Flapping bat-dragons that eat swimming hats
So. I had a VERY strange dream last night. And very vivid. Lately I've hardly been dreaming at all, at least I haven't been able to remember them, so this was VERY odd.
I was at my junior school, and my old teachers Mrs Emery and Mrs Crouch were trying to kill me for some reason. So I ran away from them into Mrs Gould’s office and told her, and she said she’d sort it all out.
Then I went over to the Senior school and went to upstairs room 9 in Cranmer to see an old lady, but instead of room 9, there was a wooden fence and small garden in front of a cottage. On the fence were various signs fixed above each other, saying ‘BEWARE OF MY DOG BAXTER’ ‘NO, I’M JUST KIDDING’ ‘MY DOG IS CALLED COLIN’ ‘IT’S HIM YOU NEED TO LOOK OUT FOR’. And through the slats I could see a huge, barking alsatian.
“Er,” I said to the old woman next to me, “I’m not sure about this.”
“Why not, dear?”
“Well, I’m scared of dogs. Do I have to talk to you?”
“There’s no need to be scared, dearie! He’ll just bark a bit! Course, he does bite, but he’s just playing.”
So I had to follow this woman in and sit on her tiny patio - the entire garden, patio and cottage were the size of the classroom, with cloudy sky over them - while she sat in a low wicker chair so she wasn’t much above me. And we talked about something, while the dog barked at me, a lot. I looked worried, but the old lady said “Don’t worry, dearie, it’s just barking, that’s not harming you, is it?”
Then the dog grabbed my leg in its teeth and started pressing down. “Umm, it’s biting me now!”
“Yes, but it hasn’t actually punctured your leg, has it? It’s just playing!”
Then I felt its teeth puncture my leg and saw blood as I pulled it away.
“It’s punctured my leg now!”
“Ahh, so NOW you know it wants to kill you and eat you, so at least you’re sure, aren’t you?”
I got up and ran away from the crazy old lady then. As I ran down the corridor, I saw Mr Gould unlocking one of the classrooms, who shrugged at me.
Then I went down to Devon for the SFX Forum meet-up, in this weird building which I knew to be a hotel but looked more like a modern library, and was set alone on a rocky crag next to the sea surrounded by more cliffs of rock and arches and lone pillars and everything else we learned about in Geography. The sea was pretty stormy, but it wasn’t windy, and the sky overhead was grey.
None of the SFX people were there yet, but my mum, sister, cousin Melanie (who looked pregnant again), grandfather and aunt were, and my other cousins were getting there tomorrow. I heard my mum saying to my sister that tomorrow, we were going north to the Donkey Sanctuary to adopt Alice a donkey, though she wouldn’t tell which one, because it was ‘too funny’. And my sister said “Oh, FINE.”
And then suddenly I got a cutaway to the Donkey Sanctuary, where a little boy was in the process of adopting a donkey. Only it wasn’t a donkey, it was the actor Greg Kinnear on four donkey legs. He was hovering a little off the ground, and the little boy had to touch each of his feet, and then he landed again.
“That’s it,” said Greg Kinnear.
“That’s it?”
“Yes, that’s the adoption process.”
“I thought I had to touch all eight.”
And Greg Kinnear frowned looking a little confused, like ‘We have eight legs?’, and the boy started prodding his face instead. End-of-film music started playing, and it started panning up and away, showing the little boy standing in front of Greg Kinnear donkey, and showing there were lots of other actor-donkeys standing around eating grass and suchlike.
And then it cut back to the hotel, where I was wandering through the bookcases, looking forward to when everyone from SFX was going to get there. I caught a glimpse of Tgirl, and saw a sign saying ‘Just so you know, folks, Mozo’s planning on offering sword lessons to anyone who wants them, and JJ is going to be giving talks to anyone about how to make more money, so if you want to bring a couple of extra pounds for these girls to teach you, that’d be grand!’ And I smiled, thinking “Eee, I get to teach sword fighting! I hope they don’t all beat me.” And I saw JJ, and she smiled and waved. I then carried on walking out through the hotel door.
Outside were my grandfather and, I think, my uncle, or possibly just some random man. They were looking out at the sea. For some reason, they were both wearing blue swimming caps, and now, so was I. I looked up over my head, where some bats were flapping around. They looked about the size of ravens.
“Wow,” I said, “They’re bigger than the ones we have at home.”
After flapping about a bit more, they landed on the ground, and I saw they now looked about the size of really big seagulls. There was even a big seagull next to them for me to compare. And they weren’t looking like bats any more - they had bat wings, but their heads were like reptilian eagles, and they had four legs and a tail. They were looking more like dragons.
