The word of the week is vision.
Feb 20 - The Happiness Project and Research
One of my favourite book series of all is The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, by the late Douglas Adams. It's irrelevant and ironic look at the way the universe works has always spoken to my own brand of humour. Yet what does it MEAN to be happy? Is it the laughter that bubbles up when I watch a funny program or read a funny book? Or is that just amusement? Is really being happy something that I am so unfamiliar with that I have to research it in order to try to have a hope of finding it?
Research can help though, if it leads to places like The Happiness Project, which is a site recounting the author's search for happiness. Apparently she found some answers after a year of searching and made it into a book. Which turned into a NY Times #1 Bestseller - food for thought for a hungry author such as myself. Reading through the site, there are a lot of quotes, proverbs and bits of advice... but few concrete answers. It seems the simplest things in life are the best bets to finding your own answers about being happy. Making lists of what makes YOU happy also helps narrow the field, and may also point you towards work that will be most fulfilling.
Just try not to end up discovering you are happy being miserable. :-)
Feb 21 - On Being Unemployed
So far, it's been three weeks since I left my job and as yet I have not found another. EI will likely be a few more weeks in deciding on whether I will qualify or not; I have a doctor's letter and am hopeful that I will be provided with a means to continue to search for the right job for the next few months.
The days seem shorter to me now, oddly. I've been out EVERY day this week, for coffee or errands or whatnot and I seem to get less accomplished of a day than when I was employed. I think it is because time was more precious to me months ago, when I had so little of it to enjoy. Now that ALL my time is free time, I am finding that nothing is taking priority and if something remains to be done, I can always do it the next day. Which is a trap, as each day blurs into the next without a set plan of action, as I am sure you all know. No, I am finding it hard to focus, to GET things done of a single day, when I know that the next day will still have the same number of free hours. It is a feeling I am not used to and need to come to an accommodation with, so that I do not lapse into a mindset so lazy that I wake of a morn and find that the day can pass without question far too easily.
Will that make me happy? I am certain it won't, as so little does of late that lasts. Carry on...
Feb 22 - Writing Group Meeting!
During the evening today, I attended a local writer's group meeting, the topic being publishing. It was downtown in Victoria, at an indoor atrium in a new building I've not had occasion to go into, until now. There were over a dozen people there, including a few published authors and several people who had self-published. I found out about the group while browsing the local Meetup.com Groups, which I highly recommend to anyone interested in meeting like-minded people locally to share common activities. Tonight's meeting went very well indeed; I learned a lot and was the person asking the most questions the entire night. One of the big, scary mysteries for an author is HOW to get their works OUT there, in ways that promote you AND have the real possibility of making you money. Self-publishing does not seem to be a viable route for me right now, as it tends to be very limited in distribution. Going online at a place like Amazon's Kindle Store makes more sense, as does serializing a story / set of stories online. In any case, I found the meeting to be thoroughly useful and met several like-minded writers there, including a Babylon 5 fan - by the name of Peter! How odd is that? So I'll be attending future meetings, in between looking for work and writing my own stories; I'm very happy to have found these folks in my own backyard.
Feb 23 - Growing pains?
Ouch! I am not the tallest person around, I know that; about average is how I'd peg my height, but given my body proportions I look just fine, thanks. Yet I was baffled to hear about men whose height was such an issue that they underwent radical surgery to increase it, similar to women whose bust sizes are not up to their wants. However, getting metal rods implanted in one's femurs sounds like FAR too much painful trouble to consider; I wonder if they ever thought about elevator shoes, or hanging out with shorter people? Have a gander and decide for yourselves:
Feb 24 - On the power of a story
Sometimes I wonder about the impact that fiction authors have on people's lives; we write stories about made-up things and try to convince readers to suspend their disbelief enough to care about the stories and characters. Most often our stories are a distraction from the daily lives of readers, albeit a welcome one and have no bearing on their success or failure in life. Yet sometimes it is this very distraction that is the thing a reader needs, when their lives are not happy and in some cases are about to end.
Such is the case of Nachu Bhatnaga, who is a terminally ill cancer patient who also It so happens that Bhatnagar adores The War That Came Early, Harry Turtledove's alternate history series. Nachu's best friend had the idea to contact Mr. Turtledove and see if he could procure an advance copy of his next book for Nachu, who only has a few months to live. See the results below for the answer to my question about the impact an author can have( light language warning NSFW ):
Feb 20 - The Happiness Project and Research
One of my favourite book series of all is The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, by the late Douglas Adams. It's irrelevant and ironic look at the way the universe works has always spoken to my own brand of humour. Yet what does it MEAN to be happy? Is it the laughter that bubbles up when I watch a funny program or read a funny book? Or is that just amusement? Is really being happy something that I am so unfamiliar with that I have to research it in order to try to have a hope of finding it?
Research can help though, if it leads to places like The Happiness Project, which is a site recounting the author's search for happiness. Apparently she found some answers after a year of searching and made it into a book. Which turned into a NY Times #1 Bestseller - food for thought for a hungry author such as myself. Reading through the site, there are a lot of quotes, proverbs and bits of advice... but few concrete answers. It seems the simplest things in life are the best bets to finding your own answers about being happy. Making lists of what makes YOU happy also helps narrow the field, and may also point you towards work that will be most fulfilling.
Just try not to end up discovering you are happy being miserable. :-)
Feb 21 - On Being Unemployed
So far, it's been three weeks since I left my job and as yet I have not found another. EI will likely be a few more weeks in deciding on whether I will qualify or not; I have a doctor's letter and am hopeful that I will be provided with a means to continue to search for the right job for the next few months.
