Uncle Doo's House of Burlesque: November 2005

Wednesday, November 30, 2005

There has been dust gathering on my blog

I tried to get my 50K words done in the three weeks that I had available but I failed in my mission. It seems as soon as I set myself a goal then all manner of time sucking things latch onto my back. I could give you the list but that would just sound like excuses (does this sound like an excuse?). I could have gotten it done if I pulled some all nighters but that would have fucked with my head.

The good thing is, the experience has gotten me hot to keep writing this particular book. I’ve extend my personal 50k goal out until the end of December.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the nature of long term relationships (which happens to be the topic of the novel) particularly how to have a successful one. The trouble is you usually need a severe kick to the head to get you moving. I’ve come to the conclusion that it has more to do with how you feel about yourself than it does about the other person in the relationship. If you both sort your own shit out, things just seem to flow a bit better. This is the list I have come up with to make my life a better one.

1. I’m happiest when I have my own little creative side projects – but only when I don’t give a shit about quality. If I care about quality then I start to feel pressure.

2. you need to keep accepting opportunities as they come up, it’s way too easy to stay in your comfort zone all the time. Do you want your life to be exactly like it is now…. Right up until the day you die?

3. If you don’t live a little, your relationship will die. No fun, no point

4. There is more to life than work and television. Run around like a mad thing if that is what floats your boat.

5. Just chill out some of the time, you don’t need to be doing stuff in every spare minute. To really do nothing is harder than you think.

6. You don’t need to think about things so much. Ahhhhh I’m thinking too much about this, but I’m doing it for fun so it is OK (see number 5).

7. Do things that society doesn’t accept – live on the edge, make crap art, make up stories about yourself, tell the truth when you think you shouldn’t, break something or blog about your imaginary life.

8. Try something, even though you know you will fail at it

9. make up a list like you know what you are talking about, it makes you feel life you have some sort of control ;-)

10. Don’t compare with others, sometimes it may look all shiny on the outside but be rotten to the core.

When I talk about creativity here I mean something you are interested in that makes you think, it could be anything, not just some ‘accepted art’.

That’s enough for now. I need to ease you all back into my life.

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

8 days to go and I really really don't think I'll make it

Nanomo 2005 will not be my year to get the 50 000 words out. At this rate I would need to spend five hours a day each day until the end of the month. Four of those days are complete wash outs so that means ten hours a day.

This is not good maths.

Unfortuantely there have been way too many interruptions. For some reason three business trips have fallen in the month of November. I had a trip away for my wife's birthday (which was great) and work has been way to busy to sneak in even the smallest amount of writing during the day (which is bad, very bad). This has not been my typical life. Normally I have way less stuff to do in any given week.

I'm going to keep on after November with the book because I still have heaps of ideas and absolutely no block in sight, just bugger all time to write in. I will complete this book! I was tempted to submit some other stuff I wrote (for a few seconds), but that is only lying to myself and defeats the purpose of having a goal. I'll sign up again next year

Thursday, November 17, 2005

Procrastination

Some tips for procrastinators trying to write something;
1. Update your blog
2. Buy some beer to get the creative juices flowing (this works really well)
3. Accept every invitation that comes your way, you need more creative input
4. Do research on the internet at every opportunity
5. reply to your emails
6. make up stupid lists to publish on your blog
7. go shopping, a lot
8. Meditate, you need to clear your head

Stay tune for more tips when I get sick of writing next time

Nanomo update #4

All the advice I've read on how to blog says to keep your updates regular. Unfortunately I won’t be regular for the next few weeks. My Nanmo is really falling behind. Work has intruded the most but I also wasted Sunday as a possible day for writing. I seem to work best when under the gun so I could just look at these setbacks as motivation. It will be interesting to see if I can write the remaining 40k words in 13 days. I’m not sure if I’m going to make it but I will be trying really hard to get it done. I had a work “retreat” on Monday and Tuesday, it’s my wife’s birthday this weekend and then another retreat the following week. At this rate I might not reach the golden word limit

The other interesting thing is that someone wants to interview me about the tarot card suggestion for plot help for writing. It should be fun because I have never been interviewed before. It isn’t an original method but I have found that it is a good one.

At this exact point in time I’m sitting in the meeting and all I can think about is I need to write and that my undies are too tight. It is hard to participate in a meeting when your undies are too tight.

Friday, November 11, 2005

Nanowrimo update 3

I’m getting into the naomo swing of things. Each night I have been sitting down and churning out 1500 words. Unfortunately I need to be churning out around 2500 words. I’m hoping that this weekend I’ll be able to get out 5000 a day to make up for the lack of wordage during the week. Now that I’m into the zone of just getting words down with out the constant revisiting and reediting of paragraphs it is easy to make progress. Having an external deadline is a good way to get motivated. It feels good to be getting something down on paper/screen. I'm loving the focus and the sense of urgency that I'm feeling.

The main draw back is I have some work interrupts going on a few nights over the next couple of weeks. There is a gallery opening tonight with some comic based artworks. It should be good but it is another night where no writing will be taking place.

Any spare writing time is going into nanomo so the blog will probably thin out over the next few weeks. Eventually there might be some excerpts featuring here.... content is content.

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

Quote for the day

You spend all your time thinking about how to get out of the box but you can’t figure it out. The reason your can’t figure it out is that there is no box.

Plot help for Nanowrimo

As mentioned in the previous post I only joined nano yesterday so I'm a bit behind the eightball. I spent yesterday afternoon developing a plot outline. My problem was getting a bit of flesh on the skeleton. I pulled out a tarot deck and drew a card to give me a starting point for each chapter. It also give me a good idea of what would go in there.

This method worked like a charm and introduced some interesting randomness to the whole thing.

