tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18285173741422650502024-03-16T07:55:57.185-07:00Views From the Bald PatchLife is not a spectator sportBotanisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12098709722475364465noreply@blogger.comBlogger748125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1828517374142265050.post-25898856440492883272024-02-03T16:08:00.000-08:002024-02-03T16:08:52.675-08:00The dog ate my shed<p>A phone call at work in the middle of the afternoon. “Dad, did you do some work on the shed recently? Like, taking off some of the siding?”<br /><br />No, I haven’t. Why would I do that? Puzzled, and wondering exactly what had happened at home while we were all out at work and college.<br /><br />This is what I found.<br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqyrrAf_hRlBMBmSl-Wq9AhRsvfxabsVD6YRiCoWqssuAYwUEki5swIrucKuZL4zPT0ToSIleXdHQrEETT1dMF7ZFUZgU4indS20EU_Yu-HSqAu4cPaqvW7nawyhyphenhyphenHXxliROzsCEntkNLcsS1BIyu-5VKHdL1DgvYvabFagSXXfVZLulS_TPvG3XDl08GE/s640/20240203-shed.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqyrrAf_hRlBMBmSl-Wq9AhRsvfxabsVD6YRiCoWqssuAYwUEki5swIrucKuZL4zPT0ToSIleXdHQrEETT1dMF7ZFUZgU4indS20EU_Yu-HSqAu4cPaqvW7nawyhyphenhyphenHXxliROzsCEntkNLcsS1BIyu-5VKHdL1DgvYvabFagSXXfVZLulS_TPvG3XDl08GE/w400-h300/20240203-shed.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><p>Planks ripped off, and some excavation either side of the door. The dogs must have been after something, probably a raccoon. Though why anyone would mistake this scene for intentional DIY handiwork beats me. Seems someone has a low opinion of my carpentry skills!<br /><br />Thankfully it was a dry afternoon today and I still had some offcuts of cedar siding from building the tree fort many years ago. All patched up again ... until the next time!</p>Botanisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12098709722475364465noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1828517374142265050.post-60734287893380496772023-12-22T10:59:00.000-08:002023-12-22T10:59:17.825-08:00Why I’ll never be a prolific writer<p>Since settling into proper “first draft” mode back in October, progress on <i>The Videshi Dilemma</i> remains on track at the moment. However I’m reminded again of something I’ve noticed from previous novels: I’m a slow writer.<br /><br />This is not a reflection of raw writing speed. When I’m on a roll I can comfortably knock out a thousand words inside an hour. At that pace, if I was writing full time I’d complete a novel in well under a month.<br /><br />Nor is it a reflection of time available. Yes, I have a full time job and family commitments so I aim to spend an hour a day on writing, as a reasonable and achievable commitment. But even when I have a whole day available to me, I struggle to spend much more than an hour or two actually writing.<br /><br />My limitation is that I can only write as fast as my imagination works, producing ideas to feed into a scene. So, perhaps it’s better to say: I’m a slow <i>thinker</i>.<br /><br />On the writer’s “plotter versus pantser” scale, I’m somewhere in the middle. I often start with a scene that caught my imagination but without any idea yet where it’s going. I write a bit, then step back and start plotting the outline. But it’s only a high level outline, with lots of gaps and unknowns. It gives me a sense of structure and direction, but much of the detail emerges over time as writing progresses. The outline plot feeds off the actual writing as much as the other way around. I think this style is better described as a “gardener”. <br /><br />And this back-and-forth is a vital aspect of my writing process. Once I’m well into a project and have immersed myself in the story, things occur to me that would never have come to mind if I tried to figure everything out from the outset. Back to <i>The Videshi Dilemma</i>, right now I’m about 60% through. I know how things end, and roughly what happens to get there, but many of the details still need to be fleshed out. It’s only now my characters have reached this point in the story did I start to realize some of the pressures and conflicts that should crop up, things I suspect I couldn’t have envisaged before now. So even when I retire and have all the time in the world, I don’t see myself suddenly churning out novels any faster than I do today.</p>Botanisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12098709722475364465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1828517374142265050.post-13030796553687566462023-10-02T10:22:00.000-07:002023-10-02T10:22:02.396-07:00Truth and reconciliation<p><b> </b></p><p><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikdsr7MjJUgv3MiHKgnoQ5YkMrRGdX4aBCyXrBUgA4h3cFSQdhL7krHLDrWzLoEVJhRt2YESLms1CYdxW0Tc0fVh1XM_syZiSyiVxZ6aYqk73mIyvPFDQY5w2UUpSsoUTbF4nuJhCV9YgA55Yxqke-YLPcgUNFxgwU-1sXIDXKV-icC3lxK0X2ddiK1H-b/s960/20231002-child.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="510" data-original-width="960" height="170" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikdsr7MjJUgv3MiHKgnoQ5YkMrRGdX4aBCyXrBUgA4h3cFSQdhL7krHLDrWzLoEVJhRt2YESLms1CYdxW0Tc0fVh1XM_syZiSyiVxZ6aYqk73mIyvPFDQY5w2UUpSsoUTbF4nuJhCV9YgA55Yxqke-YLPcgUNFxgwU-1sXIDXKV-icC3lxK0X2ddiK1H-b/s320/20231002-child.webp" width="320" /></a><b> </b></b></div><p></p><p><b>People outside of Canada may not be aware that September 30 was a national day of truth and reconciliation.</b><br /><br />The day has recently been introduced by the federal government to highlight the legacy of the residential school program and invite people to reflect on the lasting trauma inflicted on the Indigenous people of Canada.<br /><br />As a recent (nineteen years ago) settler in BC, I was oblivious both to the residential school program and to the wider systemic injustices faced by Indigenous people. Yes, I had a rough knowledge of the history of Canada, told from a European perspective, but that all felt like old history, something that happened way before my great-grandparents’ times and all water under the bridge.<br /><br />When a children’s mass grave was uncovered on a residential school site in Kamloops in 2021, the news shocked the country. Yes, other sites had sporadically been discovered in previous decades, but the scale here was new and was followed in a matter of months by many more such graves.<br /><br />The scale of the horror became apparent. This was not a few isolated incidents. This was the needless deaths of literally thousands of kids, whisked away from their families to die of disease, abuse, and malnutrition at the hands of people who saw themselves as “better”.<br /><br />Along with this came the realization that this is not ancient history. This is recent. The last school closed in 1997. That is not even my generation, this directly affects the generation that came after me. I have work colleagues who went to residential schools themselves, or whose parents and grandparents were separated from their families. The trauma has been buried, not discussed even in private, locked away too painful to think about. People at work are only now starting to tell their stories.<br /><br /><b>However, I was prompted to write this post after I read this weekend about the rise of denialism. People out there claiming it’s all a conspiracy, a hoax.</b><br /><br />This distresses and angers me. There’s a rising tide of denialism poisoning our society. Denying the existence of extermination camps in WW2, the brutal reality of slavery in the US, the slaughter of children in mass school shootings. People who directly experienced events are bullied and hounded as kooks, liars, fakes. Social media has given a strident platform to people with their own agenda to pursue regardless of facts. Evidence becomes irrelevant, truth an inconvenience.<br /><br />People need to own the truth, even if it’s uncomfortable and challenges their view of how the world should be. <br /><br />I stand by the survivors of the residential school program, and I respect the courage it takes, in today’s hostile world, to finally stand up and tell their stories.</p>Botanisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12098709722475364465noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1828517374142265050.post-71535267575696939682023-08-27T19:23:00.000-07:002023-08-27T19:23:58.106-07:00Lazy Crazy Hazy days of summer?<p>We’re nearly at the end of August, just waiting for the autumn cool to kick in. Summer is usually a time for lazy days on the deck, reading and writing, beer and barbecues. Yes, there’s been all that this year, but also a lot of stuff leaving me feeling like I still need a vacation! Nothing dramatically disastrous, but a lot of small to medium stressors piling on all at once – family, health, mechanical issues, and the ever-present smoke in the air from angry Nature.