I’ve cheered up now. A friend of mine saw this and thought of me, or thought it might make a decent blog post.
http://dailyroutines.typepad.com/
It outlines the daily routines of some well known writers.
One thing that struck me is that they all get up at the crack of dawn. I can’t wake at 6am. I only ever see 6am by getting there the long, dark way. I have three routines:
1) The “Beginning a New Book and No Deadline in Sight” Work Routine.
9:00 am – 12:30 pm.
Get up. The time depends on the night before.
9:15 am – 5:30 pm
Coffee. Answer some emails. Put others off till later. Ignore all the hugs, prods, bings, blams and whoopies from Facebook. Shower. Pick up the mail and look through it for anything interesting. Big packages are good - books from publishers, manuscripts, sometimes a DVD or toy I bought. Everything else is usually bills or vacuous statements concerning credit cards I never use. File them in a big messy heap in the corner of my desk. Open the BT bill, and note the overcharges (11 months out of 12 now). Sigh. I’ll harass them later. Get on the phone and pay everything that needs paid.
Lunch. I want a freshly made chipped-steak burger from the local butchers, which I want to fry and then slap on a roll with cheese, gherkin and jalapeno relish but I’m going to have soup because I promised myself I’d watch my cholesterol after the New Year, stop smoking, get to bed earlier, eat bran and all that.
Think about looking for any new reviews on Amazon. Decide not to. A bad review would just depress me. There’s no point trying to write what everyone wants anyway. It’s a bad idea to try and please everyone. Focus groups give us bland cars, bland films, and bland food. That’s my excuse, and I’m sticking to it.
No deadline in sight. Play a game of Risk on the computer. Force myself to open my accounts, because I need to do my tax return. Gaze at accounts for an hour. Sigh. Close spreadsheet. Have another game of Risk. Open word processor. Look at empty page. Close word processor. Why don’t I live in the south of France?
5:30 pm.
Do the washing up and make dinner, if it’s my turn.
6:30 pm.
There’s nothing on TV. Open a bottle of wine. Somehow it’s 11:30pm.
11:30 pm.
Open word processor. Look at empty page. Write another beginning for another new book. Notice that I have 27 of these openings now. Close word processor. Answer emails. Have a ten minute game of online poker. Win 83p. Open word processor. Start all over again.
1:30 am.
I must have decided to work tonight. I can’t sleep. Thinking about new book. How do I combine this idea with that idea? Or should I ditch those ideas, and concentrate on this other one? What would waves sound like if they broke against a mass of metal shrapnel? Back to the word processor.
2:30 am.
Still can’t sleep. Read for a while. Switch off light. Lie there thinking about the book. Switch light on again, and go back to the word processor. There are five opened books on the floor, but I haven’t managed to get into any of them.
3:30 am.
I’m never going to get to sleep. Have a glass of whisky to wind down. Should I just delete all that stuff I’ve written? Is it any good at all?
4:30 am.
Oh god, it’s half past four in the morning. I even forgot to finish that glass of whisky. I’ll need to TRY to sleep. Lie down. Get up. Type a few words. Lie down. Read some more. Reach for the light switch. How many emails did I forget to answer?
2) The “Getting into a New Book and Deadline is Ages away” Work Routine.
9:00 – 10:30 am
Get up. Coffee. Wash. Answer emails. Open “Chapter #” on the word processor. Have at it for an hour or so. The phone rings. Bastards! I’ll ignore it. What if it’s important? Argh. I’d better go downstairs. “Hello Madam, you have been specially selected to...” Slam the phone down. What the hell? Sod it. My concentration has been blown. The moment has gone. I am entirely justified in not doing any work for the rest of the day.
10:31 pm
Realise I'm being an arse, and go to back to work.
12:30 pm.
Lunch. I’m feeling pretty good. One burger isn’t going to hurt. Go out for a walk. Look in the charity shop for any first editions or other interesting books. Offer to take Tess for a walk up the hills. I like it when she stops to let me pull the fence wire up so she can scramble through to the next field, and when there are rabbits pelting all over the place and she stands there wagging her tail and doesn't notice any of them.
