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Posts Tagged ‘life’

Amazing cultural differences insight

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on August 15, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Yesterday, I was bumming around on Instagram, when I caught sight of one of the channels I watch fairly regularly. It’s a big tall English guy, Isaac, married to a Chinese woman with kids and in laws. He has some really interesting posts. This one was about washing shoes in the washing machine, which led to a whole conversation with my daughter-in-law. The Instagram channel is @fisherzhangs_in_china and the post was about their new washing machine, Chinese designed and made, Little Swan Xiao Wu Mei Multi-drum laundry room with dedicated shoe-washing drawer.

So I started commenting on the post and Ferdi, my D-I-L says yes, I was so surprised when I saw you put your runners in your washing machine when I first went to Australia. Now, I have to admit that when Ferdi and my son first came to stay just after they got married and Covid allowed them to travel, I thought Ferdi was germ phobic. You know with Covid and all that, who wouldn’t be.

She was very particular, used disinfectant in the washing machine, cleaned her phone screen with alcohol wipes, every day (maybe more often)-(this habit I have adopted because eeww! phone screens and germs). Also, even with things that go in the fridge. Uncovered things etc. Nope.

But last night, the whole cultural difference was pulled out and explored. Chinese people wash their underwear separately. They also wash socks separately and then the clothes go together. I haven’t asked about towels and stuff but I will. I tend to wash towels together so I’m not completely ick!

She explained how Taamati now sorts the washing like a Chinese person and that they have three baskets for underwear, socks and then clothes. How did I not know this?

Here is me, time poor, generally, just shoving whatever into our large 10kg front loader. I mean separating the whites from the darks is hard enough but, this information has me reconsidering.

There is definitely a logic behind it all.

Ferdi says most people will probably handwash their underwear but they would not put shoes in the washing machine. According to Isaac’s relatives, you send your shoes to a shoe cleaning shop or clean kids shoes with a brush.

Now the Little Swan has a shoe cleaning drawer!

Ferdi and I popped onto Tao Bao to look up the washing machine, which probably costs around $2000 Singaporean. We even called Taamati, who is currently in Shanghai and he’s like -not until we buy a house. It’s a very cool looking machine. I think I can find a link for laundry eye candy. Link here.

Anyway, what a clever thing.

While we were on the call, Taamati showed us the hotel toilet, which the lid opens when you walk in. It’s a Japanese style one with bidet etc. Everything is button controlled and you don’t touch the toilet except with your butt I suppose.

Generally we ended the conversation on how clever the Chinese are.

But for me, it made me understand how little things, like how you wash your clothes (and shoes) can create barriers to understanding and expose cultural differences.

Also, how cool is my daughter-in-law because our family is completely weird and non-traditional compared to Chinese families and culture and she is very open minded, even when I weird her out by washing my runners in the family washing machine. I had been thinking this before we discussed laundering methods, btww.

There is probably a lot more cultural differences to flesh out between us.

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Deleting the past and reminiscing about change

Posted in A writer's life, am wrinting, tagged , , , , , , , , , on August 13, 2026| Leave a Comment »

My gmail accounts are too full and I’m running out of space. I can’t just do a global delete on terms like Twitter because random stuff gets pulled in. Someone may have their twitter handle in their email signature etc. So it’s a manual process.

It was funny as I was deleting all these notifications. Why did I have them turned on in the first place? I think after a number of years I did turn them off. But going through that old stuff, from way back in 2012 and maybe earlier, brought back memories. There was a Conflux that Nicole R Murphy and I ran and all the old emails for that. Twitter because I used to love that place and it got me thinking how I left because Elon ‘turned the evil and joined the dark side.’ Those people who I loved connecting with but now don’t at all.

And that got me thinking about Doctorow’s Enshitification theory and then my brain went into a feedback loop. Companies and people making super profits is just way wrong. Consider, I have bought maybe a dozen copies of Microsoft Office over the years. They used to be stand alone one off purchase and then I could never find the disc with the code or I’d buy a new computer and just get it loaded. I had Adobe Creative Cloud stuff and that stopped working and next time it was a monthly rental fee, way more than I ever earn that would pay for it. And now I pay a yearly fee Microsoft Office for something I bought over and over again. Loyally and legally. Microsoft are making huge profits so why am I paying still?

Okay so I’m stupid maybe but why?

