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I was driving like a lunatic when a cat ran out in front of the car. Slamming on the brakes I felt the old girl begin to slide, then the cat was safe. Out of the corner of my eye I saw it flicking its tail and sauntering across the verge into the woods. I breathed a sigh of relief: a deep sigh of relief as my heart was pounding far harder than it should have been. I slowed down dramatically and mentally envisaged Mike grinning, wagging his finger and saying, 'Sansho shima. It's called sansho shima, Neil. Whatever you want to do, sansho shima will always try and trip you up.'

Mike is a Buddhist: one of those westernised Buddhists who lead perfectly normal daily lives except for chanting in the mornings and evenings. I nearly became one myself; in fact if you asked me what religion I was I'd most probably reply Buddhist, even though I was brought up in the Church of England. Buddhism seems quite sensible, really. If you want to believe in anything, then believing in yourself is probably the way to go. Anyway, I digress, which, if I'm honest, I'll probably be doing a lot. It's words you see, it's all for words ... no, you probably don't. But you will. Believe me, you will.

*

It all began at the beginning of the month. Twenty one days ago: November the first.

It's called NaNoWriMo, which is an acronym for National Novel Writing Month. The idea is fiendishly simple: write a fifty thousand word novel in a month. This is the third time I've had a go and, although I managed to finish the first two times, presently it looks like I'll fail. I keep being told, 'Don't give up 'till the fat lady sings,' though what that means I've not the vaguest idea.

Conveniently, I can blame sansho shima for my present predicament. The basic concept of sansho shima is that whatever you try to do, be it painting the house, running a marathon, or writing a fifty thousand word novel in thirty days, fate will get in your way. It'll try and trip you up: cause you problems, stop you succeeding. Just like the cat running out in front of the car. Bloody cat, though I'm so glad I didn't hit it, or skid the old girl off the road into a hedge ... I've only got third party insurance, you see.

I'd planned it all out: the novel writing thing. I'd even put a lot of effort ... hmm, okay, maybe I shouldn't tell fibs. I'll start again. I'd even put a bit of effort into thinking about and writing an outline. 'What's an outline?' I hear you ask, and I'm glad you did, because it means I can add a few words to this tale and tell you. But first I should say that I'm what's colloquially known as a pantser.

A pantser is one who writes by the seats of his pants. In other words, it's a person who starts writing without the vaguest idea of where he -- or indeed she -- is going. Anyway, that's generally what I am, and rather good at it, too, if I say so myself. This year, though, as a change is as good as a rest, I decided not to 'pants.' This year I decided I'd buckle down and do the thing properly. So, I wrote a real honest to goodness outline of the novel I was going to write, and I also did research -- for which I gave myself a hearty slap on the back. The NaNoWriMo rules allow you to do this, by the way. A cheat I'm not, I hope ... even though a few thousand lorem ipsums seem just gorgeously peachy at the moment.

With research and outline done, and prouder than the proudest thing, on the first of the month I started 'Worth', a novel about ... elves. Yeah, so roll your eyes and snigger. I don't care! It was a good idea and it was a worthy idea (chortle), but even with an outline I came up against one small teensy weensy problem: my little grey cells.

Apparently my mind is just not suited to writing novels -- I've blogged about it at copious length, even boring myself. It seems to be an immutable fact, and probably -- I blame my parents -- genetic, like a lot of other things you'll find out about me if you read on.

Then there's another problem. I'm a musician. Wait a cotton picking minute, you're thinking. What's this bod being a musician got to do with the price of a loaf of bread, or writing a novel? Ah, well!

Oh! While I have you here let me digress for a second. I've used a couple of phrases I'd like to know the history or even the real meaning of, if you'd be so kind. 'Don't give up 'till the fat lady sings,' is one and 'wait a cotton picking minute,' another. Feel free to drop me a line if you're wise in the ways of weird expressions, or idiomatic uses of the vernacular.

So, anyway, back to the tale at hand. In October the band I'm in decided to record an album -- you know just where this is going, don't you. Yeah, right -- and we'd start recording in November. There! That's big socking great sancho shima number one, though as I'm in the band I couldn't possibly complain. Recording is good. Yes it is. Recording is a good and worthy thing to be doing, but not in bloody November when I'm supposed to be novelling.

