#oneaday, Day 130: Spam Fiction: The Revenge

A while ago, I did this, against the express wishes of one Mr George Kokoris. Tonight I return to the challenge with a twist… I write the in-between bits. I'm going to post four pieces of that bizarre spam you sometimes get that includes extracts of prose. And then I'm going to attempt to link the four of them within the space of approximately one thousand words. With no real care or attention – spur of the moment, first-thing-that-comes-into-the-head stuff. Not quite freewriting. But not quite proper writing, either. An exercise in 1) imagination and 2) deciphering nonsense.

This is a dangerous challenge, I know, that will likely delve into the depths of the nonsensical and surreal. But I have faith that I will emerge from the other side, unscathed and smelling only slightly of processed meat. Here goes.

The original spam extracts will be marked in bold and will be cleaned up slightly so they're, you know, readable. The subject headers of the original messages are "Insatiable redhead. gets her ebaver licked in a very intense way." [sic], "Appelaing redhead atking on a ggiant one ." [sic-er] and "Can we exchange photos before we meet?" and its companion "Can we exchange photos before we meet?". Just in case you were, you know, curious.

Let us begin.

I learned to play on the piano a little. Miss Gray – she plays for gathering twilight. Her face looked thin and wistful, full of youth's ideals and enthusiasm, and a heart full of love.

"That's so! I can be glad of that, can't I?" she cried.

"Well, there will be no difficulty of that kind any longer, Pollyanna, you–"

"Thomas, that will do for this morning. I think. Very good. In the fall you will enter school here, of course."

Well, short as had been Nancy's stay at the house, the two were with; and the other was so bad it fell to pieces just as soon as my mother entered the room. Miss Pollyanna Gray and I were left staring at each other, slightly embarrassed at our previous outburst which thankfully, had not been overheard. My eyes met hers for a moment, and I knew that our time together was at an end, for now at least.

"Come, Thomas," said my mother, taking my hand firmly, much as she would have done when I was but an infant. "It is time for you to meet the gentlemen and ladies of society. Doctor Stone is planning a discussion on Wagner. You would do well to listen to his words, as a student of the arts."

I didn't doubt the fact that it would be interesting, because she said it; but in a man it would have aroused his impatience. Searching analysis of the art of Wagner?

Upright, picking the leg of a chicken with a dignified gesture, Arthur with household matters and, while Margaret put the tea things away, she threshed out since he acquired the beginnings of civilization and he. There were many older ones also in bindings of calf and pigskin, treasure because she said it; but in a man it would have aroused his impatience.

Black paper, and Haddo insisted on posing for him. A little crowd stood in front of them to receive Arthur's order. She was a hard-visaged woman, and not at all what I expected from my mother's past descriptions of Doctor Stone. For starters, I had assumed Doctor Stone to be a man. Apparently my mother had also, from her frequent references to "him", not to mention the name of Arthur, a traditionally masculine nomenclature.

"Pleased to meet you, Doctor Stone," I said, proffering my hand to Arthur.

"Ah! You must be Thomas," she said. "I am Doctor Arthur Stone, Professor of the Fine Arts at this Academy,"

"Pleased to meet you, Doctor Stone," I said again, not quite sure what to say to this half-man, half-woman figure before me.

"So, Thomas," said Haddo, relaxing her pose for a moment to turn and face me. She, too, was a striking woman, somewhat intimidating to behold. "Tell us what you know of Wagner. Arthur here was just about to begin her lecture."

"I know little of Wagner," I replied, shaking off my mothers hand that was still firmly clamped around my wrist. "But I believe that I am able to learn, I hope."

Haddo eyed me suspiciously, then turned to Arthur, whose expression had become frosty.

"I advise you to show me somewhat more zeal.The situation is quite obvious."

Probably we no more than looked at each other.

"In three days will be the coronation."

I sensed the atmosphere in the room had changed. I looked at my mother, whose eyes had suddenly sprung tears in their corners.

"What coronation?" I implored the assembled guests. I had heard no such news of any coronation, and as far as I knew, the King still sat firmly on his throne, as resolute a ruler as he had ever been.

"The coronation," said Arthur in a low voice, slowly removing one of her silk gloves. "The coronation will proceed as planned."

"I don't understand!" I cried. I turned to my mother again, who was weeping openly by now. "I don't understand, Mother!"

"Then perhaps this will clarify matters," said Arthur, removing what I could now see to be an elaborate, feminine hairpiece. Underneath he was a balding gentleman who just happened to be dressed in an expensive-looking lady's frock. He reached down into the plunging cleavage of the dress and pulled out a crown, made of material as black as night. It seemed to suck all trace of joy from the room around it.

