Yeah, I took a blog post break for 2 weeks. I had to figure out some stuff regarding social media. All the advertisement really bugs me—maybe because I grew up with 3 public TV channels in Germany who each had 4 advertisement blocks—a day—and never in the middle of a show!
When cable TV came along everybody jumped on it, but I wasn't able to watch anything chopped to a narrative death by ads every 12 minutes.
So I never got used to 25% commercials, not on social media either. After mauling it over for 2 weeks I decided against daily posts about the novel on social media and concentrate on 1 weekly blog post here. You can subscribe to this post via email—without any ads—promise, or visit when you feel like it.
As the character ensemble grows, while writing the novel, it was time to go back to do some adjustments. Some names turned out to be too similar, and I changed some genders along the way, too. Of course that brings other changes with it, so there was some tweaking going on, but I actually didn't mind to revisit those chapters again—my memory is abysmal and this was a good way to refresh it.
You wonder how confusing names can be? If I don't remember or mix them a few chapters later, chances are, readers are worse off than the author. Some just sounded too close, same beginning letter or number of syllables, that stuff.
As you can see I keep prowling Lethbridge as street photographer. The location of the last pic will be in the novel. I will keep revisiting those locations from different angles.
We now had some 39 degrees (102 Fahrenheit) days in the shade in the row, and we don't have an AC, but honestly, being with my mind in the rainy future seems to cool me down enough, at least during my writing hours.
Thank you for your time, I hope you enjoyed the glimpse into my life.
Bev Muendel-Atherstone July 1, 2021
Ads: killing the narrative and making us into a world of sound bite junkies. If we cannot sit down and read or watch a program on TV and follow the narrative to its conclusion, how will we ever be able to even follow a logical argument to its conclusion or make our own logical argument? In its quest to monetize entertainment we have lost the narrative and logical thinking. It’s no wonder we elect populist leaders who pander to the least common denominator, who cast arguments into false dichotomies of black and white/ with me or against me, making us ripe for fascism. We must be able to see things from another’s perspective. If not, we lose empathy snd with that loss, our humanity. It all goes back to commercial breaks during our TV programs.
author July 1, 2021 — Post author
yes, love it! and over the years (i think it is a gradual process) i see more and more proof of lack of communication skills. although more channels to choose from the quality dipped. the constant torpedoing of one’s focus slowly takes its toll, hindering individuals to form personalities and eroding the relation one has to one self, and to others.