Tag: Challenge

Are we doomed to remember the past?

I find that as I get older, there are fragments of my life coming back, and I’m beginning to dread the fact that I will relive past events over and over, especially those that I don’t want to remember.

When we’re younger, it seems difficult to get past certain events that occurred in your life, but with the passing of time, it’s possible to send them to a corner of your mind, not completely gone, but far enough away that you can get on with your life.

These are emotional, and sometimes physical events that happened to you.

And it’s possible that in living those events, it has made me a much better person, because I never treated my children or anyone else for that matter, the way I was treated.  I won’t say life was brutal, all of the time, but there was a period where I and my both my elder brother and mother constantly lived in fear.

It stopped eventually, but those memories haunted me for many years.

Then, when a new set of circumstances enters your life, it tends to force these out, in a sense I wanted to think there’s only so much hard disk space in my head, and I would have to erase all those bad memories so there was room for the new.

Apparently, it doesn’t work like that.

Now that I’ve gotten older, and retired, I’ve found that those old memories are resurfacing, and to be honest, it’s annoying.  I put it down to the fact, if you are no longer working full time, you are no longer actively using your brain as much, so there’s some sort of compensation going on, and the brain fills in the gaps with past memories.

In my case, it’s all the wrong ones.

I don’t want to remember my years in secondary school, my life with an abusive father, the fact that I used to hide under the bed to escape a beating, and those nightmarish screams of my bother and our mother trying to get my father to stop.  Usually, he would turn his anger on her.

Yes, and after an indeterminate number of years it stopped, but in my mind, it went on for so long those moments have been seared into my brain, and it’s no wonder they come back.  Why couldn’t the later days of holidays at Lakes Entrance, and Wilson’s Promontory, or the school holidays when we used to get a pile of box sides to build a cubby house come back?

Is this one of the problems of old age?

I know my father, who served in the second world war came back scarred, mentally and physically.  Given the brutality of war and the fear most of the men must have held in in the face of the enemy, it would be hard not to have some problems when you come back and try to fit back into normal society.  I suspect there was no such thing as PTSD back then, and no counselling, so perhaps the reason why he turned on us.

He only spoke of it very rarely, but those glimpses were enough.

He too is very old now, and I suspect he lives with these memories, ones I’m sure he’d rather not.  I’m also fairly certain that not all of my father’s issues came from the war, but he had issues with his father, and it perpetuated through him.

The thing is, still in this day and age we do not have the capacity to understand why this happens and the means we should use to try and send those memories back to the dark recesses.  We are willing to admit that there is such a thing as mental illness, and a lot of people have it, but only a small percentage of people will admit to it.

Why?  The stigma of admitting there is something wrong prevents us from doing so.  And admitting what caused it, well, people then start to avoid you because they think that you might be like that or turn out like that.

I am not like my father.  I saw what happened, I was on the receiving end, and I knew it was wrong.  It could quite easily go the other way, accept that what happened to me was the norm, and perpetuate the problem.

I did not.  I wanted everyone to have the sort of life I did not, and over the last forty-five years, and for as long as I live, they have been able to, and will.

And probably the best thing to come out of it, my children’s children had lived the same fear-free life.

I suppose seeing a psychiatrist might help, but it means dredging it all up so that you can talk about it, and then it becomes a self-perpetuating cycle.

Is there an answer to the problem?

If I find one I’ll let you know.

 

What the hell time is it anyway, and why should I care?

And why is a coyote baying?

Oh, that’s right, were in Canada, and the ice hockey channel is running in the background while I’m trying to work.

it’s an interesting concept, the movement through time zones, and how it is possible to live the same day for nearly two days, as close as I’m going to get the ‘Groundhog Day’.

It’s not something that I’ve considered when writing stories because usually we are grounded in one particular time zone, or if we’re travelling, we just go from one chapter to the next, each a different location, and the reader is no wiser.

Except the editor is and pulls me up when it appears I think it’s during the day, when in reality it’s really 3am.

But, just to illustrate my point, the following is what I wrote last Christmas, and boy was it confusing at times.

 

Alright, we’ve arrived in Lake Louise from Kamloops, and there’s been a time change.  Being from Australia, we lost or gained so many hours I don’t know whether I’m coming or going.

