Sticky Post - NaNoWriMo

All bets are on for my NaNoWriMo Attempt. Simply comment with a forfeit I have to do if I fail to reach 50,000 words. However in the extremely low chance that I reach the target you have to do the bet instead!

If I fail to reach 50,000 words by November 30th:

• Linda wants me to write a highly praising article about her.
• Mr Fab wants me to perform a video Karaoke version of American pie
• Dale wants me to write a post about my failure of NaNoWriMo and 2 other failures of my choice. He also wants me to praise for once managing to finish NaNoWriMo
• Sandy wants me to give up being cynical for exactly one post and give a happily-ever-after ending for each of my characters (a la my Harry Potter sequel post, which was (apparently) hilarious).

Money, Forfeits, blog post, adverts, video clips, the possibilities are endless. Just keep it light hearted and keep it legal. Otherwise I promise to do anything you ask, providing of course I fail to meet target. Ladies and Gentlemen, please your bets.

Cap Comp

For my Halloween Wordless wednesday I present something truly scary.
Free links to anyone who can make this funnier or scarier!

Previous Pics

• Cap Comp 9
• Cap Comp 8
• Cap Comp 7

The NaNoWriMo forfeits

During the month of November, I'm taking part in NaNoWriMo, the outrageous quest to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days.

This has 2 Fringe Effects
Firstly, this blog may remain largely dormant throughout November, but then you should all be used to that by now.

Secondly, all bets are on! In order to give me an extra kick up the backside I'm letting you play along at home.
Here's how it works. You pledge to do something should I get past the 50,000 word mark, e.g. If Simon finishes the novel I will...Write a praising blog entry, pay him some money or run naked down the high street. Make sure it's something that wouldn't haunt you for the rest of your life incase I actually reach 50,000 words.

However if I fail to reach 50,000 words then, and here's the bonus, I carry out the pledge instead! E.g I write you a praising blog entry, I increase your bank funds,and I scare small children In Bristol Town centre.

I will of course abide by the rules of NaNoWriMo completely, and will validate any success by decorating my blog with the NaNoWriMo winners badge.

And best of all, the odds are highly in your favour. Only 17% of people actually complete NaNoWriMo, and I've never finished anything in my life, except maybe second helpings at dinner.

So make a pledge today. We can play this game together.

Eek-Mail or How the Internet almost got me fired

I always thought it was an urban legend. After all no one really did things like that, no one could really be that stupid.
Of course, I always pride myself on being the exception to any rule.

I had a client who couldn’t get to a phone so we were communicating exclusively by E-mail. This was a definite benefit as I had to turn her claim down and I wouldn’t have to listen to her yell at me.

So in a concise professional email I explained the reasons we were repudiating the claim.

An hour later she replied.

To: Simon@theOffice.biz
From: Client@HerHome.com
Subject: Ref Claim
Dear Simon (Hey! We're on first name terms now. )
i understood that the externals were covered but believed the internals to be covered under accidental damage. Please review and get back to me.

Review and get back to her? What, does she think I’m in customer service or something?

Dutily, I asked my senior to repeat what she had already said and emailed the client back, adding a couple of in-depth explanatory paragraphs and signing off with - ‘I trust this explains our position,’ the polite way office workers have of saying ‘Shut the f**k up.’

Twenty minutes later she replies, again.

To: Simon@theOffice.biz
From: Client@HerHome.com
Subject: Ref Claim
Simon (not Dear Simon any more I see)
I am well aware that my externals are not covered but believed the internals to be so. Please review and get back to me.
Have a nice weekend.

As you can imagine, I was somewhat annoyed by now and my idea of a nice weekend was one that didn’t involve her. I clicked reply, and stared at the screen for 20 unproductive minutes while I worked out what there was left to say.

Finally, I gave up and emailed my senior instead.

‘I have explained this repudiation to the insured twice and she still keeps insisting we should be covering the internals.

