Feelings#2...

Okay, where was I?...

Mid-June, the Prince's Trust week. What more can I say about it? It was brilliant fun, free, I got to meet new people and learn something about business - a world I had no clue about before I started The Writing People with the guys. So that was good, I got to feel like I was doing something, a day job, for a week - all the while still going to the Job Centre and being unemployed. It was nice, and convinced me that what I was doing was what I wanted to do - which is always a win.

I should mention at this point, that I had managed to drag HB to my volunteering many months earlier and we had been given the opportunity to make a Creative Writing Course. She had given up a Summer Temp Job at St Fagans so she could work on it with me. But more on that in a bit...

Anyway, Prince's Trust stuff down, now we were given mentors to work with until we had succeeded in our goals. And mine is a brilliant man, interested in Creative Writing, who seemed to analyse me like a therapist and decided that I write to escape, but also the help others try and escape. He also came to the conclusion that the only reason I do something was to help others, and that if I was running from something, or whatever, then I should probably stop running and face the thing I'm running from. It wasn't until now that I know why I'm running. But anyway, the long and short of it was, I'm to complete and send away a completed manuscript of Real Magic by 17th August - wish me luck.

Anyway...skipping ahead the week leading up to the 20th July - Cherrybelly and Pill's joint birthday Masquerade BBQ. It was good fun, HB invited me over to watch Avatar the Last Airbender, and we baked birthday cakes for Cherrybelly and Pill. The whole thing took a grand total of two days, I stayed over, and many cartoons were watched, things were baked, and xbox was played - mainly on our joint character Stuart, a Khajit in Skyrim.

The Friday, I drove to Pill's, where the party was taking place, after picking up GG at the station - a pleasant surprise. And yes, I can drive now - though I don't own a car.

We get there, all suited and booted, masks on, and party on.

I don't remember anything. I drank too much and ate too little, but there are two memories I have. 

1. HB and I were arguing in Pill's dinning room. I seem to remember defending myself against a statement she said - that I had never asked her out when it mattered...

When it mattered? WHEN IT MATTERED?! Every time I asked it mattered, as far as I knew. ARGH! Hence the argument. It's quite good to note that HB and I didn't really argue, so it was odd.

2. Much later on, HB came and sat with me on one of the sofas and she cried on my shoulder saying she didn't feel the same, and it was sad (as in boo hoo) that she did because of the way I felt. I don't know, it could have been guilt, sadness, or just frustration. (Here's where everything in my head gets over thought, as it always does - but it's better I say it here rather than to someone else, otherwise I'd be carted away by the men in white coats.)

Anyway I spent most of the rest of the night outside, after the girls had dragged HB away upstairs so she didn't cry in front of people - ah yes, both occurrences happened in front of a dozen people or so. Perhaps I should ask them all what happened and piece together what happened. I even tried going to see HB, but I was warded away by TAG and Pill, both saying that it was a bad idea. I don't know, are my instincts that bad?!

I drove HB home the next day, music on and in silence. I don't know, it felt like silence, it might not have been. We shared a nice hug on her doorstep and I thought everything I had just been a memory that I had made up in my drunken state.

We texted a few times in the days that followed, but then came the silence after she spent an evening with Dark Horse.

I don't know what they discussed, or even if they did, but the silence definitely followed the Dark Horse trip.

It's been three weeks and I've seen her a grand total of twice, once with people, the second time without.

With people, barely two words said to one and other, but we were civil - mainly because we had to be. There was even a part of me that hoped she would offer me a lift home in her empty car as she watched me walk to the station.

Without people, barely two words said to one and other. On Saturday, I got to have the car for the first time since Pill's, and I went to HB's to see if I could apologize, or just talk to her.

Before this whole thing we had spoken almost every day and met up two, three, four times a week. So you can imagine how tough the change would be - well it's been tough for me.

The apology didn't go well. And I've tried twice on this occasion. I wrote one down, because I'm much better on paper than speaking in person. Anyway the paper one went much like this:

Actually, I think that's too personal, even for this. Either way, I said sorry for a degree-worth of mistakes and hurt, and so on and so forth. It still goes unanswered.

