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ID #1016
shaping the final structure of the novel
ID #1014
Pretend to be filming a documentary, find a niche but interesting subject
ID #1013
Don't go bananas on the piercings front. Aide d'orgasm.
ID #1006
But this is about pride
ID #1005
Talks like an instruction manual, youtube assembly video
ID #1003
Nick Cage in Bringing Out The Dead but he's an assembler. Likes Lego too. My new build?
ID #1002
Guy whose ocd pings when furniture is out of whack or misarranged or misassembled
ID #1001
Giy Ritchie's been sniffing around like a randy bloodhound. All the crimos and gangsters of South of the river.
ID #1000
Writing as building. "My new build".
ID #999
Write in first person present tense like Winslow. He surveyed the room, he petted the dog. He headed upstairs. He went to her room.
ID #997
But Queenie married the slippery Minhas Suburu who used private equity to fund . When he died in a deck chair of congestive heart failure he left her with . The only things Queenie cared about now were cats and ceramics. She had a gallery in Southwold.
ID #996
Need a good solid plot
ID #995
Keep your eye on the doughnut not the hole
ID #994
Write Text about the completed novella
ID #993
12 parts portfolio of connected short stories
ID #992
Use dictation to work out the plot of each chapter
ID #991
The hero is Nicolas Cage
ID #989
By 50 he had identified all his flaws and impulses, those things injurious to his mental health (certain women, politics, drink, over-eating) and those essential to his well-being (books, writing, a little socialisation). He owned his own home. He had mastered himself.
ID #988
The two were using the opportunity to arrange a business deal. Which went wrong. But what's the actual story here? The dance is the B story, the A story is to be revealed.
ID #987
The dance is Trollopian. He attended reluctantly because he would much rather preferred to have stayed at home with his Raspberry Pi, 3-d printer and box set of Public Eye but he had half an idea the single life meant he'd cark it sooner and he still held out hope of finding an amenable type.
ID #986
Paz is sent on a mission to get some information from a crazy. This appears to go wrong but Dulcie disappears only to reappear later with the information. Paz, on the other hand, flees to a side world and gets terrorised by its inhabitants, the others need to retrieve her to progress. This is pure side-Quest.
ID #985
Side-quest, head to the out-house, there you or one of your friends will be attacked by a hideous beat monster which will turn you into a raving maniac.
ID #980
Bitten by a radioactive bee
ID #978
James Gorden Bennett obsessions for colour. Owls, weather monitors
ID #977
Naval and military paraphenalia everywhere
ID #976
Gather characterful paraphenalia
ID #975
In the shed was a fake alligator. On the landing was a skeleton. What furniture there was had been chosen for comfort, anything else had been an obligation and acquired on the cheap from the 1950s via the British Heart Foundation.
ID #974
Give reality the slip for the rest of the evening
ID #973
Or nuttier than peanut brittle
ID #971
Describe as if Andy C or Zeg is the star, put on his best pantaloons and talked sternly to himself in the mirror. No, he would not regale Sheila with his theory that missing Patrick Troughton Doctor Who episodes were in the Nigerian Tv archive. Nor would he get rum battled unless of course she turner out to be a frost and he needed to evade reality for the rest of the evening.
ID #970
Woody Allen overhears character talking about fashion or furniture or art. Cutting to the danxe scene in crimes and misdemeanors
ID #969
Be trollopian: I cannit say that with me John Bold was ever a favourite
ID #968
Confabulate as if to Amanda, the empty quarter story
ID #967
She just would not let an issue go once she had hold of it.
ID #966
I can't do it because I am diligent and I am tenacious and that means I have legions of enemies. Many people wish I would go away but I do like a project and willarr Curtis prints don't pay for themselves.
ID #960
It had been like hell
ID #959
...for a strange and mysterious company. I had just moved back to the UK from Cairo where the souks... I was skint, I was renting a single room in a shared house and I didnt really care where the money came from. I was also done being a hero so my disinterest was of use to them.
ID #958
I had a boring job doing Excel spreadsheets for a company of research scientists invetigating hibernation. The research went nowhere. The company was not a front.
