The single best piece of career advice I ever received was from my former boss. At least, I remember it being from him. It could have been from a book as well. (If you know which book this comes from, leave me a note in the comments, okay?) But let’s assume it was my boss. His advice was that you should figure out what that one thing is that you would be willing to do every day, even without pay. Then you figure out a way to make money with it. Of course then I quit to try and follow his advice, so I’m pretty sure he regretted giving it to me 😉 Continue reading “…and doing what you love”
Tag: writing
Boredom
This is a piece I wrote for a creative writing course I did last year. The assignment was to write a scene showing a character experiencing boredom, but it should not be boring. I have since expanded it a little.
The following is based on real events, with some embellishment.
Boredom
David rounded the front desk for the umpteenth time. He’d lost count of how many kilometres he’d walked up and down the aisles. He stopped at attention and turned around like a soldier on parade, completely quietly, of course. The only sound in the hall was the scritching of pens on paper and the occasional cough from one of the students. Scritching. Is that even a word? It sounds right. David decided to look it up later. No dictionaries allowed in the exam room. Right now he’d even read a dictionary.
He rounded the front desk for the second time since he’d lost count. By now he had inventoried everything in the hall: floor tiles, window latches, light bulbs, bricks…He decided to add them together; without a calculator. The mental arithmetic took him all of forty-seven seconds – he had timed himself by the clock on the wall. Maybe something more challenging: square roots. Yeah! He hadn’t tried those in a while.
David rounded the front desk for the third time in four minutes. He glanced at the clock and about-faced. Excellent! Only two more hours to go. David started back down the row with a spring in his step. It’s the little things that make life worthwhile, you know?
He managed to keep that up for two circuits and seventy-eight seconds. He started humming in his head a tune from a video he saw earlier that morning on the net: Dumb ways to die, so many dumb ways to die, dump-di-dump-di-dum-dum…He stopped. Why were all the students looking at him? O crap! He was singing out loud again, wasn’t he? He stared at them crossly . They continued writing.
David rounded the front desk for the…Dammit. He’d lost count again. He looked at the clock. Only one hour, fifty-six minutes to go…
Copyright © 2013 Herman Kok
As a bonus, here’s the song (got to wonder what type of mind comes up with something like this):
I write like…
My Facebook feed delivered the most marvellous link yesterday to a site called I write like. What this site does (or at least claims to do) is analyse your writing according to word choice and overall writing style.
I ran a few of my pieces through it and got some very interesting results, from Anne Rice and Margaret Mitchell, to Lewis Carrol and JRR Tolkien (and that in pieces that don’t closely resemble anything they’ve written, that I know of, in terms of content – in fact, I haven’t even read anything by either Rice or Mitchell). One of my pieces are even in the style of Dan Brown (but seeing as literary types don’t like him very much we’ll not say that too loudly).
The first chapter of my novel is apparently in the style of Arthur Conan Doyle (not complaining) and my two short stories about Elephant and Perry the field mouse are in the style of Rudyard Kipling (but that could also just be because of all the animals).
I’m of course taking this with a pinch of salt, and just because one writes like Tolkien (that is, in the same style), it does not naturally mean that one’s writing is as good as his. Still, I’ve bookmarked the site – it’s one hell of an ego boost to be told your work is in the style of one of your favourite authors.
On the other hand, I’m very self-critical (I blame my piano teacher), and another conclusion I’m drawing from this exercise is that I have not yet developed my own consistent style. And style, along with voice (I’ve been told), is ultimately what makes one writer unique from the next. I guess I still have some way to go as a writer, but that’s true of any new endeavour we attempt.
In the meantime, here’s one more author I write like. I got this one on the second chapter of my novel and am singling her out as, not only was she a great author, but we also share a birthday.
Ladies and gentlemen:
On Writing
No, this is not a review of Stephen King’s book (though that’s coming, once I’m done reading it). I merely wanted to write something about writing and most post titles on my blog begins with ‘On’. Not much you can do with that. Maybe I should start thinking up more creative post titles…
But what I wanted to say is, writing is hard. I was told when I started out that it took discipline and perseverance, and that I must develop a thick skin to deal with critique, criticism and rejection, and that it’s a lonely road, and that success isn’t guaranteed, but no one actually said it’s hard. Even if you enjoy it, it’s hard.
I finally finished the second chapter of my novel yesterday. In fact, I wrote most of it yesterday. I had started with it in the middle of February. Many days passed when I wrote not a single word; when I did not even open the file on my computer. Continue reading “On Writing”
On Passion
“To play without passion is inexcusable” – Ludwig van Beethoven
I know. I’ve not written anything in more than two weeks, but I have a valid excuse, promise. For once I have not been procrastinating. For the past two weeks I have been working on my novel, though this last week would be more accurately described as staring with growing frustration at a computer screen that spitefully refuses to fill up with words. Still, I’m almost done with the first chapter and already have more than 3 000 words on paper. Not bad for two weeks, is it?
What does that have to do with the Beethoven quote above? I want to paraphrase Herr Beethoven and say to live without passion is inexcusable. Continue reading “On Passion”
if all else fails...use a hammer 