SNOWY SUNDAY

England won the rugby yesterday, which was great but more to do with Scotland making mistakes than England playing well, it does not bode well for playing Wales and France.  We decided to watch Green Lantern last night, it was good but not in the same league as Thor.

The kids went sledging this morning and had a great time (apart from Georgiana being mown down by Lucas on his sledge despite Marcus and Lucas yelling at her to move!) and then we all went up to our friends Kevin and Aj's to watch the Chelsea v Manchester United match - what a comeback.  We then went across the road for tea at Marcus' Mum's and the kids built a HUGE snowman that can be seen waving at drivers on Raikes Lane in East Bierley (many a smile was drawn from drivers on their way past it).

SNOW DAY

It's finally here, the snow that has been promised, and Lucas is chomping at the bit to use his new sledge (the fabulously named Manta-Ray), though I am a tad worried that the test drive for the car Marcus has booked for tomorrow may not come off.  The kids had so much fun throwing snowballs and building tiny snowmen at grandmas this afternoon with their cousin and her neice.  People must be very worried about the weather because nearly all the adult hats had been bought at Go Outdoors when we went to get Georgiana some more walking trousers, another fleece, some dried food, a pair of lined mittens and a self-inflating mattress (Lucas and I got new hats while we were there too).

We are watching the England v Scotland rugby at the moment having eaten our chicken tikka makhani and looking forward to watching a movie tonight (not sure which one yet).  We watched 'The Ugly Truth' last night, which when it first started I was sure I was not going to like (it seemed like such a 'bloke' movie as one of the leads seemed to be such a mysogynist), but as it got into its stride I was laughing along with Marcus at the implausability of the situations the main characters got themselves into and was hysterical at the 'When Harry Met Sally'-inspired restaurant scene.  I urge you to watch it to see what I mean, but definitely sans kids.

WORKING ON THE 'NANO'

Finally got around to looking at the work I did when I was taking part in NaNoWriMo.  I am definitely going to have to separate the 'novel' into two parts - a romantic comedy and a crime novel - as I don't think the two work well together, so all of a sudden my over 35K will be cut in half! Oh well, that's editing for you.  I am going to be entering a few competitions first, so I will be editing some other work before I get around to working on the 'NaNo' files, but I think I will be more inclined to try and get to first draft stage with the romantic comedy as I quite enjoyed the characters 'talking to me.'  I will be entering my two new poems 'Song of Memories' and 'Obsidian' into two poetry competitions, I am going to get my childrens picture book story 'The Pizza-Making Devil' sent off to a publisher and will be entering one of my plays into the Ronald Duncan Playwrighting competition, so this will keep me busy for a little while.  I am also just over halfway through reading drafts of Dawn and Neil's work that we will be looking at at the next Writers Group on Monday evening, phew, so I will get to back to the 'NaNo' novels soon.

Here is a taster of what I wrote as part of the NaNo challenge (the romantic comedy):

“It’s delightful,” she demurred and the waiter poured both glasses, arranged the wine bottle back into the ice in the ice bucket, bowed slightly and left them again.

 To distract from the earlier conversation, Danny picked up his glass and tasted it; it really was a decent drop.  He nodded towards her and placed it back on the table,

 “You still have excellent taste I see,” he said as she picked up her glass and sipped it.  She replaced the glass and took a couple of peanuts out of one of the bowls.

 “Some things never change,” she smiled and placed the peanuts into her mouth.  He wasn’t sure, but he was sure the temperature in the room had raised another notch.  What on earth was the matter with him?  Was it just his nerves, or something more basic? 

 “So what brings you back here after all these years?” she asked when her mouth was empty once more.

 ‘You’ he thought, but instead he found himself saying, “I am working not far from here.  So, you are working at that café,” he stated as his eyes raked her from head to toe, taking in the ridiculously short uniform and the unfeasibly high stilettos, “I pictured something altogether different for you, but I have to say I approve of the uniform.”

 She laughed out loud at that and he knew he was lost.  Nothing could ever affect him like her laugh had and he found himself relaxing back into the sofa.

 “It seems your boss’s perks has benefits for us all.”

 “You have no idea.  As it happens, Rose, one of the girls who works with me, he has a bit of a crush on and I swear that’s the only reason we have to wear these stupid things.  But I am glad you approve.”

 “I’m sure I’m not the only one.  I think every man in here has noticed you,” he confided.

 “Well, Stan’s uniform will do that for a girl,” she took a hearty mouthful of wine and then relaxed back into the sofa herself. 

 He could feel the heat from her thigh reverberating through his and had to fight to stop himself from leaning closer so he could initiate full contact.

 “Seriously, you are looking amazing.  I knew it was you straight away.”

“Then why on earth didn’t you say anything?” she smiled.

 “I thought you’d had enough of a shock for one night!” he joked back, feeling more at east than he had felt in months.  It felt like coming home.

BUSY WEEKEND

At the weekend we went for a lovely meal at The Sun Inn, Lightcliffe, whilst our daughter was on her first Duke of Edinburgh weekend and our son was at a birthday sleepover.  It was a lovely romantic meal out where I had a delicious duck in orange sauce with bubble and squeak and Marcus had the house burger which was also excellent.  We finished the meal with their cheese platter which went very well with the bottle of zinfandel rose wine.  We watched our DVD copy of the fantastic film Super 8 (a true homage to how movies used to be with all the benefits of new techniques) which I urge you to watch as soon as you can (though it is probably too scary for anyone under 13).  All the child actors are fantastic (especially so because it is the first film for some of them) but Elle Fanning excels.

