Emails

I was going to start this off by saying 'Virtually everything these days involves,' but that just made me laugh too much, so instead, I'm going to say this:

I SPEND MY FOREVER WRITING EMAILS!!

And why is it that we understand now that that is shouting?

I keep in touch with a lot of friends via either Facebook or email, but it's not that which makes me slightly like Blahhhh, why are emails controlling my life?!??!?!?!  It's more that my email account - the main one - is attached to my iPad, my phone and is pretty much always open on my computer. Most people, or rather my mother, would probably see that as a little excessive, but actually, I get emails from the company which I used to self-publish, I get emails from people regarding editing things, I get emails from company mailing lists, telling me when things I want are cheap (so I can actually afford them) and I get the general spam. And that's just ONE of a few inboxes which I have, although the only one with real deviation is my university one, because that is just stuff from tutors and TFL warning me when there are tube closures which are completely irrelevant to me.

I do also kind of have an official CharliesWrite email address (charlieswrite@hotmail.co.uk) but the amount of people who actually use it at the moment mean that I only check it about once a week, so it's not as bad as the others.


My issue with the thing is that I seem to spend more time writing emails to people than I do actually writing anything else. Between essays and lectures and emailing the world and his wife, I wonder how on Earth I still have time to be obsessively reading John Green/Nicholas Sparks novels, let alone be writing some of my own!! But write I do. In theory, the first edit of Yours, would have been finished by now. The reason it isn't, is because my laptop is both a slow little Craptop and also an exciting treasure trove of pictures and music and GENERAL DISTRACTIONS TECHNIQUES, which mean that I waste hours watching things like...Ed Sheeran interviews... Oh shush, I like his voice...and his hair...

Anyway, going to cook myself some lovely dinner and then maybe get back to trying to get this novel reading to come to life on the Kindle. I already have a release date in mind, but I'm just going to have to see how it goes to be honest!

x

So Yesterday,

I got up at half five..okay, twenty to six, and went to Manchester on the coach. My intention was to go and see one of my tutors from my sixth form, but just as my luck goes, he wasn't there. On the plus side, I did get to do the rounds of my other tutors, say hi to everyone and get my hair done!! Oh, and spend some money in The Bead Shop, but we're just not going to talk about that one...

On the way back I decided that I really can't stand the majority of Lawson's songs, and the irritating thing about that is that they make up about half of my Kindle playlist!!, so I spent the five hours it took to drive back listening to Ben Folds Five, Emeli Sande and Fun. (I've linked you to my favourite songs) and then sat there editing Yours, adding some more bits in that were meant to be tehre and playing spot the typo, which is like a crap, easy version of Where's Wally.

I also spent most of the day spamming my Twitter with basically everything that I wanted to say. It was good fun. Admittedly it's mostly random stuff, but it's good fun, and sometimes it can help you see where my inspiration comes from, which I've been told is reasonably interesting. So if you have Twitter the link is up there, or you can find me by searching @CharliesWrite. If you don't have Twitter, you can still keep up with all the latest news and such by "Like"ing my author page on Facebook - search Charlie Yarwood - Charlieswrite or click on the linky here Facebook Author Page Linky :) I use Twitter mainly for Instagram posts and also when I'm out to be all 'hmm, isn't this interesting/annoying/odd/I'M BORED!', but the author page tends to be more like, 'Here's what's going on in my life&writing! ...'

Both of them will also let you know when I post new blogs, so if you like the ones prior to this one, because let's face it, this is more of a publicity blog entry than anything else (for which I apologise, but it's good to get it out there!) then it'll let you know when there is more of the same. Or you can follow me on here. That's cool too...

Anyway, I'm off to work. Yays and happy joy joy.

Charlie x

:{P

EDIT: I just realised that I made no mention of the big old house move which is pretty atrocious!

