Ouch,

What with one thing or another cropping up, I haven't yet managed to go out for my second run of the week, but I got home tonight with the intention of "suiting up" and getting out there, before realising that I had left my running water bottle at work and one of my feet was covered in blisters across the toes due to ill-fitting shoes. Great. 

Not wanting to put to bed the, I can't bring myself to say good yet, mediocre work that I put in on Sunday, and also the power walk and stair climbing I put in yesterday, I decided I was going to force myself into doing something tonight. I don't think I ever realised how many fitness videos there were on Youtube! I mean, seriously!!

One of my big issues with all of this is, I'm a writer. I tend more towards couch potato than runner/pilates and all of that sort of thing. I am kicking my own behind into this because I was annoyed about my horrendously expanded waistline, though it seems I have very quickly reached the point of needing a belt so that certain pairs of my trousers don't fall down! (RESULT!)

The great thing about YouTube is that it means that people like me, i.e. people with absolutely no idea what they're doing, can be easily inducted into the world of exercise without having to feel like utter muppets, because dance cardio does feel a little bit more like glorified twerking than anything else. (I'm not saying it is that, I'm saying that's what it feels like). The only problem with it though - well, no, not the only problem, but one of the ones on the list - is the sheer lunacy of the fact that I still don't know if I'm doing it right. 

Now, that might not sound like that much of a problem for some people, but here is the problem in simple terms: 

How do I know I'm doing it right? 

You'll feel it working.

What does it feel like? 

Essentially, your muscles hurt.

Well, how do I know if I'm doing it wrong? 

You'll injure yourself.

How will I know I've done that? 

Essentially, your muscles will hurt.

Can anyone else see the problem there? 

I love running and exercising when I get back into it, but I can't help but laugh at how pathetic I know I am, so this is just going to be fun. 

Catch you later. 

Oh, Well This is a Novelty,

I went into John Lewis today in order to admire the pretty laptops and, well, to pine over another new techy thing, though this one would have been completely unnecessary.

For the past I can't remember how many months, my beloved and beautiful PC has been sat in the corner of my room doing nothing because, and this is the very honest answer, I could not be bothered faffing about on the floor trying to figure out why it had disconnected itself from the internet. Again. However after pinning for a new, and completely unnecessary laptop, I came home, fought off the dust bunnies and sorted out my old pal. 

Granted, this does throw up the issue that I will need to clean the heat sync on the CPU and reapply the thermal paste, however I am not doing that right now. Partly because I haven't bought new thermal paste yet.

ANYWAY, it has brought about the rather disquietening feeling of sitting at my home desk and looking out of the window of my room (there isn't much of a view aside from the roof of my neighbour's kitchen). 

It is not the first unfamiliar feeling today though as it was only this morning that I was pulling on compression pants to go for a run for the first time in, probably around two years? 

The good thing is, I don't hate running. The bad thing is, I'm not overly sure I like it. Or enjoy it rather. The thing is, I find running quite weird because essentially the best part of it, or so I have been told, is the bit where you can feel your body saying, can we slow down a bit, can we walk for a minute, there's a bench there, can we sit? And rather than giving into that voice that is asking to stop, you push on and you achieve, and you strive to get further and further each time you go, or faster and faster before you give in to the feeling of needing a rest. I mean, what is that? 

It almost sounds like an exercise in self-denial and why would anyone want to do that to themselves? I don't know, I cannot tell, and we'll see if I stick at it better this time. Catch you later, when my legs stop hurting. 

When I think About,

One of the things that I find scary in life, other than spiders and heights, is publishing things. 

Whether it be blogs or novels, publishing is terrifying because it exposes parts of you that you may not want to have exposed. Although it can often seem like these things are just words on paper or a screen, my blogs have a lot of my emotion in them, or they come from a place where I'm being emotional and they are a way of me working through it. There are some that I write up do then decide I can't post because they are, ultimately, too exposing. They make me feel too vulnerable.

Self publishing, when I first did it, was a nightmare, but I s it as a hurdle that I just had to get over. I couldn't and wouldn't fail was how I saw it, but now that it's easier to do, well, less process heavy, I think the reason that I can't bring myself to do it is less because of finishing things and editing them than because of how raw it can leave you feeling. 

