sheldrake

Awwwww, look atcha. Ain't you all gorgeous? I could just eat you all up.

THINGS I HAVE DONE

I like capslock. I don't know why it gets such a bad rap REALLY I DON'T.

So, things I have done include I have tagged all my LJ entries ever ever. Tagged 'em all up, I did. Tagged those entries right up.

Also, I uploaded all my fic to teh archive of our own thingy here. That was fun.

I broke my achingly unhealthy habit of always having 50 tabs open at a time in Firefox, by organising everything on a Protopage. That was the most fun of all. I almost felt like my life was totally under control after I did that. I know -- laughable. But look -- only seven tabs open.

Next, I must get back to my other projects of archiving all my artwork on Flickr, cataloguing all my books on LibraryThing, and typing up and filing away all the poetry I've ever written.

Hmmm...

This sudden obsession for organisation and archiving and labelling... doesn't it feel spookily like I'm tying up loose ends? I do hope the organising bit of my brain doesn't know something I don't! *twilight zone music*

I am reading The Wild Places by Robert Macfarlane, which is about what the concept of wildness means and whether it can still be found on the crowded, built-up island that is Britain, and stories and maps and journeys and other things. It is rather lovely. Although trying to sleep on top of a mountain, in winter, without a tent, is still quite mad.

And I am reading Becoming a Writer by Dorothea Brande, following some-writer-or-other's recommendation in the Guardian article Ten Rules For Writing Fiction. This book, I tell you, is MADE OF AWESOME. It was first published in 1934, which begs the question: SO HOW COME IT'S ABOUT ME???

Ok, have to lay off the capslock. I'm sorry.

In other news, Monty Don is my hero, my evening primrose seeds have germinated, and it rains for ever and for ever and for ever and a day, amen.

GOODBYE NOW.

Good evening Jim, good evening John, and good evening to all of you.

This is a post made in an attempt to communicate with the outside world, to expunge unused words from my brainhole, and to reassure some people.

The reassurement do be as follows.

I wonder if anyone remembers how, back in the mists of time (ie nearly a year ago), I made this post, in which I foolishly offered to send people random stuff in the post, sometime in the following year. Well! Ok, no, I haven't actually done it. Not as such, no. But that year is not yet up! It ain't over till it's over, see? Fat lady, song, etc. I realise half of you have probably moved house, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Which we will! Eventually.

If it spills over into 2010, you're all ok with that, right? Ok.

Cripes I'm useless, but never mind. I have made the decision to abandon NaNo and whatever other 'November forces people to write' type things I was doing. This time round at least, they're not working for me at all. A different approach is needed just at the moment.

Doing stuff is slow, isn't it? I've been using Flickr to archive stuff I've made/drew/done/created/whatever, which is fun, but taking time. Have a look if you're interested. You can also see how the cactus is getting on.

Spent money today, blimey. Books and seeds, for me and Christmas. Work tomorrow, boo. :(

It must be because my Christmas cactus is coming into bloom! Oh, it's made me so proud! It never does this. It's looking a bit more spectacular now, I took this the other day.

What else? I have done stuff today. I decided I wasn't allowed to post here until I'd done stuff, and today I wrote a thousand words, scanned lots of stuff, uploaded lots of stuff, and made serious inroads into organising my Flickr photostream.

And now I must away to bed, as I have used up all my time. Which is sad.

Adieu, flist.

Can anyone remember how to write? Because I seem to have forgotten.

I was going to do a proper post but I feel too lethargic and stuff. Here's what it would have had in it:

some pictures of stuff
Me saying I've probably got some Dreamwidth codes if anyone wants them.
some other stuff I forget now.

AND NOW. I shall type without thinking first. It's a clever trick.

( only read if you're quite bored )

A meme. List the first lines of your last twenty stories. See if you find any patterns.

( world class procrastinator takes three years to write 20 stories )

THINGS!

1. I am moving house out of my flat and into a real live house at the end of the month. Hoorah!
2. I am enjoying my four-day week.
3. I liked the new Star Trek film lots! Spock is adorable now he's not a serial killer.*
4. I went to see The Sixteen in Bury St Edmunds cathedral, singing Purcell and James McMillan -- they were really wonderful.
5. Ok, you win. I'm on Dreamwidth as tadorna (my Latin name dontcha know), but I haven't really bothered to do anything with it or seek people out or anything basically.

Ok, I think the numbers are intimidating me, and also I have been corrupted by Twitter. I keep wanting to express every thought in 140 characters. Ummmm, what else? I've been feeling pretty good lately. Work is still all a bit up in the air and not great. I need to do more exercise, eat more healthily and do more work. I'm trying to get back into the creative groove, to spend more time making and doing. Not that there's anything intrinsically wrong with reading and watching stuff and noodling around on the internet. But, just for myself, I could be doing more, and I feel it would be a shame if I didn't. I don't actually include knitting in the things I ought to be doing. It is creative, but in a different way -- I love doing it, but it's a hobby. That only applies to me, though. Singing is the same, and sewing. For me, these are hobbies, because I enjoy doing them, but they're not really my 'thing' -- I'm an extremely average knitter and singer. Writing and making... other stuff -- that's work. But work in the good way, not as in my job. That's work in the bad or at least necessary evil way. If you're somebody who 'makes work', sometimes you can allow 'going to work' to prevent you from doing your real work. *ties self in knots*

Sorry, that was really convoluted. So yes, mainly I'm concentrating on taking pleasure in small things, and making a start on doing more good stuff (although I've got distracted by this moving business now).

