Tag: creativity

Conversations with my cat

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This is Chester.  Back on the bed.

Another argument lost, another smug ‘I’ve got the better of you, again’ look.

Time to move on, pick a battle I think I can win.

Food.  There’s the old wives tale, that cats love fish, and it’s true to a certain extent.

Chester doesn’t believe fish live in cans or plastic packets, despite how it’s dressed up.  Fresh fish, he’s into it, but there always seems to be a measured reluctance to eat something out of a can.

I think he regards us humans with disdain when our food comes out of a can or packet.

He refuses to eat the leftovers!

Then there’s chicken, or its more expensive neighbor, turkey.

He loves turkey.

I’m sure he’d eat quail and spatchcock too, but no, he’s a cat, and cats have to get used to eating chicken.  We’ve had this discussion, one too many times.

And just for good measure, I told him if he thinks he’s coming to Italy with us, he’d better get used to the idea of eating pasta.

Of course, always with the last word, he said, quite nonchalantly, ‘then you’d better call me Garfield’.

Grrrrrrr.

Conversations with my cat

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This is Chester.  T for Tonkinese, capital T for trouble.

If you think you can win an argument with a Tonkinese you are sadly mistaken!

So, we got over the abandonment issues, and have moved onto the sleeping arrangements.  There seems to be some misconceptions on Chester’s part.

He thinks the bed is his domain.

Right.

We have provided him with several very comfortable, warn, and inviting places about the house where is he quite welcome to sleep, or keep a watchful eye over his domain.

That’s right, I thought I owned the house.

He has his own bed in our room where he can stay when he feels lonely, but it seems he has to be near us.

When he’s not walking across the bed, and us, or ‘resting’ on our feet.

And if we move, you’d think we’d taken a big stick to him.

Come to think of it …

Just to show his displeasure at his bed, the blankets always seem to be on the floor, and when I ask what happened, it was, of course, Mr Nobody.

After I’ve picked them up six times in a day, I ask him what his last slave died of?

And there’s the Siamese coming out, a snarl, and then aloof dismissal.

There is banishment to the great outdoors, but that’s another story.

Conversations with my cat

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This is Chester.

Don’t be fooled by the benign expression, I’m getting the ‘your conversation better improve, and quickly’ look.

I guess it’s the talkative Tonkinese in him, tempered by the crabby Siamese part.

But …

We were talking about the state of the world, and he agrees it isn’t looking good, especially for travelers in Europe.  Of course, he is averse to either of us leaving him alone for any length of time, so he would say it was unsafe and we’d better stay at home.hat

I suppose that selfish part comes from the Burmese in him.

However …

I have scratched Germany, Austria, France and England off the list for the time being and consider it’s time to see a lot more of Italy.

We’ve been there several times, to Rome, in summer, to look at the Ancient ruins (Chester was rather impressed when I showed him a picture of the Collosseum), to Florence several times, just for the ambiance, and to Venice simply because we love it.

Then, we have also spent a few days in Tuscany, in an apartment very close to the town center of Greve in Chianti.

Chester, of course, was dismissive, but, he says, if we agree to take him with us …

 

 

Have I got a bargain for you!

I’ve been investigating, another word, perhaps, for research!

On how to become an overnight success.

It’s a mistake, I know, because everyone is different, everyone has their own way of doing things, and success comes for different people in different ways, quite often not able to be replicated by others.

What’s the expression, you had to be there.

I read success stories, I read what these people did to get 1,000 extra Twitter followers in a day, a week, or five minutes, sold thousands of copies of their books in a month, from absolutely nothing, and/or have the formula for success.

All you have to do is part with, hang on, yesterday it was $495.00, but today only, just for you, it’s $69.95.

Read the fine print, this might not work for you.  And, generally, who reads the fine print.

I read about other authors using book promotion services, yes we had 250,000 twitter followers just aching to buy you book.

Read the fine print, it depends on a whole lot of factors whether it sells or not.  You could be ‘lucky’.  Most authors are not.

What’s the answer?

I think it’s at the bottom of the abyss, where I’m in free-fall heading rapidly towards.

If I happen to find the answer and become ultra successful, I’ll be happy to share it for nothing.  It’s not going to affect my sales, not once I’m established.

It’s just taking that first step.

Perhaps I need to believe that hard word and perseverance will work.

I’m also sure there are 101 ways to taking that first step, and someone out there knows one, or two, and someone else, knows another.  It’s just finding those people who do know, and who are willing to share, not for $495, not for $69.95, but because they want to do it to help others.

