Ah, it's Friday! It means most of us in dear old Blighty will be looking forward to four whole days off work - with pay! However, it turns out I've got to work tomorrow, so I'll have three whole days off work, which is almost as good. And the weather has sorted itself out just in time for an epic bank holiday. Yes, that's right - gone are the sizzling tropical temperatures, the humid air, the old men traipsing round town just wearing a little pair of shorts and socks with sandals (why oh why?!) and the threat of a nice barbecue in the back garden. The air has regained the usual summertime nippiness we're used to, the skies are a sort of charcoal grey colour and the weather has been, as they call it in Spain (Joanna reliably tells me this, and she's very good at Spanish, so she should know) "El Pissi Downio". Ah, yes. British Summertime. It's back, and I love it.
So, things are going very well. I'd like to thank Anonymous for their lovely and very encouraging comment from Wednesday's blog. It turns out that my block lifted quite substantially after that lovely advice and some equally kind and helpful tips from Mr L. Although I've still not really got a plot together yet, I have indeed made a start on the Western (tentatively entitled The Western With No Name). Turns out it had no intention of ever being a book, it wanted to be a screenplay all along. Which in some ways is slightly easier, I'm much better with dialogue than narrative, but even though you only really need minimal narrative for a screenplay I still don't think I have enough. But I'll come back to it later when I've figured out more of a structure to the story. My biggest problem is that I want it to be instantly perfect, rather than just acknowledging that the first three or four rewrites are going to be ropey at best before I get it close to being right and writing it anyway. I bet Joss Whedon didn't write The Avengers perfectly on his first run-through!!
I know what you're thinking. 'She's avoiding the weight-loss topic'. Well, yes. I am.
I put half a pound on. I have no idea how. I was doing really well, I'd been dead good, I hadn't cheated (there's no point in cheating because the only person who suffers is me) - I was at least hoping for a couple of pounds' loss. Maybe even three. But putting half a pound on?! What the -?!?!!
Baffled. Stumped. Bamboozled. Flabbergasted. Discombobulated. Narked. All appropriate adjectives to describe my reaction to the number on the scales yesterday.
Enrique was quite relieved I'd put weight on. He's still convinced he has athlete's hoof from when I sent them swimming last Friday and has taken to his bed with bandages from hoof to fetlock on all four of his little legs. The rest of the llamas were delighted to have another week off and have all gone on a coach holiday to Blackpool for the weekend. If you're in the Blackpool area and come across a collective of llamas in gold lamee leg warmers, go and join them, they're a great bunch of lads!!
I mean, things aren't all bad news. I'm getting smaller. If I'm honest with myself about my original starting size (i.e. Beyond Huge. If there was a dress size that could be renamed "AY CHIHUAHA!!" that'd probably be where I was!), I've actually lost three dress sizes already and I'm probably only another stone away from hitting the fourth. So actually I've not done at all badly. It's just one of those things. Maybe it was just the way I held my gob when I stood on the scales. Who knows. I'm lots thinner than I was, and that's a fact. I just need to be... you know. Thinner than this. And I will be. This time in three months I might've lost another two sizes and then I'll be very nearly almost there.
You know what it'll involve, of course. I've been threatening it and then putting it off since January, but I am actually going to have to... I can't even bring myself to say it. You know, though. And I know. It's got to be done, there's truly nothing else for it. I have plans and extremely good intentions, I just have no willpower!! I hate running, walking round an industrial estate is no fun, and I'm just not disciplined enough to attempt any form of E***cise at home!! Gah!! That blasted E word. Why is it never fun?! If I could do the E word and not notice I was doing it, that'd be brilliant!
Ho hum.
Join me next Wednesday, if you don't mind. I'll be taking Monday off due to the Bank Holiday and I'll probably still be in a very dark state of depression following my birthday on Sunday. I get SO depressed on my birthday, there's literally no point in even acknowledging my existence, you'll only end up similarly suicidal! I don't want to be old! Don't make me!! Nooooo!!! PETER PAN NEVER HAD TO DO IT!!!
