A book written from start to finish on my commute

A month ago, after posting a status on Facebook, I was inspired to start writing a book.

I had made the argument that I hate people who sleep on trains and that so much could be done during those sleepy lost hours. Many of my friends disagreed and said that there was nothing that could be done that would be worthwhile and so sleeping is the best option.

I decided to show them they were wrong and promised to write a book. The rules are simple. Every day that I take the train to work, I commit to writing a chapter.

I've titled the book "As They Slept". It is written in the style of a diary, with the date as each chapter's title. Essentially I make observations and commentate on the various things that happen in life.

I'd be interested in your opinions as to whether the content is interesting and amusing enough to continue reading. It is not meant to be a comedy masterpiece, it should hopefully be more on the entertaining / amusing scale

Thanks for you time - would really appreciate any comments

Friday 5th October 2012

While it's true that I don't believe in superstitions, I do try wherever possible to avoid walking under ladders, but it is on the grounds of safety, rather than bad luck. Since becoming a father, I suppose I have become a little more superstitious. There are times when our little girl has been sleeping well and I will attempt to mention it to my wife and she will say "Ssshhhh, don't say it" The belief is that if you mention it, you will "Jinx" it and suddenly, without warning the thing you want to happen, suddenly won't, or the thing you don't want to happen, suddenly will, or sometimes, in our case, the thing that actually is happening, suddenly won't be. It's amazing really just how sophisticated this superstition is.

Thanks to my wife I now employ this utterly ridiculous tactic in almost every aspect of my life. When on the motorway, I start to think how wonderfully traffic free the road is but then I hear my wife's words in my head ....."Ssshhhh, you'll jinx it!". When my team of choice are winning, I start to think how great the three points will be and exactly where that might put us in the table, when suddenly I hear my wife's words once again, loud and clear.

The problem with this ridiculous superstition is that by not saying it, you actually make things worse for yourself because instead of saying it and moving on, you are left with this thought that is bouncing around in your head, desperate to get out. Thoughts have a natural outlet, it's called speech. Things come into your brain and they go out via the mouth, normally through an "embarrassment" filter; a filter that can process the thought and work out whether it can be shared in the current company. This filter is quite sensitive however and is often impaired through alcohol, stupidity or in most cases both.

On Wednesday it's fair to say that I "Jinxed" myself. I made the bold statement that I am never late.

Today, I am late.

It was however completely out of my control. On Fridays my Mother-in-law looks after our daughter, and every Friday, she drives at 83mph through winding country lanes in order to arrive on our driveway approximately three to four minutes late. It's normally nothing a little jog to the station can't fix.

Today however she was fifteen minutes late and it wasn't down to the traffic or the car, it was down to the weather. The relentless wind and rain through the night had managed to uproot a tree and deposit it across the main road that links her house to ours.

I couldn't work out what was more annoying, as I lightly jogged down the road to the station. Was it the litres of water that were being splashed up my leg every time so much as a milk float passed me by, or was it the conkers that were flying towards me at both head and groin height. My decision was made easy in the end, as I crossed the road and a bus roared passed to ensure I was soaked evenly on both sides. As a pedestrian, I think October has got to be one of the most dangerous months. Sure January and February can get slippery, but In October we have to deal with flying conkers, crazy umbrella owners and the tricky job of walking on slippery leaves and spent conker shells. This morning I feel like those two robbers in Home Alone.

Eventually I got to the station, bought a coffee and stood at my normal place on the platform. I hadn't realised that as I was on a later train and there are less people to accommodate, the train has less carriages (The train people like to dress it up and say the train is a shorter formation!) The end of the train was now thirty metres to my left and I had to run to make sure that I got on. Running for me is never going to come naturally, but running with a coffee in one hand and an inside out umbrella in the other is a skill that even the greatest monks have yet to master.

So now, finally, I'm on a train and I'm dry. I just hope we don't get delayed!

Bugger, I think I've just "Jinxed" it!

I thought it best to post two chapters, so that you can see how each one differs. This is the one following the previous one above

Monday 8th October 2012

This weekend I decided to make a complaint.

This may sound innocuous to you, run of the mill even; but for me this is genuine progress. I have ambled through the last 33 years on this planet, totally unable to complain. No matter what shoddy experience I might have encountered or terrible service I have received, I'll politely smile, keep quiet and pay the bill. As soon as I am in the car, my wife, family or friends will then get a full run down of exactly what was wrong and exactly how they should improve.