<br /><br />On the plus side, we’ve not been directly threatened by wildfires (though there have been a few small ones nearby, quickly handled) and we’re getting through the other hurdles in reasonable shape.<br /><br /><b><span style="color: red;">One of the stresses I’ve had to handle is setting up a new website. </span></b><br /><br />I’ve used Webs since I first set up an author site in 2014. They got taken over by Vistaprint, and announced that they would be merging offerings. That announcement was way back in 2020. Since then there have been a couple of “coming soon” type messages, but little talk and even less action. Then, mid July, seven weeks ago, they announced the move was finally here. My site would drop dead at the end of August, and – no – there was no help or tools available to help with the migration. Just, “So long, and thanks for all the fish.”<br /><br />Not much time to figure out what to do, especially as we were about to set off visiting family overseas for two weeks followed by more travel for medical reasons. Strike three weeks from the time available to figure my shit out!<br /><br /><b><span style="color: red;">Yep. A bit of a perfect storm.</span></b><br /><br />Anyhow, long story short, I opted to give Wordpress a try and have been doing battle with their labyrinthine website editor this month. My biggest worries were to maintain a presence (which I have) and keep hold of my custom domain name (which I’ve done), so I'm still at:<br /></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p><b><a href="https://iansbott.com">https://iansbott.com</a></b></p><p><br />The new site is still very much under construction as I manually recreate content that I scavenged from the old site. But it’s there! And I was relieved to see that when I updated my domain name details to point to the new site, existing links (such as my browser shortcuts and the links in this blog header) still worked.<br /><br />That was a major headache sorted out. Now I just need to finish populating the site. <br /></p>Botanisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12098709722475364465noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1828517374142265050.post-67749627952451747922023-07-05T14:32:00.000-07:002023-07-05T14:32:01.929-07:00When did Sci-Fi get so boring?<p><b style="color: #cc0000;">Note – this isn’t referring to the
actual stories, there are plenty of good stories out there, I’m
talking about the visual appeal of the sci-fi shelf in bookstores.</b></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">When I was in my teens, if I had a few
minutes to spare on my way to catch the bus home from school I’d
often drop into one of the bookstores I passed. I wasn’t
particularly looking for something to buy, I would simply feast my
eyes on the cover art on display. These were the days of Asimov,
Heinlein, Doc Smith, Herbert et. al.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">The covers were bright, vibrant,
thought-provoking, and above all – imaginative. They begged
questions – what’s happening here? Who are these people? What
would it be like to live there? These images, decades later, still
serve as inspiration for my own art.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Recently, I had half an hour to kill
waiting for a picture frame to be put together, so I wandered across
the road to a bookstore. I walked out a little while later despairing
for the future of my chosen genre, because there was nothing
inspiring in sight.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Most of the traditionally-published
covers on show seemed to fall into one of three common groups.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>Stylized to death: </b>Maybe I’m just out
of touch, but I can’t forgive what Jim Tierney did to the Dune
series. He isn’t alone, though. There were other covers consisting
of plain geometric shapes that IMO do nothing to entice a potential
reader. Boring and pretentious.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>Wishy-washy: </b>While keeping close in
appearance to traditional covers, these have had the life sucked out
of them as if the artist was afraid to commit to a clear picture.
Distant ships and space stations obscured in an airbrushed pastel
haze. A kind of Disneyfied view of space – no hard edges or nasty
harsh vacuum here!</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><b>CGI perfection: </b>Also close to
traditional, these go to the other extreme. Ships and assorted space
hardware rendered too perfectly to be true. And always against the
obligatory backdrop of sun peeping over the horizon of a planet.
Boring and sterile.
</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">But my biggest complaint across the
board was a lack of imagination. All three groups come across as
generic and dull. After the first few in each group, they all blended
into each other, nothing unique or distinctive about them.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Am I just imagining it? Am I being too
harsh?</p>
<p><style type="text/css">P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm }</style></p>Botanisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12098709722475364465noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1828517374142265050.post-47561099874214495502023-05-26T18:07:00.000-07:002023-05-26T18:07:09.879-07:00Wrath of Empire<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Yes, it’s been a year since I last
posted. I don’t know why, I guess I just ran out of things to say.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">The blogging world used to be a vibrant
community, and it still is around those blogs with a sizable
established following, but so many of the bloggers I used to follow –
and who used to visit The Bald Patch – have fallen quiet over the
years. I found trying to post on a regular basis was a game of
diminishing returns.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">However, today I do have something to
say, so I’ve come out of hibernation.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">A new novel, <i>Wrath of Empire</i>, is
now out there in the usual range of e-book formats. At the moment
it’s at an introductory price of $0.99. The paperback will follow
once I’ve received and approved the proof copy.</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.iansbott.com/wrath-of-empire" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="830" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXCOtBsVPj8BYfLDIAIRxrjYuP8xsiwB_Q0OZ9PrzsH1-jxaL52yOw9-9B5_w8xdWtjR3nliYN_86_3IT_BSUzQnMP036_j70r077b0pe2Xg01LbBxhZI77MQ2YX_uyuhjXD5MsBJksSV8XXpzqZSSMdD-J2rNSfpYsB8_5X9l_kvODGEv8QSWmGUr7A/w260-h400/Wrath%20-%20general%20cover%20medium.jpeg" width="260" /></a></div><br /><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i>Wrath of Empire </i>is a prequel to
<i>Ghosts of Innocence</i>, and follows the catastrophic events that
lead up to Shayla’s mission of revenge.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i style="color: #cc0000;">The Emperor wants peace between
warring Families on rival worlds. His brother sees peace treaties as
weakness; he aims to seize the throne and rule by strength. And then
there’s Chalwen, bodyguard to the Emperor’s nine-year-old son,
heir to the throne. </i>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i style="color: #cc0000;">Chalwen takes professional paranoia
to extremes, so when she suspects treachery inside the palace her
superiors dismiss her warnings. Then the Emperor is assassinated.
People are angry, looking for a villain, and all evidence points to
one of the rival Families. Amid riots and military clashes, the young
heir and his ambitious uncle fight for the throne. </i>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i style="color: #cc0000;">Chalwen must protect the youngster
while solving the Emperor’s murder to defuse the conflict. But the
uncle has powerful supporters opposing Chalwen’s every move. Throw
in a deranged arms dealer keen to profit from the chaos, and full
scale interstellar war seems unavoidable.</i></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p><style type="text/css">P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm }</style></p>Botanisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12098709722475364465noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1828517374142265050.post-39409565257340440282022-05-22T13:14:00.000-07:002022-05-22T13:14:14.150-07:00Artwork for sale<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Off and on over the years, I’ve
looked into ways to make my artwork available as posters. After
sitting on the fence for a while, I’ve finally opened a store on
Zazzle and started uploading a handful of more recent paintings.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: #e06666;">I’m still finding my way around
Zazzle. The website is ... let’s be restrained and say ... not very
friendly.