I dread to even think how I'll cope next year when I hit the big Three-Oh...!! *shudder*
Showing posts with label head-scratching. Show all posts
Showing posts with label head-scratching. Show all posts
Friday, 1 June 2012
Wednesday, 30 May 2012
Writer's Block
It's driving me IN-FLIPPIN'-SANE!!
For anyone who's had any contact with me over the last few weeks and I've seemed a little distracted and non-conversational, or you've wondered where my three hundred word text messages had gone to and why I haven't spoken to anyone unless it's been completely necessary - I CAN'T WRITE!! My brain can't even process enough thought to hold a proper conversation at the moment, let alone actually write anything. This may seem like a really trivial thing to you, and I apologise if you're bored already - especially because I can't even explain why it's so important that I do write. That's not a pretentious, pseudo-artistic 'if you don't write, you wouldn't understand' type excuse, it's true. I can articulate most things, but just not why I need to write.
It isn't that I haven't got any ideas at all. I've got vague thoughts for stories, books, scripts, sketches - you name it - in spades. But I don't have full ideas. I don't have enough of any one idea to be able to write one word. The floodgates of the imagination are simply groaning with the effort of keeping the plethora of sentences that are stored up in my brain - if only I could hold onto ONE sentence long enough for it to blossom into a fully formed idea, rather than simply remaining stagnant as the beginning of a maybe.
ARGH!!! It's the most frustrating thing ever.
Having ideas, being able to write, writing itself is probably one of the most liberating things ever. That really irritating moment (everyone who writes must have gone through this at some stage) of waking up at two o'clock in the morning and HAVING to get all those ideas down before your brain explodes under the weight of them - yes, it's a pain when your body needs sleep but your brain won't stop whirring into overdrive. Still, nothing makes me feel more alive than my fingertips flying across the keyboard, the eyes almost glazed over as the old imagination completely takes over body and soul, and before I know it I've actually created something, a person, a world and an adventure and I look back at it and think, "Woah, when did I write that?!"
When I read it back again in the morning, I might wince and think "Oh dear, when did I write that?!" but the fact is, I wrote something and the idea got out into the open.
It's like part of my brain has totally switched off. This year started out so creatively, I wrote loads in The Phantom Winger, Adam and I wrote Slim Chance (hey, top 10% out of over 800 entrants is no mean feat!), I've written the liner notes for Nathan's album (released officially on 4th June, physical copies are already in circulation and are available at the album launch on 2nd June). But then it's all sort of stopped.
There are things I really want to write, but I can't. I want to write more in The Phantom Winger - Alex's adventure hasn't even begun yet and I'm only about five paragraphs away from breaking the block on it!! I want to rewrite Slim Chance but I know that's pretty much on hold till Mr Leslie comes back from his sojourn to the colonies - which is fine because it's probably still a bit too fresh in my mind for me to be objective enough for a rewrite just yet.
I really want to write a Western. I've wanted to write one for years, for my Dad. We've always watched Westerns together and he loves stories about cowboys and I thought it would really make him happy if I wrote him a story - but it's taken me forever to get an idea. Now, I've sort of almost got a plot together, I've got an idea about what I might call my main character, and I've got a basic theme for the story... but that's it, I've not got anything definite, I've not had that light-bulb flash, Eureka style moment to spur me on (no pun intended) to write something that'd make Big Aitch proud. I know Westerns are probably the most difficult things to write because there are so many rules with a Western, and they require years of detailed research before you even settle down to writing anything in it. All of those obstacles, coupled with the fact I've grown up in Central Lancashire and as much as I turn into a pile of mush at the very thought of a Southern State accent, I simply don't know if I would ever be fluent enough in the Southern vernacular to make my dialogue convincing. I don't think I'm cut out to write it - but that's the thing my brain keeps telling me needs to be written. Even though I still haven't got enough of anything to start writing it yet.
You know what I need? I need a month or two in Texas. On an entirely academic, research-driven basis, and not just because I've been desperate to go to Texas since forever. Certainly not because it's the home of barbecue sauce. Or because it's filled with the sounds of the most incredible accent ever. Gosh, no. Whatever'd give you that idea?!
