My 2010

This time of the year the internet is full of posts about "The best of" lists etc etc. I thought I'd share a bit about what 2010 meant to me.

This year has been one of the best years of my life. It has been rough, it has been unpredictable and it has been unbelievably fun. 2010 has been my year of friends and fun, of taking risks and following dreams. This year I learnt that it is OK if things change without my consent and that not all change is bad. I learnt that you do not have to meet a person in real life for them to change yours, and that you can have the best friends that you have never met. I have seen the kindness of strangers in support of people they barely know, and I have seen best friends become enemies.

In 2010 I learnt that although a lot of choices in my life might not have been the best, those choices made me the person that I am today. I have learnt that mistakes can never ruin your life unless you let them. I have learnt that a broken heart does heal. I have learnt what the word "love" truly means.

Love is one of those strange concepts that a lot of people throw around without thinking what it means. Think about what you are saying the next time you exclaim: "I love those shoes!". I have learnt that love is not a two way street, it is not a give and take concept. To truly love, is to give without hesitation or restraint. I learnt that love has nothing to do with romance. When I exclaimed loudly and passionately that I do not believe in love I was mistaken. I believe in love, I live the philosophy of love every day.

This year I have met people who have changed my life forever. Some of them I only spoke to once or twice, some of them have become part of my closest friends. This year I have laughed and cried. I saw two of my best friends get married, two people who go together like curry and rice. I got to share in their joy because seeing them so happy made me happy. I had the opportunity to tell them how much they mean to me.

This year I got to follow my dream. I am writing a novel, and although the process is a lot harder than I thought it would be (and I was not under the impression that it would be a walk in the park), I have found a way to express myself. I also got to meet my writing circle, people who through their support and encouragement carried me through the more difficult times behind the keyboard.

2010 was my year of Twitter (of course I was going to mention this). Through Twitter I discovered a whole new world filled with people who were a) not idiots and b) sincere (for the most part). I realised that people who should be strangers to me, became a part of my life. When I miss their morning greetings, or our daily random conversations about the most arbitrary stuff I feel as if a part of my routine has been skipped, as if I'm wearing only one sock.

These people became close friends, and one day I want to travel to the US, Europe and the UK to meet some of them. Hell, my first trip for 2011 is to the other side of my country to meet some of them.

This year I also learnt to say thank you, and I want to say thank you again. To each and every person who inspired me, helped me and supported me. Thank you to those who put up with my moods and tantrums, when the nicotine, caffeine and anti depressants just did not help any more. Thank you for believing in me, encouraging me and sometimes threatening me. Thank you, for being my friends.

2011 is going to be my year again, better yet: 2011 is going to be my dream year!

And yes, I am going to leave you with my "Best of" list, because I can.

Best book of 2010: The Passage by Justin Cronin
Best debut of 2010: Spellwright by Blake Charlton
Best Audio Book of 2010: I am Number Four by Pittacus Lore
Most anticipated book of 2010: Towers of Midnight by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson

Best Film of 2010: Inception
Most anticipated Film of 2010: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
Best Musical Score in a film: Inception
Best Graphics and effects: Alice in Wonderland
Favourite Animation of 2010: How to Train Your Dragon

Favourite Game of 2010: Dead Rising 2
Most anticipated game of 2010: Final Fantasy XIII

Favourite News event of 2010: "Don't touch me on my studio"
Spine tingling moment of 2010: SA's first goal in the 2010 Fifa World Cup when a whole country cheered at the same time

I hope you all have a happy New Year, may 2011 bring you only pleasure and opportunity!

Writing update...

I like statistics. Statistics make me feel safe. It also helps me make sense of what I am doing. So I started doing writing stats a couple of weeks back and I though I'd share it with you. These are the stats for my current WIP, for the moment called "Fated Children".

Words written: 25718
Chapters written: 9
Average word count per chapter: 2857.556
% completed: 21.43166667
Wordcounts per chapter:
1      2987
2      3126
3      2339
4      3203
5      3365
6      2631
7      2711
8      2541
9      2815

I wanted to make some graphs and charts, but I'll spare you.

Am I not nice?

Happy writing,

L

A slow week and a writing epiphany

You know those slow weeks where life just continues on and nothing really interesting happens? Well, I had a couple of those in a row. So with nothing interesting happening, I decided not to bore you to tears with the inane details of my non-existent life.

Then I went on leave, and I thought: "Maybe I'll blog." BAd idea, I sat staring at th screen trying to find inspiration for a blog post and gave up. Now that I'm back from leave, I actually have stuff to say. Well, not really, but I thought I'd update you guys in anycase.

The writing wasn't going too well. I wrote a total of 3000 words for the first part of September, which is way too little in my opinion. Then I eralised what I was doing wrong, and my approach to writing changed.

I had this epiphany on Sunday: I was approaching my novel the wrong way, I had no clear direction, just a vague idea of beginning, middle and end. The process in between was pretty much an exercise in discovery writing. But this epiphany wasn't entirely life changing, not yet in any way.

On Monday I started plotting the "in between" bits, and I realised that I was glad that I waited this long to do it. Most of my plot ideas came from thoughts I had while "discovering" my novel in the first 25k words of the novel, they only had to be refined. I plotted up to the halfway mark, and the plotting made me so excited that I stopped right there and started writing again.

