365 Days of writing, 2026 – 70

Day 70 – The nine-to-five effect

…

The 9‑to‑5 Grind: How a “Soul‑Destroying” Day Job Can Become the Secret Sauce Behind Award‑Winning Fiction

“The work we do for a living is the very material our imagination chews on while we’re trying to stay awake at the office.” – Anon.

If you’re a writer who spends eight-plus hours a day staring at a spreadsheet, fielding angry customers, or shuffling paperwork, you’ve probably wondered whether that soul‑sucking routine is killing your creative spark. The short answer? It’s not.

In fact, for many of the world’s most celebrated authors—including the master of psychological suspense, Patricia Highsmith—the very same grind that felt like a dead‑end at the time became the fuel, discipline, and grounding that later powered their best work. Below, we’ll unpack why the daily grind can be a surprisingly potent catalyst for literary greatness, and we’ll look at real‑life writers who turned their “day‑job drudgery” into literary gold.

1. The “Soul‑Destroying” Job: Why It’s Not All Bad

Common Complaint	Hidden Benefit
Monotony – “It feels like I’m watching paint dry.”	Rhythmic structure. Repetitive tasks teach you timing, pacing, and the power of restraint—key ingredients in tight prose.
Lack of creative freedom – “I’m stuck following a script.”	Constraint breeds invention. When you can’t control your environment, you learn to make the most of the tiny windows you do control (a notebook on a lunch break, a restless mind on the commute).
Emotional exhaustion – “I’m drained by the time I get home.”	Emotional reservoir. The frustrations, absurdities, and small triumphs of office life provide a deep well of authentic human experience to mine later.
Time scarcity – “There’s never enough time to write.”	Time‑management mastery. Juggling deadlines forces you to carve out micro‑moments of focus, sharpening the skill of writing with brevity.
Identity dilution – “I feel like a cog, not a creator.”	Grounded perspective. A day job anchors you in the “real world,” preventing the echo chamber that can make fictional worlds feel detached from lived experience.

Think of the nine‑to‑five as a training ground rather than a trough. It may feel soul‑crushing in the moment, but the resilience you build, the people you observe, and the grit you develop often become the scaffolding for your most resonant stories.

2. How the Day Job Turns Into Narrative Gold

Observation Lab – An office is a micro‑society. You see power dynamics, office politics, and the hidden rituals people perform to survive. Highsmith famously used the mundanity of a clerk’s life to study the banality of evil, later channelling it into the chilling psyche of Tom Ripley.
Character Templates – The “friend who never stops complaining,” the “manager who micromanages,” the “quiet intern who overhears everything.” Real people become ready‑made character sketches that feel instantly believable.
Dialogue Bank – The snappy exchange at the water cooler, the forced politeness of customer service calls, the frantic email threads—each is a masterclass in subtext, pacing, and voice.
Structural Discipline – Meeting deadlines and delivering consistent output teaches you to treat your manuscript like a project with milestones, not an amorphous dream.
Financial Safety Net – Money isn’t the only resource a steady job provides; it buys the psychological freedom to take creative risks later, without the pressure to “sell” immediately.

