Post 45 of 92

Have just found a way to back up the work.  I'm not motivated or switched on enough to truly get the hang of computers.  And I have a short fuse.  So it's only taken about a two weeks to find a writing software that I like and can actually use and another week to find a way to back up the writing - not trusting that computers won't crash at some point - as they have in the past. 

Bought a USB thingy and can't figure out how to use it - every file on my computer already seems to be there which is unhelpful because I can never find what I'm looking for amongst all these random files.   Often I try and look at a file which has a name which is redundant and there's nothing there.  Or it won't open.  Other files I don't dare delete because no doubt they are necessary to the smooth running of the computer.  Makes me crazy as it's like having a desk piled chin high with scraps of paper.  I'm one of those anal retentive types that has to have a clean workspace to get anything done.

And it all gives me the shits really. I would rather just do what I want to do, look at some sites, write and read emails and not spend hours cracking on with stuff I don't give a fig about.

So I've started another blog and each blog will be a chapter.  Simple really.  Couldn't figure out how to start another separate blog on this site so have found another free blogging site and downloaded that.  Have all this stuff on the blog I don't need and can't seem to get rid of but that's okay.  Seems I do have to publish, ie make public, in order for the work to be saved but as the blog is not being promoted in any way I very much doubt, with all the millions of blogs out there, that anyone will stumble upon mine.  Even if they did, why steal the work?  To be tempted to steal something that something has to have value and this is a first draft of something that I would like to make good but surely isn't now - nor may it ever be. 

So it's a bit of a celebration.

I am putting off doing anything of note because ABC Classical is on with the harpist, Marshall Maguire ( http://www.marshallmcguire.com/about ).  The guitar is fun and frustrating and quite beautiful but truly my first love has always been and will ever be, The Harp. 

Today has been a good day.  I climbed WAY up on the roof, happily not a steep pitched roof like our former house, to saw off overhanging branches.  As the house is built atop a hill with cantilevered decks overhanging the side, I was quite a way up.  I wasn't 'pulled' downward by looking down but I sure did plant my foot while sawing away.  Especially while pruning the last branch which was quite heavy.  Didn't want to let them drop onto the steep ground below as they would be difficult to retrieve - and I wanted to save them for the birds who get so few branches now.  But I really didn't want to be pulled over the edge by trying to hang on to them either. 

Have also attached more thick styrofoam panels to the aviaries.  The difference between bare metal exposed to the sun and the insulated metal is profound.  Nearly burned my hand on the bare metal - and of course the birds are feeling that radiated heat.  But the insulated metal, although not cool to the touch, was barely warm.  Have more to do but not much more gluing, mostly painting although there are still some narrow strips needing styrofoam.  Although the current colour of penis pink is not attractive (that's the colour you get when mixing together all the free leftover paint given by a friend) it is much neater than the brothel mess of fraying carpet attached to shiny insulation paper.  The last of that has gone in the bin.

Looked up when R was first diagnosed with Parkinsons.  May 22, 2013.  The Parkinsons hasn't progressed all that much in 5 1/2 years.  The dementia has.  Know it pains him that I am on the roof sawing off branches, that I am the one that manhandles the extension ladder into place, that I am the one that does the measuring and cutting of the styrofoam (not that I did a stellar job there!).  His ability to communicate his thoughts grows more difficult.  Words are being taken away from him.  Oh, he still has words just not the right words.  Sometimes we are truly at a loss.  Mostly I can guess what he's trying to say but sometimes not...frustrating for both of us.  I prattle on about things but have accepted that a) he mostly doesn't hear me (I no longer nag about the hearing aids) and b) even if he does hear me, he doesn't understand.  But I have to talk still.  Maybe that's why I've started writing a book.

Post 44 of 92

What's changed?  It seems I'm having another crack at writing a book.  That writers group has tickled something into life again.   I used to want to be a writer and for years I wrote and wrote and wrote so that it was as much a part of me as breathing - but always, save for the two book attempts, only and forever journaling.  Keeping a daily journal kept me sane at times when I made a lot of bad choices.  Not sure how I would've coped if I hadn't been writing things out every day. 

As for writing?  When I was with the writer, that particularly disastrous relationship, I tried to write for publication.  Old dried stick writing.  Bloody awful.  Yet my love for making things that weren't there before never died - still do that with art but writing?  I'm not original or intelligent enough to do more than cover the same ground, awkwardly, that others have done.  I used to be able to think about things more deeply than I do now.  I don't read my old journals for that reason (and for the fact that they stink like mildew -shut away in that trunk as they are).

Yet here I am again several thousand words into another world that started with the words, 'the buildings were tall'.  Not a very prepossessing phrase to start a book with but there you go.

Have spent an inordinate amount of time trying and discarding writing software.  Notepad doesn't cut it.  Used yWriter before and remember why I hated it.  After trying it again thought I might check out the reviews.  One reviewer called it 'intutive'.  His intuition must be very well developed!  Write Monkey was another that I used before.  Know I'm not IT savvy but surely directions followed should elicit a successful outcome.  Used Office Libre for awhile but it's really not for novels.  Discovered I couldn't (easily) find a way to start another chapter which started me on the quest for the near perfect FREE writing software.

Now have Freewriter and save for a couple of niggly bits it works well.  It's straightforward and not too weighed down with, for me, unnecessary bells and whistles.  Now if I can only get the backing up onto USB sticks sorted.  Keep getting error messages.  Have bought a brand new one today so here's hoping.  Having lost one and a half books to dead and dying computers I am a Backing Up Convert.

Making no promises to myself about the book.  If I don't finish it, fine.  If I do, wonderful!

Realize part of this is trying to make a life for myself for the future when I won't have the freedoms I enjoy now.  There will come a time when zipping around the place like I do today won't be possible.  I don't give the job Full Time Carer as much thought as perhaps I should.  I'm too busy and it will come soon enough.  Bugger.