Raw story: at a rate of 500 words per day, it took just under
three months to complete the first draft of Alice Out Of Time.
The first draft of Alice Out Of Time is complete, stretching to approximately 52,000 words.
Since the beginning of June I've written 500 words each morning until the story I envisaged was fully captured.
There are probably as many different writing process as there are people in the world. I'm using this update to document my writing regime.
With Alice, the end goal is to have a final draft of 80,000 words, which is pretty much the standard-size for a novel. At this stage I'm confident that will be achieved. The first draft is the story in skeleton form - the basic scaffolding around which the deeper details will be placed.
In this raw and basic form the story pacing is super-fast. Keeping the momentum flowing through every scene is important. Other than two or three key characters, everyone else is referred to simply as "man" or "woman" or (spoiler alert) "woman in the coffee shop". Buildings are largely described as "building" and some of the towns and places have yet to be named. All those things get filled in during subsequent re-writes.
The first run-through is all about the core story and finding out if it works and delivers. I wrote every morning when I got up, straight out of bed. There was no stopping for breakfast or internet news. The first priority was to fulfill the 500 words for the day. Which usually took between 30 and 45 minutes.
And yes, it was every single day. Keeping the momentum up helped with the flow, and meant my mind was always engaged in the story and thinking of ways to express the next development. There was no stopping to correct grammar or spelling. And sometimes I would change the direction of a scene mid-stream, or write it fresh from a different angle the next day (but not deleting the first attempt - just writing the new version straight beneath).
I wrote the story out of sequence, opting to follow a single main character to the end, and then doing the same for the next main character. The exception to this rule was when it was necessary to have chief characters interacting in the same scenes.
There was no writing done on a computer. Instead, I wrote on a Neo2, a small, battery-powered word processor, which you can see in the background of the photograph. This removed distractions. The Neo2 is purely a word processor. It has no internet capabilities, so there was no temptation to check e-mails, social media, etc.
Secondly, the Neo2 screen shows only four lines of text. So that did away with the temptation of scrolling back through writing from previous days to tidy up spellings, grammar or elements of the story.
Of course, I did not start each day with no idea where the story was going. Because while the first draft was written in less than three months, it took close to eight months to work through the story idea, plot, and character arcs. Only once I was certain most of it would fit together did I begin. That provided a guide to show where the story was meant to be going each day. There was flexibility to add in ideas, providing they meshed with the end goal, and that happened. There was enough ambiguity in the penciled framework to allow for new moments of inspiration to fill the gaps as they appeared.
But the 11 months of pre-planning and writing is not the whole journey to date. Even before the lengthy framework building, the genesis of Alice and the mentally piecing together of the jigsaw puzzle to make the story work - or at least feasible enough to attempt - goes back a few years.
Alice has now crossed the first milestone. The second draft is about to get underway with a similar writing regime to the first. I will post future progress updates.
The Go Go's at The Greek ampitheatre in Griffith Park, Los Angeles in
1984, exemplifying the carefree, fun music that was their hallmark.
While the 1980s was a diverse decade musically, there are some songs that can be described as capturing the zeitgeist - at least in part. The Go Go's Vacation is one.
A number of the Go Go's other hits, and indeed the band themselves, could equally be declared as defining the mood and spirit of the first half of the 1980s.
They are one of the most successful all-female groups in history that wrote their own songs and played their own instruments. Although it is also true that their success was overwhelmingly American-centric, and less all-conquering in other countries. Britain is a prime example, for while the Go Go's cut their musical teeth in the country's rough and ready punk and ska scene of the late 70s and early 1980s, in the history of British pop culture they are largely a minor footnote. Their biggest global hit Our Lips Are Sealed is generally not associated with them in the UK, but rather with the Fun Boy Three who took their version into the British Top 10, and whose Terry Hall co-wrote the song with Go Go Jane Wiedlin.
The caveat to the above is that after launching a solo career, lead singer Belinda Carlisle became an undisputed global star with hits including Heaven Is A Place On Earth.
But back to the Go Go's. Our Lips Are Sealed, Head Over Heels, and We Got The Beat, could all easily have been my choice for this "Love the Song" post, the fourth in a occasional series where I highlight a song that particularly inspires, uplifts or simply grabs me.
