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Auld Lang Syne
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2156
The New Year, and the standard heap of resolutions. How to set yourself up for failure.
Now I have the same yellowed piece of paper that I've had the past 20 odd years, filled with the things that need changing. I'll post it above the desk for a few weeks before taking it down and carefully laying aside so I can check my progress next year. Generally I find I can just reuse the old list.
This year there are a few additions - Unpack & cleaning being high amongst them. And so I've begun to clear a path through the office - there's no way I'll get EVERYTHING I have into that rather tiny space, and so there will have to be a selection process, then a pile of boxes will be filed downstairs. When the office is done then there's the living room, not so tough but again overdue, there's no living done there, rather it's more the private quarters of a particular cat. There are the renovations (the unpacking was to follow the renovations, but in the absence of any immediate progress I'll unpack. That's a sure charm certain to guarantee me all the luck I'll need finding my materials...).
So far the New Year is looking rather like the old year.
Advice to Writers
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Link of the day
- Hits: 1499
This is good, and just in time for the New Year. Myself, I've resolved to write more, that's a daily thing, and there are some gems of inspiration here - writerly advice from writers to writers.
"Though our publishers will tell you that they are ever seeking “original” writers, nothing could be farther from the truth. What they want is more of the same, only thinly disguised. They most certainly do not want another Faulkner, another Melville, another Thoreau, another Whitman. What the public wants, no one knows. Not even the publishers."
-HENRY MILLER
Link: Advice to Writers
Link: Tweets / Advice to Writers on Twitter (Careful - there are so many GOOD links to follow here you might never get back to writing...)
dropping off the painting
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2419
I haven't been back to the restaurant for a few weeks, 6 maybe, I've been haunted by the painting of the owner's daughter in my kitchen.
But it's time, and I'll be damned glad to be rid of it.
G is back, the G who walked out the few days before my final departure, he completes the team: Everyone is now back that has left (in the front at least), and there are some new faces as well. I catch up with the boys, the Boss's nephew and G, the girl I trained up as my replacement (looking much slimmer and quite attractive, exercise, it would seem, agrees with her), the kitchen and the suppliers are the same, we drink coffee, chat, gossip about who's come and gone (nobody important), laugh about G's departure, and like Franco his return.
The Owner returns, and there's the customary Christmas pleasantries, I give him his painting.
There's the puzzlement on his face and I explain that it's his daughter. "See" I say "2 Eyes....how many does your daughter have?..." And I go through my trademarked spiel until he's forced to concede there's a resemblance.
"Maybe" I suggest "Your daughter should have plastic surgery..." but he doesn't hear me.
"Wait" he says and whistles "Until my wife sees this....".
The boss's nephew, he likes my stuff, he wants me to do his portrait next...
The Owner's Inflatable Daughter
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Dreams
- Hits: 1550
(Woke up at 6:00, thought it was 8:00, the coffee was already on when I discovered my mistake. Drank the coffee, attempted to nap. To little avail.)
I've got the painting - the Christmas gift - the painting I did of the Owner's daughter and I've popped around the restaurant to give it to him. Only I've leaned it badly in the back of the car and now there's a big dent in the canvas.
And I'm pulling it out of the car to look at the dent and I see that there's a tear in the canvas, but the Owner's there and I'll just give it to him anyways.
Now the stretcher bars fall out, and I'm holding the canvas in my hands, rolling it up and he's reaching for it to unroll it, only now it's a sheaf of unrelated sketches and drawings, the painting's disappeared completely and I'm rifling through these sketches, looking for it, but it's vanished, gone, pfft....
(And today is the day I pop around the restaurant to drop off the painting, this means something, but what?...)
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