Please ... no!

Oh yes, indeed!

What makes it even worse is that as I'm playing engineer and running the computer in the studio, every chance I get I'm snaffling a wireless connection to go to the website and check up on all my writing buddies -- whose word counts are creeping up while I watch. Talk about bitter irony.

I'm lazy too. That's also genetic, of that there can be no doubt. My father, who was a scientist when scientists were scientists, used to drive my mother up the wall. He'd be hard at work asleep in his chair in his laboratory, and she'd thunder in and demand that as he was sleeping he could jolly well get up and make lunch. He generally complied for a raft of reasons, not the least of which was that if he hadn't, he'd have probably starved. I only found out about this later when I was back at home from boarding school. He'd take me aside and tell me that he regretted having his lab anywhere near home, and that my mother was holding back the advancement of mankind. Considering he helped design part of the guidance systems on the early Apollo missions, he was probably right, and if it wasn't for my mother we'd be living on Mars now. Typical of mothers, I say.

So cometh the first of the month. Grinning -- because you do when you're setting out on a large adventure with a bunch of friends (even though the friends are virtually virtual), I opened my document, called it 'Worth,' saved it, and began ....

And it was good.

I know, I know! I shouldn't be saying that about my own effort, but it was, and, I can honestly say it still is. And, when I get around to finishing it, it will be even better. How's that for hubris?! Hmm? Perhaps I should add I have my tongue firmly in my cheek.

So, 'Worth' was good, and I was enjoying writing, and all was swimming along nicely. Then I -- or rather my muse, because I can't take all the blame -- complicated matters by drifting away from the outline. The outline was simple. It had a few characters that I knew quite well and a nice gentle story arc.

A quick aside: if you want to appear knowledgeable about writing, then you have to use the phrase 'story arc.' You simply have to, no question about it. Just thought you should know. Now, where was I?

Yes, well, anyway, I complicated matters by introducing characters willy-nilly -- willy-nilly isn't a phrase to use often, or at all when it comes to being knowledgeable about writing. Though I have to admit it's a good one to use if you're stuck for word count!

Complicated stuff isn't my forte. I tend to get overly excited and then need to lie down in a dark room for a week. Which, when it comes to fifty thousand words in a month, isn't good news. But I persevered. I persevered and I managed to get to just over twenty thousand words before coming to a complete and utter grinding halt. A bit like I did after nearly hitting the cat earlier tonight. What I didn't do, because I really thought I didn't have time, was to print out what I'd written, read it through, and take the time to think. Oh no! Thinking had gone out of the window as I saw everyone else's word count cruising away in the distance.

Alongside all this there continued to run -- amazingly enough -- real life. Interpersonal relationships interfered. At the studio I was miles away thinking about my novel so I was getting bollocked for not being on the ball. Then at home my other half would get upset because I wasn't sitting downstairs watching the television with her.

Ha! There. I've mentioned it. The one. The one big, huge, gargantuan gobbet of mother fucking sansho shima that's perpetually flung at us all: television. Hour after hour after hour and day after day after day it sits there sapping our life force. Urging us to sit comfortably, tune in and veg out. What the beast doesn't bother telling us is that years upon years of our lives are being leeched and wasted.

Another brief aside: it's probably the irony to top all ironies, but I live in the town that boasts it is 'home to television' because John Logie Baird once lived here. Hmm.

So, to re-cap. The recording wasn't going well, and neither was the novel. 'Black dog' seemed inevitable.

I have a strange relationship with 'black dog', or, as some call it, depression. Sometimes I am, but mostly I'm not. Depressed. I'd like to be able to blame all my woes on it, but that wouldn't be entirely fair because the weather and the time of year come into play.

See what a complicated person this writer is.

Apart from the occasional 'black dog' I'm pretty damn sure that what I really suffer from is called SAD. Acronyms are just peachy, don't you think, and this one is perfect. It stands for 'Seasonal Affective Disorder.' SAD is well known and documented. Basically it's a lack of a certain spectrum of light due to the time of year. The thing is, the cures are all just a little off the wall. A little bit ... suspect -- much like this 'Sansho Shima NaNoWriMo' short story thing I'm attempting.

