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*A more amazing debatable collection never before written, or seen. *South of Tasmania |
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The Blog of Sparky. Second Edition. Made in Australia (First Edition click here -
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| Does every generation re-invent the wheel..? And become aware earlier every year?   If you are curious at all, or want to have any awareness of our near future (next 5 years or less) then the embedded videos below are a must watch. Stars Are you struggling to keep up with tech? Struggling to ride the surf of your chaotic career choices? Finding it challenging to even pay bills and eat? What about world population numbers? Is the earth polluted with excess people? How will everyone get enough to eat, or buy the special pill that cures every disease known before it even infects ( except nobody can afford to buy one) And this idea that we might drive electric cars, and live and work on Mars? Crazy right? Impossible in our lifetime. Not even worth our time thinking about it. And within a few short years there'll be a real option to buy a ticket to Mars and certain employment, not to mention major involvement in history, for perhaps $100 grand? Well, as far as space travel and the world we know now, I feel we have already been left behind. What it means for writers and literature I couldn't even guess. Has anyone heard of a new writing group being developed in Australia named Sky Writers Project? It's all about astronomy, the stars and planets, and our notion of these heavenly bodies from our youth spent in Central Western New South Wales, Aussie Land. The ancient tribes of Australian aborigines pass on legends by stories, telling about using the features of their surrounding land as immovable and accurate measuring guides. Measurements of astronomical objects, planets, stars, navigation, time, seasons, equinox, solstice, tides, and whatever else ties our planet earth with unbreakable invisible cables of gravity, orbit, and the bigger cycles and influences we can't begin to grasp. So Merrill, the founder and administrator of Sky Writers Project: https://www.facebook.com/SkywritersProject/ has asked us to write 3000 words in any genre or style but based on the stars. It, our literary item, may be published next year in a 2018 collection of "sky writing". It is up to us modern day authors to pass on to the next generation our fascination, share our awareness of the effect of space and its natural moving occupants, so that these stories of the past would not be lost. We might raise awareness and interest in another bunch of people, children and adults. The sky is available to everyone. But the stars? Only to those who live relatively isolated, or those willing to give up their city life, at least for a short time, to travel away from the light pollution and see for themselves what treasures that vast hole above us, (below us?) holds for them...whatever their beliefs, or life goals. We don't know if a star has our name on it. Yet we know today, that our lives and the future depends on light that travels eight minutes or so to get here, before we can use it. Cars. [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] "...easy to underestimate Elon Musk..." Mars Part 1 [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Part 2 [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] What about God? Elon Musk must be someone on the edge of blasphemy, surely? Suggesting we aren't going to be cooped up here on Terra Firma, but would have the audacity to colonize the universe? I'm a believer. And aware that the idea of a space faring civilisation might be considered the stuff of childish dreams and Issac Asimov novels; couldn't happen, shouldn't happen, and won't happen. Just get on with our lives, pray and keep faithful. Well that may be so. But I don't think so. I think what is happening is not only going to happen but if we aren't keeping up somewhat, we won't see the significance of a turning point in the history of humankind perhaps equivalent to invention of the wheel. This isn't just about cars, Mars, Rockets or history. You know there's a shortage of housing in cities. Everyone has to be jammed in there whether they want to be or not. People are thinking laterally about housing, affordability and therapy for stressed minds. They are doing it themselves. And people with their old opinions and lack of long term vision, as well as misunderstanding how financially stressed this situation, aren't helping with out of date local codes that restrict out of the box thinking. Let's not make that our story. Get with it. People, especially their, our, children, grand, great grand, whatever, depend on us to LET THEM. They will live with the consequences, or be miserable because we thought "old school". Pry Bars. Here's a young couple doing some frontier, hard-yard pioneering. This may not be a tiny home, but the spirit to do it in spite of inexperience, is out there with Elon Musk, you, me, and our young people. Millennial's may seem to be different to our old fashioned calloused hand work ethic, (is the real opinion?) but I wouldn't