I Forgot These Need Titles

So... where to now?

I've realised that it's been a while since I last spewed nonsense into a bucket, tipped it out onto paper, and proceeded to transcribe whatever complete inanity I found once it dried. Yes, I mean SINCE I BLOGGED. Here at least. Yes indeed, I have a sekrit blog that is decidedly less fun and more mature, so that I can continue being an absolut moron here. I'm also one there, except I do it in a more mature manner. It's like the Clark Kent to my Superman, except my Clark Kent is more like "Verily there was faeces!" and my superman is "hurrr poo lolz"

NaNoWriMo finished. I haven't written a word since. Well, not true. Yes, I lied. It happens. I haven't written a word of FICTION since, just mah continued blogginess. I plan to get back to it ONE DAY REAL SOON.

So, the rest of the year. There's just over three weeks left, and all-in-all, I'd say it's certainly been a year for the record books. Not just because it's currently the most recent year on record, but because... actually, I don't know. It's been a fair-to-middling sort of year, but a most productive one. A MOST PRODUCTIVE ONE,TED. Fun Fact: Back in the last days of the 20th Century, fellow imbibers of strong beverages bestowed the name Bill upon me, for a perceived resemblance to Bill S. Preston Esquire. The Guy who came up with it was on the receiving end of Wally, as given a red and white jumper, he could have passed for the title character of Where's Wally. Yes Merkans, it was our version of Waldo.

I'm currently in a point in life not too dissimilar to where I was last year, yet it's all different. Anyway, this blog entry didn't really have a point, other than going out of my way to make a point of updating my blog. I'll save the next one for when something notable happens :)

Why is there an Elephant Riding A Motorcycle?

I'm not answering that question, and I never want it to be asked of me.

There are things that I love about NaNoWriMo, and there are things that I hate. I approach it a little differently to the official stance on how we should be writing (if such a thing could be said to exist). While I'm writing, deciding on the rules as I go and have all the freedom to write whatever I damn well please, I won't jump out of the rules of my worlds. It isn't that I'm incapable of it, but I just refuse to do it out of principle. My written world might have things that could be considered anachronisms in our own history, but they fit within the rules of that world.

What I loathe about NaNo, is the write-ANYTHING approach, though the main instigator for this is the NaNo dares. As a disclaimer, I don't loathe the people who write the dares, and neither am I adverse to spontaneity. I started using an absolutely awesome app (tm... I think it needs a tm anyway. And why arent they iApps or something redundant like that? someone ask iSteve?)... an awesome app called The Brainstormer. Not just any Brainstormer, and definitely not Brainstormer Who. It's like a convenient version of cutting up lots of cardboard, putting random words on each card, and fishing them out to form random sentences.

Guess who discovered that AFTER cutting up lots of cardboard and putting random words on each card? Yup. That said, it's awesome, and gives me a means to randomly throw a custom list of adjectives, nouns and verbs together, which gives potential ideas that could fit inside my world.

But if the daily dare is "Have An Elephant Ride A Motorcycle", well fuck that.

I want something at the end, where I can read through it (or more likely, someone else can), and not get lost with random abstractions that only detach the reader from the world that they're experiencing. You may as well have a dare that asks you to remind the reader that they're reading a novel, and none of it is real.

I'm not saying I could never write something that involved an Elephant Riding A Motorcycle, but it would be a world pre-established where that kind of thing could happen. In such a setting, I'd imagine that a surprisingly sane serial killer would be equally as incongruous. Things belong in their own worlds. You don't see MY alternate self coming into this dimension and messing around with her giant claws and lightblooms.

By the way, you're reading my blog.

Addition:

Link to The Brainstormer app mentioned above.

Breathe

There's days where I think the world is all sunshine and roses; the kind where a walk in the pouring rain can't convince me things aren't bright and bubbly. There's days where I'm sure something bad is going to happen, or at least, that nothing good will. They're crushing days, but I've seen some rough ones over the years.

Then there's days like today.

I'm exhausted - seriously so, but it isn't just that weariness. I feel numb.

It's something that comes and goes with me, but I can't help but see the futility of what I do. I can paddle up or down, but I'll never change the course of the river I'm floating on. If I'm confident or scattered, it doesn't seem to make a difference. If I try or don't, I always end up somewhere in between, as though any choice is just an illusion. It doesn't help being right so often, though it'd be nice if it was about the good things too.

If I feel like something bad's going to happen, I invariably fall flat on my face. If I'm sure that things might be different, that maybe things might start going my way because I'm feeling particularly optimistic that day... I fall flat on my face. The only time I'm ever right about good things, is when I change my mind later and learn in hindsight that I was actually on to something. Sometimes I'll feel like I ought to do something, like it's predestined for me to try, and I'll choose not to - I'll purposely self-sabotage, because sometimes I can't stand the futility of it. At those times, I'll have a cold feeling wash over me, lying somewhere beneath my skin. It's like standing in front of an open freezer, yet when I touch my skin, it isn't cold at all.

