Humour – Page 2 – James Ellis in words

I am me. Really.

Yesterday I had to visit a solicitor’s office to have my identity validated. I’d failed a money laundering test because I have two addresses and it wasn’t clear to anybody, including me, in which one I lived. According to the test I was a paradox; an object that had failed to satisfy any condition.

Fortunately, these days, solicitors offer an existential service, and for £15 they confirmed that I am the person I’ve been claiming to be all these years. Me. And they stamped a letter to confirm it. But can I still launder money? I don’t know. I paid in cash.

As I walked home to one of my possible addresses I wondered what other philosophical uncertainties the solicitor could resolve and stamp.

Why is there something rather than nothing? Because there is. Bring in a photo ID and a recent utility bill. £15. Stamp.
Do we have free will? No. Bring in a current council tax bill and a current driver’s licence. £15. Stamp.
If I see blue, what colour do you see? Blue. Bring in a letter from your parent or guardian and proof of postage. £15. Stamp.

The possibilities seemed endless. After all, who can argue with a stamped, legal document? But when I walked into my house I was surprised to find myself already there. So I went back out to demand the return of my £15. They were closed.

The Wrong Story – 503g of obsession

I am obsessed. For the past week The Wrong Story has been available for pre-order. I could go online and look at it, pre-order it if I wanted, search for it. And I have. I can’t stop looking at it. Sales rankings and review stars. At the beginning of the week I was in the top 35000. Yippee!

I have an ISBN, or rather the book does and now I insist on telling people about the breakdown of that number, what it means and why. I searched on it and found my book available for pre-order in France. I spent an hour translating the specification. Guess what? It was exactly the same as the English version.

And it has a shipping weight – 503g. That seems rather heavy for a paperback. I wanted to discuss this aspect in great detail but suddenly I was alone in the room. I compared that weight to many other books and I was right. It is substantial. Does that include the packaging? Has it been printed on vellum or a light metal such as Titanium? What else weighs 503g? I discovered that in making explosives, 503g of a certain compound is required. Now, how long will it be before there is a knock on the door and I am the subject of a rendition?

After months of writing, crowdfunding, editing, hoping and waiting, The Wrong Story is now available to buy, read, review and comment on. So, it’s time to let it go. Stop doing all this and focus on novel number two.

Yes. Let it go…

…but in the meantime, just in case… Click here to see it on Amazon

Yay!

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Rolling the pastry

I call it ‘rolling the pastry’. And it’s not a metaphor for something rude. So those of you that thought it was, read no further. You will be disappointed. It’s about writing – again.

I sit down, I start typing and when I look up a few hours later I’ve got about 1000 words sitting on the page. A good days work. Time for a break – walk the dog, strum the ukulele, trim the hedge (none of these are euphemisms either. What is wrong with you? Although in fairness, I haven’t got a dog).

Anyway, when I go back to my desk there it is: a big lump of text waiting for me. It’s time to roll the pastry. This is not editing, it’s simply smoothing out the scene. That initial freewheeling feeling of words just tumbling out can be saved for tomorrow; now I can be more thoughtful, more considered. And as I go through what I’ve written I add a bit here, change a bit there, explain, illustrate, write – and instead of 1000 words I end up with a nice even layer of 1500 words. I haven’t taken the story any further, I’ve just made the scene I’ve written more digestible. It is very satisfying.

Of course, this is before the editor’s knife cuts it away until there’s not enough left for a jam tart. But that’s work for another day.

I am unblocked

I spoke at the fabulous Bath Writing Events (@WritingEvents) the other day. It was my first outing and I wanted to make a good impression. I made notes, rehearsed against timings, hoped I wouldn’t run out of things to say. And then the night before I spotted an unusually long hair growing out of my eyebrow and I thought using a beard-trimmer would be the best way to deal with it. I showed up at the event with half of my eyebrow missing. Fortunately my hosts were too polite to mention it. This morning I went for a walk and I fell over in the mud.

2017-02-23-photo-00004546 — Muddy but eyebrow concealed…

I mention these two events because they are examples of things just happening, and this brings me, indirectly, to my blockage: I couldn’t get started on Novel Two (catchy title?).

