Hello again… 11, November 2007
Posted by babychaos in General Wittering, Grumpy Old Bag, Life and living, writing.Tags: General Wittering, holidays, Life and living, writing
7 comments
Well, tanned and suitably refreshed - except for one night when I was convinced I was dying (that “pins and needles in your hands and feet” they talk about you getting when you’re pregnant is a lot more than just that… it’s like the last 10 seconds before you pass out with a general anaesthetic, only again, and again, and again, and again…). Anyway… where was I?
Oh yes, Portugal was sunny, warm and satisfyingly full of fresh fish - hours old most of the time - and suitably gloopy eggy puddings. I have been trawling the net for recipes for their egg custard tarts and almond tort both of which are like having angels tiptoeing across your tongue! Mmm…
Came home yesterday and reacquainted myself with my hatred of people who go “ooooh” and “aaaaah” at fireworks like brain-dead sheep. I think the main cause of my ire is that it always seems a bit phoney, like they’re doing it for effect rather than because they want to. Then again, I’m the kind of person who hates it when you’re in the audience at a show, some music comes on and everyone starts to clap along. I feel completely phoney doing that, too.
Maybe I’m just an uptight, undemonstrative, anal retentive stereotype of a Brit. Yeh. That must be it. But then I refer you to this post, here… which, to me, shows exactly why that kind of attitude works!
On the writing front, the Snowflake Method has proved excellent. I’ve only done step 1 and half of step 2 out of 10 (don’t laugh) BUT I have worked out how the first book ends… hoorah!
I’ve also discovered I must have crossed wires with my usual printer but in what appears to be a very good way. I explained I wanted to print up to 4 cards and asked how much it would cost for one so I could work out how much 4 would cost. What they didn’t tell me was that to print 2 only costs £50 more than printing one… so I’ll have to ask them for a quote for all four (wahoo!). It’s Sunday now, so I can’t ring them to check until tomorrow. More on that story… Later.
I should have two in a couple of weeks but if it works out, I’ll have four.
Fermata… 2, November 2007
Posted by babychaos in General Wittering, Light Fluff, writing.8 comments
Not bus stop in Italian, pause. Yes, I am going to have a lovely holiday for a week, in Portugal. Rock on egg custard tarts and that weird swiss roll style cake with the gloopy orange custard in it. I can’t wait!
So all I have to do is make sure I get my Christmas card designs finished and sent off to the printer tomorrow… and I can rest easy. It’s warm in Portugal, not boiling but sunny and warm enough.
Did I say I can’t wait?
I have also joined this writing thing… Nanowrimo… National Novel Writing Month. I have set myself the task of planning my novel and writing up a reasonably coherent plot by the end of November. If I can write the 55,000 words the competition dictates, I will. If I can’t, well, no worries, it’s the coherent plot bit I need to get right.
So armed with a print out of “The Snowflake Method” (outlined here) to guide me I will be spending an hour or so, each day, on developing my plot, characters, etc… in the hope that it will enable me to actually finish my novel.
If I don’t manage to pop in and write/comment some drivvle tomorrow, I will be back next week!
…And another thing! 11, September 2007
Posted by babychaos in Art, General Wittering, Life and living, Light Fluff, Play, writing.Tags: Gods, Music
3 comments
I need a job and…
Oh yeh! And I’d like to be a professional illustrator too…
General wittering and flittering from subject to subject… 8, August 2007
Posted by babychaos in Humour, Life and living, Light Fluff, Play, whinging, winging, writing.Tags: Beginner MTB, dreams, Exercise, Hobbies, household, oops, Small Scale Disasters
7 comments
Last night I wandered to the loo for a pee - as you do - and had an excellent idea. It was the most fantastic idea for a sci-fi novel. I wondered if I should write it down but I couldn’t be arsed, mainly because I reckoned it was so original and strange that there was no way I would forget it.
I did.
Although, you have to give me points for the fact that I did remember that I’d had a fantastic idea…
This is not a post for the “help me I’m going completely senile” section because fearful for my sanity as I am, I still have the presence of mind to realise that this kind of thing is normal amongst all of us… and quite funny, which is why it’s shared with you here today (oh yes it is). On the subject of the onset of madness… or not (erk) I have my test results on Monday… at 9 am. Hmm… I’ll be looking forward to that one (not). Still I can go cycling afterwards.
