Where's Home?

With the trip back to London to pick up all of my stuff looming this is a question I have been asking myself a lot, particularly as squeezing myself back into my childhood bedroom is not going amazingly well. The hope is it will all get a little bit easier to manage when I get the storage unit which is not so far away now, but that's dependent on being able to organise that well enough to contain all of my books, clothes, the small amount of furniture I'm keeping and everything out of my kitchen, including Morgan, my coffee machine. There's not a whole lot of stuff to move across from the house to the unit, but that's partly because there is not a whole lot of space in this room and I would really like to get to a place where keeping things on the floor is the only option because it is the literal only place that has any space. Part of it is because I have used this place for storage for a while and part of it is because I have a hell of a lot of stuff. 

I would love to be in a place where I could put my gin themed tea set to good use or have the space for my sewing patterns to all be on a shelf above a decent-sized cutting table with my machine on and drawers underneath it for all my sewing odds and ends and knitting junk. I would love to have my shoes laid out where I can see them all, but the time for these things is not right now and it might not even be in my next place. To be honest, the main things about my "first" flat will be having a decent amount of space for bookshelves so I can house the books, enough wardrobe space and a kitchen with work surfaces so that I can have Morgan the Coffee Maker sitting on the side and still bake cakes, cool them and ice them without getting panicky that I'm running out of space to put things and space to breathe because that's what happens currently. It got marginally better when my microwave packed in and I got that to the type, then didn't replace it, but honestly, that kitchen was not designed for someone like me to live there. 

The unfortunate byproduct of all of this is I feel like I'm losing the home that I love, London, for a place that I don't feel like is home really, in Manchester. Even for a limited time, it makes me feel restless and it makes me feel pretty stressed out sometimes. My parents have finally managed to start redecorating the house and considered making my room one of the next on the list before we realised that we weren't going to agree on a colour, and I'm a stroppy whatsit - it might be their house, but this is my space, so I have to like the colour. The greys that I like are far too dark and if any part of this room looks beige or magnolia, it will make me feel no end of stress. My mum wants me to clear up my room and "find a home for" a whole pile of things, but it's impossible to find a home for things when the only places that they can go to are full of other stuff, and mostly, I'm limited with what I can do about that. 

Thankfully, my dad took me back to London pretty early on in lockdown and I managed to bring back my weighted blanket, some of my clothes that I couldn't do without, my favourite pair of shoes more recently (glossy patent and bright yellow heels, because I am that ridiculous) and those things have helped me kind of keep in together, feel like myself and still feel a bit more at home, but even they are not a magic wand that will make me be completely settled, but the good thing is I'm keeping an eye on what the property market is doing and what is going on at work, etc, so as soon as I can get back to London, I'll be back, I'll be settled and I might even be able to invite people over to the new flat. Once I've painted the walls greatly inappropriate shades of mustard, grey and dark coral, of course. And also, maybe, a violent red, but I've not really decided where I want that to go yet. Granted, my mum and I might clash about interior design a few times before then, given that when I told her about my idea of a blood-red feature wall, navy to royal blue sofa and a bright yellow wing back armchair with everything else in the room being neutral she looked like she wanted to throw up in her own mouth... At least I have the time to figure it out though. 

Oh, Balls,

Is November really that close? Already? Are you quite sure? Oh dear, oh dear, oh balls. 

I was ready 2 days ago, but this always happens. I feel like I'm hitting the peak too soon and I am ready for NaNoWriMo to start early and then, this happens. This being the craziness of feeling like the world is about to crumble, catch fire and ultimately end because Jesus H. Christ why am I doing this to myself all over again? WHY? 

I'll tell you why - I thrive on the madness. 

Every year I tell myself I will be a good girl and prepare myself for the impending craziness, like stretching when you want to exercise. I will prepare myself for what's about to happen to me and then every bloody year I go, nah, sack that and pants it like Superman. It is never a very good plan. 

This time around feels no different, though having cool news digs is making it feel slightly more sane, I don't have a freezer big enough to store all of the pizza I could possibly need to last the duration of this month, which is less than brilliant. I also did a potentially silly thing and joined a gym. Unlike most people, if I'm paying to be a member of the gym, I will attend it, but the problem I have there is that I naturally won't be able to write whilst doing so (maybe with my phone on the treadmill or the bike, but I am pretty sure that would factor into a list of weirdest places to write in so maybe not) so it is either going to cut into my writing time or my sleeping time and my sleeping time already takes a hit during NaNo. Oh this is just going to go wonderfully, isn't it? 

I'm really looking forward to this now...

Catch you later

Let's Be Adults About This,

Not like that. Well,.

As previously mentioned, - and I will continue to mention because I'm bloody proud of it - I've just moved into a new flat, but my God are there a lot of things to sort out. 

Getting out of the old place was a hassle and half, because I had moved into there from my little studio. I had a kitchen full of utensils and machines that had to either fit into a much smaller selection of cupboards, or be relegated to the boxes in the loft. As such, there was quite a bit of stuff to come down out of the loft, the furniture to be either moved or deconstructed and the room to be cleaned. Honestly, all that didn't go so badly, however the major snag which did occur was when the van had a blow out on the M25. Thankfully my dad was in the van with the moving men or I would have been doing a Chicken Run (place head between knees and kiss your bum goodbye). 

