Magic Falls - Part Nine

Back to Contents

Shane Smith looked out at the audience, and then back at the man.

“Well,” he said with a smile developing across his face. “I’m not sure if you want me to tell them that…”

The audience laughed, and the man laughed as well.

Just keep talking and get through this he thought to himself. Then you can decide what to do. Just keep talking. Figure it out as you go. Don’t freeze.

 “Wait,” he said with a puzzled look, before looking back to the audience with raised eyebrows. “She was how old?”

Again, the audience laughed, and the man laughed along with it, as he heard the man’s internal response.

“Oh, my mistake,” he said. “She was twenty-three, wasn’t she?”

That got a reaction from him. Not much, but the smile was replaced by concern, and then the concern was gone and he was smiling again.  But Shane could see that the smile no longer reached his eyes.

“She was,” the man replied.

“And how old were you? Thirty-two? Eight? Somewhere in-between….” He didn’t need to hear the response here. He’d fallen back on cold-reading instead. And the easiest way to cold read was when someone specifically didn’t want to give you an answer. If you knew what you were looking for, you could see their attempts to avoid reacting clearly.

He still heard the answer, but that wasn’t the point. The point right now was in keeping him just on-edge enough to get the questions that he needed to ask threaded into an otherwise innocuous part of the show.

It’s just a show for now. But you may not easily get him in a position where you can ask him questions elsewhere. So keep him talking, keep him answering.

He deliberately got the man’s age wrong, and was gratified when he nodded at the wrong answer. It meant he was playing along. And it meant he’d started lying.

This was good.

“What colour underwear was she wearing?” He asked, to a few gasps in the audience, and this time he went for the joke answer rather than the real one. It was enough for the man to stop thinking that Shane actually had something, and he relaxed.

From there, it was mostly simple. He turned the routine into a joke, using the questions to suggest that the woman had been a prostitute, and it had happened in a back alleyway somewhere in Brighton. The man played along with the joke, allowing Shane to ask his questions with a smile and a wink.

This allowed him to ask the right questions, and get answers. He had her name and where he last saw her.

He wrapped up the segment, and moved onto the rest of the show, noting where the man sat. And when the show was over, he spoke to the Box Office, and found out who had sat there.

When he got back to the hotel that night, he looked up her name and details online. She’d gone missing years ago. The news of her disappearance had circulated briefly, and then the world had moved on.

While he had him on stage, he’d asked where he’d last seen her, and a place had flashed into his mind. A sense of location, strong and definite, as if he’d known it all his life.

He brought up that location online and looked at it. It was in a forest, not far from the road. Where he’d buried her.

He wondered if she was still there.

He looked at the information he had about the man. His name and address. He didn’t know what to do with it.

The man had been calm and collected, mostly. He knew he’d got away with it, and he was enjoying it.

Shane didn’t know if he’d done it again. He may have. Or perhaps he’d only done it the once, savouring it for the rest of his life.

It didn’t feel like something he could go to the police about. It would be ignored. It was too insane a conversation to start.

He walked to the window of his hotel room, and looked out over the city.

There was a lot on the line for him. If he came out about this new ability he had, it would put him forward for all kinds of scrutiny.

If he kept quiet, and maybe dropped anonymous clues, he could hope that the police would look into it. That they’d take the cue and start the investigation. And meanwhile, he’d just concentrate on using his gift to make him famous and rich.

But he knew they wouldn’t. Not for a case this long dead, and they wouldn’t excavate with no evidence of her body being there.

And he couldn’t just leave it. He couldn’t live with himself if he did that.

A few hours later, the blog post was finished. An accusation. Names, dates and places.

He would take it public. Put the man on the defensive, and encourage his social media followers to pressure the police to take it seriously.

He would offer himself under any test conditions with regards to his abilities. He wouldn’t ignore it. He would shout about it.

Let the Genie out of the bottle. Put himself out there. And prove his abilities in order to defend himself.

He knew that his life would change after this. He’d never had to deal with the police before, not properly. 

But now he would throw himself in front of a murder enquiry.

His finger hovered over the touchpad on his netbook, and he almost changed his mind. Almost allowed himself to give into fear. Almost backed off completely.

And then he pressed ‘Enter’.

He sat back, looking at the screen and wondered if he’d just thrown his career away. Or even his life. But he'd chosen to take something insane public.

