Writing 24 (out of 66) scenes complete – structural/continuity revision

This week has been the Worcestershire Literary Festival, so I’ve been focusing less on writing and more on making the most out of the available events. I have done some writing though – the scene I’m working on was a bit of a mess and I’ve done a fair amount of work on the structure and focus of the scene, but it’s still broken.

Reading “Do the Work” by Steven Pressfield

I downloaded a free version of this some time ago and have just got around to reading it. It’s a productivity/motivational book around the issues of “resistance” and how it prevents us getting the job done.

Fighter

I’ve worked hard with my kettlebell training this week and am really starting to see the benefits.

Geek

Playing Tiny Tower for iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad – it’s free and it’s really very good! It’s very similar to the classic Sim Tower game only less focused on elevator management and more on keeping all your tower residents happy. Very addictive!

• I have had to loosen the laces on my Doc Martens (they have zips as well) as they’re too tight around my calf muscles.
• Someone complemented me in class as they’d noticed me crank out a fair amount of ‘proper’ push-ups. As these have been my nemesis for years, I’m rather pleased about that! (Shame I still suck at sit-ups!)
• I was talking to a visitor about my kettlebell and I demonstrated a couple of military presses to show an example move. She then tried to pick it up and in a shocked voice said “but you didn’t make it look that heavy!”
• The day-to-day pleasure I find of moving something heavy that I would probably have asked for help with in the past.

Small wins, but satisfying ones.

The event was part of the Worcester Literary Festival and was an amazing experience. Despite its historical importance, the collection’s existence doesn’t seem to be well-known as it’s tucked away and viewing is usually only available by special appointment. However, if you ever get the opportunity to see it, I can highly recommend a visit.

The tour group met just outside the gift shop. I arrived a little early, so stepped into the courtyard for a while and snapped some pictures on my iphone. I knew that once inside the library, photography (even without flash) was prohibited in order to protect the books.

Once everyone had arrived, our guide showed a group of us through the security door and skipped ahead of us up a steep spiral staircase. We knew when we had eventually caught up with him as the lovely crisp, musty smell of preserved books was there to greet us at the top.

It was an amazing collection. We were talked through and able to handle (while wearing protective cotton gloves) a wide range of documents, manuscripts, early printed books and even Elgar’s baton! I’d expected most of the catalogue to be religious books and there were many fine examples of bibles, monastic chronicles and liturgy. However, there was also some wonderful examples of medical tomes, maps, travel guides, astronomy books and even some guides on how to deal with witches. I really began to appreciate how much work had gone into each book – not just the written word, but the illuminations and paintings, meticulous lettering and intricate bindings were things of beauty in their own right.

There is something rather awesome about standing in a room with so much history. I also began to appreciate the concept of the weight of words – some of those bound manuscripts were extremely heavy! I wonder what words will be poured over by historians 700 years from now and how well modern books will be preserved?

I’m rather intrigued by the new social game, Mindbloom. I came across it via Dogwood Tales and while I haven’t had a chance to play with it fully, what I’ve seen of it so far is impressive.

You begin by planting a virtual tree.

Each branch of the tree represents an aspect of your life that you would like to prioritise, eg. health, creativity, finances or relationships. To earn points and level in the game, you complete tasks that help get you closer to those goals.

The visual interface is gorgeous – a delight to explore and navigate around and it changes as you play. Areas of your life that you spend a lot of time on has branches that grow and flourish. Those areas that are more neglected has leaves that turn brown!

Ironically, the one thing that makes me pause is the social aspects. I really can have some very inane and bizarre things on my to do list at times that I wouldn’t necessarily want to share with everyone. It is possible to choose which items are visible to your friends and make some branches private, but that does seem to defeat the advantages of getting support from other people.

On the whole, though, it’s a beautifully implemented idea and a potentially valuable motivational tool.

There is a lot more to haiku than I previously realised. We also learned about other forms such as senryu (similar form to haiku but ‘human nonsense’, eg political, rather than having a seasonal note) and tanka – a longer form with five lines.

It’s amazing how much depth and meaning can be fit into just a few short lines of poetry. Mine, however, are mostly frivolous. Here’s what I came up with yesterday:

arrow pointing right
follow the path and the rules
that way lies safety

Dulux dog trots by
panting with tongue lolling out
no paint on his paws

buttercup yellow
a little patch of sunshine
do you like butter?

tanka or haiku?
write what needs to be written
give the poem breath

a haiku workshop
in beautiful surroundings
festival success

Writer

Writing 24 (out of 66) scenes complete – structural/continuity revision

This scene will probably take me a while. Currently it’s a filler scene with a completely unrealistic timeline. Getting through it one sentence at a time, but it’s a bit of a slog.

