Ctrl-ALT-Delete…NOT!

When I began this blog I promised myself it was going to be my gateway. My gateway into writing every day. After the whole discovery of the ‘Morning pages‘ idea, I figured that if I could use this blog to shake off the shackles of everything else, then some days, maybe even most days, I might carry on writing and get something done.  Maybe (probably) not every day, but writing a blog entry every day would at least keep the juices flowing.

And, of course, ‘real life’ got in the way…as it has done with everything else, all the time. But thanks to a new follower on this blog, and the fact that someone else I recently worked with read and watched a monolgoue I wrote & recorded as part of a class I was doing and told me she’d love to see that extended and turned in to a play, I have started doing just that; editing the monologue and converting it into a play; and promising myself to blog -and generally write- more.

Now, in the past, I might have…well, no, I WOULD have…deleted this blog and started all over again; maybe saving and reposting some of the entries under edited titles and updated.  I was contemplating how some people can blog on one single subject their whole blogging career – there’s those who blog on technology, business, fashion, makeup, movies, gaming…But having begun this blog mainly for my own posterity, I love the freedom of writing about…writing.

While showering this evening (why not…it’s Mothers’ Day, after all 😉 ) I realised that maybe that’s a problem with us “Millennials” (And before you ask, I can *only just* count myself in that particular age-group under *some* of the many definitions).  Basically, the last generation who will remember a life pre-internet and smartphones and the first generation to become truly integrated with said technology, learning it in school, applying it to everyday life and teaching it to our elders, whilst at the same time bemoaning our children don’t appreciate ‘the old days’.

Not only are we are SO glad that those misdemeanours and mistakes and foolishness of our youth are not recorded for all eternity on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook (unless ones’ mother learns to scan and upload photos of you as a child…but that’s another post…;) ), we can control what others see about us ; we can delete anything we want to, that we’ve written, created, no longer agree with, no longer see as relevant, at the touch of a button.  And really, for me to do that with this blog, goes against the very sentiment I wrote about in my first post. It would be like someone keeping a real, pen-and-paper journal for 60-odd years and then tossing them on the fire with no-one ever having read them.

500 Words

BBC Radio 2 is running their short-story writing competition for children again.  “500 Words” is open for children aged between 5 & 13 to write a short story, about anything they like, up to 500 words long.  Simples.

Why wasn’t this around when I was little?  Then again, why wasn’t the whole internet around when I was little? It seemed…no, it was…so much harder to find information back then.  There are so many opportunities these days for anyone; without having to go searching or subscribing to magazines or waiting for the school to subscribe to something and submit you. 

I remember subscribing to “Writer’s News” and searching avidly through the pages for any hint of writing competitions/  I can remember sitting for hours in a dark corner of the library having discovered Spotlight (the directory of professional actors) and dreaming of one day being listed in there.  (It’s now online and a lot of aspiring actors don’t even know that it was once a thick reference catalogue).

There is a lot of dross out there on the internet, of course, but there are so many opportunities and yes, ease of access to all of these opportunities does mean heightened competition; so if winning were down to chance alone, the odds are further against you.  However, with luck, talent will shine through just enough to make it past each judging stage and may just get some recognition.

So, point in favour of T’internet.  Just don’t read the comments…

I’ve just submitted #2’s story, written last year after last year’s competition had ended; and they’ve issued a certificate of participation already. I’m pleasantly surprised to say that it doesn’t seem petty or condescending at all.  It’s not overly sentimental.  It simply certifies that #2 named on the downloadable PDF certificate is “an official storywriter for 500 words 2017”.

I’m quite proud of #2 to be honest.  No help required in foremulating the story; bar from me asking “so, what happened next?” at certain points to prompt the continuation of the story.  Then we sat together and typed it out and read it back to each other so it made some kind of sense.