misunderstand, or underestimate them. They have grown up in the electronic generation, silicone valley, dot com, e-commerce, skills in IT, fast thinking, adaptability, fresh perspective, and forward vision, may be just what the future HAS TO HAVE. (Channel  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChhBsM9K_Bc9a_YTK7UUlnQ)[Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Perhaps our world's population will exponentially reduce in a spiral like water draining out of a bathtub, the outflow pouring onto fresh, resource rich planets. Much more cheerful outlook than a possible war, or climate change doom for the satellite we call home, hey? Sometimes, if you step back from our busy lives, you can see a bigger picture emerging, a charcoal sketch of a future history in the making, with each day bringing a squirt of fixative on that Douglas McDougall portrait, and we can hazard a fair assumption of tomorrow. We can forecast with certainty, and excitement. Well, maybe not but at least it's better than the certainty and staidness of today's present depressing scene. What does Elon Musk say? "We need something to get up for in the morning" and while it might fail or never eventuate at least it's not boring. (Unless it's Elon's Boring company, but equations now have an "Elon Musk" parameter or extra law of physics, don't they?) You can see it gelling. Coalescing. Ha! Didn't need spell check that time  A lot of separate "Amelia sequences" are circling, the eagles of seemingly unconnected goals are reaching their apex, intersecting accidentally. (Are they or is it a world order plan?} The picture is an interplanetary life. Humans inhabiting faraway galaxies like in the movies. Veggies by Far So here we have food production ramping up. For desert climate? Post apocalypse? Or Mars? Space travel? Yes. Where have all the flowers jobs gone? [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Life as we know it will soon be over. We'll be like our grandparents (or great) were when motor vehicles first came about. And my parents with mobile phones. Left behind. We won't if we just accept that it will come, keep an eye on what's happening, and try to be positive. Keep up to date. We don't need to agree with it, or all go and live in communes. We don't all have to buy tiny houses and give up our houses. Although personally I love the idea. How long does it take to vacuum a tiny home? (2 minutes if that?) There's a type of building that could possibly be used on Mars or other planets, to deal with using local building materials, take advantage of natural availability of heating and cooling without using any mechanical or electrical means, just the seasonal changes of the sun's trajectory, heat mass methods, just your basic physics put to humans' advantage. I mean... Earthships. Seems obvious but I'm just a tradie. What would I know? [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Are you ready for zero fuel bills, free cars called up at will (autonomous driving), underground 200 klm / h (124 point something miles/h) tunnels with roller skate car carriers, electric driver-less trucks, robots working on Mars, and your millennial gamer people remotely mining on another planet? Are you ready for zero jobs for humans? Are you ready for a universal basic income payment for every man woman and child on Earth? Are you ready for such saturation of surveillance that people can't commit crime, or start wars? Maybe it won't happen. Like The Castle. Maybe tell 'im 'e's dreamin'. [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] |
| I take far too much pleasure from writing blog entries with the strangest content as possible. I find it enjoyable and even hilarious. However... Please read this blog entry with caution. Insanity is fun sometimes. [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Tesla in China! https://twitter.com/teslaliving/status/912406778608066562 A couple of oddball and perhaps faintly alarming links I've had reason to search recently "prompted" me to pass them on as weird writing prompts. You know the sort of research you have to do sometimes? You can end in some dark places, even on the standard shallow Internet. Some nasty chemicals need professional handling and can be removed for free. (2 4 D was used in Vietnam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange) http://online.chemsal.com.au/ChemClear/BrowseProducts?start=21 Do you know what grain alignment might happen to be? Yes, it is a thing, and not how to line up wheat seeds in a row. http://cds.cern.ch/record/431732/files/0003314.pdf Colin. [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Who'd like a set of gauge blocks for Christmas? https://www.ebay.com/b/Metalworking-Gauge-Blocks/41934/bn_16563708 Or Forced Calibrators? http://www.fao.org/docrep/W7295E/w7295e09.htm And have you ever been curious as to the term for human food-meat? Dr Livingston probably had a word or two for it I would imagine. https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/280095/if-cow-beef-pig-pork-and-deer... Facebook group; https://www.facebook.com/vegemitelove/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegemite Ever wondered what age equivalent your pet is to humans? Want to end the argument? http://www.age-converter.com/cow-age-calculator.html And accurate Steak cookness doneness? https://www.thespruce.com/steak-doneness-from-rare-to-well-336362 So there's also "competitive facial hair" https://content.dollarshaveclub.com/growing-first-beard-hard-men-internet-help?u... Time for some old fashioned Regina.My grandmother's name was Regina. [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] |