It was a little bit crazy getting everything in, but that is where the fun really starts. Not only are there a ridiculous amount of boxes covering my living room, there's bills to sort out and it took me until Thursday to actually get any hot water as the gas was capped whilst no one was living in the property. I'm trying to sort my life out whilst spending time back in Manchester looking after my dog, Teddy (@teddytheshihtzu on Instagram).

All in all, I'm really doing the adult thing. I'm even going to be going to Ikea to pick up some new flat pack furniture and then will be constructing it myself. (Granted, my mum is going to be there to help me to carry it home...) Part of me really can't wait to go home. 

Catch you later. 

Sometimes, I Feel Like Screaming,

It should comes as no surprise to anyone that I am quite a stressy person. I like things to go right first time, and they rarely do, and on those regular occasions that they go wrong, I get quite frustrated and don't necessarily know how to react. It's a bad habit that I am trying to break, but it takes a lot of time to retrain yourself, particularly from something that seems very instinctual. 

Part of the problem I have is that when I get stressed about situations, different things go, 'I did not sign up for this sh*t, I'm leaving' so my immune system ends up in the toilet, or I end up dizzy to the point of not knowing where the ceiling is. I had one of those last night/this morning, partly because one of my piercings is not overly happy, and I don't recommend them. 

One of the major problems is that I do not help myself at all. 

Aside fron all the normal joys of a 23 year old (working, Netflixing, saving up for a deposit for my own place, eating, sleeping etc) I am a fully certified crazy person for trying to write a novel in a month, and then have all the palaver of finishing and editing etc that comes along with it, a write in group who also have movie nights (my poor social calendar :P) and have signed myself up to learning to drive again (as in, I am again attempting to learn to drive, though the sucess of this is yet to be measured) AND, this is the big one, I am one of the new MLs for London.

Now, for those of you who aren't down with lingo, an ML is a Municipal Liason Officer. MLs are not only responsible for dragging their own sorry behinds through November alive, well and with 50 thousand words under their belt, but also hauling ass and getting as many other people there to. We set up write ins, send pep talks, moderate forums and are generally there as the wall to wail to and shoulder to cry on when we are needed.

London, as you can well imagine, is a massive region, so there are four of us sharing the load like a lovely pack of Greek donkeys trotting up the side of Santori with a tour load of American's suitcases strapped to our backs, but it is truly an amazing egion to be a part of. We're asked to attempt to provide a write in at least once per week, but we're going to aim at 4+, a Kick Off Party and a Thank God It's Over, because I need sleep and the Red Bull ran out party... As well as an overnight lock in and a walking tour of London with writing stops built in. *BIG BREATH IN*

It is insane to think that it was only 7 years ago that I was preparing for my first NaNo competition. In facct, this time 7 years ago, I'm not sure that my friend who introduced me to NaNo had even done so yet. I came out of that competition devastating at what I percieved as losing. It was an eight month slog that turned my 22,500 NaNo peice into a full length novel that, warts and all, I am still proud of, and it provided the UK size 13 boot up my butt that spurred me into my next NaNo where I managed the 50k and wrote Fairies.

Every year, I have attempted to up the ante. Last year, it was wanting to achieve the 15k day, and I was beyond proud when I realised that goal. I am hoping that being an ML will help me to help other people, not just in the London region, reach their own goals, as well as being able to set and smash some more of my own. The ground work is being laid, the countdown is on. Are you with us? Are  you ready?

Hello Sunday,

I'm well aware of the fact that I had said I was going to take this year as it comes and three days in I am still committed to doing that, but I'm also committing myself to a couple of other things. Thankfully it's too late for me to commit to dry January, but I've realised recently that the amount I drink is not really a problem; I just need to remember train times when I'm out and that, when I don't drink for a while,  have a very low tolerance for alcohol, but that's not too much of a big deal. I'm not the sort of person who has to drink to have fun or to relax, I am by no means a person who comes home and opens a bottle of whatever before they unwind for the evening, I just really really like cocktails, and I figure that in the grand scheme of things, it's not such a bad thing.

The big one I'm committing to is I'm going to be submitting chapters to a publisher this year. I have already started them, I know where I'm going with them and I'm just trying to plod along and get it done. It's kind of terrifying because I don't have any clue as to whether or not they will be accepted, and I don't know how I will take it if they're not, but I don't try I'm never going to know. I don't want to spend the next few years thinking about how things could be if I actually did it, so I'm going to try and just do it. It's a terrifying thought, though. 

The second biggest one is I'm committing myself to one blog a week, every week, until the start of 2017. I'm going to aim for doing on a Sunday, and I'm not putting a word limit on it, but I know from experience that the act of sitting down and focusing my mind on writing something is a good thing. It is what National Novel Writing Month teaches me every year, and yet every year I seem to be able to kid myself into thinking that there's a Writing Fairy who hibernates for 11 months and then pops out in November, screams da-dah! and suddenly a novel pops out of my ridiculous little hands as if by magic. It's not magic; it's hard work. Come on. 

The last thing is I am going to spend time reading this year and thank the gods it is because I want to be reading and not because I have essays and exams to write, and that's a beautiful feeling. It's so easily possible to get addicted to reading when it is a good book or story or poem or anything really. If van Houten wrote a shopping list, I would probably be inclined to read that to. The fact is I have a love for so many authors and I read very, very little in 2015. I watched all of the films, but books didn't go so well. Especially not finishing books. My God, I started 1984 again, but then stopped past halfway through to pick up To Kill a Mockingbird so that I could finish that before reading Go Set a Watchman, and then didn't finish that because it's no To Kill a Mockingbird. I also started countless philosophy books for exams and thought, oh, this is very interesting I shall have to read more when I graduate. Well, Charlie, your diploma is in the drawer and those books are still gathering dust. 