Yes, I left on the 26th December, travelled around half the planet, and it’s still the 26th, after a stopover in Shanghai where it was the 27th.

Can someone tell me what the hell is going on?

Today it is the 30th.  Yesterday was my wife’s birthday in Australia and we got a number of calls on the 29th, which was amusing, to say the least.

Now, we’ve gone from Kamloops to Lake Louise, and apparently now that we are in Alberta, it’s an hour later.

The rental car we’re driving didn’t get it, and we’re still an hour behind.

My phone didn’t get it, but it is understandable because I didn’t connect it to the Canadian network to give us an internet connection because it will cost money.

It did on my wife’s phone which is connected to the network and it’s the only device we have that tells the correct time.

And why do we really need to know what time it is?

So we make the plane the day after tomorrow, from Calgary to Toronto.

I never realized that time was so important, and I wonder how people who travel the world remain sane with all the changes to the time zones.

 

Just how do road warriors get on?

I still hate editing!

It’s that story again, you know, the one from the 1970s or around that period.

Chapter Twenty Nine.

But before we get into that, I always thought that editing was exactly that, editing, removing the slack, the bits a story could do without, tightening up the plot.

At times, I think I’ve lost the plot!

So, Chapter Twenty Nine used to be Chapter 19.  Yes, you heard it right, I’ve added new chapters, more words, and expanded the story from 340 pages to 386, as it stands at the moment.

I just finished working on page 202.

I took what is one of the pivotal moments in the story and practically re-wrote it.

But…

You know how it goes.  That first critical rewrite doesn’t sit too well, and for the next twenty-four hours, it mulls around in your head, where there’s a ferocious debate going on.

It was right the first time.

It was too wordy and too repetitive and needed amending

Did the slash and burn go too far

What is being sold here?

24 hours, and a headache and a half later, I look at it, and it’s bugging me.

Yes, I went through it again, line by line, and reworked it, shed words, added words, and dropped a page.  It now ends on page 201.

And yes, I might just read it again tonight, dammit.

But that’s my problem.  There is always one chapter that causes me no end of trouble and sometimes takes a month, even two before I get it right.

It still doesn’t feel right.

Maybe I’ll leave it and move forward, see what that brings.  Perhaps somewhere in my mind is the answer, that I’ve forgotten something important that needs a hook back here.

Pardon me while I get a couple of paracetamol for this headache.

More tomorrow, maybe.

I hate editing!

It seems that writing the novel is not the hard part.  I have no trouble getting the words on paper.

It’s the editing I hate.

For instance, the latest book on the chopping block was one that I wrote nearly 40 years ago, and it shows it’s age.  The location is nothing like it used to be, the working conditions were totally different, and it was in an age before computers and mobile phones.

So, editing is difficult because I want to leave it in the period it was written.

Do you know how hard it is not to get the MC to pick up a mobile phone and call, or, for that matter, send a text?

This was an age of telephone communication, where public phones were the mobile phone of the age, and telegrams were the text equivalent.

If you wanted to say something, you had to arrange a meeting, and then say it face to face.

How on earth did anyone get anything done, how did people meet, and then communicate?

Oh, yes, letters.

Ask a ten-year-old today what a letter is, and you might get an answer of ‘bills’, but only if their parents go to the letterbox and pull out those dreaded window-faced envelopes.

Was every relationship basically long-distance, even when you might, in reality, be only one or two suburbs away?

It’s being hard to cast my mind back to those old days, and try not to let the 2019 trappings creep in.

Of course, there are the other problems of writing from back then, it is a bit messy, but the core of the story doesn’t need tampering with.

It is also a reminder of how easy relationships are these days with the constant bombardment of calls and texts to keep the dream alive, and, sadly, how easy it is to break up.

Back then you would have to survive from meeting to meeting, perhaps once a week, or maybe, if you worked in a city, once a day, briefly.  The idea of telephone communication would sometimes be offputting because you dreaded the possibility of talking to a parent.

Perhaps we should go back to those days because it seems to me that more people of my generation are still together because back then it required a different kind of commitment to keep it going.

OK, time to climb back in the time capsule!

Past conversations with my cat – 14

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This is Chester, the literary critic

 

It’s important to get that first sentence right, so I’m rattling off a few lines to get his reaction

‘It was a day like no other’

‘Yes, I know’, says the all knowledgeable Chester looking down his nose at me, ‘it’s been used before’.

