Voices of Babylon
I have Google Voice set up for my phone, which is great as it makes me far more reachable wherever I am. It also provides a service that transcribes my voicemail.
Mirto has an accent that floats between Sweden, Greece and London. Google Voice is apparently confused by this which leaves me with wonderfully surreal messages that I like to imagine make sense to some parallel version of me. That or the messages have been translated to-and-from another language. Here is one I just received:
Hey, I’ve got that Boston’s in 5 minutes to take effect until about update,
I found at 12 o’clock shop. If you call me. Let me know what you want.
I was wondering. 14. I’m going to get the size of the coffee.
Combining cooking with science fascinates me, and this article starts from the basics: The perfect egg.
Italian photographer Stefano Bonazzi produces these wonderful surreal portraits. I particularly like this one as it reminds me of Magritte.
November rain
First, the great news: My better half has a permanent job! She’s been working on contract for a while and they finally realised, as I did some time ago, that they couldn’t possibly live without her and have insisted she stay on.
Now, the less good news: As part of her new permanent contract, our mutual friend must fly to Shanghai next week and stay there for ten days. This is very exciting, and a great opportunity for her to reveal herself as the rock star of apparel quality and vendor management that I know her to be, but I’m selfish and am going to miss her tremendously.
Finally the silver lining: NaNoWriMo starts this coming week and unlike last year, I don’t have the excuse of being new to the country, moving apartments or having a new job to fall back on and use to justify my failing to complete a novel in a month. And now I have an apartment to myself (and two dogs) for the first week.
I have also made some changes to my approach this year, which I’m hoping will improve my chances of completing the challenge:
Handwriting instead of typing
By handwriting, I hope not to get sucked in to the temptation of premature editing which should enable me to keep the creative flow going. Assuming I can get the creative flow started.
No planning
Last year, I started with an outline for a novel and a title, however once I stepped out of the bounds of that plan I became blocked. By not having a plan, I expect to be freer to just write.
Expect updates here as the month continues.
Yes, I am still alive. Between work, other bloggery, twitter and other projects (coming soon), this blog has fallen by the wayside I’m afraid.
Still, I’m posting this! Which is a really lame way of keeping it ticking over. Sorry.
Hopefully, the Other Half will post some news soon that she’s been waiting to talk about.