Why isn’t it a token amount? They still get a profit but it is not exploitative profit. Same with banks and all of them, really. They just want more profit, more money and it’s accumulating in too few people.

There was an uproar on Threads recently because Canva is moving stuff to a professional level and has also changed the QR codes that were available on the free version. To be honest I hadn’t twigged when I did a recent back of QR coded bookmarks. It had a little c in the centre and I looked but didn’t see if you know what I mean. I suppose this means if I don’t keep up my subscription the QRs won’t work. And I use that subscription maybe once every few months so not really worth the $20 for me. I’m not very arty.

This rent I’m paying for these things and will probably soon pay for everything is crazy. Soon I’ll have to stop having things because I’m retired now and on limited income. Somethings are optional, like streaming. Britbox, for example, put up their fee by 50% this year so I’m going to unsubscribe because at the same time they were offering a cheaper price for new sign ons. I feel I have to watch Britbox because I paid so much for it. However, I don’t have to watch. I’d rather by physical media anyhow. I stick with Netflix because they were forerunners but I am spending too much on them so really need to adjust my plan.

But things like email and stuff like that well aren’t as optional. Iinet, for example, who I have been with since it was Ozemail, decided they didn’t want to do email anymore. They peeled that off to the Messaging Company, who you ended up having to pay for something that you already had included in your price. Then that price doubled the next year with the new mob and I closed my iinet email account. It was a huge job to change it and annoying but I felt it wasn’t fair.

Which reminds me I must quit iinet for my nbn, too. because hey that whole we aren’t doing email anymore thing sucked and I’m angry and no longer loyal. I’ll be looking for better price and better service elsewhere.

Life is not all about money. There used to be such things as social good, community, the greater good, public good and so on. Why does everything seem to be all about money and power? I feel trapped in some future dystopian SF novel but it’s reality.

I’m currently in Singapore. I don’t consider myself poor but I’m definitely not rich. And all the designer stuff I see, I wonder who can afford that stuff and why? It blows my mind, really.

Then there is AI and accusations about people using it, people using it and lying about it and so on. Before I retired, the department wanted people to use AI to write emails, read reports and so on. I don’t think an AI has my life experience to pick up things that I would if I read and analysed a report. And if AI wrote all my emails, where am I in this? I tell it what to write. But then I sound like an AI wrote my email.

As I was going through my emails and deleting old Twitter, Ebay and other notifications I saw all my drafts of books that I’ve sent myself over the years. I’m not deleting them because I might need them one day when someone claims AI wrote my books. AI companies used my books to train their agents btw without any compensation or permission. So at least I have the evidence that I wrote them, some of the attachments have very crappy drafts that don’t reflect my final product but they do have the dates.

For creative arts, like writing, composing, scriptwriting and art and illustration, I firmly believe you don’t need AI to write for you and I think using it for cover art is a kind of theft from the real artists. I also have views about AI translations and audio books. I saw some people on a book group I am in talking about massive profits from AI translations. I wondered why if they made so much money why they couldn’t pay a real person to translate for them. A thought I did not voice. I also saw one that will clone your own voice to read your audio book. I know my reading sucks but I’d rather read my own than artificially appear more articulate than I am. Also, reading your own work has value. You find typos and you learn some of your sentences and word usages are too complicated to read. Lol.

For finding information, for repetitive tasks sure why not? But the energy AI data centres consume and the water? Do we really need that drain on resources? AI is going to take jobs, I know. Technology has been taking jobs for maybe 150 years. I remember the huge stagflation (high inflation and high unemployment) in Australia in the 1970s with the oil shock and the advent of computers. In those days it was punch cards at the stock exchange, for example, that I had direct experience with but eventually years later the trading floor was not full of humans anymore and trading is now done through a computer system.

Right now we are in a oil shock and a technology shift. I don’t think we have had the full impact yet. We have protectionism, tariffs used as weapons, as well. We have crazy international stuff going down. If I was a doomsayer, and believe me I have those tendencies, I would say we are in for a rocky ride.

Stop the ride! I wanna get off now.

PS now back to writing fantasy to escape all this nasty reality.

PSS I bought a book and have been doing some research and this has fueled ideas. I’m happy about that.

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Procrastaposting!

