Nick Spalding tried to write a book in 24 hours. Turns out that's impossible... it took 30!
Life... With No Breaks is a unique, hilarious and heartfelt look at the modern world we live in, told by a master story-teller with much to say - and only a weekend to say it in.
You'll laugh out loud reading Nick's odyssey of non-stop writing in a collection of anecdotes, asides and stories - all dredged up from an over-stimulated brain functioning on caffeine, nicotine and the occasional chocolate biscuit.
The book is a conversation with you, and with Nick you'll venture into the thorny topics of love, life, sex, horribly timed bowel movements and a deathly fear of sponges (among many other things).
After you've read Life... With No Breaks, you may never look at the world the same way again!
A SAMPLE OF THE BOOK
0 Words
Getting started.
Some would tell you it’s the hardest part of writing a book.
They’re wrong, though. Starting is a piece of cake. Keeping it going is the difficult bit.
Like having sex when you’re over seventy, I’d imagine.
I have no clue how the idea for a book like this came to me. It’s not something I'd planned to do. It just popped into my head this morning while I lay in bed.
I had a massive erection as well, but I’m pretty sure the two weren’t connected.
Inspiration is a funny thing. There you are, merrily stumbling your way through the day, thinking about nothing more important than fixing the damn guttering before the weather caves in - when bam! …inspiration hits you between the eyes, sending you into a whirlwind of creativity.
The urge to write is something I’ve been short on of late and my fledgling career as a professional writer - one good enough to make a few quid and sound interesting at dinner parties - has stalled somewhat.
I thought I faced the legendary writer’s block, which involves much bemoaning of lots and imbibing of intoxicating spirits.
Happily, I avoided all of this when I woke up thinking:
What if I just sat at the computer and started to write, without a plot or story and no idea where the thing was going? How would it turn out? What would I write? And most importantly… would I end up regretting it?
What you’re about to read is the result.
I’m sat at my desk in the study upstairs, the laptop open in front of me - it’s a Dell Inspiron 1525 dual core processor with 2gb of RAM, if you’re interested in that kind of detail… and if you are, please try to get out more, the sun will do you good. I’m in a fairly comfortable office chair that makes a mournful sighing noise when you lower it and the heating is on because it’s been chilly today and I don’t want to get blue toes.
A large flask of coffee stands beside me and I will continue to drink from it even when the contents inside get cold and bitter. I also have various snacks to keep my stomach from rumbling - none of them the low-fat variety, which isn’t going to help the spare tyre one bit - and the fridge is full, so I can raid it when I need to.
A row of new cigarette packets - replete with enormous health warnings - stand to attention like soldiers, waiting to mount another assault on my delicate lung tissue. They’re accompanied by an ashtray stolen from the local watering hole, big enough to contain all the butts I’ll crush into it as I try to massage the brain cells into creating a coherent narrative.
Here I am, at nine minutes past six on a drizzly Saturday evening, with every intention of writing a book in one sitting.
No breaks, no brainstorming sessions to sketch out the next plot development on The Simpsons notepad I’ve got on the desk, and no time set aside to sit back and digest the quality of my prose.
Just me, my keyboard and good intentions.
It’s seat of the pants stuff, I can tell you.
I will not stop until I am done!
Unless there’s a power cut.
I may have to get up every once in a while to get rid of the coffee in the little boy’s room, but you’ll forgive me that won’t you?
I haven’t a clue how long I’ll last… no concept of how long my brain and fingers can keep up the pace without going on strike due to physical fatigue or mental breakdown.
Ten pages?
A hundred?
A thousand?
How many hours can I sit here with my arse gradually numbing and the ashtray forming a small mountain of cancerous by-product?
Two?
Twenty?
A hundred?
I’m hoping to get to a decent length for a book.
The kind that's long enough to get your teeth into, but isn't a daunting read. I’ll leave the doorstops to the Stephen Kings and Tom Clancys of this world. They’re far better at it than I could ever be.
As for subject matter, that’s as unknown to me now as I sit here typing, as it is to you at some point in the future, reading this on your e-book reader (or if I get very lucky one day - in hardback).
I can see you in my mind’s eye…
There you are… a few weeks, months or years down the road, maybe in your favourite armchair with the dog dribbling gently onto the new cushions… or in bed with your partner snoring gently beside you as the rain patters off the window, making you glad you’re at home in the warm.