If any blockages turn up I'm going straight to the deck, there is no time to wait for inspiration to hit.

Tuesday, November 08, 2005

nanowrimo sign in part 2

I have a little catching up to do. I should have bitten the bullet sooner and just signed up for Nano at the start of the month. Can I get out 10000 words out over the week end and still do the daily 1600 required? Will my wife leave me if I try (unlikely), will she leave me once she reads what I wrote (much more likely). Will I stop talking about doing something and just F**king well do it. (not likely)

Nanowrimo

Given my fetishisation of the writer’s life style I've joined Nanowrimo for this year. I have no idea how I’m going to fit it in with the rest of my life, but I'm going to give it a go anyway. I wanted to write a novel and I'm going to get it done (or at the very least make a big dint in the word count).

All I need now is enough amphetamines to keep me awake until the 30th of November- 50000 words is alot of typing... my current best is 20 000. I've lost 8 days which is a few thousand words. The good thing is the first 10 000 are easy.

Wish me luck!

Thursday, November 03, 2005

Another interesting article on Aussie politics

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2005/10/96406.php

How much do I hate John Howard, let me count the ways.

This will be the only political post on this blog.... unless I get detained for reasons of national security.

Recently parliament was presented with two bills. The bills are Anti-terror legislation (or should I say terror legislation) and Industrial relations reform. Both are to be rushed through without any real chance to debate them. The terror legislation reminds me of the Patriot act in the US. There seems to be a very real threat of the legislation being used to shut down protest or anti government groups as being terrorists. Recently one US activist, Scott Parkin, was detained and evicted from Australia for reasons of national security.... He is a friggin peace activist. No reason was given as it was ‘national security’. Don’t get me wrong, this was before the terror legislation, what the hell are they going to do after the legislation is passed. Even the definitions of terrorist activities are really broad….. Shouldn’t it say something about trying to kill someone rather than a general statement that no one understands. They got rid of 'sedition' and added ‘incite violence’... does this entry incite violence? If they locked down what incite violence means I would be a little happier.

If you want to create a climate where people really start to have issues with the country they are living in, start arresting them without explaining why and prevent them from being able to defend themselves against claims that will never be validated. We don’t have a terrorism problem now but I fear we soon will have one. Currently Little Johnny is saying the bill needs to be rushed through because we have a group of terrorists here now planning an attack. It seems very convenient, can anyone say children overboard, WMD’s, GST or peace activists hell bent on destruction of our way of life. Johnny is a lying little prick at the heart of it, and we are suppose to trust him?
An excert from an interview with John Howard http://sunday.ninemsn.com.au/sunday/political_transcripts/article_1889.asp

In the interests of copyright I won't paste it here.... but he never really answers the question, was Scott Parkin a threat to national security.

The industrial relations reform looks like a pain in the ass to. The “Workchoices” document cites an imaginary case of a young job seeker, Billy. It declares, “Billy wants to get a foothold in the jobs market, he agrees to the AWA”, which removes public holidays, rest breaks, bonuses, leave loading, penalty rates and shift and overtime loading. Let’s see the person willing to accept the lowest conditions would be most likely to get a job, until someone who is willing to go lower turns up, then you can sack your current monkey and employ an even cheaper monkey. Of course your working conditions won’t suffer, business owners aren’t just interested in making money, they care about you, really they do.

The funniest part about the whole thing is the ‘workers’ on the TV ads weren’t told what it was really about. Some of them thought it was an OH&S add others some trainee incentive scheme. The real question is would people rather see an interest rate rise rather than this type of reform?

I realize that this rant is a bile release and I’m bingo on facts, but google this stuff if you’re an Australian. You should also think about how good we have it now.... soon the man is going to own your ass and then it will be too late.

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

Ideal job #9 Cryptozoologist

This would fit well with the Indiana Jones day dreams and Ideal Job number 5 Deep Sea explorer. You get the chance to travel the world, listen to stories of strange and unusual creatures then try and find one of them. I imagine that the actual joy of finding one of these creatures would be few and far between but you could have a lot of fun looking. The link (in the heading) is to an article about an actual Cryptozoologist from Wired.

I borrowed the picture from http://www.silverbulletcomicbooks.com/ I hope you don't mind.

Tuesday, November 01, 2005

Keep on bloggin'

Tony Pierce has some good entries for those who wonder if they should keep plugging away with the blog.

so if youre ever worried that you might blog something full of shit and you think about it and you talk yourself out of blogging my advice is to look at those stellar righties on the technorati one hundred who arent the least bit nervous about being full of shit.
.....
so my friends when you are afraid that what you say isnt blogworthy just ask yourself, "will i be intentionally bullshitting the world?" and if the answer is no, then you know that what what you'll be posting will be 100times better than the big boys and girls who get the majority of the hits.

so write.

I've linked to him before and I'll probably link to him again....

advice from drunk creative people

I was at a party on the weekend. It was the same crowd that run the art gallery that I mentioned a few posts back. Strangely enough I was the sober one at the party (a rare feat indeed) so I could actually engage in meaningful conversation. I decided to pick the brains of the most active creative people I know.

I decided to find out how they do it. How they manage to create art that sells, run an art gallery, create an art festival that has been running for a few years and in some cases have community radio stations all while having kids and studying.

The essence of their responses;
· Be open to circumstances as they arise. Don’t fight it. Take the opportunities that come your way

· Work out the difference between things they enjoy thinking about doing and things that they actually enjoy doing. Focus on doing the things that you enjoy doing. If you only enjoy thinking about doing a particular thing then only think about it.

· Be light about your thoughts – don’t take yourself too seriously or get too wrapped up in your own thoughts.

It’s all pretty obvious stuff but it is easily forgotten.