Minds at War

I have a wide and varied CV. I’ve piloted a Spitfire, commanded a tank, a warship, and rode horses while in the military. And all this before I reached the age of 13, mostly from the seat of my trusty CCM 1-speed bicycle. Oh, and it helped me blast off for the stars, as well.

Hmm. Perhaps I should step back a pace or two. The old CCM wasn’t all that trusty, after all. Its chain had a certain proclivity for coming off, and nothing I could do would change that. One time, on my paper route, it came off whilst I ‘flew’ with a loyal wingman down a gravel road at high speed. It somehow jammed the wheel and the bike threw me, ending up with me having a fingernail torn off. Bleeding, scraped, and somewhat in shock, I gave over my paper-bag to my wingman, while I and my Spitfire limped back towards home – and eventually the Emergency Room at the hospital.

Then, later, the brake began to go. Remember, at that time with a 1-speed, you braked by pressing the pedal backwards, which would apply the brake to the rear wheel. In my case, I could stand on the pedal and the rear wheel wouldn’t lock; my bicycle would only slowly coast to a stop. I found it more efficient to put a foot down and drag it. So, perhaps I should exchange the word ‘trusty’ for something else. I’m a writer; surely my vocabulary might cover it. But, then again, I loved my bicycle. So, in my heart and my [flawed] memory, it remains my trusty CCM.

When you get right down to it, one might consider this an early attempt at multitasking. Overtly, I delivered papers. I certainly went through the motions. But, while my body engaged in this action, my imagination had me soaring over the earth, and sometimes leaving it entirely as my bike became a rocketship bound for somewhere far, far off.

Later, I continued with this multi-tasking as I started to write poetry. I would compose while I walked my route – the trusty CCM no longer conveying me to the heights. Today, I still work on books in my head while my body does other, more mundane tasks. I can multitask in that regard.

HOWEVER, it has lately come to me that I don’t do so well at multitasking if the two tasks are in the same field, but of inimical forms. In other words: Writing and Editing.

I ran up an impressive word-count earlier this year – until I started to edit “A Throne At Stake”. And then it all collapsed. I’ve heard and read that the Editor Mind and the Creative Mind are two very separate entities. I believe it; I can’t just go from one to the other. So, if I’m engaged in editing, I can’t seem to jump back into my creative space for an hour and write my thousand words. About the middle of June my daily word-count began to drop and continued doing so until it reached 0 earlier this month.

In that time I edited and published “A Throne At Stake”, and then re-edited “Pelgraff” in order to put it out in paperback. I gave a preliminary edit to “Trading for the Stars”, the first book in my Colleen Yrden saga, and then I re-formatted “A Throne At Stake” for paperback form, as well as “The Steadfasting”. I need a new cover for “The Steadfasting”, and may have something in the works. “Pelgraff (paperback) is now for sale from Createspace, Amazon and other entities, and my proof copy of “A Throne At Stake” should be winging its way to me, arriving this week. I’m about ready to give up on the paperback stuff as soon as I give ATAS the final look-over. I want to get back to writing again, for I’ve written only about 8,000 words this month – a far cry from the 30,000 of last month or the 66k and 85k of May and April.

I wish I could truly multitask, but this seems beyond me. So, I ask forgiveness for my ‘laxity’ of late, and promise to try to do better in August. Hopefully, lack of dropping into my Editing Mind will allow my Creative Mind to spark again and take us all on another journey.

Ah, to have my CCM back again – though I suspect it might be a little small for me. Then I and my imagination might multitask once again, discovering new worlds, riding fire into the skies, and rescuing damsels in distress – something I thought little of back then. Grateful damsels, I trust. D.A.’s damsels, however, seem to be a pretty hardy lot who don’t need much rescuing, though they do accept a helping hand at times – but woe to those who get in their way.

Until then, I thank you for your patience – and thank those who have picked up a copy of one of D.A. Boulter’s works.

Happy reading.

A Break

Writing isn't always easy. Sometimes it gets depressing, sometimes tedious. At other times it just flows and there doesn't seem to be any stopping the words and ideas. Right now, I'm about played out for the moment. So far this year I've written the equivalent of 2-1/2 novels.

One, "A Throne At Stake", has gone up on Amazon. The others are in various stages of completion. But, as I said, I'm about played out. So, I've taken a short break -- yeah, a break. Right.

As I've had a request or two to put my books out in paper as well as digitally, I've begun looking into it. And it's another learning curve. I started with "Pelgraff" for a couple of reasons, one being it's fairly short. So, I followed the guides, sent in my files and received a nice fresh copy of it -- a proof copy. And then I discovered all the errors I had made.

Thinking back to when "Courtesan" first went live on Amazon Kindle four years ago, it seems little changed. It took me a lot of hours to finally get it up in a nicely formatted form. This looks the same. Well, more hours and proofing later, I've sent in a new file, and hope to get my second proof copy back next week -- if I'm lucky.

If it looks good, it'll go up for sale. I doubt that it will sell well, but if someone wants a copy in Trade Paperback, it will be there for them. I kinda like the feel of holding the copy in my hands. There's something about a physical book.

