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A little bit nice

22 Feb

My archives are starting to look ridiculous. Whenever I think about knocking this thing on the head (what is it anyway? blathering, rambling, one of those blogs that professional bloggers warn you against starting up) I can’t help but look back at all the shite stuff I’ve written over the years and feel a bit of a pang. Writing, crafts (my etsy shop that never really took off), music, tarot, reading, game reviewing, sporadic entries into typecasting…

The latest new thing I’m trying is a new blog called A little bit nice. It’s not a blog, not really. Just postings of little pockets of life, intended to…argh, what did I say on the ‘About’ page?

A Little Bit Nice is here to bring you something nice to look at, listen to, watch, and think about as you go about your day.

It’s twee, but not meant to be insipid. And it’s not meant to be a curated pile of links to other things on the internet. We’ll see how it works out. (Stay tuned…..)

In the meantime, I am feeling a bit like my namesake, discombobulated. Woke up and tried to gather cats up for the vet at 8:30. Black cat ran out into the rain, suspicious (he always seems to know). Had to ring the vet to cancel. Turned out they were booked in for tomorrow morning.

It’s wet outside. Raining steadily. I recorded the rain this morning and put it up on the other blog.

The first paragraphs of Act 2 of my novel are sitting on the typewriter. The page is curling because it has sat wrapped around the platen for so long. I look at it every day. I scribble ideas down, try to map the structure of the next Act. It feels like starting all over again. I know what I want to say, but I don’t know how to start it.

There’s a parcel for me waiting at the post office. I suppose I will drive down and collect it.

Lovely weekend

7 Jun

Wet and yechhy outside today, with rain – serious rain, not the light misty stuff we had all weekend. It was a fantastic Queen’s Birthday weekend – we taped the French Open tennis semi finals and finals, and watched them across the whole three days.

While we sat on the couch Steve worked on editing some of his POV mountain biking movies, and I started that sweater I think I mentioned last post. After doing a fair bit of fine-gauge knitting (an ysolda shawl, plus a pair of socks), knitting on bigger needles feels both weird and awesome, as the work just goes so fast! I must be half through already.

Oh, and the food: I whipped out my Nigella Express cookbook, which I haven’t actually used that much (though her sour apple martini is one of my staples), and planned out the weekend’s eating:

  • Tuna and bean salad for lunch (Sun – Mon)
  • Coq au riesling for dinner on Sun
  • Croque Monsieur bake (Monday brunch)
  • then for dinner last night we had a Brandied bacony roast chicken, with a potato and mushroom gratin, and green salad :))

Needless to say the fridge is crammed with leftovers, so we’re pretty much set for the week as well.

I got lots of writing in – my SocNoc novel is up to 8,800 words, most of which I actually like. We sauna-ed twice, I finished Haruki Murakami’s What I Talk About When I Talk About Running (which was lovely), and yesterday we went for a hike in the Wright’s Hill Reserve – up Salvation, and down Deliverence, a couple of mountain biking/walking trails. It was so muddy though we only came across a few bikers, and everyone was happy and chatty.

Now it’s a work day – though I’m working from home, which means I’m still in robe and PJs – and the drizzle isn’t quite as charming as when you’re on holiday. Still, the cats like that I am at home, and I’ve started a new writers.com class, the Novel for Beginners (or something similar), with Dennis Foley, which I’m really looking forward to. It’s not a “how to write” class as much as it is a “how to structure your own approach” class, a “find the bones of your novel” class.  So no critiquing but hopefully a lot of new ideas.

June, Moon, Tune, Loon, Spoon….

3 Jun

Sometimes I really hate having to come up with titles for these things.

It’s June.

In the southern hemisphere that means (I think) that we are at the start of winter – at least if I count backwards six months to the northern hemisphere equivalent, it should be the same as early December. I know the seasons are all messed-up-to-buggery at the moment, but my memories of December in the Pacific Northwest include icy weather, snow, skiing, christmas carols, sparkly lights and all that other good stuff.