I am a closet complainant, happy to moan, but doing so behind closed doors and out of earshot. Cold food? Sloppy service? Rude staff? Boy are they going to get it in the car on the way home. I'm not sure why I'm like this. I'm quite confident in normal every day life. Sometimes too confident for my own good. A celebrity only needs to be within five square miles and I'll be able to seek them out for a little chat about what they are up to and what they have in the pipeline. You hear stories where celebrities say things like "Oh no, people are very respectful, I rarely get people just walking up to me in the street"

Maybe I didn't get the memo. I can count at least ten times in the past where I have just introduced myself, said I was a fan of their work and then gone on to have a lovely chat. I have a rule of not disturbing them if they are chatting with others, or if they are eating, but if they are just sitting there or standing there, then that's fair game. My most recent chat was with Dame Kelly Holmes on this very train. She sat down opposite me and we got off the train together, so I wasn't going to turn down that opportunity. We actually had some common ground too, in the very broadest sense. It was leading up to the 2012 Olympics and she was obviously heavily involved and so was I; well, sort of. I was a Gamesmaker for the the Olympics and during our chat she seemed genuinely excited and proud of the Volunteer's and she wished me luck for the games. If I'm honest, it seemed a bit surreal that a Dame and a double Gold Medalist was wishing me good luck for the upcoming Olympic Games.

There was another time that I approached a couple of celebrities and I realise now, looking back that the celebrities in question must have been terrified. Firstly, I was under the influence of alcohol. I wasn't drunk, I was just very well lubricated. Secondly it was dark. Thirdly, they were in a blacked out Range Rover (Thinking back, I've no idea how I spotted them, considering those three factors) and lastly, because I wasn't 100% sure it was them, I circled the car four times.

So, picture the scene. It's a dark, cold, winters night. Two celebrities are parked up at the side of the road in a blacked out vehicle and a scruffy drunk is circling the car (It was a Friday and dress down day involved me not only relaxing my dress code, but my facial hair too)

Suddenly, the scruffy drunk approaches the car and knocks on the passenger side window. After a lengthy discussion between the two and a second knock from the scruffy drunk, the electric motor kicked in and the window slowly lowered and in a broad Geordie accent, Dec from Ant and Dec asks if he can help me, with Ant, from Ant and Dec looking on.

I had spent so long trying to figure out if it was them and building up the courage to speak to them, that when it came to actually saying something, I had completely dried up. After what seemed like ten minutes I finally managed to say something, and to this day I still go bright red at the thought of it. "So you really are friends outside of work then"

That was it!

I had knocked on the window of a blacked out car and disturbed two celebrities (That were both chatting and eating, thus breaking both of my own silly rules) in order to state that these two very nice gentlemen, are indeed friends. Thinking back now, I'm annoyed I didn't make reference to the fact that even in a car, Ant was on the left and Dec was on the right!

Annoyingly, my encounter with the pint sized Geordie duo wasn't my most embarrassing celebrity moment. A year or two later, I was walking hand in hand with my Wife through Camden, where upon I spotted TV's Stephen Mangen, and proceed to confidently smile, wave and say hello. Well, that's how it now goes in my head as I try desperately to erase the memory of pointing at him and saying "Look, it's him, off of........" as he politely smiled and waved and said "Yes, it's me, off of ......" and continued walking. He knew that I couldn't think where I knew him from, but he just rolled with it. He wasn't embarrassed at all.

Stephen Mangen is in that awkward category where he is famous, but not really famous. I imagine people point or stare, trying to work out where they know him from. Is he famous? Did I work with him once? Is he a friend of Stan's? For those of you that have now Googled Stephen Mangen, yes, he is that bloke that was in Green Wing, Alan Partridge and Episodes. Yes, he is a bit strange looking.

So, we've established I'm confident and stupid in equal measures, but still unable to complain, until this weekend that is. We visited some friends of ours and went to a beautiful park. The park has gardens, a museum and a lovely restaurant. After spending a good while in the children's play park, watching our children swing, slide and climb their way to exhaustion, we retired to the restaurant for some much needed refreshment.

