I make no claim to it being especially good, or an annual highlight to the poetry scene, (though my 27th Birthday Poem is the most read page on site – from people Googling for the exact words of the title I guess), its just a poem about my birthday and what the day means to me.

A Year to be Surpassed

A shadow fell over yesterday,
I turned twenty-eight,
It’s not that aging is bad,
But that another year has gone.

For every joy I’ve had to pay,
Yet seek joy come what may,
The same old slate,
Without a wipe date,
I will not say it was all sad,
And it didn’t make me mad.

The beast of success I did not slay,
My performance didn’t rate,
Yet for moments I am glad,
With a niece as lovely as a chiffon.

Another milestone be gone,
Next year I’ll have myself outdone.

©, Jonathan Lawrence 2010

P.S. I should add, as a cautionary note – I haven’t listed anything other than my niece being born as being explicitly good or bad. So I should note, that since my niece was born, I’ve enjoyed a fantastic time, being an uncle, thanks to some fortunate circumstances I’ve lived like a king, I’ve been to Prague, and I’ve come here to the Science Festival with some great people. Things like this were the moments I am glad for – just in case anyone thinks that I think I should be so rich and fortunate in life that the past two or three months have been less than notable.

When I think about it, it is quite strange that my niece coming into this world has marked such a massive turn around for my year, right at the end. However, life returns back to normal from here on in, I need to to start saving to make next year that bit more magical, all year round.

So to all my family and friends who have provided the highlights to my year, those moments I am glad for, have helped keep me sane when all else might have rendered me mad – I would like to say thank you. I hope I can do the same for you.

So the new project, it’s currently titled Journals of a Space Corsair, and is a sci-fi piece. Inspired by the concept of the Bio of a Space Tyrant novels by Piers Anthony, which I read recently, and once I finished reading those books, I also read Michael Crichton’s Pirate Latitudes, between the two of them, this whole science fiction universe of mine was inspired and created in my mind. What’s more is I’ve been able to put it into words, something I’ve struggled to do for the past eighteen months.

It’s a nice feeling, not too many words just yet, but just passed the 20,000 mark in two weeks so that’s a comfort.

The way I’m doing this project is blog posts, it’s an auto-biography, so I’m going to write it as a series of confessionals, the man’s story in his own words, detailing his good deeds, but mostly his crimes, the lifestyle he led, and the suffering he brought and received. The hardest part is not giving in to my tendency to make the character a flawed good guy, or to have the character swing from bad to good. I’m trying to write something that reflects a man, and not an archetype from a TV series. That isn’t to say there isn’t an arc, in fact there’s a pretty big one, and my aim is the character goes from illegality to legitimacy, and then back to illegality. Times are turbulent, wars rise up and allegiances change.

I do feel the need to acknowledge Piers Anthony, and Michael Crichton, as their books are a massive influence on this story, it was their books that really lit my imagination on fire.

From Michael Crichton I tried to take a sense of how pirates actually operated, and in many ways how the new world worked, the trade routes between the colonial lands, the stopping off points like Jamaica, which I’ve tried to translate the spirit of into worlds and space stations.

From Piers Anthony, obviously I’ve tried to take the format, the fictional autobiography of a significant figure in future history, I’m also borrowing some of the technology he mentions in his books, the travelling via a beam of light, over massive distances, which is as reasonable a way to explain interstellar travel as any. Of course it is fraught with its own difficulties in a story that takes place in real time, with politics, wars, and tactics – I can’t really afford it taking decades to travel from one planet to the other. Instead, I shall embellish the idea with faster than light energy – so it takes days and weeks to travel between the stars.

I think it is important to acknowledge where a story comes from – it is not my intention to plagiarise these amazing authors, but they have inspired within me a tale which I think is unique and distinct in its own right. Besides when it comes to science fiction, it’s never easy to come up with easy ideas for propulsion, and story telling in general tends to form into archetypes. I think that’s one of the advantages of writing an account of a self confessed bad guy, while not ground breaking or unique, it is a point of view that is carried far less often than that of a hero, heroically battling to save the world.

My intention is to post up a chapter (and if I write it right, it will be more of a self contained short story, which feeds into the overall tale), every fortnight, detailing a significant memory of this space corsair. I won’t be launching it right away, as I want to build up four or five chapters ahead, this gives me a nice cushion with which to edit the stories (because while the muse does flow, it tends not to check the grammar for me, nor does it worry about the annoying inconsistencies of writing large pieces of work in small bits). Also, my sister’s baby is due next month, I’m on holiday in Prague in August, and I’m off to the British Science Festival in Birmingham this September, so there’s plenty to interrupt my schedule.