He switched the computer off and lay down. He wanted to sleep, but couldn't.


Part Ten

Magic Falls Part Eight

Back to Contents

The magician looked at the audience and then faltered.

It was the first time he’d ever hesitated in such a way on stage. Not that he’d always done everything smoothly and perfectly throughout his career, but he usually covered it by talking.

That was the way he dealt with everything. To talk, quickly  and at length. All it took was a mention of anything that he had a vague knowledge of, and he would start talking about it like an athlete seconds after a starting pistol had been fired until either something stopped him or (more likely) his flow of conversation turned onto something else that he knew more about and he would simply start talking about that at length instead.

He usually had to tone it down when on-stage. As nervous as silence made him, it was better than projecting the image of someone that self-asborbed. Although, he didn’t really understand that accusation – talking was something he did unconsciously as much as anything else.

And yet, here he was in front of thousands of people, and unable to think of a thing to say. Because of the three little words he’d just heard.

As they tend to say about these things, Shane Smith's overnight success came as a result of years of discipline and study. He’d sacrificed his social life in his late teens, and continued to sacrifice it throughout most of his twenties.

The regular late nights and travel, usually for no money meant that it was difficult for him to keep up friendships, let alone relationships. He slept in a lot of hotel rooms, although this was a step up from his first years in his job, when he spent a lot of nights sleeping on benches in train stations waiting for the first morning train back home.

But he was hard-working, dedicated and stubborn, and these qualities led to him developing his burgeoning talent at magic into something impressive. And he matched it with stage-presence, which made him easy to watch and enjoy.

The first series of his television programme had aired the previous year, and added a zero to his per-show asking figure. A far cry from his early years, performing magic in the streets in a way more fitting to a busker. Although he had to admit that he’d enjoyed the pitch in Covent Garden that had led to him becoming more recognised and (as a result) bookable.

He ended up combining magic and stand-up comedy when he took his show “Smith, The F***ing Magnificent” to Edinburgh (a solid four star show according to The Scotsman, although The Stage hated it and only gave it one – “diverting enough, but boring between tricks. He’s not a comedian”), and that slowly led to bigger things.

Eventually, Shane Smith became a star. And every time someone heard of him for the first time, they didn’t see all the work that he’d put in, and they thought he’d come out of nowhere.

Money was the most obvious change, and Shane was now much more than comfortable. Influence was also new, as he found with his obscene amount of followers on social media. He controlled his online persona carefully, and did use it to highlight causes which were important to him.

But he was lonely. He didn’t know how to start relationships outside of short term and highly physical ones. 

He didn’t have many close friends. Oh, acquaintances, yes. Many of them. But most of them saw the stage persona first and foremost, and the person behind them afterwards.

He was also constantly torn apart by anxiety. He avoided going to the Doctor, as he didn’t want the diagnosis of depression that he knew was underlying a lot of his unhappiness. As much as medication may help him control some of his emotions and moods, it wouldn’t help him meet anybody, and it wouldn’t help anyone get to know him better. Instead, he self-medicated with alcohol, cocaine and one-night stands that started in bars. All three had the unfortunate side-effect of making him feel guilt and consumed with self-loathing afterwards.

Mind-reading was a big part of his act now. Ever since Derren Brown had revolutionised the magic scene, it was something that basically became a requirement for magicians. He was good at it as well, combining cold-reading with constantly leading the subject on-stage to the words that he wanted them to say.

He had different versions of his acts. The family-friendly one, which he used on day-time TV and street shows (which he still did occasionally, as they were worth more in social media and goodwill than any other kind of advertising), the matey-risque one, which he usually performed on evening shows, and the much ruder one which he did for university shows and holiday shows (although they were the least-performed now, as they could on longer keep up with his asking prices, and he was glad of it. Far too many hecklers at those shows).

It was a point where his motor-mouthed tendencies worked in his favour. His ability to lead people to the answers he wanted them to give was obscured by the talking he did around it. That was the point where he got laughs to disguise the work he was actually doing.

Up until a few weeks ago.

A few weeks ago, everything changed.

A few weeks ago, he brought someone onstage, and when he asked them to think of an animal, he heard it, loud and clear, as if they’d said it.

At first, he thought they had said it.

Instead, he ran through other questions, and each time, he heard the answer. No leading, no cold reading, nothing. And the same thing happened with anyone he tried it with.