Anyway, I'm probably just spouting the same New Year idealisms as most people right now, because apparently the changing of one calendar to a new one, a night of fireworks and the changing of the last number in the date make us feel like we ought to be wildly different than we were just a day or a week earlier. For some, New Year holds a lot of meaning. I know of a person who seems to wait until New Year when we fall out to try and fix things because New Year was important to us 9 years ago, but for me, it is not special, it is not magical, and it's only real significance is that it marks a passing of a lot of times since everyone last got hysterically reflective over their lives. I can't hide away from these reflections and I can't stop myself looking at the good and bad things that have happened between one loud, drunken celebration and the next (even though I have only celebrated one New Year in such a way and the rest of them I have been in my pyjamas). What I do think though is that New Years Eve makes an excellent bookmark. People ask me when I became a vegetarian - when did I make this Massive decision which really impacts my life and I do my best impression of a goldfish, attempt to remember how old I am and subtract 13. If I ever get the opportunity to be asked he question, when did you decide that you were serious about a career in writing, I want to know that answer almost to the minute. This is not a whimsical decision. This has been a part of my life for a long time, but now it's more than that. 

Also, if you want to see one of my favourite photos from graduation, check out my Twitter profile. @charlieswrite

Oh Lorde,

Dear dear, everything is ever such a rush. 

I'm back in Manchester at the moment, and have been for about 28 hours after feeling like I had to rush across London in order to get my train, and felt like I had barely got on to the train before I was getting off in Manchester Piccadilly. I was trundling down Market Street with my suitcase in tow to get back to my mother's house. 

I felt like I had been running around like a crazy person the night before and that morning in order to make sure that I have everything with me. It's a flying visit, as ever, but being away from my home makes me anxious. Being away from my PC, my notebooks and my library (well, the half that isn't under my bed up here) makes me incredibly anxious. Much as the train journey between the two places is really quick, the flitting back and forward isn't overly simple and I always end up looking like Queen of the Bag Ladies - especially when I'm heading back home! 

It's been good so far though, because I'm not having to cook or worry too much about anything. It's nice to be able to have a little time to relax, because it feels like I have been working somewhat solidly since the day I finished university and I've been a little bit 
knackered. 

Anyway, it's lovely to be able to spend some time with friends and share graduation memories (which have not long since passed) and spend a lovely Christmas with the family. 

Merry Christmas to all, and remember - your present is still on Amazon if you haven't yet downloaded a copy of Fairies. :)

Butterflies,

So, occasionally there are things I want to do, and I make a commitment to them, and then life doesn't pan out the way I think it will and so things go slightly off course. Or very off course. 

I had committed myself to the idea of writing every day in June, and I wanted to stick to that, but I haven't. In many ways it has been a difficult month. Finishing university felt like such a flooding relief because I didn't have such an amazing time of it, as has been evident, but the thing is, my expectations of myself were really unreasonable and I felt as though I would have all of this freedom and not know what to do with it. The actual fact is I have been run down and exhausted from going back to working full time and it's all felt pretty none stop. I have made myself feel quite ill by just throwing myself at it at full force instead of allowing myself to just stop and just be for a bit.

The good news is I have been writing, just not on here. 

I'd love to say that I have got a new novel finished or been editing or something, but the fact is that I am struggling. 

I'm tired and I'm not doing great at being healthy - in the sense of eating three proper meals a day and sleeping properly and making sure I'm taking all my vitamins and such. More than anything, I've been coasting myself along a little in lieu of a major kick up the arse. 

The fact is that at some point I need to accept that I'm 22, not 17. I'm not on a summer away from college and I don't have a separate study where I can hide out, not eat, work frantically from when I wake up at 10 in the morning and only hear my stomach yelling "feed me!" at something past four in the afternoon. If writing is something I want to do, and it is, I need to get my life sorted and be able to accept that things are different from before. I am no longer able to throw all my time at it, because I have to keep a job, pay bills and all that sort of thing. 

Saying that, there is a lot of things I could learn from 17 year old me, and I'm trying to.

Despite a habit of being something of a jeans girl, I put so much effort into how I looked at 17, not because I needed anyone else to tell me I looked good, and not because wolf whistlers don't piss me off, but because it's something of an ego boost when you walk out of the house thinking, everyone else can think what they think, because I am happy with how I look today.

On the other hand, 17 year old me is just going to have to accept that maybe Scivener isn't as bad as she thought. 

The overarching thing that I am trying to emphasise is this - the somewhat constant state of flux which my life is currently in means that I am kind of awful at making concrete plans for what to do with my noveling career, but the fact is that I am no more willing to accept that it's a pipe dream than I was at 17. If anything, the last few years have taught me to respect the fact that I can't change who and what I am, and an integral part of that has always been, and will always be, the dream of being able to write, and publish and anything else is just a bonus.

Everything In It's Place, Even If That Does Mean The Floor,

Generally, if someone asks me where something in my room is, the answer is preceded by a lengthy erm, and normally sounds something like, I last saw it on the floor near the... Currently that is not the case, and no, it's not because I have started believing in all that tidy room tidy mind ----stuff (really trying not to swear at the moment and it's really difficult!!) that other people spout. No, it's because I am moving out of my current abode into somewhere new, in another different part of London.