And this is where I realised how I wrote. You see, since this is my first novel I had no idea how I would approach writing. I've always been the "set-a-goal-and-get-there-by-any-means-possible" kind of guy, so I jumped in and started writing.

So when the next book comes around I will do the same. I will start off and write the story to get familiar with the characters and the world. As their stories take shape in my head, I will sit down and plot the rest of the novel out.

I cannot garuantee that this will work for anyone other than myself, and I cannot garuantee that my characters won't surprise me along the way, but this is my plan and I'm sticking to it.

Happy writing,

Lood

I think I have an addiction

Actually, I don't think I have an addiction, I know I have one. And I'm not talking about my love for coffee or my need for cigarettes. Nope. I have a book collecting addiction, and it is getting out of hand.

My bookshelves are groaning under the weight of books, and I keep on adding to the shelves. Usually two to three books a week and sometimes more. I cannot resist surrounding myself with that fresh paper smell that you get from opening a book for the first time, or the myriad of colours from the book jackets. A bookstore has a certain appeal, a siren call. It lures you in and drains your pocket, leaving you with just enough money left over for the month to eat a slice of bread every two days.

But I love it. I live with books, for books. If I had the space to dedicate a room to my books, I would. Yes, I'm nuts. But come on people - It's books!

Look at that - It's summer. And for that you get a portable cardboard pug

And so my favourite half of the year comes to an end. I adore Autumn and I love Winter, I find the introspective qualities of these seasons resonate the best with my personality. So I thought I'd dedicate a blog post to my two favourite seasons.

Autumn, to me, is the quintessential time for friends. (The fact that my birthday is in this season has absolutely nothing to do with it) The weather is still warm enough that you could enjoy a braai with pals outside, where the trees are turning spectacular shades of my favourite colours. But should you choose to stay indoors, there's nothing like inviting a couple of friends over, telling them to bring lots of wine and serving a supper fit for a king. For this, Autumn, I adore you.

Winter is a time of introspection, a time where a man can sit back and take stock of his life. You get to reflect on where you are at the moment, and where you want to be and judge that according to where you are heading. Winter is the time for snuggling under blankets, enjoying a good book, or movie with a glass of red wine. Bliss.

To herald in the Spring, I was greeted on Springday (1 September in our lovely hemisphere) by a message on Twitter saying: "Happy Springday. There are only 116 more shopping days till Christmas." - it killed my mood instantly, but more on my hate for Christmas at a later date.

Then a rep came in and showed us this, the perfect faux-pretentious accessory for this summer:

Yup, it is a cardboard pug that you can assemble and carry around with you, complete with the bulging eyes and the face that suggests that Skippy did not see the glass door was closed.

I mean really! WTF?

Finally back online

It has been a strange couple of weeks in internetland for me. Firstly, blogger and blogspot got blocked by our IT crowed on the same day that my home network decided that is's speed would drop down to that of a cripple indian running telegram, causing abovementioned sites to time out. So blogging was out for me.

Apparently, so was writing. I only managed to write about 1500 words in the last two weeks, an average of just more than 100 a day. It's bad. But now I'm back on track. I know where this story is supposed to go. Sort of. If the characters let me. If they don't I'm going to make them fat and kill them.

Just a warning. If you are my character and reading this and you do not want to triple in size, play along. I'm not talking again.

Otherwise I might just prematurely kill one of my babies...

A Writer's Inevitability

I suppose it was supposed to happen some time or the other, and to be frank, I was expecting it. I just did not realise how unprepared I was for it. I'm talking about that moment you realise that your friends have no idea exactly how much it takes to write a novel.

I have made peace with the fact that writing a novel will take a lot of this:

(Anyone who knows anything about drinking more than one cup of coffee a day knows that you have coffee black with half a teaspoon of sugar per 200ml of coffee)

And not a lot of this:

(I have absolutely no idea who the people in the picture are - I got the thing off Google. If you're in it and you don't want to be, drop me a comment and I'll find a new one)

Especially if I have to balance a full time job and writing. Up until now my friends have been supportive. Most of them thought it was awesome to have a friend that is writing a book and that will one day be a published author. (They are naively optimistic about a debut Fantasy author's publishing prospects in South Africa, and I keep it that way since they make me feel good about myself)

But I had to be aware that the novelty would wear off, and tonight it did. I was asked by a close friend to join them for movies and takeout, and had to decline since this week has not been a very productive writing week, and I had to catch up. That's when I got the comment: "But no one told you to write a novel."

Yes, I know it was said in jest, and I know that the person did not mean it seriously and I know that they never thought I would take offence, but still, it hurt.

If you've read yesterday's post, you'd know that I currently have this story bashing the inside of my skull to get out and I desperately NEED to write. It's a physical need, like eating and breathing. I'm not doing this for anyone other than myself, because I'm sure that if I do not write this story down, my head will explode and my friends and family will have to pick the pieces of my skull out of the curtains.

And on that happy note I leave you,

Happy writing...

