Wednesday 22 February 2012

A motivational post because I'm that kind of motivational gal! ... Okay so really it's just a plug.

For those of you who are not aware… which would surprise me as I have been known to talk about it a fair amount… I’ve written a book.
 
I started writing it three years ago and finished it just over a year ago. However, recently I have been pretty much sucking in doing much else with it.
 
When I initially finished it, I was all like Oh my DAYS I actually wrote a book and it is finished! It has a beginning, middle and end and people are in it and storylines happen and places are seen! Yeay me! Where is my medal? I want it NOW!
 
However, the excitement of this started to ebb away as life took over and then I found you guys and this forum and was all Woohoo, I’m not giving up on my dream of being a writer because I write on this thing loads and people respond and I have almost been doing this a year and haven’t given up on it yet!
 
But recently I have been worrying that I might be giving up on my dream. I fear that I have subliminally decided that it is just too hard to have a book published and that I might as well give up on that little nugget of a dream and just make do with the life that I have.
 
Don’t get me wrong, the life I have is pretty amazing. I’m in a job I adore, I have an awesome forum in this site and twitter where I get to let off all my creative steam and I have awesome people around me both internetually and in real life.  I fear however that this is why I have been happy to coast through as is because ‘as is’ is pretty awesome.
 
But I re-read by book last week. And although there is so much need for editing and improvement, I got that feeling again, that passion that this above all else is what I want to be doing. Each chapter I read, I remembered the place I was when I wrote it. I remembered the day I came up with each character and  the conversations I had aloud with myself to ensure the dialogue worked whilst my parents listened outside and wondered if it was time to commit me to a Mental Health place yet.
 
I remembered the excitement I felt as I went on the two research trips to complete the book. The constant ‘cloud nine’ feeling I had the moment I could write the words “The End” to sign off my work. I remembered having never wanted anything so much in my life as I had wanted to tell that story.
 
So three days ago, once I had finished reading the book, I made myself a promise, I wouldn’t give up. I realised that at the end of the day I had two choices ahead of me: I could give up on yet another project I had been working on, or I could at least try to see this one through.
 
So shortly after re-reading it, I moved to my second book (I don’t do things by halves and decided that naturally my first stab at writing a novel should be a trilogy series). I wrote an entire chapter of it over two days and I found myself catching that similar buzzing feeling I had felt during the writing of the first one.
 
So I’m writing again and in addition to this, I want to put myself completely out there and scare myself crapless by offering you an extract of my first book. It kind of stands as a sequence on it’s own and doesn’t really require any explanation… I think. I’m a little nervous publically advertising the topic of my book online as it’s a fairly unique idea and I’m scared by telling people, someone will take the idea and write a better version.
 
I’ve put the extract to the book on my ‘Creative Writing’ site. Link to it is below.  

Serenity - Nightmares come

Peace out my lovelies

Monday 20 February 2012

I'm pretty sure my body is close to filing a law suit against me for abuse.

So I'm up before 11am yeaterday morning, you know, because I'm crazy, and I realise that I should probably get me a drink of caffeine to ensure that I stay up.

As I was leaving the house, I decided to use my trusty Biohazard flask so that I could continue drinking said caffeine once outside.

As such, I went to my kitchen, fished my flask out from my cupboard, turned my kettle on and proceeded to pour my three teaspoons of coffee into the flask (I'm under the impression that if your coffee doesn't give you a buzz after you're done drinking it, then you're not doing it right).

Once I had poured the boiling hot water into the flask, I went to my fridge to grab the milk only to find that there wasn't any left. Isn't that just the way? Stupid sod's law, I can't tell you the amount of times that we have left milk in that fridge untouched until it had turned into a solid entity. We don't have milk at the moment because both Housemate-Anna and myself are on a bit of a Hot Chocolate obsession and both seem incapable of going to sleep without having a bowl sized mug of it before bed. Anywho, due to the lack of milk I realised that I really and truly was going to be buzzing today as I was going to be having my coffee black.

I shut the fridge door, went back over to the flask, noticed the time was telling me I had only ten minutes until I had to leave the house, panicked because I currently had no make up on, threw the lid on the flask and power walked back into my bedroom with flask in hand.

I went on to do my usual eye make up routine and struggled slightly as I realised how hard it was to do this task when your eyes keep on trying to close on you due to the extreme fatigue Sunday mornings before 11am brings.