3. Real‑World Proof: Writers Who Turned the Grind Into Glory

Writer	Day‑Job Drag	How It Informed Their Work	Notable Works/Accolades
Patricia Highsmith	Copy‑editor, office clerk, and later a full‑time mother with no literary income.	The repetitive, almost mechanical nature of clerical work sharpened her ability to depict the “quiet horror” of everyday life. Her protagonists often feel trapped in dead‑end jobs, mirroring her own experience.	The Talented Mr. Ripley (adapted into multiple films), Strangers on a Train (Oscar‑winning screenplay).
Raymond Carver	Warehouse loader, janitor, saw‑mill worker.	The stark, economical prose of minimalism mirrors the physical labor and scarcity of his jobs—every word had to earn its place, just as every broken piece of wood earned his paycheck.	What We Talk About When We Talk About Love (National Book Award finalist).
J.K. Rowling	Unpaid research assistant, later a single mother on welfare.	Living on the edge of financial collapse fueled the poverty‑and‑hope themes in the Harry Potter series; the bureaucracy she faced informed the Ministry of Magic’s absurdities.	Harry Potter series (multiple Booker‑type honors, 7‑time Hugo nominee).
Stephen King – The Teacher	High school English teacher (full‑time).	The daily rhythm of lesson planning and grading taught King the mechanics of suspense: pacing a lesson parallels pacing a chapter; the “classroom” is a micro‑stage for human drama.	Carrie (1974), The Shining (1977), The Dark Tower series (Hugo, World Fantasy).
Franz Kafka	Insurance clerk at the Workers’ Accident Insurance Institute.	Kafka’s legal‑bureaucratic prose directly mirrors the labyrinthine paperwork of his day job—The Trial is practically a love letter to (and indictment of) bureaucratic absurdity.	The Metamorphosis, The Castle (posthumous critical acclaim).
Toni Morrison	Editor at Random House (while writing).	Editing other authors’ manuscripts sharpened her ear for rhythm and voice; the corporate environment gave her a front‑row seat to the politics of representation.	Beloved (Pulitzer, Nobel).

Takeaway: None of these writers quit the day job because they loved it. They leveraged it—using the grind as a crucible for observation, discipline, and raw material.

4. Turning Your Own 9‑to‑5 Into a Writing Engine (Practical Steps)

Carry a Pocket Notebook
A two‑minute break? Jot down a striking phrase you overheard, a facial expression that tells a story, or a sudden burst of emotion.
Set “Micro‑Writing” Goals
- 5‑minute flash fiction during lunch.
- One paragraph before you log off.
- A single line of dialogue while waiting for the elevator.
Create a “Work‑to‑Write” Ratio
Example: 90 % work, 10 % writing. When you see the 10 % slice, treat it like a sacrament—no scrolling, no emails, just writing.
Use the Commute as a Lab
Audio‑record your thoughts (or a voice‑memo of a character’s monologue). Transcribe later; you’ll have a ready‑made scene while still stuck in traffic.
Harvest Office Archetypes
Make a cheat‑sheet of “the boss,” “the gossip,” “the silent observer.” When you need a character, pull from your list and tweak a few details.
Schedule a “Reflection Day”
Once a month, take a half‑day off (or use a vacation day) to sit with your notebook, reorganise ideas, and see what patterns emerge from your daily observations.
Remember the Paycheck’s Purpose
The salary isn’t just a means to survive; it’s a portfolio that lets you fund research trips, attend workshops, and ultimately leave the day job when you’re ready.

5. The Psychological Flip: From “Soul‑Destroyer” to “Soul‑Maker”

Many writers describe a pivotal moment when they stop hating their day job and start using it. Here’s a quick mental reframing exercise:

Identify the Pain Point – “I hate the endless emails.”
Find the Narrative Parallel – “Characters stuck in a flood of unwanted information.”
Translate to Plot – “A protagonist receives a mysterious series of emails that slowly reveal a conspiracy.”
Create a Symbol – The email inbox becomes a metaphor for the subconscious, a place where buried secrets surface.

When you consciously map a nuisance onto a story element, the job stops being an opponent and becomes a collaborator.

6. The Endgame: When the Lights Go Out

Your day job may eventually fade—whether you quit, get promoted, or transition to freelance—but the lessons you learned never do:

Structure – You now know how to break a massive manuscript into manageable sections.
Observation – You can paint vivid settings with a single, well‑placed detail.
Resilience – You’ve already survived the “soul‑destroying” grind; rejections and revisions will feel less brutal.

Patricia Highsmith herself once said, “The ordinary is an endless source of the extraordinary if you just look at it.” She didn’t escape the office to find inspiration; she stayed and listened—and the result was a body of work that still haunts readers decades later.

Bottom Line

The nine‑to‑five isn’t a curse; it’s a crucible. It strips away the illusion that writing lives in some ethereal realm and forces you to mine the real world for raw, unfiltered material. That material—filtered through discipline, observation, and a dash of rebellion—can become the backbone of award‑winning fiction.