On Sunday when our son came home we introduced him to the original Footloose which still rocks, but unsurprisingly he thought the remake was better.  Our daughter came home tired and cold (due to the inside of her tent being frozen amongst other things) and very muddy, but I am extremely proud of her.

ANNUAL RONALD DUNCAN PLAYWRITING COMPETITION

The deadline for the 2012 submissions for this competition will be upon us soon, so I thought I would share with you a sample of my play 'Bottle' that was shortlisted in the top ten of this competition last year.

Bottle is a play for adults in four acts.  It centres on Will and Dave, two men with an agenda - to rid the world of sinners.  They believe they are on a mission from God to realise his creation as it was envisaged originally; to borrow a much-used political phrase of today 'to create a big society.'  It tells the ill-fated story of a man with a drinking problem (Adam) and the trouble it gets him into when he finds himself on their radar and the consequences of this on his wife Carol.

Below is a short extract:

BOTTLE by Karen Naylor  3 sample pages     Act four

WILL:     Maybe this is a blessing; the state of the World is not conducive to bringing another life into the world.

DAVE:     Yes brother.  Take, for instance, the gang culture that has spread like a disease across our world. 

DAVE:     Youths with knives and guns ready to kill each other for little more than not belonging to the same gang.  What can we do about this as God’s children?

Carol turns off the vacuum cleaner and puts it away. 

WILL:     I remember the image of Michael Jackson separating those two gang members from a fight in the music video for Beat it, it is not that simple is it my child?

CAROL:    He is hardly going to solve the gang problem in his piano pyjamas!  Well, I mean to say, I can’t see anyone taking Michael Jackson seriously anymore let alone letting him loose on gang culture.

WILL:     We as God’s children could help in the fight against evil.  As true believers we could turn this around.

Carol tries to sit, but the photo album and the watchtower are on the middle seat of the sofa.  She picks them up and thrusts them toward Dave, cutting him off mid flow.

DAVE:     We believe we were chosen to do this.  Herod heard the beating heart of the divine and we-

CAROL:    Hold this a minute please.

Carol hands Dave the two books and sits between the two men on the sofa.

DAVE:     H-Herod heard the beating heart of the divine and we, we hear the pounding of evil within their breasts.  We need to cut off its life blood, this evil within our world.  We have to extinguish its flame.

WILL:     Yes, we have a purpose and it’s God’s will.  We can see what they are.  We alone.  We can see their faults, the aura of evil that surrounds them. 

CAROL:    Er, right.

WILL:     Sometimes we can hear the heartbeat of the Devil within them and this is how they reveal themselves to us.  We need to cleanse humanity of its cancer.  They are chipping away at the fabric of our society and it must be stopped.

Carol glances around, obviously not interested.  Will becomes even more zealous.

WILL:     Sinners expose themselves to us without mortification and therein lies their shame.  They do not bow their heads in embarrassment, nor quiver at the revelation.

Carol wanders away and we hear the loud clunk of crockery.

DAVE:     But brother, there is hope.  They could bow their heads in prayer.

WILL:     But they gloat brother, gloat of their triumphs, encouraging us to laugh along with them.  We do not.

Carol comes back with two plates of fruit cake.  She holds one

out towards Dave.

DAVE:     No we do not.  We attempt their salvation by –

RSPB Big Birdwatching Weekend and Australian Open

Lucas has been taking part in the RSPB Big Birdwatching Weekend and so far he has seen 2 blackbirds, 1 blue tit, 1 chaffinch, 1 dunnock, 6 house sparrows, 1 long-tailed tit, 5 magpies, 4 wood pigeons, a land gull, a feral pigeon, a thrush, a jackdaw and a chicken (it had escaped from a garden up the road) in our garden.  Who would have thought we had so many birds in a household that has 2 cats (proof they are the laziest creatures ever).

I am currently watching the final of the Australian and what a final it is.  Such unbelievable tennis and both Nadal and Djokovic are playing out of their skins.  It is hard to call who will win but what fantastic entertainment for us viewers.

Entered the 100-word short story competition run by the Readers Digest with an edited down version of my flash fiction 'First Date' the other day, so fingers crossed.

WRITERS GROUP MEETING 23 JANUARY 2012

Had an excellent Writers Group meeting on Monday night.  Neil, Dawn and I had a very informative discussion on how our writing is progressing (in parts thanks to the Writers Group) and we have all decided to try and enter one of three competitions that have deadlines coming up soon.  This involves either three chapters and a synopsis of an adult novel, a short story, flash fiction or poetry.  We are all trying to get to first draft stage with a novel each and agreed that we will spend approximately a third of each meeting working on each of our pieces.  We all have differing wants for each of our writing (be it action, plot or whether it is just 'working') and we all feel re-energised and focussed on our goals.  Long may it continue.

On a different note, sadly one of our regular members has decided to quit and therefore, I am extending an open invitation for anyone to come and join our little group on a Monday evening once a fortnight and see if it is for you - the more the merrier.