Posted in A writer's life, Creative passion, Querying agents, research, Singapore, Steampunk, Travel, tagged , , , , on August 11, 2026| 1 Comment »

I should be hard at work on Amethyst Way this morning. I’m up to 7,000 words but I realised last night that I need to understand Milly better and spend a bit of time with her before I head off into the action. So I need to write another chapter before I kick off the mystery bit. As much as I love Jemima I want the billing to feature Milly in equal parts. I also want to have fun with the narrative. So while I’m lining up my thoughts, I figured a blog post might help.

I’m in the apartment alone for most of the day. I was, too, yesterday but I wrote quite a bit, read, blogged and napped. I’ve done my pool walk and had breakfast. The headline news this morning is that the fancy robot vac has stopped just after starting. I don’t know what’s wrong with it as it speaks Mandarin and talks like an anime character. I love the sound of it. Last week, I was in my room and the robo vac came in and started talking to me in English, but that was my son using the onboard camera and mic. We had good laugh. Anyway, I tried restarting it a few times and it just stops. It is probably something simple but I’ll wait until Ferdi comes back.

If I get bored today I will go out even if its just for the exercise. A round trip on the metro is about 5000 steps! Mostly in airconditioning mind you, so very, very civilised. I weighed myself this morning and despite my exercise and a change in diet where I think I eat less every day, I have probably only toned up and lost a kilo. This is better than gaining weight, which I normally do while I travel.

Also in the apartment is an automated cat litter. I have one at home but not this fancy. This one bags up the doo doo and the used litter and puts into bags, which are stored in a tower. Every few days you empty the pile of bags and there’s no smell. Very high tech. I wonder if they will have something invented for me when I can’t use the loo when I’m old (cough older). I have no idea of the cost of this contraptions. It’s a Petkit so Chinese invented and made.

Another reason that I’m procrastaposting is that I need to do some research. I borrowed some books but I left them at home. Research is good for accuracy but also for inspiration. Now I’ll probably end up restructuring the beginning of my draft, which is something I normally frown upon because I should just keep going and get the draft down and that works generally. However, I don’t feel pressed for time so I’m going to sort it out before I move forward.

In other general news, I received a rejection from an agent I subbed to in February this year, who had a time frame of 8-10 weeks. I reckon I was the victim of a clean out. Ooh I forgot to reject that one. Six months. At least, they wrote to me. Often these days it is forget after 6 weeks or something. I think agents are good to have for traditional publishing but they are a bastard to get.

The editing/writing assistant has just arrived so it must be time for serious work.

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Still in Singapore

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on July 28, 2026| Leave a Comment »

It’s lovely. The weather is warm, of course, but less humid than on my visit last year. Or so my body thinks.

I have been to the pool every morning so far. Yay me. It is so convenient as the pool is downstairs. At home I have to drive for 20 minutes so it’s an event, rather than every day.

We caught some of the birthday fireworks. It’s not Singapore’s birthday yet but these are the lead up. We are right next to the stadium so the fireworks sounded like bombs going off. Very scary. We caught the last one.

Last hoorah of Singapore’s fireworks on the weekend.

I have started working on the revision to Gentleman Magician. I need to get a move on with that. However, it shouldn’t be too long if I knuckle down.

I’ve also been editing audio files for The Founders’ Legacy. And well that takes a lot of time and some of the errors (pickups) I can’t do here. I tried but the sound quality is different and I hate the sound of my voice so much anyway and the way I stumble over words that I feel that I might start over again, again, again. At least I got the whole book down this time, instead of redoing chapter one over and over again. Practice makes perfect.

But again, I winkled some more typos out so I have updated the files, yet again. I’m going to stop typo hunting now so I can move on. I found the issue was really in Vellum, the program I use to format the books. Somehow I had an option on to automatically correct spelling errors. I didn’t even know that option existed. My novel has a whole lot of made up pronouns, strange names and Vellum changed them and created chaos. All that careful proofreading torn up. However, I believe it is sorted now. But if someone mentions typos I may go up in flames.

For Russell Kirkpatrick’s memorial, which I’ll miss in person, is on Friday. Kylie kindly asked me to talk about Russell’s writing and links to the writing community. I have sent that video off but damn that was hard. In the end I just had to run with it, be as natural as I could, even though I hated listening and looking at me and I didn’t want to become emotional.

In other news, The Founders’ Legacy is for free on Kobo for a little bit. Hopefully this universal link will work. Barnes and Noble is inaccessible from Singapore for some reason. Link for The Founders’ Legacy. Here.