It was rustic, home cooked food and the hand made burger and chunky chips fitted the bill perfectly. Mine was fantastic. It was hot, tasty and completely devoid of sharp plastic objects. My wife's burger on the other hand managed the first two, but failed on the last. The object in question was extremely hard and sharp. It was by pure luck that my wife managed to pluck it from her mouth before doing any real damage. Who knows what it was or how it got in there, but it was certainly time for me to man up in front of my friends. I told them that it's not right and we should complain. They agreed. We should speak to either the Manager or the Chef. They agreed.

To my surprise one of our friends Nic, took the initiative and asked the waitress if the Chef could please come out to speak to us. That's fine I thought. She's taken care of the admin; it's time for me to take care of the business. Ten minutes later there was no Chef and no Manager. I now had an issue. I was already highly stressed about having to complain, but now, there is a second complaint that needs discussing. I've now got to complain about the wait to speak to the manager as well as the original complaint. This is like asking someone who is afraid of flying to board a plane and then half way through, tell them that it's their turn to fly it.

Ten minutes later and we still had not been visited by either the Chef or the Manager. It is at this point that my daughter asked to go to the toilet and being that she is only two and a half, she needed some assistance. I am ashamed to admit that I took the bait. I've never been so happy to accompany my daughter in the emptying of her bowels.

"I'll go!" I shouted, as I grabbed her hand and skipped off to the toilet. Needless to say, by the time I had got back, the situation had been resolved. Our good friend Jay managed to explain, very articulately, so I'm told; exactly what they needed to do in terms of improving their customer care. The sharp, plastic item was presented to the manager and he had apologised accordingly. We later received free coffee and cake by way of apology and everyone seemed to be happy. Everyone except me. My coffee was cold and my cake was stale.

Boy did they hear about that in the car on the way home!

Quote: Minty @ October 17 2012, 10:29 AM BST

I'd be interested in your opinions as to whether the content is interesting and amusing enough to continue reading. It is not meant to be a comedy masterpiece, it should hopefully be more on the entertaining / amusing scale

Thanks for you time - would really appreciate any comments.

View original

IMO:

1) You can write;
2) Entertaining? Amusing? Yes, in that typically-english whimsical way;
3) Good to see some prose on here, midst the plethora of skit junkets;
4) Are you setting up the reader for something horrible? My mischievous side really wants something awful to happen, but described in your homely style of whimsy - just brainstorming here.

I think it has legs and could go in any direction. Keep it up.

Thanks Stylee Ting Ting

I appreciate you taking a look and it's nice to hear that it's amusing (In a whimsical way)

I don't really have a vision as to what will happen. I just write about life. As things happen, they will get written about. I plan on writing for a year and somewhere near the end of the book, I'll meet up with a few of my narcoleptic Facebook "friends" and see what they think. I'm hoping that one of them will write the foreward

Quote: Minty @ October 17 2012, 3:41 PM BST

I don't really have a vision as to what will happen.

View original

I think it can be a very creative way of working, letting the story lead rather than the other way round. Yogi Berra summed it up: "When you come to a fork in the road, take it."

All the best.

I echo the comment that it's nice to see some prose on this forum in amongst all the sketches; funnily enough I originally stumbled on this forum whilst looking for somewhere that would critique specifically comic fiction. (anyone know any good critique forums that do specialise in the area?)

Have at least a vague vision of ongoing issues your character will confront, otherwise you have a funny blog rather than a book. Writing in a diary format allows a lot more freedom to have multiple unrelated plot threads, or to have the actual events be fairly mundane (ongoing awkwardness with the wife, job and/or daughter would seem like possibilities) and possibly unresolved, but there are real plot arcs in Diary of a Nobody and the Adrian Mole books. Too much freedom can be a bad thing if your character is still telling apparently unrelated anecdotes by page eighty-five.
(I should take my own advice - if I had more ability to visualize novel(la)s in terms of structure, I'd probably have a book or two available on the Kindle rather than be discovering that it's actually easier to finish writing stuff in the rigid constraints of sitcom format)

I like the rather dry observations and the comic timing, but rather unfortunately the first paragraph we get to read the weakest in the sample. I suppose it's inevitable with a first draught. Reminds me of the best essay I ever wrote at university and it's show-stopping grammatical errors in the first two sentences, except I'd considered that one finished.

