Christmas and family make you think about your priorities a lot, and with the new year looming people begin to think about New Year's Resolutions.
I might have mentioned previously that I am taking part in Veganuary. I want to do it to prove to myself that I can, and to explore the different culinary options available. Part of the idea is going to be seeing if I can actually drop the amount of meat products I have in my diet as a long term plan, though the success of that is to be measured later.
My other "resolution" is to aim, as thoroughly as humanly possible, at getting my own place.
I don't do overly well living with other humans because I like things to be a certain way. I like to know that when I am planning, on the train home, to cook a meal in a certain way that the knives for cutting things and the board I like are there and ready to be used. I also like to know that no one has eaten any of my ingredients, though that has happened before now.
As much as I remember the solitude which can be created, because I felt that plenty of times in my little studio flat, it can also be wonderful to be able to come home after a really shitty day and be able to shut the door on everything else. You can shut the door and leave it outside along with anyone that you don't want to invite to cross your threshold. There is a stability and a sense of home which I don't really get from living in a shared house. Granted, I'm going to have to deal with that in case of a significant other, or kids or whatever, but still, it would be nice to have some time and space to myself and it is something I can't wait to create.
The idea of a home is something really important to me and a lot of the things which are left at my mother's house are actually things I want for my future flat. I would probably have chosen the wall colours by now if I didn't know that it was going to be at least a few years before I was actually able to put paint on my own walls.
Ah well, onwards and upwards...
Showing posts with label all of the luck. Show all posts
Showing posts with label all of the luck. Show all posts
27 Dec 2016
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
29 Oct 2014
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.
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.
29 Jun 2014
Where's Home?,
I know it's been a long time since I posted a blog and for that I really do have to apologise. Last week, I was over happy and completely distracted by the beauty of the scenery in Greece and almost dying every time we were on the road. I wish I was kidding, but the route between our resort and the airport (and everything else) is littered with blind bends, but the Greeks don't seem to know that means you shouldn't be overtaking on the wrong side of the road. The over happy was added to when Ben arrived. I was so happy and so settled there that I cried getting on the plane and when the plane took off and when the plane flew back for a last look at the town and then turned back towards home. I cried more when Greece got through to the final 16 in the World Cup for the first time in the history of ever though. I was so proud, but it hurt a little inside that I wasn't in Greece to celebrate. I'm just settling down to watch their next game with all spare digits and limbs firmly crossed. I'm getting quite irritated though by all the wrong pronunciations of the Greek names!
Whilst I was out there, my awesome writing equipment collection was expanded by my acquisition of a glass blown quill. My parents and Ben foresaw it sitting at the bottom of drawer in my desk and that I would never use it, but I have been using it so far. It's amazing. It does mean that there are bottles of Quink across my coffee table at the moment though.
Since I've been back, I've managed to complete a night shift (only the second of my life, and I'm still no fonder of them), join a temp agency, have a completely controlled, yet still unsuccessful trip to Oxford Street and have been given a full time temp job working in a field I'm actually both experienced and interested in! It's wonderful. Well, it will be until I have to get up at 6am again tomorrow. At least yesterday, and the rather soggy trip to Wimbledon, gave me a reminder of what that is like.
So after a fortnight where the biggest events were to do with overly large insects or tortoises or the lack of spinach pies in our favourite eatery, this week has been a pretty big culture shock.
I have a lot to do at half time. Hopefully this will be a good match.
Whilst I was out there, my awesome writing equipment collection was expanded by my acquisition of a glass blown quill. My parents and Ben foresaw it sitting at the bottom of drawer in my desk and that I would never use it, but I have been using it so far. It's amazing. It does mean that there are bottles of Quink across my coffee table at the moment though.
Since I've been back, I've managed to complete a night shift (only the second of my life, and I'm still no fonder of them), join a temp agency, have a completely controlled, yet still unsuccessful trip to Oxford Street and have been given a full time temp job working in a field I'm actually both experienced and interested in! It's wonderful. Well, it will be until I have to get up at 6am again tomorrow. At least yesterday, and the rather soggy trip to Wimbledon, gave me a reminder of what that is like.
So after a fortnight where the biggest events were to do with overly large insects or tortoises or the lack of spinach pies in our favourite eatery, this week has been a pretty big culture shock.
I have a lot to do at half time. Hopefully this will be a good match.
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