So the next time you stare at your computer screen and feel the weight of a “soul‑destroying” task, remember:

Your desk is a front‑row seat to humanity.
Your inbox is a repository of dialogue.
Your paycheck is a safety net that lets you risk the stories that truly matter.

Embrace the grind, write in the margins, and let the ordinary become the extraordinary foundation of your next masterpiece.

Happy writing, and may your coffee be strong and your ideas stronger.

References & Further Reading

The Talented Mr. Ripley – Patricia Highsmith (1955) – analysis of occupational ennui in character development.
Reading Like a Writer – Francine Prose – chapters on “Writing from Experience.”
On Writing – Stephen King – King’s reflections on his teaching career and its influence on his narrative pacing.
The Art of Fiction – John Gardner – on using everyday life as a seed for fiction.

Want more stories of day‑job‑turned‑novelists? Subscribe to the newsletter for monthly case studies and actionable writing hacks!

What I learned about writing – What do you believe is your forte as a writer?

I have always liked English as a subject at school, starting at primary school and getting books for Christmas.

My favourite shop was a newsagent’s and bookstore up the road, and while my mother shopped in the grocery store, I would go looking at the books.

It wasn’t until secondary school and the introduction to English literature that my love of books took a new turn. The school had a library, and there I could discover all of the schoolboy heroes like Biggles and the adventures of the Famous Five and Secret Seven.

It also afforded me the chance to work as a librarian and learn the ropes, as it were, and for a while, the idea of going to university to become a proper librarian was firmly planted in my mind.

Of course, circumstances got in the way of that plan, and I finished up leaving school early and never quite making it to university.

But I did go to correspondence school and picked up English literature again, but this time, it was a study of various aspects of literature, such as poetry, fiction, plays, and nonfiction.

I didn’t like poetry. In fact, I did not understand it at all.

I liked the idea of writing a play and creating a screenplay, but I never got around to it.

No, my first foray into writing came when I started doing an off-campus degree that majored in literature and had units called narrative.

Yes, the expectation was to write stories. Short stories, and so I began. Those I wrote as assignments scored well. Those I wrote and submitted did not.

Yes, it was the beginner’s story, the pile of rejections that started crushing that desire to succeed.

There was, around this time, a novel competition run by the Australian newspaper, and, like all naive beginners, I told myself my first entry would blow them away, and the prize was mine.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

But I wrote a novel every year until I was too old to participate. Unfortunately, I can’t find the manuscripts I wrote back then; perhaps disgusted, I threw them away. Pity, I would like to see them now, just to see how bad they were.

365 Days of writing, 2026 – 70

Day 70 – The nine-to-five effect

…

The 9‑to‑5 Grind: How a “Soul‑Destroying” Day Job Can Become the Secret Sauce Behind Award‑Winning Fiction

“The work we do for a living is the very material our imagination chews on while we’re trying to stay awake at the office.” – Anon.

1. The “Soul‑Destroying” Job: Why It’s Not All Bad

Common Complaint	Hidden Benefit
Monotony – “It feels like I’m watching paint dry.”	Rhythmic structure. Repetitive tasks teach you timing, pacing, and the power of restraint—key ingredients in tight prose.
Lack of creative freedom – “I’m stuck following a script.”	Constraint breeds invention. When you can’t control your environment, you learn to make the most of the tiny windows you do control (a notebook on a lunch break, a restless mind on the commute).
Emotional exhaustion – “I’m drained by the time I get home.”	Emotional reservoir. The frustrations, absurdities, and small triumphs of office life provide a deep well of authentic human experience to mine later.
Time scarcity – “There’s never enough time to write.”	Time‑management mastery. Juggling deadlines forces you to carve out micro‑moments of focus, sharpening the skill of writing with brevity.
Identity dilution – “I feel like a cog, not a creator.”	Grounded perspective. A day job anchors you in the “real world,” preventing the echo chamber that can make fictional worlds feel detached from lived experience.

