Shouts From Down Under

The Great Fall of (the) Recliner...to keep (bad) habits out

What does The Great Wall mean in your life?

Do you have one? Is it to keep stuff in, to keep things out, to defend, to memorialise the dead, or attract tourists?

Can yours be pondered from that terrifying 360 degree, deadly, silent vacuum known as space?

What is your Great Wall of China?



With writing, it doesn't take many seconds of pursed lip thinking to conclude that novelists need to be a special breed.

A statement I heard the other night when we were guests at a friend's place for dinner.

"Editing!? What the.. I wouldn't be an editor! I couldn't think of anything worse!" Yes, fair enough. Not your forte. I'm hearin' ya.

But, we aren't all the same. In fact, I'm being taught even more in the current training sessions, that we must make allowance for, and tolerate more, every one. Even those with disabilities. Yes, toleration. Caring. Respect. A lot of stuff that isn't necessarily what people do by automatic response. We need to be taught, shown, prompted, reminded.

Novelists are people too. We probably do stuff that to others is ridiculous, weird, odd, furtive, and pointless. We read and write for a start. We sit on chairs, inside while everyone else is enjoying a sunny day at the beach, (Yes we do go to the beach too with our families, but after swimming and trying to be interested in gritty chocolate bars and sandcastles that won't stand up) we eavesdrop on conversations, or "study" others for "material". (SLAP! "That's for staring at that bikini clad woman!")

So, that wall we put up or that comes up in our psych; what is yours? Do you put up a giant big barrier to writing in an unfamiliar genre?

Do you, like me, fear writing about subjects that are your real life weakness. Dialogue that in the real world scares the pants off you?
Those conversations that you've always felt excluded you, in your own pathetically uncomfortable social life?

My wife has one. She hates computers. She gets angry at the thought of using them. She can use them in a basic sense, and has been shown by various members of our family (gently and tactfully ) how to do stuff such as use a mouse, CLICK, open files and remember passwords) but still finds them frightening, stupid, unnecessary and downright annoying; particularly at tea / dinner time. And when someone is playing a noisy First Person Shooter game and is yelling at others about
A: Grenades.
B: The Left Flank
C: CHEATERS! or
D: What? What Tea? What dinner??? Where am I?

Our daughter's Great Wall is anxiety. About everything.

My Great Wall is much the same. A dread in the pit of my stomach at having to face people, to act as if I care and am happy. I do care, and am happy and do like people, but still this dread comes; this paralysing feeling that you can't describe. It's not fear, not anxiety, not anything explainable. Sometimes you wonder if it's from an ancestor that was buried alive in the back of a cave and being bludgeoned with clubs by a group of cave dwellers, who grunt in excitement at their first successful funeral ceremony.

So, what's yours? Do you have more than one? Is it just partial? Is it debilitating? Can you control, overcome, ignore it and live? Can you get on with your life, writing, loving, laughing and other stuff like coffee drinking?

Is it something you've acknowledged, moved on from, turned into a positive, and used to attract tourists? (Readers)
Or is it still there to keep some imaginary enemy from attacking your core?

Don't let it become a wall between us...



Sparky