The Month That Is; How I Wrote Richard Faraday, Ghost Detective - January 6th 2012 - A

Blimey. Another long day. Spent from about 7pm working on Part 2. For some reason I'm only able to work on this thing late at night. No matter.

I wrote 4,193 words today, bringing the grand total to 23,173. Not too shabby. I'm going to try and hit 30,000 by the end of the weekend. That's a fair target. Might be able to push beyond it if I spend the weekend focused exclusively on it. At this rate, I could have the entire thing done by the end of next week. I know it's going to slow down to a crawl come next Monday though, when I'm back in the office. It'll be a shame, but a necessary shame (whatever one of those is).

I was going to see The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo tomorrow but I think I might just power on with this. That film can wait. I want to go with somebody but no one is available... maybe after work next week? Or at the weekend? I'll figure it out. There's nothing worse than going to the cinema by yourself, ha.

Back to business: I've had a look at Blurb and it's not straight forward to use! The interface is confusing as all heck... I want to be able to take my novel and paste it into something, then tinker in the same something to make it all spiffy. There's a Word/Blurb app that might do the business, but it's again, not very straightforward.

I'll focus on getting the writing done first. After that... the technical bits. Then I need to see if I can interest anyone in doing a cover! Uh-oh.

At least I started introducing my Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) Expys. I'm also leaning towards a Thunderbirds reference. Blimey. I was going to make reference The Champions, and I was suddenly struck by the idea of... what would happen if Napoleon Solo (from The Man From UNCLE) was sent to The Village (from The Prisoner). Then I had a panic attack and realised what I had to do.

Think harder.

And fit everything in.

Ha!

The biggest problem is that I want this to be a kind of knowing, involved narrative. The first layer is a supernatural adventure story. An occult detective fighting to uncover a mystery, a girl in peril, nothing is as it seems, and then hints and hooks for future stories. The second layer is this wink and nod toward the stories I enjoyed when I was a kid, and to be fair, they're from British comic books like Eagle, Hotspur, Valiant and all that. You can't go wrong. Not only that, but there are Lew Grade produced shows like The Champions, Captain Scarlet, et al, along with other shows of the time, The Prisoner,  The Man From UNCLE... if this is going to be a schlocky adventure, why not include all the schlock from my youth in one form or another?

As long as it's fun... and doesn't break copyright law...

The following albums were listened to today whilst writing. Only the one, actually. Nine Inch Nails - Another Version of the Truth [Las Vegas]. Just listened to it again and again. There's something infinetly inspiring about live Nine Inch Nails live performances. I could listen to their entire discography in one fail swoop if necessary and it would be sublime. I still might. Hmm... tomorrow?