I've had a bit of an entry going around my brain all weekend and have not quite gotten around to formulating it into anything concrete. To be honest, though, I don't think I'll bother, as I don't think articulating it in an artistic fashion will really help. I'm having a fandom-related emotional crisis at the moment wherein my supposed writing abilities are in question, and am in a bit of a quandary. I'm hoping some of the reaction can be attributed to PMT - which is what I explained my bad mood away as this weekend - becase I am getting occasional twinges of "wimmins", but it might just as easily be another bloody UTI from all the coffee I have to drink to function as a human being first thing in the morning.

( Less coherent version here. )

Meh.

In other news, my choir is dumb. Our next concert is shaping up to be an epic failure in terms of attendance. It's supposed to celebrate our 90th birthday, so in their infinite wisdom the concert planning group decided (a) to schedule it for 5th November - Bonfire Night - when people will have much better things to be doing involving, y'know, fireworks, and (b) to perform two pieces nobody has heard of. And then they wonder why nobody's buying any tickets. Like the Bach Mass, we are required to attend a certain amount of rehearsals in order to do the concert, and thanks to missing a few this season I'm on the borderline again.

This season is insane, as usual. We have no less than six concerts before January (I'm doing five of them), like Christmas isn't busy enough already. Once again I'm finding the constant pressure to attend and sell tickets to things people don't want to see to be tiring, and once again I'm considering leaving - the changes they keep making "for the better" seem only to make everything more pressured. One of those pre-January concerts is Carmina Burana with the Royal Philharmonic and that's literally the only thing - aside from the Christmas stuff - keeping me there at present, but at this rate I don't think I'm going to have the energy for it, especially as I'm working on 30th December when we're doing said concert. Messiah mid-week is exhausting enough before Christmas.

I'm pretty sure hobbies are not supposed to be this bloody irritating.

Stolen from Eni:





That was using the first chapter of my Ugly Betty chapter-fic, "Strange Glue". I've never even read any Margaret Atwood, though some of her books are on my neverending list. :P

Bizarrely, using "Broken Record" (epic unfinished Buffy fic of doooom), I get this:





At least mine makes sense. Apparently my over-superfluous heyday is equivalent to stream-of-consciousness. I was expecting Virginia Woolf for the semicolon abuse. :P

The Pantsfic results in:





Pantsfic: As Good As Da Vinci Code. :D

That's enough. Though I do wonder what my journal entries would bring up...

Oh, here we go. Random EastEnders-geekery from a few months back (shortest uncut entry I could find) gets this:





Ha! My LJ is a horror story!!

Okay, I'm done. :D

( Scan 6/? )

More experimental cookery last night... It's a variation on my chicken-gorgonzola-mushroom dish, and the thing I had at La Fibule on Valentine's Day...

( Recipe: Stuffed chicken in mushrooms and blue cheese sauce )

'Twas very nice indeed. Yay for experimental cookery.

Am up relatively early today (as compared to the last three days) in an attempt to get to bed before 2.00am and hopefully put my sleeping pattern back on track before Monday, when I'm back at work. Also going to choir tonight for the first time in four weeks as it's the Rossini concert on Saturday.

I seem to recall mentioning back when I initially broke my foot that Fate was a bitch with a sense of humour, because I'd been bemoaning the fact that the week before, I'd not been getting enough sleep thanks to chattering Muses, and therefore would have been much appreciative of a week off in order to get the writing done. Well - four weeks of leave and barely any writing to speak of. Plenty of ideas, but nothing concrete. I mean, WTF? It's just... stupidly frustrating. Just wait, as soon as I'm back at work things will wake up again.

I don't want to try and balance my work life with my sporadic writing habits. I'd rather keep the two separate, but my brain obviously wants to punish me. I'm hoping I can salvage what's left of this week to at least get stuff typed up which has been overdue, but meh. I just wish I could find a happy medium between No Sleep and Dried-Up Muses...

Anyway, I should probably have some breakfast. Just wanted to get that recipe down before it fell out of my brain.

I have added the all_unwritten community to my friends list. It's basically a word/photo prompting community and whilst I don't particularly feel the need to join it, I'm hoping the prompts will poke the Muses into something other than Ugly Betty fanfic. Not that I'm complaining, mind. It would just be nice to stretch the ol' writing muscle a bit.

So. Here's hoping.

Talking of which, I really really need to bloody well finish the "Rain..." epilogue and write chapter 5 of "Strange Glue" so I can post chapter 4. The staying-a-chapter-ahead-of-myself technique is a good one for getting stuff done if I can stick to it...

