What a Beepin' Racket!

Everything beeps.

Recently I was laying in bed about to drop off to sleep when the dishwasher started beeping. "I'm finished" is what it was telling me but honestly I got the message the first time - it really didn't have to keep it up for 15 minutes. By that time I was experiencing the anticipation of the beep and that was keeping me awake. When at last it didn't come I began to relax and nod off again only to be woken by a different beep - this time much more insistent - from the washing machine. It was behind two sets of closed doors and had I not been awake it wouldn't have bothered me but even though it was distant it bugged me till I got up.

Then I really was awake. As I lay in my bed busy not sleeping I began to think about the insidiousness of the electronic beep. It's all around us - reminding us, cajoling us, keeping us on our toes.

The first thing I hear in the morning is an alarm going off in my daughter's room which, despite the fact that it is right next to her, she ignores. Occasionally she will turn it off but normally only after I've shouted like a demon to "turn that ***sted thing off!"
By that time I'm attuned to the other alarm (of Big Son) going off. His one has a snooze function and also a beep that becomes louder and more annoying the longer you ignore it - up until it's a continuous tone. He normally sleep through it.

My two older children get up earlier than me as they have to leave to catch a bus. It's a busy time downstairs as Hubby and older kids make lunches and breakfast and the microwave is busy making porridge and softening butter. It beeps for a good half hour off and on. Big Son's digital watch beeps every half hour to keep him focussed on the time and Daughter then has an alarm on her phone to remind her when it's 8am so that she doesn't miss the bus. If there are any text messages to be sent there is endless beeping and buzzing too until at last at about 8.05 quiet returns. Small Son and I manage to get ourselves sorted without recourse to a single beeping thing before we head out the door.

Driving through town there are something like seven sets of traffic lights, each with a pedestrian crossing, which beep when the green man (WALK sign) is showing. It's very seldom a drive around isn't interrupted by sirens (even in my little backwater). You pop into the shop on the way to work and the tills beep, the bar-code readers beep, the card readers beep, the ATM beeps as if objecting to you withdrawing your own cash and when you get back to your car the remote control central locking beeps at you.

By the time I have arrived into work to sixteen hyperactive four/five year-olds I am already on edge from the cacophonous world around me.

Craving quiet and solitude I revel in the walks I have with the dog in the clean country air. Is it any wonder then that I scream with fury at the air force chinooks that regularly pass across this green and pleasant land (probably taking Prince Wills to another party).

Everything we own these days is on keypads (phones, alarm systems, remotes) and every one of the beeps to let you know that you've pressed a button. The piece de resistance is when I come to make the dinner at night. We don't have any gas in my village so my hob is an electric halogen hob. It is completely flat. All the controls are touch sensitive and, you guessed it, every time it is touched it beeps. If your vegetables boil over and hot water gets on these controls it screeches an error message at you. Beep! Beep! Beep! Bloody Bloody BEEEEEEEEEEEP!

By the end of the day I'm frazzled. I put on the dishwasher and go to bed. With any luck I'll already be asleep by the time it starts to beep.

In which JaneyV is Reverting to Type

One day in and I'm already behind. Story of my life. I'm supposed to do 2000 words a day and yesterday I did 1268. I thought I'd done 2268 so I stopped because I was trying to pace myself. (And the dog needed a walk and it was getting dark (It starts to get dark at 4pm now)). Turns out I need to practise my subtraction.

So today I need to do a minimum of 2732 words (I double checked this time) in order to catch up.

Better get on with it.

NaNaNaNaNaNo or Blo

So November seems to be a month for crazy people forgetting they have lives and setting themselves ridiculous challenges. Last year, along with a friend, I did NaBloWriMo where I studiously blogged every day in November. I remember the writing got very thin around the third week and there was even the odd evening where I was desperate for my bed, it was ten to midnight and I still dragged myself in to that freezing cold back room in the house we were renting in order to get some words down that day. We did have another friend who started with us but gave up far too easily (dig,dig)! So when my friend emailed me about doing it again - I completely ignored the email. Sorry. But I did give it due consideration (only I then never fed back to you).