However, I chose Vacation. For me it captures the carefree essence of this brand of 80s pop, which the Go Go's peerlessly produced. It was written on a plane journey by bassist Kathy Valentine as she flew to Los Angeles to join her bandmates. While it has its own little story of holiday romance, it also evokes in words and tone the joy and adventure of a vacation, and the uplift that comes from breaking away from routine and being somewhere different.
From 1981 to 1985, the Go Go's perfectly captured the spirit and feeling of the moment. Sure, it was mostly a slice of Americana, but it was a time when the imagery of 80s Americana was, through music and movies, a driving force far beyond the shores of the US. If you had any doubts about whether or not life was good, you had only to tune into the Go Go's music to get an unambiguous, reassuring "yes."
And the zenith moment for the band was captured in glorious, colour-saturated 80s fashion at an outdoor show at The Greek ampitheatre in Griffith Park, Los Angeles. It was August 1984, the band were at their peak and still a few months away from the first fractures appearing. The Go Go's split the following year, and while they have undergone sporadic reunions throughout the past three decades (Valentine left for good in 2012) - it is this concert, fortuitously filmed in full, that best captures the joy and fun of the Go Go's and their music.
It is hard to pick a single song and concert moment, so I've included two clips from the concert. The first, above, is Vacation - including a moment when an inflatable beach ball hits songwriter and bassist Kathy Valentine as she sings, and Belinda Carlisle misses a line as she laughs. The second video, below, is We Got The Beat - because it rocks.
End of the line: my current iPod shuffle. Now relegated to history.
Can someone please hit the pause button on the world, because it's getting harder to keep up with all the technological changes.
My go-to personal music machine, the iPod, is the latest gadget to be put out to grass.
In an announcement on Thursday, Apple said its iPod shuffle and iPod nano would no longer be sold. They are the last true iPod devices. The only iPod descendent remaining is the iPhone wannabe Touch.
Like the Sony Walkman before it, and portable CD players, the iPod has seen its day and the world has moved on. It's 16 years since the original iPod was launched. It was chunky, and in today's world of streamlined portable personal electronics would be considered a brick.
My first iPod was a 4th generation version (2004) of what is now referred to as the "Classic" model. It made sense to have one. I was about to relocate to Bermuda, but I hadn't done enough upper-body gym work to handle carrying a suitcase filled with my entire CD collection. So I transferred the music to the 20GB drive on the iPod, and still had a handsome amount of storage space left over.
Later, I transitioned to the smaller shuffles, going from the 1st generation model that resembled a USB stick, to the stubby 2nd generation and finally the ultra small 4th generation.
The Mp3 players were my home music machine, and I'd occasionally wear one when exercising and running long distances. But a combination of rain, sweat, and constant shaking proved fatal for the first three devices. I no longer wear an Mp3 when running, so my third shuffle (appropriately named after my current running gait) still works after many years. I use it at home for my music fix, particularly to break the monotony of ironing, and as an essential relaxing distraction when travelling.
'Old school' camera used: a photo with Michael Beck
Call me old school (that's Mr Old School, if you please), but I loved these tiny Mp3 players for their portability and uncluttered design functionality.
And on the subject of old school, when Heather and I had a photograph taken with Michael Beck last year, we were the odd ones out. Everyone else was wielding camera-equipped smartphones, while we pulled out a point-and-shoot digital camera. The Warriors actor even commented: "You guys are old school."
Today, I use my smartphone more than ever. For a start, it is no longer a BlackBerry, for which I believe I earn a bunch of brownie points.
I opt for the camera phone over the trusty point-and-shoot about 80% of the time. And it comes in handy for email checking, occasional internet use and interview recording (no need to carry an old school diction recorder).
I've yet to use it for listening to music, but it is clear that is the way ahead. The popularity of streaming music through smartphones is the primary reason for the cliff-falling sales of iPods.
The world is changing, and as in Dr Stephen Johnson's book, Who Moved My Cheese? it is all about adapting to change and looking for the new cheese, and perhaps finding it to be superior to the old, vanished stuff. We'll see.
For now I'll plough on with my iPod shuffle, while making a few experimental forays into the world of smartphone music - just in case the old school cheese vanishes.
Pom-pom cheerleaders for the bathtub race challenge, led by JJ Burnel,
far right. I'm peaking between the two cheerleaders on the left.