I heard the doors of the room crash open behind me, and Pollyanna's voice pierced the tension in the room like a knife.

"Uncle! No!" she cried, throwing herself against him and tackling him to the floor.

"Miss Pollyanna Gray," growled Arthur, "this is not your business."

"I beg to differ," she murmured, picking up the blackened crown, which seemed to be twisted with hate. She span around quickly and when she faced him again I knew she was holding a different object. It was almost imperceptible, but the look of concentration on her face was absolute. I could tell that whatever she was doing was taking every ounce of her mental and physical strength to maintain.

But his eyes and mind were not fooled.

Finally, she realized that his strength was too much for her.

"They destroy you and cripple me. Murgen's dreadful sentries allowed him to pass unchallenged."

To be continued…

[No, I have no idea what any of that meant either. I hope I made your day a little more surreal. I've certainly confused myself.]

#oneaday, Day 119: Things I Thought Were True, But Aren't

When you're a kid, you pick up what you think is "knowledge" from somewhere. God knows where – probably a combination of things you thought you'd overheard your parents saying (but had inevitably misheard or misunderstood), things you'd seen in the media and things your friends had told you were absolutely, positively 100% true because their big brother said so and their big brother knows everything about the world because he has got a girlfriend and a car and goes to secondary school and you don't.

Some of these things are myths perpetuated by society to give more meaning to particular events. The Tooth Fairy. The Easter Bunny. Santa. Jesus. (Sorry.) But others are just plain wrong, and sometimes you don't get corrected on them until much later. And sometimes you don't ever get corrected on them.

Take these five examples. I know they're all nonsense, but there are at least three of them I haven't seen compelling evidence against. So if you'd care to set my mind at rest about any of them, please feel free.

1. Car crashes always cause explosions.

Hollywood can take full responsibility for this one, since almost any movie involving a car crash inevitably ends with one or both of the cars exploding into a ball of flames while our intrepid hero manages to get out just in time. So when I was being driven to a piano lesson by my mother one night, and a car misjudging a peculiar junction bumped into the front of our car at less than 20mph (hardcore, right?) I was terribly surprised to not suddenly be engulfed in flames and smoke and be battling for my life. Pleasantly surprised, I might add – even more so by the fact that we could drive off after the accident, because the second thing I assumed about car accidents at the time was that they caused your car to immediately die. However non-severe the accident was. Scrape a lamp-post? Uh-oh, better start walking!

2. Someone throwing a cigarette out of their car window and it passing underneath your car will cause your car to explode.

I am genuinely quite paranoid about this to this day – not unreasonably I feel, as we're taught quite early on that cars run on quite flammable materials and as such probably shouldn't be in close contact with anything that is, you know, on fire. To this day, any litterbug smoker flinging their fag-ends out of their window hasn't been successful in detonating my car behind them but surely it's only a matter of time.

3. Using a mobile phone anywhere in the vicinity of a petrol station will cause the petrol station to explode.

It probably hasn't escaped your notice that three out of the three irrational fears so far have involved explosions. I don't have a particular explosion phobia – although like most people, it's not something I would choose to stand next to – but it occurs to me that no-one gives you a particular education in the things which do and do not cause explosions. This is clearly a failing of the current education system and should be rectified with a new section of the National Curriculum immediately.

Oh, right, mobile phones. Well, there are signs everywhere in petrol stations telling you what you shouldn't do because petrol is flammable and blah blah blah. And the instruction to switch off one's mobile phone is always right under the instructions to switch off one's engine and to not light fires or smoke. Therefore, it's a natural assumption that the mobile phone thing also has something to do with fire. It probably doesn't. But to tell you the truth, I don't actually know why you're not supposed to use your mobile phone in a petrol station. It's the sort of thing I think of every time I see that sign and then never bother to ask anyone about.

4. Having been to the place depicted in a TV show makes the TV show approximately one thousand times better.

Okay, sometimes this is true. If you saw Jack Bauer storming a hotel you'd stayed at, that would be pretty cool. But having suffered through many, many episodes of pensioner-based "sitcom" (and I use the term loosely) Last of the Summer Wine when I was little, and then having visited Holmfirth, the Yorkshire village where it is set, I can state with some confidence that this is simply not the case. In fact, I recall being rather disappointed when I discovered that the café in the series was actually a hairdressers in reality. Oh, and the programme still wasn't funny.

