Saturday, October 15

Writing And Thinking And Going Haywire

I'm pretty sure this song wasn't in the playlist I just chose, but that's just secondary, and not really what I was thinking at all. Listening to some Shinedown while thinking about stuff. There isn't even anything for me to do in the apartment because I already cleaned and did the dishes yesterday. Odd feeling, there's always something I should be doing but being in front of the screen; but now there isn't - and to top that off I have even spent my planned hours on studying too today, so I've been quite ambitious! Still, my mood swings up and down like the pendulum in a grandfather's clock. It has been pretty stable since I heard Elton John sing I'm Still Standing on the radio when I was taking a drive over to the supermarket, but before that it went haywire. I really felt like just taking the car and going home to Mom and Dad and my sister, even though I wouldn't have arrived until after midnight, which I doubt would have been very popular... still, it's quite tempting to do it tomorrow morning and just surprise everyone, and to, I don't know, just get away from everything around here. It would be cool taking a drive just over to the gas station, stop there, fill up the car, have a coffee and then drive back. I think I might just do that, who knows. I really don't feel like being here tomorrow, there's even a big party planned which will probably be fun, but I'm broke and yeah... a little tired of partying, at the same time as it's the only thing I want to do. No, correction. Drinking is something I want to do, partying - not as much. I kinda miss the times when I was just sitting at home in my little apartment, writing away or watching stuff like Red Dwarf or reading Stephen King, drinking wine and being creative. It's in some ways incredibly depressing to be around the same parties with the same people all the time. I really want to meet new people and maybe make some new friends just for a change, but I always end up with the same people and just, blah. I don't know, it's not that I don't like the people I hang out with because I really do, I appreciate them all a lot - I'm just looking for some people who might have more stuff in common with me. Even though we have our school in common, well... it remains for people to realize that a person is more than what school they attend and well, I have a lot of hobbies that would be interesting to discuss with someone. I think that I might try to go to some write-ins, or maybe even arrange some, when Nanowrimo is here. I'm not sure I'll be able to do the full 50K since I've got both school and I need to squeeze in two more working weekends between now and New Years (already have one scheduled) but I'll be damned if I'm not going to WRITE. I have a pretty good idea too, so I'm quite excited for it! I've posted in the Nanowrimo forums for people in my area who might want to meet up, so far no replies. If no one is active in my area I think I will ask if I can join the Gothenburg people. They're probably friendly and I don't think they'd mind another Nano on board. I could really use some change of scenery - seriously. I don't know exactly why that feels so important right now.


Yesterday I think I made a huge mistake by violating one of the great Stephen's many rules about writing - keep the door closed. I even think I've blogged about it myself, but I couldn't resist. I had just finished a story I call Grammofonen for the Bonnier Carlsen's horror story contest and I really wanted to get some feedback on it. The feedback I got was: "It's well written and I got curious - but then I got disappointed. I don't understand the story". I didn't want to explain too much because I'd like people to read it and start thinking about what it means and what really happens in it; but it didn't work all that well. And now I'm stuck in doubt about this story. Did I make it too cryptical? Does the reader really have to read the other three stories connected to it in order to make sense of it? Is it too poetic, is it too abstract? I don't know, and I'm having such doubts. I'm letting the story rest for now and we'll see how I feel about it when I look at it a bit later on. Bonnier Carlsen accepts multiple stories for their contest so it doesn't really matter, I can always send in another submission if I should feel like it; but still... I don't know. Every writer doubts, I know that. I just wish I hadn't been so eager to show it to someone, because now it feels like the story has a wounded leg and can't walk properly; and I was actually happy with it when I'd finished it. I think in the end I will send it in as it is, because of one simple reason - it was a story I'd been thinking about for a long time that links together some vital things from other stories. I just thought that it would work as a stand-alone story. Maybe asking someone else to read it might also work, if I can get another perspective on it perhaps. OR, that would be repeating the deadly mistake. This close to Nano - don't let anyone make you doubt your writing or you're doomed! Ahhh, it's so easy to give advice to yourself, you just never listen to it properly. Sigh.


On another note I'm quite unusually broke (yes... probably the fifth-hundredth post about lack of money!) and I put up some stuff on this auction site for sale and hoping someone will pick it up. One auction for a bundle of band T-shirts and tops that don't fit me anymore and one auction for three of my prettiest dresses, which I can't wear anymore either. They're just lying around in the closet anyway so what's the use in keeping them? Still it feels a little sad. I wish I had something better to get rid off that would actually give me some money. These are really just pennies and nickles. But it's better than nothing. It's actually come down to the point where I'm going to exchange my leftover Euros from Vienna tomorrow. They're worth far less when they are exchanged back into Swedish money than they were before they were exchanged into Euros but I need every penny I can get to last me until payday. The reason I'm so broke right now is that I borrowed money from my London fund to pay for Vienna, and I had to pay that money back on the following paycheck. In worst case scenario I could borrow again from the London fund but that just ruins the entire purpose of having it. It's not an emergency-fund, it's the London fund; and I'd still have to pay that back again next paycheck so it's really a Catch 22 as far as that's concerned.

Really, really hoping I will get that job for the university, working at the Gamex game display in Stockholm! We got the chance to sign up for it last Monday and I signed up right away. Two or three days standing in the display case marketing the Computer Games Development Programmes - there are harder jobs, and more boring ones as well. I'm waiting to hear back from the teachers. It would help me a lot because it would give me some of the London money I had expected to gain with the writing job that didn't happen (a subject I'm only touching on lightly because I don't want to think about it and be all disappointed all over again).



Right, what are you standing here for, back to swabbing your decks and so should I. I have a long day of doing nothing mixed with possibly some storyboard drawing and possibly some alcohol later on in the evening.
POET IN THE JAR

3 comments:

  1. I know that feeling when you just want to go home. or at least a feeling similar to that. it lasted me days... it's not that I'm homesick but I just missed the feeling of coming home and sleeping in your own bed, being in the place where I belong. unfortunately that didn't turn out like that when I eventually got home though... but well, what can you do.

    I hope your money problems get sorted out sooner or later! hang in there, I know it's hard and stressful to be so low on money but just hold on.

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  2. It never turns out that way. We tend to glamorize things in our heads when we're in other places and with other people. Still, it's only human to miss being home, I guess. But I also think it's one of those things that comes and goes, and I always long for home in the times when I'm the most stressed about school. So it's really no wonder.

    Yeah, I didn't get that job for the school but I managed to get a little loan from my Mom so it worked out. I hate getting loans from my parents, I'm 23 and I should be supporting myself - and what am I supporting myself with, if not already student loans. But what can you do, life fucks you over sometimes and in comparison to the greatness of the cosmos or something equally vague like that my money problems are like a piss in the sea.

    I apologize for my... bad language.

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  3. yeah but I still thought that the relief after finally getting home would be just a bit greater. But it wasn't and what's sad about it is that for the first time I ever I didn't want to return to opisto. now it's a bit better but still it kind of feels like I'm in a wrong place in a way or another. but well I guess that'll pass, too.

    don't be so hard on yourself because really, you're still just a student and as long as you don't have a permanent job, there's really no way you could fully support yourself. at least in Finland the goverment doesn't pay the students enough to support them so that they wouldn't need any extra money. if you are still taking money from your parents when you're, say, 33 you're doing something wrong xD

    bad language is fully acceptable especially when you're talking with a teenager who curses more than... uncurses.

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