Hello everyone,

General:
After my references to poems and Rosemary’s contribution, I welcome you to the month that Ted Hughes described in his poem ‘November’ as “the month of the drowned dog.” Follow that!

Well maybe I’ll follow that with a comment about nanowrimo. Many of you will consider that I have more screws loose than a wonky table, but after my initial attempt (2004) at writing 50000 words in just 30 days to start off a novel, I look forward to it! Of course, it isn’t just a case of sitting there with a blank piece of paper at midnight on October 31st and thinking ‘what shall I write about?’. It’s a process that starts much earlier in the year with me thinking about story line, plot, and writing the character questionnaires that I find so useful.

After last year’s story about Orpheus and his chums in the archipelago that was East Anglia, I’ve started a follow-up story with some of those characters and a few new ones. How am I doing? At the time of writing this, I’m home free! Does it make sense? Possibly. Will I finish the other half of the story? Quite likely. But it’s important to remember that nowadays I have the time to devote to it. People with kids and jobs and other responsibilities are the heroes of this challenge.

Thanks to those who have bothered to think about October. Not the best month in the year, as far as I’m concerned.

I had a mail the other day from writingraw.com. This is an online group who offer a place to have your work on the net (“the you-tube of the literary world”). They hope that publishers might spot something good. I’ve been too wrapped up in other things to give it any real thought but I offer the option to you. If you want to show that you’ve approached the group through Alphawriters then contact ‘weeb’ (weeb@writingraw.com) and mention us – and let me know what happens.

Group story:
Not that I’m thinking about it at the moment (nanowrimo and all that!) but the group story might bite the dust this year as I’ve had only four people want to take part. Or have I lost responses among the folks confirming receipt of alphaday three? Any more? (Subject strip – ‘group story’)

Poems:
I’ts a shame that there haven’t been more poems. No arm twisting yet but it could follow soon. You have been warned!

Challenges:
I was interested by the comments about challenge one. And to think that Zena and I agonised over just one entry that we thought might miss the criteria when others decided that many (I think someone said nine) missed the given criteria! It all adds to the discussion about votes…

As for the league tables, they are totally meaningless after one challenge. But as soon as I have the scores from Rosemary, I shall send round some sort of guide to scores so far. Suffice it to say that the pattern of votes in challenge one made me use Olaf’s stars as bonuses – and I will continue to do so where appropriate.

I hope you’ve all voted now and sent your comments to Rosemary and decided who is guilty and told Tara that. Now you have Margie’s challenge to consider. By coincidence, when I was over in the UK recently I watched a BBC programme about children’s books. A series, I understand. The episode I saw was about illustrations and picture books. There was Mrs Tiggywinkle and Thomas the tank engine – I have copies from the late forties that have been well read and well thumbed by me and my kids. And they also spoke about Rosie’s Walk. A book we got our kids and is apparently a ‘classic’ (and well thumbed!). But the point of the programme was about how important illustrations are in stimulating imagination and conversation. I think Margie’s picture might just do that too!

And discussion about word counting. Now I think we could end up getting lost in the mysteries of the software we use (or soft-ware; or soft ware)… Under normal circumstances when our target is getting under a maximum number of words, then I don’t think we need to be overly worried, as Chris suggested in a recent mail. The situation about elisions, in my view, is that they need to fit (or not) into the scheme of the piece. I have characters in stories who use them and others who don’t. Just as in my writing, if I had said ‘…others who do not…’ it would look strange. It’s (whoops!) part of my style.

The hyphenation issue is more complex. Some spell-checks decide that a word could be hyphenated when the writer might want to write the word without a hyphen. Again, I would suggest, if it looks right; feels right; is a natural part of the writing, then hyphenate. And I view hyphenated words as one word – rightly or wrongly. But let’s (let us!) continue as we are for now – but other views are vital in advance of any consensus coming to light.

Finally...:
I was standing in a loo in a service area in the middle of France (too much info already) and there was an advert saying that 80% of service area users visit the loo; and shouldn’t I be advertising? And I started thinking about what you might advertise. A bonus point is coming the way of the person who offers the best product (hey, I haven’t thought about criteria yet) – real or fictitious; that you might advertise in a loo in a service area… (subject strip – “Loo”)

Best wishes all

- David