I like having an accountability monitor and this week, I've promised my team that I will have a chapter written by 9 a.m. on Monday, and I've chosen rightly or wrongly, to do a complete rewrite of an early chapter which needs a complete revision. What I have down at the moment isn't cutting it - and it's a crucial chapter where Faith, my protagonist, has to make a phone call which will adjust her whole reality.
In the first draft, I had her one the phone in the early evening, making the appointment, going through an administrivial all relaying information which the reader needs to know in a not-so-great way, so I've been walking around trying to think of different ways to approach the chapter.
I've also set my procrastination list, and have marked off a few things on that:
So far I've:
Walked 13000 steps - went for a walk with Jay
Set the agenda for the Property Association
Had a sneaky traveller mulled gin
Had a chat with George from the gym
Made dinner
Got the stuff ready to do the Mason's books
And generally procrastinated over a heap of things.
I hate rewriting, but it has to be done. It's just finding the hook for the chapter, and some narrative drive. It's what you do when you get stuck on a situation - what does my protagonist need to do? What is she trying to escape? Why is she avoiding what she is about to do? What are her feelings about what she's doing? How does this make her act? What are the consequences of her avoiding what has to be done. Getting the narrative drive on this crucial scene is hard
Then there's the setting. I originally has it set in her flat overlooking the city. Do I keep this or set it somewhere else - mind you, it's a phone call which needs to be made around office hours. But where does this get set?The work tea room? On a park bench? In the car? On public transport? You want to make the scene remotely interesting, and you can always use the sensory aspects of the location to bring forward or hone in on the story.
Then there's the prompts. The Sacred Pool card talks about reflections - I think I can use that. The archetype of the Advocate, I can see a point to that too - a my character has to advocate for her own life.
Then there's the Cards Against Humanity prompt. Alternative medicine - I can work that in, sure. Finding curative powers in something - sure, that might be useful. But perfunctory foreplay... hmmm... I'm not sure how I can use that. I mean, she has a deadbeat ex-husband and a long-standing lover. What would underwhelming foreplay have to do with this situation? What would the feisty Faith feel about all of this - I can see her putting up with an useless lover.
Then there's the song of the day. Marlena on the Wall has been running thorugh my head for most of the day. Why is this so? Can the themes of the song be used in this scene.
Anyway, that's what I'm procrastinating about. I'm still not sure about this writer lark, particularly when you're writing fiction
I do find that mulling things over like this might help the writing process tomorrow. We will see.
(It will also help if the cat decides not to be an arsehold and sit on my keyboard like he did this morning. He really is a little prick at times. )
Today's song:
Today's Cards:
The Enchanted Map Cards: The Sacred Pool
Archetype Cards: The Advocate
Cards Against Humanity: Alternative medicine is now embracbng the curative powers of...Perfunctory foreplay.
I'm trawling through my childhood memories, remembering the things my mother used to feed me as a child - and I remembered one of my favourites, another seventies classic: Sausages and Onions.
We had this at least once a week when I was a kid.
Red meat was always a big thing in our house. My grandfather was a butcher, so meat was always plentiful - not so much chicken, and rarely pork - but lamb, beef and sausages were standard. I remember as a young child sitting on the bench watching him make sausages - cigarette hanging from his bottom lip, forcing the sausage mix into the casings. It's probably the reason why I've never been squeamish. I get very nostalgic when I walk into a traditional butcher shop or the meat section of the markets. Something about the blood and sawdust smell, I think.
I always loved sausages and onions, which is really just sausages in onion gravy, which is always served up with mashed potatoes and some veggies.
The sausages, normally grandpa's ones, which were excellent, were lightly cooked in the big electric frying pan. One or two onions were sliced and added to the mix. Then it was topped off with gravy. Of course, being the seventies, this was made with water and Gravox, with some tomato sauce and Worcestershire Sauce added to the mix for good measure. This was cooked off until the gravy had thickened.
Now, to get such a meal, you need to go to an accommodating pub, where you'll pay over $20 for some wanky artisan sausages in jus. Not gravy. Jus.
I just looked up the recipe on Taste.com. It was a convoluted recipe. It calls for red wine and beef stock and flour for the gravy. I do think that there is something to be said for the Gravox and tomato sauce and Worcestershire sauce. Simple. Yummy. Easy to make.
Of course, if I was to make these now, I'd make sure that the onions were cooked through properly and not just wilted. And I'd put an extra dash of Worcestershire in, just for good measure, because Worcestershire sauce makes everything taste better.