Basically, all my ideas are just too vague to even think about formulating a sentence with - let alone trying to eke them out into a story/script/whatever.
I'm sorry this has turned into such a big rant. I know people have real problems out there and that I shouldn't really whinge so much about it - but it's seriously doing my head in. Perhaps ranting about it will help it shift. I flippin' hope so.
Please join me on Friday, when I'll give you a report from Fat Club and take an excited look towards four whole days off work for the Jubilee weekend. Wasn't it nice of Her Majesty to know that I'd be so depressed about my birthday on Sunday that I wouldn't want to do any work for a couple of days - and subsequently arrange her Jubilee celebrations accordingly?!
For anyone who's had any contact with me over the last few weeks and I've seemed a little distracted and non-conversational, or you've wondered where my three hundred word text messages had gone to and why I haven't spoken to anyone unless it's been completely necessary - I CAN'T WRITE!! My brain can't even process enough thought to hold a proper conversation at the moment, let alone actually write anything. This may seem like a really trivial thing to you, and I apologise if you're bored already - especially because I can't even explain why it's so important that I do write. That's not a pretentious, pseudo-artistic 'if you don't write, you wouldn't understand' type excuse, it's true. I can articulate most things, but just not why I need to write.
It isn't that I haven't got any ideas at all. I've got vague thoughts for stories, books, scripts, sketches - you name it - in spades. But I don't have full ideas. I don't have enough of any one idea to be able to write one word. The floodgates of the imagination are simply groaning with the effort of keeping the plethora of sentences that are stored up in my brain - if only I could hold onto ONE sentence long enough for it to blossom into a fully formed idea, rather than simply remaining stagnant as the beginning of a maybe.
ARGH!!! It's the most frustrating thing ever.
Having ideas, being able to write, writing itself is probably one of the most liberating things ever. That really irritating moment (everyone who writes must have gone through this at some stage) of waking up at two o'clock in the morning and HAVING to get all those ideas down before your brain explodes under the weight of them - yes, it's a pain when your body needs sleep but your brain won't stop whirring into overdrive. Still, nothing makes me feel more alive than my fingertips flying across the keyboard, the eyes almost glazed over as the old imagination completely takes over body and soul, and before I know it I've actually created something, a person, a world and an adventure and I look back at it and think, "Woah, when did I write that?!"
When I read it back again in the morning, I might wince and think "Oh dear, when did I write that?!" but the fact is, I wrote something and the idea got out into the open.
It's like part of my brain has totally switched off. This year started out so creatively, I wrote loads in The Phantom Winger, Adam and I wrote Slim Chance (hey, top 10% out of over 800 entrants is no mean feat!), I've written the liner notes for Nathan's album (released officially on 4th June, physical copies are already in circulation and are available at the album launch on 2nd June). But then it's all sort of stopped.
There are things I really want to write, but I can't. I want to write more in The Phantom Winger - Alex's adventure hasn't even begun yet and I'm only about five paragraphs away from breaking the block on it!! I want to rewrite Slim Chance but I know that's pretty much on hold till Mr Leslie comes back from his sojourn to the colonies - which is fine because it's probably still a bit too fresh in my mind for me to be objective enough for a rewrite just yet.
I really want to write a Western. I've wanted to write one for years, for my Dad. We've always watched Westerns together and he loves stories about cowboys and I thought it would really make him happy if I wrote him a story - but it's taken me forever to get an idea. Now, I've sort of almost got a plot together, I've got an idea about what I might call my main character, and I've got a basic theme for the story... but that's it, I've not got anything definite, I've not had that light-bulb flash, Eureka style moment to spur me on (no pun intended) to write something that'd make Big Aitch proud. I know Westerns are probably the most difficult things to write because there are so many rules with a Western, and they require years of detailed research before you even settle down to writing anything in it. All of those obstacles, coupled with the fact I've grown up in Central Lancashire and as much as I turn into a pile of mush at the very thought of a Southern State accent, I simply don't know if I would ever be fluent enough in the Southern vernacular to make my dialogue convincing. I don't think I'm cut out to write it - but that's the thing my brain keeps telling me needs to be written. Even though I still haven't got enough of anything to start writing it yet.
