Workin' Nine To Five - How Commitments Make Me Productive

. . . Well, actually it's only one 'till five on a Saturday afternoon. And it's volunteering, 'cause I'm not getting paid.

That said, I'm still working in the technical sense. And it's kind of awesome.

This Saturday past, I undertook my first shift at my local Oxfam bookshop. My first real working job, surprise surprise! After a long and miserable hunt for suitable establishments with whom to work over the summer, none proving successful, it felt great to just be able to walk into a place and find people delighted at the prospect of having you scuttling about their establishment.

Best part? I'm on duty with a pair of fellow young'uns (apparently a rare species in the volunteer world), and both are as excitable about books, nerdiness, and compulsively hunting out that one edition of the book the customer wants as I am.

Seriously, ten minutes looking for that particular Bible, and the wretched thing was only on the top shelf where no one could reach it. Thank the lord for expertly-deployed piggybacks!

Still, although it's not a full day of work, that's a big chunk out of one of the few commitment-free days I've been gifted with this year. If I'm stacking shelves and mis-quoting Dickens over the counter, that's time I'm not spending organising events, working on essays, doing my reading, and (as you may have noticed) blogging, isn't it?

Surely if I take on too much, I'll never get anything done?

That, my friends, is where you are wrong.

After egotism, laziness is one of my biggest character flaws. Stick it up on my submission form to Is My Character A Mary Sue Dot Com. I am lazy. So lazy. But I'm very clever about it. See, I don't tell myself I'm lazy - I tell myself I'll do it in a minute. After all, I have a whole day, it can wait another hour until my brain wakes up. After all, my flatmates did keep me up that extra hour when they came in and had a little dance party at 11 o'clock. I can have a bit more time.

One day later, my time is gone, and Future Me wishes Past Me a thousand more collisions with the sharp edge of her desk.

However, if I know I only have, say, two hours before my next commitment, I don't have that excuse. I will get down to it, and I will finish that task, and then I will move on.

You see, although I'm very lazy - I'm also compulsively completist. If I start something - a book, an essay, a presentation, a family-sized bag of Minstrels - I will finish it. I cannot stand things half done. I will set myself a goal and if I do not pass it then I fear my world will implode.

Schedules generate a sort of positive stress. Stress generates brain activity, and that brain activity translates to Charley getting a lot more things done than she would if you gave her a whole day and a coffee-stained To Do list.

I can already feel it. I've been writing more, working faster, eating better, and I'm feeling my bloggy mojo return slowly but surely as I start balancing out my day-to-day schedules.

I've got plenty of commitments this term. So, odds are, you'll be seeing a lot more of me in the coming weeks.

Anybody else work the same way? Leave a comment, and let me know.

~ Charley R

And Now For Something Completely Different!

Huh. I see the cleaning minions never materlialised. Cobwebs, cobwebs, cobwebs . . .

. . . Oh, hello. Didn't realise you were still here.

A lot has changed in the world of Charley since my last post here - unfortunately, a shift in status to Almighty Ruler of Earth and the Universe at Large has not been one of them (yet).

I shall not bore you with protracted explanations of the chaos that ensued after the fateful day of examination results came - I made a vlog all about that - but, suffice to say, that my first few days at university have danced merrily across the line between gloriously fun and incomprehensibly manic. Still, now I have begun to settle into my routine, and plough through the endlessly vast pile of books that are this term's reading.

I shall probaly be doing some posts on those later. Keep your eyes peeled.

In fact, keep your eyes peeled for plenty of exciting things coming up! Because, although my reading pile is huge and I will, doubtless, soon be swimming more than walking through my bookshelves, I do have some free days.

Furthermore, this year promises adventures. Many, many adventures. Stay tuned.

However, as we stare off into the tangled purple underbelly of the future (don't ask - dye is dangerous stuff in the wrong hands), I think I shall conclude this post with a look to the past.

September the 22nd was Hobbit Day - the shared birthday of Frodo and Bilbo Baggins. As well as amalgamating a post called Hobbits, According To You! over at The Book Chewers, I also wanted to do something here.

Of course, I completely forgot to do that. Nevertheless, a thing belated is no less a thing to be enjoyed. Especially if said thing happens to be a party.