He knew immediately what to do. He used it to make his act better. To perform acts of mind-reading that even his peers couldn’t begin to fathom.

He wouldn’t just be rich. He would become the most famous magician in the world. The human lie-detector. 

He could ask anything, in any conditions. The ultimate mind-reader.

He was testing it and pushing it further, when he performed a show in a large theatre in Bristol. He started asking cheeky questions about relationships, working out if this was something which he could use on his next TV show – add in an element that involved sex, and get some of that Jeremy Kyle money.

“So, what I want you to do is to close your eyes, and think about the night you lost your virginity – “ (wait for audience laughter) “ – even if there wasn’t much to remember… even if it was last week…” (wait for audience laughter) “ – and I’ll tell you a detail you’ve never told anyone before.”

The man was well-dressed and casual in front of the audience, and was even quick witted and charming, and Shane was expecting his mind to go somewhere like a place, or underwear references, or bursting into tears afterwards, or premature ejaculation, but what he got was three words.

“I killed her.”

And all of a sudden, Shane Smith had nothing to say.


Part Nine

Magic Falls Part Seven

Back to Contents

“What…the hell are you talking about?”

“I know it’s a lot to take in.” I say.

She stands up. “You’re making fun. I can’t believe you’re making fun in a conversation like this.”

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“I’m not, I promise. I know how it sounds, but I’m not.”

Her face creases  with hurt and anger, and she brings a hand to her mouth as she begins to cry. “I’ve tried, Darren. I’ve tried so bloody hard, but – “

“I know you have.” I don’t mean to interrupt her, but I want this conversation to get back on track so we can start to actually deal with this.

“Is it me? Is it something I’ve done? I mean, God, I – I’ve done everything I can to support you.”

I stand up, and move around to her, putting my arms around her. “Nina, I’m not lying. I know how it sounds, but I’m telling the truth.”

She laughs derisively and pushes me back, not letting me hold her. “You’re a time traveller. You’ve come back from the future, so you can…what, exactly?”

“I came back to try to change things.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“Please, sit down for a bit and hear me out.” I say.

She sits, but looks utterly distraught and miserable. I realise that, from her point of view, this looks like I’m trying my best to destroy our relationship.

Why is it that everything I’ve tried to sort out has gone wrong since I came back? It’s like the world is actively resisting any attempts to change, but is doing so by changing everything around me.

It gnaws away at my brain that this is actually plausible.

I sit down next to her, and after a little hesitation, I try to explain.

“Magic is real,” I say to her. “The whole thing with the lottery. The ravens…. It’s all connected, and it’s all real. It’s not  a con and it isn’t a coincidence. It’s all…going to escalate.”

She looks at me, and I see all the anger and all the hurt suddenly vanish and become replaced with concern and fear.

“Oh God, you’ve had a breakdown.”

“I haven’t.”

“We need… we’ll get you help, okay? This is… we’ll find you help. We can go to the hospital now. Right now. We’ll get you help.”

“It’s going to escalate and… I came back for you, okay? I came back for you.” I shouldn’t be telling her this, but I can feel my own panic beginning to rise.

“When I was younger, my Mum had a breakdown. It’s not something I talked about much, and I know I’ve hinted at it, but she did, and…” She is talking quickly now and trying to gasp for breath. “She was okay. In the end. It took time, but she was okay. My Dad, my brother and sister, and me… we did everything we could, and we supported her, and it worked. It worked then, so me and you…. We can make this work.”

“I didn’t know that about your Mum. I’m sorry about that.” I say.

“I know. And I can tell you all about it, but my point was that…” She wipes her eyes. “…we can deal with this.”

“I shouldn’t have told you this. I’m sorry.”

“No, I’m glad you did,” she says. “This… at least it’s a start, right? We’re talking about it, and that’s good.”

I reach out to her and this time she lets me hold her, and for a moment I consider lying to her. I consider the idea that I could agree that I’m burnt out and that I’m trying to argue with her, and that yes, we can work on this, and that gives me an out on this, and it gives me space and it gives me a way to deal with this without involving Nina any further. Yet, anyway.

But if I do that, I’m going to keep doing what I’ve been doing since I came back. I’m going to keep doing things wrong. I’m going to keep wanting things to just stay as they are, and I’m going to keep making mistakes.