Lethologica

My brain is going to mush. I blame a stressful combination of work, writing and personal issues for that. You see, I managed to start suffering from lethologica, but not in any clinical sense, and I don't think it's necessary to go see a specialist but it is impacting negatively on my writing.

You see, when a person wants to write a sentence, they usually have an idea of what they want to say, so they sit down and write it down using the words and phrases that best articulate their thoughts at that time. I thought it might also be because English isn't my first language. I find myself knowing what I want to say in Afrikaans, but having to write it in English and somehow those thoughts don't always translate well. But it is part of the writer's bane, I suppose.

At the moment my head is swimming with story, and every piece of the story demands my immediate, undivided attention. The words want to break out and tell the story to the point that my fingers struggle to keep up with my brain. I think if it was up to my enthusiasm, this novel would be finished this week.

I have spoken to a couple of fellow writers, and read the same thing on a couple of author blogs and I must say that I've had a similar experience. The first 10 000 words were the hardest. It took me four months to hit 10k, and only two weeks to write the next 3000. I would like to describe this as the "honeymoon" period in my writing. The story is well on its way and the only thing standing in its way is the fact that it has to be channelled through me, an ordinary human being that has to try and keep one foot in the real world - if only so that I have food to eat.

I have another theory as to why there seems to be periods in time that writing just flows. There are two other writers in my writing circle, The Writing Circle That Has Yet To Be Named (although Dave calls us his fellow WITs - apparently that stands for Writers In Training) and between the thee of us we go through the same kind of writing spurts/slumps. A couple of weeks ago real life decided to get in the way of me writing and for the month of July I wrote a total of 1500 words. Disgusting, I know. But it seemed to me, and they're free to correct me if I'm wrong, that my fellow WITs had a similar issue - The words were just not getting out.

I blame the Universe, or thank it depending on what time of day you ask me. Maybe nature provides these slumps for our weary brains to rest a while, to gain perspective on our stories and give the seeds time to germinate, so to speak. It was just strange that it happened for three people roughly at the same time.

Isn't nature just wonderful?

My Life in Links

I think I'll start a new feature that I'll update every so often on the blog where I post the links that I found or that friends shared. I'll divide them into sections to make it easier.

Youtube Clips:
I share an office with a friend that finds the most amazing and strange clips on Youtube. Don't get me wrong, I find my fair share of weirdness, but he seems to have the knack/connections for it. Between the two of us we have discovered a myriad of mirth or shock inducing clips. I think I'll share a couple with you.

Our current kick is from the film Clue with Madeleine Kahn playing Mrs White.



Just before this we were quoting the infamous Double Rainbow guy. Here's the link to Double Rainbow guy's conversation with Adolf Hitler:



And here's Double Rainbow Guy's song:



I discovered this little gem parody depicting the way in which our favourite oil company handles a spill:



And if you've ever wondered how many ninjas you could fit in a jazz (because, you know you've always wanted to know), here you go:



Then there was this freak from the Electric Daisy Carnival:



Current Affairs
Then there were some current affair issues that also had their own links, starting with the issue of Freedom of Press in SA where I initially linked to the leading party's views on the transformation of the media. Then on 4 August, the first journalist was arrested amidst a fanfare.In lieu of these events, Lauren Beukes posted her Big Issue column early in which she discusses the freedom of press issue in SA.

Bookish News
I posted a couple of links relating to books on my FB page, the first were the betting odds for the Man Booker prize, and the second was the link to "With Great Power" - which I really want.

From now on I'll try and update my links every so often.

Keep it real,

L

Spreading the meme love (aka Meme with Relish)

Every so often you happen across something on the internet that you can really sink your teeth into. I found this meme on Dave's blog (who in turn got it from Floor to Ceiling Books who got it from Un:Bound), and it made me think.


So the questions asked here was:

Name:

1. One book that changed your life
2. One book that you have read more than once
3. One book you'd like to have on a desert island
4. Two books that made you laugh
5. One book that made you cry
6. One book that you wish you'd written
7. One book you wish was never written
8. Two books you are currently reading
9. One book you've been meaning to read

Let's see where I go with this. It was surprisingly difficult to think of some of these answers.

1. One book that changed my life.
I would have to name the Terry Brooks novel, Sword of Shannara in this category. Before this book, my reading scope was limited to Enid Blyton and the like. I read The Sword of Shannara at the tender age of 12, and immediatly fell in love with the Fantasy genre. I have since devoured every book in that series, apart from the last trilogy, and the Word and the Void trilogy. But believe me, they're on my to be read list!

2. One book that you have read more than once
Soliloquy  by Stephen Finn. This is a brilliant book about a boy who was bullied at school, who ends up murdering his tormenter. It is beautifully written and very sad. The back cover blurb reads:

"I'm sixteen years old and I killed a boy of seventeen. Yes, I admit it. I stabbed him in the heart with a knife which happened to be in my pocket."

3. One book that you'd like to have on a desert island
This one was easier than expected. An Idiot’s Guide on Surviving and Enjoying a Deserted Island (how to live life to the fullest until rescue arrives without anything at hand). But seriously? It's hard to ignore Dave's brilliant suggestion of The Passage by Justin Cronin, because it is easier to lug around than my Wheel of Time collection.

