Following a nice article in the Athens News (which Maria kept the page for me), I read up on the Guardian’s Ten Rules for Writing Fiction (part 1 and part 2). Sarah Waters’ advice to write at least 1000 words a day is a good one, and while it isn’t a difficult target to achieve, I chose to start low, 500 words.

At least 500 words, every day, including the weekend. if I struggle, just write any old 500 words, even if it is for a later chapter (sometimes endings to events are easier to write than the beginning or middle of one!). If I’m inspired, there’s no rule to say that I have to stop at 500, so I can even go on to 1000 or more if I want.

500 words, seven days a week, means 3500 in one week, 14000 in a month (assuming 4 weeks), 45500 in three months, and finally 182000 in a year, more than enough for a first book, no?

Of course, i won’t stop writing my fanfiction, and that can be done on the weekend. Case in point, Ranma and the Doctor, chapter 17, and my Haruhi fic The Lost Child updated to chapter 4.

Anastasia’s wedding was nice, a tad stressful, but the landscape chose to let out some beautiful sights for us:

The motif for the wedding, white and blue roses.   

No point in talking about how badly Greece is doing, it’s all over the news.

The BBC has two interesting articles, seeing as I’m getting a lot of hits on my ‘Why Greece is in Debt’ page. This link talks about exactly what happened to Greece, which just about sums it up.

It also paints a scary picture for the future of Greece, with regards to how it deals with the debt. In any case, Greece does not get out unscathed.

Naturally, protests are almost daily now. The Communist Party is loving every minute of it, anarchists want to burn everything, whilst for the rest of population it’s (less) business as usual. I’ve noticed a few more shops has closed near my work, but c’est la vie.

Protesters outside Parliament

Police ready to intervene

Starting a series of long weekends to use up some holiday leave, which makes it very easy to write huge amounts of the book, and plenty of other things too.

In the meantime, enjoy my series of photos, again taken with my K750i.

Deep blue sea on the 6th April:

Excellent cloud formations from Glyfada, again on the 6th:

Sunset at Piraeus port, April 7th:

Today, parked just randomly in Glyfada (and for sale too), a Cadillac!

We went to Anavissos, and I have never tasted such nice cod for the nearly 5 years I’ve been here.

It was also a glorious days, as you see below:

Aside from that, last weekend Maria and I went to see The Ghost Writer (I decided to link to IMDB for films from now on, instead of Wikipedia). Although it seems to have had fairly good reviews from people, I didn’t particularly like it, too convoluted at times.

Though we knew there was a mystery in the story, and the ghost was trying to uncover it, we never really knew what it was! I know this is what the whole point of a mystery is, but surely, we must need to know whether or not the mystery was simply that important to find out? To say I was disappointed when I left the cinema would be accurate.

Other news, since I’ve gotten into the habit of writing once a week at Starbucks, around 6 hours is good enough, I’m back into my writing, and brought out another chapter of a sequel to one of my loved stories (by fans no less). After a year of waiting, chapter 2 of ‘In My Arms, In My Heart’ is out.

I’m working on my Ranma/28 Days Later crossover now, trying to get this horror story out the door before I lose the impulse.

While these photos fail to do it justice, imagine a world where you leave your house, and the sky is orange/brown, and the whole landscape looks that colour.

This came from the sand from Egypt that occasionally comes over for a visit, bringing these kinds of skies.

However, this particular day was also different in that it rained mud overnight, and the cars were spattered with brown rain, like everybody had been rally driving.

Regardless, it was a scary day, kind of creepy with a sense of foreboding, which the strikes of course showcased by simply happening again, preventing me from going to work once more due to lack of public transport.

The 9th March looked nicer though, and you could see these horrid cloud running away from us at speed.

The following was taken from a tram while in motion.

They say there’s going to be another strike next week, but we’ll see what happens.

Or fight…

Being on the receiving end of tear gas isn’t a nice experience, I’ll tell you that… Your eyes water, nose runs and mouth gets dry all at once.

Even though places like the metro were closed, it doesn’t stop tonnes of people getting in for protests, though with the fuel hikes, it may be more expensive to do so!

And I was right, the anarchists turned up for some fun and games…

Hopefully, the warzone will be quieter come Monday, but more strikes are due on the 11th March, so it doesn’t seem to be ending any time soon.

Pensions freezes; Cuts in public sector pay; A increase in sales tax from 19% to 21%; Rises in taxes on fuel, cigarettes and alcohol; Rises in taxes on luxury goods.

Good news for the Euro… but this is inevitably followed by hell. 

There will be a massive strike on Friday, tomorrow, ALL public transport will be cut, huge protests in front of parliament will follow (with some anarchists naturally to smash a few windows here and there). I won’t even be able to go to work.

Despite all this madness, civil servants who think that they’re entitled to more pay despite only working until midday or 2pm, without any risk of their losing their jobs for being crap, they are angry because their pittance of a pay won’t be enough to cover their endless coffee trips.

*sighs* I’m being a bit mean, I know that they have a right to their pay, but when you see loads of people not really bothered about working, it really gets on your nerves when you try and complete a form (namely my residence permit), only to see 4 women chatting about their summer holiday, for 20 minutes without even looking at you.

Regardless, the strikes will not last long. I can even see difficult new laws, such as no more striking for one year, losing your job if you join in the strike. Of course, there are laws against this, but I feel that one small change can scare anyone into not striking or protesting:

If someone joins a strike or protest, the government will prioritise analysing that person’s finances.

Imagine this, the government checking to see how you can afford that mansion in Voula or Kifissia, when you only earn 700 euros a week? That would terrify anyone.

I hope things turn out better for the country soon, these protests just make us look like whiners…

Here’s the image of the PASOK parliament, moody lighting, a bit depressed, but still much better than the previous government:

Also, I really hate the acronym PIGS.

Papandreou spoke to the BBC when he was in the UK, and his accent was amazing, you could forget he was Greek entirely, not like Karamanlis. True, he’s half American, but for a foreign leader to have a good command of another language is fairly interesting.

He said the truth, that things are bad here but Greece will pay their own debts, we just need moral (not financial support, yet) from Europe and the world and the belief that we can do it. These are tough times we’re going through, small things I’ve noticed already, the price of of a 500ml coke has gone up from 1 euro to 1.20 (though it may have been just at the bakery I frequent), and pay-as-you-go mobile phones have taxes on them when you buy and load credit (11 euros purchased credit comes out to about 8.50 credit).

Despite all this, life continues as normal, as it’s days like these that make me happy to live in Greece:

This is a view of Piraeus from Edem (ΕΔΕΜ) tram station, 3rd February at 10am, a chilly wind with warm sun, the best kind of day to go to work on. If you drive by the sea every day on your way to work, somehow you’ll believe that things aren’t so bad, and that no matter what, we can make it.