Thomas W. Devine's Blog, page 19
September 5, 2015
Fun With Statistics
Health statistics have been revealed for the seven most common chronic medical conditions in New Zealand (The Dominion Post, September 5, 2015).
I tick the box on six items, as follows:
• Arthritis (16% of the population)
• Asthma (11%)
• Diabetes (5.5%)
• Heart disease (4.6%)
• High blood pressure (16%)
• High cholesterol (11%).
If you add those together, does that mean my condition represents 64.1% of the population? LOL.
I tick the box on six items, as follows:
• Arthritis (16% of the population)
• Asthma (11%)
• Diabetes (5.5%)
• Heart disease (4.6%)
• High blood pressure (16%)
• High cholesterol (11%).
If you add those together, does that mean my condition represents 64.1% of the population? LOL.
August 29, 2015
The Loneliness of Writing Fiction
I spent most of my working life in teams of various sizes. My inner critic was always active but feedback on my work was quick and frequent and some of my bosses were good mentors. It helped with self-doubt.
I retired early (because of a health scare) and began writing fiction fulltime. My inner critic remained active but I had to wait months before I could get any professional feedback on a manuscript for a new novel.
Others have referred to the situation as the loneliness of being an author.
Critiques by friends and family don’t really relieve that loneliness, I’ve found. Even the opinions of eventual readers can stoke doubts – some will praise a book, others won’t.
The best way to relieve the loneliness (delayed though it is) is through the services of an editor, especially one who has dealt with a number of your works.
She or he will identify good points of the manuscript and places where it needs work and, hopefully, be able to give you deserved encouragement.
So, after working most of the (Southern Hemisphere) autumn and all of winter on my 9th novel, “Losing & Winning”, I was able to submit the manuscript to an editor/manuscript assessor and, having received her report-back, can now proceed with confidence to further revise it.
I've also been walking on air over her comments that the novel has an excellent story, strong opening, some good characters with excellent back stories, and that my writing was coming ahead in leaps and bounds.
Now that’s shut up the inner critic for awhile.
I retired early (because of a health scare) and began writing fiction fulltime. My inner critic remained active but I had to wait months before I could get any professional feedback on a manuscript for a new novel.
Others have referred to the situation as the loneliness of being an author.
Critiques by friends and family don’t really relieve that loneliness, I’ve found. Even the opinions of eventual readers can stoke doubts – some will praise a book, others won’t.
The best way to relieve the loneliness (delayed though it is) is through the services of an editor, especially one who has dealt with a number of your works.
She or he will identify good points of the manuscript and places where it needs work and, hopefully, be able to give you deserved encouragement.
So, after working most of the (Southern Hemisphere) autumn and all of winter on my 9th novel, “Losing & Winning”, I was able to submit the manuscript to an editor/manuscript assessor and, having received her report-back, can now proceed with confidence to further revise it.
I've also been walking on air over her comments that the novel has an excellent story, strong opening, some good characters with excellent back stories, and that my writing was coming ahead in leaps and bounds.
Now that’s shut up the inner critic for awhile.
August 22, 2015
Trade Negotiations - TPPA
The Prime Minister of New Zealand, the Right Honourable John Key, believes that a deal will be reached on the Trans-Paciic Partnership Agreement (TPPA) in the near future. He says that so much time and political capital has been invested in the outcome as to make it inevitable (The Dominion Post, August 18, 3015).
That really worries me. Because the participants don’t want it to fail after all the effort to reach an agreement, it’s likely to result in a poor deal for this country.
It’s high risk for a minnow like New Zealand to swim in the same pond as the USA.
The draft agreement needs to come under scrutiny by its critics worldwide (not kept secret) before ratification is considered by governments. I think the negotiators themselves are likely to have become blinkered.
As the headline on a Terence O’Brien article in the Dominion Post (same date) says, a “High stakes game [is] being played behind TPP scenes”.
Every precaution needs to be taken.
That really worries me. Because the participants don’t want it to fail after all the effort to reach an agreement, it’s likely to result in a poor deal for this country.
It’s high risk for a minnow like New Zealand to swim in the same pond as the USA.