The days seem shorter to me now, oddly. I've been out EVERY day this week, for coffee or errands or whatnot and I seem to get less accomplished of a day than when I was employed. I think it is because time was more precious to me months ago, when I had so little of it to enjoy. Now that ALL my time is free time, I am finding that nothing is taking priority and if something remains to be done, I can always do it the next day. Which is a trap, as each day blurs into the next without a set plan of action, as I am sure you all know. No, I am finding it hard to focus, to GET things done of a single day, when I know that the next day will still have the same number of free hours. It is a feeling I am not used to and need to come to an accommodation with, so that I do not lapse into a mindset so lazy that I wake of a morn and find that the day can pass without question far too easily.
Will that make me happy? I am certain it won't, as so little does of late that lasts. Carry on...
Feb 22 - Writing Group Meeting!
During the evening today, I attended a local writer's group meeting, the topic being publishing. It was downtown in Victoria, at an indoor atrium in a new building I've not had occasion to go into, until now. There were over a dozen people there, including a few published authors and several people who had self-published. I found out about the group while browsing the local Meetup.com Groups, which I highly recommend to anyone interested in meeting like-minded people locally to share common activities. Tonight's meeting went very well indeed; I learned a lot and was the person asking the most questions the entire night. One of the big, scary mysteries for an author is HOW to get their works OUT there, in ways that promote you AND have the real possibility of making you money. Self-publishing does not seem to be a viable route for me right now, as it tends to be very limited in distribution. Going online at a place like Amazon's Kindle Store makes more sense, as does serializing a story / set of stories online. In any case, I found the meeting to be thoroughly useful and met several like-minded writers there, including a Babylon 5 fan - by the name of Peter! How odd is that? So I'll be attending future meetings, in between looking for work and writing my own stories; I'm very happy to have found these folks in my own backyard.
Feb 23 - Growing pains?
Ouch! I am not the tallest person around, I know that; about average is how I'd peg my height, but given my body proportions I look just fine, thanks. Yet I was baffled to hear about men whose height was such an issue that they underwent radical surgery to increase it, similar to women whose bust sizes are not up to their wants. However, getting metal rods implanted in one's femurs sounds like FAR too much painful trouble to consider; I wonder if they ever thought about elevator shoes, or hanging out with shorter people? Have a gander and decide for yourselves:
Feb 24 - On the power of a story
Sometimes I wonder about the impact that fiction authors have on people's lives; we write stories about made-up things and try to convince readers to suspend their disbelief enough to care about the stories and characters. Most often our stories are a distraction from the daily lives of readers, albeit a welcome one and have no bearing on their success or failure in life. Yet sometimes it is this very distraction that is the thing a reader needs, when their lives are not happy and in some cases are about to end.
Such is the case of Nachu Bhatnaga, who is a terminally ill cancer patient who also It so happens that Bhatnagar adores The War That Came Early, Harry Turtledove's alternate history series. Nachu's best friend had the idea to contact Mr. Turtledove and see if he could procure an advance copy of his next book for Nachu, who only has a few months to live. See the results below for the answer to my question about the impact an author can have( light language warning NSFW ):
Feb 25 - Exercise? Just climb a mountain!
After a few kms-long walks every other day for the last few weeks, I decided today to step things up, literally: I climbed a mountain. Hiked, actually, for a total of 6km distance and a vertical climb of over 125m, all of it logged on my new trusty HTC Desire smartphone. Love those apps; I am using one called MapMyFitness which logs many details about a workout using the GPS. I can tell how fast I moved, view the route( including elevation ), calories burned... all sorts of things. This allows me to keep a record of what exercise I am getting, to see how MUCH I am doing to get fit, at least in terms of mobile exercise. It even has a nutrition function, so I can plug my daily diet into it and see how my intake compares to my exercise burn; I haven't used it yet, but it seems worthwhile. I had a really good time in the hour it took me to make it up the mountain path; the fresh air was great and the views from the top were spectacular. Have a look and feel free to zoom in, the detail's incredible:
Feb 26 - Finding your destiny
It may surprise you to know that I've not seen Lawrence Of Arabia before today, nor in fact ever caught it on television - ever. Tonight, not wanting to be bothered with the Oscars, I settled in instead with half an eye on the film and the rest on writing. Which soon went by the wayside as Lawrence drew me inevitably in with its rich performances and incredible imagery. Ironic that I disdained watching the Oscars for a film that won 7 of them. What drew me in was Lawrence's struggle with what he was becoming; it was incredible to see him embrace, then put at arm's length, the very things he was trying to achieve in Arabia in WWI. I think many of us struggle with what we want to do in life, as well as IF we can do it. For Lawrence, at least, he could also answer the third big question: did we make a difference? In his case, yes... and he would also have to live with the results. If you're curious as to how this modern-day hero lived, just Google Lawrence of Arabia - it's enough reading and food for thought to keep anyone busy awhile.
Another week gone and another headache to end it with; moving to BC reduced but did not eliminate that little pleasure. I also installed a new video card( a cheap deal I'll not bore you with after the last one had to be returned )and re-formatted my SSD so it's now twice as super-speedy as before. More than a few books have been dug through, many an afternoon tea has been sipped and overall it's been GREAT not to be a slave to the phone. Though I STILL answer before the third ring; that habit I may never be able to break...
