Morning, London, November

[dotinthesky]

Morning, London
Originally uploaded by dan mogford

I've been waking up nearly every day at 6.30am to do my NaNoWriMo. London is dark but from my kitchen window I can see a pink glow in the eastern horizon and light reflecting off the skyscrappers in Canary Wharf. Steam escapes from their flashing top - nearly all their windows brighly lit - and I wonder if there are Polish cleaners finishing a shift just before the suits arrive. The towers look in pain from the cold.

It's warm in our flat despite the heaters being off (we live far up so everyone else's heat rises towards us). I brew some coffee after a shower and eat toast while sitting by the window. A colony of seagulls circles the same stretch of land in Bethnal Green each day. The Gherkin looks dark while the rest of the city awakes. I turn on BBC Radio 3 and there's always some perky classical composition. I try to concentrate on the blank page and get the pen going. I shake my head in annoyance if the radio starts playing an organ piece (sign of a bad day to come.) I leave the computer turned off because computers are the writer's modern curse.

Everything in my life feeds into NaNoWriMo. The latin names of plants I'm learning for my horticulture course, songs from the 80s, a film I saw two days ago on Israel's war with Lebanon, and even dreams. When I'm finished at the end of this month, I'll read through my notes from back to front and type out only the passages or sentences I like. These will be the starting points of scenes and chapters of a second draft, which hopefully will be more coherent and well written.

I wonder if my stories would be less melancholy if I was doing NaNoWriMo in Brasil, where summer has already arrived.

Comments

[verybadhorse.livejournal.com]

i cannot wait to read it. :)

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

I really hope to have it completed one day so I can share it with you.

[naturalbornkaos.livejournal.com]

I would also very much like to read your NaNoWriMo one of these days.

I've been doing a bit of early morning pre-work writing myself recently. It's oddly working quite well, although it does all seem to be permeated with a slight air of wintry melancholy.

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

I'd like to keep the routine going until summer and see if my mood will change then - do you think yours would too?

By the way, this might interest you (was forwarded to me by Vicky): http://www.shortlistpress.com/

[naturalbornkaos.livejournal.com]

I don't know. I imagine I'll still be working on this novel come summer so we'll see. ;) That said, I started it in July and I think definitely it feels a little more like the bits I'm writing now are sadder than the bits I was writing then...

Ooh, thanks for the link. They sound promising. I will need to find something "literary" and of an appropriate word count! :D

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

I'm sure you won't have any problem! Your writing would probably be more popular for downloads than typical "literary" stuff.

[jellyfish93.livejournal.com]

oh how wonderful! put me on the reader list.

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

Cool. All this interest will spur me on to complete it! How are things going your way?