Ethereal Entity #27

Where: Sofa

Listening to: Come Dine With Me – Channel 4 – TV

Tabs open: Facebook, SD chatroom, Daily writing tips

Programs open: Msn, Chrome, MSWord

I read this today: jihad: a holy war on behalf of Islam. The Christian equivalent word is crusade, “a campaign or war sanctioned by the Church against unbelievers or heretics.” Literal crusades were common in the Middle Ages and were directed against Christian heretics as well as non-Christians. Now the term is used figuratively to mean “any remedial activity pursued with zeal and enthusiasm.” The same meaning is becoming attached to jihad. [http://www.dailywritingtips.com/30-religious-terms-you-should-know/]

Makes me wonder… Does that mean that the Christians would have been counted as terrorists in the days when they were on their crusades? I don’t know. I’m just musing, but it would seem logical to me. I guess that’s me though.

Apparently it’s snowing outside. I don’t plan on going out anyway. I still don’t feel too well. I was coming down with ‘flu night before yesterday. My mum’s had the swine ‘flu so I guess it was off her. I’m not as bad as her, though. I just had really bad muscle aches and terrible shivers. So the entirety of yesterday was spent in bed in pyjamas. I’m not a fan of spending all day in my pyjamas. It just makes me feel dirty. I don’t know why. I like to change my clothes at least once a day.

I have set little things I do, as well. I like having a cup of tea when I wake up because my throat is usually too dry to talk on a morning. It’s gross. But I will forego this ritual for a short amount of time if it means that I can avoid seeing/speaking to parents and my other at home sibling & having the house to myself whilst I drink it. Tea for me is the proper English version, not that pansy stuff that you have iced or with a lemon. I mean, yuck. Who thought that up? Iced tea is like drinking urine. Cold urine, obviously, but yuck. Anyway, so my tea is fairly weak with two sugars and milk. Depending on what time it is, I’ll have breakfast. If it’s ten or before, I’ll eat, but if not I’m likely to forget that I haven’t eaten. I’m a bit bizarre like that. And as much as I like to sleep, I don’t like sleeping late. It has an unfortunate side effect of giving me headaches. It’s like sleep deprivation but in reverse. I can deal better with having no sleep than having had some sleep. Maybe I’m just a naturally reversed person.

I’ve been trying to do some editing today but my mind keeps wandering off task. I’m also not sure how happy I am with some of the scene. Then there’s the fact that, to be perfectly honest, my attention has been wavering due to illness. This wavering attention makes me terribly unhappy because I really wanted to get on with this. Oh well. I’ll try to get back to it now.

Ethereal Entity #18

Where: On my bed

Listening to: Norah Jones – Tell Yer Mama

Tabs open: Facebook, SD chatroom

Programs open: Msn, Chrome, MSWord, WMP

I’ve been reminded twice to write this today… It’s not that I need reminding; I just don’t really have anything specific to talk about. Part of me is feeling the familiar tug of ‘I don’t know what to do with myself’ and ‘where on earth is my life going’. Maybe it’s just the fact that it’s a new year and it’s near my birthday (21st February people). I’m not that old… but it just makes me wish that my most heartfelt desires would, for once, come true. Maybe part of this downer is the fact that I’ve used up my energy on being happy and friendly, today, already. Ridiculous, really. It’s quite funny. I read somewhere (and writing this just reminded me) that Pisces don’t tend to have a lot of energy and what energy they do have is spent on the people around them instead of on themselves. I think that’s pretty true in my case.

I wish I wasn’t so difficult, sometimes.

There are sides to me that pretty much nobody sees. It’s not that I don’t want them to, but I just feel incredibly vulnerable. And I can’t stand feeling vulnerable. I don’t like showing people my weaknesses, which is an easy indicator as to why I hide behind being a bit of a freak most of the time. And then I have my pride. I’m extraordinarily proud… but I’ve learnt, over the years, how to let go of it a bit better. The vulnerability and the fear, however, take me a bit longer to sort out in a situation before I plunge in… I’m not a risk taker. I like playing it safe. I’ve become a bit more adventurous really, but to be honest that’s mostly because I’m cutting off my nose to spite my face (to coin a phrase).

Anyway, I have some editing to do on DStoM so I should get to that and stop procrastinating and moping. Because nobody likes a moper. =P

Ethereal Entity #16

Where: In the armchair downstairs

Listening to: The American version of The Office because nothing else is on

Tabs open: Facebook, Twitter, SD chatroom

Programs open: Msn, Chrome, MSWord

I nearly forgot to write in here until Andrew McCluskey (NAL Games) reminded me as is his new duty. I’m in a real writing mood but I have most of DSotM to edit. I finally finished editing the Prologue (it’s up on my official site now so click the link in my sig and find the extracts page). I just stole the ham and sweetcorn pasty that was left for my brother… I’d feel bad but he stole my Christmas dinner one year. We’re weird like that,

I haven’t really got a lot to talk about today. I’ve spent most of it sitting here editing my prologue and I’m pretty knackered now. You’ll probably notice because I’ll probably typo and repeat myself a lot. I think I’m going to go to bed after I’ve written here.