</span></p><span style="color: #e06666;">
</span><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: #e06666;">Sure, it all <i>looks</i> easy enough,
but the site seems to go out of its way to make it hard to tell what
you’re actually doing, and gives no confidence that you’ve
managed to do what you wanted to do. It’s taking a while to figure
out some of the quirks, like clicking on “My products” gives
different information depending on which part of the site you just
came from. And I just created a collection to group all my posters
together, and clicking on “Collections” in the menu bar shows the
collection I just created, but clicking the same thing from the
navigator panel says I don’t have any. Contradictory and confusing
as heck!</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Oh well, I have started off by creating
some posters, all in the region of 40cm by 50cm to 60cm depending on
the width to height ratio of the original. That’s 16” by 20” to
24” if you’re still working in Imperial units.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">It’s still a work in progress, but
you can find my store here:</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><a href="https://www.zazzle.ca/store/ian_s_bott/products">https://www.zazzle.ca/store/ian_s_bott/products</a></p>
<p><style type="text/css">P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm }</style></p>Botanisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12098709722475364465noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1828517374142265050.post-22775611725646636082022-05-01T14:13:00.002-07:002022-05-01T14:13:18.197-07:00May Day<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Today is May Day. It’s a public
holiday in Britain, not so here in Canada but I’m not complaining
because we still enjoy more holidays during the course of the year
than we used to back there.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">May Day is also our wedding anniversary
– our 30<sup>th</sup> this year, so it’s a big milestone.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">We don’t do much by way of
celebrations these days ... birthdays, anniversaries are all low key
... but it’s still a special day all the same.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Big bouquet of flowers in the living
room. A special steak dinner this evening. But meanwhile Ali and
Matthew are outside making the most of the sunshine today. They
cleaned down the deck this morning and are busy assembling the
barbecue she bought last weekend as our anniversary present.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Later on this month we’ll get a
weekend away, just the two of us. That’s about as extreme as it
gets :)</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Happy May Day.</p>
<p><style type="text/css">P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm }</style></p>Botanisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12098709722475364465noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1828517374142265050.post-87777077387290760782022-02-20T16:18:00.001-08:002022-02-20T16:18:26.666-08:00Painting again<p>I’ve gone for long spells before
without completing a painting. In recent years, I’ve done several
but they’ve all been specifically for book covers, so I’ve had a
clear motivation and timetable to work to, and that felt very
different from painting for pleasure.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Now, for the first time in over twenty
years, I’ve taken up my paintbrush again for pure pleasure and
actually crossed the finish line. I’ve started several in that
time, but not completed. That’s nothing unusual ... I have many
more unfinished works in my portfolio that finished.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">This diversion of energy felt right,
now that my first draft of the latest novel is written and working
through months of critiques. Painting seemed to complement the
critiquing activity.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Even so, the subject was actually
inspired by a setting in <i>Wrath of Empire</i><span style="font-style: normal;">.
So here is Grand Duke Ivan’s retreat: Greyspire:</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-style: normal;"> </span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-style: normal;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj3y_YA5wygBwO6N63994DU-omHZBPbQisju1kLYYswf4erd3qO--nNA1jy1L4jvuoDWxyf1o-6jW9jBO0StvGVvlP4jF4HYmAa8-HFyO1gAm6rt_BgaOjWJ8ST2bYS2Lr0Ag0mCa3a7X9HWn39-3Iyn4QD90YlPmOwm_kGGvZD89CMtu4w-br8uGP2JQ=s1280" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1014" data-original-width="1280" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj3y_YA5wygBwO6N63994DU-omHZBPbQisju1kLYYswf4erd3qO--nNA1jy1L4jvuoDWxyf1o-6jW9jBO0StvGVvlP4jF4HYmAa8-HFyO1gAm6rt_BgaOjWJ8ST2bYS2Lr0Ag0mCa3a7X9HWn39-3Iyn4QD90YlPmOwm_kGGvZD89CMtu4w-br8uGP2JQ=w400-h318" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<p></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">You can get a closer look on my website
here:</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><a href="https://www.iansbott.com/artwork-greyspire">https://www.iansbott.com/artwork-greyspire</a> </p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><style type="text/css">P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm }</style></p>
<p><style type="text/css">P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm }</style></p>Botanisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12098709722475364465noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1828517374142265050.post-78362788573479113792022-01-29T09:37:00.000-08:002022-01-29T09:37:35.110-08:00Weekend Writing Warriors - responsibilities<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://wewriwa.blogspot.com/" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="http://wewriwa.blogspot.com/" border="0" data-original-height="573" data-original-width="573" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYEGCD7KxLYQNYcG81OVno4a0h5Xjzbzy_19JSUJ_UldPO5CruesLN-z_h7DSD6eKaEnRcffT2dyIDGp6hGXV0CIFhUd-qpZFW0g4GYcnN8w7i2k4x5ZQZFCiCmIx22PExhLocrqY_OZk/s200/wewriwa_square_2.png" width="200" /></a></div><p>
<span style="color: #0b5394;"><i>Weekend Writing Warriors is a weekly blog hop where participants post eight to ten sentences of their writing. You can find out more about it by clicking on the image.</i></span>
<br /></p><p>
</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"> </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"> </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Continuing with a scene from <i>Wrath
of Empire</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, a prequel to my first
novel, </span><i>Ghosts of Innocence</i><span style="font-style: normal;">.
Commander Gregor Pavlenko is overseeing maintenance on a giant plasma
cannon on board battleship </span><i>Wrath of Empire</i><span style="font-style: normal;">.</span> Last week ended with his lieutenant
saying: “You always get that faraway look in your eyes.” She
grinned. “It’s kinda cute, you know.”</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><style type="text/css">P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm }</style><span style="font-style: normal;"></span></p>
<p><style type="text/css">P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm }</style>
</p><p><br />
</p><div style="text-align: center;"><b>=====</b></div>
<br /><b>
</b><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">“<b><span style="font-style: normal;">There’s
nothing cute about taking your responsibility seriously.” </span>He
glanced once more at the dancing lights of the dashboard. Progress
was good, but they’d be at it for hours yet.</b></p>
<p style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<b>Gregor swiveled in his seat and gazed across the room to where a
small army of intruders crawled behind and under his familiar battle
consoles, wrestling a snake pit of wiring harnesses out from open
floor panels and knitting them into the fabric of his world. In some
sense, he felt violated, but he brushed off the feeling. This was the
empire’s new toy. New levels of automation to bring a clinical
calculation to battle decisions. Progress. He’d better get used to
it.</b></p><p>
<b><style type="text/css">P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm }</style><br />
</b>That’s nine sentences. The scene continues ... </p><p><b>
</b></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;"><b>Following the
line of his gaze, Una said, “The techs report they’re close to
finished hooking their control lines in.<span style="font-style: normal;">”</span></b></p>
<p style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
“<b>So,” Gregor whispered, “it’ll have its finger on the
trigger for real this time.”</b></p>
<p style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
“<b>With loads of safeties and aborts in between.” Una’s voice
was light, but the set of her shoulders said otherwise.</b></p>
<p><b><style type="text/css">P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm }</style> <br /></b></p><div style="text-align: center;"><b>=====</b></div>
<br /><br />
Botanisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12098709722475364465noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1828517374142265050.post-61027239946621585232022-01-22T10:01:00.001-08:002022-01-22T10:01:49.428-08:00Weekend Writing Warriors – it’s kinda cute<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://wewriwa.blogspot.com/" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="http://wewriwa.blogspot.com/" border="0" data-original-height="573" data-original-width="573" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYEGCD7KxLYQNYcG81OVno4a0h5Xjzbzy_19JSUJ_UldPO5CruesLN-z_h7DSD6eKaEnRcffT2dyIDGp6hGXV0CIFhUd-qpZFW0g4GYcnN8w7i2k4x5ZQZFCiCmIx22PExhLocrqY_OZk/s200/wewriwa_square_2.png" width="200" /></a></div><p>
<span style="color: #0b5394;"><i>Weekend Writing Warriors is a weekly blog hop where participants post eight to ten sentences of their writing. You can find out more about it by clicking on the image.</i></span>
<br /></p><p><br />
</p><p><br />
</p><p>
</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Continuing with a scene from <i>Wrath
of Empire</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, a prequel to my first
novel, </span><i>Ghosts of Innocence</i><span style="font-style: normal;">.