I'm actually looking forward to rehearsal tonight, for the first time in absolutely ages. I'm not horribly tired (although will be by the time I'm going home) and the opera stuff - evil Verdi Italian awfulness aside - is really great fun to sing. Yay on enjoyment of activities I should be enjoying, rather than dread, I suppose. :)

Swimming last night was also productive. Up to 10 lengths now, which equates to about 200m. Also the bank have finally agreed to give Paul a loan holiday so I'm stressing a little less about affording David's birthday on Friday.

This week's to-do / activity list:

Wednesday - Kiwi's civil partnership celebration drinks, which I think are happening at the OJS.
Friday - gathering for David's birthday: meal at wagamama following by drinking.

Was meant to be seeing Sweeney Todd then but will have to call a rain check, alas. Ah well. I might join them for one drink whilst waiting for Paul to get into town from work, but we'll see how it goes.

I've written about 1000 words of fic this evening.  Prior to that, I re-read the entire of Sweet Intoxication to try and get reinspired, as well as most of Come Forward, and a couple of fics from random fandoms - mostly awful, but anyway.

Considering I've not written anything even slightly creative in... gawd, ages.  Five months?  I can't even remember...  Considering that, this is definitely a positive development.  1000 words of fic - of anything, really - is quite pathetic by my previous standards, but after the rut I've been in for so long, it feels bloody marvellous...

I was feeling so completely, utterly helpless...  it's so strange, to have all these words, pictures and movies in my head and not be able to write them down or articulate them in any useful fashion.  Even when I had the time, I couldn't make the words flow.  I couldn't get them from my brain to my fingertips, or at least to coherency.  Somehow, somewhere, they were getting lost in translation, popping up for a fleeting moment to remind me of my creativity, before disappearing to some dusty filing cabinet in the back of my brain.  Even this entry isn't how I pictured it in my head, because the words are going too fast for me to catch them.

This is why I needed the time off.  My head has been full of a million thoughts and feelings and stories, full to bursting, with no means of release.  To stay up even this late (oh, how I miss those 4.00am struggles to finish a sentence, a paragraph, a chapter...) is a welcome change, knowing I don't have to get up tomorrow to go to work, knowing I won't be utterly exhausted.  I needed this time to find myself again, find that part of myself that lived only for writing... and I think I'm getting there, slowly but surely.

It's going to take time and effort.

Things are getting better now.  The job situation is stabilising; I'll be earning more money, as well as enjoying all the benefits of a proper employee, and by being in position - having already held down the job for over a year - my future prospects may be better.  I'm hopeful that the counselling will help, even though I know, through the nature of my personality, it's going to be hard work and emotionally taxing.

I refuse to be an outright optimist.  Things go well, but then even more things go horrendously badly to make up for it, and this is how things have always been.  I know that once I return to work in a week or so, the overwhelming tiredness will take over again... but with any luck, it may be conquerable.

I need to get back into writing, and through writing, back into fandom.  I miss fandom.  I miss the in-jokes, the quotes, the finding of new friends.  I miss being part of a greater whole, and the knowledge it brings.  I miss the character voices in my head, keeping me awake until Stupid O'Clock when I'm trying to sleep.  Fandoms come and go, but they linger.  My fandoms have been many and copious, but they have stayed with me.  More than anything, I miss the escapism that fandom brings, and the catharsis and satisfaction of fanfiction.

Still.  1000 words.  I'm getting there.

Having wound down from the MH caption insanity (and my inspiration on that's completely dried up, so no more captioning from me for a while...) rumours are rife that series five will be the last one, which makes me sad.  They can't end the series!  They're not allowed to!  They have fangirls to please, dammit!  But, on the plus side, one of the upcoming investigations is in Swindon, which is where Vicky lives, and if I can find out exactly when they're visiting, I think I may be due a stalkage...

I have made pandorasblog's CD and it'll be in the post tomorrow.  I hope she enjoys it. :)

My mother has become an Anne Summers party host to get spare cash.  Which should hopefully equate eventually to free, or at least discounted, cosetry.  Hurrah.  The lady who came to enrol her is completely nuts. :)

None of the pubs I've applied to have gotten back to me, the bastards.  So tomorrow I'll have to do another search at the Job Centre.  Just... ugh, I fucking hate job hunting.  The only jobs I've ever successfully managed to get weren't based on application forms, but on actually talking to a real person who can see you and interact with you, rather than trying to guess your personality from some basic answers.  One thing's for damn sure; I am not, repeat not working at McDonald's again.  It's the most soul-destroying experience I've ever been through, and I'm never doing it ever again.  Ever.  I'd rather vacuum bloody office blocks.