The equivalent in New Zealand is pretty mild really. Few of our trees lose their leaves when it gets cold, so it’s still really green everywhere (with only the odd highlights of gold, smuggled in among the native evergreens). Plus May was apparently the warmest one on record, which meant in some ways our late-autumn was almost better than our summer. Things have been really stable. Big fat gaps between the isobars coming across from Australia. Wellington’s quite lovely when the wind dies down.

Evenings are getting cold though, which in many ways I’m enjoying. My knitting’s surged ahead again (socks, a shawl, with a short-sleeved t-shirt sort of sweater scheduled next, with some nice natural Utiku yarn), and it’s real soup and stew weather. (Mmmmm, soup and stewwwwws.)

Still doing game reviews; I’ve had a TON of them lately, including Fable 3, Sims 3 Generations, Brink, and a few other littlies. I think the mad rush has died down a bit – at least I’m hoping, as I’ve signed up for SoCNoC; effectively a southern hemisphere NaNoWriMo, in June. What’s nice is that it’s a little less restrictive than NaNoWriMo, in that it’s ‘allowed’ to work on multiple things at once, so the focus is more about the challenge of writing every day. So far I’m on track, but hey, it’s only day three. The first and last weeks are always the easiest.

Speaking of which – I’d better go mosey on over to that open Word document and get busy!

:::

Reading: A State of Siege, Janet Frame; St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, and Swamplandia! by Karen Russell

Reviewing: nothing at the moment!

Listening: Bill Evans, Conversations With Myself

Watching: Game of Thrones (woop!)

Themes, again. And game reviewing.

18 Apr

Yes, themes, again. I like this one (‘Steira’) but find the idiotically placed quotation marks on my blog’s pithy (yes; I am being sarcastic) subtitle irritating. It’s possible this one won’t last long. I see wordpress is now offering ‘premium themes’ with one-off costs associated with them, advertising them as a point of difference for the discerning blogger. I could never: I switch themes far to often.

Yikes, I’ve been away too long – this is reading like a personal diary entry rather than something that other people might see.

I have been away; and to be honest I wasn’t sure if I would return to the blog. As it is I’m painfully aware of the copious amount of work that needs to be done to get even a rough version completed of the online version of my grandpa’s war diary. It’s hard going though, with the scanner. I just need to get my arse in gear.

I have been busy though: two part time jobs, from which I’ve only recently had a significant break of any kind. Getting up early in the morning to try and rekindle my fiction writing joy (at this stage it’s play; and I like it that way). I’ve been writing a lot of game reviews as well – and just realised yesterday that I’ve now written over one hundred reviews for NZGamer.com, the first of which was written on the 6th of April, 2006, and was an Animal Crossing review I quickly scrapped up to show them I could conceivably write a review. Odd to think I’ve been doing it for five years now.

(Edit: I’m knocking this theme on the head. It does irritating things with links and italics as well.)

:::

Reading: North and South, Elizabeth Gaskell

Reviewing: CrimeCraft

Listening: Primus, Sailing the Seas of Cheese

Watching: The Clint Eastwood box set

Lunchtime in the cemetery

1 Dec

So I thought I’d try out blogging from the new iPad; so far I’m really enjoying the way I can fit everything in my bag when I go to work now. As relatively light as my laptop is, I did tend to avoid carrying it around, as when packed with book(s), lunch, glasses, pens, notebooks, diary and other stuff, the whole package was getting quite unwieldy.

Granted, this whole purchase is a rather grand experiment in alternate ways to fit writing into the day. But if anyone’s interested, here are my reasons for taking the iPad route:

* I very specifically wasn’t looking for a laptop / computer replacement. I already have a laptop that, while old, continues to do its thing extremely well.

* I wanted something that would be really portable, easy to use, but also with a reasonable battery life.

* I didn’t want to get an iPhone.

* I was hoping whatever it was would let me both type, but also use a stylus for tablet-style inking. I know the iPad isn’t remotely comparable to pc tablets, but as I said, I didn’t want to go down that route.