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I’m in Singapore (for a bit)

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on July 25, 2026| Leave a Comment »

I arrived on Thursday evening and I’m adjusting to the slight time difference. I’m not quite there yet. I am here mostly to chill and be with my son and my daughter-in-law. There are a couple of things I’d like to do. Maybe visit the science museum on recommendation from a writing buddy. Also, a Portal exhibition of SF and fantasy miniatures came up on instagram so we will go to that. And catching up with a couple of friends.

I usually set some goals when I come for a long visit. Five weeks is a long visit. Enough to get a break and settle my mind. First goal is to get to the pool to walk everyday, usually early morning. Two days in and I’ve done that. This is to help keep me fit. Something I have been neglecting. To eat good food but to be food smart because I have gained 5 kilos since I was here last year and that’s not good. I am meant to be losing kilos not gaining them!

Writing wise, I have a few things on. My original plan was to start drafting Amethyst Way, the next Cry Havoc novel. However, I need to revise Gentleman Magician first and I have booked it in for an edit so best get going.

The other thing was edit the audio book of The Founders’ Legacy. I’ve recorded it but not edited and mastered it. I did a bit of that yesterday but I may switch to Gentleman Magician as that’s more pressing (and less frustrating).

The audio book recording is such a challenge. Sometimes your mouth does not obey your commands and you mumble or say the wrong word. Eep. Then there are words you can write but not easily say. For example, self-congratulatory which I can say but not when I’m recording myself etc. There are other tongue twisters like ignominy, preliminary and many others. And dealing with non-gendered invented pronouns! Oh well, hopefully I will learn from this.

Anyway, the only picture I have taken is of the pool and noodles from last night oh and the delightful meal my daughter-in-law cooked when I arrived. Did I mention that noodles are my friend? My daughter-in-law and I bond over noodles.

Next post is a tribute to Russell Kirkpatrick, who passed away fairly suddenly.

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Life’s upheavals

Posted in A writer's life, Creative passion, distractions, Life, the universe and everthing, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on June 11, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Sometimes you just have to live with whatever. Sometimes you might feel you are in a vortex of shit.

On Monday, which was a very lovely day in Canberra, I went for a walk around the lake and then on to the Botanical Gardens with friends. Just near the end of my walk in the gardens, I did not see a step. And wow does landing on your knees hurt! I managed to hobble out there and put on a brave face. When I got home, I asked Matthew to clean the grazes with alcohol wipes. I might have screamed. However, they had to be cleaned. I managed dinner with friends being dropped by the door of the restaurant.

Some pictures from the walk.

I slept with my legs elevated because I expected swelling and the next morning I was not surprised to have jelly knees. I spent the day vegging in front of the TV, eating all the inappropriate food I could find. I contacted the office of orthopaedic surgeon who did my partial knee replacements and he requested an Xray. My view of the Xray is that it’s all okay bone wise, no breaks, the arthritis on the knee cap is worse that previously. I’m guessing it’s just soft tissue damage. The surgeon hasn’t called so I’m thinking there are no issues with my prosthesis either.

A picture of gumnuts!

Anyhow I can mostly walk okay. Occasionally the right knee gives and the right knee does not like leading the way upstairs. The swelling has come down somewhat.

In amongst all this are some family issues, some friends adversely affected by health news and I wonder if the stars are in the wrong quarter or something. The world is pretty shit too and all in all it is quite difficult to stay positive.

I moved out of my craft room on the weekend too. And it looks like I’m going to sell my floor loom. I’m not using it enough to justify the space it takes up. And I’m hoping I kept my craft makings accessible this time but with the knees I cannot assemble shelves and finish the tidy up. The test will come when I want to work on something. These days it is sewing that floats my boat. If you can believe it, I actually culled some fabric and a lot of yarn. It went to the local buy nothing group. I found things too that I had totally forgotten about.

As part of clearing the craft room, I finished the walking bonnet that I started in a workshop at the Regency weekend. It is made from violet dupion silk. I don’t have much in violet so I thought why not.

A little bit of writing has been achieved. Mostly the restructure of Tainted Lady. I have some beta reader feedback coming for Gentleman Magician that I hope won’t take long to address. All in all, I am a bit behind schedule.

I also need to organise a launch, virtual and real of, The Founders’ Legacy. So I must start with a blurb and that requires brain power.