And maybe, just maybe, all those who gain the benefit their wisdom will buy their books.

Hang on, perhaps that’s number one on the list of 101 ….

Save, you idiot, save …

It’s late at night and there are twenty other story ideas that are currently running around in my head, instead of the story I should be working on.

These ideas are impinging on the current story, and somehow are finding their way onto the page.

Writing, cursing, deleting, re-writing, deleting, cursing.

I’m working on the latest book and it is not going well.  I don’t have writers block, I think it is more a case of self doubt.  It’s why I can’t concentrate.

It’s why I’m thinking about the nest story and not staying on track.

This leads me to be over critical of what I have written and much pressing of the delete key.  Only to realize that an action taken in haste can be regrettable, and makes me feel even more depressed when I realize the deletions are irrecoverable.

Damn.

I think I’d be happier in a garret somewhere channeling van Gogh’s rage.

Lesson learned – don’t delete, save it to a text file so it can be retrieved when sanity returns.

I was not happy with the previous start.  Funny about that, because until a few weeks ago I thought the start was perfect.

What a difference a week makes or is that politics?

Perhaps I should consider adding some political satire.

But I digress…

It seems it’s been like that for a few weeks now, not being able to stick to the job in hand, doing anything but what I’m supposed to be doing.  I recognize the restlessness, I’m not happy with the story as it is, so rather than getting on with it, I find myself writing words just for the sake of writing words.

Any words are better than none, right?

So I rewrote the start, added about a hundred pages and now I have to do a mass of rewriting of what was basically the whole book.

But here’s the thing.

This morning I woke up and looked at the new start, and it has inspired me.

Perhaps all I needed was several weeks of teeth gnashing, and self doubt to get myself back on track.

Who would want to be a writer?

Me!  First in line, every time!

Avoiding the abyss

When I was last in Europe we decided to get the Eurostar, from London, through the Chunnel, to Paris Disneyland.  Not exactly as fast as the Japanese bullet trains, but faster than anything we have in this country.

You are hurtling along at up to 160 kph, thought it feels a lot faster, and then you begin to brake, and it seems like nothing is happening, except for some outside friction noise, and the speed dropping.

I feel like that now, on my way to the bottom of the abyss.

At the end of that fall it is something referred to as hitting rock bottom.

I’m told once you hit tock bottom the only way is up.

The question is, who do you know that has fallen into the abyss and come back to tell you about it?

Put into layman’s terms, hurling down the abyss is like having a severe episode of depression.  There are different types, some worse than others.  Hitting the ground is roughly the equivalent of looking for a way out that eases the pain, and that, for some people, is a quite drastic answer.

But the sign that the free fall is braking, like the express train slowing down, is a sign that you’ve seen the light, that there are external forces that can render assistance.

I see them now, the hands of friends, the hands of people I don’t know, but who are concerned.

Writers like any other professional people, are the same as everyone else, but with one rather interesting difference.  It is a profession where a lot of the time you are on your own, alone with your thoughts, your characters, your fantasy world, which sometimes so frighteningly drifts into your reality.

Some of us will make a fortune, most of us will make an adequate living, and live the ‘dream’ of doing the one job they always wanted to, and some will not.

I’m not rich, I’m not one who gets an adequate income, yet.

But I will get out of this abyss.

I can feel the brakes.

My eldest granddaughter, who is 12, tells me the fantasy story where she is a princess I’m writing for her is brilliant.

The free fall has stopped.  I step out into the sunshine.

All I needed was a little praise.

Writing and re-writing and …

The process of writing is rewriting editing and more rewriting.

A few days ago l wrote some words.  I didn’t like them.  But it had laid the groundwork for a second draft.

Here it is:

 

Growing up I did not believe l had one of those lovable faces.

My brother, known in school as the best looking boy of his graduating class, said it was a face only a mother could love.

He was mean.

Simone, a girl who was a friend, not a girlfriend, said my face had character.

She was charming and polite.

Looking now, in the mirror, l decided I’d aged gracefully.

I could truthfully say my brother had not, but that was as far as the comparison went.

My over achieving brother was the epitome of success in business, a veritable god zillionaire.  Everything he touched turned to gold.

My ultra successful sister, Penelope, had married into the right family perhaps by chance, but she was also a very learned scholar whose life was divided between her chair at the university and her social life with the rich and famous.

Then there was me.

I gave up on my chance at university because l was not the scholarly sort and didn’t last long.  Sadly l was the first of my family to be sent down from Oxford.

