As autumn has arrived, the time is approaching when we will have to put the clocks back. Which for most of us means ten minutes trying to get the digital watch right.
Monday 19 October 2009
Clocks and novel planning
Friday 16 October 2009
Old Alligators in Love
Trying to prepare for November, I'm getting the feeling that I might end up with a cast of thousands.
Monday 12 October 2009
November is coming, sleeping cats and Up
Have finally signed up to November Novel Writing Month for this year. Ok now can start properly planning and panicking. It should be simple, but I’m worried I haven’t got the characters to a state, where it explains why they are doing what they are doing. At the moment I’ve a lot of ideas and an overall plan, but I’m still not sure how it will fit together. So I’ve just to start the process of selecting which bit’s will go in.
Saw the film ‘Up’ at the weekend. While it is a cliché to say how great Pixar films are, it is completely right on this occasion. ‘Up’ is moving, romantic and witty. It has a wonderful opening establishing the ordinary life of two people in love, to explain the hero’s quest and escape and then moves into a spectacular journey, which is enjoyably surreal, referencing stories about explorers. Yet it never forgets the relationship shown in the opening is the heart and soul of the story.
Wednesday 7 October 2009
True Blood, politics, November is coming
The much hyped screening of ‘True Blood’ starts tonight. I’ll watch it but it needs to be good to outrank ‘Being Human’. I notice that after that it’s ‘Generation Kill’ billed as by the creators of ‘The Wire’. I have never seen an episode of ‘The Wire’, because I have got put off by all the people raving how it the greatest television series ever. How do you judge what is the greatest television series ever?
Tuesday 6 October 2009
Sunny start for October
Bright and sunny in October. And some people say there is no such thing as global warming?
Wednesday 30 September 2009
Goodbye woods, Hello Jungle
Been trying to think of a new way to do something with the idea of a magical wood. But it’s trying to think of something original to do with it, that’s the tough idea. Something that came up while I was pondering was, did Victorian popular culture began to replace the wood with the jungle? It might have started with ‘The Island of Dr. Moreau’ and ‘Heart of Darkness’ and progressed throughout the century. The idea that the jungle strips away civilisation and causes a reversion to savagery, continued in the stories ‘The Most Dangerous Game’ and ‘Lord of the Flies’. So the jungle takes over from the wood as the idea of wilderness. Well it’s a theory.
Tuesday 29 September 2009
Playlists and CD's
Thinking about it, the thing with an Ipod, I am realising is that it is forcing the majority of us mere mortals, is that all notions of musical taste come down to ‘well, I like it.’ If the little white R2D2/Dalek (delete depending to mood) will record lists of how often you have listened to a song all the way through. Currently according to the play list, my favourite track is ‘Song from the Edge of the World’ by Siouxsie and the Banshees. I am aware that this does not appear on any ‘greatest of’ lists. But I think it’s great and it’s my Ipod so what?
Another thing about Itunes is that you get sized by an urge to cram as much as you can on there. (Are they banned from being the luxury item on Desert Island Discs?) Because you think that once all the CD’s have been turned into electronic files, you can take the majority of them to a charity shop. Two fatal flaws. Firstly, CD cases have the toughness of the average English football player’s leg. The plastic and the hinges can be cracked by a hard enough stare. Secondly, going to the nearest charity shop to drop stuff off, is something that the mind can turn into a trek to Mordor. Not something that one can just walk into. Actually it is, but very easy to procrastinate over.
Still concerned that I can’t make myself get out of bed at 6.am. This only going to make things more difficult when I find a job, but I can’t get to sleep until after twelve.
Another thing about Itunes is that you get sized by an urge to cram as much as you can on there. (Are they banned from being the luxury item on Desert Island Discs?) Because you think that once all the CD’s have been turned into electronic files, you can take the majority of them to a charity shop. Two fatal flaws. Firstly, CD cases have the toughness of the average English football player’s leg. The plastic and the hinges can be cracked by a hard enough stare. Secondly, going to the nearest charity shop to drop stuff off, is something that the mind can turn into a trek to Mordor. Not something that one can just walk into. Actually it is, but very easy to procrastinate over.
Still concerned that I can’t make myself get out of bed at 6.am. This only going to make things more difficult when I find a job, but I can’t get to sleep until after twelve.
Monday 28 September 2009
Bookshops, ideas and DMZ
In past few days, there have been reports of the new Dan Brown being the fasting selling title in hardback since J. K. Rowling. But the question is does it help the book trade in the long run? The title has been discounted so much, the shops are not going to get full value from it. The hope is that the reluctant or infrequent reader will be gripped enough to want to read other titles. I’m not sure that it is going to work like this. What if the buyer just wants more titles in the style of Dan Brown and then loses interest? How do you get these buyers to get into the habit of browsing? And what happen to all the readers who followed Harry Potter? Have they all just vanished into the ether again?
Making good progress on an idea I want to have got to a good stage by World Horror Convention in 2010. The thought has occurred if I should try this for November Novel Writing month. But I do want to get down the one that I had been planning for a while. At least I would then have some of it down. I can always wait until December to do the newer idea.
Read the first 3 volumes of the graphic novel series ‘DMZ’ which were ‘On the ground, Body of a Journalist’ and ‘Public Works’ by Brian Wood and Riccardo Burchielli. It’s set in a New York which has become a no-mans land after a second American Civil War. It’s an intelligently written account of life in a war zone, with a cynicism that’s post-Afghanistan and Iraq. Defiantly worth reading.
Starting to look for my mother’s birthday presents. At some point it does become difficult to buy for people. Either they have everything they want, or they just get what they want already.
Making good progress on an idea I want to have got to a good stage by World Horror Convention in 2010. The thought has occurred if I should try this for November Novel Writing month. But I do want to get down the one that I had been planning for a while. At least I would then have some of it down. I can always wait until December to do the newer idea.
Read the first 3 volumes of the graphic novel series ‘DMZ’ which were ‘On the ground, Body of a Journalist’ and ‘Public Works’ by Brian Wood and Riccardo Burchielli. It’s set in a New York which has become a no-mans land after a second American Civil War. It’s an intelligently written account of life in a war zone, with a cynicism that’s post-Afghanistan and Iraq. Defiantly worth reading.
