DISCOVER THE WONDERS OF THE UNIVERSE!

...The mural above the terracotta arches of the former cinema proclaimed in pinks and purples, lapiz and gold: ‘Leave your mind behind! Evolve! £3.20 adults, £1.75 children, pensioners and the unemployed. Tea room and book shop.’

Yes, I’ve finally started writing Shed, and not before time. It’s been really, really, really (unbelievably!) hard to get started on a new project when the old one is so newly complete and out there, and still very much on my mind. Maybe I should have written the sequel next after all…

But let’s not go there, that way lies madness.

He turned back to the window, resumed his meditations. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a sherbet lemon and crammed it into his mouth, crunching it to powder, swallowing it down, eating another, then another. He was consuming sugar at an extraordinary rate; the changing-time would soon be upon him. It couldn’t have come at a worse time, with the altered-ones such a hot item in the news - He had been over-eager, impatient, careless,  it wouldn’t be long before journalists started to piece the story together and what then? He would have to shut down the show and lay low while he sat out the Time of Shed and then move on, somewhere far away this time, but where? Somewhere with warmer oceans, with white sands and turquoise seas, somewhere that would feel closer to home than this cold, grey northern shore…

I'm resolved to put in 1000 words a day* and currently sailing without a compass - which is a pretty pretentious way (and I do apologise) to say, I haven’t worked out much of a plot. I have a passing acquaintance with Gordon and Chris, the two main characters, I know when stuff is supposed to happen, to whom and more or less when, but that’s pretty much it.

I’ve always written to my characters. Once I get to know them well, they take me to the most surprising places, in directions I never could have imagined if I sat down and put the work in on a plot. I’ve wasted enough of my life weaving artfully crafted scenarios that always end up getting binned. Shed is my experiment in pantless plotting, writing commando, an attempt to see if I can write something that, from the very start, has been dictated by the characters.

And it’s hard – as you’d expect, here at the very start, because I don’t really know Chris and Gordon yet, we’ve barely been introduced. I’m having to push them to talk to me, dragging the words out of them, which is proving extremely tiring, but already, only three days in, strange new things are happening that I had no idea of before I put finger to keyboard. I mean, who would have thought fanfiction was due to play such an important role in the opening chapters?

By all the Gods, Hermes40 was a dreadful writer. Gordon right clicked to save the hideous document; he'd read it later, perhaps in the morning, when he'd regained sufficient strength. He ran a palm over his face, wiped away the sweat that was running down his cheeks, feeling the wetness at his lip, tasting blood, another nose bleed -  maybe his brain was attempting to escape the horrors of Hermes40’s fanfiction, fleeing his body by the nearest exit.

*Let's see how long that lasts.