriMo and I'm pushed for time to find you an extract this week. So here's a few words from my current NaNo project.  The book's narrator is a former theatrical dresser, so he talks a lot about what people wear.  I'm enjoying that bit, because it's not something I often do. 

Meet Henry:

He dressed neatly but never sharply. His clothes were clean and well ironed, but were worn well past the time that less frugal people would have consigned them to the rag bag. A charity shop would have turned them down. He had a penchant for cord trousers and heavy cotton, checked shirts with a plain white vest or t-shirt under them. He always wore a narrow, leather belt and I don’t believe I ever saw him in a tie. When he went out he wore a dark jacket, even on the hottest days, and the whole lot was topped off with a tweedy flat cap. I suppose he was used to the heat down in the mine and his skin rarely saw sunshine, so he preferred to be well covered up outside. His face and hands showed signs of weathering; not a suntan exactly, more erosion by wind and rain, but the rare glimpses of arms and legs that his outfits afforded showed the rest of him was a very pasty white. And remarkably hairy. Over his shoulder he slung an old canvas bag on a long strap. It was the same kind he had used for years to carry his ‘snap’, as he called it; his packed meal to be eaten during his only break in a working shift.

NaNo day 2

Had another productive day - but I have to because I'm not going to get chance to write anything for about the next three days.  (work and life commitments)  I'm working on the principle that I need to do at least 2,000 words a day on the days I CAN fit in. 

I freely admit that I have incorporated this character's story into the NaNo project because I didn't really have any definite plans for her when I wrote her. Now she has a proper home in the hotel on the cliff. 

Happy NaNo to all who are in it.

NaNo has begun!

In case you're interested.... here's the first two and the last two paragraphs of chapter one of this year's attempt...  Working title is Sea Views


Just take a look at that view out there and then question why I choose to live here. I mean, I know that a seaside town out of season is about as exciting as prunes without the custard but when you have the ocean almost knocking on your front door you can’t help but feel good about the world, and believe me, I have had some times when I really needed something to make me feel good about anything. I’ve had a tough life, when I think about it, but I doubt if I would have changed very much, not if I’m honest. It’s been interesting, in much the way of that Chinese curse: may you live in interesting times. When you lead the kind of life I’ve had you can’t just give it up though, not even when you retire. The thing is, I’m a people person. I have spent most of my life involved in other lives, looking after my charges, massaging their egos and soothing their fevered brows. Histrionics, mostly, of course, but that’s how it is with your average theatrical type. When you have to provide drama reliably on stage it’s hard to break the habit after you take off the costume and the make-up.  The tales I could tell!  Well, I will, if you like. Just stick with me.

So here I am, Lord of the Manor in a cliff-top boarding house on the wrong side of the country and the wrong side of sixty. I don’t own the place of course, it belongs to Elsie, but I am a permanent resident and I like to think I would be missed if I ever moved on, not that I plan to leave any time soon. I have been here the best part of five years now, not to mention one or two summer seasons in the past, and Elsie relies on me a lot. I act as Mein Host when she does her end-of-season, mini Oktoberfest; handing round the plastic beer steins and making sure the music isn’t off for too long when the CD runs out. I’ve used some of my influence in entertainment circles to find her a few of the old time stars who don’t mind doing a turn or two to attract custom out of season. We had a Sixties pop revival last February that brought in a few paying guests. Mind you, it wasn’t clear whether ‘Sixties’ referred to the era or the lower age limit on the guests.  We booked a group who had a couple of top ten hits back in the day. At least one of the combo featured in the original line-up, although the guitarist died from an excess of high living about thirty years ago and the singer’s hair seemed to have gone in sympathy. The audience enjoyed it though, but they usually do when the lager tap’s running.

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I rarely see any of my old associates these days so I can’t give you any celebrity gossip. A very few of my old clients still send me a card at Christmas and there is one dear old friend who visits whenever he is in the area, which isn’t often but we can’t have everything. I won’t name names because it wouldn’t be fair but you will have seen him on television unless you’ve been living in Outer Mongolia for the last twenty years. They might even get some of his shows there, you never know. You will have heard of him if I said who it is but my lips are sealed. I first dressed him when he just left school, learning the ropes in the chorus. He had a wonderful voice, almost angelic, and no-one knows because he’s made his career in a totally different field.  Well, I’ve seen him grow from a member of the crowd in that film musical, you know, the one with all those young lads in it, to a face that everyone recognises, but fame hasn’t damaged him at all. He’s still a gentleman. Not like some.

So I could tell you some stories about the stars I’ve met but you wouldn’t be able to appreciate them properly because I won’t say who they are. No, what I’ve found out over the years is that you get some of the most fascinating stories from ordinary people, the type that stays here on their holidays. In five years I’ve heard some cracking tales and I don’t mind sharing them because the chance of you meeting that cast of characters is about as likely as a comeback by the Beatles, and, since half of them are dead, that’s no chance. I don’t miss much when I sit here observing and I’ve always been a good listener so I get told a lot of secrets. I promise that you’ll never miss the famous ones. Tell you what, let’s get a round in and I’ll show you what I mean.