It’s a long time since I put any real effort into my writing. Life and all it brings have constantly strived to get in the way. The other problem I have is that I struggle to come up with ideas for stories. I just don’t seem to have much in the way of imagination. Some descriptive writing excercises may help in that area.

To get back into writing, I had the idea of taking a scene from a film. I would then try to describe it on paper. I wouldn’t try to Google for the script, though any dialogue may have to be ad-libbed to a degree, and I shouldn’t have any problems finding the scenes I’m interested in either. One is already available on YouTube. I spoke to a friend (a published author) about it, and she seemed to think this would be a good idea.

One scene I’m considering trying to write is from a film set in 1950’s America. It involves a bar fight between a retired veteran and four teenagers. This should start fairly easily, since there’s a fair bit of dialogue, but most of the rest of the scene involves people being thrown over tables, that side of it could get a bit repetative.

The second scene I’d like to try is based in the early 20th century in the Ukraine. It involves everyone in a village getting excited when the village tailor acquires a mechanical sewing machine. This I think I’d enjoy trying to put together.

If all goes well, I plan on trying some more descriptive writing excercises to hopefully keep my writing interesting. Moving away from films, I could try to describe the scene whereever I find myself when I’m out of the house.

Earlier, changes were made to my host’s configuration that now allows blogs hosted here to federate with the fediverse. This post describes the new feature. So federation is alive now?

This is just a quick post testing the changes. Earlier I followed this blog from my Mastodon account so should see a post there once this post is published.

I’ve just read the post What is the IndieWeb and how can it help authors?. Following on from this, I’ve decided to enable the WebMention and Semantic-Linkbacks plugins on my blog. I’ve no idea if this will be a good idea. I’m not sure I fully understand this Indieweb thing anyway. The words trial and error will count heavily in the methods used to test this new thing.

The above post I think will need to be read several times to get a grasp of what I’m getting myself into.

After a long hiatus away from the keyboard because of health issues, I think it’s time I re-evaluated my ‘office’ space. Changing working habits and creating a more comfortable working environment might help with my writing. I think the first thing I need to do is try to declutter my desk. I like a lot of space without things unnecessarily taking up room on the desk. The two biggest space hogs are an audio mixer and large monitor, both used with my PC (which doesn’t get much use anyway).

To give me more flexibility in where my ‘office’ actually is at any time, I’ve started using my laptop exclusively. This is partly due to its portability, but mainly due to the rapidly increasing cost of energy. The laptop is much more energy efficient than a PC and 27″ monitor. I suspect the latter may be partially relocated to give me a cleaner desktop (as I’ve hinted above).

Using a laptop will also allow me to head out to pubs & cafes and illicitly engage with the outside world. Hopefully this will give me inspiration, both for storylines and characters.

A long time ago I started two stories but at the time I had no real plan on how they would progress. Planning is something I need to learn and I’m sure it’ll help me in the long term. Research will also be key to some aspects of my storytelling. I also need to relearn some aspects of my preferred wordprocessor (LibreOffice), particularly in tracking changes.

Another problem I have is a short attention span. All too often I deliberately find distractions to take me away from doing the important stuff. Facebook, YouTube and a mug that needs refilling with tea. All these conspire to stop me in my tracks. I believe there’s sites out there that can help in this area, over the coming weeks I will be exploring a few.

Now back to my mug of tea and YouTube

It’s been about seven months since my sight became so bad I could no longer use a computer. I couldn’t read anything without the aid of some sort of magnifying aid. About three weeks ago I finally had a cataract assigned to the depths of hell. My Borg implant is finally installed and I have perfect long vision (in one eye at least). I have perfect vision (with reading glasses) for all the close up stuff.

Cataract surgery is quite an amazing process. I assumed they’de make an incision on one side of the lens and slide it out. The reality is far more amazing. After making a tiny hole in the top and side of your eye, the old lens is pulverised by ultrasound fired through one hole, the lens is then sucked out of the other. A new lens (rolled up) is then inserted through the same hole and unfurled.

This method results in a much quicker recovery time.

Why has it taken so long? Well, that’s due to the unique way in which the NHS isn’t funded.

I’ve got much to do over the coming months. I started two stories, but never had any plans on how they would progress. I just kept typing until I ran out of ideas. This has to stop, and I need to think through these stories and figure out how they both pan out in their entirity.

I’m also seriously behind catching up on othe blogs on this platform. I know some of you have been busy, and I’ll be trying to get through as much as I can as soon as I can.

Now this Borg implant is finally installed, I wonder how long it will be before my other eye is done.