ID #956
Many years ago, when I was a different man
ID #955
Nor can I begin to tell you just how much stuff happens over the eight episodes. You get death, murder, suicide, love affairs, arrests, diseases, broken homes, broken hearts, fires, earthquakes, a few preposterous coincidences and many intimate moments of great delicacy
ID #953
Otto sniffed and looked over my shoulder, visualising once again what he had been through. Of course, this was back when I was an emergency contractor for Shell. The rig swayed below. Only emergency lights. The madness of what I was doing had to be parked if I were to get through it.

I came back to find the city had changed in ways I couldn’t quite fathom. All these strange formations, breakages. There’s a rift through central London which has been covered with planks of wood.
I headed over to the Tav licking my lips
β€œWell, well, well. Look who it isn’t.”

I clapped my card against the reader, enjoyed the sense of relief when the four green lights lit up. When I sat down, Otto had busied himself with rummaging in his bag and I was mildly put out to find he wasn’t sitting alert, waiting for my return. Sense of being a low priority in his scheme of things which didn’t engender much goodwill.
ID #952
Prefects and students at warring schools. Or biscuit factories. Playing out pathetic playground dramas. Legitimiser because they get mentioned in histories of the school. These teetering structures are ripe for dismantling.
ID #951
Westminster, the media, the church are warring corporations who each sell a product and believe themselves beyond reproach. The public is also a querulous child, screaming baby Jesus, corporation, feared alcoholic headmaster.
ID #950
I do need a writing map. A misshapen plot outline for each 1k to 3k or set piece.
ID #949
I need to commit to 1000k a day. But directed writing.
ID #948
Most people dream of writing a novel. Are you willing to put the work in to do it?
ID #946
I had to play the "but what if he does it to someone else?" card. I heard nothing after that. I hope he lost his job and died unattended without pain killers in a mixed ward.
ID #945
The cook, Guzman, whose daughter - for reasons no one knew or were too repressed to ask - hung around him in the kitchen, at the back door, smoking cigarettes, winking at the stable boys.
ID #943
The religious sites would then be converted to secular places of social support, congregation and even a place to hold memorials for births deaths etc. Marriages would be de-mystified, God would not be invited. The cosmos could come, bearded sky fascists could not. As for Israel, Palestine, Damascus, Jerusalem. Nuke them from orbit.
Except...this would never happen. You could never unpick it just add your voice and actions to slow social change.
ID #942
3-d scan all churches and cathedrals, temples, mosques in high res, future proofed for Virtual Reality then knock them down.
ID #941
Make like Linford Christie
ID #940
The message comprised a series of unsavory assertions, one outrageous accusation and a potential solution to a hitherto intractable problem.
ID #939
The communication was digital, the device irrelevant, and the contents indicated he should make like Linford Christie to a basement eaterie in Mortlake where, on his tab, a ratfink of his acquaintance would be waiting.
ID #938
Pilates exercises at an open window until one morning he inhaled sharply and swallowed a fly, the coughing fit that followed drawing concern from those in the street.
ID #937
He had taken a bite from his chocolate brioche and glanced furtively at a pink haired girl reading a tablet two tables away when there were shouts in the street.
ID #936
Narrate like Wes Anderson
ID #935
On the 23rd June thos unremarkable schedule was routed by the events at the Otis Hotel. A reclusive artist. A failed politician had met there to discuss opportunities
ID #934
He lived in fear of running out of disposable contact lenses. He brushed, flossed and sluiced his teeth twice daily.
ID #933
There was a cafe on the way from the station which served hot drinks metal furniture and served omelettes with a cornucopia of tasty fillings which he couls gladly eat every day but he liked to vary his routine because he preferred anonymity to the familiarity of the staff on his umpteenth return.
ID #932
Writing directionlessly is just vomiting out words and results in nothing useful.
ID #931
The fiction should sit alongside the blog, an outgrowth of it.
ID #930
1000 words a day, leading to a 10k breakdown for Godalming (or whatever it ends up being called)
ID #929
Novel events are those that would go in a diary so you're going to need a lot of stuff happening.
ID #928
Daughter Autumn in cryogenic suspension, searching the deep for a cure
ID #927
Captain Nemo, steampunky, what if Elon Musk decided to live beneath the waves, Nemo as an idiot, looking for something.
ID #926
I am not going within a million miles of that woman. I'm sure she's Mother Theresa. She didn't burn her bridges, she blew them up.