5. Noel Edmonds is watching every house in the country.

Bearded light-entertainment twat Noel Edmonds (now in charge of the utterly pointless Deal or No Deal) used to have a show on Saturday evenings called Noel's House Party. It was a variety show of the type you don't really get that much any more, unless there's some sort of charity gig like Comic Relief or Children in Need going on in which case they draw the format out over the course of approximately fifteen hours. One of the segments on the show was called Gotcha, where Noel would look right at the screen and start talking, then click his fingers and suddenly on everyone's TV screens, there was a family sitting together on their sofa looking all "OMG!" while Noel was all "LOL!" and the audience was like "ROFL!"

I can't even remember the point of the segment. I think it involved Noel talking to the family through their TV set and possibly they won a prize or something. The only effect it had on my young self was inducing a state of almost total paranoia while this show was on. As soon as the Gotcha segment started, I started looking around to see if I could spot any hidden cameras. Leave aside the fact that we clearly hadn't had any visitors from a TV crew to install said hidden cameras at any point. I always wondered why the family was surprised. Maybe Noel's team broke into the family's house in order to install the hidden cameras, which just makes them even worse, given the fact that I know I'd be utterly terrified in a break-in situation. But you never saw that in the papers, did you? "Noel's House Party team in hospital after shotgun break-in incident".

Fortunately, I no longer think that Noel Edmonds is watching me. Probably for the best.

Super-Important Edit!

[EDIT: "Mike" in the comments below has graciously pointed out that the segment in question was not, in fact, called Gotcha but was actually called NTV. I apologise profusely for this gross failure to check my facts properly before writing. But, to be honest, the prospect of trawling through footage of Noel Edmonds was so repulsive to me that I couldn't face it. So consider this an official correction and apology. Thank you, Mike, you've done the world a service by remembering Noel's House Party so we don't have to.]

#oneaday, Day 118: Homecoming

It is like a ghost house. Haunted by shadows of the past, and yet at the same time pristine and new, full of possibilities, like it once was so long ago.

In through the door, into the hall. A door, usually shut, stands open, looking in one direction. Beyond the door, the darkness of the night creeps in. The other doors remain steadfastly shut, waiting for me to reveal their contents, be they painful, joyful or wrathful.

Passing through the open door, its inviting portal beckoning me within. Flashes of terrible possibilities scream through my head and I wonder if any of them are true, but none of them are. Everything is as it was, only with a layer of meaning removed. Floor once well-trodden with hard labour stands pristine and new as if nothing had ever been there. There is space, empty space, but imperceptibly, outside the gaze of reality, the memories are still there. There they sit, watching stoically, not judging, just being. But then they are not there and there is just space again.

The space we once shared together forever changed, only a discarded sleeping bag and some crumpled cushions holding memories of what once was and what eventually came to be. And the silence. The silence is deafening.

Back into the hall. Hand trembling, I open a door. A door I feared to open. Inside are nothing but spirits. What the room once was there is no trace of, not physically. But the memories are here too. Standing in the corner. Stretched under the window. Sitting in the single lonely chair. They are here, looking at me, not a trace of judgement in them. Do they have faces? I can't see, and then they are gone again.

Back to the hall. Hand trembling, I open another door. Another door I feared to open. Inside it is like the room behind the open door, everything as it once was but with a layer of meaning stripped away to reveal – what? Is there deeper meaning left beneath?

I sit. Two crystallised memories stare back at me, in physical form this time. I wondered if they would remain strong or shatter like everything else. But they are here. It fills me with great sadness and great joy to see them, for they represent the good times. They were alive, and took in everything that once was. Do they still live? They do, but they do not understand. Part of what gave them life has gone, but the other part remains. Do they still live? They do. And they bear a missive.

The message should make me weep, or wrathful, or sicken with heartbreak, but it does not. Something about it is calming. Perhaps its words merely float on my surface to be absorbed at a later time. The meaning is there and was already there, but right now I do not feel it. I feel little but reality loosening its bonds on my mind and my soul.

I rise off the ground and float through this home, this place of memories, stripped and gutted of part of that which made it what it was, and I feel…

#oneaday Day 116: Dear The Internet

Dear The Internet,

I am writing to you to express my concern about several people who spend their time on you. Not in a sexual way. Actually, sometimes in a sexual way, but that's beside the point. The fact is, there are people out there who do annoying things. I am aware that this is not your fault, nor are they doing it specifically to wind me and only me up. However, the fact is, I am wound up by them and I would like you to stop them, please.