Commander Gregor Pavlenko is overseeing maintenance on a giant plasma
cannon on board battleship </span><i>Wrath of Empire</i><span style="font-style: normal;">.</span></p>
<p><style type="text/css">P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm }</style>
</p><p><br />
</p><div style="text-align: center;"><b>=====</b></div><p>
<b>
</b></p><p><br /><b>
</b></p><p style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<b>Gregor settled into his seat and nodded thanks as an orderly
placed a cup of unsweetened tea on the desk to one side. He sipped
the bitter brew and cleared his mind, then turned his attention to
the spread of consoles that surrounded his command post.</b></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;"><b>One by one,
stations reported in. Maintenance crews cleaned pipes and nozzles,
reattached wires the width of human hairs and jumper cables thicker
than his forearm, replaced worn parts, closed hatches and tightened
fastenings. </b>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;"><b>The plasma
cannon was ancient technology, and so simple in concept—rip apart
atoms of feedstock to create a star-hot plasma, and belch it out in
magnetically-confined parcels of destruction—yet so complex to
execute. It had been mastered by the navies of the six Families and
used by many Freeworlds and brigand outworlds. </b>
</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<b>Even after all these millennia it remained the most powerful
weapon in regular use. Technically, it ranked second place to the
quark bomb, but nobody counted that. Attempts to assemble quark bombs
had a ninety percent failure rate, along with lost lives and
irradiated continents. They were not practical weapons of war.</b></p>
<p><b><style type="text/css">P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm }</style><br />
</b>That’s nine sentences. The scene continues ... </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;"><b>The plasma
cannon was meek in comparison, but controlling a high grade plasma
and directing it in a tight beam was still tricky. It still needed a
small industrial city’s worth of power generation, containment
systems, cooling systems, and all the attendant controls and sensors.</b></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;"><b>As a
technology, it was commonplace, but only the Skamensis navy had
successfully scaled it up to this level.</b></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">“<b>You’ve
been to see <span style="font-style: normal;">Violet again, haven’t
you?” Lieutenant Una Spelze, Gregor’s most senior weapons
specialist, plonked herself down at the next station. </span></b>
</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<b>He gave a non-committal grunt.</b></p>
<p style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
“<b>You always get that faraway look in your eyes.” She grinned.
“It’s kinda cute, you know.”</b></p>
<p><style type="text/css">P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm }</style></p><p><b> </b>
</p><div style="text-align: center;"><b>=====</b></div>
<br />
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: red;">Just a reminder, I am looking for one
or two people to act as alpha readers. This would be for a full read
through the rough draft to give feedback on the big picture. Does the
plot hang together, how do the characters come across, does the story
flow and reach a satisfying conclusion ... that kind of thing.</span></p><span style="color: red;">
</span><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: red;">I’m happy to reciprocate if you’ve
got work that you’d like an independent read through.</span></p><span style="color: red;">
</span><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: red;">If you’re interested, send me an
email (if you have my email address) or reach me through the contact
page on my website.</span></p>
<style type="text/css">P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm }</style>
Botanisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12098709722475364465noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1828517374142265050.post-4360387315742258422022-01-15T09:08:00.000-08:002022-01-15T09:08:07.427-08:00Weekend Writing Warriors – overkill <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://wewriwa.blogspot.com/" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="http://wewriwa.blogspot.com/" border="0" data-original-height="573" data-original-width="573" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYEGCD7KxLYQNYcG81OVno4a0h5Xjzbzy_19JSUJ_UldPO5CruesLN-z_h7DSD6eKaEnRcffT2dyIDGp6hGXV0CIFhUd-qpZFW0g4GYcnN8w7i2k4x5ZQZFCiCmIx22PExhLocrqY_OZk/s200/wewriwa_square_2.png" width="200" /></a></div><p>
<span style="color: #0b5394;"><i>Weekend Writing Warriors is a weekly blog hop where participants post eight to ten sentences of their writing. You can find out more about it by clicking on the image.</i></span>
<br /></p><p><br />
</p><p><br />
</p><p>
</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Continuing with a scene from <i>Wrath
of Empire</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, a prequel to my first
novel, </span><i>Ghosts of Innocence</i><span style="font-style: normal;">.
Commander Gregor Pavlenko is overseeing maintenance on a giant plasma
cannon on board battleship </span><i>Wrath of Empire</i><span style="font-style: normal;">.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-style: normal;"> </span></p>
<p><style type="text/css">P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm }</style>
</p><div style="text-align: center;"><b>=====</b></div>
<b>
</b><br /><b>
</b><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;"><b>There was no
practical need for Gregor to be here. In fact, he could watch
progress on the overhaul far better from his station in the
operations room, but from time to time he needed to see the weapon up
close. Watching people crawling like ants over its surface brought
home the true size of his responsibility. This was military overkill
on an arrogant scale. No-one should hold such power without a
generous dose of humility and fear. In his five years as <i>Wrath of
Empire’s</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> senior weapons
engineer, he’d never yet had to point it at anything other than
military targets. He prayed, as he did every time he reported for
duty, that he never would.</span></b></p>
<p style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<b>The moment of introspection passed. He steadied himself against
the stanchion and pushed off towards the nearest airlock. Outside the
weapon bay, and once more in the ship’s artificial gravity, he
shrugged on a jacket against the relative chill and headed back to
the twilight world of the combat operations room.</b></p>
<p style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 0.95cm;">
<br />
</p>
<b><style type="text/css">P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm }</style>
</b><b>
</b>
<div style="text-align: center;"><b>=====</b></div>
<br /><br />
Botanisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12098709722475364465noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1828517374142265050.post-36256515533179545732022-01-08T09:31:00.001-08:002022-01-08T09:31:47.484-08:00Weekend Writing Warriors – bring out the big guns<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://wewriwa.blogspot.com/" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="http://wewriwa.blogspot.com/" border="0" data-original-height="573" data-original-width="573" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYEGCD7KxLYQNYcG81OVno4a0h5Xjzbzy_19JSUJ_UldPO5CruesLN-z_h7DSD6eKaEnRcffT2dyIDGp6hGXV0CIFhUd-qpZFW0g4GYcnN8w7i2k4x5ZQZFCiCmIx22PExhLocrqY_OZk/s200/wewriwa_square_2.png" width="200" /></a></div><p>
<span style="color: #0b5394;"><i>Weekend Writing Warriors is a weekly blog hop where participants post eight to ten sentences of their writing. You can find out more about it by clicking on the image.</i></span>
<br /></p><p><br />
</p><p><br />
</p><p><br />
</p><p>
</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Continuing with another scene from
<i>Wrath of Empire</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, a prequel to
my first novel, </span><i>Ghosts of Innocence</i><span style="font-style: normal;">.