Build a boat from old bathtubs, make it look like a Viking longship and then race it in the sea. As madcap enterprises go, on a scale of one to ten, it was right up there at 12.6.
Those who have read Eating Clouds will already be familiar with this chronicled adventure. But as this weekend marks 31 years since the Ravenlunatic sailed to sea - and with a bunch of dusty photographs from the whole shebang resurfacing during the past year - it seemed timely to look back on this detour from life's serious stuff.
It all started when Jean-Jacques Burnel, bass guitarist with punk/new wave band The Stranglers, watched the annual international bathtub race at Cagnes-Sur-Mer, near Nice, in the south of France in 1985. He wanted to assemble a team for the following year, and early in 1986 put an invitation out through the Stranglers Information Service seeking fans willing to come together to build a bathtub boat.
After the first meeting: Why own a London taxi if you're not
going to test how many people can sit on the roof at the same time?
For me and best pal Rob, being "up for a lark" was a quientessential part of life at 19. So we trundled 100 miles for the first meeting of The Challenge group in a semi-detached house in North London. A mixed group of about 20 gathered. JJ came too. We drew up a plan of action, indicating which components we could source for the bathtub boat and bring along to the next
Jean-Jacques Burnel, left, helps with the construction of the boat
during the first working weekend at Achmed's house in Barnet.
gathering, when work would begin. Before departing we tested the structural integrity of the roof of a London black cab by sitting on it for a team picture.
I secured a dozen large plastic containers that could be used as buoyancy for the boat. These were fitted in place at the first working weekend, where the bathtub boat started to take shape. The design was a Viking longship, after an instrumental track by The Stranglers on their 1979 album The Raven. The main sail and team t-shirts would feature the Raven logo from the album. The boat would be known as the Ravenlunatic.
The boat was soon in transit, or rather strapped to the top of a transit van. We took it to a nearby public pond in Barnet, North London to test its seaworthiness. Who knows what the locals thought of this motley bunch paddling the lake in three bathtubs, however one of them not only thought "call the police" - they actually did.
Call the cops: The test run on a lake in North London.
JJ leads the way. I'm the third one along, officer.
Two police officers arrived, having been told that some kids were messing about on the lake. The officers were surprised to find the "kids" were clearly not wet behind the ears (well, not yet as we hadn't capsized). JJ was a virtual elder statesman kid at 34. The lead officer gave an obligatory spiel about the importance of observing the rules of water safety, then beat a retreat. Meanwhile, we were delighted the boat floated, albeit in a slightly Loch Ness Monster, bouncy fashion. A bit of lateral strengthening was needed.
The boat building and testing then moved to rural Cambridgeshire. A quarry lake near JJ's home became the venue for further "sea trials". The bathtubs were painted black, a dragon masthead was added along with a central mast and black sail with the depiction of a red raven.
Ravenlunatic: a photo from the Record Mirror music magazine of the
boat being tested on the quarry lake. I'm beneath the sail.
The other visible crew members are JJ, Achmed, Grant and Nik.
With the boat now starting to resemble a Viking longship, a call was made to a freelance music press photographer encouraging him to hasten to the lake near St Ives for a few snaps.
A group of us, including The Stranglers' keyboardist Dave Greenfield, hopped into Nik's black cab - the one with the now slightly dented roof - and assembled at the lake to take the boat out for a few laps before the photographer arrived.
The afternoon was ticking away - where was the photographer? There was a call. He had reached St Ives, but it was St Ives in Cornwall, some 300 miles away.
Fortunately, a second photographer was despatched and reached the lake before the sun went down to capture the Ravenlunatic in all her glory. The snaps appeared in the Record Mirror and Melody Maker music papers.
Everything was ready. At the beginning of July a 52-seater coach took the team and the boat almost 800 miles to the South of France. The bathtubs were stowed in the luggage compartments. A further 20 supporters joined the trip, helping reduce the cost-per-head of the epic journey. With everyone decked out in black Challenge t-shirts, featuring the raven, we turned heads on the promenade at Nice. Viking headgear, fake red beards and our posse of pom-pom cheerleaders completed the scene. We were ready to rumble.
Stormy weather: lending a hand as the Ravenlunatic is reassembled.
The crouching man who looks like a coach driver - was our coach driver.