As much as it's really exciting, but also really stressful because of the actual physical transportation from House A to Flat B, what I find more frustrating is that because the majority of my stuff has already been boxed by a slightly over-enthusiastic Ben and myself yesterday, I keep thinking oh, I could do... oh, no I can't, it's in a box, or I could wear, ... no, also in a box. It's only those times where you can't get to them, such as when you're moving or on holiday that you think of those really obscure pieces of clothing that live at the back of your wardrobe on any normal occasion and you think, yeah, that's what would make me the happiest person I can be right now. I think my brain actually like me being like, well, that sucks. 

Another fantastic example of this is thinking about novel notebooks that I haven't touched for so long that they required dusting before packing - and yes, there is a point to that, and it's so you don't transport the old dust to your new place der, I am not the weird one here -.- - and they're now in the bottom of a big box, which is at the bottom of a big pile and behind a stack of other, let's call it what it is, crap (and no, that is NOT a swear word, just FYI) so of course my brain now goes, here are all the wonderfully magical things we could do with this... And I end up being like, Dear Brain, Hold your horses, Chill your bean and Keep you ----socks together for just a week and then we will make all of these magical dreams come novelliciously true, but I already know that is not going to happen, because using the words Calm down to my imagination is like telling me Don't stress, and if you want to know how pointless that is, speak to my boyfriend, because he really knows. Yeah, if my brain and I had a contract, I would be seriously trying to renegotiate it's concept of when it's acceptable to be thinking about novels, because this flexitime nonsense that it has going on at the moment is just not really working for me. I genuinely worry that I will be in work at some point, someone will tell me about some vicious ailment they have and I'm going to spout some glittery garbage about how I'm dispatching the unicorns to fix it. As much as it would probably be amusing for a few minutes, I'm pretty sure that I would end up some combination between sectioned and fired, and none of those look too pretty from where I am sitting.

So, I have a to do list longer than any piece of string, and it seems to casually keep getting bigger, I have two Orchids to attempt to move without inducing plant-y panic attacks, and my very antique typewriter is currently in quite a lot of bits across my coffee table, which if you follow me on Twitter, you will have seen. As much as the many parts are now a severe amount cleaner than they were when he was all together, he's not quite as easy to put back together as I thought/hoped, though I'm pretty sure that I have it in theory now, it's just the actual practical getting all the screws back in the right place, but I've felt that way about driving for a while - as in, I'm well aware how to do it, it's just actually getting my brain to stop going ARGGGGGGH, I DON'T LIKE THIS!!! WE'RE BEHAVING LIKE TOO MUCH OF AN ADULT!! MAKE IT STOP!!! and to actually engage with the task at hand, aka not crashing, is a "little bit" more difficult than I have ever hoped for.

Basically, the upshot of all of that is that the novel that was meant to be edited by the end of last year might end up getting put off until the end of this year... I don't know. It'll happen when it happens, and I'm far too comfortable with that fact quite frankly. It also means that I'm probably not going to be posting blogs as often as I would like, and I am attempting quite loosely to aim at once a week this year, and if I could set aside an hour, of one day every week then I would be like 'here's the day I will attempt to publish it on' but considering how chaotic just everything is, I don't really think there is much point. But, the good thing is that the a forenamed 'computer which potentially works' ought to now be known as 'Zeus' because he's fast as lightening, has a funny symbol on the front that looks like Zeus' headdress and also because he is basically the God of all my writing machinery, so might as well be named such, so when he and I move into our new place, we have no worries of major technically hiccups getting in the way of dissertationing, blogging or general wordsmithy, so that is a major plus.

So, essentially, follow the yellow brick twitter page....

Too Much To Do Does Not a Life Make,

I keep getting really annoyed that I haven't really been writing any blogs for a while, but I have so much to do that I haven't even played Sims 4 or SimCity for a month, and they're my destress things, so I'm sure you can imagine that I'm a little bit of a X Track 2 (I'm a Mess - for all those who didn't get the Ed Sheeran reference). 

So, what's been happening? Well, more doctor's trips because I've been having inconvenient stomach pains - not that any stomach pain is particularly convenient if you actually like doing your job and are no longer in high school wanting to miss PE - getting infuriated at the library in my university when people are requesting books that I'm using for my dissertation, getting a bit panicked by essays and deadlines, going to see Ed Sheeran in concert (twice :P) and watching the filming of Russell Howard's Good News last night. Why does life always seem to fit much more nicely into timeslots when you list it all out? I always feel so busy!!

What am I currently procrastinating from (I don't care if that's incorrect use of the word, you understand what it means)? Well, I have to choose between two really fun essays: One about HIV and contraception, the other about the ethical status of natural family planning. Considering this is one of the courses I am technically resitting - not that I failed, I just didn't do the course first time... - I would rather do the second option, as I attempted the first last time, and I don't think it went so well...

In other news, I've finally reached a decision concerning National Novel Writing Month this year, and I have decided I'm not doing it. I'm sick of the amount of Facebook spam I get about it and, quite frankly, the pressure to focus that much on my novel writing at the moment would not be a welcome thing - I actually can't think of anything worse. Last year was amazing - 3 10k days and I finished within 19 days, beating my personal record (previously 20days) - but I kicked my own ass so hard because NaNo was the centre of my world; this year it can't be, and I don't know any other way to behave with it, so rather than make a royal fluff up of my last year at uni, I would rather put NaNo onto the backburner for a bit and focus on the stuff that I really need to do.