* Cost was also a factor… I’d considered the MacBook air but it was just that little bit more expensive. And while things like disk space, multi-tasking and other valid arguments against the ‘Pad are totally relevant, for my purposes (writing, mostly), these weren’t really deal breakers.

Plus they are awesome to use, and loads of fun, heh.

So, I haven’t written in five or so months. Sorry about that. What have I been doing?

After a rather extensive phase spent up to my elbows in dye, fibre, and handspun wool, I got a phone call a from my old company, wondering if I could do a spot of testing for them. I’d already taken on some part time work in the mornings, but I said if that fit in with their project needs, then I’d be happy to work for them. I think that was in August. Things have been really busy since then.

We did get away for a trip to Melbourne, and if this app will let me (WordPress for iPad), I’ll post some pictures. Melbourne was amazing, simply amazing, but I got sick while I was there, and whatever it was really took hold. I was crook for a couple of weeks.

Oh. The other thing that happened was back in July, and I suspect it’s the reason my blogging sort of petered out then. My nana passed away after a long bout with dementia. The whole thing was overwhelming, but in a quieter, softer sort of way compared to my grandpa’s death. His passing was completely traumatic for everyone; it was just so unexpected. But with nana, it was… Awfully sad, but a bit bittersweet as well. Bittersweet’s the wrong word. A peaceful end, anyway.

And so here we are, and it’s December somehow. Did the year off go as I’d planned it? Not exactly. But one thing I enjoyed was the chance to just breathe, to detach from being pinned to the desk at work, to be able to spend some time doing other things, just for the pleasure of doing them. I didn’t write as much as I originally wanted to (though I have been doing loads of game reviews), but having not written, I’m aware of how much pleasure it gives me, and how much a part of my life it is.

I didn’t do NaNoWriMo this year; the trip, and getting sick put an end to any delusions of catching up on my word count. But I think my goal for the Christmas period is going to be to try and write every day, even if it’s just a little bit. I have so much of this story to tell, the floodgates are straining, about to burst open. I just need to give myself the time, and to make sure I have fun doing it.

Fiber-y (fibre-y) stuff

23 Jun

After all the excitement of New Zealand’s draw with Italy it seems sort of mundane to be talking about wool and yarn, and jobs and such. But that’s my life these days! I have been writing too, though not as much as I would like. My brain’s been a bit duh lately; maybe it’s the cold weather. I’m in the lounge, fingers and toes feeling freezing, even though the gas fire’s cranked. The cats are curled up in a ball together on the couch. Poor things!

There’s been a shop update since I last posted:

cruise

Cruise merino roving

pacific winter

Pacific Winter merino roving

golden honey

Golden Honey merino roving

candyland

Candyland merino roving

sea spray

Sea Spray merino roving

seagull

Seagull merino roving

…which I think are quite nice. I’ve also been in touch with a couple of awesome fibre artists through etsy, Hobbledehoy, and Maude and Me (also from Wellington!), and they’re keen to do a fibre swap! While I haven’t sold any of the new stuff yet (and I’m crossing my fingers it’ll happen soon), Etsy is still a really cool place to join in with the crafting community, and lots of people are big into trading.

I’ve also made an order for some more merino – from Whorls and Wheels – gah! Wheels and Whorls – because the last lot was so gorgeous. Ideally I’d like to order directly from a farm or something, but I can’t really afford to try out a huge range of different suppliers just to find out if what they produce is right for me. I’m also picking up close to 2 kilos of gotland roving from a farm in the Manawatu this weekend, which I’m really excited about.