2. How the Day Job Turns Into Narrative Gold

Observation Lab – An office is a micro‑society. You see power dynamics, office politics, and the hidden rituals people perform to survive. Highsmith famously used the mundanity of a clerk’s life to study the banality of evil, later channelling it into the chilling psyche of Tom Ripley.
Character Templates – The “friend who never stops complaining,” the “manager who micromanages,” the “quiet intern who overhears everything.” Real people become ready‑made character sketches that feel instantly believable.
Dialogue Bank – The snappy exchange at the water cooler, the forced politeness of customer service calls, the frantic email threads—each is a masterclass in subtext, pacing, and voice.
Structural Discipline – Meeting deadlines and delivering consistent output teaches you to treat your manuscript like a project with milestones, not an amorphous dream.
Financial Safety Net – Money isn’t the only resource a steady job provides; it buys the psychological freedom to take creative risks later, without the pressure to “sell” immediately.

3. Real‑World Proof: Writers Who Turned the Grind Into Glory

Writer	Day‑Job Drag	How It Informed Their Work	Notable Works/Accolades
Patricia Highsmith	Copy‑editor, office clerk, and later a full‑time mother with no literary income.	The repetitive, almost mechanical nature of clerical work sharpened her ability to depict the “quiet horror” of everyday life. Her protagonists often feel trapped in dead‑end jobs, mirroring her own experience.	The Talented Mr. Ripley (adapted into multiple films), Strangers on a Train (Oscar‑winning screenplay).
Raymond Carver	Warehouse loader, janitor, saw‑mill worker.	The stark, economical prose of minimalism mirrors the physical labor and scarcity of his jobs—every word had to earn its place, just as every broken piece of wood earned his paycheck.	What We Talk About When We Talk About Love (National Book Award finalist).
J.K. Rowling	Unpaid research assistant, later a single mother on welfare.	Living on the edge of financial collapse fueled the poverty‑and‑hope themes in the Harry Potter series; the bureaucracy she faced informed the Ministry of Magic’s absurdities.	Harry Potter series (multiple Booker‑type honors, 7‑time Hugo nominee).
Stephen King – The Teacher	High school English teacher (full‑time).	The daily rhythm of lesson planning and grading taught King the mechanics of suspense: pacing a lesson parallels pacing a chapter; the “classroom” is a micro‑stage for human drama.	Carrie (1974), The Shining (1977), The Dark Tower series (Hugo, World Fantasy).
Franz Kafka	Insurance clerk at the Workers’ Accident Insurance Institute.	Kafka’s legal‑bureaucratic prose directly mirrors the labyrinthine paperwork of his day job—The Trial is practically a love letter to (and indictment of) bureaucratic absurdity.	The Metamorphosis, The Castle (posthumous critical acclaim).
Toni Morrison	Editor at Random House (while writing).	Editing other authors’ manuscripts sharpened her ear for rhythm and voice; the corporate environment gave her a front‑row seat to the politics of representation.	Beloved (Pulitzer, Nobel).

Takeaway: None of these writers quit the day job because they loved it. They leveraged it—using the grind as a crucible for observation, discipline, and raw material.

4. Turning Your Own 9‑to‑5 Into a Writing Engine (Practical Steps)

Carry a Pocket Notebook
A two‑minute break? Jot down a striking phrase you overheard, a facial expression that tells a story, or a sudden burst of emotion.
Set “Micro‑Writing” Goals
- 5‑minute flash fiction during lunch.
- One paragraph before you log off.
- A single line of dialogue while waiting for the elevator.
Create a “Work‑to‑Write” Ratio
Example: 90 % work, 10 % writing. When you see the 10 % slice, treat it like a sacrament—no scrolling, no emails, just writing.
Use the Commute as a Lab
Audio‑record your thoughts (or a voice‑memo of a character’s monologue). Transcribe later; you’ll have a ready‑made scene while still stuck in traffic.
Harvest Office Archetypes
Make a cheat‑sheet of “the boss,” “the gossip,” “the silent observer.” When you need a character, pull from your list and tweak a few details.
Schedule a “Reflection Day”
Once a month, take a half‑day off (or use a vacation day) to sit with your notebook, reorganise ideas, and see what patterns emerge from your daily observations.
Remember the Paycheck’s Purpose
The salary isn’t just a means to survive; it’s a portfolio that lets you fund research trips, attend workshops, and ultimately leave the day job when you’re ready.

