Author: Justin Page 25 of 65

I have two updates today!

Firstly, I tried a new thing for dinner: mushrooms fried in butter and soy sauce (with a pinch of wasabi, for good measure). OMG: revelation! Now, I’m a big fan of fried mushrooms, and I’m a big fan of Marmite – and this is basically like both in dinner form. I strongly suspect that this dish will become a staple of my #childfree weekends from now on.

Secondly, we watched the 1958 Hammer remake of Dracula for Horror Friday. While I love many of the Hammer films, including many of the Dracula entries, I’ve never been a huge fan of this one. However, I bought it on bluray a month or so back and have been quite keen to give a fresh evaluation.

… and I’m still not sold. It’s not as dull and stagey as the 1931 version, but it’s still a strangely tempered affair. Christopher Lee displays some of the qualities that would immortalise him in the role, but is distractingly perfunctory at other times. The story is tightened up from the original, but relocating it in its entirety to England (while saving on the budget) robs it of the other-worldliness that provides part of the compelling mystery of Dracula himself.

It’s one of those films that you have to admire for having earned its place in film history. I may yet give it a further viewing, but for now it seems to be one of those movies that hasn’t quite transcended the era in which it was made.

Today I’m thinking of swings and roundabouts.

Despite my deep sadness over yesterday’s news, I’m feeling better than I have done in the last week or two: meanwhile former colleagues of mine are probably having a terrible time.

The Elderbeast heads off to his mindfulness class; but before it we have a terrible, stressful argument before I can even get him out of the door.

I head to the shops to pick up some more christmas presents. I find what I’m after, but my inspiration for further presents evaporates in the space of minutes. I leave the shops victorious in my purchase, but feeling defeated.

That’s the sort of day it was.

Today, while thinking of routines and restoring balance, I was reminded how quickly all of that can be disrupted. At work, I found out that one of the main suppliers we deal with had gone into receivership. While this was hugely disruptive on a professional front, it was also remarkably upsetting on the personal front: people I have worked with for the last several years have just found out they’re about to lose their jobs.

It’s a reminder that we’re not always in control of our routine, nor do we necessarily own the balance of our lives. Things can happen that will throw it all in the garbage.

But, I guess if I’ve learned anything this year, it’s that these things can happen, and we will stubbornly persist regardless.

Also, it would be remiss of me to let this date pass without wishing my favourite Doctor a Happy Birthday 😉

I’ve decided it’s time to restore some balance to my life. I’ve put a lot of stock over the last few months towards maintaining the routine of work, school and daily life in general. As a consequence, my life seems to have tipped too far towards the mundane. The ripples from the dramatic change in my personal life–which made everything seem new for a while–have settled. Daily life is now just the same things every day, week in, week out.

I’m not exactly looking for fireworks, but now that I’ve established that this new life works–and that the kinderbesten are both fine–it’s time to focus on making it work for me. It’s time to make sure that the mundane moments are counterbalanced by moments of enjoyment.

As usual, I don’t have any specific plans in this direction. I’m sure I’ll just figure it out as I go … stay tuned!

I’ve reached a point of unexcitement – which won’t surprise anyone who’s kept up with this blog over the last few weeks. Nothing is bad or wrong, but neither is anything terribly exciting at the moment. My #childfree weekends have plateaued into banal spare time; the various TV shows that I was enjoying have entered a mid-season. No Man’s Land. Meanwhile, I’ve probably bought all the Bluetooth light bulbs I could possibly need.

Life is good but, as I wrote a while back, it has slipped into routine. I have every faith that things will turn around: I always find the Christmas break to bring a useful energy and sense of renewal. If nothing else, I imagine the end of the year will be heartily celebrated.

I’m also lucky in that I don’t demand much out of life. Just a few simple pleasures here and there: a good meal now and then; a nice glass of wine; an inspiring movie or novel. Yes, very first world, but here I am.

Give me time. Things will come good again 🙂

One of the things my friends occasionally do is share their to do lists. I like this because it also helps motivate me: if my friends can get a few things done off their lists, then surely so can I!

So I did myself a to do list this weekend (and forgive my handwriting):

(click for a larger version)

And, if you’re wondering, here’s how I did:

One of the most important things to me is ensuring that my kinderbesten grow up to be functioning, responsible, awesome adults that will be a positive influence in the lives of the people that they meet in the future. I likely don’t work as hard on this as I should, but it’s something that constantly informs the way I interact with my children.