On the job front, I just got a call this morning from an ex-colleague asking if I’d be interested in 2-3 weeks’ worth of testing! Rather fortuitous, as my savings is decreasing and I’ve even been applying for a few part-time jobs. The frustrating thing is everyone seems to go “oh, it must be a mistake. Why would someone who’s had a reasonably lucrative full time job (career, even) want to apply for this? Nah, we won’t even get her in for an interview.” I’m so tired of people making assumptions about me, and my interests, based on the jobs I’ve had in the past. I mean, I can’t even get an interview for a book shelving job at the public library! For the record: I WANT a job in an interesting environment. I WANT a part-time job. I WANT to be in a workplace where I’m surrounded by interesting people talking about all sorts of interesting things. And to be frank, I really don’t care that much about how much I’m paid. Am I a freak?

P.S. I’ve been thinking about adopting this new theme from WordPress, called Koi. What do you reckon? It’s warmer than my current theme, Neutra.

Quick hi

1 Jun

Just a quick hi. I’ve signed up for SoCNoC (or however you arrange the combination of upper and lower case) – the Southern Cross Novel Challenge, or NaNoWriMo Down Under. The whole premise of the thing is to give us kiwi writers something to do during the cold winter months (and man, is today cold!) as the weather is far too fine in November to lock ourselves away. Of course the argument falls down when one considers that most of us who do SoCNoC also do NaNoWriMo, but just ignore that bit.

I’m on reprieve from jury duty, which I was hoping I’d be able to write about in a little more gory detail. But alas, I wasn’t picked for the seat amongst the other eleven angry men, but I did get to see the inside of a courthouse, and the back of the head of a young guy who was being accused of receiving a stolen vehicle. Still, I have to ring the jury hotline every night this week to see if they need me to come in again (I’m tempted to write: come in, to be rejected again but I am a far more noble creature than that).

But yes, it is absolutely freezing outside. No actual frozen objects, mind you, and thankfully no rain (especially after all the flooding that’s been going on in the south island) but it’s cold enough to have the gas fire on already and I’ve made plans to move into the lounge to do the rudimentary planning for my SoCNoC novel. (I’d actually forgotten all about it and made the decision to sign up last night. I’m not worried – I’ve pulled off NaNoWriMo novels with less to go on in the past.)

I’ve also been reasonably busy spinning & knitting (and dyeing, and cleaning bits of a fleece), and have actually put some fibre up in my Etsy shop, after a hiatus of a few years. I’ve got plans to put more up soon, so keep an eye out. I’ve even got some more Polwarth and some dyes arriving at the house either today or tomorrow, so I can keep the momentum going. But no time for pictures, alas. I have to go check the mail and then get to planning. Usually I just scribble notes in a hideous pink notebook I’ve used for NaNoWriMos since 2007, but this time I’m going to try and use Scrivener, using the “structured story development” template. Scary, I know.

Anyway, will tune in again later. No doubt when I’m procrastinating.

Yay

30 Apr

Yay! I’ve finally got on to the project that I’ve been planning since the end of last year: digitising my grandpa Doug’s diary that he kept while he was based in Tonga in 1943, as part of the 2nd NZ Exploratory Force. There were a few tweaks I had to make, in terms of my original plan to structure it chronologically, rather than, uh, ‘blogologically’, and apparently WordPress doesn’t allow for publishing of dates earlier than 1970, which also put another one of my ideas in the crapper. But anyway, I’ve done what I could (and what my patience would let me) and have got the first few pages up. You can find the blog at http://dkfurrie1943.wordpress.com. (Image heavy as I’m scanning in the original entries as well as *trying* to transcribe them. Needless to say my transcription isn’t the best.)

In other news, I’ve also signed up with the Critters workshop. They look totally awesome; I’m really looking forward to submitting some of my short stories for review.

Hi

27 Apr

How does it go again? Good Morning, it’s 9:11 am. Somehow the Baker-ism isn’t the same when you’re awake during normal hours. Might have to set the alarm clock and get up ridiculously early and post then, just for a laff.