5. The Psychological Flip: From “Soul‑Destroyer” to “Soul‑Maker”

Many writers describe a pivotal moment when they stop hating their day job and start using it. Here’s a quick mental reframing exercise:

Identify the Pain Point – “I hate the endless emails.”
Find the Narrative Parallel – “Characters stuck in a flood of unwanted information.”
Translate to Plot – “A protagonist receives a mysterious series of emails that slowly reveal a conspiracy.”
Create a Symbol – The email inbox becomes a metaphor for the subconscious, a place where buried secrets surface.

When you consciously map a nuisance onto a story element, the job stops being an opponent and becomes a collaborator.

6. The Endgame: When the Lights Go Out

Your day job may eventually fade—whether you quit, get promoted, or transition to freelance—but the lessons you learned never do:

Structure – You now know how to break a massive manuscript into manageable sections.
Observation – You can paint vivid settings with a single, well‑placed detail.
Resilience – You’ve already survived the “soul‑destroying” grind; rejections and revisions will feel less brutal.

Bottom Line

So the next time you stare at your computer screen and feel the weight of a “soul‑destroying” task, remember:

Your desk is a front‑row seat to humanity.
Your inbox is a repository of dialogue.
Your paycheck is a safety net that lets you risk the stories that truly matter.

Embrace the grind, write in the margins, and let the ordinary become the extraordinary foundation of your next masterpiece.

Happy writing, and may your coffee be strong and your ideas stronger.

References & Further Reading

The Talented Mr. Ripley – Patricia Highsmith (1955) – analysis of occupational ennui in character development.
Reading Like a Writer – Francine Prose – chapters on “Writing from Experience.”
On Writing – Stephen King – King’s reflections on his teaching career and its influence on his narrative pacing.
The Art of Fiction – John Gardner – on using everyday life as a seed for fiction.

Want more stories of day‑job‑turned‑novelists? Subscribe to the newsletter for monthly case studies and actionable writing hacks!

365 Days of writing, 2026 – 69

Day 69 – Writing exercise

We don’t have a lot of time

…

This was the thing about end-of-world stuff.

You honestly believe that people could not be that stupid, and how simple it was to create the conditions where the only answer is nuclear Armageddon.

We go to the movies, we watch television shows that portray what it’s like before the war, during the war and then after the war, what we are calling World War 3.

If there’s a war, because some shows are about people building bunkers in anticipation of a war, and then when there wasn’t, they blew everything up anyway.

And sadly, that just about sums up what is happening to us now.

…

Let’s go back. It wasn’t all that long ago. We had a particular country in the Middle East deciding that it was sick of missiles randomly raining down on it.

Maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but the intent was the same. Certain Arab states didn’t like Israel, that certain country, so Israel started bombing the Palestinians.

Meanwhile, elements in Yemen sent missiles, elements in Lebanon sent missiles, and a larger oil-rich country, Iran, financed all these splinter Arab groups.

Then there’s the Russians and the Ukrainians. There’s the Chinese posturing over Taiwan. The United States posturing over oil and terrorism, and the rest of the world, basically horrified, are nervously watching on.

We are in Australia, as far away from all this stuff as you could get, but we do have a problem. Oil. We import it all, so if the Middle East explodes, we will be in trouble.

We could live with posturing. We could live with the superpowers flexing their muscles. What we don’t want or need is a full-scale war that would become a black hole and suck everyone in.

We even said so, multiple times. Preceful negotiations, not bombs.

Did anyone listen….

…

I was reading a book, a work of fiction, written a few years ago now.

The premise ..

