Type Things In (to see what comes out)

There was one trip to the Arctic that was more dangerous than I had anticipated.

I went with a group of environmental scientists who were measuring climate change. They had a hunch (since confirmed) that the poles were warming more quickly than the rest of the planet because they are cooler to begin with. There is nothing difficult about this thought, in itself. However, the meat of the issue is found when the amount of warming is measured. It’s even more than you might expect, apparently. This is due to feedback caused by ice removal.

We upset some people. I won’t tell you which country, because the people we upset are still very sensitive and they are very capable. They had a big boat and were prepared to kill us. Fortunately, we hadn’t found anything that they wanted to keep secret. We lost all our data, and were sent back to port.

It was exciting afterwards, but not at the time. I’m scared to write about it because it wasn’t a nice experience. So, I’m just going to move straight on with this novel, and forget that boat ever existed. My story begins in downtown Southampton in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. I am in a standard shopping mall.

Except nowhere is entirely standard. National chains tend to rent shop space in malls because it is convenient for them, and there is a certain guarantee of “footfall”. But each mall needs to do its best to distinguish itself from the local opposition. In the UK at the time of writing there are still high streets, for example, but they are fading fast.

This mall has a major department store, which has a cafe at the top, from where one can look out across the port to the national park beyond.

Why would anyone want to write a novel about me? I’m nearly forty years old. I’m not, by any means an alpha male, silverback, or whatever else you might think is attractive at my age. I wear spectacles because they are easier to use than contact lenses and more sensible than laser surgery. I’m that man you sometimes see in an elevator.

My job is actually quite interesting, but I rarely seem to be able to interest others in it. I write advertising material for a travel agent that specialises on niche markets. It means that I get to go to a few more places than most of the other people you might see in elevators. That accounts for my quiet smugness. The niches I specialise in are scientists. Scientists have to do a lot of travelling to get their slice of the science kudos. They are also, as a bunch, the worst people when it comes to organising their own travel arrangements. But my job isn’t that easy because they don’t usually know how bad they are. I need to provide them with evidence, and therein lies my art.

I do my job well by being a scientist without a project. I go to conferences and learn as much as I can about the universe. By doing this I get to experience things that go wrong when I travel. I then advise my clients on how their adverts might attract business from scientists who have experienced the same phenomena as have I.

There are lean periods and there are busy periods. I often stay at home, watching TV or surfing the net. I go to a bar. I look up old schoolfriends. They usually have interesting jobs too.

Then I’m off somewhere again. I get to do all sorts of things by volunteering for scientific projects around the world. I have worked at Pompeii and Antarctica.

Yes, I suppose it’s all exciting, but it’s no novel.

This is always the first stumbling block.

I could be “I”, but I would still have to name myself somewhere. Usually. If I remain nameless my readers won’t think me credible. I’m not credible, though. Credibility is something I have been mining all my life, in the hope that one day I might strike rich.

So I need to make up my name. Not my real name, which is incredible, but my stage name.

I will call myself “Will”.

Will is a signal of my essence, my personality, me. I’m not fussed if you call me “William” “Willy” or “Bill”, though I am nothing more than Will.

At some point I am going to need to use a surname. This is annoying because it will start to place me somewhere. Will Mackenzie is a different kind of guy to Will Mubeke. My name is Will Sling, though, so perhaps you need more help in order to imagine my roots.

I have none.

I want to write a novel because novels and popular music are the art forms that I most connect with. I am a poor musician. I have my own musical style that isn’t popular. My novel would be the same. Even so it’s worth a few more thoughts. Others have turned blogs into published works, so I will put more thoughts into the blog and see how it looks. Will it become written art?

Blogs encourage short chapters. I like novels with short chapters.