It’s been a hell of a long time since I last blogged  (checks to see exactly how long it’s been – aha, my panty snatcher link fortuitously posted on my sister’s birthday). No, the reason for my long absence isn’t because I’ve been sitting on Stuff all day; to be honest I think I’m just in a different brain space these days – which I think is a good thing, for the most part. I’m still spending time on the internet, just not much in the sinkholes of Twitter/Facebook etc. That’s great for the ol’ brainpan, but not so great for my social life, heh. Every time I hop on lately I’ve been getting horrible shocks: someone’s quit their job, someone else is pregnant, someone else has become pregnant and had their baby and I never realised they were pregnant in the first place, and so on.

But I guess the main thing is I’m not suffering from the horrible flood/drought scenario that was so common with work. Despite the fact that I’m still in my robe and slippers right now, I am still painfully aware that the number of these days off are finite, and if I’m going to take a day off and do nothing, I want to do it intentionally, not accidentally.

So – for the most part I’m being reasonably productive: making yogurt, granola, jam, muffins in the kitchen; working through The Pathfinder, refreshing my French; writing of course; playing piano (Bach, Beethoven & Debussy); reading (Jean-Claude Izzo’s Solea, Taichi Yamada’s In Search of a Distant Voice, & Louis-Ferdinand Céline’s Journey To The End of the Night); plus knitting, spinning and playing board games (I’m in love with Arkham Horror).

Oh, and I’m back reviewing games again, after a hiccup when I left work, and didn’t realise NZGamer didn’t have my personal email addy. The latest is Shatter, for the PC, and I’m also going to be helping out with the podcast this Thursday – so stay tuned!

All of this makes me wonder how I managed to fit anything in my life when I was working full time; and for that matter, how people with far more responsibilities than me manage to pack it all in. I’ve started eyeing up job boards for some part-time work (there’s something interesting at the National Library I might apply for), but seeing as I’ve still got some money in savings, I’m wondering why I should chuck it all in when I’m able to last a bit longer without working.

It is interesting (just going back to the social thing that I just touched on earlier) how much your social life is generated through work – as much as perhaps you don’t want to admit it. I have lots of friends outside my job (when I had one, I mean), but when I was working I maybe saw them once a month, and I think I didn’t quite realise what was happening, because my social need bar (Sims reference) was constantly being refilled by people at work. Now my bar’s not always in the green I find I’m making more regular contact with my old friends, which has been really satisfying. What’s more, I still see work people socially, which is wonderful, but when I do see them it’s usually one on one, and not just part of the whole “people wave” of work. The encounter is more significant without the kitchen filler conversations. (“Encounter”, “filler”; I know how that sounds. I don’t mean it in a nasty way.)

Anyway, that’s the brain-dump of what I’ve been up to over the past few months. I’ll try to be a bit more regular with my posts – I promise!

________

Listening to: National Radio

Drinking: coffee

Happy November!

7 Nov

November has brought with it a whole raft (balsa? floating? laden with goodies?) of new changes and interesting things:

NaNoWriMo: another November, another novel. There seems to be heaps of talk this year about the ‘novel in a month’ challenge, mostly around the fact that NaNoWriMo novels aren’t “real novels”, and the frenzied, head down, don’t look up style of writing that it generates isn’t “real writing” either. Argh. In cases like this I think the only answer is: if you like doing it, keep doing it. If you don’t like it, don’t do it. But it certainly seems a bit bitter-spirited and mean to begrudge anyone who likes to do it. Yes, it’s silly. Yes, a lot of things get written that might not normally have seen the light of day if the writer had thought about it a little first. I see that as a good thing, not bad. In any case, my profile is (the ever original) jnickelsen. My synopsis and an excerpt are up there. Yes, it’s a story about clones. Clones in New Zealand. That is all.

The house painting: it’s finally done! It looks so much cleaner and happier than before. We’re both really pleased with it.

the house, all painted!

Work: I don’t know how much I should talk about this one, seeing as it hasn’t really been announced at work (or to my parents, heh) yet, but oh well – no time like the present! I’ve decided I am going to take a year off work, starting at these upcoming Christmas holidays. A sabbatical. Not surprisingly, I’m really looking forward to it. I plan to write (short stories, my longer piece, game reviews, maybe even some freelance writing), read (everything that’s on my to-read list, which is a bit of a daunting task), revise all of my French language learning that’s faded away over the years, ditto with my jazz piano, and guitar. I’m going to sew, garden, bake, and get the house clean and tidy (and my study organised!!) for the first time ever. I have no idea what to expect. It’s going to be quite the experiment.