That feeling of wrongness is there with me today. Maybe because I'm writing this. Maybe just getting out of bed this morning was the wrong thing to do.

Usually when I get this feeling, I panic. I scramble together to do the things it feels I'm supposed to, trying to catch up to the destiny of a minute ago. Ordinarily I would, but I'm so mentally exhausted.

A lot of it is surely the pressure I'm putting on myself. I need to make changes, but due to my situation it feels like my buffer for mistakes is non-existent. If I make a wrong choice now, there could be no coming back from it. Given time I'm sure I can make the changes I need, but it feels like there's a huge lack of it... time... also. Please cross your fingers on my behalf.

The Great Write Hope

Fifty. Fifty thousand words.

Yes, I'm fricking crazy.

Again.

Still?

Yes, it's probably still.

I'm most likely going to be repeating myself here, but here's the situation. No, not the oompa loompa - I mean MY situation. I want to write. I've always wanted to write. Even when I didn't feel like writing, I still wanted to write. This November, I'm going to write.

I'm taking part in "National Novel Writing Month" (aka, NaNoWriMo), where aspiring writers (and some actual ones) attempt to write FIFTY THOUSAND WORDS over a mere THIRTY DAYS. That's like 2 million fricking words a day... well, it feels like it at times. It's my second venture into the murky NaNo waters, and I'm a little nervous. There's a lot to live up to, especially cause I made it to the finish line last year, I've done more planning this year, and cause I talk a lot of shit to people about how it's not that hard.

Why, though, do NaNo?

Simply, because.

Convinced? No, me either.

I do spend a lot of time trying to get my writing right, when there isn't some alternate deadline attached. Even this sentence, which has taken three hours, feels like it could use some kind of improvement maybe *fix this later*. Some people might call me a perfectionist - I have no idea what they mean nor why they would think that, since I don't condone perfectionism, and some of my friends are perfections.

Okay, I have to stop using that joke.

I do often spend an ungodly amount of time trying to get my words right, which lead to one particular setting of mine being worked on sporadically over an eleven-year period, that ended up being an EIGHTEEN-THOUSAND word outline. YES, OUTLINE DAMNIT. I think I then spent a few weeks writing a first chapter of a mere 500 words using that outline, edited it into a better second-draft, and had a usb stick fricking die on me, meaning all my world-class edits were lost in time. How could I even ATTEMPT to edit that first chapter again, knowing I 'had it right'? Yes, I probably didn't, as time since has shown me, but that's how it felt.

Last year, though, I somehow managed it. I wrote a novel. I wrote it in a month. It was the biggest single piece of writing I've ever done, and it turned out better than I could have hoped for.

Was it perfect? No.

Was it entertaining? N... actually yes! It was.

It was raw, rough around the edges yes, but it had heart. Yes I repeated myself at times, cause it was raw - a little rough around the edges. It's stuff I didn't realise when I was writing, but could see it in editing. Sometimes even the editing was a little rough around the edges... raw.

The miniscule amount of editing I've done on last year's piece though, has opened my eyes a little more. Yes, what I wrote first up was good. When I first read it, I had a mini-cringe, but came to love it. Then I edited. My second draft felt like a revelation... I had unearthed the diamond, and it was now polished and shiny. NOTHING COULD COMPARE ohwait, I read it again. Oh, there's a typo. Oh, that word is used a bit much. Hey, that line is awkward. So on.. so on...

Obviously it could go on indefinitely, but it was a comfort. I might get it right the first time. I might make it righter the second. I could no doubt improve it at every stage, and thinking that I could have it right from the very start was just... stupid. So, given that I've done a fair amount of planning (far more than last year), that realisation has come at exactly the right time.

You needn't think you'll just be writing unfiltered crap. You will be writing unfiltered crap. However hidden in there will be specks of imagination of the rarest sort that must be extracted. You will find serendipitous outcomes. Your characters will not only do things you don't want them to, but that you don't expect them to. You will be sucked into a world every bit as real and engrossing as any you have ever read, and you will feel like the passenger on this tumultuous trip rather than the pilot.

All you have to do is try.

Shifting Gears

Time is like... actually, Time is just like Time.

So, I think that this blog is going to be the last of my time analogies. That, or it's at least the first where I decide to no longer make an analogy to time, though it's possible that some view blog entries might make the comparison.

I've had an interesting weekend. Probably one of my most-filled weekends in some time. I always tend to count Friday night as being part of the weekend, since my brain is no longer stuck on school-night mode (and indeed, this week even Thursday had a healthy dose of that). It wasn't so much a 'party-mode' weekend, but just one with lots of varied events. Kind of like the Commonwealth Games, but without things falling apart. I tend to save the falling-apart stuff for when I don't have anything on, and stay at home with a tub of ice-cream watching Only You, Poltergeist, and When Harry Met Sally. :'(

Hug?

I had work drinks on Friday, which is always interesting. Unlike most work drinks, I went out for dinner afterwards. Yes, there was more drinking, but unlike other times where I've eaten, it wasn't a seedy hotdog at three in the morning before catching the nightride home. The people I had dinner with were friends of a work friend, and of course my friend from work.