ID #925
Notes on writing. We start from a position of pressure but not forgetting the lifestyle of the protagonist. Who is he? Is he some B-grade flunky, sweaty, racing through the crowds. "What's this, Mossie? What piece of God awful modernity have you brought to my door today? Not another bloody start-up"
"Not at all. Dolores wants to see you."
ID #923
London meant surrendering to the tumult which was not attractive.
ID #922
It was a place no one much cared about, under-thought, remaindered, underclassy.
ID #921
Sydenham was scruffy, shapeless, a jumble of residential streets and shops. The houses were elderly. The expectation of the co-habitees to participate in shopping runs, house meals, socials. Suspicion towards reclusivity.
ID #920
Diazepam sleeping drug
ID #918
Need to MAKE TIME for writing, don't focus on the word count. Just paint pictures.
ID #917
Night Manager - there is a lot of local colour, visual description of the lifestyle, clothing prep, breakfast, travel to restaurant before the big inciting incident. How to personalise all this, deliver it novelistically but in character, like KA/AC/Flashman on the cruise etc
ID #916
Thug full of boiling rage and anger, sat next to Musk at schol muskcopied his homework, cheated, took his girlfriend, killed his cat.
ID #910
Politics is rhetorical wrestlemania
ID #909
At the point of death the Institute ensures is that the patient experiences the most collosal full body organism.
ID #908
A lover of the lavender passageway
ID #907
The mixing of different scented bubblebaths summons a devil
ID #906
Do soldiers from the future blast into existence and try to kill him? Is this Day of the Daleks?
ID #905
What about an opening like Maltese Falcon, partner killed, Spade picks up the case
ID #904
Maybe he's shot in the driveway? Or the guy in the car abusing the woman is accidentally shot
ID #903
Take the characters visitors Michael Corleone in G2. Troublesome sister, a drunk, a gangster from Hyman Roth, a two-faced politician
ID #902
Yes Prime Minister Bishop’s Gambit. Humphrey is giving a tempting offer of a new role but the current incumbent isn’t likely to leave or hand it to him so he must be ousted. Only trouble is he’s only likely to be tempted out by a plum role in a sector elsewhere which he will only be a dead cert for if he can be made to look good. So Humphrey has to get involved engineering that opportunity which could be anything sailing, head of intelligence.

There is the tempting offer

There is the complication

The plot therefore involves the engineering of the lure away of the mark, trying to get him off the chess board.
ID #791
Thrown into a snake pit a la Flashman
ID #790
Energise with a wild Rago scene when you get bored
ID #789
Use plot of first john d macdonald
ID #788
GRRM: Triggering events
ID #785
I genuienly admire fhose novelist who can shut of he rational sode of their brain and go full on devils, demons, ... Vampires I still find silly, always have done.
ID #783
Parenthood is the training up of a mobile AI/LLM only for it to rinse you and turn on you.
ID #782
Your consciousness manifests for 70 years or so, renting reality space before being unceremoniously uninstalled.
ID #781
What do you believe in? I used to believe in love but things went sideways.
ID #779
Where is the sense of something fantastical, something cosmic allied with ordinariness? Mystery. Suspense. Jeopardy. Mounting problems.
ID #778
There's a classroom topic element to this, what obscure but interesting subject matter can be spin a tale around?
ID #776
My whole life has been but…therefore….
ID #775
Do the wordcount backwards. So the first 1k is actually the last of the monthly 30k.
ID #774
A group of renegade time travellers working for the BBC hiding in the 1970s
ID #773
β€œYour godson is providentially around,’
ID #772
β€œMargaret Drabble’s The Ice Age, an overt β€˜condition of England’ novel, described the nation as β€˜sliding, sinking, shabby, dirty, lazy, inefficient, dangerous, in its death throes, worn out, clapped out, occasionally lashing out’. Keith Miller, in an excellent account of Jake’s Thing, accompanies this quotation with comparable quotations from John Fowles’s Daniel Martin (1977) and William Golding’s Darkness Visible (1979).
ID #771
β€œJake, too, feels β€˜menaced by a falling real income, a decline in status and the emergence into power and affluence of uncouth persons who sneer at what he feels and stands for’.