I've moved to the wonderful and lovely Roehampton, so finally out of Elephant and Castle!! :) It took my parents, me and a van to get my considerable amount of stuff over to the new house which I'm sharing with three lovely ladies. Most of that stuff is still sat in boxes at the end of my room, because I'm yet to have a spare minute to figure out where the bloody hell all of it is going, but I'll get there I'm sure. Not tonight though, since I'm going to be in late again. Anyway, yes, work time. x

Moving On

Tomorrow, I'm moving out of Elephant and Castle and into a lovely place called Roehampton.  As such I have spent today sorting out all the different things I had to do before leaving here. I got all things done, except one. 

With everything in boxes, I have no idea where anything is, but for once my room actually looks tidy. It's ridiculous. I've had to pack all my clothes into those vacuum bags as well, which is a pain in the butt, because it means that I will have to iron my ENTIRE WARDROBE when I get to my new place. Triple yays with syrup on the top. 

 Ah well, I just want to get into bed right now and sleep through the entire thing, but I doubt that my mother would let that happen, although I can understand that one. 

*

About to load Yours, onto the Kindle so that I can try and get some notes done on it. Should be fun. 

Let's go. 

Sometimes, Heaven Can't Wait

Twenty minutes after I woke up today, I got a call from a friend. The last time she called me, she was telling me that she got into York University, which made me completely elated, since I had been worried about her since I moved, the time before that - we have Facebook, negating the need for actually phone conversation - it was to tell me that a friend had committed suicide. Today, it was that someone from our college, someone from our classes, has been murdered, and she only found out through Facebook. 

The reason I'm publishing this on the internet for anyone and everyone to read is because I have literally no idea how on Earth I feel about it, except that I'm angry with something. For the first time since I got it, I took my Taize necklace off and threw it across the room, wanting to leave it where it landed when I move on Sunday, but then I realised something... At times like this, you can choose to do two things: you can either cling to the things which are dear to you, or you can reject them completely, so I picked it back up and made a vow to myself that come hell, high water or a few inches of snow, I'm going to go to church this week, like I have been meaning to since the university year started back. (This year I don't live on site and don't have a lecture beforehand, so there is nothing to force me to be on the site, and therefore in the chapel. I'm not overly great at kicking my own ass to go). I've also decided that - even though I'm going to be travelling on the poverty wagon (aka the bus) for a grand total of nine hours, just to spend six hours in Manchester - I'm going home to see some of the people who took the time to make my life a lot easier for a couple of years. I've been meaning to go back since I left, but I just, haven't. I guess part of that is that I know that the college isn't the same place that I started at three and a half years ago. They expanded it, and ruined the most beautiful part. 

The travelling is going to - not only be a pain in the gonads - drive me to something close to a Charlie version of insanity, which is not pleasant and you ought to stay as far away from it as possible. On the plus side, I will either have a lot of time to veg out and think about all the nasty and horrible ways I want to mess with my characters (drama is what makes my novels vaguely interesting after all) or maybe even to get some writing done. Or editing, but don't get your hopes up, because that is unlikely. 


Although, seeing Yours, on Kindle for the first time will be exciting stuff, and I will be better off having something to focus on, instead of just stewing on whatever I'm thinking for the entire journey...

2 Months, 2 Days

In 2 months and 2 days, (19th of March for any of those struggling... :P) I turn twenty, and that's making me look at everything going on in my life and wonder what on Earth I'm doing. 

I just managed to punch my ceiling and skin my knuckles (thankfully it was my left hand again so not the world's biggest catastrophe really, in fact, something of a regular event) while dancing on my bed. I know, stupid, right? I need a trampoline to get rid of my energy...

I wish that was the most silly thing though, because it's really not. 

Each time I get into writing or editing, something else in my life seems to pop up and scream at me that it is meant to be higher up the priority list, and while I am good at putting the novel down and getting on with whatever else is required of me, it's a pain!! All I want to do is focus on what I love, and when I have time, I can't focus and when I can focus, I have no time. I'd call it a catch-22, but it's just life really, but I don't want to be only able to produce a novel every November. I want to do more than that. Even if everything I write is romantic-y trash written from the same perspective, I DON'T CARE!! 

