Reality Overtakes

Ok so my last post on here was pre-lockdown. Then there was nothing.

So what happened to me.

First of all I had to stop writing The Edit. It’s the backstory to a larp where a global pandemic has horrific results. It no longer felt appropriate or right to mess around with a pandemic story as Covid-19 resolved into something that would profound effects on all of us.

So I stopped, and never started again.

Months later I wonder why.

Well first my main story was gone. There was no appetite for thinking about it.

The early days if lockdown saw a throwing myself into sorting things with no idea of what would happen. No sooner was I feeling that when everything in my work life went into overdrive.

It turns out that everyone needs someone who specialises into technology, data and the internet; when the internet becomes the thing that holds of all together.

So with my story no longer feeling right and reality blasting in; the stream of consciousness went unattended. I’d stalled.

It turns out that consciouss can be stalled by a sudden overdose of day to day normallity flipping over and transforming into something else.

The lockdown went on. I stayed busy but an adjusted reality settled in. Its not that time evaporated. Creative thinking became muddied a little. Design thinking and analytical thought soared high. But creating something from nothing hit the backburner with the flame almost entirely off.

I read a lot though. I always have always read and I don’t think anything makes me stop. So seeing new thinks never stopped.

Which takes me how to I feel now?

Well I’ve logged back onto Stream of Conscious and I’m looking forward to seeing what the future brings.

Now for something that may seem contrary.

I’ve started the long process of building a custom online home from my photographs. You can find it at Rob Davies Photos

The Edit. p1

The world started to end with a scratch. Perhaps I should say an itch. An irritation that you just had to get your fingers into and work hard. Scratching was only a momentary relief; at least it distracted those affected from the end of the world.

No ever suspected a little irritation to be so serious. Thinking back; that had to be first sign. No horseman raging over the world nor missiles falling from the sky. We didn’t even get hordes of zombies digging themselves out graves.

What we got was an itch that had to scratched.

Kind of a let down really.

Like of lot of maladies it started in Winter. Not long after New Years. People here and there complained of not feeling that great. Of having an itch on their eyes of torso. No one mentioned it.

At least not until things got worse.

At first small numbers of people started to pass out. Not for a moment or two. No, they’d stop and fall into full blown coma.

It took a few days but then the media started to notice a glut of unconscious people being taken into hospital.

Then more people started to feel ill.

Memory says that this is when everyone started to talk about it. It became news, chat, photos and memes. None of the memes were in good taste.

It went on like this for weeks. Slowly the hospitals filled, as none of the patients recovered. The memes got sicker and the Internet filled with a million conspiracy theories. Perhaps what made it feel worse was the endless looping of mainstream media. Supposition after theory, after the same story. Bodies adding to stories but nothing feeling like we actually knew more than the moment before.

I can’t even remember when they first got called The Sleeping. It was not medically accurate. People needed a something to relate too. So they were called The Sleeping.

We had The Sleeping, but at this point services were normal. Even if the new big thing in fashion was a facemasks

Everywhere were cheap masks, expensive masks , cool looking ones and slightly disturbing ones. Not wearing one one made you the object of suspicion. Wearing one was of dubious.

After all we knew the symptons but at this stage we had no way of identifying the disease.

So the misanthropy grew. Weird logic ran rampant. Just about every minority group and every gender became a target for some one

Fear and hate could be smelled in the air.

Getting Started

This is the start of an idea that’s been floating in the back of my head for quite some time. It’s very simple. It’s to create a place where I can on a semi regular basis sit down and just relax with writing.

I often create course materials. That’s a formal process full of accuracy. It’s work I love but you it needs focus. I want somewhere to write that is purely creative

I also write about the larp hobby. You’ll find that in the LARPBook project. It revolves around a very creative process. Writing about larp but not writing a games themselves leaves me needing a little more creatively

Which is where this web site comes in. Its a venue for stories, mad ideas, game outlines and anything else that doesn’t fit in anywhere else.

I’m not sure who’ll read this or where it will go

But I believe that its going to be quite the ride getting there.