I nearly wrote TGIF

Because tomorrow is a public holiday in South Africa, it feels like today is Friday. Yay for long weekends!

TSC and I will be house-sitting for my folks while they are in Durban. I'm looking forward to sitting next to the pool (even if it's with my laptop to get my big story done in time for Monday's deadline) and just being away from home. It means that I have an excuse not to do all the niggly little things on my to-do list (everything from sorting out my beads and magazines to cleaning out my bedside drawer, which is one of those places in our house where homeless objects like spare batteries and lone earrings seem to collect).

It's not a holiday, but it's a nice break. I was thinking that yesterday and TSC asked me what I was pondering. I said that I was trying to figure out what makes a holiday for me. For him, it's being able to do what you want when you want. I thought about it some more and realised that for me, what defines a proper holiday is:

• Not having to do the annoying daily chores and admin, like cleaning, phoning clients, answering work emails and sorting out laundry. I enjoy camping and self-catering holidays, but my favourite treat is if we're away and don't have to worry about cooking our own meals or washing up afterwards.
  
• Not having any major committments that impede spontaneity or flexibility. This is why visiting my gran in Mpumalanga counts as a break, but not a real holiday in my opinion. I'm constantly thinking about whether she'll be able to enjoy what we're doing, if she'll feel left out if we go somewhere without her, if we'll get in the way of her social activities etc. Ultimate holidays for me are where it's just me and TSC doing our own thing, or when I'm with people who don't mind everyone splitting up when they feel like it. My family are good like that - we all tend to gather for meals, but my grandparents are free to nap while my folks go for a drive and TSC and I play tennis. I hate it where you're away with people and there's no privacy and no chance for solitude. And unfortunately, TSC's family are the type who expect that when we're away with them, we can't even be on our own for 30min, which is probably why we struggle to be together for more than a few days at a time - it's two different ways of thinking that collide.
• Not stressing constantly about finances. I don't mean I want to be able to just throw money around. I mean that it's difficult to relax when you can't really afford the holiday you're on. Friends of ours recently went to Australia and although they enjoed the experience, they said that they were on a really tight budget, but staying with friends who didn't understand that, and kept expecting them to join them at expensive restuarants or theatre shows. Our friends found it very stressful to be constantly rebudgeting to try to fit these things in. Personally, I'd rather save up for a long weekend and have enough spending money, than go on a week-long holiday where I'm constantly freaking out about the money and not really relaxing.
• Doing something new. It doesn't have to be exotic or expensive, but doing something new or going on an adventure is part of a holiday for me, even if it's as small as seeing a bushbaby in the wild for the first time (which happened when we went to wonderful Sondela).
• Having enough time to unwind. I've loved touring all the waterfalls in Mpumalanga, sunset horse-riding in Cape Town, doing a bridge swing in Zambia, swimming with dolphins in Zanzibar, visiting art galleries in Paris and all the other exploring I've been fortunate enough to do, but I also need time to sleep late, drink cocktails by a pool, take slow, wandering walks and generally just chill out. Without the chance to chill, as soon as I get back to work, it feels like the holiday never happened.

What about you lot? What defines a good, proper holiday for you?

PS: My bucket list is up on Being Brazen's blog! Yay ;-)

Inception and a definition

We saw Inception last night. It was... like having my brain put in a jar and alternatively fed with shrooms and poked with a stick. What a mind-bending trip of epic proportions!

It is directed by Christopher Nolan, possibly my favourite director in the world (he is the genius responsible for Memento, The Prestige and Batman Begins. I see The Dark Knight as a minor blemish in his otherwise illustrious career to date).

And in true Nolan form, it's a movie that keeps you on your toes. Poor TSC thought we'd go see a movie to relax and said that his brain was working harder watching the film than if he'd been home doing his varsity assignments.

The cast is fantastic, with Leonardo DiCaprio proving once again that he is indeed a fine actor who should be remembered for his more recent roles rather than Titanic, along with Ellen Page (the chick from Juno), Ken Watanabe (you'll remember him from The Last Samurai, Batman Begins and Memoirs of a Geisha), Joseph Gordon-Levitt (500 Days of Summer and 10 Things I Hate About You) and the much underrated Cillian Murphy (Batman Begins and Red Eye).

But what made the film for me is how Nolan (and his very talented editor) managed to convey incredibly complex concepts (at some points you are watching a dream within a dream within a dream) without losing the audience.

I'm a fan of sci-fi that makes you think (not the run of the mill aliens invade the world stuff) and of well-crafted action movies (not the type that feature Arnie, Stallone or Seagal). This, for me, was the perfect mixture of the two.

This is one of those movies that I will watch again on DVD and hope to see the special features and making-of info.

Have any of you seen it? What were your thoughts? When people ask me what I think of it, I'm going to tell them I'll let them know when I've finished thinking of it.

A word of caution though - don't see this one before bedtime. Your mind will still be trying to fit all the puzzle pieces together.

Now, that definition...

I realised that many of you have no idea what I mean by "ghostwriting". Sorry about that. You know how every industry has its own jargon and TLAs (three-letter acronyms) and you kind of forget that they don't make sense to anyone else? That's what happened here.

To clear things up, here's what a ghostwriter is, courtesy of WorldWideFreelance.com:
A ghostwriter is a writer who writes on an assigned topic under someone else's name, with their consent. They often write books completely from scratch but sometimes their work involves rewriting or polishing an existing work.

Most books by famous personalities are actually written by ghostwriters. When you see an autobiography or memoir from a politician, businessperson, or celebrity, chances are that it has been written by a ghostwriter.

A client may decide to hire a ghostwriter because the client does not have any writing talent or because they are too busy. Ghostwriters, for their part, are usually well-established writers already, and are selected on that basis.

What Do Ghostwriters Write?

Ghostwriters are hired to write many types of documents, from autobiographies for famous personalities to e-books for internet marketing gurus, and even letters for politicians.

They also write fiction. Sometimes it is for a series of books written by several ghostwriters under one name, as with the stories of Nancy Drew or The Hardy Boys. Ghostwriters also continue to write novels under the name of popular authors who have died, as in the case of Robert Ludlum.

There. Now I can pretend that this blog is educational, and not just an arbitrary selection of my crazy thoughts!