Yesterday, as I was sitting with my collies in the darkened living room, hiding from the bangs, there was a knock at the door.

Given that I am practically incapable of ignoring a knock at the door or the ring of the phone, and have never understood how some people can ignore those things, I went to answer it.  It was even louder out there.  Peering round the sliver of an opening I had created (I couldn't risk my black and white collie, who insists he is our butler and must greet every visitor to our house), I was met by a man going around encouraging donations to Shelter.

The first thing he said to me was 'Is your mum in?'  I thought that had stopped.  Don't get me wrong - I have taken advantage of this tendency people have to think I am still a lot younger to get out of talking to salespeople on my doorstep before.  I just say my parents aren't in (which is not a lie - they aren't in my house) and then the people get off my property.  Really, I would like one of those houses with a huge wall and guards at the gate.  As I can't have that, I usually just refuse to engage.

Here's the thing though - I am rubbish at cutting people off.  I mean, at work, when faced with a teenager who is sure they are the first kid in all of creation to come up with a convincing argument for why we shouldn't have to learn about Shakespeare in schools, I can cut right in and redirect them.  And good luck with that attitude - the new GCSE they have just announced contains phrases such as 'intellectually challenging' and 'substantial' throughout - and unseen texts in the Lit paper as well as the Language one.  Oh, and no combined English at GCSE, so schools will have to teach kids Lit and Lang.  Such on that, people who have taken away my English Lit teaching this last two years.  Now you have to give it back.  But I digress.

As I say, with kids in my classes, I can take control of the conversation, but I am really bad at cutting off people who come around selling things.  I ended up standing outside in a giant hoodie, with the hood up (which may have been what made him think I was a teenager) and my PJ bottoms.  This is twice in just over a week that the neighbours have seen I give up on daytime clothes pretty early on in the evening, as I answered the door throughout Halloween in a very similar outfit.  Still, I have three collies and say weird things whenever they speak to me - I think I already have my reputation.  Might as well own it.

The lad in question was an ex-homeless teen himself, and had a good pitch all worked out, with personal experience thrown in and everything.  It might have been a bit more convincing if he had not stopped every time a firework went off (and there were many - I think my neighbours might have been having a fireworks-off) to exclaim and declare it the best night of his life.  I have a similar opinion of fireworks to the one held by my dogs, so I was not so keen.  They are, basically, explosives, and that time dad bought one which I am sure was really from a black-market weapons dealer and it just made noise enough to shake the windows pretty much put me off them for life.  Still, I had already decided to give him some money.  Shelter is a good cause and I have been reading a fair bit about homelessness recently.  I just could have done with him getting to the point a bit sooner.

My total lack of any verbal response did not put him off.  For that alone, he perhaps deserved to gain a donation for his charity.

Of course, I got bored of that and started randomly talking, so now I know when his birthday is and that his favourite film is Romeo and Juliet, but he did not like Or Mice and Men when he read it at school.  Oh, and he has a border collie.  And has been smoking for ten years.  I am not sure why I can retain this information but can never remember the names of famous historical figures or the key dates in famous historical events.

Eventually, he must have felt we had bonded enough to ask about my age.  He looked a bit shocked that he had guessed my age as nearly ten years younger than him, when I am in fact nearly ten years older.  I can only assume that he thought I looked like a teenager who really doesn't get a lot of sleep.

As far as I am concerned, this all counted as socialising, so that is me up to quota on that for this month.  Anyone who wants me to interact with them face-to-face is free to put in a form with a request, but I cannot guarantee it will be approved.

Day Three

We are three days into this year's NaNoWriMo.  Yay!

For those of you who do not know, it is where you agree to write a novel in a month.  There's a website to sign up to, and you record your daily wordcount here to see if you are on track.  The target is set at 50,000 words for the whole month, which works out at 1,667 words a day, I believe.  It isn't actually hard to write that number of words a day; it's having them make any sense which is more of an issue.

So far, I am on track with the word count.

Here's the thing, though - some people plan their plots out, or have notes on characters and so forth.  I just had a line float into my head partway through day one and then went from there.  It is how I did it last year, but that didn't really turn into a proper novel.

People have different ways of planning.  I spend lesson upon lesson teaching different methods to kids, and encouraging them to plan, because it really does help.  No, it isn't marked.  No, that doesn't mean it's a waste of time.  Would I have spent all of this lesson time on it if it had no point?  Have you not heard me say we have a whole course to get through and we need to keep on track?

I may just record my answers to these questions, keep them on my laptop or iPod, and press play when the next class starts asking.  I could also do a playlist for 'Why do we have to read Shakespeare', 'But this isn't History class' and 'No-one else has asked me to have a pen today.  Why do we have to do writing?', amongst others.

Despite my insistence on the importance of planning, I do not, myself, plan.  At least, not in the sense that I know what I am going to write about before I start.  With an essay, yes.  To an extent.  The same goes for anything else with a specific brief.  I will plan enough to generate ideas and get me started, I will have as clear an idea as I can about the requirements, but I will still adjust and think of new things as I write.

With novel, or even short-story, writing, I often have a vague impression, one moment in time, one line, and then I have to write and see what coalesces.  Writing brings the ideas in the back of my head into more focus, and after I have written a draft, I can then go back and construct a more formal plan for a rewrite.  It tends to feel a bit like automatic writing, sometimes, though.  I have been told by more than one person in my lifetime that it seems like I have a plan when someone else reads that first draft, but I don't.

I can honestly say that I had no idea where this NaNo tale was going, or any of the stops along the way, or who would be making those stops.  Now, I have a couple of characters with names, one without, someone who is mentioned a couple of times and an object.  I am beginning to see something in the fog, but I don't yet know what it is.

Several themes, motifs and symbols seem to have cropped up already, possibly foreshadowing events.  I look forwards to finding out what they are.  Some part of my brain must have an idea.  Grey seems important, as does the idea of space, and there is something in there about the past and the future.

I suppose, if I am to find out, I had best just keep writing and hope that my mind is not actually being the conduit for the elder gods.  I don't fancy manifesting Cthulu in my subconscious.  Could put a bit of a dampener on my day.