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
Showing posts with label Londoner. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Londoner. Show all posts
27 Oct 2017
3 Jan 2016
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
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
25 Feb 2014
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.
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.
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