The bottom line is that I spent a small fortune on a device to combat it. It's an anti-SAD blue light device, and as I write I can see it sitting there waiting for me to switch it on. Half an hour at ten in the morning and no more SAD. SAD all gone, and one less thing to blame my problems on.

Which leaves ... well life, really. And shit. Shit happens to me all the time so I can't really put that down to sansho shima, but here's one I probably can and haven't yet mentioned: a difficult three way relationship. Ahem.

I love two people dearly. Luckily they both know it, and put up with it. But occasionally it makes things very awkward. Especially as one is female and the other isn't. Get my drift? I'm sure you do.

Then there are the cats. God, I wouldn't be without them, but they can be a royal pain in the arse -- though good for another few words, thanks chaps!

So, earlier today I was at the studio. We'd been trying to record a guitar solo for nearly an hour and it wasn't working. Rick, the guitarist, kept laughing and apologising nervously at the end of every take, and Mike and I were trying to make him feel comfortable and convince him that he'd get it, and not to worry, whilst I was thinking, 'Is he ever going to get it?' and I'm pretty sure Mike was thinking the same. Nor was it the first time. We'd tried the day before, and it hadn't worked then, either.

Mike was beginning to get antsy, and I should have seen the symptoms. I should have, but I didn't. Sancho-fucking-shima. I love him and I know he's a diabetic, and I'd heard him say he hadn't eaten ... but it had obviously gone in one ear and out the other.

So we give up on the guitar solo and decide to record another backing track. I set up the computer for the new track and Mike tries to explain the guitar part to Rick when the computer cuts off his keyboard. It's a complicated set-up. He uses a keyboard that's routed through the computer to its sound source: and it got turned off.

He verbally attacks me in a really vicious way. Really vicious! And I know it's because he needs something to eat, and I love him, so I sit there and take his rant for a moment ... and he carries on.

Now Mike and I have known each other a long time, but Rick is new to the band and he's sitting there open mouthed listening to my friend's tirade. And do I try and ease the situation? No. I sit there with a stone face and take it and take it, and I'm thinking I want to hit you. I want to hit you really badly.

Finally Mike leaves, followed by Rick, and ten minutes later Mike's back to apologise.

And I throw it in his face.

And he apologies again, and I know I should accept, and I know that if this goes down like the rest of our 'big' rows then that's the recording over and done with, and probably the band too, and we won't speak for at least a month ... and deep within I'm thinking, 'Yeah, I'll have time to write. I'll be able to get my NaNoWriMo novel done, I can do it!'

Mike's a real sweetheart. A very emotional type. It's one of the reasons I love him. It's also one of the reasons I occasionally hate him. So I'm sitting there and he's close to crying and ....

If you know someone really, really well, you have all the power in the world. You know exactly which buttons to push to cause a smile, which will get a laugh, and which will cause the most pain ....

"So, here come the tears." I feel myself form the words; know I should hold off, but relish saying it. And he explodes. Raw fury, but cold, oh so cold. I can see his pain as he calls me all the names under the sun, I can see it and it's the time, THE RIGHT TIME, for me to stand up and take it back and say I'm sorry and give him a hug ....

And I say nothing.

I sit there as he says he's going home. I sit there knowing I'm close to causing irreparable damage and I'm thinking, 'It’s not my fault, I didn't start it, so fuck you!' as he walks out and slams the door.

He can't go home. I drove him to the studio, we're in the middle of the country, it's a ten mile walk home and it's really cold. So I sit there noodling on the accoustic guitar thinking how well rain rhymes with pain and I'm noodling and noodling and finally Rick walks in.

Rick is a wonderful man. Really wonderful. He's older than both Mike and me, but in the short time we've known him he's proven to be both a good friend and actually quite the sage.

"Where's Mike?" he says mildly, closing the door behind him. It's his studio and I suddenly realise I'll miss him and working here.

"I dunno." I glower, looking up at him. "I thought he was in the house with you." He shakes his head.

"I was on the phone ... he came to apologise to you."

