Not blocked, just not concentrating.

It’s getting hot in San Antonio. Yesterday they passed a record set in 1963 – damnit!

The hotter it gets, the harder it becomes for me to go out and explore the place. It’s a nuisance at the moment because they are holding their yearly Fiesta. It’s a sort of celebration of all the things that combine within the cultural melting pot of good ole San Antone…

It ends this weekend and I haven’t got down there yet. I’m hoping to head out tomorrow evening to the part called NIOSA or Night in Old San Antonio which is a food and music “do” held in the historic La Villita, at night, when it’s cooler. I want some of that there stuff.

Food + Cool + Outside = Good

I only found out about this whole shebang after the ticket sales for all the other events had closed, so this is the only one open to me.

However (you knew that was coming, didn’t you?) I have been unable to just head out because one of my friends here is heading off on a fortnight’s training next Monday and wanted to catch up before he left. We have been going to meet EVERY SINGLE DAY THIS WEEK. Have we managed it yet? No. There is always a meeting that comes up just as he is leaving his office and then keeps him there until all hours.

Which isn’t his fault, of course, but I am beginning to become somewhat annoyed. I keep telling him that I want to go to Fiesta at some point and he keeps telling me that he has lived here for years and not been once. At which stage I tend to retort that this is not the point. I am a tourist. Such a tag demands certain behaviours including attendance at local cultural events.

He doesn’t get my drift, I’m afraid.

Sigh.

Meanwhile, I have opened the word file with my novel in it several times this week. I have tweaked and finessed and massaged the words therein, and achieved absolutely nothing in terms of actually adding to the story.

Sigh. Again.

I’m not suffering from the infamous Writers’ Block. Not at all. I am merely … stuck. I know what I want to happen. I know what I want people to do and say, and to and with whom I want them to do and say these things. I just don’t like the way it comes out on the screen. The words are all wrong.

Now the most likely reason that the words are all wrong is probably the aforementioned tweaking, massaging and finessing that I have done to the pre-existing tracts. This means that my rough drafting sounds odd when it comes at the end of the more literary version of my earlier writing efforts. If that makes any sense at all.

It all kinda sucks really.

So, tomorrow I am going to get out into the world and get some cool twilight air. I’m going to recharge my creative batteries by experiencing something interesting. I’m going to listen to new accents, see new sights and taste different foods. I’m going to observe in miniscule detail the tiniest things I can see and commit the entire experience to memory.

I’m good at that. It’s one of the keys to my good memory. I can recall how it felt to be sitting in a place having a conversation 20 years ago, right down to the feeling of an indian summer breeze on my arms and the way the other person’s hair was mussed up. On this talk like Shakespeare day, I kiddest thou not.

So, I will take my mental notes and prepare for my next novel and then come home and work on the current one. I promise.

I’m going to make myself write at least 1000 words a day and not let myself worry about the quality of those words until I get to the end of the damned book.

Cross my heart.

In the meantime, on the weekend before my fatigue knocked me out I was watching Book TV and saw a presentation on human behaviour and decision making by one highly entertaining Israeli researcher, Dan Ariely. I think his book was called Predictable Irrationality. There’s some more of his stuff on YouTube here – I recommend them, he’s a hoot. He survived burns to 70% of his body as a youngster and has the dark sense of humour common to all the people I know who have survived a medical disaster.

Anyway, as part of his spiel he told the following joke with which I shall leave you.

A man goes into the Synagogue and complains to the Rabbi that someone stole his bike the week before. The Rabbi is appalled and says that at the next Sabbath the sermon will be about the Ten Commandments and he will make everyone recite them all.

He tells the man that, when they are reciting, he should turn and face the gathering so that he can note anyone who looks down at the words Thou Shall Not Steal. That person would be the thief.

So, the next week after the sermon is finished and everyone is leaving, the Rabbi catches up with the man and asks if the ruse worked? The man replies,”It was amazing! I can’t believe how well it worked. When we got to Thou Shall Not Commit Adultery, I remembered where I left my bike.”

ttfn,

S.

All quiet on the writing front.

Hey, guess what?

My Prime Minister, the Hon. Kevin Rudd M.P. is in the USA.

Apparently.

I haven’t seen or heard anything about it in the local media at all. I only know because I read the Sydney Morning Herald on-line everyday. Just so I get some idea of what is happening in the wider world.

There is saturation coverage of what is happening here and lots of sniping at those partisan to others than those to whom one is partial, if you know what I mean…

It’s all very strange and requires further analysis on my part, and I will comment further later.

In the meantime, I finally handed the first draft of my first chapter to someone to read. Gulp.

I’m still getting feedback. It’s been trickling in over the last week and I do mean t-r-i-c-k-l-i-n-g – it’s driving me quite loopy and I have been unable to write anything more in the interim.

This has to change. So, tomorrow is scheduled for writing.

Stay tuned.

ttfn,

S