So… well… My brain is actually coming up with nothing to write about, which is completely unusual. I’ll finish Bk3 soon… which will make me immensely happy because Bk4 is going to be so much fun. And I keep making typos so I’m going to sleep. Yeaaahh…

Ethereal Entity #15

It would probably be better to start this journal off with a kind of format. So here goes (I’ll probably forget to do this next blog time):

Where: Sitting on my rubbish spinning chair in my tip of a room (but at least the chair is red) at my desk

Listening to: Luke Pickett – Going Down With This Ship

Tabs open: Facebook, Twitter, Authonomy, The SD Chatroom

Programs open: WMP, Msn, Chrome, MSWord

So now you know pretty much everything that I’m doing… or at least, that I’m supposed to be doing. To be honest, I need to stop slacking on things and spending so much time in the chatroom (links on the board index right at the bottom by the way) but my sleeping pattern is what we like to call fooked, so I wake up, feel crappy, crawl online and cheer myself up by talking to random people that I know on the internet. Most of them are quite cool. Some of them are just… odd. Like RedChu AKA RC (Greyson Wright) with his constant TMI. I mean, really, how much information has a boy got to give when he’s going to the bathroom? Other than that he’s kind of cool. He does, however, remind me of my cat. I have five cats so I suppose that might not narrow it down.

To be more specific, Greyson reminds me of Smokey. Smokey… well… When we got Smokey it was because my mum rescued him. He’s a bit brain damaged, but lately he’s been annoying me quite a lot. I don’t know if it’s because he’s matured and yet his brain isn’t quite right or what. He’s been neutered so I’m at a loss. What he’s been doing, though is basically raping anything furry and still. He does that thing where he presses his paws up and down and starts purring. Now his purring is extremely loud. You can hear it from the next room, but then he starts getting… how shall we say.. ‘excited’, and that’s when I get worried. I understand that he’s a cat and he has his needs but really? He has to attack furry cushions? I caught him with my purple teddy bear. He’d picked it up in his mouth like a dog (this is one of his other things. He’s under the impression he’s a dog. Personally I don’t get it but apparently he thinks ‘dog’ suits him better than ‘cat’. In all honesty, he’s more of a shadow because he’s grey and he likes to follow me from room to room) and then taken it into the bathroom where he started his bizarre ritual. I don’t know what to do about it except hide all the furry things I have – which isn’t fair because I have a faux fur throw to keep me warm on my bed. I suppose at least he isn’t doing it to me or something. If I wake up in the middle of the night with a cat on me doing stuff I think I’ll be traumatised for life… not that I’m not already traumatised enough.

I given Andrew McCluskey (NAL Games) the job of making sure that I write in here. Hopefully he won’t forget. I told him to put it on a post-it note. That way there’s two of us. He’s my second in command on the chatroom, too. I’m not sure how I could describe Andrew to you. Closest is maybe a mixture between the Snowman and Little John (on the Robin Hood Disney version of course). One day, I’ll think up a better description. He’ll probably read this and his response will be somewhere between ‘WTF?’ and secretly being quite pleased.

Anyway, I started editing Dark Side of the Moon… I started writing it when I was 15 and even though I know that some of it needs redoing I can’t help but feel terrible when I have to delete bits of it to make way for new bits. Part of me wishes I could print it out and move certain pieces around or cut them out then stick them together again whilst adding new bits in. I think that would be kind of messy, though. I should really get back to doing that. I’m going to get a glass of water, first, though, I think. There were a lot of commas in that sentence.

I’ve become rather attached to commas over the years. I like putting them in because they help to navigate the flow of a sentence. You can help to decide how fast it is jut by adding or deleting some commas. What I don’t like is when people just put them in randomly or before ‘and’ when there really is no need for them to be there before that ‘and’. I think another reason why commas attract me is perhaps that I write poetry when I’m in the mood for it. I’ve always written poetry quite well. With poetry you can make things twist and turn for no apparent reason. That’s what is so good about poetry; it’s writing for the love of writing something and not because you have some purpose or particular story to tell. I tend to write poetry more when I’m feeling overcome by emotion. It’s an excellent medium to convey your emotions through. The only other medium that could compare is perhaps a painting, but then you’re not necessarily conveying your emotion; you’re conveying the emotion of the scene and that is most certainly up for interpretation. I had to do an essay for my A Level Art course. I can’t remember exactly how many words it was but I enjoyed it because I’d never had the opportunity to contrast and compare visual work before. It was actually a really good experience because, even though I wasn’t too sure on how to write it, it allowed me to see how much was open to interpretation and I think it aided my ability to write, too. When I say that, I don’t mean my ability to write essays. I mean that it helped me to write the description of a scene in a story. It helped me to see much more how I could bring to an environment through pathetic fallacy.

Anyway, I really need that glass of water. =P