We hop ahead in the story to meet another key player ...</span></p>
<p><style type="text/css">P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm }</style>
</p><div style="text-align: center;"><b>=====</b></div>
<b>
<br /></b><br /><b>
</b><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;"><b>In the
weightlessness of the vast weapon bay, Commander Gregor Pavlenko hung
from a guide stanchion and swiveled in a slow three-sixty. The skin
on his forehead crinkled in the dry heat, and his eyes pricked. Where
he gripped the stanchion, the skin on his palms reddened. He should
have worn goggles and gloves for this environment, but he wouldn’t
be here long enough to suffer more than discomfort. </b>
</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<b>He was surrounded by sounds of machinery, voices, the clash of
metal on metal, but it all seemed to come from a distance, as if
heard through a long pipe. Beneath his feet, the barrel of </b><i><b>Wrath
of Empire's</b></i><b> plasma cannon stretched into the distance,
obscured by a bewildering multi-colored maze of machinery. Two
thousand feet long, this cannon was the signature weapon of imperial
</b><i><b>Sword</b></i><b>-class battleships. This one weapon was
bulkier than the whole of most warships, and could level a city with
a single blast.</b></p><p style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;"><b> </b><b><style type="text/css">P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm </style>
</b><b>
</b>
</p><div style="text-align: center;"><b>=====</b></div>
<br />
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Happy New Year, everyone. Here’s
hoping 2022 brings some relief from the turmoil of 20 and 21!</p>
<style type="text/css">P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm }</style>
Botanisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12098709722475364465noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1828517374142265050.post-35565975918405295312021-12-25T07:57:00.001-08:002021-12-25T08:15:36.080-08:00Weekend Writing Warriors – it’s not wrong<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://wewriwa.blogspot.com/" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="http://wewriwa.blogspot.com/" border="0" data-original-height="573" data-original-width="573" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYEGCD7KxLYQNYcG81OVno4a0h5Xjzbzy_19JSUJ_UldPO5CruesLN-z_h7DSD6eKaEnRcffT2dyIDGp6hGXV0CIFhUd-qpZFW0g4GYcnN8w7i2k4x5ZQZFCiCmIx22PExhLocrqY_OZk/s200/wewriwa_square_2.png" width="200" /></a></div><p>
<span style="color: #0b5394;"><i>Weekend Writing Warriors is a weekly blog hop where participants post eight to ten sentences of their writing. You can find out more about it by clicking on the image.</i></span>
<br /></p><p><br />
</p><p>
</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">I’m sharing the opening scene from
<i>Wrath of Empire</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, a prequel to
my first novel, </span><i>Ghosts of Innocence</i><span style="font-style: normal;">.
Crown Prince Julian and his bodyguard, Chalwen, are talking about the
late Empress Florence, who they’ve just interred. Chalwen is
worried that with Florence gone, Julian would have to compete with
his uncle Ivan for the throne if anything happened to his father.</span></p>
<p><style type="text/css">P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm }</style>
</p><p><br />
</p><div style="text-align: center;"><b>=====</b></div>
<br /><b>
</b><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">“<b>I know
Father's sad.” Julian screwed his face. “I honestly can't tell
what Mother's thinking. Josie and Flossie can't stop bawling their
eyes out, of course.”</b></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;"><b>Of course,
Chalwen thought. Of all Paul's children they'd had the closest
relationship with their sweetly tyrannical grandmother.</b></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;"><b>Empress
Florence had continued a long line of brutal oppression with
imaginative savagery, only softening in her later years with the
births of twins Josephine and young Florence, two years Julian's
junior. Something had changed her then, ending in her declaring Paul
her successor rather than the elder Ivan.</b></p>
<p style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<b>Could a last minute change of heart really make up for decades of
iron rule?</b></p><p>
<b><style type="text/css">P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm }</style><br />
</b>That’s nine sentences. The scene continues ... </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;"><b>From the
corners of her eyes, Chalwen noted the six members of Julian’s
escort falling in around them as they entered the shadowed avenue
leading back to the residence. Steel-grey clouds chased the last few
rays of sun, and a damp chill seeped through the gardens from the
ocean beyond the clifftop wall.</b></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">“<b>To answer
your question, no, it's not wrong.”</b></p>
<p><style type="text/css">P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm }</style></p><p><b> </b></p><div style="text-align: center;"><b>=====</b></div><p>
<br /></p><p>
</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">That’s the end of the scene. Of
course, the question Chalwen refers to is the opening line where
Julian asks “Is it wrong of me not to feel sad?”</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Happy Christmas folks!
</p>
<p><style type="text/css">P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm }</style>
</p>Botanisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12098709722475364465noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1828517374142265050.post-69830568843936291072021-12-18T08:05:00.001-08:002021-12-18T08:05:46.616-08:00Weekend Writing Warriors – line of succession<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://wewriwa.blogspot.com/" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="http://wewriwa.blogspot.com/" border="0" data-original-height="573" data-original-width="573" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYEGCD7KxLYQNYcG81OVno4a0h5Xjzbzy_19JSUJ_UldPO5CruesLN-z_h7DSD6eKaEnRcffT2dyIDGp6hGXV0CIFhUd-qpZFW0g4GYcnN8w7i2k4x5ZQZFCiCmIx22PExhLocrqY_OZk/s200/wewriwa_square_2.png" width="200" /></a></div><p>
<span style="color: #0b5394;"><i>Weekend Writing Warriors is a weekly blog hop where participants post eight to ten sentences of their writing. You can find out more about it by clicking on the image.</i></span>
<br /></p><p><br />
</p><p>
</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">I’m sharing the opening scene from
<i>Wrath of Empire</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, a prequel to
my first novel, </span><i>Ghosts of Innocence</i><span style="font-style: normal;">.
Crown Prince Julian and his bodyguard, Chalwen, are talking about the
late Empress Florence, who they’ve just interred. Julian just asked
if the old Empress could have resumed the throne in the event of his
fathers death.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-style: normal;"> </span></p>
<p><style type="text/css">P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm }</style>
</p><div style="text-align: center;"><b>=====</b></div><p>
<b>
</b></p><p><br /><b>
</b></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;"><b>Chalwen pondered
the question. “In theory, if your uncle Ivan didn't beat her to it.
But that's no longer a consideration. You're right. As next in line,
you do need to prepare yourself.” <i>More than you can know.</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
Chalwen shuddered again. If anything </span><i>should</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
happen to Emperor Paul, Ivan had little hope of wresting power from a
still-formidable Florence. But young and inexperienced Julian? That
was another matter.</span></b></p><p> </p><p> </p><p><b><style type="text/css">P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm }</style>
</b>
</p><div style="text-align: center;"><b>=====</b></div>
<br /><br />Botanisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12098709722475364465noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1828517374142265050.post-57974450568007637612021-12-11T13:19:00.002-08:002021-12-11T13:19:42.743-08:00Weekend Writing Warriors<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://wewriwa.blogspot.com/" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="http://wewriwa.blogspot.com/" border="0" data-original-height="573" data-original-width="573" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYEGCD7KxLYQNYcG81OVno4a0h5Xjzbzy_19JSUJ_UldPO5CruesLN-z_h7DSD6eKaEnRcffT2dyIDGp6hGXV0CIFhUd-qpZFW0g4GYcnN8w7i2k4x5ZQZFCiCmIx22PExhLocrqY_OZk/s200/wewriwa_square_2.png" width="200" /></a></div><p>
<span style="color: #0b5394;"><i>Weekend Writing Warriors is a weekly blog hop where participants post eight to ten sentences of their writing. You can find out more about it by clicking on the image.</i></span>
<br /></p><p><br />
</p><p><br />
</p><p>
</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">I’m sharing the opening scene from
<i>Wrath of Empire</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, a prequel to
my first novel, </span><i>Ghosts of Innocence</i><span style="font-style: normal;">.
Crown Prince Julian and his bodyguard, Chalwen, are talking about the
late Empress Florence, who they’ve just interred. The last snippet
ended with Chalwen saying, “Today, you are only a step away from
the Skamensis throne.”</span></p>
<p><style type="text/css">P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm }</style>
</p><div style="text-align: center;"><b>=====</b></div><b>
<br />
</b><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;"><b>“Why today?
