CONTACT ME:
Writing from Alter-Space
  • Home
    • Free Read: An Angel in the Mirror
  • Books
    • The Nightmarist and Other Stories
    • Exodus Sequence >
      • Wired
      • Reflected
      • Walked
      • Spooked
      • Suicided
      • Crashed
      • Woken
      • Experienced
      • Caged
      • Drowned
    • Exodus Sequence 2 >
      • Shattered
    • Fleet Quintet >
      • Transference
      • Flesh for Sale
      • V. Gomenzi
      • Commences
    • A Doorway into Ultra
    • Diamonds on the Moon
    • Clarendon House Anthologies
    • Microfiction
  • Blog

Strange Coincidences

2/26/2018

2 Comments

 
My radio alarm woke me up on Friday with a story about the discovery that Neanderthal Man was capable of art 125 000 years ago.  As I'm currently writing a novelette about prehistoric Man, this was of immense interest.  Suddenly everyone was interested in the exact subject I've been [loosely] researching for weeks.  
Later that morning, I was doing just exactly that - researching ancient man and trying to figure out what he ate off (if anything).  I found an interesting article that quoted something by a woman who was easy to remember.  She had scarlet hair, an undercut, several piercings and black-rimmed glasses.  At the time I thought she was a scientist but I think she writes about science, which is a different thing.  Anyway, I thought her theories were interesting and moved on, not giving it much thought.
Until later that same day, I opened up the SFX that drops through the letterbox on regular intervals - and found an interview with her!  Same picture and everything, thus instantly recognisable.  (Also, I recognised the title of a book she's written Scatter, Adapt, and Remember:  How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction.  It's not a title you forget easily.)
TWO coincidences in one day?
Weird!
I found this picture of someone's idea of Neanderthal Woman;  a tad goddess-like, perhaps?
Picture
2 Comments

Getting up at the crack of dawn on a Saturday

2/17/2018

0 Comments

 
I dreamt last night that the alarm didn't go off and I was only woken up at 7.15 which was the time we were supposed to leave to go to the station - much panic in the dream, which - weirdly - took place in the house where I grew up.  As it transpired, I set my tablet alarm to 6.05.......for Monday to Friday.  Aaargh!  So life imitated dreamland as my daughter burst in and shouted at me to get up at 6.25.  We made it, though, and off she went to a university taster-type day at ten to eight with just a flutter of nerves.
As it was such a beautiful morning, I walked home from Waterloo station.  The sun was just coming up behind some or other hideous building near the South Bank and the view from Waterloo Bridge was spectacular. The water looked like metal and a soft, golden light touched all the buildings.  The air was quite fresh but for the first time in a long time, I noticed how foul the car exhaust fumes were whenever a vehicle sped past.  In London, one is so used to the general stink that it goes unnoticed most of the time (though not in summer when one generally chokes to death on the sidewalk.)  Had a coffee to try and wake up and then strolled back to Bloomsbury, circling Russell Square several times.
What a lovely morning!
And an excellent time to do some work.  The first draft of my new Exodus Sequence story is going rather badly - lurching along with zero character development, crap descriptions and fading plot lines but for once I'm not too concerned.  I just need to get words down on the page to get my confidence back.  And then I'll attack it and fix it up.  One day.
Picture
0 Comments

Freezing

2/11/2018

0 Comments

 
I'm getting through the weekend in a blanket.  The central heating started to fail last weekend, refusing to go on despite the fact that the thermostat claimed the flat was cold enough.  The whole on-off control panel refused to work.  And it was only installed at the end of September.  By Friday, it had given up the ghost entirely.  Two rather small oil heaters (chewing up electricity) just aren't helping.  One of them is rather old and too heavy to move about, while the brand new one (which I couldn't afford) takes all day to change the temperature of a room from freezing to slightly cold.  I began shutting doors yesterday and by evening, the kitchen was finally warm.  It was gloomy yesterday too, with pinpricks of sleet coming down:  very depressing.  I am so unbelievably sick and tired of trudging around the squares in of inner London so didn't want to venture forth either, even though going for a walk in the cold is the only way to warm up.
This morning has dawned bright and sunny - and very cold.  But at least it feels more cheerful and my morning sprint-walk around Russell Square meant I warmed up quite nicely.
What do you do when it's too cold in your house to exist?  Go out?  I'd love to go to the shops or go out for coffee or something......but I've run out of money.  My entire salary vanished in the first week of February:  had to buy a dehumidifier as the mould and damp suddenly began to colonise previously unaffected rooms in spectacular fashion (it's been a gargantuan problem in other rooms for years.)  And then that urgently-required heater.  It cost bloody £65 but is just too small to cope.  Wish I could have afforded the bigger one.
Sigh.  Don't ask about getting the central heating fixed.  That's another blog that involves a long rant about Camden Council.  The less said about them the better (although can I just mention to someone somewhere that "24 hours emergency" does not equal FIVE DAYS to get a repairman out.  Hello?  Maths, anyone?)
Time to do some writing.  My heating pad has warmed up my back nicely and the sun is pouring in through the windows.  It's Sunday morning, probably the best morning of the week.
As for that thermostat: it has finally decided that it's 15C, having being stuck on 18 since September.  
Picture
A faint quarter moon seen from the lounge window at dawn
0 Comments

    Author

    I live in Bloomsbury.
    I write.
    Sometimes it goes quite well.

    ​

    FOLLOW
    You can follow
    Diary of a
    Bloomsbury Writer
     
    on ​
    ​wordpress.com
    where it's called
    Writing from
    ​Alter-Space

    ​​

    Archives

    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015

    Categories

    All
    Commences
    Everlast
    Lent
    Life
    Life In Bloomsbury
    My Coronavirus Diary
    New Novel
    On Editing
    On Publishing
    On Writing
    Review
    Second Draft
    The Difficult Novel
    The End
    Writing Tips

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
Photos used under Creative Commons from Markus Trienke, eflon, Larry Smith2010, __MaRiNa__, elminium, InvictusOU812, PaulBalfe, Rina Pitucci (Tilling 67), ANBerlin [Ondré], Sumriana Babyana, stevecadman, Darling Starlings, Saku Takakusaki, Rubén Díaz Caviedes, Ric Capucho, aquigabo!, Key Foster, Mrs Airwolfhound, my little red suitcase, Joe Le Merou, freestock.ca ♡ dare to share beauty, bluebirdsandteapots, the bridge, Flower Power girl, Sharon & Nikki McCutcheon, chakchouka, archer10 (Dennis) 85M Views, this lyre lark, Secret Pilgrim, Hunky Punk, waaanderlust, takkle K, michaelmueller410, paweesit, Rick Camacho, Gidzy, J.J. Verhoef, Honza M., HDValentin, kthypryn, Pfauenauge *back to school...on and off*, diana_robinson, indigoMood, enrico.pighetti, Maria Eklind, timsackton, docoverachiever, Sharon & Nikki McCutcheon, bjpcorp, matty_gibbon, katya_alagich