Now, I've historically been fairly bad in social situations, though somewhere along the line, I think I've come to have a greater appreciation for myself. Maybe it's the writing thing. Maybe it's the messy legal entanglements I don't speak about on this blog or Twitter, but that some do know about (it's the sort of stuff you share over drinks). Well, not the entanglements themselves, but the progress that has been made through them. It could even be my taking stock of where I want my life to go, and jumping at a chance to carve a niche for myself once again. That is, move out.

It's not often that I really think of myself as funny. I know that I'm a nice person, and yeah, I can make myself laugh, but I guess the bar for awesomeness in my eyes is always a fraction or two past what I can normally achieve.

Somehow, I've been exceeding myself.

I think this year's NaNoWriMo is going to be good for me - it's not just challenging me to stick with things, but to also try and be more social, to organise more than I might normally do, and to really step outside my comfort zone. I found myself speaking a heck of a lot about my writing on friday night, and to my amazement, captivating people with what I had planned. Not only was this not my last-year-established-piece-that-can-make-you-cry-and-laugh-within-30-seconds-of-each-emotion, but it was my as-yet-unwritten 2010 NaNo Novel.

Even just my concept had some people saying I really know what I'm doing.

I think that's where my life has to go next, though - into the writing. While I can do the sort of work that I do, I never feel quite as fulfilled as when I'm doing stuff related to writing. Whether that's writing my own stuff, editing, talking to others about their stuff, or.. really anything.

I once had a dream where I was walking down a road, trying to decide which story I should write. I came to the realisation that one of my ideas was THE idea, the first that'd catch people's imaginations beyond what I could fathom. That idea was once I lovingly refer to as "Once Upon A Time In The Sky".

That's not what I'm writing this year. No... this year's is something different, but not by much. Trail to the Sky. An immediate prequel to the aforementioned subconsciously-noted plot.

I have a great feeling about it, though only time will tell if it is the first step toward a life writing, or if it is merely putting on my shoes.

I might be a Mary Sue...

Time is like watching a movie. As you sit there minding your own business, things just happen. Of course if you're watching it at home, and it's on a DVD or (gasp) video, then you can pause it and things stop happening until you start it up again. Time doesn't have one of those pause buttons. At least that's the official story.

One of the things that's becoming clear to me as I traipse through this stupid world, is that it's pretty fricking stupid. Though the thing that's even more clear is that I myself, am awesome. I know lots of people say they're awesome, and they tend to turn out as pretty damn lame, BUT TRUST ME I'm awesome.

I've noticed over time that while yeah, I'm pretty shy/reserved for the most part, some people just become drawn to me. I don't mean that OHTHEYWANTMYBODY (cause not even I want that), but they just want to talk to me. I'm gonna completely and utterly disagree with what I just said: The world is pretty fricking smart.

No, not that thing. Sometimes, I don't think I'm awesome (or at least, special)

It's not that I think poorly of myself - it's just that I don't see the things I do as anything out of the ordinary. It's probably why I get frustrated with some people like I do, cause I think if I'm capable of it, then anyone should be. I also know there's things I can't do, so I'm amazed by people that can do them. It's like, conversation. I can do it. I'm not brilliant at it, but I genuinely talk to people and if their competency level at actually doing... stuff... isn't going to cause me any issues, then I try my best to be friendly and listen, maybe engage them a little.

A recurring pattern I've found is that I'm a sincere genuine person. This is a problem. It is a problem because I go around life expecting everyone else is naturally like that, or that they should be. Though they're not. It also means that on occasion, when someone is generally drawn to that sincere way of mine - it freaks me out. My thoughts start going "WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON, OH GOD, I'M GOING TO FRICKING DIE". I never do, but I think I do."

So, something like this happened yesterday. For the first time, in 7-8 years, someone actually approached me in a bar. So I'm talking, doing my best to make them feel comfortable (cause they seemed nervous), and asked if i'd like to be friends.

Actually, it kind of reinforces a self-believed tragedy. I'm too awesome, hence it's best to be friends with me, cause the alternative is not having me around at all. It's happened before (at least it seems like it), and it's infinitely frustrating - like that jar of roasted capsicums I could never get open and eventually just gave away. No, it's no olive theory, but it's a start (plus that was a load of crap). Sometimes I think it'd be easier if I was a jerk. I tried it once, for like 30 seconds. I hated it, and quickly reverted to being myself.

Can't deny my awesomeness. I'm the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being you've ever known in your life.

Aside: The example labels for the posts in blogger say stuff like "scooters, vacation, fall." In my mind, the next is 'cliff'!

Appetisers

Time is like a wheel. No matter how fast or slow it may be moving, eventually things end up like they were before. This time last year, I was living in the same suburb I do now, I was single, trying to lose weight, still working at the job I do (okay, that's been over 10 years running now), and preparing to do NaNoWriMo. I hopped online last night, and spoke to someone I hadn't really spoken to since last year, and while yes, things have happened (OMG have they ever), I'm just in a different revision of where I was.

