I don't feel so well today. Sigh.
23 March, 2011
hallucinations
Mountains scatter in the sky as clouds in waves float right on by. Dizzying colours in putrid puke dance along to happy uke. And then come whooshing out from Mars the dotted frenzy of the stars, dressed in yellows, pinks and blues, as many whites as could be used. Along the crawling, squeaking sand run thousands of spiders in a band. In people's toilets, they hide to scare, especially when your backside's bare. If that happens, don't run screaming, until you're dressed more seeming.
03 March, 2011
on a break
Wow, my last post smelled of sewerage. Anyway, just so you know... going on a few weeks break. Too difficult to get a post up at present. Give me a few weeks, ok? I'll try to think up some good post-able topics in the meantime.
03 February, 2011
In just a while, crocodile
Just you wait, Mr Croc,
Just you wait there for the doc
Whom comes with tools a-plenty
To stop you snapping at the gentry.
Soon from handbags you will swing
And over pointy shoes will fling
The skin from which they plan to take
And into many items make.
Then over you will I laugh a while
Of how I killed the crocodile.
Heh. I know it sounds mean, but hey, maybe the crocodile had previously bitten the speaker's arm off. Who knows? Maybe the speaker only had one arm and that one the croc had eaten.
I'm not fond of crocodiles, but then I don't like the idea of killing them either. Just another day at the office, mates. This is what gets done.
Just you wait there for the doc
Whom comes with tools a-plenty
To stop you snapping at the gentry.
Soon from handbags you will swing
And over pointy shoes will fling
The skin from which they plan to take
And into many items make.
Then over you will I laugh a while
Of how I killed the crocodile.
Heh. I know it sounds mean, but hey, maybe the crocodile had previously bitten the speaker's arm off. Who knows? Maybe the speaker only had one arm and that one the croc had eaten.
I'm not fond of crocodiles, but then I don't like the idea of killing them either. Just another day at the office, mates. This is what gets done.
30 January, 2011
lemons
Note: the following contains nonsense. Please excuse my indulgence.
There by the sink came a-rolling and a-marching. Twenty-four pipsqueaks following an army major barking. With the window open by the shellings piled high, kamikaze citrus tickled whiskered beetroots by. One by one the grilled tomatoes cried, just as the iceberg lettuce nestled at slivered mushroom side. High and higher bounce the tennis sets alrighty, while naked onions cried something quite mighty. Then came the planes of the juice of yellow peels, raining on the lanes of the leafy minted wheels.
I've run out of juice. Sorry.
There by the sink came a-rolling and a-marching. Twenty-four pipsqueaks following an army major barking. With the window open by the shellings piled high, kamikaze citrus tickled whiskered beetroots by. One by one the grilled tomatoes cried, just as the iceberg lettuce nestled at slivered mushroom side. High and higher bounce the tennis sets alrighty, while naked onions cried something quite mighty. Then came the planes of the juice of yellow peels, raining on the lanes of the leafy minted wheels.
I've run out of juice. Sorry.
29 January, 2011
shower time... and a little about writing stories
PINK: Hey, can you call me back later? I'm about to have a shower.
BLUE: Sure. So... in half an hour?
Pink: Maybe make that 3 hours.
Blue: You got something else on tonight?
Pink: No.
Blue: You take 3 hours to have a shower?
Pink: Yes... I mean, NO! I'm usually clean in 5 minutes.
Blue: Then what? Is there an elaborate moisturising ritual?
Pink: Most of the time is spent psyching myself up.
Blue: Does that mean you're scared of showers?
Pink: The rest of the time is spent either calming down or trying to get out of the drink.
Blue: You're scared of showers.
Pink: Not so much of showers. More of deluges.
Blue: Showers aren't deluges. They're little sprinklings of water that - what is that noise?
Pink: My shower.
Blue: Ok. That sounds like a serious deluge.
Pink: Yeah. Every time I go under it, I'm at serious risk of drowning.
Blue: You must be using so much water! Have you thought of changing the shower head?
Pink: I would if there was a shower head. Rivers don't exactly allow you to turn down their water flow.
Blue: Rivers?
Pink: Yeah. My shower is a waterfall. How cool is that? ... I mean, it's cool to look at and it sounds cool. It's not so cool when I'm in it and it's trying to kill me.
Blue: Where did you say you lived again?
Pink: I didn't. If I don't turn up to work tomorrow, you'll know I've drowned or been hit on the head by flotsam and drowned or caught by the current and drowned. Anyway, wish me luck!
Click.
Blue: A waterfall? For a shower?