The in person sorry went a little like a dying seagull trying to crawl out of the oil spill covered beach away from the ever approaching tide.

ARGH!

I've talked too long now, and I've still not managed to say anything I need to say, not need. I want to say, just to get them out of my mind - or at least somewhere else. They're driving me slightly mental. 

I don't see any point to most things at the moment. The Writing People involves HB, the Creative Writing Course involves HB, even Real fucking Magic involves HB, the job seeking never goes well, everyone's asking me what's going on? how am I feeling? Heard from HB yet? 

It's too much.

Hi, my name's Tom, and I've had a crush on my best friend for four years. My name's Tom, and three weeks ago, I lost my best friend.

Carpe diem, until next time bloggers...

P.S. I don't think the amount of John Cusack films I've been watching recently are helping - though they are brilliant.

Feelings...

Well hello emoto-storm, it's been a while...

I was reading over my last post just now and it turns out that that was a stupid thing to write and to blurt out into the populace of an empty room, so I think I'll finally get around to letting you know what I've been up to - and yes Master, you'll finally get to know about the Newsagents.

So we might as well start there. I got a job at a Newsagents, at the start of June, and I managed to work there a grand total of 4-days before I had to resign my position as Shop Assistant and cover Paper Boy. Thrilling stuff I assure you. Being there 4-days I managed to break a few laws, all under the guidance and forceful nature of my boss, who no one had anything good to say about him. So there we are, a kindly old man, who's employees loathe - that should have been my first indicator. The second was the amount of fag smoking ingrates I had to serve with children by the armful, begging for sweets but never receiving their sugary snacks because their parents wanted them to live healthy life-styles. Ironic, I know.

And then a kid came in asking: 'Will you serve me?' and I was wondering what I'd serve him, the yellow signs shouting at me MUST BE OVER 18 and then the shadow of the tall hunchbacked bossman loomed over me, I turned to see his crooked stained smile and there it was, what everyone else thought - the evil psycho. He looked at the kid, and I could see that he was like 14, I would have hoped that everyone else in the shop would see the crime being committed, but the boss made me type in the fag's price and the kid handed over the money, and the no one was any the wiser, except the bossman who was an extra fiver up.

I should have resigned then, but I was in the thinking - MONEY, MONEY, MONEY. It was £6.70 an hour, 10-hours a week - not bad, better than the Job Centre and easy work...selling fags to the under age.

Then would come the weekend, 5am start, and pay for an hour. Easy? Yes. Back-broken? Yes, how all those old folks do it, I'll never know. We all worked on the floor, except the bossman, it was weird. But then I got to go out with one of the guys to show me one of the four rounds I would be covering - 4 hours later, and a grateful paperman, glad to have finished his round and hour and a half earlier, I saddled back on up the road to home. I get a text saying, you got a car?

It was from bossman, I said I could. He knew I could drive from the CV, but there was no question of a car. Return text, you got a bike? I said no. Can you walk? Okay, he didn't ask me that one, but I'm sure he expected that sort of dedication from me. 

I get there the next morning, and he tells me that dates and where, and I said I couldn't do some of the dates, his reply being - 'do you have any friends?'

He obviously meant do you have any friends willing to help out for those days, and I thought - 5am, for half of my wage. No, I wouldn't do that - it's insane. And I was only there for an hour on the Sunday, and it came down to my realisation that I would be covering two rounds on the days I had to do, but couldn't, and without a car, delivering to my local area and beyond.

So, to sum it up for you, that's would have involved me walking 10-miles, with 200+ papers over my shoulder, for a maximum of 3-hours pay (the time frame was something the bossman made very clear to me at the end of day one). And that evening I wrote my resignation, as I felt I couldn't do the job, and in fact, I couldn't do the job - the job description said drivers license optional - what a lie.

Well, that's something I went into too much detail about and I'm tired now, so what I wanted to talk about will no doubt errupt again on another evening.

