This spot is usually done very professionally. There have been clever references, puns and a wonderful summary of the week’s stories. That won’t happen here. Not because the stories aren’t wonderful, of course they are…Well Thursday’s was a bit dodgy but there you go. It is just that Mr Saturday has taken some time off. After he reads this, it might only be for a week!!
I am listening to Icelandic Electronica/House giants GusGus 2011 album Arabian Horse.
It makes me wonder.
About all sorts.
But nothing to do with Week 48 at Literally Stories, I hear you say?
Not literally hear. And no Arabian Horse doesn’t have anything to do with Week 48. And yes I concede musical references are an unimaginative standby for producing out of thin air suitable talking points by which to segue seamlessly into this, that or the other. And no I shouldn’t make a habit of beginning my sentences with conjunctions lest I be hauled into custody by the Grammar Police.
Which leads me to the weakest of weak links: serial grammar felony is not an accusation you could level at any of Week 48’s authors.
I am reminded
That the pheno
That is NaNoWriMo
Gets under way shortly.
Right across the globe tens of thousands of fifty thousand-word novels, technically novellas — but let’s not quibble about terminology — will be written during the month of November.
For all those (Diane Dickson I mean you!) of a mathematically averse nature, look away now…
Convert those 50K words into Literally Stories short story fiction and that weighs in at the equivalent of at least 30 short stories or one short story per day.
Give or take a Drabble.
For someone who averages 500 words a week this is a tall order indeed therefore I am seeking an extension to the deadline from 30 November to 31 December.
2017.
Plan B is to give NaNoWriMo a miss this year and stick to casting my eye over the week’s goings-on here at LS; trying not to malign the accepted or natural order of days of the week according to the classical planets of Hellenistic astrology.
In a wee corner of the multiverse known only to the high command of the Illuminati and former cast members of ‘Allo ‘Allo, an errant ‘server’ has been playing havoc with the day-to-day behind-the-scenes running of Literally Stories.
Nothing to do with WordPress, we should add, which runs as smooth as a very smooth thing (apart from a faulty Facebook widget that needs the kiss of life.)
I digress.
Such old-fashioned methods of communication as carrier pigeon, cup and string and even email have been brought back into service. Nevertheless, the bandwagon rolls on and Week 45 is but a beautiful faded memory as Week 46 wins fresh admirers and so on and so forth…bringing us to Monday.
It has been a busy week. No denying it.
Publishing five stories on the site as is our custom plus preparing to launch Literally Stories — The Anthology: it could be said we gave Ground Control a run for its money.
I am not Major Tom. Neither am I sitting in a tin can but I am feeling a little odd today.
Strained.
Nothing that a breeze through this week’s literary line-up won’t put right.
Scouting locations for the 2015 Literally Stories Editors team-building weekend — or jolly as the vernacular would have it, is as you would imagine a thankless task, especially when the phrase ‘shoestring budget’ overstates the resources at your disposal.
A three-man ridge tent (for five) with en-suite latrine in the second week in December is hardly Glamping but should at least concentrate the literary mind.
Abii. Vidi. Unde digressus sum.
I went. I saw. I digressed.
The last week has thrown up all manner of political oddities from around the world – and I’m not just referring to Donald Trump’s combover which must be standing on end at the news that Arnold Schwarzenegger (an immigrant no less) has stolen his old job on The Apprentice. The Labour Party in the UK has a new leader several light years left of centre. Australia is going through Prime Ministers faster than a stuttering sports team changes managers, and just this afternoon in Burkina Faso a very large chap in an army uniform locked up the President.
At Literally Stories we try and steer clear of politics. No military coups for us. No bloc voting. Just an oasis of calm, storytelling quality in a world of turmoil.
For someone who does not know a DSL from a WLAN Week 41 ended somewhat chaotically. I am talking routers of course and some would say what’s new?
Solutions to a faulty on/off button came both high and low-tech.
Cape Town (Nik) provided the know-how. The high-end geek-speak.
Sheffield (me) the low-brow pass me a roll of gaffer tape and I’ll fix mentality.
It really is amazing what you can keep running with an ounce of ingenuity and a paper-clip.
Week 40.
Four-Oh blind forty.
Those of you like me who regularly visit the local Bingo Hall in search of friendship, weak coffee, numbers no greater than two digits and dayglo marker pens, will undoubtedly not have the foggiest idea what the origins of ‘blind forty’ are. Blind forty, one of many colourful phrases bingo callers cry out, such as three and seven, thirty-seven.
Those of you who do know what ‘blind forty’ means will no doubt glow with pride when name-called a nerd, anorak or some other pejorative that implies they possess a vast general knowledge.
Uncertain whether or not I should round off my momentary lapse into all things numerical by declaring ‘That’s Numberwang’, or were I in Wiesbaden, ‘Das ist Nummerwang’ I opted to consult a search engine and was greatly reassured this utterance was not such a foolish notion after all.
Even the German translation of the spoof game show Numberwang yielded 160 hits in 0.57 seconds.
Question:
What do you get if you combine a sagacious Swede with a wayfaring Welshman then add a mercurial Massachusettian to a canny Croat and for good measure finish by blending in a bold Brit?
Simples!
Week 39 at Literally Stories of course!
literally stories 