Nights off

A night off the booze. Wifey will never believe it. Just like I can't believe that TTSUD is apparently one of the 12 steps.

Excuse me while I flounder with my lack of inspiration a moment, it'll come, aaaaaany second... now!

...

Now!

Last time I wrote something about writing - something in a blog context I choose to call "metablogging", because I like how that sounds (and I'm very disappointed to see it's already in wide use and is apparently a cliché). I guess technically that makes this "metametablogging". Or perhaps navel-navel-gazing. Where was I?

Last time. Wroting. Writing. Actually looking through that blog-Cliché-blog is a little dispiriting. Apparently my whole folksy-charm-writing-like-a-conversation thing is clichéd. And what's really annoying about that is the fact I have to concentrate every time to do the little é thing.

As I mentioned last time, I'm partly following Wifey's lead on blogging. It's an opportunity to develop a style (clichéd or not) and, I'd hope, to start exploring some of the story ideas I have. Most of my ideas are fairly sci-fi (and certainly distinct from science-fantasy) and some have fairly dark elements. I take a lot of inspiration from current affairs (as much as I can claim to follow such things), as well as other stories and characters.

One of my more bizarre combinations of inspiration I'll share, having abandoned it as being a bit of a one-trick (maybe three-trick) pony (to say nothing of just being wierd)...

• Space Elevators - I love the concept
• Episodic - like a TV series
• Clever, cunning, resourceful main character (i.e. me but perhaps with less hair)
  
• A little bit (okay, more than I'd like to admit) of Hotel Babylon (not that I ever watched it)

Put that all together and you get a story about a passenger capsule (one of dozens) that goes up and down the elevator, staffed by our hero (and perhaps a sidekick) who gets into scrapes with his passengers all of which are overcome through cleverness etc. Can't believe I wrote all that down. My ideas for things that would happen:

• Transporting a valuable but random special cargo, like award-winning mice (seriously, that was my idea)
• One passenger conspires to kill another through clever engineering/messing with the capsule to drive her (don't know why it was a her) to have a heart attack
• Another capsule on the elevator is taken over by terrorists who disable it and send it plummeting towards Earth - our hero and sidekick save the day etc

But that really was it, a fairly random set of ideas that, even if you overlook the madness inherent in the idea, wasn't really going to go anywhere.

Although maybe if they were award-winning gerbils...

Labels

The power of wine compels you! The power of wine compels you!

Not that I'm keen on this blog being filled with alcohol fuelled rambles, it just kind of happens that way. The problem is that unlike Wifey, who has all kinds of clever things to write about (like how she planted lots of herbs and now doesn't know what's what!), my motivation is much more along the lines of 'well lets have a dabble'.

Wifey is a writer already (by virtue of being in communications and not liking phones) and keen to do more in publishing. I, on the other hand, have this vague idea of being a writer someday and rarely have the motivation to act on it. In fact I can't help thinking, on my less inspired days, that my best chance of getting rich through writing would be to mug JK Rowling.

Hmmm, the Blogger New Post widget features some suggestions for post labels. Specifically 'scooters, holidays, autumn'. Am I supposed be writing about these? Not sure how I feel about this post turning into a literary version of 'Who's line is it anyway'. Any suggestions from the audience?

I used to have a scooter, actually. A Honda Vision (much like this one, but without the green stuff growing through it) with a stonking 49cc of raw power which carried me to and from work when I did my placement year, raging up hills at a brisk 20mph and screaming down hills at terrifying 32mph (with tail wind). It saw me through that year quite well, supping a mere £2 of petrol a week, but sadly succumbed to teenage vandals (*waves walking stick around like an old man etc*) not long after we moved back to Oxford. There then followed a sad tale of greedy vehicle recovery companies, rubbish policing and personal apathy. But that has nothing to do with holidays or autumn, so we'll skip that.

Holidays are great. What, you want more than that? Hmph. Technically I'm on holiday today, something more easily enforced than usual because my phone has decided it doesn't want to pick up my work email any more. This isn't the relief I'd originally thought it would be - it just makes me tense (though that's probably more because I know if it doesn't fix itself I'll have to endure a painful phone conversation with a guy who's got an Indian University IT degree and a mail-order English 'diplomia').

Along with Spring, Autumn is one of those annoying in-between-y seasons in my mind - not one thing, not another, but a transition between the other two. That's probably all I have to say on the subject, but once again I can see from the look on your face that you want more. Yes, I can see you through the computer. Which reminds me of the crazy german lady at my last job who was convinced we spent all of our time reading her emails, even though none of us could read German...

Autumn feels like a long time ago now, as does when I started writing this post. So I'll stop.

Interesting stuff

It's awards season folks. And the winner for the best blogspot profile interest goes to... Soulwinning!

I'm poking my way through Blogspot's arcane blog-finding-tools (which seem to be undocumented, making it a system worthy of my office) and finding that, as I often do when doing that kind of thing, I'm taken with a strong urge to bolt all the doors and windows and never have any contact with any new people ever again. Especially Americans. The sheer number of American profiles with pictures that feature guns is terrifying. As for all the pictures of naked (male, alas) chests... Ugh. Surely some of them must see the sun?

Of course half the planet claims to be interested in photography. Much like I now claim - I like looking at pictures of things. Particularly as it removes the need to, you know, read words.

So I'm actually looking to set up some stuff to read through this blogging lark. I'm not foolish enough to think my ramblings will contribute much to anyone else's life (other than explaining to wifey what all the tapping is about upstairs), but dammit I want to get something out of this, even if all the other authors will get from the relationship (should they dare look) will be information about rare swans and not, as they might be hoping, words of wisdom about Leadership or, heaven forbid, Service Level Management (hint - have a service first, then manage it's level - this means you, University of Surrey).

I like wine and whisky. Seems like a good place to start. I'd love to read reviews of whiskys, or thoughts about wine regions. Something intelligent. Sadly the list of people who also like wine is growing at such a rate my picture appears on every page and to get my fix of whisky-wisdom will also mean sitting through essays on ex-husbands, annoying school friends and rare black swans. And that's before I address the whisky/whiskey issue.

I'll leave the smallholding stuff to wifey, but I have professional interests too (at least during office hours). Operating System Snobbery aside, I use Microsoft Windows a lot. It's a pretty pervasive thing so it's a bit of a disapointment to be sharing the interest with a cat and a 14yo spaniard. Although I'm man enough to admit that sometimes that cat will probably have more success than me in dealing with it.

What can we learn from this? There's the temptation to mock Blogspot. In fact, as it's a Google operation some would insist the mockery is mandatory. Personally though I'm of the opinion you should never be mean about an organisation who knows what you were searching for the last time you were drunk and sat in front of a computer...

Hmmm, I'm approaching my word limit (i.e. my fingers and brain are getting tired). Sadly, after all of this, it seems the world is dramatically lacking in the sanest people of all. My search continues...