It would be great to make this again. It's a pity it's not a dish that stands up well to single serves.
Today's song:
Today's Cards:
The Enchanted Map: Goblins
Archetype Card: Mediator
Cards Against Humanity: What gives me uncontrollable gas? A balanced breakfast.
It's been two weeks since I jacked my knee, tripping on the stairs at the gym and landing badly.
Two weeks on, it's still not a fun propostion. Yes, the leg is weight-bearing and mobile, but it's still aching. I'm waking with a sore leg.
Yes, I'm keeping it strapped. Yes, I'm taking ibuprufen to take away the ache. Yes, I'm trying to keep quiet and not use it too much. Yes, I'm using the bang-bang machine on the surrounding muscles. Yes, I'm applying reiki and massaging my own leg. Although I've put myself down for this 10000 steps a day challenge, I've worked out that rest really is best. The ache this morning was enough to make me take a "flat" day. I haven't been out the front door today, and though I had a training session in the lounge room this evening, Cleo is good at keeping my knee straight - no squats and lunges, lots of deadlifts and kettlebell swings. And thankfully, the leg is feeling okay now. More bang bang machine, more liniment, more massage before bed. Hopefully I wont wake up with an aching leg tomorrow.
But if we weren't in lockdown, I'd be going to see Spencer. Spencer's my injury bloke. A myotherapist. He's the one I go to when I get injured. He sticks pins in me and hooks me up to the tens machine. He rubs and prods and generally makes me scream - but he gets my muscles back on track.
And we're in lockdown and my bodywork place is closed and I just want to see Spencer.
Think is, he lives down the road. He has a dog. Part of me thinks I should go hang out at the dog park to see if he'd treat me there.
Because I'm a bit sick of this - the sore leg, lockdown, the though that it's my birthday next week and we'll still be in lockdown...
I think I'm nearly over it.
(and the day at home with limited walking means the leg is feels better)
Today's Song:
Today's card:
Enchanted Map Cards: The Gentle Gardener
Archeteype Card: The Guide
Cards Against Humanity: WAITING TIL MARRIAGE is a slipper slope that leads to KAMIKAZE PILOTS.
Last night was census night, and thankfully, unlike the last census, it appears the Bureau of Statistics has worked out how to do performance testing.
Unfortunately, the badly defunded Bureau of Statistics also appears to have next to no forsight and have squandered the opportunity the census provides to give us the most vanilla version it could think of. There's no thinking outside the box for this government.
I completed the whole thing in about ten minutes. It felt incredibly lightweight. Once the rigmarole of setting up the account was done, it came down to answering some pretty easy questions.
Name, address, date of birth
Marital status
Religion
Salary
Employment status
Had I done any unpaid work around the house over the last week or so?
Was I a carer?
Did I have a disability?
What language did I speak at home?
Did I identify as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander?
Where were my parents born?
Standard stuff.
But there was a lot of things that either got up my nose, felt like a missed opportunity or felt misguided in it's white privileged shitfuckery.
First point - are you a male or female. Part of me thinks this doesn't matter, just as I think courtesy titles don't matter. I can't remember if they asked for my courtesy title - but I'm a MS - not a Mrs, not a Miss. Part of me wants to do a PhD so I can be a Doctor and just be done with it. But the male/female thing felt kack-handed when you had to go hunting for the non-binary option. Why not just put the non-binary option out there instead of having to go hunt for it.
Of, then there's the marital status questions:
They asked what is your marital status:
Umm... again, I revolt when asked my marital status for a a number of reasons. Yes, I'm single, never married, but what does this have to do with the price of eggs? And what about those who are in loving, committed relationships who live together? Why aren't they counted? I don't get why they need this question. Marriage is an antiquated system where women are bartered as chattel. I don't get why if they want to see what we are doing in the bedroom they could accomodate for other types of relationships. Shacked up. It's complicated. Screwing around. Tinder Trashbag. Mummy issues...
It would have been good to have a question about adult children living at home. Sure, the household questions will show you who is living in a household, but will they say why? No questions about whether you live near your family either.
Also, there was no questions about if you identify as LGBTQI+. This was the biggest wasted opportunity of the census, but when the Minister in charge of the census is a conservative religious nutbag, what else is going to happen? Many of my LGBTQI+ friends are VERY frustrated by this. Sure, as a cis-gender straight woman this doesn't impact me - but it affects many of my wonderful friends. When you're potentially not gathering information on more than ten percent of the community, that sucks. I complained about this in the census's comments section.