Due to this I decided that I would need a shot of coffee now in order to finish the task. I took the flask, opened the lid and threw the liquid into my mouth.

It was only once I had closed my mouth again that I became aware of just how hot the coffee was... bearing in mind it was at boiling point a mere three minutes ago and it had zero amount of cold milk to have cooled it down. My mind went into panic mode, suddenly it had no idea how to make my throat swallow. No word of a lie, I had completely forgotten how to do this simple task.

As such I was left with this burning liquid in my mouth and no way of emptying it. My bedroom floor was not really a place that would respond well to having spit up coffee all over it and the sodding lid was on the flask so I couldn't spit it back in there. Before you guys start telling me that I could have simply taken the lid off the flask I want you all to remember that I, at this moment, couldn't even work out how to swallow, let alone use my opposable thumbs.

In short, this dilemma left me dancing around my room, throwing my head backwards and forwards whilst letting out little squeals with my mouth firmly shut and tears appearing in my eyes. All the while my brain is sending messages to my throat saying "Swallow damn it swallow!" Whilst my throat was repsonding saying, "Are you kidding? That liquid is hot, I ain't letting that thing anywhere near me!" In the meantime, my head was trying to throw the liquid down my throat by tossing my head back and hoping some of the liquid accidentally fell down there.

This lasted for what felt like five minutes but what I'm sure in all reality was really five seconds until eventually my brain forced my throat to comply with threats of all kinds of danger on it's family etc and it opened, allowing the scorching coffee down into my body.

My mouth, ladies and gents, is now well and truly swollen. My taste buds gave out on me all day yesterday and the roof of my mouth now has some form of swollen film all over it that does not respond well to anything hot or even luke warm coming into contact with it.

One of these days I am going to stop hurting myself accidentally and give my poor body a break. But until that day, I will at least vent to you lovely people just how stupid I can be.

Peace out my lovelies.

Friday 17 February 2012

The ancient storage facility that lives inside my brain

Housemate-Anna and I have been working through Season 3 of Dawson's Creek over the past month... I know, how retro are we?

Anywho, I spent the majority of my teenage years obsessing over this programme and allowing Pacey Whitter (the lovely Joshua Jackson) place my expectations in a prospective mate so high that no poor sod was going to have a chance. 

Re-watching the programme now and realising that I do in fact know the entire script for the last eight episodes off by heart, I came to realise that perhaps I had wasted a little bit too much of my younger years on this programme. 

Now I'm not saying that it hasn't been awesome this time round. Do not get me wrong, Joshua Jackson may indeed be the most beautiful man America has to offer, but to be able to copy dialogue between Joey and Pacey word for word, including sniffs, sighs and throat clears for an entire episode probably suggests an imbalance in my social life at some point back then...

It also led me to ponder where the hell I had those words stored in my brain given that I haven't thought about them in at least 6 years. This question goes the same for the words to 'Never Ever' from All Saints which especially freaked me out because I don't even remember learning that in the first place. I just remember one day playing it and just knowing the words. The only explanation I could come to was that the band members had been sneaking into my bedroom at night and singing it to me while I slept... If that is the case then I feel flattered/creeped out as I was only 10 years old or something when that song came out and I really don't think that it's deemed proper to be creeping into 10 year old girls' bedrooms when you are four fully grown women, no matter how catchy your song may be. 

I think the main conclusions that I came to last night, watching Dawson behave like a prat on TV whilst Pacey and Joey longed for each other from afar, are:

1. I still hate Dawson now as much as I did at the age of 14. It may be his creek but he has no business being there. 

2. My brain has a lot of crap stored in there which is probably why I struggle retaining new and, quite frankly, relevant information  nowadays. 

And 3. Pacey Whitter may very well be the reason why I haven't been able to find any man I've met romantically interesting. For that reason I sincerely pity the boys growing up in this day and age. You've got sparkling skin and a god like immortal body to contend with. All I ever wanted was someone to buy me a wall and take me sailing (all Dawson's Creek references). In short, I think you're ever so slightly screwed. 

Have an awesome weekend!  

Peace out my lovelies. 

Wednesday 15 February 2012

Benjie: The story of a very sneaky little rascal.

In the little town of Dingledot, down Blueberry Lane, lived a very sneaky little boy called Benjie. 

