Nanowrimo Winner

[Total Word Count: 36,343]

“Hello!” says Mouse, opening the door, “Come in. Would you like a coffee?”

What I hadn’t expected somehow was that she would be sharing, and that two of her flatmates would be sitting on their battered old sofa looking at me with undisguised interest.

“You’re John, then?” says one of them, a thin brunette with a wide smile, “I’m Anna. This is Claire. We’ve heard all about you. You must be very clever to write all this stuff.”

“No, you wouldn’t think so if you’d read it,” I reply, perhaps a little too smartly, but they both laugh politely.

Are they students? The place has that kind of a look, with a Klimt poster blu-tacked to the wall. The wallpaper is very faded, and the furniture is old without being really retro – second-hand, I would guess. But it’s all in apple-pie order, and I can see from here that the books on the plank bookshelves are divided into fiction and non-fiction, with the fiction alphabetical by author. I wonder what approach has been used for the non-fiction.

Mouse brings me a mug of coffee, though I had actually said I didn’t want one.

“Are you going to have a big party when you’ve all finished?” asks Anna.

“Well, I think some celebrations are certainly planned,” I say, “But I won’t have anything to celebrate, I’m afraid. Actually, I’ve decided to give up. I can’t finish the thing in time after all.”

This evokes an immediate chorus of protest, especially from Mouse.

“But you’re way ahead of me,” she says, “And I’m not giving up.”

“It’s not that, really” I explain feebly, “There are other reasons. I don’t think me doing it is going to go down well in my office.”

“That’s ridiculous. It’s only a few days more, really. If they don’t like it, why don’t you pull a sickie?” says Claire, “I would. Like a shot.”

“Well the other thing is, I’m a bit stuck with the story. This character who ought to be dead is still alive. You see, she has to be killed off by someone who’s already dead, and it was going to happen because they’d messed up the brakes of her car before they were dead, but she seems to have sort of escaped.”

“I don’t understand,” says Anna.

I find myself sitting down and explaining the whole plot of Wenham. I quite enjoy it, actually: they’re a very appreciative audience and pay careful attention.

“I think,” says Mouse, “you just need to go back and rewrite the earlier bits. Charlie doesn’t get in the car, and she does die. That’s all. You don’t have to do it now, just make a note somewhere and carry on as if you’d revised it already. It doesn’t matter for Nanowrimo if there are gaping inconsistencies in the plot – after the month is over, you can go back and sort them out at leisure.

I think about it. She’s quite right. I’m being too much of a perfectionist. That’s not the true ’wrimo spirit. But…

“The trouble is,” I say, “I sort of promised I’d stop.”

“Who did you promise? Who wanted you to stop?” demands Anna. This is a bit difficult to answer – I don’t really want to blame Julie, or expose to these strangers the kind of difficult discussions we’ve been having. Alright, and I don’t want them to get the idea I’m sort of under her thumb, either.

“Your girlfriend?” asks Claire, “Julie?”

“Oh. Er, you know about Julie? You’ve read my blog, then?” I say, nervously.

“Oh no. But we’ve been told about it.” she replies, archly.

“No offence or anything,” says Anna, “But I think your girlfriend should be backing you up, not trying to get you to stop.”

“Well, you know…” I say.

“Yeah,” says Claire, “She should be supportive, shouldn’t she? It’s not fair on you, is it? Why don’t you carry on? It’s only until the end of the month, anyway. It’s so close. Surely you can carry on just till then.”

“Yeah, we want to read the story,” says Anna, “Will you publish it, in a proper book?”

“Well, it’s not that easy, really…”

“You could self-publish…” suggests Mouse, “Lots of people do that.”

By the time I leave, with my laptop, I have virtually promised to go on with Wenham after all. And why not, really? When I get back to the flat, I plug in the laptop and fire it up to make sure everything is OK. Just a little look at the last chapter?

As the sound of the departing ambulance faded, Lady Jane put a hand on Charlie’s shoulder. With an effort he took his eyes off the crushed car lying by the canal below, and looked at her.

“Well,” he said shakily, “I suppose she’s off the list of suspects now.”
“Not a bit of it,” said Lady Jane, “Perhaps she committed suicide in a fit of remorse. Perhaps she meant it to be a non-fatal accident, meant to divert suspicion away from her. Perhaps she did kill the others, and someone else altogether killed her.”

“Someone else? Who stands to inherit now?”

“Ah, now you’re thinking logically again. And that turns out to be a good question. I’ve just discovered that the late Earl had another child.”

Back on track, back on track. But I still have a problem with plot – there’s still not enough of it. I’m approaching 35,000 words now, but the story is rapidly approaching resolution, and I’ve written the ending already. I’ll be surprised if it stretches beyond 40,000 at the rate I’m going.