However, point #2 in favour of the internet (supported by the amount of homework they are sent home with which requires ‘logging on to xxx app we’ve been using in class and completing the tasks/games/assignments); even if it were not so easy to create a story from scratch, there are plentiful online resources, for child and adult writers alike; with prompts and advice; like this one for example.

I’ve taken the tribe to the library a couple of times.  And they love books and stories and so on.  But I’m suddenly feeling a nostalgia for dusty old reference libraries; but more importantly, the effort it took to actually find a piece of information.  Sometimes, it seems to easy just to have it at your fingertips, like we’re somehow cheating.

Enough of my musing for now – good luck to any and all participants in this year’s 500 words. I’m still slightly miffed that I don’t remember it being this easy when I was younger!

Happy New Year

I know, I know, it’s almost 2 weeks into 2017.  Most people have stopped wishing each other ‘Happy New Year’ by now.

So much so that when someone said it to me yesterday I had to do a double take, and was so stunned into silence that a slight stutter in response was all I could manage before they were out of earshot to hear me return the sentiment.

Well, the darling laptop is home! Finally.  I realised, from finding my last blog entry, that it was 6 months ago that she ‘died’ … and I’ve survived that long! I know, right?

As explained to friends the other day (via messenger chat, on the laptop! Woohoo!) … 2 months for the actual fixing (she had to be sent back to the manufacturer’s regional HQ across the Irish Sea since the repairs were beyond the capabilities of the little local repairman – so much for supporting the local High-street!) followed by 4 months of trying to scrape together enough money to spare to pay him. Yes, it’s that bad. It wasn’t even that much in the grand scheme of things; but to us, me, it was. I even did the Mrs Claus thing again this past Christmas, with all the good intentions that a short-lived regular income would pay off the small list of items I had prepared.  No such luck.  It got frittered away on Christmas luxuries like feeding the children and paying unauthorised-overdraft-charges and late-payment-fees at the bank.  Still, just about managed a couple of Christmas presents; a pile of Christmas cards which ended up never getting posted (Sorry!)

(It’s a whole other story what I think of a certain bank charging £££ for my account having accidentally strayed a whole 70p into the red for LESS THAN 24 HOURS – it was actually about 7 – before I found a little bit of cash to pay in to bring it back to normal)

But, this post isn’t about that.

In all honesty, I’m not sure WHAT it’s about specifically… in which case, I apologise for boring you!

What did strike me, on the school run yesterday, was that when I originally started writing here; I intended to at very least, write a short entry each day.  I even had a handful of titles, themes, trains of thought, to start me off.  I sometimes wrote 2-3 a day and scheduled their publication so there would be one each day.  And…

…as with other ventures, it trailed off.  I began to tell myself it was OK if I maybe only posted every couple of days.  Which turned in to once a week.  If I was lucky… And then, the whole laptop gone thing didn’t help because we do have an ancient desktop in the corner of one room, which is nice and compact for a desktop and it’s surrounded by the computer desk meaning that’s where the printer and all my belov’d stationery happen to reside also; but…it’s ancient (in terms of technology) and therefore is very slow and for the most part unresponsive.

I barely managed to file my tax return online using it, and that was only after putting it off for 3 months longer than I would have, simply because I lived in hope of getting the laptop back in time to file on there before the deadline of 31 january.

Even though the computer desk in the corner is usually…well, at one point, always was…one of my (very few) happy places; even sitting there once a day/week/month attempting to write a blog on the old PC didn’t appeal.

Concerns such as “The children play computer and other games in this room” or “I can’t curl up comfortably on the end of the sofa, laptop resting on the arm, and write from a position of relaxation if I want to” (Yes, I was that petty.) Besides, I had other stuff, like winning acting awards (YAYYYYY!), looking for somewhere to live, getting a new Christmas Job and such things on my mind.

What the heck, I thought, no-one’s reading anyway.  Well, 2017, that’s not the point, is it?