Benjie was not a special boy. He wasn't a strong boy and he was very shy. No one really noticed him when he was in the room and sometimes people would forget he was there altogether!

Benjie was very sad about this for a very long time. Sometimes he would try to talk to people to see if they would notice he was there but every time he tried, he was not able to say any words and so people would walk past him without them even realising that he had been standing there!

Benjie tried his very hardest to be like the other boys in his town. There were all sorts of boys who always did amazing things like ride bikes and do cartwheels and people would always stop and clap them when they did. However, Benjie could not afford a bike and when he tried to do a cartwheel he would always fall over and hurt his bottom. 

When he was at school he could never get any questions right and he wasn't able to do any pretty drawings. He would always sit at the back of the classroom and make paper airplanes instead as he hoped that one day people would notice them and be amazed. Unfortunately he didn't really know how to make paper airplanes and no matter how hard he tried he could not get them to fly anywhere. When he threw them, they would simply fall straight down to his feet until soon he was just a little boy hidden in paper so high that only his head showed over the top. 

One day, when the pile of paper was almost up to his nose, the teacher introduced to the whole class a new girl who had come all the way from Sunshine Mountain, the most beautiful place in the whole wide world. Her name was Tiffany. 

Tiffany had long blonde hair that reached her ankles and blue eyes that seemed as big as the universe. Tiffany wasn't like the other girls in Benjie's class, she didn't smell and didn't seem yucky in any way at all. From the moment Benjie saw Tiffany he knew that he wanted more than anything in the whole world to hug her. 

The other boys in Benjie's class seemed to want the same thing as well, as the moment Tiffany sat down they all started making pretty drawings for her of rainbows and unicorns and doing some of the most amazing cartwheels Benjie had ever seen. 

Benjie worried that he would never be able to give Tiffany a hug. He watched her inside his little pile of paper planes and gasped whenever Tiffany giggled or smiled at all the other boys. He tried to make a paper airplane that he could throw at her but when he threw it, it just went up into the air and landed back down on top of the pile that surrounded him. 

Benjie became very sad about this as he had never wanted to hug someone so much. Just as he began to think that he might be able to talk to her if he pulled himself out of the pile of paper, one of the coolest boys in the whole school did four somersaults in a row!

Tiffany was so amazed at this that she held out her arms wide so that she could hug him to say well done. 

However, the boy was still working on his dismount and did not notice Tiffany standing there with her arms wide open. Benjie realised then that he would never get another chance and jumped out of the pile of paper sending the planes flying all over the room and wrapped his arms tight around Tiffany's body. 

Tiffany had her eyes shut with glee and so did not realise that Benjie wasn't the cool boy who had done all those cartwheels. Because of this she hugged Benjie really tight and laughed merrily. 

It was only when she opened her eyes that she realised Benjie was the boy she had been hugging. She pushed him away and punched him really hard around the face. Unfortunately Tiffany had chosen to wear the knuckleduster her daddy had given her for her birthday that day. (It was a really pretty pink and had unicorns on it.) Benjie's whole lip split open and his eye became so swollen he couldn't even see out of it! 

"Oh no!" Benjie said and blood poured all down his brand new t shirt. He knew his mummy wasn't going to be very happy that he had already ruined his top. She would certainly notice him that night!

Tiffany burst into tears and told the teacher that Benjie had violated her personal space and because of this Benjie was told he was never allowed in the school again. 

As the police pushed Benjie into the back of their car and made sure his handcuffs were so tight that his hands turned as blue as the sky he sighed sadly. 

Benjie would never be a sneaky little rascal again. 

My Disney proofed contribution to Sneaky Fudger week, a blogging project happening all week. For other blogs on the same project please click below.

Lucy's Football
Lgalaviz
Heinakroon

Peace out my lovelies. 

Monday 13 February 2012

A project that I kind of accidentally fell into... an introduction to what will come.

So I'm doing my usual journey to work this morning... you know, squashed up against a glass wall in a train full of people with a face full of armpit whilst trying to maintain my "I'm carrying a coffee mug of Biohazard Waste and it could spill on you at any minute" expression. (I've got to say, I fear my fellow commuters are becoming wily to my ways on this one, they barely gave the mug a second look today.) Anywho, whilst doing this I was checking my twitter feed and I noticed that some of my favourite Twitter make believe friends from around the world appeared to be joining some form of a cult or group meeting or something because there was a lot of tweets saying "count me in" and "I want to blog about this" and "This week will be infamous."