ID #770
A male fantasy for men to have a male fantasy about
ID #769
β€œherdwords and herd-phrases.
ID #768
β€œ the miracle, the wealth of her body, her inexhaustibility.
ID #767
β€œa tall thin nondescript man with rusty hair
ID #766
Ideate myself in these fictional situations. Actor Ant being filmed taking part in the scenes.
ID #765
Just write. 1k a day.
ID #764
Diarise the world and let things happen. Narrate this to Atlantis and lean in a character for the narrator. What is their goal and what wider impact will their involvement precipitate. Also, just finesse one page of this and accrue. Don’t look to the summit.
ID #763
Once a woman is out of her twenties and stops being randy as all hell its downhill all the way.
ID #762
Once a woman is out of her twenties and stops being randy as all hell its downhill all the way.
ID #761
All the women looked like Russian peasants.
ID #760
What fresh hell would this be? We'd really like you to talk to him, if that's alright. He's cuckoo. I waited until the dead of night to scope the place out. 3am to be precise and I drove down to Brighton and bought a balaclava.
ID #759
It is mornimng.
Jesus Christ. What the fuck happened to you? Wherein lies Adonis? The double-chin, the flaps of fat. I'm thinking any twenty-something looking for a little maturity for breakfast will need a shit-tonne of charisma to offset this. The dirty rain trailing workmen's fingers down the defeated pane.
And yet...and yet...there is work to be done here. Certain angles catch that raffish look in the eyes, still not quite hosed down.
ID #758
Ownership of the chapters
ID #757
It doesnt matter that you build he ai, that will quickly become unglamorous, its what you do with the result. Its the thing that gets you to the thing
ID #756
It doesnt matter that you build he ai, that will quickly become unglamorous, its what you do with the result. Its the thing that gets you to the thing
ID #755
OpenGod

So he created an LLM from the Bible

So God became an app and then
ID #754
Plot this hard. 26 cps of 1.5k words so lots of stuff
ID #753
Does he have a nasty little secret like holodeck ballroom dancing? Is he one of the trek autocrats but robbed of status.
ID #752
Treat these as just ideas for an off-centre character, not necessarily the lead.
ID #751
Maybe he goes for a walk up Ben Nevis or is in that eaan mcgregor le carre film on holiday, asked to courier something home, refuses, consequences.
ID #750
You don't have much time. Set a deadline and stick to it. 2k words a day for 20 days gives you the wordcount
ID #749
Think Marvel regarding your array of characters, think of the panels.
ID #748
Fernat Branca is 90k words
ID #747
You need to watch your speed on those roads. Not because they are perilous which they are but familiarity teaches you every but the drivers round here are similarly inclined towards familiarity-based recklessness which, not to put too fine a point on it, is a phenomenon that I have been guilt of in too many a relationship.

Not going to make that mistake again. Not now I have Alicja.
ID #746
Three plot lines per chapter, the rest colour and fun
ID #745
Set Godalming in Arabia
ID #744
All very nice but I could barely concentrate considering the bind I was in. Alicja in the arms of that man, giggling as he drooled into her ear.
ID #743
My own arrival was lower-key than I was expecting, probably these .pondlife.

Lots of bowing and scraping.

I launched the bottle off and it pranged and rebounded. Ha ha, very funny. Smashed the fellow in the head and he put a twisted step towards the lip of the scaffold, everyone gasping and lunging towards him. Someone behind leant into space to retrive the bottle and was launched off.
ID #742
Scots girlf3iend bane
ID #741
I'll hack his computer and get him extradited to Siberia. See how he likes forty years in a salt mine.
ID #740
I imagined I was a noble political refugee, in exile from my own country, the one I really loved, the one in which everything was set up to facilitate my every whim. Home, in other words
ID #739
Could be asked to run for mayor, don't worry you'll fail but anyone than this other guy. Split the vote.
ID #738
Always, always, always start with a problem
ID #737
Rago judging a beauty contest would be the perfect set-up for his character. Chinn needs a way of demonstrate how he sucks up to the powerful, like that Tory diarist, in charge of a test firing and getting it wrong. Put him on the inner track, making a mess than expelled.