The Ravenlunatic was reassembled on a stony beach at Cagnes-sur-Mer, a few miles from Nice. A race team was picked from the original core group. The rest of us helped and added vocal support from the beach and quay.
Come and have a go:Ravenlunatic mingles among the competition
at the bathtub race championships in Cagnes-Sur-Mer. But all boats
that braved the race course were swiftly sunk by a freaky storm squall.
Something freaky happened to the weather. A storm squall suddenly blew in from nowhere, which meant the race itself did not really take place. The boats played around in the safety of the walled harbour, until a few tried their luck against sea god Neptune, including Ravenlunatic. None survived intact.
But really the escapade was less about the actual race and more about putting together a team, and over the course of four months building a faux Viking longship from a few bathtubs, having fun and forging friendships along the way. The next day the coach was driven into the wooded hills surrounding Nice where there was a freshwater lake that JJ knew about. There we spent an afternoon swimming and floating around in salvaged pieces of the Ravenlunatic. Among those at the picnic was graphic artist Jean-Luke Epstein, who designed the majority of The Stranglers' record covers during the 1980s. Mr Epstein, who died earlier this year, had lent assistance with the construction of the boat.
Madcap adventure complete: a final team group picture, with additional supporters, in front of our coach.
Look closely and you will see one of the remaining pieces of Ravenlunatic - the dragon masthead
Before leaving the idyllic location we posed in front of our trusty Wallace Arnold coach for a mass picture of crew, boat-building team and supporters. And then it was over.
There are key moments in life that never fade. For me, the spring and summer of 1986 is one. It was about having a spirit of adventure, going into the unknown, doing something a little crazy and different, and having fun. It was a madcap enterprise worthy of celebration.
Footnote: By coincidence, The Stranglers next record was called Nice in Nice and was sung by JJ. It was released a few months after the bathtub race, although the song has nothing to do with that particular adventure. In the video, the band wore prison clothes, referencing their arrest and incarceration after a riot broke out during their 1980 concert at Nice University.
Oracle Team USA at the end of a race during the 35th America's Cup.
After five weeks of thrills and spills as the fastest yachts in the world raced one another, the 35th America's Cup is over. Regarded by many as the pinnacle of the sport, it brought an added dimension to the island during the past month.
A purpose-built 39-acre island was created to hold an event village where spectators could watch the action and enjoy live entertainment and other activities that came along with the Cup. Although it is the oldest sporting trophy in the world (the "Auld Mug" dates back to a challenge race in 1851) I have to admit that until a few years ago I only had the vaguest of ideas about what the America's Cup was. My faint recollection was from mentions I recall hearing while travelling in Western Australia in 1988, the year after Fremantle had hosted the event.
All that changed two years ago when the defenders Oracle Team USA decided to base themselves and the cup match in Bermuda.
One by one the teams started to relocate here and practice sailing on the Great Sound. Oracle led the way, and I admired how they conducted themselves - getting involved in the community, helping with charities, visiting schools and setting up educational opportunities around the sport, including two sailing programmes for young people.
With Oracle skipper Jimmy Spithill, second from right, after the
Sir Stanley Burgess 5K road race in May 2016.
Oracle team members also showed up at public events and took part in non-sailing sporting activities. The Oracle team last year ran a relay formation in Bermuda's most famous race, the May 24 half marathon. And I can attest that skipper Jimmy Spithill was also a tenacious competitor in a 5K race a few weeks earlier. For three miles we engaged in a relentless tussle, never gaining more than a few metres' advantage before switching positions again. In the end, Spithill gained the upper hand and powered away to the finish. That taught me a lot about the "never give up" attitude of the man who had pulled off one of sport's greatest comebacks when he went from 8-1 down to win 9-8 in the previous America's Cup in 2013.
The America's Cup brought a two-year buzz to the island that reached a crescendo from late May until the final race on Monday, when challenger Emirates Team New Zealand completed an impressive 7-1 win against Oracle. Thousands of people made almost daily visits to the event village, while millions more around the world watched live TV coverage and highlights.
Meeting Jono 'The Bear' Macbeth, left, and Sir Ben Ainslie.
