Neuer Lebensabschnitt

So, jetzt bin ich also vom Segeln zurück. Und voller guter Vorsätze. Von einem profitiert ihr gerade, der ist nämlich, jetzt mal ab und zu wieder was in mein Blog zu schreiben. Und zwar auf deutsch, weil mein Englisch mittlerweile eine totale Katastrophe ist.

Was habe ich in den vergangenen fünf Monaten gelernt?

1. Segelboote schaukeln und davon wird mir schlecht.

2. Ich bin gerne Single und fühle mich in meiner WG sauwohl.

3. Griechenland ist schön und Griechisch ist eine höllisch schwierige Sprache.

4. Wettervorhersagen sind sehr zuverlässig, der Wind kommt IMMER aus einer anderen Richtung als angesagt.

5. Segeln ohne Wind schaukelt nicht, mir wird also auch nicht schlecht, aber es geht nicht recht vorwärts.

6. Inseln mit Flughafen sind doof, Inseln ohne Flughafen sind schön (bei zukünftiger Urlaubsplanung unbedingt berücksichtigen)

7. Delphine machen glücklich.(echt! instantanes Endorphin-High)

8. Italien ist mir zu laut.

9. Französischer Käse schmeckt echt besser.

10. Zuhause ist irgendwie am schönsten … zumindest solange man unterwegs ist.

Jetzt bin ich also wieder da. In meiner WG hat sich ein bisschen was verändert, zwei Mitbewohnerinnen sind ausgezogen, während ich weg war, dadurch ist es hier jetzt etwas leer. Andi hat eine Kräuterspirale gebaut und auch sonst ein wenig Gartenbau betrieben. Ansonsten sieht das Haus noch so aus wie immer und ist weder eingestürzt noch abgebrannt,während ich weg war … nicht unbedingt eine Selbstverständlichkeit bei unserem Haus.

Jetzt muss ich mir also überlegen, wie mein Leben jetzt weiterlaufen soll. Und ich habe beschlossen, mir einen Teilzeitjob zu suchen, so ungefähr eine halbe Stelle, um damit meinen Minimal-Lebensbedarf zu finanzieren. In der restlichen Zeit will ich dann endlich mal ernst machen mit der Schreiberei, also, nicht nur schreiben, sondern eben auch die bereits bestehenden Manuskripte endlich mal verlagsfertig machen und mich ernsthaft um einen Agenten oder Verlag bemühen. Da! Das klingt alles ganz einfach, wenn man es hinschreibt, aber irgendwie habe ich gerade für diese Verlagssuch-Nummer riesige psychische Barrieren zu überwinden. Keine Ahnung, wieso. Wahrscheinlich, weil ich glaube, dass ich noch nicht gut genug bin (Asche! Staub! unwürdig!). Andererseits habe ich den Sommer über enorm viel gelesen, mehr als in den letzten zehn Jahren, würde ich sagen, und dabei mal wieder festgestellt, dass ziemlich viel Schrott veröffentlich wird, warum also nicht auch meiner?

Zur Zeit höre ich den siebten Harry Potter Band als Hörbuch. Das ist wieder eher kontraproduktiv, weil ich Harry Potter ja mega-genial finde und das Gefühl habe, dass ich so gut nie sein könnte. Aber J.K. Rowling ist inzwischen die reichste Frau Großbritanniens und auch sonst in jeder Hinsicht ein Ausnahmephaenomen, da muss ich mich ja nicht unbedingt mit vergleichen, oder?

Statt mir über solche Dinge Gedanken zu machen, sollte ich einfach mal anfangen, zu arbeiten. Sag ich mir jetzt auch schon seit ein paar Tagen … ISH, jeder sollte einen haben …

Das Problem ist, dass ich soviele angefangene Projekte rumfliegen habe (und im Laufe des Sommers auch noch jede Menge neue Ideen gesammelt habe), dass ich gar nicht recht weiß, welches davon ich jetzt rauskramen und weiterverfolgen soll. Nach langem hin und her überlegen, habe ich aber beschlossen, dass ich mir „Die Zeitreisen-Akademie“ wieder vornehme, die ich letztes Jahr als NaNoWriMo Roman geschrieben habe. Da sind viele gute Ideen drin, die Charaktere gefallen mir gut und ich habe immerhin eine komplette Rohfassung. Damit müsste sich doch was anfangen lassen. Nebenher werde ich „Peter will nach Afrika“ weiter anbieten, denn das ist ja verlagsfertig, muss ich also nur ein paar Verlage rauspicken und Anschreiben zu schreiben. Den Gedanken an eine Agentur habe ich für das Projekt wieder verworfen, in einem Erstleserbuch steckt einfach zu wenig Geld, als dass eine Agentur, selbst eine für Kinderbücher, da Interesse haben könnte.