ID #736
If you're going to imprint the status quo do it through an event rather than inactivity
ID #735
A more noir opening would be him turning up back home dotted with blood and the smashed up car outside.
ID #734
Cut to an inciting indicent
ID #733
3 - Think standalone. The errand
ID #732
2 - what would require an ex-MP and what errand would be of use to a Sternwood figure
ID #731
Otto and the occult bit, plus what will they head off too, plus what is the visitor with Anya all about?
ID #730
Got to have competant story
ID #729
Have lots of fooling around
ID #728
What reason would someone have to drag Giles out in the middle of the night. Would he go out to visit his sweet church-going school-friend? Choir?
ID #727
Do this before work, row and write.
ID #726
Every third day massage days 1 and 2 up to chapter length 2.5k words
ID #725
Pretend this is your dissertation and you're in a last minute rush to come top of the class.
ID #724
I need to perform this A LOT
ID #723
Godalming could be about my journey. Is Godalming Tolworth?
ID #722
Is this chin or danny dyer?
ID #721
Never did move to the constituency, good god no.
ID #720
He was a late replacement for a dead and scandal eidden peter morrison, snoring in the office
ID #719
Got to be major crisis point where he driven back on own resources
ID #718
Sort of Shrinker character
ID #717
Whats that bastards book?
ID #716
Build the character as anone-off and deploy
ID #715
Prover jimself and got into the plot ellroy - jack ruby character, nightclub owner, pimp procurer of girls for cameras everywhere, heaviky into EDM.
ID #714
When he's emmisary rip off lucence renewed, and have fight with welsh version of caber
ID #713
Log the sessions in the front room
ID #712
The pot-wreathed demons of Sydenham
ID #711
Kk/JP in a high stakes game of snap, worried his pastor will find out or jis wife will debag him
ID #710
Casino roayle, warned off, posioned, fails at game
ID #709
Kit cars as interest? Banging his fists as he is one-upped by a competitor, potential for driving hero moment
ID #708
Backgammon, cars, chill out, note celwbrity interewts, gambon lathe
ID #707
Now he's emmisary and man of imoirtance but not mp, so how could he get to a safe seat abd rwstore his girl
ID #706
Alongside all of this should my be version of the bowling aesthetic
ID #705
1 is oddball says follow me. 2 is meetjng gollum, fuck it I'll take it ot him but every move has a consequence
ID #704
Since you proved yourself could you find my daughter.
ID #703
Now then, what goodies could he add to my pile?
ID #702
Some sort of grima wormtongue charactwr for cp2
ID #701
He had done deals he had not honour.
ID #700
Mitzy with blueprints, architecture.
ID #699
He was what the writers I was forced to read at school would describe as "rotund" which in my book meant he wasn't going to be smashing the Iron Man challenge any time soon. He moved from door to table to chair the way cumulonimbi do, without any rush or sense he was running to keep up with the world and his air of all business set my antennae twinging. Here was a man not to be underestimated.
"Drink?"
ID #698
Giles is under pressure, running low on tin, his mistress is strongly indicating she's a lot less interested in him and he has superhero fantasies, wet dream of every ex-politician not to have to slum it in reality TV but to be inducted into a secret cabal of monied lizard VIPs. It's also strongly hinted that he did a deal with the devil to get where he's gone. Chinn-esque, hugely demoted in status, consumed by his petty obsessions, minor royalty, his competitor. Obsequious to those in power.
ID #697
How on earth does one plan, put together an extended piece of prose fiction. Find it on the page? That means multiple writing sessions.
ID #696
"You don't speak any French do you?"
"Depends on the girl. Qu'est-ce qu'il ya, baby?"
"Uh? Translate this will you."
"No. I made no claims to intelligibility or comprehension. Am I adding value?"
"No."
"Still got the old magic."
ID #695
"What are you doing here?"
He scowled and looked at me from under caterpillar eyebrows. "I got a mortgage, I needed the dough."
"But you hate this place."
"It's a vortex of venality and posturing mediocrities. Let it burn."
ID #694
Lovely stout and maybe some herring from the fish-mongers for Pixel.
ID #693
That mad woman, just out for enough tin for the next pint of stout.
