For Weeks The Fields Were In A State Of Shock

I managed to do a fair amount of noodlin' and adoodlin' last night on the Everbury cycle. No details so far, but I'm beginning to get a better idea of how the thing will come into being. I had a few moments of "flow" which is always welcome. Nothing builds the confidence like spurting out a load of words that you're automatically happy with- especially when you make the leap from notes to prose. It's a weakness of mine, however, that I really take it badly when what I write is crap. I'm dependent on my "channeling" mode...

Everbury's going to be a series of stand alone stories that are bridged by the continuing narrative of a film director who is attempting to script out a film about the Everbury event. He talks to various people about the event, so we get vox pops and interviews. We also get sketches and ideas from him as he works towards developing sequences for the film. He may crop up from time to time in other people's stories too. I've not decided yet. Part of me would like to have the stand alone stories taking place after increasing passages of time (2 years, 4 years, 8, 16...), but that might be a different set of stories.

I'm cheating a little in basing Everbury on Canterbury, which allows me to lift wholesale aspects of the city's history, local culture, and economy. It's interesting though because as I research into all that I'm getting a view of Canterbury that I didn't have before. Everbury will have to take a conscious departure from Canterbury, though, in part to keep the reality cohesive and also for a couple of gags I might want to pull when the director starts finding out about me.

I finished reading Black Swan Green last night (which disturbingly contained one of my jokes - "Strangers are just friends you haven't met yet" "Yeah? Well I've not met the Yorkshire Ripper..." I shall take it as a good omen and move on) and noted that David Mitchell is a graduate of Kent University. Hee hee.

I really wanted the Everbury event to take place on 16th January 2018, which would give me 1618, and the beginnings of something about phi, but 2018 is too far out. Knowing my rate of progress though, I might not have it done by then! I'm also keen to involve a certain degree of political satire (well, satire's too strong a word - comment, perhaps). The event - and really the point of at least one of the key strands of the stories - has both a personal and a political impact. I don't want to get too bogged down in the latter because it's the people stories that I'm more interested in, but a certain amount will be required, certainly in the director's pieces, where he begins to investigate the event.

There was a line I liked, too - not got it worded just how I want it yet. Something like "For weeks the fields were in a state of shock". Hey! That's iambic pentameter! Also I've scheduled in a torrential downpour for the 17th of January - the creator clearing his tracks... Lots of nice little ideas have occured to me along the way, too, including a kind of deep sadness that picks out individuals at random. It starts with the military and police personnel on the scene, but somehow is transmitted through the documentation and the press. Even dry administrative paperwork somehow carries the sadness with it. The director will get a bout or three.

Anyhoo, there goes lunchbreak...