Another friend was frustrated by the disability questions, saying that unless you were caring for somebody severely disabled, there was no way to be counted.
Somebody else mentioned that the health questions were too scant.
Another said there should have been something about pet ownership, other than the fact that the Federal Government doesn't give a crap about how may pets we own.
It just felt like a wasted opportunity to discover more about the nation than just the bare bones.
But then again, when has this Federal Government gone above and beyond for anybody who isn't a millionaire?
Surely I can't be the only one thinking these things.
Today's Song:
Today's Cards:
Enchanted Map: Protecting Treasure
Archetype Card: Monk/Nun
Cards Against Humanity: In the new Disney Original Movie, Hannah Montana struggles with A DECENT FUCKING INTERNET CONNECTION for the first time.
Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh's novel, was turned into an iconic movie, premiered 25 years ago.
Seriously.
I have a copy of Trainspotting kicking around here. I remember reading it on a train on a day trip to Brighton when I got to that awful toilet scene - The worst toilet in Scotland. It's bad enough on the screen - in the book, it's even more horrific. I felt pretty rank for the rest of the trip after reading that. I also remember it took a bit to get into the book's thick Scottish accent. I remember thinking of a Scottish friend, and read the book in my head in her voice.
I'll always have a soft spot for Trainspotting - both the book and the movie. The escapades of Renton, Spud, Sick Boy and poor Tommy were as daring as they were relatable in a strange kind of way. Of course, you loved to hate Begbie, and curse Diane for, well, being Diane.
Then there's the soundtrack from the film. Born Slippy was a bit of an anthem of it's day (Shout it, lager, lager, lager, larger...). There's songs by Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, Blur, Pulp, New Order and Blondie.
And there's the absolute hopelessness of being in your twenties and thinking you're bulletproof.
Thankfully, heroin has never been a part of my life, but at the time this came out, I was doing a little clubbing. Not much, but enough to see what was out there. Enough to know that party drugs weren't really for me.
Trainspotting caught the zeitgeist of the 90's. Part hedonism, party Post-Thatcher, pre-Blair Britain. It has the greyness of a time on the bring of huge change. The Spice Girls were about to appear, bringing with them the chutzpah of a new era to come.
This was the underworld of a country on the brink of hugh change.
It contained the humour of the ordinary man.
It was shocking, and funny and eye opening all at once.
And I can't beleive it was 25 years ago when this all came out, and I was a part of it.
Today's song:
Today's Cards:
The Enchanted Map Deck: Protecting Treasure
Archetype Card: Detective
Cards Against Humanity: Here is the church, here is the steeple. Open the doors and there is...A sick burnout.
When you wake at 11 p.m. after a long day, where you've worked and exercised and read and you fall asleep with your foot curled up next to a sleepting cat, and you realise you haven't done your blog post and you realise you rather be back in bed with your food curled around the sleeping cat. That's me now.
And then you realise you have nothing to say. That's me too.
This is called dedication. Getting up, taking your nice warm foot from the cat's back. Dedication I tell you.
So here is a list of things that went right today:
I've nearly finished knitting another beret. Once finished, this one will be sent to my colleague in Yarraville via the post. Heaven knows when we'll be in an office again. My team members are currently being knitted hats during boring meetings. I'm knitting a hat at the rate of one a week.
Spring is in the air. Not that I want Spring to be in the air, but it was nice to be walking after work in the twilight without the extra layer.
The happiest place in the world is the local dog park at twilight. The dogs are SOOOOOO happy. I'll go back and watch them again soon.
I woke to a cat cuddle this morning. He is very sweet. He comes, sits on my shoulder, snuggles up and purrs for about five minutes. It's only taken him 18 months, but this is now a regular occurence.
Barnaby Joyce is in lockdown in Armidale for a week. At least he's not drunk in parliament.
I managed to get the auditing task I needed to finish out of the way at work. .
After two years, the pinky nail on my left hand has nearly grown back after being decimated by fungus. Nail-Tek antifungus drops are the best.
I've made my 10000 steps today. I've nearly caught up on the steps I owe for Thursday and Friday. Strapping my knee has made this possible. So has Voltaren gel and ice packs. Walking challenges and a bung knee don't mix that well, but we're getting there
I bought myself a Disney subscription for my birthday so I can finally see Hamilton. So far, I've been catching up on Grey's Anatomy. Go figure.
And that will do for the day.
I'll go back to my bed now and curl my foot back around the cat.
