Come On England!

Sunday. 6.20 a.m. Well, I can't really start this post by not mentioning the win for the England football squad's  in Italy yesterday evening. So it means they are only two more steps away from actually winning this championship. 'England in dreamland', being one newspaper headline, another being, 'Pinch yourself . . . we're in the semis!' Well, if nothing else, it will be fuelling certain areas of the economy, such as beer and lager sales, pizza, and probably fish and chips. I noticed huge piles of packs of lager and beer when I was in Sainsbury's on Saturday as well as racks with England replica shirts and other items of clothing on them. You really couldn't ignore any of it. Also, merchandise with links to football, such as Coca-Cola, Pringles, and Walkers, all no doubt sponsoring the football event. A lot of money tied up with football.

Well, football aside (no chance of avoiding it.) when I ventured forth with Alfie at around 5.45, there was a hint of rain, even if it was rather thin. Well, if nothing else it will cool things down as it is quite humid at the moment.

My writing has come to a halt. It's not a problem. It's not due to 'writer's block.' It's more that I know where the thing is heading, I just haven't worked out the mechanics of how such-and-such is going to work. It has to be logical and realistic, to make it work. Still thinking about the different options open to me, then I can sit down and do some serious writing. It is, however, quite strange how things change, even as I'm writing, how things can develop as I'm putting pen to paper (actually pencil. I don't like things to be too set, which would happen if it's in ink. With a pencil, you can rub it out and start again, several times in some cases.) Wandering around Oldbrook Green yesterday morning, I was pondering this particular point in the plot and I didn't know how or why it was (or wasn't.) going to work, and by the time we'd reached the other side of the Green I had come up with a solution (of sorts.) to bring in something which I had thought of some time ago but had no idea how to introduce it. I'm attempting to work out ways to bring in several other storylines so they intersect with what I have already written. It was never conceived as a single narrative, but over-lapping, concurrent storylines. Think of novels by Dickens, where several narratives are running together, or, in television soaps (EastEnders, Coronation Street for example.) where they use this technique, and they break off from one storyline and flip over to other storylines and then go back to the other storyline. The best example I can think of is 'Les Miserables.' I have read the novel, seen the stage musical and film and watched the recent BBC1 adaptation by Andrew Davies. It is written in the same way as Dickens, with overlapping storylines, with the Jean Valjean storyline which runs down the centre, or 'spine' and links up with the concurrent storylines. You'll need to read it and possibly watch it to get my point. All storylines connecting at the end to give the thing completeness, a denouement. A journey, what Joseph Campbell describes as The Hero's Journey.' This 'metomyth' construction common to many stories, such as The Lord of The Rings', 'Star Wars' (well, at least the first 1977 film and the two sequels 'The Empire Strikes Back' and 'The Return of the Jedi.'

Later. I've been out with Alfie at around 9.15 this morning. I'm still mulling over how to shift the plot forward. Thinking as we walk around Oldbrook. I think I've cracked it! How character A meets character B. (No, I'm not telling. No spoiler alerts.) Great! So later I manage to begin to write this sequence. Actually going to be quite central to what happens next. Now it's getting reasonably exciting. I have written a side of A4. I'll just leave it for a while and then return to it. I just want to get the story down on paper and then go back and modify it, tweaking bits here and there. As long as the main points are down on paper, then I can go back and redraft. A lot of over-used phrases and words, but that's not a problem. Time to get out my thesaurus.

Later. 3.05 p.m. I think I have cracked the problem (if indeed it is a problem, which it is and it isn't. I know that sounds odd, but it's not really.) which was so simple that it makes sense. Again, walking around Oldbrook Green was where the idea came to me. These light-bulb moments sometimes come when I go to bed, and usually when I can't get to sleep. It's in those relaxed moments when my mind just drifts which is when these ideas come.