Fall Out 4 in My Dressing Gown

Sometimes the words seem to fall from my finger tips, it’s as though I have little involvement in the process at all; I sit, I type and the story practically writes itself. Sometimes I appear to float through my working day nothing hinders me and all runs smoothly whereas other times everything annoys me, everything is difficult and my back aches.

On Monday with aching back I had inspiration; so I sat on the sofa with many cushions for support and typed away on the lap top. The story didn’t quite work, the story would have made a good poem, the poem turned out to be rubbish; never mind perhaps I will return to it sometime.

On Tuesday and Wednesday I played Fall Out 4, but got stuck in a lengthy cut scene just before bed time.

On Thursday I arrived home with books from the library and minimal back pain. I had lesson inspiration and sat on the sofa underlining passages, jotting down ideas and making lists. By Friday evening the inspiration had waned somewhat but I made some progress and developed my ideas further. I went to bed with plans. I visualized the next day, the Saturday morning kitchen table, piled high with books and notes and progression.

It did not rain on Saturday, the sky was blue, the morning was bright, all the signs were there for a productive day and yet I completely couldn’t be arsed. My inspiration, my motivation, aspiration, get up and go, my entrepreneurial spirit, my drive, my passion, my sense of purpose, had; during the night utterly dissipated and it took several hours before I even managed to get out of my dressing gown.

I thought I’d get on with it after lunch, which I didn’t. I did nothing. I wasn’t down, or depressed, or tired or run into the ground. I just couldn’t be bothered and yet I’m awfully uncomfortable with that.

Society is constantly telling me I should do things. Those facebook photos with the pictures of nice skies and the like are telling me not to lose one single day, to DO IT NOW, to get up and smell the coffee, the roses, and so on. I should have been walking on the beach, baking a cake, making a thing, working a manuscript, listening to music, practicing Yoga, even casting a spell, yet I couldn’t even be bothered with my Sims.

Friday night I was reading about Belbin's theory of team types, yet another archetype thing, some people are innovators, some are coordinators you know the how it goes; and I couldn’t but help think; as I always do with archetypes, that depending on my mood, I am any one of those types.

From one day to the next I can be  the type that cannot be arsed. I can be the type that spends all day in a dressing gown, I can sit in my shack in Fall Out 4; gaze onto the partially cleared street I’ve created and not even bother with one single quest.

And that’s OK because the next day I can be a go getter again!

Likes and Guns

I liked a thing on facebook. It was Obama, wearing a dunce’s hat and repeatedly writing Criminals Don’t Register Guns on a blackboard. I liked it because I found it vaguely amusing. It conjured images of pro gun lobbyists lecturing the well educated and thoughtful Obama and that amused me; because they are right, criminals don’t register guns; neither do they dress in black and white stripes or carry swag bags.

Incidentally I like Obama; I understand that what I see of him is a carefully crafted media persona, however he strikes me as an intelligent, well meaning, principled individual, with very little power to make any real difference.

I don’t like guns, though I guess I appreciate them, they are sunk fast into popular culture; Sarah Connor had a massive stash of them in Terminator 2, they were in The Avengers with John Steed and Emma Peel, they’re in paintings, photos, songs and I have a great selection of them in FallOut 4.

I thought about it and came to the conclusion that NO ONE needs a gun. No one at all. But that’s not going to happen because of The Criminals. The arguments always the same; no point in banning alcohol because production will go underground and The Criminals will take charge, like what happens with drugs.

So I get to wondering about those law breakers. In the case of guns I’m wondering how many criminals use guns. There are lots of laws and you don’t necessarily need a gun to break the law, think of for example; identify theft. Then I’m wondering what constitutes a gun crime, daft I know; until you realize that when the definition of what constitutes a knife was adjusted the figures for knife crime fell in the UK.

I’m thinking if you had a gun then I should have one too, just to make it; balanced. I’m still not sure how I feel about guns and I’m usually an all or nothing kind of girl.

