Social Media

Today, I was drawn into a discussion on Facebook. Despite the nature of the posts, and the content, I urge the reader to don a sarcastic 'inner voice' and appreciate the tongue-in-cheek nature of the discussion. However, I quite enjoyed the conversation and felt I covered some good points. This, what follows is the transcription. My posts are those not italicised. 

Blimey are you going to be telling us about your toilet habits next? We seem to be having a blow by blow commentary of your day...

Twitter and Facebook, as social media, were designed after the early noughties surge in blogging as a way for people to maintain contact and witness what people are doing in life. 

The act of following someone on such social media is essentially telling the servers "Please update me with what this person is doing." As such, you can follow those people whom you enjoy witnessing  updates from, and can remove those whom you dislike at whim. Incidentally, I would imagine that is also why Facebook and Twitter do not alert someone that they have been 'unfollowed' - it removes the social awkwardness of the act. 

My point being, I follow people on Facebook and Twitter because I like to hear and see what my sister, niece, nephew or friends are up to - even on the days when it appears that each and every of their minor details has been posted (from home baking to toilet training the children) without complaint because that's what I signed up for.

Yet you never comment?!

The Dictionary describes 'Comment' as:

"— noun

a remark, observation, or criticism"

If I have nothing worthwhile to add to a post, I won't. Commenting something like "Cool", or "That looks nice" is pointless and redundant. It does nothing more than to feed an ego. 

I will, however, often hit 'Like' (as that is it's primary function; to support a post without written comment - not, in fact, to save starving children in Africa); more often, however, I will scroll down, smiling at the photo of your baking, or giggling that the child you are toilet training has just urinated on your tights, without feeling the need to comment on it. I've looked at it. You all know how much I am on Facebook and Twitter, so you can be pretty sure that I've seen it. I don't have time to comment on every post on my feed (nor would I wish to) and by only commenting on ones where I feel that my comment actually adds something, grants weight to the few comments that I do choose to post. Those are the ones where I have purposefully chosen to take the time to reply. It's nothing personal. 

I wouldn't expect people to post constantly on my Facebook; in fact I quite often get annoyed when someone feels the need to constantly post on my wall or comment on every post I write. I use Social Media as a way of sharing the world I am experiencing as I experience it. To be on it all day, every day, and commenting on everyone else's posts whilst rarely writing their own is solid evidence of that person needing to go out and experience life more.

Good lord. Surely better to actually live and enjoy life than constantly post on Facebook about it?!

Good lord. Surely better to actually live and enjoy life than constantly take photos on a digital camera?!

That's an example; for clarity, I am not pointing fingers at anyone I know. A digital camera to them is another method of doing what Social Media allows me to do. It's a way of capturing the experience and storing it for future reference, like an online open journal. It's also a good exercise for myself as a writer to constantly observe the world, capture and record the bits that catch my eye, and practice journalistic writing as I do so.

As another commenter added: "It's basically a very very simplistic version of digital scrapbooking" and I think that just about sums up my thoughts on Social Media, and certainly is a good explanation of my interaction with it. 

Just remember, kids, hitting like won't save the children in Africa, doing something about the issue will. 

Out Of Control

Today I took my driving test. 

It's been a year since I started driving; a couple of hours a week, every week save for a couple of big gaps caused by work, or travel back to Deal, or just forgetting to rebook lessons for four months as work with GW got hellish and eventually I was dismissed. 

Fun times. 

It's a strange thing, driving. There you are, sitting behind the controls of a potential death machine, with a random stranger sat next to you, desperately trying to ensure that you don't kill anyone or demolish anything. You spend hours of your life with this person inside a moving metal death-cage, sharing the experiences of near collisions, what feels like hours worth of stalling, and then general chit-chat about life, the universe and everything, before you take your test and eventually part ways forever. It's a strange feeling. 

That said, I didn't pass today. I've felt ready for the test for months, and my driving instructor has been sure I was ready for even longer. So what happened?

As arrogant as it sounds, my biggest concern was always that "something silly, out of my control" would happen, "like someone stepping out into the road". Sure enough, that's exactly what happened. A handful of minors and a single major, and I genuinely don't feel that one was within my control. My instructor even commented that the incident could have easily been classed as a minor fault due to the circumstances, but hey, sometimes the cookie crumbles soggily into the bottom of your tea. 

So what happened? The exam was going well enough, I'd done my maneuvers near flawlessly and had been driving confidently enough. Calm, collected, I drove down the hill into the town centre and was asked to make a right turn into a side road. I checked my mirrors, indicated, and moved into a safe turning spot. I waited for traffic to pass by me, checked everything was clear and began my maneuver. Enter "Woman on Phone". 

From my right side, a pedestrian - shopping bags in one hand, phone in the other, and face buried in said phone - stepped off the curve without looking. I technically was not into the side road at this point so, despite the fact the woman looked up and immediately took a single step back up onto the pavement, and was the other side of the road from my maneuvering vehicle - despite the fact that I had driven to the best of my ability - this was scored as a Major Fault. According to the examiner, I should have 'shown more notice', in other words, stopped in the centre of a lane of traffic down a busy high street. 

