This year I am working through Tim Clare’s Couch to 80K Bootcamp– a course where you write for 10 minutes a day.
By following Tim’s prompting, the aim is to work through from basics until you reach the ability to write an 80,000 word novel.
Apologies: it may not actually be that interesting to read…
Interesting Objects In The Protagonist’s Bag
A dented ring pull from a can of New Coke.
Hardly enough change for the single bus journey into town.
Amongst the scraps of iron filings and loose screws was an assortment of tools, dulled and rusted from improper storage.
A package, with only a single glowing LED on one edge, blinking a warning.
Three pieces of spearmint chewing gum, gnawed until all the flavour had gone, and carefully sealed back into the original foil wrappers.
An unlabelled tin, like you’d find in any supermarket aisle, but naked. Bright and shiny. Unadorned. Probably just dog food, let’s be honest.
He had all his clothes, carefully folded, with a tarpaulin, a winter sleeping bag, and a knife. The knife was large, unsophisticated and viciously sharp-edged. The regular scratches perpendicular to the blade implied it was regularly used and sharpened. It was a familiar all round hand tool, that just happened to make an excellent weapon too.
A flute, wrapped in a fine satin cloth. There was no monogram on the cloth, but it gave just enough of a scent of perfume off to bring juniper and summer breezes to mind.
Nothing. Suspiciously empty, in fact.
The severed human foot had a number on it. Not tattooed, but sellotaped on, like it was ready for the tombola at a fair.
Multiple diaries, each labelled with the year they were started. None finished. And none containing more than three or four entries. Good intentions allied with a poor ability to follow through, in book form.