*sigh*  I want some money, please.

( Some ramblings about writing. This'll get long, and I'll complain a lot about nothing in particular. I suggest you ignore it. )

I would like a new brain now.  I'll swap you for one that doesn't think so much.  Just for a week, I want to live like someone who doesn't give a shit about anything and is quite happy being a pointless blot on the landscape, rather than living like someone who cares about far too much and is still a blot on the landscape.  Or maybe just being without brain would be nice.  I'll sell it.

For sale to good home: one brain + thoughts.  Twenty-two years on the clock; well-used but slightly mangled.  Would suit anorexic goth chick, but owner will sell to best offer.

Any takers?

Incidentally, as well as missing the first half of last night's Frasier (whoever decided Wednesday night was Frasier-night needs their head screwing back on), I also managed to miss the final part of Life Begins - right when it was getting good.  Bad enough I missed the first two.  And yes, the ending was cliched and would probably neeever happen (I predicted, and saw the trailer at the end of last week's episode) but dammit, I was enjoying that...

Hm. I imagine it'll be on Living or UK Gold or something.  I'll just have to keep an eye out.

Oo.  I get to go home in a week and indulge in Angel season 5 and a taped Most Haunted Live (which will doubtless refuel the Muses for the original novel/story/novella/whatever that I never got the time to start...)  Hurrah!  It might actually make writing Angel into the latest epic Buffyfic possible...  I mean, he was going to be there anyway, but I made no promises towards the characterisation.

Stop spamming, woman.  Get ready for work.

( in which i describe a rather amusing event from several years ago for the purposes of your entertainment )

so, yes. that was yesterday, when i was randomly struck with the urge to livejournal the alan davies incident, and had no frelling internet access. but anyway, i'm here now. hallowe'en costume is nearly completed - just need to... straighten the wig. if i turn up in a white clown wig, don't. bloody. ask...

rocky in two days! :D am reverting to tradition of going as magenta; clare will be columbia, but we're organising such tonight (assuming she turns up...) have too many coursework assignments to choose things for.

so far, i'm considering: for paranoid & apocalyptic cultures, possibly, david blaine and illusionists through history (part of increasingly paranoid culture) - because i watched all of the david blaine randomosity on channel four last night and right after he started the 'glass box' stunt he haunted my dreams for two days running. i hereby decree that the man in a lunatic, but he may suit my coursework perfectly...

and for contexts 3, which is all about responsibility as a writer, i'm thinking of dave peltzer and the "child called it" trilogy, and his responsibility in terms of writing about child abuse. but that may turn out to be horribly complicated and involve lots of research, so i might end up ranting about the phantom movie and the producer's responsibility to the fans vs. general public. *shrug* they do say to write what you know...

still no "um...?" from dave ellis about the fanfiction independent studies idea, so clearly he thinks its a valid literary form, too. :P

anything for an easy ride, me...

so... yeah. i think that's everything. still need to get a white shirt and black tie for the costume - does anyone have a black tie i could borrow to save my having to buy one?

i keep considering re-filing all of my writings into "finished" and "work in progress" as well as the current fandoms i've got them sorted into... it would make life far easier, and might actually make me finish a few of them. at last count, i think the WIP list was something like...

voyager - "memory", "unimatrix zero ii" (i never claimed to be good at titles when i started these things...), "bohemian - beauty"
farscape - "the farscape horror show", "words", "rhapsody", "the crossover of doom" (although i think we can let that one off...)
sunset boulevard - "tango up on sunset" is constantly unfinished...
frasier - "something old, something new" - the sequel to "til donny do us part", which was a sequel to the finale of season 7 (?), "something borrowed, something blue"...
pokémon - the pokéfic, "journeys"... i found my plan for that the other day...
jonathan creek - both attempts at chapter fics, neither of which have titles...
buffy - "counterpoint for chosen", but i have only just started that one. and, i guess, the crossover fits under buffy, too...
phantom - "freedom from darkness", the four-part saga, still only has three and a half parts; "sweet intoxication" is still going but will hopefully actually end.

not to mention the various original things i start and never finish. and not to mention the things i have yet to start...

