Space in the Seventies.

As I've mentioned a few times, according to my childhood ambitions, I should be working on the Moon by now. Or commuting from my otherworldly Arvo Job to my groovy pad in the swankiest district of the hippest, domed metropolis on the Martian plains. At the very least, I should be living on a cool, colony habitat orbiting Jupiter or some distant star.

If you want to relive that dream, pop over to http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/space-colony-art-from-the-1970s/  and see what the future used to look like.

 Forests.

But in space!

In the 1970′s the Princeton physicist Gerard O’Neill with the help of NASA Ames Research Center and Stanford University held a series of space colony summer studies which explored the possibilities of humans living in giant orbiting spaceships. Colonies housing about 10,000 people were designed and a number of artistic renderings of the concepts were made.

Doggie Who

If you like dogs, and you like Doctor Who, and if you have time to follow a link, and you can be bothered clicking http://metro.co.uk/2014/03/15/doctor-who-from-tom-baker-as-a-flandoodle-to-david-tennant-as-a-long-haired-chihuahua-all-12-time-lords-and-the-war-doctor-as-dogs-4571926/, you can head across and see DeviantArtist Tee-Kyrin's take on all the incarnations of our favourite Time Lord as pooches.

For example:

And:

In other news, I received a present today. I love unexpected gifts. Anyway, an Arvo Job colleague is in the process of decluttering her house and found an old book from 1963 she thought I might like: How to be Happy with a Horse by John Harrold. The illustrations by Dik are amusing - lots of pointers about the dangers of teeth, hooves and back legs are included. Chapters have titles like "Show Him He's a Status Symbol', 'Yoicks and Bally-hoo', and 'Talk Turkey to your Horse'. It's all very quaint.

 I shall browse through it tomorrow.

End of the Month Report: February 2014

Submissions:4
Rejections: 4 (the 4 I submitted)
Acceptances: 0
Published: 0
Stories out in the wild: 6
New stories completed: 1
Mood: My output was only a slight improvement on last month. Alas, just as I was building up steam, I was, as per usual, derailed by the Real World. I'm presently dragging myself out of a deep funk. The Arvo Job events of a few weeks ago hit me harder than I'd wanted (or been willing) to admit - first came the numbing shock, then the anger, then, unbeknownst even to myself for a goodly while, I slowly slid into a bluesy kind of place full of glum thoughts and the not much doing of stuff. But I've rallied and am tottering forwards. A nice weekend of writing, that's what I need to clear my system. Life is too short to waste too much headspace time on stuff one cannot control. Moving on.

Moving in a Direction that isn't Backwards

After a week of hot weather, fire horror stories, commuting problems, a major Arvo Job drama, hospital crap, a general queasiness pervading my days, and bulldozers razing a lovely, old garden to create a blitzed landscape up behind my house and across the boundaries of the two properties on either side of me, which has, by the by, completely changed the micro-climate of my backyard, I had a surprisingly lovely Sunday.

There was peace, there was quiet, there were cool breezes wafting through the house, there was much reading done (The Man Who Loved China by Simon Winchester), and after a couple of hours of sustained effort, there was a brand new story all finished on my hard drive just waiting for a polish in a week or two. And I submitted a story as well. I haven't done any submitting for quite a while, so I hope I've now reset my habits.

So there, I think I can get through next week now.

All Fired Up

Sunday was a very hot and windy day, and fires broke out all over the state here in Victoria. Homes were burnt down, big country properties were destroyed, and much acreage was incinerated. One of the outbreaks was between my place and the Arvo Job, but I didn’t realise the trains weren’t running as per usual until I arrived at the station and heard the announcement, and by then, well, if I’ve managed to get myself out the door and am on my way, I do believe in finishing my journeys. That's how adventures happen. And so it was. We travelled halfway to Melbourne, transferred to coaches – the smell of smoke and burning stuff was unbelievable – and took a series of small, country roads because the main highway was down to one lane until the next town up.

 People grumbled. They moaned and bitched. Loudly. Of course they did. One fellow stood in the aisle of the bus and declaimed a dramatic Shakespearean rant against V-line before finally bowing to his audience’s cries that he should sit down and shut up so we could get moving. More groaning ensued, and the competing jeremiads continued until, for the last 5 minutes before turning onto the highway, we drove through a vast, charred landscape and actually saw the cause of our “terrible tribulations”.

