Duty, deadines, determination and discipline

Deadlines. We deal with them all the time. They approach steadily, never by themselves, and we have to hit them before they crash and get us into trouble. I like to imagine them as like the little green aliens in Space Invaders games. The longer you leave them they faster they approach and the more they proliferate. When you've got someone chasing you, or a meeting report with a date and your initial written beside it, you know what you're dealing with. They want it by Friday, you aim to get it there on Thursday night (or if it's me, more likely Saturday morning because unless I'm given strict guidelines, 4a.m. still counts as Friday night).

What about the projects that don't have set deadlines, the ones you can put off for almost ever? How do you make sure that they ever get finished? At the risk of beginning to sound like a Victorian moralist, last time I wrote about duty and now I'm thinking about discipline.

Now I'm cutting myself loose from my biggest client to do my duty, I'm going to have to set my own goals, impose my own some deadlines then make sure that I want to hit them. We can use time management techniques to sort out which ones to do first, or to delegate or ditch entirely. We can get ourselves into good habits. We all have some of those: I wouldn't dream of going out without brushing my teeth or locking the door; I always recycle everything the council take; I even bring my plastic back from my holidays.

But to make things happen, you really have to want to make them happen. Without the determination, it all fades away. Finishing off books, for example, everything that you have on your "wouldn't it be nice..." list. How do we set and stick to our own deadlines when no-one is chasing us, or won't pay us if it doesn't get finished? Now that all my big projects are going to be like that for a year at least, can I be relied on to chase myself up? What's my incentive to keep shooting down the aliens?

It's not so much about the small stuff with me; I procrastinate on a grand scale. I take on to much big stuff, then stretch myself beyond any reasonable limit, filling my screen up with thumping aliens and buzzing about like a bluebottle trying to knock them all out before they invade. (And if you don't know what it's like to play Space Invaders, go here www.freespaceinvaders.org. Or even if you do.) In the early 1980s, I did get quite good at Space Invaders, up to 14 screens. You do it by keeping a cool head and a sense of perspective and by wasting loads of time getting good at it. Probably a bad example of discipline.

It's a question of deciding what's important. Then getting on with it. I've got my list (see earlier topics) and I'll make myself a future mood board. (Of which more soon.) From May to July I've got to spend time clearing out old projects that I really will never finish, so that they don't weigh me down with guilt.

Talking of which, if you're anywhere near W13, put 15th May in your diary. I'm having a car boot sale, except in my own front room and just for nice people. I'll be making coffee.

Discipline. Yes. Let's impose a little and bring myself back to the point. From May 2010 to April 2011, the year I've given myself to get things done, I need to get things done. There's definitely going to be some room for slacking about faffing and fiddling, because it's in the faffing and fiddling times that you have your best ideas, as long as you've been taking the time to observe, contemplate, consider and plan. And talking of plans, I've got one, but I'll keep it flexible, because all the best plans should adapt to fit the circumstances.

As stated in many other places on paper and in the ether, I plan to have a building where I can run writing workshops and yoga classes and where people can come for a good creative think, and a decent coffee. So let's see how we get along, shall we?

Duty: time for rehabilitation

Duty is underrated. It was pretty popular in the 19th Century, then it went out of favour while we were busy achieving our potential, pursuing our goals and getting in touch with our inner selfishness. As I find myself in a position where I have a bit of duty to do, I've decided that I might as well apreciate the opportunity rather than resent it. That's all very well but one problem with doing your duty is that it can turn out tobe a bit of a drain on your resources. Last year was bonkers. I spent half my life on the train to Sunderland, visiting my mother in hospital (after a series of falls) and rehabilitation homes (where she passed all her tests to show she could look after herself at home - but couldn't), then working with my sister to get her a place in a marvellous care home in York, organising the house move and working out what to do with the contents of an eight-roomed family house. The other half was spent on trains to Poole, down to Lush, the people to whom I've dedicated most of my work life since 1996. With no time in between to do anything but sleep, our house looks like it's been burgled by a gang of monkeys who failed to find the bananas despite looking everywhere.

