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Very recently I temped for a market research company working on behalf of a retail company famous for their jeans. We were paid to interview customers in the client store, track customer behaviour outside the store and record customer buying behaviour within the store of the client and competitor.

These weren’t clothe stores I would normally go in.

So normally I would not have anything to say about them – bad or good.

But after the first day, we were informed that we were not allowed to go into our client store, to work or to have lunch in their staff room. Perhaps it was too inconvenient for a few of us to use the staff room to shelter from the cold and rain during lunch break, I don’t know – but the store manager’s message via the market research company did not sound welcoming. The market research company was not good at conveying the reasons why and actually moaned about it. That’s not good marketing – bad mouthing your client.

A market research company? Shouldn’t they know better?

And when we did congregate outside the store, the store manager’s out-of-habit robotic ‘hello’ to customers stopped when she realized it was us, which then followed by ‘oh, it’s just you guys’. It wasn’t said in a less-than-friendly tone but it might as well sounded like it because hours before we were told we weren’t welcome there. It was not only me who felt slighted.

It could have been for legitimate and common sense reasons.

We didn’t hear them.

We could have been potential customers.

We could have loved the company’s products before.

If I did, I wouldn’t go into that store.

Would you be impressed?

I may have been working on behalf of the retail company but if their name came up in a conversation, I know I will have nothing good to say about them.

What am I trying to say?

Just because we work for you – no matter how briefly – don’t forget we have mouths and we can tell people how bad your company treat people in general. Just because we’re there to work for you for the day doesn’t mean we weren’t one of your regular customers shopping on the weekends.

Everyone who comes in contact with you is a potential customer or know someone who could be a potential customer.

You know, in dating, you normally get an idea of someone’s character by the way they treat service staff such as waiters etc – it’s the same with companies.

How are you treating your staff?

What do you think?

Leave a comment. It’s good to know.

So, how have you been?

“Dwell not on the past. Use it to illustrate a point, then leave it behind. Nothing really matters except what you do now in this instant of time. From this moment onwards you can be an entirely different person, filled with love and understanding, ready with an outstretched hand, uplifted and positive in every thought and deed.”

Eileen Caddy

CURRENT STATUS: Reminder, Motivator and Review Meeting (Read on if you want to join me in my Corporation of One meeting)

What l have learnt:

• I’m sure I’ve learned something. I’m just not able to put my finger on anything specific. Ah well. I learned something, I’m sure of it.
  

What I am doing or have done/decided:

• Read The Road by Cormac McCarthy
  
• Still reading Kiss of the Spider Woman by Manuel Puig.
• Still reading The Associate by John Grisham.

WORD COUNT:

Night Walker 159,000 words. Finished. Leaving to marinate.

Insomniac Foetus Ready to edit.

You look at me wondering. I look away. My shoulders slump further. I know you’re looking at me and wondering what’s wrong with me. Nothing is wrong with me – outwardly, anyway.

I know I look like I’m pouting. I’m not pouting.

You don’t push me. You wait. Patiently. Too patiently.

Have you ever felt so tired that you feel like you’re 83?

You shake your head and your eyes tell me that you don’t know where this is going.

Well, that’s how I feel. Inside. I feel old. Tired.

Your eyebrows raise ever so slightly – questioning.

I rub my eyes and sigh.

Anyway, recently I finished reading all three novels by Stieg Larsson. The books are also known as the Millennium Trilogy. The first is called The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo followed by The Girl who Played with Fire and ending with The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest.

It was only while reading the last book that I was shocked to find out that the author of the books had died in 2004. Yes, I’m slow. (Slow and tired)

I guess the shock comes from thinking that any book that has been published recently – the assumption is that the novelist is still alive and will be writing more.

It’s hard to believe that Stieg Larsson will never write anything else.