Three things happened:

-          People shut up. They began squirm. The atmosphere was one of nascent embarrassment.

-          Phones appeared. Photos were taken of other folk’s misfortunes.

-          Conversations erupted about the greatness and braveness of firemen (true enough) as people competed to demonstrate their sensitivity to the devastation around them.

Sometimes folk should just stop and think before they start with the whingeing.

Today, all the way to Melbourne, the train drove through a smoky miasma, which was spooky enough until we hit the area we’d been diverted around on Monday. The train slowed right down and we chugged through a landscape burnt to the horizon on one side of the tracks, and except for a few places where spot fires had jumped the rails, saved houses on the other side. And always the smoke.

So, when I arrived in Melbourne and went on to have a spectacularly crap day at the Arvo Job, my perspective had already been honed by viewing real problems. Not that one can shrug off one’s own misery entirely. I’m not superhuman.

Breaking Boxes

I'm busy breaking in new walking shoes so I can once more whizz medicinal laps around the local botanical gardens and leave a scorched trail in my wake through the streets and parks of Melbourne as I head for the train station each evening, which means the cats are busy breaking in a new cardboard box.

 

Friday Pay Off

So this morning I jotted 3 story ideas complete with titles in my trusty notebook, then took one of those possible tales out for a test run as I headed to the Arvo Job and wrote flat chat for an hour on the train this morning.

Ah, my brain is back, just in time for the upcoming long weekend. Now I can get on with things.

Finnegan Begin Again

January has been a bust writingwise, and in a general getting-things-done way with too much Real Life taking up all my time and energy, so I think, by necessity, I'll can my 2014 plan for hitting the ground running from day one, spend the last week of this month clearing the decks, lining up lists and projects, switch to the lunar cycle, shake off this false beginning and make the upcoming Year of the Horse my new starting line.

Year of the Horse. Now that sounds like my kind of a year! I'm not sure officially what the predictions are from those in the know, but since I don't believe in that kind of thing anyway, I can make it whatever I want it to be. I choose to make it just like horse riding - a speedy, exhilarating, going places, wind in my hair, slightly dangerous kind of a year interspersed with leisurely rambles through forests, beautiful scenery, good companionship, and much chatting.

Yep, that's a plan. Bring on the ponies.

Because No Pain is a Huge Gain

So this was a week of heat, rejections, reluctantly leaving the cool environs of the Arvo Job to trudge the hot city streets in the middle of the day because of hospital crap, and, of course, the actual hospital crap. Now, the heat has passed, the rejections I've filed away in my head to deal with another day, and the hospital crap (I even had to go into the city yesterday! On a Saturday! What a waste of precious weekend time!) has paid off because I stayed drug free today, and tonight, for the first time in a couple of months, cross fingers, I'll be off to bed without taking any pain killers. The downside is that, aside from a few must-do chores, I slept away most of today. But now I feel good. And did I mention that there's no pain! Major win.

So let me tell you this very simple truth, which those with chronic conditions will already know, but which you will not be aware of if you're fortunate enough to be as bouncing fit as I was up until two years ago: any day without pain is a good day. Most people don't appreciate that fact until it's too late. Take my advice, and take a moment to enjoy your body if it's humming along nicely. Savour the feeling. Revel in it. Really.

Anyway, hopefully after two more trips this week, I'll be good to get active and productive writerlywise again. And I'll appreciate it, believe you me. I will savour it. I will revel in it. J

Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary

This week was one of those just-get-through-it times with me trying to pace things so as to not to slide back into the Cold that Came for Christmas, negotiating an ad hoc transport system while they do maintenance on the train lines, and making it to the Arvo Job as much as possible (which turned out to be not very much at all) between a stretch of let's-start-the-year-with-a-round-of- hospital-crap. I made it to the weekend relatively intact, but no writing was done, so I'm catching up on bits and pieces today so as to set myself up for a more organised next week.

