December Arrived Four Months Late

Welcome to the grand illusion. What song is that from, feels like Styx but I have zero knowledge of music beyond the ripples of my emo-phase in school. So what has been going on with you? 

Work has been busy lately, so I am using that as an excuse for my third Bulldog book slowing in momentum. Some of the dogs have been needing extra care beyond the usual, one poor girl had an eye removed and one big boy has been adjusting to a life beyond his family at the agonising old age of 15 years. Rescue work can become a heart wrenching beast if you let it all in, but you have to have skin like a ducks plumage to survive in this line of care. Let it all run off and leave you dry. 

Writing through the workload.

The writing is moving, just at a pace so agonisingly slow that lately it has been flickering some embers of anxiety. Tiny little sparks that keep me aware of what I am NOT working on. Helpful in the way that a healthier mind can harness anxiety/dread and use it to push on towards completing these guys, but unhelpful when the work needs to take a back seat while you get your paying career business organised. We all weigh up our daily tasks differently, I guess.

I am currently writing some Frank chapters, having found a method of knocking out large chunks of the book this time around without the confusion of remembering where I was in the story and with whom when I get back to writing. Frank is currently on a quest to discover the fates of some missing people in his journey and I have really enjoyed going back to solo characters arch's for the brief while I write his final story. Saying goodbye to Frank is going to be hard, this book ending and the series as a whole has been my writing focus for two years now and the broken world of Bulldog has become my defacto holiday destinations while I care for the separation-anxious cat living on my lap.

Bulldog has been a ride, a nasty, gory and terrifyingly cool trip into darker gritter fiction. I have loved it but I am ready for it to be over and move onto other projects. 

What about the page turners?

I was on a great stretch of knocking out books this year, reading books that is. Some great ones that I will absolutely come back and some that I will happily never look at again. At the moment however I am struggling. I made the mistake of picking up a few books, I tend to have two or three on the go at the same time to break up slow chapters in the others. Give myself a little break.

This current trio however, they are testing my resolve. At a time with work being busy, daylight hours being starved and the writing of my own books being slower than I would like. These three books; Letters from a Stoic, 1984 and the 48 Laws of Power have been a slog. 

Firstly, while I am only a third of the way in, I truly don't get the hype for 1984 and find myself becoming angry when the book is referenced in media or publicly incorrectly. Don't read this book if you value the illusion that others around you aren't pseudo-intellectuals. Secondly, Letters from a Stoic, a collection of Senecas letters doesn't have the punchiness or conciseness that Meditations captures. It is engaging, and worth reading, but definitely the weaker of the stoics materials I have read thus far. Thirdly, the 48 Laws of Power has been great, the historical sections are interesting and engaging. I have learnt about some traits that I unknowingly exhibit and that others around me use without me knowing. My main complaint for the 48 Laws is the weight of the fucking thing. Holding that up in bed before I nod off for the night is an exercise in wrist strength.

Quickly then, I would absolutely recommend the 48 Laws of Power purely as historical value and as a guide for catching others manipulative behaviours. I would also recommend 1984, just so you can stop misquoting or mis referencing this fucking book!

Getting on with it.

So I have some ideas for a mini-blog series; sort of a love letter to hobbies that I enjoy. Something positive and educating while giving my non-fiction writing brain a flex. I will get started sometime this week while I have a few days off from work. 

Everything else is moving along, so keep your feet dry and stay out of public fountains, you greasy little snakebites. 

(I don't have a clever photo this week without plugging in my phone, which I will not be leaving the comfort of my chair to do. So I used a photo of me and my boy Hero, who I miss so much).