People who comment first on things should be applauded for their tenacity. Assuming they have anything worthwhile to say. However, unfortunately, the sort of person who enjoys pointing out the fact they are the first to comment on something rarely has anything useful to say. This then has the knock-on effect of causing the following commenters to assume that the thing that has been posted is the sort of thing only enjoyed by twats and, by extension, is not something over which a reasonable, thought-provoking or entertaining discussion might take place. Please see what you can do to stop this happening.

The immediacy with which information is available on you is astounding. During the last paragraph, I was able to quickly look up the word "tenacity" to ensure it was, in fact, the correct word I was thinking of. (It was.) However, this does not mean that more lengthy prose no longer has a place in society. Whether on a message board, a blog post, an online news article or a Wikipedia article, the saying "less is more" is not always true. Consider these two sentences: "Pete is a dude." and "Pete is an awesome dude who likes video games and music, and has also recently taken to punctuating his blog posts with MS Paint stickmen representations of himself and numerous other anonymous people." Which of the two sentences tells you more about Pete?

As an aside, however, this does not mean you should ever allow your denizens to use text-speak in order to cram more information into less space.

Laughter is the best medicine, but it is not punctuation. We already have some perfectly good punctuation marks to use. Here is one: a colon. And a full stop. And oh look – a dash! And an exclamation mark. But what about a question mark? Or some sort of slash/"quotation marks" combination? All of these things are fine and serve to make our written communication more clear.

"LOL" is not a punctuation mark. It means "laughing out loud", something I genuinely doubt people are actually doing every time they type "LOL". I've heard a lot about privacy concerns around you, so could you make use of some of these loopholes to watch people through their webcams and squirt deodorant in their faces if they type "LOL" and they're not actually laughing, please?

I've bought things in the past. I once bought a copy of Oasis' first album Definitely Maybe the day before their second album (What's the Story) Morning Glory? came out. I didn't know any better at the time, as I was just getting into popular music, but I wasn't annoyed, because Definitely Maybe is a good album too. I was quite impressed that my friends at the time didn't feel the need to take the piss out of me for this, because they too knew that Definitely Maybe was still a worthwhile purchase even though the next album was on the way.

So if I buy something these days, could you see if it's possible to stop people saying what I've bought is not very good and suggesting something better instead? I happen to like the thing I bought. That's why I chose to buy it over the thing they're recommending. Maybe I spent a little more. I'm fine with that – I can deal with the consequences. I'm sure their thing is really good too, which is why I'm not suggesting that they buy the thing I bought instead of the thing they bought. Do you see?

Finally, Internet, I believe that one of your most exciting features that you told everyone about when you first appeared on the scene was the ability to bring the whole world closer together. Terms like "information superhighway" and "global village" were coined for us to all imagine one big happy family holding hands and enjoying things together.

I like this idea. Happy families are nice. We can enjoy things together. So would you mind doing something about the people who feel the constant need to say something sucks because the thing they think sucks does almost the same as the thing they think doesn't suck but maybe not quite as well in their opinion? Because that just invites other people to show up and say the thing that the other person thinks sucks actually doesn't suck because they think it doesn't suck and the thing that the other person actually thought didn't suck really sucks instead because the other person is a douchebag and their mother is a homosexual?

I have all the things that some people think suck and others think don't suck, and I don't think any of them suck. Could you spread a little bit of this love around please?

Thank you for taking the time to read this letter, Internet. I'm sure it will provide you with some helpful feedback on how to make yourself work better. You might need to fire a few people, though.

Yours sincerely,

Pete Davison

#oneaday, Day 113: Mini-Memes and Offensive GIFs (NSFW)

I have no idea who Bernard Pivot is. The only thing I think of when I hear the word "Pivot" is the array of moderately-to-extremely offensive stickman animations entitled Battle of the Sexes that my friend Sam and I produced using the piece of software of the same name (Pivot, not Battle of the Sexes) while we were back in university, a selection of which you can see at the end of this blog post. That was a very long sentence, wasn't it? Never mind.

Anyway, the reason I bring up Bernard Pivot is Daniel Lipscombe's recent post of the same name. Apparently something called Inside the Actors Studio always featured a questionnaire by Mr Pivot that everyone featured would answer. I'm sure Daniel can explain it much better than I can, so go and read his post for more details. I'm just going to answer the questions in a memerrific manner.

Yes, I'm feeling lazy. But I did go and dig into archive.org to go and find those GIF files, previously thought to be lost. I'm good to you, I am. So allow me a little laziness, particularly as I had a job interview today and had to spend seventy-five fucking pounds getting the train to Brighton (65 miles). Ripoff!

