Tag: social commentary

Mental Health/Mental health Champion/Writing Projects

Run for Home

This should have happened on Wednesday, for which I apologise, but it has taken me 72 hours to adjust brain and body to the new world order, which is EXERCISE EVERY DAY. The RED in Red January stands for Run Every Day and having done that two days out of three this week? Nope. Huge fat nope. Not happening this week, or indeed the rest of January. By June? Quite possibly. We’re working on it.

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This will be the only post I make about this here until I’m done on February 1st, because there doesn’t need to be the boring repetition of the same stuff. People have already given money, without prompting, and the £250 total that’s been set should be easily attainable if there’s a slow, sensible reiteration of intent. The best bit of all this, undoubtedly, is having means to be truly accountable using technology.

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There’s a phrase that gets thrown around a lot in the organised exercise classes I do: if you don’t work hard enough, you’re only cheating yourself. Although this is undoubtedly true, it is no longer possible to pretend you went on a 5k run if the stats won’t support it. I’ve never felt the need to do that in the first place: the stats now aren’t just a record of your work, but are useful insights into how your body reacts to exercise.

I’ve been trying to shift some areas of fat on my body for close to a decade. Now I know where the optimal zones are to work in for my heartrate to do that, and have proved this is actually now taking place with the addition of a sensible diet and calorie limit? These areas are beginning to shrink. Fat really is starting to vanish. Now all that is needed is a month’s worth of hard, targeted effort to keep the momentum up.

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You can follow me on Instagram to keep up to date with affairs. Like I said, we’ll be back in February not only to see how well things went, but also look at weight loss. I’m down on this week’s weigh in, let’s hope this continues going forward.

Then we can talk about training to be a Mental health Champion…

General Writing Post/Here is the News/Writing as Therapy/Writing Projects

The Day Before You Came

Yesterday was, without doubt, one of the most difficult days I’ve ever had as an adult. ‘Yeah yeah, it’s all hyperbole,’ I hear you mutter BUT THAT IS WHERE YOU ARE WRONG. It was apparent, going into this year, there would be points where everything could topple, but what wasn’t expected was the opposite to take place. The permanent, ongoing assumption is that things get better with time. Except, sometimes there’s a release of pressure, and amazingly everything just improves.

How that happens is often a cause of considerable surprise.

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Yesterday was the day I submitted probably the most important piece of work I’ve ever completed. Sitting mentally exhausted in front of my PC and Mac, I became really very angry. That same day’s events hadn’t helped, as came an understanding that all of this, countless revisions and  rewrites and polish plus everything else are not contributing to my happiness, but serve to attain a standard other people set. There needs something that is my standards alone, or else slowly, everything will begin to suffer.

Then, I remembered the Gym. Those numbers after weigh in today, let’s be honest, are a revelation. Most people exercise to get lighter, but that’s not me. I’m here, gaining muscle mass, and becoming something a world away from the woman who thought ‘thin’ would solve all her problems, which of course is so patently untrue as to be funny. For the record, there’s less fat than ever before in my makeup, but this journey is no longer about dieting.

My road to success just took a massive detour.

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All of this is a complex cocktail of emotions to add to the general state of mental health, which pretty much relies on there being more to life than writing and submissions. Once upon a time, of course, writing was the therapy in itself, but that has now become the job. Therefore, I need a new means to cope, and exercise has become that means not only by which events are in my control, but that destiny is allowed to throw up some interesting possibilities.

I’ve learnt an awful lot about myself in the last month or so, and that’s set to continue. The lesson to learn, if it were needed, is that the best way to improve is often the least obvious route offered. I’m sure someone’s said that better, but that’s not the point. Talking about mental health isn’t just dealing with the issues, it’s finding the means by which you better communicate all the other stuff about your existence that matters just as much, sometimes more.

I’m really looking forward to travelling this way going forward.