Today's song:
Today's Cards:
Enchanted Map Card: Metamorphosis
Archetype Card: The Hermit
Cards Against Humanity: What helps Barack Obama unwind? Concentual sex.
Another weekend in lockdown. Very thankful for my bubble buddy who let me cook for her last night, and watch Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri with her. And I went for a walk with walk with Jay, as we're not allowed further than five kilometres (three miles) from the front door at the moment. We also found the local gin distillery selling cups of mulled gin from the front doorstep. Certainly perked up the walk home.
1. What is the nearest book to you? Your Kindle does not count.
I have a large, very full book case behind me. The first book I looked at was George Saunders, Lincoln in the Bardo. Phenomenal book.
I could have looked at a couple of hundred other titles, but that's the one I looked at first.
2. When was the last time you took a "me" vacation
Oh, that was a while ago. India at the end of 2018 wasn't really a 'me' vacation as I was there for a wedding, and yeah, it's India - not the easiest of travelling - and Hong Kong for the few days after was in the middle of some angry protests.
So the last 'me' holida I had was my birthday in 2018 - I went to Bali with some friends for my 50th birthday.
3. How many telephone numbers do you have?
Two. My mobile (cell) and I do have a landline, but its not connected. I don't use it.
4. If you could fix one thing in the public school system, what is the one thing you would do immediately?
I'd bring back the technical high schools. We used to have them where kids who weren't academic could learn trades. It was a good way to get everybody a fair deal and set the less academic kids up well with life skills. It doesn't happen as much now.
5. What's your favorite Olympic event?
I used to love the gymnastics and the diving. Oh, and the dressage - how they make horses do that stuff is beyond me.
6. Do you watch the Olympics?
Umm, it's been years since I watched the Olympics - and this time round is no different. A lot of this is because the telecast here is all on digital and getting into these stations is hard on my telly. I also don't like how the current telecast on terrestrial television chops and changes and the commentators are really annoying.
7. Who is your favorite sports team player?
I'm really not into sports, but I don't mind Eddie Betts, who used to play for the Crows. He was great. Little, wiry and tenatious. (The Adelaide Crows are my Australian Rules Football team).
8. If you could travel in a spaceship to any planet, which planet would you like to visit and why?
Mars - and only because David Bowie's Life on Mars was released 50 years ago and it is still amazing. See the song of the day. If David Bowie was singing about it, it can't be bad.
9. When was the last time you sat in a church?
Oh dear? I say that if I walked into a church the place would fall down around me. It's been a number of years. I do remember visiting my cousin in Sydney. Her husband was the minister at St Laurences, a church near Central Station in Sydney where they perform Anglican High Mass. Adrian was leading Mass. I snuck in the back and sat down. I got the nod and the smirk. If it wasn't then, then it was my Uncle's funeral in Canberra which was around that time.
Strangely, I contacted Adrian this week. He's currently the locum dean at St Peters Cathedral in Adelaide. I asked him if he would give me a tour next time I was in town. I want to visit their Black Madonna.
I miss living in England. I love their old churches. For somebody who is not a Christian, indeed, I'm not religious at all, you'd find me in a lot of churches. I love the history of these places.
10. Are there any aspects of blogging that annoy you?
Not really. It is a bit of a challenge writing every day. And I know I write crap.
11. Have you ever gone to a party and snooped in the medicine cabinet?
Yes, but only because I was in need of an asprin/paracetamol/bandaid/mouthwash. But I'm more likely to be found in front of the party-giver's book shelves or judging them for their drinks trolley.
12.Do you watch reality TV?
In a very limited way, yes. I do watch Married at First Sight, and I don't mind The Block and Masterchef, but that is about it.
13. How many people can you call who have known you since you were in school?
Other than my family? One or two people. There are a lot of people I still talk to from university, but school, not so much.
14. Who, when, and where was your first kiss?
Ergh, this questions. Let me se, it was Simon, my first boyfriend. I was sixteen. It happened in front of the fire in the lounge room. Australian Crawl's Reckless was playing . That's enough information.
15. You just got thrown out of your country. Where do you want to become a citizen?
If I had my way I'd already have a British passport, but I'd be very happy to immigrate to New Zealand or Canada. New Zealand is a more compassionate Australia and Canada just looks amazing.
Today's song:
Today's Cards:
The Enchanted Map: Wishing Well
Archetype Cards: The Miser/Midas
Cards Against Humanity: What's a girl's best friend? Completely unwarranted confidence.