Instead l took on a series of professions such as seasonal laborer, farm hand, factory worker, and lastly, night watchman.  At least now I had a uniform and looked like I’d made something of myself.

It would not be enough for my parents who every year didn’t say it out loud but the disappointment was always there in their expressions.

My brother in his usual blunt manner said l was a loser and would never change.

My sister was not quite so blunt.  She simply said it was disappointing so much potential was going to waste.  I only asked her once what she meant and lost me after the first four syllable word.

Finally I’d taken their comments to heart and decided l would not be going home to the family Christmas holiday reunion.

I told my boss l was available to work the night shift over the holidays, the shift no one else wanted.

It was he said a time for reflection.  He hated his family as much as I did so we would be able to lament our bad luck though the long cold hours from dusk till dawn.

It was 3 a.m. and it was like standing on the exact epicenter of the North Pole.  I’d just stepped from the warehouse into the car park.

The car was covered in snow.  The weather was clear now, but more snow was coming.

It was going to be a white Christmas, all I needed.  I hoped I remembered to put the anti freeze in my radiator this time.

As I approached my car, the light went on in a SUV parked next to my car.  The door opened and what looked to be a woman was climbing down from the driver’s seat.

She closed the door and leaned against the side of the car.  “Graham?”

It was a voice I was familiar with, though I hadn’t heard it for a long time, my ultra successful sister, Penelope.  From what I could see, she didn’t look too well.

“What do you want?”

“Help.”

My help, I was the last person to help her, or anyone for that matter.  But curiosity got the better of me.  “Why?”

“Because my husband is trying to kill me.”

The instant the last word left her lips I saw her jerk backwards into the car, and then start sliding down to the ground.  There was no mistaking the red streak following her as she fell.

She’d been shot from what could be a sniper rifle, which meant …

 

It still needs work but I’ve got the gist of where I want to go.

The idea is not to make a character so loathsome no one would want to read about him.

This will evolve and you can if you like come along for the ride!

 

© Charles Heath 2016

A pleasant Sunday morning in suburbia

 

All I wanted was a cup of coffee.

OK, I could have made one, I have a Nespresso machine, purchased after watching an inspiring George Clooney advertisement (well, my wife bought it) but I was after something with a little more oomph!

We have a small shopping centre just up the road about a kilometer and I thought, what’s five minutes and a short drive against a cup of hot, steaming, delicious to the last drop, coffee?

That’s where any semblance of sanity ends.

I walked out the back door, and forgot the car keys, so I had to go back in.  The door opens and the cat gets out.  Not so bad you think, but no, after three road kills, the cat getting out is a major catastrophe (pardon the pun).

Ten minutes later, cornered like a rat in a trap, he is back inside, I have the keys, and out in the car.  It’s a hot day, and the air conditioning isn’t working.  Damn.  It’s like 45 degrees Celsius in the car.

This is the time to give up and go back inside.  The omens are telling!

I don’t.

Our driveway is up a slight hill and usually we back the cars up so it’s easier to drive out onto the street.  We live in a corner house, and whilst it is not a busy intersection, it has been known for cars to treat it like the third chicane of a grand prix.  Late at night cars have rolled trying to make that tight corner.

I’m reversing off the driveway, too lazy the previous day to back it up, and you guessed it, Enzo Ferrari’s brother is making heavy weather in the third chicane and takes the corner wide, sliding across to the other side of the street, a) because he’s going too fast, and b) because he just saw me backing out of my driveway.

I’m having a heart attack and waiting for the bang, and he’s rapidly accelerating, smoke pouring from streaming tyres, and engine roaring in first or second as the revs pass 9000 and are redlining.

Disaster averted.  One speed junkie and daredevil happy, one old man shaken to the core.

So far I’ve travelled 10 metres.

On the radio the station is playing the James Bond theme from ‘You Only Live Twice’.

Apt, very apt.

I am now very sedately driving to the shopping centre, the road following a wide curve.  Nothing can go wrong here, until I reach the T intersection.  I stop like I do every time, and look.  No cars from the left, and one opposite me, turning into my street.

I start to turn.  The car opposite decides to do a U Turn, and I slam the foot on the brakes.  The driver of the other car is oblivious to me, happily chatting on her mobile phone.  Didn’t stop, didn’t look, didn’t care.

My heart rate is now 170 over 122, and perhaps I should be clinically dead.

Coffee is the last thing I need.

But I persevere.  How much worse can it get?

The shopping centre is not far, up to the roundabout and a right turn into the shopping centre car part.  Usually there are plenty of parking spots, today there a none.  I drive down one of the lanes, and nearly get hit but a reversing driver.  Again, not looking, or perhaps distracted by four children in the back seat.