Reading “Speak” by Laurie Halse Anderson

A young adult fiction book I picked up on a whim some time ago then completely forgot to read. I discovered it again hidden on my shelves while looking for something else.

Fighter

Training was good this week. Very heavy cardio and needed an inhaler break for the first time in months (could also be connected to mild allergy to the new guinea pigs, though). Enjoyed it though and it was a good feeling to really push myself.

I’m ashamed to say, though, that I have slacked off exercise for the rest of the week and lost momentum as a result.

Geek

The guinea pigs are settling well although Biscuit is still terrified of me. I think she even growled at me this morning – I picked her up and her whole body was vibrating, like a sort of angry purr. Bramble however, waits for me to pick her up most times now and her eye looks a lot better. I think I’m going to have to find some calm time without children around to tempt them with treats and try and get them to trust me a little more.

I have found that I’ve been getting a little lung tightness this week though – manageable but upsetting. I know I have allergy issues with some furry creatures (most notably cats) but had hoped to be okay with the piggies. Reading up on it, it might not be an allergy to the animals but could be bedding related. I’ve been tested for hay/grass allergy, so I know it’s not that. The other culprit could be the wood-shavings, apparently.

So, I’m going to try and ditch those and go the fleece-lining route – the idea is that you have a layer of old towels, then a layer of fleece material (washed three times so its ready to absorb moisture) on top. The fleece wicks away the moisture from the wee and the towel soaks it up. You can then use a little handheld vaccuum to get rid of the poo each day and stick the fleece and towels in the washing machine as required. No wood-shavings flicked everywhere, kinder on the piggies feet and bottoms and hopefully kinder on my lungs.

Fingers crossed.

So, the researching has come to an end. Meet Biscuit and Bramble:

They already have me well and truly wrapped around their tiny little fingers claws. We brought them home on Tuesday, and in just a couple of days, Bramble is already enjoying short cuddles. Biscuit is a bit more timid but is tolerating some attention now. They still hide a lot and scarper if so much as a bee flies past them.

Bramble has a gunky eye at the moment, so had our first trip to the vet already. Antibiotic drops to the rescue (thankfully the more tame piggie, so I have some hope of getting the stuff in her eyes and not all over me). I feel terribly anxious about them. I’m such a softie. I’m sure I never worried this much over the fish! If they were sick, I just treated the water and hoped.

I haven’t got an awful lot of work done this week, though. The run is visible from the window and they’re terribly entertaining to watch when they think we’re not looking!

I’m not co-ordinated so the group classes that others seem to find fun and sociable – “step up, touch down, change legs, grapevine, step change and shimmy” – just leave me feeling clumsy and frustrated. But I can pick up an easily graspable heavy metal object, lift it slowly and then put it down again. Not only can I do it: I find I love it.

I’ve put in my time on the treadmill, the exercise bike, the loping elliptical “trainer” (presumably providing training in case my feet are ever replaced with huge springy wheels). My blood pressure went down and so did my resting heart rate. Both these things are wonderful benefits, but I can’t say that I really notice them.

Lifting, though, is detectable. It’s the moment in the train carriage when I hoist my suitcase into the rack and find that the motion is easy.

Edit: I guess it helps if I supply the link as well – doh!

One of a whole host of wonderful Twaggies – an online crowdsourced comic where a group of illustrators take the funny tweets they’ve seen and turn them into a gorgeous piece of artwork.

Wow. That was amazing (not the photograph, obviously, there’s only so much an iPhone 3GS camera can cope with a mix of darkness and very bright lights from a long way away).

I really wasn’t sure what to expect, but Jonathan Coulton is an excellent live performer. He appeared relaxed and jokey with the audience which gave the concert a very informal and friendly atmosphere. He even confidently navigated a minor disaster when the G-string on his guitar broke, with quips about angering the string gods, a quick impromptu Q&A session while the (only?!) guitar was restrung and deliberately singing a comedic off-key version of Skullcrusher Mountain when the new string kept slipping out of tune for the next few minutes.

We also got to hear a number of new songs from the upcoming new album – they sound great and I will definitely buy it when it’s released (I think he said it was due the end of summer).

