Shouts From Down Under

A SHOUT in a novel isn't heard except if loud writer's voice

Some days you know will be shouting days.

Yes, you know what these are. You find yourself being shouted at, or find yourself shouting at others, or both, and not always understanding why, or even how you got there.

I used to work in a job like that. By morning smoko (break, morning tea time, staff time out) you'd know if it would be one of those days. Everyone in a mood, lots of disagreement or just loudness, ordering about, or even just transferring information verbally at a maximum level.

So, not necessarily hostilities or a major problem, just lots of people shouting. Sometimes you even realise you're shouting at yourself.

Then you know you're a writer.

This blog, I decided, seeing as I have pretty much complete say over the decision, I decided to make it about shouting. Consider this blog being all in capital letters then.



Yes. Traffic. Drivers. Crazy people. Crazy drivers. Crae Crae WRITERS.

Invalid Photo #1040477

I'm going to do it. Yes today I'm going to have a gripe session, and unload right here, cos my mouth is wide open, so wide that you can see it like in a cartoon; there is a tonsil thing hanging down and you can see the oesophagus. Un-beauteous.



This is about ordinary traffic. Today the Tasmanian police posted on Facebook asking people what our gripes were about other drivers. What were our main difficulties we faced basically against other idiots on the road.

Well, I said I felt most people, young or old, were generally good drivers. But one thing annoys me.
Why is it THAT PEOPLE DRIVE EXCESSIVELY SLOWLY in a single lane highway, yet when the road finally becomes two lanes so frustrated folks can pass they dawdler the slow driver speeds up until it's like a race at Bathurst to try to pass. Then, when the passing lane runs out, all too soon, what's he / she do? They slow down and block all the traffic again. It has to BE smugness. Either that or just plain ignorance. They just plain don't know they're doing it.

Please check that you don't do this. I beg of you. With tears of appeal in my innocent "I never speed or break the law" eyes.

One minute you're here, large as life, larger than arrogance, next minute you're gone.



A Cadaver in a morgue.



Another thing people do, and every time I see it or experience this first hand, I think to myself, "I'm going to BLOG ON THIS AND GO RIGHT OFF ABOUT IT ONE DAY" and I forget. But this time I remembered.

Why, oh WHY do people drive down the most congested, busiest, people filled, slow, shopping malled part of town...IN A HURRY!??? They roar down the main street or main shopping area street of the town, and woe if you are poking along slow and looking for a park! Woe to you if you happen to be trying to find a disabled or aged parking spot closer to a coffee shop so your client, or elderly father-in-law, as the case was one day for me, can have less distance to hobble on their exruciatingly painful bad hip or knee/s.
These rude drivers who insist on being in a hurry have no patience, blow their horn, flash their lights and most likely roar off, once you do park, their middle finger stiff in the air like a surprised cat's tail, and swearing / mouthing off at you, loudly or muted, depending on if their window is down or not. (sunny or pouring rain).

Wouldn't you think that with even a tiny pin prick of average human intelligence, types like this would think, "Oh, I'm in such a hurry to get to XYZ that I'll BYPASS, the main shops area or town square or whatever, and I'll use my brain to detour, use the faster designed traffic flow area to get myself where I want to go, in a hurry."

And you'd think they would also think, "See, If'n I go down the main street where all the shops, cafes, Post Office, hairdressers, mobile phone outlets, newsagents, butcher, supermarkets etc etc, then I won't be able to drive fast because of the amount of shoppers wanting to relax".

But of course they don't think that far ahead.

Annnnnnnd Why do people not drive to the conditions? How much training, really folks, does it take? Nobody should need training to THINK!!
Heyyyyyy.
Lots of kids / children. A BUS STOP. Shops. Cars parked close to the road. Zebra Crossing signs. A pub. Buses leaving, coming, parking, unparking, stopping. WHATEVER.

SLOW DOWN then huh? Duh!



For some reason this video of firefighters jumping out of planes to parachute in to the fire front was in my notepad under this heading so here it is. Enjoy.



What if writers, what if WE drove our writing etc just like a vehicle? What if we had to be careful we didn't light fires with what we wrote, and then have to parachute in to save the countryside from bushfire, or brush fire , or wild fire, depending where you come from.

What if we had to write to the conditions? What if there were safety signs. What if we had to use our common sense and slow the heck DOWN.

What if we had writing days of SHOUTING.



Look. I know there is a sad side to the accident compilations, and sometimes I wince and cower at the screams and gasps from folks in cars in the videos. It is in a language I can't fathom, but that doesn't matter. Perhaps it even amplifies the meaning when we can only sense human sounds, not meaning.

What it really means in any language, is fright, fear, worry, care for other fellow humans, anger at idiots, outrage over stupidity when it costs money, time, people's health and even lives. The humour escapes us.

Nevertheless, there is still something comical to me, about people. About humans. We all seem to have days of having to crunch life in. Days when everything only works out, progress is only made, stuff is only done and things moved, transported, time passed, and it all has happened because of constant shouts.

Perhaps its the music of impatience. Tunes made up of various levels of indignant protest, annoyed complaint, eye rolling exasperation, and teeth gritted terror.

Cars swerving when someone is crossing (with every right to) a pedestrian crossing, cars ploughing into each other at an intersection that is obviously ill designed and a death trap design without all the added stuff such as alcohol intake, lack of driver training, tiredness, weather and arrogance of people who think they only have right of way.

Stubborn pride can be the fuel some folks fill up on before they even strap themselves in their 4 wheeled extension of their ego.

Writers can be the same. I'm guilty.



It's like going back to the place where you "had your accident" last year. There may still be some black skid marks where the cars tried in vain to avoid collision. Perhaps 1 new guide post betrays where one was damaged / smashed off.
There may even be bits of windscreen or mirror glass, some red, orange, or clear tail light lens, bits of bumper lying on the verge already being overgrown by grass.

And you stand there, missing someone who died in the accident. Or just running through the nightmare scene in your head, things you could have done to make it different. The what ifs.

Sometimes there's a black cross here in Tasmania, at an accident site, or where someone has died, and people hang wreaths on them, perhaps some flowers placed there, on the anniversary of the death of a loved one.

I wonder what it would be like if we wrote ourselves into a collision? What if there was a multi writer pile up in the fog of crossed plots? What if the day was spent shouting? What if there was creative writing rage?

"But mate! Ya didn't even look! Here I was writing like I always do up this scene..."

"No bud. You've got it all wrong. Listen! This is where I always park my sentences. See? Don't ya know the rules? Look at the marks on the sentences. You can see by the wheel tracks where my grammar was heading. And you, you mudguard headed wombad can't even drive a Remington typewriter, let alone Scrivener!"

"Mate why don't yer punctuate a few tyres while you're at it ya bonce headed arrogant sod! You're the one who got his novelist skills out of a cereal packet label!"

Anyway, like road accidents, writing always ends up trailing off, particularly with writers who have short memories of whatever it was they started writing about. Then there's also driver / writer fatigue. You should always rest.

Drowsy Drivers Die as our road signs say.



And that is why I'm heading off to bed now. My writing is just going to be Zed's soon.

Sparky