4. Two books that made me laugh
I'm not sure whether this means books that made me laugh because they were written in a humourous style or books that made me laught because they were so blatantly implausable or stupid. I'll name one of each then.

Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy can definitely be rated up there in the humourous books category. I first got this as an audio book, way back in the day, and I've loved it ever since!

The Twilight series rates up there as the most humourous implausable series of all time. I started reading it with a glimmer of hope that the idea can be salvaged into something less ridiculous. I was sadly mistaken. And I have to say, I think I laughed for 5 minutes straight when ol' Edward stepped into the sunlight and sparkled. It was just too much for me. Then when the movie came out, I went to watch it again, just for that scene. And it did not dissapoint,they added little bell chimes to it and made me laugh all over again.

5. One book that made me cry
Only one? You see, I really live my character's lives. I experience their emotions with them, I laugh with them, I cry with them. (One reason I don't like reading first person POV, It takes me weeks to get rid of the character in my head.) So I cannot name one book that made me cry, the most recent one was The Passage by Justin Cronin, and that was only last week.

6. One book that I wish I'd written
Now this one is a doozie. How do you single out a book that according to you was the biggest literary accomplishment? It is hard. If I'd have to choose, I would choose The Lord of the Rings. It has been hailed as the Romeo and Juliet of the Fantasy genre, and I'd have to agree. Tolkien shaped the fantasy genre for years to come. We're only now beginning to see a proper breakaway from a tolkienesque way of fantasy writing. For that sir, I commend you.

7. One book you wish was never written
This one was equally difficult. I would have to say any book written by Dan Brown, they were truly aweful, and made my life hell as a bookseller (one person referring to it as Dan Brown's Da Vinci Bible, and many people not realising that it was a work of fiction). I hated that book with a passion!

8. Two books that I'm currently reading
Tome of the Undergates by Sam Sykes and Spellwright by Blake Charlton


9. One book that I've been meaning to read
Anything by David Gemmel or Steven Erikson - Many people will most probably stone me for this, but I've never read either of those authors' and I've really been meaning to!

So that's my take on it. If you see this and would like to use it, feel free - it's a meme after all.

Keep it real!

Book to Film adaptations - My love/hate relationship

I like my job, I really do, but sometimes it frustrates me. You see, before I was in this position, I was completely oblivious to some of the sacrilege going on out there. But now that I'm in a position where I have to be up to date on these kinds of things, it has really hit me: A great film adaptation is a rarity.

Now don't get me wrong. I understand the issue of adapting a novel into a film, there is just no way you will be able to fit everything into a two hour movie. Add to that the fact that actors, directors and the other creative people in the have their own interpretations of the material and you can very well end up with a film that does not even remotely resemble your favourite novel.

That's why I was pleasantly surprised to see that James Rollins' Sigma series has been optioned for film. And this is not the normal we're-going-to-mutilate-your-book-and-call-it-an-adaptation film option. No, Dino de Laurentiis, the producer wants a completely new story, which, it appears James will have a hand in writing.

This excites me to no end, and not because I am a fan. I have never read a James Rollins book, but fans of the series assure me it is brilliant (hence the fact that they're fans). It excites me because the story would be an expansion on the series, not an adaptation. Chances of people walking out of the cinema going: "The book was better." has been severely reduced.

Sure, some people just nit-pick. I recently heard someone walked out of Kick-Ass because the main character's hair colour changed. But there are some valid issues as well. Take My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult, for instance. To make the movie "more acceptable" for the Hollywood market, they changed the ending completely, losing most of the punch of the book. That, to me, is completely unacceptable.

Books that get film options are usually picked because some big wig number cruncher spoke to some creative person and realised that creatively the movie is a viable cash cow with enough fans to make it worth making the film in the first place. But they tend to forget that people became fans of a book for a reason: the books characters and storyline(s) appealed to them. Changing that is like taking someone's idea of a perfect partner, changing the personality and looks and telling the person that this is the love of their life. Seriously, did you think we wouldn't notice?

Books also appeal to people for other reasons. When I read a book, the story comes alive in my imagination. I see the characters, experience their world and share their trials and tribulations. These characters become my friends. When they get transported to screen, it loses the magic. I cannot read a Harry Potter novel without seeing Emma Watson. I cannot read Lord of the Rings without Elijah Wood's sitting in Frodo's place. I hate the movies for this.

On the other hand, I love them. I get to see other people's interpretation of ideas, and sometimes they enrich the story for me. Let's take Harry Potter for example (again). When I read the part about Dumbledore dying for the first time, I was in shock for about a page and a half. It never occurred to me the pain and anguish that the characters had to go through. Everytime I read that part, it shocked me again. When I finally saw the film, I realised that my shock as a reader was not half as bad as the pain that the characters had to go through. My subsequent reading changed my perspective of the scene, and it has become one of my favourites in the series.

I wanted to put a nice cartoon here that I saw a couple of years ago, but I was unable to find it. So I'll just describe it to you.

An old woman and her husband is walking out of a cinema complex, the banner showing that they have just watched The Passion of the Christ. The old woman has her Bible clasped firmly under her arm as she loudly proclaims: "The Books was better!"

I thought it would have been appropriate. If anyone can find that cartoon, mail it to me and I'll post it here.