:P
A lot of people write stories. They talk about how difficult it is to write and how hard it is to stay on track on the one same story and how other shiny ideas come flitting to distract them. They talk about how they procrastinate and how they sometimes just can't be bothered.
I think it depends on whether writing is their trade or whether, like me, they just do it for fun. Shiny new ideas? Excellent. Find me a piece of paper and a pen to capture it. Store it for another time. Can't think of anything to write? Continue with another story or go do something else. Can't be bothered to write? Fine. Don't bother. Do something fun. Writer's block? Play with the block and make a tower of them. Want to really finish a story and can't be bothered? Imagine a boss standing over your desk, roaring, "Where is my story?" Keep procrastinating? Procrastinate away! There's still the rest of my life to - squirrel! finish the story.
It depends on your audience. If your audience is an audience of one, namely you, enjoy your writing time. Splurge. But if writing is your trade, your sole means of financial income... well... ignore everything I say here. Don't read any further. I mean it!
If you have a deadline for a written piece or writing is your trade. Then. This is what I would do (or do when I do have a deadline coming up for something). Imagine myself into an office environment. High rise buildings. Glass windows everywhere. Enclosed desk upon desk upon desk in the work room you share with your fellow minions. Typing or talking on phones feverishly. Slavishly. There is professionalism here. Expectation. And if you don't get your work done or your quota completed for that day, the boss will come calling. You'll be called in on an efficiency report. They'll reduce your pay and you will be reduced to the shrimp ranks shared by the beginners. And you don't want to have your work constantly interrupted by the more advanced workers demanding you make them a cup of coffee. Now.
Too scary?
You and your boss are good friends, even if you are his employee. Your office is situated directly outside his office and he's a very lenient understanding sort of man. He knows how much to expect of you and understands if sometimes, you don't quite meet deadlines. Even if he gets that disappointed light in his eyes. You don't want to fail your friend. It's his business after all. And if you don't get your work done, he has to take the fall for you. If he loses business, how is he going to pay you?
OR how about this?
You are a Roman slave. If you don't get this done and if you don't please your master, you will either be (a) whipped severely and thrown into the circus for the lions; (b) put in solitary confinement with a disgustingly dirty fellow slave covered with boils and all sorts of contagious diseases, not to mention the fleas and lice; (c) hanged and thrown into the circus for the lions; (d) sold to another master that will throw you in the circus for the lions at the slightest mistake; (e) killed somehow, like being tossed to a pack of hungry, goaded, angry, wild dogs or thrown into the circus for the lions.
Come on. Where's your imagination? You're a writer! You're meant to one of the world's most creative and imaginative people! You're the sort of person, who looks like a grown up, but still does play-acting in your free time when the house is empty and no one's in. You fight dragons with a sword one evening and are on the other side of the world performing espionage the next. You explore dripping caves in the shower and sink ships in a naval battle when you're washing the dishes.
Wait. Didn't I tell you to stop reading earlier? Oh. You're like me? You're writing stories for yourself because you've run out of books in the house (having read each one at least 10 times and new books are finished in a night, losing their attraction)? You don't care if your stories are never published and never seen by anyone other than yourself? Ah, then. Welcome my friend. You're welcome to read on.
Writing should be fun if it's your hobby. Like doodling pictures. Don't kill yourself over it. Don't put on weight, get carpal tunnel syndrome, have to get new super strong owl glasses, neck, shoulder and back strain just to write one measly story. This is writing practice. It's fun. It's only a first draft. It's about the art, the craft, the polishing to perfection and then stepping back in the end to admire it's beauty.
It's about creation. Entertainment. Having fun. Enjoying the sensation of building, making, forming, molding. Rollicking in the word play and smithing of the correct imagery. Surfing on the emotions and moods. It's about having adventure and the sort of people you have always wanted to meet come to life and becoming 3-dimensional amidst their 1-dimensional descriptions. New places! New worlds to explore! The familiar and the unfamiliar meeting in a maze of netting.
Forget the rest. It's all about story.
Without story, all your scribblings are exactly that. Scribbles.
I'm off to catch more of the shiny ideas floating around my head. I may never use them. Some are completely worthless, but some are real gems. The fun is in the chase and then the capture and then the carving and polishing to make them really shine.
BLUE: Sure. So... in half an hour?
Pink: Maybe make that 3 hours.
Blue: You got something else on tonight?
Pink: No.
Blue: You take 3 hours to have a shower?
Pink: Yes... I mean, NO! I'm usually clean in 5 minutes.
Blue: Then what? Is there an elaborate moisturising ritual?
Pink: Most of the time is spent psyching myself up.
Blue: Does that mean you're scared of showers?