I know what it’s going to be about and I know (roughly) what’s going to happen, but I wanted a loose structure in which to to start writing it – some guiderails to keep me from wandering too far from the path but loose enough to let the story grow naturally; for events to just happen which had yet to be conceived; for the writing to have room to take over. Room for someone to fall over in the mud or shave off their eyebrow, for example.

But that word Structure. It kept getting in the way. Three act, five act, seven act; set-up, conflict, resolution, inciting incident, rising arc, plot points; Plot A, Plot B, midpoint, ascending action… aaarrrgh!! Stop, stop and stop. Please. Enough with the structure. I can’t write with those things staring at me. They take away all the fun. It’s just semantics, I know, but I wanted something… less formal.

So I went back to basics. Stories start and they finish. Was that enough? But ‘once upon a time they lived happily ever‘ isn’t a gripping narrative. So, okay, I supposed I could put in a middle bit too.

‘Once upon a time there was a person who lived somewhere and everything was really good or really bad, and so they decided to do something and everything got even worse or better, and then it all changed so they did something else and lived happily or miserably ever after. The End.‘

That would do. That was as much structure as I wanted. A reusable and very loose framework. I knew that within, there lurked all the context and character introductions and themes and catalysts and climaxes and so on, but those italicised lines were all I needed to get going.

Now I’m writing scene after scene and some go in the beginning bit, and some in the middle, and some at the end. And things are happening which I never expected. It’s working for me. I even have a rough idea where the beginning ends and the end begins. Although, I don’t mind if they don’t. I’m 20,000 words into the first draft and averaging about 1500 to 2000 words a day. I have a minimum goal of 5000 words a week and I’m on target to complete draft one by mid-June, if not earlier.

At least that’s the plan. Tomorrow, before I start writing, I intend to sharpen all my kitchen knives while sitting on a unicycle… What?

I’m in control and I’ve got a spreadsheet to prove it…

It’s been a month now since I began my new life as a full-time writer and things haven’t progressed as well as I’d hoped. On the plus-side, I have registered as self-employed and cleared my ‘to do’ list of anything that wasn’t directly to do with writing – other than ukulele practice, of course. I have completed my feedback on my friend’s novel, put the PhD idea on the back-burner and prepared for a reading later this month. Oh yes, and I’ve sketched out a short-story for a BBC competition. I’ve even been in touch with Unbound and should be getting the page proofs (press ready files) for The Wrong Story to review in the next day or so.

That’s all good. But on the negative-side I have only written one word of my new novel. One word. 1. It is a good word but it needs company. My friend’s novel has 104,000 words. So I’ve constructed a spreadsheet that lays out the challenge. It’s colour-coded with lots of formulae and conditional formatting and pivot tables and all that stuff. It took ages. Then I looked at all the how-to writing books I’ve got, and googled all the how-to writing articles that are out there, and fed that data into my spreadsheet too. That also took ages. But now, just by entering a date, I can calculate when I need to have written the structure, plot points, chapters, characters, scenarios, big scenes, little scenes and upside down scenes of my new novel.

So, let’s see… ah yes. According to my spreadsheet I have to stop faffing around and get writing immediately. Hmmm, I knew that already but I suppose it’s nice to see it laid out in a column.

No distractions

It’s Monday morning. The house is very quiet and I have completed every domestic chore I can think of – ironing, washing, cleaning, mopping the floor, walking the dog. I don’t even have a dog. Note to self: get a dog. Now, I’m ready to write. Novel Number Two. N#2. I’ve given myself three months to complete the first draft.

But now I’m writing this, and this isn’t the novel at all.

I have to get better at this discipline-thing. Last month I had a job and a regular income. Now I don’t. I know. I know. Let’s call it a social experiment; a period of no distractions. Write, write, write. The house is really tidy, by the way.

Discipline and routine, that’s what’s needed. A regular routine. A disciplined regular routine. Of Writing. A disciplined regular writing routine. A regime. A disciplined regular writing routine regime. Regimented. A disciplined regimented regular… did I mention that I’ve almost mastered The Bear Dance on the ukulele? I mean I can get through it. Sometimes. Slowly. If no-one’s listening.

