Tag: Challenge

A new way of doing things

Well, welcome to the new world.

Perhaps in a lot of things, we should have been there a long time ago, but I suspect complacency and laziness has a lot to do with some of the issues.

Like washing your hands. It’s usually hell on earth to get a child to do anything and you have to be at them and at them to do anything.

I’m not sure about social distancing, but I’ve long wanted people in the supermarket to stop leaning over me to get stuff off the shelves when they could wait one minute longer.

Or being crowded into a restaurant where you can practically eat off the plate of the person at the next table. I like the distance, and the privacy it brings.

I’m also a fan of the new click and collect phenomenon where I don’t have to go out to get something I want; just get it delivered.

Of course, there’s still the necessity to go to a shop and physically see an item before you buy it, in my case clothes and shoes, but online sales for a lot of things are so much better, especially books and magazines.

I guess future traffic jams won’t be cars but delivery trucks.

I like the idea of working from home. Aside from having to face time with colleagues every now and then, if you don’t have to be in an office, then give it up. It will reduce pressure on roads, public transport, and reduce the concentration of the population in one place. You might even get to work on time, and get something to eat before you arrive!

As long as they get the internet right, which in this country is a pretty big if.

And perhaps now people will stop blaming 5g for the COVID virus.

Perhaps this homeschooling thing might work as well, as over the last few weeks I’ve seen it in action, and in most cases it works. Of course the isolation of students could be a problem, and there is always a need for face time for teachers and other students for interaction with contemporaries, but perhaps a compromise could be found.

Among the negatives in a time like this is the fear of using public transport, a fear no one is taking lightly, leading to children having to be taken to and brought home from school, and the fact there are potentially 800 cars needed to do it.

I used to leave home 30 mins before school end and was first in the pickup queue. Now I leave 45 minutes before and the closest I can get in nearly a mile from the school. And the traffic is a dangerous hazard in the main street, blocking driveways, bus stops, and lanes. It’s basically a mess, and it cannot continue without more organization.

Or we find a cure, or at the very least, a vaccine.

But there’s another problem. The anti-vaxxers. Everywhere in the world, it seems, not more than 50% of the population will get vaccinated, so it means that we may NEVER get past where we are now.

And the very worst problem that this new world has sprung on us, we may never travel again. Anywhere.

Perhaps we really do need a miracle.

In a word: Not

You will not go outside, you will not go to the movies.

The word not, when used by your parents when you are a child is the key in the lock keeping you from having fun.

It is the very definition of everything negative, and much harsher than just a plain no.

That you will ‘not…’ has been the gateway for many an exploit or adventure, because anything you have done contrary to the ‘not’ is all that much sweeter.

Until you get into trouble, but, then, isn’t that how you learn life’s lessons?

But if you are a programmer like me, not takes on a whole new meaning in a language like,

‘If not like …. then’

meaning in layman’s terms if something isn’t like a specific value then do something else.

Hang on, isn’t that a bit like reality?

This is not to be confused with the work Knot which is,

A blemish in a piece of wood

The speed of a ship, winds, and sometimes a plane

But basically,

Something you tie to keep your shoes on, or around your finger to remind you to tie your shoes before getting on the 36-knot high-speed ferry made of knotty wood.

It is also something you find in tangled hair and is very painful trying to remove it.

It is also an unpleasant tightness in body muscles and you need a masseuse to get rid of them.

I just want to be finished

Just when you think that the story is done, and you’re on the third re-read, just to make sure…

Damn!

I don’t like the way that chapter reads, and what’s worse, it’s about the tenth time I’ve looked at it.

It doesn’t matter the last three times you read it, it was just fine, or, the editor has read it and the chapter passed without any major comment.

I think the main problem I have is letting go.  For some odd reason, certain parts of a story sometimes seem to me as though they are not complete, or can be missing a vital clue or connection for the continuity of the story.

That, of course, happens when you rewrite a section that is earlier on in the story, and then have to make ongoing changes.

Yes, I hear the stern warnings, that I should have made a comprehensive outline at the beginning, but the trouble is, I can change the ending, as I’m writing it and then have to go back and add the hooks earlier on.  Not the best method, but isn’t that what an editor is for, to pick up the missed connections, and out of the blue events that happen for no reason?