1:30 pm
Keen to get back. Have at it for the rest of the afternoon.
5:30 pm.
I’ll make the dinner after I finish this chapter.
11:30 pm.
I’ll call it a day after I finish this chapter.
3) The “Deadline Looming” Work Routine.
9:00am - 6:00pm
Work
6:00pm - 7:00pm
Eat take away food.
7:00pm - 6:00am
Work
6:00am - 9:00am
Stare at the screen, red-eyed and broken, until sleep comes.
--------
Reading over this, I think I need to get out more.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Friday, January 09, 2009
2008
Happy New Year!
Ok that's enough happiness; let's have a good old moan. 2008 saw us plunging into a recession, or perhaps even a Great Depression, brought about by the unbridled greed and reckless gambling of some of the world's largest financial institutions. Over the last decade there seems to have been a brawl for profit as big business tried to squeeze every last cent out of us, the herd. You'll notice it every time you call a customer service number and are put on hold for an hour. Less staff to answer calls = more profit. Or worse, when you call up only to find yourself wrestling with a computer: "Say your house number... I'm sorry, I don't recognise that. Say your house number... I'm sorry, I don't... Please enter the long card number and press the hash key." I detest these systems for two reasons: first, when I'm on the phone I want to speak to a real person. The speaking computer is a wall with a slot for your bank card and a sign that says "We're not interested in listening to you. Just shut up and plug your card in here." And secondly, every time you hear that voice, it's a reminder that the person you really wanted to speak to is out of a job.
You'll notice it in advertisements too, the new levels of dirty tricks employed. "Sign up with us for only £1 a month (£30 a month after the first three months)" The business, whether it's Virgin or Sky or BT, or whoever, seems to be hoping that you'll miss the small print. And in the increased frequency of those insipid TV "Watch to Win" competitions. "Short of cash? Desperate? Win £1000 by telling us which one of these is one of Santa's reindeers? A) Rudolph B) David Beckham... oh, sod it, the answer is A. Just text us that, you monkeys. It'll only cost you a fiver." You'll see it in the adverts loan companies put on during daytime TV commercial breaks. "APR? Don't concern yourself with all that mumbo jumbo. We've got friendly people manning our phone lines. And since you're watching Jeremy Kyle, we don't think you'll understand APR anyway."
In the UK recently, this brawl for profit reached a level where energy companies were simply lying to customers to get them to sign more expensive contracts. Just plain lying. Try going to your energy supplier's website to find out how much they charge for electricity, how much per KWH. It isn't easy to get that figure. They don't want to tell you. Instead, you'll find, "Our energy is good value, that's all you need to know. Obviously, we're not going to tell you exactly how much it costs (the very idea!), but if you sign up with us, we'll give you... shopping vouchers."
Hurrah.
Well, you'll probably need those vouchers now anyway.
Meanwhile, the USA was having its own profit brawl as lenders sold mortgages to millions who could not afford to pay them back. These people must share the blame for not making sure they fully understood what they were getting into, but it's unfair to censure them too much. Their only crime was to trust the salesman, and to leave the maths to him. Decent people don't expect lenders to be that ruthless.
This debt was packaged in a way that disguised just how toxic it was, and sold on to banks whose greed had blinded them to the risks. When the housing bubble burst, a lot of money just vanished.
The banks took a huge hit, so they stopped lending to each other and started calling in loans. And because so many banks had all their money tied up in "investments" in a crashing market, they needed lending to function. Without it, they began to topple like dominoes.
And there was worse to come. HSBC actually "invested" over half a billion pounds in what turned out to be a pyramid scheme. If only the CEO had stopped into the pub on the way home that day, and said to any of the punters at the bar. "What do you reckon to this, then? Says here I can earn £££s, if I send off envelopes full of cash to these five people." I'm thinking that a large number of those "Watch to Win" calls must come from HSBC upper management.
