Sherlock Holmes and the wonderful PLING (63k!)

Well well well, it’s been a while. I reached the magical 50k words barrier on the 11th of November because two hours before midnight I suddenly decided that it would be a fun thing to crack the minimum on 11/11. So, I stayed glued (woah, just spelled that ‘glood’ at first – should get to bed soon!) to my keyboard until shortly before midnight.

Since then it’s been a few days and now I’m proudly at 63k, EXACTLY. My daily average word count so far is at 4,200 words which has been better, but I can live with it. Currently I’m more at around 3k daily, though – and things have been stalling a bit, but it’s getting better now. Thank goodness, I need some more plot happening! At first Albert didn’t want to appear at all, now I’m having a hard time squeezing in scenes with other characters in between bits of him and Abraxas having crazy human-ghost sex. (Not really, but I always wanted to write that just to fulfill the cliché. Go, me.)

Anyways, today I ran into a bit of a problem that had be tearing out my hair for an hour before I figured out a way to work with it. (Please note: I don’t solve problems. I work with them.) So, Albert died in 1997. A big part of his first memories he gets back concern literature. Well, I had this PERFECT scheme of him having read all the Sherlock Holmes stories when they appeared, and he also owned his own copy of the complete works, all that jazz. Abraxas goes to a second hand book shop and happens to find that exact book, Albert’s name still in it and everything. Whoot.

Doesn’t sound so bad, right? Thought so, too. Until I checked my own copy of the complete novels and short stories. The last story wasn’t published until 1927. Dammit. But, being the clever little girl that I am, I also remembered that Holmes faked his death sometime and the series was on hold for a few years, including people publicly mourning his death with black armbands and veils, until he was ‘resurrected’ in The Adventure of the Empty House. Luckily, these years happened to be from 1993 to 1903. (In 1901, the Hound of the Baskervilles was published which takes place before Holmes’ alleged death chronologically, his actual return only came in 1903.)

This is something I could actually work with because in this manner, Albert died when all the world thought that Holmes was death for good and there must surely have been a ‘complete’ compilation around, so all’s well with the world. We also have a touching scene of Albert discovering that the hero of his youth actually ‘lived’ still.

This is what I love about writing, seriously.

Now, to leave the topic of NaNo for a moment and explain the PLING in the title: even before I took my first bellydance lesson I knew that I wanted to learn to play the finger cymbals (or zills, as they are also called). Zilling and dancing simultaneously is a skill that is considered essential to claim professionality by many. (Although, of course, there are people that disagree.) I myself love the mere concept and have been itching to reach a level to try it myself.

Well, my teacher heard from my eagerness to learn to play and invited me to take part in the cymbal project at the dance school and so I had my first real life acquaintance with zills yesterday.

IT. WAS. HEAVEN. TWENTYFOLD. NOT JOKING, GUYS.

I actually surprised myself by being able to dance and zill quite decently already – not perfect, of course, but I had been expecting to only be able to zill OR walk at a time, not to zill and actually move in a way that could be called dance if you’re optimistic. This is so many kinds of awesome I can’t even begin to tell you, really. I also got alphabet soup for the soul when people could hardly believe I’ve only been learning to dance for one and a half months. Goodness, I’m feeling like an idiot for sitting here with a huge, delirious grin on my face.

And so I bought my own first set of zills and am happily zilling up and down besides my bed in my room, annoying my rabbit. I already muffled every zill with masking tape, but they are still a bit loud, so I try to practice as much as possible down in the living-room where I won’t be disturbing Sally. (Only the neighbours, but they’ll have to live with it.)

Anyway, I should be off to bed now – it’s 12:30pm and I have to get up early. Laters, everyone!

 

---

Posted in Art and Inspiration, NaNoWriMo, oriental dance
Tags: finger cymbals, nano, national novel writing month, novelling, oriental dance, sherlock holmes, writing, zills