Maybe you can explain this better than me?

She works week days so we can only contact her by e-mail.’

I clicked send and watched as my e-mail disappeared into the bounds of cyberspace. There was just one problem. I hadn't changed the address. I’d just sent it sent straight to the insured.

Naturally, I did what any internet savvy person would do in this situation. I panicked. For a brief, horrific, moment I longed for a simpler time before technology when I could have got my hand stuck in a postbox whilst trying to get the letter back

I was overcome with nerves, I'd screwed up. I'd made a classic stupid mistake and sent a mildly insulting e-mail straight to the person I was mildly insulting.

I had a desperate and inexplicable craving for dark chocolate.

A moment later she replied,

From: Client@herhouse.com
To: Simon@theoffice.biz
Subject: Ref Claim
I think you meant to send that to your supervisor.
I'm working from home on Monday if you'd prefer to talk on the phone.

I jumped up, stabbing for the off button as if my monitor contained a naked picture of John Goodman, ridding my screen of her cyber-terrorism. Gingerly, I rang my senior and reported the mistake, checking the number twice before I dialed. And then I left the office.

But as I walked home, the last words of her reply stuck in my mind like a record suffering from an ugly scratch.

'Do have a nice weekend.'

Roll on Monday

Archived Articles

• Taking Note
• Claims, Stains and Octogenarians
• Harry Potter and the Endless Sequels

Taking note

I have a stationery fetish. More than that even. I'd call it an Obsession but I think Calvin Klein has that copyrighted.

After the book store, the library, and the private club down the road, the Stationery store is my favourite place in the world. You can drop me off in a stationery store and happily pick me up 5 weeks later, and I'll still have a tantrum and refuse to leave.

I love stationary. I love ink flowing from a pen for the first time, I love the smoothness of unsharpened pen and I love the perfect white of a blank sheet of paper.

And most of all I love notepads.

There is something magical about a new pad. You've felt it no doubt, that thrill page that runs up the arms and into the brain like a pair of athletic earwigs, when you open to the first clean page. Every new pad has the potential for greatness. By the time it has run out of pages it could contain a best selling novel, world changing philosophy, or the recipe for Kentucky fried chicken. It could be the pad that changes the world.

It never is though. A few pages in my writing stumbles into an messy four word pile-up, marring the beauty of the canvas. Leaves are torn out, floating to the ground as if ripped from a tree by a frustrated October Wind. Over the pages my handwriting decays until it reads like a intoxicated man declaring his love of underwear. The bindings bend and clog with the fragments of torn pages, the corners crease, the ink runs, and before long my dream pad has become a collection of half finished to-do lists and stick men doodles. In short, the notebook is no longer any good for anything except… well... notes.

Every single pad I’ve ever brought has gone this way, and I've brought a lot of pads in my life. Every new idea is too precious to live on the same pages of as a failed endeavour, so I buy a new pad to nurture it in, and put up fences so it won’t be disturbed by the neighbours. Then, like always, the idea falters and gets left on shelf to ferment, the pad once a infinite canvas of possibility now reduced to emergency toilet paper.

I've never made it to the last page of a pad. In fact I'm pretty sure I've never made it to the tenth page of a pad. My Bookcase has a whole shelf devoted to unfinished notepad, crammed in side by side. I get through more pads than a pre-menstrual woman, and have less to show for it. I wouldn't be at all surprised to discover I’m single handily responsible for Global Warming and...

Wait! That's a great idea! What if there was one person who wrote so much rubbish and wasted so much paper that he caused the ice-caps to melt, and whole nations to be flood, and became public enemy number 1. Living as an outcast on the edge of society, fighting for every scrap of paper, writing to keep himself alive for another day...

Quick, somebody get me a new notepad....

Previous Posts

• Claims, Stains and octogenarians
• Harry Potter and the endless sequels
• 5 Reasons to be nice to telemarketers