Onwards and upwards they say.

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The world is a bit topsy turvy these days

Posted in A writer's life, All the things, Life, the universe and everthing, Life, the universe and everthing, Nature, tagged , , , , on May 20, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Given all that is happening in the world right, it is hard to deal with things. My doomscrolling is almost non-existent because I can’t bear it.

With my economics learning, I know things are just going to get worse in Australia as we deal with the Iran war fall out. Inflation is not anyone’s friend and coming so close after the pandemic and all those income support payments people got (that have to be paid back somehow) it’s a double punch. The Iran war situation is not over and we were already priming for this oil shock. We thought it might be a short one but alas…no. The Government’s budget is a tough one. I can feel the austerity vibes.

Forget tarrifs! They were hard, unpredicatable and so on. Forget the old world order. The rules have been tossed out.

I think wars, famine, disease outbreaks make one feel a bit hopeless and disempowered. There isn’t much one individual can do about any of it.

I try to think of ways to influence what is going on around me and ways I can help contribute to mine and others’ well being.

I walk in the neighbourhood a lot. It’s suburbia, there were are hills, trees, birds, magnificent sky. People walk their dogs, or just walk about. I figure if I want a nice neighbourhood, I should say ‘hello’ and ‘good morning’ and ‘Cute dog. Can I pat it?’ People usually say hi back. This might seem a small thing but it helps create a neighbourly, neighbourhood.

Also, getting out in a beautiful day lifts the spirits. How can you not be calmed by trees, and nature. It kind of fills me up. Today I went in a different direction. Up the hill into the nature reserve. I was taking a picture of the view when someone said ‘Morning!’ I hadn’t heard them approached and startled. Once I had got myself together I said Good morning back. He said ‘It’s a great view.’ Walking back toward home, there was a big group walking towards me, a men’s group maybe. We exchanged good mornings and it felt nice, you know.

I also started looking a view from say a water colourist perspective. Not that I am a watercolourist, but I do aspire to try one day. The photos below are some that I took.

Our street has a Signal chat group. Our neighbour next door dropped notes into people’s letter boxes and asked if people wanted in. Most of us did. It aslo incorporates the street behind as well. Great for organising things like Halloween for the kids and so on. It is a really nice group of people. I had Christmas drinks on our decks one year. Not everyone came but a few did and it was nice to put faces to names. I think this chat group has helped create a lovely neighbourhood. We can post about snakes, or kangaroos on the street. Sometimes neighbours say ‘I’ve put a box of lemons out. Help yourself.’ OR “Zuccinis going if you want them.” Anyhow, I think this is a positive thing. We even tell the street if we are going away and there are housesitters. Or if someone has a teenager to feed the cat etc.

My partner volunteers at the Food Co-Op and he really believes in their ethos. He picks up left over bread from a bakery and delivers it to the Co-Op and one day a week to our local community centre. The bread goes to people in need, rather than the tip.

Other things we can do to whether difficult periods is donate a can of food to the local food bank. We have one in the next suburb and we can also leave food at the Pool and Leisure centre. I drop books there to the community book swap thing as well.

Other friends I know do things like make scarves for homeless people or Ukraine. These were woven, but crochet is fine. A beanie with left over wool.

To help others doesn’t have to cost much money but it usually costs time. I am still working on where I want to put my effort in. I am currently working parttime but that is going to end soon.

I’ve done my share of committees in local associations-community housing, writing, writing centre.

I feel grateful to have been on this Earth for 66 years. It has not been easy but I am here now and like it or not I have to live through whatever gets thrown my way. I also recognise my priviledge. I have a roof over my head, food and clothing. I can indulge my craft pursuits.

So here are the photos I took this morning. I thought most would make a good water colour painting.

I took a wrong turn but thought this was an interesting composition.

I know nothing much about water colouring and I am not an artist. But I though the dark foreground and the layering of hills, cloud and sky was interesting.

Another view with contrasts.

I thought the road curving away was interesting. I don’t think the photo does it justtice.

This is actually looking across my roof.

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January update 2026

Posted in A writer's life, tagged , , , , , , on January 23, 2026| Leave a Comment »

The new year is done. The many January birthdays are celebrated. The cake is eaten.

I’ve been doing grandma stuff with my youngest granddaughter. She went back to her mum yesterday. As a result of all this activity and due to spending time in Sydney with granddaughter, not much writing got done. Yeah.