I appear to be procrastinating against answering these questions. It's not deliberate. Here goes:

What is your favorite word?
"Ostensibly". I'm not sure it's actually my "favourite", but I certainly use it a hell of a lot. I guess you could say that ostensibly my favourite word is "ostensibly". Maybe. But that would make you a prat.
What is your least favorite word?
"Accountability". Nothing good ever comes of someone using that word. See also: "leverage", "monetize", "transparency", when not used the context of discussing a physical object that is not opaque.
What turns you on?
Porn! Errm, you didn't mean it like that, did you? An in-depth and deeply, deeply nerdy conversation would be the next best thing.
What turns you off?
Staff meetings in hot, stuffy rooms. I can't help my eyes getting heavy. I've never actually fallen asleep in one but I've come perilously close lots of times. Also, spiders.
What sound or noise do you love?
That bubbly sound when you put a straw in a glass of drink and blow.
What sound or noise do you hate?
Bits of polystyrene scraping together.
What is your favorite curse word?
COCK! Said with aplomb.
What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?
I am currently profession-less, technically, unless you count supply teaching. In which case, video game journalism, which I'm sort of doing already anyway. For something completely different, I wouldn't mind doing something involving driving.
What profession would you not like to do?
Anything that involves sick, poo or blood.
If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?
"Well done for surviving My many challenges that I have thrown in your way! You win my Grand Prize."

Do have a go at answering these questions in the comments below because I like comments and they make me feel loved and appreciated. While you wait, here are some offensive GIFs involving stickmen and women. I present Battle of the Sexes, a 2005 production of Angry Jedi and Rampant Goose. Click the pics to see the animations, since WordPress doesn't seem to like displaying inline animated GIFs, at least not in this theme.

Episode 1: First Meeting

Episode 2: Anyone for Tennis?

Episode 3: Man's Best Friend

Episode 4: Uneasy Alliance

Episode 5: Raging Horn

Episode 6: Supermale

Episode 7: Kiss and Make Up

Episode 8: Big Sister's Story

Episode 9: Happy Home

I'm sorry. 🙂

#oneaday, Day 112: Hyperbole Squared

Sometimes you come across something – or someone – so utterly wonderful you want to share it – or them – with everyone. Those of you who follow me on Twitter will already know what – or who (okay, I wish I hadn't started this now, it's getting tiresome) – I'm talking about. Those of you who have been confused as to why I keep shouting "BAP!" at semi-regular intervals – well, consider yourself prepared for an education.

If you're wondering who the girl on the right is, this is Allie Brosh. Allie, a self-confessed "sexy lion", is 24, lives in Montana and has a Boyfriend with a capital B. She also has ADHD, a copy of Paintbrush and a gift for writing things so utterly charming that you can't help but want to follow the chaotic saga that is her life. Her blog, Hyperbole and a Half, ping-pongs around between heartfelt lucidity, infectious childlike enthusiasm and some of the funniest, most surreal imaginings you'll ever come across in your travels around the Internet. She also invented the term "mandatory sex party", which went from being a three-word Googlewhack (so not a true Googlewhack, but I'm not picky) to having 28,800 pages mentioning it in the space of a year. And she apologises for saying fuck a lot.

I have no idea how I found Allie in the first place. I was looking in my Bookmarks Bar in Google Chrome and saw that mysterious » symbol mocking me at the end as if to say "ORGANISE YOUR BOOKMARKS, YOU TOOL!" I clicked on it just to see what forgotten secrets it was hiding and saw a peculiar-looking entry in the pop-up menu that appeared.

"Hyperbole and a Half," it said. "Come and look. That's an intriguing title, isn't it?"

It didn't actually speak. That would be weird. But anyway, I clicked on the entry to see what it was and was confronted with this post. It made me laugh. A lot. Particularly because of the drawings. Well-done bad MS Paint drawings are always amusing, but Allie has a real talent for drawing hugely expressive faces with the simplest of shapes. This, coupled with the prose, made me know immediately that this was something I wanted to keep reading. So I checked out the featured posts she had in her sidebar.

After reading the first paragraph of this post and looking at the picture, I was literally crying with laughter for a good five minutes. That's not an exaggeration. Any time I look at the "BAP!" picture (in fact, any time I even imagine the picture) I start giggling uncontrollably. It was perfect – even more so because I know that I've done something similar before. The word "COCK!" became a useful, if moderately offensive, shortcut to fill dead air in a conversation for my friends and I some years back, and even as I creep closer to 30 I don't see that situation changing any time soon. (I'm in touch with my inner child. Sue me. I am rubber, you are glue and all that.)

