Eeh, now that is eerie.

2007-09-23T14:49:55Z

My book-in-a-box novel has been taking shape in my head these last few weeks. I now know that it's going to be set post-disaster Ukraine, with the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster as a key backdrop.

I've had an almost-morbid fascination with Chernobyl for a few years now. I blame the Kid of Speed website, but more recently I've read Voices from Chernobyl, and the Wormwood Forest, and images from thisi amazing book just haunt me.

I'd decided on today as the day to start my novel - mainly because on the novel_in_90 schedule, I'll reach my target word count by the day before my wedding, and I liked that neatness of timing.

On the long ride home yesterday I was planning out my first scene, and went to bed thinking about the story and what I wanted to do. At the time it was still very much a tale of love and death, disaster and regeneration, loss and hope.

I was absolutely stunned to see this link on dreamattack's feed this morning...

http://mostinterestingblog.blogspot.com/2007/04/ghost-of-chernobyl.html

And oh boy does that give me some more ideas to work with.

Especially

and

Those little grafitti'd devil-children - I want to know who drew them? Why? I love the second one there, sitting as if waiting for someone to come to the window. And the screaming child face at the top of the building - that set the hairs on the back of my neck tingling.

Synchronicity. One of my very favourite things, and oh, so timely just now.

I'm off to write my first 750 words now. BBIAB.

Story ideas that came to mind today

2007-02-01T00:13:23Z

These are all terribly unformed, just things that floated through my head.These are mainly autobiography ideas, with points where the real memories stop and ideas for how they can be turned into stories start.

I've tidied these up this morning, and cut-tagged them to spare my friends list. I hadn't realised I'd got so wordy!

I was out at the cinema this evening, and I've got a long-running half-story in mind that uses the fug of unreality that we willing put ourselves in when watching films. Particularly at the cinema, for me at least - you're in the dark with a lot of people you don't know, all hypnotised by the story and the over-the-top scale of the sound, the brightness of the images in the darkness, the scale of the enormous screen.

There are a couple of ways to go with this one. One that haunts me when I'm watching anything scary is that I'll surface from a spell of being transfixed on the screen and find myself alone in the theatre... whatever horror story I've been watching is still playing out in front of me but the rest of the audience is gone. And sometimes, the fire exit in the corner of the theatre will start to open just a little.
And then...

Another is that part of the way through the film I'm suddenly aware that there's someone sitting across the aisle from me who certainly wasn't there when the credits started, because I remember glowering over towards that direction because there's a group of kids spread over a couple of rows over there, throwing popcorn and talking loudly over the opening credits. I snapped at them to shut up or I'd get the attendant, and they went sulkily quiet and apart from a couple of sarcastic 'screams' at the false scares when the heroine was out wandering alone in the woods in the opening scenes, they've been quiet ever since. I would have noticed anyone else there, and probably made the shrugging eye-contact that reluctant grown-ups do when they're not really sure how to deal with someone else's children acting badly in public. But there's definitely someone there now, and either he makes me nervous because he doesn't jump and scream when the real scares kick in like the rest of us do, even the sarky kids, or I keep catching him out of the corner of my eye and I'm sure that rather than watching the film, he's actually staring at me. Only every time I look over to check, by the time my eyes have re-focussed from looking at the bright screen to the dimness of the audience, he's had time to look away.
And then...

The other one isn't cinema based at all. I remembered a night I had when I was working in Eastbourne in - goodness! - 1997, running a gift shop. It was the night when I met the girl who had been recruited to be my deputy for the first time since her interview, the day before she was due to start the job and with a kind of unspoken understanding rather than doing the grown-up thing and having a civilised meet and greet over coffee, went out on the piss, big style. I didn't think we'd get on, as she was beautiful and artistic and well-spoken, and I was round and academic and shy. We got on amazingly well. But that night has crystallised in memory as 'the strangest drunken night of all time' and there's a quality to my memories of it that make me want to go back and play with it in fiction. Or maybe I just miss my old job and my old friend?

We sat in a self-conscious new Wetherspoons pub, only a few months old itself, from four in the afternoon until closing time. The place was half-empty and we evaded the brightest patches of sun as it moved across ceiling high glass windows over the hours. We both smoked, a lot. We drank five bottles of sweet-cold white wine that came in blue bottles and tasted like grape juice. I was wearing a new gothy coat that I was immensely proud of, a blue-black lace that made interesting patterns on the pavement when I walked with my shadow in front of me. I wish I could still find it easy to talk and talk for hours with someone I hardly know. Maybe it's a being-20-or-so trait, and as I've gotten older and less trusting I'm just no good at it any more, I don't know.

But it was fun. We got on. And at just after one am, I found myself walking down Eastbourne beach with my pretty lace coat flapping in what must have been a perishing breeze, talking in French to my new friend (it had only been a couple of years since GCSEs for me, and she'd been fluent for ages) and we must have sounded vaguely convincing because a bunch of students on a cultural exchange from France (Eastbourne was always full of them) came and blagged Marlboros from us. And here's where the story deviates from reality... We made out that were were rich businesswomen who owned one of the hotels, and invited them to come and use the tennis courts (I was flagging at this point, and couldn't remember the French for 'jacuzzi'. Heh) but gave them the slip by sneaking through the back alleys around the shop where I worked. Thirsty and wanting the loo, I unlocked the shop for a quick stop, opened a bottle of Old Sailor's Festive Rum Punch and we sat on the fire escape at the back of the shop, smoking and singing entirely made up French fishing songs until we stumbled back into the shop and passed out in the Victorian furniture section, curled up alongside ersatz quilts and ill-proportioned fairy statues.

In reality, the students took most of our cigarettes and wandered off, and I tried to open up the shop, but couldn't remember the code to the alarm system and decided better of it. The last place open at that time of night was Macdonalds, so we snuck in to use the loo, and I got lost between the door from the restaurant and the ladies, and ended up wandering the staff areas, convinced that I'd stumbled into Resident Evil and a zombie was about to appear around the next corner and I'd have to burn him to death with my lighter.

I think I like the stupid songs on the fire escape version better. And then...

I had a half-formed idea of keeping my writing going after NaNo by doing a story-per-month writing with a seasonal theme, but I've kind of missed January! Still, nice idea.

NaNo 2005 - Finished!

2005-11-27T18:34:29Z

Done! Done! DONE!!! 50,020.

Without a shadow of a doubt, this has been the hardest NaNo I've ever done: I didn't like my story, it wasn't what I wanted to write from the outset, I felt like I was just making characters jump through hoops and it never really went anywhere. But that in itself is probably useful experience.

And anyway, who cares? I'm DONE!!

I'm going to have a very large gin and tonic, and do anything but write for a day or so. See you next year :)

Stephanie's writing journal

Eeh, now that is eerie.

Story ideas that came to mind today

NaNo 2005 - Finished!