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.