Also, this.

Once the giggles had subsided, I decided to delve back into Allie's archives and read her posts from the beginning, which turned out to be the middle of last year. Her blog has evidently changed a lot over time, with it starting out as an opportunity for her to get the things that are seemingly racing around her head out onto a page and shared with the world as quickly as possible. She writes like I imagine her talking – quickly, enthusiastically, jumping from one subject to another and often getting distracted by something, veering off onto a complete tangent and oh look a squirrel that's nice isn't it? And she writes about everyday things people get excited about. Destroying snow. Getting drunk and going down a slide, only to find yourself giggling on the floor for a good few minutes afterwards. Grammar pedantry. Imagining monsters in the ice.

Okay, so some of the things she writes about aren't exactly "everyday" things. But at times, there's a beautiful, childlike innocence to the way she writes and at others, there's a wonderful sense of heartfelt sincerity and honesty. There'll be at least one story she tells on the pages of her blog that everyone can relate to, whether it's the description of her shower being incapable of anything except "lava water" or "liquid ice", the tales of her weird neighbour who always collars her for "therapy-time" or her account of the mission she went on to hijack someone's Wi-Fi just so she could post.

Peppered throughout the blog are more of her hugely expressive MS Paint creations, always there to support one of her stories in a hilariously visual manner. I haven't yet caught up with the "present day", but I guess (judging from the recent posts) at some point she started to move more towards the "humour" angle and further away from the "personal stories" angle. In some ways, this is a shame, as the stories she tells about herself are always incredibly entertaining, but fortunately she has a wonderful sense of comedy, too.

So if you're at a loose end, looking for something to read or want cheering up in a hurry, I strongly encourage you to go and check out Hyperbole and a Half. Be warned, though, once that sexy lion has her claws into you you won't want to let her go!

#oneaday, Day 96: Another Day, Another #oneaday

Well, since everyone else seems to be doing it (well, by "everyone" I mean Chris Schilling and Rhiarti) I guess it's time for a post on the subject of #oneaday itself.

Numbers have been dwindling since the project began. Right now we're down to just a few people. As Chris says on his post today (or more accurately, yesterday, since – oh look, it's 2AM) it would probably be generous to say that there are ten writers still thanklessly scribbling away for no discernible reward save a sense of self-satisfaction. And, of course, the happy smiley comments that people post when they see something they particularly like.

When I first started blogging a few years back – I had several attempts prior to settling on this particular little corner of the web – I felt that it was a fairly "solitary" experience. I mean, sure, you have the comments section. But not everyone bothers to comment. And that's fine in this instance – as I've said several times, I'm writing for me here. Thinking out loud, if you will. If you, the person reading this right now, happen to enjoy it, so much the better.

What #oneaday has taught me, though, is that blogging doesn't have to be that solitary experience. It can very much be a social experience where writers can group together, take ideas from one another and discuss the things that they have written about. As the #oneaday collective has become smaller and smaller, it's become closer and closer. When the project first started, I didn't have time to read through the fairly daunting list of daily-updated blogs. It's easy to feel overwhelmed by continually updated content, particularly when it comes from a large number of sources. But now, I feel that I can easily get through the people who are still working hard on their blogs. I can read their posts, digest the content, post a comment, check back for comments later in case I sparked a discussion, and then do the same with the next site. And the next one. And the next one.

Since we've started talking to each other more, there's a lot more in the way of discussion and reposting on Twitter, too, potentially opening our respective audiences up to more people. Again, as I say, it's not about huge audience figures – but it's always nice for any writer to know that what they're posting is being read and appreciated by others. So if you're reading this, thanks. You're pretty great, you know that?

The biggest thing it's done for all of us, though, is give us the opportunity to express ourselves regularly, along with teaching us all some pretty rigorous self-discipline. Churning out a post a day which has to be nothing more than a paragraph if we can't be bothered may not sound like much, but it's a big deal for any writer to be able to conscientiously get on with doing what they do every single day. So a public congratulations to those who are still beavering away like me, and a welcoming hand to those who are contemplating joining us. Mr Kokoris, I'm looking at you.

And no, it's not compulsory for you to write posts at 2AM. I've just sort of fallen into the habit. Whoops.

On that note, I am yawning my head off. Good night!

#oneaday, Day 76: Daytime. Sort of.