Außerdem habe ich ja im Frühjahr in der Federwelt gelesen, dass der Produzent von den Rosenheim-Cops „immer“ auf der Suche nach Drehbuchautoren ist. Der arme Mann kann sich inzwischen wahrscheinlich vor unaufgefordert eingesandten Manuskripten nicht mehr retten … Aber Fernsehdrehbücher wären was, wo ich echt Interesse dran hätte. Nur habe ich keine Ahnung, wie man da einen Fuß in die Tür kriegt. Also habe ich angefangen ein Rosenheim-Cops Script zu schreiben. Selbst wenn deren Bedarf an Drehbüchern jetzt für alle Zeiten gedeckt ist, wäre es wahrscheinlich nicht schlecht, sowas zu haben. Ich weiß zwar nicht, ob es in Deutschland üblich ist, sich mit einem spec als Drehbuchautor zu bewerben (so heißen in Amerika solche Bewerbungs-Skripts zu einer bestehenden Serie), aber eine gute Übung ist es auf jeden Fall.

Um mir selber in den Arsch zu treten (ihr dürft mir dabei helfen), mache ich jetzt aus diesem Blog eine Art öffentliche ToDo-Liste. Und versuche dann, jeden Tag darüber zu berichten, ob und wie ich vorangekommen bin. Wer keinen Druck hat, macht sich eben welchen 🙂

Also, längerfristige ToDo Liste:

• Job finden
• Verlag für „Peter will nach Afrika“ suchen
• Zeitreisen Akademie überarbeiten
• Verlag/Agentuer für Zeitreisenakademie suchen
• Rosenheim-Cops Drehbuch schreiben
• Gemüsegarten anlegen

Aktuelle ToDo Liste für heute:

• Stadtbücherei + evtl. UB für Recherche über Wiedertäufer
• Verlagsprogramme für Kinderbücher durchsehen
• Einkaufen (ich hab nix mehr zu essen …)

Tja, dann fahre ich jetzt mal in die Stadt, bevor Harry Potter mich wieder von jeglicher sinnvoller Tätigkeit abhält.

Stromboli

We sailed to the Eolian Islands last night. Well, acutally yesterday during the day and last night, 110 nautic miles from Acciaroli. And we timed it that way so that we could pass by Stromboli at night. Stromboli is a constantly active volcano which means that hot lava erupts from its top every few minutes. We were able to see it from 30 nautic miles away at sea. A spectacular sight. Very much reminded me of descriptions of Mount Doom in the Lord of the Rings. Definitely one of the highlights of our turn so far.

On the Sea

The „gute Seemannschaft“ is properly under mast and sail now. And we had the chance to test her under a variety of weather conditions. So far she is holding up nicely. Wish I could say the same for myself. I get terribly seasick when the waves get higher than a meter or so. We had quite a bit of wind the first few days and I was close to abandoning ship because I felt terrible all the time. But then the weather changed and I found some medication that really helps with the seasickness and I am feeling a lot better now.

We are in Livorno, Italy at the moment and will probably go to Elba the day after tomorrow (as always, depends on the weather).

More detailed info in the German blog again:

http://seemannschaft.livejournal.com

I did not get anything done for ScriptFrenzy, BTW, I was happy when I was able to keep up my writing for the blog.

Sur le pont d’Avignon

We are in Avignon at the moment. Two more days and we should finally be able to dip our feet in the Mediterranean Sea. We had a lot of weather in the past two days: wind (with impressive waves for a river), rain, sunshine and even hail. It is April after all.

If you are able to read German, check out our much more detailed blog on:

http://seemannschaft.livejournal.com

There is also a Google Map and a Videolog available (I finally managed to upload the first vid, since I have the first reasonably fast internet connection on our tour), both of which are linked to from the blog.

French Mc Donalds Restaurants provide internet access

Greetings from Chalon sur Saône. The „gute Seemannschaft“ got here after passing approximately 120 locks from our starting point in Strasbourg. At one point you could actually see that we climbed a hill over the Alsace, the highest point of our journey was about 360 m above sealevel.
Until this morning, we had two of Markus’s friends on board. Now we are on our own and in a way it feels as if the real adventure starts now.
Even in the short time aboard I have grown to love the boat (and the skipper, BTW). It feels a lot like home, now. A swimming hobbit hole, small but comfortable, with everything you need. It is a good boat, more a tank than a sports car, which suits me. I can’t wait to see the mast raised and to feel her under sail for the first time.
After Markus’s father died I was full of doubt if it was really the right thing to go on this trip. But now I am glad I did. I am very happy and, for the first time in almost ten years, in love.

