Well, yesterday was not entirely wasted because I discovered why ‘Save the Cat’ is so-called. A kind fellow-writer on the Nano group informed me that it refers to a need to establish the hero’s character by having them do something kind – like saving a cat – right at the start of the story. Interestingly (and this sort of synchronicity happens a lot) the same thing was referred to in ‘Episodes’ which I finished watching last night. The ending is pure genius but I’ll come to that another time.
I even read a section of the original ‘Save the Cat Beats’, and concluded that there may be something to learn from it, so I may order a cheap copy of the novel version (the original is aimed at screenwriters.) Sometimes in life things can just keep throwing themselves at you until you pay attention, and since this weird, annoying and incomprehensible thing keeps throwing itself at me, I shall give it a whirl. I’ll keep you posted.
But that was yesterday – and this morning I woke up in a weird state, almost not knowing who or where I was. I can only describe it as Dr Who-like; a feeling of having been flung half-way across the universe and landing on some planet that is not Gallifrey. You know you’ve been here before but you can’t quite remember when; in the meantime it becomes a matter of urgency to harmonise your systems with those of this planet, to remind yourself of the spectrum of light that prevails here and to assume a form that can be recognised by other beings. These things are a matter of survival; without them you may be annihilated. Without them you won’t be able to breathe.
This sort of ‘synchronisation of consciousness’ usually happens in a matter of moments but today it took about an hour, and in the meantime I couldn’t concentrate on anything at all.
Weird.
The other thing I was going to mention is the extent to which I ‘blank-out’ areas of my life. I guess we all have things we try to blank out because they influence us in ways we don’t like: such as advertising or propaganda when lots of us change channel or hit the mute button. Well, I seem to be hitting the mute button a lot lately; in fact I’m blurring the pixels on so many things out there, it’s hard to see where I’m going. For example, when I walk into a shop to be confronted by aisles of sweets and crisps I blank them out lest I’m tempted to buy some; or when I walk down the street and pass loads of coffee and burger chains I blank them out because I don’t want to patronise them, or when look something up online and the first six links are from Amazon. I do it with Facebook too, logging off and deleting the preview from my start screen so that I’m not tempted to go on there too much. It’s hard work.
Oh well. Have a Mcnice Mcday.
Kirk McOut
Sarada Gray 