Speaking of the British Science Festival, I’m really looking forward to it, it feeds a lot of knowledge in my science fiction, such as the power system for the ships in my story – I learned that from a presentation I went to on fusion energy, I always favoured the methodology employed in the tokamak fusion generators, rather than the method involving lasers, purely because it seems to me that once such devices as ITER are operational and producing massive quantities of energy, we would be able to learn from this and scale the process down to have a device that can sit aboard a starship and produce the kind of energy I need for propulsion, FTL (faster than light) travel, and of course the staple of most space based science fiction, the weapons.

I am genuinely excited to be writing again, and long may it continue. Nanowrimo is in November (it’s always in November, hardly a surprise there), and this year I’m going to ace it. Mark my words.

Two thousand words dropped for nowt, and probably another thousand to erase the second mistake.

I do have a plan though, and it is a cunning plan, go back again and undo the difficulties, limit the protaginists psychological difficulties (which are what would take too long in the time wise to deal with), but keep the secondary character. Kind of a sidekick to help out my protaginist through the couple of days recovery he needs (I’ve also undone shooting him in the legs, and instead had the bullet nick his brachial artery).

This should mean my character is less on his own, and has more interaction, and I can up the humour a bit. I’d much rather my characters were funny people than the narrative, or situations. Gallows humour is good, especially in procedural crime writing.

So, recovery is in sight – but I do have some monster writing sessions between now and this Saturday. Which is fine, I don’t mind the pressure, it’s only when deadlines become tight that I really put my foot on the gas and blast those monster wordcounts out. I had hoped this year woukd be different – but events conspired against me.

Meeting up with other NaNoWriMo’ers helps – it’s where I found mysels thinking out the solution to my plot problems. It was a good meet up on Sunday, (7th November 2009), some new faces and old. It’s enough to make you believe writers are generally smart, talented, driven people, who are genuinely nice, friendly, and social – until you remember I was there , brutish talentless oaf that I am.

The only way to hit 100,000 is going to be by being diligent, and erm… Deadlining with an all nighter on Friday – yes my bad, but we each have our ways of writing afterall.

In my defence (against myself, since I’m my own harshest critic), there has been a lot of drama to trip me up along the way. From car thefts, work, and family – all neatly working their way into my writing time, and mindset.

I shouldn’t be bothered, the plan was for 20,000 a weekend, with and extra 5,000 on a Friday, and we’ve not had a full weekend yet – but I want to do more, be faster stronger as a writer.

I’m not helping myself however, trying to exercise and write at the same time isn’t easy, and it’s taking it’s toll. The Friday just gone, I should have done 5,000 words, instead I slept. Oops, my bad.

It just means today (Saturday) I have to hit 15,000 to be sure of my targets.

Actually, I do realise I’m being unfair, everytime I think about it, I ramp up the amount of words I need to do each week (and subsequently each day), because of how badly I’m doing. It’s not just to contemplate for being bad now, it’s to compensate for things being just as hard later. I know that if I could get away with it, I would probably set myself a target of 50,000 words a day this weekend. Which isn’t unachievable really – think about it, assuming I slept for 12 hours, out of the 48, and wrote for the rest – I’d only need to achieve 52 words per minute consistently.

Of course, that’s not likely since I’m here writing this, oops. 15,000 today and tomorrow is fine – it’ll get me to 42% of my target, which does give me room to relax for the rest of the month.

I am my own hardest task master… I’ve as many psychological issues as my main character – but he’s paranoid delusional, since I started writing his life has now gone quite psychotic. The irony is, I didn’t mean to do that, all I did was shoot him, and he’s gone nuts. Oops.

So now I’ve got to get him functional, get him out of hospital, and somehow have him run (a bullet passed through both thighs, and at one point he starts bleeding out). Oh hum – well here goes.

The good thing with a 100,000 word count target, if I don’t finish this in 50,000 I can push it to 60,000 and then have a nice shorter to finish the challenge with.

And if you think I’m a harsh task master this year? Next year will be 50% harder… and you don’t even want to know about the year after that.

It started at midnight, and so did I, or close enough (what I actually did was start the procastination early, by waiting an hour to start while I worked on a spreadsheet to track my writing… erm oops). Anyway, today I went to Café Latino in Leeds, met up with another writer doing NaNoWriMo, and we got to work properly on writing our novels.

I’d like to say I’m target, but I’m about four thousand words short as it stands, and annoyingly I’m currently averaging a very poor, and very slow four hundred and fifty three words an hour, I’m not really sure why, the ideas there. Hopefully when a few more characters turn up, and we get some good interaction (not just phone calls), the words will start to flow.

