Synopsis Synapses

I still need to think of a premise for my novel.

It doesn't need to be a big one. I can stretch a tiny premise quite far. I've stretched the premise of this blog (Human Male Wastes Life) for 731 entries.

I just need a seed.

I tried recently (that Easter thing), but I don't know if that idea has legs. Or if it does have legs, they're wobbly and somebody needs to stick some folded-up paper under one of them.

I also did the beginning a murder mystery a while back. That seems to have more potential. But I'm not sure if that's the genre for me. Murder is pretty passé.

I'll keep thinking about it as I blow your mind with some utter bloody content.

***

Films, eh? I've certainly seen some. Here are some of my snapshot reviews.

Bridesmaids

A good film

Looper

A quite good film

Drive

A good film

That's it for Film This Month with Paul Fung.

I'll be back in the Autumn with more of the latest news and views from the world of celluloid theatre. My guests will include Alyson Hannigan, one of the puppets from the film Syriana, and the owner of the world's largest collection of popped corn.

My gusts will include a nostalgic bakery waft, some spooky ghost wind, and a hair dryer accidentally left on the highest setting.

Barry Norman will be dead by then.

***

I don't have very much money. That's always true, but this month it's T-roo.

It's my own fault. When I did jury service, I was reimbursed for my lost wages. That was a few months ago. But those wages hadn't been deducted yet.

I should have realised. But instead, I just treated the extra cash as a lucky accident. I thought I must have been frugal in the previous weeks, or that I'd worked extra hard. Or maybe I'd assumed (as we all do sometimes) that my money problems had magically sorted themselves out. Because... I like me, and it would be nice to have more money.

I don't need to work harder or get promoted - I just need to remain inactive, and the Gods of Justice will settle things. Admittedly, they may be more concerned with genuinely poor people. The Gods of Justice may rank the needs of the destitute over my desire to buy Community Season 2 on DVD.

But I'd assumed they'd given me a break.

I lived high on the hog back then, I can tell you! I was flashing quite a bit of coin. I can't think of any examples, but I'm pretty sure I bought a fancy foccacia from M&S.

Hubris, thy name is... uh... can I call you Hube?

Last month, I was belatedly told to bring in my jury service form, and the extra money was duly docked from my September paycheck. (I'm going with paycheck there. I realise it's an Americanism, but I don't feel like "payslip" is a recognised metonym.)

And now look at me! Foccacia is but a dream!

I'm struggling to make ends meet.

To be fair, most of my ends have been met for so long that they've fused together. I just want to introduce some really frivolous ends. Out of curiosity.

It's not too much of a hardship.

Poverty is all relative. Everyone makes slightly less than they'd like, no matter what their salary is.

Human beings have evolved to be unsatisfied. We're not totally fulfilled, but the gulf between us and fulfilment isn't irrevocably vast (except for all of those millions of people for whom it absolutely is, but they interfere with my "point").

That's how we evolve. We keep trying to bridge that gap, which means the gap has to be bridgeable.If we had no hope, we wouldn't try at all, and would become extinct.

If we were happy, we'd stop trying. And all of those unhappy people would adapt and surpass us. It's the survival of the miserablest. That's how the British Empire was built.

It's the cross we bear for being a successful species: perennial mild disappointment.

It will continue to drive us (slowly) forward, until we're wiped out by a meteor like those gloomy-guts dinosaurs.

***

How about this for my novel?

A witch...


No, that's no good.

***

I'm going to eat an apple and cinnamon cereal bar.

I've eaten an apple and cinnamon cereal bar.

You may think I did it too quickly - "wolfed it down", in the parlance of our times - but remember that there was a long pause between me writing those two sentences. You probably read it in much quicker succession. Don't judge my wolfing based on such spurious criteria.

It's given me a real spring in my step, that bar. I feel like I could talk about doing anything! But not do it! I'm on top of a hypothetical world.

***

OK, seriously now. You have to write about what you know. So my novel will be set in Atlantis.

It can begin with someone (our main character, an average Atlantean) going to work. They open their car door and loads of water pours out. They should have rolled up the windows!

Maybe there will be some kind of plot. It seems like the done thing in modern fiction. There's probably an Atlantean Mafia, and they've killed someone (because of an unpaid coral debt). Our main character, Wendy, witnesses the murder, and has to go on the run (swim).

But the only person who can help her is her uncle who looks like an anchor! But (uh-oh!) she accidentally meets up with a real anchor! And they don't get along at first, her and the anchor. There's a lot of sniping and back-and-forth and crackling underwater chemistry (which is possible, according to science).

Eventually, they get together, and it's really sweet and touching, even though it's weird that she fell for someone who looked like her uncle, and was an anchor and everything.

Clumsy mussels, also.

***

Even if I only use 30% of that, it was worth me writing it down.

I can't afford to buy any coffee this afternoon. Not because of the whole jury payslip dock misunderstanding disaster, but because I didn't get any cash out this morning. I spent my last coins on some Polos, which I hate because I don't know how to pluralise them. I'll fight against "Polo's" to my dying day, but equally I can't quite bring myself to write "Poloes". I don't know why. It works for potatos.

Polos makes me think of Spanish chicken and poor Gus Fring...

***

No, no, no: THIS. I've got it now. Forget the Atlantis angle. This is what I'm going to write about:

Naomi works at a belt factory. All her life, she's only known one thing: belts. But when the factory owner dies, she has to organise the funeral. And belt alone can't hold up mourners' trousers.

She might learn something. Or is that just films? In novels, people don't have to learn, do they? You can do what you want in a novel. Learning and literature are like oil and water: ORDER SOME BRUSCHETTA.

***

Thanks for this. It's been very useful. A quick brainstorming session does wonders for the creative confidence. I'll write up what we have here, and we'll meet again in a few weeks to discuss when and where you should pick up your iPad.