I think my break is about over -- I haven't written anything new in six days now. Hey, I deserve a week off every now and then, right? And if, during my week off, I choose to do some major editing and formatting, etc., in order to put up a book in paperback, well, it wasn't all a loss as far as authorship is concerned.

The 'fun' thing about self-publishing, is that I get to do everything: writing, editing, proofing, formatting, designing covers -- I do most of my own now. I have someone who helps with proofing, but I try to get the manuscript to her with as few errors as possible. So, what you see is pretty much all my work. If it pleases, great; if it doesn't, then you know whom to blame. Yep, me.

Well, I guess I should get some of that sleep I've been missing. Then go to work -- yes, I have a job, I'm not a full-time writer.

Next week I hope to report on progress.

Till then,

Live well.

Perception

I think it was early-1960s, Grade 3 or 4, when my teacher took the class into the hall. She had us line up and, one by one, we had someone test our eyesight. You know the charts – “Please read from the top line…” Yeah, well I ‘failed’ that test. And, ever since then, I’ve had to wear corrective lenses for distance seeing.

Glasses are a pain. Here and now, I recommend to all my readers that you never have to wear lenses. (NB – I haven’t seen, nor heard of the notation ‘NB’ used since my early school days – anyway, take note that I did not recommend that you not wear them should you need them, I merely recommend that you don’t need them. Yeah, I know, as if we have a choice.)

Requiring corrective lenses alters one’s perception. Without them, things in the distance become fuzzy to me, not sharp and delineated. But that’s not what I mean. Requiring lenses means that my perception of the world changed. I couldn’t, for example, just jump into a lake like the other boys. First I’d have to find a safe place to put my glasses, then remember where it was so I could retrieve them after coming out. This also meant that I would have to come out basically where I went in – or at least return to that spot.

Glasses changed the level of spontaneity. One couldn’t just go home and say, “Hi, Dad, lost my glasses again. Could you pick up a new pair for me on your way home from work tomorrow?” Glasses cost money, and money wasn’t something in plentiful supply. Thus one didn’t do things that might cause the glasses to be broken or lost.

On top of that, glasses changed my perception of myself. Wearing glasses back in the mid-1960s wasn’t ‘cool’. I think that has somewhat changed in the last 50 years, but I’m not sure, as I don’t have a plethora of glasses-wearing 8-year-old friends. Actually, I don’t have any 8-year-old friends, but that’s beside the point. Let us just say that I’m no longer in the loop.

It took some years for me to become comfortable with wearing glasses. It no longer bothers me at all, but then again, more and more of my contemporaries are beginning to join me as they age.

On top of the myopia, I’m sensitive to light. A bright summer’s day means I have to wear tinted lenses as well, else suffer headaches. This, of course, changes my perception about what is a ‘nice day’. A nice day, to me, has quite a bit of cloud cover, if not overcast.

While I’m at it, I’ll admit that I like fog. The possibility exists that I like it because it reduces everyone else to my state. No one, not even those with the most acute vision can read a licence plate 30 metres away in a dense fog – and nor can I without corrective lenses on a fine day.

For all of us, perceptions change with circumstance. Mine (and others of my ilk) just experience it more sharply. Glasses on: all okay; glasses off: possible danger – especially when driving at night. Sunglasses on: all is fine, it’s a nice day; sunglasses off: headache on the way, it’s a lousy day.

These are things that only the empathetic can see. Until I wore glasses, I stood with the majority. The next day, I found myself in a minority, and my perception of everything changed (though my vision did not).

In the earlier years of movies and television, the producers relied on conventions to give hints to audiences. In westerns, if a man wore a white hat, we perceived him as the ‘good guy’. If he wore a black hat, the bad guy. If he wore all black he was the obvious villain. Then came Paladin (Have Gun, Will Travel). He wore black, but was the putative ‘good guy’, though really a gun-for-hire, a mercenary. And we were forced to change our perception – our eyes ‘lied’ to us. They told us that Paladin was the bad guy, while his actions told us differently.

War movies from that era told us that the Germans and the Japanese were the bad guys – most often murderers without morals, most often stereotypes. Then came “The Enemy Below”, where the German U-Boat commander was treated as sympathetically as the American Destroyer commander who fought him.

Both the above came out in 1957. And perceptions changed.

One of the great things about books – either writing them or reading them – is that they can give you alternative perspectives on life or at least aspects of it. You can see from the point of view of someone of the opposite sex – or someone entirely alien, though the aliens usually portray some aspect of humanity. A great thing about writing books is that – as author – you can play around with conventions, and make things not as they are perceived to be.

In my book Ghost Fleet, I decided to have no ‘villains’, though some might read it differently. All my characters, no matter on which side of the war they fought, or for what reasons, followed logical – for them – paths which coincidentally (I don’t believe in coincidence) put them in conflict with others. How can you hate the enemy when you understand and can empathize with him?

And now, I have just completed a new book, “A Throne At Stake” where I play with perception and convention a little more. It has taken me some time to get the book just where I want it, but I have succeeded at long last. I’m quite pleased with it – though I’m just one reader, and my perception of it may differ from all others. Nonetheless, I can now relax, take off my glasses, and bask in the good feeling of accomplishment.

So, it's off to bed for me, my trusty cat at my side ... on my back ... wherever he wants to be. I think he perceives me as furniture.