“Nina, I’m telling the truth. And if you don’t believe me now, you’ll start seeing things that will back me up. You just need to look for them.”

“Oh God,” she says, holding me tightly. “We’ll work on this, I promise.”

“I’ll prove it.” I say, pulling back a little and getting her to look at me. I want her to see my eyes, and know that I’m telling her the truth.

“You can’t prove it, Darren,” she says. “There’s no such thing as… as time travel. It’s insane.”

“Right, okay…” I say. “How’s this? How about I tell you something that that I can’t know, because the first time around, I didn’t know about it, but this time, I know. Because it happened later, but I know about it now.”

“You’re not making any sense,” she says.

“I’ll tell you something that I can’t know yet. And if I’m right, you give me the benefit of the doubt.”

She thinks it over. I can see it going through her mind. She’s humouring me. “Okay.”

Please don’t let this be different this time. Please don’t let this be one of the things that’s changed.

“Okay, you…” I freeze. It isn’t fair of me to do this to her, but I feel that I have to. I have to get her to believe me. “You haven’t told me about this yet.”

She frowns, discomfort spreading across her face, followed immediately by fear. “Oh God.”

“You’re pregnant. You found out two weeks ago. You haven’t told anyone, and you threw the test away.”

“How…?”

“Nina, I’m telling the truth.” I say. “That’s how I know.”

Her eyes are wide as she looks at me. She looks scared. Scared of me.

Without a further word, she stands up and walks out of the room. Leaving me sitting there, totally unsure if I've done this right or completely wrong.

Twitter - the new search leader?

I found that the way I use the internet has changed because of Twitter.

The other day, I received a phone call from Empire Magazine. Sadly, they weren’t reporting on a million-pound battle over the rights to Magic Falls, but were calling to try to convince me to re-subscribe. (I used to read every movie magazine that I could, but I’ve stopped now. They can’t compete with online information with regards to the latest news, and I began to feel more and more like I was reading the same information in each magazine, and at times the same interviews. In the end, I was buying them but not reading them, which is madness.)

The chap on the phone was very pleasant, and while I didn’t take him up on the offer of an issue for just one pound, I did at least feel a little bad about doing so. But I also found it a slightly odd call to receive, so I checked the internet to see if anyone else had experienced that.

Now, here’s the thing. I didn’t check Google. I checked Twitter.

That’s not necessarily a new thing, and it’s certainly not a unique thing. But it’s the first time that it’s dawned on me that I’m more likely to do that than I am to check online.

Time was, I would look for information like that, and would assume that it would have been posted about in a blog or a forum. But now, I assume that people tweet about it.

If I find out about a news story nowadays, I find out about it on Twitter. If I look for information about a breaking story, I don’t check Google News as much any more. I check Twitter.

Actually, I still check Google News, if it’s a breaking story, but that’s a secondary check. It’s about looking for the confirmation. Somewhat like checking BBC News after you check Sky News, to see if the story was actually right.

It’s become about differentiating between informational searches and current searches. If I’m looking to find out reactions, or breaking news, I’m more likely to check Twitter.

This may be something that is only new to me, and everyone else picked up on this ages ago, but I didn’t think about Twitter being search based. And yet, I find myself checking there before Google.

This, I think, means Twitter is doing something very right that I didn’t even notice. I like that.

Magic Falls Part Six

Back to Contents

I walk home from the tube station, anxiety eating away at my gut. I’m not ready for this conversation. I’m not ready to deal with her anger.

I’m not ready to tell the truth.

I think about the first thing she ever said to me.

“You look ridiculous.”

I laughed and gave my friend back his hat. He took it and winked at me.

“Thanks.” I said to her.

“It just doesn’t suit you,” she said.

“Nonsense. I can carry any item of clothing off. I am gorgeous.”

Now she laughed. “Prove it.”

“Point me at the nearest department store. I will try on every item. I will look wonderful.”

She put her chin to her hand and looked at me. I felt completely transfixed by her eyes. Dark, intense and beautiful.

“I was expecting you to ask me to take my clothes off so you could show me how good you look in them.” She said.

“I…” I lost my inward swagger a little bit. “Is it a good thing or a bad thing that I didn’t?”

“I’m deeply insulted.”

“Damn. I should have thought about it.”

“You should.”

“Is it too late now?”

“Yes.”

“Damn.”