Starting to look for my mother’s birthday presents. At some point it does become difficult to buy for people. Either they have everything they want, or they just get what they want already.
Friday 25 September 2009
At FantasyCon 2009
Finally back from the British Fantasy Society convention (FantasyCon) in Nottingham. It was there last year, so I have started to get a hand on the layout of the place. I know where the Pizza Hut, Subway and Forbidden Planet store is now. I’m so cultured.
I spent the Friday afternoon helping to load up the goodie bags that get given away to the convention attendees. The first hundred got two free books in the bags.
The first convention panel was ‘Zombies, Werewolves and Mummies: Traditional Monsters Fiction and Film.’ Anthologist Stephen Jones, said the stories should treat the monsters differently and always try to do something new with them, or make them more interesting.
That was the only convention panel I attended that evening, as I was busy chatting to friends in the bar. FantasyCon has always had this informal atmosphere, which does help newcomers I think.
A thought about breakfasts in hotels. For most of us, I think there the only time that we ever have anything approaching a full English breakfast. Usually we have to go to work in the morning so we settle for toast and/or cereal. Or it’s the hassle of getting out the frying pan and cooking the meat while making sure you don’t set off the smoke alarm. So breakfast is usually light. But you get into a hotel with a breakfast buffet and it’s the opportunity for a bout of gluttony. Mushrooms, bacon, tomatoes, baked beans, sausages, eggs, black pudding. And you’re paying a set price anyway, so it doesn’t cost you anything. I’ve no doubt people with stronger wills could resist, but I am not one of them.
The first panel that I went to on Saturday was on the resurgence of the popularity of vampires. Apparently Stephanie Myer accounted for 5% of all book sales this year. This moved on to the association of vampires with the recently created genre of ‘paranormal romance’. The drawback being that romantic vampires are not as scary. This lead into the discussion of ‘Let the Right One In’ by John Ajvide Lindqvist. (Personally I regard this book as the best vampire novel of the last 10 years. Feel free to disagree with me.) Another interesting point made by author Raven Dane, was that male writers tend to see the vampire as a hostile force, but women writers often focus on the sensual portrayal. The panel concluded with the thought that vampires will always adapt to the times and the next portrayal of them, is likely to be with them as bankers.
After that, I watched the interview with the writer Brian Clements (television series ‘The Avengers’, ‘Thriller’). This was interesting, because it was in glimpse into an era that has disappeared, when projects could be commissioned on a handshake from Lord Lew Grade. While this had its faults, it’s had not to romanticize it, when commercial television, seems to come up with anything but ‘The X-factor’.
After I went to a sandwich bar for lunch, I went to the Jasper Fforde interview. I was surprised to learn that his original day job had been a focus puller on films. It took him ten years to get published. Fforde went on to say that once he realise that he was writing books about books and reading the scope became limitless. He also pointed out something thing that I found interesting from working on his next book ‘Shades of Grey’. In post-apocalypse worlds, people want the first few years after, but don’t think about what happens 600 years later when nobody can remember anything different.
The next event that I went to was a panel entitled The Green Man and Other Legends: Bringing our myths up to date. The discussion began on the subject of how folklore had emerged as explanations for things that had not made sense at that time in the world. This moved onto the notion that the tooth fairy had a line of descent from the figure of Puck. The Green Man is actually a term that was invented in 1939 to describe the foliage covered heads and figures on church carvings.
Author Kari Sperring pointed that archetypes always appeal, but the reference and interpretation change with the time periods and society. Graham Joyce pointed out there is a vast repository to draw on. But it’s one thing to just rewrite them and another to look at how they reflect our lives now. Recasting myth for contemporary values is where it can be fascinating. Robin Hood is another version of the myth of the wild man of the woods. One version of the myth has Robin using the hood to hide his face.
Graham Joyce continued that for him, the Green Man is a figure representing nature in flux, with a face made of leaves from different seasons. Also the idea of the woods could represent the subconscious mind. The Green Man could then be a male version of the muse figure. (Personal sidetrack, a recent reinterpretation of the Green Man is the DC Comics character Swamp Thing. Although I can just see an academic paper coming up on how Hagrid counts as a wild man of the woods figure.)
Writer, comedian and magician John Lenahan, said that he had researched the Indian rope trick. He’d found cross-cultural myths of climbing into heaven, such as a Chinese one about stealing peaches.
The discussion moved onto the softening of old folklore in the way it’s used, as has happened sometimes with elves and unicorns. Author Storm Constantine described this as the ‘fuffyfication’ of myths which strips the primal out of them. The conversation them moved onto how in the West, we have become removed from nature. A lot of myths come from when the forest was a dangerous place to go into.
I did decide to book for the World Horror Convention in Brighton in 2010. As I’ve never been there before, the trick is to find all the places to eat around the hotel before the convention starts. I wonder if lots of people are going to home wearing ‘kiss me quick’ hats.
After the convention banquet and the British fantasy awards, there was an attempt to do a panel game, which didn’t quite come off. Then there was a very entertaining show by John Lenahan. I would have liked to have gone to the panel on end of the world stories after that, but I am not really able to stay up past midnight a lot of the time.
The first panel that I saw on Sunday was new writers telling their stories about how they got published. I noted down the advice that you need to be writing stuff that the editors want, so you need to be looking at what’s new and hot. You also need to be committed to writing as some publisher’s want 2 books a year. You also need to a lot more self-publicity and get a website. Good places to start getting noticed with short fiction (although editors don’t want anthologies) are online magazines. It also helps to try and get a good cover for your novel. But if you are good enough, you will get there.
The next panel was discussing the use of Archaeology in fantasy fiction. Mention was made of the tendency of the Victorians to just bring stuff back from overseas. The influence of the Indiana Jones films was a popular topic. There is apparently a joke in archaeology, that if you can’t identify what it’s for, it must be for ritual use.