~ Charley R

Writing A Souffle: Guest Posts and The Stickines of Real Life

Not long ago, I was approached by the lovely Seana to do a guest post on her blog - which, due to my unending enthusiam for such things, I did. Regrettably, that was one of the few things I did get round to doing recently.

The road to not-blogging is lined with shiny distractions. Also pizza.

And now I'm about to go and do very irresponsible adventure-like things in Bavaria for a week. No fear, my friends! Although the place is filled with cows, mountain pastures and people in lederhosen, they do have internet access, so I will be back now and then. Hopefully with pictures of me looking amusing while failing epically at performing the aforementioned adventure-like activities.

In the meantime, please enjoy the post I wrote for Seana - and try not to miss me too much. In the words of Schwarzenegger: I'll be back!

* * *

There are many varied and wonderful metaphors for writing a book, but, personally, I’ve always thought it was most like making a soufflé; incredibly time-consuming, needlessly complex, and unless it does anything short of explode, very difficult to tell if you’re doing it right.

Now imagine two or three other people in that same kitchen with you, up to their elbows in flour, eggs and all those other ingredients none of you can pronounce, each every bit as confused and sticky as you are.

Chaotic?

Yep. Inescapably. You may be absolutely certain that your biggest priority is to bring the geriatric oven up to temperature, but the pie dish has other ideas and one of your companions is shoulder-deep in something that looks like it’s achieved sentience in the most malevolent meaning of the word.

That said, it is a lot easier to wrestle this culinary abomination into the oven when there’s three of you to keep it from dissolving into a portal to the underworld through the kitchen floor.

Writing, of any sort, is never going to be the easiest job in the world. But, should you choose to make an oxymoron of ‘the world’s loneliest profession’, here are a few tips from me on how, perhaps, to avert the worst of the inevitable ‘splosions.

1 – Plan! Set! Action!

Admittedly, with anything between two to twenty-thousand brains on the project, you can have a slightly greater degree of flexibility when it comes to plotting the exactitudes of the narrative. Nevertheless, having a plan is important. For all the oven temperature may rise with every exchange, the soufflé will be rising slower than a turtle in treacle unless each collaborator does their bit to make the mix.

What these goals are is up to you; whether you want to work out the whole thing, beforehand or just set goals as you go along. What’s important is that you have those goals, and that you’re all helping to reach them.

2 – Communicate!

Well done, Captain Obvious!

When writing alone, the need for communication is fairly minimal outside of talking, screaming and making deeply insidious noises to yourself at various stages of operation. Not so with collaborative writing – if even one of you is left behind when plans change, then you might as well add TNT to the recipe and wait for the blast.

Depending on the size of your group, you may need to adapt your method: three-way emails certainly proved more a bane than a boon in our case. But, whether it’s Skype or smoke signals, as long as everyone’s in the loop, that’s one less thing to worry about.

3 – Take A Chance!

My stronger sensibilities prevent me from bursting into the full refrain of the famous ABBA song, but the sentiment remains. One of the great joys of collaborative writing is knowing that, even if your wordy creativity is so low you wouldn’t recognise the alphabet if it sat on you, there are other minds out there who are still capable of producing herrings so red you can see them from the top of Mount Everest with the naked eye. Should a brainstorm turn up something that gets all three of you excited, don’t be afraid to get out the red pens and start redacting the original recipe. An idea that makes all three of you toss back your heads and cackle with glee is, in all likelihood, going to make a much better story than something that barely warrants an amenable “meh”.

Besides, if it all goes wrong, a semi-combusted plot is much easier to amend than a kitchen that looks like it’s been through a World War fought with angry dragons made of Martian space goo.

-

Now . . . soufflé, anyone?

~ Charley R

Excitement Abounds!

Recently, exciting events in my life have been rather like buses: you'll wait and age for one to come along, and then a thousand of them will suddenly lurch around the corner and reduce you to jam in the middle of the road.

While the SWAT team reclaim what is left of my innards from the tarmac, I shall tell you all about it.

As you may or may not have guessed by my sudden disappearance and cryptic references to existential crises the year round, I have finally left school - definitively, once and for all, never to return - and proved this by attending the school Leavers' Ball on Saturday night.

A word to the wise: riding fairground rides in a floor-length ball gown is not for the faint hearted.