If someone blows up the oil pipelines in the Middle East, and a country on the borders of the Hormuz Strait decided to sink a few ships and block it, how long would it take for society to break down?

This book should be mandatory reading for every politician in the world because what happens when the scenario plays out is Armageddon.

No oil, no petrol, no cars or trucks, no deliveries. No oil for the power station generators, no industry, no food moving. People don’t store food. They buy it daily. When the food runs out…

Rationing? Tell that to the guy with the gun, pointing it at you. He’s desperate and will pull the trigger. All semblance of sanity is finished.

You get the picture. Two weeks, anarchy, four goodbye to sanity and everything else.

I’m reading this book, and a newsflash comes on the screen.
.
Israel and America have bombed Iran.

Why? They think the Iranians are about to launch a nuclear warhead.

Where? Israel, America?

Do they not know that if the Iranians exploded a nuclear bomb anywhere, there’s going to be retaliation?

I’m sitting staring at the TV screen in utter disbelief.

Of course, Iran is going to fire back, and because America is involved, they will retaliate against all the US bases in the other Arab States.

What was the reason for this seemingly unprovoked attack, other than the alleged nuclear weapon?

Pick one out of 157 random reasons, none quite a making up a coherent sentence. We are told it will last two days, the war will be won, Iran will lose everything, the country will be taken back by the people, and everything will be fine.

That’s right, after the alleged nuclear bomb, the next reason was to kill the radical leadership and have the people revolt.

Two days at the most. Bomb their nuclear facilities and some infrastructure, one of which was apparently next to a girl’s school, and it was hit instead with horrifying results. But they did kill the leader.

I guess what happens next would be the same if the Iranians killed the President of the USA, and I hpe they weren’t thinking there would be no retaliation.

Admittedly, we all think that Iran is run a little too religiously, and that the regime is harsh in meting out punishment to dissenters and women, but it is a sovereign country, and no other country has the right to bomb them simply because we don’t like their religion or customs.

Of course, we in Australia denounced the attack as illegal, along with just about every sane country in the world. But again, we are reminded that this is allegedly about killing the leadership and hoping for an uprising.

Yep. Good luck with that. Day two, the expert commentators, yes, like sport, we have commentators for wars, the experts are saying that in killing heads of state, they will be replaced, quite possibly with more radical heads of state, with the warning they will never forget what the enemy did. And yes, there might be protesters in the streets, hoping for a change in government, but we’ll shoot them.

Day four, no to the regime change and no to surrender. This war is just getting started. Reading between the lines, the Iranians saw this coming, have seen it coming for years, and have made appropriate arrangements.

And a little daunting on the side, the message sent to Israel and America, bring it on.

Day five, we are told Iran is a spent force, with no munitions, destroyed launching sites, and no leadership.

Until a barrage of missiles lands in places where no missiles were expected, leaving a few dead soldiers for someone to explain how this had happened when their infrastructure had been, so-called, blasted to bits.

And no, just because it’s war and there are always casualties, it just doesn’t cut it when you tell a mother who has lost her son that they have to expect casualties in war, when they had been told no more wars, ending existing wars, and their President is the President of Peace.

This isn’t going to win anyone a Nobel Peace Prize any time soon.

The two-day, worst-case-scenario war is now a week along, and there is no end in sight. Iran seems to have an inexhaustible supply of missiles.

That one week suddenly turns into two weeks, and the world is now panicking over the loss of oil getting through. Oil prices per barrel are rocketing, ships are not moving, insurance is withdrawn, and stock markets are tanking.

Here’s a thought. Let’s let Russia sell oil to ease the shortages. They won’t use the funds to fuel the war with Ukraine. Will they? Or supply intelligence to the Iranians. Or is China selling arms and missile defence systems?

And not forgetting their own little skirmish, it seems the initial efforts are not working, so let’s start bombing infrastructure. Not outhouses and portable toilets, let’s start taking out gas and oil fields and make it hard for them to produce anything. Like their major gas field.

Haven’t they heard of retaliation? You know when the other side goes for your stuff?