I find that often after leaving a finished story for a month before the next reading, the whole picture must formulate itself in my head, so when I re-read, there was always a problem, one I didn’t want to think about until the re-read.

Even then it might survive a second pass.

I know the scene is in trouble when I get to it and alarm bells are going off.  I find anything else to do but look at it.

So, here I am, making major changes.

But, at least now I am satisfied with where it’s going.

Only 325 pages to go!

Past conversations with my cat – 65

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This is Chester.  We both agree that summer has come early.

But that’s about all we can agree on.   I’m going to start calling him a cranky cat.

For the last week or so the temperature has been hovering in the low 30-degree Celcius mark, and we have been subjected to the constant aroma of smoke from bushfires raging north and south of us.

Normally, the hot weather doesn’t arrive until after the middle of November, and then the temperatures are around 30 degrees with moderate humidity.

Now, it is hot, with Sunday being about 36 degrees Celcius, and not a day to venture outside the airconditioning.

And, that’s where the cranky cat and I disagree.

He likes to sit at the back door and collect the breeze that flows from the front door to the back door and hates it when I run the airconditioning because I have the doors closed.

When that happens, he comes into the office and sits on the table next to the printer with his angry face on.

I figure using the printer might disturb his protest, but it doesn’t.

And to ignore him is at your own peril because, after a few minutes of silent protest, he comes over and starts pushing keys on the keyboard.

One day I expect he will type ‘you are a very bad servant’ for that I am.

Now, where’s the food he really hates!

Whatever happened to pre-dinner drinks and a chat about your day?

There’s nothing more I like to do at the end of a day than sit down and have a drink, usually Scotch and Soda or Bacardi and Coke.

But that’s the problem.

What is your definition of the end of the day?

No doubt for most it is probably that time when they get home from work, and take some time between then and dinner.  From my memories of American sitcoms of the 1950s, it was over Sherry and included a summary from every one of their day.

It was a time when women, apparently, preferred to stay home than go to work.  Odd, for some reason, that Hollywood would ignore the hard-won rights of women to have jobs, though some might argue out of necessity because of the war.

There were no computer games, contrary children, and that period, for the children was between coming home from school (doing homework) and going outside to play.

Yes, none of this disappearing into dark rooms for secret conversations on mobile phones or playing games on computers, or, dare I say it, being stuck in front of a television, pigging out on snack foods.

Any man these days who thought the 1950s sitcom scenario might be a social norm would be vilified by all and sundry.  His children would be in a permanent battle to be left alone, his wife would divorce him if he even remotely suggested she stay home or have dinner on the table when he got home, and that peaceful hour or so before the expected dinner, well, that disappeared a long time ago.

If it ever existed in any era.

So much for American sitcom stereotypes.

Now, in similar sitcoms these days, the children are obnoxious to their parent, yes, every family it seems in the USA is broken, and the mother is the long-suffering one stuck with the children and having to work, whilst the ex is out having a great time with his new girlfriend/trophy wife.

Hollywood is still stereotyping, but it’s much more dark and gloomy.

This is added to the continual threat of online predators, online pornography further reducing women’s hard-won right to be seen as more than just a sex object, bullying, not only at school and online but in the workplace, and above all that it seems men still treat women as second class citizens, not the least of which are corporate entities, and government.

Oh, and the mention of having a drink before dinner in this day and age would be associated with alcoholism, or a drinking problem, caused by excessive stress, and almost always added to an apparent addiction to painkillers or antidepressants.

What might also be worse is the alarming statistics of the number of women now drinking wine by the gallon rather than a few drinks in that period between picking up the children from school and dinner, driven by, take your choice of, obnoxious children or absent-minded or chauvinistic husband.

Damn, have I stirred up a hornet’s nest?

Sorry, I think I’d better cancel the notion of having after-work drinks, and since I do the cooking, so there’s no expectation for someone else getting dinner on the table.

At least we are still married, and the children never had to deal with a broken marriage and two warring parents, but if any of the reports on why children are the way they are, I guess mine missed out on playing one parent off against the other, or get to live in different houses, or tolerate parents other boy or girlfriends, and live on junk food, well not all of the time.

Are they normal?

Perhaps when someone defines normal I will probably tell you.

I ceased being so-called chauvinistic a long time ago, and I had to have an attitude readjustment along with it, because, I’m told, we live in a different world now.

