Tag: writing

Sci-fi views

We are in lockdown in a beautiful location. We are lucky. There are regular scenes resembling a cover of a sci-fi novel.

Peach and pink sunset over the bay, the sea was perfectly still as a navy submarine, half submerged and performing a routine drill, cruised past like an alien ship in the evening. All the while a bright white moon hung in the pink sky. La Luna smiled down on us from the other side of the bay, almost scraping the pastel colored mountains which surround us like one of Mars’ orbital rocks.

On another morning, further out to sea a pod of hundreds of dolphins were in a feeding frenzy. They gorged themselves on a huge shoal of smaller fish which they had trapped. A boiling, choppy circular mass moved along through the water until the feeding was done. From high up here it looked like one of Jupiter’s storms passing by.

Now at night time the darkness of the water fills up space from our viewpoint to the city. Far on the other side of the bay is where the water ends and the city starts. I see an amber glow and winking, yellow lights floating on the blackness of the sea. The city is like a huge mothership hovering on the ocean.

Look for the sci-fi around you because it’s surely there.

Happy Tuesday chimps.

Hyperion update – viva Audible

Dan Simmons’ Sci-Fi novel is a great listen on Audible. So far I have listened to about 8 hours and I have about 12 hours left. That’s 20 hours in total! Sheesh…. I don’t think I would have started the book let alone stuck with it for this long if I was reading an old hard copy. But with Audible and my routine of listening before sleep, I am confident of finishing it.

The ‘Canterbury Tales’ structure of the novel is brilliant. The Priest’s tale was an introduction to the world. The army general’s tale was brilliantly graphic. The Shrike is terrifying. I am in the middle of the Poet’s tale (no. 3) and completely absorbed by the tale. The humour and in particular the linkage with the writing process are absorbing. It makes me want to read the referenced poets like Keats. I want to visit the “City of Poets”. Check out this trail for an idea of the links to old poetry: link

Highly recommended.

Happy Monday chimps.

Developing a concept

The addition of ‘escape the jungle’ to my blog’s main menu is taking shape. I plan to add a few sub menus to cater for all the things in life that help me to escape the jungle – to be less chimp and more rational being. Less anxious and more free.

So far I have art, design, productivity and psychology.

Within these categories I will post my favorite stuff. There will be subcategories too I guess…sport goes somewhere. This is the stuff I love and enjoy. The stuff that makes my life better.

Happy Sunday chimps.

Mourning the end of a streak

For a few days I couldn’t write. I don’t believe in writers block, but exhaustion and overload are real and encourage resistance to create.

We are all in the middle of a war. The global pandemic is spreading. As much as it is a war against a terrible disease, it is also an assault on the senses. A drain on our energy if we succumb to the non stop media coverage. It grabs attention. The media distraction is only exacerbated by young children and old grandparents relying on my wife and I to help navigate the family. It has been a load and for three days it squeezed any bandwidth I had for writing right out of my mind.

For me, this is a mini-tragedy (compared to the global mega-tragedy unfolding around us) because I had built up a decent streak of writing every day for over a month.

It is surprisingly hard to start fresh. But once you start, the words do flow. You just need to start.

More creativity to cope with tragedy. I’m back and I will hit a month again.

Happy Tuesday chimps.

Your life vs. your Self

This morning I woke up super early to feed one of my children. When that happens I use the time to meditate, read and listen to music. If I could I would do these quieter things all day.

I’m often more creative, engaged and productive with big stretches of time spent on my own. This is good to understand.

Happy Tuesday chimps.

Split

It helps a lot if you are confident about the desired outcome. If you know what you want. I’m not sure what the stats are, but I bet that the odds of something happening go way up if you have the end goal clearly emblazoned is your mind.

All of the most important things related to a project – values, culture, status, leadership – they depend on the parameters that are set.

Maybe an example will help me express myself. If you write a novel, and it starts as a tragedy, then slips into a sci-fi, then to a slapstick comedy, and finally reaches a crescendo as a religious historical piece – well that sounds like a confused mess.

Genre and its audience is perhaps where you want to start. It helps to define the values, the culture and the modus operandi.

With that in mind, I have realized my writing on this blog tends to split into different interests. I might write about creativity, African trade, productivity, music, or sci-fi all in the space of a week.

This needs to become a little clearer, and step one in the splitting out of interests is to redesign the site a little. I think this new template is clearer and the menu at the top will help to clarify things.

It’s a work in progress.

For anyone who has reached this far in the post, happy Monday chimps. 😀

Night time panics

It’s not so much a panic, but more a huge imagining of potential future outcomes for projects that live in my head.

Once I am awake (usually kids crying) my brain throws a thought at me, I think of some way to change the outcome and then the snowball effect means I don’t sleep for hours.

I can feel it when the Adrenaline hits the body and at that point i might as well get up and have a coffee. I ain’t sleeping anymore.

Last night was bad but gave me a few ideas to work on.

Hoping for sleep tonight though.

Happy Saturday chimps.

Goal achieved!!! Now, please have a Newsletter

If my calculations are correct (and they may very well be incorrect….I blame COVID if that’s the case) but if they’re correct – I have actually done 34 posts in a row on this blog. 34!!!! You may remember (link) I was going for 30. I did it a few days ago without actually realising. Either way I am happy!

Fireworks. Champagne. Singing. Chanting. Mass celebrations lining the streets.

In all seriousness, I am very happy. I have achieved a goal stated in public and with a track record to prove it. And to celebrate, I want to start a newsletter which will come out once a week.

Inspired by this guy: Ben Evans and this guy: Tim Ferris I will try and include in the newsletter everything that I find helpful or interesting from the web. It will be weekly (out on Wednesdays) and it will include links to external stuff, and a few of my own thoughts. This will primarily be an archive for myself, but if others find it interesting too, then all the better.

If you want to subscribe, click on the menu button (top right of this blog) and click the appropriate button.

If not, then don’t 🙂

Here’s to continuous creating.

Happy Tuesday chimps.

Remote drumming

Today was a first. I laid down a drum track using the iPad, and sent it overseas to my dad in Kenya for him to overlay guitar and vocals.

I know musicians have been doing this for ages, but Covid19 is forcing us to use the tools at our disposal and pushing us out of our comfort zones. For me that means sticking to a blogging commitment and producing music with family overseas.

I just love the internet.

Happy Sunday chimps.