So here I am, doing my best to be a hard-working creative sort, writing for a living and filling my spare time with suitably mind-expanding projects, then I discover that I've got an old person's life to take care of. No choice really. There's a pile of paperwork to do, the family home to tidy up and rent out, and a never ending list of apparently insignificant items to buy from mail order companies and have delivered to York, because if I don't, I get reminded at least once a week and several other people call me to explain that my mother has told them I've forgotten to buy her important items from mail order. (To be fair, I share this chore with my sister, who also gets the day to day duties.)

So now I've now got two lives to administer (when I'm already somewhat behind with the running of my own), I also discover that I can't fit in a job that regularly takes over evenings and weekends.

Children, start saving up now. When I was 23 I embarked upon a savings scheme; this means that in a couple of weeks time I can reclaim a small pile of cash that will buy me a year off (as long as I only spend money on food and bills). Yes, I ought to save it for when I'm 80 and I retire, but I might not last until then, and besides, I need it now. If you're 23, the moment where you'll have to step in and look after your parents might seem like a long way off, but believe me, your life is over in a flash. So start saving. You'll be able to take a year off work too. I've no idea how I'll get on without a job; I've been working hard to impress people since the age of four.

Tracking back a bit, one of the most difficult parts will be the bit that involves not buying anything. I haven't done that since I was four either.

So anyway, back to duty and where it fits into 4160Tuesdays.

While I've been saving up, I've also been collecting stuff, way too much of it. I've got stuff to paint pictures, to make clothes, to listen to, to watch, to make jewellery, to write with, to write books in, to write letters on, to read, to practise yoga with, to wear, to scent myself with, to decorate myself, to burn, to plant and just to look at and admire. I've got about twice as much of all of this stuff as I've got space for. So as well as getting rid of it - by eBay, freecycle, charity shops and generally using it up and wearing it out - I'll be pulling my socks up and doing things I've been meaning to do for ages. (And lots more yoga or I'll go bananas.)

My plan is to report here regularly.. Until 30th April I'm still working for Lush. (The boss has kindly said that once I feel that my duty is done I can call him and go back there, which makes the leap less frightening. Say what you like about safely nets; I think that they make you more adventurous.) After that, when I've handed over editorship of my precious Lush Times to the admirable Harry Blamire, it's six months tying up loose ands and six months unravelling a few beginnings.

For the 52 Tuesdays from May '10 to April '11 I'll see if I can create a new system, set up a way to earn a living at the same time as doing my duty as a daughter. There are lots of us in this boat; how do we earn a living while we run around after our parents? A generation ago, when one half of most partnerships didn't work, it wasn't such a problem. Your mum looked after your gran (or both grans). Now we both have to earn a living, what's supposed to happen? I'm starting to find out.

Just as working mothers hire nannies to look after the kids, working children hire carers to deal with their parents. These are new problems, and employers haven't got the rules in place to deal with them yet. You can't take a morning off to take your mother to the hospital. My sister and I are both self-employed with working partners. How else would we be able to do this?

Duty. It's got to be done. But the mortgage has to be paid. Not everyone can take time off to sort these things out and I thank my dear departed dad for bossing me into saving at an early age. He knew a thing or two about duty. If he hadn't saved up from the age of 23, my mother wouldn't have been able to live in the beautiful place she does now. I'll be letting you know how it works out.

(By the way, if you're looking for a place to live when you're old, get your name down on the list for Lamel Beeches, the Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust home in York. Joanne and the team are the world's best. Bar none.)

Father Frost - A Morality Tale

Father Frost
Father Frost is a northern European winter tale that turns up with slight variations. Here's a new version, from Father Frost's point of view.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Once upon a time in December, Father Frost was travelling north. He'd spent most of the year camped out at the pointy end of Patagonia where it was as frosty as the frosting on a frozen ice cream cake. He also rather like watching the penguins. Humming his favourite Beatles song, he guided his sleigh with a skilful flick of the wrist so his three faithful reindeer knew just where to set him down in northern Russia. The air crackled as he inhaled the reassuringly cold atmosphere, cold enough to kill any normal man. This was his land, his territory and he was reclaiming his kingdom where he reigned unchallenged every Yuletide.

Each year he hoped to find a worthy companion, someone he could trust, someone who didn't just want to be by his side because he was powerful or rich or famous or dangerous. He was all of these things and old enough to know that they usually attracted exactly the wrong sort of people.