Obviously not. But who didn’t expect Iran to target the other Arab countries’ infrastructure, and now it’s getting serious.

You can see a pattern forming here. Drop bombs on us, we sent missiles and drones back, you target our gas and oil fields, we will target yours. They even stand up and tell us in plain language what they’re going to do.

Week three, we don’t want to know. Israel has bombarded and damaged a large Iranian facility. And no, I didn’t hear them surrendering, I hear them going for American and Arab states’ gas and oil fields with the same intensity.

This is a war. There are no good guys when it comes to running wars. It’s about destroying the enemy, plain and simple.

OMG.

By this time, we are beginning to realise they’re using missiles which we apparently didn’t or can’t find or destroy because they’re, well, hidden, 500 meters below ground level, and therefore can launch barrages with impunity on friendly Arab states, and it seems longer range targets.

And if they can hit long-range targets, nothing is safe, no one is safe, and you have to think that this war is becoming the mother of all disasters.

So, here we are, each side bombing and destroying part of the other’s oil and gas-producing facilities, and now the world is suffering because of it. Where will it end?

Two world wars, and we apparently haven’t learned anything.

Three weeks, and we’re on a knife-edge. It’s that time when, turning on the TV to get the latest news, we are barraged with destruction and posturing.

And, this morning, an ultimatum. We are telling them they have 48 hours to surrender or they will be totally destroyed.

What?

An ultimatum that says, basically, you’re in a no-win situation. I can literally see the Iranian leadership behind closed doors, discussing the latest threat.

Imagining that they do not have nuclear weapons at their disposal would be a mistake. We want to believe they don;t but I suspect, as so a lot of others, they do.

The question is whether they would use them.

Is anyone, on either side, asking the question?

If you shoot, they shoot, and there will be nothing left. There will be no world left for either side to claim any sort of victory. And all those who didn’t want to be involved will suffer the same fate.

Nuclear annihilation.

…

So, here’s the thing.

In many different TV shows where someone is backed into a corner, and there’s no way out, the only way outcome is the worst possible eventuality.

You see the people who finally realise that it’s a no-win situation, and try to calm things down, but it’s usually one person or a group in an isolated situation. The damage, as catastrophic as it is, is confined.

When you corner someone into believing the only way out is annihilation, well, hold onto your hats because this is one in, all in.

And as is the nature of our society and its thirst for instant news, we’re going to see the end of the world in real time.

We may not die instantly like the lucky ones, no, we’ll get to die a lingering death, a day, or two, or a week. Maybe a month, but the thought of that is too horrific to contemplate.

You just have to wonder who the madman is who will authorise the first strike.

The Iranians, the Israelis or the Americans?

In the end, it doesn’t matter. They will condemn this planet to extinction.

Somewhere out there, the aliens who put us here as an experiment will be saying, yep. What a bunch of nihilistic dumbasses. Money will change hands as the bets are paid, and the universe will go about its business, happy that Elon Musk isn’t going to live on Mars, and the Chinese aren’t going to take over the moon.

And the self-immolation tendencies of the human race will not spread its disease through the universe.

Except…

Flip-flop has just flipped the 48-hour deadline to five days, and then it will be the infamous two weeks that never end.

The stock market was cratering. It needed to hear positive news, that peace is within reach.

Even if it isn’t. Maybe money with trump annihilation.

We all collectively hold our breath, knowing that inevitably the end of this world is coming, and we can blame the person who invented the atomic bomb. I was going to say that it’s the aliens’ fault because they could have come and stopped all this nonsense before it started.

I guess they tried when they landed at Area 51, but our ‘shoot first and ask questions later; basically basically sealed our fate.

So?

We have a four-day breather before everything starts over again.

Is it any wonder I do not like roller coasters?

What I learned about writing – The use and abuse of obscenities.

I’ll say it straight up: I don’t believe it’s necessary to use obscenities in most of my stories, and I don’t. They do appear in the odd story, but you can count on the fingers of one hand how many times I use these words.

