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” Uncle Pumblechook: a large hard-breathing middle-aged slow man, with a mouth like a fish, dull staring eyes, and sandy hair standing upright on his head, so that he looked as if he had just been all but choked, and … Continue reading
It’s that time again to switch lives and lifestyles. Gone is the car and out comes the tube pass and train tickets. One of the benefits of living with a foot on both sides of the pond is the weather is pretty much the same. Makes for easy packing. As it’s travel time for me I won’t be able to read your blogs or your comments right away, but I will as soon as I unpack and get the tea kettle on the go! Stay Safe and Speak Soon!
I have to confess, I have tried so many times and in so many forms to keep a diary with the ending result– unreadable pages. In the end I wrote with a fountain pen, simply because it forced me to slow down, and ended up with a somewhat positive result. I could actually read what I had written some six months later. My handwriting was and still is atrocious.
Diaries are intimidating. I can’t believe what I have written in some entries. Was my thought process really like that? Egads, where is the match to burn them! But diaries or journals can be a useful tool for the writer. It’s good practice to try to find something in your day of interest and write about it.
I have massive diary intimidation. Back in the depth of my mind, that niggly little voice is comparing my writing to that of some outstanding writers. Mine is just not on that level. In a way, I wish I had not read the diary’s of Virginia Woolf, and Beatrix Potter. Potter even wrote hers in a secret code. With that to contend with, I have no hope!
Photo of British writer and illustrator, Beatrix Potter and her dog Kep, 1913 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I read those diaries early on, and that style formed in my mind of what a diary should be like, Pepys springs to mind also, I no longer keep a diary, but I keep notebooks, with ideas, story notes, and in my day to day diary, I just keep the days events structured like an appointment book. That often is enough to trigger a memory for me.
Portrait of Virginia Woolf (January 25, 1882 – March 28, 1941) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Virginia Woolf writes in her diary:
The habit of writing for my eye only is good practice. It loosens the ligaments.
Never mind the misses and the stumbles. Going at such a pace as I do I must make the most direct and instant shots at my object, and thus have to lay my hands on words, choose them and shoot them with no more pause than is needed to put my pen in the ink. I believe that during the past year I can trace some increase of ease in my professional writing which I attribute to my casual half hours after tea. . . .
What sort of diary should I like mine to be? Something loose knit and yet not slovenly, so elastic that it will embrace anything, solemn, slight or beautiful that comes into my mind. I should like it to resemble some deep old desk, or capacious hold-all, in which one flings a mass of odds and ends without looking them through.
I wish my diary read like hers.
They say that we don’t really remember things as they actually happened. Clear example would be eyewitnesses to a crime. One crime and five very different descriptions of the criminal. Our memories are creative ones. But, if you can manage to capture an episode of your life in words, then sometimes, years later, it will come as a pleasant surprise that you did indeed remember things as they were, or a shock. I really did that?
Some Diary’s are not meant for private eyes as was the case with A Writer’s Diary by Fyodor Dostoevsky, which was a monthly paid diary.
“Portrait of the Writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky”, Oil on canvas. The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I don’t really consider that a proper diary, as its intent was publication. Diaries to me are private affairs. A place where you can feel free to share you darkest thoughts and deepest dreams.
Is there a writer’s diary you admire?
Do you use a diary as a writing prompt? A memory trigger? Or?
I’d love to hear about your experiences on using a diary for your writing.
We say sorry when we bump into someone. That’s just being polite. We really don’t want to crash about into other people. So an apology is in order
We say “Sorry?” when we didn’t hear what you said. But we really mean… your accent got us confused. The dog was barking. Can you repeat what you said? We don’t need to say all of that after the sorry as it’s commonly understood– we just didn’t hear what was being said and wearing a hearing aid is out of the question!
Then there is the Sorry? with the slightly raised eyebrow.
We mean to say, you are not understood, your logic is flawed, you’re not making any sense. Can you repeat what you are saying so I can make sure that I am hearing what you think you are trying to say. But instead we say, Sorry? It’s just verbal texting in this case.
Strangely, and I’ve done this many times, we say sorry when someone else bumps into us. Are we sorry they bumped into us? Yes, it hurts, not to mention horribly annoying. Are we apologising for being in their way? I hope not. Still, we go ahead and mumble, sorry as if it were some how our fault.
Is that a passive aggressive response to their not saying sorry to us first? Or are we trying to teach them some manners by shouting Sorry to their backs as they carry on not caring about the bruises and spilt coffee they leave behind. I wonder. I have said sorry rather angrily to someone who shoved ahead without a care to those around them. Miserable so and so…
We say sorry a lot on the Underground, especially during peak travel times. You just can’t wait for people to politely let you off. Your stop will be long gone. So we say sorry and push our way through the crowd. We don’t like doing that, but it’s just something that has to be done. So there’s sorry for that one. It’s an apology ahead of time. I am guilty of this one…but when your stop is coming and you have to wade through thirty people deep, all crammed near the exit, and you’re stuck in the middle of the carriage, there is no choice but to push ahead and say, sorry each time you push past.