As he glanced around his kingdom he saw something move in the forest, so he headed towards it. It was a girl, a pretty girl who was shivering with cold, and dressed in what looked like last year's summer party clothes, anyway they were hardly adequate for the occasion. In the distance, he saw an old man walking away with his shoulders hunched; he looked as though he was sobbing in pain and misery.

"Here we go," thought Father Frost, "yet another example of the appalling behaviour that I've come to expect from these people." As he got closer to the girl she started to shake with terror as well as with the cold. He had this effect on people as soon as they recognized him. Nevertheless she looked him straight in the icy blue eyes and said politely,
"Good afternoon, Father Frost. I hope that your journey wasn't too tiring."
"It was fine, thanks," said Father Frost, "and how are you? Not too cold out here?" He smiled rather wickedly at this challenge and wondered which of the many lines he'd heard before she would try out on him.
" I'm great!" she said as cheerfully as she could manage through chattering teeth. That was a new one. Usually they begged for his pity, asked us to be wrapped up in his nice warm cloak and attempted to wheedle their way his affections. Sometimes it worked, but he would get bored with them, and gently freeze them to death with one ice cold breath.
"It can't last,” he thought to himself and asked her again but every time she told him she was doing fine even though it was as clear as an icicle that she was about to drop dead with cold.
"Could it be?" he wondered, "that I have finally found a genuinely unselfish human being?" and he decided to reward her for her patience. He wrapped her up in furs (because in those days there were no synthetic fibres and no animal rights campaigners) and whisked her off to his palace, where she had a nice warm bath and found the most beautiful blue velvet clothes waiting for her, some stunning silver jewellery and a great big box of treasure.

"This is really very kind of you, Father Frost," she said, "but I can't possibly accept them. Besides, now that my stepmother has thrown me out of the house, if I go back there I'm sure she'll have my dad put to death and I couldn't bear that to happen, so if it's alright with you, I’ll just take the cloak and a good pair of boots and be on my way."

Father Frost sent the reindeer and the sleigh off to bring her dad back to the palace, then loaded the treasure, daughter and dad onto his magic vehicle and sent them back home. Occasionally he liked to set up a little scenario and watch how it played out but this one was worse than he could have imagined. When she saw all the precious things, the evil stepmother, who had sent our lovely girl out to the woods to die, decided to send her own rather unpleasant, greedy daughter out there too. It didn't go well. The greedy girl complained, moaned, whinged and whimpered until Father Frost was so bored, he exhaled on her and turned her to snow then blew a bit harder and caused a blizzard in Stockton on Tees.

Now that he had finally found someone who could be trusted, he invited his new friend to help him give out all the good children's rewards at Yuletide. He didn't ask her name. He decided to call her Snowflake and asked her always to wear beautiful blue and silver clothes. Even though she was quite an independent minded young woman she decided that this was fair enough, considering the circumstances. From that day onwards she accompanied him around the world and really enjoyed watching the penguins in Patagonia.

Quoting Mr Jim Alfonso Laurel

I don't usually nick other people's words to fill up my own space - in fact this is a first - but Jim Alfonso Laurel (this may be his pen name) deserves credit. When I'm working with writers my aim is usually to get their work read and acted upon. How can you make your writing interesting enough for your reader to start at the beginning and keep going until the end, then do what you want them to do? In fact, I shan't be doing what Jim Alfonso Laurel wishes, but I couldn't help reading to the end. His is only a slight variation on a theme with which most of us are unfortuantely familiar, but I do like his approach. Back soon with some of my own words. I just hope I can make them as compelling as Jim's.

Don't call him though.

Dear Sir/Madam,

Before I proceed, I must first apologize for this unsolicited letter to you. I am aware that this is certainly not a conventional way of approach to establish a relationship of trust, but I do have limited choice. My name is Jim Alfonso Laurel a Solicitor working with HMCS(HER MAJESTY COURT SERVICES), London United Kingdom. Actually, I got your contact address from the internet while searching for a reputable business partner in your country's public records. My Late client, a business mogul who had casinos and restaurants, lived in Spain for many years, my client, his wife and their one child were involved in an underground train crash in the eastern city of Valencia as Victims of the Tuesday, 4 July 2006, Incident that befall the Spanish You can confirm through this website

(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5143738.stm)

Before his death, on my advice as his lawyer he deposited One Trunk Box, containing the sum of $7.3M (Seven Million, Three Hundred Thousand US

Dollars) as a family valuable with a security company here in London, on a highly security form but he did not disclosed the content of deposited consignment to the Security company, for security reasons. The security company has mandated me to present any family heir/next of kin for claims, before the consignment gets confiscated or reverts to the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, as unclaimed consignment. So I decided to search for any of my late client's relative which has been very difficult for me, as he did not declare any other person, address, partner or relatives in the official paper works of his consignment deposit. He was my private client.