I had an awesome post earlier this year (Some kind of project) that talked about my awesome novel from last year, how I missed summer, how my next novel should be dark and gloomy - well IDONTTHINKSO! It's daylight savings time now, and it's fricking awesome. I leave work, and IT'S SUNNY. I know the weather and the seances are doing their part to keep it all nice and toasty (if a little humid), but it's such a relief.

Yeah, I have a great feeling about this year's novel - I was walking to the post office this morning. Actually, that's another great rant. WHY THE FRICKING HELL AREN'T THEY OPEN OUTSIDE BUSINESS HOURS?? I had a parcel to pick up (new intarwebs, yay), but the one I had to go is only open 9-5 weekdays. Seriously WTF.

But back to my point. Walking along, listening to my writing music playlist, and I had one of those moments I used to get last November. I've had this idea for a scene, towards the latter half of this new novel, where the main character thinks -- well actually, no spoilers (SORRY, YOU'LL JUST HAVE TO READ IT)... that A is really X, when in fact it's not. And I worked out how he'd realise he was wrong, and it just came to me, and made perfect sense. WHICH leads to.. "then the real X is.... !" Yeah, super vagueness is still my speciality. That and the southern oracle.

It was a cool feeling. I hope it continues, though there's still 25 days to go.

Now, because of how smashingly well it went last year (and OMG, how about the pressure to do it all again?) I'm going to share something special. The following is not so much my usual zany bullshit, but instead, a sneak-peak of the second draft of what I did last year. Yes, it's a taste of Shimmer. It's the first four pages of the rewrite, stopping at a reasonable point.

---

It always felt like a jolt; an imagined fall, and never just like waking. The fluorescent glare could have as easily been a blazing sun as Joshua opened his eyes, echoing starlight speckles as he closed them tight. He pressed a fist against his forehead and winced.

".." he said, trying to speak though the words didn't catch. Clearing his throat, he tried again.

"Sage, status. How's the ship holding up?"

"The Essentir's manifolds a-" replied a hollow voice, though was cut off by Joshua.

"Short version."

"Optimally, Master Keene."

"So why am I awake?"

"We are nearing our destination."

"Already?" asked Joshua, the syllables coming through a yawn.

"See for yourself."

He rolled his body to the side, and squinted his eyes open. Greys, light and shadow, and not much else.

"Okay. Give me a minute. We got a minute at least?"

"We have."

Stars. Even though the ship was blazing through space, Joshua could only see stars; a spatter of dots set against the black of space. If it wasn't for the hum of the Essentir, he wouldn't have thought it was moving.

"I thought you said we were close. There's only... that."

"Do you really want the statistics, Master Keene?"

Joshua winced. He'd made that mistake before, having once said yes to Sage's question, though he'd since lost the naivety that made you take up an Artificial Intelligence on an offer of statistics.

"No, no... it's fine"

Sage sounded disappointed. "Very well. Anyhow, despite what your perceptions may be telling you, we are now within the gravitational pull of LX-126."

Joshua floated upward from the stasis chamber, hand pulling himself along a railing that ran toward the Essentir's fore. Muscle atrophy would have made it a difficult task under normal conditions, but weightlessness had advantages. He guided himself down into a chair next to the command console, and strapped himself in. He tapped commands into the console before him, though his eyes stayed focused on the viewscreen as his fingers moved, scrolling through information. A portion of it had turned opaque, showing a schematic of the ship, and diagnostics for the core systems within. He tapped another command, and the image changed to show a starchart with additional pieces of data. His lips mouthed the words as he read them... Speed, date, location.

"Really Sage, since when does seventeen hours count as almost? You could've kept me frosty for half a day more."

"Standard navigation procedures dictate that based on the completion percentage of the journey, all personnel should be brought out of stasis and refamiliarise themselves with the rest of the crew to ensure a cohesive team."

"Team, Sage. I think you could have waited. I can understand one or two hours. Even eight I could have probably dealt with, but seventeen?"

"There's no 'I' in team, Joshua."

"I am the team. And the team's going to bed."

"I can quote the exact regulations if you insist, as well as the supporting records that led to the installment of it. I can share this extensive catalogue of data if you wish."

Joshua shook his head, and leaned back in the chair. He closed his eyes, and lifted his feet on top of the console.

"Go right on. It ought to help me get to sleep."

"Really, Master Keene. I appreciate your desire for further rest, but idleness, now?"

He waved his hand aisde, then moved it to catch an escaping yawn. As Joshua started to shift from his waking state, he felt a jolt - a falling sensation. Then he felt a feet smashing against the console sensation, which reverted to the first feeling as he fell from the chair, and to the ground. He groaned.

"Really, Sage? Gravity?"

"Gravity, Master Keene."