My wall planner fell off the wall. This may be ominous. I have not sat at my desk until now to spy on my desk planner either. However, it is a long weekend in Canberra this weekend and I have good intentions!

World politics tend to distract me. I listened to Carney’s speech at the World Economic Forum. I passed the link onto my partner and friend. I tried talking about it to Matthew (partner) but burst into tears. Basically, Carney summed up what has been brewing in my gut for a while. The rules-based international system is broken. It’s not coming back. We need to do something different. I listened to Macron and to Von Der Leyen’s speech and Trump’s. I’m going back to listen to a few more. It helps me to know that other world leaders are planning and taking action.

But you couldn’t write this stuff. This is worse than a bad dystopian SF novel. But I have hope, even though uncertainty is really gut wrenching.

Appearances

Meanwhile, I am looking at events…

Some of my books are for sale at Cancon this weekend at Epic at the CSFG table. I’ll be doing a shift at 12 noon on Monday so I’ll be there.

I’ll be at the Romantic Rendezvous in Sydney on March 22nd. Link to info and tickets Here.

I’ll be at Books and Beyond on April 12 in Ourimbah, on the central coast.

I’m hoping to get a table at the Geek Expo in Canbera during July but I’m currently hunting up expression of interest forms.

September I will possibly be at Books and Beyond again.

And for some reason I have three events 10 October, Once Upon a Fairy Tale indie book event in Campbelltown.

Hopefully I’ll have a stall at the Goulburn Steampunk Victorian Faire on the 17th. Noting certain as of yet, but I’ll be there in any case.

Books in Sight, Canberra Rex, on 23rd October

I shall post again if anything else comes up. I’ve put in for things.

Travel

In between everything else, I am travelling a bit. NZ in Feb, then in March doing a tour with a visitor from the UK, I’d like to fit in a trip to Singapore for at least a month and possibly to Adelaide in April. I was hoping to go to Canada with my sister in October but I have a lot going on then.

Writing

Matthew has three big projects this year so that will limit travel somewhat. But it also means I will be encouraged to write also.

Meanwhile Gentleman Magician is at just over 12000 words.

Reading

I’m going to keep a spreadsheet of my reading this year. I don’t read enough these days. I listen to audio books more.

PS I got my hair done today. Totally pink. It looks floofy in this photo.

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Happy New Year!

Posted in A writer's life, am wrinting, Australian author, Trying to focus, tagged , , , , , , , , , on January 1, 2026| Leave a Comment »

I’m up reasonably early on the 1st of January. I managed to sleep later than normal. Yay!

Happy New Year! May 2026 fulfill your hopes and dreams.

I hope for peace and good sense to prevail the world over. I want to be optimistic for the future of the world. Being a science fiction (and fantasy) aficcionado and Star Trek fan, I have had faith in Humankind and that we will move beyond wars and famine and that we will survive into the future. However, I admit that that faith has been shaken of late.

I hope for me that I can find that optimism again. That my faith in us will be restored.

Now for more mundane things.

I have to admit I piked on staying up until 12 and left the party around 10pm. We had a family get together.

Now I just don’t want to eat more food! Everything was delicious but now I have to think about the waistline. I wish it was called the wasteline and I could watch myself waistline waste away but alas…

This morning, I took my blood pressure reading before the meds kicked in and well that’s not good is it? I thought cutting back salt was going to help there but health wise I’ve been a bit over the place. Next in the queue is a blood test scheduled for next week. I’ve been having sleep disturbances between 1-3 am most nights lately, which is very annoying. Nothing too serious except I feel like my head is in a paper bag most of the day. Aching and tingling in the fingers and toes, so much so that I have to get up and take painkillers at night, tired, fatigued, etc. I have sub-clinical Hashimotos and I have these flare ups where I gain weight, go through the fatigue, sluggishness etc and then when I’m tested they say my thyroid is reading normal. This has been going on for 10 years, since I was first diagnosed (confirmed through blood test and identification of antibodies). The other not so interesting thing is the inflammation where my partial knee replacements are. At first I thought they were loosening and the specialist thought not. However, he is monitoring six monthly, unless I have extreme pain. Each day I’m noticing it is harder to move around and my knees are stiff and sore. So after this post is done I’m going for a walk. Best thing to get the joints warm.