You might be asking yourself:
Where the hell is he going with this?
And perhaps more importantly:
Will there be a point? Will it have purpose? In short… have I just wasted my hard earned money on a book I could have bought some chocolate with?
And there’s got to be a point to a book hasn’t there? Even one written totally off the cuff like this is.
As I sit here tapping away on the keyboard, I’ve decided to make it a conversation with you, the person kind enough to download Life…With No Breaks and dedicate their valuable time to reading the thing.
It’ll be a one-sided conversation admittedly - with me doing all the talking and you occasionally nodding, smiling and agreeing with me when my views happen to coincide with yours.
If you’re in public, try not to nod or smile too much, unless you like having a personal exclusion zone of ten metres around you and being thought of as ‘the weird one standing on platform two’.
I want us to be friends, of a sort.
Call it a secret friendship, caught in the pages of this book. The kind you don’t tell people about for fear of sounding a little strange.
A friendship across time if you will, with me sitting here in a slightly threadbare grey t-shirt, a Marlboro Light hanging from my mouth - and you, wherever you may be, blocking out the world around you in that magical bubble we create when we’ve got our noses in a good book.
To make this process easier, you can imagine you’re here with me if you like - if that’s not too weird a proposition.
I’ve got another chair in the room. It’s also quite comfortable, but a little harder than the one I’m in.
Sorry about that: writer’s prerogative.
Feel free to take a snack. The cookies are particularly good.
I hope you like lukewarm coffee with one sugar, because that’s all I can offer.
If the smoking bothers you, feel free to crack a window.
I’ve got a menu for the kebab place down the road. They do deliveries, but I tend not to order from there much these days, ever since the guy over-charged me a quid for a chicken kebab with extra cholesterol.
Of course, I don’t mind at all if our relationship is dependent on your schedule. No doubt you have important things to do, important places to go and important people to meet. I’m quite happy to sit here and wait for you to come back when you’re ready to continue.
That makes me the ideal friend, I reckon…
I’m patient, understanding and won’t ignore you for weeks if I think you’re having too much fun without me.
I won’t borrow money, or return a DVD covered in peanut butter and dog hair that I borrowed six months ago for ‘just a couple of weeks, mate!’
I can’t buy you a drink in the bar, or give you a lift to work when the car breaks down, but I think the advantages outweigh the disadvantages for the most part.
Sit yourself back then and prepare for the roller-coaster ride that is my life.
We’re going to have fun, you and I… and talk the night away.
1369 Words
I’m putting in these time checks so I can keep track of how events proceed, and to create a few chapter breaks that’ll stop me rambling.
You’ll have to watch me, though.
If I do start waffling, poke me with the broken umbrella behind you.
Let’s get to know each other better then.
As there’s no way of me knowing your name, I’ll make one up. After all, you’re acting as my muse for this - and I need a name to put to my muse, don’t I?
I’ll keep it to myself if you don’t mind. It's more fun that way.
You know my name of course. It’s there on the front of the book.
Nick Spalding - like the tennis racquet.
Call me Nick, Nicholas or Nicky.
Just not Nickle-Pickle like my mother did until I was twelve. I hated it.
Perhaps a good way to start is telling you a bit about me:
I’m a man approaching his forties with the kind of dread usually reserved for prisoners on their way to the gallows. I’m constantly eyeing up the price of Grecian 2000 and nose hair-clippers.
The word prostate has taken on new and dark significance in my head and I have the doctor on speed dial, just in case.
You already know I’m a writer, but it might interest you to know I travel quite a lot because of it.
I went to New York Twin Towers
I live in the south of England
We still complain about how bad the weather is, of course - we’re British, after all - though it hardly ever gets cold enough to freeze water in car radiators or unfortunate dogs to metal lamp-posts.
I watch an average amount of television, turning the sound down when the ads come on.
I’ve been married. It didn’t really agree with me much.
It didn’t agree with her either, but we managed to produce a healthy son between us, so things ran smoothly enough to accomplish that at least.
I don’t vote and still listen to music I should be ten years too old to enjoy.
I ignore health warnings about the food I eat and try to ignore the ones on cigarette packets.
I’m afraid of needles.
And for some reason - sponges.
I’m not a particularly sentimental man and never enjoy romantic comedies.
I spend too much time worrying about things that are beyond my control, but try not to let it depress me too much.