I will not like you to involve any third party in this transaction, just me and you .Besides I am doing this on my own personal capacity and do not wish t o bring my office into it.

Against this backdrop, my suggestion to you is that I will like you as a foreigner to stand as the next of kin to my client, with my position as his lawyer, I will now appoint and recognize you as the heir/next of kin.

I will obtain every relevant document from the probate to make your claim legal. Note that this process is not risky in any manner and it is completely legal but might not be justified morally.

Once the deposit is released to you, I am proposing 20% of the total sum to you for your involvement.10% would be set aside for any expenses that could be incurred during the transaction. I would retain 50% for myself.

Note that when the whole documents are ready, I will direct you on how to approach the security company and make application for the release of the consignment to you.

If this proposal does offend your moral values please pardon me otherwise reply via my private email address: jimlaurel@mail.kz for further clarification. Please be kind to get back to me if you are not interested so that I can further my search for another partner.

Regards

Jim Alfonso Laurel (ESQ)

+44 704 570 4325

+44 704 577 1083

Crystal Balls for Business Writers

"Now that we've all gone casual and chatty when we write," said Mr. 4160 last night, "what do you think will be next? Going serious and using masses of jargon?"

So I had a bit of a think.

Based on what happens in writing workhops - the ones I've been in; I can't speak for the others - I'd predict that we're going to be tidying up our English. At every workshop I've run, I've told everyone that they are not in a grammar class and no-one's going to start lecturing about accuracy; on the other hand, when you're in a room full of people who write for a living, and no-one's going to judge you if you've got a question, it's probably a good time to air your worries. I might ask, opening the shutters a little, "Where would you use brackets and where would you use dashes?" Then it all pours out: semi-colons, it's and its, different to, than or from. Just like which knife and fork to start with, it's not life and death, but people want to do it right.

In my experience, there are two groups of people who say they don't care about where apostrophes go. The first: people with masters degrees in languages, literature or linguistics. The second: the deeply insecure who hate being taught and disliked the way they were forced to learn at school.
Greengrocers care deeply where apostrophes go; they just get it wrong.

The first group talk about the Greengrocers' Apostrophe, the one that turns up in "Apple's £1 a basket" or "Fresh farm egg's". There is a common misunderstanding that apostrophes go in plurals, which they don't if you follow the generally accepted, current guidelines. The outstandingly educated people I know put it all into historical context and talk about the evolution of language; if that's the way the common man writes, then that is the way the language will go. Mind you, they wouldn't be seen dead with their own apostrophes out of place. (For the best ever discussion about this read David Foster Wallace in Consider the Lobster.)

The second group never seem to mind if their spelling is corrected. It's fine for spelling to be unequivocally right or wrong (although any research into Mr. Shakespeare's or Miss Austen's original works might change their minds) but questioning their grammar and punctuation is like suggesting they work on improving their dancing, driving or sexual techniques.

Nope, I think that the greengrocers do care. Why else would they bother to put them in at all? There's a beautiful mix up I've seen in a cafe window: Tea's, Coffees and Breakfast's. What was it that went through the mind of the signwriter as he or she wrote it? What is it about coffees that makes it exempt?

That picture was in New Look's window in York this summer. Gladiator sandals was £20. Did no-one ever say, "Ahem, shouldn't we say "were" because there's more than one sandal?" Not one person? In the whole approval process from concept to window, everyone thought it was fine to write was instead of were? I'll tell you who would have kicked up a fuss, anyone French, German, Spanish or Italian who had learned English at school. One of my foreign colleagues recently asked me why a native English speaker had made a particular mistake and the best answer I could give at the time was, "He's doing his very best but he's not as well educated as you are." Rude, I know, but what would you say?