“Wow,” I said, “They’re MUCH bigger than the ones we have at home.”
And then they took off again and started flapping around again, and they were growing bigger and bigger, until they were more the size of labradors. And then they started swooping down at me, growing bigger as they approached, until they could close their beaks over my head, which was exactly what they proceeded to do.
And I started going “Eek! They’re trying to steal my hat!” as more and more of them - not quite bit, but closed their beaks - over my head, gripping it and then sliding off, as though they were indeed trying to steal my hat, though deep down I thought they were trying to eat my head or carry me off.
So I ran back inside, to find Melanie and my aunt and my mum, all sitting around wearing blue swimming hats, and they saw me looking dishevelled with my blue hat in one hand and panting slightly while the huge bat-dragons swooped and flapped around the open door, and Melanie said, “Ahh, happened to you too, huh?”
Aaand then I woke up.
In other, far more important news,
'DON'T THEY KNOW' IS NOW OVER 50000 WORDS LONG!!
In fact, I'm at 51000 words! I just wanted to write the 50000 bit in capitals because that was my target for this story, in order to make it a proper 'novel' in my head. SO YAY THIS IS OFFICIALLY THE LONGEST THING I'VE EVER WRITTEN.
If you want another idea of how long it is - 91 pages at font size 9. It's over 130 at font size 12, I checked.
And the second section is FINISHED. *sigh of relief* And it's not boring. At least, I don't think it is. Kirsten's dead, Dave's dead, and even though both are probably going to come back, this affects me more than I'd have imagined.
I want to go back and fit in another chapter, though. Just so that it has nine chapters, like the first section. Because nine is my lucky number. But then I'd have to have nine chapters in the third section too, and I don't think I have enough plot to manage that.
But now the doomy third section looms. Apocalypse, doom, deicide - it's not going to have any fluffiness any more. I'm even considering killing Meg. WHY, WHY DO I DO THIS TO CHARACTERS I LOVE? At least I'm not planning on killing Danny any more. ... yet.
But last night I got a massive wave of inspiration that will a) make it much easier to write, but annoyingly much shorter b) make the ending have a much better message and c) make me happy in general. So I think my ending might be sorted. YAY.
Now I just have to write to get there. But THE END IS IN SIGHT!
PS And the 50000th word? 'Waving'. At the end of the sentence,
"If you die and come to Hell, look us up," said Meg, smiling and waving.
I was at my junior school, and my old teachers Mrs Emery and Mrs Crouch were trying to kill me for some reason. So I ran away from them into Mrs Gould’s office and told her, and she said she’d sort it all out.
Then I went over to the Senior school and went to upstairs room 9 in Cranmer to see an old lady, but instead of room 9, there was a wooden fence and small garden in front of a cottage. On the fence were various signs fixed above each other, saying ‘BEWARE OF MY DOG BAXTER’ ‘NO, I’M JUST KIDDING’ ‘MY DOG IS CALLED COLIN’ ‘IT’S HIM YOU NEED TO LOOK OUT FOR’. And through the slats I could see a huge, barking alsatian.
“Er,” I said to the old woman next to me, “I’m not sure about this.”
“Why not, dear?”
“Well, I’m scared of dogs. Do I have to talk to you?”
“There’s no need to be scared, dearie! He’ll just bark a bit! Course, he does bite, but he’s just playing.”
So I had to follow this woman in and sit on her tiny patio - the entire garden, patio and cottage were the size of the classroom, with cloudy sky over them - while she sat in a low wicker chair so she wasn’t much above me. And we talked about something, while the dog barked at me, a lot. I looked worried, but the old lady said “Don’t worry, dearie, it’s just barking, that’s not harming you, is it?”
Then the dog grabbed my leg in its teeth and started pressing down. “Umm, it’s biting me now!”
“Yes, but it hasn’t actually punctured your leg, has it? It’s just playing!”
Then I felt its teeth puncture my leg and saw blood as I pulled it away.
“It’s punctured my leg now!”
“Ahh, so NOW you know it wants to kill you and eat you, so at least you’re sure, aren’t you?”
I got up and ran away from the crazy old lady then. As I ran down the corridor, I saw Mr Gould unlocking one of the classrooms, who shrugged at me.
Then I went down to Devon for the SFX Forum meet-up, in this weird building which I knew to be a hotel but looked more like a modern library, and was set alone on a rocky crag next to the sea surrounded by more cliffs of rock and arches and lone pillars and everything else we learned about in Geography. The sea was pretty stormy, but it wasn’t windy, and the sky overhead was grey.