“Hi, I’m Nina.”

“I’m Darren.”

“Hi, Darren.”

“Hi, Nina.”

She’d made me work hard to get her, and made me work harder to keep her, but she made it easy as well.  

Made everything in my life easier and better.

I stop outside the front door, hesitating before opening it.

I think about the last thing I heard her say before she died.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I tried, but I just couldn’t do it. I’m sorry.”

I open the door.

She’s sat on the sofa in the living room. Her eyes are red, and she looks like she’s been crying. I hate myself for that.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

I sit next to her, although she avoids eye contact.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

She doesn’t say anything.

“I’ve not been intentionally misleading you. There’s stuff I’m doing that’s difficult to talk about. But I’m working on it. I’m trying to work it all out.”

I stroke her arm, but she pulls it away.

“I’m trying to talk about this,” I say. “Please.”

She digs her fingernails into her hand. I can see that her knuckles are turning white.

“Don’t do that,” I say. “Please, just talk to me.”

She unfolds her hand and wipes her eye. She looks furious with herself for crying.

“What do you want from me?” I ask.

“I want you to stop lying to me!” She snaps at me, turning her head to mine.

“I’m not….I….”

“Are you having an affair?” She asks.

“No!” I’m shocked by the question for a moment, although the way I’ve been acting since the New Year, I can understand it.

“So where were you just now?”

“I…” I contemplate lying. It would make my life easier right now,  but that’s not how we’ve been together. 

“This is going to sound bad. Okay? I know that. I was with Maria.”

“Maria?”

“Yes.”

“Maria?” She asked the first time in disbelief. This time, she asks with anger in her voice.

“I know, but – “

“Bloody Maria? You’re knocking off bloody Maria behind my back? I’d rather you were screwing Jedward! ”

“I’m not doing anything with Maria! I went over there to talk! That was it!” I shout rather than ask.

“So where have you been?” She asks with an edge to her voice.

“I told you, I went to talk to Maria. I thought she might have had something – “

“Your work say you haven’t been there for days. Not just hours. Days.”

“I know. I haven’t been at work.”

“So where have you – “

“I thought Maria had something to do with the lottery thing.”

“I…” she stops, confused. “Okay, I wasn’t expecting that. What?”

“You’re right,” I say. “There’s something going on, and it’s weird, and I’m in the middle of it.”

She frowns, upset, angry and confused. “What are you talking about?”

“You know the thing with the ravens? The numbers from ‘Lost’ turning up in the lottery? It’s all connected.”

She looks scared now as well. “What do you mean ‘it’s connected’? What does this have to do with anything? Why are you – “

“It’s…complicated.” I say.

“Don’t you dare,” she says. “Don’t you dare give me that. You’ve lied to me about where you are, so you don’t get to do that.”

“I know,” I say, anxiously. “I know. I’m not trying to do that. I’m trying to… I’m trying to work out how to say this without it sounding crazy.”

“Okay.” She says.

I take a moment, trying to work out if I can say it.

How the Hell do I say this?

“It’s…I know stuff, okay? I know stuff about what’s going to happen. I’m connected with all of it. So are you. Everyone is, but… we’re specifically connected.”

“You….what do you mean?”

I’ve got to do it. I can’t lie to her. This isn’t what we do. It isn’t who we are. I’ve got to start telling her the truth and hope that it’s the right thing to do.

“At the end of 2013…I got…” Oh God. “I got sent back. A year into the past. To try to change things.”

She looks at me and I wait for her to react.


Part Seven

Magic Falls Part Five

Back to contents

I look at Maria and try to judge if she’s ready to hear this yet.

“The world is changing.” I say. “I thought I knew what was happening, but some things are happening differently than – “

She interrupts me. “You knew that this was happening to me? You knew about the lottery?”

“Not quite,” I say. “I know that you have some… abilities. The geek references suggested that this was you. So it just - ”

She looks at me, her eyebrows creasing into a frown. “Abilities? What are you talking about, abilities?”

She had never let me actually make a point without interrupting me when we were going out either. “ You can…. “ Actually, I could do with her interrupting me here, as I’m not quite sure how to put this. “This isn’t quite how I was expecting this conversation to go. I was expecting you to explain it to me.”

“The point. Get to it.”

“You can make things happen. You can make things come true.”