Okay. Enough. Come on, James. Game On. If you’re going to be a professional, you’ve got to be professional. You can do this.

Here we go. The novel.

Hey, the postman’s just come. Excellent.

A cure for the common cold

You have razor blades in your throat and water-filled eyes and bubbling nostrils and you’ve become deaf in one ear and you can’t talk without coughing yourself inside out, and every now and then you sneeze and sneeze and sneeze until your nose falls off.

You have a cold.

Some people wrap their heads in gauze and carry on regardless; others share their wet, watery germs with as many people as possible; others stay at home hidden beneath a pile of damp tissues; a few turn to alcohol and other recreational options. However you handle it, there comes a point in the evening when you’ve just about had enough of the wretched thing. Here is a suggestion for when that moment comes.

Run a hot steaming bath and fill it with bubbles. Close all the windows and take something interesting to read – I would suggest one of the graphic guides from the wonderful Introducing Books team (@graphicguides).
While the bath is running squeeze the juice of one lemon into a glass tumbler, and keep squeezing until there is no squeezing left to be done.
Add a spoonful of honey – not set honey but that runny honey stuff that somehow gets all over your fingers.
Add hot water until the tumbler is half full and stir vigorously.
Lie in the bath amongst all the bubbles and the steam, and drink the drink and stay there until you have hardly any energy left at all.
Get out of the bath, dry yourself, and climb into a freshly made bed with clean sheets and a thick duvet.
If appropriate, spray Difflam into your throat.
Think of nothing.
Sleep.

In the morning you will wake up cured. If not, repeat each evening until you are.

You are so very very big…

“Let us praise God. Oh Lord, oooh you are so big. So absolutely huge. Gosh, we’re all really impressed down here I can tell you. Forgive us, O Lord, for this dreadful toadying and barefaced flattery. But you are so strong and, well, just so super. Fantastic. Amen.” (Michael Palin as the chaplain in The Meaning of Life)

Fair enough. But look what stunning architecture such flattery creates…

Wells Cathedral

I do like the Python approach, though. Here’s my own prayer in a similar vein.

Dear God.
You are so big and we are so small.
Please don’t tread on us or eat us.
Sorry we are so rubbish.
You are much better.
Sorry.

A quiet night in

It’s official: I have tinnitus. So the cracks, pops, whistles, groans and the constant background hiss, like a layer of cicadas inside my head, are here to stay. For a while at least. Probably. There is ambiguity.

I’m told tinnitus is a symptom and not a condition – causes include noise-induced hearing loss, the side effect of drugs, psychological issues and wax. I had hoped it was wax. Anybody who has ever had their ears flushed out will know what I’m talking about. I go swimming just to encourage the build-up of wax, just so I can have my ears flushed.

But it’s not that, and although it’s possible my tinnitus is the result of an ear-syringing habit, I suspect it’s more to do with the Seventies playlists on my iPod. All those synthesisers and twenty-minute guitar solos have taken their toll and denuded my inner ear of hair cells – which would make me both bald inside my head and bald on top of my head. Damn you, weak follicles. Am I the first person to link tinnitus to male-pattern baldness?

I need to work out how I’m going to say tinnitus. Tiny-tus is out; and although I like the more widely used tinny-tus I am drawn to the strident tin-nightus. That’s a pronunciation I can shout, which is fitting given the increasing level of interior noise. I’ve got tin-nightus I will say with an antipodean inflection. I suppose there’s also tinnight-us, but that sounds too intimate.

During the day other sounds mask the beeps and whistles inside my head and, as with a ticking clock, I am not always conscious of them. And even if I am, somehow my brain can accommodate the duality of interior and exterior sounds. Thank you, brain. Every year I have a full medical check-up which includes a hearing test. I sit in a soundproofed booth with headphones on and listen for tiny pings and beeps. Even though my head is filled with other hums, hisses and clicks I can still pinpoint those exterior sounds. It’s the aural equivalent of feeling beads in cotton wool.

