Holier Than,

Back in Manchester I got one of my piercings done in a place called Holier Than Thou, which for a piercing place is either the best or worst pun in history. Personally I adore it. 

I'm not really sure as to where my love of piercings came from, but it certainly went into overdrive earlier this year when I decided I was going to get two of them at once. 

My nose has settled, quite happily, but my latest cartilage piercing is a different story.

Granted, I was a silly sausage and got it on the side that I apparently want to sleep on most often, but I was concerned that getting another on the same side that I have a helix piercing might look a little crowded since I only have quite small ears, though if I decide to get any more then this might have to be forgotten. 

I tried explaining this to a friend, but "sleeping on it" doesn't sound like the sort of thing which does a lot of damage to you.  It is one of the worst things you can actually do on a healing piercing because the pressure can damage the shape of the piercing... or something crappy like that which means you wake up with ear ache, a headache and general grumpy-arse tendencies. 

When I first got it, as with when I first got my helix done, I went without wearing headphones for about three weeks because I know the pressure and the reasonably air-tight environment is just not great for piercings. Unfortunately I am far too grumpy and anti-social to be able to survive for much longer without needing to plug myself into my music and ignore everyone. Thankfully a conversation with one of the piercing people in the clinic where I got this one done has told me it is no longer infected and will hopefully heal fine if I just stop sleeping on it. It just might have a couple of bumps on it.

I started writing this blog post a few hours ago and have forgotten my point several times over between then and now... I'm also watching A Knight's Tale for the first time in years, and I still find my favourite line hilarious "It's called a lance - hellooo."

Ah, yes. So, the advice was, do not sleep on it. 

Do not sleep on my right side. It sounds simple enough, doesn't it? Let me tell you, it is not so simple. 

I am the sort of person who moves a lot in my sleep and so saying stay off an entire side is a bit difficult. I have to somehow drill it into my head not to sleep on my right so that even my unconscious mind holds onto it. I'm pretty sure that it means I don't sleep as deeply as I really should, but I know I need that my ear does need some serious healing time. Once it has settled itself in and healed I will be fine, it's just annoying that it might be quite a long time until that happens. It's supposed to be between ten and sixteen months of having it put in, but I'm sure that this will take longer now that it's been a bit messed up. 

In a way, piercings are like novels. It is a slight pain getting through the first part, a little/lot more as you look after it, and then smooth sailing, for the most part, after that. The healing part, or the editing with a novel, can seem tedious and annoying and lots of other negative words, but I think that is the wrong attitude. The care and nurturing that you put into both processes shows a commitment to something and for my piercings, it's not just that they kind of look pretty, but that they become a part of me, like edits become a part of the novel. They become so integral that it is almost impossible to think of it without them.

I best go look after my little addition then - catch you later. 

Top Bunk,

Part of my issue with attempting to write a post every day is inevitably going to be the question of about what shall I write? Today, I was at work from 9 am until 5.30pm. Yeah, I could moan about work and all the BS that comes with it, but it's a very negative feeling which is unhelpful for creativity and I'm either going to edit tonight or write something, so I need my creativity. The other issue, of course, is that it would be boring to read, and then there is no sense in me writing it because it has no purpose.

Having been at work all day, I'm struggling, so asked hubspot.com/blog-topic-generator for some camp related topics. The only one it gave me was about worst camping advice I had ever received. Hmmm, well, I don't remember the bad ones. The top three though were:

• Don't get changed in your tent with the lantern on, unless you can get changed in your sleeping bag because it's basically like a naked shadow puppet show. It's also freezing, so getting changed in your sleeping bag has the added benefit of not allowing you to freeze your vital bits off. 
• Don't wear jeans. Yes, they're comfortable. Yes, they can be warm. And yes, in a well-fitting pair of jeans, your butt can look fabulass, but Christ on a bike if they get wet, they're staying wet and then you will be cold. Some people need to learn this for themselves, though, and then will swear that they hate camping as a whole because of it...
• Just because you can set it on fire, doesn't mean you should. Around a camp fire you will hear a lot of horror stories (ghost stories, too, but they don't teach you much) of different things which peopel have put onto a campfire from fireworks to the plastic from their new lighter. If you listen to these stories, they give you the best advice of what not to do around fires. My biggest one is scredded paper - it flies around too much and risks spreading. Not good. 

Not all of these are going to be camping related, but hopefully some of them will be and it might keep things a bit more interesting. 

Catch you tomorrow.

It's Not Sunday,

I was looking forward to a productive week before heading off to Edinburgh this weekend, and the truth of the matter is I have done a fat lot of nothing. 

I've been too ill to leave my flat, and at points, too sick to get out of bed. I thought it was my recurring chest infection, but when I ventured out to the GPs to query the constant pain in my throat that painkillers weren't touching, I found out I actually had a throat infection with blistering in my throat. It was as disgusting as it sounds, and I was struggling to breathe for a good couple of days, which is why I feel so damn feeble now. 