For me, taking time to check that your writing says what you mean is simple politeness. You are hoping that someone will read it and understand it, then act on it. New Look were hoping that people would buy the sandals; the cafe wants to sell breakfasts and they probably will. Only the most severe of Trussites would punish errors by withholding their business.
If you want to check that your writing is clear, pass it to someone else to read out loud; if they trip over the words, then it needs more work. BBC newsreaders say they can read anything, live with no rehearsal, as long as it's been punctuated correctly.

For me, getting it right it not about the writer and his or her ego, their past education, their concerns about where they fit into the class system, authenticity or any of the other excuses I've heard. It's about being considerate, kind and polite.

It's like deciding whether or not to use the indicators when you're driving or sticking your arms out when you're cycling. It's making your intentions clear to others so that they can make a decision based on what you are telling them. If you can't be bothered to give clear signals, whether they are hands, flashing lights or semi-colons, then you are being inconsiderate. If you're misunderstood it's your own silly fault.

Life's too short to waste time explaining yourself twice. Once is bad enough.
If you'd like to check the guidelines go for the Penguin Writer's Manual. It's small, light, cheap and easy to read. It sheds light where there is darkness.

Incidentally, Word's built in grammar checker quite often gets it wrong.

If you'd like to come to one of our workshops, get in touch.
If you'd like us to run one at your organisation, same applies.

Writing workshops coming up. Want to come too?
We'll be at the Swedenborg Society in Bloomsbury on 25th September, 23rd October and 20th November, Fridays all.
Do say if you'd like to come along. (They're extraordinarily good value, full of practical and inspiring ways to keep you writing even on your blank paper days, and make you even better at it.
We also have very good biscuits.
We'll be in a fascinating setting with equally fascinating people and you'll bounce out at the end of the session full of good ideas.

Ears

My neighbour, Matt, was one of the first people I saw using an earpiece for his mobile phone. This was late in the last century. Naturally, I wanted one too even though he apeared to be a bonkers person chatting to his imaginary friend. With my next phone, they gave me a free one. Great, I thought, until I put it in my ear. It fell out. I tried the other ear. Out it fell. There was obviously something wrong with this particular earpiece. I could not for the life of me work out how other people could wander around, jog even, with these small things happily hanging in their natural hearing devices. I had to make calls with my hand holding it in place, so I might as well have just held the phone there (except at the time we all thought we were going to get ear cancer from using phones; there were rumours of phones frying eggs - remember those?).

I had the same problem when airlines started to turn their headphones into micro-earphones. I spent one long haul flight with my eye-mask wrapped around my head to keep the silly things in so I could watch the films.

As for those useless things that come with an iPod - not a chance. I was looking forward to dancing down the street like the groovy people in the posters. Not a hope. I can just about keep them in if I sit still and pretend to be a statue. Even then, they slowly slide away and fall off in their own time. And yes, I can dance; that wasn't the problem.

You'll never guess what. I've got the wrong shaped ears. Not everyone has ears with a V-shaped notch. Mine are notch-free. So are my friend Kathy's and my nephew Alex's. I have to wear the ones that wrap around your ears and hold them in place or the great big ones that only people under 23 or in the music industry can pull off without looking like giant pillocks. I'm saving up for the Bang&Olufsens, but only when they make them in purple. Currently the special editions are the exact colours in which Ford brought out the special edition Mark 2 Cortinas: lemon, lime and orange. B&O, when you do plum and raspberry I'm all yours. (Ford followed up with metallic purple.)

Currently I have some shiny pink ones that match my i-Pod and came from Singapore airport, purchased for around £5 (called iLove and not the slightest bit looking as if they might be manufactured by apple, ahem... ).

I found out when I took a look at my ears in one of those hotel bathroom mirror arrangements that allows you to see the back and side of your own head, a situation which is so rare and entertaining that I usually like to take a long close look. My ears have no V, just a slanty I. All became clear.

The point? I now look at ears. Most of them have the V but around 5% of us don't (according to my statistically unsound survey of my friends and people whose heads I happen to notice in passing). That's a lot of ears. Has no-one told apple? Or do apple just reckon that we, the earily challenged, will go out and buy our own?

So there's today's idea for you. Go create an affordable pair of earphones we can find somewhere this side of Singapore and point out that many, many people don't have V-ears, they have I-ears.