The final panel discussion was the editor’s perspective on stories written to a theme. These anthologies are popular as they provide some kind of selling point. Apparently there has already been one on the theme of werewolves at Christmas. (I wonder if it was called ‘Ho Ho Howl’?) Editors don’t like it, when a story has been made to fit the submission guidelines, just by changing the names. Some useful advice came up from the panel. Keep covering letters short. Say if you are unpublished. If not, just stick to the most recent credits you have. Don’t get the layout wrong and the make the opening paragaph gripping. Look at the deep structure of the theme; don’t just do a twist at the end. The theme has to drive the narrative. Some editors will want a synopsis of the story in the guidelines. Others will want pitches.
This was the last major event of the convention, after lunch, it was just a case chatting with everybody while they headed back. I didn’t leave until the Monday, so I had the chance to have a look around the Forbidden Planet store there before going.
I spent the Friday afternoon helping to load up the goodie bags that get given away to the convention attendees. The first hundred got two free books in the bags.
The first convention panel was ‘Zombies, Werewolves and Mummies: Traditional Monsters Fiction and Film.’ Anthologist Stephen Jones, said the stories should treat the monsters differently and always try to do something new with them, or make them more interesting.
That was the only convention panel I attended that evening, as I was busy chatting to friends in the bar. FantasyCon has always had this informal atmosphere, which does help newcomers I think.
A thought about breakfasts in hotels. For most of us, I think there the only time that we ever have anything approaching a full English breakfast. Usually we have to go to work in the morning so we settle for toast and/or cereal. Or it’s the hassle of getting out the frying pan and cooking the meat while making sure you don’t set off the smoke alarm. So breakfast is usually light. But you get into a hotel with a breakfast buffet and it’s the opportunity for a bout of gluttony. Mushrooms, bacon, tomatoes, baked beans, sausages, eggs, black pudding. And you’re paying a set price anyway, so it doesn’t cost you anything. I’ve no doubt people with stronger wills could resist, but I am not one of them.
The first panel that I went to on Saturday was on the resurgence of the popularity of vampires. Apparently Stephanie Myer accounted for 5% of all book sales this year. This moved on to the association of vampires with the recently created genre of ‘paranormal romance’. The drawback being that romantic vampires are not as scary. This lead into the discussion of ‘Let the Right One In’ by John Ajvide Lindqvist. (Personally I regard this book as the best vampire novel of the last 10 years. Feel free to disagree with me.) Another interesting point made by author Raven Dane, was that male writers tend to see the vampire as a hostile force, but women writers often focus on the sensual portrayal. The panel concluded with the thought that vampires will always adapt to the times and the next portrayal of them, is likely to be with them as bankers.
After that, I watched the interview with the writer Brian Clements (television series ‘The Avengers’, ‘Thriller’). This was interesting, because it was in glimpse into an era that has disappeared, when projects could be commissioned on a handshake from Lord Lew Grade. While this had its faults, it’s had not to romanticize it, when commercial television, seems to come up with anything but ‘The X-factor’.
After I went to a sandwich bar for lunch, I went to the Jasper Fforde interview. I was surprised to learn that his original day job had been a focus puller on films. It took him ten years to get published. Fforde went on to say that once he realise that he was writing books about books and reading the scope became limitless. He also pointed out something thing that I found interesting from working on his next book ‘Shades of Grey’. In post-apocalypse worlds, people want the first few years after, but don’t think about what happens 600 years later when nobody can remember anything different.
The next event that I went to was a panel entitled The Green Man and Other Legends: Bringing our myths up to date. The discussion began on the subject of how folklore had emerged as explanations for things that had not made sense at that time in the world. This moved onto the notion that the tooth fairy had a line of descent from the figure of Puck. The Green Man is actually a term that was invented in 1939 to describe the foliage covered heads and figures on church carvings.
Author Kari Sperring pointed that archetypes always appeal, but the reference and interpretation change with the time periods and society. Graham Joyce pointed out there is a vast repository to draw on. But it’s one thing to just rewrite them and another to look at how they reflect our lives now. Recasting myth for contemporary values is where it can be fascinating. Robin Hood is another version of the myth of the wild man of the woods. One version of the myth has Robin using the hood to hide his face.
Graham Joyce continued that for him, the Green Man is a figure representing nature in flux, with a face made of leaves from different seasons. Also the idea of the woods could represent the subconscious mind. The Green Man could then be a male version of the muse figure. (Personal sidetrack, a recent reinterpretation of the Green Man is the DC Comics character Swamp Thing. Although I can just see an academic paper coming up on how Hagrid counts as a wild man of the woods figure.)
Writer, comedian and magician John Lenahan, said that he had researched the Indian rope trick. He’d found cross-cultural myths of climbing into heaven, such as a Chinese one about stealing peaches.
The discussion moved onto the softening of old folklore in the way it’s used, as has happened sometimes with elves and unicorns. Author Storm Constantine described this as the ‘fuffyfication’ of myths which strips the primal out of them. The conversation them moved onto how in the West, we have become removed from nature. A lot of myths come from when the forest was a dangerous place to go into.
I did decide to book for the World Horror Convention in Brighton in 2010. As I’ve never been there before, the trick is to find all the places to eat around the hotel before the convention starts. I wonder if lots of people are going to home wearing ‘kiss me quick’ hats.
After the convention banquet and the British fantasy awards, there was an attempt to do a panel game, which didn’t quite come off. Then there was a very entertaining show by John Lenahan. I would have liked to have gone to the panel on end of the world stories after that, but I am not really able to stay up past midnight a lot of the time.
The first panel that I saw on Sunday was new writers telling their stories about how they got published. I noted down the advice that you need to be writing stuff that the editors want, so you need to be looking at what’s new and hot. You also need to be committed to writing as some publisher’s want 2 books a year. You also need to a lot more self-publicity and get a website. Good places to start getting noticed with short fiction (although editors don’t want anthologies) are online magazines. It also helps to try and get a good cover for your novel. But if you are good enough, you will get there.
