writing – of words & books

(I’m borrowing shamelessly from last year’s post title.)

This year has been immensely eventful. I’ve worked a lot, travelled a little, and attempted to study. I’ve picked up hobbies, I’ve laid down hobbies, I’ve done an entire year of learning Mandarin (shout out to my tutor who is very patient with my snail-slow progress), sat a few exams, read 100 books and have done very, very, very little writing.

I’m studying it instead, you see. So it kinda counts?

me telling this bloke a joke. obviously it is very funny.

LIFE

Life was lived and it’s had some very lovely turns of events and other rather tricky ones and all the emotions in-between. Our brains are not always the kindest things, but you have to keep going – joy comes with the morning, as the good book says.

(I still can’t believe I got to travel with Hayden, who visited this blog long before visiting me.)

i learned that if a country is hot – you must use an umbrella for shade. i then used one in london during a heatwave and a man made a snarky comment about expecting rain. ah, the british. this photo is not of london though, it is of porto

But, dear friends, Romans, countrymen … 2023 has left me feeling tired and recovering from a particularly horrid cold, and so you will forgive me if I’m content in closing its chapter; I’m ready, and indeed, quite excited, for the new one.

READING

100 books have been completed. Thank you, thank you – I did stay up late reading The Angel of the Crows , and I learned that it started life as fanfiction; a final plot twist in a surprising Sherlock Holmes retelling by the author of my favourite book. And no, it did not unseat The Goblin Emperor. What could?

I’ve just finished the Hunger Games Trilogy which was interesting. Yes, I’m late to read them but pfft. Better late than never!

This year, I also read three books on cephalopods and one, ah, enlightening book about animal penises. What can I say? My curiosity cannot be contained. I also went on an environmental exploration and became very upset about the fate of vaquitas, dragged ‘The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History’ all the way to Portugal with me, reread the Red Rising trilogy, went on a Greek Mythology kick and … okay, look, it’s been a busy year of reading.

And I’ve … really enjoyed it?

I would recommend ‘the sixth extinction: an unnatural history’ but it is also very very depressing

WRITING

The less we speak of this, the better. I’m studying it now. And that means you simply have to write short stories, and poems, and little blips etc etc.

However, on the topic of my bigger projects – they are forever and always in the back of my brain. They haunt me. I am hoping that in 2024 I’ll be able to lay at least one of them to rest. And by that I mean … completing them.

Thank you.

MUSIC

As you know, I’m part of a musical duo and this year? We released this absolute bop. Yes. I’m allowed to call it that. It has 20 YouTube views now, so we’re like, super famous. (Let me know if you want an autograph.)

a b s o l u t e [cowboy] b o p

I’ve been informed that it needs words. But pfft, does it though? DOES IT THOUGH?

MISC

By now, I’m heartily sick of tales of my own ~~hubris~~ life. I wish for you that if there were any wounds inflicted in 2023, that 2024 heals them, that whatever joys you encountered carry on into the new year and that we all remember – in this often unhinged and tumultuous world we inhabit – to find our courage, and to be a little kinder.

(And my gosh, let’s pray, hope, and work for a kinder world for everyone. Our circles of influence may be small, but ripples … er, ripple. Butterfly effect and all that.)

happy reading & happy new year!

apologies to the bystanders caught in this photo

ness talks books

orwell in burma | reading logs #1

September 28, 2023 nesskingsley

I’m nose-deep in Burmese Days by George Orwell. It’s going … well, it’s going. 1984 reduced me to a state of battered and boggled bewilderment. I don’t feel like that just yet. But you know, there’s time.

It’s quite alarming to encounter so much racism, a jarring reminder of how awful the world was and is and can be. Flory, the protagonist, has strong anti-British Empire sentiments, and yet he’s still going through the motions of being a cog in its brutal machine.

It is a corrupting thing to live one’s real life in secret. One should live with the stream of life, not against it.
page … ah I can’t locate it again

I’ve just left off at page 87 – Flory has just encountered an English girl and I’ve got a terrible feeling he’s going to tumble into love with her and it’ll end horribly.

Actually, you see, I already know the ending because I’ve also just finished ‘Finding George Orwell In Burma‘ by Emma Larkin.

Reading Burmese Days afterwards feels like watching a movie after going ‘behind the scenes’. Larkin visits locations that Orwell uses in his book; she describes how they were during his time working in Burma for the British Imperial Police, and what they were like when she travelled there.

On a surface-level, Larkin is following Orwell’s footsteps in Burma/now Myanmar, but slowly her book unfolds into a sobering and somewhat haunting picture of a country; how its people are trapped by their government, and where the only place they can be truly free is in their own minds.