It’s at night when I lay down to sleep that things really get going, and I’m surprised my tinnitus doesn’t keep the neighbours awake. At night a full experimental orchestra kicks off including double bass, bassoons, church organs, industrial generators, steam traction engines and rocket launchers. Not only that, I snore like a hog. It’s an internal and external cacophony.

My doctor said that tinnitus can come and go but if it gets worse I should go back to see her. I will. There are support clinics, websites, distraction techniques, medicines and even musical and sound products available to mitigate the symptom. Apparently, a third of all people are affected by tinnitus at some stage in their lives. So in my opinion it’s an under-researched symptom. In extremis, tinnitus can cause great misery. In extreme extremis those internal sounds can take on a more sinister and frightening quality.

However, as I write this, things are fairly calm. The cicadas are creating their uniform hiss from one ear to the other but that’s about it. Outside my head there are real sounds: cars passing, the wind blowing, distant voices. I can’t imagine what it is like to be in utter silence. I’m sure I once was; I haven’t had tinnitus all my life, have I? But I don’t know. Maybe I have.

In the scheme of things the tinnitus I have is no big deal. It’s a very manageable symptom and nothing to complain about. I’ll continue to go swimming and I’ll continue to listen to that awful music. It’s not affecting my concentration and it’s not affecting my sleep, although from my partner’s perspective that last item is not so good. I think she would like to push all the snoring inside my head. And that would be fine with me because I’m certain the orchestra is missing a percussion section.

For more information on tinnitus, follow this link: http://www.tinnitus.org.uk

Begin at the end and end at the beginning (or how to fail exams and confuse your friends)

Excuse me if these words look wobbly. I am taking a short break from NaNoWriMo 2015.

National Novel Writing Month means just that – writing a novel in a month. 50,000 words minimum, 70,000+ if you want to hit a more mainstream word count.

That’s a lot of words passing through your mind day and night. A lot of time spent inside your head. It was 2.58 this morning when I stopped nanowrimo-ing and jotted down the notes for this post.

So if these words look wobbly it’s because I’m tired or you’re tired or the screen’s tired, and not because they’re actually… well, let’s not go there. Muriel Spark’s experience with Dexedrine leaps to mind.

Question: do you see words?

I don’t mean when they’re written down, I mean when you say a word do you see it pass through your mind, fleetingly, as a written word?

I think I do. I think that knowing how a word is spelt helps me to say it, which seems to be the wrong way round when you think about it. And putting things the wrong way round is the subject of this post.

When I was younger, school age, I used to enjoy playing with the patterns in words and numbers. In seeing my spoken words as written words, I found I could say them in different ways – backwards, for example.

‘Pick a word, any word,’ I’d say, ‘and I’ll say it backwards’.

I became quite adept at this, and like most hobbyists, I was meticulous in the accuracy of my output – which in my case was reversed pronunciation. After a while I could take on whole sentences, even paragraphs.

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious? No problem.

This wholly useless habit gave me an oddity value at school – much as if I’d brought in a talking parrot or a dancing dog. When my house tutor met my parents at a parent-teacher evening, his comment to them might have been: ‘Jamie is doing quite well; he can say words backwards’.

Tougher children than me would demand to hear swearing backwards, presumably hoping they could curse a teacher with impunity; the more studious would challenge me with onomatopoeia and the formidable, Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.

My friends treated it as an annoying tic that was best ignored – and thank goodness they did, because the downside of this mental exercise was that I was conditioning my brain to do it automatically. I realised this when I began processing the wrong numbers in maths exams, and dialling the wrong telephone numbers. It was becoming a habit. It was becoming embarrassing.

The turning point came when I considered signing my name, James 51773.

It had to stop. And so over a term or two I completely weaned myself from that pointless habit – much to my friend’s relief. And now like most writers – known and unknown – when I test words and phrases by saying them out loud, I do so with them in the correct order and the right way round. Which is very useful if you want to write things that people can understand.

Which reminds me, break time is over. It’s time to get back to oMirWoNaN… I mean…

Oh well – I’m almost almost completely weaned.

For more information on NaNoWriMo 2015, follow this link: http://nanowrimo.org/