None of the SFX people were there yet, but my mum, sister, cousin Melanie (who looked pregnant again), grandfather and aunt were, and my other cousins were getting there tomorrow. I heard my mum saying to my sister that tomorrow, we were going north to the Donkey Sanctuary to adopt Alice a donkey, though she wouldn’t tell which one, because it was ‘too funny’. And my sister said “Oh, FINE.”
And then suddenly I got a cutaway to the Donkey Sanctuary, where a little boy was in the process of adopting a donkey. Only it wasn’t a donkey, it was the actor Greg Kinnear on four donkey legs. He was hovering a little off the ground, and the little boy had to touch each of his feet, and then he landed again.
“That’s it,” said Greg Kinnear.
“That’s it?”
“Yes, that’s the adoption process.”
“I thought I had to touch all eight.”
And Greg Kinnear frowned looking a little confused, like ‘We have eight legs?’, and the boy started prodding his face instead. End-of-film music started playing, and it started panning up and away, showing the little boy standing in front of Greg Kinnear donkey, and showing there were lots of other actor-donkeys standing around eating grass and suchlike.
And then it cut back to the hotel, where I was wandering through the bookcases, looking forward to when everyone from SFX was going to get there. I caught a glimpse of Tgirl, and saw a sign saying ‘Just so you know, folks, Mozo’s planning on offering sword lessons to anyone who wants them, and JJ is going to be giving talks to anyone about how to make more money, so if you want to bring a couple of extra pounds for these girls to teach you, that’d be grand!’ And I smiled, thinking “Eee, I get to teach sword fighting! I hope they don’t all beat me.” And I saw JJ, and she smiled and waved. I then carried on walking out through the hotel door.
Outside were my grandfather and, I think, my uncle, or possibly just some random man. They were looking out at the sea. For some reason, they were both wearing blue swimming caps, and now, so was I. I looked up over my head, where some bats were flapping around. They looked about the size of ravens.
“Wow,” I said, “They’re bigger than the ones we have at home.”
After flapping about a bit more, they landed on the ground, and I saw they now looked about the size of really big seagulls. There was even a big seagull next to them for me to compare. And they weren’t looking like bats any more - they had bat wings, but their heads were like reptilian eagles, and they had four legs and a tail. They were looking more like dragons.
“Wow,” I said, “They’re MUCH bigger than the ones we have at home.”
And then they took off again and started flapping around again, and they were growing bigger and bigger, until they were more the size of labradors. And then they started swooping down at me, growing bigger as they approached, until they could close their beaks over my head, which was exactly what they proceeded to do.
And I started going “Eek! They’re trying to steal my hat!” as more and more of them - not quite bit, but closed their beaks - over my head, gripping it and then sliding off, as though they were indeed trying to steal my hat, though deep down I thought they were trying to eat my head or carry me off.
So I ran back inside, to find Melanie and my aunt and my mum, all sitting around wearing blue swimming hats, and they saw me looking dishevelled with my blue hat in one hand and panting slightly while the huge bat-dragons swooped and flapped around the open door, and Melanie said, “Ahh, happened to you too, huh?”
Aaand then I woke up.
In other, far more important news,
'DON'T THEY KNOW' IS NOW OVER 50000 WORDS LONG!!
In fact, I'm at 51000 words! I just wanted to write the 50000 bit in capitals because that was my target for this story, in order to make it a proper 'novel' in my head. SO YAY THIS IS OFFICIALLY THE LONGEST THING I'VE EVER WRITTEN.
If you want another idea of how long it is - 91 pages at font size 9. It's over 130 at font size 12, I checked.
And the second section is FINISHED. *sigh of relief* And it's not boring. At least, I don't think it is. Kirsten's dead, Dave's dead, and even though both are probably going to come back, this affects me more than I'd have imagined.
I want to go back and fit in another chapter, though. Just so that it has nine chapters, like the first section. Because nine is my lucky number. But then I'd have to have nine chapters in the third section too, and I don't think I have enough plot to manage that.
But now the doomy third section looms. Apocalypse, doom, deicide - it's not going to have any fluffiness any more. I'm even considering killing Meg. WHY, WHY DO I DO THIS TO CHARACTERS I LOVE? At least I'm not planning on killing Danny any more. ... yet.
But last night I got a massive wave of inspiration that will a) make it much easier to write, but annoyingly much shorter b) make the ending have a much better message and c) make me happy in general. So I think my ending might be sorted. YAY.
Now I just have to write to get there. But THE END IS IN SIGHT!
PS And the 50000th word? 'Waving'. At the end of the sentence,
"If you die and come to Hell, look us up," said Meg, smiling and waving.