The draft agreement needs to come under scrutiny by its critics worldwide (not kept secret) before ratification is considered by governments. I think the negotiators themselves are likely to have become blinkered.
As the headline on a Terence O’Brien article in the Dominion Post (same date) says, a “High stakes game [is] being played behind TPP scenes”.
Every precaution needs to be taken.
August 15, 2015
Novel Progress
I wrote a blog post awhile back about my sense of accomplishment on finishing the first draft of my ninth novel.
Experts say that a writer should stop there and take a month off. I could only wait a week. I was just so keen to get on to that first run through of revision.
I completed it in 10 work sessions. I’ve done a further five revisions since then, the latest in 4 work sessions, so I’m getting the manuscript into shape and I’ve now sent it to a professional manuscript assessor.
I’m yet to make a decision from among these potential titles:
Lotto Luck
Game of Chance
Losing and Winning
(1) Which one appeals to you the most?
The following options for a back cover blurb might help you decide:
Poor choices turn former New Zealand nurse, Kristen Piper, into a fugitive. Her actions deprive teacher, Ryan Gibson, of one million dollars and drive businessman, Hamish Temple, to seek revenge.
A double pursuit across the globe, one with good intentions and one with bad, results from theft of a winning Lotto ticket and vindictiveness.
The story comes to a climax on the stunningly beautiful island of Sicily.
OR
New Zealand teacher, Ryan Gibson, holds a winning Lotto ticket but won’t get to collect his prize. His girlfriend, Kristen Piper, claims it for herself as a way out of the double-life she’s been living for five years.
With the best of intentions, Ryan pursues her across the globe. But someone else is also out to find her, and not with goodwill.
The story comes to a climax on the island of Sicily, cradle of Mediterranean culture.
(2) Which of the two do you prefer?
I’d like to hear from you.
Experts say that a writer should stop there and take a month off. I could only wait a week. I was just so keen to get on to that first run through of revision.
I completed it in 10 work sessions. I’ve done a further five revisions since then, the latest in 4 work sessions, so I’m getting the manuscript into shape and I’ve now sent it to a professional manuscript assessor.
I’m yet to make a decision from among these potential titles:
Lotto Luck
Game of Chance
Losing and Winning
(1) Which one appeals to you the most?
The following options for a back cover blurb might help you decide:
Poor choices turn former New Zealand nurse, Kristen Piper, into a fugitive. Her actions deprive teacher, Ryan Gibson, of one million dollars and drive businessman, Hamish Temple, to seek revenge.
A double pursuit across the globe, one with good intentions and one with bad, results from theft of a winning Lotto ticket and vindictiveness.
The story comes to a climax on the stunningly beautiful island of Sicily.
OR
New Zealand teacher, Ryan Gibson, holds a winning Lotto ticket but won’t get to collect his prize. His girlfriend, Kristen Piper, claims it for herself as a way out of the double-life she’s been living for five years.
With the best of intentions, Ryan pursues her across the globe. But someone else is also out to find her, and not with goodwill.
The story comes to a climax on the island of Sicily, cradle of Mediterranean culture.
(2) Which of the two do you prefer?
I’d like to hear from you.
August 8, 2015
Literary Rejection
I can’t imagine how it must have felt for an all-time-great author like F Scott Fitzgerald to have had his short story, “Temperature”, rejected by a magazine in what was (not that he would know) to be the last year of his life (The Dominion Post, August 4, 2015).
Literary rejection, I’ve experienced, but not world-wide fame and reputation. It must come even harder for someone who tasted success in his lifetime.
With “Temperature” would he, I wonder, have taken advantage of self-publising if he’d been alive today?
Anyhow, his short story has now been published, widening his literary legacy.
Literary rejection, I’ve experienced, but not world-wide fame and reputation. It must come even harder for someone who tasted success in his lifetime.
With “Temperature” would he, I wonder, have taken advantage of self-publising if he’d been alive today?
Anyhow, his short story has now been published, widening his literary legacy.