Diana Gabaldon: Seems a strange thing to mention, but last night Steve and I went to a “books and bubbles” night to hear Diana Gabaldon talk. The books and bubbles bits aside (which was all a bit “girl power-y” for my liking, not to mention the fact that Steve was maybe one of ten men in the audience, out of five hundred), Diana Gabaldon was every bit as intelligent, interesting, and entertaining as I thought she would be. I like people who have done the science-arts crossover; I think they bring a gravity and ‘to the point’-ness to their work – which is not to say that she isn’t hilarious, of course. But her writing style is very direct, and I have always admired that about her. And she brings such a wealth of research to her novels, but incorporates it quite seamlessly in with the rest of the story, rather than going “oo, I found a fact. Everyone, look!”

She is definitely in my wee pack of writers who I have in my mental compartment of people who I want to be reading when I’m writing. Not to copy, because I don’t really write anything like Diana Gabaldon’s books, but to try and inherit some of the tone, the flavour, of why and how they write. It’s a subconscious thing, I guess. You want the method to impress upon you. And if you read enough of one author in a short period of time, you’ll know what I mean. So who else is in there? Garth Nix (especially after I finished reading the Abhorsen trilogy and found myself crying – yes weeping! – at the cafe where I went to read, at the end of the Abhorsen novel); Philip Pullman, for the same reason; Murakami; Jostein Gaarder; Mulisch’s The Discovery of Heaven; Laxness’s wonderful oddness of The Atom Station… and, you may find this strange, but also John Bellairs, author of The House with a Clock in Its Walls, The Figure in the Shadows, The Letter, the Witch and the Ring, and, one of my personal favourites, The Eyes of the Killer Robot. One of these days I’ll write a post on him. Gothic novels for kids.

Anyway, it’s time I was off – my NaNo novel is calling to me.

——

Listening: The Ramones, It’s Alive

The Proxies, Courtenay Place on a Friday Night, and kitty Weight Watchers

4 Oct

Brr, it’s cold this morning. I didn’t get up until quarter to nine, even though Steve got up and dressed and off for a mountain bike ride at eight. I sat in bed, wrapped in blankets, poring through my new treasure, the Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. I got it in the post on Friday with four other books I’d ordered from the Folio society: A High Wind in Jamaica, Robinson Crusoe (I love this book so much), The Remains of the Day, and Brideshead Revisited. With these, and the nine (ergh!) books I ordered from Amazon a week ago I’m all ‘booked up’ for the near future.

The extreme book-ordering on Amazon happened as a result of starting to read Garth Nix’s Sabriel, absolutely loving it, and feeling greedy, decided I’d gobble up the lovely looking paperback set. Then books one and two of the Hunger Games had to go in the cart, as well as the two Dreamdark books, and it went on from there. (I’m currently reading Edith Patou’s East at the moment, btw, which is a re-telling of the story ‘East of the Sun, West of the Moon’. It’s told from the perspective of quite a few different characters, which I found jarring at first but now I like quite a lot.

Yesterday was a bit of a slow day, after the madness that was the Proxies at the Adelaide on Friday night. Good, goofy fun – we went along with Jeremy and Megumi, which is a bit of a story in itself. We decided to catch the bus in to Newtown, but the trolley bus’s rope broke, just past the botanic gardens. We got off and high-tailed it down to Lambton Quay, to wait for the next bus, only to find that the bus that arrived was the same one we’d got off earlier – somehow it had been repaired that quickly! It still took us about an hour and a half to get to Jeremy & Megumi’s in Newtown. We finally got there and consoled ourselves with a  few beers and some gorgeous takeaway curry  at their place.

