Life… With No Breaks
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 today, 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!
By Nick Spalding:
Life… With No Breaks
Life… On A High
Love… From Both Sides
The Cornerstone
Spalding’s Scary Shorts
Love… And Sleepless Nights
Buy Nick’s books:
Amazon UK
Amazon US
Amazon Germany
Amazon France
Copyright © Nick Spalding 2010
First published in Great Britain in 2010 by Racket Publishing
Revised four times
This Kindle edition published 2011 by Racket Publishing
The rights of Nick Spalding to be identified as the author of this work have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
Life… With No Breaks
Nick Spalding
Racket Publishing
Chapters
6.00pm - 0 Words
6.28 pm - 1369 Words
7.03 pm - 1929 Words
8.27 pm - 4635 Words
9.31 pm - 6430 Words
10.42 pm - 8907 Words
11.56 pm - 11907 Words
1.39 am - 15170 Words
3.20 am - 19646 Words
4.52 am - 21954 Words
6.21 am - 24495 Words
8.04 am - 27602 Words
9.32 am - 30357 Words
12.23 pm - 35469 Words
2.03 pm - 38304 Words
4.14 pm - 42664 Words
6.25 pm - 46931 Words
8.40 pm - 50830 Words
10.01 pm - 53225 Words
10.54 pm - 54127 Words
11.34 pm - 54873 Words
6.00pm
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.
&
nbsp; 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 your own.
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.
6.28 pm
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 for the first time recently, where I saw the memorial where the TwinTowers used to be and had a little cry to myself.
I live in the south of England, where the weather isn’t quite as bad, but the mortgage prices are high enough to give you a nose bleed.
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.
7.03 pm
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 l
ooking 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.
Life... With No Breaks (A laugh-out-loud comedy memoir) Page 1