I did, however, get to see two writerly movies. After hospital crap late Friday afternoon, rather than head home during peak hour traffic, I treated myself to fried noodles, ice cream, and a movie no-one else I know wanted to see -  Saving Mr Banks - which still has me thinking about many aspects of storytelling. Australian born PL Travers ditched both her nationality (so crass) and her childhood name then reinvented herself as a British writer, used aspects of her own life to propel her Mary Poppins stories, then struggled with the idea of handing over her creation to someone she was convinced would rewrite the character. She knew the Disney populist version would swamp her rather stern and non-coddling nanny and turn Mary Poppins into a singing, twinkling, more sugary individual, and she was entirely correct. These days, when anyone thinks Mary Poppins, they think of Julie Andrews. And for the record, I adored that movie as a kid. But I feel for Travers and her loss of creative control. Unfortunately, Travers was broke. Backed into a corner, and fearful of poverty, she did the deal. Once more, penury forced an artist's hand. Still, she got to keep her house and was set up for life, which isn't to be sniffed at.

Anyway, I liked the idea of a movie about two creative people battling it out for their own version of a character, about popular entertainment versus literature, and all the layers of wondering how much of the real Walt Disney and PL Travers made it into movie and their various biographies, how much their own life stories informed their work, and how much they both used their work to redress the deprivations and wrongs of their childhoods. With the real lives and subsequent industry based on other writers' and filmfolks' interpretations of two such strong-minded individuals, there's much to sort through, and a lot of storytelling of both the truthful, not so truthful, and purely exploitative kinds to negotiate.

The other movie was The Book Thief, which also had many scenes to warm a writerly heart. I was told after the movie that I meaningfully aaaahed in certain places, which I don't usually do (how annoying!), but I'd say it would have been caused by me identifying with a young person who loves books and writing, and uses them as a calm focus to steady herself amidst the chaos and often cruel twists of our mortal existence.

If you're not one of those people who haunted libraries as a kid in search of Answers to Life's Mysteries and who views books as portals to other, often realer than Real Life places, then my behaviour is not something I can explain to you.

Plum Job

So, I'm back after multiple failures. Firstly, I was clobbered by my Christmas cold. It seemed to be getting better at one point, then returned with a vengeance. Alas, not much writing got done during my holidays, but I did prod a couple of dormant stories back into life. I napped a lot, watched movies, ate ice cream, and sat a lot in the backyard on the swing with Gus (the other cats were too busy doing their own thing) just enjoying the weather and wrestling with a few story ideas. This blahness only started to turn a couple of days ago, so I stayed home from the Arvo Job today just to make sure I didn't push myself into a relapse.  Secondly, I had internet problems. No connection for daaaaaays and daaaaaays. It was awful, but I survived :)  Now, thanks to my older little brother's emergency dash across the countryside, things have been fixed and upgraded and I'm speedier than I've even been before.

In the category of country produce news, I beat the birds to the plums in the front yard this year. I made sure to be quick after last year's catastrophic non-jam making happening. This is just half of my so far plucked haul - the rest is on the floor - and there's just as much fruit still on the tree that isn't quite ripe yet. Hopefully I'll manage to nab the rest too, but even with what I've got, there'll be plenty of plum jam for the year. Now I just need to get a truck load of sugar. And clean jars. And cut up the fruit and...

 In even further country produce news, in case you were wondering, the Chook today presented her eleventh egg. One more, and she'll hit a respectable dozen. So there you have it - I'm practically self-sufficient when it comes to plum jam and eggs.

One Minute to Midnight Sale

It looks like my dark and sad little story Sassanid Sands has found a home, which is both a lovely end to my writing year as well as a welcome just-in-the-nick-of-time-to-count-as-a-2013 writing statistic to boost my less than spectacular sales tally.

With only a day of the year to go, I'd say that a few projects that were scheduled for 2013 but haven't happened yet will now be booted to 2014 (I hope so!) - such is the publishing industry - which will make my number of publications for this year take a sudden nosedive and give next year the appearance of being positively stuffed with stories (if more are sold, naturally).