There we go, some random musings to start this Tuesday.

Keep it real...

The making of good food

Yes, I have that bee in my bonnet again. I'm cooking anything and everything I can think of. My family absolutely love me for it! In the last week or so I cooked an amazing lamb and chickpea stew served on cous cous and roast veg, made a lovely chicken carrot and parsley soup and made my famous patchy Sheperd's pie.

I'll quickly run you through the recipes, and they are really simple, since I do not believe that anyone should work too hard to make good food.

Lamb and Chickpea stew with Cous Cous and Roast Veg.

What you'll need:
4 lamb shanks
250ml red wine
fresh rosemary
2 cloves of garlic
Zest of 1 lemon
2 cans of chickpeas, drained
4 Potatoes - chunked
Salt and pepper to taste
Instant oxtail or beef soup

Combine the wine, rosemary, lemon garlic, salt and pepper and marinate the lambshanks overnight.
Place the lamb and the marinade in a slowcooker the next morning, and set it to cook on a low heat for most of the day.
Add the potatoes and chickpeas 3 hours before you want to dish up.
Keep an eye on the fluid levels and top up with water if needed.
An hour before you want to dish up, mix the instant soup with 250 ml of water and add to the stew. Stir and cook till the soup has thickened.

For the Cous Cous and roast veg you will need:
Cous Cous
Mixed vegetables
Olive oil
Salt and Pepper to taste
Butter

Sprinkle the veg with olive oil, salt and pepper and roast in a 180 degree oven for 25 minutes.
Cook the cous cous according to the instructions on the packet, adding ample amounts of butter when it is done.
Combine the cous cous and the roast veg and serve with the lamb stew.

My wine of choice to enjoy with this: Nederburg Cabernet Sauvignon


Chicken, Carrot and Parsley soup


You will need:
200g chicken, skinless and deboned but not chopped
12 Carrots, peeled and cubed
1 onion, diced
2 handfulls of fresh parsley
Celery, chopped
1 potato, cubed
1 block of instant chicken or vegetable stock dissolved in 300ml boiling water
1 packet of white onion soup
Salt and pepper to taste
2 cups of milk

Combine the chicken, carrots, onion, celery, potatoes, salt, pepper and stock in a pressure cooker and cook for about 20 minutes.
In a blender, blitz the parsley and the onion soup with 150ml of milk.
When the veg and chicken is done, add all of the chicken and 3/4 of the veg to the blender and blend till smooth.
Add the purée back into the stock along with the rest of the milk.
Cook for another 10 minutes.
Serve and enjoy.
Great with a loaf of rye bread, or Portuguese rolls.

Patchy Shepherds Pie


You will need:
1 kg of lean mince
1 onion chopped
3 tomatoes peeled and chopped
1 greenpepper cubed
250 ml red wine
4-6 tablespoons of sugar
1 tsp mixed herbs
1 tablespoon of cornflour, dissolved in 25 ml of water.
200 g mixed veg
6 large potatoes, peeled and cubed
10 olives, stoned and finely chopped.
milk
butter
Salt and pepper to taste
1 roll of readymade puff pastry

Fry the tomatoes, onions, greenpepper in a bit of olive oil till the tomato starts to lose consistency. Add the mince and fry till the mince starts to brown. add the red wine, sugar, mixed herbs, mixed veg, salt and pepper and boil on a medium heat.

Meanwhile add the potatoes to a separate pot of boiling water and season to taste. Boil till the potatoes are cooked through. Drain and mash. Do not at this point be tempted to blitz the mash in a food processor - that's cheating. Use elbow grease and get the job done manually. Add about 2 tablespoons of butter and enough milk to change the consistence to that of a medium thick porridge. Finally, Add the chopped olives to the mash.

Thicken the mince with the cornflour.

Spoon the mash into a greased ovenproof dish, and top it with the mince. Cut the puff pasty into chunks and strips and layer it over the mince. Bake at 200 degrees for 40 minutes till the pastry is cooked through and starts to brown.

Serve and enjoy.

Well' that was a blogpost and a half. Hope you enjoyed it! Let me know if you tried any of these recipes and tell me what you think!

My writing life

It seems to be the thing to do these days, blogging about writing. At least for me. Since I started taking this writing "career" of mine seriously, I am learning a lot from the other people. So I thought I'd chronicle my experiences on this blog, amongst all the other things I blog about.

Writing time
In the last few weeks, I've gained truckloads of respect for some of my fellow writers. I'm talking about the brave guys and gals holding down a day job, running a family and keeping up with the Joneses inbetween producing staggeringly beautiful and creative works of fiction (and non-fiction).

As many people here in South Africa know, full time writing as a South African is limited to a privileged few. Many SA authors have to have a day job, or at least do freelance work in order to pay the bills and put food on the table. Include in this those pesky social responsibilities and you're not left with much time to do what you love.

Most of us, I assume, try to do the next best thing. We declare "me-time" or "writing-time" where we switch off the internet, hide our cellphones and lock ourselves in a room to write write write. We also steal a few moments here and there. A quick email to oneself with a great line you thought of while stuck in a meeting, planning characters while stuck in Joburg traffic or making a quick note in one of the myriad of notebooks secreted in and around your daily living space.

