(no subject)
Everyone, I see now that I have been perfectly awful and neglectful of my duties, these duties being “not disappearing for months at a time” and “not being a complete recluse, honestly”. I really am sorry, but you see recently the months have acted like they are all in some kind of cop show. November ambushed me in a dark alley and beat me senseless using October’s spade, and then it buried me in an abandoned cemetery. Meanwhile, October was being ruthlessly interrogated by December and January, who were good cop and bad cop respectively. “Just tell us where she is,” December said mildly, while January threateningly smoked a cigarette and added, “Or I will rip your ears off with my teeth and glue them to your forehead.” At that point October lost it completely and started shrieking, “You are all mad, I was framed”, and then December slammed him up against a wall and hissed, “Oh yeah? Frame this!”
“What?” October squawked, distressed. “I thought you were the good cop!”
“We’re taking turns, punk.”
After a couple of episodes featuring shoddy police work and donuts and a theme song (“Watch out! They’re a-gonna catch you - sometime!”), December and January were able to locate the churchyard in which I was buried, dig me up and resuscitate me. I emerged, prepared to blink in the sunlight and tearfully reunite with my parents, only to notice that it was in fact raining because quite some time had passed. “You incompetent fools!” I shouted at my rescuers, waving away the ambulance crew. “You idiots! What took you so long? Do you have any idea what this will do to my word count?”
Yes, you guessed it; the reason for my prolonged absence has not been abduction, but NaNoWriMo.
For all of you who have no idea what the strange lady is talking about, NaNoWriMo is an abbreviation of National Novel Writing Month. Basically, the idea is that one is to write fifty thousand words during the month of November (or at least attempt to write fifty thousand words during the month of November). I’ve been doing it since I was fourteen or fifteen, because not only is it crazy, it is also crazy fun!
To cut a long story short, I made it. But because I have never been particularly good at handling the verbal scissors (all I know is that you’re not supposed to run with them!), I am going with the long story anyway.
My withdrawal from society began in the middle of October, and it was during this time that conversations such as this one were had:
FRIEND: So, do you want to go out tonight?
ME: Oh, I’d love to, only I, you see, I am much needed in an urgent mission to the… to the moon? Where I will be forced to slave away, extracting… cheese. From, from these vast secret underground moon cheese mines!
FRIEND: I take it this means you’re going to spend the evening planning your book.
ME: …yes.
After a while I took to wandering the city by my lonesome, accompanied only by my notebook, hoping that Inspiration would come. And Inspiration did come, or rather it occasionally crept up behind me and struck me in the head with a brick. (All this abuse, it is a wonder I can still stand!) “Hmm,” I would say to myself while strolling about town, “my toe hurts a little and, oh no, the weather is awful, perhaps I ought to have borrowed a shawl - my intrepid heroes are chased by predatory deer and are saved by the arrival of a flying mushroom, it is all so clear to me now!” And then I would dash to a building or a lamppost or a bench and lean against it, scribbling frantically. Now and then, Inspiration landed me in embarrassing situations. Please note: during no circumstances is it all right to cry out: “Of course, his mother has pancreatic cancer!” in tones of joy. It is especially not all right to do so during Cancer Awareness Day and when in a train full of strangers, because it is bound to be misconstrued, and then one will have to abide their quiet disapproval for the rest of the journey. Listen well, for I speak from experience!
Matters were made worse when I attended a meeting for people doing NaNoWriMo. Naturally, it was wonderful - we discussed books and writing and drank tea - and so to the grief of friends and family I became even more excited about NaNoWriMo. And then it began and I had no more time to be excited. On the 1st of November, a friend and I stacked up on tea and sweets and wrote until we were faint, and then we forced ourselves to do mad dances to 80’s pop songs until we felt well enough to resume writing, and then we were faint again and then there was more dancing...
It probably wasn’t very healthy. After a while, it wasn’t even a lot of fun. But when I was done, when I looked at my word count and realised that I had done that, then, oh, I told everyone that it was so worth it.
Actually, what I told everyone was: “I am done. Oh my God, I am done! Now I am going to sleep and when - and if! - I wake up tomorrow, I am going to a bookshop to rejoice in the fact that there are people who are better at this writing business than I am! This is dreadful.” So now I've spent some days recovering, reading and dreaming of A Better Place.
ENGLISH TEACHER: Where would you like to be right now? Does anyone want to share with the class?
ME: I would like to be on a tropical island, surrounded by handsome men serving me drinks and singing sweet songs about my eyes.
TEACHER: Drinks? At eight o’clock in the morning?
ME: It is never too early. Besides, I don’t have to drink the drinks. They just have to serve them. The point is that they are all my mindless slaves. My handsome, mindless slaves…
TEACHER: Moving on!