#Narrating2018/General Writing Post/Here is the News/The Great Social Media Experiment/Writing Projects

Why

To kick-start my Internet Month, it seemed like a good idea to start asking questions of the place in which we all live. I’ll be honest, it has begun better than could possibly have been expected.

Reading my feed today, someone made the comment that generalising about the bad in people seems to have become a fairly predictable means of guaranteeing retweets and follows, and I think he’s spot on. Outrage generally appears to be the order of the day for some, and responding to that fallout a predictable (and often just as pointless) upshot for many others. After one person’s made the point for you, there is no need to keep recycling moral indignation, yet that is exactly what happens. Looking for an antidote to this, I’ve decided for the next month to let the impetus out of my hands, trusting those around me to interact.

Then we see how many of that number are willing to have a discussion.

This message (and follow) today was as good a validation of the process that I could possibly have wished for. Sometimes, it isn’t simply about spewing random facts or ideas into the ether in the vain hope someone will be interested. What matters more is to find out what it is that motivates people away from the reasons they use Twitter in the first place, and to remind others that it is just as important to take part as to stand on the sidelines and watch.

Now all that has to happen is for me to provide the questions which will stimulate healthy debate and not start fights …

#Narrating2018/Here is the News/Social Media Asides/Uncategorized

The Fix

Yesterday, after someone popped up on my  Twitter feed that I had blocked, I went on a bit of an impromptu exploration of my account. What I found made me stop and think about how Twitter has changed in the last few years, and that those of use using the platform for promotion purposes need to look quite closely at what it is we say and do.

The first major takeaway from this exercise was that, based on my profile and activity, the web-based version of the platform decided I was male. This is not on reflection as much of a surprise as it was yesterday and explains why so much of the advertising that drove me off using the Mac OS version of Twitter was targetted in the way it was. I’d never go back to using the web-based interface either because of the adverts, and it remains the #1 reason why I can’t ever take Twitter seriously (as is the case with Facebook.)

On further inspection, there’s a list of ‘interests’ generated on the web API which (presumably) are used to tailor the advertising I don’t look at.

The eight items that remain hidden (and unclickable) are something of an issue, but not nearly as much as the fact that there are things I’m associated with that I don’t understand:

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Okay I get the majority of these (and woman’s pants/trousers are clearly an item of interest) but WTF is kaurie2 and WHY do I have THREE mentions of it? One assumes it’s a mistake or a programmers oversight… but, REALLY?

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There is also the means by which you can ask Twitter exactly how it uses data in order to tailor content to you. In my case that is a 13 page .PDF file which includes all the commercial Twitter accounts the company feels I would have an interest in. Twitter ‘creates these audiences based on similarities between (your) account and the accounts included in tailored audiences’ and even by opting out of all the specific tools that sell to me, I cannot remove myself from being sold at. There’s a number of out and out spam accounts on this list, apart from a number of fairly obvious other high-profile names… and some not so obvious ones…

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Yes really, I’m on her list, despite being a) not eligible to vote in the US and b) not being American. Twitter, your metrics need a SERIOUS overhaul… 

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If these things matter to you and if you’re interested in how robots and algorithms already are arbitrarily labelling your future… maybe take some time today to see what companies Twitter has decided you need to be an audience for.

THE RESULTS WILL SURPRISE YOU.

#Narrating2018/Oh For Goodness Sake/Social Media Asides/The Great Social Media Experiment

I Think We’re Alone Now

Last week I got a couple of shocks via Social media. All of them involved people having conversations where it was abundantly apparent they’d forgotten the Internet is public.

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We’ve all experienced a moment in our lives when something’s been posted on the Internet we wish hadn’t. Once upon a time, there were no delete buttons. You did not get the chance to reverse your decision. However, crucially in current conditions, even deleting an offending post will not mean you’re off the hook. All those people I watch remind themselves ‘I must delete all that stuff I said in the morning’ are already far too late to fix the damage done. If someone else can see it, they can screencap it. Sure, there are ways to spoof Twitter to make it look as if someone said summat they didn’t, but this is largely beside the point.

