Caffeinated Ink

There's a coffee place at Seven Dials that almost always has a queue out the door. Today I was in a bit later and the queue was managable so I ducked in for a lovely, but ridiculously tiny, latte and almond croissant to go.

Will definitely be doing again, but may well specify adult-size coffee next time because the amount of caffeine was woefully insufficient to keep me upright at the moment.

NaNoWriMo is at 27758 and I am having difficulty thinking of any word other than those generally censored and now (distressingly!) also blurred by the BBC.

I mean REALLY having difficulty thinking of any other word; I pretty much take out my pen/keyboard and write with a constant stream of single curses rolling through my head. I cannot even summon energy for the interesting compound curse words. And they're my favourite.

Beginning and End are happily plotted and the former is satisfactorily drafted, the latter being plotted in full, neatly cross-referenced and conclusionary and complete save the prose. Whereas the middle and general crux of the story are wilfully absent from screen, paper and mind and causing ever more distress.

Inconveniently (but fabulously) busy this evening, am refusing to leave desk until I hit 30k (clearly, writing around other, more monetarily necessary, tasks).

And then I might remember how to breathe.

"Algebra is difficult, epistemology is difficult" - this is impossible.

Well I am definitely doing NaNoWriMo.

Not quite sure how this happened and, quite frankly, past the halfway point with only 21k I am not quite sure why it continues to happen. I do not have a novel, not even a NaNovel. I have a series of scenes and an obligatory death. Two in fact. And a monster.

Am contemplating having the monster eat everyone in 50 words or less and calling it a day.

(Rocks fall; everyone dies)

Utterly disheartened by the world right now. Putting the 21k of pain aside I am completely snowed under with the day job, doing "non-existant" administrative work; that wonderful snowballing kind where taking care of one matter causes five more to appear from the woodwork.

And I have a two page article about my department how it fits into the grand scheme of things. Which is wonderful as my department no longer, technically, exists. In the same way as the administrative work no longer, technically, exists. Very much present and active and yet officially nothing.

(I see dead administrators, walking around like regular administrators; they don't know their department is dead.)

My fingers are blue, partly because there is no heating in my office but mostly because, instead of my lovely, mess-free Lamy, I decided to use my favourite calligraphy ink in a nameless bulb-fill fountain pen (because the ink is gorgeous, but thick and would gunk up my Lamy in seconds). Have scrubbed hands under the hot tap but it's stained my cuticles and looks as if I have repeatedly slammed my fingertips in a door hinge.

I suppose it could be worse; I could have actually slammed my fingertips in a door hinge, but I am having a bad day and finding the silver lining in the storm doesn't appeal very much right now.

Commuting is the New Damnation

Southeastern Trains are enough to make angels fall from grace.

And, after this morning's fraud of a commute, I now have 3k exploring this theory instead of working on Disbodied V, or even the new and utterly inexplicable NaNo-ISaidNo!-WriMo project with the working title of: PSA.

(6 hours and 3k of sacriliage and nothing happened in quite the way it was supposed to.)

This is because I lack discipline in any way, shape or form.

Just saying.

Also on the subject:
Mornington Crescent: 1
Research: 0

Oh, I am so predictable that it hurts.

NaNoNotWriMo

I am expressly not NaNoWriMoing. I am, infact, NaNoNotWriMoing.

Therefore if someone could explain why I have 5k of an entirely new project currently sitting in a notebook in my satchel, that would be awfully helpful. Especially since since, to write more than 5k, and this will cause some problems.

Problem singular in honesty, as my issue with research is pretty much uni-fold: I am not very good at it.

Oh I find out the information I need. I also find out a multitude of minutia, such as the melting point of Boron (2076ºC), the diameter of the largest Catherine Wheel firework (85ft), that the motto of Żebbuġ, Malta is 'Semper Virens' - Żebbuġ itself being twinned with the Sicilian town of Agìra and that I could read about Carl Linnaeus for hours and all the time be convinced that I was making progress.

This weekend my jumping off points are to include: Brothers Grimm/Hänsel & Gretel, Theseus, King of Athens and the history of the London Underground.

This will likely devolve very quickly indeed into gingerbread recipes, thread counts for bedsheets and challenging people to impromptu rounds of Mornington Crescent.

Barack Obama, President-Elect.

I have been trying for hours to put feelings into words and failing epically - a fact that distresses me greatly, and would distress me more were it not be for that, you know, that feeling, oh, what's the word... The opposite of that sinking, despairing, nebulous fear that was the end of the last American Election.

Oh yes: hope.

I grinned like a loon all morning. While I hate that turn of phrase, it's really the only appropriate description. I am one stranger short of being sectioned. In fairness: merriment of any form on a commuter train is enough to make you an oddity.

Went to Giraffe for lunch with the fabulous Greg and Heike where I had celebratory pancakes and a celebratory glass of fizzy champagne Diet Coke (work ruins everything).

I cannot imagine what the atmosphere is like in (Liberal And Therefore Fake) America right now. Even in London there's a vague sense of well-being and general satisfaction. Every time someone passes me with a newspaper it will prompt a smile; when others do the same it prompts a smile. Catching people returning these smiles, prompts a smile. It's all very British, very reserved, quiet approval.

No, in the UK we did not have a vote. It was not our election, which is why it's not self-satisfaction. It's a gentle pride, vindication if you will, because America; you did it.

And if I may add, without sounding unduly patronising? We knew you could.