The next panel was discussing the use of Archaeology in fantasy fiction. Mention was made of the tendency of the Victorians to just bring stuff back from overseas. The influence of the Indiana Jones films was a popular topic. There is apparently a joke in archaeology, that if you can’t identify what it’s for, it must be for ritual use.
The final panel discussion was the editor’s perspective on stories written to a theme. These anthologies are popular as they provide some kind of selling point. Apparently there has already been one on the theme of werewolves at Christmas. (I wonder if it was called ‘Ho Ho Howl’?) Editors don’t like it, when a story has been made to fit the submission guidelines, just by changing the names. Some useful advice came up from the panel. Keep covering letters short. Say if you are unpublished. If not, just stick to the most recent credits you have. Don’t get the layout wrong and the make the opening paragaph gripping. Look at the deep structure of the theme; don’t just do a twist at the end. The theme has to drive the narrative. Some editors will want a synopsis of the story in the guidelines. Others will want pitches.
This was the last major event of the convention, after lunch, it was just a case chatting with everybody while they headed back. I didn’t leave until the Monday, so I had the chance to have a look around the Forbidden Planet store there before going.
Wednesday 16 September 2009
Naming of Pods, too many books
Been feeling nervous about going away when I shouldn't really. The Ipod is now up and running and has a name. I wonder if somebody is sitting at home staring at the new pod and thinking "Well, it looks like a Martin to me."
Really should try to not get many more books at the convention. It is getting rather crowded in my room. What I really would love, when I get rich enough to buy my on house is to have a room designated as a library. Of course if that happens, how would I catalogue it?
Really should try to not get many more books at the convention. It is getting rather crowded in my room. What I really would love, when I get rich enough to buy my on house is to have a room designated as a library. Of course if that happens, how would I catalogue it?
Monday 14 September 2009
A happy day in Wadebridge
Went to Wadebridge with my girlfriend. It was a beautiful sunny day. We wandered up and down the town. We sat under a tree, looking at birds on the grass. One of those moments when the world does seem like a good and happy place. When you believe in the myth of Albion.
Had the job interview, seemed to be over quicker then I thought. Now thinking about “oh no, I should have mentioned this, didn’t bring up that.” Felt that I did ok, but don’t know who else was applying. Now I just have to wait.
Had the job interview, seemed to be over quicker then I thought. Now thinking about “oh no, I should have mentioned this, didn’t bring up that.” Felt that I did ok, but don’t know who else was applying. Now I just have to wait.
Friday 11 September 2009
Music Player Upgrade?, Job worries
Currently considering if I should leap into the age of digital music and get an Ipod. This does have a lot of attractions, in that it gets rid of the need to keep carrying a load of CD’s around with me, when I want to hear music on the train. Also it means I could have all of my music in one place and download podcasts as well.
It isn’t as if I can’t afford it. But I get these conflicting feelings that I could just get a CD player that plays MP3’s, as it would be cheaper. Also the question, once I had an Ipod, what else would I use it for? I’ll decide this weekend.
I think I’m feeling tense because the date for my interview is a few days before I go to the convention. So it feels as if the two are right on top of each other.
Also, when you are made redundant, there is a thought pattern that you get into. That once you have lost your job, the next time you have an interview, it’s you’re only shot at paid work again. If you lose this one, you’ve blown you’re only chance. And as it goes on, you will have to set your sights lower and lower, until you wind up at minimum wage, doing stuff where you are the oldest person working there.
Maybe there is a way I can pick up more skills, the thing is how do you pick them up, beyond sitting behind a till? The difficulty is that I find it hard to believe that you can pick up computer skills in a day workshop. Learning to use software, is a slow process I think. All these programmes come with so many little display bits, in the toolbars and the menus. And if you don’t have opportunities to experiment and play about, how can you fully know what the programme can do?
It isn’t as if I can’t afford it. But I get these conflicting feelings that I could just get a CD player that plays MP3’s, as it would be cheaper. Also the question, once I had an Ipod, what else would I use it for? I’ll decide this weekend.
I think I’m feeling tense because the date for my interview is a few days before I go to the convention. So it feels as if the two are right on top of each other.
Also, when you are made redundant, there is a thought pattern that you get into. That once you have lost your job, the next time you have an interview, it’s you’re only shot at paid work again. If you lose this one, you’ve blown you’re only chance. And as it goes on, you will have to set your sights lower and lower, until you wind up at minimum wage, doing stuff where you are the oldest person working there.
Maybe there is a way I can pick up more skills, the thing is how do you pick them up, beyond sitting behind a till? The difficulty is that I find it hard to believe that you can pick up computer skills in a day workshop. Learning to use software, is a slow process I think. All these programmes come with so many little display bits, in the toolbars and the menus. And if you don’t have opportunities to experiment and play about, how can you fully know what the programme can do?
Wednesday 9 September 2009
Holidays, the idea vs reality
In an attempt to kill time, while avoiding hanging around the bookshop, I decided to go to a couple of travel agents, to pick up brochures. I don ‘t know why I did it. I can’t really see myself going away. I know where would I like to go, but it’s a case of I just can think of a list of reasons why I shouldn’t.
One of them is that I can’t speak the language. This is just one of those things, that I could try and learn I guess. But then I would want to make a proper effort at it.
To be honest, I would never just go away to somewhere just to lie on the beach and party at night. I’m probably too old for that and even if I’d done that when I was the right age, I don’t think I’d have enjoyed myself. If I had gone on something like an 18-30 holiday, then I have done it in the mood that this is the sort of thing that I should enjoy. Then I would have just lain on the beach or got panic attacks in nightclubs, screaming in my head that I should be having fun and that if I couldn’t, there was something wrong with me.
There must be a few people who go on holidays like that. Either out of the feeling that they need have ‘experiences’ or they are wasting their life. Or that this is how everybody has fun, so I must do it. Then they stagger through the period, feeling dragged down by the fact that they are not having fun. Yet, everybody says that being in the place or frantic partying is how you have fun. So not only are they aware that they are spending a lot of money on not having fun, but they are made to feel that there is something wrong with themselves.
This idea that being abroad is more meaningful then what you do when you are there is fairly widespread I think. Students are encouraged to have gap years to travel the world. Nobody mentions the students who stay in this country, to earn money to support their university years. Even though that seems the more realistic option.