Though I saw the film based on the book The Girl who Played with Fire- which was very good – I still couldn’t put the books down – every single one of them. The films are produced by a Swedish and a Danish production company but I wouldn’t be surprised that there will be an American/English version soon enough. I even gave up possible sleep to read them. For someone who find it difficult to sleep or stay awake (yes, I’ll tell you more another time) – it’s a big thing. That’s how good they were. Then I find out there will be no more.

And the thought that he did not live to see how popular his books have become.

Because of the shock of finding out about his death and the realization of finding an author I enjoy reading and that there will be no more books by this novelist – Stieg Larsson – all this made me want to write a post to find out more about him and to say a big thanks to him and how sorry I am that we’re all going to miss out on more of his stories, stories we don’t even know about because this writer is no longer here.

~

Here are a few things I learnt about the author Stieg Larsson I’d like to share with you:

• He changed his name from Stig to Stieg so he would not be confused with his friend Stig Larsson, also a well-known author (source: wikipedia).

• The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest was not intended to be the last book in the series (I knew it!):

Larsson left about three quarters of a fourth novel on a notebook computer, now possessed by his partner, Eva Gabrielsson; synopses or manuscripts of the fifth and sixth in the series, which he intended to contain an eventual total of ten books, may also exist. Read more at wikipedia…

• Book four could actually be book five and there is no book four. Confused? I am.

“I got the email from Stieg 10 days before he died where he wrote book number four is nearly finished,” says his brother Joakim in his first U.S. television interview. “And to make it more complicated, this book number four, [is] book number five, because he thought that [it] was more fun to write than book number four.” Read more at cbsnews…

• After reading the trilogy, it’s not surprising to know that the author was concerned about politics and was a journalist and activist. It seems his combative reporting style mimic those of the main male character, journalist Blomkvist and according to reports, the threats to Larsson’s life led him to mask or conceal his personal details from public view to ensure he could not be tracked down easily mirroring his heroine, Lisbeth Salander’s need to cover and conceal her identity. All of which complicated Larsson’s relationship with his partner when it came to dealing with his finances after his death and fueled speculation and conspiracy theories concerning his sudden death. His life sounded like a thriller.

• His need to protect women from violence and the violence portrayed in his novels were based on personal experience.

Larsson…was disgusted by sexual violence, having witnessed the gang rape of a young girl when he was 15. According to a friend of his, the author never forgave himself for failing to help the girl, whose name was Lisbeth — just like the young heroine of the trilogy, who is also a rape survivor. Read more at the NewStatesman…

• Larsson had a destructive streak. He “smoked over 60 cigarettes a day and was a classic workaholic…” Read more at the timesonline…

The more I learn about Larsson, the more I admire the author. If I could only be half as brave and entertain half as many, I’d feel very lucky.

It just makes me wonder what other creations we miss out on because a writer out there doesn’t get to write their book because of one reason or another. Imagine there would have been ten books in the series, not just three (or possibly four). This could easily have been you – any of us – all of us. And you don’t know until you try.

So, how are you?

Have you read the novels?

What did you think?

Leave a comment. It’s good to know.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon – Novel and Thoughts

Chuck Sambuchino – An Interview: Published Book, Writing and a Writer’s Life (Part 1)

Chuck Sambuchino – An Interview: Published Book, Writing and a Writer’s Life (Part 2)

Sean Ferrell – The Author Talks About Writing

Sean Ferrell – The Author Talks About Numb the Character

Sean Ferrell – The Author Talks About the Book Trailer Numb

“To grow, you must be willing to let your present and future be totally unlike your past. Your history is not your destiny.”

Alan Cohen

CURRENT STATUS: Reminder, Motivator and Review Meeting (Read on if you want to join me in my Corporation of One meeting)

What l have learnt:

• Querying Agents at the Same Agency. Should you?
• Agent Tina Wexler On: 6 and 1/2 Ways to Impress an Agent.
• Copyright Infringement and from there to the Facebook page to read comments from very annoyed people. I could read the comments all day but I won’t. A hunt is on for the head of the editor on a stick but I’m too tired.