The reason why I didn't immediately go "YEAY - count me in!" was because I was thinking about NaNoWriMo. This little cookie challenges the mentally unstable to write an entire novel in the month of November. 50,000 words in one month. And no - you are not allowed to write the same word 50,000 times. Variation in words is important. The idea is to get the words and ideas on the page - to go for quantity NOT quality. This is is very important for me because The Project (which is what I have erstwhile nicknamed my Work In Progress (or WIP)) has faltered so very often because I was looking for perfection in my first draft and kept editing as I went along. The upshot of this is that I have dumped (I think) five beginnings to my book. (The total trashed word count is somewhere around 80 or 90,000 over those 5 starts - a book's-worth in fact). Frankly they were crap and I am happy to have gone for the start I currently have, but that's not the point. The point is that the story, the plot and the characters have never progressed further than that point because I was too busy being picky. I am now desperate to finish it. NaNoWriMo essentially gives me permission to go past the dodgy bits so I can get the meat and two veg of the thing down. I can then go back and trim the fat and add the intricate and delicate sauces later.

Now my novel is for older teens (say 14+) and the main character is Poppy - hence the wordcounter in the sidebar is labelled Poppy's Progress (I have a habit of mistyping her name so unfortunately she may occasionally end up being Poopy - this has nothing to do with how I feel about her, it's purely because the 'O' and 'P' are next to each other on the keyboard). I am going for about 80,000 words at a maximum of which I have already written about 20K. For the mathematically slow if you that actually means that I've challenged myself to write 60,000 words this month.

BWAHA -HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHA! HA!

And to blog every day.


Have I bitten off more than I can chew? Absofragginlutely! But my goal is progress - getting past this hump and developing my story. Getting finished would just be the start - the real sweating will be in the editing but that will be another challenge again.

So there you have it. I haven't officially signed up for either. Being 20K in already is a bit of a cheat see and the blogging thing is just a ruse to keep me focussed on the novel thing. But I am psyched up and ready for it. I hope that you will tune in and cheer me on. I'd like to thank Natalie who is taking this month off from writing (seriously - that's going to be a big challenge for her - she's a writing cyborg) and who has kindly lent me her prolific Muse to shoo me along. And if you want to see how my blogging friends are doing in their efforts why not check out Aerin, Pete, Ello and Precie (who like me is doing her own version). Good luck to us.

We're all mad.

Happy Halloween

Surely that's an oxymoron. Aren't we supposed to scared out of our wits tonight? So have a frightening, alarming, terrifying, petrifying, spine-chilling, blood-curdling, horrifying, nerve-racking, fearsome, eerie, sinister, creepy, spine-tingling and spooky Halloween.

May the spirits of Celtic festivals past fill you with sugary and pumpkinny mirth. The UK doesn't really do Halloween so I shall have to live vicariously through others. Please take lots of photos of your costumes.


In other news… I have decided to use the month of November and the enthusiasm that abounds with NaNoWriMo to whip my WIP into shape. I need to find a Wipometer thingy for my side bar (please leave suggestions in comments). My goal is to at least have produced a finished 1st draft by Nov 30th. I'm going to blog the prog (that's progress in case it wasn't clear) and in doing so try to fulfil the challenge I was set to do NaBloWriMo - which is to blog every day in November.

There does my life I guess.

Onward to writing oblivion!

Just a Quickie…

Hello.

Greetings from the world of flannel jammies, big thick socks and fluffy red dressing gowns. In short my sick bed.

Of course this is exactly what I'd planned for this half term week anyway but I hadn't factored in the sneezing, sniffing, shivers and mountain of tissues I'm going through. I guess I didn't escape the virulent lurgi that Expecto expectorated all over me last Monday and I have succumbed to my first cold of the season.

It's a bit unfortunate as I had planned to wrestle the WIP to the ground and beat it into shape this week. But right now my back aches and I'm freezing so I think I might go back to bed.

Oh sod! I have to walk the dog.

OK first I'll walk the dog - then I'll get back into bed. Bum! I have to feed the kids.

OK first I'll feed the kids, then I'll walk the dog - then I'll go back to bed. Bugger! I'm still in my Jammies.

OK first I'll get dressed, then I'll feed the kids, then I'll walk the dog - then I'll go back to bed. Except I really need a shower.

I can't be bothered. Today is going to be a stinky day.

Be thankful the internet hasn't smellivision. I will go off and get well before bothering you with pointless posts again..

A Morning Visit To The Movies.

Today I got paid to go see a movie. It was Happy Feet. It was free. The catch was I had to go with sixteen four-year-olds, most of whom had never been to a cinema. And only two or three had seen the film before.

