9

46284 words.

I don't know if I want to live or I want to just sleep. Which sounds more depressive than intended. I'm not sad, just tired. First day back from holiday and my body had reverted to what seems to be its natural rhythm of sleeping until 10am and going to bed about midnight. Which does suggest I need more sleep in my routine anyway. But I hate the fact that my life is governed by when someone else dictates I need to be doing things. I wonder if I'd be more productive if instead I stuck with my routine, working later.
Anyway, my writing has been coming along on holiday. My aim now is to try to get 6000 words a week done. Wouldn't quite be done by my birthday but would be finished before Christmas. I'd like to aim for more but that's not really reasonable.

8

Writing is a weirdly intimate act. Other people may read what I've written, but they still don't know what's in my head; even the best described scene will look different in a reader's head than a writer's. It's also a weirdly exciting world that no-one else is interested in. I've recently decided a different character to my intended victim will die. It will make more sense, have more pathos, have more impact. It's the right decision, and it's fundamentally exciting to me. No-one else will care. My boyfriend loves me, but if I told him I'm killing a different character in the book I'm writing he would imagine it's just on a whim, rather than a nervous, ground breaking decision that will change everything. He doesn't imagine I care about these characters, or that I've resisted killing anyone else than my planned victim off, because I don't want to stop writing them. I'd planned to kill him. I hadn't planned anything else. It's a bit like a dream, so very meaningful to the dreamer, boring and weird to anyone else.

7

"What are you looking at?" he slurred drunkenly, standing over the girl with his fists clenched. As if she'd been burnt she quickly stopped looking up at him and stared down into her knees, curled into the foetal position.
"You know it's your fault, don't you?" he asked, kneeling down to bring his face close to hers. His breath stank of alcohol and regret. "If it weren't for you, we'd still be fine. She'd still be here. Instead I'm stuck with you in this shit hole." He lifted an arm without looking back, indicating the one bed flat where they lived.
She didn't move. She knew there was nothing good or helpful she could say now, and that if she curled up it wouldn't hurt as much when he started hitting her. So she stayed tight in a ball, burying her face into her knees. She wished she'd remembered to tie her long hair back, she'd probably lose a few clumps and then they'd make fun of her at school.
He stood up, reached for the bottle on the kitchen table. It was mostly finished. "And I sit here like an idiot, paying for your food, paying for the roof over your head, just to get this ungrateful little bitch," he said his voice aggrieved and pained, and she knew he was winding himself up to hurt her. "I suffer all my life finding work, trying to do right, and all I get is this?"
She was expecting the blow but it still winded her when it came, striking at the base of her ribs, forcing her onto her side. He was wearing the steel toe cap boots. That wouldn't help. He grabbed her by her hair, entangling his fingers in the end and yanking suddenly and hard, and she felt the clump rip from her scalp as she was pulled sideways towards him. Her face was exposed and he punched her hard in the cheekbone, dazing her. That was a surprise. Much as he knew no-one would do anything he didn't normally go for anywhere visible, so everyone would think he was still a doting father, so good for taking the orphan in after her mother died.
It was when the second and third blows came to her face that she realised, too slowly, that this time was different. She wasn't going to be allowed to leave. That this might be the last thing she ever saw. For a moment she considered relaxing to let it happen, but a rebel part of her soul rejected that idea even as it arrived.
She came to her feet and twisted away from his grasp, wincing as the movement tore out more hair. He gave a surprised and outraged shout, she never normally did anything but wait for the blows to stop, but she didn't stop moving. He'd locked the front door on his way in but the bathroom window was open, and she flew into the room. His bullish frame was following, staggering but frighteningly quick. She slammed the door even as he crashed into it and tremblingly managed to turn the lock until it slid into place with a satisfying heft that meant safety. He roared outside and the door shook as he kicked it. She turned to the window; it was small but so was she. There was a 10 foot drop outside. She wasn't wearing shoes or a coat.
The room shook and she heard a hideous cracking as the door buckled. Without another thought she climbed up and out the window. She wouldn't be back in his lifetime.

6

The face that materialised before me was immediately as familiar as it was jarring. For a moment I struggled to place him, staring in a way that I was taught not to as a little girl. He was staring as well, his weak chin failing to support a slightly open, wet mouth. Suddenly, his mouth firmed.
"Oh, hi Carrie," he said sullenly.
I stared for another moment before the voice made it click. "Stanley," I said, the sound of realisation too heavy in the word. "So, uh, how are you?"
He looked at me, the watery paleness of his eyes attempting to burn through me, but instead leaving me with an uncomfortable feeling of dampness. "How do you think?" he said sarcastically.
I looked around us and saw what he meant. "Well, yeah okay. How's the family?" I asked lamely.
"Why would you care? You never wanted to meet them anyway," he replied.
"I...look, it was a long time ago Stanley. It would never have worked anyway, I was too young, and you were too..." I paused, trying to find a definitive but kind adjective.
"Ugly?" he snarled bitterly. I hoped he hadn't developed the ability to read minds.
"No, no, just, you know, intense. Could we just get on with things?" I said, cringing with the discomfort of the situation.
He rolled his eyes. "Fine. Do you need bags?"
"No, thanks, I've got my own," I said, brandishing them.
"Whatever," he said, looking down and beginning to scan my shopping through.

5

My mother suggested I re-read my teenage diary at the weekend. Now, I suppose this is functioning as a diary, though a very public one so it's edited. I was prolific as a teenager though. Between the ages of 12 and 16 I wrote an A4 page every single night, detailing what was probably the tedium of every day of teenage life. I wonder how much angst I've actually written down. I'm worried about how much it will make me cringe because dear god who wants to remember being a teenager. However, I am currently trying to write a novel from the point of view of a 17 year old, so it'd probably help to have the viewpoints of a kid about that age to inform that thinking.
Dear lord isn't being a teenager awful though? Just trying to think back; you don't know enough about life to know how to interact, and every interaction is judged. You've always used your parents as guides but your parents are suddenly the enemy and cool kids (of whom I was never one) start imitating television - seriously, the number of arguments I watched where I wondered who had badly scripted that dialogue was ludicrous. I was no better though, rather than try to interact I pulled back into misanthropy and imagined I was better than everyone else, detesting everyone as being less intelligent and, let's face it, "too mainstream". I was the original hipster. I liked big band jazz before it was cool man. (Or a good 50 years after it was cool, whichever way you want to go).
With my novel, I'm finding I want to go back and edit now, but I know it's a mistake to get pulled away from the actual writing. I need to keep that momentum, even though it gets lost a little when I get out of routine. Hopefully now I've got more free time I should be able to get that 1000 words written every day. I need to bring my laptop to work again, I felt so much accomplishment to have written in my lunch.

I do wonder if anyone's reading this. According to my stats, I get a single American looking every time I put something up, I assume they've just googled wrong. The purpose of this is not really to be read, as you may be able to tell from the rambling nature (if anyone's reading this...) However, to my lone American reader, if it isn't a mistake, howdy! I assume you're a cowboy.

4

So, writer's block. Not getting any of that so far.
Do you know what? Am I doing this right? Probably not. I'm reading Chris Brecheen and bless him, although he gets me motivated to write he certainly doesn't have a great style. And I'm probably only writing these once I've read his posts. And apparently morning writing is meant to be before you've read anything.
The thing is, I find that hard. We read all the time. Or I do, and I assume to use Facebook and stuff most people do. Isn't it weird how central words are to our world? If you couldn't read, you couldn't participate in more than people generally consider.
Also aliens. Do they exist, and if so do you think they would be anything like us? Do you think they would read (that was where this was coming from incidentally).
This post is a car crash