Thanks TAG for inspiring me to start doing this again. I'll see you soon, and Master, I hope I filled you in slightly about my short stint in employment. We should start writing again, but I think we're probably too busy for that sort of thing. Who knows...

Carpe diem, until next time bloggers...

We Sleep On Rooftops - Chapter 1-Part 2 - The Writing People

We Sleep On Rooftops - Chapter 1-Part 2 - The Writing People

The Question is...

For those of you who have missed the emotional crap, here it is, for those of you who haven't - look away now...

Do you know why the main character in my Badly Drawn series always frowns/looks sad/clueless? Some people, I know how odd this might sound, but some people have told me that it's due to the artists inner self being expressed in an outward way - and here I was just drawing the unfortunate events of a person who just so happens to be based on me. He's my juxtaposition, my doppelganger, as it were.

Well yes, that's true, in a sense, but I've been thinking lately, perhaps a little too much. I always get told off for over-thinking and over-complicating things, but that's just how I think. It's weird, I know, just like when I sniff something (and you know, if you know me, that I do that a lot) it just seems like the natural thing to do, to try and define something without touching it/having to touch it. 

It's odd, and I'm over complicating this so, let's see if I can start again...

I suppose the main reason for not posting so many of these 'emotional' blogs is time, but that's always a stupid excuse. No, the reason for this is because for a very long time (in my terms anyway) I was pleasantly emotionally stable. I was in a comfortable situation, I even, on occasion, conned myself into believing that I had something I had mainly always wanted. 

It's strange when people always seemed to tell you that something is yours, you never believe them until you see it for yourself, and then everyone else changes their tune. It's quite a confusing situation. Some people even expected as much. I don't know how I feel about any of that.

I just know that where I am at the moment, I feel like I am in, dare I say it, love.

I have thought I've been in love before - well perhaps not all were love - I perhaps thought maybe one other was love, but I liked the others, like boys like girls - it's just natural. But there's a difference between this love, and that one. 

This love hurts.

I'd always heard it said, but I, I don't know, it never seemed right - but I think I know what the songs mean. Perhaps I should become a Poet - it might be more profitable than my currant enterprise (ha! - that would be a stupid thing to do wouldn't it?)

I feel like everyone around me, not the people directly involved, don't quite get what I'm trying to achieve, even though I'm achieving it. And they say to me, 'but how do you make money out of it?' and I always reply with these ideas, that have always sounded good, but seem to fall on deaf ears. 

But anyway, where was I?

Love hurts, I remember. It's odd, when anyone now talks about getting boyfriends, moving out, or even people telling me that I'm in a bad situation and I need to burn all bridges to reconcile anything and everything, to fall back on the very foundations of this four-year relationship, and blow everything up and start from the beginning - I get this horrible feeling.

It's not quite like holding back tears, but it is similar. And this is the point I'm trying to get across - everything feels different. You feel like something so right is perfect, and how could it not be something, when clearly there's something there - and then you get told that that one thing, the one thing that you think is magically connected to you somehow, isn't yours, and the whole idea is a massive waste of your time, and you should quit now, and try and piece together something else instead. It makes you want to fight for that one thing, it makes you want to not change, and try to hold on to it, even though you should let go. 

It's also really hard to write something like this and make sense, so I hope you understand me, if you read this. If anyone still does - it's always good to store your thoughts somewhere (well I think it is, in a very public forum, where no body wanders - the perfect place to hide them - like crying into the night, or something less poetic). 

Sorry for rambling, I'm sure I'll get round to tell you about my brief stint in employment at a local Newagents, but until then you should probably head on over to www.wearethewritingpeople.co.uk and check out everything I seem to do on a daily basis - unless I'm not doing it, in which case, ignore that last bit. 

Carpe diem, until next time bloggers...

The Summer Is Here...

Well, it's now Summer time and the last time I spoke to you all was April. So, what's been happening? 

The world has started to deteriorate, lo and behold the 2012 destruction has begun, Greece is now a third-world country, but what have I been up to? I hear you ask, as you're all very interested in me, after all that's the reason you're reading this.

Well, if you haven't been to www.wearethewritingpeople.co.uk yet then that would explain all. 

