What a Novel Idea

This proud, majestic example of cartoon horse is the second to experience rejection during my online gaming career. This one is not called Spanky, nor is it languishing in the depths of WoW having not been fed in a month, but all the same it is feeling the first twinges of neglect.

I do have a good reason for my appalling ownership skills, however: thanks to some inspiration from Sparky Tim, who let me read the novella he just completed at the weekend (and may I just say that it will be many years until the smugness of having been the first to read that work of genius wears off), I have begun writing my own book again.

This is not the first novel to have fallen squib-like from my biro. Back in school, I wrote a Point Horror-style tale that I seem to remember included every single difficult-to-escape-from situation I had ever read about (which was a lot). It was a popular undertaking and, at one point, I had a line of classmates on the desks beside me, passing the pages along like a readership conveyor belt as I completed them.

It was pants, of course. The next attempt wasn't much better - I think it was called Xanadu, but I'm not sure why, as that word had bugger all to do with anything. Certainly not the diary of a teenage tearaway, written by, as you might guess, a wannabe teenage tearaway.

Next up was a sci-fi piece that I absolutely loved - I got quite far with it, too, and had lots of marvellous characters and a beautifully crafted plot. Except I then found out I'd been a complete muppet, failed to do my research and set about telling a completely impossible story. So that put an end to that venture.

My latest attempt, however, I have high hopes for. The plot is water-tight, I love the characters and the setting, now I just need to get the damn thing down without writing text as flowery and over-enthusiastic as a bad fantasy novel involving a burly bloke in sandals named Ershwin.

Although Best Mate and Laura seem to be enjoying it thus far, as evidenced by this greeting from Laura yesterday evening, in search of the next installment:

Laura: where is it? where is it??
Laura: gimmeh
Me: ello!
Laura: hai
Laura: gimmeh
Me: LOL ok hold yer horses, this isn't polished yet, you realise!
Laura: i know i know!
Laura: shup an gimmeh
Laura: jkjk
Laura: but srsly
Laura: gimmeh

Meanwhile Best Mate cleverly summarised the whole thing as follows:

This is really making me get the heebie jeebies about something very urgent that i dont know what it is yet but i still care!

I'm not at all sure why these two don't set about writing books too, they'd be bloody hilarious, but when I suggested the idea to Best Mate, she said:

Oh yes i like the sound of that! Most of them would be ninsense. See?

Wish me luck everyone, only another hundred thousand words to go, piece of piss!