NaNo '07: [[65228 Words]] NaNo '08: [[6000 apx. Words]] NaNo '09: [[56247 Words]] NaNo '10: [[53051 Words]] NaNo '11: [[N/A]] The Great Couch Happening of '69: [[105700 Words]] The Chronicles of Stan: [[N/A]]



"Mirthless merriment, sickly sentiments so commonplace
It would bore you to tears
Give me non-stop laughter, dispel disaster
Or the Rotter's Club might well lop off your ears
Laughing and drinking, dancing, grooving, stoned again
Falling over singing, hoping that you'll share it!"

( Who is this human?! )

::Charities I Support::
Centrepoint [x] | The Prince's Trust [x] | (Heifer) Worldbuilders [x] | The Office of Letters and Light [x]
Amnesty International [x]

WRITERS! Want a link in my sidebar?

Just letting you guys all know that I am alive and I'm alright.

I've been hellishly busy of late with this project for Holly. It should be all shifted by March 4th, so I'm hoping regular life will resume then. Novelling, regular sleep, less junk food. I don't know how long it will be before I can post the fruits of my labour up here. The artwork last time was embargoed for AAAGES because of an upcoming festival it had a chance of appearing in and all that jazz - could be I won't be able to post anything until it's all produced and graded. But hopefully soon. Some of it is looking good!

So yeah, this is why I've been absent. Not that you guys aren't used to that already. I miss you all, and I miss being able to journal regularly! *cries*

Hello everyone! Just letting you all know that I made it to Ireland safe and well. The ferry didn't sink, I wasn't killed en route to Stranraer and I have thus far avoided being killed by bandits and ninjas.

So why have I neglected my journal for yet another week? The answer, my friends, is simple.

One, welcome week and commuting have both kept me exceptionally busy and two, I'm rather lazy. But you all know that already!

What I have been doing, however, is writing daily letters to Jason. They're basically accounts of what I've been up to each day, plus a crapload of waffling about how much I miss him and all the rest.

I'll post them up here for you all to read (the ones I've written, anyway) - though they're personal, this journal has always been rather personal in nature anyway and there's nothing in the letters that is too private. Plus, missing Jason - and indeed everyone back home - is all part of the university experience for me.

I hope everyone's doing fantastically, and I promise I'll get my act together soon! I'd hate to graduate after three years and have no record in my journal of the epic adventures between now and then!

It's a miracle! I have Internet! Semagic is actually working! At the same time!

Well well, life has certainly progressed since my last 'posted' entry. I am now halfway through my second-to-second-to-last week of working as a voluntary journalist at the St Helens Star (as in I have three weeks left, including this one). Jason's gone to Exeter for the induction week of this Horticulture course he's soon to be starting. His Mum, Maria, has not gone back to Tom and doesn't seem to want to - thank god. The most recent thirty pages of 'The Great Couch Happening of '69' have gone missing so I'm focusing on 'The Chronicles of Stan' while I search for them. I have finally seen Caravan perform in concert, which was utterly fantastic!

Our Internet's been off for a little while because we have finally escaped from TalkTalk! Dad finally decided he'd had enough and gave Sky the call to change our providers. After a week or so of 'net downtime in which everything was shifted over, here we are, floating in a cloud of low-cost, high speed Internet and good customer service! I'll only be able to enjoy it for a month but what the heck - it's worth it after what you all know has been a long, gruelling saga of Internet fuckery.

I guess it's time I start filling in the gaps, then! Like I said in my last posted entry ('Don't Cut the Air Off Yet; I'm Still Breathing!' - July 26, 2011), I have entries both handwritten and typed to get up here. It's going to be a long effort but I think it'll all be worth it to see my journal all together and complete. Plus readership seems to have sloped off with my absence, understandably - I must make it up to you all!

Contrary to popular belief, I am still alive. I've been alternating between typing entries in work and e-mailing them to myself, and simply scribbling them into a notebook I bought recently. So there are journal entries to come.

The lack of actual updating comes from two things: firstly, work has kept me busy (particularly yesterday, when the phones exploded with incoming calls of epic tales across the town) and my Semagic has been playing silly buggers due to a dodgy Internet connection. I may have to re-teach myself how to post via e-mail, as that would certainly cut out the middle man!

I'd use LiveJournal directly in work but I don't much fancy being caught using a social networking site where I have only one or two friends in the immediate vicinity. Social networking is okay, apparently, as long as it has the potential to deliver possible news leads...

I'm feeling pretty chuffed with myself this morning. I woke up at 8am, which is very late, got dressed straight away and I'n now polishing off my first cup of tea (chai, to be precise, courtesy of Jason's mum Maria) before going to work.

I had a really awful dream last night. In a nutshell, I was sent to work abroad for a year because there was no alternative, meaning I was on my own, in Spain. I had a heckload of money but I was bloody miserable without Jason there.

Anyway, time to finish my tea and get to work! I'll try a full write-up on the dream later.

I have been neglecting my journal somewhat. Happily, I've been using Twitter quite extensively both in and out of work so when it comes to writing up events of the week(s) gone by, I'll have those tweets to remind me what's been going on.

I'll assure you all, though, that life has overall been quite good. But for a few minor hiccups. I wouldn't change life right now for the world.

Right, I've finally managed to get through the immense backlog of comments. I wasn't ignoring you guys all last week; I've just had a lot on my mind with This Bloody Course, that's all.