| How are you living your life? Is it worthy of attention, or a giant big, uncovered, tonsil-viewing yawn? Today I logged on to WDC, an unusual occurrence these days due to life's upheaval, and I decided to print out some of my short stories, and poems, for my folks to read. They don't do the internet. They barely do phones. And Facebook is a sinister "gossip" abomination. Ok, maybe not that far, but they just don't fully understand how much time I have spent, sweating over those items "written online". Getting back to how our lives unfold. What's our story? Is it printable? Is it a dominant narrative, the things we've done? History with a capital aitch? Or is our life rolling out as a history that easily slips through the cracks, is forgotten, overgrown, outlived, receding into the past, left behind, even...abandoned. I was intrigued as usual by Kirsten Dirksen's latest YouTube offering, her perspective edited cunningly into a fascinating expose of an alternative style of living. Someone's idea put into practice. [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] She always plants a garden of story prompt seed, overflowing my mind with new ideas along similar vein. Perhaps none of the ideas will ever bear fruit. But we can always pass on some of the seed. Seeds of fresh ways of thinking, yet using, reusing, recycling the old bits and pieces. Story telling with a purpose. Preservation of history that without the author would be lost to time. While disinterested now, the ones growing up will revisit these places one day, perhaps when their hair has lost its youthful lustre, and grey haired experiences wrinkled their face with character. Yes, then they'll be asking - how did it all come about? And you know how the answer will begin, don't you? I don't need to say it. Surely. But I want to anyway... Once upon a time, there was an expansive river (throws arms out wide) and people lived there and they... |
| As you move past the moments of your day tomorrow, try this. See if you can memorise 5, no say 10, short conversation grabs. [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] A phrase, random few words smacked together. You'll hear them at the normal boring times. Shouting at the bathroom door. Greeting someone on the way to somewhere. The sayings that are cliche. Even writing "the sayings that are cliche" is cliche. You don't want that. Do you? What you want is what your readers will remember. Oh yeah. They'll remember your stories because of clarity. They'll recall those bits and pieces of description, dialogue, club spiel, drama queen...queen-ness, speech impediment repetitions, back room badness, lunch money lewis listenable charisma. Does ANYBODY know what you're trying to trap, in your daily life tomorrow? There will be something said, or if you're someone whose days do not intersect with other humans very often, or at all, then maybe something will be baa'ed, or moo'ed or bleated. For the rest of us, me too, something will be said in passing that you trap in your ears. You must be vigilant. Snippets are easily missed and flutter about like bright little coloured lego pieces with pencil sharpener shaving wings. Yes, Dean Koontz said recently seven or so tips for novelists to be more cutthroat with each other than ever before. http://www.beliefnet.com/entertainment/galleries/koontz-7-bestseller-tips.aspx And in one of these he mentioned the old fashioned styles of writing we should still use. "Metaphor, simile, all kinds of figures of speech have evaporated from much modern fiction, and many new writers have no interest in using the language in vivid and inventive ways." I just attempted to google "which author recommended filing snippets" but realised that snippets these days are not what they were, not what I thought they were and are. I give you Snippets as sort of defined in this online article, dated 2013 http://www.seoskeptic.com/structured-data-for-author-pages-and-linked-snippets/ "Structured data" is a broad term that encompasses various standards and encoding mechanisms but, at the end of the day, refers to information provided to data consumers specifically for machine consumption. This machine-readable code is closely-allied to, but separate from, the presentation layer that us humans consume when we read a web page, providing a way for dumb machines to better understand the entities and connections between entities present in a piece of content. My snippet is like a small note you make, and file it away in your trusty alphabetical concertina file. Riiiiggghhtt. Who does that any more? Nobody. Because Google. And the unacceptable (but still widely used I bet) Wikipedia, and whatever else is conveniently at hand to get anecdotes, bits, pieces and the odd missing sock jammed in the