Motivation And Such.

Last post I mentioned I was lacking motivation in my writing at the moment. I'm kind of sad to report that hasn't improved.

I currently lack motivation for a couple of reasons of which I'm well and truly aware, although I choose not to go into any detail here. I've spent a bit of time reflecting and looking into why I feel this way, and I must admit to not knowing what to do about it. Apart from, you know, just writing.

But I want my heart to be in it. And writing just for writing sake becomes little more than exercises that lack soul.

I work in education, and continually I hear teachers give students examples of athletes as role models in their academic studies. Just this week I heard about Michael Jordan who was cut from his high school basketball team. I would like to point out the speaker also mentioned Edison, Einstein and The Beatles who were all told at some point they wouldn't succeed. And yet it seems athletes are the examples we most often use. I've done it myself.

Last week I was told about a runner, someone who is, for the very first time, undertaking one of those iron-man thingies where they run, swim and cycle ridiculous distances. This runner, who is a friend of a friend, committed himself to finishing this event. And so he woke at 4.30 every morning, ran kilometres, trained hard, focused on where he needed to improve, controlled his diet - all the things athletes do when they are training towards something.

I have much admiration for people who commit to something like this.

I considered this as a role model for my own motivation. But as I thought about it, the less it works. While there are certain similarities, the analogy between creative and athletic endeavours doesn't satisfy me enough to be useful.

An athlete like the runner mentioned above, has a specific date and event he is working towards. I'm sure he has a goal time he would like to achieve, but I'm almost as certain he'd be happy just to finish the event. And should he not achieve either of those goals, he would be able to measure how far he fell short and what he would need to do to complete it next time.

But a writer like myself is writing a bunch of short stories,  one after another, sending them out and hoping to make a sale. And there is no second place. We either sell the story or we don't. IF we don't, we get a rejection, and it's rare they contain detailed feedback on how close we got to a sale. More often it's a generic No, Thanks. There isn't a single event we are working towards, where we do the same thing over and over and over to improve in preparation. (No, rewriting doesn't count.)

That's not to say we don't have goals. To sell to this or that particular market, to sign an agent, to make a three book deal - whatever. But so much of this stuff is outside our control.

All we can do is keep writing, hoping we improve, listen to the feedback we do actually get and then remember much of it is subjective. It's all about trying to tighten our techniques while keeping the stories human and relatable.

And a lot of this is undertaken blindly, hopefully progressing by feel or self realisation. Unlike runners, we don't always have the indicators that we're shaving seconds off our time, or getting a faster start. Or even improving.

Maybe I need a coach or a mentor.

Vale: Sir Patrick Moore.

Sir Patrick Moore, a British astronomer, has died at the age of 89.

He joined the British Astronomical Society at the age of 11, and within three years was running a small observatory. When World War 2 broke out, Moore was only 16, yet he lied about his age and joined the RAF Bomber Command as a flight navigator. During his initial training in Canada, he met both Albert Einstein and Orville Wright while on leave in New York.

Post-war, Moore was heavily involved in mapping the moon's surface. Much of this research was later used by both the Americans and the Soviets.

As the Messier Catalogue was restricted to objects in the Northern Hemisphere, Moore created the Caldwell Catalogue. (Caldwell is his middle name) This list of interesting deep space objects is a wonderful place to start for amateur astronomers.

Moore was an astronomer, researcher, author, TV presenter and radio commentator. But I will remember him for his acting. He played himself in the famous Big Bunny episode on The Goodies.

Take A Long Line...

Einstein knew what he was talking about. Not many of the rest of us do, though.

On the one hand this genius gave us a new insight into the workings of the quantum world, on the other he messed with our minds to the extent that we now have to try and understand superstring theory. The Elegant Universe, by Brian Greene, is a well written, fascinating approach to complex (some might say 'heavy') science. And, as one of Enid Blyton's characters may have said, it's a "jolly good read".

Simply put (by Einstein himself, no less), "Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. THAT'S relativity."

We all know the feeling. You plan a vacation, and the anticipation and journey feel like it takes forever, while the actual time there and the journey home pass quickly. But some things do take forever. Or at least thirty years.

I feel like a character from Lord of the Rings at the end of a quest. Three times in the past week thirty year 'waits' have come to an end.

In 1978 or so, at high school, (yes, I am that old), a teacher read us a short story that I loved at the time and have always recalled. As a 15 year old I never bothered to get the author or the title. I've spent some of the last thirty years trying to obtain these details, with a more serious attempt at detective work over the past six months. It's actually very difficult to locate this kind of information with only vague memories of what the story us about, but persistence pays off and I'd like to thank the editor who responded to my email immediately. He'd recognised the synopsis from his own schooldays. It's great to finally have a copy of this story.

Around the same time in high school I decided I wanted to fly remote control aircraft. I looked into it, but it seemed very expensive. I went to a meeting or two but realised that the whole thing was way out of a student's price range. I never really looked into it again, believing that it was still an expensive hobby.

But last month, after a chance meeting with a couple of flyboys while walking the wonderdog, I learned that as a hobby it was much more affordable these days. And so my lovely wife bought me a trainer. My friend bought one too and yesterday we had our first successful crashes.

But before gravity proved its existence in spectacular fashion, they did fly around and respond to my controls and made half decent landings once or twice. I even looked like I was in control a couple of times.

And then to top the week off we bought tickets to see the newly reformed Angels. I had two favourite albums in those days, Screaming Targets by Jo Jo Zep and the Falcons, and Face to Face by The Angels. Both these albums (on vinyl) were played regularly during much of the time I was meant to be studying. Now on CD they are still often heard in my house.

But the Angels of the 80s and 90s never excited me as much as the Angels of the four big albums. Even though I still liked their later releases, Face to Face, No Exit, Darkroom and Night Attack had something, an edge, a rawness, that was missing from later incarnations of the band. Unfortunately I never saw them live at all.

Then Doc Neeson had his falling out with the other guys, ran off with Jim Hilburn and formed Red Phoenix, a second rate Angels wannabe. This evolved into Doc Neeson's Angels which released the spectacular, but relatively unknown, Acoustic Sessions album. Meanwhile the rest of the original boys reunited as The Angels, and then The Angels Band due to legal threats by Doc.

I had the complete joy of seeing them live last year. It was a truly sublime moment that I had waited for so long and although they were brilliant they lacked the Doc's menacing vocals, the vocals that suggest he is on the verge of madness.

But they've resolved something (although the Doc claims its not permanent) and are touring shortly - the original five. Just when I thought I was never going to see their faces again, I have tickets for next month.

Do good things come to those who wait? It's taken thirty years, and it is interesting the three events converged on this week, my birthday week.

Who knows what's in store for 2038.