My Doors

I have another blog called 'The Doors' which was supposed to be a series of short stories.

One night while at work self deprecating i though about my subconscious mind, and that there is a light side and a dark side to us all, and being that the dark side is more interesting, from a writers point of view, i decided to write the stories, i called them 'The Corridor of my Subconscious' then add a door number. There are 48 doors, starting with 00, and 47 is at the end of this subconscious corridor, i would write a short story based on one of the doors, each being different and each holding something different inside, an end to whom ever goes inside, some want to, some don't, some fear the unknown, other attack it. They all loss.

I figured i might start writing these again, i finished 3, doors 00, 18 and 11 i was in the middle or writing another but for the life of my i can't find it anywhere. These would be a good place to start, or to just give me something to write.

They didn't take long, 5 maybe 6 hours to finish, then a quick spell/grammar check, then post.

Maybe writing these would get me in the mood to write more, re: last blog.

Long time...

Haven't written a blog in like forever.

So whats been happening with my writing, not much is the short answer.

I've come to the conclustion that i'm lazy, to lazy infact to better my own life. Now what does that say about me? Does it mean that i just don't care about my current currcumstances, no matter how much i complain about them, does it make me a hypocrit? Or just a guy in his early 30's who still doesn't know exactly what he wants and or needs in his life? Answers in a postcard.

Writing has once again been on my mind which is why i'm writing this blog right now, I have many books to read, books in the genre i like, Thrillers, Crime and or Spy, the book i 'want' to write is a Sci-Fi Spy Thriller, I wanted to down play the Sci-Fi aspect. "So why write one then?" Because its a particular Sci-Fi franchise, it can really only be one of two, Star Trek or Star Wars. Now, i happen to know quite a lot about this franchise and figured i'd write my first novel in the time and place of that franchise, to make things a little easier for myself. So i spent more time thinking about the Story-Plot-Characters etc etc...

It hasn't gone well, i have maybe 8 pages written so far, 8 pages in how many months?

I keep hearing people say that "You need to get in habbit of writing" to find a quite corner/place with no window or other distractions and just start, first set a goal, weather it be a time goal like an hour or two, or a word goal like 500 or 1000 words, and once you've reached that goal, run out of time or reached your 1000 words, STOP. But do this every day, maybe giving yourself a day off each week, say Sunday, it is a day of rest after all.

What about the dreadid "Writers Block". I read a book awhile back by Anne Lamottcalled 'Bird by Bird' it was an insightful read, about her Anne goes about her writing, in it she said that Writers Block is incurrect, because your creativity isn't being blocked, you've simply run dry, like a car running out of fuel, and all you need to do if get a refill. Instead of forcing it out, stop writing and refill your creativity. Go for a long walk, watch a film, read a book, have a discussion with friends, do something else besides sitting infront of your computer word processor, save - close - turn off. The more you try to force creativity the harder it is to find, So give yourself permission to finish early.

Now, to me this all makes perfect sense, does it to you? (leave a comment below if it does or does not) So if all this makes perfect sense to me, why do i have so much trouble writing, i wrote this blog on the spur of the moment. I spend, Waste, so much time every day, either watching reruns of Top Gear on Dave (Sky ch 111) or visiting the miriad of social networks online, sitting refreshing pages incase i miss something. Television, The Internet (Ironic) and Noisy Children are among the biggest distracts i now of, so let me tell you a story.

London, Heathrow Airport, June 21.

I sit in the departure lounge waiting for my already late Virgin Boaing 747-700 to start boarding, 1 hour and 15 minutes late, its called 'Cosmic Girl' and bares an image of Dita Von Tess below the cockpit windows. I really hate airports, but its a necessary evil for intaintercontinental travel. The ride was terrible, the sits are to crammed together, people need space, but that economy for you, next time i might spend a little more and upgrade to Premiem Econemy, Maybe. So i watch a few films on the inflight entertainment screen. Landing 11 hours laters in San Francsico International Airport, no trouble with US customs, at all, infact he was very nice. I meet my friend and we drive back to his place, where several others were waiting. Ok, now for the point of this little story, I spend 3 days in his house, with no Internet and no Television (by choice) and i switched off my mobile phone because of the roaming charges, i just checked my emails a few times a day, that it, we then spent 4 days on Berryessa Lake in a house boat. No TV, No Internet, just 11 other people, Booze a speed boat and some water sport devices, the rubber ring and a knee board, needless to say i didn't miss television or the internet, again irony, i uploaded all the video i shot and pictures i took to the internet so i could share them with the eleven others. Point is, i really didn't need television, or the internet.

The Web is fine, its a great tool for research and buying stuff like books, DVD's and furniture, but don't let it take over your life or you'll spend valuable moments of your life pixelated, Turn off the Television, switch off the computer, go out with friends, socialise with real people, people you can see and hear without having to look at a 2 dimentional screen.

So, if i can spend a week with no Television and no Internet, why can't i do it while at home, is it because i'm lazy, because its just easier to entertain myself with Television and the Web. Could i spend time at home, without using either? Could i sit and read books, plan a book, write a book, and or film script.

Maybe my attention span is just to short for something as involved as writing.

Sunday Sunday...

I awoke at 3pm this afternoon to the sound of one of my fans blowing in the fresh air from beyond my curtains, birds churping and children playing in the distants. I sat up and checked the clock beside my bed 15:02 in green LED's. The sound of Spring fills my bedroom. And on the chair infront of me, a sight that rips that Spring feeling away like my soul on the wind. My work uniform. My mood turned as black as the fabric.

