Happy New Year, 2019

Well that’s another year finished, time to move onto a new one. I have been working on my New Year’s resolutions for 2019 and my focus this year is on simple small changes that I can do each day. Things like, “update my budget each day”, “clean something up each day”, to “work on my podcast each day”. They’re small things that if done daily will snowball into significant improvements for me overall. I think this is a better strategy than having big plans that require weeks or even months of consistent attention to get done. Sure, I will be working towards goals like that still; but one day at a time.

2018 wasn’t a great year for me. I had two major relationship breakdowns and while they’re both behind me now, it’s a bit hard sometimes not to feel a bit cynical. Especially about members of the opposite sex who appear chameleon like: matching your values and beliefs one day, then a few months later espousing a completely different set of values and beliefs. Thank goodness for IT and screenshots so I can look back and verify that these people are contradicting themselves. Ever experienced that confusion when someone you trust keeps telling you you’re the crazy one? The confusion doesn’t go away until you check the facts and stop trusting them alas. But it’s an interesting phenomenon I wouldn’t mind working into my novels: how some people can have personalities like water; they take the shape of the people they’re surrounded by. Continue reading “Happy New Year, 2019”

Shattered Space – Part 3

This morning I was sitting in my private transporter, one of the few places where I felt was sufficiently private for me to write my thoughts down in preparation for this week’s meeting. I have long gotten past the frustration of having to constantly fret about what I say in a private conversation even though I am a top level government official in the Earth Union Worker’s Republic. Nowadays it’s just a fact of life. The shadow state is always watching me. They need me; they lack my talent for organisation and strategic planning. They hate me for it. They would have killed me if any of them could do the work I can do. That’s what life is like for everyone on Earth. We are born with a death sentence temporarily suspended so long as we’re useful to the state.

I am a minister in the government, an Alpha double plus class citizen, but I’m no less a slave than the lowest delta class scraping a sewer pipe clean. We’re all slaves in a system of total centralisation of power to one man, and that one man himself is a slave to his vices. However, if you turn on the Global News Network you would think the chairman of the party was God’s own son come to lead humanity to the chosen land. An old Earth philosopher once wrote that a prince can rule through love or fear. But the chairman wants everyone to fear and love him in equal measure. As I look back over my career in politics I have unwittingly been serving his interests. All I wanted to do was to reduce the poverty and homelessness on Earth as much as was humanly possible, but what did they used to say in old times? The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

Continue reading “Shattered Space – Part 3”

Shattered Space – Part 2

Designer Gede Eugen’s Journal

This planet is cold. It doesn’t matter how high I turn my thermal suit up, the cold still gets through. It winds its way through my bones into the marrow. I have been squatting in this cave for weeks now. I ran out of ration packs two days ago and now I rely to the potage the locals offer me. It tastes like boiled snot but I suppose it’s better than going hungry. A shuttle did drop by a few days ago and the crew were obviously bounty hunters so I kept my distance. They walked off with Lucy though. Which means sooner or later they’re going to come back. I just hope my aristocratic pen pal arrives sooner to pick me up. He said he had a lot of wealth and his personal space ship. A beautiful ivory and gold detailed star hopper called the Audacity that he liked to brag about.

Ahhh… star hoppers. Those are neat little bugs. How I wish I had one of those beauties; a space capsule the size of an old fashioned suburban house. Capable of 80 times the speed of light. Not fast really, but efficient. Once a star ship got any bigger than that the power requirements to maintain a warp fissure increased astronomically. Not to mention the bane of all inter-stellar travellers: gravitational flux. Big ships could easily travel a 1,000 times the speed of light nowadays, but they daren’t ever enter a warp fissure within two astronomical units of a star. Good safety protocol was to only ever enter or exit a warp fissure on the outer perimeter of a star system and taxi in on sub-light engines only.