August 1, 2015
On Wealth & Poverty
A rich-lister slams his own. A very brave New Zealand millionaire and philanprophist, Sir James Wallace, may find himself cut from the invitation lists of his peers after the interview he gave Narelle Henson in The Dominion Post, July 31, 2015.
Narelle reveals Sir James’ belief that “the latest crop of [New Zealand’s] super wealthy are also super selfish” and are “the reason ... that the gap between the rich and the poor in New Zealand is growing”.
He describes them as having “absolutely obscene wages”, a theme I’ve written about in previous posts on the disparity between the income of the rich and the poor in our society.
God bless him.
Narelle reveals Sir James’ belief that “the latest crop of [New Zealand’s] super wealthy are also super selfish” and are “the reason ... that the gap between the rich and the poor in New Zealand is growing”.
He describes them as having “absolutely obscene wages”, a theme I’ve written about in previous posts on the disparity between the income of the rich and the poor in our society.
God bless him.
July 21, 2015
Writing Another Novel
Awhile back, in this blog, I posted that I had decided on a plot for my ninth novel.
After working on the manuscript every day since, I finished a first draft towards the end of June and have been busy with revisions.
It’s been quite a thrill and, after having spent all summer and part of autumn doubting myself, a relief that I still have fiction writing ability.
I haven’t chosen a title yet but “Losing and Winning” is one idea I’m tossing around.
The characters have led me out of New Zealand to Australia and, for a climax, to Sicily.
The more I write, and the more feedback I get on my work (and on others’ books) the more I realise that no plot ever suits every book-buyer or borrower, no matter what the genre.
As always, I hope my ninth will prove entertaining to my loyal readers.
After working on the manuscript every day since, I finished a first draft towards the end of June and have been busy with revisions.
It’s been quite a thrill and, after having spent all summer and part of autumn doubting myself, a relief that I still have fiction writing ability.
I haven’t chosen a title yet but “Losing and Winning” is one idea I’m tossing around.
The characters have led me out of New Zealand to Australia and, for a climax, to Sicily.
The more I write, and the more feedback I get on my work (and on others’ books) the more I realise that no plot ever suits every book-buyer or borrower, no matter what the genre.
As always, I hope my ninth will prove entertaining to my loyal readers.
July 10, 2015
Thoughts for This Week
There are so many social and political issues these days and so many streams of advice (one differing with the other) that, it seems to me, the only principles that hold true are those taken from the teachings of Christ as recorded in The Bible.
Fifty years ago, on any one subject, you’d be lucky if you saw one opinion piece in the news media in a generation.
I’m exaggerating, of course, but with the information explosion today you’re likely to see two or three opinion pieces in one week e.g. on the current Greece economic crisis.
It becomers very hard to know who to believe.
****
In 1977, in the New Zealand Parliament, pro-like Labour MP (member of parilament) Brian MacDonell, held aloft a 12-week-old pickled foetus and suggested that there are “laws that are above Parliament”.
As a consequence, National MP, John Lithgow threatened MacDonel with prison, since it was a crime to “indecently” interfere with human remains.
[Source: The Dominion Post, July 10, 2015)
The New Zealand Parliament then went on to pass an abortion law that treated live foetuses as if they weren’t human beings.
Fifty years ago, on any one subject, you’d be lucky if you saw one opinion piece in the news media in a generation.
I’m exaggerating, of course, but with the information explosion today you’re likely to see two or three opinion pieces in one week e.g. on the current Greece economic crisis.
It becomers very hard to know who to believe.
****
In 1977, in the New Zealand Parliament, pro-like Labour MP (member of parilament) Brian MacDonell, held aloft a 12-week-old pickled foetus and suggested that there are “laws that are above Parliament”.
As a consequence, National MP, John Lithgow threatened MacDonel with prison, since it was a crime to “indecently” interfere with human remains.
[Source: The Dominion Post, July 10, 2015)
The New Zealand Parliament then went on to pass an abortion law that treated live foetuses as if they weren’t human beings.
June 30, 2015
Rambling In The Wilds of My Mind
Not a great deal coming out of the news makes me want to blog these days. Greece does, for example, as a country that has lived beyond its means but seems to expect to keep its luxuries (such as a bloated public service) at the expense of other countries.