“No,” she said. “I can tell something is going to happen. Well, I can’t, but I… “

“That’s not how it works,” I say, and I reach out and take her hand. “It’s you. You’re making it happen. You can make it happen.”

She sits down, putting her elbows on the table and her hands clasped in front of her. “That’s ridiculous.”

Her knuckles are whitening. “I know it is, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.”

“I don’t believe in predeterminism. “

“You write horoscopes.”

“That’s why I don’t believe in it. I make them up and sell them to magazines for idiots.”

“But other people believe in you.” I point out. “That’s part of it. That’s part of how it’s happening.”

“Nobody believes what I write.” She says.

“People… every day, people read your horoscopes and some of them believe them. Some of them take your words and they live their life by them.”

“They’re idiots.” She says. “Why would someone put any stock in them?”

Because… because for some of them, just due to coincidence, your words came true. Someone made a decision based on your writing and they then started believing in you.”

“And that led to me actually being able to see the future?” She asks.

“No. It led to you being able to create it.”

She stands up and walks to look out of the window. “That can’t be true. What if I… what if I said someone died?”

“Then they could.”

“I suppose I could do humanity a favour and predict that Margaret Thatcher dies tonig -I’m joking. I’m joking, okay?” she amends herself in response to me looking at her. 

I laugh. “I know. But yes, you could do that and it might happen.”

“Why ‘might’?” Why not “would”?”

“You want to kill people?”

“No. Well, no more than anyone else,” she says. “No. No, It’s Just – It’s a lot to take in. That’s…some serious power.”

“It’s why I’m talking to you about it.” I say. “Because you need to know, so you don’t do anything dangerous.”

“I don’t want it”, she says. “How do I get rid of it? This is too much power for me to deal with.”

“You don’t get a choice,” I tell her. “I mean, you can just not write it, but…you can help people with this.”

“…” She tries to think of something to say, but for the first time in a long time, I see her at a loss for words. Eventually, she just mutters. “This is ridiculous.”

“I know,” I say. “I’m sorry.”

“How do you know about all of this?”

I think about how to phrase the answer. “I’ve seen it before.”

“You saw the future?”

“Yes.”

“You know how that sounds, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“I mean, it sounds crazy.”

“You’re saying that, and you just predicted the lottery results and the number of people who won.”

She nods, fear slipping back into her eyes. “Yeah…”

“So I can tell the future. You can tell it what to do.”

She stands up and makes her way to the door, opening it for me. “I want you to go now. I need to take this all in. Go back to skinny bitch.”

I follow her. “If you need to talk about this at any point, just call me. Talk to me online. Whatever works for you.”

She nods. “This is all going to get bad, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“How bad?”

“Bad.”

“Take care, Darren.” She says, softly closing the door. “I’ll talk to you soon.”

I am making my way back through London when I receive a phone call.

It’s Nina.

“Hello, you.” I answer.

Her voice is cold and angry. “Where are you?”

“What?”

“You told me you were in work. I popped in to see if you wanted to join me for lunch. I was trying to be nice. And they told me you’ve not been in for days.”

I don’t know what to say. “Oh.” I feel pathetic and stupid.

“Darren, I want you to stop lying to me and tell me what’s going on.”

NaNoWriWee - Can Chris write a novella in 30 hours?

UPDATE - My entry won and was published by HarperCollins! Go to the link to the right to buy it for just 99p!

I spent the weekend taking part in the #NaNoWriWee challenge, which had been set by the Kernel Magazine, and supported by HarperCollins as part of their Authonomy/Friday Project brand.

NaNoWriWee is short for the National Novel Writing Weekend, and is somewhat in tribute to the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), during which a ludicrous amount of people try to write a novel in a month. The target wordcount is 50,000, which translates to a fairly slim paperback novel.

The NaNoWriWee challenge was to write a substantial piece of fiction in 30 hours.  A novella, effectively, with a rough target of around 20,000 words.

I tried in 2006, and failed hilariously. While the story I wrote ended up being over 90,000 words, it took me four years. My next attempt at a novel took me two years to write a first draft at 80,000 words. I am not a fast writer. There have been times when writing has been painful and slow and has felt like I’ve been gouging the words out of my skin with my nails.

Writing 20,000 words in a weekend? For anyone reading Magic Falls, my weekly serial, that’s roughly 30 entries worth in one go. For me, this was the writing equivalent of trying to climb a mountain.

