2010 & 2011

It is very easy to focus on the negative rather than the positive. I know I am far too good at it. So in the spirit of positivity I am going to look not at things I didn't do in 2010, but instead focus on the things I DID do.

Singing

I've been saying for years that I would like to be able to sing. Not for any particular reason, just to know that I could open my mouth and feel confident that what comes out won't send dogs fleeing for cover. I plucked up my courage and sent an enquiry to a local music school and was allocated a tutor. It has been amazing fun for me and I come out of each and every lesson with a glow of happiness.

Yes, I could progress better and faster if I was more disciplined about practicing between lessons, but you know what? I don't care. I am enjoying the lessons themselves tremendously and it's not like I have a concert looming in my future. I am doing this purely for me. It will take the time it takes and I will have a great time throughout the journey.

Style

Another thing I've been wanting to do for the longest time is to get "my colours done". You know, having one of those sessions where someone trained tells you what colours you look best in. So off I went. Half a day spent with a lovely consultant discussing not only colours, but styles as well. What to think about with accessories, belt or no belt, skirt lengths, coat shapes.

I walked out of there with a wallet of colour swatches as well as a booklet of what styles and shapes are the best for me. But the brilliant thing is that most of the time I don't even have to look at them. Caroline explained (and showed) why I want to make certain choices, which means that I can now look at clothes and most of the time just know whether the style will do what I want it to. Same with colours. Dark over light, muted over bright, warm over cold. Easy!

Volunteering

I've signed up as a volunteer for the London 2012 Olympics. I think they have handled some of it appallingly (For instance sending letters to residents asking them not to use their cars during the Olympics. Seriously - you didn't consider that people will still need to get to work?), but with it being just around the corner it could be fun to be involved.

They are calling people to interviews over the next few months, so I may not be offered a spot - but I think it could be an experience if I do. You can put down 3 areas you'd prefer to help out in and went for things to do with media, helping out in the Olympic village and something else along those lines. There were 11 areas, so there were more that I thought sounded interesting, but also some that I would not go for. Like working in the ticket office or with catering or recycling. Not my skillset at all and also not something I'd get any enjoyment out of doing. If I were to get offered something like that I would have to turn it down.

Skiing

We booked our 2011 ski holiday. We're going to Cervinia for I's birthday and we are both looking forward to it a lot. Last year we didn't get around to going for various reasons, so I am very pleased we got it booked in.

My problem is that I have to book trips at least 2-3 months in advance. That early on I'll be all excited and think it'll be great fun. Too close to the departure date and I'll get bogged down in the horror that is travelling. You know, trekking to the airport, queuing at the airport, sitting at the airport, sitting on the plane, queuing at another airport, sitting on a coach. Add in 2 people with stomach problems that are exacerbated by travelling and you have a recipe for "why don't we take time off and just chill at home". So very, very pleased we got that booked before the cold feet set in.

The future

We have talked a lot about the future this year. Not dream talk "if we didn't have to work, we could" or vague "sometime it'd be nice to" talk, but proper discussions about what we want out of life. Where do we want to live, what do we want to prioritise?

I am not entirely happy living in the suburbs, to my mind you have all the drawbacks both of city-life and country-living, but none of the upsides. But I am not blind to the many practical reasons why so many people live there. We're still throwing around some different ideas about what exactly we'd prefer to do, but in the meantime we are hard at work paying off extra chunks on our mortgage. The thinking being that when the time comes we will (hopefully) have more equity in our house which is something that gives us more options. At the moment we've set a deadline of 2012 for making a decision and starting down whatever path we chose to take.

Of course that is year away and in the current climate much can change in a year. I's work is probably facing redundancies, though the staff don't know yet how many or exactly where (very big place) - so that's kind of a big question mark for this year and possibly the next.

2011

Looking forward I don't have any major goals for this year.

I'm going to give the whole going to the gym thing another try for a couple of months, if it still doesn't work out then I'll cancel the membership. No point in paying for something you don't use, no matter how good it would be for you.

More singing of course.

More writing. I got out of the swing with it for the last few months last year, but I do want to keep at it - so I'll try to keep that up.