My daily activities seem to revolve around this site, the brain child of The Writing People, and as such my own personal writing has somewhat taken a backburner, or not, depending on your view of things. 

I'm currently writing for the website, every Monday, providing lots of content for the site, but also in my back catalog. However, if I hadn't started this I might have focused all my efforts on Real Magic - which you can read over the first draft if you want. 

I'd love to hear your feedback, it's all very close to the wind or whatever, said the readers that I've already had the comments from. 

I don't know how to write any of these anymore. I'm sure I'll get back to you by the end of the week and say something meaningful or productive. But until then...

Carpe diem, bloggers...

The Writing People And Other Businesses...

Sorry about the delay in this broadcast. May your programs resume and normal...

As you might remember I was worrying about my Driving Test the last time I wrote something on here, which, surprisingly, as I've looked at the calendar now, was only the start of the month. Well if that's the case, then I think April has been the busiest month I've had in a while, and I interned for a publishing company in February. 

So you'd think that the news about me passing the Driving Test was the feature of this blog post, but as amazing as it sounds to me, it was nothing.

The real reason for getting in contact, and telling you that my new Driving capabilities are only the footnote to my month is that I and the other Writing People - you might remember our exploits on YouTube before Christmas - have started a website: www.thewritingpeople.weebly.com

We have lots more stuff to do with it, but where it is now (after 3 weeks) is a good jumping off place. And it's only our beginnings, you cannot possibly comprehend, unless you've been there, the excitement that has been following Tag, Cherrybelly, HB Sauce, Dark Horse, and I around for the last month. Well perhaps not the last month for everyone.

I decided that I was fed up of jobseeking one sunny afternoon, after an umpteenth rejection letter or just complete silence, as rejection letters don't turn up as often as you'd think. And I decided to make a website. Tag helped me find the place to work in, and we constructed, with my OCD, a good looking site. And there's more to come. 

Our site is for all writers and readers. We want to build a community that helps bring together published and unpublished writers, all editing, critiquing, and proofreading as we go. Or at least, that's the beginning of the plan. So spread the word, and I'm sure I'll get back to talking about emotions and soppy stuff later on...

Carpe diem, until next time bloggers... 

Two Days To Go...

Well my hands are still shaking...

I hope that by writing this down here I'll cast aside any doubt in my driving technique. Yep, that's right everyone, I've got a Driving Test on Tuesday. YAY!

Though I suppose it doesn't help that my instructor changed his car recently, and I suppose it certainly doesn't help that I keep finding faults with my own driving, and I suppose it doesn't help that I shout at my mother as she shouts instructions back (as I don't need to be told what to do at this stage), and it certainly doesn't help that I've not really been out in my (our, my parent's) own car that often, which is a lot less often than I would have liked. 

But really all this lumps up to some huge excuse as I try to calm down and keep smiling as I told HB that I would continue to do so. It's all some really basic stress that I really do not need to have at this stage. Last week I didn't even feel as if I had a Driving Test very soon. Right now, it feels like the only thing in the world and if I fail it, I won't really have an cash to have another go at it. I need to do this, I will do this. 

I suppose it didn't help that Tag (Yes, you!) seems to have less faith in me than I do. Admittedly he was drunk, but he just kept saying that I would Fail because I was a guy and all guys do straight away. Well, needless to say, it's just piled on the stress.

I had a good drive today, up until a small busy roundabout, where I chose to make a bad decision and feel my instructor take over. Oh what a good feeling that is, when your driving technique is always called into question before your test. 

But it's not as if these things are playing on my mind. HB has been detrimental in my confidence building, she has faith in me. And that's such a very useful thing to have. Knowing that someone out there believes in me. And she's introduced me to 'Netflix', 'Warehouse 13', and has been having a 'Shep Week' (playing Mass Effect 1, 2, and 3) or sorts with me, and I know it might not all be just distractions from the Test itself, but now I think about it, they have been keeping me relatively stress-less. 

Carpe diem, until next time bloggers...

P.S. Please have faith in me.