What would be really nice would be getting other people, as in people other than my friends, to read my stuff. I don't even want there to be a lot of them, just a few would be really nice!! After writing that I decided to see the results of having put Fairies on the Kindle FREE for a day and have subsequently found out that roughly 183 people took advantage of that offer. THAT IS SO COOL TO ME!! Seriously, thank you all so much.

 That has actually cheered me up quite a lot. 

What I had been planning to write was something along the lines of how daring I think some people are to just jump into things when they know what they want. I have so much respect for people who didn't choose to follow a path they were sort of channelled to, who went off and carved their own damn path. For now, I'm happy to be living in London, thankful I have my job and supportive parents and sort of mildly entertained and motivated by my degree (although not motivated enough to actually spend an indecent amount of time studying to ensure I leave uni with a First. New things have become important now.) 

Anyway, the way forward is going to come in pulling my head out of my ass and actually paying attention to whatever is going on in the world around me, and maybe even going back to having COFFEE SHOP TRIPS with all that beautiful people watching and writing and editing and lattés and ahhh, it's going to be soooooo good. 

I guess I should also divulge that I am also planning a couple more days of the FREE download promotions for both the novels which are currently residing on the Kindle, and also getting them both redone into paperbacks asap. I can't decide whether that should come first, or editing Yours,

It's a bit of a chicken and egg situation, but then I would first concern myself deciding which one is in fact the egg....

Whatever.

Night-y night my currently pyjama clad readers!

Charlie x 

:) 

A Damn Long While Ago

I do realise it has been almost a month since the last time that I wrote a blog, and for that I must apologise. Anyway, what's been happening?

• I was bloody well ill with a chest infection, which, if you've never had one, be exceedingly glad, because they are painful, and annoying, and inconvenient.
• I went back to Manchester for about 11 days to spend some of the holidays with my parents. 
• NYE was pretty much a write off for a couple of reasons :D, but I got to be in London with friends, and I saw some of the Fireworks and partied until about five in the morning, even though I knew I was in work at 1. (Yes, I was ridiculously hung over.)
• I decided that Elephant and Castle is no longer a place I specially want to put up with, so I tried to find a new place to live. It took a while to find the right place to move to.
• I've been trying to sort out a few different things with paperwork for the house and university, and sorting out all the, quite frankly, crap, in my room. 
• Oh, I had a gorgeously mental evening before I went home where I stayed up until the not so very small hours of the morning constructing a novel on my wall, then making a sort of time line, so I can see the links and things between all the novels. It helped, eventually.
• I WENT TO A FULL WEEK OF LECTURES THIS WEEK!!! After last term, that is something pretty special, to be honest. I did actually really enjoy them as well, which is odd.
• I went to see Cabaret with a good friend of mine, but more about that in a moment!
• I've been writing, but I don't really have any focus on one thing...poo sticks!

[[OhMyGod, this is the part where my computer geeky mates will be like, you've only just found out how to do this...BUT I have just managed to get Firefox to stop trying to get me to spell everything the American way!! YAY!!!]]

I really like lists at the moment, so here's another one!