And of course there will be a fair bit of pondering of what I really want to do as our self-imposed deadline looms closer.

Happy New Year

Autumn is here, summer is over. Afternoons might be warm but mornings are chilly and the air has that smell of seasons changing.

As my friend pointed out, autumn definitely feels like the time of changes and starting afresh. Maybe it is an ingrained response to all those years in school, when starting back at school was when things really changed. January 1st or December 31st are not really any different from each other. It is still winter and nothing is actually different.

Birthdays are pretty much the same, you are technically a year older, but your life doesn't change because of it. (Unless of course it is a birthday that allows you to do something new/legally - have sex, buy alcohol, drive a car.) A new school year, however, is when things tangibly change.

During summer (at least when working in an office), things tend to slow down somewhat. Colleagues, suppliers and clients are all taking time off at various intervals during the summer months - leaving business moving at a slower pace than normal. That combined with your own summer holidays means that when autumn comes you are energised and ready to make changes / get going again.

So in the spirit of this, I have some New Year's Resolutions.

1) Gym
Looking at the scales and in the mirror, I could stand to lose a few kilos. I'm technically not overweight, but only by a kilo or two.

There also the fact that my lifestyle is completely sedentary. Apart from small bouts of walking (like to the station or to get lunch), I spend the bulk of my awake time sitting. 95-100% of my working time is spent in front of the computer. 2 out 5 days I work away from the office meaning no proper monitor, no proper chair or foot rest, so my posture is even worse than normal.

Most everything I do in my spare time is done while sitting. Going to the movies, reading a book, playing on the computer, socialising. So I desperately need some regular physical activity.

My goal is to go to one lunchtime class per week every week and to try to do two classes a week most weeks. Sure, 3 times per week would be great - but I am trying to set a realistic goal that I have a chance to reach, with a stretch goal to try for.

2) 5 a day
I am rubbish at eating fruit and veg. Sure you get some through things included in lunch and dinner, but to fill the daily quota you need to snack on some too and this is where I fail.

I used to buy fruit with the idea that I'd eat it mid-morning and mid-afternoon as a healthy snack. Unfortunately, I'd then promptly forget about it until it was time to go home.

It is one of those things that I know is good for me, but where the actual doing has no particular appeal in its own right. So in an attempt to up our fruit/veg intake we've bought a blender to make smoothies with. Half a litre of fruit mush with some orange juice or diet lemonade to make more liquid, that should surely count as a few of my 5 a day.

We actually used to have a juicer a few years ago and as much as it was very tasty, it was a pain in the behind to clean. As long as you did it straight away, most of it was very easy, but there was one part that was just impossible. I don't know what it is called, but its surface looks like a fine grater with very sticky outie holes. The only way to get rid of the bits of fruit stuck to it is to scrub it with a toothbrush - every time. Ugh!

The blender on the other hand is very, very easy to clean. After making the smoothies, it takes a couple of minutes to clean the it. Rinse, quick wash, leave out to dry for tomorrow's use. And of course you get a goodly dose of fibre as well, which you don't get with juicing. Win win really.

The goal is to do this three times a week. Twice in the week and once on the weekend. If we can manage four or five some weeks, then great - but that is the stretch goal.

3) Singing

I'm already enrolled for the autumn term (just over a week to go - squee), but I need to get into the habit of practising. So it's time to go pick up a nice, cheap keyboard so I can play scales for warm-up exercises. I tried warming up just by singing some random easy songs, but it doesn't work. Without doing scales that push me to warm up to both ends of my range, I cannot reach the notes I can reach easily when properly warmed up.

My goal is to practise at least once a week between lessons - stretch goal is twice a week.

4) Blogging

I am enjoying writing and I am managing to write down a lot more drafts, but that's no use if I never go back and finish them and hit "Publish".

So the goal is to post at least once a week from now on, more is better, but less is not acceptable. Friday will count as the last day of the week.

In the past deadlines have usually helped me get past the draft / editing stage into the finishing / polishing stage, so hopefully this will work.

5) Clothes mojo

Finally, I need to make a push to sort out my wardrobe - big job (long story, will probably turn into a blog post of its own).