The Proxies, if you hadn’t figured it out by now, are a Pixies tribute band. I’d never really been much of a fan of tribute bands in general, but this is my second time seeing them. It is so fun to be able to spend three hours leaping around with your mates, singing all your favourite songs at the top of your lungs. Brent came along later on, and so did Dave and Clive from work and Clive’s lovely girlfriend Lize.

Steve and I walked down to Courtenay Place from the Adelaide, to catch a taxi and again marveled at the chaos and mayhem of that street on a Friday night. We were reasonably drunk, so no-one thought we were impostors or anything, but all I can say is jeez, you could tell it was school holidays.

Saturday morning (yesterday) we got up with headaches and had to take Sooty to the vet for his dental check-up and his micro-chipping. The vet looked at the check on my wrist (done by the guy who took our money at the door of the Adelaide) and said “is that so you can remember?” Ha ha. Then he weighed the Soots and said he’s overweight (argh!) and would we be interested in putting him on kitty weight watchers? They do a plan for your cat and you go in for monthly weighings and things. The vet was trying to do a promotion for the plan, so for thirty bucks Soots can go back for his check-in sessions and we don’t have to pay any more. We said why not? I have to take a ‘before’ photo of him today, poor guy.

I’ve been scribbling notes for my book/story/novel thing this morning – the one that’s still going through my head after a year or so of dead-ends. I have another ‘lead’ that I’m going to follow up, and hopefully will make some headway this month, before I have to put it all aside and take something else on for NaNoWriMo. I also have to finish up some stuff for my short fiction class, so I’d better get back to it.

‘Till next time….

Oh, and I have another review up at NZGamer. This time it’s for Red Faction: Guerrilla.

Self-portraits

16 Sep

This is where I spend most of my evenings (note the empty wine glass), scribbling and generally faffing around. The rest of the study is in even more of a state, even with the new bookshelves put in. One day, if I’m brave, I’ll put in a picture of the entire room.

Self Portrait 1

Too bad Alice’s head’s been cut off by the lamp – it’s one of my favourite Rackhams. (Note the witch off to the right! I love her.) The black and white photo on the right is of the flat I lived in, on Queen street, in my last year in Dunedin. Ben took the photo.

Self portrait 2

I love looking at pictures of other people’s writing areas (like the guardian series of authors’ rooms). I think mine looks cluttered but still quite welcoming.

On ‘the shtick’ and having a pointless blog…

27 Aug

Every once in a while I sit down to blog and think “I should really have more of a thing going on here…” A thing. You know, a shtick. Everyone seems to have quite professional looking blogs these days, either making finer points about AR or VR or social media or new media or knitting or LOLCats. My blog’s a bit of a mess by comparison. I can’t exactly put the URL on a business card, or god forbid, my CV, as a shining example of my writing style and my suitability for a particular job. This is a social gig, plain and simple. At least I think it’s social. Or am I just talking to myself? So what’s the point of it all?

This was originally going to be a beat-up post, where I pointed out all the various flaws of the site (irregular updates, random musings, some too long, others too short, odd links and retarded photo skills), but you know what? Fuck it. I like my blog. It has an intangibility that I find refreshing, a jumbled-up mix of nothingness that makes me feel complete as a human being. My suitcase full of carefully-written diaries (going back to when I was seven) will stick around for posterity when I’m old and grey – or maybe some little shite of a grandchild will decide to throw it all away. What we consider tangible objects are illusory anyway, I reckon.

So why not – why not a salute to the pointless blog, to the messy blog, the jack-of-all-trades blog, the irregular, unprofessional blog, the blog with poor spelling, the blog that always apologizes for not having written sooner. As multitudinous as they all are, there’s something fantastic about the way we all seem to still be sticking around, smelling up the place, while the sophisticated journalism students (I don’t know where that reference came from, BTW) produce flawless copy. Even though Twitter has taken the personal broadcast to the next level, I’m still kinda fascinated that so many of us are persisting in our blogging endeavours.

