Here’s a chapter from my NaNoWriMo novel, so you can see what I’ve been doing all this time.

Hope you like it.

Will try to have a second draft manuscript done by early in the new year. Please leave a comment if you would like to receive a copy to participate in my highly exclusive Editors Circle feedback group. Maybe there will be T-shirts.

Chapter 6

The castle rises up before me out of the mist. Its battlements and spires loom above me, hung with tattered flags and broken standards. The remnants of knights who have dared challenge the beast before me. I urge my steed onwards, flying over the uneven mossy ground like an arrow, our destination the creaking drawbridge slung across the wide, evil looking moat that surrounds the castle.

We slow to a canter as we hit the rotten wood of the drawbridge. Before us rises the huge double doors of the castle itself, the portal into the depths of the beast’s lair. Details seem to pop into view as I look on, the grain of the ancient wood, the impossibly polished metal of the monstrous door fittings – a hideous door knocker twisted into the shape of a corpse screaming for death.

My horse bucks and snorts under me, somehow attuned to the evil that has been perpetrated in this place. I am almost thrown from my saddle and into the terrible stagnant ooze of the moat’s untended waters. Quickly, I dismount and stride with as much confidence as I can muster towards the entrance. When I look back my horse has gone, I can’t even see her retreating form in the distance. Everything looks smudged and indistinct as if painted on. The only thing real now is the castle.

I turn back and begin to walk across the drawbridge. It creaks ominously underneath me as if liable to rend at any moment. It is with a great sigh of gratitude that I reach the stone escarpment on the far side. In front of the oversized entrance, blackened and corrupted with age, the beast has helpfully left chests full of magical potions and life giving medicines. It seems a slightly flawed battle plan to me but I am willing to entertain its generosity if I can gain an advantage in my quest to wipe it from the face of the Earth. I eat and drink greedily, feeling the health and magical energy flow through me. Suddenly, I am in peak physical condition.

And able to throw fire balls.

It is with renewed hope and vigour that I approach the castle door. Using all my might, I raise the heavy metal of the door knocker and slam it back down against the wood. The noise is alarming, booming out in the dead silence of the castle but then the door slowly opens, revealing complete darkness beyond. As I walk into the belly of the accursed building the world fades around me.

I wait in the darkness.

I continue to wait.

Almost half a minute has passed in this enforced world of midnight.

Suddenly, I am in what must have once been a grand ballroom. It is lit by a thousand candles and the rays of sunlight that burst fitfully through the ornate stained glass skylight above. The room is perfectly circular with columns spaced at regular intervals around the periphery. The floor is a checkerboard of black and white squares though many of the stones are cracked and dirty. Everything from the candelabras to the banister of the half balcony above me is gold-plated, exquisitely decorated and covered in a thick layer of dust. It’s quiet. Perhaps a little too quiet. I take a single, tentative step forwards …

With a shrieking cry of rage and fear, the beast is upon me, crashing through the skylight above me in a shower of coloured glass and a cloud of choking dust. I am momentarily frozen in place, I can only watch as it lands heavily in the centre of the room. Shockwaves and fissures snake out from it in every direction, knocking me to the ground. As I clamber hastily to my feet, it roars it’s awful, all-consuming hatred, bearing several sets of needle sharp teeth and a black tongue that drips putrid green slime.

And then it attacks.

Instantly, I begin to run clockwise around the room, keeping one eye on its movements as I circle it, running at top speed, my bow and arrow drawn, loosing bolt after bolt into its thick hide. They bounce off harmlessly. The creature is lashing out in a repetitive series of movements – firstly with its claws, then its barbed tail, then, after a few seconds of rocking back on its haunches, a berserker leap that always seems to land just a few paces behind where I’m currently running. It then retreats to the middle of the room and the whole process begins again. There is never any variation in it’s movements, it seems locked in this attack pattern, forever doomed to be the aggressor. Either it dies or I do.

As I continue to run in a circle, every now and then executing a perfect forward roll to break up the monotony a little, I realise that whenever the beast rears up to attack, there is a portion of its chest, above its heart, that flashes a bright red. In my experience, such a display normally signifies a weak spot. Somehow monsters have evolved to telegraph these handicaps, allowing adventurers to confidently destroy horrors many times their own size and strength. Seizing my opportunity, I turn and fire, my arrow hammering home right in the centre of the target area. The beast falls backwards and huddles in the centre of the room, mewling and licking its wounds. Without hesitation I leap high into the air, bringing my blade down on top of the hunched form.

There is a flash of blue light. I am knocked back out to the edge of the room. The beast roars again and then begins it’s laborious attack pattern once more. I throw a few fireballs at it, amazingly they seem to have little or no effect, despite the fact that a single arrow had brought it to its knees but a few moments earlier. The beast is now even more angry, the attacks are faster and more vicious and shards of glass have begun to fall from the ceiling at an alarming rate. One jagged shards catches me on the arm, I am wounded, my momentum lost. The creature takes this opportunity to hit me with its tail.

The world fades to greys, I can hear my heartbeat in my ears, I continue to stumble around the room, holding my wounded arm with the flat palm of my good hand. Without thinking I lash out at an ornate vase set against one pillar, watching in amazement as it disintegrates and several bright red hearts bounce out. As I touch them my speed increases. I suddenly feel much better. The creature’s eyes have begun to flash so I aim an arrow into the centre of one of them, leaping on top of the resulting prone form in order to deliver the killer blow.

But the beast is not finished just yet. The blow hits home but again I am knocked back, clutching a gem stone that has suddenly appeared from thin air. I quickly pocket the treasure and turn to face my assailant one final time. Something tells me that at this point, it will take but a single blow to end this battle for good.