Going back to THE FANTASTIC IDEA, the one I’ve temporarily (I hope it’s temporary) forgotten, it lead on from a dream I had about going to the US to meet a cyber friend and finding, when I got to the airport, a completely different man was standing there holding the sign with his name on. Smelling a rat I decided not to meet him. I then discovered that as well as switching continents on the flight, I’d switched dimensions of space and time. Mr BC was married to someone else and my family didn’t know me because in this version of space and time, I had died young.
I had to get back to my own version because I was missing Mr BC and to do that I had to befriend my brother and try to get him to believe I was his sister… This is not the fantastic idea, of course, because this is the whole concept behind the popular TV show “Sliders”. Arse! And for a minute, there, I thought it was my own!
Another idea which hit me in the still, small watches of the night was that maybe it would be a good idea to write one of the Novels up as a play for Radio 4. It’s quirky, it makes me laugh (no guarantee it’ll do that for anyone else, of course but it’s a start) I like the characters and I suspect it would be fun to do.
Jumping back to my knackeredness and general lack of memory. On Joe Drinker’s advice - and Martha’s and many of my non-virtual friends too - it has occurred to me that it might be smart to give up one of the jobs. I’m not enjoying writing corporate puff. I guess a big part of the problem is that the stuff I get to write about tends to be stuff that is so boring even the people who do it for a living don’t want to think about it long enough to write their website… So it’s like pulling teeth. Especially when I’m knackered. Even if it is a lot more effective when you are sending a novel to a publisher to be able to say “I’m a professional copywriter and…”except that the amount of time it takes up the moment I’ll never get round to finishing my sodding book. Which brings me neatly onto my next thought…
Bearing that in mind - and that it’s boring, I decided, today, to pretend I wasn’t doing it any more and do what I’d do if I hadn’t any copy to work on. I have not felt so good in a long time. Case closed. So tactfully and gradually, so as not to leave them too much in the lurch, I am going to have to bin it.
In the meantime, fitness a go-go and a bit of a diet or at least a “let’s eat healthily” binge… I have been spending the hour a day I usually write this, three days a week, anyway, on my bicycle - hence my rather sporadic posting of late - that and having more work than is feasible because I’m such a crap judge of how long it’s going to take.
I’m such a spud about my biking at the moment that I even have some smashing photographs of the tracks I am riding to show you when I get round to it… yes, I’m a complete potato. I was actually going to “show you my ride” I mean as well as the bike and the car (gack!). I can’t show you the best ride because it’s closed - they’re removing a de-railed freight train from the railway near there but eventually I hope to get round to it.
I have broken both the pairs of mountain climbing trousers I’ve been wearing to ride in these two weeks of frenetic activity which has led me to a conundrum…. what to wear?
Now, most cyclists wear lycra shorts. That’s fine for them but when your body is 40% fat and you are a British size 20 on top and 18 at the bottom - that’s a US 18 and 16, respectively - lycra is not your friend.
Conversely, since cyclists are, by nature, light, lithe creatures they are much enamoured with lycra and there is a great demand from the manufacturers for the kinds of small, tight pieces of lycra clothing which fit cyclists.
This I can understand, for a t-shirt which clings tightly to your washboard stomach and shows off your magnificent tits is great… when it shows of your magnificent tits but highlights a big roll of flab underneath it’s not so great. It’s especially frustrating since they do cut them the right shape for me, they go in and out in all the right places, they just go a bit too far in and not quite far enough out. If only they went one size bigger, I’d be laughing… and looking rather good. Although since most of these things are polyester, to which I am allergic, I suspect I’d also be itching. Arse! 
All this leaves me wondering… Do I risk another pair of shorts or just carry on in the mountain climbing trousers which, even with big splits* in the upper inside leg are still in far better taste than venturing out in lycra cycling shorts would be…
Hmm…
* Well, I’ll sew them up - obviously - but I’m not god’s gift to needlework so it’s likely they’ll have come unsewn again by the end of an hour’s cycling.
I leave you with bunny hops. Yes you can make your bike jump if you try hard enough. I am trying very hard although my bike is not jumping very much at the moment. The technique is very similar to jumping on a horse and I wasn’t much cop at that either! Never mind, I have been attempting them and on the one occasion in about 50 when I get them right it is a peculiarly liberating feeling. Highly recommended.
Yeh, I’m still knackered but at least now I’ve got a damn good reason and strangely, I feel better. So for your delectation here is somebody teaching and showing you how Bunny Hops should be done…
He makes it look soooooo easy!
And don’t forget now people… Skeletor says get out there and practise… and who am I to cross a scary dude like Skeletor?