It's been a bloody hard decision, and it's not like I'm walking away from it for good, but I guess that at some point I have to see that NaNo doesn't and can't own me, and I don't need it, I just want it. If I never go back to it, it has been extraordinary for me - not just for the writer that I want to be, but also the person that I am. I've met some amazing people because of it, and I hope to stay in touch with a lot of them for a very long time, but like I said, I have far too much else going on at the moment to be able to afford the time to it that I spend on it. 

Best of luck to all those competing this year.

Anyway, best get back to it. 

End of A New Era,

I mnt to post this a few days ago, but with my computer deconstructed and in my living room and now the internet being off, I've kind of struggled with actually getting  online and doing it, but here goes...

I'm quite an anxious person, so changing anything in my life feels like a major trauma, especially when it's something that has become a part of me in quite a large way. When I was eighteen I got my first 'proper' job working at a shoe shop in the Trafford Centre. That was three and a half years ago, and I find it hard to believe. Wednesday of this week, I worked my last shift in my home branch here in London, and I wasn't really sure how to feel. 

As I've been mentioning, I have a new job, so it's not like I was leaving the job into some sort of unemployed abyss where I wasn't sure what I was going to do, neither was I jumping into a whole new job that I hadn't tentatively dipped my feet into, but for the last three and a half years, This shop has been a consistent thing in my life. It's been a really mixed bag, with amazing customers, lovely customers, darn right hilariously weird customers and other members of staff, but there were pretty big lows sometimes, too. Ones of my pet hates is rudeness, and I got a hell of a lot of that thrown in my direction from a multitude of people, but that has helped me to deal with people, at least on the outside, a little bit better.

The great thing about leaving is that I have my Wednesday evenings back - any time I can claw away from work or sleeping can only be a good thing, if only I could learn to stop myself procrastinating, but the sad part is all the amazing people I can no longer work with. I've met some amazing people over the last few years, and there are en I few that I plan to stay in touch with. 

As for this weekend, I have the fun of welcoming three new housemates to my lovely house and also a slightly early celebration of being in a relationship with the most boyfriend for a year, though I must admit, even after this amount of time together, it still makes me giggle like a child when I call him my partner, but in a massive way, he really is. Even when I turn into a bit of a snotty little mess, he's there to support me, and all my stupid whims and ideas. He also makes a damn good cup of tea, so what more could I want in a man? 

Anyway, onwards into a new era...

And For My 100th blog I Will,

Be moaning about something else...

I have way too much spare time on my hands, and one of my things to do with said time is watch TV series and knit whatever project I'm working on at the time - whether it's tree stockings, blanket patches or baby jumpers. Before anyone even thinks I'm having a mini me a) several of my friends already have young babies b) one of my friends is currently pregnant and I'm making a present or two for her and c) I don't have the patience for a full sized project. 

The problems come in many forms, such as Netflix only having the first four seasons of something, and then me having to switch until the fifth season comes on, or finding that I have seen most of the films on Netflix which I am actually interested in, and of course, the fact that our internet can't even load the definition of the word shoddy before crapping out. 

Aside from that though, this weekend has been pretty amazing. 

After running so late that we missed an event we were planning to go to, my lovely Ben and I decided to go to Camden. On a Saturday. If you're from London, you'll realise how kind of stupid that was, but ah well, it was still really good fun.

One of the things I love about the markets is that you can find really good incense and it's not overly priced like it can be on the internet, and the burners aren't too bad either. I picked up some 'Black Love' sticks and 'Dragons Blood' cones - they smell amazing. You would think they would mess with my asthma, but they actually feel like they help...

After that loveliness, we decided to have a walk along the canal with a hot apple juice and cinnamon (yuck!) and mulled wine (mmmmmhmmm) up to ZSL London, Regent's Park, then get home via Baker Street. It was nice to be out whilst the sun was putting in a bit of an appearance, even though it was still cold enough to make your hands numb. 

It's got to the point now where I'm counting down the days until my birthday (17) and I'm kind of crapping myself about turning 21. Okay, so in this country, the only thing it really affords you is the pleasure of getting into certain clubs that would have turned you away before, but past that, I can't see that it really means much. Maybe 21 is the final farewell to the teenage years, because by then, the majority of your friends have hit twenty, so rather than a group of teenagers, you become a group of twenty somethings. That ambiguity makes it feel so much older!

But alas, my little old self feels the need to retreat to the safety of my bed, with my knitting or Pride and Prejudice (the book) 

Oh Joy,

The stats page of this blog is always pretty interesting to me for more reasons than just viewing numbers. For those who've never used it, there's this wonderful map showing where your audience is across the world. It's pretty interesting actually... Oh, and there is that wonderful graph which shows that the most people view this during November (NaNoWriMo) and the early days of December, which I think is pretty cool. 

Of course though, there is more to me than just the blogger, the novelist and the WriMo, which almost sounds like the start of a bad joke. 

I'm a student in university that gets annoyed with a lot of the same things other students in London do. I get annoyed with how people make assumptions that because I'm a student, I sleep all day, party all night and use Wikipedia to write my essays. I get annoyed when I can't get books from my university library to finish an assignment. I get annoyed with assignments that are either too many words, not enough or when I feel like I'm metaphorically polishing a turd. I get annoyed by the price of housing, I get annoyed that landlords don't want to fix problems, and take forever about doing it. I get annoyed when I forget my pens or I drop my notes all over the floor. I get annoyed when I can't get my head around something or my neighbours are making too much noise for me to concentrate.