Anyway, have I ever mentioned my damn annoying social phobia? It trips me up sometimes, and makes me worry a lot more than I really need to. I had to go to a social event with work the other day, and it made me very anxious and left me feeling low, although I made my excuses and went home pretty early. I got my hair cut the other day too, and I always hate that -- I find small talk really difficult. I can't help subjecting myself to an in-depth analysis of my 'performance' as a human being, and the conclusion is always that I have failed miserably. I am of course aware that this is unnecessary and I am much better at all this than I used to be. I do try quite hard. I'm also aware that lots of other people feel shy or out of place at times -- but this is a particular problem for me, and affects my life hugely. It has done for as long as I can remember, and is probably at the root of my problems with depression in the past. It hasn't gone away, but I think what I've come to realise is that it can be battled with. It doesn't always have to force me under. Life's just too damn short, basically.

Er, yeah, anyway. Dunno why I felt the need to go on about that suddenly, it's just stuff I've been thinking about. Have some random photos!

*This is a casting reference. There is no Spock-is-an-ex-serial killer plotline in the film, don't worry.

( random photos )

I feel a bit gluey this morning, a bit frayed, a bit delayed. This is because I accidentally slept in till 10, and kept having weird dreams. I moved house at least twice, fell in love with a blond boy called Jeremy at a party, who mysteriously disappeared (I miss Jeremy), kept finding myself outside in my pyjamas, acquired a sister. My dad was taking drugs that made him look 24, and a girl called Marisa was horribly betrayed, or something. I also had a nightmare that Barack Obama had been shot, and woke up feeling terrible. I have a habit of leaving my radio alarm on at weekends, and then just pressing the snooze button every nine minutes, with the result that little bits of news from the Today programme tend to filter into my dreams. So of course sometimes I dream things that are partly true, and I had to hurriedly switch the radio back on to make sure it wasn't the case this time. I was very relieved to find them all still talking about the plane in the Hudson.

For my own sanity, I need to do some writing today. If I don't, you have my permission to hunt me down and slap me round the head with a wet kipper.

Kept meaning to link this: Some really cool book art and other unusual booky stuff

I am sitting around feeling apathetic and blah, which I have been mostly doing all day. The slightest bit more of this blah sitting around and I'm going to tip right over into self-pity land, and believe me - nobody wants that! But if I stand any chance of avoiding this I have to go and clean the kitchen or at least do the washing up which is waiting for me, adding to my blahness with its mere existence. I must do this now. I must also put the internet away. I already did this once, but I then got it out again.

I am a silly creature.

Out in the dark and the rain they are setting up for the fireworks and playing loud thumping annoying music over the sound system. Bastards. I wonder what the Mansion ghosts think of this nonsense, sniffling to themselves in the panelled corridors. Old men in portraits hunch themselves irritably, trying to turn their canvases to the walls. The Victorian Woman passes through a closed door, murmuring, "Adventures in Space is the theme this year, apparently... whatever next?" But the Laughing Maid just smiles, and peers expectantly through the raindropped window -- her favourite was the year they did Bond and had a helicopter. Behind her, the children shriek silently and run up and down and up and down the stairs.

Sadly, Leonora's cake tasted of nothing.

***

Everybody stood around awkardly with their tea. Sarah said, "I'm not into poetry," and just then, her phone rang. Stephen said, "That's a dinky thing. Are you aware you're trying to contact your mother on a cigarette lighter?"

***

The difficult bit was over. Afterwards, they walked together by the river, and it wasn't very long before Henry lost his temper again, because Thomas had said the wrong thing again. He always did say the wrong thing, Thomas, he was bloody-minded that way. Words floated to the top and had to come out. It perplexed people, the way Thomas just flung those words out into the world, willy nilly. It was as though he didn't really care. Even at the end, he didn't care very much, or at least that's what they say.

Henry said, his voice rising dangerously, "What, you really think I'd do that to you? Is that what you think, Thomas? Is that what you think of me?" He was like a bulldog, square-chested, large-hearted, wound up and spoiling for a fight.

Thomas looked at Henry, and Henry looked back at him, twitching under the skin like something waiting to be let out of a cage. But Thomas was statue-still, and his face was like the blank white sky. "Heaven forbid," he said. He spoke softly, slowly, as though to himself. "Heaven forbid." A little way off, there was a soft splash as something -- a rat, a bird -- launched itself into the water and swam swift and silent into the river's brown depths.

Thomas's pale hand was still curled like a comma over his heart. He looked down at it, as though noticing it for the first time. Then he turned and walked on ahead down the path. He'd made up his mind now, and all things would follow as they were meant to. As they were always meant to. The difficult bit was over.

***

Stephen said, "You have to look a bit for their graves, but when you find them, they lie side by side, as in life. And as in life, there is Imogen, peeping between their shoulders... Have you ever seen a picture of her? I saw her once, she popped up very suddenly from some shrubbery, tall and thin, with the little round specs, just popped up like that. She was like a heron. Sort of like a Mr Bean, like a Miss Bean coming up out of the shrubbery."

***

When terrible things happen, someone has to be to blame. Stands to reason. Like the time Robert was killed. Just a boy, Robert was. You know who was to blame, don't you? We all know it. Who even knows what they get up to, that lot? They don't belong here -- they never have. They've probably been getting up to all sorts. Richard ought to have sent them packing, years ago. But Richard's not here, is he? He's never here. Not even sure where he is half the time, always abroad somewhere, on some crusade or other. Well. If he won't take care of things back home, somebody'll have to. What they did to that little boy... We've been too soft with them -- I've said it before. They'll have to go. They'll have to get themselves gone, them and their nasty ways. Nobody wants them round here. If they don't take themselves off smartish, it'll all kick off. You mark my words. I won't answer for what'll happen. They've only themselves to blame, haven't they?

***