Father has been Emperor for a year now. Grandmother already passed
the throne on to him, so surely her death changes nothing.”</b></p><b>
</b><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;"><b><i>It changes
everything</i> Chalwen wanted to scream. But it would take years for
Julian to navigate the maze of conflicting powers that made up the
Empire. “True enough, but while Florence lived, in many people's
minds she was still an Empress. If anything happened to your father,
she could have resumed the throne.”</b></p><b>
</b><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;"><b>“Could that
really have happened?”</b></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;"><b> </b></p><b>
<style type="text/css">P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm }</style>
</b><div style="text-align: center;"><b>=====</b></div><b>
</b><br /><br />Botanisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12098709722475364465noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1828517374142265050.post-18977332463450221862021-12-04T11:01:00.000-08:002021-12-04T11:01:17.165-08:00Weekend Writing Warriors – Wrath of Empire<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://wewriwa.blogspot.com/" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="http://wewriwa.blogspot.com/" border="0" data-original-height="573" data-original-width="573" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYEGCD7KxLYQNYcG81OVno4a0h5Xjzbzy_19JSUJ_UldPO5CruesLN-z_h7DSD6eKaEnRcffT2dyIDGp6hGXV0CIFhUd-qpZFW0g4GYcnN8w7i2k4x5ZQZFCiCmIx22PExhLocrqY_OZk/s200/wewriwa_square_2.png" width="200" /></a></div><p>
<span style="color: #0b5394;"><i>Weekend Writing Warriors is a weekly blog hop where participants post eight to ten sentences of their writing. You can find out more about it by clicking on the image.</i></span> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>I’m sharing the opening scene from <i>Wrath of Empire</i>, a prequel to my first novel, <i>Ghosts of Innocence</i>. Crown Prince Julian and his bodyguard, Chalwen, are talking about the late Empress Florence, who they’ve just interred. This snippet opens with Chalwen speaking: </p><p> </p><div style="text-align: center;"><b>=====</b></div><p>
<b> </b></p><p><b>“Your grandmother was ... a complicated person.” </b></p><p><b>“I didn't really know her.” </b></p><p><b>Was that sadness in his voice? Regret? Fear, even? </b></p><p><b>“I was hoping she would teach me more about statecraft, and ruling the Empire.” </b></p><p><b>Chalwen shuddered, then reminded herself that Julian was only nine years old. He was only aware of the last few years of Florence's rule, not the bloody century that preceded them. </b></p><p><b>“I'll have to learn one day, and Father is too busy to bother with me.” </b></p><p><b>“It's never a bad thing to think ahead. Today, you are only a step away from the Skamensis throne.”
</b>
</p><div style="text-align: center;"><b>=====</b></div><p></p><p>
</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"> </p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: red;"><b>As I was preparing to post this, I
reached an exciting milestone in this project. I tidied up the last
scenes in the story – the first draft is officially done!</b></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">I will be reviewing the whole document
carefully before putting it through the queue at Critique Circle for
a detailed critique, but in the meantime I am also looking for one or
two alpha readers. This would be for a full read through to give
feedback on the big picture. Does the plot hang together, how do the
characters come across, does the story flow and reach a satisfying
conclusion ... that kind of thing.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">I’m happy to reciprocate if you’ve
also got work that you’d like an independent read through.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">If you’re interested, send me an
email (if you have my email address) or reach me through the <a href="https://www.iansbott.com/contact" target="_blank">contact page on my website</a>.</p>
<p><style type="text/css">P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm }</style></p>Botanisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12098709722475364465noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1828517374142265050.post-54905928083994597582021-11-27T20:28:00.001-08:002021-11-27T20:28:00.187-08:00Wrath of Empire<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://wewriwa.blogspot.com/" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="http://wewriwa.blogspot.com/" border="0" data-original-height="573" data-original-width="573" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYEGCD7KxLYQNYcG81OVno4a0h5Xjzbzy_19JSUJ_UldPO5CruesLN-z_h7DSD6eKaEnRcffT2dyIDGp6hGXV0CIFhUd-qpZFW0g4GYcnN8w7i2k4x5ZQZFCiCmIx22PExhLocrqY_OZk/s200/wewriwa_square_2.png" width="200" /></a></div><p>
<span style="color: #0b5394;"><i>Weekend Writing Warriors is a weekly blog hop where participants post eight to ten sentences of their writing. You can find out more about it by clicking on the image.</i></span> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>It’s been nearly a year since I last posted to WWW. Last time, I posted scenes from <i>The Long Dark</i>, which was published last Christmas. Since then, I’ve been busy drafting a new novel.
Over the next few weeks, I’m sharing the opening scene from <i>Wrath of Empire</i>, a prequel to my first novel, Ghosts of Innocence.
</p><div style="text-align: center;"><b>=====</b></div><p><b>“Is it wrong of me not to feel sad?” </b></p><p><b>The question startled Lieutenant Chalwen ap Gwynodd back to the here-and-now. She'd been scanning the tree line and peering into the shadows, alert for anything out of place, when her attention had wandered. A fine stand of thousand-year-old Veshi oaks spread their gnarled canopy over a walkway leading deeper into the Imperial family graveyard. The play of light and shade had distracted Chalwen, a fatal lapse in a bodyguard. </b></p><p><b>But here, of anywhere on the planet, was surely safe, and the hectic few days of the official state funeral had been exhausting. All the same, Chalwen cursed under her breath and carried out a hurried situation check. </b></p><p><b>Prince Julian was still gazing at the plain memorial where the family had just interred the ashes of Empress Florence. He tilted his head as if in thought, gazing at the simple inscription carved into the rough stone. Chalwen struggled to read his mood. </b></p><p><b> </b>
</p><div style="text-align: center;"><b>=====</b></div>
Botanisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12098709722475364465noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1828517374142265050.post-23156984351539838562021-11-07T13:53:00.000-08:002021-11-07T13:53:46.850-08:00Nearing the finish line<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">It’s been a while, but I can finally
say I’m nearing the end of the line with my first draft of <i>Wrath
of Empire</i><span style="font-style: normal;">.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-style: normal;">This
one has been much more of a slog than I expected. I’ve had false
starts before, where I’ve begun drafting and then stalled and set
the work aside for a while before resuming, but once I’m fully
productive and on a roll I usually reckon on about seven months to
reach the end. This time around it will be closer to eleven months. </span>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-style: normal;">There
are two obvious factors here. Firstly, in a couple of earlier cases,
those false starts gave me a sizable foundation to build on, so when
I finally resumed in earnest and ran through to the end I was already
maybe 15% of the way there. This time, I set out in January with only
a handful of scenes sketched out. Secondly, this is a bigger book
than I’ve written before so naturally it will take longer.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-style: normal;">But
setting that aside, it’s </span><i>felt</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
much more like I’m pushing uphill the whole way. I’ve managed to
keep up a reasonable pace, so it’s not like I’ve ever really got
stuck, but there have been times when it’s felt like a struggle.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-style: normal;">I
blogged about some of the challenges earlier on this year, and since
I last posted in August I’ve had some tough spells where I really
couldn’t see how to tie things up. But happily things have been
clicking into place in the last month.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-style: normal;">I’m
now at the point of fleshing out the last few scenes, and I’m
looking forward to settling down and reading the whole thing through
from beginning to end for the first time, to see how well (or
otherwise!) it hangs together as a complete story.</span></p>
<p><style type="text/css">P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm }</style></p>Botanisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12098709722475364465noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1828517374142265050.post-69661869298753323572021-08-14T15:04:00.003-07:002021-08-14T15:04:26.550-07:00Things falling into place<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">I’ve talked about the difficulties of
writing a prequel, where I have a few specific facts and events but
otherwise no idea how the story is meant to unfold. But writing this
story has been (still is, I’ve got some major sections still to go)
a journey of discovery.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">First, there is the act of fleshing out
the main story itself. Delving behind the big sweeping events and
making them personal. Getting down to the individual stories. This
has, naturally, been the main focus of my efforts, because the glib
statements of “X happens, and that led to Y” need to make sense
at the micro level of individuals and their motivations and goals,
actions and reactions.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">This is the normal act of storytelling,
except (as I’ve mentioned in previous posts) I’m generally bad at
following a high-level outline. My stories have always – without
exception so far – drifted miles away from where I first envisaged
them going. But I can’t afford to do that this time, the outline is
fixed, and so far I’ve managed to stay on course. And it’s been
(mostly) fun filling in that almost blank canvas.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">But added in to that process, I’ve
found delight in taking opportunities for foreshadowing. In <i>Wrath
of Empire</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> we meet people who
show up in the later books, and it’s fun to show a bit more of
their background. </span>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Finally, there is the joy of things