I'm also becoming a naturalised Londoner. I get annoyed with tube delays, and buses, and people. I get annoyed with Oxford Circus. I get annoyed with people who walk slowly. I get annoyed with four week suitcases that take up the space of an extra person on the pavement or on escalators. I get bored on the tube, but I've found my way of dealing with it - I practice French on my iPhone.

I'm a woman. I get annoyed for no reason. I get annoyed because of what I've read between the lines of the statement you haven't even fully formed in your head yet. I get annoyed because it's cold and I forgot my scarf, but even when little things annoy me, little things make me happy, too. Little things like you texting back, even when life is hectic.

Most of all, I'm human. I get annoyed when I can't figure out the answers. I get annoyed when I feel like I'm at the doctors every other week. I get annoyed at being upset or annoyed for no valid reason. I get annoyed with myself more than anyone else, and sometimes, the best way to get things which annoy me out of my system is just writing them down. 

I know what it's like to have a bad day - I have them a lot. I know what it's like to get angry at yourself for being upset or pissed off with everything. I know what it's like to feel like Atlas, carrying everything on your shoulders. And I'm glad I know what it's like to be able to put some of  it down.

As it gets to exam time, it's more important to be able to do that, so you have to find someone that you can share your troubles with - even if you need that to be a diary, or a councilor, rather than a family member or friend. You need to find a way to let go of some of the things which upset you, or annoy you, or hurt you, because the sum total of all your faults is not you - you are the person who learns to push back and deal with them. And you can. 

93,

It might become a common recurrence that blogs I can't think of a title for are just numbered. 

So, the tube strikes are over and London appears to have survived them reasonably well. I'm kind of wondering if they just let them happen occasionally to check that the bus system is working as well as it should do. I know that here in London, we complain about the buses quite a lot - especially when we have to use the buses to get to the tube or the train - but the fact is that we're doing a lot better than most places. With most buses running at least once every five to fifteen minutes, it's not overly long to wait, considering in some cities, the buses can be as infrequent as once an hour.

Now, what joys are there to look forward to? 

Well, for me, I'm going to Pisa on Tuesday, which is obviously exciting, then I have a birthday party on Saturday, then essays due on the Monday, Friday and following Monday. I could say that I'm excited about that, but I honestly wouldn't mean it. 

For the rest of London, there is another tube strike planned for Tuesday, and oh, my parents are coming down this weekend! I know that doesn't really impact other Londoners - guests, families, tourists and the like roll through this city so often that crowds have become a permanent fixture - but trust me, I'm excited. 

In the more distant, but still not overly far away future, I'm turning 21 on the 19th of March, and a little before that there is the anniversary of the blog - it's turning three years old. I can't decide if I think that is an achievement or not. 

And in the more hopeful but don't hold your breath section, Yours, is still somewhere in a stage of editing. With literally everything else already done to it, I really need to pull my finger out and just get a move on with it!!, but the essays apparently have to come first. (I think that the pressure of needing to do essays is the best way of getting me to do editing, which is kind of worrying...)

The overall conclusion is, I may not be posting anything for a little while, because I have no idea if there will be Wifi in our hotel, but there will be photos and a blog or two when we get back. For those of you on reading week - make the most of it!

90,

So, after reminding myself with my last blog that I need to stop procrastiKNITTING, I have since managed to finish editing roughly half of the novel - content, not formatting unfortunately - watched far too many episodes of Grand Designs, come up with yet another design for the house I would like to build one day, which of course made me wish all over again that I was studying to be an architect and also managed to finish the back, the front and almost a full sleeve of a new jumper (baby sized). 

Whilst I know that my Knitsmithy ought to take a back seat to my Wordsmithy for a little while, it's more difficult to convince yourself to go on to review what you have previously done than it is to either knit more of a cutesy little hoodie or to stitch it together, and I think the reason is this. 

When it comes to Wordsmithy, it takes a lot of time and effort, and once done, you are best advised to leave it alone. When you have finished knitting something, you can give it away as a gift or just torture stuffed animals with what you have produced, and you can do it with the TV on without knitting the characters from The Big Band Theory or doing something equally ridiculous. In the space of a couple of weeks will have managed to produce three baby jumpers, two of which are adorable, one of which was my first attempt at knitting something to a pattern and there was more than once when I threw it on the floor and complained that I wasn't playing anymore because it was too big of a pain in the ass. Yes, I am a grumpy fool.

Even with half done, it is really difficult to focus on editing Yours, at the moment on account of the lack of sleep in my life, which is being caused by the really uncomfortable mattress. As is a custom with rented accommodation, our mattresses are at the point where they are sagging as you sit, so until the arrival of the new ones which have thankfully been ordered, I am resorting to sleeping on the airbed that I keep in case we have house guests, because my back doesn't take well to springs poking it at random intervals. 

At least it's now half way there...

Conducting the Internal Orchestra,

Whilst NaNoWriMo was rolling along - by which I mean my own submission, as I know the competition continues for another 7 days - I was attempting to write a blog every day, however I obviously failed in this endeavor. I should also admit that I failed to write anything towards my NaNo project every day, however the important part to me is that the 50'000 word target was reached, and it was reached in 19 days, because I had a bit of a roll. 
I managed two days that were over 10k and one day that was only about 90 words short. Trust me, that's pretty special after I didn't have a 10k day last year. 