What I am doing or have done/decided:

• Read Dexter is Delicious by Jeff Lindsay.
• Read Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay.
• Read The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Stieg Larsson.
• Reading Kiss of the Spider Woman by Manuel Puig.
• Reading The Associate by John Grisham.

WORD COUNT:

Night Walker 159,000 words. Finished. Leaving to marinate.

Insomniac Foetus Ready to edit. Having a break before I start.

The page has amazon affiliate links and the photographs are film posters or book covers from the respective production companies.

Sundays for me tend to be relaxed. It’s a day that if I plan to do too much, the day becomes deceptively short because of Monday. But if I don’t plan and just go with the flow, it becomes deceptively long.

We’re strolling by the river. The air here is nippy. But the sun warms our faces and the hot chocolate in my stomach warms me from within.

I stop and stare above me as the sea air plays a game of chase with the red leaves in the tree in front of us. You stop and follow my gaze puzzled.

What? you ask.

The leaves swaying makes me feel calm, I say.

The film Phenomenon, you say.

I grin and push my shoulder playfully against your upper arm.

Cheesy I know, I say.

You grin enjoying my embarrassment. We saunter on arm hooked around arm.

Let’s continue from the posts:

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho – Your Dreams and Thoughts (Part 1) and

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho – Your Dreams and Thoughts (Part 2).

We’ve been talking about Paulo Coelho’s book The Alchemist and the quoted excerpt comes from the author’s website:

I ask myself: are defeats necessary?

Well, necessary or not, they happen. When we first begin fighting for our dream, we have no experience and make many mistakes. The secret of life, though, is to fall seven times and to get up eight times.

Defeats, distractions and diversions (other words for mistakes or bad luck) are inevitable. This is the journey. It’s what makes life more interesting.

So you want to go from A to B and if it was simple to get to or a definite with no distractions, life would be pretty dull. Before you get from A to B, life has other plans, it wants you to visit C to meet your future partner, pass D where your son is going to meet his future wife and at E you’re going to be forced to learn to climb with your son and get physically fit which is going to save your life when you reach F and so on.

Diversions and distractions may seem annoying at first because they are never planned but they can be the most beautiful experiences. They test your sense of flexibility, your strength etc adding to the skills you’ve already collected on your way and will help you get to B. For example, your second child may not have been planned but when your first child needed that bone marrow, your second child was there to help.

This reminds of the Chinese parable of The Old Man and His Horse. No one knows if the diversion, the ‘bad luck’ is a blessing or a curse.

Sometimes you get from A to B fast but life is not over, you’re expected to go to C, D, E etc and you’d be asked to be more than you thought you could be and to give back to the world, to contribute.

Is it true? Who knows. No one. That’s the beauty of it all.

To do anything you fear

So, why is it so important to live our personal calling if we are only going to suffer more than other people?

Because, once we have overcome the defeats – and we always do – we are filled by a greater sense of euphoria and confidence. In the silence of our hearts, we know that we are proving ourselves worthy of the miracle of life. Each day, each hour, is part of the good fight. We start to live with enthusiasm and pleasure. Intense, unexpected suffering passes more quickly than suffering that is apparently bearable; the latter goes on for years and, without our noticing, eats away at our soul, until, one day, we are no longer able to free ourselves from the bitterness and it stays with us for the rest of our lives.

This is why I’d rather step out of my comfort zone and potentially get shot down again and again – and from that find the right path for me – instead of living with the numb feeling of guessing and never knowing.

If you had to open many doors in your lifetime and behind some doors there could an experience that is unpleasant and upsetting. Do you not open any of them? You get to each door, knock, guess and walk away hoping that one day one of the doors will open voluntarily. (The thing is the more unpleasant the experience, the bigger the reward. The reward is what I call the Potato. I’ll elaborate on this next week as this blog post is getting way too long.)