As I live in London, I registered to take part in a shared writing space provided by The Kernel, along with 15 others, where they kept us well fed and supplied with caffeine. I chose to do this partially for the social aspect, but primarily because I didn’t trust myself to keep distractions down to a minimum. They had been expecting more people, but that's the nature of a lot of these things, especially when confirmation of places was fairly late. Many more people registered to start online and around 110 people have been reported as submitting finished pieces.

I found out about it on Wednesday, and had a very rough plot by Thursday. It involved a man being framed for murder and it involved the extra sci-fi aspect of a world where nanotechnology injected into eyeballs is an accepted and regularly used thing. I had no ending, and no character names, and I wasn’t sure about what would happen, but I did have a beginning, a middle and a climax. I just didn’t know what would happen at the climax.

I didn’t have much time for it, and this meant that throughout the weekend, I had no option but to go with first instincts. It is difficult to explain how frightening and exhilarating that is.

Halfway through the story, I revealed a major plot point. Almost exactly on 10,000 words.

This wasn’t just a plot point, incidentally. It was the entire thrust of the story.

And I was suddenly convinced that it was shit and didn’t work. The reader would obviously throw the novella aside at this point and declare me an idiot. And if they were reading it on an e-reader, they would blame me for it breaking when they threw it aside and would sue me. I lost confidence in it. Completely.

But I didn’t have anything else. Without this, I had no story. I had another 10,000 words to fill, and no idea what would go into them.

Normally, at this point, I would put it aside, and would think about it, and decide if I needed to replace it with something else, and what else the story could be. Or, even worse, I would just give up on it and move onto something else.

I didn’t have that option this time. Not least because I’d intentionally made clear on facebook and twitter that 

I was doing it. I’d told people that I was going to complete this, and I couldn’t give up on it without having to be public about that as well.

So I had to ignore my fears on it, and plough ahead with the story, trusting in my first instincts and trusting in my ability to make it work.

And I ended up being really quite happy with it. It was freeing, if anything. After all, I could always go back and add more in to build up this plot twist, so it would be surprising, but it wouldn’t completely come out of nowhere.

Have I ended up completely happy with the story?

No. I have at least one section that is info-dump central, although it does allow for other things to happen later, but it isn’t as smooth as I would have liked. I did edit it down a bit, but it wasn’t quite as organic as I’d have liked. On the plus side, I think it is at least interesting info-dump central, so that’s not quite as bad as it could have been either.

I wrote 13,000 words in day one, and on day two I added another 7,000 and then edited and tweaked it all a little. But I’ve ended up with 20,000 words that all hang together pretty well and tell a complete story from beginning to end.

Learning to ignore that little voice in your head that only allows you to commit words to the page when you have complete confidence in them is definitely worthwhile. Sure, you’ll write some things you’re not happy with, but you’ll write some things you end up liking as well.

From talking to other people, the main two pieces of advice that I would impart are:

1 – Don’t read back over what you've just written.

Really, don’t. Not yet. Keep going for a while first, and when you do read back, be aware that you’re going to hate it the first time. The first time you re-read it, you’re going to spot all the stuff that you did wrong, and you’re going to convince yourself that you shouldn't be allowed access to any writing materials. Including chalk and crayon – in case you accidentally scrawl a complete sentence that someone else reads.

The second time? You’re going to start seeing some of the stuff that you did well. It’s primarily that little voice again telling you to give up. Talking of which…

2 – You can do this.

Really. You actually can. Stop listening to that voice. Listen to the one that wants to tell the story. That’s the one that’s right.

The worst thing that happens? It isn’t good.

YOU ARE ON THE INTERNET. You can find terrible writing EVERYWHERE. You will find, within minutes of searching, something that is far, far worse than what you wrote. You are not a terrible writer, and even if you are, you won’t get any better by continually not writing.

So. In conclusion. NaNoWriWee 2013. I enjoyed it, I learned a lot, and as far as I was concerned, it was a success.

Will I do NaNoWriWee 2014? I don’t know. I may. But I’m certainly glad that I did this one.

If my story stands a chance of being published, it will be made public as part of the process. I’ll be linking to it from here.

If it doesn’t? Then I’m just going to post it on here for you to read.

Oh, and if you’re interested enough to read it in the meantime, send me your email address on twitter and I’ll send it to you.