Granted, this is not the standard of Yours, which admittedly I do still need to finish editing, and I was sort of distracted by the fact that all I wanted to do was sit down and write more of my new favourite project, Dreaming in Colour, but the beauty of it was this. I proved that I can force myself to sit down and write 1667 words+ in a day. I proved that I can function within my friendships and my relationship and, in some ways, in my studies whilst also working on a novel which has taken over 99.9% of my brain. It's just a shame that that can't continue after my piece of writing is finished. 

Most of you probably get that my life is a very fast paced mash up of a lot of things. At the moment, I feel like I'm trying to perform the circus trick of spinning plates on the top of sticks, but instead of performing it like a total Master of the Trade (Mistress sounded too suggestive...) I'm letting my very Greek inclinations come out and instead of spinning the plates, I'm dropping them or throwing them to the floor, then dancing around clicking my fingers in this sort of fashion. 

In a way, getting through life is like conducting this internal orchestra, getting all the timings of things right, telling which voices in your brain are allowed to pipe up at what time, because it's slightly ridiculous to be worrying about certain things now when they're bloody months away, right? But currently, I'm trying to do this conducting with a tea spoon and a bar of chocolate, because it's about the only way I can stop myself blowing a fuse of biting people's heads clean off.

The fact is, university is stressful, even when you only have lectures for six hours a week, there is more to it than that. Work is stressful, especially retail towards Christmas, and having to think about all the things you have to do for the role you're currently doing, and a role you may be looking at, and fitting it around everything else in your life. My health is currently stressful, and I can't wait to see if and when my medication kicks in and I start feeling less ill and sleeping better without taking Nytol. Being in therapy is really stressful, because things that are wrong with you now are mostly caused by things that happened in the way back when of your existence and going back over that isn't something that's easy. 

Do you know what else is stressful? Writing. It is really stressful, because you'll be constantly thinking your're spending too much time on writing or observing and not enough time on the other. Even when you've finished something, you have to think about editing it, what you want to do with it next and then getting it through a whole different process, which in itself is another stress, because it's like a birth, but you have a choice in it. Mother's have no choice in giving birth to the baby they have been nurturing, but as a novelist, you have to bring yourself to give birth to your creation, to give it life and let it leave you, and let the world think what it will. When your writing is your art, that is a very difficult thing to do. 

The point of this blog is more than venting, in a way, because I want anyone who is still battling through the trials of NaNo and all the lovely winter diseases and distractions and procrastination stations to know that it is possible, whether it's your first or your fourteenth, it's easy to think of this as one of the labours which Heracles was spared from, but it's not.
It would also be nice if some of those annoying people who bitch about students without knowing anything about how trying it can be read it and either shut up or lowered their voices a little bit. It also might be nice if the same happened to a few of those lovely buggers who don't think of writing as a profession. 

But even if not, I've done something today. After a day with my boyfriend and a shift in work, I've sat down and I've written something, with imperfections, and given it out to the world. Today, for the first time since I published the last blog on here, I gave up something I had written, because it's not just for me. 

I can't wait to be ready to do that with Yours,, and for other people to be ready to do that with what is their's. 

From October,

I do realise that's been almost an entire month since I've posted anything on here and for that, you all have my apologies. I've been having some pretty awesome adventures, been spending some quality time with the loved ones and have also encountered a couple of health problems, but I'm now on the mend, and just in time, as NaNoWriMo2013 starts at midnight tonight. Are you excited? 

I KNOW I AM!! 

I'm also petrified. For those of you who don't remember, I was a stroppy little sod last year after not achieving my favourite 'I have no life' goal of completing a 10k day. It is quite literally as the name suggests, a day where you write 10,000 words. I took three days off last year and finished on the 20th of November - definitely an 'I have no life outside of NaNo' achievement, but I couldn't quite feel satisfied. This year my goal is to have that 10k day. Maybe even have two, one for this year and one to heal my wounded pride from last year....I'm kidding. I think....

I've already had one of those nutty 'OHMYGOD IT'S NEARLY NANO; IMMA DIE!' moments yesterday, so it's probably a good thing that my housemates are in Portsmouth and there's possibly a strike of our uni lecturers, because I don't cope with people very well the day NaNo starts and I get the same sort of look as a piece of flat pack furniture with no instructions. (The best description of it is, I don't know what it is, and I have less idea of what to do with it. That kind of a face.)

On the plus side, I have an idea, a vague form of a plan, and a freezer drawer full of homemade ready meals, so that I don't just resort to pizza and coffee. I am also, because of my recent health blip, required to eat at least once a day so I can take my medication. It also requires me to consume vast amounts of orange juice, so maybe I won't end up with too dreadful of a NaNoFlu this year - trust me, it's a thing - but then again, who can know what November will bring? 

I have two gigs planned, can hopefully throw in a trip back home to see Jamie, Dean and their lovely cohort of Manchester WriMos, a rugby game this weekend (no, I'm not playing, look at the size of me for Pete's sake. :')) lectures, assignments, my family, my friends, my job, my amazing boyfriend :), and the general things of life like cooking, cleaning and the wonders of the ASDA weekly shop. There's Christmas shopping, sending Christmas cards and all manner of stupid things to think about, but they can wait, because it's coming, it's starting. 

