The Quest Continues

No longer for perfection, but for the one, the fittest.

Not the grandest, the strongest or the like. The one most suited to me, which fits me the best of all.

A bit Darwinian, a process of natural selection?

Who is selecting whom, me or the notebook?

It comes down to sensing the aura, the Zen of the book

Taking the Zen thing a bit further, it's not how do you feel about the book, how does the book feel about you?

It's the strange feeling, the sensation of losing touch with something.

Pick the book, whatever it is, take it down from the shelf. You sense something, a sympathetic resonance perhaps? You replace the book on the shelf and continue browsing, and end up where you started with the first book you lifted from the shelf.

You take it to the till, pay the cashier, and away you go. The book arrives home and its not the same, strange but it happens.

I remarked in an earlier post about my first encounter with the Moleskine brand and how I felt it necessary to find the right instrument to make the first mark.

I admit, I fell for the romance of the history described in the pamphlet that comes with each one. I bought the book and the story and it took me a while to get over it.

It was the day my brain clicked into gear and did the arithmetic. I checked the figures. Page for page the three pack of the pocket sized cahiers with the soft cover was equal to a hardcover notebook of the same size, and roughly half the price.

I made the switch and awaited an introduction to the Fauxdori, the Traveler's notebook lookalikes.

That introduction stared a whole new journey that brought me to here, now.

An odd side effect has been to bring to mind all the different notebooks I've used over the years, and decades and attempts at homemade notebooks.

Armed with a printer, photographs and a comb binder, assorted papers and a laminator. The research, documents downloaded and printed out would be comb bound for future reference.

Now I'm on the handmade notebooks, cut and trimmed to size and bound by a pamphlet stitch. A new expression of life with a notebook, springing from a superbly matched surprise gift. The Fittest gift I've received in a long time.

Christmas is around the corner, and this year there is a sense of anticipation of what it will bring.

Only a few more sleeps and we've notched up snow already this month. The bookies adjusted the odds for a white one.

Let the dreaming begin!

Martyn

(Image, December 2010)

Grounded

I've been absent for the whole of January and taking a break sounds more considered than the actuality. Truth is, when the skies are grey, the heating is on the blink and a dozen other things are queueing for attention the desired order gets reshuffled. You want to sit down around the fire of creativity and feed it logs of inspiration, but stuff

Where have I heard that before?

A lighter touch this time, a bit of fun for the festive season with a glass of something at your elbow to lift the spirit? I love playing with words, twisting their meanings to shift the context of a sentence so when I stumbled on the post at The Passive Voice recently it sent me scurrying through the bookmarks on the computer for a couple of websites I have played with in the past.

Never quite sure about the sincerity of the sites, are they really the humour stations they claim to be; or does the end product find its way into the real world?

Why do I do it?

One day I'm going to... Then November comes around and the challenge hits you between the eyes. OK, so one day... today is that day. The First of November starts National Novel Writing Month; a day of hope and trepidation for anyone who has ever thought of writing a novel. A whole month of creatively splurging words across whatever typeface you are working at; paper, screen, Ipad, Android and  all wrapped in a tidy package. Thirty days to reach the target.

Why? What is it that encourages myself and thousands of others to sign up and squirrel another workload into already busy schedules at the time of year when the decorations are starting to appear for Christmas; as carols and Christmas songs begin to drift through the speakers in the shopping malls and supermarkets like an aerosol drug designed to loosen the bonds on wallets and purses.

It's the challenge, the taunt of come on then, come and have a go if you think...you have it in you. The pressure  of the words and the daily tally, 50,000 in 30 days is the sort of pressure that crushes doubt in a mad frenzy of scribbling, typing or both. Can you hold the mental,  creative and imaginative threads together long enough. Can you mix the stamina and bloody minded determination to see it through, cross the 50,000 word line within the 30 days and watch the validation screen flag up a winner; or still be in there when the clock ticks 11.59.59 on the 30th and see the figures change to 00.00 Dec 1, battling onwards.

Does anyone really lose with NaNoWriMo, or is it the real win-win scenario.  The challenge pits you against your strongest and meanest opponent, who knows all your temptations, weakness, and strengths and exactly how to undermine you; and you have your greatest ally with the same information, and the twist? They are the same; you!

That's the winner; you arrive at the end of the month having learnt something about yourself, and you have tasted what it must be like to write professionally, a daily workload, a climbing word count drawing towards a fateful The End where the story pauses, most of the loose ends tied up, but with an opening perhaps to lead the story arc into a sequel and beyond.