It's been a slow year for me writingwise, but much crappy crap occurred, including another operation, treatments, and lots of energy leaking into the ether. Sometimes, to just keep moving is about the best you can hope for, and you have to make sure that you remember to be grateful for the fact that you are indeed capable of moving. I was mostly still able to do my Arvo Job duties, though with reduced hours, occasionally go horse riding, head off for a movie each week, get out and about to a few special events, visit friends, pat cats, read, and take care of day to day life. I only wrote four new stories from scratch this year, but have almost finished a few biggies that have been simmering a goodly while, and sold 5 stories.

For now, that's good enough.

What I Got for Christmas...

...was a whopping great cold.

Thank you, public transport, and all those caring, sharing, unmannerly individuals who apparently never learnt to cover their mouths whilst coughing up their lungs. I just knew they were out to get me.

This lurgy was sneaking up on me those last days at the Arvo Job, slowed me down the first few days of my holidays but thankfully behaved itself for our family Xmas celebrations, then felled me on the Thursday.

Ah well, the worst of the coughing seems to be over. And books have been read rather rapidly, lots of movies have been watched, pots of tea have been drunk, and copious amounts of ice cream have been consumed, so it's not all bad.

Still, I had plans, other plans, big plans, do-worthy plans, admirable plans...

Tomorrow. It's another day, they say. We'll see.

Nowhere Day

After lots of flat out, end of the year Arvo Jobbing (with two more days to go *sigh*), much Xmas busyness (and more to come) and a weekend of movies and horse riding etc, I gave myself permission to do absolutely nothing today. In fact, I insisted upon it. Apart from a reading, the hanging of Xmas lights out the back, and a few household tasks, I'm proud to announce that I napped a lot and accomplished my goal!

The weather helped, I have to admit. There's nothing like a really hot and daggy day to help one maintain low performance and stay on track to achieving not a single pre-determined target.

Alas, I did slip up a little. All my floating around with an offline brain proved conducive to ruminating upon story ideas, and even though I told the half-done tales that presented themselves that I was off for the day, a few notes were jotted. But nothing major! I swear!

Oh, and I did go 'yay' to an email about a story being held for consideration, but it was a very soft cheer. Hardly audible.

   

Horse Riding Cures Almost Everything, Maybe.

I've had a few aches sneak up on me lately, and wasn't sure how well a day of horse riding would go down with my body, but being a great believer in not knowing how things will turn out until you have a go, I headed off with a pocket full of pills to meet my sister for a whole day of riding in Daylesford, just the two of us. If worse came to worse, I thought, I could always bail on the afternoon ride.

Good thing I did go. A couple of panadols was all I needed - which is, strangely enough, a lot less than I down to get through a far less physically exerting sit-still shift at the Arvo Job (go figure) - and a great day was had. My sister sneakily snapped this fab photo of me contentedly moseying along through the forest on my old friend M. with her phone, and I'm glad she did. See, you can miss out on much good stuff if you overthink what might happen. I actually feel really good, though tired, and I will, no doubt be sore tomorrow, and the day after. However, it's important, I think, to do things that make you feel strong when you're not well, even if you have to push yourself a bit - the positive feedback loop is worth a truckload of pharmaceutical products. My sister and I have vowed that we'll be getting back into our regular riding schedule again next year. We're over pottering along the laneways like old ladies and want to be hellions on horseback once more. It's our thing.

So yeah, beautiful weather, scenic countryside full of rolling hills, happy, green forests full of colourful parrots, good horses, fine food, fun company, a much appreciated lift home (thank you, Cindy) AND I snapped a few pics for my much neglected Foalwatch:

Oh, What a Tangle of Cords We Weave

Today I recharged me with a sleep in and a couple of naps so I won't conk out at the Arvo Job over the next couple of days, and added some power to my iPod to prevent a catastrophic inability to access sanity-saving, mind-expanding but gentle-on-computer-strained-eyes audio books during my breaks. Strange to think I once scoffed the notion of listening to books.

 I also juiced up my mobile phone, mostly so I can receive texts as I hate talking on the thing in public, and topped up my notebook lest I find myself working away on a story on the train, tapping words in a rush of inspiration only to have the dreaded 'battery low' warning pop up, bringing on a mad scramble for old fashioned paper and a pen so I can capture a few shiny sentences before they disappear into the ether. And to think that once upon a time, I could only write in my non-moving study at my very own keyboard with no-one in the room and absolute silence around me. What a wuss I was.