Be it your personal calling or someone you think could share your life with you. As long as you can honestly say – at least you tried and at least you know – getting shot is worth knowing where you stand. It’s only when you know where you stand that you can decide where to go next. It’s only facing your fears and opening the doors and finding out what’s behind them that you can make a truly informed decision.

As you grow older, you get better at sensing the bullet or the gun before you see it coming and you think you’re Neo dodging the bullets and you’ll never get shot again but then you realize that with every single project, experience or situation, you always get to be Neo at the beginning of the film (clueless) and the skilled Neo at the end of the film.

Having disinterred our dream, having used the power of love to nurture it and spent many years living with the scars, we suddenly notice that what we always wanted is there, waiting for us, perhaps the very next day. Then comes the fourth obstacle: the fear of realizing the dream for which we fought all our lives.

Oscar Wilde said: ‘each man kills the thing he loves’. And it’s true. The mere possibility of getting what we want fills the soul of the ordinary person with guilt. We look around at all those who have failed to get what they want and feel that we do not deserve to get what we want either. We forget about all the obstacles we overcame, all the suffering we endured, all the things we had to give up in order to get this far. I have known a lot of people who, when their personal calling was within their grasp, went on to commit a series of stupid mistakes and never reached their goal – when it was only a step away.

This is the most dangerous of the obstacles because it has a kind of saintly aura about it: renouncing joy and conquest. But if you believe yourself worthy of the thing you fought so hard to get, then you become an instrument of God, you help the Soul of the World and you understand why you are here.

I don’t know about this. Perhaps it’s because I’m not there yet.

I believe that some mistakes, diversions, distractions, defeats, tragedies that take you on an unexpected life path are sometimes your personal calling in disguise.

When your life path takes unexpected turns, be like the leaves in the trees – be adaptable and be ready to ride the wind – to stay calm. Learn to dance with life rather than fight against it. That way the twigs need not break.

What do you think?

Have you ever experienced a life-changing diversion?

Was there a door in your past that you wished you opened?

Leave a comment. I’ll respond.

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho – Your Dreams, Love and Thoughts (Part 1)

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho – Your Dreams, Failure and Thoughts (Part 2)

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho – Your Dreams, Diversions and Thoughts (Part 3)

Chuck Sambuchino – An Interview: Published Book, Writing and a Writer’s Life (Part 1)

Chuck Sambuchino – An Interview: Published Book, Writing and a Writer’s Life (Part 2)

Sean Ferrell – The Author Talks About Writing

Sean Ferrell – The Author Talks About Numb the Character

Sean Ferrell – The Author Talks About the Book Trailer Numb

“Don’t concern yourself too much with how you are going to achieve your goal – leave that completely to a power greater than yourself. All you have to do is know where you’re going. The answers will come to you of their own accord, and at the right time.”

Earl Nightingale – Author

CURRENT STATUS: Reminder, Motivator and Review Meeting (Read on if you want to join me in my Corporation of One meeting)

What l have learnt:

• To take some time out to just enjoy the simple things in life like leaves dancing in the wind with friends.
  

What I am doing or have done/decided:

• Reading Charlotte Gray still.
• Started reading The Girl Who Played with Fire.

WORD COUNT:

Night Walker 159,000 words. Finished. Leaving to marinate.

Insomniac Foetus Ready to edit. Having a break before I start.

Take a walk with me?

You smile and nod.

Would you like a hot drink first?

You shake your head. You had some tea before you came, you say to me.

I smile back. You’re so easy to be with. I grab my jacket and scarf and usher you out.

Have you rushed here? I only ask because your cheeks look flushed. The colour becomes you. You smile but give me no explanation.

I don’t push for an answer and just appreciate the fact that you’re here with me which is something that never ceases to surprise me. My heart flutters a little as I play with the idea of you being my friend for longer. I hope so. I like your visits I want to say but I don’t want to spoil the moment.