Today I had the pleasure of watching my kids spend the afternoon with two of their friends: children whose parents have gone all out to help them grow into fully awesome little people. It was great to see how they all interacted and took their cues from each other. They would play games when they wanted to play; go out on the trampoline when they wanted some fresh air; take some quiet time when they needed it; and play chase when they picked up a bit more energy. In short, they were functioning like little adults: completely self-managing. Probably better than adults, in fact.

One of the most rewarding things was watching the Elderbeast take his cues from his friends: if they didn’t want to do something, he was happy to accept that; when they were ready to play, he was ready to join in. It’s a marked difference to the way he often is around other people. Clearly there was something about being around these kids that really brought out the best in him.

It’s nice to have a bit of hope for the future once in a while.

One of the tricks I’ve developed to maintain interest in my writing is to have a few different things on the go at any one time. This means that if I get stuck on one story, then I’ve typically got another one to keep going with. If I don’t fancy writing fiction one morning, I’ve usually got some non-fiction projects to spend my time on.

At the moment I’ve got three major projects to occupy myself with. One is these diary posts. While I typically write these during the evenings (mid-week evenings, if you really wanted to know) I occasionally use a morning here and there to catch up when needed.

I also have a super secret podcast project, which gives me an excuse to write ridiculous nonsense whenever I have a need to do that. Which is more often than not.

Finally, obviously, I have my stories. My usual process is that I (typically) write the first three drafts of each story during my morning shifts. I will then let them sit for a while and tweak them as needed during random late night editing sessions. However, at the moment, I’ve got some stories that just won’t quite work so I’ve been hammering away at multiple drafts of some of those in the morning, while also trying to get some new ideas off the ground.

There are downsides and benefits. The benefit is that I always have something to write when I get up in the morning. The downside is that, despite the discipline of writing [almost] every day, I still don’t have a very discipline approach to what I’m actually writing.

Ah well, it’s not as if I’m earning a living out of this …

One of the stories I’m working on at the moment is a teeny, tiny horror short about a man driving home one night only to be relentlessly pursued by a wall of darkness. Aside from needing to find a hundred different ways to say ‘darkness’, it’s not a particularly deep or challenging tale: there’s just the one character; there’s no underlying theme. It’s simple.

And, yet, it’s taking me ages.

I sat down this morning, with the end of the first draft in sight, and still didn’t manage to finish it. The first draft is, for me, the biggest obstacle to feeling satisfied with my writing. It’s the raw clay from which I shape my final story and, of course, it’s always going to be crap. It’s the [seemingly] insurmountable wall between the perfec] story that I have in your head and the [hopefully decent] story that I finally publish.

After several years of trying to perfect every paragraph before I moved on, and having my stories taking actual years before reaching completion, I realised that the best thing I could do was get on with writing my first drafts quickly and crudely. I find editing much easier than writing. The downside to this is that I will always have a terrible first draft hanging over me, and I need to keep telling myself that the final piece will be much, much better.

That’s what I was trying to do today: race towards the end of my first draft. I just couldn’t quite get there. I blame the fact that there’s a twist in the end, and I need some brainspace to work out how to construct it properly. Consequently those last few paragraphs probably need a writing session all of their own.

(Spoiler: I did, in fact, finish the first tomorrow)

They say that ‘real writers’ write every day. I call bullshit. I think it’s important–if you want to be a full time writer–to have the sort of passion that compels you to write every day, but you’ve also got to know when to have a break so you can keep that flame alive.

One of the worst experiences as a writer–at least, in my experience as a writer–is trying to write but finding that the words either don’t come, or they’re rubbish. It can really douse that passion and leave you in fear of returning to that keyboard. The other not-so-cool thing is writing because you feel you Have To Write. I worry about doing that: about developing a really good, disciplined writing habit and then realising that I’m simply not enjoying it any more.

It’s for this reason that I get up to write every day … except Saturday. It’s the morning where I allow myself a tiny lie in, where I drop the pressure a little, and generally come back fully charged on the Sunday morning–just burning to write something again.

It’s also partly the reason why I took this morning off. The results of the (Australian) same sex marriage survey were due to be announced right around when I would be just be starting my morning shift. I knew I’d be thoroughly distracted, would probably end up with a really low word count and wouldn’t like the words much anyway. So I gave myself a free day off.

Yay!