Drunk too much coffee, waiting around in town, too fast, today. Now I’m alternating nausea with a downer mood.
One of them is that I can’t speak the language. This is just one of those things, that I could try and learn I guess. But then I would want to make a proper effort at it.
To be honest, I would never just go away to somewhere just to lie on the beach and party at night. I’m probably too old for that and even if I’d done that when I was the right age, I don’t think I’d have enjoyed myself. If I had gone on something like an 18-30 holiday, then I have done it in the mood that this is the sort of thing that I should enjoy. Then I would have just lain on the beach or got panic attacks in nightclubs, screaming in my head that I should be having fun and that if I couldn’t, there was something wrong with me.
There must be a few people who go on holidays like that. Either out of the feeling that they need have ‘experiences’ or they are wasting their life. Or that this is how everybody has fun, so I must do it. Then they stagger through the period, feeling dragged down by the fact that they are not having fun. Yet, everybody says that being in the place or frantic partying is how you have fun. So not only are they aware that they are spending a lot of money on not having fun, but they are made to feel that there is something wrong with themselves.
This idea that being abroad is more meaningful then what you do when you are there is fairly widespread I think. Students are encouraged to have gap years to travel the world. Nobody mentions the students who stay in this country, to earn money to support their university years. Even though that seems the more realistic option.
Drunk too much coffee, waiting around in town, too fast, today. Now I’m alternating nausea with a downer mood.
Tuesday 8 September 2009
I am again having the problem that my vision of how I should be able to work is coming up against the reality of how it actually is. To be exact I feel as I should just leap up in the morning and embark of the planning and researching two novels, reading and analysing fiction books, getting all my music sorted, exploiting the mass of research cuttings I have saved, get my miniatures painted, work on my art abilities, planning the third and maybe the third or forth novel idea, be regularly contributing to forums, looking for a new job, joining a writer’s group to improve my work. Just an average day’s work really.
I’ve got an interview on Monday. I’m hoping I’ve got a chance. The trouble is that it becomes as if you are preparing to for an interrogation. What are they going to ask me, how do I respond to this question? The difficulty with being unemployed is that the stakes get raised so much. You can start getting into the false mindset that if you miss this one, there will be nothing for another year.
We took my parents’ dog for a walk on a Newquay beach the other day. There was a shop that does very large cones of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. Unfortunately, the dog kept disrupting some young men trying to have a game of cricket, by putting the ball in her mouth. I had to get it out which I found rather embarrassing. One of them said that she looks like a bear, which others have said.
I’ve got an interview on Monday. I’m hoping I’ve got a chance. The trouble is that it becomes as if you are preparing to for an interrogation. What are they going to ask me, how do I respond to this question? The difficulty with being unemployed is that the stakes get raised so much. You can start getting into the false mindset that if you miss this one, there will be nothing for another year.
We took my parents’ dog for a walk on a Newquay beach the other day. There was a shop that does very large cones of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. Unfortunately, the dog kept disrupting some young men trying to have a game of cricket, by putting the ball in her mouth. I had to get it out which I found rather embarrassing. One of them said that she looks like a bear, which others have said.
Friday 4 September 2009
Convention fears, unrealistic goals, job interveiw worries
Time for a convention related to writing is approaching, but I'm still worried about going. I keep feeling as if I have failed because I haven't published anything and been paid. It's like I'll walk in, and everybody will turn, point and say all together, "Another year and you haven't become a successful writer? Ha, Ha, Ha, you miserable failure."
I know that this is stupid and it won't happen. I know that nobody is judging me. But I get stuck into these patterns where I make myself feel guilty.
At the root of it, is that I tend to set myself unrealistic goals and I know this. It's just a case of breaking the mindset that starts doing it. Going to spend the weekend brainstoming ideas, for November novel writing month, so I'll probably feel better at the end of it.
Have got a job interview on a week on Monday, so I have time to prepare for it. My ideal way to do this would be to sit down, think of all possible questions and research the company as much as I can. I realise this sounds a bit much, but I want the job.
I know that this is stupid and it won't happen. I know that nobody is judging me. But I get stuck into these patterns where I make myself feel guilty.
At the root of it, is that I tend to set myself unrealistic goals and I know this. It's just a case of breaking the mindset that starts doing it. Going to spend the weekend brainstoming ideas, for November novel writing month, so I'll probably feel better at the end of it.
Have got a job interview on a week on Monday, so I have time to prepare for it. My ideal way to do this would be to sit down, think of all possible questions and research the company as much as I can. I realise this sounds a bit much, but I want the job.
Thursday 3 September 2009
Video games and ‘Last Chance to See’
The most recent video game I have played is ‘Batman Arkham Asylum’ for the Xbox360 and it is great. Easy to use and visually creepy. One drawback, is why does Harley Quinn have to dress like a skank? Still I would be frantically playing on it, if I had an Xbox.
I admit that I am looking forward to the new series of ‘Last Chance to See’ starting Sunday. Stephen Fry is always entertaining, although it is sad that Douglas Adams is no longer with us.
I admit that I am looking forward to the new series of ‘Last Chance to See’ starting Sunday. Stephen Fry is always entertaining, although it is sad that Douglas Adams is no longer with us.
Tuesday 1 September 2009
Dorian Grey and Disney and Marvel
Read the ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ by Oscar Wilde finally. Partly because I’m not sure if I’m going to wind up going to see the new film of it. But also because I’m trying to develop a project linked to Gothic literature, so felt I should try it.
I realise that may go down as heresy, but I wasn’t that impressed. Firstly the character of Lord Henry Wotton may be very quotable as a stand-in for Oscar Wilde. But such a ‘Mary-Sue’ character does rather weaken the dramatic weight of the story. The best sections are Dorian’s thoughts before sliding into decadence and debauchery. But it does feel a weakness that there is so little comment on the lack of his aging after 18 years. It also does feel like a cop-out that one of the characters threatening Dorian gets shot by accident in a hunting trip. As a companion piece to ‘The Strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’, it’s interesting, but of itself, it has less weight then it has been given.