Detour

I’m in Weilheim in Bavaria at the moment. Not exactly where we planned to be at this time. We left the ship close to Offenburg for a few days so that Markus could attend his father’s funeral and help his family to get things organized. A sad and tiresome business.

For me it is an odd situation, since I am a total stranger to the family, but Markus keeps saying how much he appriciates that I went with him, so maybe I am doing some good here.

We will head back to Offenburg on Wednesday with a stop in Munich to collect Kurt, who will accompany us for 1 1/2 weeks. I haven’t met Kurt yet. Another thing I am sometimes a bit nervous about, all the additional crew members who travel with us for parts of the way are friends or relatives of Markus. I have met most of them by now, at least once, but still I have no idea what it will be like to live with them in the relatively confined space of the boat.

At them moment the whole situation feels pretty depressing, but I hope that my mood will change as soon as we are really on the way south.

-2 Days

Okay, emotional rollercoaster ride and some last minute stress.

First of all, I am suffering from TMS-syndrom. TOO MUCH STUFF!!! I tried to clean up my rooms today and to get at least my most personal belongings out of the way. More and more forgotten piles behind piles under piles turned up. I threw out three huge plastic bags of old clothing and what felt like one cubic meter of waste paper. And the rooms looked as full as before …

I did get a lot done though. It was like little chain reactions, acutally. I started to go through my piles of letters/notes/forms etc. which prompted me to do my tax refund application after all. Yay! According to the software I used (WISO Sparbuch, thanks to Svenja for letting me use her laptop) I am eligible for a refund of 1400 €. That’s cool. I just hope the revenue office comes to the same conclusion.

I also started making new piles, this time piles of stuff I want to take with me. TMS strikes again. I am packing too many clothes. I know. But I have so many nice new things (thanks to my Mum, actually, at least clothing-wise I wouldn’t have that TMS-problem without her). It is okay to spend the whole summer on a Canadian farm with three T-shirts and two pants, but the Mediteranian is a different matter altogether. I want to stroll along the beach promenades of the Cote d’Azur in style, after all. Naw! Actually it is more the fact that it still can feel like winter outside at the moment, especially when you are on a ship and it will be searingly hot in Greece in August. So I really have to be prepared for all kinds of weather.

Just when I was boasting with energy, quite proud of myself because of that tax thing and in the middle of packing, Markus called. His father committed suicide last night, pretty much out of the blue. Terrible shock for one thing, especially since Markus is already on the boat, alone, pretty much in the middle of nowhere, and a bit of an organisational problem as well, since we wanted to raise ancor on Friday. Now we will have to wait till after the funeral and until at least the most important family issues are resolved.

I will still leave here on Thursday, but it might be a while before we actually start our journey up the Rhine river and then into France.

I feel so terribly sorry for Markus. It was one of those moments where in the movies the hero always finds exactly the right words, while in reality, every variation of „I am sorry“ you can come up with feels flat and awkward. We talked for a while and maybe that helped a little bit at least.

-5 Days

Actually, it’s -4, since it is just past midnight, but who is counting? (Well, me, obviously)

Do you like the new theme, btw? I wanted something with water for the upcoming adventures, there wasn’t that much to choose from.

Very successful day. I found a sublet. Paul will live in my rooms and – much more importantly – pay my rent while I am gone. That saves me a lot of money. And he says he doesn’t have much stuff, so I can leave most of my things where they are at the moment, which is great. I am really so relieved. I think he will like it here. Our house is a love it or leave it kind of deal. People are either taken by the whole atmosphere and my housemates at once or you can tell that it will not work out in the instance they come through the door. It’s totally a laissez-faire place, very relaxed with a lot of soul, but pretty worn, too, so definitely not for the neat-and-clean-fanatic.

I also opened a travel blog at livejournal.com. Nothing wrong with this one, but I wanted a blog in German exclusively for the sailing turn where Markus can post as well. Not much to see yet, except the first pic out of my „mood theme“. That’s a fun feature livejournal has. For every entry you can select a mood and a corresponding picture is shown. Normally it is smileys or the like. And Khalaris (a Doctor Who fan I met at last year’s NaNoWriMo) used to have a theme with little animated pics from doctor who episodes. She changed it to Jekyll now. Neat. I wanted ours to be – well – more personal. So I took 79 snapshots with my webcam of me drawing faces. Sad, happy, angry, weird … you get the idea. Lots of fun, lots of work, too, since I had to cut and resize all the images. But I like the result. And making faces is fun.

