Tag: writing

The Hardware Store Rebuild, Mark II

This is totally experimental, did it in Canva, still a raw beginner, so expect to see glitches. Please let me know if any have slipped through my radar.

thehardwarerebuild-2-copy.pptxDownload
https://www.canva.com/design/DAFgyT1Imo4/Gquf2QRfMPx6CtKTxdwsFQ/view?utm_content=DAFgyT1Imo4&utm_campaign=share_your_design&utm_medium=link&utm_source=shareyourdesignpanel

‘Life Admin’

Decisions, decisions. Shall I let go my woodworking tools, or will still have use for them?

This is what my son calls it. When my well-structured time (writing and blog-posting) grinds to a halt, and I need to take care of big stuff that has somehow all conspired to happen in the same couple of weeks. That’s when I’m doing ‘life admin’.

So in the past week and the 2-3 weeks to come … I need to go for a Covid booster, and expect a couple of days of side effects. Have been for an eye examination, the optometrist said might as well wait with the cataract operations as you’re going to the cataract capital of Australia. Fine, I said, I’ll wait. And maybe go to the dentist.

Still on my health-jag, I recently began a comprehensive exercise program. This one has to stick. It means time-tabling … something I’m not good at … at least half an hour a day. Being the eternal night owl, for me that is in the late afternoon. Easy to run out of time. It’s taken me two weeks to complete the Week 3 activities. And not only because I run out of time.

Fatigue after chemo is big, and definitely a thing. So, some days I’m really better off communing with my lap-top rather than my milk-bottle weights doing a Strength Workout. Yesterday, I did the Warm-up and could not go on to do the Cardio Circuit. I’ll have to do that today and the Strength Workout tomorrow. That gives me a free day for my Covid shot.

I’m doing more down-sizing to prepare for moving to Cairns in a few weeks, some 2000 km up the coast, into the tropics. Down-sizing means getting rid of stuff. Making decisions about what to keep, what to let go. Books mainly. But also the tools …

The most stressful thing is organizing a place to live in up there, and wondering when to start with that? Do I really want to pay a bond (four weeks rent) and four weeks to hold it for me? I’ll be traveling with the family. They’re going beginning December. Three more weeks to get it all together.

And then there’s my house down south being sold. Rising interest rates and continual rain with its danger of flooding in that town has made this a nerve-racking time. Although the house itself hasn’t flooded, the yard shed and garage have all recently had a 30 centimeter inundation.

And finally, Lodestar has a chapter missing. Chapter 31, as a matter of fact. Kes doing the river miles. Getting infill on his tattoo, and discovering Show Town’s perfidy. I’m writing it from the notes that I have found amongst all the digital files and paperwork, in between all the other stuff going on.

‘Life Admin’ …

Continuity in Lodestar

In Part 2 of Lodestar, five of the seven main characters have a part to play, as follows …

Characters and their Roles

  1. Kestrel and his people are traveling from their Party Camp toward ShowTown where they are to undertake their yearly gladiatorial combats in return for winter grazing for their camels.
  2. Srese, the avatar of the game master’s choosing, undergoes her trials and then is encouraged to leave the habitat.
  3. Sard, Srese’s brother and remaindered avatar, hangs around influencing events until he finally accepts his fate.
  4. Ahni will have Srese speaking for her, as she is caught by the game master, and has her voice supressed by the implanted ancestress.
  5. The implant/ancestress breaks out.

Sard Kerr’s story can still be read at Fiction: The Remaindered Avatar, starting back in April 2021.

From the next post, Srese Kerr is the avatar. There will also be more of Kestrel’s adventures, though the two don’t meet in this section.

Preface for Part 2
Though the SkinGifted have used Lagoon Beach as a safe halfway destination for generations, they’ve never seen any evidence of a community living inside the rocky ridge backing the lagoon that they visit. Unfortunately for them, cameras and sensors keep a close watch on their doings.

A digital gamer fanatic—aka Gamester, also called Gammy by the young people in the community—lords it over a community in Rockeater Ridge, running it like a computer game from the past. (Their past is our present.) He even had his brain/mind scanned into a computer. He has an AIs control over his people by way of hundreds of sensors and cameras, and many loyal servants, robotic as well as flesh-and-blood.

For the sake of keeping the community’s human gene-pool healthy, regular input from passers-by is needed. Every generation a boy and girl avatar pair are bred up, to have ready either a male or female lead, whatever is required. By way of sensors and cameras on the beach side of the ridge, the SkinGifted are observed. A plan is set in motion.

For the sake of continuity on this blog, The Storm Event though the first chapter of Part 2, will count forward from the previous chapter.