At least, that's how it all seemed to a layman like me. With all its various tendrils, global finance is like that vast fungus that lives under Oregon. But one thing seems clear enough. Big business was too greedy, took too many risks in its lust for profit.
Now of course we're being forced to bail them out. Who'd have thought that in 2008 we'd all be paying off other people's debts?
Roll on 2009.
Ok that's enough happiness; let's have a good old moan. 2008 saw us plunging into a recession, or perhaps even a Great Depression, brought about by the unbridled greed and reckless gambling of some of the world's largest financial institutions. Over the last decade there seems to have been a brawl for profit as big business tried to squeeze every last cent out of us, the herd. You'll notice it every time you call a customer service number and are put on hold for an hour. Less staff to answer calls = more profit. Or worse, when you call up only to find yourself wrestling with a computer: "Say your house number... I'm sorry, I don't recognise that. Say your house number... I'm sorry, I don't... Please enter the long card number and press the hash key." I detest these systems for two reasons: first, when I'm on the phone I want to speak to a real person. The speaking computer is a wall with a slot for your bank card and a sign that says "We're not interested in listening to you. Just shut up and plug your card in here." And secondly, every time you hear that voice, it's a reminder that the person you really wanted to speak to is out of a job.
You'll notice it in advertisements too, the new levels of dirty tricks employed. "Sign up with us for only £1 a month (£30 a month after the first three months)" The business, whether it's Virgin or Sky or BT, or whoever, seems to be hoping that you'll miss the small print. And in the increased frequency of those insipid TV "Watch to Win" competitions. "Short of cash? Desperate? Win £1000 by telling us which one of these is one of Santa's reindeers? A) Rudolph B) David Beckham... oh, sod it, the answer is A. Just text us that, you monkeys. It'll only cost you a fiver." You'll see it in the adverts loan companies put on during daytime TV commercial breaks. "APR? Don't concern yourself with all that mumbo jumbo. We've got friendly people manning our phone lines. And since you're watching Jeremy Kyle, we don't think you'll understand APR anyway."
In the UK recently, this brawl for profit reached a level where energy companies were simply lying to customers to get them to sign more expensive contracts. Just plain lying. Try going to your energy supplier's website to find out how much they charge for electricity, how much per KWH. It isn't easy to get that figure. They don't want to tell you. Instead, you'll find, "Our energy is good value, that's all you need to know. Obviously, we're not going to tell you exactly how much it costs (the very idea!), but if you sign up with us, we'll give you... shopping vouchers."
Hurrah.
Well, you'll probably need those vouchers now anyway.
Meanwhile, the USA was having its own profit brawl as lenders sold mortgages to millions who could not afford to pay them back. These people must share the blame for not making sure they fully understood what they were getting into, but it's unfair to censure them too much. Their only crime was to trust the salesman, and to leave the maths to him. Decent people don't expect lenders to be that ruthless.
This debt was packaged in a way that disguised just how toxic it was, and sold on to banks whose greed had blinded them to the risks. When the housing bubble burst, a lot of money just vanished.
The banks took a huge hit, so they stopped lending to each other and started calling in loans. And because so many banks had all their money tied up in "investments" in a crashing market, they needed lending to function. Without it, they began to topple like dominoes.
And there was worse to come. HSBC actually "invested" over half a billion pounds in what turned out to be a pyramid scheme. If only the CEO had stopped into the pub on the way home that day, and said to any of the punters at the bar. "What do you reckon to this, then? Says here I can earn £££s, if I send off envelopes full of cash to these five people." I'm thinking that a large number of those "Watch to Win" calls must come from HSBC upper management.
At least, that's how it all seemed to a layman like me. With all its various tendrils, global finance is like that vast fungus that lives under Oregon. But one thing seems clear enough. Big business was too greedy, took too many risks in its lust for profit.
Now of course we're being forced to bail them out. Who'd have thought that in 2008 we'd all be paying off other people's debts?
Roll on 2009.
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