Perhaps I will have that drink or three; it’s certainly a necessity in order to watch the increasingly bad news, the antics of our politicians, and to watch the world gradually go to hell in a handbasket.

Whilst being politely told that I drink too much!

 

Just how many things do you take for granted?

There is a saying ‘you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone’.

For a long time, in days before the current technological age, I didn’t really understand what that meant.

Until now.

How many times, in the last few days have I heard the question, “Where’s my mobile phone?”.

It seems we can lose almost anything else but, without the phone, we are completely lost.

The same now applies to all of our household appliances.

The other day I heard, “We aren’t able to do very much because the microwave oven is broken.”

How did we manage in the days before we had such devices?

I know my grandmother had a wood stove and cooked everything, bread, roasting meat, cooking fish, vegetables, cakes, puddings, even make a cup of tea.  And the kitchen was always the coziest part of the house in winter.

I don’t think I ever had a cup of coffee at her house, but I have a lot of memories of some amazing food.  No such thing as electric kitchen appliances, or a microwave oven, not in that house.

We had the same experience ourselves when one of the fridge/freezer units broke down, and severely restricted as to what we could store.  Why that should have affected what we ate is a little puzzling, but apparently, if it was not in the freezer, we didn’t have it.

Something else I didn’t realize was the fact no matter how full the freezer was, we always seemed to be buying more food, to the point where it wouldn’t fit, so we were eating newly bought food over what was being stored.

Perhaps, in having all these conveniences, and gadgets at hand, that’s the problem.  We take so many things for granted and live a life that is centered around convenience.

What would happen if those conveniences were taken away?

Certainly, for me, I know, what it’s like to lose the use of a kitchen appliance and having to improvise, but I’m not sure how I would react if we had a real catastrophe.

I try not to think about what it would be like to lose electricity altogether, just a short blackout is enough to frighten us into almost panic because any lengthy outage is bound to affect food stored in those electric appliances.

But, I haven’t lost my phone yet.  Come very close, and that was scary enough.

Let’s hope it never happens.

From typewriters to computers to distraction

I first started writing by longhand, still do, in fact, then graduated to my mother’s portable typewriter, right down to the sticking keys, then moved upwards into the electric world having a pair of IBM electric typewriters I bought form one of the places I worked as second-hand cast-offs.

Until that is, I could no longer buy ribbons for my IBM Selectric, so it had to go the way of the dinosaurs.

It was a good thing, then, that computers and word processing software started at about the same time.

So…

I didn’t get to sit down in front of the computer, well, to write that is.  I thought I would go searching for some inspiration.

Bad idea.

It’s just that in that short distance, from, say, the couch where you were reading the latest blog posts in the WordPress reader, and the writer’s chair, your preparation for writing ends up getting confused at some of the pro-Trump and anti-Trump bloggers because it’s hard to find anything relevant to the man and his politics.  This is even more prevalent in the midst of the COVIS 19 crisis (or, what crisis?)

People seem to be radically for or radically opposed and there’s no middle ground.

But, there you are, my attention has been distracted and unless I’m about to indulge in political satire, I’m off track, with an out of balance mindset, and therefore unable to write.

Perhaps I should not read blog posts, but the newspapers.

Or not, because they all have an editorial policy that leans either and one way or another, which means their views are not necessarily unbiased.

I was a journalist once and hated the idea of having to toe the editorial line.  Or as luck would have it, never let the truth get in the way of a good story.  It lends to the theory that you can never quite believe anything the media tells you, which is a very sorry place to be when there’s no external influence you can trust.

I’m coming around to thinking that it’s probably best left to the dark hours of the night when you would think all the distractions are behind you.  After all, isn’t that what daytime is for?

Except that’s when the ghosts come out to play.

I think.

Was that the lounge room door opening?

Past conversations with my cat – 64

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This is Chester.  He’s decided to look the other way.

We are not on very good terms.  Three times in a row he’s decided to wake me at some ungodly hour of the morning on the pretence that he needs feeding, and three times he’s sniffed it and walked haughtily away.

If that was not bad enough, he’s now barracking for any other team than the Maple Leafs.  And to make matters worse, he’s now calling them losers, which technically is correct, but we are missing Marner, and Tavares needs more time to get back into it, and I can’t tell you where Mathews is, but he needs to come back real soon.