Thing is, ANYONE can read it, ANYONE can write an Amazon review or say whatever they want on whatever platform. The most difficult bit of that can sometimes be that you're going to want to read it, and sometimes that is really difficult. 

I have always been lucky to be surrounded by a large among of amazing people who are happy to read over things for me, and they have often been fantastic at spotting mistakes and plot holes that I wouldn't have seen myself. Self publishing is probably always going to be a minefield of mistakes though, because none of us are going through this with a professional editors perspective, though maybe that's not such a bad thing. 

The thing about editors is that, as much as they are very useful and very intelligent people, they can also be pretty brutal, and I think that you have to be a certain level of prepared for that and I'm not overly sure that I am there just yet. Maybe one day, hey?

Catch you later.

I Write Sins, Not Tragedies,

I miight as well just jump right into the middle of my thought processes at the moment, because that is all that this is going to be anyway... 

Usually, I write a good old romance novel and then discount it after November as a pile of crap, but a good exercise of focus. Things I love are put down whilst I do it and often are not picked up again because I am fickle at best with these things. 

November was different, but not in the usual way that writers say oh this is different because this current project is the best thing I have ever produced. It's different because, well, it's a whole different kettle of fish. 

I have previously tried to write things with a bit of disaster and craziness in the middle, but this is a sort of semi-apocolyptic thing with a romance novel in the middle of it. I keep needing to step away from it for a bit and then go back to it, just to give myself some headspace to recover. The problem is that writing anything which is that harrowing can be an emotional experience that really takes it out of you. The stuff that I'm writing at the moment is the stuff of my nightmares, but I have to keep reminding myself that it is the fabric of some people's lives and that really isn't overly far away when you think about it. 

And on that sombre note, I will catch you later. 

A Walk To Remember,

Now, I know that I am obviously biased, because I love Nicholas Sparks, however I have just finished watching the film adaptation of A Walk to Remember and it made me want to set something on fire because it was SO BAD. 

SPOILER ALERT - If you have not read the book, and intend to do so, stop reading here.

AWTR is one of the best books which Nicholas Sparks has written. It bares a vague resemblance to the story of The Fault in Our Stars, though it did come out a few years prior to that. It is a beautiful story of two teenagers who fall in love and one of them is terminally ill. It's set in small town America a few decades ago and the narrator is looking back at his life from more than thirty years on. One of the most touching parts of it for me is the ending where the man, now in his fifties, is still wearing his wedding ring because he never saw occasion to take it off. His devotion to the love of his young life is admirable and beautiful. 

IN NO WAY WAS HE THIS YOUNG OFFENDER THAT THEY MADE HIM OUT TO BE: Hollywood, you have been a bad bunny. Go to the naughty corner and think about what you have done. 

No really, 

The thing that annoys me is that they changed parts of it for no logical reason. His dad is supposed to be a congressman who is away in Washington regularly, not a cardiologist who left his wife an shacked up with another woman. This was not another story to vilify men who leave their wives and children - what is your obsession? Stop making out that dad's leaving automatically makes their children (particularly the boys) awful people, because it just gives it more weight when people try to use it as an excuse. 

Just to temper that, yes, there are people with legitimate issues because of things that their parents did and did not do, but that's not what Hollywood displays either. 


In other news, it would appear that I have decided that my challenge for Camp NaNo is something along the lines of writing a blog a day. Yes, that was my plan last year and yes it epically failed, but we'll see how well it goes this time.

Catch you later. 


Oh, you do drugs because mummy and daddy

Catfishing,

I need to write about this because this came up and I can't believe what was said about it. 

First things first, I am registered on a dating site, because I find that I either friend zone people too quickly or lack the necessary sports equipment to ask them out. Now, that's all fine and dandy - granted it has some problems sometimes, but I'm a sensible girl and I make sure I meet people in public spaces and tell someone where I am going. 

