52 Pick Up (05/11)
Have you ever played “52 Pick Up”? It’s that joke you play on people when you have a deck of cards at hand, but are so bored that the concept of shuffling them to start a game is just too menial to consider. You say to your friend, “do you want to play 52 Pick Up?” And your innocent, well-meaning and enthusiastic friend says “Yeah! How do we play that?” To which you grin, tell them they go first, and then you throw the deck of cards in the air.
Hilarious, right?
On a spectrum of “groan-inducing” to “hysterical”, that joke probably sits somewhere below “What’s brown and sticky? A stick”. Last night’s revelation that my ending wasn’t going to work was followed with the equivalent of my brain collating all of my ideas, carefully gathering the cards into a deck, and then with an evil glint in it’s eye, tossing them to all corners of my head. I did not appreciate this, however I have to grudgingly state that yes, this has turned out for the best, and yes this does mean I sort of owe my brain for the “favour”. Brain will, most likely, assure me it was not a problem.
The problem I had was that the ending I was working towards involved a showdown, a very literal, two-go-in-one-comes-out showdown which, whilst climactic and powerful in terms of an action-packed ending…really didn’t suit the main character. My intrepid investigator into the mysteries surrounding Port Amble is a man of desk-based action, more accustomed to wrestling red-tape than grappling with knife-wielding assassins. So for him to have an adrenaline-fueled showdown of gun-play and heroics didn’t feel right. You could argue that this would be character development and his way of getting ahead in this dark world, but truth be told he already has a backbone of steel – he’s comfortable with the darkness, he just doesn’t like guns.
Today, along with working on the manuscript, I have re-written copious notes, making sure my ideas, characters and places all still fit together. And you know what? Not only are they for the most part just as good as they were, but they spawned a few new ones that fit in just as well. Good work, Brain.
End of Day Word Count: 7,000. (And I had to sharpen my pencil. TWICE)
Thoughts In The Key Of N 
Great work, Nick, keep up the writing!
Also, I love playing 52 Pick Up, and played 3 rounds with the girls I babysit last time I was there. They loved it!