This is more of a project than something I need to get into doing each week, but so far I've not gotten around to it. Autumn is when I swap the summer clothes in the wardrobe for the winter clothes in the loft, so it's an ideal time to create some order.

• Wardrobe cleared out of all unused items - by Sunday 12 Sept
• Wardrobe updated with any necessary autumn/winter items - by Sunday 26 Sept

So that should keep me busy for a while. :-)

How my Blackberry helped me get started writing

Time
I keep having ideas for blog posts and for fiction stuff, but I rarely used to get them written. One issue was time. When do people find the time to sit down and just write?

At work I am at the computer all day long, but as the word might indicate I am working. I did try using my lunchbreaks for writing rather than my normal round of checking up on certain forums, websites and Google Reader. It quickly became clear that trying to get into the flow while trying to finish lunch in a timely manner did not really work (and there's the whole breadcrumbs-in-keyboard and mayo-on-mouse issues).

I do have a computer at home, a lovely 3XS Black Widow one which allows me to play WoW with high fps and low lag. So you can guess what I end up doing when I'm at the computer at home. ;-)

So one day I was on the train and very bored. My DS was out of juice, so no Sodoku, and I didn't have a book with me. On impulse I picked up my Blackberry and opened up the MemoPad. I'd had this idea for a blog post floating around my head, so off I went.

Turns out the Blackberry is ideal for writing on the go. It is small and you can get away with writing one-handed if necessary. That means that even when squashed onto a busy commuter train with no personal space whatsoever and using one hand to cling to a pole for when the driver stands on the brakes - you can still write. It's amazing! All that time I spend on trains, tubes and buses can be used for something useful.

Writing vs editing
The other issue I've always had with writing is that I am a bit of a perfectionist. I'll start writing and then get stuck because that word didn't quite sound right or maybe that paragraph needs to go further up. Kinda ruins the flow.

When you are writing you are not trying to create a masterpiece ready to go to print. You are just creating a first draft. It is all about getting the ideas from inside your head and onto paper. To allow things to flow, unhindered by self-criticism. Only once you have captured your story is it time to tame it.

That is when you take off the creative writing hat and put on the critical editing hat. You go back over the story correcting spelling and grammar, but more importantly you critically assess the writing. That is the time to ponder the exact word that would best describe the hero's tone of voice in scene 5, chapter 10. To move things around to create a better flow, to trim a bit here and plump up a bit there.

You do NOT interrupt your writing flow for these kinds of things. I know I am not supposed to do it, yet I keep getting bogged down with it while writing. I lose the flow and the story withers and dies under the weight of self-criticism. It is a hard mental shift to make. To allow yourself to write in cliches, using sub-optimal words - for the sake of allowing the story to be born, to have a chance to live and thrive.

The Blackberry has helped me with this too. I think maybe it has something to do with the fact that you see so little of what you have written on that small screen. It is somehow easier to let things just flow and do what they want when it disappears off the screen so quickly. It is quite liberating.


Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

Withdrawal and writing woes

Withdrawal
My singing lessons are on hold for the moment as the music school is closed for the summer break. It's only been 2 weeks since my last lesson - I'm suffering from withdrawal already.

Speaking of withdrawal, one of my favourite TV series is also on a  break, so I have been filling the void by avidly reading ... *gasp* ... fan fiction. I know that there are very varied opinions on fan fiction from people that despise it via those that don't understand why anyone would write or read it to those that love it.

Fan fiction
Personally I adore fan fiction, probably because I have been creating it since I was a wee youngster - only I've never written it down. I've been a voracious reader from a young age and I have a very vivid imagination. I would get really caught up in the stories I read and then be really disappointed when they ended. So I made up more stories set in the worlds I'd read about. Once I got older and was introduced to long-running TV-series, some of those worlds captured my imagination as well. I never bothered writing any of it down, which I quite regret now as it would've been fun to look back on. And I definitely would never have dared mention it to anyone for fear of people thinking I was really weird for getting so caught up in the stories I read / saw.