Then, it struck me…DOH!  There’s all the things I was using as excuses to not keep up the blog (regardless of readership!) and yet…there’s instantly the beginnings of a list of posts.  Woohoo!

So, in case you missed it the first time, and in an attempt to get in my 750 words for today… Happy New Year.  I hope yours has started as you wish it to continue.  Or at the very least, better than last year ended.

 

Happy Anniversary!

Maybe it’s fate.

I killed my laptop yesterday.

I did the old ‘upgrade to Windows 10’ thing ages ago; and had the ‘headphones not working’ problem.  Not had it?  You’re lucky… Every time I Google it, countless others have the same problem.

I couldn’t remember how I fixed it last time; but was pretty sure it was some driver or something from the Dell website (it’s an Alienware laptop, so manufactured by Dell).

So I went there.  And somehow ended up on a page that had a link to download something on it which I must have presumed was a driver; something flashed up saying something was out of date so I clicked it; it came up with the ‘downloading, do not turn off your computer’ average message you always get.

Anyway, there’s me thinking I had the thing plugged in but turns out it wasn’t…the cable wasn’t in the back of the machine; and the battery died.  Presumably in the middle of whatever it was doing.

And it wouldn’t turn back on.

Well, it would try, but it just sounded like an industrial vacuum cleaner, as though it was trying to read something from the CD-rom disk drive.  And guess who can’t even remember if it even CAME with a boot disk; let alone if I still have it and where it would be if I did…

I’m in the middle of doing online courses on FutureLearn (they’re good, so far, by the way); so made me even more mortified than losing everything that was on there (only last week I’d transferred all the photos of my DSLR card because it reached full capacity while watching the Red Arrows at Wales National Air Show).

I’d almost learned my lesson from dead laptops before and at very least have all my writing work saved on a separate SD card and rarely if ever save that directly to the computer.

But because of being half way through the course (which as it happens is quite easy to follow on a smartphone of Kindle Fire HD too, but that’s not the point) I’ve returned to the old home PC.  Now, by old, I don’t mean it’s been around since the 50’s obviously.  I think maybe 6-7 years, possibly more.  But in computer terms, obviously, old.

I’ve used it intermittently but for anything other than general word-processing it’s a little (!) slow.

And I’d lost track of blogging, for a while.

Until I logged back on to this computer and my WordPress page was one of my home tabs on the browser.

So I was reminded about blogging online.

And today, I got this reminder…

…which was rather nice, to have attained an achievement without even trying!

So, I will plod on writing to the abyss, I think. Ooh….tomorrow, I might tell you about yesterday….more fun acting type thingys!

 

TTFN xxxx

Growing up…

I just put a poster up on the wall.  The Cylch Meithrin  handed it to O/H the other day when he picked #3 up.

#3 will be 3 in a couple of months.

He can start school in January.

#1 moves to Juniors in September.

When did this happen?

The poster is a bunch of milestones/stages/abilities a schoolstarter should have reached or accomplished to show s/he is ready to start school; with some stickers to mark them off. I’m torn between feeling proud at how much he already can do; and feeling sad that he’s growing up so fast, without me even realising it.

Six Months Later…

…I got the letter today.  I knew it was coming, it’s about 6 months since the colposcopy and biopsy and all that.  But actually receiving the letter with a date and a time, it’s made it more real. Time for another colposcopy/smear to check if what they scraped out last time has worked, gone, come back, grown, got worse… who knows?

So the doomsday thoughts and feelings have been whizzing around my head today.

And a couple of conversations going on on social media are grating on me, too; given that my mood is already on the dark side.

x

 

*Update… After a few weeks, I got an all clear letter, giving me all clear and that I’m back to regular check-ups*

Coming Around Again…

The sun came out.

I know.  In the UK. Amazing, right? And suddenly everyone has realised they own barbecues, and lawnmowers, and shorts.

Including us.

