McGonagall (a working title) was Mark’s project for National Novel Writing Month 2011, and his first since 2005. A young man fails to get the results he needs for university and spends an unwanted year kicking around his dull seaside town, picking up odd jobs, getting to know his fellow townsfolk a little better and working on his pet project: an evolutionary poetry-writing algorithm intended to make up for his lacking literary skill.
Despite horrific busyness, days spent having a lovely time with visitors, lots of time spent doing a proper job and a lovely end-of-November dose of norovirus, McGonagall reached the designated 50,000 word mark before the end of the month. Work on it is ongoing.
Adam’s phone buzzed against the desk. He had been sent a grainy, underexposed photograph of a single green Converse shoe perched on a staue of Alan Turing.