You know what I need? I need a month or two in Texas. On an entirely academic, research-driven basis, and not just because I've been desperate to go to Texas since forever. Certainly not because it's the home of barbecue sauce. Or because it's filled with the sounds of the most incredible accent ever. Gosh, no. Whatever'd give you that idea?!
Basically, all my ideas are just too vague to even think about formulating a sentence with - let alone trying to eke them out into a story/script/whatever.
I'm sorry this has turned into such a big rant. I know people have real problems out there and that I shouldn't really whinge so much about it - but it's seriously doing my head in. Perhaps ranting about it will help it shift. I flippin' hope so.
Please join me on Friday, when I'll give you a report from Fat Club and take an excited look towards four whole days off work for the Jubilee weekend. Wasn't it nice of Her Majesty to know that I'd be so depressed about my birthday on Sunday that I wouldn't want to do any work for a couple of days - and subsequently arrange her Jubilee celebrations accordingly?!
Friday, 4 May 2012
Dazed and Confused
I knew I'd end up a confused mess last night. I knew it.
The llamas came home, Enrique set about making sure everyone else was unpacked and after they'd all had a long hot soak in a bubble bath I helped Miguel tie his new neckerchief and put on his new sunglasses. He's a fashion conscious llama but his lack of opposable thumbs does cause him a few problems in the execution of donning and fixing certain items of clothing.
I left them tucking into a lovely tea and told Ricardo I'd give them a call on the Llama Line when I'd been weighed.
I went in, was told by the lady on the front desk that everyone seems a lot happier this week and that the scales seem to have righted themselves. So I paid my fiver, toddled off to the weigh-in point and hopped on the scales.
Normally, I would have been delighted and doing a little jig of ecstasy over the fact the scales said I was 3 1/2 lbs lighter... but I was just confused.
I mean... What does that even mean?!!? Does it mean I've lost 3 1/2 lbs? Does it mean that I've lost 1/2 lb?? Does it mean that I've basically just maintained weight for two weeks and everything's back to normal? I mean... seriously - what happened?!?!
Llamas are a very intelligent bunch but, they're also very inquisitive - so if I'd explained the whole saga of the scales to them, they'd've asked me some very complicated mathematical questions that I couldn't answer. I decided, for the sake of brevity, to just tell them that I'd lost 3 1/2 lbs, and so Enrique, invigorated by his week in the sun and hour-long soak in a mint and jasmine bubble bath, quickly got to work on choreographing the llamas' latest dance routine.
Hit it, fellas!! *whips out maracas and dons Carmen Miranda style hat before shimmying around like a loony*
Whewf!!! I've really got to stop moving like that, it plays havoc with my pineapples...
So... I think I've lost weight. Sort of. Maybe. Possibly. I really don't know. I mean, according to those scales I'm 3 1/2 lbs lighter than I was this time last week. So that should make me very happy. But then I know I hadn't put 3lbs on last week. But maybe I had, I mean a person's body does crazy things at crazy times, maybe it was an unwittingly held-in tinkle or something. But then what if it wasn't and these new scales are just dodgy?
I really don't know what to think. It's a mystery to the likes of me.
Still, maybe these new ones are more accurate. After all, I'm definitely starting to see some changes in me, my shoulders are pretty skinny now and I've even noticed my legs are getting a bit slimmer at long last. I'd spent a few weeks not seeing any change at all and worrying that losing 7 stone wasn't going to be enough and I'd almost decided to put my target back by another stone, but I don't think I need to do that now. I've got 10lbs to lose before I get to the half-way mark, and I suppose it'll be easier to judge from then, but I don't think I'll need to lose more than 7 stone. Hope not anyway, the first three are turning into an epic melodrama!!