But the last couple of years I have found these repositories of fan fiction out there on the intarwebz and have marvelled at how many others there are in the world that enjoy it too. I find it fascinating how different people pick up on different things just in one episode of a show and it sets them off on a storyline that can keep going for many chapters. Sure, a lot of fan fiction is romantically inclined, whether between existing characters or existing character plus original character. But why is that a bad thing? There is a reason the romance genre in books and movies has always flourished - it is obviously popular.

One complaint I've seen is that people only write fan fiction, romantically angled ones in particular, to get to put a character in there as an avatar of themselves. Again, to me that doesn't seem like a bad thing - as long as the original character is a good one that fits in. In fact modelling a character on yourself can be an easy way to get going with writing. And one has to consider that fan fiction is written because the author enjoys it, not because they get paid for it.

Wish fulfillment proxies
I won't deny that I have seen a lot of original characters that are complete wish-fulfillment proxies. They have the beauty of a model, the body of a porn star, the intellect of Stephen Hawking, the martial art prowess of Jet Li, can shoot like a sniper, the cooking skills of Nigella Lawson AND everyone likes them. They have no flaws, are just amazing at everything and the canon characters just don't know how they got along without the original character around.

Now browsing around a bit I came across the term Mary Sue that seems to be used to describe this phenomenon. There are even tests out there that are supposed to tell you whether your character is a Mary Sue. My main problem with the Mary Sue concept is that it seems to focus inordinately on whether the character is an avatar of the author rather than whether the character is a wish-fulfillment proxy.

In these tests a lot of questions are about whether the character has a name like the author's, dresses like the author, has the same interests as the author. To me this is completely irrelevant. What matters is the quality of the character development and the writing in general. At the end of the day I'm never going to meet the author, so how would I know that the character's hobbies are based on theirs?

Easy mistakes to make
Writing a main character that is over-the-top unbalanced is a common mistake made by novice writers. It is, hopefully, all part of the learning process. But it is very unhelpful for the development of the writer if the focus of the critique is on similarites between the character and the author rather than on the balance of the character itself.

As a reader I have encountered many stories where I really enjoyed the idea, but it got pulled down by certain common mistakes / cliches. And in most cases it is such a shame as the story itself was good - the character/s just needed a little more rounding off and / or the writing needed a bit of polish.

A balanced character
The key problem I have seen is that of the balanced character. Someone can be good at something without having to be the best in the world ever. A character that happens to have a good singing voice and enjoys singing is fine. A character whose voice is so amazing that they really should be a superstar and regularly mesmerises people with their angelic song - a bit OP*, as we say in gaming circles. (*over powered)

On the flip side, someone can have emotional baggage that makes them struggle to form long-term relationships - but it doesn't have be in the form of abuse / violence / being kidnapped by slave traders. We humans are quite capable of being complex emotionally without having endured things that would have you spending the rest of your life in a padded cell gibbering incoherently.

Descriptions
Descriptions are good, but another common mistake is to pile them all on top of each other. The author probably has an incredibly clear image of what the character looks like and it is easy to get carried away when trying to put across this to the reader. You don't want to start the story with a paragraph (or more) listing the character's hair colour, eye colour, body shape, clothes and every single accessory. Think long-term - you want to drip-feed the reader descriptions over time. You are not trying to give the reader a colour photograph, you want to give them a rough sketch focussing only on the important details - their imagination will do the rest.

The crew
The final thing on my list is not to do with the character itself, but how everyone else in the cast is written around it. One of the questions on the Mary Sue tests is whether all other characters like the original character. The question is relevant, but a bit too broad I think. When you meet a new person it is highly unusual that you will instantly like them, but it is equally unusual that you will instantly dislike them. Most of the time our feelings for a new person will be neutral and when we feel neutral, don't-really-know-you-yet towards someone new, we will usually be nice to them. Unless there is a very good reason to trust / distrust them, of course. So being treated ok is definitely not a sign of a wish-fulfillment character. It is the over-the-top reactions to the character that might signal that - whether it be positive or negative.

So, ehm, end of lecture I guess... I got on a bit of a roll with that one. ;-)

(Yes, I might just be working on a piece of fanfic - but after unloading all my opinions I may not dare let it out in public view. It is after all a lot easier to edit others' work than creating your own. :-) )