Thanks to these moments, I have a wonderfully developed world for my Fantasy novel, with many fine details ironed out, and although my word count hasn't even broken 10 000 (officially) I have a good idea where this story is going.

Now if only I could find a way to make it unnecessary for me to sleep, and all will be well in this world.

Gone for 3 weeks and all of this happened!

It has been hectic. My birthday was the day after the previous blog post and inbetween the various celebrations (took me 3 weeks), the Soccer World Cup 2010, work and writing I did not have time to blog. But I am back.

A quick update on the writing: It's going really well. I'm making progress in leaps and bounds. I finished a chapter today and will be putting the finishing touches on another chapter tonight.

I also made time to read a book in the last few weeks. Zoo City by Lauren Beukes. If you haven't read my review, read it here. And while you're there, buy a copy, it is well worth the read.

At first when I started to read Zoo City, I had my misgivings. I mean, I loved Moxyland. It was a fun  read and captured my attention from start to finish. How does an author go about to top that? Well, Lauren Beukes did. Zoo City is more lyrical than Moxyland, it has a more poetic feel to it. The author has a way with words that is hard to describe. It went stop-start at first and I was slightly jarred by the use of the first person narrative, but that lasted all of 3 pages and I could not care about moaning about it anymore. But who cares? Zoo City is a great book and everyone should read it. 'strues Bob!

I am currently busy with Justin Cronin's The Passage and I am properly blown away. The book is friggin amazing. It's also friggin huge! Just shy of 800 pages this horror thriller is sure to set the tone for genre fiction for quite a while to come. (Authors, please just do not immitate the LENGTH of the book. I would like to finish more books quicker, and not break my back luggin them around) But I digress.

Expect an update as soon as I'm done with it (which might take a while since it is, if I haven't mentioned it, almost 800 friggin pages long!). If you cannot wait, get more info here, and here.

On a semi related note: I'm going to the Joburg launch for Zoo City on Thursday evening. It's at LoveBooks. More info can be found here. If you're going, drop me a mail and we can catch up there. Which reminds me, I still have no animal for the launch party!

Then on another unrelated note: Since Bafana Bafana's dismal performance against Uruguay last week wednesday, only one person has tried to sell me some WC 2010 memorabelia. I count that as a win! (Just thought I'd let you know!)

I also watched a couple of DVDs in the last few weeks. but I'll update the world on those later.

Deadspin.com almost killed me

I have found a new favourite online haunt. It's the #ballsdeep feature on deadspin.com. It is absolutely fucking hilarious! Now the author of #ballsdeep (whose name I just cannot be bothered to look up right now) supply us with some of the funniest shit I've come across in a long time. First he had the "Public Humiliation Diet". He claimed to have undergone this transformation:

Not drastic, but noticable. The "how" however, had me in stitches. Click on the picture and go read it. Then, naturally, I had to read the other articles. Now the diet one doesn't even crack a smile on my face any more.


Here's a post that I found on the "Gay Mexican Edition", where the author plays agony aunt for readers' sexlives, or whatever the sarcastic i-could-hardly-give-a-fuck edition of an agony aunt is.

Women much like Susan Sarandon's Annie Savoy character in "Bull Durham" exist, insofar that they're cougars on the prowl for young baseball players, at least. During a summer league down south a few years back, my buddy was at a bar when he encountered one such woman. She was eying him from the bar and so, upon the encouragement of some of his teammates (who knew what he was in for but felt it wiser that he find out for himself), he played the game of drink buying and small talk until they withdrew back to her place.

Things were pretty standard to start off: they popped open another round of drinks, started making out and then some clothes came off. She told him to sit tight in the living room while she ran into the bedroom to get ready. At this point he was pretty excited to see what came next. After a couple minutes, she opened the door and beckoned him to come join her. Imagine his surprise, then, upon seeing a chair with a tarp spread out underneath on the floor.

Here's where the anal beads come into play. She has him sit down and tells him, while swinging around a string of anal beads, that she's going to very slowly insert the anal beads while she goes down on him. Naturally my buddy is a wee bit nervous at the idea, but he's had enough liquid courage to shrug his shoulders and give the go-ahead. So she starts doing her thing from both ends, making sure to mention just before she begins that he has to tell her when he's about to blow his load.And this is where the tarp comes in. She's blowing and slowly inserting and my buddy, for the most part, is thoroughly enjoying the experience. The beads aren't doing much but she's a consummate professional in the sloppy yawn department. A few minutes in and he's about to go Ol' Faithful. And right as he does, he tells her.

And right as he tells her, she yanks out the beads. And right as she yanks out the beads, he blows two loads: one from the front and one from the back. Hence the tarp.To this day he swears he's never had such a brain-exploding orgasm as that night. But that didn't change the fact that he had just shat all over this woman's bedroom floor, tarp-covered or not. She obviously didn't mind, but he was too embarrassed after that. I still give him shit for it (figuratively) because my argument is if that's how the first performance went, imagine what she'd have in store for an encore.

I mean seriously. Can anyone make this shit up? (pun intended) I would not be able to! But these stories will inspire scenes in my upcoming novels, just because they are so ridiculously funny I have to share.