Joshua picked himself up from the floor, a hand grasping the chair for support. His muscle atrophy was only slight, stasis having kept his body at the same level of fitness that he'd gone in with. Overbearing tiredness, coupled with an overbearing Intelligence, meant that adjusting was an adjustment. He sat down in the chair, fastened the seat belt, and put his feet back up on the console.

"I'm fixed on having this nap. What could it hurt?"

The console that Joshua was resting his foot on emitted a beep, then he felt a zap of electricity coursing up his leg. He tried to jump out of his seat, but the seatbelt meant he flailed instead. He pointed up at the screen.

"Not cool, Sage. I've warned you about shocks. You know I can get better pilot units, so just try me. The ApraNav Mark V is meant to work a treat. An absolute treat."

"I wouldn't recommend it. The Mark V is considered to be extremely anti-social."

"Compared to homicidal tendencies, I'd be inclined to take my chances."

"I'll concede then, Master Keene, and allow you to rest. Promise not to kill you."

It was almost four years he'd spent on the Essentir, though he'd gone in and out of stasis so frequently over that time, that it felt like he'd spent weeks wandering the ship. He was lucky; fortunate even for the help and the companionship that Sage provided. There were times when it overwhelmed him. The nature of his journey was hard enough, though stasis meant it didn't seem like the almost-four years that it was.

Every time he went to the pods felt like a mere blink. His body was rejuvenated, but his mind was exhausted. He didn't know how long it had been since the last time he slept, either in real time or waking time, but it felt like a week, interspersed by dozens of blinks that spanned countless months. He needed sleep - real sleep.

Joshua glared at the screen for a moment, then his eyes flickered shut. "Better not", he mumbled before he drifted off.

---

So that's what I write like. At least once I edit, though the off-the-cuff stuff is still surprisingly readable. While I do want to finish this oh so badly (but would ideally like it to take not one little bit of effort). Just glancing at it, I know it's not quite the 'final' quality I'm hoping to achieve, but it's still got something. Actually, I don't care if nobody else likes it, cause it entertains me!

I don't know if I'm going to do the hand-out-during NaNo that I did last year, cause it's a lot of pressure to write well (and this new one feels like a longer story, which means I have to continue indefinitely to get things right), but I guess we'll see.

All Stations? Really??

Time is like public transport. Eventually you'll get where you need to, but it never pays attention to the timetable it's supposed to. Yes, this is similar to my 'Time is like a taxi' statement, but this is better. EVERY post I make is better than the previous, at least with regards to my analogies of things to Time. Also like public transport, they usually don't get you to exactly where you expected either, but it's a close fit. Like public transport, there's always those people that know where they want to go, but don't pay attention to the indicator board.

I'm a bit like that at the moment. There's different routes I can take... and by that I mean an alternate pronounciation... but there's some you know just aren't the right way. The awful shame with me, though, is I hate standing still. I'd rather take any step than none, even if I know it's one backwards. I once went to see a friend's band play at Annandale, and rather than wait 20-25 minutes for a bus, decided I would walk home instead.

The thing is, I know I'm getting closer to where I need to be. Seven months ago, I was a lot further. I was back living with my parents, had gone through the breakup of a relationship that sucked the life out of me like I was that yummy bit in the bone when you have lamb chops, and I was fairly broke. Even still, I was optimistic. Someone asked me how I was, and I said pretty crap, but I knew things would be better in the future. I didn't know how they'd get there (and inside I thought it was more like a year or two away, rather than the crazy TWO WEEK PERIOD in which it all happened), but I just knew.

Not a lot of that has changed, but the main one which I'm happy about, is I'm living on my own. While there's still a teensy bit for me to still sort out, it feels like things are getting closer to how they're supposed to be, at least at this particular point in time. It did feel like my train had been derailed back in February, but it turns out that was just pushing a Delorean to get me back to where I was supposed to be. Sure, it's a weird twisted version of what I thought would happen, but at the same time, it feels right.

I think the real kicker for me was today. I hung a painting up on the wall. It's not an exceptionally brilliant painting, but why it was special, is because that little crappy painting (my assessment - my friend who saw it lying around thought it was AMAZING)... is one I painted. You couldn't even see the numbers anymore or anything!

So, delays aside. Wrong stop aside. Insane fares aside. I'm here.

Well, nearly.

Guild Wars!

Time is like Playing Guild Wars. In that I felt like playing guild wars today, or at least making sure it still worked so that when I'm super poor I still have stuff to play.

They've recently changed their log-in procedure though, where you need to enter your character's name (or one of them) or it won't let you log in! Considering I usually choose a random jumble of letters that sounds almost pronounceable in most cases, this presented some difficulty to me. It's been quite a while since I last played it, and I couldn't remember.

So I did the only logical thing I could think of. I guessed. Boy did I guess!

Every guess was wrong.

So since it suggested I contact their support if I was having trouble remembering. And I was. So I did. The following is the actual e-mail I sent to their support...

Hi Guild Wars Support,

Let me tell you a little story. I was a little bored, so thought I'd go through whichever games I had installed on my wonderful lappy, and see which I hadn't played in a while, then download updates. I saw Guild Wars and thought "oh yeah! let's give that a whirl."