The support band were also very good – Paul and Storm – I didn’t realise at the time that they were originally part of Da Vinci’s Notebook. Great comedic duo who also provided backing for some of JoCo’s songs later on.

So, if you get a chance to see him in concert, I highly recommend going. Only, sit nearer the front and take a better camera with you.

Writing 24 (out of 66) scenes complete – structural/continuity revision

Finally made some progress! Impressive as I only had two available writing days. The break definitely did me good. Looking forward to working on a new scene next week.

Reading “Mindfulness In Plain English” by Bhante Henepola Gunaratana

Recommended on a recent Back to Work show. It’s a really good and clearly written introductory book on mindfulness meditation. I downloaded the PDF for free from UrbanDharma.org and imported it into iBooks. I’ve been wanted to reintroduce meditation back into my life, if only in a small way – it has been the push that I’ve needed.

Fighter

Really enjoying training at the moment. In class we’ve been taking a back to basics approach with different strikes which has coincided with my own resolve to work on basics. Lots of opportunities for repetition and getting it right.

I’ve been able to keep home training going a little better this week, but it’s noticeable that I slacked off last week. It’s been hard going.

Geek

My research obsession this week has been about guinea pigs. It’s been triggered by a forum post looking to rehome some and I stopped to seriously consider whether it would be a good idea for me to offer.

I had a rabbit when I was a kid and I like the idea of our sons having a small furry animal in their lives. Piggies do seem a good choice in term of temperament and sociability. Me being me, though, I’m having to research it to the nth degree to make sure that I would be giving any creature we take on the best possible home, plus husband is not terribly keen. Either way, I’m getting a lot of joy from the research process for its own sake!

In other news, going to see Jonathan Coulton‘s concert in Manchester tonight. Squeee!

I think that women have a particular problem here. It is much harder to study violence against women because it is more clandestine in nature. There is a lot of mobile phone footage or CCTV footage of men attacking other men on the internet –even of the predator/prey variety because men will openly attack each other in daylight in a public place.

Men rarely attack women in a public place in daylight. So shameful is the act that even hardened, violent criminals do it secretively, away from the public gaze. There is no video footage of men attacking women that can be studied. I’m not passing judgement on this – it is just a fact. It would seem very distasteful to watch such a video. However, this means that women have to rely on victim testimonials, witness statements, criminal statistics or ‘experts’ knowledge to find out the nature of the threat to them – how exactly are they likely to be attacked and what, therefore, is the best way to learn to defend yourself?

It’s an excellent point. Reality-based self-defense systems, by their very definition, focus on the threats you are most likely to face in the real world and how to deal with them. But are these geared mainly for the attacks its male students are most likely to face?

It’s not just about which physical techniques a smaller, weaker person might be able to pull off in the event of an attack. It’s the whole scenario set-up and the advice that goes along with it. For example, a de-escalation technique we’re often reminded about is “just hand them your wallet, it’s only stuff.” But I’m guessing it’s much less likely for a woman to find themselves in that situation. If it’s a property-motivated attack, wouldn’t it be easier for the attacker to go for a snatch bag and run? If a weapon is involved, isn’t it a more likely scenario that it’s an attempted rape?

We face more grabs than punches, more likely to feel hands or a knife at our throat than a haymaker to the head. There are far more grey areas – a threat against a woman can often initially seem minor and low key before it escalates. There is a social pressure to always seem polite and not to make a scene and what if my interpretation is wrong? And I’m sure there are many more differences.

So I guess the question is, should we all be spending more time looking at the psychology behind those common attacks? Should we be looking at verbal self-defense as well as the physical? And should martial arts schools spend more time working on the very different common attack scenarios for women if that means 90% of the class won’t ever be in that situation?

We’d been discussing the origin of words (thank you Alistair from Storywonk) and the kids have been fascinated. Unfortunately, I’m both lazy and usually away from a computer to look up the exact etymology so mostly we do what any writer would do if they are not sure of the facts – invent our own and resolve to look it up later.

Our best so far has been Orangutan (once I’d won the heated argument enthusiastic debate whether they were apes or monkeys). It seemed easy enough. Orang – that’s bound to be from the same root as orange and they are very orange. So that must mean utan is translated as “big hairy thing” in someone’s language, surely?

Later, I looked it up on Wikipedia. To our intense disappointment, we were miles off.

The word “orangutan” comes from the Malay words “orang” (man) and “(h)utan” (forest); hence, “man of the forest”.

I think our version was better.