It seems Obama is proposing only minor adjustments to the gun laws but minor adjustments very much annoy me; for example, no smoking in enclosed public spaces, in bus shelters, in cars, before long in your own garden shed, if it’s that bad why not ban it altogether? Make the selling of tobacco illegal, don’t make minor adjustments. Oh you can’t do that because of criminals. We certainly give a lot of consideration to those criminals don’t we? I don’t like that we do that.

I guess that’s the problem with the liking thing, I’ve never been very fond of the word like, it’s sort of insipid, not one thing or the other, who wants to be liked? Loved? Adored? Worshiped; even bloody hated, but not liked.

Tomorrow I will post on Facebook that I’ve written a blog about Likes and Guns; some friends will Like it, that doesn’t mean they will read it, just like my liking that facebook thing doesn’t mean I’m pro gun, it doesn’t mean I’m anti gun. The like button doesn’t mean anything at all.

Leaves Falling

I got disheartened; no one much reads the blog and that makes me feel like a mad woman shouting things at a bus stop. Indeed on occasion I am gripped by the desire to shout at the bus stop mostly; “How much of my life have I spent waiting for bloody buses?” and other stuff like that.

With it being a New Year; I thought I should be disheartened no longer, take on the advice of my friend “If you build it they will come” and just keep going and shouting.

Until this morning I had no idea what I was going to blog about; perhaps I would discuss the book I’ve finished reading, maybe dissect how edgy I feel about mindfulness or even just go with the New Year’s resolutions thing. I might put together my own reflection of the past year, narrow it down to December, in particular this past two week holiday; one of the wettest warmest Decembers ever in the history of weather, one in which there seemed to be tragedy after tragedy.

A Christmas period during which, people in this country, in this day and age, in these sophisticated hi-tech modern day times, were actually flooded out of their homes; with water. We haven’t worked out what to do about heavy rainfall and raising rivers (I’m going to say it again): In This Day and Age! Those poor people.

There was that tragic accident at The Costa coffee shop, Christmas Eve wasn’t it? And that man, who drowned in Cornwall, on New Year’s Day; trying to save his dog. The list goes on you only need to read the news to see that a lot of people died, in various tragic ways.

This morning we got a phone call from my father-in-law, my husband’s grandmother had passed away last night. She was very old, no one expected her to go on forever, no one does do they? Half an hour later I got a phone call from my mum; my uncle’s partner died in the early hours of the morning, she had been ill for a long time and now her suffering was over.

Who wants to read about people dying? It seems wrong to ignore it though, it wouldn’t be right to blog about, for example; my cooking successes and failures not today, no this death thing is, an all too frequent event, met with “How awful” and “I’m so sorry.” Because what else can you say?

I’d like to be able to turn this around, to say something about the cycle of life or put together one of those inspirational quotes that appear on photographs of sunsets, but I just keep thinking about the trees; the landscape changes about them, new roads, mended pavements, different people passing by and every autumn the leaves fall.

Yes, you say here is the metaphor; the tree comes back to life in the summer. Maybe, but we can’t stop the leaves falling can we?

The Critic

I have written previously of the Hints and Tips for writers that I hate so much. A reoccurring theme is that a writer must read, all things, good and bad. I spent my life reading, and now I’m writing. During my holidays which are sadly over, I entered a prestigious writing competition, wrote a 160 word piece of flash fiction, a story about my house, a 500 word story for another competition and a story for an Irish radio show. I also did some reading.

I finished The Black Cloud by Fred Hoyle, described by Richard Dawkins as the greatest science fiction ever written. It was OK. It begins like a science detective novel in that all problems are resolved with science, then it goes a bit soft, but the ending is impressive, it ends the only way it could and it makes rather profound statements, for example that in order to understand what I am saying you must first learn my language. Obvious yet powerful, how for example can my students understand what I am saying if they have limited vocabulary?

 I then read Old Country by Leonard Donofrio, not a book I would have chosen, but it was written by a friend and I felt obliged. I know how difficult it is to get people to read your stuff. I have family members who don’t read my blog, who are quite frankly uninterested and it seemed only right to read the works of a friend. This task was laden with obligation, what was I to do if I hated it? How insulting would it be to repeat what is done at reading groups “I liked the bit when ..”?