Immediately I felt drawn to this and so naturally I chirped up and said, "I'm in!" Everyone was so welcoming to me being part of their little sect and I was feeling so accepted with my imaginary internet friends that it was a while before I realised that I in actual fact had no idea as to what it was that I had just signed up for.

I tried to read back on the twitter feed and grasp an idea of what it is that I was now expected to do, all the time crossing my fingers that I hadn't accidentally fallen onto a group pact suicide because I still have tickets to see the Harry Potter tour and I'd be gutted if I missed out on that.

Anywho, there was nothing in the tweets that seemed to shed any light on what it was that I had joined, but everyone seemed so excited about the whole thing that I couldn't help but get excited with them! Yeay, social inclusion!!

Eventually I threw in the little tid bit that I had no idea what it was I was supposed to be doing, the only thing that I knew about it was that it was important to have done it sometime this week. Luckily one of the key members of the group Heinakroon explained that I needed to check out the comments section of Amy's kickass blog on cats giving us all brain cysts and diseases (FYI, never been more happy that I'm allergic to cats, I'm brain cyst free!)

After giving the comments section a good ol' read I realised just exactly what it was that was expected of me... kind of... I think...

Well, I knew that it involved me writing a post about men/animals who decide that instead of luring the female of their species into bed with weight lifting and muscle flexing and eyebrow wiggling and such, they sneak up behind them and wait until the female doesn't think they can get anyone else and just settles for that member of the male species.

Apparently this particular mating ritual is common amongst most mammals, reptiles and... well anything that has male and females in it's species and some form of brain. It was also decided that this week is devoted completely to spreading scientific knowledge about this method of sexual interaction. No worries though, it is purely scientific and I'm assured the only places where it may become slightly erotic is when explaining this particular theory amongst the mating rituals of the moose species. Heinakroon has promised us something on this and I know I'm not alone in looking forward to his scientific findings of this.

Amy has just started the week off with her own post on this topic and after this, I think I now understand... kind of.

Now I really want to be involved in this, however I have this tendency to write blogs that are of a certain level innocence wise. You know, something that could be posted on the internet for Disney (it's kind of my mantra, when typing I think... would Walt approve?) As such, I have thought how I could possibly contribute to this sacred week when I can't even bring myself to say the name of it in case Disney smacks me round the face for disgracing his hypothetical website.

I suggest, to fully understand the post that I shall be writing at some point this week, you go to Amy's post (linked above) she explains it all in a highly non Disney and 'freedom of speech' type way.

In the meantime, I have found my angle to contribute to this the only way I know how... I shall be providing the Children's book explanation to the theory. I need to research and find my muse etc for this. In the meantime I leave you with this little sneak peak, my title:

"Benjie: The story of a very sneaky little rascal."


Peace out my lovelies.

Wednesday 8 February 2012

I knew there was a reason I didn't do stuff!!

Agh, so I haven't been on this for over a week. I can do nothing but apologise.

My excuses for prior to Sunday are as rubbish as forgetting to upload two different posts which as we speak are sitting on my phone where I left them after writing them on the way to and from work, and also working really late so that when I get home all I have done is shower, fall asleep and start the day all over.

Sunday onwards, I have a more feasible excuse.

Saturday afternoon, after catching up with some awesome friends from where One-And-Only-Daniela and I used to work, I found myself feeling a little under the weather. One-And-Only-Daniela had also planned another night out Saturday night in London, involving getting dressed in a posh frock and high heels and dancing into the early hours of the morning.

I, against my better judgement, agreed to go to this even though I wasn't feeling that great and put on my new dress. This dress was another reason why I had decided to go as it was new and I hadn't bought a new dress in about two years. Sure, it was a catalogue dress and so when I actually got it, it was three sizes bigger than what the model in the picture wore and so may have resembled something slightly tent like on me. Also the colour in the picture was this just off red colour but when I got it, it looked more like someone had found an orange highlighter and coloured in the whole dress with it.

However, I persevered. I put on my dress, I washed my hair and I fixed it into some form of "going out" style and I picked from my large selection of beautiful shoes that I had bought back when I used to have money to throw away.