Wow. This is my first attempt at a journal and like a typical space engineer I am prattling about unimportant matters like the basic realities of space travel. It’s hard to imagine now that only five weeks ago I was thirty-seven light years away in the orbit of the moon standing comfortably in my office chewing protein biscuits instead of cowering in an ice cave on an obscure planet in the Gliese 623 System. Continue reading “Shattered Space – Part 2”

Shattered Space – Part 1

Doctor Agnethea Komnenos’ Journal

When someone started knocking on my door today I thought I was imagining it. I continued working on my computer simulation of polypoid gene expression dismissing the sounds as just part of the normal rumblings of a spaceship’s innards. Alas, because I detest distractions when I am working, I heard the knocking again. Yes, someone was definitely knocking on my door. I started to wonder why they didn’t just use the intercom then I remembered that I had turned the volume down to almost zero a few days ago just to escape these interruptions.

Days ago? Yes… I suppose it must have been three or four days since I last left my cabin. I had become so engrossed with my botany research I hadn’t bothered to even venture out into the ships mess to eat with the rest of the crew. Why bother anyway? It’s not like we have much in common to talk about. I would be a lot happier if I didn’t have to interact with people at all. My computer and my plants are all the company I need.

I opened my cabin door and found second officer Stott grinning at me mischievously with a large rusty wrench in her hands.

“I was knocking on your door,” she said indicating that she had been using the large metal tool. Continue reading “Shattered Space – Part 1”

Writer’s Diary: Novel in the Pipeline!

Hello readers of my writing blog. I am so sorry for the lack of updates. It isn’t because I have stopped writing or that I have had a terrible accidental. It’s actually because of some good news. In the last three months I have written a complete 78,000 word long novel. I wrote it from scratch and it started out as a short story but quickly took in a life of its own. Because I want to publish this novel I won’t be posting it up here. However, now that I am purely on the editing phase I will get back into writing other pieces and putting them up here. I actually have half a dozen short pieces that some friends have been nagging me to polish up and put up to share so I expect to see some new content in the next few weeks. Continue reading “Writer’s Diary: Novel in the Pipeline!”

Writer’s Diary: Biased News Network

Dear readers,

Sorry for my unexpected absence. My working hours vary considerably. Sometimes I’m working sixty hours in a week and then it drops unexpectedly down to twenty five like this week. Which turns not into a productive week of writing but into a recovery week for working so many hours the previous three! That said, I have been working on my writing nonetheless. I have completed 35,000 words for a manuscript but one I won’t be sharing on here any time soon. This is one I will probably approach a publisher about in the future once the manuscript is finished. In the meantime I have been getting quite annoyed with the mainstream media and how obviously biased it is. Now, I don’t actually mind bias as such. It’s part of human nature and I view it as just something we all have to take into account whoever we are listening to. What bothers me is when people pretend to be unbiased when they’re clearly biased or who object to other people being biased as though they never are themselves. This is a hypocrisy that I want to expose! Continue reading “Writer’s Diary: Biased News Network”

Shaylen and Bellandria – Part Two

Returning to the town, there was a great garden at the centre where pious people used to go and pray. However, a witch had crafted several statues and placed them all about the garden. These statues were enchanted and whispered to everyone who entered the garden things they did not wish to hear. The garden that had once been the spring rejuvenating the spirits of the people was now no longer visited, even by the gardeners. The garden had become over grown and full of weeds.

Shaylen took his party into the gardens and he ordered them to help him to pull the statues down and removed them from the garden. But soon the statues started whispering to him and his companions saying spiteful sounding words they did not want to hear.

“You are unworthy of your rank!”

“Your father has always been disappointed in you; he will never be pleased with you!”

“You are hideously ugly, and although you say you do not care, you actually do!”

“You are a party to the queen’s cruelty, an accomplice to all her crimes!”

“You’re a filthy whore with no standards! You are so pathetic that you have slept with a homeless man for but a crust of bread!”

“Your husband has been cheating on you for years; he does not love you anymore!”

“You are an idiot and don’t know what’s good for you!”

