Australia: The Movie

Having arrived at the movies ten minutes late... typical you might say, we found the movie already started. I don't think we missed much other than the previews which to me are usually the best parts but what can I say. Anyway, the first full minute of the movie... a scene that started with a young aboriginal boy swimming in a river, with a black stallion.... which then cut to the kid on the same horse, racing across a great desert and screeching to a halt in front of a wooden stockade, had my wanderlust pining for Australia - the country... but that is not what this post is about.

I just read this here article and I couldn't agree more with the heading. This particular movie venture was a rather impromptu affair hurriedly forced upon me by some storm that suddenly blew up in my part of the world this past week; Let us call it Lucy for now... trust me, Katrina didn't have nothing on her. Anyway, I picked this movie, not because I new anything about it or had even seen the trailer.... and thank God coz I most likely would not have gone based on the trailer, but because it was the only one showing at a convenient time.

I am most definitely not a movie buff.... and while I've seen lots of movies with Kidman and Jackman in them, only the X-Men series comes to mind.... Actually in Australia, I kept expecting Wolverine's claws to emerge every time Jackman got into a fight. Australia I don't think will be slipping from my memory anytime soon, and it has nothing to do with those two. Nullah (Brandon Walters) in his movie debut managed, in my eyes, to steal the movie...... How? Oh! Crap... I'll have to watch the damn movie again to be able to tell you how.

Slow but sure wins the race; Not......

Not this one anyway... besides I was slow and for the most part unsure. Unsure on what story exactly I wanted to tell, unsure of how to tell it and unsure of who it was I was telling it to.

"Mhhmmm! Sounds like a lame excuse to me own eyes... But what to do? Tis the only one I got, so 'twill have to do fi now."

I did not do nearly half as well as I had hoped to do, and by the time I figured out how I wanted the story to go, I realised that half of what I had already written was pretty much irrelevant. Quite discouraging that was, and to be honest with you, I was pretty much ready to throw in the towel by the middle of week two. I didn't, though, because I had me a couple of relentless cheerleaders who wouldn't let me let up.

And so, plod on I did, picking up speed as I went. Where I had barely managed 10,000 words in two weeks, I was up to 27,000 words by thanksgiving, and with a long weekend coming up, I was fairly certain that I would make it to the finish line..... It would be close, but it was more than possible.

Imagine my shock then when, after psyching myself all day that fateful Wednesday, and toasting all night to a challenging last leg of an amazing race, I woke up to find that I had mysteriously contracted that most dreaded of afflictions that has plagued writers of world renown for ages, and try hard as I could, I could not shake the stupid block.

None of the numerous home remedies I found on the internet seemed effective... apparently the virus or whatever it is that carries this affliction, has mutated some since the days of Hemingway... Not even the the strongest rum concoction could rout it... and I balked at the suggestion of a surgical procedure... even a least invasive one, preferring instead to try and stuff my body with turkey and stuffing and cans of cranberry sauce, naively believing in my own genius..... I mean, does it not make sense that a running stomach will cleans out the whole body system.

Well, as it turns out, it does take everything out of you, including energy, sense of urgency and other important crap like that. So today, more than a week since that turkey went down, and seven days past the nonowrimo deadline, I returned to my writing desk and was able to hammer out a couple thousand words in as many hours.

Yes! A light flickers at the end of the tunnel. I wish I was in that particular tunnel.

Gobble Gobble Gobllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll..............

Character, I once heard someone say, is sticking at something long after the mood in which one began it is gone...... Speaking of which, stuck is what I am feeling at the moment. Stuck in what, you may ask. Well, in an endless loop; a vicious cycle of sorts... I am finding that my imagination is not, as I had naively imagined, limitless; and I'm constantly fishing into my memory bank which, as someone has attested to on numerous occasions, is not very reliable.... and on coming up empty handed time and time again, I'm having to turn to my limited imagination... see what I'm saying? Don't worry if you don't, but feel free to nudge, push, shove... anything to get me unstuck.

Happy Thanksgiving to all y'all Turkey Lovers and to the rest, have mercy on the swans, they may speak the same language but they are not really related.

fiftee thau; 50,000

I did it people... well, sort of; kinda. It is the middle of the night or early morning... 3:43A.M. exactly as I type this here post and I have just passed an incidental milestone. Every time my story comes to a halt, both on paper and in my head, my first reflex is to hit the tool button and find out my current word-count. This last time I noticed that I just reached 50,000 and something characters with spaces..

LOL! Whatever I can do to encourage myself in this wee hour.. right. Well, sleep on my friends, or for you on the earlier to rise latitudes, good morning y'all.

Truth be told: The story thus far....

So... one week and 3 pep-talks later, I have managed a measly 3000 and someth'n words of a story whose plot and direction has completely eluded me. I am feeling like I probably would be half an hour into running a marathon - after a five year hiatus from the exercise world....... worn, winded and out of my depth. Of course that is no excuse to throw in the towel... but I am keeping mine handy (the towel that is), just in case.

According to the last of the pep-talks, I should tentatively have written at least 15,000 words... which tentatively speaking is tentatively placing me ummmmm right at the starting line... LOL! One might say that I am feeling tentative.

I am apparently at this stage -

".... Week One of NaNoWriMo tends to be all about characters. Our imaginations have been leaving a lot of them on our doorsteps lately, and it’s pretty much all we can do to bring them in, give them names, and teach them the rudiments of steering their battle-yaks. Then our doorbell rings, and we're rushing off to welcome another group of newcomers to the party.

Because of this, the first week of November is largely a matter of crowd control....."

I am stuck in week one.... but I will plod on... or is it plot on. Apparently week two is 'That stage called plot'. Personally I think these pep-talkers are full of it; but I really do need a plot.

For those of you who requested a link... check your emails later on today... but don't start bugging till tomorrow... bear in mind that we are in different time zones... Even Obama has to wait till next year to move into the little white house on the prairie.

997 words and counting.....

It is with a thick lump in my throat that I sit to write this post. My screen is blurry... with tears of thousands, transmitted over the airwaves; it is hard to see, with the flurry of activity.... the fanfare that has taken over my T.V., how many of the electoral votes were cast for me. But that is of no consequence.... apparently, from listening to Senator McCain's albeit touching speech, I have not won this historic election.

Perhaps, it is all for good... given that I can not write nearly as pretty an acceptance speech as the one Obama is giving... that none of those who promised to vote for me were really eligible to vote. It is with a heavy heart that I put away my slogans, and banners and what have you.. and once again take up my pen and paper.... and continue on my month long journey. 998 here I come.......

It's on...... Bring out the Patron

Well.. not quite yet. Some breakfast will have to do for now. Kick off was 7 hours ago and like some of you (Neema) predicted, I got off to a beautiful start. I have written down about five words so far... which is not good going by any stretch of the imagination. But write I have started... and taking a lesson from the infamous character of our folklore - Kaka Sungura, I know that kutangulia sio kufika... directly translatable to 'starting at the front is not finishing'.