I once dressed up as a woman for a fancy dress party and thought the knickers felt quite comfortable.
That’s enough for now, I think.
All a bit random I admit, but enough for you to get a rough idea of what your new buddy Nick is like.
Nothing too bad in there, eh?
I don’t come across as a lunatic, as far as I can tell.
You’re going to learn a lot more about me as we go on, but that gives you a flavour… even if it is just vanilla.
We’ll add the tasty chocolate sprinkles as we go.
1929 Words
Hey! Look at that.
An hour of writing done and that’s the introductions over with.
I’m hoping the time checks won’t be quite this frequent through the whole book, as it’ll mean the chapters are very short and Life…With No Breaks will be more novella than novel. I’ll have to fall back on some of the rude limericks I’ve heard in the past, just to pad the damn thing out.
Call that first bit the prologue, if you like.
Now it’s done and your appetite has been whetted, we’d better get to the good stuff quickly, before your interest wanes and that Discovery documentary you’ve got running on mute in the corner of the room starts to divert your attention away from our burgeoning relationship.
There’s nothing worse than reading a book and having your mind wander.
Sign of a bad writer… and a worse book.
So let’s keep your mind focused on me and ignoring what new facts Discovery have unearthed about Hitler.
…actually, I love a bit of Discovery Channel.
I’ll watch almost anything they screen if I’m in the mood.
I find the shark documentaries particularly fun to watch, even if it’s just for the gory bits.
Don’t you think that’s the reason why we watch shows like that, when you get right down to it?
We may pretend to ourselves - and others - that we’re fascinated with the mating rituals of Basking sharks, but we’re actually hoping for grainy amateur footage of some poor bastard being mauled by an irate twenty footer… basking or otherwise.
It’s in all of us to one degree or another: the desire to see something awful - or at least strange and unexpected - happen to other people, played out in front of our eyes from behind that safest of barriers: the television screen.
You only have to look at the popularity of reality shows like Survivor and I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here, to see that as far as humans are concerned, there’s nothing like witnessing other people’s misfortunes - and being glad we’re not them.
It's great fun watching some has-been actor eating a wriggling cockroach, or looking on as a glamour model with the brains of an ice cube is forced into a metal box full of scorpions. It really gets the juices flowing.
And what about the Oprah Winfreys and Jerry Springers of this world?
Those shows are all about watching people air their dirty laundry in public.
We lap it up!
There’s nothing like spying into somebody else’s life for a good night’s entertainment. Especially if they’re cocking things up left right and centre – and paying the price for their blunders in a highly amusing fashion.
Extending that thought, what we’re engaging in here is along the same lines.
You’re reading a book written by a complete stranger, in a single session, all of it unscripted, unedited and - hopefully - honest.
Oh, I may check for spelling mistakes and narrative balls-ups when I’m done, but other than that, it’s straight from my keyboard into your brain.
By now - some nine pages and ninety minutes in - I’m hoping I’ve grabbed you.
With any luck you’ve got a definite interest in finding out what happens next and you'll hang out with me for a while, reading whatever comes spilling out of my head.
I want you to keep reading, and if that means delving into my murky past, then so be it!
Let’s see then. Shall we start with a nice embarrassing episode in the life of Spalding?
Something to set us on with a laugh and a smile?
There are quite a few to choose from…
I know. How about this:
I’m twenty two years old, at university and haven’t a care in the world.
My grades are good, my friends don’t call me Nickle Pickle behind my back and my bank balance is only slightly in the red.
I live in a pokey one bedroom apartment, wash my clothes when I remember to and eat nothing but beans on toast.
I’m never up early enough to hear the postman, but sometimes I’m out late enough to see him as I stumble home.
The horror of things like mortgages, taxes and interest free loans are but distant ships on the horizon of life.
Probably the most important decision in my life right now is whether to drink beer or spirits.
Naturally, I’m loving every minute of it.
I’m in that wonderful period between being a kid and a real adult, where I run my life the way I want - largely at the expense of the British government. This was a time when they still thought it probably wasn’t a good idea to saddle the workers of tomorrow with more debt than a small African country.
What I really want right now is the blonde I keep seeing in the student bar every weekend.
She normally stands near the pool table - the one with the unidentifiable stain on it that bares a striking resemblance to Abraham Lincoln - holding half a lager and chatting with her friends.