Put simply; I didn't eat for a few days which meant I was even dizzier than normal. Before anyone thinks of making jokes about that, I have a problem that makes me dizzy and no it's not vertigo. I'm now trying to get back onto an even keel but as quite a small person, I didn't have a significant amount of fat to burn. (Although thankfully Lent is my season to gorge on chocolate, so there was a little bit to keep me going.) The problem is that it means I'm running out of energy quite quickly and needing to sit down a lot. Obviously, that's not overly conducive to getting anything done. 

Part of me is now looking to the trip to Edinburgh as a chance to regain some of the momentum I lost this week and really get on with things, and then there's a nagging part of my brain that tells me I really need a laptop to be able to get on with things on the train. I'm not going to give into it because a laptop is just any techy accessories that I don't need, so a pointless waste of money. It would also make Alphie (my lovely AlphaSmart) redundant, and I would hate to do that. Sticky keys he may have, but that little blast from the past is beautiful. 

I'm trying to plan how else to get work done on the train (and stop myself being really, really bored. I had hoped that I wouldn't allow myself to work on anything new until the point that Yours, was FINALLY fluffing done, but even that is looking unlikely. The best thing I can think of is printing off the pages that I already know need re-writes and doing that on the train, then biting the bullet and continuing to write for another couple of novels on which I have been working. The other thing I have to factor in is the almost complete lack of wifi because Virgin trains make you pay for it unless you're in first class. I'm going to end up really wishing that I had a flask, too. 

I'm under no illusions that I will get any work completed while I'm there, but with the journey there and back taking up so much time the idea of wasting all of it playing 2048 (and believe me I could do that) is pretty haunting. I also don't want to lug a rucksack full of wool there to be knitting the entire journey. 

Ah well, I don't leave until Saturday, so there's time to figure it out yet. Depending on what my arrangements for tech stuff are, I might be missing the Sunday blog post this week, but will endeavor to post on Monday if that is the case. Have a very Hoppy Chocolate Feast!

Life In Split Screen,

This week has been a funny old week. For starters, I've barely known what day it is most of the time, but that's not too inconvenient. It did mean I was quite surprised and happy when it was Friday. 

I had an interview on Tuesday, which probably didn't help matters, but it was a confidence boost by the fact that it went well. I've spent the whole week feeling like I have been running around chasing everything and trying to get a million things done at once. Fortunately, that is what suits me quite well. There have previously been times when I have been reading through chapters of different things while knitting up sleeves or backs and fronts of little jumpers. It seems that I switch between having practically no energy to having too much energy so many times a day that I'm not sure what to do with myself. 

There was a point when I used to take my knitting to the cinema with me because I couldn't cope with sitting still for long enough to watch the film. 

Thankfully I didn't feel the need to do that when I finally went to watch Deadpool today, but I still can't sit in a cinema with my shoes on - it feels weird. 

It's one of the reasons I needed to have a decent computer - I run pretty much everything on split screen and need something that's going to be able to keep up with me.

So it's multi-tasking away until this book is ready for publishing. It's not great because I've got to the point where I'm wound up with it.

I Think I Ate Too Much Chocolate,

...and that sucks because I love Dairy Milk, but now my head hurts. That might also be partly due to my perpetual dehydration and the fact that I went out Friday night. I need to learn that Tequilla is not my friend.

Rambling over. Ish.

I've finally caught up with Doctor Who, which is pretty miraculous considering I only actually started watching it a few weeks ago. Miraculous might not be the right word there...

As it stands, David Tennent is my favourite doctor by a large margin, but I cannot get used to Capaldi. I mean, Sonic sunglasses? And what's which the guitar? I honestly think they need a bigger shoehorn to get it to fit in there, but perhaps that's just me. I also felt as though Matt Smith's fez should have been more of a permanent accessory, but I have a thing about fezzes. I can't believe I just had to check with Google what the plural form of the word fez is, but Grammarly was arguing with me. (And I was right. :))

I've been watching a lot of the episodes on a split screen while also editing because my brain gets this sensation which I can only really describe as being numb when I've been working for a bit. It doesn't help that I haven't been sleeping too well recently, for unknown reasons, and it makes my attention span drop to ridiculous levels that mean it's completely unsustainable to be just staring at the screen and keyboard monkey-ing. 

I'm also missing my jeans. On a normal day, I would be sat here in jeans if I got out of my pyjamas, but my Lent thing was to wear dresses, so I banned myself from jeans and work pants. Don't kid yourselves though guys, I'm sat here in my sweatpants because they weren't on the list of things I'm not wearing!! And because there is a debate over whether Sundays count anyway. I'm not leaving the house today so I don't care. 

Even still, I am less comfortable than I normally would be and it's making me sulky. Good luck getting me to do anything when I'm sulky! Then again, I really, really want to be able to get the e-book launched for this and before I can do that I need a couple of people, at least, to beta read it, and that takes time, too and I'm busy and tired, during the week. 