I wonder whether I could insert yet another member of the family? I think I may have to go back and sort of bulk up the text by inserting flashbacks or something. I could start with a sort of potted biography of the old Earl.

The sixth Earl acceded to the estate at the exceptionally youthful age of 23, when his father suffered a fatal accident while hiking in the Dolomites. Whereas the father had been a man of considerable business ability and careful habits, the young Earl spent well rather than wisely, and did not, as he himself often declared, have the right sort of brains for going over account books.

He was, accordingly, ill-prepared to meet the challenges which punitive death duties and a general falling-off in the profitability of his neglected investments raised for him. During the minority of his children, matters ran on from bad to worse, but for a long time, by selling off his Scottish lands and other assets, the Earl was able to keep up appearances to some extent.

Finally, however, it became clear to him that if he continued in his present course, he would be facing absolute bankruptcy within a very few years. The Earl had no idea of being able to increase his income by better management of the estate, nor by embarking on new business ventures, as many of his peers and contemporaries had done in similar circumstances, and indeed it may be doubted whether his talents would have proved equal to these endeavours had he attempted them.

Instead, however, he devoted himself to the practice of stringent economy and retrenchment, closing down much of the house and subsisting with a single faithful servant. In this way, he was able to achieve a degree of economic stability. Oates, who was promoted to the status of butler without any increase in pay, cooked and washed for the Earl, cleaned the house to the extent he could, and took on the general administration of what was left of the household. A dull but competent man, Oates was not unduly concerned about the low pay he received, since he considered the whole estate to be his in practice. He enjoyed nothing more, once the Earl had retired to bed, than spending a quiet hour sitting in the Earl’s chair in the grand dining room with a cigar and a glass of port. He never took holidays – where would he have wanted to go, and what would the Earl have done?

Imagine then, the Earl’s feelings when he came down one morning to see what had become of his cup of tea, and found that Oates had quietly suffered a massive cerebral haemorrhage the evening before and was lying stone dead on the kitchen floor.

The Earl could scarcely contemplate the idea of taking on a new servant, and he had a shrewd idea that the number of applicants for such a post would in any case be small. He therefore decided, with some trepidation, to effect a further small economy by looking after himself. This ambitious project went, not well, but better than might have been expected, at first.

I heard Julie’s key rattle in the lock, and started guiltily.

“Hello?” she said, poking her head round the door, “You got it back then?”

“Yes,” I said, “All present and correct.”

Julie paused and her eyes focussed on the screen.

“Are you…?” she asked.

“Yeah, sorry,” I said (don’t apologise, you idiot – what are you apologising for?) “I sort of thought I’d give it one more go.

Julie came into the room with a depressed expression and sat down heavily.

“I thought we’d agreed…” she said.

“Well, yes, but I thought – it’s only another few days really. Why not see it through to the end?”

“Because, because… oh. We need to sort things out, John. You’ve got to understand…” she broke off, irresolutely.

“Isn’t it best to just get this thing out of the way?” I said, “And then I’ll make it up to you in December. I promise. In fact, look, we said we’d celebrate when I got to the half-way mark, and I’m past that now. Why don’t we have a celebration tonight? I’ll take you out for a curry or something.”

She shook her head and sighed. She looked so miserable for a moment that I wanted to go and hug her. But I didn’t.

“No,” she said, “No, I don’t really want to celebrate. Look – if you want to carry on, that’s up to you, but I don’t want to spend the next two weeks sitting here with you just tapping away all the time. Let’s make it an unfriendly month, OK? Then we’ll meet up in December and sort things out.”

There was something about that ‘sort things out’ that I didn’t like the sound of, but I couldn’t really complain.

“Alright,” I said, “But let’s start the unfriendly stuff tomorrow, eh? Look, I won’t do any more of this tonight. Stay tonight.”

“No,” she said, “You carry on. It’s alright. Give me a ring when you’re finished, OK?”

She stood up and marched back out of the door.

Am I doing the right thing, gentle reader? You will have perceived the irony that I only started on this whole thing as a means of helping to persuade Julie she should move in with me, or me with her; but the net result so far seems to have been to move her out for the rest of the month, and perhaps worse.

But isn’t she just a bit unreasonable? Is it so annoying that I should do a bit of typing in the evening? If it was for work, I’m sure she wouldn’t object. And it is only for a month. What’s the big problem about it? She seemed fairly happy about it at first. If I give in now over something so minor, will I have my leisure hours subjected to approval and supervision ever afterwards? What if I want to take up golf one day?

I’m sorry, gentle reader, you know how it is with me – I try to be a philosopher, but cheerfulness keeps breaking in. But don’t think I don’t take this seriously. It’s the most important thing in my life, it really is, and I’m not talking about sodding Nanowrimo.