For those of you who don't live in the London area of England, Saturday was hit with a massive snow storm type thing. This had started a couple of hours before I had left and had forced my ever awesome Housemate-Anna to march me back into my bedroom when she saw what I was wearing, instructing me to at least put on some flesh coloured tights as it was like a freezer out there.

I then left and walked in my stiletto heels in about 5cm of snow to the train station. This is a journey that is usually a ten minute walk but took me a good twenty minutes to do in the extreme conditions I was facing. As I walked past a pub, a group of lads were outside, clearly heavily into their drinking for that night and stopped me from going any further.

"Why are you walking in the snow in that?" One of the guys asked.

"Don't ask," I responded, "I'm wondering the same thing."

"How are you even walking upright?" Another asked.

"I have no idea."

The third guy looked down to the glowing dress protruding from under my coat. "Wow! No one's going to miss you in that thing!"

I rolled my eyes and took that as my signal to go, anxious that I would miss my train. "That's why I'm wearing it! Got to think safety first in this weather."

I walked off just as one of them yelled out something about whether I would like to "get off" with his mate and figured this particular question didn't really warrant a response so kept on going.

My journey to central London was pretty much more of the same, I wobbled on snow, sat on trains, wobbled on more snow, got stopped by a musician type man with a floppy hat and a guitar who congratulated me on my brave style choice in the colour dress that I was wearing. I of course pretended that this was completely on purpose and waved my fist in the air in a 'power to the people' type motion.

Waiting for One-And-Only-Daniela for 1 hour had me well and truly remembering just how under the weather I had been feeling. It also had me realising just how many people wondered through London's Leciester Square Train Station, unbelievably pissed out of their brains to the point of vomiting and passing out in their own sick. It was enough to make me glad I did all my hardcore drinking and vomiting at home, away from the public eye...

Anywho, when she hadn't arrived by midnight, I gave up and made my way towards my trusty night bus station. To say by this point I wasn't feeling that great would be an understatement. However, One-And-Only-Daniela turned up before the night bus did and before I knew it I was being led to the night club.

We stayed until three thirty. The dress, luckily, was dimmed down by the club lights and passed as a normal dress. I spent the night, dancing, taking off my shoes, being asked to put my shoes back on by the 'nice but scary' security man, dancing some more, taking my shoes off again, being asked to put my shoes on by another 'nice but scary' security man, and so on and so forth.

Adrenaline hit me in the club I think. I almost forgot that I had been feeling ill. Besides it was warm in the club. And the loud music and people dancing in close proximity to each other meant that I only had time to remember what was wrong with me in those brief moments when a song I didn't know came on and I actually stopped dancing. At those times, it would rush over me like a wave of sore muscles and nausea.

At three thirty I got on my bus. However, the snow had not stopped for the whole time we had been in there and the ground was now showing about 10-15cm of the stuff. As such the bus was slow so as not to kill all the many drunken passengers inside and didn't reach my stop until gone four thirty.

My two minute walk to my front door took me 15 minutes and when I got into my flat it hit me. I collapsed into my hallway in silent sobs so as not to wake Housemate-Anna. She woke anyway because she's awesome... or because my silent sobs weren't actually that silent... And she put me to bed.

However, by now the damage had been done, for the next four hours Housemate-Anna, in a feat of awesomeness that proves that she is the best housemate in the whole world, sat on my bed stroking my back whilst I shivered, convulsed, cried and went through what I can only describe as the worst pain I have ever felt in every one of my muscles.

She phoned for an ambulance as we hit the 6am mark as she was convinced that I had hypothermia. However, due to the snow, no one would come out. In the end we spoke to a lovely nurse on the phone who told me that I couldn't do anything about it but ride it out.

And that people, is why, three days later, I am only just picking up my computer. Although my pain has not been as intense as those four hours on Sunday morning, I am currently bed bound, knowing full well now what it feels like to have "the flu." It sucks and I do not recommend it to anyone.

I also have realised the reason why I don't socialise and spend all my time talking to imaginary people on the internet. I can't get flu on the internet!

So there's my excuse, maybe sometime soon I'll upload the posts that are sitting on my phone but I think I'm going to go and have a little nap now, it's been a whole twenty minutes since my last one.

Don't worry, I've learnt from my mistakes, no fancy parties and dresses for me. Pyjamas, books and blogs are my new social life for 2012.

Peace out my lovelies.