I was messaging someone this morning and he told me that he had been catfished twice on this site. Now, obviously that is not very encouraging for me as a reasonably new user to this site, but it did peak my curiosity to ask what happened. The boiled down essence of what this guy told me was that the women were heavier and less physically attractive than he had been led to expect by their profile photos (I mean, this guy is not going to win world's sexiest bachelor himself, but that is an aside). 

Now, I got a little defensive over this, because I think it's a horrible thing to say, no matter how prettily you phrase it, but I think that was particularly because he stated that he thinks it's "important that people have full body pics on their profile, if not they are hiding something." So, instinctivlely, I challenged him and suggested that no one is 100% truthful on their dating profile - I'm pretty much certain mine says I like cycling, but that is a bit of a stretch, I own a bike, I can ride it and I do enjoy it when I'm out on it, but that comes to a grand total of once or twice a year... Maybe these women felt that if they put photographs online of their full body, they wouldn't recieve responses or as many responses, or they might even get one of those *lovely* aggressive responses like the guy on Tinder who felt the need to message a lady who had swiped right on him in order to let her know that he was out of her league.

I don't understand what this whole thing is of people feeling the need to pass comment just because you put yourself out there on a public forum. It's almost as though dating sites have become an unofficial *ROAST ME* forum and I'm not comfortable with that (me being an average height, average weight person with moderate confidence getting a reasonable amount of good attention on these things) so I can only imagine what it would be like for someone who perceives themselves to have the sort of 'faults' which these people like to attack.

I mean, what are people on that this is suddenly an appropriate course of action? Surely we are all using these websites for a similar goal? (I say similar because naturally there is a range from those who want to find a relationship, to those who want to casually date and those who are simply looking for casual sex.)

As I see it, whether we are dating online or dating in person, you always present the best side of you to new people. I know that in 4/5 of my profile photos my hair is blowdried nicely, I'm wearing makeup and I look pretty good as compared to the way I look on a daily basis - though to balance that there is a photo of me and my dog having a cuddle which provoked a message "Lose the mum jeans." Ha, yes, because I'm going to take advice on what to wear from a random stranger on the internet... no, thank you. I don't allow boyfriends to tell me what to wear so you have no chance mate. 

The simple way that I see the whole of this thing is that people will put up photos on the internet that they are happy to present to the world as themselves. They will write what they are happy with about themselves, or what their perception of themselves is and that is what they will then project outwards. I personally read between the lines of profiles and I do question why people have said certain things or posted certain photos and that is why I end up choosing whether or not to speak to them, because at the end of the day, I am a very headstrong person and I know myself rather well by now. 

I know that there is little sense in me chatting with anyone under 25 because generally I find that I have to be the mature one, and I am currently no-one's mother and I like it that way! If someone waxes lyrical about that fact that they have travelled all over Asia or took a gap year to "find themself" I can generally write them off as well, because quite frankly, I don't care if you thought that a visit to Thailand was how you found your inner whatever, I don't think that drugged tigers and injured elephants are the roads to self-discovery. I also find it hard to stomach anyone who puts anything along the line of bacon is life on their profile (you laugh, but I've seen it) and it's not just because I'm a vegetarian, but more because I find it passive aggressive towards vegetarians, vegans and anyone else of the persuasion not to eat bacon. 

Perhaps all that is as bad as the no ugo's and no fat chicks, but I don't think so...

Catch you later. 

Packing the Tent Pegs,

I'm currently sat in my bed with aggressively ginger hair, wearing a sun dress and a fez. I'm trying to figure out if it's worrying, or if this is exactly where I thought my life should be right now.

It's the first day of camp and I'm still trying to decide exactly what I'm going to do, other than procrastinate, of course.

Part of me would really like to finish the novel that I started in November but I'm not certain that I will manage to get that done.

The other options are obviously writing something new, focusing on the blog or finishing something else and starting to edit it. Any of them would be a good thing, but I'm still not sure which would be the best thing at the moment.

A couple of weeks ago I turned 24 and it has made me make a few changes that I'm hoping are helping. I'm trying to exercise more, eat less rubbish and get my life going in the right direction. It's very slow, very difficult and very strange, but I also know that I am committed to it, so that is good.

Anyway, I had best get on with whatever it is I'm doing. Catch you later.