My ideal is to do ten thousand words a day at weekends, with an extra five thousand on a Friday night. Now I know this isn’t entirely sustainable, which is where week nights come in, they’re my bonus rounds where I can pick a few extra on the word counts, but I can also take some time to create and organise notes, drawings, and do plans to help me at the weekends. The weekend and Fridays plan brings me to my target of one hundred thousand words, across two stories – and thats where I need to focus my efforts.

I don’t really need to feel too bad about not hitting target today, this Sunday is an extra, above and beyond the plan, so any words today, just help take a bit of pressure off later on. However, aside from a few chores, and writing this entry I’ll be writing right up until bedtime. Sadly this year there won’t be any bus writing, my little netbook is still out of order (bang out of order as it were), and I’m confined to using my seventeen inch monster laptop which is just about portable, if I’m writing in a café, or some such, not really something I can sit on a bus with.

I am feeling really confident about this year though, I’ve got a good plan, and some great ideas. There’s a lot of pressure, but I write better with pressure, its how I made it last year,  when I did 80% of my novel in just ten days, right at the end.

I’m going to try and fit in time to keep writing here, this is what my blog is for, writing, and discussing writing, and this is the month I’m going to be doing lots of it, so i’ll have plenty to discuss.

To all everyone doing NaNoWriMo out there, I wish you all the best of luck.

Why would anyone put themselves through that? Is it worth being a writer if you are not very good at it, and in fact can not write a blessed thing? It is without a doubt a masochistic tendency of writers to try and write through writers block. However it is worth it.

What I’m trying to do at the moment is warm up to NaNoWriMo, I’m taking on the insane challenge of entering twice this year. Two targets of 50,000 words – which I’m definitely capable of achieving, but only if I write. Indeed daily its a requirement of about 4,000 words (with room for creative breaks).

So banging my head against a brick wall ia just warm up, next month I’ll be peddling a bike at twenty miles per hour into brick walls, and clinging on for dear life in the hopes I don’t get knocked off in the process.

I’m confident though, because despite the block, the ink is flowing. It might only be hundreds of words a day, but clearly that its any words per day after struggling with none is a great thing.

Bring on the impossible challenges. Speaking of which, throughout November, to help push myself I’m going to be giving myself little challenges, characters, and scenarios to include in the stories I write. There are already some over at NaNoWriMo.org: York & Leeds for my region. Will keep you posted on how that goes, and feel free to suggest challenges at me, the more the merrier.

If you enjoy it, let me know – but likewise if you have constructive feedback I’d welcome that too.

Later, I’ll be using this poem as one of the sources for a post about editing poetry, so you never know, I may be back with a better version yet – but I still love this one.

Spider Poem

Have you ever taken a moment out of your day,

To watch something truly unimpressive,

Yet overwhelmingly inspiring all the same?

You might never consider it worthwhile to say,

Events so small it’s easy to be dismissive,

If you discard it I think you should feel shame.

An event of such minor proportions happened to me,

So life alteringly small,

It unlocked a door to my soul,

And something changed within.

It started with a visit to the loo,

Hardly an auspicious opening,

But I was stuck transfixed to what I saw.

A spider of insignificant tall,

Trapped in the bath bowl,

Myths say forever trapped therein.

It tried and tried with web of glue,

Of this castle it was not destined to king,

With no regard to mythological law,

With as much chance of escape as a ball,

And remember no digging, it’s not a mole,

This spider free of thoughtful sin.

It could climb so far then fall,

Web attached it would roll,

No more than a silent din.

I felt this littlest of heroes would try till it was blue,

It would never throe the towel into the ring,

Like a drowning man, desperate to reach the shore.

I am in awe that it would not let it’s fate just be,

It answered life’s challange with dignity and a call,

And finally, or most orgasmically, ended was it’s toll,

It won it’s mighty quest to the envy of it’s kin.

A much larger spider had watched and did stay,

A coward, but in its size it was impressive,

it didn’t matter though the little one won this game.

Nothing now stopped this little spider may,

It climbed a shampoo bottle, then the wall its complete missive,

The little spider inspired my writing and this poem came.

Have you ever taken a moment out of your day,

To watch something truly unimpressive,

Yet overwhelmingly inspiring all the same?

I did and it truly did dividends pay,

And the time it took may seem excessive,

But I was changed, no longer the writer eternally lame.

©, Jonathan Lawrence 2009

Woe betide that flow being broken. That’s what happened to me, having suffered a series of technical set backs, and professional distractions, I lost my flow with this blog, and writing in general. My attention snapped. It’s not a nice place to be, I’ve not written much in the past two weeks, which is a travesty when you consider I’ve had two weeks holiday in that time, and didn’t go anywhere.

I feel bad, I should have done more – but life isn’t always that simple. Besides, what’s done, is done. I can’t change it, I don’t know the secrets of controlled time travel. I can only move forwards and hope to reccapture my wayward writing spirit.