Fisher & Paykel Smart-drive housing. But surely we still do notes? We still keep things of interest, like my Grandmother used to hoard paddle pop sticks, RedHead matchboxes, spectacle frames, plastic bags, egg cartons, rubber bands, and many other things I can't remember from 1976, at Rocky Glen, NSW Australia. https://www.google.com.au/search?q=Rocky+Glen+NSW&espv=2&biw=1366&bih=700&source... Yes. A picture of Rocky Glen on Google brought up is surprising. And ironically accurate. My Grandmother used to say, and I'm sure she should have been a writer rivalling Alfred Hitchcock himself, she told me more than once in her sombre deadpan dead body in shallow grave voice that "They put the town signs for Rocky Glen each end of here, on the highway, but it's wrong. This isn't the real Rocky Glen. No. No, Rod. The real Rocky Glen (wait for it!) is over there near the bridge that you cross around that death trap blackspot corner (that xyz number of people have been killed thereon) and across a couple of hundred yards into the bush. That's where the council plans show streets and housing blocks. Not here where we are, not here at the shop. My nan and pa ran a shop. I ran around in that shop. I nicked (stole) lollies (confectionery, candy, sweets) from those old glass shop display counters. Ah those were the days and I must be getting old for moving off the main subject of this blog entry. [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Snippets. Those bits we hear and overhear right next to us at the cafe, at the photocopy machine, at the front door waiting for the boss to arrive with the keys (on his day off cos Jacko forgot his set and he lives 2 hours away across Melbourne) and wasn't very impressed. So try to find 10 short bits that impressed you in a flash of inspiration-slap, fair up your right cheek, making your face flare in redness, and your eyes spring with salty tears of annoyance and good, solid, honest pain. You've heard of the New Zealand earthquakes. Yes. more than one. A couple of folks didn't make it, cause uncertain with one person. I tried to find out if New Zealand was moving towards Australia and found this...this snippet. https://www.gns.cri.nz/Home/Learning/Science-Topics/Earthquakes/Earthquakes-at-a... You see, these bits of information, however trivial they may seem at the time, if you remember them, if they were unusual enough for you to retain that information bite, then these are the very pieces you'll value even years later, should you have a gap in your story, a reply in a conversation between characters, a smart remark by an antagonist, a bit of back blocks advice from an old sawmiller about chainsaw sharpening. [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] What about something you heard, and you DIDN'T write it down anywhere? It's probably over 2 years since I pushed my Father in Law around in his wheelchair. He was my father in law, but not my wife's dad. Sound weird and impossible? No. He was simply my wife's step dad. Her real dad died when she was 4. Died of leukaemia in a few weeks after they diagnosed it. If it was now, he'd have been saved. Medicine has progressed, even if I am a tad cynical about the delivery of it at times. My pop in law said to me, out of the blue, random type stuff, as I was wheeling him along trying to get to a meeting in time, we were running late and it was never a good thing when with Grandpa. Because he wouldn't be rushed sometimes. In this instance, I think he was losing his marbles a tad, and we were paused in the hot sun as I listened somewhat impatiently to what he felt was most important. How to stoke coal fired train boilers. Yes, I didn't write down one of the most valuable snippets I'd heard with my own ears first hand. From a steam train STOKER. Yes, he was old enough to have stoked STEAM TRAINS on the line from Sydney Central Station all the way through to Blackheath and on to Lithgow. Yep. He did that job. He knew the detail of which coal to shovel in where. There were two types. A cheaper stuff that didn't burn so well, and the premium that you slapped straight in the middle. He told me a lot of these bits of detail. Where they'd stop to fill with water. These trains had to have coal. But just as importantly they had to be filled with Water. And you can imagine. People on the train didn't care about how the train worked. They wanted refreshments and to get on with their trip. So Pop had to know exactly how much time it would take to refill, and so many details I do seriously regret not writing them down. You don't have to have known a STOKER of coal fired steam trains to hear interesting phrases, one offs said by folks nearby. Even at the pay counter in a petrol station (gas station Americans) No, at the Creche. A neighbour shouting at the kids down the back yard. What someone said on the phone on the train. A mistake the newsreader stumbled over during the weather report or sport. I mean, Youtube is full of this stuff. Mistakes newsreaders made. Bloopers. And pay attention to this. What you hear may be said wrong. Incorrect facts encapsulated in a speak-blister-pack of unique words you happened to prick your ears towards. Someone said it wrong. THAT IS A