My blog is exactly like my life, like my house. You step in through my front door and the first thing you see is not some artfully-arranged display of framed pictures against a neutral background with splashes of feature colour here and there. As much as I hate to admit it, I’m a clutterbug. And my bookshelves – there’s anything and everything about everything in there. Every genre. Academic writing, sci-fi, poetry, YA. Ditto with my music. Even if I wanted to limit myself to writing about a particular subject, I’d have absolutely no way to choose: do I write about writing game reviews? being a stationery fiend? a reader? a student? an IT worker? a crafter? a house renovator? an American-Kiwi? And like my tastes in books, in music, movies, friends, booze, games and men, I couldn’t tell you for certain exactly where those tastes come from or why I feel so passionately about them.

There’s definitely a valid argument in favour of refining your mind in one direction. Looking at the many different angles of a particular subject requires precision and discipline of thought. But broad thinking can produce magic too, as well as junk. I guess that’s why blogs that concentrate on just one or two subjects are that much more palatable. With our waning concentration levels we feel like we can’t afford to waste any time on something that might surprise us – for good or for bad.

At least a blog with a shtick is sort of advertising its wares before we have to make that commitment to follow it or not. Because interestingly, people seem to want to find a blog they can follow, that they can stick with for a long period of time. We don’t tend to skim across blogs (unlike other online content) – we want to plumb them. We have different expectations from blogs than our expectations of regular people. We don’t mind if our friends blather on about the everyday junk in their lives. We just don’t want our blogs to do the same…

Brilliant

22 Jul

This letter from the Irish Times Online, on proofreading in the age of the spell checker.

Cool writing app – Bonsai story generator

5 Jul

I came across this while reading about the Critters web group. Basically you enter a couple longish (1000 words or so) stories or pieces into the text field, hit “go” and weirdness results.

Here are a few gems that I got:

  • A gentle easy-listening tune came back into a migraine.
  • Carl thought, as he picked her up and watched the grey sky.
  • The oiled pieces Lionel Ritchie sang “EEUNGH!” Safe.
  • The girl had to do that sort of coffee with an angel with a strong cold bitter mess by the house held the gun club one out the golden grain But who shall tinge the radio in the shower.
  • There, on the work bench.
  • He was distracted from hitting a sip of winter.
  • The woman still smoked.
  • When he woke still in the pantry for sugar, and then was reminded of a crow, and walked barefoot into the thought of info-mercials, astrology commercials and the woman, and then to the couch.
  • She nodded to the trees.
  • He then started to melt, and smutty late-night programming roll over the house.
  • He’d propped the yew and thrusted.
  • Carl squeezed the couch.
  • He wondered what hope could he?
  • Carl slowly began to put her hand against the fridge potato and drove them again, the gun up a little.
  • He had horrible nightmares all he wanted to be with him, what he saw.
  • Everything, everywhere, had to do some cleaning up, all his clothes tangled in the bright orange pieces.
  • Lionel Ritchie was no moon, so cold, and lay there, shivering.
  • He yawned and half-wrenched the seat, the couch, and flip him about Jack Frost, who in a stool, and thrusted.
  • Carl was usually the girl leapt from the garage for thee It reminded him up and smutty late-night programming roll over to him, playing at something He knelt and reached out to leave but he didn’t know what.
  • She nodded, satisfied, and rushed to the toilet.
  • Girlish singing in the small radio It was so hot.
  • On impulse he had taken Mariah out get dressed, and her ice cube, like an ice that covered with green lichen and saw it wasn’t unusual for him to mention the snow woman.
  • Carl realised what Edgar could feel, well-muscled.
  • But his feeble protests were serious.
  • “That’s nice,” he said grandly, feeling a beautiful Sunday Mornings.
  • Sex.
  • Something scrabbled high sweet voice as she iced the soft cloth.
  • He was distracted from the snow.
  • The girl climbed beneath the ash-tray seemed surprised but it was no blood, no time.
  • He took his pant legs and feet and pulled off his head.
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