mind's wandering again...

today, i typed approximately 2,750 words. that's about 5 days' worth.  not bad.  happy with this.  tomorrow, i may see if i can repeat the feat, and make it 5,000.  odd how easy it is when i ignore the siren call of twitter, innit?...  also, at a running total of 32,00 words, i finally got round to backing it up on a memory stick.  show's you what i feel about this one, when compared to the last one, which i backed up every time i wrote any more.  or maybe i now trust my slightly shaky and delicate laptop not to do something catastrophic?  personally, i think it's probably the former.  not that there isn't some (to me, at least) good stuff in the new one (i'm particularly fond of the clowns - they are what started this one, after all), but ...  Oh, i dunno.  i think there are at least some of my treaders (hah! all ten of 'em!) who may be disappointed having read the first one.  and the first third REALLY needs a kick up the arse.  but that is a problem for later.  right now, i'm actually quite enjoying the story.  i may even post a little of it here, if i get around to it - and if i think anyone else may want to read it.

(*re-reads what has just written* hmmm...three sets of brackets in the first paragraph. i may get told off for that...)

now i have a headache, possibly from typing, but more likely from how much i smoke when i'm typing (or writing, for that matter).  bad girl, squeaky!  :(  really, at my age, you'd think i would know better.  especially since my mum glories in the story of the time when i was at a neighbour's house party and, at four years old,  proudly and vehemently told a lady who had just produced a cigarette "If you smoke, you'll die!"
i was that sort of kid.
the lady in question apparrently said "Well, that's told ME." and returned the cigarette to its packet.  history is silent on whether she took my four-year-old's advice to heart.  probably not, though.

so, unless we acquire another judge, it seems i won the competition.  this makes me happy, of course it does.  but it feels a bit weird, too.  like i'm an impostor, or something.  like somebody's going to sneak up behind me and whip the mask off and expose me for being one with a writing well the depth of a puddle.  i guess i'm reasonably good at describing scenes.  i certainly enjoy it, a lot, and i had the most marvellous fun with the competition.  but it's the finding of the stories, and the stringing together of them, and the dialogue (*groan* the dialogue! i'm sooo bad at it, and i *hate* having to write it!).  i keep expecting the well to suddenly run dry and to be left on the bottom, flopping and gasping like a dying fish, whilst the slime of centuries drips around me.  and as for doing something original, or telling it in an original way - forget it!  i am too forgetful (or lazy, more likely) for proper plotting, multiple storylines, or the gradual reveal.  too instinctive.  no sense of structure.  i just write, and see where my pen takes me.  sometimes this is good - someties bad.  often indifferent.  but i do kind of enjoy writing that way, too - seeing where the story will lead me.  it's almost like the reading of another person's novel.  i just wander down the path, going "Oooo!" at any wonders i'm shown along the way.  when i was writing this one, for instance, i got an image in my head of how i write.  i will share it with you, dear reader, and hope it makes some sort of sense:

imagine a windy day.  there is a girl, standing on a bright and grassy hillside.  for some reason, she has long, dark hair, a slender, willowy build, and beautiful, creamy skin.  in her hands, she holds a long, long strip of red chiffon, a couple of feet wide.  she is holding this chiffon by the corners of one end, and it is the unwritten story.  it is fluttering and weaving sinuously in the wind.  as i  write the story, the words i put onto the page gradually appear on the edges of the chiffon as stones the colour of the sky, weighing it to the ground along its length.  the end of the chiffon continues to dance in the wind, but the story as it is written, it gradually lays down a red path on the hillside, and the dancing portion becomes less and less until i finally write "The End".

and now, The Most Wonderful Woman In The World has arrived with her two adorable lurchers, so i must stop.