unexpectedly falling into place, seemingly by accident.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Shayla’s nemesis in <i>Ghosts</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
is the rather brutal commander in chief of Imperial Security. There,
Chalwen is obese and unfit, and that’s simply presented as a matter
of fact. When we see her, years earlier, in </span><i>Wrath of
Empire</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, she’s a bodyguard,
extremely fit and active. I knew I had a contradiction to reconcile
but I didn’t fret too much about how to explain this. I figured it
was something that happened in the years in between. Then out of the
blue, story events naturally led to the answer and we see the start
of Chalwen’s physical decline. I hadn’t set out specifically to
solve this problem, the solution simply materialized.</span></p>
<p><style type="text/css">P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm }</style></p>Botanisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12098709722475364465noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1828517374142265050.post-56616696635099068272021-07-25T09:14:00.000-07:002021-07-25T09:14:13.298-07:00Staying on course<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">In writing <i>Wrath of Empire</i><span style="font-style: normal;">,
I’ve</span> mentioned the need to stay on course and not let the
story drift away from the key events already set in stone. That
bare-bones outline was mentioned briefly in <i>Ghosts of Innocence</i><span style="font-style: normal;">,
which I first drafted thirteen years ago. At that time I had no idea
I would consider backtracking and writing about those times, so they
were just convenient backstory. I’d given no thought to how events
progressed from A to B to C.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Now,
of course, it matters greatly.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-style: normal;">To
help me, I’ve drawn heavily on a number of tools and techniques
I’ve accumulated over the years. Most of them are tools I keep
handy to help avoid writer’s block, and which I describe more
thoroughly in </span><i>Breaking the Block</i><span style="font-style: normal;">.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><span style="font-style: normal;">What</span></b></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-style: normal;">First,
naturally, there’s the good old standard outline. In terms of what
an outline looks like, I reckon there are as many varieties as there
are writers, but to me an outline is a top-down expansion of the
story. It focuses on </span><i>what </i><span style="font-style: normal;">happens,
and starts with the main highlights then expands each into greater
and greater detail. </span>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Avid
and practiced outliners will map out the entire story in this way so
they know exactly what will happen in each chapter and scene before
they write a word of actual story. I don’t go that far. My outlines
are a combination of bullet-form statements laid out as an indented
list, and sometimes more fully fleshed-out paragraphs as if I was
trying to describe to someone what is happening in this part of the
story.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-style: normal;">In the
case of </span><i>Wrath of Empire</i><span style="font-style: normal;">,
the top of my outline consists of the three headings: Empress
Florence’s funeral, Imperial family assassinated, and destruction
of Eloon (Shayla’s home world). These form the outline's skeleton
and are the key events that I have to land on. From there, it’s a
matter of fleshing out details to make a story.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Of
course, as these events take place over the span of four years, that
leaves a lot of empty space to fill. Expanding the outline directly
only takes me so far, and I don’t do well with simply laying out
things that happen. I need other tools to help figure out what goes
into that space.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><span style="font-style: normal;">Why</span></b></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-style: normal;">I find
it helps to think not just about </span><i>what</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
happens, but </span><i>why</i><span style="font-style: normal;">. A
couple of vital tools for me are Motivations/Goals/Methods, and
Stakeholder Stories.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-style: normal;">The
first tool looks at the key players in the story and asks what
motivates them, what are they striving for, and how do they set about
achieving their goals. The idea is to write just a few sentence to
capture the main drivers for the story. You can’t get too deep into
this, because the whole point of a story is for people’s goals to
be thwarted, so these notes just form the starting point. After that,
characters’ actions will intersect and conflict, throwing them off
course.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Stakeholder
stories takes this method further and examine what happens when
things go awry. They generally start with what a character is trying
to achieve and how, but they go further and look at how they react
when things get in the way. These stories start off with the
overarching motivation and goal, but move into a lot of sentences
along the lines of “When X happens, it affects Y this way, and Y
decides to do Z”. This tool is also a form of outline, but it
exposes how the different story threads weave together in a network
of cause and effect. I find this a great tool for brainstorming the
“what” because it allows me to delve deep into each character and
think from their point of view.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Another
tool is the character interview. I’ve used this in the past to
ferret out some of their underlying motivations. I’ve not used this
technique yet for this project, but I have drawn on interviews I
happened to do with my main character when I was writing </span><i>Ghosts</i><span style="font-style: normal;">.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><span style="font-style: normal;">When</span></b></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-style: normal;">No
matter what form my outlines take, I always lay out the main events
on a timeline. This helps keep track of multiple threads, making sure
they align and cross at the right points. This is especially
important when things need to take time to happen, such as traveling
from A to B, or things taking time to prepare. </span>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-style: normal;">In all
my novels, the story timeline eventually becomes the primary outline,
and becomes what I regard as my go-to source of truth, a single
reference to which everything else aligns.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-style: normal;">My
timeline usually takes the form of a spreadsheet, with each row
representing a day, and columns for each of the main players in the
story. This has worked well for my previous novels, where the stories
have all taken place over a few weeks of time. </span>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Here
is a part of the timeline for </span><i>Ghosts of Innocence</i><span style="font-style: normal;">.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXHuDkmIuxlunhaIrR-BXuT4u9o73qsm2OBE0UkDcfI0ySQ5z_jcKPfe0A0wENsZ-yb5ezmHGx2p5wFGPT333LEcMOVLal7fL3BF9MA3kSpYRkH6hdMDC3JnQeyVCNBEcQeJP6d8j3zzj6/s2048/20210725-timeline1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1072" data-original-width="2048" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXHuDkmIuxlunhaIrR-BXuT4u9o73qsm2OBE0UkDcfI0ySQ5z_jcKPfe0A0wENsZ-yb5ezmHGx2p5wFGPT333LEcMOVLal7fL3BF9MA3kSpYRkH6hdMDC3JnQeyVCNBEcQeJP6d8j3zzj6/w400-h210/20210725-timeline1.png" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-style: normal;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><i>Wrath of Empire</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
posed a new challenge for me, because the story takes place over
years rather than weeks. I found the spreadsheet format hard to
manage, because I needed more flexibility to handle approximations
and to move things around as the outline evolved. For this project I
settled on using a drawing tool to capture main events in a more
free-form picture.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNRWi0fVz091sk3_HdS7g-uDlVdCVKfbdN5xafuRbzI79ckrIacvqx7wQOkAIoM1YxTc4bPIwu677r51T8tsdMusARPCxPmoHQAAj3nQ-wl2EpcTwy1D_qmpuSxn9fLL5q9qN9lk3q0WDe/s2048/20210725-timeline2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1230" data-original-width="2048" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNRWi0fVz091sk3_HdS7g-uDlVdCVKfbdN5xafuRbzI79ckrIacvqx7wQOkAIoM1YxTc4bPIwu677r51T8tsdMusARPCxPmoHQAAj3nQ-wl2EpcTwy1D_qmpuSxn9fLL5q9qN9lk3q0WDe/w400-h240/20210725-timeline2.png" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-style: normal;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Taken
in combination, these techniques have (so far) kept me on track.</span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</p>
<p><style type="text/css">P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm }</style></p>Botanisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12098709722475364465noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1828517374142265050.post-48800527323173637122021-07-18T22:07:00.000-07:002021-07-18T22:07:15.373-07:00Round numbers<p>Just a very quick update today.</p><p>Every evening, when I wrap up for the day, I tally my word count in a tracking spreadsheet. That may sound a bit nerdy, but I've blogged about this before as one of my motivational techniques. My spreadsheet graphs my progress week by week, and I like to see my "actual" line staying above the "target" line on the graph.</p><p>Today, I finished the week on <u>exactly</u> 90,000 words.</p><p>Talk about a round number.</p><p>Also a significant number, as that is often the starting target I pencil in to say I've reached a decent novel size. </p><p>In this case, I know I've still got a long way to go. I think this novel is going to be closer to 150,000 by the time I finish. Noticeably fatter than my last two books, but not out of this world.<br /></p>Botanisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12098709722475364465noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1828517374142265050.post-75097654342123626602021-07-10T09:58:00.000-07:002021-07-10T09:58:19.116-07:00Fluid outlines<p>
</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">After six months of steady progress,
I’m probably about 60% of the way through the first draft of <i>Wrath
of Empire</i><span style="font-style: normal;">. And this project is
posing some challenges that I’ve not had to deal with before.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">As this is a prequel, the bare bones –
essentially three major events – were already laid out for me in
the backstory to <i>Ghosts of Innocence</i><span style="font-style: normal;">.