Her name is Callie.
I have no idea what this is short for, but it sounds enchanting to my ears regardless. I think she looks a little bit like Grace Kelly. But with bigger tits.
I have very little information about her, except she’s a year above me on the same degree course. I’ve also been informed by a friend that she once did a striptease in the student common room at Christmas, but as this friend also maintains his brother - who works in a fish and chip shop - once felt up Naomi Campbell at a cocktail party in London
Not being much of a ladies man, it’s taken me several weeks to even think about plucking up the courage to speak to Callie.
And here she is.
At the same party as me.
Gods be praised and we all sing hallelujah!
This makes things much easier. The daunting environment of the student bar has been replaced by the comfortable atmosphere of my friend Steve’s house… well, he’s more a nodding acquaintance than a friend - it’s one of those friend of a friend invites we all know and love.
Parties lend themselves more to relaxed conversation and I’m pretty sure I can spark one up with Callie without sounding like a hormonal sixteen year old.
It’s the perfect opportunity.
The stage is set and the show must go on.
Sadly, I’m drunk.
Very, very drunk.
I’ve been drinking since roughly three o’clock that afternoon, in the time honoured tradition of loafing under-graduates everywhere and it’s deep into evening by the time I realise Callie the Wonder Girl is in my general vicinity.
But never mind. Alcohol instils confidence!
It should be absolutely no problem to venture up to the young lady and charm the pants off her.
I have no doubt that sex of an epic nature is not too far off in the grand scheme of things - providing I can get past that annoying introductory phase we have to negotiate before carnal gymnastics can ensue.
Some back story before we continue, I think:
I was not at this time what you could call sexually experienced. My career as a lover amounted to two women and my right hand.
Neither was I experienced in the ways of alcohol consumption - something that would prove an important factor in the scene about to unfold.
An experienced drinker can be very drunk, but still have the where-with-all to hide his level of intoxication and perform as a functioning adult.
I wasn’t experienced and therefore had no chance.
At about ten o’ clock I realise Callie is at the party and what’s more, she doesn’t appear to be accompanied by a boyfriend.
There’s a few guys gathered around her, like bees around the proverbial honey pot, but the alcohol is assuring me they’ll be swept away once Spalding The Great enters the fray.
Bearing this in mind, I’ve worked out an opening gambit:
‘Hi. It’s Callie, right? You’re in the third year of my course. Can you give me a heads up what we’re doing next semester?’
Brilliant, eh?
Cool, easy-going and smooth.
Also shows a dedication to my studies, which makes me look like an intelligent guy. One who will help her produce strong and charismatic offspring.
Sadly, I never get the chance to use it.
Concentration is not one of the inexperienced drinking man’s strong points, especially when he’s passed the ten-pint mark.
Every time I think about using my wonderful ice breaker, my attention is diverted away like a magpie seeing something shiny at the side of the road. It’s either the promise of more alcohol, or a favourite song on the stereo that takes me away from the girl of my dreams.
Time slips by.
I’m not drunk by this time.
Oh, no, no, no.
I am shitfaced.
Referring back to what I said about alcoholic experience and control over oneself, I didn’t just mean control over the mind and emotions - I meant control over the body as well.
After ten pints, the section of your brain that spends its days making sure your bodily functions operate efficiently has buggered off for a nice soothing head massage, leaving you to fend for yourself.
The drunken man isn’t good at fighting the effect alcohol has on his complicated organic processes and tends to surrender quicker than a Frenchman in 1940.
Unpleasant things happen next.
I see the expression you’re making now. You know what’s coming, right? You think you’ve got things figured out!
You’re thinking your new pal Nick strolled up and was sick all over poor old Callie, aren’t you?
If only.
I didn’t vomit over her. It was much worse than that.
While I’m in the kitchen telling a bad joke - her only a few feet away in the lounge and oblivious to my planned seduction - I slip drunkenly on a patch of beer-soaked linoleum, head butting a kitchen cabinet. My knees buckle from under me, my arse hits the ground hard… and my bowels loosen to the point of no return.
In short - and to put no finer point on it - I shit myself.
My arse hits the floor and the shock makes my teeth rattle. I feel an unpleasant pancake of warmth spreading across my buttocks and the odour of defeat rises from my nether regions.
Even in my drunken state, I know this isn’t going to end well.