So now you wonder, how did this poor man almost die (me, not the guy with the mind/ass blowing orgasm)? Well, imagine you are having your afternoon tea, lazily chewing on an eat-sum-more and you read the words: "And right as he tells her, she yanks out the beads. And right as she yanks out the beads, he blows two loads: one from the front and one from the back."

I'm still coughing up crumbs and trying to remove coffee stains from my pc.

Filing

So I finally got round to doing my filing this weekend. It was horrible. Do you have any idea how much filing accumulate in the space of three years? Neither did I.
So my filing looked something like this:

This image I stole from the vastness of the internet, but it gives you the idea of what my system looked like.

This weekend managed to convince me that filing is the eternal spawn of Evil, and that in the right environment, Filing function like bacteria. Keep it the right temperature and it multiplies like there is no tomorrow. Either that, or some malicious fairy multiplied the documents.

But I learnt a lot about myself while doing the filing. I could trace the last three years of my life, what I did, where I did it. I learnt that somehow, as a student, I survived on R2500 a month on what appears to be a steady diet of cigarettes and red wine (I cannot remember this, which probably means that it is true).

I learnt that I could get round for a good week on just one tank of petrol, now I'm lucky if I make it 3 days. I learnt that a packet of smokes was R20, and I could afford to smoke a box+ a day. Now I cannot afford it, and I wake up coughing if I try.

I found till slips indicating that I frequently bought pies and that I apparently enjoyed them. (Must be during the red wine phase, I cannot remember this either) I also realised that wine became expensive when I wasn't looking.

The there are the gaps in my filing. Somewhere along the way, I lost 6 months. No statements, slips, payslips or any other correspondence. If someone finds my lost months, send them back to me!

That would teach me to keep my filing up to date! But then again, WHY?!

My fingers are starting to annoy me...

So I seem to have some bad habits, habits that turn out to be hard to break. Sure there are the regular ones that people often gripe about: smoking, being overly fond of red wine, insisting that I do not need a filing system etc etc.

My newest bad habit pisses me off though. Somehow the middle finger on my left hand has become overzealous. No, it's not that, I generally flip people off with my right hand. And no, it's not that either! Get your minds out of the gutter for once.

No, I use my overzealous middle finger to type the letter "e" on the keyboard. Now what could be wrong wit that, you ask. Well, stupid finger insists on being quicker than the others and this results in words being spelled with the "e" (and sometimes other letters) in completely the wrong order, making me look like an illiterate buffoon in the process.

And that's not the worst of it. This nasty habit has been rubbing off on other fingers, and now they think it's fine to go goofing off whenever they want. Left ring finger, for instance, insists on double typing letters for the fun of it. So not only do you get random e's, you also have double a's, q's, s's and more floating around in a sentence. As a copywriter/aspiring writer this poses a bit of a problem (I just had to correct poses, for instance - imagine where that went!). I have to triple proof read my stuff before I can actually start proofreading my stuff. Soul deadening I tell you!

I was tempted to type this whole blogpost without fixing the mistakes just to make a point, but you see, I could not get it over my heart.

Now that all the world has been notified of this random piece of useless information about my life, feel free to continue with yours.

Dear Universe...

So I had the most eventful morning. I woke up, hung over with stomach cramps (which I'm 90% sure is unrelated to the alcohol consumption) and decided to spend the day in bed. Then at 4:29 my phone rings, it's a colleagues wife. He needs a lift because, I kid you not, a drunk guy drove into their gate and then passed out, blocking their exit.

So I drag myself out of bed and was ready to leave by 4:45. Then I get the sms that says "don't worry, got out, take a benelyn day". But I'm already on my way to the car. So I go to work.

Halfway through Pretoria, said colleague calls again. He had a flat on the highway. I think "WTF?" this was 5 to 5. Because I live aan the gatkant of everything, I got to work after him (at 5:30), and decided to do what every miserable sad irish-person-who-was-diddled-by-daddy does, and write about it.

Thank you universe for my inspiration. I could not make this shit up if I was hopped up on smack.

I could most probably make other shit up if I was hopped up on smack, but it would be more gruesome and less funny. Speaking of being hopped up on smack, have you seen the new Olympic mascots for the 2012 Olympic Games in London. I'm sure there were a lot of illegal substances involved in this, or a Japanese guy or 2. Take a look: (Image taken from the Telegraph website...)

Apparently they had 40 focus groups involved in this project. I'm pretty sure they found the people for these focus groups at local Narcotics Anonymous meetings. Seriously WTF?

Pissed off

It is time to talk about one of my biggest pet peeves of all time. Conversations in public toilets. Where in this great big universe does it state that you have to talk to me while I’m pissing? Seriously. There are public toilets all over the place for one reason, and one reason only: To urinate and defecate in peace.

If I want to have a conversation with you, I’ll phone you, or go to your office. I’ll invite you over for coffee. I’m not going to invite you for a piss. In a public toilet I do not care how you are doing? I don’t care “what’s up?” I definitely do not want to discuss the latest office gossip, or even work.