Thursday I ordered „The Writer’s Tale“ by Russel T Davies about the making of Doctor Who. It arrived today (well … yesterday with the who’s counting again). Beautiful book. I had planned to take it on the ship with me but now I am almost reluctant to do so because I am afraid that harm could come to it there. Lots of pictures, lots of script excerpts and really a lot of information. And it weighs 3.7 tons. Well, roughly. Which is another argument against taking it. But, but … want to read! Now!

-6 Days

Hah! Synchronicity! I love it when the universe plays those little tricks on you. I was just reading in Jane’s blog again (I really cannot recommend it enough … if you ever want to find out why Buffy worked as well as it did, especially how the humor works, read it … see, I knew I’d hook some of you with that … you know who you are). And she mentiones an episode title for Grey’s Anatomy „The First Cut is the Deepest“. Which would not have been notable at all, had I not just been listening to Cat Steven’s Greatest Hits and exactly that song. So it was really a weird moment and I had to mentally switch between what I was seeing and what I was hearing to make sure that this was really happening and I was not just hearing the song in my mind or something. Probably does not sound as special or weird as it felt when it happened. It is very hard to describe the effect synchronicity has … it’s a bit like the Matrix … you have to be there to grasp it. It is one of those tiny moments which suddenly raise all the huge philosophical questions that have been bothering humankind forever. „Was that meant to happen?“, „Did I pick that album so this could happen?“, „Are we all driven by chance or fate?“ You get the idea. It is a bit like recurring themes (you know, the things in your life which happen over and over again, so you finally get the impression they must mean something). Only sharper and with much more impact, even if it is just a small detail like a song title.

Enough with the philosophy. Actually, I should also decide: enough with the blog reading for today or I won’t get anything done again.

My seabag arrived today. Black, US Navy, double-strap, very cool. Looks a bit like I am going to war and not on a sailing cruise. I am so looking forward to packing it.

I also bought my train ticket. Online. This time it worked (I had an interesting odyssey when I tried that last time … going through all the booking process to be told in the end that I could not pay without a credit card or bahncard. Turned out you could use the EC card for identification but not for payment. How dull is that? Anyway, as bahncard owner I can now simply transfer the money from my bank account.) I will leave next Thursday at 9.04 from Muenster’s main station, which means I will have to get up pretty early. 6.30 or so, seven-ish if I cut it closely. Waeh ….

I should go to a copy shop to get the CD covers ready for the audio play, but I haven’t even finished the cover design completely yet. And I so don’t feel like cycling to the city, even though the weather is lovely outside (wasn’t winter supposed to return this weekend?).

-8 Days

Okay. I am officially crazy. I just signed up for ScriptFrenzy (that’s like NaNoWriMo, just for scripts … movie, TV, comic, stage plays, audio plays etc.). Great idea to commit myself to write 100 pages of script while (literally) learning the ropes on a boat. And I don’t even know if I will have internet access or even enough electrical power to regularily recharge my Netbook. And I want to keep writing this blog and set up a YouTube video blog as well. Note to self: even on a sailing yacht there are only 24 h to a day … except in the odd case when you cross to a new timezone.

Why do I keep doing this? Well, for one thing the motivation emails by Chris Baty are really irresistible. I just added him to my wishful thinking list of people I would love to meet in real life one day (where he now resides amongside people like John Cusack, Neil Gaiman, Joss Whedon, David Tennant and Derrick Jensen). And furthermore I really am normally at my best when I work under pressure. Actually, being under pressure seems to be the only way I can work at all.

I have decided to write another audio play, a longer one this time. I love the medium and it really is a challenge to tell a story that way. ScriptFrenzy asks for 100 pages, which is a bit too much for an audio play (the BigFinish Doctor Who adventures are about that length or even a bit more, but as much as I like them I find them a bit too long, actually). I am aiming at a standard length play (which means 45 to 55 minutes) or (should I find that the story is too complex for that) a two-parter. I calculate one script page as one minute of finished play (as with movies) which worked out pretty exactly for „Freiflug“.

I haven’t decided on English or German yet. German would surely be the better choice if I planned to produce it myself again (which I might), but English would give me the opportunity to offer it to the BBC, the only broadcasting company I know who have a regular (daily!) slot for SciFi audio drama in one of their programms (BBC7).