 Last, but not least, I uploaded a new collection to my e-reader, and left the device to siphon energy so I can keep up with my now habitual daily intake of short stories (usually 2). It's turning out to be a real gem that e-reader. I'm getting a real feel for the work of different writers, and love the way I can now easily access collections I'm curious about.

So, I'm all powered up (and I'm a relative Philistine compared with many device-dependant people I know) and ready to hit the commuting trail again tomorrow.

Aaaaaah, only 2.5 weeks to the Christmas hols....

After an Officey Day...

 

 

...full of weariful intrigues and much uphill struggling, it was lovely to come home to a package from Prime Books, rip it open, pull out books that include one's own name in the TOC, and fondle said books.

Yes, I've received my contributor copies of Aliens: Recent Encounters. Guess what I'll be dipping into this weekend?

Nice.

What My Brain Saw

So I was on a tram, on my way to the Arvo Job, looking at people and thinking about stuff, just maybe daydreaming a bit, when I glanced out the window and saw a sign with an arrow that clearly read 'To Extermination Complex'.

A split second and one blink later, my brain realised its mistake, tweaked a few synapses, "reality" reasserted itself, and the sign was so very obviously made up of the far more innocuous words 'To Entertainment Complex'.

But maybe my brain was right the first time? If so, what nefarious happenings am I not seeing on a daily basis as I make my way about town?

No, it was definitely an eye-brain glitch.

Not a matrix moment.

I hope.

Energy Diversion

Today was a public holiday (Melbourne Cup Day), so I diverted the energy I would usually dole out on commuting to the city and expend on doing my bit at the Arvo Job into catching up on sadly neglected cleaning chores that often feel like a bridge too far during a normal work week. The place was starting to feel way too cobwebby and dusty for my peace of mind.

All the big rugs were washed and hung to dry out in the wonderful, warm, jasmine-scented Spring air, and tomorrow I plan to wash the floorboards before returning said rugs to their rightful places. Covers and cat bedding and assorted throws are likewise enjoying a night out under the stars and wafting in the freshening breezes. I also weeded - the back garden is mostly presentable now except for one damned black spot that I will out, out next for 'tis time to do't - and, continuing my Great and Borderline Obsessive Destacking Quest, I got rid of as many old cardboard boxes from the back shed as my recycle bin could hold. I'm already scoping out my next stack (once all the old cardboard boxes are gone). I think it'll be those printed copies of the different drafts of the first two books of my way-too-massive SF saga. Hard to part with, but they fill a lot of space, and my Great but Neglected Work is all safely stowed on multiple hard drives anyway.

I also baked and did a lot of reading.

All of this may seem like dreary stuff to post about, but I'm excited, because I can feel it's part of my old cycle of tidying up my physical environment after a period of relative blahness and so-so writing in readiness for a creative surge above and beyond my usual daily output. Things are bubbling.

And I did write today as well, in between my Herculean tasks. I ripped apart one of my darlings that just isn't being snapped up despite kind comments, and ruthlessly edited it. I'm determined that it SHALL be sold! The process was, satisfactorily, a lot like destacking :)

Now for some baked goodies and visual entertainment.

Overreacting Strangers in the Night

This evening, after the Arvo Job, I was walking to the train station when a car that was obliged by law to stop and let me cross the road actually stopped to let me cross the road. Since that was both nice and courteous of him/her, I looked at the driver, tipped my head in acknowledgement, and mouthed a distinct thank you as I walked past the front of the car - as you do in such situations.

When I'd passed, the driver opened his side window and shouted "You should say thank you, lady" in an outraged voice. I checked to see whether he was speaking to me. He was. And then he was gone in a vrooming rush.  'I did say thank you,' I thought, 'But now I really wish I hadn't.'

What did he expect? Maybe I should have given him a thumbs up? Shouted my thanks? Done a song and interpretive dance of gratitude on the pavement? I'm not sure. But I don't think his reaction was terribly civil. Maybe he'd had a bad day and felt unappreciated and neglected? Again, not sure. But it was a lot of commotion for a such small thing.

Ah well, it's been that kind of a day. Nothing to do but move on.