We Have The Technology

I'm writing this from the laptop; invigilating exams has meant that there has been little point in having it with me so far this week, but since I didn't have an exam to cover today I thought I would bring it with me and get some software installed!

It took me a long time to connect to the university's wireless network, but finally I did it. Now I'm just waiting for various things to download and install; thankfully the connection is pretty good, and so is the laptop, so it's all going quite smoothly. Have downloaded Firefox and Acrobat Reader (neither of which came on the laptop - Acrobat did, but was a few versions previous), updated Windows Defender and tried to update the preloaded antivirus, but it was a bit funny about doing that because it is a 90 day trial version. I've ordered some other stuff, and that should come soon, so will probably just leave it until then.

Have been a little out of sorts over the last few days, not because of 101/1001, but mainly through thinking about the future (jobs, defending my thesis etc). Some friends have suggested that I should take a holiday, or at least book one, but in the absence of a current passport it leaves me with a UK holiday as the only option - not that I don't want to go on holiday in the UK, but I'm just very excited about travelling abroad. I guess the real thing that is holding me back is precisely the thing that I need to escape from, i.e., uncertainty about the future! Worry about what might happen and possibilities of job interviews and jobs has meant that I've put off booking a break just in case something comes up. My friend has kind of talked me out of that mindset this morning, but am still having trouble coming around to it I think...

Oh well. At least I have shiny toys to play with! And write on! Have kept up with making notes and getting things down for these pieces of flash fiction I've been working on. While I don't want to commit myself just yet, and I haven't decided on titles, I think that the first two pieces will be quite different from each other, one about "The Lying Sister" and one telling a tale of "The Worldspider"...

For a long time I've had problems with using ideas in different ways, because I've had this thinking that when something is written then it is written and fixed, you know, "I can't take those toys out and play with them again later" - which couldn't be further from the truth really! While I've known for a long time about writers taking stalled novels and turning them into film scripts, or failed comics and turning them into short stories, it didn't really hit me until I was reading the commentary contained with "The Children of Húrin" and Christopher Tolkien writes about how many different versions and formats the story had been through while his father was working on it; it's totally OK for an author to take their creations and do different things with them - one doesn't have to be perfect the first time around either.

As obvious as it sounds (and is!), it's something that I've only just really realised, and I'm still only just accepting.

More soon!