"the phantom of the sickbay" (and "the phantom of sunnydale", possibly), "my fair borg", "leviathan rouge", "the wizard of the UT", "sunset at tiffany's" (although that one's seeming more likely), etc, etc, etc...

i need another brain. another pair of hands would be nice, too. that's all i need. a brain and two hands...

anyway, apologies for the pointlessness. this is what happens when i am deprived of the internet for this long. just be glad you're being spared the usual late-night/early-morning angst; i can think of several occasions where there would have been some. ;)

if i don't livejournal after rocky (which is unlikely), i'll see most of you on saturday. 3.00pmish, briar rose, free drink for pirate-alikes, if you missed the email...

and have a drenload of community posts to wade through.

why must people post so much?

i attempted to do a cretan travellogue in my little notebook, but got as far as one entry saying how knackered i was, along with a bit of sunset-fic and some inspiration for buffyfic. which is good, i suppose.

will post my further learnings of the greek alphabet later... who says a holiday can't be educational...?

oh, and in other news:

happy birthday, lorna! we have to meet up so you can be given your present and things...

just got a very random phonecall off alison, who i haven't seen since before a-levels. we're meeting up on saturday :D i'll take the digital camera and take peectures.

talking of which, i'll upload the holiday photos and possibly show a few that don't make me look like a beached whale...

things currently making my brain ache beyond reason:

~ little shop of horrors. more precisely, the going to thereof, and the possibility of meeting you-know-who a second time. it should get easier the second time, not more difficult. i know he's approachable and lovely... but that doesn't help. in fact, that makes it worse. i know for a fact that, no matter how prepared (or, in this case, not) i am, and no matter how calm i appear to be, or think i've become, as soon as he appears i'll be a complete wreck all over again. (and i know he's gay... that doesn't help either...) i could be here all night just mantra-ing an "oh, god..." until i can't speak any more, but i won't...
~ musicals, and all related rants. i have a lot. one day i might actually write some of them down in a coherent fashion.
~ 'cats'. if there's anyone to whom i haven't said this yet, i apologise in advance for march 15th if i fall apart completely or end up in hysterical tears. i can't guarantee i'll be able to control my emotions. to put it simply, SB was probably me at the height of euphoria, catatonic though i was for most of it; 'cats' is probably going to be me at the very height of despair, depending on whether or not i can be bothered to hide it... so, yeah. warning, in advance...
~ 'cats' and related ranty things - namely, that nearly every goddamn state in the US has had a production at some point, and the thing's been touring since, oh, 1999. we here in the UK will, in all liklihood, get this tour. one single tour... a tour that will inevitably end, of a show that will immediately dissolve into the past again. the fact that it's touring at all is bloody amazing. after all, it already toured once, back in 1995... (and, on a somewhat related subject - it's our frelling show. it's british-made. and, as usual, it goes over to america and gets star treatment, whereas over here, in its place of birth, it gets shoved into a box and forgotten about. as i was saying to lloyd on saturday during our heated debate, the three shows that got lloyd webber where he is are 'cats', 'phantom of the opera', and 'joseph' [or anything pre-1980 from the start of his career] and pretty much everything after that has been somewhat mediochre, 'evita' and 'sunset boulevard' aside. [see, i'm a lloyd webber geek, but i'm a sensible and realisitic one. i admit fully that the man is a disgustingly talented moron...] 'cats' is closed; it's immortalised in video form. 'joseph' is closed; it's immortalised in video form; 'evita' is closed; it's immortalised in movie form. do we see a pattern developing? now, they were planning the phantom movie... this worries me intensely. if he closes phantom in the west end, that'll be it. that'll cause me to give up on him entirely. it'll be the final straw, i swear. luckily, thanks to billy wilder's death, they've pushed the sunset movie deadline ahead of the phantom movie, and that's already closed and toured, so i'm not as worried about it aside from the hideous casting decisions... okay, i completely lost my point, there. my point was, once they finish on the west end, that's it, they're forgotten about... in america, it's an entirely different story, and that pisses me off beyond measure...)
~ various shows that i have not enough money to watch. one day, i'll be deathly passionate about something i can bloody afford...
~ the realisation that nearly all of my life-angst comes back full circle to that moment in 1995 when i saw 'cats' for the first time. (and i realise this is a very 'cats-orientated rant, but my brain's on a roll, it seems.) or, at least, all the life-angst that revolves around the part of me that still wants to be a musicals/broadway star despite my decided lack of talent.
~ the further realisation that, even though i'm passing my course, i have no idea what to do with it once i've done it. it's all very well being a fashionably impoverished author, but that's not who i am... i want to be a fashionably disgustingly rich author, and it ain't going to happen because no matter what everyone says, i'm not good enough, and/or do not have the drive to take it anywhere. both of my dreams are falling apart around my knees because i'm too tired to do a damn thing about either of them.

and... okay, i'm going to stop now before this veers even further away from the point. and i realise lately that my angstrants are no longer even cathartic or therapeutic, merely annoying because they make me worse...

sorry.

you can all go about your business now.