SOS 14/3/20
As the world begins to lockdown, the garden couldn’t honestly be a better place to spend one’s time, could it?
As the world begins to lockdown, the garden couldn’t honestly be a better place to spend one’s time, could it?
I’m currently reading a very direct treatise on anachronism in historical fiction writing called, aptly, Medieval Underpants and Other Blunders, by Susanne Alleyn.
Hopefully most hist.fict writers are aware of anachronism and the shock it gives readers, and also the loss of trust in the writer’s research and editing.
As a reader, I’m reasonably forgiving but when I’m enjoying Roman, Dark Age or Medieval fiction, goosebumps jump over my arms and I shudder when I come up against ‘Okay’ or modern swear words and aphorisms that when checked, date from a far later timeframe.
Reading back over early posts written sometime between 2010 and 2014, I was struck by the way I used to be able to write about writing, about writers AND also write books. All at the same time.
These days, I can barely keep one ball in the air, let alone three and I wondered what the difference might be. What has happened since 2014 that makes me so much less of an acrobat?
Once upon a different place in time, the town of Triabunna lived and breathed an industry that clear-felled our native forests. The highways would thrum from before dawn till dusk with semi-trailers and B-doubles bringing their loads of huge specimens to be processed into woodchips and shipped to Japan and the island became split apart by those who supported the industry and those who wanted are more sustainable future. Aggression ran high in many towns across the state. In fact, the creation of the world’s first environmental political party began in Tasmania at this time and the Greens were born.
Japanese ships would arrive and pump their bilge into our bays and from them, we acquired unwanted marine pests like sea stars, weed and a voracious sea urchin. And yet the government paid no attention because the woodchips floated Tasmania.
But then a hole exploded in the market and places like Brazil began to market trees far more cheaply to the pulp industry and Tasmania’s market collapsed.
This post came out of a discussion on Facebook about Harry Wales ‘apparently’ (according to the media), avoiding a further discussion with his grandmother, the Queen, before delivering his statement on his family’s future.
“ “20/20” means “perfect vision”. Eye doctors measure people’s vision using two numbers. If the first number is low, your vision is good. If it’s high, you aren’t able to see well…”
So let’s take that a step further to envision what 2020 AD could be like with 20/20 vision.
Ah, that time of sparkle and glitter.
But do I mean summer or Christmas?
Truth?
It’s summer for me because here in Australia, summer means family, friends and fun for 3 or 4 months. Christmas is just another day in our summer as mentioned in a previous blog post on why I love summer more than Christmas.
This year of course, we celebrate with our little 17 month old grandson who, whilst still not understanding what it’s all about, will certainly understand presents and toys.
Last Christmas, I gave my husband a gift voucher for a helicopter flight over some of Tasmania’s iconic coastline. Digging around in the letter holder last week, I found the voucher and was horrified to find that the quite expensive tickets were expiring on 27th December, so it became rather urgent to use the voucher if we didn’t want the money to go down the gurgler.
And of course, husband being the wonderful man he is, wanted me to join him.
‘Great,’ I sighed. ‘Triffic…’
I’m the slowest reader ever.
I never was.
Once I would devour a book a week. But now I write and do many other things besides, and by bedtime, my only fiction reading time, I can manage a few pages if I’m lucky. It’s probably why I thank Matthew Harffy for setting me on the path of audiobooks after my first of three eye operations this year.
As we approach Christmas, I tried to explain to a friend today why Christmas is a secondary thing for our family. That summer is actually the extraordinary and much anticipated time of the year. I think I failed to make any impression at all! So I’ll try and explain here …