VALUABLE SNIPPET. You can use that little nugget of gold. Someday. Somewhere. And it can be on purpose in your conversation. Not an accident. Not an axlebent. See that? There was one I put in the notes of my iphone. I heard a client say that. A disability client I supported said axlebent instead of accident. And the mistake was brilliantly apt. Though incorrect and not even a real word, the word he'd invented still meant the same thing in a more interesting, more intense way. Some of these things you wouldn't invent in a million years. And yes, I know the first video of the parachutist is probably fake. See the likes against dislikes ration? Sparky ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| You should now be a fair chunk of the way into the chocolate centre of your novel writing. And the boiler needs stoking. The coal needs shovelling in. Like the Nutrigrain adverts. Whatcha put in is what ya git art. So, with the celebratory time of the year just weeks away, I will be Santa Clause and bring to the naughty writers who have been disobedient and bad all year - a lump of coal. Lots of coal. What? For the stoking of your ideas boiler? Mirror - Free...what could possibly go wrong? http://www.gumtree.com.au/s-ad/kingston/other-home-decor/free-mirror/1129627722 Mandrakes. "It possesses stimulating and narcotic properties" http://www.biblestudytools.com/dictionary/mandrakes/ Sykes. [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] I'm not sure the next idea is that healthy for an active novelist's mind. No, the novelists active mind. To be exercised therewith. Food http://imgur.com/gallery/4B1rC4u Matches [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] I'm just trying to help, 'k? I mean, I'm not writing this year. Not for Nano. Leaving lumps of idea coal in a sock on the mantelpiece is my duty. Bus http://www.gumtree.com.au/s-view-details.html?adId=1128822825 There's a series I have seen recently that as usual everyone else has probably seen months ago. But it was still fresh viewing for me and an intriguing premise. Glitch. On Netflix. I'm a little disappointed because it seems to have finished, but I suppose there'll be more episodes. Why is it that writers have a fantastic idea, the beginning is good, strong, hooking, grabbing, and the acting is so real you are frightened with them, you react with them, you are them. But then there is the moment when the paint fade sets in. You see it begin to happen and sure enough, you can tell the writer or the script person or the director, whoever, has run out of ideas. They almost seem to ad lib it. Like Sykes. But without the success. The plot turns corny. You are wrenched back away from that first hand interaction. That baptism of being entangled in the same horrific events and impossibleness that they face. You pull back from it screaming and kicking the author had you hooked so well. You don't WANT to. You fight against feeling cynical. You try to make excuses and think, well, it's not that easy to write convincingly something that is impossible and hasn't happened. That we know of. Ok, it has happened but those stories are always related third or forth hand at best. And if we have had something crazy happen at level insane, like, it's hard to stay convinced ourselves that it really happened. You can tell when the ideas run out, because the writing and the acting over compensate. I'll give Glitch one thing. They didn't overdo the music. WHY CAN'T DIRECTORS GET IT!!? Music should be minimal. If at all. Almost nothing. Because life has audio in case people have forgotten. And real life audio knocks the scare pants of artificial sound effects any old 3am cemetery morning. I have to go collect pizza. Now there's another idea for your Nano efforts. Pizza. Sparky ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| How would you feel if this statement referred to your authorship, your writing, your passion, your view, your tears, your pain, your cry, your heart? “Her voice literally went around the world,” said Cindi Leive, Glamour’s editor-in-chief. “Her words and the eloquence of her writing really made everybody stop in their tracks and pay attention. “Emily Doe’s courageous statement was one of the year’s most remarkable events for women — for anybody, really, who cares about justice and the experience of sexual assault survivors,” http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/brock-turner-rape-victim-na... [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] How can we pour out the passion that is surely within us? Won't it just be synthetic, artificial, plastic, pretend, if we don't have those experiences that slice so deeply that they seem to automatically produce greatness? Do we have to be a victim or have terribly sad things happen to us, or live to 93 years old, or have fought in Vietnam, or survived a plane crash in Siberia, or produced a viral YouTube clip last week? How does it happen, this goosebump inducing writing? Where do tears come from and the words from someone that brings them rolling down our cheeks? [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Perhaps we do have to have an amazing experience in life to write engaging stuff. But I feel