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Tuesday, November 30, 2004

NaNoWriMo Day: 30
Words Written: 50,132
Words Remaining:
0


I dunnit.Oh yes indeed. As losers such as myself are fond of saying, "I'm a winner". After a day of intensive beavering, my novel's been officially validated, and what's more I've got the certificate to prove it, which I've downloaded, printed out, and will be handing out at Christmas, along with a copy of my novel, to numerous people who don't want it but will be forced to accept it (and that means you, Melee). Hurrah!

The 50,000 word target may have been reached (god only knows how), but the novel's not actually finished, so it'll be another week before I'm able to accept the inevitable bids from publishers, but if you're so inclined you can read the first ten chapters here. That's if I've posted them all by the time you read this. Which I won't have done. So don't bother frankly.

Anyhoo I'm limiting it to ten chapters for reasons of self-control, which is a shame really, because I feel the novel doesn't reach its high point until chapter 13 when Mirkin says:

"It’s high time to rattle and roll,
The scenario’s out of control,
It's just not my day,
I’m running away,
From six postmen, a slut, and a troll."


And the clairvoyant bear doesn't put in an appearance until chapter 15. So I may be forced to reconsider. But for now I'm sticking with ten.

Anyhoo, yesterday's parcel did indeed turn out to be my Christmas present, and what's more I was allowed (forced?) to open it there and then. It turned out to be a new digital camera, which is exciting in the extreme, not least because it suggests Lisa must have come into some money without telling me. But it's lovely, and I'm very grateful. Even if Lisa won't let me post a photo of her here.

Christmas over, we went to the Beautiful South concert in the evening, which was very good. That's if you're the sort of person who enjoys being sat next to the only nutter in the building for two hours. And I don't mean Lisa.

My suspicions were first aroused when the woman seated to my left, who appeared to be on her own (I wonder why?), started doing some intricate hand movements to the support act, 'A Girl Called Eddy', who played nothing but bluesy down-tempo folk music to which it was impossible to dance. Lisa and I decided she must be a personal friend of Eddy, thus explaining her enthusiasm for the music, and chose not to let it bother us.

At least not until the support act was over, when Ms Nutter decided to engage me in conversation. It was a little difficult to follow the precise thread of the woman's statement, since every other word began with 'f' and ended with 'king', but she helpfully added some two-fingered gestures at the point where she lamented the lack of respect given to Beautiful South fans, so those combined with the frequent expletives gave me the gist of her opinion on those who criticise her. She also informed me that her 17 year old daughter was sitting four rows behind us, and that she thought the support band were 'f'ing brilliant. We discussed at length the article in that evening's Brighton Argus, then, as the lights went down, my new friend warned me that she'd come here to enjoy herself and might therefore get a bit excited.

Thank god for the warning. As the Beautiful South struck up their first chord, my seated neighbour began a dance routine which consisted of bouncing up and down in her seat, waving her arms around, pointing a lot, and turning around to gesticulate at her daughter (who was presumeably hiding her face and claiming not to know the woman four rows in front).

Interestingly, this lady had a large bruise on the side of her face, which I had thought was a sign of domestic violence, but soon realised must have been self-inflicted at a previous concert. Personally I was leaning as far into Lisa as possible to avoid serious injury myself, as the flailing arms threatened to either blind me or leave me with major internal injuries. Lisa wasn't helping much by dissolving into fits of laughter every two minutes. Personally I was too scared to laugh.

After an hour of being the only person in the whole seated area doing anything more than toe-tapping, Ms Nutter heard the opening bars of 'Perfect 10', whereupon she turned to me, said "Oh f**k it, I've had enough of this f***ing b*ll*cks" and got to her feet, where she attempted a recreation of Ricky Gervais' classic dance from The Office.

I began to fear for my life, but fortunately a member of security arrived at this point and led her away by the arm. We didn't see her again after that, but I'm sure her daughter was thrilled. There's nothing better when you're 17 than seeing your mother dragged off by security at a pop concert.

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