it was a Dark and Stormy blog

Finally, I got to see The Wind That Shakes the Barley (and got stood up again – BY THE SAME PERSON!!!), and apart from noting that the theatre was again packed at 3 in the afternoon, and – it seemed – mostly by elderly Irish people, I’m going to leave my thoughts on it until next time.

Something else is tapping at me wanting to be let out in this entry.

Two years ago, somebody sent a poster to be put up around here at the university (yes! No caps! Ha!). The poster advertised a 48 hour novel writing contest based in Canada. The idea is that you send the Canada people a $50 Canadian entry fee and on the appointed start date, and hour, you lock yourself in a room and write as solidly as you can for 48 hours. You are supposed to come out of it with min. 50 pages or the first draft of a novel. I think you then sent this to them, and maybe there was some judging of the best attempt and a prize. (For $50 Canadian, you’d hope that was the case.)

I liked the challenge of this. I’m one of those people who need a giant kick up the backside, and a definite deadline, to get anything good done. I’m the world’s most intellectually lazy person. But I didn’t want to send my hard-earned off to Canada. Instead, I gave $50 (NZ) to my friend Willie Flockton, a very honourable person, to look after. If after 48 hours I could show him 50 pages of novel, minimum, he would return the money. If I couldn’t, he was instructed to give it to CORSO as a donation. While he baulked a bit at the choice of charity, we negotiated a left wing cause his right wing soul could live with, and so it was on.

It was mid winter. I took two days off work, as it couldn’t be any old time; it had to be highly charged and endowed with suitable ritualistic elements – or why bother? I got up at 8am on Day One and began typing. I used, as a starting point, a short story I’d written about a honeymoon road trip. It became, by the end of 48 hours, a turgid tale of a woman who had lost her husband at sea, remarried a violent man, fell in love with a university lecturer, and seemed to pop out kids all over the place. I’m not sure what my thing was with fecundity at the time, perhaps it was more the description of the preceeding acts of sex which, also, happened all over the place?

Whatever. I had few breaks during the 48 hours. There is something magical about writing furiously at 3 in the morning and knowing you are not going to stop until cramped fingers forces you to, six or so hours later. The ideas flowed. You had to keep typing, even if it wasn’t the most brilliant thing ever produced.

At the end of 48 hours I had 60 pages of… stuff. It was the best creative thing I have ever done. I completely recommend it to people wanting to kickstart their own creative endeavours.

As part of the price of overseeing the event, my friend asked to be able to look at the thing I had produced – the poor man! – and offered some really good ideas on proceeding (including having, maybe, a few less maternal bits). In the past two years, I’ve been gradually working through his suggestions and developing the novel on my own.

About one year ago, I attended a novel writing course with Chris and Barbara Else, which helped move things forward and up a level, in terms of character, story, and language.

It’s on the 4^th draft. But has now hit a wall. It reads like the clumsiest, least lyrical piece of prose in the world. Maybe I haven’t got the Writer’s Stuff in me and should give up? Maybe I need another super charged weekend? This is the eternal dilemma.

At any rate, the point of this entry – and I do have one – is to recommend the superpowered burst of creative energies afforded by forcing yourself (bribing yourself, even!) to lock yourself away and produce something BIG. You should go away and set yourself up immediately! (I’ll even mind your money for you, if you want…).