P.S. I have made an extraordinary discovery: I am not just a Karaoke Queen, I am a Karaoke Goddess. The karaoke machine and I met at a party, and we clicked instantly. We spent the night together. Not even the promise of colourful alcoholic beverages could lure me from its side. I’ve now decided that if ever we marry, our first child shall be called Mr Tambourine Man and our second Oops, I Did It Again. I haven’t quite dared to mention it to the karaoke machine yet - I don’t want things to become awkward between us - but I am overcome with love!
“What?” October squawked, distressed. “I thought you were the good cop!”
“We’re taking turns, punk.”
After a couple of episodes featuring shoddy police work and donuts and a theme song (“Watch out! They’re a-gonna catch you - sometime!”), December and January were able to locate the churchyard in which I was buried, dig me up and resuscitate me. I emerged, prepared to blink in the sunlight and tearfully reunite with my parents, only to notice that it was in fact raining because quite some time had passed. “You incompetent fools!” I shouted at my rescuers, waving away the ambulance crew. “You idiots! What took you so long? Do you have any idea what this will do to my word count?”
Yes, you guessed it; the reason for my prolonged absence has not been abduction, but NaNoWriMo.
For all of you who have no idea what the strange lady is talking about, NaNoWriMo is an abbreviation of National Novel Writing Month. Basically, the idea is that one is to write fifty thousand words during the month of November (or at least attempt to write fifty thousand words during the month of November). I’ve been doing it since I was fourteen or fifteen, because not only is it crazy, it is also crazy fun!
To cut a long story short, I made it. But because I have never been particularly good at handling the verbal scissors (all I know is that you’re not supposed to run with them!), I am going with the long story anyway.
My withdrawal from society began in the middle of October, and it was during this time that conversations such as this one were had:
FRIEND: So, do you want to go out tonight?
ME: Oh, I’d love to, only I, you see, I am much needed in an urgent mission to the… to the moon? Where I will be forced to slave away, extracting… cheese. From, from these vast secret underground moon cheese mines!
FRIEND: I take it this means you’re going to spend the evening planning your book.
ME: …yes.
After a while I took to wandering the city by my lonesome, accompanied only by my notebook, hoping that Inspiration would come. And Inspiration did come, or rather it occasionally crept up behind me and struck me in the head with a brick. (All this abuse, it is a wonder I can still stand!) “Hmm,” I would say to myself while strolling about town, “my toe hurts a little and, oh no, the weather is awful, perhaps I ought to have borrowed a shawl - my intrepid heroes are chased by predatory deer and are saved by the arrival of a flying mushroom, it is all so clear to me now!” And then I would dash to a building or a lamppost or a bench and lean against it, scribbling frantically. Now and then, Inspiration landed me in embarrassing situations. Please note: during no circumstances is it all right to cry out: “Of course, his mother has pancreatic cancer!” in tones of joy. It is especially not all right to do so during Cancer Awareness Day and when in a train full of strangers, because it is bound to be misconstrued, and then one will have to abide their quiet disapproval for the rest of the journey. Listen well, for I speak from experience!
Matters were made worse when I attended a meeting for people doing NaNoWriMo. Naturally, it was wonderful - we discussed books and writing and drank tea - and so to the grief of friends and family I became even more excited about NaNoWriMo. And then it began and I had no more time to be excited. On the 1st of November, a friend and I stacked up on tea and sweets and wrote until we were faint, and then we forced ourselves to do mad dances to 80’s pop songs until we felt well enough to resume writing, and then we were faint again and then there was more dancing...
It probably wasn’t very healthy. After a while, it wasn’t even a lot of fun. But when I was done, when I looked at my word count and realised that I had done that, then, oh, I told everyone that it was so worth it.
Actually, what I told everyone was: “I am done. Oh my God, I am done! Now I am going to sleep and when - and if! - I wake up tomorrow, I am going to a bookshop to rejoice in the fact that there are people who are better at this writing business than I am! This is dreadful.” So now I've spent some days recovering, reading and dreaming of A Better Place.
ENGLISH TEACHER: Where would you like to be right now? Does anyone want to share with the class?
ME: I would like to be on a tropical island, surrounded by handsome men serving me drinks and singing sweet songs about my eyes.
TEACHER: Drinks? At eight o’clock in the morning?
ME: It is never too early. Besides, I don’t have to drink the drinks. They just have to serve them. The point is that they are all my mindless slaves. My handsome, mindless slaves…
TEACHER: Moving on!
P.S. I have made an extraordinary discovery: I am not just a Karaoke Queen, I am a Karaoke Goddess. The karaoke machine and I met at a party, and we clicked instantly. We spent the night together. Not even the promise of colourful alcoholic beverages could lure me from its side. I’ve now decided that if ever we marry, our first child shall be called Mr Tambourine Man and our second Oops, I Did It Again. I haven’t quite dared to mention it to the karaoke machine yet - I don’t want things to become awkward between us - but I am overcome with love!