So the garage has been sorted and the ‘oudoor toys’ have been rediscovered by the children who forgot they had them.  In some cases they found some we didn’t even remember we had in there since before they were born…

And we got the pup-tents out.  The pop up ones for a laugh to start with, to amaze the children as to how easy and quick they were. (Yes, someone felt they had to make an instructional video….)

They have memories attached themselves.  The road trip we were on to visit friends for the last time before we emigrated…the first time… and found them in a branch of Halfords and bought them as an impulse purchase; the (one and only) time we actually went camping, to a campsite, on a camping holiday, in them … and ended up on a pitch next to a family with a car emblazoned with a camping and outdoor accessories store logo; and the amazed looks on their faces when we turned up and within minutes were sitting next to our accomodation in camping chairs sipping wine; while they continued to struggle with their 12-person, multi-room mansion (I think they were only staying 1 night…)

And we started sorting out the camping gear in the garage, ready for the next foray into the fun of sleeping outdoors…under a sheet…

Because, so quickly, it seems like only yesterday I posted this blog post about last year’s trip. And here we are again, preparing ourselves for squashing as much as we can into the vehicle to make staying in a cubby hole made from thin fabric and plastic poles, feel like is has all mod cons, already…

And then, this one came out …

Yes.  It’s just a tent.  It’s a little, 2-man, dome tent.  It says “Outbound Sierra 1” on it. Took me 5 minutes to pitch. But took me back an awfully long way.  It’s funny, how things, items, stuff can seem like just posessions, sometimes, but attach so many funny little memory triggers to them.

My dad bought this tent, for my brother, sister and I.  I’m not sure why…the exact reason behind it; but I remember we pitched it for the first time at one of his Seafaring colleagues houses up in Monmothshire somewhere I think.

I can remember sleeping in the back garden one night, in it.  I can remember lending it to a friend from Youth Theatre when he went to Glastonbury for the first time because he didn’t have a tent.  (The tent’s been to Glasto but I haven’t…).  I can remember taking it to my grandmother’s house in Cornwall with me, and two friends from school coming down by train and we camped in it … 17 years old and our first camping trip. And it was nuts. (and the beauty of living out your teens back then is…that’s all you’re getting…. we managed to live out our tweens and teens and twenties before the internet was invented; so we can hide all that stuff that we didn’t tweet and instagram and facebook about …and just smile about it fondly)

But trying to explain to the 7,6 and 2 year olds that this tent was … blimey… about 25 years old, got barely a reaction from them.

Best of all?  It’s still pretty weatherproof.  I attacked it with a hose from all angles, and pretty much turned the grass surrounding it into a bog, and it’s bone dry inside.

It stank a bit when I got it out … the last time I ‘aired it’ was about 5 years ago (at least).

So I think it’ll be sat outside for a while to freshen up a bit.

Which the children are pleased about – One’s favourite colour is green and the other is orange, so they’ve adopted it.  The third one loves blue so he’s gone for the blue pop up.  And I still have my pink one.

Poor Daddy.   Good job we have the cottage tent to go on holiday with, really!

 

X

Where am I…?

I keep thinking to myself “Oh, I have a little time to myself this evening, I really should sit down and write another post; or that short story I keep menaing to start; or … well… just anything, really.”

And then I get a slightly good idea for a blog post, and then… I read someone else’s blog and I think “Shit, that was good, why can’t I write something like that?”, and I get put off, and start emptying the dishwasher and sorting the laundry out instead…

And then, later, I realise I started this with a view to posting at least every day.

Then I let myself slip to thinking once a week, then once a fortnight….was OK …

But that’s not why I started this blog.  I started this blog to log my life (remember…?) ; and at the time was giving “750 words” a go.  And, I looked at my posting history and it has just dropped off.  So sod it, I’m posting uninteresting drivel again just for the heck of it.  Because I can!