It's my birthday in a month's time (well, a month yesterday, to be precise) and I'm hoping to have lost the requisite 10lbs to get myself to the half-way mark by then. If I lose more then great, but because it's pretty much slap-bang in the middle of the year I think it's as good a target date to set as any. It might take the edge off the inevitable depression associated with entering into the last year of my 20s. This is it. Goodbye, youth! But at least I'll be old and skinny... Not too skinny though. Fat plumps out the wrinkles. Fact.
Join me again next week sometime when I'll hopefully have some news of something. You may think I'm sounding coy and mysterious but to be honest there's really nothing else doing in SpevLand at the moment, I'm just waiting for something exciting to happen so I can report back on it!!!
The llamas came home, Enrique set about making sure everyone else was unpacked and after they'd all had a long hot soak in a bubble bath I helped Miguel tie his new neckerchief and put on his new sunglasses. He's a fashion conscious llama but his lack of opposable thumbs does cause him a few problems in the execution of donning and fixing certain items of clothing.
I left them tucking into a lovely tea and told Ricardo I'd give them a call on the Llama Line when I'd been weighed.
I went in, was told by the lady on the front desk that everyone seems a lot happier this week and that the scales seem to have righted themselves. So I paid my fiver, toddled off to the weigh-in point and hopped on the scales.
Normally, I would have been delighted and doing a little jig of ecstasy over the fact the scales said I was 3 1/2 lbs lighter... but I was just confused.
I mean... What does that even mean?!!? Does it mean I've lost 3 1/2 lbs? Does it mean that I've lost 1/2 lb?? Does it mean that I've basically just maintained weight for two weeks and everything's back to normal? I mean... seriously - what happened?!?!
Llamas are a very intelligent bunch but, they're also very inquisitive - so if I'd explained the whole saga of the scales to them, they'd've asked me some very complicated mathematical questions that I couldn't answer. I decided, for the sake of brevity, to just tell them that I'd lost 3 1/2 lbs, and so Enrique, invigorated by his week in the sun and hour-long soak in a mint and jasmine bubble bath, quickly got to work on choreographing the llamas' latest dance routine.
Hit it, fellas!! *whips out maracas and dons Carmen Miranda style hat before shimmying around like a loony*
Whewf!!! I've really got to stop moving like that, it plays havoc with my pineapples...
So... I think I've lost weight. Sort of. Maybe. Possibly. I really don't know. I mean, according to those scales I'm 3 1/2 lbs lighter than I was this time last week. So that should make me very happy. But then I know I hadn't put 3lbs on last week. But maybe I had, I mean a person's body does crazy things at crazy times, maybe it was an unwittingly held-in tinkle or something. But then what if it wasn't and these new scales are just dodgy?
I really don't know what to think. It's a mystery to the likes of me.
Still, maybe these new ones are more accurate. After all, I'm definitely starting to see some changes in me, my shoulders are pretty skinny now and I've even noticed my legs are getting a bit slimmer at long last. I'd spent a few weeks not seeing any change at all and worrying that losing 7 stone wasn't going to be enough and I'd almost decided to put my target back by another stone, but I don't think I need to do that now. I've got 10lbs to lose before I get to the half-way mark, and I suppose it'll be easier to judge from then, but I don't think I'll need to lose more than 7 stone. Hope not anyway, the first three are turning into an epic melodrama!!
It's my birthday in a month's time (well, a month yesterday, to be precise) and I'm hoping to have lost the requisite 10lbs to get myself to the half-way mark by then. If I lose more then great, but because it's pretty much slap-bang in the middle of the year I think it's as good a target date to set as any. It might take the edge off the inevitable depression associated with entering into the last year of my 20s. This is it. Goodbye, youth! But at least I'll be old and skinny... Not too skinny though. Fat plumps out the wrinkles. Fact.
Join me again next week sometime when I'll hopefully have some news of something. You may think I'm sounding coy and mysterious but to be honest there's really nothing else doing in SpevLand at the moment, I'm just waiting for something exciting to happen so I can report back on it!!!
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