We walk down the street trying not to slip on the wet leaves – a glistening autumn carpet of gold, red and brown. There is a damp chill in the air and we button our jackets. I hook my arm around yours and match the smile on your face with a smile on mine and I feel I don’t have to tell you anything because you know how much you mean to me.

Let’s continue from yesterday’s post The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho – Your Dreams and Thoughts (Part 1).

This following excerpt comes from Paulo Coelho’s website and we’re talking about his book The Alchemist:

Once we have accepted that love is a stimulus, we come up against the third obstacle: fear of the defeats we will meet on the path. We who fight for our dream, suffer far more when it doesn’t work out, because we cannot fall back on the old excuse: “Oh, well, I didn’t really want it anyway.”

We do want it and know that we have staked everything on it and that the path of the personal calling is no easier than any other path, except that our whole heart is in this journey. Then, we warriors of light must be prepared to have patience in difficult times and to know that the Universe is conspiring in our favor, even though we may not understand how.

There is some truth in that, don’t you think? If you pursue your dreams, I think you do suffer more when things aren’t progressing the way you want. But at least you tried, at least you stuck your head out, at least you risked it and you did your best – right?

If you’ve risk potential rejection and failure and you’ve done your best and never gave up – you cannot say you’ve failed. I don’t think you’ve failed at all. Those who failed are those didn’t even try.

This applies not only to the pursuing of your dreams but other areas of your life. I’ve always been the sort of person who would take the risk and step forward first and there’s that potential to get shot down.

Of course, I’d be lying if I said that when the bullet hits and the ground sinks underneath me that it didn’t hurt.

And yeah, you do feel stupid and you look around and you could see people asking themselves why you put yourself in that position in the first place if you knew you could get shot down.

But I believe the mind is stronger than you think it is.

Beating rejection and failure is like fighting monsters in a nightmare. You’ll never know when you’ll get a nightmare. It feels real while you’re in it. But you must believe that there is an end when you wake up and you find physically you’re okay. You have to sleep (to live) and nightmares (rejection, failure and defeat) happen. But you wake up and you’re okay.

It takes time but your mind is there to help you. It can be your worst enemy or your best friend. Make it your best friend. I have.

As it’s a Friday, I didn’t want this post to be too long.

Can I see you tomorrow?

I’ll finish it then. See you then?

What do you think?

Is your mind your worst enemy or your best friend?

Leave a comment. It’s good to know.

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho – Your Dreams, Love and Thoughts (Part 1)

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho – Your Dreams, Failure and Thoughts (Part 2)

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho – Your Dreams, Diversions and Thoughts (Part 1)

Chuck Sambuchino – An Interview: Published Book, Writing and a Writer’s Life (Part 1)

Chuck Sambuchino – An Interview: Published Book, Writing and a Writer’s Life (Part 2)

Sean Ferrell – The Author Talks About Writing

Sean Ferrell – The Author Talks About Numb the Character

Sean Ferrell – The Author Talks About the Book Trailer Numb

“Determination and perseverance move the world; thinking that others will do it for you is a sure way to fail.”

Marva Collins – Educator

CURRENT STATUS: Reminder, Motivator and Review Meeting (Read on if you want to join me in my Corporation of One meeting)

What l have learnt:

• Make a decisive commitment. How do you feel? If you feel good, keep the decision. If you don’t feel good, make another decisive commitment.
• 5 Life Skills You Already Have that Can Make You a Great Blogger (via ProBlogger).
• Style Faux Pas (via Jodie Renner Editing).
• Tips For Writing Effective Dialogue (via The Blood-Red Pencil).
• Enhanced E-books (via Rachelle Gardner’s blog).

What I am doing or have done/decided:

• Reading Charlotte Gray still.
• Started reading The Girl Who Played with Fire.

WORD COUNT:

Night Walker 159,000 words. Finished. Leaving to marinate.

Insomniac Foetus Ready to edit. Having a break before I start.