In other news.  Remember THIS post? Just in case anyone was wondering, I didn’t get offered any of the parts.  One (in fact, the one who specifically said they’d be contacting everyone with feedback), I heard nothing from at all; just saw the castings posted with who they’d chosen; and two of the other auditionees I know told me afterwards they had both received a no but also feedback.  Not sure what happened there… (not trying to name and shame, just a little confused…).  The other two productions were very pleasant and gave the usual polite spiel .. you know, the “we’d like to keep hold of your details” type of thing.

And … I don’t feel bad.  I survived.  I’m not bitter.  Years ago I’d be in a black mood for weeks, kicking myself, threatening self-harm and all sorts of “They don’t know what they’re missing…I could do that standing on my head…”

Which, to me, is growth.

I’m getting somewhere!  (Just not on to any of those particular sets very soon…!)

 

X

Auditions

…are the reason, at least, so I’ve been telling myself for years, that I didn’t want ‘the actor’s life’.  I mean, who wants to voluntarily continuously place yourself in the position of someone saying “no”.

So, the alternative?  Go to one interview, they say yes, get a job, stay in it for 50 years. Retire. Sit in a sunny conservatory and stare out the window and dream of the things you might have done …

An audition is nothing but a job interview.  I’ve moved around so much over the past few years (well, all my life, really) I’ve had far more than my fair share of job interviews. promotion interviews, transfer interviews …

Last week I had three auditions.  Three.  And the nerves remained at bay. and I actually ENJOYED them!  I enjoyed the experience; which I had thought, 20 years ago, I would dread. I enjoyed them far more than any job interview I’ve had; regardless of whatever the impending job was.

I enjoyed them for the experience they were and the people I met.  I hold out no hope of being chosen for any of them (in fact, I’ve heard back from one that I was unsuitable, but that my audition was great.  Which was enough for me.) but, it’s a starting point.  I went to all three, held my head high and came out feeling positive; and not a gibbering mess!

Watch this space….

Careers I could have had…

The book I’m reading on my Kindle at the moment (and have been for a long while…I’ve not had much time to sit down and read since having children!) is called “One more year on Facebook” by Naomi Rettig, and it’s more-ish.  I was sat here on my laptop twittering and being far too disctracted by Facebook and remembered the book; and that I’d been meaning to look up the source – someone in the Extras Facebook group had mentioned she’d written a book and had linked to it so I’d downloaded it; and all the while I’ve been sneaking in five minutes here and there I’ve meant to look her up again and tell her how much I’m enjoying it.

Anyway, now I have (looked her up, not told her yet!), and discovered her blog.  And the most recent blog post was this one entitled “Careers I could have had (if it wasn’t for a few things)”; and even before reading the rest of the post, I thought it was a fab title, and subject.

So, here’s mine…

Actor – Because…  The funnest part of childhood was play-acting.  Make-believe games.  Be other people in other places. Hey, I grew up alone on a cargo ship with no one but a younger brother (and everyone knows how anoying they can be!) for company.  Pretending to be someone else comes naturally to me now.  I went to Youth Theatre (as long as I could get there under my own steam…walk, bus etc).  I wanted to take Drama GCSE.  I was steered away – the old story of “get useful qualifications”; that’s not a ‘real’ subject’; there’s hardly ANY future in that. The only other subject I wanted to do was English, which was compulsory anyway.  So I chose subjects just for the sake of choosing them.  And naturally, didn’t do that well. (OK, well, I got an A in French without trying, but I had travelled a lot, I think that was mainly for my grasp of the acccent!)  By the time I got to A level subject choices, I put my foot down.  The only one I really wanted to do was Theatre Media & Drama.  And they let me.  I suspect it was only because there were only three others wanting to do it and they were trying to make up the numbers.