As per usual i go to the toilet after getting out of bed, both windows are open and the bright sun shine, the blue cloudless sky and a cool breeze reawakens that Spring feeling, i stand, releaving myself, and soaking up the gorgeous Spring air.

I have 2 hours before i have to go to work. Shit.

I stand at the bus stop, my face burning in the sun light, i move into the shade, the bus was empty most of the way to the tubestation, women with short skirts and strapless dresses sit around me, pink with a mild sun burn. I wait 10'ish minutes for my train, which at the last minute had a change for destination, which meant i had to change halfway. Shit. For the next 40 minutes i'll be underground in a metal cigar travelling through tunnels that were cut out of the London earth 150 years ago. I hate the London Underground, even more so in hot weather. I make one change, blissfully walking, trying not to care about the time. Once out of the sweat box i have nearly one mile of London city streets to walk, the suns out, and so i walk again without a care for the time, i just walk, slower then normal watching tourists checking their sight seeing maps then checking local land marks then checking their maps again, they look confused. The London Eye is infront and across the river and the Parliament building is to your right. Easy. My one and only stop on my way to work is a small Tesco with a small corridor filled with undecided shoppers. I look in, see the hopelessness of getting in and out with my weekend usual so i turn and leave empty handed. Now i have to walk a little out of my way to the next little Tesco, but Fuck it, its a beautiful day, and so i walk on passing the giant entrence to Westminister Abbey surrounded by its gothic architecture, the lawns in front are filled with resting walkers still taking pictures. The second Tesco is a little bigger, but more importantly it has what i wanted, so i grab a bottle of water, which i'm drinking now, a sandwich (Chicken salad) two bottles of Diet Coke (gotta watch my figure ;P) a Twix extra and a box of Go Ahead biscuits, strawberry favour. I need the sugar to keep me awake for the next 12 hours.

By now its nearly a quarter to seven, and i still need to do an external check on the building before i go inside. Its a habit. Check done and i enter the building a little after, heading strait throught the reception and into the showroom filled with "buyers" checking out next seasons crapola. I stash my grub in the fridge then go back the reception for the Handover of Responsibility.

I am now, and will be until 7am tomorrow, responsible for this building and its contents. Overall value about 25 million pounds, but to me, its just bricks and rags.


The moral of this story is;
"Why the fuck do we have to work on days such as this, it ain't right and should be a crime"


Have a happy Sunday folks, enjoy it, get the most out of it, for tomorrow is Monday.

Fatal Flaw.

We all have them right, each and every one of us has at least one flaw which dicataes our lives.

Last night i started to think a little about mine. Laziness. No matter how passionate i am about something. Or how motivated i am. I can never seem to shake off the laziness that, it seems i've had for longer then i originally thought.

I figured it started after my redundency back in 2004, i took a year off work and lived on my redundency money, i would spend days. Even weeks doing nothing but watching TV and or DVD's, during that time i gained a little weight, which i still have, and no matter how much i talked to myself about starting to exercise, i never did.

But that, ithink, wasn't where it began, as a kid, i would get home from school and instead of doing my home work i'd play video games or sit watching TV, no biggy right all kids do that, but even then i'd still sit watching crap because i didn't what to do the home work. Now even though i have tons of writing projects to do, i still feel like i'd rather just sit watching TV/DVD's.

Back in 2004/2005 i decided that i wanted to write film scripts, if i'd put in the work back then i'd have at least 10, maybe 15 finished scripts. But how many do i have in stead, well i'll tell ya, exactly 3, and the first one i hated so didn't even think about doing a rewrite. The second is in rewrite limbo and the third is collecting dust waiting for me to do something with it.

In the beginning, i didn't write very often because i never really believed that i could sell one, so subconsciously i suppose i thought "whats the point" so not writing very much wasn't really that big of a deal, i never had the confidence, but later, when i found it, buried deep inside me i used my old  unconfidence self as an excuse to cover the real problem. Laziness.

A few months back i decided i was going to writing 4 blogs. Go to my profile page to see them.

This one, i was going to write a few a week, just a "Whats on my mind" thing. The second 'Fisky's Movies Review', i was going to add one a week, reviewing films i liked or disliked, it didn't matter, the third 'Doors of my Subconscious' is a series of short stories, i've written three so far, but even they are over a year old and i haven't written one sinse then, and the fourth is a company one 'Fisk Film' where i'd write about what the company is doing, which at this point is nothing. I wanted so many blogs because i thought it might force me to do them, but then i have no obligation to, so why should i? Laziness Strikes Back.

And over the last few weeks i decided i was going to write a Novel, which is suffering from the same tired routine, i'd just rather sit on my ass and watch TV/DVD's.

Now, i know what my fatal flaw is, its Laziness. I also know how to over come this flaw, i need to stay busy long enough to develope a routine of writing, get to the point where i just do it, not because i need to, but because i what to. The past has shown me that when i'm busy i can work all day long, no problem. In fact i profer to work hard all day then sit on my ass doing nothing. Of course having no work to do when i'm actually at work isn't helping matters, i use a Mac at home and a PC here, the Mac will read the PC files just fine (.doc) but the word processor i use on my Mac (Pages) isn't recognised on PC's, so i have to convert everything to Rich Text Format (rtf) files so i can transfer and open files on both computers, but i loss any formatting i have. For scripts i use Final Draft (fdr) which, unless i buy a new PC version of Final Draft i can't open at all on the work PC, and using RTF, is out of the question because the format is important. I have done it before but spent hours reformating it in Final Draft, which is more trouble then its worth, not to mention the time wasted.

Summary: My flaw is, Laziness. to over come this flaw i need to force myself to work every day until i fall into a routine.