So I download my updates, and think "noice, I will play this."

Unfortunately I... well there's a few unfortunalities (it should most definitely be a word, though spell-check doesn't like it.)

The login screen had defaulted my old email, so I thought I had it wrong. Uncovering emails I found I'd correctly changed it to this one sometime ago. Of course, then I wasn't sure which of my plethora of passwords I'd used. But I guess the real kicker:

It's been so long (don't hate me!) that I can't remember the names of any of my characters! I tried my usual Daemensleyaarr, Aragandagormli and Jeffrey, but to no avail. (Okay, so those might have been made up)

Can you help me out with the name of a character? Preferably in the form of the name of the character, as a Jeopardy question type response where it says "This name was used as a character on your account" where I have to reply "Who is 'X'?" is probably not going to be much help. I'm also hoping it's not X, because that would make me look kind of foolish, wouldn't it!

Much thanks in advance,

I look forward to updating this post with whatever else happens on this.

Update: They gave me my name. No fun-ness beyond.

Sobriety, tact, and... no, I'm not buying it either

Time is like... gone. I should have known this might happen. Somehow it's now a month since I last blogged, and that last was barely much at all. Like, what the heck? So to recap the amazing month I had might be difficult, but here goes.

I got sick.

Yeah, amazing story right? It pretty much killed the creative part of my brain for that whole period of ohgodkillmenow, where I successively had a blocked nose, bleeding nose, runny nose, blocked ear, runny... ear??, dry cough, wet cough, internal-bruising cough, smokers cough (and I don't smoke), headaches, chest pains, arm pain, sore throat, dehydration, itches, scratches, boredom, and pity. In hindsight, I should've seen a doctor.

Well, it's not the extent of EVERYTHING but a huge piece of it. I actually went a week without using my lappy. I also gave up coffee at around the same time, so it's plausible my body said "You can't do this to me-RAWR I MAEK U SICK!!" I think it's forgiven me now.

It went on way longer than it should've, and it's only this week that i've really gotten past it.

I've still been living life- you know, going to work, paying bills, sleeping. Cause I'm a good boy.

^_^

So Friday night I got totally drunk and had an awesome night, unexpectedly. When I finally returned to sober, inhibited thought, I found that I had brought back a little of dream-me/drunk-me. Earlier this week I'd started writing again, something new. I said that just having all the pieces and knowing what the end result should be isn't enough to make the puzzle for you- and it was about how deep down I'm pretty shy, but deeper down I'm not. Deeper again I'm a time-travelling dinosaur named Freckles, but that's another story.

So through getting that drunk, I learned some things about myself. I can be cocky/forward. I still won't succumb to peer pressure on something like smoking. If I'm going all out here, I'd even say while I'm happy with who I am, and I feel like I don't need to be in a relationship to be happy, I'd still like it to happen. If that means I have to keep having my own 'Pineapple Incident' time and again until I can be all the me I'm meant to, where I say stupid things to girls, then so be it. I mean, I'm saying stupid things to everybody else, may as well be consistent.

My Two (Per)cents Worth

Time is like a cellar. Sometimes you put things into them, then when you take them out again, there's so much better. Obviously this is a lot like yesterday's "revolving door" analogy, but this one's better (and of course, as with all of these, this supersedes anything I said before).

Also, the use of a cellar requires time itself to make the cellar do the magical make-better thing that it does, so in this case we'll put the simile'd-cellar into a cellar too. This solves the obvious deficiency in requiring time to explain myself.

ONCE AND FOR ALL.

So, unlike the things that lost value, I have other things that have increased in value, or have otherwise gotten better. YES, they are things that had questionable value to begin with, though that were not without some redeeming features. Well ruv and randomness aside, this one's about writing.

I've been going through the long, excruciating, painful, torturous, difficult, arduous, nervewracking process of revising the novel I wrote last November. And by novel I mean the 52,000 word story that I wrote for Nanowrimo, which at least covered from the start to finish of a brand new story. It instantly became the longest thing that I've ever written, and also the newest idea that had come to me.

It also DIDN'T suck. How I managed that, I'm not quite sure.

Of course, it wasn't brilliant either. There's something raw and great about the novel, but it was very raw, and needed a lot of flesh added to the skeleton. Yes, just like how babies are made from tiny little skeletons and then you glue mince meat and then pastry to them, cause this novel is now my baby. Look, I don't know what you've been told, that's where they come from. Haven't you ever heard of the store bring a baby? A STORK? How's a bird going to bring pies??

Ridiculous.

Anyway, this unminced skeleton baby of mine I call Shimmer is in the process of being meated. Like a modern Jame Gumb, I'm cutting up the pieces and building a brand new novel in the process - fleshing it out. There's even a character that was a male in the original version being turned into a female - well, being rewritten as one. THAT more extreme type of character is part of a completely different novel/script that I thought about a few years back, project name of 'The Killing Rose'.

