The end with Canon was something I had prepared mentally for over a number of weeks. What I hadn't prepared so much for was the start of the next phase.A big plan like writing a book is perhaps needed to create a big change, and change is what I want to do. And yet, to take the very first real steps towards the dream has been surprisingly difficult.
After the excitement of the leaving party, Queens Day and another holiday on Monday, here it is - finally, Tuesday 5th May is the first official day of my life as a writer.
And I write precisely nothing. The same again for most of today.
I find myself wrapped up in lots of tasks that I had been putting off for weeks when I thought "I can do that when I finish with Canon". I throw things out, answer emails, pay outstanding bills, move all the data from my old laptop to my new one, go running, make lists of things I could do to start the research... in fact, everything except STARTING.
Finally I realise I am a bit lost about where to start. So I ask myself "what would I do if this was a work project?" Well, probably I would take some Post-It notes, look at some reference materials and start picking out the key points. OK, I think - let's get a flip chart, get the post-its out, and start looking at some of the source material. Do your job!
In the last months, all kinds of possibilities surfaced to find information about Amsterdam from 1965-1983. So I go back to a couple of those with the idea of getting a basic timeline - what happened, who was involved, what were the big events that I am going to build my story around?
And then it happens, and for the first time I began to feel exactly why this book idea hooked me.
I start to read more detail about the Provo movement in Amsterdam in the 60's. I find the name Roel Van Duijn - he was one of the founders of Provo. Information pops up on the web about him, an activist who protested against the bomb in the early 60's and who has been a prominent figure in non-mainstream politics ever since. Then an article on Robert Jasper Grootveld - a performance artist who also formed the Provo movement. What was their aim? Social reform via humorous provocation (hence the word Provo) with some big ideas in mind and action.
It's interesting that Grootveld believed that "the masses had been brainwashed into becoming a herd of addicted consumers" and that the Nicotine industry was feeding people a pointless habit with the sole intention of addicting its customers to make profits. So what has changed?
I lose 3 hours in a blink of an eye as all kinds of facts about the period appear, including White Bike plans, sabotage of the Queens Wedding, provocative attacks on the cigarette industry, and scandals of police violence leading to high level resignations. Those 3 hours are pure adrenaline, and all I do is scratch the very surface of the first 1%.
So finally, after months of waiting, it begins and I can feel the subject provoking me to action. The new life begins.