Bermuda put on a great show, with a smooth running operation, relaxed atmosphere and an event village that catered for young and old. The weekend before it all began, Heather and I met Sir Ben Ainslie and Jono Macbeth of the Land Rover BAR team at a promotional event. And we experienced the busy first day of the Cup - which under brilliant clear skies included the first set of races, an opening ceremony celebrating Bermuda's heritage, a short concert by Wyclif Jean, and stage appearances by the six teams from France, Britain, Sweden, Japan, New Zealand and the USA.
The event village from the media centre.
The event village was a microcosm of world society with its mixture of locals and the overseas visitors, and many decked out in replica jerseys and t-shirts of their favoured Cup team.
Other nations in the Youth Team America's Cup contest included homegrown Team BDA.
Bermuda's waters were filled by spectator boats, visiting yachts and superyachts, and numerous sailing events held in conjunction with the main attraction.
Ferries to and from Dockyard were invariably busy, particularly during the weekends of the America's Cup. Excitement and friendliness was present in abundance among friends and strangers. The event village included a children's play area, a fun educational tent where aspects of the sport were revealed in a "hands on" way, astro grass to relax on, bean bags, sunshade tables, and island-centric food and drink outlets.
Even if you could not get there in person, the racing drama and post-race press conference were broadcast worldwide on TV and the internet. It was a spectacle that lived up to and surpassed high expectations.
Fans greet Peter Burling, helmsman of Emirates Team New Zealand,
shortly after New Zealand won the America's Cup on Monday.
Now that it has finished and everything is being packed up and shipped away, the island seems a little emptier. But there remains a legacy of inspiration and heightened aspirations.
Bermuda salutes all the teams as they depart, but particularly Oracle Team USA who adopted the island as their home these past two years. To all the teams and visitors: "Fair winds and following seas."
BELOW: A short flavour of the America's Cup in this video from the organisation as it thanked Bermuda for hosting the 35th edition.
Alison Moyet singing Nobody's Diary at a concert in Berlin in 2015.
Nobody's Diary was released by Yazoo almost 35 years ago. It was the fourth and final single from the duo, who had been together for barely a year.
Singer Alison Moyet wrote the lyrics, with Vince Clarke providing the uncluttered synthpop backing that today sounds as remarkably fresh as it did when released in May 1983.
Moyet's powerful, bluesy voice added an extra dimension to Clarke's stark yet innovative synthesizer compositions. It was a potent mixture that stood out from the crowd.
I have chosen Nobody's Diary as the third in this occasional series where I highlight a song that particularly inspires, uplifts or simply grabs me. Burning brightly like a struck match, Yazoo dazzled for a fleeting moment and then were gone. Two hit albums, four hit singles before they went their separate (and successful) ways.
They quit at the top, and Nobody's Diary was a perfect song to go out on. Moyet's lyrics are a powerful blend of yearning and forthrightness, while Clarke's keyboard playing, with chords crisply described through single line notes, is all the more memorable and powerful for its simplicity.
Yazoo's earlier hits Only You and Don't Go might edge Nobody's Diary when it comes to mainstream familiarity, but for me the richly etched heartache and delivery of Nobody's Diary soars higher.
Below is the official Yazoo video from 1983, followed by a recording of Moyet (minus Clarke) giving a powerful rendition of the song in 2015.
This wonderful tribute to Carrie Fisher was shown at the Star Wars Celebration event in Florida on Thursday. The clips and words do a great job highlighting the warmth, humour and humility of Fisher, and bringing home what a remarkable talent she was.
Watching this video reinforced many of the thoughts I shared in the blog post Star Wars: farewell to Carrie and Kenny. I was also struck by the sense of time passing - seeing the 19-year-old Fisher auditioning for the role and starring as Princess Leia in the original film, then reprising the character 40 years later.
The young Carrie Fisher in the mid-1970s with a row of arcade space games
The video tribute includes a clip of the casually dressed Fisher standing in front of a bank of clunky-looking arcade space games. She could be any teenager or young woman of the mid-70s enjoying a moment at an arcade, even though by then she was the iconic heroine of the original Star Wars. I well-remember the era of such arcades, having visited many. For me this is a poignant clip. There is a slightly surreal edge to seeing the young Fisher away from the imagery of Star Wars, relaxing in an arcade like so many young people of the time.
She will be greatly missed. We will see her again in the upcoming Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, when it is released in December. She completed the filming of that movie before she died.
The magic Fisher brought to so many people's lives shines on.
