Harkaway

Affiliation fishwater deep; dark mist scatters. Gorey’s window sees a lass, walking the pirate cape. Headwinds and sandstone like gutters on a gothic pile. Bloody hype and networked warnings. The graphic half way and the doleful dog, blithe and spirited. Payne’s grey, the colour of Cornish painters. The graveyard shade, constantly colliding. Night’s men, handing moss across the glow.

Okay, then…

Beyond Gorey’s window lies the Fishwater Deep; a great, grey, expanse which goes down a mile. Almost cut off from the outer sea by a spit of rock, it is a deep cauldron of ocean pumped from below by undertows and currents, rising and falling like a glassy, jellied lung. 

He rests his hand on the frame and stares out. The glass is flexing slightly, the headwinds battering at his home from the heart of the Atlantic. 

Behind him, he can hear alarms. In fact, the sound is only a strange little gulp, like a fish surfacing in a tank. It’s the sound his computer makes when an email arrives. All the same, he hears - accurately enough - the sound of sirens. He glances unwillingly at the screen. Five messages. Six. Seven. Every single one flagged priority, immediate, blah blah blah. 

Well. It’s not as if he didn’t tell them.

Night’s Men are coming.

I have, of course, completely changed the game - this isn’t liveplotting at all, I have no idea where it’s going. AND I’ve blown the whole point of it, unless Kate’s flight is appallingly late. She’s loooong in the air. Well, that’s writing. So here’s this weird little orphan chunk of writing, the start of something. Maybe one day I’ll do the rest of it. It looks to have some meat on it… yes? No?

:)

NH

Liveplotting… based on five words from someone trapped in an airport lounge, I’m coming up with a storyline. Mostly to see if I can…

The five words were: Flagellation, hairnet, carrot, daisy, and handbag, and out of that I got:

Flagellation jellyfish deeps dark mist categories window windlass pirate passion deadhead iconic sandstone building gothic blood type. Hairnet androgyny lithograph half way goal laudable hymnal priest. Carrot rot farmyard rust dog dinghy doleful rocks pain Payne’s grey coastline uncle shadow cypress graveyard. Daisy bicycle cone missing collision iceberg water hold on tight wreckers hope. Handbag gloss maroon mules slog wander old gnarled joints lonely age.

And now I’m going to Jeff Noon the whole thing…

Flaofflationwjellyfishwdeepsdarkmistcategorieswindowwindlasspiratepassiond eadheadwiconicwsandstonstbuildingwgothicwbloodhypewHairnetwandrogy nywlithographwhalfwwaywgoalwlaudablsthymnalwpriestwarrotwrotmarmya rdwrustwdogwdinghywdolefulwrockswpainwPayneswgreywcoastlinstunclstsh adowwcypresswgraveyardwDaisywbicyclstconstmissingwcollisionwicebergw wateiholdsnhightwwreckerswhopewHandbagwglosswmaroonwmuleswslogw

Fine… and picking it out again…

Affiliation fishwater deep; dark mist scatters. Gorey’s window sees a lass, walking the pirate cape. Headwinds and sandstone like gutters on a gothic pile. Bloody hype and networked warnings. The graphic half way and the doleful dog, blithe and spirited. Payne’s grey, the colour of Cornish painters. The graveyard shade, constantly colliding. Night’s men, handing moss across the glow.

And that could be the beginning of something… More follows.

Five Little Words

(In case anyone’s wondering, someone’s stuck in an airport lounge looking for a new Harkaway story. I’m not actually going to write one right here - mostly because I doubt I’d finish before the flight was called, which sort of defeats the point - but I said “pick five words at random” to see if I could come up with an outline for a story from them, because, hey, it’s a good writing exercise and also I’m tired and it’s the end of the day and Mrs H isn’t quite coming home yet.)

Sooooooo….

Flagellation inevitably gives me monks. I’m not sure I want monks, it seems like a bit of an obvious step. Let’s hold that in reserve and move on to…

Hairnet. Women, obviously, have been known to wear hairnets. But so have men. Hercule Poirot always wore one when he slept. Could this be a detective sort of story? If so, I’ll have to move away from Poirot, obviously, or what’s the point…

Carrot. (I’m sensing a surrealist sort of feeling here. Okay…)

Daisy. A woman’s name? We’re back with hairnets. This whole thing has a Robert Rankin feel about it to me, and while I love his stuff I’m not comfortable with it as something I would write… I may have to take this to stage 2…

Handbag. Yep. I’m getting a curlers and roll-ups feeling off this. We’re going to work the old Jeff Noon on it…

The Old Jeff Noon:

You take your text, and you remix it. Now, Noon would have you lump a load of text from a phone book or something and I only have five words… so… gonna have to freewheel a bit:

Flagellation jellyfish deeps dark mist categories window windlass pirate passion deadhead iconic sandstone building gothic blood type. Hairnet androgyny lithograph half way goal laudable hymnal priest. Carrot rot farmyard rust dog dinghy doleful rocks pain Payne’s grey coastline uncle shadow cypress graveyard. Daisy bicycle cone missing collision iceberg water hold on tight wreckers hope. Handbag gloss maroon mules slog wander old gnarled joints lonely age.

Okay, that’s post one… more to follow.