Now, personal frustrations aside, I understand that this is 'just how it goes'. Honestly, I'm not bitter - slightly disappointed, perhaps - but it returned me to that thought of life and making plans. Sometimes, these things are out of out of your control, and no matter how well you plan and prepare, no matter how many hours of practice you put in, the chaos of the universe conspires against you and unravels it all, making it all seem worthless. 

If course, it's not worthless. If I hadn't prepared as much as I had, I'd have made other errors, both in judgement and execution that would have racked up other minor and major faults. At least I can come out of this knowing that I failed, not because of my own ability (or lack thereof) but because of external, uncontrollable factors. It's heartening because it means that the practice I have put in has paid off - and next time I'm sure I'll get it. 

Just remember: Planning helps, but no plan is foolproof. 

Land of Hope and Glory... And Rain.

It's cold. 

I don't know why I find that at all comment-worthy, what with having lived in England my entire life. After twenty five years, one might assume that I would be used to the idiosyncrasies of English January, but some how here I am, shivering over my phone and coke. 

Sidenote: My phone has the blogger app. Win. 

For Christmas, Morgan signed me up for an online writing course. In the third module, it talks about how weather can be used in stories to set the empathic mood for a scene. Notice how when the two lovers break up in a chick-flick, it's always raining. That's called 'pathetic fallacy', a term I never quite understood until studying etymology in my past time. Yes, these are the things I do for fun. Pathetic, as in 'pathos'. 

It also goes as far as to mention a syndrome that apparently we English suffer from due to, supposedly, lack of sunlight. Considering that when I was asked what the British weather was like, I told the questioner that the rainy season started circa 400 AD and has continued ever since, I can believe it. Perhaps I'm just a 'Soft Southerner', but I am about to move all the way north to Lancashire, so hey, at least I'm doing something about it. 

I'm actually really excited about it all. I mean, sure, I'm going to seriously miss all my friends, but we've already got a place to live lined up, and job prospects and I recently stumbled across a gaming group when they randomly commented on one of my recent tweets. That said, it is an exciting new adventure; it's new inspiration and scenery for my writing (what better place to write traditional fantasy than the middle of nowhere!), and whole new experiences for me. 

As Morgan is saying to her mother on the phone now, right next to me, "instead of a tiny, squished up one-bed flat, we're getting a three-bed house with a garden! Where else were we going to have all those barbecues??" My thoughts exactly. Well, I'm not sure about the barbecues - I'm an adequate cook, but the prospect of giving a whole chunk of people food poisoning is quite disconcerting. Especially when one of those is her mother; I'm terrified enough of Mrs. Morgan without having hospitalised her. 

I am excited. I am terrified. This is a scary new beginning for me, full of hope, wonder and mystery. I find myself anxious to go, but also saddened at the prospect of leaving. It's a strange bubbling cauldron of mixed emotion, and I just hope that when I chug down the contents in one, I can hold it all down and make something of it properly. 

Anyways, I'm pretty sure my song is up next ('Poison', Alice Cooper) and my fingers are going numb, so I'm headed inside. 

Marooned, a short story by B M Kelly

This piece was originally going to be my 10,000 word Black Library submission before they changed the submission policies. The task was to write 10,000 words based on a subject of my choice, so naturally it was going to be the rat men known as Skaven, but there already exists a lot of BL writing based on them, so what would my hook be? 

It didn't take long before I realised that it had to be Claw-Captain Rip Skrimgnaw of the piratical Clan Skurvy. What follows is his first ever recorded exploit...

Change, and the Problem of Planning

It's been a while since I last posted, and there's no real excuse for that. I could claim I have been incredibly busy (and that claim would be true) but it's no excuse for taking half an hour out to sit down with a cup of tea and write.

In fact, it may even have helped somewhat.

That said, being busy, now that it's over at least, has given me a lot to write about; today I wanted to write about change and the problem with planning. Hence the cleverly thought out and beautifully descriptive title. 

I Hate Trains, Pt II

"I got off at the other end of the platform so had to walk (for me) a long way to get to the escalators. By the time I'd reached the queue at the bottom of the stairs, the next lot of commuters were getting off their train and were joining me. Slightly pointless comment, but I guess it does prove that ramming yourself onto the first train and forcing yourself to endure someone's sweaty armpit is completely pointless if you can just bear to wait a whole minute for the next train."

- Morgan Shaw

I Hate Trains

Recently, I've written a lot about how my life has changed a lot for the better, in no small part due to the wonderful influence of a certain, undeniably beautiful Miss Morgan Shaw (yep, let's begin with an entrée of mozzarella - start as you mean to continue, and all that). However, it's not all been plain sailing through the comfortably still waters of Lake Wonderful, there are certain parts of our day to day life that certainly have introduced new forms of discomfort, awkwardness and general loathing.

I am, of course, talking about trains.