As if it is not uncomfortable enough that you have to watch me while I’m trying to piss, do not dare speak at me. Now, I am painfully aware that this process happens differently for the fairer sex. Apparently, you are able to gossip and piss at the same time. Well in my case, the age old adage is true: God gave men a brain and a penis and only enough blood to run one at a time.

I used to have a deep seated fear of public toilets. They absolutely freaked me out. Till about 5 years ago, I refused to use them. I still avoid the dodgy ones as much as possible. Funnily enough, I had absolutely no qualms about using them for other activities, especially during my high school years, when the toilets were the place where I got my hourly nicotine fix. But then again, in high school no one uses the toilets for their intended purpose.

So you might wonder where this random rant came from, and fear not, I will tell you. So I was in the loo at work when Colleague walked in. Now Colleague works on the other side of the building, a place that I rarely go to, except when I go steal sweets from a friends office (more on that later). Of the three urinals, the two on the left were open. So, because Murphy is duly aware of my intense hatred for discussions around the pisser, Colleague would choose the one next to me and proceed to ask me how my day was. Being the poster child for friendliness, I answered him curtly in an attempt to get him placated and have him shut up. But, alas! No such luck. He proceeded to start talking about work, and every so often looking at me, dangerously ruining his posture and with that, his aim.

So I finish up, and turn to the washing basins, and would mister go and turn around as well, completely forgetting what he was busy with. Luckily for me, I was out of the splash zone, but still. It was close! None of this would have happened if Mister Colleague just kept his trap shut and pissed like a normal person.

So this post was born out of almost being pissed on. Universe, take note: The next person to speak to me while I attempt to alleviate the pressure in my bladder, will be pissing through a tube the next time he has to. Be warned.

Why are we allowed to say what we want?

Right, now I'll start treading on toes. Freedom of speech is a ridiculous concept. The whole idea that anyone should be allowed to say whatever they want is absolutely ridiculous. Take that idiot stepfather of Cezanne "Barbie" Visser. He compared adv Barbie to Nelson Mandela. Someone should slap prof Johan Lemmer. 


Yup. you read it correctly. He compared a sex offender to one of the greatest men to ever walk the face of this planet. Now let's give a couple of truths. Mandela was a terrorist. He was arrested for it and spent 27 years in jail. But Mandela is also a freedom fighter. A man that furiously campaigns for equality, freedom and respect. He was labelled a terrorist because his views did not coincide with that of the ruling class. The system did not fail him. To be precise, the system worked perfectly in that time. Now you can argue that the system did fail him after he became president. Even though he tried his best there was just no way that the utopian SA that he visualised was going to happen in just a couple of years.


Adv Barbie on the other hand, diddled a few kiddies, got involved with a despicable specimen of the human race, she was caught and she stood trial, she was found guilty and now she's going to prison. The system did not fail her either. If you argue that she was in an abusive relationship and the system did not help her, well pooy for her. How was the system to know she had problems? Did she go out looking for help? Did she go the police?


So, Johan Lemmer, I don't know where you bought your title, but seriously. Give it back. This brings me back to the topic of freedom of speech. Should we be allowed to say whatever we want, as long as it does not incite hatred or violence towards others? Shouldn't we implement a "License to Speak"? Have it function like a drivers license, if you fuck up, you pay a fine. If you fuck up too often, your license gets revoked and you can suffer in silence. 


This will save us from idiots like professor Johan Lemmer and Julius Malema. We will also get rid of a couple of TV presenters who were inappropriately touched on their studios, as well as the people who touched them. So I say. Let us go out there into the wide world spreading the message of licensed speech. We'll be agents. Bloody agents of change and reason.


We should start a petition. Or march. Or picket outside parliament.

Absent without leave

Aaaand I'm back. Now I know I've taken a bit of a break from this blog thing for a while, but be not afraid, I spent my time well.

The last couple of months have been absolutely hectic.I helped launch that website, you know the one that kept me busy for so long, I started studying again, I finished the studies and then went on a soul searching mission for a month. Now I'm back, and ready to roll. With a very loose grip on who I am in one hand and a firm vision for my future in the other, I'm ready to get back to real life.

I'm hard at work on the manuscript for my first novel, Divine Children - a post apocalyptic fantasy novel, and I'm pretty sure it's going to rock. But then again, all parents think their children are just absolutely amazing and they are usually wrong.

Given the fact that I was out of it for a while, reading also took a bit of a backseat. I did discover a few new authors I think the world should be taking notice of (If you haven't already!)

First off, J. Robert King. READ HIS BOOKS! I started reading The Angel of Death and I was hooked immediately.The story follows the Angel of Death in Chicago who is on the trail of a serial killer. After he falls in love with the investigating cop, he has to make a choice between divinity and humanity - and suffer the consequences. The book is beautifully written drawing you as reader deeper into the story. WARNING: Do not start reading this if you have deadlines - the book is a deadline killer!

Another author everyone should take note of is Paige Nick, funnywoman extraordinaire and author of A Million Miles from Normal. Now I do not regularly venture into the chicklit genre, but I found this book to be funny and engaging. It won't be everyone's cup of tea (five roses or otherwise), but it is a fun read and well worth the Sunday afternoon I spent reading it.

Well, I'm off again. But in the immortal words of a younger and fitter Arnold Schwarzenegger: "I'll be back!"