I also saw in the news that Disney is to buy Marvel comics. On one hand this looks like a good deal. Disney gets the characters it can apply major marketing force to. Marvel gets some security.
On the other hand, the rights to all the films, are with different studios, so the legal paperwork could take a while. Even if this does get sorted out, there is no guarantee that there will be a flood of films. Warner studios own all the DC heroes, but Batman seems to be the only they can make work on screen. Superman and Wonder Woman are stuck in development hell.
Also this may wind up being like Touchstone pictures and Miramax for Disney. Part of the studio, but kept separate so they don’t all have to be family entertainment. Let’s face it, the majority of the Marvel superheroes have backgrounds or personal problems that don’t seem in keeping with Disney.
I realise that may go down as heresy, but I wasn’t that impressed. Firstly the character of Lord Henry Wotton may be very quotable as a stand-in for Oscar Wilde. But such a ‘Mary-Sue’ character does rather weaken the dramatic weight of the story. The best sections are Dorian’s thoughts before sliding into decadence and debauchery. But it does feel a weakness that there is so little comment on the lack of his aging after 18 years. It also does feel like a cop-out that one of the characters threatening Dorian gets shot by accident in a hunting trip. As a companion piece to ‘The Strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’, it’s interesting, but of itself, it has less weight then it has been given.
I also saw in the news that Disney is to buy Marvel comics. On one hand this looks like a good deal. Disney gets the characters it can apply major marketing force to. Marvel gets some security.
On the other hand, the rights to all the films, are with different studios, so the legal paperwork could take a while. Even if this does get sorted out, there is no guarantee that there will be a flood of films. Warner studios own all the DC heroes, but Batman seems to be the only they can make work on screen. Superman and Wonder Woman are stuck in development hell.
Also this may wind up being like Touchstone pictures and Miramax for Disney. Part of the studio, but kept separate so they don’t all have to be family entertainment. Let’s face it, the majority of the Marvel superheroes have backgrounds or personal problems that don’t seem in keeping with Disney.
Tuesday 25 August 2009
Feeling down again
Over the weekend, my girlfriend and I helped my father clean out a garden pond. Notable for the lack of fish turning up as the water drained. Since the tradition of building ponds in the garden started, the heron population must have exploded.
Feeling low again today. It started when I woke up too late in the morning. Then a form I was waiting for did not arrive. Tried to fill in the rough of an application form, but just got into a downer. It’s the realisation that in six years of work, because you couldn’t move out of the department, you are at a disadvantage before you start. Because I couldn’t be allowed in contact with the till counters, no matter how well I did with the customers, if they asked me questions. Maybe they were right and I couldn’t have managed it. But all I wanted was just one chance to show it. They knew that I was loyal and willing to work hard, could they at least have tried it with me?
It’s not just the lack of progress in my last job that’s the problem, it’s also that there was a yearlong gap between jobs, which doesn’t help.
It just feels like after nearly nine years of working, I haven’t managed to get anything approaching a career and it is now too late to find one.
This is why I keep thinking that I should find a way to work for myself, as I am too unskilled to get anywhere. But I can’t see anything that I can do. I did think last night, “why don’t I design T-shirts and sell them on the internet?” Then I realised, I can’t do designs, where would I get the materials and who would give the start of funds and would I really make that much money anyway?
I am returning to the pattern of hoping that everything can get sorted out after an appointment this week, so that on Monday, I can establish some sort of routine and that thing can feel normal. But then there is the fear of what if it isn’t? What if I still can’t make myself wake up early?
I know this kind of downward spiral thinking doesn’t help. I want to be able to stop doing it. But it’s just become such a deep part of my mind that when it takes over all I can do is wait for myself to rise out of it again.
Feeling low again today. It started when I woke up too late in the morning. Then a form I was waiting for did not arrive. Tried to fill in the rough of an application form, but just got into a downer. It’s the realisation that in six years of work, because you couldn’t move out of the department, you are at a disadvantage before you start. Because I couldn’t be allowed in contact with the till counters, no matter how well I did with the customers, if they asked me questions. Maybe they were right and I couldn’t have managed it. But all I wanted was just one chance to show it. They knew that I was loyal and willing to work hard, could they at least have tried it with me?
It’s not just the lack of progress in my last job that’s the problem, it’s also that there was a yearlong gap between jobs, which doesn’t help.
It just feels like after nearly nine years of working, I haven’t managed to get anything approaching a career and it is now too late to find one.
This is why I keep thinking that I should find a way to work for myself, as I am too unskilled to get anywhere. But I can’t see anything that I can do. I did think last night, “why don’t I design T-shirts and sell them on the internet?” Then I realised, I can’t do designs, where would I get the materials and who would give the start of funds and would I really make that much money anyway?
I am returning to the pattern of hoping that everything can get sorted out after an appointment this week, so that on Monday, I can establish some sort of routine and that thing can feel normal. But then there is the fear of what if it isn’t? What if I still can’t make myself wake up early?
I know this kind of downward spiral thinking doesn’t help. I want to be able to stop doing it. But it’s just become such a deep part of my mind that when it takes over all I can do is wait for myself to rise out of it again.
Monday 24 August 2009
The nostalgia of debt
Read about someone who was on the programme ‘Benefit Busters’ on Channel 4 Thursday night. Apparently they had managed to run up debts of £75000, on their credit cards. People like this hold a strange fascination for me. On one hand, there is the question of when did these people think they would be prepared to pay it all back. On the other, there is the sense of what it must be like to run up debts like that and not worry about the consequences. I know that I would never ever be as stupidly reckless as that. Yet it’s the lure of being able to have what you want right now and to be able to block the consequences of the debt out.
Yet every time these sort of high profile spenders turn up on TV, on programmes like ‘Spendaholics’, the total gains of these debts always seem so little. Nights out, shoes, handbags, designer label gear, electronic goods. Admittedly, to the person who spent so much on them, it doesn’t feel that way. Of course this may be completely academic now. All these stories about ordinary people who ran up fortunes in debts on credit cards, feel like the product of a more optimistic time, even though they weren’t really. It’s like people stuck in the Great Depression, remembering all the great parties they had in the roaring twenties.