Now I don't know how many of you have seen Happy Feet. It has amazing animated sequences, brilliant music, fantastically choreographed dances and a stirring environmental message. Oh yeah - and it's really scary in parts. Big, huge, teeth-coming-to-gobble-you-up scary.

Perfect for a 4 year old's first trip to the movies.

The lights went down, the crimson curtains opened and a little boy (let's just call him Expecto) stood up and yelled at the top of his noggin,

"Mrs. V I'm really scared!"

Only 2 more hours to go!

I called Expecto over and he sat on my knee for the rest of the film. I whispered reassurances in his ear, preempting what was about to happen and helping him understand what was going on. To be honest with you - it's not really a kids film, in my opinion. He, however, wasn't easily calmed down and he proceeded to shout questions in my ear the entire film. The thing is he kinda sprayed every time he opened his gob. I had to take my specs off several times to wipe them down. On top of that he had a cold. Not the streamy kind - the thick, gooey, block-your-nose-up kind so that when he wasn't spraying , he was sniffing.

Actually it was more like snorting. It was deeply unpleasant. But I'm a professional and poor Expecto was nervous.

By the end of the movie I wasn't sure if he'd taken in any of what had gone on. All I was sure of was that I needed to go home and disinfect my face and my right ear. Then the lights went up and we set off two by two to the designated parental meeting point. Expecto walked in front of me chatting to his best mate, Nutty.

"Did you like that movie?" asked Nutty.

"Ye-ah! I thought it was brilliant!" said Expecto, his spittle dissolving into the gentle Autumn drizzle as we marched on.

My job is sometimes damp but it's never dull.

As I was saying.....

So this morning I said 1) that it was my first blogiversary and 2) that I had to go to the dentist. The first is still true ; the second is now in the past tense.

I write to you now with a frozen face and minus one very healthy upper right 8 - that is my wisdom tooth. There was absolutely nothing wrong with it and it it really didn't sit well with me that I should pay someone to whip it out. But I am not a dental professional and my hygenist told me that because it was so tightly packed into my jaw, it was impossible to clean around and my gums were suffering because of it. Also its inclusion in my mouth has caused such over-crowding that my front teeth have started to cross (well in the last 10 years it's become more pronounced) and my jaw is out of alignment. So basically there's nothing wrong with my tooth but I'm promised that my mouth will be a prettier place because I've had it removed.

I feel a bit sorry for my tooth. It's sitting in a little white envelope now. It is freaky lookin' though. On the one end it just looks like what was in my mouth BUT THE OTHER END LOOKS LIKE A SHARK'S TOOTH. No kidding it's about 2 cms long and pointy. It's fraggin' enormous. No wonder it took two people to extract it!

I've had past experience of having a molar pulled where the anaesthetic didn't work so I was less than normal serene self when I went in - but, actually, as oral mutilation goes it was really painless. I have an Eastern European Dentist who is very nice but is somewhat limited in her vocabulary. This was the woman who after cleaning my petrified (then) 10-year-olds teeth said

"Now you brush two times ebbery day or I come take all out. OK? Good!"

Honestly I wasn't confident she was even going to give me an anaesthetic. But she did - one on the upper gum (so unpleasant) and another on the roof of my mouth (excruciating). And thankfully they worked well and quickly. She explained that the lower jaw is harder to freeze that the upper. And so it seems to be for me.

The following couple of minutes were just yuck. There was all this scraping and the dental assistant had to hold my head steady while the 6' tall Eastern European Dentist practically climbed into my mouth to get enough leverage to yank the damn thing. They might as well have used a vice. Still she spoke soothingly to me as my head tossed back and forth.

"You do werry well. Das good. Juss one more minute. GOT IT!"

Then before I knew it my mouth was packed with cotton and she was barking a list of instructions while I was handed my coat and ushered out. It took about 5 minutes in all.

"No eat for two hour. No eat anything hot after that or mouth will bleed. No hot drink too. If pain after anaesthetic juss take normal painkiller. You be fine. Any kvestions? No? Byeeeee!"

Then I was handing over my credit card and drooling down my chin.

So here I am - tealess. It's two O'clock in the afternoon and I haven't had anything since breakfast at 7.30 and I can't eat for another hour. I'm bloody starving.

And no tea for the rest of the day. Who'd have thought that going to the dentist could have such unpleasant consequences.

Happy Bloggiversary to me.