All Work

My hate for my job has reached all new levels.

I don't completely know why I hate it. The people are good (except for my arch nemesis who's been sick a few times in the last few weeks which means a lot of head aches for me). The conditions are good. And I can do the work-- it's not as if it's all that difficult. But I can't stand it.

The six weeks holiday I took was in June. That seems like a lifetime ago.

Each day when I come to work, I drive past a certain park. And each day I think how nice it would be to just pull up and sit in the park for a few hours. The feel of the grass under my feet, the birds, the breeze and other such cliched indications of freedom.

So today, I actually left for work 1/2 an hour earlier than usual and went to a park (a different one though). There were birds and breeze. There was grass under my feet-- though I didn't take my shoes off. I wondered around for a while. I waved to some attractive joggers (that gave them a new spurt of energy (o: ). I sat down near a playground and tried to project my un-pedophile-ness.

And it didn't really help at all because I knew that time was ticking down and I'd be working all too soon.

Holiday's won't help. Small moments won't help. I need a new job. I almost had one the other day but I have to give 1 months notice where I am and they needed someone to start straight away.

I've been considering quitting in time for xmas-- a lovely present-- even if I don't have a new job. Probably won't but jeeze it sounds nice.

So if anyone out there has a job for me-- doesn't necessarily have to be in Brisbane-- let me know. :)

The Challenger

I haven't been writing anything recently. I bought Fable for my X-box a week ago and have been playing that almost constantly since. It's a good game... though many a person has been known to play bad games constantly. Me included. It sometimes get's to the point where you aren't willing to let a stupid game beat you. So you keep playing and playing. And playing.

And speakig of spending lots of time playing games...

When I was a kid, about 10 os so years old, I had a Commodore64 computer. I had a chess game on it that I just couldn't beat. I got within a move of checkmate on several occasions but the damn computer always managed to save itself. I wasn't a terrible player, but I was 10. This went on for years (not my being ten, that only lasted a year) and I just kept going back even though it frustrated me immensely. (That wasn't really the game's fault, but anyway.) Then, when I was about 20, I was going through all my old stuff and decided to set the computer up. I played a couple of the old games. Then I found the chess game, loaded it up (it took several minutes) and started to play. About 3 minutes later, I'd won. I knew this because the words "You Won" came up on the bottom of the screen in something like 12 point font. "You Won". That was it. After years and hundreds of games, all I got was two little words. I wanted fireworks and flashing colours and music and... I can tell you, that was a very strange expereince. I can remember sitting there staring at the screen and feeling very empty. What had appeared to be one of the big challenges of my childhood turned out to be nothing at all really.

I bought a mac laptop a few months ago and it has a chess game on it. It's a lot more advanced than the old C64 one. I can't beat it. I keep trying. If victory eventually comes, will it be any more satisfying than the last time? Probably not.

A few people from my writing group have decided to make short films. We haven't really started yet but it should be fun. Hopefully. Waste of time if it isn't. Nobody involved has really got any experience-- we're just going to make it up as we go along, which is the story of my life. :) The main problem at the moment is trying to organise a time when we can all get together for our first meeting to work out how we're going to organise things.

And of course, all that just takes time away from writing novels. It seems I haven't hit upon the right idea yet because I'm still trying the think up more stuff. I like the las idea I thought of, btu I've only done about 1200 words in about a month. I have a sci-fi thriller I'm thinking about now. I actually came up with the main concept about 20 years ago.

Or maybe I just need to get rid of my x-box.

I Spoke Too Soon

Well, what do you know. We didn't lose the cricket game outright. Huh.

The opposition batted way too long, considering, but still left 2 1/4 hours for my team to be. My opening partner and I hung around for 1hr 40 mins and scored 91 runs between us. I had 37 of those and my partner, a 17 yr old, eventually got run out going for his 50. His previous highest score for the club (he played last season) was about 16.

The next couple of guys hung around for a while as well, but it got down to the bad guys needed a hat trick of the last 3 balls of the game (we only had 6 players-- damn the AFL). They got two of them... One of the gumbies played a lovely forward defensive shot to the last ball of the day. Phew. So all in all it was a great day-- even though we lost.

And speaking of losing-- my novel was rejected by HarperCollins, though Stpehanie Smith, the editor who rejected it, did say some nice things and said I was welcome to send her some other stuff when I've got it written. So it wasn't too bad at all, thought it could have been much better. And it did get me working on my next novel, which , of course, has changed from a fairly simple, traditional fantasy novel to something quite a bit more involved. It now has swords, scorcery, interdimensional gateways and space ships. Shit. I'll learn one day.

And if you feel like something to do, go and check out Heather's shiney new blog (just don't complain about the Shakespear atthe beginning)-- http://disorganisedramblings.blogspot.com/