ID #692
That strange old woman stumbling about the shores of the Thames, exclaiming when she fell upon a sodden wallet or set of keys, brushing off the silt on her funeral rags and holding it up to the light. Treasures! And treasures needed to be protected from those who did not appreciate them or, worse, coveted them. All her wiles used to smuggle them into her derelict semi, all her performance skills used to convince others she was as barmy as ever and not worth scrutinising.
ID #691
I have been trying to write at least a novella for years now. It really is time to put this to bed.
ID #690
I think I know what's going to happen here - I'll come up with thousands of words of unrelated story fragments and then never complete the damn thing. I must push towards completion.
ID #689
Events on Pohl's colony skew hard towards relationship dynamics and Viktor never seems to outgrow his commitment phobia or his jealousy. Marriage to Reesa is what you do rather than for any great love. Building the population is important but one feels other stories could be told here. The rise of religion is a bit of an ask for a colony of scientists and it makes for a fairly dispiriting read.
ID #688
Writing is an act of high agency
ID #687
Lean into the detail
ID #686
That's the reason it's called Godalming, it's pathetic. Where are you this week? In some godforsaken sink estate playing the joanna for a bunch of sentimental types
ID #685
Is Godalming about Matt? Skipping out on a cruise ship gig, picking up the pieces afterwards. Could channel that.
ID #684
Make it more stephen king esque
ID #682
He escapes from Mitzy
ID #681
Surf imagery, flick through images from all media and wire in
ID #680
Progressing with short story
ID #679
This is an element of industriousness to writing, I have to set a target and then actually do the goddamn work, it's not all play time. Shades of writing the Wiki for CBAM or training materials. I have to get on the horse.
ID #678
What's the minimum one needs to write a short story? A character and a tune, a theme. Stuff happening - the plot - enables the real story of moving the character from one psychic place to another.
ID #676
What is preoccupying this guy? What forces are out to get him or take advantage of him?
ID #675
Godalming is the sort of title which should have a high concept idea behind it
ID #674
Haven't really found the tune yet for Godalming
ID #673
The novel is the real Great Endeavour
ID #672
Writing is an act of high agency
ID #670
This is like writing some songs, spending your week off jamming in a garage
ID #669
The stories came out of me fooling around, having fun. It's meant to be just a lot of nonsense really.
ID #668
The endless iniquities served on me
ID #666
He'll be doing the Newgate polka
ID #665
We are trapped in our own yearning
ID #664
All old men want to call back yesterday
ID #663
An Unhealthy Marriage
ID #662
People who have had a narcissist parent are really good at going into the room and taking care of someone else’s feelings or just reading them very closely.
ID #661
Corum was only interested in his work and after the unfortjnate murser of his h
Assuatant he wantwd to see out his days in as quite a fashion as possible
ID #659
I spent it all on cards, Tequila and seniorettas
ID #658
What he really wanted was to not have to work, to thumb his nose at society and stay in his cave forever. That would suit him fine. Pretty much anything else was an outrageous imposition.
ID #657
Consciously look away from the word count/chapters. Think of the material.
ID #655
This the song of my self
ID #654
Completely devoted to his craft, it is his life
ID #653
Night Flight giving up parts of yourself to get on a ship
ID #651
The world is better in fiction
ID #649
Colourful escutcheons
ID #646
The writing of the notes is a project itself.
ID #645
He's thwre to see womeone else. Shes wilky in temw od doom
ID #644
Is he off duty cia, he goes back upstairs and everyone is dead
ID #643
What have you got up your sleeve? How much more have you got in the tank?
ID #642
It's the libby of a hotel. He's Cruise in Collateral, there to kill someone, she sees him, now he has to kill her
ID #641
Wes Anderson, Angelica Huston
ID #640
If this were Coen Bros the damily wod have made something boring
ID #639
Is he Nic Cage, dri king, approached by someone and claiming ignorance
ID #638
Presumably there had to be some wider issue in play, some election. Pay off the girl incase sge blabs. Been done. Clooney etc.
ID #637
Fairly well off family to have paid for those skills.
ID #636
What's he doing sti working if he has some big bad. Does the info mean potential innocence and freedom?
ID #635
She's got to be important and someone has to ve pissed that she has gone awol. He doesn't give a hoot about her, he's done a lot of these, but something happens, something personal that puts her at the top of his list of persons of interest.