We are sitting in the writing room and as usual, Chester is trying to ignore me.

I’m trying to start a new novel, looking for that first line that’s going to hook the reader.

I read him a few lines.

He gives me a disdainful look, ‘Heard it all before old boy, try again’.

Once Upon a time?

‘You’ve been watching too much TV’.

It was a dark and stormy night.

He yawns widely, ‘As if you haven’t used that before’.

He’s right, damn him.

Why am I talking to this cat anyway?

He jumps up onto the desk and sits on the keyboard.

Ok, writing is over for the day.

Conversations with my cat – 51

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This is Chester. Our standoff continues.

I can tell he’s not happy because when he’s going down the paasage and I’m going in the opposite direction, he changes sides.

Instead of coming over to see what food he’s getting, he waits in another room. Tgat is fine by me because it takes a liitle longer to find out he’s not in an eating mood.

And come to think of it, he no longer climbs up on the tab l e when we’re having fish. I’ve told him mire than once that eating off someone else’s plate is just not good manners.

Perhaps i should not be so concerned he’s not talking to me, because he’s almost become the cat I’ve always wanted.

What’s that expression, cut your nose off to spite your face.

But, it isn’t going to last. This morning when I go down to the library, which is just a fancy name for my writing room, he’s sitting on top of my closed laptop.

I never used to close but the last time I cleaned it I found cat hair, an alleg a tion he vehemently denied, and tried to tell me it the dog we used to have.

I didn’t bother telling him the laptop is new, and the dog’s been gone for 12 years.

I ask him to move.

He yawns and makes him self more comfortable.

He still hasn’t realised that all I have to do is pick him up, and move him, which I do.

I sit down to start work, he jumps up on the table and gives me that ‘I dare you to do that again’ look, I stare back with the ‘do you really want to do this’ look.

Fifteen minutes later…

Conversations with my cat – 50

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This is Chester.  He knows it’s time to visit the vet.

And we have the same problem every month.  Any other time he would be in one of three places, at the back door, watching the birds on the fence, in his basket contemplating whether to check out the mice situation or sitting at the front door hoping some kind person will take him away and give him a better life.

But, come vet day, he’s nowhere to be seen.  Or heard.  I suspect he hears the sound of the pet carrier.  Certainly, the moment he sees it, if he is anywhere near, he runs.

Odd that, because he has one of those bell neckbands that alerts us, and the birds, if we ever let him out.  Today, in fact now that I think about it, it is not to be heard.

Has he managed to figure out a way to walk without it making a sound?

So, it’s time to mount a search.  WE have to be going if we’re going to make the appointment on time.

He has six favourite hiding spots, one in a cupboard in the spare bedroom.  It took a while to discover this one, and the discovery he could open the sliding door with his paw.  What was hard to understand; he could close it too.

Today, he’s not there.

Under and one of three beds, all very low, and very hard for us to get down to see.  And dark, needing a torch.  Woe betide us if it is in the middle, just beyond our reach.

No, not hiding under the beds, but we do find one of his toy mice, destroyed.

Nor is he hiding under the lounge room table, a new spot since we put an overflowing table cloth on it, making it look like a tent.

Almost at the end of my tether, I hear a bell.

There he is, sitting on the end of the bed, a grin if it could be called that on his face.

Where have you been, we have to get going or we’ll be late, he says.

Yes, and all I have to do is get you in the carrier.

Oh.

He realizes his fatal mistake and tries to run.

One day he’s going to make this easier for me.

All I wanted was a cup of coffee

How can something so simple become so complicated and complex?

In New York, it seemed impossible to get exactly what you would like.  The coffee there is driven by what the machine interprets you want, aside from the language constraints due to the fact that English (or American) comes in a zillion different flavours.

So, what do I like (you notice I don’t say ‘want’)

A double shot Latte with two sugars and half a shot of vanilla.  That’s in a large cup.

As we all know coffee can come in a regular, large, or extra-large cup, but, hang on, these cup sizes sometimes have names, and you need to know what these names are.

My efforts of pointing to the cup size in New York often had horrendous consequences, when the cup piles were close together.  Sometimes it was a double shot in a regular, and a single shot in an extra-large cup.