Needless to say, though, it was a pretty emotional night - tears all over the place (none of them mine, oddly enough), many hugs and promises to stay in contact, a lot of off-kilter dancing to songs we only knew half the words to and, of course, only five hours' sleep between the end of the festivities and the homeward journey in the morning.

And this.


This picture was, of course, taken before I got into the gown, and long before my first ride on the Dodgems reduced this rather glorious affair to the fluffy blonde ruination that accurately mirrored my mental state for the rest of the evening.

Until that day, the longest I had ever spent in a haidresser's chair was approximately an hour. The magnificence you see before you here took just under three hours - colouring, washing, cutting, and styling included.

At this moment, I am still rather confused as to exactly what I think of it - not in the least because I still jump every time I fail to recognise myself in the mirror every morning.

Then again, it did make me feel like Cersei Lannister. That's always a plus.



In other news, I've also been adventuring in - wait for it - driving. I passed the theory component of my test nearly two weeks ago now, and on Friday I will be taking the pratical part. Of course, to help me on my way, I've been enrolled in a 40-hour intensive driving course: four hours every day, every day. Admittedly I had a few days off in the middle, but as those days coincided with the Ball, you can understand that neither my brain nor my deeply abused kneecaps were in much of a state to be dealing with much in the afternoons.

Then again, that's not entirely true. Which brings me on to my last piece of excitement . . .

Many of you, doubtless, have heard of The Book Chewers blog - devourers of books the world over, compilers of quotes and memories and theories (among other things), and most certainly one of the coolest conglomerations of people on the web.

You may remember that I wrote a post for them, some time ago - When Characters Come Alive - during that month's discussion of Cornelia Funke's Inkheart. 

Well, if you liked that, then there's good news for you - the team have, out of their infinite beneficience, invited me to become a full-time member of the staff!

My first post is due to appear on the 10th of July, and after that I'll be posting every other Wednesday, give or take a few extemporaneous circumstances.

Phew! That was rather a longer list of things than I had anticipated. Doubtless I could fit more on it, but I'm not entirely sure that my attempts to articulate the madness that is masquerading as my life would be as successful as I would like.

So, dear readers, I shall bid you all a fond adieu - or rather, a fond 'hello', because in the near future it looks as if I will be back and posting much more in line with my somewhat neglected schedule. I've got some very exciting post ideas in the pipeline, along with many more exicing announcements when the time comes.

Hold onto your hats. It's going to be a bumpy ride . . .

~ Charley R

Exam Revision - The Musical!

You know that my powers of retention

Are as wet, as the swim team's backside.

But doomed as I am, pay attention!

My words are a matter of pride.

It's clear from your vacant expressions,

The lights are not all on upstairs,

But we're talking rules and exceptions - 

Even you can't be caught unawares!

So prepare for the task of a lifetime,

Be prepared for unspeakable blues!

Unpleasant exam time,

It's just about damn time,

And where do I feature?

Oh do tell me, teacher!

I know it's sounds sordid,

But you'll be rewarded

When at last I escape from these rooms,

If only I were not so very scared,

UNPREPARED!

Yeah, unprepared, you're always unprepared . . . for what?

 For the end of my days!

 What, are you sick?

No, fool, they're gonna kill me! And slowly, too.

 Great idea, who needs you? Dead Charley, dead Charley, la la la la la la.

 Idiots! They won't take me easily.

 But you just said that - 

 I will be ready! Just watch me - then I'll never back go to school again!

 Yaaay, alright! No school again, no school again!

 So prepare for the end of my school-time,

Be prepared for sensational news,

Meticulous planning, tenacity spanning,

Through essays un-numbered, I'll fly unencumbered,

To blogging unbounded,

To freedom - unfounded! -

You'll see what a wonder I plan.

Yes, my notes and my timeplans are bared.

I'M PREPARED!

ALL: Yes my flipcards and timeplans are bared

I'M PREPAAAAAAAAAARED!

* * *

Lyrics and tune shamelessly stolen adapted from: "Be Prepared" - The Lion King

Regular transmission will resume from this station from Friday 7th June. Stay tuned!

Charley vs The World

Note to self: attempting to fortify the underside of one's desk really isn't the best way to deal with an ever-mounting pile of schoolwork. Even if it is hugely entertaining when the cleaner jumps at the sound of your seemingly disembodied voice.