The novel mentioned them to varying degrees, and gave some sense of
the political climate at that time, but I had given no real thought
to what happened in any great detail. It was on the level of saying
that someone assassinated Archduke Ferdinand, and a few months later
the whole of Europe was at war. OK, but what actually happened to
lead from one event to the other?</span></p>
<p style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">The task,
therefore, has been to add flesh to those bones.
</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">I started off with
a straightforward outline. Take those pivotal events and try to fill
in the gaps. This added a layer, but it was still couched in very
general terms, such as “Thwart Ivan’s attempt to claim the
throne” and “Huge public turmoil”. Great. I could probably
write a history text off those notes, but it would read like a
history text with none of the specifics and personal connections that
turn it into a story.</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">I needed to dig
into the “who” and “why” and “how” in specific terms that
can then be written out as a scene, and brought to life by the actors
on the page.</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">The challenge for
me has been this: In the novels I’ve written so far, I’ve had
some kind of an outline, but as the story evolves it has always taken
off in directions I didn’t anticipate. In each case, there are
whole branches of the outline that ended up never being written,
because the story took on a life of its own and the early outlines
changed dramatically.</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">Always!</p>
<p style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">But that is a
luxury I can’t afford this time. The story has to arrive at those
pivotal events, and it has to arrive on time. Something I’ve never
managed to do before!</p>
<p><style type="text/css">P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm }</style> <br /></p>Botanisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12098709722475364465noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1828517374142265050.post-4779123004024556812021-06-30T21:38:00.001-07:002021-06-30T21:38:15.892-07:00Hello 2021<p>Okay, half the year has passed, and I’ve been largely absent from blogging.
It’s been a tough spell. </p><p>Nothing singly too bad, not even all bad in fact, but a lot going on that gets overwhelming at times. We’ve all had brushes with varying levels of health irregularities at times, and we’ve had to support each other through various workplace dramas. </p><p>I largely try to ignore, or at least not get too distressed by, world events. Politics south of the border is still a shitshow, and the pandemic is under control in some countries but still wreaking havoc in others. Closer to home we are reeling from the unmarked graves coming to light at old residential schools. Nobody with a shred of human compassion can fail to be moved by the horrors inflicted on thousands of children over the course of many decades. </p><p>All this has left me disinclined to engage with the world at large this year. </p><p>On the upside, there are rays of sunshine at home and at work, and things are largely stable and happy in our little circle. We’ve all had our first vaccine jab and will soon have our second. Restrictions are relaxing and we might get to go out for a meal in the near future. </p><p>On the writing front, I managed to get the paperback of <i>The Long Dark</i> published back in January, and since then I’ve been wrestling with the first draft of <i>Wrath of Empire</i>. But more of that (hopefully) in future posts.</p>Botanisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12098709722475364465noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1828517374142265050.post-55690901733240635062020-12-31T15:19:00.001-08:002020-12-31T15:19:47.809-08:00Goodbye 2020<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">I’m not usually one for New Year
year-in-review posts, but 2020 has seen so much turmoil that I have
to say “good riddance”.</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxh9p0YEWpG9WgQwyzXw1RUjQch32eZIbIe0rI989Dk0-zX5N_px0G7-yCBD9VmCKmNX2H0BKlqkNlKekrSs5_TCtQFjO_CKHSIMqs-F4rSvkuCSGMrCzUccqMc1jdnknstRwFKla843XK/s400/20201231-door.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="400" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxh9p0YEWpG9WgQwyzXw1RUjQch32eZIbIe0rI989Dk0-zX5N_px0G7-yCBD9VmCKmNX2H0BKlqkNlKekrSs5_TCtQFjO_CKHSIMqs-F4rSvkuCSGMrCzUccqMc1jdnknstRwFKla843XK/w320-h320/20201231-door.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">In many ways, as a family we’ve been
lucky. Home life has been relatively unchanged, other than not having
friends around for meals. Everyone we know has escaped so far, though
it’s been harder on some than on others. The biggest loss for us
was having to abandon a trip to visit family in the UK this summer.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">We are all still earning, with all of
us in essential services of some sort (groceries, education,
provincial government). Again, we’ve been lucky. Many businesses
are struggling, although many have also adapted in various ways as
our knowledge of the spread evolved: closing doors, partial
reopening, new safety procedures, new ways of operating ...</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: #38761d;"><i><b>The biggest stresses that I can see
emerging are connected: weariness at the constant vigilance and
observing of distancing rules, and the lack of social contact.
</b></i></span></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">People tout social media and online
meetings. Zoom and Teams work fine for business meetings, but they
are no substitute for gathering around a table for a meal or a drink.
People keep promoting virtual coffees, virtual dinner parties,
virtual water cooler chats, and I’m getting weary of that too
because for me they just don’t cut it. Worse, to me they actively
emphasize what we <i>can’t</i> do.
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Sometimes you just need human
closeness. Sometimes you just need a hug. That is the ultimate
cruelty of this pandemic – that it’s robbed us of the most
fundamental support mechanisms we know.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">But my hope for 2021 is that we can
learn and adapt in more long-lasting ways. We’ve learned that we
don’t need to all gather together in an office in order to work and
collaborate. The environment (and our wallets) has benefited from
less travel. We could be <i>and should be</i> living and working
smarter in future, making use of what we’ve learned this year. We
should be looking forward to a kinder and more sustainable world, and
treasuring togetherness when we’re finally able to again.</p>
<p><style type="text/css">P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm }</style></p>Botanisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12098709722475364465noreply@blogger.com10