April | 2014 | Martyn K Jones

I’ve been good. I’ve been working and writing, but what with Google and Facebook deciding they wouldn’t recognise my connection while I was in the UK, bereavement and major illness in the family, suddenly having to find a new home (Don’t ask) and not one but two courses; one with Simon Fraser University, the other with Coursera to regain my Technical Writer status, it’s all gone a bit sideways.

This isn’t to say that life hasn’t had its up moments, Angie has passed her final course with an A, but at present I feel like the guy in a Mack Sennett silent comedy who’s just been hit by contra-rotating ladders. Ergo, there’s a large element of slapstick in my life right now. All my self imposed deadlines have whooshed over me like a Scramjet on full burn. Everything is doing pratfalls with me as the fall guy.

Google and Facebook are now back up until the next time I walk down the street. There’s ten messages I haven’t had a chance to look at, and since I made my Skype details searchable two days ago I’ve had some rather rum coves asking to be added to my contacts. Which I haven’t. I just don’t have time to verify their details, so I hope no-one takes it amiss if I don’t want to talk right this minute.

As I say, my life has gone a little sideways of late and normal service will be resumed in due course. Just as soon as I whip everything back into jumping the hoops in some form of order. This may take a little time.

The past two weeks have been somewhat traumatic, and I’ve hardly written a word, what with dashing back and forth across the Atlantic. Too many errands and too much jet lag. Today, for the first time in just over two weeks I feel back in control of my life. I actually only awoke at 5:30 this morning. For the previous three nights I was waking up, despite sleeping tablets, at around two and three thirty in the morning feeling tired but unable to slip into the arms of Morpheus until four or five AM.

Everything over the past two weeks, despite best efforts, has gone sideways. It’s been a harsh emotional lesson about planning for the worst family case scenario. Some unpleasant thoughts have to be faced, but these are best examined when the immediate pressures are off. Conversations must be had with family and arrangements made. Just in case.

On the bright side, I’ve been preparing for the two courses I start in mid and late April by raiding second hand bookstores and downloading public domain material online. Now I am the proud possessor of Diana Hackers ‘A Canadian Writer’s Reference, Strunk and White’s ‘The Elements of Style‘, Prentice Hall’s ‘Handbook for Writers‘, and Harold H Kolb’s ‘A Writer’s Guide‘. Not to mention applying for Student Membership of the Society of Technical Communication. I’ve done Technical Writing for real before, for a couple of multinationals no less, but without a Degree found it nigh on impossible to convince anyone to hire me in that role, especially on this side of the Atlantic. Hopefully I will have redressed this shortfall by October or November this year with a Canadian recognised qualification from Simon Fraser University.

The down side is that I won’t be getting as much writing time in on ‘Darkness’ or ‘A falling of Angels’ as I’d like but at least I’ll have a piece of paper saying that I’m a Canadian qualified Technical Writer.