Pink: The rest of the time is spent either calming down or trying to get out of the drink.
Blue: You're scared of showers.
Pink: Not so much of showers. More of deluges.
Blue: Showers aren't deluges. They're little sprinklings of water that - what is that noise?
Pink: My shower.
Blue: Ok. That sounds like a serious deluge.
Pink: Yeah. Every time I go under it, I'm at serious risk of drowning.
Blue: You must be using so much water! Have you thought of changing the shower head?
Pink: I would if there was a shower head. Rivers don't exactly allow you to turn down their water flow.
Blue: Rivers?
Pink: Yeah. My shower is a waterfall. How cool is that? ... I mean, it's cool to look at and it sounds cool. It's not so cool when I'm in it and it's trying to kill me.
Blue: Where did you say you lived again?
Pink: I didn't. If I don't turn up to work tomorrow, you'll know I've drowned or been hit on the head by flotsam and drowned or caught by the current and drowned. Anyway, wish me luck!
Click.
Blue: A waterfall? For a shower?
:P
A lot of people write stories. They talk about how difficult it is to write and how hard it is to stay on track on the one same story and how other shiny ideas come flitting to distract them. They talk about how they procrastinate and how they sometimes just can't be bothered.
I think it depends on whether writing is their trade or whether, like me, they just do it for fun. Shiny new ideas? Excellent. Find me a piece of paper and a pen to capture it. Store it for another time. Can't think of anything to write? Continue with another story or go do something else. Can't be bothered to write? Fine. Don't bother. Do something fun. Writer's block? Play with the block and make a tower of them. Want to really finish a story and can't be bothered? Imagine a boss standing over your desk, roaring, "Where is my story?" Keep procrastinating? Procrastinate away! There's still the rest of my life to - squirrel! finish the story.
It depends on your audience. If your audience is an audience of one, namely you, enjoy your writing time. Splurge. But if writing is your trade, your sole means of financial income... well... ignore everything I say here. Don't read any further. I mean it!
If you have a deadline for a written piece or writing is your trade. Then. This is what I would do (or do when I do have a deadline coming up for something). Imagine myself into an office environment. High rise buildings. Glass windows everywhere. Enclosed desk upon desk upon desk in the work room you share with your fellow minions. Typing or talking on phones feverishly. Slavishly. There is professionalism here. Expectation. And if you don't get your work done or your quota completed for that day, the boss will come calling. You'll be called in on an efficiency report. They'll reduce your pay and you will be reduced to the shrimp ranks shared by the beginners. And you don't want to have your work constantly interrupted by the more advanced workers demanding you make them a cup of coffee. Now.
Too scary?
You and your boss are good friends, even if you are his employee. Your office is situated directly outside his office and he's a very lenient understanding sort of man. He knows how much to expect of you and understands if sometimes, you don't quite meet deadlines. Even if he gets that disappointed light in his eyes. You don't want to fail your friend. It's his business after all. And if you don't get your work done, he has to take the fall for you. If he loses business, how is he going to pay you?
OR how about this?
You are a Roman slave. If you don't get this done and if you don't please your master, you will either be (a) whipped severely and thrown into the circus for the lions; (b) put in solitary confinement with a disgustingly dirty fellow slave covered with boils and all sorts of contagious diseases, not to mention the fleas and lice; (c) hanged and thrown into the circus for the lions; (d) sold to another master that will throw you in the circus for the lions at the slightest mistake; (e) killed somehow, like being tossed to a pack of hungry, goaded, angry, wild dogs or thrown into the circus for the lions.
Come on. Where's your imagination? You're a writer! You're meant to one of the world's most creative and imaginative people! You're the sort of person, who looks like a grown up, but still does play-acting in your free time when the house is empty and no one's in. You fight dragons with a sword one evening and are on the other side of the world performing espionage the next. You explore dripping caves in the shower and sink ships in a naval battle when you're washing the dishes.
Wait. Didn't I tell you to stop reading earlier? Oh. You're like me? You're writing stories for yourself because you've run out of books in the house (having read each one at least 10 times and new books are finished in a night, losing their attraction)? You don't care if your stories are never published and never seen by anyone other than yourself? Ah, then. Welcome my friend. You're welcome to read on.
Writing should be fun if it's your hobby. Like doodling pictures. Don't kill yourself over it. Don't put on weight, get carpal tunnel syndrome, have to get new super strong owl glasses, neck, shoulder and back strain just to write one measly story. This is writing practice. It's fun. It's only a first draft. It's about the art, the craft, the polishing to perfection and then stepping back in the end to admire it's beauty.