REAL LIFE ENDS TONIGHT, 

Welcome to NaNoWriMo2013

Lots of Swear Words,

I'm a grumpy sort of person anyway, but when I have to be a rain soaked grumpy person and the rain soaks through to my pants, you're really going to know I'm in a bad mood. 

Anyway, we went to watch the Rocky Horror Picture Show at Kew Gardens as part of the summer screenings and if nothing else it came as a confirmation that summer is most definitely over. It was cold and wet and rainy, so the only time I felt like I had any life in my limbs was when the Time Warp came on - I could be on my death bed and I would still get up and jump to the left. We were all in agreement that had the ticket prices not been so expensive we would have just gone and got on the next bus home, but after paying nearly £17 excluding the booking fee, we all took the British approach and just got on with it. Thankfully the girls and I had pizza and the heating to come home to. 

As if that wasn't great enough, the Craptop is once again playing Knock-a-Door-Run on death's door and thinking it can win, when it so clearly can't. I know it's four years old, but the hard drive being knackered is about the last thing I need right now!! Thankfully though there are almost an infinite amount of tech savvy people in the world who know far better than me how to fix these things, and one of them in particular likes me enough to help - even though I turn into an insufferable B1tch when this sort of thing happens. 

Despite best efforts, I have unfortunately lost some of the novel I was working on, though due to my worst efforts towards a NaNo style deadline in the past four years, it thankfully wasn't that much and there are still roughly 5600 words to work from, which is pretty good. 

Anyway, I'm apparently having a social life tonight, so I guess I better sign off and get back to writing, although even I admit that my original deadline is making very pretty circles in the toilet bowl right now... 

5053~

I could have given myself more time to write today, but I didn't need to as far as goals were concerned, and I did have a lot of other fun things to do. In our usual style, my house mate and I managed to continue our breakfast conversation until lunch, even with the arrival of the new paint - because adding bubble wrap just made it more fun! 

It's been a busy day and I'm finally starting to feel better from my chest infection, which can only be a good thing, surely. 

After a wonderful day of painting and cleaning, you can imagine it was tempting to vegetate on the sofa with Stevie and Grand Designs, but instead I went out on a date :) to see Kick Ass 2 - before you judge, I chose the movie and I loved it. 

 After that, we went to Zizzi for dinner. Seriously, it was a lovely evening. 

And I even had time to get to 53 words above my goal the for the day. Let's see how tomorrow goes.

~

2617~

For those of you who don't follow me on Twitter (@CharliesWrite), I decided on the 9th September to start my own little thirty days of writing, using the word count targets which are set in NaNo. 

It works out at 1667 words a day, and while I managed Day 1, Day 2 has been a bit of a flop. 2617/3334 words is still 2617 words, but falling behind in the early stages never bodes well for a participants prospects of finishing. The first few days should have a heavy momentum - but if that lapses by the middle, that's okay, because it's pretty normal. 

Also, it seems that there are just millions of things to do at the moment. Today, my house mate and I tripped to Asda - we wanted to get paint, but they didn't have the colours we wanted - cooked twice, washed the curtains in our new house mate's room and started to touch up the painting with the paint we did have before ordering new. I even went to work in the evening. 

Even still, a packed day doesn't have to mean no time for writing. I have this amazing habit of writing whilst on buses or generally when I'm out an about, either on the notes section of my phone or in an email and then I can just send it all back to myself and paste it in. In a way it's like I never left the house. Anyway, before I need an almighty ass kicking, I'm going to hop to and get some work done this evening as tomorrow looks as though it will be equally fun packed!! 

~

Writing Restraints,

In theory, the novel entitles 'Yours,' was meant to be coming out on the 7/3/13, which for those of you who don't know, is the two year anniversary of the CharliesWrite blog being up and running. There's a new problem with this though...

Well, no, it's not a particularly new problem really, it's an old problem revisiting.

Some of my joints (mainly my wrists and my knees) have a pretty bad habit of playing up, and rather than accept that, I just try and get on with things as I would without it happening. Now that would be fine, if I wasn't changing keyboards every five minutes and doing extra damage to my wrists.

If you've never used a manual typewriter, take it from me - DO NOT START! They have very powerful mechanisms in the keys, which you won't be used to if you use a computer or laptop. (I, of course, swap between the two). Then there's the keypad on my iPad - whole new kettle of fish, the time I spent testing Aphri (one of the electric typewriters - who lives in London) and then also Hephi (the other electric typewriter - who is currently living in Manchester with my mum). PLEASE NOTE - NONE OF THE TYPEWRITERS ARE CALLED CLICKY!

Anyway, the last few days my wrists have been in and out of compression bandages and I've been in and out of pain with them. They seem to have cleared up now, so I'm going to spend the next few hours trying to get some work done and see how far I can get with sorting out 'Yours,'. In theory - and this one really is just a fleeting theory which may not happen - all three of the books COULD go into paperback this year, but I don't know. I'll have to think about it and see what else comes up.


UPDATE: Well, that was the theory, but as I'm sure most of you know: theories evolve!

Unless I was willing to stay up all night today and tomorrow and live on coffee, ignoring everything else on my social calendar, there is no way that Yours, would be edited in time for release on the Kindle on 07/03/13, which I do apologise for. However, as a treat for those of you who do want to celebrate the birthday of the CharliesWrite blog, Fairies and Insanity Breaks will both be FREE on the Kindle again from 07/03/13 until 10/03/13.

You're welcome :P