You guessed it - Charley is, once again, lost in the Slough of Despond, which is the second turn to the left after you pass the Pits of Unending Exhaution, and just up the road from Deadlines That All Come On The Same Day.

Workload . . . . what did I ever do to you that you must thus abuse me?

With my A2 exams coming up in early June, the cosmos has taken a considerable turn for the busy with deadlines for coursework, university selection, and extended essay presentations running face first into the wall of International Fairs, debating competitions, and the fact that I feel the need to comfort any sad person within striking range. And believe me, there are a lot of those in my immediate vicinity right now.

Nothing like cuddling the bereaved to remind you how insignificant your own troubles are.

That said, I'm going to put my tattered and long-since disgarded resolution to be more productive into action this week, if only to save what's left of my ever-shrinking sanity. As a result, unfortunately, extended periods of blogging will not be permitted. Thus, I may end up missing a day or two in the blogosphere (though hopefully my inner OCD, not to mention automatic Work Avoidance Instinct will at least encourage me to be productive enough to post something for you).

Wish me luck. I'm certainly going to need it.

~ Charley R

Something Plotting This Way Comes . . . - NaNoWriMo Update, Day Eight

This NaNoWriMo is going far better than I expected it to. Well, in most respects.

Pages: 39
Wordcount: 18,155
Plot progression: A little slower than I expected, but elements are coming together more effectively and with greater promise than expected.

I'm aiming to hit 20,000 words before the weekend, preferably, but these past few days have been somewhat hectic with my Oxford English aptitude test, and my slightly panicky rush to send off my marked work to the university. Still, all that is done and behind me to my satisfaction, and thus I'm hoping some open space will allow me to plough on ahead before anything else creeps up on me.

The novel itself, I am fairly pleased with. My loose plot format is pulling together well, and many elements are coming together that I did not forsee, which hold plenty of promise for later stages of the book. 

My main issue thus far is coming from the narrative. I haven't written in first person for eons, and the journal format is creating confusion over dates and timings that I am having trouble keeping track of. My other weaknesses are showing, too. I've never been terribly strong on dialogue, but coupled with a weaker-than-is-preferable grip on the narrator's personality, some rather nasty inconsistencies are coming through. 

Upon finishing, I also intend to go back and ruthlessly hack at the early chapters. I'm sure my introductory passages could be a lot sleeker, and I could get into the beginning of the proper plot much faster than I have done. Other events will also need re-ordering, certainly, in lieu of this.

All in all, though, it's going well - as I write more, I'm hoping to get a better handle on my narrator, and solve some of the problems I mentioned earlier. I may tweak some aspects of his character later, for the sake of kicking the plot forward a bit, as his shy, introverted nature somewhat inhibits that at times, but overall I'm very pleased with him, and with most of my supporting characters, who have begun to enter the mix.

And, finally, I'm drawing up to the opening of the really exciting bit of the plot now. And thus far, it's looking bigger, better and messier than ever I dreamed it would.

Hold onto your hats, readers. It's gonna be a bumpy ride . . .

~ Charley R

Overload Anticipated! Warning! Warning!

Another very rapid update from me - proper posting will resume next week, honest!

Some very quick things you may like to know about my life:

• On Sunday, I fly back to school again.
• On Wednesday, I take the ELAT - English Literature Aptitude Test - as part of my attempt at gaining a place at Oxford university.
• On Thursday, I will have a practice "interview" with a full-time academic in my area as preparation for the occasion of being called to interview at Oxford (if I am).
• By Friday, I need to have sent off two pieces of marked work, also for Oxford's perusal.
• My History coursework needs to be completed by the end of that week.
• My English coursework needs to be drafted after inspection by the teacher, sometime the week after.
• I need to amalgamate more research for the school debating team, and attend the event as a planted nasty-question-giver.

And that's on top of the 50,000 word novel, ten-tonne-mountains of schoolwork, and heck knows what else might creep up on me in the meantime.

This is going to be fun!

However, to prevent you all from getting bored, I'm going to make my NaNoWriMo updates weekly only - every Thursday, I think, is a good day for that. This is both to save you the mind-numbing experience of being deprived of my regular posts, and so I have more entertaining typos and stories to tell you of during each update.

As I accidentally castrated my narrator with a typo last chapter, I sure there'll be no shortage of those.