Did some reading about Prostate cancer as my father is going to have to undergo surgery for it. Found the web address of a charity, but it’s no good giving that to him. He refuses to even look at computers. As far as he is concerned, the answering machine is technology gone mad.
Yet every time these sort of high profile spenders turn up on TV, on programmes like ‘Spendaholics’, the total gains of these debts always seem so little. Nights out, shoes, handbags, designer label gear, electronic goods. Admittedly, to the person who spent so much on them, it doesn’t feel that way. Of course this may be completely academic now. All these stories about ordinary people who ran up fortunes in debts on credit cards, feel like the product of a more optimistic time, even though they weren’t really. It’s like people stuck in the Great Depression, remembering all the great parties they had in the roaring twenties.
Did some reading about Prostate cancer as my father is going to have to undergo surgery for it. Found the web address of a charity, but it’s no good giving that to him. He refuses to even look at computers. As far as he is concerned, the answering machine is technology gone mad.
Thursday 20 August 2009
Bank loan letters, wargames minatures
It is notable that in this time of economic hardship and job uncertainty, one thing still is able to carry on. Yes, I still get letters asking me if I want a loan or a new credit card. Has this ever worked? Was the credit crunch in fact caused by people who had been on carefully maintained budgets, but then felt the need after getting a letter to suddenly get a twenty-five thousand pound loan?
I’m considering starting to paint my old Warhammer fantasy battle gaming miniatures again. This would probably just be to get them all painted, not actually play games with them. When I did, I lost so often that a lot of the fun went out of it. I did win more when I changed my army, although still not very often. But then the other main problem still continued. I would take my army out and bits of them would have fallen off in transit. When you’ve spend several hours painting something and then it’s hands fall off when you want to use it on the gaming table, it does put a downer on the evening.
I’m considering starting to paint my old Warhammer fantasy battle gaming miniatures again. This would probably just be to get them all painted, not actually play games with them. When I did, I lost so often that a lot of the fun went out of it. I did win more when I changed my army, although still not very often. But then the other main problem still continued. I would take my army out and bits of them would have fallen off in transit. When you’ve spend several hours painting something and then it’s hands fall off when you want to use it on the gaming table, it does put a downer on the evening.
Wednesday 19 August 2009
Zombies, Sushi and Beyond’, Lost Worlds
There was a report on the BBC News website, that researchers from the University of Ottawa and Carleton University had been calculating the effects of a zombie attack. They have been working from the ‘traditional’ film version of the zombie. Slow shambling, but one bite turns you into them. Apparently if not stopped quickly, they would overwhelm the human race.
The work was intended as a model for the spread of infectious diseases.
This does illustrate the zombie has become the all-purpose face of monsterdom (they could have used vampires or werewolves or body snatcher style aliens). But I do think that zombies are starting to lose their effectiveness. The popular image of them is that they are the walking dead, who move about and eat the living. But still manage to turn the living into zombies with one bite to swell their numbers. So really, what seems to happen is that they bite the living a bit, decide they don’t like the taste for some reason and leave the victims to rise up as zombies to do the same thing. But you can get rid of them, by going for the head. And they don’t tend to speak. They are in danger of losing their ability to be scary. There is the potential shock value of hordes of them pushing through doors and crowding the cities. But this imagery, popularised by George Romero, is becoming a cliché as well.
Finished reading ‘Sushi and Beyond’ by Michael Booth. An interesting culinary tour of Japan, containing much information on the country and its culture. Makes you want to try some of the foods mentioned, only to realise that they are not usually available at the supermarket.
Since I heard about the genre of steampunk, I’ve wanted to try a story in that vein. Thinking of retro science-fiction, I keep coming up with the idea of the ‘Lost World’ type of story. The drawback is that these tend not to get very far, beyond “oh look dinosaurs”. The last major work in this line ‘Jurassic Park’ did popularise some species but could be most notable for moaning up not trusting computers and using chaos theory as another to moan “we’re all doomed”.
The work was intended as a model for the spread of infectious diseases.
This does illustrate the zombie has become the all-purpose face of monsterdom (they could have used vampires or werewolves or body snatcher style aliens). But I do think that zombies are starting to lose their effectiveness. The popular image of them is that they are the walking dead, who move about and eat the living. But still manage to turn the living into zombies with one bite to swell their numbers. So really, what seems to happen is that they bite the living a bit, decide they don’t like the taste for some reason and leave the victims to rise up as zombies to do the same thing. But you can get rid of them, by going for the head. And they don’t tend to speak. They are in danger of losing their ability to be scary. There is the potential shock value of hordes of them pushing through doors and crowding the cities. But this imagery, popularised by George Romero, is becoming a cliché as well.
Finished reading ‘Sushi and Beyond’ by Michael Booth. An interesting culinary tour of Japan, containing much information on the country and its culture. Makes you want to try some of the foods mentioned, only to realise that they are not usually available at the supermarket.
Since I heard about the genre of steampunk, I’ve wanted to try a story in that vein. Thinking of retro science-fiction, I keep coming up with the idea of the ‘Lost World’ type of story. The drawback is that these tend not to get very far, beyond “oh look dinosaurs”. The last major work in this line ‘Jurassic Park’ did popularise some species but could be most notable for moaning up not trusting computers and using chaos theory as another to moan “we’re all doomed”.
Tuesday 18 August 2009
Organisation and depression
Woke up at 9.00am, which I don’t regard as a good thing. I do think it is a bit harder to get going after that.
Started trying to organise the cuttings I’ve saved for future research material. This is the sort of thing that can get more depressing then you expect. As in “I have all this material, why I haven’t I done more with it?” This problem is highlighted by the amount of notes I have turned up form my depressed phrase. One of the things that I have established from this and from my father’s own spell of depression, is that recovery from this is slow. It’s about trying to change a mental outlook, which doesn’t happen overnight. I also think that there can be some triggers that can remain in your head which cause you to start feeling down again. These can fade away over a couple of hours, the trick is trying to distract your mind away from them.