One even had the name benti, or bento, or something like that.

Being old and decrepit, my memory for cup sizes isn’t all that great, so using a name in one shop that doesn’t have that size, well, you get it.

It seems not only coffee makers in New York have a problem producing consistent coffee.

Perhaps, then that’s half the charm of drinking it, the fact that no cup is ever the same.

And, when an outlet gets it right, finally, they go and change the coffee bean supplier, and all of a sudden, it’s bitter, or it’s lighter, as coffee shops try to reduce their costs and maximise profits.

Six dollars is a lot of money for a cup of coffee unless of course, you have to feed that addiction in which case, you’ll have a cup at whatever the cost.

I need coffee right now, so its off te the cupboard to see what’s available.

Maccona instant, which is not bad

A Nespresso long black – ok, don’t get me started with Nespresso because they have numbers from 1 to 12, possibly more, recognising strengths, and I usually have a double shot using a 10 and a 12.

And, yes, they fool around with the type of beans they use because there seem to be inconsistencies in potency from time to time.

Then there’s coffee bags, much the same as tea bags, which produces and interestingly flavoured brew which I’m still trying to figure out.  It tastes like coffee, but there’s something else there, like … paper?

I opt for an instant.

Yes, I needed a coffee after writing this.

Conversations with my cat – 49

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This is Chester. We are at the delicate stage of peace negotiations.

The ceasefire has been rocky, to say the least.

Blame is being thrown about like confetti at a wedding.

And to top it off, it’s Friday the thirteenth.

Im fuĺly expecting Chester to change his coat to black, and walk in front of my path with an evil grin on his face.

There’s already been signs of his mischievousness.  A long time ago we bought him some fake mice to play with since he didn’t have the inclination to chase the real rodents. Little did we know he had hidden these away, to bring them out on black Friday.

And, sitting on the floor, giving me the death stare, I wonder what his intentions are.

Not good.

So, I ignore him. I go back to the computer and get on with the day’s work. I have episodes to write, some research for a project one of my granddaughters is working on, and a novel in the throes of a third edit.

Still, I can feel those beady eyes drilling into my back.

Enough.

Do what you like, I say, turning suddenly on him, causing him to jump. Just go away and let me get on with my work. Instantly, I realise I’ve lost the battle, as he stands, gives me a final smug look, and leaves the room.

Was that a swagger?

The thing about ‘must read’ lists

And that is, you don’t have to read any of the books on it.

Who really cares if you do or if you don’t?

It’s just a list of books that a particular writer, journalist, or editor puts together simply because they liked them and think you might also.

And sometimes weight of sales numbers will dictate popularity, and therefore some basis to any particular list.

Of course, this doesn’t work if all you read is comics or romance books like Mills and Boon.  Hey, that’s fine.  You’re reading and this is one of the most important aspects of life, to read, and sometimes, to learn.

I know that my life changed dramatically when I read books, lots of different sorts of books.  I’ve never recommended anyone read the dry, dusty tomes about neurosis for psychiatry, or a history of the Roman Empire simply because of it something I was interested in after I saw the film, Ben Hur.

In a similar manner when we go to school, the curriculum sometimes dictates we read certain books, whether this is to give us an understanding of life centuries before, or that there is some deeper, more sinister, meaning to it all, but some of those books I had to read, back then, the meaning was lost on me.

But should I not read them?  I know most of the kids in the class didn’t because they considered reading a waste of time.  There were more important things to do like chase girls and play a sport.  And torment the teachers.  From what I hear, little has changed.

But the point here is, in my case, I’m just giving you the drum on what I read to improve my literary understanding, of life, and of the world, and perhaps in a small way, help with my writing.  After all, writers must read, particularly in their genre so they have some idea of what readers want.

But again that two-word phrase ‘Must read’ is an unfortunate and often misused heading.  We do it all the time.  Ten films you ‘must-see’, ten things you ‘must-have’, ten places you ‘must go’ usually before you die.

It amuses me to see books with a 1000 somethings you must do before you die.  I will no doubt be well and truly dead before I get halfway through even one of those lists, that is, if I actually took any notice of them.

But, what’s more interesting is that I like to see how many I haven’t done, which is probably the reason why we buy the book, usually off the sale table.