Enjoy your weekends everyone! I'm off to try and hit 10,000 words before supper time.

~ Charley R

Enter the Circus! - NaNoWriMo Update, Day One

NaNoWriMo started today. I meant to get up a little earlier than usual to do some writing, but sleep was far too comfortable, and thus I only got started this evening - spent the rest of the day reading a book on literary criticism techniques (not as bad as I feared), editing my extended essay (every bit as bad as I feared) and going for a lovely long wet bicycle ride with the family.

Here's where I stand as of this moment:

Pages: 6
Wordcount: 2,744
Plot progression: Still in the early stages, but heading in the right direction.

I don't really have a plot - just a few major events that may or may not happen in any given combination, depending on where the story goes.

I tried to plan this novel once. It didn't work.

Oh, and I've almost killed my narrator twice thus far. He's currently got a sprained wrist, a seriously bruised jaw, and a rather nasty grounding in the reality of the city.

Sorry Deladier. It's all downhill from here.

~ Charley R

Conquering the Land of Nod

Ah, half term at last. A week-long stretch to sleep in until the sun appears, eat tasty homecooked food, and launch vicious attacks on my first coursework assignments for the year.

NaNoWriMo is less than a week away, too, and I plan to make as much headway as I can before the regular volleys of schoolwork and worse return to eat my brain.

The long-awaited St Mallory's Forever! will also be making serious headway too, because . . . *cue presumptuous drum roll* . . . the first draft is finished! 
I'll be keeping all you lovely people updated on the editing process - both my co-author Miriam, and lovely publisher Mark have plenty of experience in the area, I'm just the newbie along for the ride - so stay tuned!

Who knows. Maybe we'll even get around to release dates eventually.

Of course, as it's the holidays, I am back in Germania - the house now has functioning internet, though my access to it is momentarily uncertain (I have pre-scheduled this post, as I will have spent today travelling through Europe, and will likely be in no state to drag myself out of the Land of Nod at any time in the early morning, and will doubtless be far from fully functioning for the rest of the day).

So, in the meantime, enjoy this picture of my war face.

Rawr. Fear me.

~ Charley R

POOF!

I'm getting very good at this whole disappearing lark aren't I? Evidently my experiments with time travel are getting me somewhere after all.

These coming weeks are going to be nothing short of merry, mocking madness. Mocking me, that is, but I couldn't get that in there. Grammar before alliteration, my friends.

It seems Duke of Edinbrugh is determined to steal a good half of my holiday, because as of tomorrow I'm off to spend a week on an island, hurling myself into the maw of the freezing sea while trying to pilot kayaks, sailing boats, and various other forms of aquatic aparatus.

And after that I'm moving house. To Germany, surprise surprise. I shall explain more about that palaver when the relocation is complete, methinks. Who knows, perhaps my camera will play nicely with me and allow me to make a video of my new lair taking shape? We shall see. Either way, the move is bound to rob me of internet access for a good week at least, and thus I shall be late in getting back to you whatever happens.

But say one thing for Charley Robson, say she's well prepared. In these few free moments that I have, I am organising posts to keep you all amused. It's going to be a hodge-podge this time - there's a short story, and some music, and some pictures, and there's bound to be even stranger things appearing in there too.

I hope you'll enjoy them. Judging by the distinct lack of WUBBLE in the comments of our lovely (fictional) hosts, you seem to have enjoyed meeting them well enough! If you missed those, then I'm sure Rahad, Vidal and Abra would love to see you dropping by to see what they have to say.

They aren't getting half competitive over whose post is your favourite. Feel free to leave a comment to help sort the argument out before I'm forced to spray them all with paintballs and sporks. Or any commet for that matter. Who else's life is being eaten by a large To Do List?

And . . . can anyone teach me to speak German in a week?

~ Charley R

P.S. Finally learnt how to add GIFs to Tumblr responses without using a URL. I am far more proud of this than I should be.

St Mallory's Cover Reveal, and Charley's Weekend Missions

Weekends are every teenager's hallowed days - even if we do live at school. Though we do have classes on Saturday morning (three 55 minute periods, though it depends whether you have a lesson in all of them), we are still left with a day and a half to clear up the things that have been buried beneath our ever-mounting piles of unfinished homework, unsent letters to home, and laundry that hasn't quite found its way to the washing machine.

