I think that gap has also allowed me to view the whole of Full Throttle a bit more objectively.  I am a complete perfectionist: a details person, as opposed to a big picture one.  I like having time to go through things repeatedly with the proverbial fine-toothed comb.  Often, some things are hard to spot on the very first pass.  If I’m under pressure, I’ll miss them.

Plus, not having thought about FT much for a few months means I’m no longer so intimately familiar with it.  Which means that slight errors, or things I took for granted when I last read/edited it, now jump out at me.

It does also mean that I read the earlier drafts and wince at some of my now-glaring continuity errors.

Still, at least I’m working on it again.  That’s good.

This last month, I’ve done over 200 miles on my motorbike, so I’ve had plenty of time to observe my hindbrain in action.

I guess this is different for different people, but the one thing that’s struck me is how much we humans like to think we’re autonomous beings.  We’re rational creatures, fully under our own conscious control.  We can reason, observe, think and react rationally.

Or at least, that’s what we tell ourselves.

That illusion has been somewhat shattered for me.  While I enjoy riding a motorbike, I have a number of what I suppose I could term run-time conflicts.

For example, I’m on a local road I know well, with a 50mph speed limit.  In the car, I’d have no problem doing this road at the speed limit, slowing appropriately for the corners.

On the bike, however, it’s a different story, particularly on right-hand bends.

My gut instincts want me to freeze, to tense up and just hold myself where I am, and get myself as far away from that far left edge of the road as possible.  So I instantly head towards the white line.  Which is a dangerous place to be.

It’s hard doing corners when your hindbrain is screaming “There’s the kerb.  Kerb.  Keep AWAY from the KERB.  KERB.  KERB!!”  Quite what my brain is expecting, I’m not sure.  It’s not like the kerb can ambush me, like a vicious gang of Keep Left signs.

Left handers, however, I have no problem with.  Because my accident happened on a right hander.

Learning to ride is far more of a mental battle than I expected it to be.  I thought getting back on the bike would be the hardest part.  It certainly wasn’t easy, and sometimes I’m frustrated that the battle is still continuing, with not much of a let-up.  Luckily*, I’m bloody-minded and stubborn, and I don’t want to give up something that is tremendously good fun.

That bloody-mindedness is still keeping me going.

Even now, before every time I get on a bike, I have a massive emotional wobble of fear and worry – whether I’m going just down the road, or venturing slightly further afield.  Every single time, I have to choose whether I want to give in to that fear.  Of course, it’s an easier and sometimes more tempting option … but I know that if I do give in, I grant that fear a bit more of a foothold, and I make it harder for myself to choose to ride next time.  I cling on and hope that one day, the fear might start to recede.  Because nine times out of ten, when I’m out there, and the sun is shining, I love being on two wheels, even with only 125cc underneath me.

*I say luckily, but it probably depends on your perspective…

In the meantime, I’m focussing on achieving another ambition.  Passing my Direct Access Motorcycle test.

After my accident in December, I was well aware that it’d be a long road a) to recovery and b) to get back onto a motorbike (without even considering passing my test).  Thankfully, although my knee ligaments were bruised (and probably sprained) there was no permanent damage, and physio has meant that I’m almost back to normal* aside from a quite impressive scar, and an inability to cope with high-heeled shoes**.

What surprised me was just how much the mind influences what we do – and how little we’re aware of its workings.  Getting back on a motorbike and continuing to learn to ride has been a real, intense battle of my will versus my emotions and gut reactions.  So many times, I’ve been close to saying “stuff it” and giving up.

And yet … I haven’t.

I am a stubborn bugger (as my long-suffering husband would say), and I’ve consciously made the choice, over and over again, that I’m going to continue with it.

Finally, some 8 weeks since I restarted lessons, it’s beginning to pay off.

I’ll finish this when it isn’t tea time (not that I like food … or anything!).

*As normal as I get, anyway.

**Like I wore them much, anyway.

It’s not right at the moment: I’m really not happy with it, yet I’m stuck in the awful position where I can’t actually do anything about it.  (Writer’s block … several metres of impermeable concrete, at the moment.)

I’m not prepared to go for it, unless I feel like what’s going to press is the best that I can do.  At the moment, it isn’t.  Much as I’m sad to be announcing this, I think it’s the right call.

I want to thank all at Canaan Press for their support and encouragement, and understanding of my decision.

My creativity seems to have completely disappeared.  Not only have I lost whatever it was that fed ideas to me, I’ve lost 99.9% of my urge to write.  I’ve no idea where I left it, or in fact where it could’ve gone.  I don’t know when – or if – it’ll be back.  It didn’t even have the decency to leave me a goodbye note or set an out-of-office.

For someone who wants* to be a writer, this is kind of embarrassing.

*As my day job involves writing, I suppose I still am a writer.  Just a technical one, rather than a creative one.

This Times Online article regarding the management of most of Britain’s automotive manufacturing is very interesting.  Put simply, most of the men in charge are German.

Now, as a Brit, and a car geek, I could think back to the heady days of 1994 – 2000 when BMW sold Rover and its debts for a nominal £10, sold Land Rover to Ford and kept the lucrative little Mini for itself (I’m not going to comment on what BMW seem to be doing with the Mini brand now.  Countryman, indeed!).

However, I’m not concerned about the future of Jaguar Land Rover, Rolls-Royce, and so on.  Why?

There is one crucial factor that I don’t think British management – or even British government – has understood.  I think my added emphasis in the next paragraph should give it away.

A strong engineering sector gives managers from Germany an edge, Paefgen said. “Appreciation of an engineer in England is a lot lower than in Germany. You value them less and pay them less.

“The best car bosses are engineers. They know the product. Nobody can pull the wool over their eyes. Engineers also get taught to analyse situations, set targets and define how to get there. You get a disciplined approach to management but engineers also have great passion about the cars.”

I think it’s an attitude thing.  Few British companies will listen to their engineers above, say, the bean counters.

Engineers in this country are the people who come and sort your boiler out, who repair cars, who fix your washing machine*.  Not the people who design the boilers or cars or washing machines in the first place.

In Britain, we view engineer as being something menial and grubby and underpaid.

My husband was telling me that according to his Indian co-worker, engineer is viewed as a high-status profession, similar to being a doctor or lawyer.  Interesting.

And that’s one reason I’m not so worried about the future of these companies.  Yes, they’ll need some sensitivity to customer trends, and brand positioning (and all those other buzzwords), but without robustly engineered products, all those words mean nothing – and could easily come to nothing.  As the recent hoo-hah over Toyota has shown, the buying public don’t have much patience with technical breakdowns…

*Not that these aren’t important and valuable jobs.  It’s just the description.  Which, I suppose, comes under the category of creative marketing.

It’s a bit more interactive than FT – at the end of each instalment, you get to vote on what should happen next, very like those adventure stories I remember reading when I was little.  It’s a very cool idea.

Yay for more motorsport fiction!

Getting knocked off the bike has put rather a big dent in pretty much everything (not being able to move off the sofa for 10 days kind of has that effect).  Combine that with some immense car trouble we’ve had, add in Christmas with family at differing ends of the country, and it’s inevitable that things slide …

To be honest, life in general has slid, but the specific bit here is that I no longer know for sure when FT will hit the press.

Wibble.

This little number, though, is far more cheery.