Finding George Orwell in Burma was published in 2004, I believe, and there’s a lot that has happened in the country since then – if I want to find out the latest news, I’ll have to locate a different book regarding it.

Okay, that’s enough procrastinating. I’d better get back to studying …

burmese days // finding george orwell in burma

ness talks about life

busy-ness aka doing everything all at once

April 22, 2023 nesskingsley

The first part of this year has been quite hectic. I’ve booked, double booked, and occasionally triple-booked myself because … well, I have no clear answer. Perhaps it was the winter blues that got to me. Perhaps it was an inability to realise that sometimes, a girl just needs a break. Or, and this is more likely, it was entirely accidental.

In the words of Carlotta: “these things do ‘appen“.

DOING THINGS

Somehow, through no fault of my own, I ended up visiting a few countries. And none of them were Mongolia, Madagascar, or Morocco. One, however, was Wales. I would recommend.

I’ve learned some thing though (GASP. I know. I know) … for example, travel is made so much better with friends & family.

life is not the things that we do
it’s who we’re doing them with
Will Connolly, Cecily Smith

And I was lucky enough to make trips all with friends and/or family. I also got to travel with Hayden; a long discussed trip finally coming to fruition. We had many adventures, we caught some Shakespeare, some planes, some trains, some Ubers, and – just to make all things even – a boat. One could say that at this point, we are professionals. (And it definitely was not me who booked our train return tickets on the wrong day. Nope. I would never. ~~I absolutely did~~.)

And another thing I’ve learned? I’ve occasionally declared myself to be a pessimistic optimist. Or an optimistic pessimist. One of those. However, when it comes to Zadok the Priest? I’m all pessimist. I can’t sing it. I’m sorry, I tried, but I don’t think I could reach that high even if I grew several feet. And yes, that’s a ~~good~~ joke. Please laugh. Thank you.

READING / WRITING

I’m on track to reach my reading goal this year. It’s a nice feeling. There were some reading highlights, and then there were some really terrible not-highlights (I am side-eying Revenge of the Horseclans so hard that my eyeballs are in danger of falling out.)

What about writing? Ah. Yes. Writing. This was not one of my top priorities at the beginning of the year. However! I don’t intend to be quite so busy, which means I have time … which means I can write and am writing. (Ze logick iz exquizite.)

Work is ticking along. The next-door library is still there. The blossoms are out in the woods, flowers everywhere are in bloom, the sun seems to shine just a little bit brighter and the days stretch a little longer.

I’ve learned a small lesson about moderation; that doing everything can be done (or rather, attempted), but should it? For me, I think, I’m grateful to have been able to do so much! But oh, it’s so pleasant to slow down sometimes. There’s a time to be busy, and there’s also a time to not be so busy.

But, you know, there’s always a time ~~to overuse italics~~ to pick up a book.

after all the busyness, i paddled in a stream. and it. was. glorious. 10/10. absolutely no notes.

ness talks about life

things i did not do in 2022

January 25, 2023January 25, 2023 nesskingsley

If I had a nickel for every event I organised in 2022 and missed … I’d have three nickels. That’s not a lot but it’s weird that it’s happened three times …

I MISSED A FLIGHT TO CARCASSONNE

Yeah, I could have gone to the France. (Bonjour! Voulez vous une baguette?) I had a cheap flight, and an airbnb booked – it was beautiful, a lovely little apartment up several flights of winding steps, overlooking the old town, with a cathedral at the very bottom of it all. A boulangerie right around the corner. I could have sat on a balcony, eaten pastries, and woven a story!

I did … none of those things.

The week before I was due to catch the short flight over to France two things (2) happened:

a) I began to feel a tiny, incy bit poorly

b) the feeling of dread began to climb

There was this very vivid mental image in my mind, you see – I hop on a plane and go to a country, find a ride from the airport to the apartment, walk deserted streets, forget to buy food because it’s too late, lie on the bed and perish of starvation. In the morning I wake, a Victorian waif, and sip water from a tap. Misery is my companion. Despair, my friend.

The vibes, I announced to any unfortunate person in my general vicinity, were off.

I released that I was an adult and thusly, I have autonomy. If I do not want to hop on a flight and butcher a beautiful language and be battered to death with a baguette – I did not have to.

This felt like a sudden and beautiful moment of self-realisation.

The plane took off. My seat, empty. The airbnb, cancelled.

(And it was a good thing too – I developed a filthy cold and had a redder nose than Rudolf himself. Forgive me, Rudolf! I’ll be guiding that sleigh tonight!)

I DID NOT SEE SPOCK

I say this with love, but I probably shouldn’t be permitted to buy tickets. To anything. You know, just no tickets in general. Step away. Don’t purchase.

And, in the dreadful occasion that I do purchase the tickets, I should also ensure that I have a method, a means, or a way – of getting a refund.