“You are weak and lack the will to be a better person and so you drink too much because you are too lazy to sort out your real problems!”

“You are only fat because you won’t control how much you eat!”

On and on the statues whispered into the ears of his companions until they could not stand it any longer. Distressed and demoralised they started deserting the prince one by one. Eventually only Shaylen was left behind to endure the whispering off all the statues.

Continue reading “Shaylen and Bellandria – Part Two”

Shaylen and Bellandria – Part One

Lady Envira was ambitious and longed to rule the kingdom so she courted the young king and successfully seduced him. Once queen, she thought she could rule but her husband proved more difficult to control as time went on. She was clever and popular with the nobles and sought a way to depose her husband. The nobles were supportive but only on the condition that she had a male heir. The queen feigned her love for the king until she became with child.

Queen Envira gave birth to a healthy boy, thus securing the succession. Realising her good fortune, she seized the opportunity to depose her husband, the king. Once divorced, disgraced, and cast out into the wilderness beyond the kingdom, the king could no longer thwart the queen’s ambitions. Envira ruled as Queen Regent until her son, Shaylen came of age and demanded his father’s crown.

Fearing that she might lose her power through a conspiracy, she curtailed the freedoms of all in the land and was both hasty and cruel in her punishments. She lived every day on the throne fearing it would be snatched out from underneath her and although she held the reins of power through her son, no one posed more threat to her than her son.
The queen loved her son, but she loved power even more. She never wanted her son to come of age and usurp her position on the throne. She gave directions that her son must be raised entirely by women of the softest and most agreeable nature. Furthermore, he was never to struggle for anything that he wanted. Everything was to be made simple and effortless for him.

“Smother my dear boy with the softest down of motherly charity. Let him never know want, heartache, or despair. Never criticise his ideas nor discomfort his temper,” the queen ordered. Continue reading “Shaylen and Bellandria – Part One”

My Grandpa is Locked in the Cellar

Image result for dark cellarToday was my birthday. I turned ten and everyone in the family was with me in the family room to celebrate it. Everyone except Dad; he went downstairs to get grandpa out of the cellar. This is the best part about my birthday; it’s the one day of the year that I get to see my grandpa. He lives there underneath the house for the rest of the year. No one ever goes down there except my dad, and sometimes my aunty, too. We live in a big house; it has fourteen bedrooms, two kitchens, a study, a reading room, a classroom, a rumpus room, a family room, and a dining hall. My house is on a big property surrounded by gardens and trees. I live here with my parents, my five brothers and sisters, my aunt and uncle, and my four cousins.  My grandpa also lives here of course, locked away in the cellar unseen by all except my dad, but for one day every year dad opens the cellar door and lets grandpa come up to see me on my birthday.

Grandpa didn’t come up right away, he needed time to wake up, eat some breakfast, and for Doctor Allenson to run some tests on him. Dad also said he needs to explain to Grandpa what’s been happening since he last saw me and the rest of the family. Then when it’s lunch time, up comes grandpa. He looks exactly like I remember him being the last time I saw him. He smiles warmly and always gives me the first hug, then he hugs all my siblings and cousins. We have lunch together in the big dining hall. As the birthday boy, I sat at the head of the table, my grandpa sat in the middle, and asks everyone in turn what they have been doing since my last birthday.

We spend the afternoon out in the garden, some of my friends come over and we go off and play by the creek. My dad usually comes with us, but he spends all his time with Grandpa today. I thought that funny because he checks in on Grandpa every other day of the year, yet he talked to grandpa today like he’s not seem him all year! I think it’s unfair that Dad gets to see Grandpa so often, but I only get to see him for one day. I remember when I used to see Grandpa every day. After my friends leave, we have a family dinner together and Grandpa falls asleep. I really miss Grandpa. I kissed him goodnight and, as I went up to bed, I knew during the night my father will take grandpa back down to the basement and I wouldn’t see him again until next year.

Continue reading “My Grandpa is Locked in the Cellar”