I read Old Country with an attitude not applied when I read Death and the Dolce Vita, The English Patient and Orlando. Why? Because they were published, they had quotes on the cover that made them good to read: recommended. All three are partly read.

Maybe I read Leonard’s book because I had to. I said I would. I didn’t have to read those that remain unread. I read Old Country in a different way: critically. Why am I not critical of published books? I saw my own mistakes in Leonard’s work, mistakes I will fix eventually if I ever manage a novel that is complete.

Everything Leonard wrote I turned back on myself, I do that, I wouldn’t do that and so on. I don’t apply these same rules to published writers and yet it is clear that I should. Reading can be an active occupation if you read as though you are giving advice.

Who am I to tell Stephen Gundle to get on with it, or Michael Ondaatje that his story appears to be going nowhere or Virginia Wolf that the poetry is pretty but the story is too ambling?

I am a writer. I'm a reader too. I may not have the sort of backing some writers have and neither does Leonard, over three evenings he took me to Italy and nearly made me cry. Yes there were faults but, there are faults everywhere. 

Feeling Lost

There is a train station, only two streets over from us and you have to flag the train if you want it to stop. How quaint! Not nearly as quaint as Calstock which is fast becoming one of my favorite places and perhaps where I should like to live when I’m earning big money.

It is lush; heavy with foliage, rich with the river, ripe with character and steeped in history. It is the sort of place that seems as though every other house homes an eccentric ghost.

On previous visits, we have taken country paths, and gotten lost, we have gone blackberry picking and gotten lost, one occasion we had the dog with us and got lost. 

This time the boy and I decided to walk from Calstock up to Cotehele house. A glorious walk if ever there was one. I believe the boy was having jungle fantasies as he clambered among the giant foliage. I was hoping for inspiration for a story on the theme of Haptics and instead found that I was happily vacant, thinking of nothing, nothing but peace, the kind of peace you expect to find on holiday. Until we got lost.

It was towards the end of our full day and neither of us could recall how we came upon the house. We followed a steep hill, saw the sign and walked in. Which way was the steep hill? Panic set in. I could see the viaduct in the distance, but how to get there?

View down into Calstock, we needed to get to the Viaduct.

I ranted to the boy for a bit then asked people, which way to Calstock? Several pointed us in the wrong direction,  it could not be along the tarmac road because we didn’t come up that way we came up a hill. No one seemed to know about the hill. Eventually we followed the complex directions of a man who orchestrated the way with his walking stick. We remained unconvinced until we found three people also walking to Calstock, we were on the right road and suddenly everything felt safe, Ah yes we said look there is the bench I rested at, there is the place he found the big stick. We would have plenty of time to catch the train, we would even have time for the pub!

Today, I am again feeling lost. My holiday is rapidly running away from me and I have achieved so little. The bathroom is still not complete. The park project is only barley begun, the piece of flash fiction still on the lap top, the ironing pile imposing. Other than this blog entry and the dishes I have achieved nothing today. The world is heavy with directions. I must have a routine, I must write every day, I must do morning pages, meditate, share, publicise, enter competitions, short stories, novels, and now suddenly I have decided a graphic novel might be a good idea.

I suppose what I’m looking for is the break through, that acknowledgement that I am on the right path, that not only will I be able to get there, but there will be time to do the ironing too.

Choices

 Taken from The Stanley Parable http://www.galactic-cafe.com/

Along with growing my own tomato, slicing it, garnishing with sweet basil (grown on the windowsill) and adding it to a cheese sandwich, week three of my holiday has also seen me take several walks, partake in a little DIY and complete The Stanley Parable.

One of the questions I ask my game students is how they intend to persuade the player to take a predetermined path without specifically instructing them to do so? The Stanley Parable turns this concept on its head in a clever, entertaining and engaging manner.