there's more to it than that. Maybe we won't be able to do it if we just sit in a room with the blinds drawn. Or lie in bed paralysed with anxiety, guilt and depression. No, I think this voice that goes around the world, these words that have such monumental cause and effect, I believe they are produced, released, let out of the cage of our mind if we dig deep enough. if we see beyond the ordinary in our lives. If we can look up, look further, set our thoughts beyond, imagination is a vast land with no laws, no bounds, no expectations, no limits, and no lack of power except those we set on it ourselves. We can be our own prison guard by mistakenly thinking imagination has to be purchased, licenced, registered, exposed, used hestiantly, judged, seduced, bribed, or be given as a birthday present. Everyone has one. Writers need to realise our imagination is a tool that is comparable to a billion dollar engineering workshop, a bank account with no limit, and a land where physics and everything else are whatever we like them to be. Send your words around the world too, with so much life and personality, so much confirmation, confidence and CONVICTION, just by ENABLING your imagination. Configured the right way with the right motives behind them, words are mathematical in truth, universal in transferable energy, always viable when connected and harnessed, driven and used by the motive force of our views. The slogan of my new window cleaning business is - Your View Matters. So tell it with verve. Everyone's waiting. Waiting to hear you. Waiting to listen. To you. Everyone's waiting... [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] However, there is a caveat. Take care in your motives behind what you imagine. Psalms C10 V2 "The wicked in his pride doth persecute the poor: let them be taken in the devices that they have imagined." Sparky ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| We love reading. We see the words. Our brain interprets. We think and find understanding that has formed from learning and remembering those lessons. Over time. Apart from the words on paper or screen in the first place, the rest is invisible. Hidden from view but still existing as a motivator, potential energy, kinetic response. What? We can read something and not understand the depth of the writer's attempt at communication. Is that the writer's fault? Is it ours? We shouldn't blow our own trumpet. But we should have the opportunity to explain, point out why we wrote that stuff the way we did. Example.
A spinal paradox is a thing. I know it because while writing this poem I did some research on a subject I knew nothing about apart from visions of Robin Hood and the apple on some kid's head. And maybe cupid. Yeah so cupid became a thing in the poem thing. Yes, there is something called the archer's spinal paradox. Let this guy explain, so we really can be smarter every day. [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] What probably all of you don't know, unless you follow me on Facebook, is that recently my career has changed into something very de-stressing, yet satisfying, and hopefully money producing. (More than waiting to get rich from publishing a novel) I'm now a visual technician. A window cleaner. Here's the link so you can see I'm not just puffing out hot (invisible) air. https://www.facebook.com/rodthewindowcleaner/ This does have a point. And the point of relating window cleaning to a bunch of writers and aspiring famous authors is to pass along some thoughts this job change provoked. I have had to cease doing disability support work due to various factors including stress, anxiety and mental trauma. No biggie for some, devastating for me. BUT, it's ok and life goes on. While cleaning glass panes for people, I have realised a simple life truth. The better I do my job, the less they have. Yes. The cleaner I make their windows, the more view, the less is blocking it. My job is to remove what is blocking people's view. My purpose is to make people's window panes turn invisible. Simple as that. If the client can see anything there then I have failed. (or some guy before me failed and maybe scratched the glass with his stainless steel scraper or used the wrong grade of steel wool) So this brought me back to the things we do as writers, the processes and methods we put into practice to make the visible, or obvious, invisible or hidden. We create illusions using words. And we work on people's thoughts directly. When we do our job the best is when they don't realise we are there, or we have become invisible. The writer has ceased to exist for the reader. The reader is now totally immersed in the story. Mission accomplished (high five). If you are working on your Nanowrimo planning then some thought provoking stuff may help you. Come and sit down and spend some time sipping coffee and eating cake. Or Timtams. Or Vanilla slice. I feel that a major cause of writer's block, besides obvious tiredness and perhaps illness, stems from our own personal unhappiness or stress. We are trying to act. We attempt to be someone we are not. We want to maybe cover up things in our life by not writing about those thoughts or promptings that our brains offer