The beast has gone completely mental. It is breathing fire, stamping the ground, shooting spikes from its tail and laser beams from its one good eye. When it screams its vengeance at me I am knocked to the ground, carried across the room like a leaf on the wind. No part of it seems to be flashing particularly so I close the distance between us in a single roll and begin hacking away at its body, ducking the flames and spikes that whistle over my head. As it moves to block the blows raining down upon it, I notice one last weak spot, hidden where its wings meet the muscles of its back. With a howl of victory I plunge my blade into the soft skin there.

The beast roars a final time, carrying itself up to the balcony above with the last beat of its leathery wings. I cling on grimly to the hilt of my sword with both hands, rolling to safety as we hit the flagstones above. I turn just in time to see the creature’s demise – bathed in green flames and sparks it melts into nothingness, leaving nothing to mark its passing save a giant treasure chest filled with coins.

I breath a heavy sigh of relief, wiping the black blood from my hands and chest.

I love Xbox.

I did it. Over 51k words in a month. A full novel manuscript in my sweaty hands. Look.

I’m so proud of this. And okay, the blog writing did fall by the way side and yes, much of the novel is absolute rubbish but I finished it. I can actually call myself a writer and not feel like a fraud or a pretender. For so many years I’ve talked about the books I’m going to write instead of shutting my mouth, sitting down and actually writing them.

I’ve turned a corner today. Milestones like this. They’re important. They’re the things you remember changed everything.

“I think the first draft is always a drudge, and I wish there were elves [who could] lay down the canvas and stuff like that. Well, they can’t. You have to do it, and you have to bleed.” Paul Abbott (Shameless, State of Play etc.)

Nanowrimo continues, with my current word count up to a healthy 5,111 words. I’m still a good 1,500 behind schedule but nevertheless that’s pretty impressive for me, I’d have given up long ago under normal circumstances.

My novel now has a working title: Invading Personal Spaces and also a synopsis. Here it is:

Jem has a crap job in advertising. Mel is a model when she’s not being a prostitute. Or telekenetic. Seb is a sociopath and Greg writes a lot of fanfic. Roisin doesn’t understand why being good at her job doesn’t equal job security.

Her job is to conquer Earth and subjugate humanity utterly.

A book about life and love in the late Noughties where some of the characters just happen to be an elite group of invading alien warriors.

I also got bored last night and designed a cover for it.

It’s that time of the year again where people from around the world all try to write a 50,000 word novel in a month. National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo to its friends, is a pretty insane undertaking where thousands of people all turn author simultaneously and, using the ‘Kill or Cure’ method of novel writing, throw themselves off the stony cliffs of procrastination to plunge unprotected into the boiling flotsam of literary endeavour.

And if you thought that sentence was hard work – wait ’til you see my novel.

Yes, I’m participating this year for the first time along with the Urban Cowboy, Shoelace and Red. I can’t speak for the others but my intention is to finally kick start a writing career littered with first chapters, opening acts and dead blogs. I dig the concept of writing at a break neck pace where necessity dictates research, editing and planning take a back seat to instinct and invention.

Historically, I’ve never finished writing a  book because I’m constantly rewriting its first chapter, so this is like shock therapy for me. I’ll produce something even if it’s awful.

Even if it kills me.

You can play along at home by following the wordcount on this blog and by tuning into the posts I’m intending to write every day. Because on top of the 50,000 words I’m going to start doing this blog in earnest – even if it’s a paragraph long, even if it’s just a bit of the novel I’m particularly proud of.

And I’m still training to go to Copenhagen.

And learning the Ukulele.

And starting to Improvise in front of a paying audience.

It feels like a good time for a revolution.

Reviews don’t really mean anything, do they? We’re all wired so differently that a film or a song or a risotto is going to have a wildly different effect on me than it’s going to have on you. And yet we love to quantify, categorise and clarify. We live to put stuff in boxes and then mark them good or bad with thick black unequivocal lines. The Haiku Review is different. It recognises that reviewing stuff is pretty much meaningless and as such it only spends 17 syllables doing it. It doesn’t differentiate between media and it’s structured from best to worst, enabling you my lucky readers to make direct comparisons between, say, my new shoes and stand-up comedian Jimmy Carr. Be here every Friday for more Ancient Japanese-themed review fun.

#1

Weddings (traditional ceremony) Today you joined hands/ and ran headlong into your/ future. Never stop  Y: The Last Man (comic) It makes me weep that/ something so funny and smart/ exists in this world  Greenbelt (festival) We shall do well here/ people seem genuinely/ happy together  Chocolate Chai Tea (drink) It tastes like a bar/ of chocolate exploded in/ a spice factory  Hoopla Impro Workshop (workshop) Your entertainment/ for the evening is coming/ out of your own head  Leeds (city) It is cold up here/ fearless girls bare their flesh and/ don’t even goose bump  inFamous (game ps3) Like Grand Theft Auto/ but I can shoot lightning and/ throw cars around. Nice!  Alton Towers (theme park) Sensations that are/ otherwise reserved for those/ ending their own lives Funny People (film) Long, self-indulgent/ movie that is nonetheless/ revelatory  The Host (book) Clumsy, obvious/ broad-brushed and naive and yet/ fitfully brilliant  Pizza Express (restaurant) Tasty, generic/ food served in disturbingly/ identical rooms  The Time Traveler’s Wife (film) Although you have a/ kind of warmth. It is mostly/ reflected glory  G-Force (film) Shit in 3D is/ still shit. It’s just shit with a/ greater depth of field