"I didn't accept it." I say, close to tears myself. I stand up.

"Accept it." Rick says, looking at me. "Life's too short."

"He might have gone for a walk ...." We both go outside. I leave Rick looking for him in the house and gardens and get in the car.

He got a lot further than I thought.

I drive around a bend, almost blinded by an oncoming car's headlights and there he is walking determinedly home. I wind down my window.

"Get in the car."

"Fuck off!

"Get in the car!"

"FUCK OFF!!!"

I wonder if I should stop and catch him up on foot, or drive past him and wait. I follow him instead.

"Please. Get in the car."

"Fuck off you bastard!"

"Please!?" He walks on.

"I love you."

Amazing the power of three little words.

Amazing the power of Rick's advice, and if it hadn't been for that I might well have carried on being the child I've always been.

As far as the recording went we decided to carry on tomorrow and called it a day. I drove Mike home, thinking how close we'd come to disaster, and what percentage of the blame I should lay claim to myself. I'd describe myself as a pouter rather than a sulker, but by the gods when I finally snap it takes an age and a half for me to recover -- to see sense. There are two people who can drive me into that state, and both are those I love dearly.

*

My father wrote, too. He's dead now, died a while back, but I like to think he'd have been proud of me, both for what I've already written -- though I'm not convinced I'd have shown him half of it -- and for attempting this NaNoWriMo thing. He was very definitely a 'glass half full' sort of chap.

When I was eleven he'd taken me and my best friend, a tom-boy by the name of Pie, down to the country for the day. He was visiting a professor at a research site set in the grounds of a large country estate. Though he had an important dinner to get back to in the evening he gave us permission to wander around for the afternoon. The reason I mention this is that it was just the sort of place where you'd come across real live elves. Goblins too.

“Be back here by six, please,” he said. "That's six, and not a minute later. I can't be late or your mother'll kill me." He smiled and we laughed and wandered off. Those were the days before cell phones had been dreamt of by anyone other than science fiction writers: the days before parents kept their children under watchful eyes twenty-four hours a day. They were truly halcyon days, and we always used them to the best of our eleven-year-old abilities.

We'd been to the estate many times before, and though it was exciting to explore the ice cave, where the Victorian owners had kept their food cold, and fun to roll down the long terraces of closely mown lawns, it had got to be just a little bit boring. However, there was one place Pie and I had never visited: an old folly at the top of Leith Hill. We'd driven by it many times, and it didn't seem that far. It was a sunny day in the middle of June, so we set off on foot.

We were attacked by goblins many times that afternoon, and saved by elves, fleet of foot. By the time we got to the folly it was getting late. We both knew it, but as we'd walked so far we really wanted to get there, to reach the tower where the king of the elves held court. The final climb up the hill left us panting, and as we touched the stonework we fell giggling to the floor, exhausted. Then I looked -- really looked -- at my watch and the frisson that you can only know as a child in trouble ran down my back. I felt cold, and a little panicked.

"It's five o’clock!" I said, convinced that if the king of the elves didn't come to our rescue we'd be in serious trouble -- but completely unaware I was my dad's sansho shima for my mother's dinner party.

Pie and I legged it. Legged it as only eleven-year-olds can. Pie, nearly in tears, because we’d promised to be back by six, and we didn’t have a bat in hell’s chance of making it by then. And I? I, because I knew my dad would be fuming.

The country lanes weren't busy, but I stuck my thumb out at every car that came along until finally one stopped.

"Please!" I panted, "we need to get back to Wooton Hatch by six or my dad's going to kill us."

"I doubt he'll do that, young man." The old chap said, pushing down the front seat. "Hop in. I'm going as far as Friday Street."

Very good naturedly, he ended up taking us all the way. We were just waving goodbye as my father, frantic with worry, skidded to a stop.

Parents aren't very good at seeing their children's side of things. Especially when they're late for a dinner engagement, and especially when you tell them you hitch-hiked. He wasn't at all interested in the goblin attacks either, or how the elves and the elf king's driver came to our rescue.

Which is where this all started: with elves and 'Worth' and sansho-bloody-shima.

I was going to carry on. I was, and I will.

But when I got home there was a power cut.

 

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