( Mind you when I had a tube tumble, people jumped over other people to help me! I was the one saying sorry and really meaning it! )
According to a survey of 1,100 people conducted by Esure car insurance company, the average Brit will say sorry 1.9 million times in his or her lifetime.
I really find those numbers ridiculous. Who has all that time to say, Sorry? So terribly sorry, but we are not that polite!
Saying just the word sorry…and not the rest of the bit of the sentence that should follow, has just become shorthand, and does not actually mean you are sorry about something. But sometimes it actually does.
Sorry….
I fell in love with Boston and can’t wait to get back and visit this fabulous city. This door was glowing in the afternoon sunlight. The wood and it’s honey colour just enthralled me. I think it might be an oak door with fabulous patina. I love the two stained glass window panels, each boasting a round centre button. Reminds me of two eyes watching out on to the street below. Interestingly there is only one door handle. Curious, two might be better? But one or two door pulls, it’s a stunning Boston Doorway.
The shock of the terrorist attack in Boston is still raw. As we pick ourselves up from this attack, I don’t want to write about the attacker(s). Far too much press in the past has given these twisted monsters what they want. Their photos in papers, their reasons blasted all over front pages, their insane causes exhausted by the press is exactly what they crave. I don’t want to give them any due, for no due is theirs to claim. Monsters exist in our world.
I wish I had the photo rights to show you the heroes we have. In the middle of a terror attack, confusion, panic is the norm. One couldn’t blame any one for trying to get away from the horror as fast as they can. But did Boston do this?
I saw a City Of Heroes in Boston.
We watched two men in uniforms rushing to pull off barriers from wounded people crushed below. Did they give a thought that another bomb might go off? No, they rushed to save what lives they could, not giving a thought to their own lives or safety.
I saw the Boston Marathon workers, stunned, but there, helping guide people to safety even though no one was sure which way was the safe way to turn.
We saw the police ready to defend, with no thought to their own safety.
Emergency workers sprang into action. Hospital staff worked tirelessly to save those so badly hurt in this attack.
Nurses, exhausted from running the race, grabbed a breath of air and rushed to aid those wounded in this heartless attack.
Extraordinary people, so many of them, instantly turned and went to help, applying first aid to those bloodied in this battle of freedom. This was A City of Heroes that horrible day.
We live in the age of terror, I remember the IRA Bombings, The French Terrorist Attacks in Canada, 911, the London 7/7/ bombings. Londoners rose to that battle and aided those victims with the same heroism.
Boston proved once again to the world that no matter what bombs or threats are throw at us, we are a people of heroes, and we will always be there to help those in need. We will always be there to safeguard freedom against those that would strive to end it.
Frustration. It’s been in the air for a while now all over the Great Blogosphere. In private, I’ve felt it myself. But when some of my favorite writers started expressing their own agonies, I decided to write this post. I hope it will give you a massive confidence bump. Or something.
Back in September, Google released a major update to their search engine. Called Panda, its stated goal was to help people find exactly what they were searching for. Its unstated goal was to shake things up and to compete with companies like Amazon and Facebook that are pulling away their market share.
Panda was such a fundamental change to Google search that most SEO-types recommended that folks go back and optimize every bit of content to meet the new rules. And, it teed up Google’s new mission to require a Google+ account with linked authorship, which will usher in a new system called ‘Author Rank‘ in the coming months. To me, Author Rank is little more than a popularity contest.
Sigh.
I thought I graduated from high school in 1987. I want to scream ‘what grade are we in?’
Anyway.
Combine a major Google update with Facebook’s push to optimize every newsfeed with ads and sponsored stories. Casual blog readers aren’t seeing blog links like they did a few months ago, because Facebook is pushing those out of the system in favor of people who are willing to pay for the same space.
I don’t expect things to level off. When major tech players fight over market share, the users lose. Every time.
That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t stay the course. Keep writing. Support each other. I miss you when you’re not here. All of you. And I don’t mean on my blog. I mean in the Great Blogosphere.
These rules may seem cumbersome, but they only add a couple of extra minutes per post for me. A few little tweaks can yield a big return in increased engagement.
Good luck.
And, if any other readers have suggestions, please post them in the comments.
This door in the alley that leads up to the Cathedral in Rochester Kent is really curved with time. I would dread trying to draft proof it, or replace it with a modern door. Above it, the door frame bears the weight of the ancient house, and it tiredly leans in a dangerous fashion.
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Rochester, Kent, has a special place in my heart. I first discovered Rochester as a young girl. We were in Sheerness Kent and set out for a wonderful summer’s day with promises to be home by tea time. With change … Continue reading
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There is something magical about black and white photography. This shot of a black London Phone box, looks as if I had stepped back in time to the 1940’s, but this shot was taken near Charing Cross in 2012. I … Continue reading
A camera travels 