1. Currently, about half of my wardrobe is in those funny vacuum bags that you can get to take all the air out of things you need to store. Remembering how much effort it took for me to move last time I figured that it was far easier, because then my stuff won't take up so much room, but I think that what really takes up space is the volume of books, shoes and novel-y things I have, because you can't really squash any of those...
2. While I was back home, my mum got me listening to a few things that I haven't really been paying enough attention too, because when I'm in London I don't listen to the radio and so I pretty much have my list of music and it stays as it is for months...Anyway, Mum convinced me to start listening to Ed Sheeran properly. The song I've linked there is one of the tracks off of the album, but I wouldn't really call it an album track (since to me the definition of that is the crappy half arsed tracks that were never meant to be released as singles so they don't really matter.) I love the music because it's soft and beautiful and relaxed and his voice works with it so perfectly, but more than anything, I love the lyrics. If you just listen to them, or have them in front of you and read them while you listen, you can hear all the feeling in every track. I know some people are going to call it depressing (I have genuinely heard this said about his music!!) but for me, it's beautiful and calming and it's nice to know that there are men in the world who can still write with that kind of feeling, and even better, who can actually feel things like that...
3. Okay, so I went to see Cabaret at the Savoy in London. It's only being performed for fifteen weeks, so I'm really glad that I managed to go see it. Will Young was meant to be playing Emcee (the narrator, if you will) however he's apparently not been feeling overly well, so instead Emcee was played by a guy called Nuno, (Nuna?, Nunu? I don't know) who has MASSIVE legs. The guy is a dancer, and a helluva dancer at that, but jeez,...not helped by the fact that he was in shorts for most of the performance, and naked for the last scene...Anyway, the last time I saw Cabaret performed, there was very much a focus on the humour side of the show, and there weren't people running around the stage naked, since it was a college performance, but what I loved about this one was the seriousness to it. The power that comes with that kind of story and the way that it was conveyed  was genuinely phenomenal.
4. Okay, I'm about to tell you a big fear I have at the moment...I'm scared that the film  of Les Miserables is going to be awful. Most of the cast that they have are amazing - but Amanda Sigfried, REALLY? Have they not seen Dear John? She can't sing, she shrieks!! - but the stage show is something which gets me EVERY TIME...I remember being about ten and standing in the bar at the Palace theatre in Manchester and waiting for the auditorium to open for whatever it was that my parents were taking me to see that time, and I asked my mum about Les Miserables, and she couldn't believe that I had never seen it, so the next time I had a day off school and there was just the two of us home, she put the tenth anniversary concert on, and I cried like a baby, because it was beautiful. When they released the twenty fifth anniversary concert on DVD, we got it and there was so much expectation there, because a few weeks before we'd been to see the show in Manchester with the WONDERFUL Gareth Gates (say what you will about his musical career, he was amazing in Les Mis, and seeing Alfie Boe carrying him like a rag doll is probably one of the funniest things I have ever seen.) Anyway, we expected so much, then onto the stage walked NICK BLEEDING JONAS, who I think looked a little bit like a fish. He got the boyish youth of the character down to a tee, but Marius is not meant to be a watery little character that the only thing in his life is the girl who's just bumbled into it, and that's what I saw in the performance, and it made me angry. There were a lot of things about that show that made me either furious or upset, but it was all healed when I went to see the show again in London, with Gareth Gates, Samantha Barks and ALFIE BOE!...After crying in Manchester the first half of the show in London scared me, because the chorus just didn't seem to have it. I don't know what it is, but going into One Day More it has to be there. It's something of a strength and a power and a presence and it has to exist or that last word before the first act ends doesn't leave you wanting, craving and needing MOOOOOOOOOORE!!!! I remember clinging to my friend's hand and nearly crying because I had told everyone how amazing this show was, and I wanted them to feel the way it makes me feel, and then it happened. I am a sucker for stage shows. They make me cry, they make me laugh and they suck me into the story and I can feel it. It's amazing what a cast of less than twenty actors and a small orchestra can do to me! Anyway, whatever it is, it had been running late, but it arrived and before I knew it, the curtain was down and Alice and I were tearing up and everyone was making the skin on their palms raw with all the applause. We both cried before the show ended, and at the end, the theatre was on it's feet, because done properly Les Miserables is meant to get you, and it did. And I'm scared the film won't get me the same, and I want it to. I want to be able to feel like that every time I watch the DVD. This is the reason I want a tattoo of 2.4.6.0.1  across my wrist. Yes, I am a theatre geek,

C x

:D