This is what we need to take from 2016, if anything! Colleen sums it up perfectly in a wonderful picture.
2016
Who Runs the World?
As I write this at 5:30 AM on a Wednesday, it strikes me that it is still Tuesday in America.
How strange.
I wish America all the best. Whatever happens there will inevitably affect all of us.
Who runs the world, really? And will the next president be a joke, or a fascist?
This sure was a fiery sunset.
And she let herself be known.
This Transient Worry
Good evening.
Credit: KK Kozik, Orion’s Belt.
Tonight I am writing a screenplay called ‘A Transient Guest’, even though the ‘guest’ in question (who is actually a dead girl) is not transient at all, but haunts the entire 15 minute film with her accusing presence.
In fact, if it wasn’t for her encompassing, haunting presence, the film would have no substance at all and would cease to be a story and instead be a string of scenes of a lonely boy walking around through the years.
It’s sad because I love the title, but can’t let a good story be moulded around a title that is so mismatched to the story.
Do you think it would be good to leave the title as it is? Would its vagueness cause people to wonder at my pretentious daring and muse over the ‘transiency’ of my ‘guest’, or would it just be arty, ostentatious and irrelevant?
Should I change it to something more suitable and in turn, more mundane, and have it be glaringly obvious that I was just too pooped to find a decent title?
Decisions, decisions.
Either way, my tutor will receive it tomorrow and judge it to within an inch of its poor struggling life, and I really must have something remarkable to present to her, otherwise I am a useless writer and might as well employ my energy elsewhere.
That List
These are the things I want to achieve in 2016.
- Expand my painting skills by doing more painting. Especially with oil paints. I really want to be able to paint fascinating pictures full of colour and get the shadows just right, so I can put them on my walls.
- Write more. Oh, so much more. Finish my novel finally and try to get it published. Write ten hours a week to start with.
- Set up a website for my translating and editing business.
- Practise my Arabic reading and writing and grammar.
- Get really fit, and increase my daily cycling distance from 10 miles to 30 miles.
- Explore more places, now that I have a car.
- Walk for an hour everyday, while listening to informative podcasts.
- Follow my tastes in fashion, and stop looking like such a frump sometimes.
- Wear more colour, own more colour, create more colour.
- Be kind. Kinder. Be more open to humans. I am far too closed off and cold. Smile more.
That’s mainly it, really! There are probably more things but right now I am geared up to go. Well I was last week but it’s nice to start from day one.
Speaking of which, I saw so many runners when I went on my bike ride this morning. WAY more than usual. Looks like people have begun with their resolutions already!
Have you?
Ocean Bream 