At one stage the narrator was aghast to see that I had made a “meaningful choice” and that started me thinking. One afternoon this week I listened to a radio show regarding the migrant situation at Calais, a caller announced that “it was their choice.”

Where is the choice when ISIS is chasing you down? In terms of game balance this would be unacceptable, do you head, A: for certain death, or B a safer alternative? You wouldn’t put that in a game, there would be no balance; it would be too obvious.

Taken from The Stanley Parable http://www.galactic-cafe.com/

It was my choice to go to work, was it? Is it still a choice when the only alternative is starvation? Is a choice well taken when only half the information is available? Can you make a meaningful choice when you are only aware of one potential outcome and have not the background knowledge to accurately assess the alternative?

Indeed there is some level of excitement in the unknown; in a little risk taking and not everything can be known ahead. For example you may be in a comfortable lifestyle, perhaps with one child, you might consider yourself well informed on the country’s economic situation and when you discover that you’re pregnant, you might feel that yes this is a baby you want to keep.

How the hell were you supposed to know that there was going to be a massive global recession? Tell that to the people on Question Time.

Your entire life is the making of meaningful choices, but in a game you all start at the same place, with the same information. Some players might put more into it than you, they might read the wiki pages, might play longer, join forums, but all players begin at the same place, the same information is available even though some information needs to be hunted down and sought out.

Taken from Bioshock Infinite

Well I have been seeking out information and still remain directionless. It seems to me that I can, if I choose just get on with it and be a writer. All my research suggests that in order to do this I just have to write. All my reading implies that I don’t even have to be very good at it. I just have to do it, to be it, to believe it, to become it.

So I have a plan: To reinvent myself and make the transition from teacher to writer. I’m thinking this would be an interesting experiment. Could I change the way I think and the way I am perceived and so change the choices available to me? Wouldn’t that be a good idea for a project?

Watch this space.

The Stages of Story

3D model created by hubby as this weeks illustration:
https://andyartisand.carbonmade.com/

How do stories happen?

I do sometimes feel as if they fall straight out of my finger tips and one idea follows another like rain on summer holidays, there’s a little more to it than that though. Here are my observations on the stages of story.

The Hook

This is the seed of an idea. The seed may be generated through various creative techniques; such as automatic writing, or mind mapping. I find the seed turns up when I am in quiet mode; doing the dishes or riding the bus from work, a flutter of an idea drifts in, a kind of notion to be mulled.

Various notions I have had include, the markings on pavements delivering a secondary message altogether, the ability to listen to white goods and anything that looks like a face having consciousness.

The Inspiration

This is the best bit of all, this is when the notion has germinated (this might take years), and when it’s ready your subconscious reels it in and you become alive with a workable idea. This is fast writing and feels so rewarding. I do this on the lap top, on the sofa often with music.

The Voice

Here I look at the frenzy of words on the laptop and try to create a mood. I think about the voice of the writer, the rhythm of the words and how the reader will relate to the nature of the protagonists journey.

The Rules

This happens in silence at the PC. It involves asking lots of questions. Have I set the scene? Is there enough back-story? What are the protagonists motivations? Who is the antagonist? Where is the conflict? How does the protagonist overcome the conflict? Do we see the protagonist grow? Is it too predictable? Can I re-order the structure? The Rules are the hardest bit, I don’t think I have ever answered all the questions effectively.

The Edit

I love asides; minor details that add flavor; for example that Raqui Star offered Shadow Alignment only on Saturday afternoons. Unfortunately in the edit I have to take a lot of these out. I don’t mind ditching words in order to be succinct but I don’t always want the asides to go.

Punctuating and Proofing

I use the child for this. I ask him to count two for a comma, three for a full stop and four at the end of a paragraph. If he stumbles I know I need to rework something. Husband provides proof reading and has so far served me well.

There should be a word or two about acceptance; what makes a story a success. And you know all I can conclude is it’s simply a matter of taste; I guess it’s for the reader to decide. Maybe we could return to it sometime.

Finally if you are a writer and your stages of story differ to mine, do share and let us know what works for you.