On top of this, I’m starting to feel for Anderson because they got rid of Hutchinson as a backup goalie and I didn’t think he was that bad.

Trust Chester to say that Hutchinson hadn’t been in a winning side for a while.  Obviously, he’s a keen observer of the game, or he’s figured out how to use my phone and the NHL / Maple Leafs apps.

OK, enough of the boring stuff.

I’m in need of some mood music so I put on Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.  Yes, it’s definitely annoying Chester.

Karma!

 

Damn and blast those interruptions

I can see how it is that a writer’s life is one that, at times, has to be shut off from the outside world.

It’s a bit hard to keep a stream of thoughts going when in one ear is some banal detective show, and in the other, a conversation that you have to keep up with.  I know how hard it is because I’ve tried doing three things at once, and failed miserably in all three.

So, out I slink to the writing room and start by re-reading the previous chapters, to get back into the plot.  I should remember where I am, and get straight to it, but the devil is in the detail.

Going back, quite often I revise, and a plotline is tweaked, and a whole new window is opened.  God, I wish I didn’t do that!

Then I get to the blank page, ready to go, and…

The phone rings.

Damn.  Damn.  Damn.

Phone answered, back to the blank page, no, it’s gone, got yo go back, blast, another revision, and back to the blank page.

Half an hour shot to pieces.

The phone rings again.

Blast scam callers.  I nearly rip the cord out of the wall.

All through this the cat just watches, and, is that a knowing smile?

It can’t be, I’ve just learned that cats can’t smile, or make any sort of face.

I’m sure his thoughts are not a vague or scrambled, or wrestling with the ploys of several stories on the go, getting locations right, getting characters to think and do their thing with a fair degree of continuity.

The cat’s world is one of which chair to lie on, where is that elusive mouse be it real or otherwise, and is this fool going to feed me, and please, please, don’t let it be the lasagna.  I am not that cat!

Unlike other professions, it’s a steady, sometimes frustrating, slog where you can’t just walk away, have a great time, and come back and pick up where you left off.  Stories have to be written from beginning to end, not a bit here and a bit there.

It’s a bit like running a marathon.  You are in a zone, the first few miles are the hardest, the middle is just getting the rhythm and breathing under control, and then you hope you get to the end because it can seem that you’ve been going forever and the end is never in sight.

But, when you reach the end, oh, isn’t the feeling one of pure joy and relief.

Sorry, not there yet.

And no comment is required from the cat gallery, thankyou!

 

Is there anything else going on other than COVID 19?

It’s an impossible bot to find the lead running on any news medium being about COVID 19.

Certainly, there’s enough stuff out there, from the outrageously rediculous, to the downright horrifying.

There’s 5G causing coronavirus, though I’m not sure how.  There are the unorthodox cures like injecting disinfectant, and there are lies, like there’s a cure just around the corner, to solemn truths, the number of people dying from a head in the sand attitude in Brazil.

How can people who are elected on the basis that they are supposed to look after their people, make such horrifically wrong decisions?

But enough…

It’s time to look at what’s really going on, and what all this hoo-har about COVID is covering up.

Fortunately, the Washington Post thinks the same as I do.  Oops, that was on the 16th March, obviously, in Washington, nothing else has happened since then other than the coronavirus, which is actually quite sad.

But…

Megan Markle and Prince Harry are always in the news, and I didn’t have to look far to see what the latest is on them, and, sadly, it’s never good.  Oh, and it’s their second wedding anniversary, a surprise, to some, they lasted that long.

We got a recipe that Queen uses for her garden parties, so I don’t have to try and get to one now, I can just make the scones myself.

The sun, yes, that bright yellow thing in the sky that makes us hot or cold depending on the season, is in a lease active phase at the moment, and the last time it happened, we had an ice age.  It’s called a solar minimum.  The last time this happened was between 1650 and 1715, a little ice age.  Our current problems with climate change will prevent that from happening, so perhaps climate change is a force for good???

We’ve found footage from 1935 of the last known Tasmanian Tiger, or Thylacine, which is now thought to be extinct.  Every now and there there’s an alleged sighting, but not none have been scientifically verified.

And, yes, one for the thriller writers, man killed by hitmen in mistaken identity shooting.

There’s a story, right there!