You should not be saying in public anything you will regret, ever.

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Yet I watch people who accuse others of being troublemakers when that’s exactly their own modus operandi: casual racism, sexism and all points in between. Pronouncing righteousness, reinforcing stereotypes, and the by now almost metronomically predictable subtweeting. Yeah, I get those other people piss you off. If it is that much of a problem, then remove them from your feed. Use a mute button, block them but do not sit and complain. If someone professes an opinion that you do not ascribe to, this is not a reason to hate them. It is a reason to keep them in your feed and learn from them.

The Internet is not just here for your benefit.

Tolerance is in short supply right now and is sorely needed in every walk of life. It is possible for us all to learn from each other, in so many different and surprising ways. Telling other people how to think and act has taken place for thousands of years, the only difference now is that the stage on which it happens is far larger than ever before. The sensitive and susceptible are in danger of believing everything they read as truth. It is already happening.

I wish more people would start thinking and stop posting.

Bond Fiction/Default/Fan Fiction/General Writing Post/Writing Projects

DEFAULT :: New Fiction

Look up at that cover artwork by my mate @Ammosart, then make sure you’re following her on Twitter before we go anywhere else this morning. In the grand tradition of going big or Going Home, we’re starting the way things mean to go on here this week. This work of fiction (with its own cover) is the natural follow up to Duet: when it is done I expect the narrative to top 70,000 words, so that’s very much into the realms of actual Novel territory. It’s a big story, no scrimping on detail and scope, and all things being equal I’m planning for the first part to go live on Monday, June 27th, with serialisation across the Summer.

As soon as I’d seen Spectre, I knew I had to write this, in the main as a result of the shortcomings I saw in a narrative that never really focusses on anyone except the titular hero. I know, you don’t go and see Bond films for the supporting cast, but I felt cheated this time not simply because of what I saw, but more importantly what I didn’t. This therefore is my wish fulfilment for the canon, done and dusted. In the next few weeks I’ll talk about my processes, let you in on the writing soundtrack I’ve used for this project, and generally have a bit of a chat about the journey, because this is the piece of work that’s finally given me confidence to believe I can be a grown up writer, and to push to finish my first completely original work. Allison’s agreed to help me with that too and will be producing original portraits of all my main characters as time goes on.

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Ronni Flemmings does not fit the ‘traditional’ mould of a spy, at least in my mind. I gave Allison a very specific brief when she drew her, and that includes the prominence of her breasts, which might seem odd when I’m doing my best to create a character who is considered an equal to 007 in every respect. In fact, I’m expecting more than a few raised eyebrows at the prominence of her sexuality. However, if you ask me what makes Bond what he is, it is undoubtedly the physical attributes that have come to matter often above the ability to shoot straight or complete a mission brief. In fact, I use that physicality on more than one occasion as a metaphor for how, if a woman wants to play in a man’s world, she is often expected to put assets front and centre as a default. The title isn’t just a nod to the Atoms for Peace song that inspired it: I’m exploring the way things are in the Bond universe, how perhaps they should be and ultimately how they remain.

There’s a lot of my individual feelings on equality and diversity buried in this narrative too: I’ll make no bones about this, and I realise that I’m just as likely to inflame the ire of many people by admitting that my Quartermaster in this version of 007’s world is gay. In fact, this is more likely to cause issue than the sex of my protagonist, and that is I know wrapped around the basic conflict that canon should remain 100% faithful and accurate to the original source material. That means Bond remains a white, heterosexual male who only uses women to get what he wants. Needless to say, that’s almost what happens in Spectre: you know, if 007 hadn’t come back to get the Aston Martin at the end, I might have forgiven him for the rest of the movie. As it stands, he needs a rewrite in my mind.

When you pick up the action in three weeks? We’ll be starting pretty much where Spectre leaves off. 

I look forward to seeing you here on the 27th.

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