The new spectacles after surgery were a bit hard to deal with at first. Multifocals and two very divergent eyes now. Left eye is still seeing blurry but better than when I first developed a full thickness macular hole in August. I can report that my eyes and brain are getting used to the new glasses but when I take them off my eyes/brain go what the hell!

I have received print versions of The Prudential Light. My daughter-in-law picked up an issue with one of the Chinese characters in the book. Two missing strokes that were wiped when I did ‘remove background’. I have replaced that image with a new one and uploaded new versions everywhere. I had to redo the hardback versions because I had matt finish on the cover instead of gloss and I had gloss finish on the other hardback versions. Paperback is matt finish. That was completed this morning.

There are four different sets of Chinese characters in the book, drawn by a friend, who is a scholar of Chinese art. Modern Chinese characters have been simplified and the ones in The Prudential Light are meant to be traditional and hopefully ones in use in 1840s. As for the pinyin version, I cannot tell you if I have stuck to the Cantonese pinyin or strayed to the Mandarin. Brain is not functional. Pinyin is the romanised version of the word to help with pronunciation. Cantonese and Mandarin are two different languages but use the same characters.

Yesterday I posted my writing to do list. I also reorganised my working space. (I’m laughing because I’m on my couch with the lap top on my lap). I bought and assembled a hutch. I wish I’d taken before and aftershots. I’m camped out in my bedroom for another nine months I guess while my grandkids are living here. While I had a desk, I had a great big mess there. Along with my day job work space and my imac working space, there was just a junk yard of crap, scribbled on manuscript pages, pens (which I could never find, other desk junk. With a hutch I can lift things up, put them where I can find them. I’m so pleased with it now. I have so many pens and I threw away the ones that don’t work. So diligent of me.

I’ve also put up my planner on the wall. Time to commit to writing on the planner and getting some work done on the books I want to write. While I have a kind of full and hectic schedule for writing new books, I have some that are already written and I have to find time to tweak/revise them and send them out for submission. If I have no luck getting an agent, I guess they will be self published too by the end of the year. I was also wishing I could fit a nice epic fantasy series in my schedule too. I also mulled the idea of retiring Dani Kristoff–where I write paranormal romance with sorcerer’s and werewolves and witches under that name. It might be my lack of promotion but they are not as popular as the Dragon Wine series and Cry Havoc. Another novel I want to write is a sci fi romance that has been in my brain since the early days. So that might fill the Dani Kristoff slot in my schedule.

Who knows…the future is yet to be written.

Best wishes to all.

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To do lists

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on December 29, 2025| Leave a Comment »

There are to do lists and there are TO DO LISTS.

I find them helpful, even though I don’t use them all the time.

The big 100 days to do list fall in a heap for me. I have so many things I want to do that there are too many things to keep track of.

On work days, I use my calendar to manage the things I should be doing. That’s because in my day job I only work two days so I need a way to keep track because I forget inbetween the weeks.

On other days, well it depends on what I have on, what I want to achieve. Between Christmas and New Year I generally switch off so to do lists go out the window unless I’m hosting a deck party. Parties need to do lists. How else can you delegate?

Generally though if I am not doing the day job, I need a to do list to set myself goals or achieve something. Otherwise the day can just fritter away with a little bit of this, some couch/streaming etc. If I’m struggling there might be one or two things on my to do list.

Today (example only)

  • write a blog post
  • write Gentleman Magician for an hour
  • cook dinner.

Now I have done other things. I picked up my glasses, I’ve had lunch with Rob, I went to the supermarket. I’ve also fixed a Chinese character in The Prudential Light, uploaded new print files and new ebook files. They are additional things.

Whether I will write today remains to be seen. I’m giving my brain a rest.

However, that being said, to do lists work for me when I’m enthusiastic, need to get things done. If I’m not enthusiastic, then I’ll put one thing on that to do list that is important for me, just to get me going.

Motivation can sometimes be thin on the ground. There is a push pull-thing going on with what I want to do and making the effort to do them.

I’ve bought a wall planner and a desk planner. I’m going to fix up my workspace tomorrow when the new hutch arrives for my desk. I want to achieve a lot in 2026. However, sometimes it’s hard.

A wall planner is one massive to do list really.

The downside for to do list though can be where you do things not on your to do list. Or as you are marking things off, you add things you forgot! The list doesn’t get smaller.

Anyway, here are my writing to dos for 2026. Wish me luck.

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