It's an interesting process, and essentially one I needed to go through. There's a saying that goes with writing - that you have to kill your darlings. It's one thing to cut something that's dear to you, but taking a bag of limbs, glue and a chainsaw along with you as you prepare to make your adjustments is something else entirely.

It's a strange experience for me - usually I plan out my little 'moments', those brilliant exchanges that seem to be the foundation of my plot - some that appear to be vital components of my novel. Well, they're all being changed. Like a weird reimagining of a familiar movie, it has the same tone as it previously did, but it's still the same story. What seemed like a rough idea is now taking a brand new shape, yet it's still Shimmer.

I'm now about 2% through the rewrite, and well, I have a good feeling about it.

It's All About The Monies

Time is like a revolving door. Sometimes things enter it and don't come out for a while, and some things just get confused and leave as quick as they came. There's also the few that like to keep going around and around, because we like to act stupid. Yes, ACT. Most of the time, those things are people, pets, or other things that could be classified as Alive, as non-alives don't have a habit of moving about on their own (Ghosts are clearly a grey area, since they can DIE, but you wouldn't really say that they're alive. NO WE'RE NOT DISCUSSING VAMPIRES HERE.) The concept of a non-alive object, like a tyre moving on it's own, makes my brain explode. Also, there's apparently a film about a evil psychic tyre that kills people by making their brain explode.

Presumably this is more complicated than the tyre saying "LULZ IMMA TYRRRR!" which would be all that was required to explode somebody's brain.

But that's not what I'm on about.

Years ago, I bought stuff. Lots of stuff. Stuff I probably didn't need, though if I hadn't bought it, the money would have gone to some other stupid purchase anyway, or some equally mystical place - you know, wherever that LAST TWENTY DOLLARS you swore was in your wallet vanished to. No really, wallet, WHERE IS MY MONEY??

My evil psychic wallet is just a klepto, not a serial killer.

Now, fast forward those years of buying stuff, and it's this month. It's fricking July. And I'm broke. Okay, I'm not broke to the extent of busking till people pay me to stop (and you better believe that they would!), but broke enough that I need to pay attention to how much money I have so that I can keep getting into work. Monthly budgets kill me, and while I won't go into specifics, at least I'm supposedly debt-free now. Also asset-free, but the world's really a zero-sum game.

So anyway, I happened across a brilliant idea. All of those things I shouldn't have bought - maybe I could sell them - enough of them at least, to get through the month.

One of the things I sold today was at 23% of the original value. It's not brilliant, but the important thing is I'M FRICKING RICH AGAIN. At least enough to buy my afternoon coffee without thinking too much about it. Now that I'm out of precious metal to sell, unless a gold meteorite lands in the backyard tonight, the next thing on the list is: precious books!

Obviously in this case, time is a really weird revolving door, where things come out much older or worth less or other stuff that affects my selling them. I have approximately two bags of books (the standard unit for measuring books) that I'm going to try an easy-sell with, and another bag of more.. shall we say, 'exotic' books?

Okay, so they're Star Wars roleplaying books. They're not even CURRENT ones - they're the old WEG books. Hey, back off, I was young. YOUDONTKNOWWHATITSLIKE!!!

Anyway, as it stands, it looks like I'll be more or less fine till the end of the month so long as I don't see many shinies.

In the quick closing then reopening of an eye...

Time is like a bed. There's a lot more enjoyable things I could (hypothetically- the truth is far sadder, or far in excess of information than anybody wants) be using one for, but right now, I'd be happy to sleep. Unfortunately I'm on the train, and far too conscious about my personal space to shut my eyes. And what's worse is that every few seconds, my eyes just want to close AND THEY DO! But I have the world's best willpower when it comes to staying awake and anyone that says different is a liar and a cat. Yes, a cat. You know who you are!!

The positive thing is that I'm clearly having an effect on the people around me with this. I look around and see lots of others trying to stay awake, but obviously taking a cue from example as when they close their eyes, they reopen them a moment later. It's almost imperceiveable, but they're doing it. No, they're not winking- winking's only ONE eye, you idiot. I hope it catches on.

If you start doing this, I want royalties.

I'm still of the opinion I need a personal train, or at least carriage. I try to pick places as far away from people as I can, and without fail, they always come to me. Packed or empty, they know what they want, and they want me. Well BACK OFF! If I wanted strange people touching me, well... I'M strange. I'd be doing something more enjoyable.

Bizarrely, I'm also a touchy-feely person- No, it's not a continuation of the between the lines of the previous sentence. I just feel disturbed when somebody's in my personal space when I don't want them to be. It's the weird tap on the back thing that bugs me most. And I'm not alone in this- a quick survey showed nobody likes when you walk up to people and start touching them.

Well, almost nobody, but um.. we won't talk about that guy. *shudder*

It's not that I haven't been sleeping well, though. I mean I haven't been, but that's not why I feel like sleeping more. I just like my warmth, and while being warm during the course of the working day tends to make me feel suffocated, in a bed that's a good thing. NO, NOT BEING SUFFOCATED. Being suffocated is NEVER a good thing (that's free advice, use it wisely)

Oh, and since I can, here's a followup: My hair cut isn't really that bad. I just don't like it.

