the winners together

Having abandoned her writing part way through the month Creature decided in the final days of NaNo that she would really *really* like a winners t-shirt and so set herself a mammoth task of over 4,000 words a day to finish .... and she made it, with a grand total of just over the 50,000. I had to make her 20,000, 30,000 and 40,000 word cakes in quick succession over a few days (well, the 40,000 cake was a lemon meringue pie). Here we are with our 'winner's' cake yesterday.

And here we are verifying our novels on the NaNoWriMo site and collecting certificates and all that jazz (that's my sister Claire, who I don't think has featured on the blog before):


Well done to all the other people who took part, whether or not you got to 50,000 it is still a great challenge and we are already looking forward and planning for next year. And here is the little winners badge that I can put proudly in my sidebar for all to see:

in the winner's enclosure ...

Well ... it has no title so don't bother asking, it has not much of a plot so don't bother asking ... but I passed the 50,000 word mark this morning at about eleven o'clock. It has lots of lovely happy people living quite contented ordinary lives, there was very little conflict or upset. I said to Dunk that you would only really like to read it if they were your best friends, but otherwise it's very dull. Creature insisted I had to make something bad happen or kill someone. So I did. It made the last few of thousand words fly by, so it was worth the sacrifice.

Creature and I went to the library a couple of nights ago and she picked up a book that was in the wrong place and went to put it back. I opened it at random and began reading, and to my delight/horror I find that I write just like Josephine Cox, so I plan on taking it up professionally since according to her (very brief) wikipedia page she sells a million books a year.

I ended up working in the bedroom and the desk looks very sparse as the treats have been thin on the ground, apart from the endless supply of tea that Dunk has bought me over the last fortnight. The story is not done, in fact I am resisting writing the closing scene and am currently going back to fill in a few of the gaps. The story is all over the place and my biggest task is to make a timeline and ensure that everyone ages at the same rate and people don't talk about stuff that hasn't happened yet. But over at NaNoWriMo they don't mind if it's rubbish, I still get to order my t-shirt.

Fridge Neglect

We now have an empty corner to our kitchen, all this wondrous empty space in which to rearrange the furniture. All because .... after a year of neglect, we have our proper fridge back in working order. Here it is humming quietly to itself in all it's fridgely glory:
It stopped working when we moved house, some little bit of the motor had blown and the refrigerant did not circulate and cool it down, so we used the tatty old one that the previous tenant had so kindly left behind (along with most of his possessions, a washing machine full of washing and a sink full of greasy grill pan!!) It was annoying, and too small and it was silly having a fridge sat uselessly in the corner of the kitchen taking up precious space. It was top of the 'to do' list. One year later it is sorted.

We will however be still using the only decent thing the previous tenant left ... this very cool Abbey Road fridge magnet:-) It has pride of place next to the chocolately butt fridge poetry, and I'm planning to get the rest of the words out and put them up tomorrow.

The space has reminded me of the next item on the 'to do' list ... draught excluders for the front and back doors. I am determined it is not going to be another winter of howling gales in our house.

In praise of the iPad

I have been sharing the computer with Creature over the last nine days as we both tussle with the NaNoWriMo situation. When she is writing I have been using Writer on her iPad and am now an utter convert. The damn thing had annoyed me after I bought it because it didn't like Facebook much and that's what she wanted and so she still kept wanting to use my laptop, in fact it had been pretty much relegated to a games machine, plus the Babe has some lovely interactive story books that she really enjoys.

But this week it has really come into it's own. I signed up for Dropbox which is a freebie (for the minimum storage) where you can send your files up into 'the cloud' and they will be safe there until you want to access them. So I type on the iPad after Creature had taken the laptop off to her room, then I upload them to the Dropbox, and then in the morning, while it's still dark, I sneak in and pinch the laptop back and download from Dropbox and put what I have written into my Scrivener NaNo novel file (and then I update my word count total just to annoy her because I am now at over 23,000!)