I'm sure that in this instance the first sentence is intended to sound clunky, but nevertheless "but it is" needs to be replaced with "but that's", or preferably removed from the sentence altogether. Similarly the second sentence would follow the character's train of thoughts more naturally with "since becoming a father" moved to the end, and the third sentence needs to lose the first "suddenly"; maybe "suddenly, without warning" could become "almost inevitably". </pedantry>

Is there more?

Thanks Enigmatic

In answer to your last question, yes, there is plenty more. I write it every day on my commute to work.

Agreed, a lot of the grammar is clunky and there will be quite a lot of spelling mistakes, that's the unfortunate nature of my self imposed challenge of writing it solely on the commute. It doesn't get touched up or re-written at any point. I have to squeeze in a chapter in 1 hour and 5 minutes. Obviously, it does need to be edited and I am hoping to do that on the train also. I'd also like it to be proof read on the train.

Just for clarity, this isn't an Adrian Mole style work of fiction, this is purely a diary / blog of my life. As things unfold around me they get written about. Things will tie in and real life plots should develop, so I shouldn't imagine it will just be a succession of unrelated chapters. In the example above I did tie back to the previous entry which was all about never being late, only to then be confronted with being late!

I think there are similar things out there in print at the moment, Jeremy Clarkson has a series of books called The World according to Clarkson, which, rather lazily, is just a succession of newspaper articles, but it's sold pretty well (Obviously he is a big name and people may be buying because they like him.

A thirty something nobody, writing about his dull life while on the train doesn't quite have the same pull!

To give you a bit more background to the reason I started this up, I have posted the first chapter below

Wednesday 19th September 2012

The reason I am writing this now is because of what I wrote yesterday, on Facebook. I was on the 7:51 train to London and everyone around me was asleep.

I posted a status.

"Maybe I'm in the minority here, but it really annoys me when commuters sleep on trains, especially so on the morning leg. They have just had a whole nights sleep! You can get so much done on your commute, it's criminal to sleep through it"

Apparently, I was wrong to assume people had enjoyed a whole night's sleep and there were many factors as to why people are sleeping. Many things could contribute to their tiredness, such as work stresses or restless children.

I honestly didn't doubt for one second that people had busy lives and sleep is often at a premium; I was just making a point that using the commute to sleep was a waste of valuable awake time. I then decided to list all of the things that could be done during their nap time. "You could pay some bills, research a recipe, get in touch with an old friend, catch up on the news, do some online shopping, enter a competition or even do some creative writing" I stated.

By the time I had got to the last two items, I had run out of ideas and my brain was running on empty. It is for this reason and this reason only that I then followed it up with the following stupid statement. ".....In fact, I'll prove how much time you are wasting by sleeping, I am going to write something on every commute for a year!"

As quick as that, this book was born. A challenge laid down by myself to prove to all of those narcoleptic commuters just what could be done in those sleepy lost hours.

Exactly what I will write over the next year is a complete mystery, but that is what makes it truly exciting. I have always loved a challenge, but I think this is the first time I have ever set one for myself. There is usually a friend involved and almost certainly always alcohol to blame or a woman to impress. This time there is no alcohol, no women to impress and there are certainly no friends.

Some days I imagine you will get some news, some days maybe a little story or anecdote but almost every other day, I expect you'll get me moaning about the fat bastard in the seat opposite, listening to his rubbish music, with a tesco carrier bag between his feet, a can of Stella in his hand and an almost certain tragic early death ahead of him.

I kid you not; he has thundered through four cans of Stella in the time that it has taken me to write this first entry! That's four cans in the time that it has taken to get from London Cannon Street to Tonbridge. Four cans in 45 miles. That's a can every 11.25 miles. I hope this guy never travels long distance, it just might kill him. What if he tried to keep his can to mile ratio up on his holiday this year. Benedorm is 895 miles, so that would be just short of 80 cans. Looking at him, I think he could give it a bloody good go.

My stop is approaching so I'll just go over the rules once again. I promise that this book will be written solely on my commute to and from work. That means that if I am not commuting, I am not writing.

There will be gaps where I am either ill, working from home or on holiday. Every day that I commute, I promise to add a chapter to this book. I purposely don't want to spend my days, weekends or evenings writing. I have a day job to do and a family to keep happy.

The whole point of this book is to prove what can be done while commuting and hopefully prove once and for all that sleeping on trains is a complete waste of time, literally.