Stocktaking

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Stocklight (c) Ajesh Sharma. Do not copy or reuse.

Stock taking is the business of figuring what you do have on hand. There was a time in my life when I was fooled into thinking I should be an accountant. I spent many a time walking around in 38c weather in sunny and shadeless factories, with a tape measure and a piece of chalk, measuring steel sheets baking in the hot sun, or counting nuts and bolts in a hot stock room and comparing my numbers against the ledgers. Luckily for the world of accountants and accountancy, I found it “dull, deadly dull” and I dropped out, turned on and tuned in to the world of technology.

If you’re thinking technology lucked out, you may be mistaken. My technology career has been long, but not necessarily brilliant. right now, I live on the fringe of technology. Not quite in and not quite out. I believe that’s what “they” call “living on the edge”. How so, you don’t ask? I know you don’t, so it is quite fruitless to deny it. You have no interest in what I do for a living. However, I’m well known, to me, as a kindly soul, so I shall tell you what I do for a living.

Well, the truth is, “Not Much”. Yes, I don’t do much. Every once in a while some kindly, well-meaning person hires my brain and I go off to build something, and / or teach people how to do their jobs better. Otherwise, I sit around writing rubbish like this and worry about what this blog looks like.

For the past month, I’ve not even worried about the blog much. I told you already, back in this rant article that this blog may suffer from lack of attention. And I was right. You should have expected it, because I told you so. However, I feel it is not really fair to ignore you. Yes, I’ve also not been reading your blogs. In fairness, though, I haven’t read any blogs at all. So no one has been singled out.

I’ve been stressed out about The Play. It now has a tentative name. It’s called “Choice”. Maybe “A Matter of Choice”. Until something better comes along I shall use that. I’m now in cycle 4 or 5 of edits and it’s mindboggling how many simple things hit you in the face after weeks away from it. So many moments, where I look at the words and go “Oh really? That’s so corny!” Sometimes, there are typos, double words, “is is”, and the stage directions are very time consuming. The business of making the actors move to suit the story is hard! If the dialogues were hard, the stage sets and directions are exponentially harder. Then there is the issue of finding takers for it. I suppose the best way forward would be copyright it and publish on Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing. Might even earn me a cent or two, if someone actually downloads it.

Then there is the Memoirs, Vol 1. I’ve taken some of the stories you may have already read, and mixed them up with a lot of stuff you haven’t and created a volume that chronicles my life in India. This is now about 50,000 words long and will grow another 10k – 20k before I start editing. I think the ultimate length will be around 60-65k or about 130 pages. Short and to the point, you know. After all, it does cover 37 years of my life.

One of the things you should start seeing on this blog is some stories about my life in Canada. This is not something I’ve covered much so far, so you have that wonderful bit to look forward to. Once I’m done with the 2 things above, I shall work on Vol 2 of the Memoirs – focusing on my life in North America.

I have also, 2 or 3 short stories lying around. Neglected, these may see some work being done on them in the later part of the year. Possibly, by Christmas, I shall have enough to create a collection of shorts.

The there is fan fiction, based on characters from Enid Blyton’s stories. Two chapters already exist on this blog, labelled, for some odd reason, Chapter 1 and Chapter 2. I plan to post these on the blog directly. Freebies! The germ of the mystery comes from a certain situation some European friends told me once. Then the story itself pits erstwhile antagonists as partners charged with solving the mystery. Along the way, you will see references to a past incident that was instrumental in bringing them together. How will those children handle grown up life? How do they deal with the issues of working with people with whom they’ve had major conflicts? Find out more on this blog!

This then is the stock at hand. Stay tuned for further information. I’d like to know what else you’d like to see here:

  • Travel trips – France, Upstate NY, Quebec, Saskatoon, Cuba, Cruises ?
  • Recipes – More easy sandwiches, soups, curries?
  • Rants – The Age of Superlatives, Polar Opposites, The Orange Republican, The State of God?
  • Feelgood – Upliftment ( 🙂 )
  • Wonder – Fakes and Conspiracies.

Let me know!

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  1. roughwighting

    Glad to see you back here in the blogging world. I like reading your stories about YOUR life, wherever they may be: Canada, India, and your world as you write/work.

    1. TheLastWord

      Oh thanks so much! I shall try and be more regular, now…. not that I was very regular earlier. 🙂