(I have not learned my lesson.)

A friend and I were going to go down to London to see Spock (Zachary Quinto) and Friar Tuck (David Harewood) in a play which probably was Very Serious and Important. I definitely was going for the cultural element, and not because I was determined to support Zachary Quinto in person.

We had a dream. We had a plan. We even had a parking space. And then strikes hit the railways and a dastardly cold struck my friend.

Reader, I tried to give those tickets to someone else. I did my very best. There were no takers. We couldn’t move the tickets without incurring extra cost, and we couldn’t get a refund, and if I made the trip on my own I would be driving at one am in the morning. No one wanted that. Especially me, Ness, who is very attached to the idea of being in bed and not on a motorway in the wee hours of the morning.

Alas, when the curtains opened there would have been two empty seats in Grand Circle Row F. But listen, dear actors and stage hands and theatre folk – we were there in spirit.

I messaged my friend: this play is moving me to tears.

He agreed, but mentioned that he couldn’t see the stage as someone’s head was in the way.

We were, in all probability, in our PJs, in our respective homes.

I DID NOT GO TO COMIC CON

… as you can tell, there is a theme here.

Having been to London Comic Con, dressed as Jason Todd and sporting the fakest and most wonderful of crowbars, it was obviously imperative to do it again. But this time? A friend and I were going to be dressed as hobbits.

How exciting! How thrilling!! We were going to look spectacular! The hobbitiest hobbits to ever hobbit! I began mental preparations to make the hobbit feet (and by ‘make’ I mean ‘buy’).

These plans did not last long.

‘What if,’ I asked my friend, ‘we went as ironic hobbits. With a white t-shirt that said “Hobbit” on it?’

She agreed.

I felt quite smug, as if I was a future hipster Hobbit. I could run around and demand if total strangers had eaten their second breakfast! What panache! What style!

but just imagine us, accosting everyone ‘HAVE THEY TAKEN THE HOBBITS TO ISENGARD?’ and then being thrown out of comic con because our great wit proved to be too powerful

Those t-shirts, dear reader, were never made.

But no worries! We were still 100% going to comic con!! It would be grand! Great! Brilliant! It … did not quite happen.

There was a communications failure and the carrier pigeon I sent my friend was shot on its way to her. To exacerbate the matter, I had neglected to organise a) transport and b) apparel – assuming, of course, that magically and wonderfully these things would just … happen.

They did not. We live in a society.

The night before, a decision had to be made. When the morning of comic con dawned, I had a delightful lie-in.

(Sometimes, the best plans can be the cancelled ones.)

Believe it or not, the interrupted plans don’t worry me too much. Sometimes, the dream of going somewhere – that delicious, comforting feeling of something to look forward to – is worth the money itself.

(Is that what I say to comfort myself? Yes. Yes, it is.)

In Calvin & Hobbes, Calvin’s dad would probably say cancelled plans were character building or something, and you know what? I’d agree with him. I really did enjoy that lie-in.

What things didn’t you do in 2022?

ness talks about life, ness talks books

endurance, and the tragic woe of the library computers being down

December 1, 2021November 21, 2021 nesskingsley

let’s time travel a little …

I’m in a busy coffee shop because the computers in the library are down and I can’t write the perfectly thrilling sci-fi novella series that is currently filling my brain.

(An integral part of my work day – nipping into the library and writing during my lunchtime – has been horribly disturbed. No one asked my permission. I am bitter.)

But, in a smooth segue, another part of my work day has recently ended – listening to Astronaut Scott Kelly talk in a dry monotone about space for 11 or more hours as I drove to and from work.

At first, I was dubious. Wasn’t sure I could last. Wasn’t sure I even liked the audiobook. Reader, I was very, very wrong. Not only did I enjoy it, I may have loved it? I like the dry monotone now? WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO ME?

Also I know so much about being an astronaut now. I feel fully prepared to strap myself to a rocket and shoot to the ISS.

(NASA? CALL ME. I’M READY)

Endurance flip-flops between Kelly’s one year stay on the ISS and the life journey it took to get there. And you know what? It is, to borrow a phrase from Spock, fascinating.

It was a difficult road and it is told in meticulous detail. The grit and determination it took can’t be understated. The perseverance required was inspiring.

It also sounds exhausting – the one track, driving push to reach your goal. But Kelly did it. He managed it. And he wrote a book and read it to me, personally, in the car. For two weeks.

I’d better vamos, the lunch hour is almost up. There is a couple on a lunch date sitting at the table next to me. My coffee waffle is eaten. Ice cream for lunch? Yep. That happened.

Zero regrets.

Also I tried to take a picture of my lunch and the flash was on and I can never come here again. The end. Have a good day.