Sailor – No, really.  even 20 something years ago I didn’t think there was anything wrong with being a female at sea.  Obviously these days more and more stories like this one are cropping up.  But when I was doing my GCSE’s there was a poster up on one of the noticeboard in school about P&O (I think) cargo apprentice crew scheme, or something of the kind; and for a while there, I actually entertained, for more than a fleeting second, the idea of actually going to sea like my father.  I can’t remember what put me off, whether it was the thought of having to do A Level maths, or the fact that it really would put pay to my acting/writing/directing dreams once and for all…

Marine Biologist/Oceanographer – Yeh…fleetingly, this one.  Mainly because I was fascinated at the time by SeaQuest DSV (for that, read, I had a crush on Jonathan Brandis since Neverending Story 2).

Film Director – I wanted to Act. Until I realised that the person in charge of the actors was pretty much the director.  I wanted to be Stephen Spielberg for most of my teens.

So, this, and Oceanographer, were the two things I went with when it came my turn to see the Careers Advisor during GCSE decision time at school.  I think I stumped him.  Now, if he’d said something creative like, “OK, well how about you go into camera work, learn about underwater filming, and become an authority on marine underwater filming for movies and documentaries…and here’s some ideas on how you could start out in being a camera…person …”, well, then, I’d be doing that today.  As it was, he shrugged, and said, “Well, they’re both so different.  Do all sciences for Oceanography.  And there’s not really any university course you can do to be a film director.”.  And that was that.  Most unhelpful ‘advice’ session I’ve ever encountered.  In fact, has put me off asking for advice in general for anything!

Writer – Because I just managed to do that all the time with pretty much no help and got some pretty good responses to stuff I wrote for English assignments (like incredulous looks from my English teacher on occasion as she appeared to be trying to figure out if I really wrote that…); And I realised, that Acting required auditions.  The thought of which terrified me; and so, the Director being in charge of the actors (and not having to audition!) seemed inviting; but that required a set and crew and budget and producers; none of which I had a clue how to get; but writing ….ah…well…..paper, pencil…and you’re away!  Into your own world … write…write….write… and …rely on the same crippling fear of auditions to creep in to take effect in the event of anyone getting close to reading anything I wrote.  Drat.

Midwife – New country, new normal, new career?  I dunno, I toyed with the idea for a bit when we moved back to the UK.  I love babies and the whole pregnancy and birth process fascinates me; but it’s impractical to keep having them yourself.  I love nurses and the angels who do that; but the thought of doing a job where the majority of people you see might be at the end of their life….well; midwifery at least erring on the side that the majority of your patients were at the beginning … not the end…

Air Hostess – It seemed to be everyone else’s goal, dream, when I was working as ground staff, to move ‘up’ to cabin crew.  At that point it never appealed to me.  Later, it occured to me that a job which was a perfect combination of Passenger services AND Cabin crew, you know, like a whole-journey thing, not just cabin service and safety, would be a perfect role.  And just like that, as though someone pulled it out of my head, Air NZ introduced them!  In-Flight Concierges.  On board purely as Passenger services, info point, Liaise between reservations and check-in and cabin crew and passengers, travel with them, be an expert on the destination.  I applied.  Heart set.  Failed . Still wonder what might have been. But the time has passed.

Pilot – Another whim.  While I was working at the airport.  When I was single and carefree.  I did actually start having flying lessons.  Then… rent needed paying, and bills.  And I got distracted.  I’d still love to learn to fly and get my PPL.  That’ll be a ‘if I win the lottery’ thing.  I think I’m way past being paid to do it for a living.

So, what do I do?  What am I?  For all the umm-ing and Ah-ing; and the ‘get a real job instead of pursuing Drahmah …

I’ve drifted.  I’ve fallen into line and had ‘real’ dead-end jobs.  I’ve given up my own aspirations and followed someone else’s around the world.  It’s been fun, but I’ve felt like I was waiting for something the whole time….waiting for the ‘one day’ from ‘one day, I will write and act’ to come around.  Of all the things above I fondly remember that I once wanted to do (and probably could have done any of if I’d set my mind to); the two I want to do and be known for, are writing and acting.  I have the ability to do both. I just need the confidence and the shove in the right direction …

X