Sometimes, the odd ‘f’ word or the ‘s’ word is used for dramatic effect, but there are others that I would never use. The point is that I rarely use those words in general speech myself. I don’t see the point.

But..

All around me, wherever I go, the language is terrible, and by people so young they should not, and probably don’t know the meaning of the words they are using. My grandchildren use that language as a matter of speaking and forget sometimes that we don’t like to hear it, but they are getting better. i know for a fact that my two children use it all the time, so it’s a case of what you hear all the time in the home is what you consider normal.

I’m told all the kids at school swear, so I’m guessing there’s no discipline to stamp it out. These days, teachers have no authority to do anything, so it’s only going to get worse.

So, while I don’t appreciate it and try not to go to any movies that have obscene language, which means we don’t see very many, or watch TV shows with it, I don’t use it as an excuse not to read something that I’ve been asked to critique. I have to get on board with the way the wind is blowing.

But I don’t have to like it.

And yes, as you’ve probably guessed, I’m one of those really old fuddy-duddies.

“The Things we do for Love”, the story behind the story

This story has been ongoing since I was seventeen, and just to let you know, I’m 72 this year.

Yes, it’s taken a long time to get it done.

Why, you might ask.

Well, I never gave it much interest because I started writing it after a small incident when I was 17, and working as a book packer for a book distributor in Melbourne

At the end of my first year, at Christmas, the employer had a Christmas party, and that year, it was at a venue in St Kilda.

I wasn’t going to go because at that age, I was an ordinary boy who was very introverted and basically scared of his own shadow and terrified by girls.

Back then, I would cross the street to avoid them

Also, other members of the staff in the shipping department were rough and ready types who were not backwards in telling me what happened, and being naive, perhaps they knew I’d be either shocked or intrigued.

I was both adamant I wasn’t coming and then got roped in on a dare.

Damn!

So, back then, in the early 70s, people looked the other way when it came to drinking, and of course, Dutch courage always takes away the concerns, especially when normally you wouldn’t do half the stuff you wouldn’t in a million years

I made it to the end, not as drunk and stupid as I thought I might be, and St Kilda being a salacious place if you knew where to look, my new friends decided to give me a surprise.

It didn’t take long to realise these men were ‘men about town’ as they kept saying, and we went on an odyssey. Yes, those backstreet brothels where one could, I was told, have anything they could imagine.

Let me tell you, large quantities of alcohol and imagination were a very bad mix.

So, the odyssey in ‘The things we do’ was based on that, and then the encounter with Diana. Well, let’s just say I learned a great deal about girls that night.

Firstly, not all girls are nasty and spiteful, which seemed to be the case whenever I met one. There was a way to approach, greet, talk to, and behave.

It was also true that I could have had anything I wanted, but I decided what was in my imagination could stay there. She was amused that all I wanted was to talk, but it was my money, and I could spend it how I liked.

And like any 17-year-old naive fool, I fell in love with her and had all these foolish notions. Months later, I went back, but she had moved on, to where no one was saying or knew.

Needless to say, I was heartbroken and had to get over that first loss, which, like any 17-year-old, was like the end of the world.

But it was the best hour I’d ever spent in my life and would remain so until I met the woman I have been married to for the last 48 years.

As Henry, he was in part based on a rebel, the son of rich parents who despised them and their wealth, and he used to regale anyone who would listen about how they had messed up his life

If only I’d come from such a background!

And yes, I was only a run away from climbing up the stairs to get on board a ship, acting as a purser.

I worked for a shipping company and they gave their junior staff members an opportunity to spend a year at sea working as a purser on a cargo ship that sailed between Melbourne, Sydney and Hobart in Australia.

One of the other junior staff members’ turn came, and I would visit him on board when he would tell me stories about life on board, the officers, the crew, and other events. These stories, which sounded incredible to someone so impressionable, were a delight to hear.

Alas, by that time, I had tired of office work and moved on to be a tradesman at the place where my father worked.

It proved to be the right move, as that is where I met my wife. Diana had been right; love would find me when I least expected it.

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