Trafford, running, stuffs

Blog time. I'm being really antisocial lately and don't seem to have time for anyone, however i'm hoping to have more time next week.. (if not money!)

I've done my last preparations for the Great North Run, the half-marathon which is this coming Sunday - in South Shields I believe. For anyone sad enough to be watching it on the telly, I will be one of quite a few wearing a bright purple t-shirt saying "curing children with cancer" , raising money for kidscan and york hospital radio.

I had a really nice weekend with Paula , saw the Trafford Centre (above) ... ooh that's the first time i've done that, referred to a picture with brackets like they do in magazines or newspaper articles... sorry... and visited Chester. If anyone wants to see a FIRST ... go and see the FIRST ever 3D cinematic film to have terrible acting and a cheesy storyline - Piranha 3D - it's also very gorey - bits of bodies and stuff - hm, i haven't sold it well.

I'm planning my radio show for tomorrow night as its the first night the team of ward-walkers join me so I figured I ought to try and make it at least half-decent. It has a Manchester theme in the second hour, so music from some of the many many different and varied bands that hail from Manchester. Possibly the music capital of the world in that way.

My job is terrible at the moment. There is virtually no work to do, as in virtually zero, and it is pretty strict so it feels a lot like I am wasting 8 hours each day!! which is crazy I know. I finish October 29th. If I'm lucky (or skilful) skillful? skilful? dunno.. then i'll manage to get another job before my current one finishes. Last time, I was only out of a job for about 10 days when I finished, so hopefully this time will be fine too, though it's scary when I rent in the city centre, and don't have family's money to fall back on. However, at least if I get homeless, I can go to london and join in Crisis at Christmas and get some great food and play the piano.

Excited about my radio show tomorrow and going to plan the rest of it tonight. Also working really hard to get myself 8 hours of sleep every night, rather than the 6 to 7 that I was getting, which wasn't doing me much good. End of word rant.

94,000 words

94,000. A scene with claire who was meant to figure more in this book, but until now hasn't figured much, so working at getting that storyline going.

93,000 words

Just done the sexiest part of the book so far!!... The one stand-out sex scene. Planned ages ago. Finally written tonight. Will take a fair bit of editing but that's fine.

93,000 words

92,000 words

92,000 and the scene is finished. Approaching the half-way stage :-)

91,000 words

Moving into the next scene.. one of the counselling storyline scenes...

91,000 and now writing into the night...

Little editing session

That's my work done for the night. Been back and did some editing on an earlier hospital radio scene, working at bringing the characters a bit closer together. Got a nice idea for an extra hospital radio scene to insert too.

Early night now.

90,800 words

more on the first club scene, which i keep chipping away at bit-by-bit......

the book is all about saying the millions of things which exist but people never say.
That alone is enough to keep me going. I've really enjoyed writing tonight.

90,000 words

Wrote one of the key hospital radio scenes tonight :-)

At least 90 per cent of the scene anyway.

I think this will be the fifth one out of about 7.

Hurricanes

I'm off ill today - full of cold, sore throat etc, which is relaxing but boring...

And no, I refuse to watch daytime TV and Jeremy Kyle....

Instead, I'm passing time learning about hurricanes and hurricane season - my little obsession - I wish I could be a storm chaser....

Here is a picture of Hurricane Earl at the moment....
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/view.php?id=45597

Here is a good tracker site that makes a deadly hurricane look like a cute swivelly thing...
http://www.wbt.com/weather/hurricane.aspx
Clicking on Forecast Models show where people think it might go. Ultimately, it's up to Earl himself though.

The Internet offers us a great opportunity now - listening to foreign radio stations.
I LOVE listening to American radio stations - it's taught me so much about American culture, values and the people... and American radio stations do so many things right, that we don't (in my opinion)

Everything is more natural instead of polished - to me this is always what radio should be about. Fluent speech and rehearsed content is important but always natural is better - cos you get that wonderful feeling of you don't know what's coming next, in the same way as when you're sat with someone in a pub....
Over here, it tends to be so polished that we know what's coming next is a well-planned, well-packaged article which is going to be careful not to deviate too far from the norm.

Here is one of the coolest things about many American radio stations... You know over here, when we have radio adverts, they've all got music to them and dramatic voice-overs and announcers and quirky sayings etc etc etc ...... Well this actually makes people here in the UK mentally switch off, because we hear the adverts and because of their style, we automatically associate them with being adverts and being rubbish.

In America, they often have adverts that are just someone talking to you, - so for instance, they'll put themselves in your position - For instance a guy's voice just comes on, talking about how he wasn't sure about getting cellphone insurance and he didn't want the hassle of going on-line, but then he found out it only took 5 minutes on-line so he did it.

Sounds familiar maybe, but the way they do it is just having a guy talk about it as if he's your mate.. no dramatic jingles or background music, or silly voice-overs, just a real everyday guy you can relate to.... and it really works!! You actually start caring about the advertisements!

The talk shows tend to be very dramatic, and not bound by politeness and fairness like they are over here. Lots of mad, crazy opinions going on, which maybe you would expect.

Anyway, in some states, it is most radio presenters' dream to report when there is a hurricane. When there are huge-scale evacuations, and everyone has the radio on in cars, and its fast and furious speech radio (just like the hurricane) - many radio presenters dream of the day they are doing the live hurricane news show.

I'm hoping to be feeling better this weekend but not really sure. If so, I'm at Samaritans branch tomorrow, as part of our Information And Selection Event for newcomers. It's fun, we do group exercises and little debates - it's a great way of mixing people and getting people to think about and challenge their own opinions, as well as helping induct new people to the charity.

89,700 words

more of the first club scene. I accidentally wrote about the appearance of a new character twice, (forgetting i'd already included him) so I've now just made it that he appears twice anyway - lol, cos it kind of makes sense.

89,700