It’s so quiet… 14, May 2007
Posted by babychaos in General Wittering, Life and living, Light Fluff, Work, writing.Tags: household, Illness, Small Scale Disasters
8 comments
It certainly is round here…
I’m afraid it’s because I’m devoid of two things… the first is time and the second is inspiration!
I have some real work to finish but it shouldn’t be too much of a problem because it’s only topping and tailing and when it’s done I’ll be one happy lady! Just two pages of web copy - about 800 words, stand between me and finishing something that’s been hanging over me for several months. Wahoo!
I’ve also got my in-laws coming, which, is good, too but also kind of scary. This is because it means I have to spring clean the house from top to bottom and then it just might look about as clean and tidy as theirs does if they leave off all tidying and housework for about ooooh… three months!
I grew up in a mad professor environment so I’ve been brought up with the idea that cleaning anything except for the bathrooms and kitchen - oh and possibly the potting shed or greenhouse - is pointless drudgery and that people who do so more than is absolutely necessary (and my parents didn’t deem it very necessary at all) are, frankly, a little bit strange. I have learned, since, that this is not entirely true, normally it just means they are from the north.
I have a theory as to why this is, ergo that my parents can be quite clumsy when they are nervous and I think one of them must, at some point, have been psychologically damaged by going round to a very neat, tidy home and spilling something evil and staining, probably red wine, all over something expensive, a white drawing room carpet, for example, sending their friend’s mother ballistic in the process and being banned from said home for ever and ever!
Whatever caused it, there was a positive cultivation of untidiness in our house when I was a kid. I think another of the many reasons it was considered a good thing was because all the stuff my parents had was old because there’s no point having anything good if you’ve got kids right? If they don’t ruin it, their friends will.
This kind of transmuted itself to an idea that having a clean and tidy house was tantamount to giving your guests a good slapping and telling them to get out and sod off elsewhere because they are messing the place up! (I still subscribe to the theory that anyone who goes for the Bauhaus leather and chrome, nothing-on-any-surface-white-carpeted look is, basically, using their furnishings to tell you exactly that but I digress.) I think the idea was that if guests feel nervous about spilling or staining in a home they can’t relax properly and you are failing in your duty as a host to make them welcome.
I’d guess another strong influence to cause this attitude was one of the mothers in the village who had a dose of obsessive compulsive disorder so got a bit la la when anything in her house was disturbed by every day use - let alone by the kind of use it gets subjected to by a group of teenagers.
So, we’ve established that I take to housework like a duck to quantum physics… actually, no, I’d lay bets many ducks are better at quantum physics than I am at cleaning a house, well, not so much cleaning it’s the making it look clean afterwards! That’s where I really fall down, my “cleaned” rooms often look untidier than the ones I haven’t touched, to me, even if they are less dusty. Hmm…
So when the in-laws come, having given the house a birthday, I live in fear that some grungy bit of something that has slipped under my radar will be seen by my them and then they’ll think I’m not looking after their son properly. I know they won’t care, I know this isn’t true but it’s still what I fear! They’re a northern family - so everyone’s homes are amazing, welcoming and relaxing to be in but completely spotless.
It’s getting better, this pointless cleanliness inferiority complex I have. I bat a lot higher than I used to - but I am still very aware that while Mum in-law and the other ladies in her family (even the ones who married in) are cleaning to international competition standard I’m little more than a gifted amateur… Down hill with the wind behind me I might possibly be a regional finalist if it’s a very small region. A definite 60% tops against levels of 90% on a bad day as standard.
I am also infected at the moment, so garnering up the inspiration to write corporate puff or the energy to clean is harder than usual. I’m on antibiotics and that’s always a pisser. These ones especially, I’m on the wagon for seven days - not only that but if you leave the pills in your mouth too long or one inadvertently gets stuck to your tongue, they taste exactly like earwax and we all know how horrible that tastes! That said, at least I only have to take three a day.
On the up side… my book is sort of progressing. For a start, by writing for a living and writing other things, like this, my skill at handling words seems to be improving. So while I could always write their conversation, I find I am describing my characters’ actions as well as their speech - and the underlying emotions behind both - with a bit more realism and conviction. It all seems less disjointed, less jemmied in than before! Not quite there, then, but closer.
I still haven’t really worked how I’m going to resolve the plot in a believable way but at least I now have some ideas about key scenes which will definitely be included and a better set of skills with which to paint the action. That means I can write them up and sort out, later, whereabouts in the chain of events they are going to be. THAT is definitely a result!
Right then better get on. The hoover calls… Hey ho…