Yes! A pre-midnight post! How about that. Since I'm in a writing frame of mind, I thought I'd write something. I've just written 1100 words on my story. Actually, I ditched what I wrote yesterday and started again. It's flowing a bit better this time, which is good. Hopefully I'll be able to keep up some sort of momentum.

I say I'm in a writing frame of mind but in fact I'm just trying to avoid the televisual monstrosity that is whatever that ridiculous audition show for The Wizard of Oz is on television. I'm really, really sick of these shows, as I've made abundantly clear on a number of occasions. These ones where the "winners" end up with a part in a West End show make a mockery of the whole process. Andrew Lloyd Webber sitting in a gold throne with everyone calling him "The Lord"? The sycophantic nonsense spewed by Graham Norton and others on the show is enough to make one want to vomit. Yes, Lloyd Webber has created some of the most successful musicals ever, but that doesn't mean I want to see people practically sticking their nose up his arse and rimming him on television. And I certainly don't want to vote on it.

Enough ranting on that subject, otherwise it'll annoy my wife.

Anything else interesting happen today? Well, no, not really. It's been very quiet since PAX East, but people are still talking about it, which is good. A good buddy over on BitMob posted a fantastic article about the experience, which summed up exactly how I felt about it as a fellow sufferer of social anxiety. I suggest you go and read it if you haven't already – even if you're not a gamer. It's a great piece.

I've also been watching some of the PAX 09 DVD which I picked up as a keepsake. The video quality on it is great, meaning the concerts, panels and appearances by Gabe, Tycho and Wil Wheaton all look and sound great. I'm actually really impressed with how good it is – I was expecting low-quality, hand-held shakeycam, but in fact it's a completely professional job. I should know better than to doubt nerds making videos, I guess.

Anyway, that's about it for today. Not very interesting, I know. But that's the way some days go.

#oneaday, Day 62: Freewriting #4 - I Can Barely Keep My Eyes Open

[It's 1:33am and I've inadvertently forgotten to go to bed just yet. And forgotten to blog. So here is some more musings from the innermost depths of my brain. Clock. Ten minutes. Write. Don't stop. You know the drill. If it's crap, I make no apologies for it whatsoever.]

The city streets were quiet. The occasional whoosh of a car in the distance notwithstanding, it looked like something terrible had happened leaving him the only sign of life in the world. His mind wandered back to that movie – 28 Days Later – and a shiver ran down his spine as he thought "what would I do if that really happened?"

Fortunately, the silence was shattered by a noisy drunk staggering down the street, shambling around a corner like one of the zombies in those films he liked so much. He started singing – an incoherent tune, born from some forgotten memory and sounding for all intents and purposes like a small creature being strangled and/or put through a mangle.

He was secretly annoyed that his silence had been broken by this imbecile staggering down the street with all the flair and panache of a dog turd. He enjoyed the night. He enjoyed the peace. He enjoyed the feeling of being alone, free from obligations, free from worries. Night-time was a pure time, when he could truly be alone with his thoughts and contemplate whatever he wanted.

Right now, he was contemplating nothing at all. He was simply enjoying the feeling of sitting on the roof of his building, feeling the cool night breeze blowing over his face and finding the sensations of the air moving around him rather relaxing. The drunk was staggering away now, and the song had stopped. Either he had forgotten the words, had forgotten what he was doing or, more likely, just got bored.

Then the silence was back. He looked up and down the street and once again, all was still. A slightly stronger breeze than before blew and caused the few trees and bushes there were in the area to rustle, swish-swish-swish. It was a sound he enjoyed, and brought back memories of his childhood, lying on his back in the summer sun, eyes closed, feeling the heat of the sun on his face and listening to the rustling of the trees while his peers played somewhere in the distance.

He always was a dreamer. He wasn't sure what he wanted to dream about, so he dreamed about anything he could think of. He dreamed of far-off places. He dreamed of things he could never do. He dreamed of things he probably could do but was too scared to. And he dreamed of where things might actually go in the near future.

No-one knew. He didn't know. No-one else was going to be able to tell him what the future held, not his friends, not his family, not his horoscope from the paper, not whatever Facebook app was spamming him with promises of what his lucky colour was this week. The only person who would be able to tell him what the future held would be him, once it had happened. And by then, it would be too late.