Or the very, very loud music coming from the car.

I thought at first it was the pounding of my headache, brought on by high blood pressure.

I back up the car a) top give the driver more room to reverse out, and b) so I could turn into the spot when he vacates it.

More fool me.  The car backs out, another driver swoops in and takes the spot.

I get out to remonstrate, but he’s three feet wide and seven feet tall with a scarred face and tattoos on both arms.  Time to move on.

Yes, there’s nothing like a tall hot steaming cup of coffee on a pleasant Sunday morning.

In hell!

Rainy days and Sunday

It’s one of those grey, dark, wet mornings where you can inadvertently sleep in because the bedroom remains dark for an extra two hours.

That could be a problem if you have a day job, like most of us.

But, today is Sunday, and it’s just what I need.

Time to mull over the latest storyline, marshal my thoughts, write the prose in my head.

OK, that not working for me.

The rain is getting heavier, and is splashing outside; the steady waterfall of overflow from the gutters is taking away my concentration.

Rain, rain, go away …

I have two different visions.

A cold, grey day in London (is there any other sort of day?) waiting for a train, and seeing the woman of your dreams go past, standing in the doorway, and in that fraction of a second your eyes meet, a connection is made.

I suspect it has fuelled many a song such as ‘The Look of Love’.

The second is on a desolate section of coast line as for north as you can go in Scotland (yes, I am a glutton for punishment), and she is standing on the cliff top gazing out to sea, hair blowing in the wind.  Silent, strong, resolute.

The rain falls harder, and going outside is not an option.

Notes hastily scribbled in a notebook for later reference.

Time to curl up on the couch and watch an old movie!

Searching for … ?

Everything I’ve read, and understand, about this writing ‘thing’ is that it’s better to get words on paper, even if none of it fits the story.

Go to keep up the word count.

But, to me, it has to make sense.  I’ve written 2,000 words or four pieces of paper, or 20 sheets longhand in a notebook, but it doesn’t feel right.

It doesn’t make any sense, it doesn’t fit, it doesn’t progress the story, they are just words on a piece of paper.

For example:

 

My life was going nowhere.  If I took a step back and took a good, long, hard look at it, what could I say was the one defining moment?

There was no defining moment.

I’d bounced around schools till the day I decided I was not cut out to learn anything more, or perhaps the teachers had given up trying to impart knowledge.  Whatever the reason, I dropped out of college, and drifted.  Seasonal laborer, farm hand, factory worker, night watchman.

At least now I had a uniform and looked like I’d made something of myself.

Until I went home.

My parents were distinctly disappointed I was not married with children.

My overachieving brother always said I was a loser, and would never make anything of myself.

My ultra successful sister, married into a very wealthy family, had the regulation 2.4 children, and lived in the lap of luxury, mostly pretended I didn’t exist, didn’t invite me to the wedding, and I had yet to meet the husband and children.  I guess she was ashamed of me.

This year I was avoiding going home.

This year I volunteered to work the holidays.

 

It’s about as gloomy and depressing as it gets.  We’re supposed to entertain, take people out of their humdrum, mundane lives, put them in the passenger seat of a car, bus, or truck careening out of control.

Yep, time to walk away and do something entirely different, like wrapping Christmas presents, my second favorite job to mowing the lawn.  Maybe if I contrive an accident with the lawn mower …

Back in front of the words, some hours later, an idea pops into my head.  The story continues:

 

It was 3 a.m. and it was like standing on the exact epicenter of the South Pole.  I’d just stepped from the warehouse into the car park.

The car was covered in snow.  The weather was clear now, but more snow was coming.

A white Christmas?  That’s all I needed.  I hoped I remembered to put the anti freeze in my radiator this time.

As I approached my car, the light went on in a SUV parked next to my car.  The door opened and what looked to be a woman was getting out of the car.

“Graham?”

It was a voice I was familiar with, though I hadn’t heard it for a long time.

My ultra successful sister, Penelope.  She was leaning against her car door, and from what I could see, didn’t look too well.

“What do you want?”

“Help.”

My help, I was the last person to help her, or anyone for that matter.  But curiosity got the better of me.  “Why?”

“Because my husband is trying to kill me.”

With that said, she slid down the side of the car, and I could see, in the arc lamps lighting the car park, a trail of blood.

 

OK, so not such a good idea to cut close to the bone here, but rivalries do make for great thrillers.  Even if they are not your own!

Maybe it’s not such a bad day after all.