The first person to react is my mate Sam, who’s standing next to me. His cry of disgust is followed by a very loud exclamation that didn’t help my humiliation one bit:
‘Bloody hell! Spalding’s crapped his pants!’
Yes indeed, Spalding had crapped his pants.
Something that hadn’t happened to Spalding since about the age of two.
Spalding also had a nice bleeding scalp from the head-to-cabinet interface, but that paled into insignificance alongside the whole defecating in public side of things.
Rapidly, those in attendance notice what has befallen me and are starting to arrive at their own conclusions based on Sam’s announcement and my location on the floor.
I sit there for a few seconds, letting my inebriated brain digest recent events and trying to sort out an exit strategy from the party.
All thoughts of wooing Callie have flown.
A method of painless suicide is formulating, to avoid the endless embarrassment this night would otherwise cause. I’m nothing if not a forward thinker.
I rise gingerly to my feet, my left hand grasping my backside in a vain effort to prevent the contents of my underwear slipping down my leg.
As my face turns red and my head swims like a pro on steroids, I shuffle past the aghast party-goers and into the lounge beyond.
Yep, there she is. Callie the Wonder Girl - hand over her mouth in horror and eyes as wide as dinner plates.
I offer her a grin.
I don’t know what I’m hoping to accomplish with this but it’s worth a shot.
I guess I'm trying to convey my feelings about the whole situation in that smile:
‘Hey, never mind, eh? These things happen. We’ll look back and laugh about it in ten years when we’re married and have three kids.’
Except these things didn’t just happen… at least not to twenty-two year old undergraduates.
She knows it - I could tell by the way she was backing away from me - and I know it.
…time to beat a hasty retreat.
I do so - not with the sound of ringing laughter, but with a horrified silence only broken by the loud stereo.
As I recall, the song playing was Help by The Beatles.
Fitting.
It takes me a few moments to get to the front door. I know as I scrabble for purchase on the lock with one hand - buttocks clasped in the other - that there's a hoard of students looking down the hallway at me, wondering if the entertainment is ever going to end.
I wrench the front door open and shamble off into the night, running like a sailor with rickets.
Thankfully, I only live a couple of streets away.
It occurs to me that I should probably stop and remove my soiled clothing, but I decide not to, opting for a crap covered arse rather than a night in the cells for indecent exposure.
On most nights, there would be virtually no-one on the streets to see me. Tonight though, it seems the world and his wife have decided on a nice moonlit stroll and I have to swerve around several people before arriving back at the flat.
God knows what they made of this partially blood-soaked maniac, running in a bow-legged jog, clutching his rear-end like he’s scared it’s going to explode.
I seem to remember mumbling swift apologies by way of explanation, as if they'd known what had happened.
When something truly awful happens to you, it’s funny how you believe the rest of the world cares.
In my mind, there are headlines forming for tomorrow’s papers:
PARTY POO-PER SPALDING IN PANT-FILLING PRATFALL!
Pictures on pages 7, 8, 9 & 11!!
I arrive at my flat and run straight upstairs to the bathroom to clean off. This takes quite a while as I’m still as drunk as a skunk.
When the cleaning is over - including some rather painful prodding at the cut on my head with a TCP soaked jay cloth - and I’ve changed into a pair of clean jogging pants, I sit back on the toilet, stare into space and wonder what the hell to do.
I’m sitting there pondering the possibilities of emigrating to a country thousands of miles away - where no-one speaks English and alcohol is illegal - when my stomach decides it wants in on the action and decides to throw up what hadn’t already come out the other end.
Thankfully, no-one’s around to see this.
In the next few days and weeks, word got round about my exploits.
I couldn’t walk through the university campus without thinking people were staring at me and then going to tell their friends that they’d just spotted ‘Follow Through Spalding’ walking past the library.
I felt it the better part of discretion to avoid social gatherings for a while.
I was expecting lots of barbed witticisms from my friends, but was surprised to find that none of them wanted to mention it.
This was somehow worse.
I saw Callie a few times after that night, but tended to drop my eyes and shuffle into the shadows before she had a chance to see me.
I’d like to think I can recover my dignity in most situations, but recovering any from this episode would make raising the Titanic look as easy as boiling a small kettle.
I tended to stick to four pints or less from then on.
…and still do.
***
Buy Life... With No Breaks now at the links to the left.
Buy Life... With No Breaks now at the links to the left.