It's about creation. Entertainment. Having fun. Enjoying the sensation of building, making, forming, molding. Rollicking in the word play and smithing of the correct imagery. Surfing on the emotions and moods. It's about having adventure and the sort of people you have always wanted to meet come to life and becoming 3-dimensional amidst their 1-dimensional descriptions. New places! New worlds to explore! The familiar and the unfamiliar meeting in a maze of netting.
Forget the rest. It's all about story.
Without story, all your scribblings are exactly that. Scribbles.
I'm off to catch more of the shiny ideas floating around my head. I may never use them. Some are completely worthless, but some are real gems. The fun is in the chase and then the capture and then the carving and polishing to make them really shine.
13 January, 2011
green eyes, red eyes
The island is a small rounded crescent like shape that reminds me of a piece of an orange. It's not very big, only having a population of about 4000. Like a typical holiday island, it has glorious white and yellow sand beaches, warm crystalline water and huge over hanging palm trees. Like other similar islands, it has become a place of luxury resorts and tourism, where the rich come to relax and holiday with coconuts in one palm and their iphones in the other, all the while floating and sun-baking in one of the many large swimming pools dotted around the island. One would expect life here to be a relatively happy place - busy, full of life and yet laid back in every way.
Not so.
Every 100 days or so, somebody goes missing. Every single non-tourist lives in fear of this. They don't count the days of the year like the rest of the world - well they do, but locally, the year is defined by 3 and a half cycles of 100 days. On every 100th day, you will find the towns deserted. Not an open shop. Every person, save the confused tourists will be boarded up in their houses or hiding within the hotels, keeping a close eye on their children and every window and door to their household. No opening is left unboarded. Even toilets lids are strapped down until that night is over. Every man, woman and child will tape over the key holes and every crack they can find in the house before huddling together in their beds with ear plugs in their ears. When the sun finally peeks over the horizon the next morning, the citizens of the island will finally come out with a sigh of relief. They have survived another cycle. In the distance, there will be a wail of grief. Another one gone. Sometimes exactly who has gone missing is undiscovered for days.
No natives have lived or landed on this island for hundreds of years. Natives still refuse to come here and say if the Westerners want to be visited by the evil that lives there, who are they to stop them? The locals now living on the island have never been able to get a coherent story of the island's past. All they know is that there was romance, betrayal and a curse for revenge. That and the 'thing' that visits every cycle is female. A woman with one eye red and one eye green.
11 January, 2011
Be a good story
Life can really take it out of you. You get out of bed in the morning and what happens? You get steamrolled by a Femojan elephant that resembles nothing like an elephant - it looks more like a giant rh... never mind.
This is only going to be a short post. For reasons known only to the onions with the rotten cores sitting unhappily in my house and pretending to be good onions so that I will eat them, life can take unexpected turns. Not all of them unstressful. Understatements are the amuse bouche of the day, so bear with my incoherence. I'm tired, annoyed, frustrated and perhaps just a teeny-weeny little bit stressed. Hear me roar/scream/cry/shout/laugh all at the same time. Of course, like me, it's inaudible. Being inaudible in itself can be like settling into your favourite armchair and just when you are getting comfy, a great big grizzly bear decides to sit on you. It gets comfy sitting on you and who are you to complain (right)? You don't want to get eaten or ripped limb from limb... and while you are sitting there suffocating under a ton of fur and fat, guess what? Yeah, a hoarde of animals come along one by one and sit on top until you are a veritable pancake beneath the weight of a million animals and creatures of all sizes.
Life is short. Any day could be your last. God only knows which day, which hour, which minute, which second. But I concur. Life is much like being chased up and down mountains and valleys; in and out of forests and fields; caves and waterfalls; rivers and oceans (- ok, the whole entire galaxy), yet wherever you go you're being hunted. Yep it's a man hunt by your deepest, darkest nightmare. Others will only see a blur and have a distinctly uncomfortable feeling of danger and move out of your nightmare's way, before they too get embroiled within it. Sometimes they don't move fast enough and get eaten. Then you blame yourself for all your inadequacies.
The point is, life is a gift. It may not be one you like. But hey, well, you've only got one chance.
Life is a story. Your story. Your magnus opus. This is your only shot at making good with what you got and showing the whole entire universe that you exist and exist for a reason. Almost everyone (save a few weirdos) love a good story. Make your story worth having lived through the tedious.
Make your story, a good story. Live life. Live loud and face up to those challenges, cos what's an epic story without the breakthroughs and the impossibles that became possible by miracle?
Hope you make it through the day without somebody coming along and drawing fake moustaches/beards/ornaments on your face with a permanent marker.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