All the stress meant I wasn't having much of a home/social life. I was coming home every day exhausted, wanting nothing more than to pass out in front of the telly. My room became a mess, my journal, but for the odd post, was neglected.

Weird, isn't it, how just trying not to lose your patience all day can take so much out of you. I kind of understand why Tim and Vicky are so tired with us now, because I'm tired with everyone else.

So, I'm getting myself sorted out. I tidied my room and wrote a little last night, so things are starting to feel a little more normal. I'm going to have dinner in a minute, then go upstairs, make my bed and tidy up my desk.

As for entries on the to-do list, I believe I have yesterday's shenanigans with the final presentation speech and the tea party on the day before (the last day of my final team challenge) to update you all on.

Also, I found a whole load of handwritten entries yesterday that bridge the gap between my computer dying and my excursion to Ireland. So I should probably try to get those up some time.

An extensive list of every item catalogued in my online collection. I'm hoping to update this daily until I've got everything on there, then update every time I get a new addition. The list is ordered by ARTIST/AUTHOR, and then by DATE OF RELEASE.

( Clicky clicky! )

It may interest you all to learn that I have recently sailed across the 1,000 journal entries milestone.

This is good. Very good. I have over 1,000 entries now, spanning three/four years of my life. And probably over a hundred A4 pages of handwritten journal still waiting to be typed. Holes to be filled in, and all that jazz.

It's encouraging, especially in the light of my recent lack of activity on here. I see just how far I've come and it spurs me on. Here's to another three/four years, and another thousand entries?

To celebrate, an amusing story from the other night.

On Friday, I got back from St. Helens absolutely knackered. I'd been to a nightclub with Anna the previous night, and had slept on a duvet on Anna's friend's floor. You can probably appreciate how tired I was. So I survived Friday, came home, loafed about and had an early night. I got to sleep at about 9PM.

The next thing I knew, I was sat up in the dark, on the phone. A male voice, who I was unable to recognise through the fog of exhaustion, was talking on the other end. Apologising for phoning me up. I mumbled a farewell and he hung up. Lay down. Realised what had just happened, and sat up again. I couldn't - and still can't - recall the phone ringing. Or picking it up for that matter. One minute I was dozing off and the next - boom! I was on the phone.

Turns out it was Alex. God knows what he phoned for. If he'd phoned accidentally he would have immediately hung up, rather than stay on the line and let me answer. As for me, I clearly sleep-answered. It's not the first time I've done stuff in my sleep.

You never know, I could be asleep right now. *shifty eyes*

I will be in an hour or so, anyway. I'm off to bed! Later, chaps, and sweet dreams to you all!

WRITERS! May I have your attention, please!

Yes, even you at the back. Stop fidgeting and listen!

Clearly they aren't listening. *shouts* Oi! Mate! Your head's on fire!

Right. Now that I have your attention, have this extinguisher. And now let's proceed.

You may have noticed that my sidebar has undergone a change in the last week or so. The links list has now been divided up into three sections: Kelza's personal/contact links, the charities I support and, last but not least, the Writers section. Lixin, aka the wonderful bulletbox, has already got her very own shiny link there.

So, this is the post in which I invite you all to throw your writing links at me, whether they be separate blogs on LiveJournal, your personal journal which you lob all your writing onto or a blog that isn't here in the Eljayverse. You can link to my blog if you want.

It might help, especially to those of you who, like myself, aspire to be published, to have connections dotted about on the Internet. I'd say more, but there isn't much else to be said! Now, without further ado, hurl your links if you so please!

In a twist of fate most cruel, I posted a reply to a comment regarding anti-virus (in response to my entry about the recent ThinkPoint conundrum), and immediately afterwards, something popped up.

Damn you, ThinkPoint! Isn't it obvious that you aren't wanted, you pitiful, greasy little bastard? Get off my shiny new computer and perish in a thousand burning rubbish heaps! Then rub salt into your eyes whilst singing the French national anthem in Anglo-Norwegian! Then gamble away your life's savings (which you've no doubt pilfered off the good, honest and slightly more idiotic members of the Internet) betting on whether a guinea pig will explode on command! You are a pointless use of space! A waste of megabites! I detest you! Go away!

And choose somewhere quiet and remote to go away to. Like Svalbard, for example. No doubt they'll have use for you there.

So. To those of you who are slightly baffled by my sudden reversion to public blogging, I have decided to emerge from beneath my rock. It was difficult; with the weather being as it is I was frozen to the ground. I panicked for a bit, hoping my raw emotion would ionise the air or generate enough heat to set me free, but alas, no luck. I then made like an utter prat and used hot water. Which froze me even more.

Slightly defrosted a million years later, I realised what happened and bought without paying a crowbar from a passing lunatic, chiselled my legs free and then prised my arms off the ground, thus defying the laws of, frankly, everything and breaking reality as a result. My characters scoffed at me saying 'you're as bad as the rest of us!' and then I had them all perish in a fire. The fire was perfectly harmless, you understand, being made of words... to people, anyway. Huzzah!

I am now in the process of figuring out how to unperish all of my characters because without them, my career as a writer will go in the general direction of down the pan. And I hear the pan isn't a very nice place. Cholera, Mafia shootings and the like. It also vaguely resembles a toilet.

( There's a lion behind this cut. And it's hungry. Happily, it's a vegetarian. Unfortunately for you, you're a leek. Happily, it doesn't like leek. Unfortunately for you, it's got naff eyesight and it thinks you're a carrot. And it loves carrots. )