up. This is all invisible of course. Who knows the real you? Perhaps not even yourself. What motivates you or me? Really. And therefore we can have a handbrake applied to our creativeness. Our writing has to come from deep down for it to be of value. Sincerity will lubricate platefuls of profitable ideas. The writers' psyche cannot be hacked or circumvented in some cunning fashion. You might fool yourself, but you can't fool the reader, at least not for long. Ever typed some stuff and then stopped, holding that delete button down for a while? Because what we wrote was utter rot. It was false. We were dreaming. We were probably being lazy or maybe not that bad, just not really digging deep for realness. So it had to go. Good quality comes from effort and feedback, right? I'm probably guilty of offering up TMI. (Too much info) Heart on my sleeve stuff. Do people really want to know that stuff about a total stranger? But then I've always tried to throw pride in the garbage can of limitations, fling reluctance, to give of myself, out the back door on the ground of rejection where it belongs. There are enough limits on our writing prowess without shovelling our own burdens and failures on it deliberately. I've become a bit of an Elon Musk buff lately. Our son is looking at investing in the new Tesla electric car when released in 2017. The acceleration of it is better than any on road vehicle including supercars. Beats the pants off them. And it will be free to charge on the road because Tesla offsets the cost with their Solar energy and storage. It will cost compare to other similar sized sedans on the road but with zero fuel costs, and reduced servicing etc. Elon has just released the new solar roofing systems, as you may be aware, in the last day or so. [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] Along with the cars, these will revolutionise everything. Crazy. Electricity is invisible. Energy is invisible mostly sort of as far as I am aware perhaps could be maybe should. There is a sentence where I have drifted onto a tangent of utter rot. Back to the subject of writing and getting to realness. Have you as a writer done some serious self analysis? Have you taken off the gloves of mercy and really given yourself a talking to, about what it is that motivates you to write? About why you want to write certain ways, on certain subjects and in whatever style? Do you like power over others? Do you want to recreate a childhood you never had in your story's characters? Are you expressing and venting and cleansing by putting your thoughts on paper? Whatever your aim and purpose, your "calling" if you like, should you be losing your focus and writing on anything less than your heart and soul's most honest epiphany, then hey dude, forget it. Havin yo sef on Harry or Harriet. And therein lies the point of this whole exercise in blog entry-ness. Your Nano ideas and writer's block can stem from not getting down pat first off just why you are here on earth, why you like chocolate but dislike cabbage, why the sky is blue and you don't eat truffles much or even maybe know what they are. Those questions and more CANNOT be googled so don't bother. Yes, you. The person reading this right now. No, not anyone else. No need to look over your shoulder, or think, hey this is a good article for so and so, or think man, this guy doesn't have a clue so why am I bothering to read any further. YOU are the only one who can think deeply and get the the gizzard, delve into the chook's giblets about this matter of motivation, of purpose, of what drives you to write. Until you at least try to address any underlying mental, health, relationship or general life problems, of the sort that interferes with your deep thoughts, then writer's block will sit there right in your head like a lead slice of pizza. Inedible. Heavy. Unattractive and unfulfilling. If it's like that for you the writer how much more terrible for the reader. They will then become as invisible as your words or lack of. They will look something like this. Enjoy writer's block being made visible in the following paragraph. . Sparky ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| Nanowrimo is all consuming, exciting, enticing, intriguing, and can be exhausting. Writers' become exhausted, with moist, warm, cloying brows showing droplets-- evidence that battles of concentration, focus, and delivery have taken place. And now writer's block is taking place. Which means nothing will take place unless you take a break. Might as well face it. Stop the nothing you are doing when you can't think, can't move. Rest. Recently, someone advised me to take complete rest for a week. Rest from any and all technology. No phones. No computers. Not even a parcel scanner like your friendly courier uses in this emerging e-commerce freight boom. Someone has to do it. I'll do it. 2 months since the last blog entry. I'm only still on WDC in an upgraded sense because some kind PERSON who I am not able to name saw fit to boost, to give me a leg up. Many thanks. Sometimes in life people help other people without realising, from the simple, seemingly small act, a much larger, bigger picture need was filled. I'll write something for