Category: Writing

The process and exercises

Dark Emu: a book review

Dark Emu has shaken me, it has shaken the foundations of my very existence, torn away layers of conditioning that has been provided for me over the years. It is that serious a book.  As I have now discovered it is not the first to lay out the notion of a more developed people inhabiting this country than was the view of the original English settlers. But it is probably the manner in which this book has been written that sets it apart.  Continue reading “Dark Emu: a book review” →

The Book Of Evidence: a book review

We are led to authors and books in various ways but this was one of the more unusual. I follow a fan page of Cillian Murphy on Instagram because Cillian plays the most engrossing lead character in the multiple seasons of Peaky Blinders. This Instagram fan page posted a short video of Cillian talking about the Irish author John Banville in glowing terms, describing John’s writing as at times “lyrical”.  I was intrigued of course and had to read some of his work. I chose this one, The Book Of Evidence, to start with, mainly because it had been shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1989. I was only a couple of pages in when I found this first impression of being in prison: Continue reading “The Book Of Evidence: a book review” →

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My 5 Morning Rituals

I was recently invited to subscribe to a newsletter by a guy called Tim Ferriss through a marketing ploy of his. As part of the enticement, he was offering a set of 3 free pdf’s, the first of which was “5 Morning Rituals” and it really struck a chord with me. I have been annoyed lately with how my mornings, and subsequently, my days seem to just drift away with little to show for it at the end of the day. So because of this, I decided to subscribe just to get the pdf’s. Continue reading “My 5 Morning Rituals” →

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The Sentence

The gift of life comes with its inevitable companion, the sentence of death. You can’t have one without the other, there is no choice. You live, you die. As soon as you start living the clock starts ticking. Every life, human, animal, plant, no exceptions. There is no control other than adding the full stop through suicide, self-destruction. The length of the sentence is arbitrary and therefore unknown, unlike the sentence pronounced by a human court sitting in judgement. The sentence though is full of commas and colons and semicolons and capitals and hyphens, all defining the events of our life. But where does the natural judgement on the length of the sentence come from? Continue reading “The Sentence” →

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My Liebster Award, wow!

Well thank you KE Garland for nominating me for the Liebster Award. With this award go three requirements I have deduced, namely:

1. Answer a series of questions from KE Garland

2. Nominate another group of bloggers who you feel deserve this award

3. Ask your nominees a series of questions to explore more about the nominee

Firstly my apologies for taking some time to finally getting around to both acknowledging this honour and to answering the questions which I did find very interesting and challenging but here goes. Continue reading “My Liebster Award, wow!” →

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Away with the bird

I need to take a one day trip from Sydney to Melbourne to attend to some family business and I have booked a 10am flight down and a 6pm flight back thinking this will give me about an hour and a half to complete the business required in Castlemaine. Not too early that will force me to drag the old body out of bed any earlier than usual and not too late at night getting home. My dear wife is going to drive me to and from the airport and we will need to leave about 7:30am to give us a little extra time to cope with any peak hour blockages. We wake up to a steady soaking rain which being Sydney means that traffic is going to be even more chaotic than usual.  Continue reading “Away with the bird” →

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Ho Hum

I have lost many people, pets, clothing, little treasures of all sorts over the period of my life to date and I dare say I will lose much more in what is still to be lived. The most recent significant one of these was about two months ago when my dear old aunt, the last of what I call “my grownups”, passed away peacefully. I cried a lot during the writing and reading of her eulogy but in amidst this grieving, there was a great sense of relief for her, a joy that there was now an end to her physical suffering. Knowing that makes it easier for me to move on without further pain as it has done with all of the people and pets in my life who have passed on. It was for whatever reason their time to go and they are now at peace, as should I in knowing that. The memories will live on in my mind for as long as I have access to that. Continue reading “Ho Hum” →

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