I suppose I best get on with this. Or at least find something else to watch. 

I Need a Doctor,

And again with the lyrics. *eye rolls*

I wasn't sure I was going to write anything on here today since I did yesterday, but I quite like my commitment to Sundays, so anything else is a bonus.

I've been attempting to get through sizable chunks of editing, but it is seriously mind boggling how much there is to do. I had thought that I had finished formatting the whole of the file; however when I was making my way through it, yesterday that appeared not to be the case. Annoying is not even the word. 

To get through editing, I do things slowly and a piece at a time, therefore I do like being able to put things to bed once I have done it. Just like small children, I don't like it when they get out again. I appreciate that a lot of this is doing something and rejigging, but redoing the same thing twice or more gets quite frustrating.

Watching shows like Doctor Who and Family Guy while I'm editing means I have less of a capacity to get bored by it, which means I can concentrate on it better - I know, weird - and also means that I can spend more time getting through it. Typically until my hips start aching, and my butt is sore.

The plan at the moment is just to get the file back to a point where it's worth putting it onto my Kindle to be able to go over everything about the continuity and the storyline, but there's a lot to do before getting there in all honesty. 

Before arriving there, I need to make sure I'm happy with the formatting - or that I think I am happy with it so that I can check that, too. Grammarly will check my grammar, punctuation and a few other bits and pieces, which is good because it's not my favorite thing to do in all honesty. Alas, I will not be able to finish all of that today. Even still, I should get back to it.

It's Not Over Tonight,

The title of this blog is not just a lyric from a fantastic Maroon 5 song. 

The following assertion was first brought up when I was in about Year 6 (so at the age of about 10/11); I suck at endings. Badly. 

Endings make me both happy and sad, and I struggle with them quite greatly. I have therefore developed a terrible habit of delaying them, where possible. Now, I don't mean with things like university, where I was there an extra year, or being in this job for a bit longer than I'm happy with; it's more superficial than that, in a way.

At the moment, I am working on knitting projects which I started months ago and am trying to finish them, or even ones that I thought about bought the materials for and have then left in a variety of containers never to be thought of again. I've still got to fix the hood onto a small purple hoodie and finish the back of a little pink jumper, then there's a white baby blanket which I initially started for a baby I am almost certain is over a year old by now. I have a big blanket that doesn't count though because that was always going to be an excessively long plod to an ever moving finishing line. 

It's not just knitting projects, though. It's also novels. I don't want to count the number of notebooks and Word documents that I have started and have fallen by the wayside. Inevitably the conclusion which can be drawn by anyone is that it vastly outweighs the number of those which have been finished and makes the number which have been self-published (currently one and a bit, shall we say since I pulled one of them a few years ago) look minuscule. The problem with thinking like that, of course, is that the next few years, at least, would be such a momentous uphill climb that I wonder if I would even be able to get myself out of bed in the morning with the thought of the task at hand. Also, a focus on quantity as that would be disgusting regarding the fact that I could find myself compromising on the quality and that, beyond all doubt, is not and cannot be the point. 

I've been asking for years that people bare with me and proposing and re-proposing dates for things. Revisions are constant it seems, thanks to the ebbing and flowing of motivation for particular projects. It's not even a lack of commitment to them, simply a myriad of commitments that mean I seem to be spreading myself too thinly. 

The simple fact of the matter is that I now have a date in mind for the release of Yours, however, past experiences being what they are, I am not going to be putting that detail forward until we're a bit closer to making it happen. Having just looked at the calendar, though, it's going to be tight to do. I suppose it is a good thing that I like a challenge. 

Hazar!,

My aim for this month was to have over 200 blog views, and I'm so glad to say that I have achieved that, so if you have been a part of that, a massive thank you to you. 

This blog has been many different things over the time it has been running, and that has happened partly because of how long it has been going and partly because I have a short attention span sometimes, and can be very indecisive.

I am just going to take a step back to when I was writing about films for a moment though (which I did just to get into the habit of writing for this a lot) to ask quite a simple question - what the hell is with the ending of Magic Mike XXL?

**If you haven't watched it by now, don't get at me about spoilers - you have had ample chance**

I get that it was their "last ride" and everything, but when you're going to put something like that to bed (wrong, but oh so right phrasing) you put it to bed as best you can and don't leave them smiling like a bunch of sexy idiots on a pier. It would also be my opinion that you don't do it without Matthew Macona-honey (yes, I have silly names for other actors than Bumblebitch) because maybe the law says I can't touch that, but I definitely still would...

The ridiculous thing is that when I put that on last night, I was thinking; I'm going to watch one of McConaughey's serious films and that oh so clearly did not happen.

Aside from that, I have finally been getting some editing done which I'm sure most of you know is quite frankly a chuffing miracle because it is pretty much my biggest nightmare. It's slow going, but it's happening. I'm trying my best just to make a significant dent in it at the moment, and also have a life at the same time. 

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....

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!