Another reason why this may be getting me down, is that it reminds me of all the story ideas that I had and I haven’t followed though. This means that they build up; waiting to get out and I feel guilty because I haven’t done them yet. Because I don’t know how I can make them work and so on. This is a very good example of the trigger thinking above, really.
In attempt to be cheerful, I got hold of a copy of the graphic novel ‘Freakangels: Volume 2’ by Warren Ellis and Paul Duffield, published by Avatar Press. This is the story of 11 twenty-somethings with various mental powers, such as telepathy and telekinesis, defending Whitechapel in a post-apocalypse England. It is building into an exciting science-fiction narrative with a theme about taking responsibility for your actions.
Over today, I have been getting the urge to try and organise my CD collection. Either this is just my mind looking for a source of distraction. Alternatively, it might be the belief that if you can impose a final definite sort of order on everything you own, all books, CD’s and DVD’s, you will be able to have a better existence. I admit that I love the idea of this, but I can spot the flaws in it. Firstly, it might mean you spend the best part of a month doing it. Secondly it relies on you never acquiring anything new after this, because if you did that, it would have to catalogued into the new system and what if it didn’t fit? Thirdly, what if you had to move? Then would you have to do it all again? Fourthly, you could just end sitting around, too neurotic to take out anything to read or watch, in case it disrupted the established order.
Started trying to organise the cuttings I’ve saved for future research material. This is the sort of thing that can get more depressing then you expect. As in “I have all this material, why I haven’t I done more with it?” This problem is highlighted by the amount of notes I have turned up form my depressed phrase. One of the things that I have established from this and from my father’s own spell of depression, is that recovery from this is slow. It’s about trying to change a mental outlook, which doesn’t happen overnight. I also think that there can be some triggers that can remain in your head which cause you to start feeling down again. These can fade away over a couple of hours, the trick is trying to distract your mind away from them.
Another reason why this may be getting me down, is that it reminds me of all the story ideas that I had and I haven’t followed though. This means that they build up; waiting to get out and I feel guilty because I haven’t done them yet. Because I don’t know how I can make them work and so on. This is a very good example of the trigger thinking above, really.
In attempt to be cheerful, I got hold of a copy of the graphic novel ‘Freakangels: Volume 2’ by Warren Ellis and Paul Duffield, published by Avatar Press. This is the story of 11 twenty-somethings with various mental powers, such as telepathy and telekinesis, defending Whitechapel in a post-apocalypse England. It is building into an exciting science-fiction narrative with a theme about taking responsibility for your actions.
Over today, I have been getting the urge to try and organise my CD collection. Either this is just my mind looking for a source of distraction. Alternatively, it might be the belief that if you can impose a final definite sort of order on everything you own, all books, CD’s and DVD’s, you will be able to have a better existence. I admit that I love the idea of this, but I can spot the flaws in it. Firstly, it might mean you spend the best part of a month doing it. Secondly it relies on you never acquiring anything new after this, because if you did that, it would have to catalogued into the new system and what if it didn’t fit? Thirdly, what if you had to move? Then would you have to do it all again? Fourthly, you could just end sitting around, too neurotic to take out anything to read or watch, in case it disrupted the established order.
Monday 17 August 2009
Mr Toppit and the pond
Finished reading ‘Mr Toppit’ by Charles Elton. It’s a about a family dealing with the death of their father and the aftermath of the children’s books he wrote, becoming famous. It did start well, but once the action moves to Los Angles in the second have the book loses momentum. It feels as if it’s going for a bunch of easy targets. Also it starts to build up to revelations that once revealed are not that much of a shock.
Sometime this week, I’m going to have to help my parents clean out a pond and put a new liner in. Now there are two types of garden pond. There are the ones with the nice clear water, where the Koi Carp swim, where you can see the bottom of the pond. Then there are the ponds which have gone feral. The greenery is covering the surface of the water and is starting to creep out of it. The bottom is covered with black slime that smells as if an abattoir and sewage plant were sharing the same room. Guess which one is in our garden?
First day of redundancy and it already feels as if there are a thousand things I need to do and want to do. Still I suppose that’s a good thing. This morning I was able to wake up at 7.00am. Take it from me, when it is usually 5 – 5.30am, that counts as an improvement.
Sometime this week, I’m going to have to help my parents clean out a pond and put a new liner in. Now there are two types of garden pond. There are the ones with the nice clear water, where the Koi Carp swim, where you can see the bottom of the pond. Then there are the ponds which have gone feral. The greenery is covering the surface of the water and is starting to creep out of it. The bottom is covered with black slime that smells as if an abattoir and sewage plant were sharing the same room. Guess which one is in our garden?
First day of redundancy and it already feels as if there are a thousand things I need to do and want to do. Still I suppose that’s a good thing. This morning I was able to wake up at 7.00am. Take it from me, when it is usually 5 – 5.30am, that counts as an improvement.
Sunday 16 August 2009
Redundancy
There is a fear that haunts everybody who is made redundant, I think. By everybody I mean me. Yes I have yet another part of the growing jobless statistics on the news. The 1980’s revival, not just in music.
The fear is as follows. You’ll wake up, make your way to the living room in your dressing gown and sit then down in front of the TV. Then you will fuse with the sofa to become something that sits, for day after day, watching television. As you watch, your waistline will swell, your pyjamas will fuse to your skin, as they haven’t been taken off, and you will lose all critical faculties. You become a blob, without the ability to evolve into something better.
This is ridiculous I realise. The drawback is that it gets replaced by the fear that you are not be trying finding work hard enough.
The fear is as follows. You’ll wake up, make your way to the living room in your dressing gown and sit then down in front of the TV. Then you will fuse with the sofa to become something that sits, for day after day, watching television. As you watch, your waistline will swell, your pyjamas will fuse to your skin, as they haven’t been taken off, and you will lose all critical faculties. You become a blob, without the ability to evolve into something better.
This is ridiculous I realise. The drawback is that it gets replaced by the fear that you are not be trying finding work hard enough.
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