you Nano people to read, and maybe take your mind to somewhere totally different for a couple of minutes. Today our grown son and I hung out a basket of washing, some his, and some mine. My wife asked if we could help out, as she normally has this nailed, but is very busy doing Tupperware demos at a Home and Garden Fair. I know she's run off her feet and won't have any energy when she gets back home. (She didn't). So we were outside doing the good deed, and probably should more often, when my son chose a pair of his jeans, black ones, as opposed to my blue ones, and showed me how he'd "given them air conditioning" the previous day getting out of the car. He'd ripped the crutch. So now he was holding the same jeans, and I'm not sure why they had to be washed. Perhaps my wife had visions of doing a repair job on them. Whatever. He proceeded to further rip them completely to a state of indecency, and then flung them on his first dog, Gruffalo. (The same dog as featured in this "pig hunting" expedition) https://youtu.be/_bVa-t9qxJM Gruff, as is his usual casual self, didn't bat an eyelid. He just lay there, in the shade of the clothesline. Then while we joked and mucked around while hanging the rest of the garments incorrectly on the line relative to the way my wife insists, he then decided to get up and walk around a bit. With the jeans still draped over him. Thus began a strange conversation. "About time you put some pants on, dog. Why can't we do that?" "Do what?" "Walk around naked." "What! What?" "Yeah. All pets. All animals do it. They are clothing optional. No. Not even optional. They just don't do clothing." "Na. They don't wear a stitch." "Yeah. Why do we have to wear clothes? Why can't we just not have to worry about them? Like, all this washing. Hanging stuff on the line. Waiting for a sunny day. Or paying more electricity for the clothes dryer. Or waiting and checking out how sunny it is so the dryer can be used off the solar panels." "Yeh. Pets have the life, eh." Gruff ended up disrobing the torn jeans. But not before the neighbour stuck his head over the fence and grinned at the dog with black jeans trailing off his Golden Labrador rump. So we had a yarn for a while. Then he had to go back to his clothes line and finish his chore. His wife is away too. Wives should be paid more. A lot more. And shouldn't have to wear...no. Let's not keep on with that train of thought. Anyway, our younger son went back inside to play computer games for a while. I went to the back yard to use the mattock on some more weeds. They've been overtaking our lawn. The chooks usually hang around me when I do this task because there are worms to be had. It must be a fertile back yard. The worms are plentiful, large and long. It's sort of gross grabbing one end of them and pulling because the piece just comes off. The other end seems to be still a complete worm. Search me how they do this but no problem for the hens. The worm gets whip lashed a few times and then gobbled up with their beak, from one end. Slurped up like a length of spaghetti until it disappears into the chook's delighted beak, beady eyes already searching perilously close to my swinging, biting mattock. Ah, but this time was different. As I approached the side of the big blue shed, I spied the new pup, the husky our younger son has just brought home (8 weeks old) was being very naughty (innocently so I try to hope) chasing the hens around. Suddenly one of them was sick of this assault. It spread it's wings and opened it's beak rushing at the pup. The pup gave such a sustained lot of yelping that our son rushed from his room, scantily clad only in slept-in trackies (trackpants) to see what was ailing his expensive and adorable new doggie. The pup won't be harassing those hens any time soon. He's ok, just learned a lesson of the ego. I think the other hens were egging on the defending chook. Just saying. Poor puppy gets swatted by Romeow too and just wanted to play https://youtu.be/ANc3_i3e5QA . Life is unfair when you are the only puppie amonst a bunch of bully chickens. Those girls waste the worms, and damage doggies. No wonder the cats stay away. Well, I hope you are able to go back to your Nano-ing now with a clear head, even if you are a bit confused by this blog entry. Here's another bit of food for thought. If you are scratching around (like chooks) looking for some inspiration, or just a fresh, oddball idea for your next chapter in the great 50k wordsmithery, then check out adverts in your local craig's list or in the Australian region, Gumtree. You can always print and bind your own book. (Folded arms and determined expression, pursed lips and knitted brows) Yep. No one else gonna do it then you have to do the whole thing yourself. Write it. Edit it. Proof it. Cover it. Publish it. Print it. Bind it. Market it. Shelve it. Sell it. Want something done properly you gotta do it yourself, right? And this here has got to be a bargain. WW3 is looming you know, and after the nuclear apocalypse, you'll all be after this sort of equipment, I know it... http://www.gumtree.com.au/s-ad/rokeby/miscellaneous-goods/book-binding-machinery... Sparky |
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