I was asked what NaNoWriMo means to me, and I chewed over the answer for a couple of weeks. It was a release, a confirmation of a way of doing things. There are two main personalities in National Novel Writing Month, plotters and pantsters, the question is where are you when the clock strikes midnight and the writing begins. Are you surrounded by plots and plans or unfettered by detailed preparation and plunge in, writing by the seat of your pants, winging it through the days towards the December deadline.

I go for writing by the seat of my pants,  I tried the planning and plotting but it felt like I was puling in two directions; bashing myself over the head with plot it, plan it and then write it only to find that when the characters found their own voice I was completely stuffed, they had read the notes and were determined to do anything except what the plot-line demanded. 

I wanted to go straight in and tell the story, see it unfold before my own eyes so the words dancing across the page were new and fresh to me. 

NaNoWriMo's uncluttered approach felt right, here was a bunch of people fired by enthusiasm and, apparently, caffeine with the nerve to go for it. Careering along a storyline waiting to see what the characters would do next is invigorating and scary! 

Make your characters believable and believe what they are telling you, it's their story, they live in the world of your imagination, but you are not in control of them,. Respect and they will respect you, and hopefully give you a story worth telling learn to trust what they are saying. Storytelling is a natural part of being human, so why make it unnecessarily difficult. If the Novel is intimidating, look at yourself as a  storyteller and be part of that great and ancient tradition, there have been storytellers, sat around  wood fires in ancient camps and propping up the woodwork in hostels and public houses for centuries, millennia, or multiples of both.,.

Writing is part of day to day life, too long without scribbling and I start to feel edgy and uncomfortable, and I go back to the typeface. The deadline of NaNoWriMo gives me a much needed boost, naturally it kicks the word count into orbit, but the confidence that I can meet the pressure and have the commitment to see it through without sweating about the details; just getting the story down in any shape ready be knocked about and rebuilt where necessary is welcome.

Chris Baty, founder of NaNoWriMo and author of "No Plot, No Problem" cites the deadline as the writer's most powerful tool, the Damocles' sword hanging over the keyboard. It works for me, focusing the mind and boosting concentration, and NaNoWriMo? 

Ancient cave paintings were the visual aids to storytelling and the themes are eternal, and for me National Novel Writing Month is a reminder that however solitary writing can be,, I am not alone, there are literally hundreds of thousands of people with something to say through the medium of the story. Whether plotting the minutest detail, winging it with half a wing missing and an engine shot away, literally on a wing and a prayer. Whatever your first line, Once Upon A time, in the beginning, it was a dark and stormy night, the scream shattered the night and his blood ran like ice through his veins. Be the storyteller and leave the day to day, step into the eternal and explore; travel in time and space, past, present and future - not necessarily in that order - or look at your own backyard through another pair of eyes.

NaNoWriMo is over for this year, but I'll be there next October waiting for the clock to strike the hour and shift the calendar from October the 31st to the 1st of November. I won't be alone, and if you chose to make the journey for yourself for the first time or for a return visit; travel well my friend. 

What am I?

I started thinking about an old game earlier; where items are concealed in cloth bags and identified by touch, others are in jars and have to be picked out by taste or smell, and the train of thought trundled down a branch line and I wondered about myself.

My first books strayed on to the internet via Smashwords in August, a blast through November started the next one, What You Ask For, available as it was written on the Smashwords Nanowrimo page. Having someone downloading and reading the draft as it appeared on Smashwords took a bit of getting used to, but I enjoyed the buzz. The earlier titles have all appeared on the various channels where Smashwords distributes to. (Not Amazon - technical issues).

Find the book was the challenge in the first weeks after publication, tracking down the page on the site where they arrived for sale at Diesel, Kobo, Sony, or wherever. Eye-balling the cover design on each site; it was the description at Diesel that caught my eye; Indie Author.

I smiled at that, to me it has a cool ring to it, but I guess there will be many reactions each one coloured by the perception of the individual.

Why do I think it is cool? It's the word independent, indie, (there's a nod to Indie of the Indiana Jones stories). It has the edge of a maverick, a loner, the character who rides into the dusty town and sorts out the mess and then rides out again, answerable to no-one. That's the key!

Answerable to no-one. It's the crazy who sticks their neck out and does something with no safety net and nobody to blame if everything goes pear shaped; I did It, it was me! An acceptance of personal responsibility.

At the end of the day, there is a book, checked and proof read, formatted with a cover design and out there for you the reader.

The books are for you, Reader, and at this time of year I can echo the words of Dickens in his preface to A Christmas Carol; that they shall not put you out of humour with yourself, each other, or with me. Should they be enjoyed at this holiday or later in the year when the sun reaches into bones chilled by winter, as the days lengthen, and warm evenings and cool drinks beckon us out of doors. Enjoy them and share them with your friends.