Suffice to say I’m back, I may not be as prolific, but I’m going to write again.

Disaster of a Dream

Soaring high above the world,
Glorious hue of unadultered blue,
Wisps of clouds stretching far beneath,
Breaks of green, and brown, and blue,
I am free, nothing can ever get to me here.

Feeling secure here, I swirled,
Blinded by beauty, I never had a clue,
My flight is at an end, I fall towards heath,
Panic flairs, my joy now seesm untrue,
I am trapped, falling to my death in fear.

Without warning, I am curled,
My workplace, twisted and strange,
An assault of vaunted ceilings, and a scary bar,
Signs of the office I know in the range,
I flee, this new world is out to get me.

The scene to Birmingham I’m hurled,
All about me recognised in change,
I bump into a scarey person with a scar,
He grabs me, we fall down a derange,
I hold on, he continues to fall free.

©, Jonathan Lawrence 2009

Now just a bit about this poem :

This poem is a half truth, if I’m honest to the best of my recollection I have never had a dream like that in the first half,  (Soaring high above the world), but I wish I had. The second half on the other hand is all too true, this was a dream I had not long since, it woke me up, and I was seriously freaked out.  I don’t often remember dreams, just one or two a month. When I woke up, and calmed down, I decided I wanted to remember this nightmare, so I grabbed my trust E71, and furioulsy typed the events of my dream. It wasn’t easy at 3:30am with no light, but I did it, and as a result, the nightmare has been with me since.

The notes I have are far more detailed than this poem, this poem just scratches the surface, I’ve got descriptions for everyone, and dialogue, more thoughts, more feelings – but if I wanted to retell the nightmare exactly, I would probably lose something in translation.

I would have liked another part of this poem, unfortunately the consistent rhyme based on the word "world", didn’t go as far as I would have liked. I know poetry doesn’t have to rhyme, but sometimes a rhyme keeps a focus. I could go back and abandon it, but then it’s spoilt my initial outpouring. I may post up a second version tonight that’s edited – but in this case the edit would be a similar be seperate poem to my mind, and heat.

I’m one of those writers that are blessed with hardcore imagination. Ideas come easy to me, anything can trigger an idea. There isn’t any work involved in shaping the imagination, if I let it just run wild, and I can reconjure an imaginar episode with just a few mental or physical prompts.

Of course if I want to shape this into a story I have to harness it, and that requires a great deal if force.

I imagine whole world’s in my head, a litany of characters, intensive situations, there’s detail o’plenty, as a character slams into a building, I’ll be stood at the bus stop opposite, I’ll see every half broken brick, and bits of mortar. As the protagonists of my imagination move closer for that all but inevitable kiss, I can see it happening, I can see the lines in the woman,s lips, I can see the guys forced face as he struggles not to go too fast, he wants to project a certain image with that kiss, and I see the car speeding towards them, the one who’ll brake hard, and speed away, the moment spoiled. The driver by the way has brown hair, a blue denim jacket, and was smoking – he’s actually fleeing the scene of a crime, which he had nothing to do with, but he’s got form and doesn’t want to go back to jail on a mistake.

The reason it needs to be strong armed is two-fold, firstly my imagination can run rampant at the worst time, I can easily switch between genre’s, decades (even centuries), and characters, it takes practice to keep it on track. The second reason is writing for a mythical readership, I love my imagination – most of the time it’s better than TV, but it’s to my tastes (most of the time, there are occaisionally things I can’t stand, and even offend me), however whether it’s to the taste of a reading audience I’m less sure. Therefore if I want to write an imaginary scene it has to be guided, and then censored and modified further as it flows from the pen.

There is of course another downside, an overly rampant imagination can completely change tracts, starting a whole new story when your only part way through the current one. This does happen frequently, and usually coincides with me losing the will to write. You put all that effort in, and lose the zone for that story, it’s a terrible thing, you’re not interest in the new scene unfolding – or rather not interested in writing. I have to find a way back to the original imaginary story, if I want to continue. That’s one of the things I had to learn during NaNoWriMo last year.

Most of the time, me and the left side of brain are usually on excellent terms, feeding things between us. Living the ideal life, the scary life, the exciting life, the romantic life, and the mysterious life.

The final great thing is I find it wasy to roll into an imaginary story details from research and such.I’m a sponge for information, and I can squeeze me out and spread them over my stories. So if I’ve read something about a theoretical form of space travel, and find myself in need of a mechanism to travel through space, (in my story, if only I could craft the real world as easily as my story ones), I draw through the details, and give my world a touch of realism that sets it shooting for wherever it needs to go.

My imagination is my most treasured asset as a writer, were I to lose that, were I to go in life without that – I honestly would rather be dead.