Then again, don’t all countries borrow? And who can predict if a country might default on repayments one day?
Banks, as always, seem prepared to lend their depositors’ funds and take risks but bleat if it costs their shareholders any substantial loss.
As a volunteer citizen advisor I see plenty of misery where individual borrowers overcommit themselves and can’t repay their debts to banks or finance companies. The financiers resort to debt collection, asset seizure, and mortgagee sales and the debtors to bankruptcy.
No one, however, seems to be telling the world what will happen if a whole country defaults. Is there a precedent? I don’t follow economics so closely that I know the answer. Do you?
Then again, don’t all countries borrow? And who can predict if a country might default on repayments one day?
Banks, as always, seem prepared to lend their depositors’ funds and take risks but bleat if it costs their shareholders any substantial loss.
As a volunteer citizen advisor I see plenty of misery where individual borrowers overcommit themselves and can’t repay their debts to banks or finance companies. The financiers resort to debt collection, asset seizure, and mortgagee sales and the debtors to bankruptcy.
No one, however, seems to be telling the world what will happen if a whole country defaults. Is there a precedent? I don’t follow economics so closely that I know the answer. Do you?
June 23, 2015
Part II – Euthanasia – Developing My Thinking On the Subject
Will the New Zealand Parliament legislate for law change concerning death by choice? If it does, will euthanasia ultimately end up, like divorce and abortion, as largely a form-filling exercise on relaxed grounds i.e. not just for terminally ill people?
That seems to be a big concern of some opponents and a practical modern-day, lesson we can’t afford to ignore about social legislation.
It is the elderly who are most at risk.
Richard A McCormick describes them (The Nathaniel Report, April 2015)as “shunted aside” and, “Not yet ready for the world of the dead [but] not deemed fit for the world of the living.”
He says, “We have learned how to increase their years, but we have not learned how to help them enjoy their lives.”
To avoid the need for the latter effort, euthanasia is seen as an easy way out by some people.
On the other hand, Dr John Kleinsman advises in a recent edition of the NZ Catholic: “Euthanasia and assisted suicide are unnecessary and, in the current toxic context, extremly dangerous. Be careful what you wish for”.
Some days (as an old person) I think modern society isn’t worth living in but, on others, I enjoy my life. So, theoretically, if I walked into a euthanasia clinic on the wrong day, say ten years from now, I might not live to regret it.
Harriet Rowland, a now deceased eighteen-year-old New Zealand Book Award finalist, is said by her father (in a recent edition of The Dominion Post) to have kept a “positive attitude” about her terminal illness. He thinks it is “a great message for people” that she didn’t just spend her remaining time on “being sick and having medical treatments” but blogged and became a published author.
Now that, is a life ending in dignity!
That seems to be a big concern of some opponents and a practical modern-day, lesson we can’t afford to ignore about social legislation.
It is the elderly who are most at risk.
Richard A McCormick describes them (The Nathaniel Report, April 2015)as “shunted aside” and, “Not yet ready for the world of the dead [but] not deemed fit for the world of the living.”
He says, “We have learned how to increase their years, but we have not learned how to help them enjoy their lives.”
To avoid the need for the latter effort, euthanasia is seen as an easy way out by some people.
On the other hand, Dr John Kleinsman advises in a recent edition of the NZ Catholic: “Euthanasia and assisted suicide are unnecessary and, in the current toxic context, extremly dangerous. Be careful what you wish for”.
Some days (as an old person) I think modern society isn’t worth living in but, on others, I enjoy my life. So, theoretically, if I walked into a euthanasia clinic on the wrong day, say ten years from now, I might not live to regret it.
Harriet Rowland, a now deceased eighteen-year-old New Zealand Book Award finalist, is said by her father (in a recent edition of The Dominion Post) to have kept a “positive attitude” about her terminal illness. He thinks it is “a great message for people” that she didn’t just spend her remaining time on “being sick and having medical treatments” but blogged and became a published author.
Now that, is a life ending in dignity!