I was describing to Dunk this morning how much I was enjoying typing on it, and he described how if you take one to pieces you find that the internal components are so carefully arranged to ensure perfect balance of the iPad while you are using it. It just seems so wonderful that the designers have taken so much care and thought. As a user you would only notice such a thing if they had got it wrong, you just take it totally for granted and it is so essential to how it feels when you hold it in your hand. I use so many things in everyday life that are badly designed that I am truly astonished how much I am enjoying it (and I think Dunk liked it that I was finally appreciating the finer qualities of an Apple product.)

(Very very brief excerpt from the first draft over on the other blog.)

NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo starts in a couple of hours.

Not sure what's going to happen but it will certainly be an experience.

As the days have crept past I have become more convinced that I can't write anything, let alone a book. Have struggled to even do my 100 words.

My mind is totally blank.

Devoid of inspiration.

I spent the evening a few days ago learning how to use the Scrivener programme, so at least I have achieved something.

Anno's Journey

Anno's Journey by Mitsumasa Anno is one of my most favourite wordless books. It is a series of pictures that follows the journey of our hero Anno (on his horse) as he travels across Europe:
The book is just for looking at and talking about, the pictures are full of detail, characters and activity that appear from one picture to the next, mini stories going on for you to follow, some quirky optical curiosities. The images are just so beautiful, soft delicate colours, nothing garish or cartoonish, so clever and well thought out. You could (and we have) pour over it all day, and come back the next day and find things you missed.

This picture shows the detail from The Enormous Turnip (which just reminded me of a whole load more stories I want to find):
Here we have a detail from Bathers by Georges Seurat (and there are apparently several other paintings that we have not spotted yet.)
I love the way the shops have big signs outside so you know what they sell ... here is the toothpaste shop:-)
Little things to look out for ... like the escaping prisoner:
but my new favourites are now, the spinning lady:
and the postman:
Available second hand from Amazon for mere pounds (get hardback, it will need to last.)

Pie and Cake

Creature and I went out to a local NaNoWriMo gathering last night and met some lovely people, and were most reassured to find that hardly anyone had done much novel planning. Sitting on the tram I bet her there would be hardly anyone there ... and I lost, and so had to come home from work and make lemon cake.

Dunk and I are coming to the end of a month without meat, inspired by Vegetarian Awareness Month. It was partly an attempt to get us out of a food rut (you know what it's like, making the same dozen dinners over and over), though mostly I have found myself returning to old favourites from when I was a vegetarian for a few years during my 20's.

Just to prove that sometimes I don't throw things out I have a 25 year old recipe leaflet from 'Maggie's Farm', a wholefood cooperative in Durham, they produced it one Christmas and charged 5p, with recipes contributed by the staff. This is 'Wilf's Raised Pie':
The crust is a pork pie type pastry:

4oz water

4oz margarine

bring to the boil in a saucepan

Add to 12oz wholemeal flour + salt and mix quickly to a warm dough. Roll out and line a 7" pie or cake tin (line the bottom with greaseproof to make getting it out easier). Keep 1/4 of the dough for the lid.

Filling, you can use variations on the theme really, fried together in a pan:

garlic (plenty), red pepper (or any colour really), chopped brussel sprouts, sunflower seeds, pine nuts, seasame seeds, pumpkin seeds.

In a bowl (not cooking these first)

8oz of mixed nuts, half chopped half ground

finely chopped leek

breadcrumbs

herbs (your favourite)

salt and pepper

Mix all together, add 1/4 pint of hot water with 1 teaspoon of yeast extract and 1 tablespoon of tahini blended in (or a bit more liquid if it seems dry, but you do not want a sloppy mixture)

Fill the pie case and put the lid on the pie, then bake hot 200˚ for 20 minutes, reduce heat 160˚ degrees for another 30 minutes. Be warned it is very filling.