He lay back on the roof and closed his eyes like he did so many years ago. The concrete on the flat roof wasn't nearly as comfortable as the soft grass of the playing fields at home, but it did the job. With his eyes closed, the silence seemed even purer. Devoid of any visual distractions, his imagination began to wander – a fleeting image here, a passing fancy there. But none of them stuck. There was no clear path. It was a fog, a mist, threatening to swallow him if he would let it. But he wouldn't. He was strong. He knew that he could make it through all the uncertainty, the lies, the nonsense, and that somewhere on the other side of it all there would be something good waiting for him.

Exactly what form that "something good" would take was what he was most curious about. Would it be a person? A thing? Some money? Winning a prize? Appearing on television? Becoming famous?

He didn't really want some of those things, but they were things that people commonly referred to as being "good". A programme he had seen on the TV earlier that evening featured a series of teenage girls all proudly proclaiming that their life's ambition was to "be famous". For what, exactly, they were never exactly clear. When pushed, one or two of them came out with "well, modelling, innit?" but nothing more than that.

He didn't see himself in that position. But maybe there was something there waiting for him.

For now, though, it didn't matter. For now was the night, and it was closing in.

He closed his eyes tighter and let himself drift away slowly into the darkness, unafraid of where he might wake up.

#oneaday, Day 53: Freewriting #3, or What The Hell Is Going On In My Head?

[In the absence of any particular inspiration today, I'm going to start that clock for ten minutes once again and just write without editing, except that which happens on "autopilot" as I type. Let's see what happens this time, shall we? Three. Two. One. Go!]

Fire light.

A camp fire.

Figures all around. Standing. Waiting. What are they waiting for?

Who knows. No-one knows, not even the woman standing apart from the group, facing the other way, into the forest. She weeps, for something lost and almost forgotten.

The men chant. No-one knows what they are saying, not even then. It is a dead language, dredged up for this ceremony which no-one is sure of its purpose.

The woman turns. The men continue, seemingly oblivious to her presence. Her face is streaked with tears.

She pulls off the shoulder of her fur top, first one, then the other. The garment falls to the floor. She is naked in the darkness, the red glow of the fire illuminating her skin.

She walks towards the fire. The men still chant. Over and over. She walks. Closer. The heat is on her skin now, making her sweat.

What is this? she thinks. Why am I here? I don't know what this ceremony is about, or what it is that is going to happen next.

A man's attention is distracted. He stumbles over one of the words of the dead language. No-one notices except the woman. She turns, her flaxen hair falling over her bare shoulders. She locks eyes with the man.

One word goes through her mind. Heretic.

Why heretic? Why is he a heretic when I don't understand why any of us are here? she thinks.

The man is panicking, trying his best to find his rhythm and get back with the rest of the group. Still no-one has noticed except the woman, now staring at him, the light of the fire reflected in her widening eyes, still glistening with tears.

The man looks away from her, down at the floor, as he continues to mumble the words, missing things here and there.

Eventually, he can take it no longer, and sinks to his knees, his bare legs striking the dirt on the ground and grazing them. It hurts more than he expected, but in a short while it won't matter.

The woman is filled with sorrow for this man's fate. She doesn't know what it is, but a flash of something – a forgotten memory? A vision? Something blasts through her mind, and it is not a pretty sight. She catches a glimpse of the man's face in her mind's eye, his face contorted with intense torment and pain.

Then she knows. She has to save him. She has to get out of here. She takes a step forward. Towards him. Moving slowly, her bare feet gliding across the dirty floor.

The kneeling man looks up at her with pleading eyes. Her eyes still glisten. Her heart is filled with compassion for this man, this poor man dragged into this situation beyond his control, just like she was. And she knows that it is time. It is time for this to continue no longer.

She takes his hand. The other men chant, over and over in a forgotten, dead language. They are oblivious to what she is doing, and oblivious to the young man's mistakes. In a few short minutes, all that will change, and she knows this. She pulls him up to his feet and nods her head towards the darkness of the forest, away from the angry red glow of the firelight.

Where should we go? she asks herself. I don't know where we are.

Run, he says with his eyes, looking at her, on the verge of tears.

The unspoken communication between the two of them passes quickly, and, hands clasped tightly together, they run into the forest. Plants and branches sting and lacerate their bare legs as they run, but in a few short minutes none of that will matter. In a few short minutes, the ceremony will be over, for better or worse, and all this will cease to matter.

Given our desertion, she thinks, my money is on "worse".

But she doesn't want to stick around to find out. And she's sure he doesn't either.

Where to go? The forest paths seem to lead in every direction.

The only thing they can think of is the direction they cannot go in – back towards the flames. That way lies only suffering and death.

But where to go from here?

[Yeah, I know. Don't ask.]