26/12/07 Boxing Day v2

There is currently an advert on the TV and on some websites to (crappy little flash animation thing) that features a house at Christmas. It is snowing and the house has Xmas lights outside and on the garden fence. The lights on the fence are lotto numbers. They are 3, 7, 15, 18, 41 and 43. I did intend to check whether these numbers have already won a large prize previously. Anyway, I didn't get time to check before I was in front of a Lotto terminal, so I placed them on tonight's draw anyway.
Best of British, huh.

I should make some phone calls.
Christmas.
Family.
Friends.
Etc.

So, today Ikea is open.
I know.
I checked.
95p breakfasts here we come.
Got an extra sausage.
I don't call that going large.
They do.

Just as we were setting off from home, I was in the driving seat and Wifey was just getting in the car and she said something that struck a chord with me as being interesting. Interesting enough to make me think that if I twisted it a bit it'd fit well in the novel. I thought to myself 'That's good. I won't forget that. I don't need to stop the car and write that down or make an audio note on my mobile, I'll remember, of course I will, I'll remember, I'll jot it down as I stop the car in Ikea's car park.

I forgot it.

I must remember (irony?) to write things down immediately the idea strikes me.
Otherwise, more often than not.
It is gone.
I've mentioned this before.
It is very annoying and makes me angry because it is avoidable and it is a constant reminder of what my illness/condition/whatever has done to me.

Ideas>Photos>Yoga

Hmm.
When I am driving, I cannot write ideas down.
Sometimes I stop and perform a braindump before it, the idea, vapourises into nothingness.
Sometimes this means making an audio note on my mobile phone, other times it means my writing it on whatever is to hand.
This morning it meant dictating it to J, who was in the back of the car en route to school.





This afternoon saw the previously mentioned photoshoot occurring at the local art gallery.
The purpose being to promote the creative writing project that I will be running soon.
Hopefully the article will get some local people to come forward who knew Helen Bradley.
It'd be a great help.




20.12.07
Originally uploaded by Boczkowski

Choose and Book

Hmmm, I'm not usually a fan of systems where people have been replaced by machines, automated phone systems, computer booking systems, call centres in Bangalore or the horrendous scan & bag your own stuff tills in many major supermarkets. (what on earth is the TGWU playing at?)

Anyway, I've been referred back to the neurologist who made my initial diagnosis of PVFS. This has been prompted by 7 months of B12 injections that have done precisely nothing. So, I think I'm due an upgrade now to something more horrendous.

This said, the NHS 'Choose and Book' system I used today was:

• quicker than phoning up
• cheaper than phoning up
• easy to use
• straightforward and intuitive

Blimey, what next?

Nokia memory dump - Why a writer needs a mobile phone.

I was recently diagnosed with CFS and as a result have a few issues (not problems) with memory.
I find myself searching for the correct word, that is sometimes just out of reach, quite regularly.
Similarly, I find myself wandering the supermarket wondering what I've come in for.
So I started to make lists, notes, reminders, aide memoires of all sorts.
First on bits of paper in my wallet - this became cumbersome and made my wallet very thick and uncomfortable to sit on.
Then I started buying small notebooks. Spiral bound at the top and with a piece of elastic attached to the back cover so I can fasten the thing shut. A bit like a police notebook.
From there I started using 3 x 5 index cards after reading about a thing called a Hipster pda, securing them with a big red bulldog clip I got from Staples.This was good. I liked it. But they became many, and they became dog eared and I hated that. Plus they didn't fit in my shirt or jacket pocket as easily or as snugly as my little notebook from Paperchase.
I then graduated to a real PDA. A Palm TX no less! This is good too, better even. It is much more immediate than booting up my laptop, but not quite as easy as using an index card and pen.

As a writer, I have ideas that I want to remember. On a daily basis. I wrote them down. I tapped them in. I've even phoned them home. Speech is the easiest, it simply has to be. So I've set up my Nokia 6070 as another repository of ideas. It is a great little phone. Fifty quid and has a radio and a camera with video capabilities. Not great quality but hey, it was fifty sheets. I use the camera to capture interesting images from all over the place, stuff I want to remember later or write about. If I wanted great pictures, I'd take a proper camera with me.
If I have an idea and I want to speak it, why pay to phone it home when the mobile in my pocket is a dictaphone too? I can record five minutes (I think) of continuous speech/noise/whatever into this gadget and then listen back later at my convenience. I can even beam the audio snippets into my laptop via the IR link.

Soon I won't have to think at all.

All invaluable for the writer I think.
--

All the best,

Mark

www.markchambers.org.uk