Maybe it'll grow on me...

Time is like a segway into the stuff I want to talk about instead of time. So, since I've lambasted all of my twitter and facebook sorties (of which I believe you're currently all comprised of anyway. It's like some really lame Voltron - even worse than the vehicles one. NO IT SUCKED DEAL WITH IT), I'm going to repeat it again here. I hate my haircut.

This morning I had the feeling that today was going to be a great day. I woke up with a Custard song in my head, so I thought I'd kick my morning walk to the station off with that gem (in the hopes of getting the fricking thing out of my head. Fly, Be Free!) AND while I was tracking down the song itself, I failed to notice that the sun came out from behind the clouds, and it was turning into a purdy day. Then the next song was a good song, so I took it as a sign that yes, it'd be a great, fantabulous day. My day in fact. Even the WEATHER was more to my liking.

Long story short, my haircut sucked.

Okay, so that might be too short. LIKE MY FRICKING HAIR.

I've been growing my fringe a little longer, and going for the messy "I can't be bothered brushing my hair" look. Unlike most people that go for this look, mine is because I don't bother brushing my hair. So anyway, last time I got a haircut, I asked the guy to just even up the front, and make it neat. So it stayed long-ish, just looked a lot tidier. It was great! But now time has passed (fricking time always wants to show up in these posts), and I needed cut hair.

So I go to the same place, say "trim the side, back, but leave the front the same length."

Now I know what you're thinking. You're thinking "by SAME LENGTH he means cut the hell out of it!"

Sadly, you'd be mistaken, though if that was your answer, and the three of us (you, me and evil hairdresser) took a vote, I'd be outnumbered on it 2-1.

You ever go out for lunch and really crave something - like... well, food (while I could cannibalise my fb statuses from the day for this topic, or at least go for something in the same tone, I'll leave it open. In fact, I said cannibalise, so I'll run with THAT instead). So when you really want some long pig for lunch, and all they have is regular short pig, it's still tasty and such, but it's not exactly the soylent bacon you were craving. Hence, you're disappointed.

Well, my haircut is short pig (pun actually not intended, as far as I know) - it's not that it's a bad haircut, moreso it's just not what I wanted.

And life's like that sometimes. And time. I guess I'm just not ready to look neat and stylish at this point in my life, and just wanted to lessen the awesomeness a little by looking a little scruffy. Duh, like I'd want to be a moisture farmer.

Nup II

Time is like a gnawing itch that you scratch but that keeps itching over and over then everything is loud and you wish you didn't pick your nails so that they were longer and thereby better for scratching so you could dig them into that itch that isn't sexually related because it's on your elbow plus getting that type of itch would require activities that- well it's definitely not that sort of itch.

That's what time is like.

Plus every time you scratch, there is magical new scratchy place on neck or hand or.. Wait, DOIHAVEFLEAS?!?

I guess it's like they say- if you lie down with the dogs, you get arrested.

My fantabulirrifical day continued as expected. I'll concede that one mightn't be a word, but why the hell not? If that's not a word, why does horrificalible get to-- oh, that's not either? Not exactly FREE speech if you can't make up words.

Today definitely got to me. I partly blame my dream girl, aka unnamed girl of fictions I met while asleep last night. It's like when you those freaks watched Avatar and cried because the fictional planet of beauty where everything tries to kill you wasn't real. Seeing as I live in Australia, I need not long for any additional death traps cause we have deadly females, and other animals, whereas Pandora just had made-up-ness. I don't get the "I wish I lived somewhere more likely to kill me" as a result, but MAYBE I just take that side of my country for granted.

Or maybe I'm not fricking crazy.

Haha. Ok, so I take it for granted. So I wake up thinking THAT.WAS.AWESOME. Yes it is very sad that my dreams are about communication and kisses and loviness and daffodils and zombie cults and rainbows. But not real. I used to be so used to that, that the day after a really good day, I'd wake, wondering if it wasn't even real. And it was!! So this just made me want to sleep more instead of facing that annoying itch of life, since I was running out of time to scratch away.

Work shenanigans, which I'm not really going to go into, as well as some other things I'm not going to go into either - there's such a thing as too much information, and okay, so I'm already at that stage, but that's not reason to go off all in... if that makes sense.

I had the unnerving compulsion to walk in the rain - and wouldn't you know it, every time I went to try and walk in it to compound my foul mood, the torrent ceased. This happens to me from time to time (or itch to itch) where things I want to go wrong never really do. Yes, I've complained about getting too many green lights while driving!

It's not a case that nothing ever goes wrong, but none of the trivial stuff does. At least not alone.

Unfortunately today has had no writing beyond this blog (though two entries, not bad). Just not in the right mood for my awesome novel of awesomeness. Maybe tomorrow.

~T