And so, this weekend, I've made it my mission to sort out all the little things that have been biting at my toes. It's bad enough that my Father's Day card is going to arrive late, but I'll bash myself over the head with a damp fish if I let anything else go awry this early in the last half of term.

Thus, my mission list runs as follows:

• Send Father's Day card.
• Raid university prospectuses and online sites to choose the final university that I will be applying to this summer.
• Get multiple forms signed by the appropriate authority figures.
• Further research for my Extended Essay.
• Get to work on the poem and one-act play that I need to conjure up in order to enter a pair of competitions.
• Fill in UCAS account and start work on Personal Statment in order not to make a mess of the aforementioned university applications.
• Watch Thor with my housemates. Do best not to sob too much.

It's hardly an arduous list, I know, but after digging my way throught half the internet looking for symbolic meaning in a portrait of Elizabeth I for history - unsuccessfully, I might add - I know I've got to get them done before anything else creeps up behind me.

Also, before I go, you may note that the topmost image on the right-hand sidebar of this blog has changed. Although Miriam and I are both still embroiled in school, her GCSE exams will soon be over and that means we can finally make the last push to finish off St Mallory's Forever! , edit it up and get it sent out to all you lovely people! 

Clicking on the image will take you through to St Malls' official blog, where you can find out all about the authors, a bit of story background, and several informative posts by Miriam and myself about boarding school, progress on the novel, and an attack by a marauding Norse god.

Oh, and here's a picture of the cover in big version. So you can all dribble and make excited noises appropriately.

Fare thee well, readers! I shall see you on Tuesday - have a lovely weekend!

~ Charley R

Must ... Not ... Procrastinate ...

Two of five exams down.

Having mad urge to write a new story instead of revising.

Reading far more books than I should be instead of revising.

Biscuit cravings.

Big ones.

All will be over as of this time next week.

Two scariest exams tomorrow.

Ought to stop procrastinating.

That's hard.

*

**

***

**

*

Yep.

Still alive.

Ish.

- Charley R (I think...)

Study Leave and Snow

The time has come.

As of today, after two and a half long, boring hours spent allocating tour guides to the parents of potential future students, my study leave for exams will begin. This means I will have to do what every instinct of my pre-programmed nature vehemently defies: work on a weekend. Philosophy essays, source questions for History, and shovelling every fact about The Great Gatsby down my throat until I choke on it.

My first exam is on Monday the 14th, at 13:45. 

My last is on Tuesday the 22nd, at 13:45.

I can practically smell the ink on the question papers from here.

Now, as you people have doubtless have guessed, as much as I love you all, I simply will not have time to post frequently in these coming days - I may pre-program a little something to come up for you, but I myself am likely to be very much absent. 

If you want me, I'll be nursing carpal tunnel and dementedly muttering my candidate and centre number in my sleep.

The time of battle is upon me.

Pray I survive to come back and crow ridiculously loudly about the feat of my survival.

For now, though, I leave you with Starks and cuteness.

Bonus points if you pick up on the cleverly-hidden reference in the title of this post!

I Can't Speak French, and the Funky Music's No Use Either!

That's right my beloved minions, I'm home again, home again, jig-a-jig jig!

Paris ... I fell in love with France when my grandad took us down the Dordogne last year, but Paris just elevated it to a whole new level of "I wish I could steal this place and keep it under my bed forever!" Not in the least because 16th Century France seems to have been one huge mass of colour, couriers and carnage. Oh, and I'm a huge Alexander Dumas fan. That really does not help my obsessional case in the slightest, hee hee!

Anyway, I shall get back to you very soon with pictures - I was going to upload them tonight, but after half an hour of waiting for the first one to load out of what will most likely be something in the sixties by the time I have all the good ones up, I have decided to try again some other time. Probably Tuesday.

Oh, and speaking of Tuesday,  I have worked out a provisional posting timetable, for the benefit of those who don't appreciate my tactics of post-based ambush every now and again.

From now on, my posting days will be:
Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and (in certain circumstances) Sunday.
Note: Sunday will mostly be used for posts if I have, for some reason, missed out on one of the other days and / or have something incredibly exciting and / or urgent to tell you all.


In the meantime, I bid thee farewell, my fine companions. I am off to make use of a shower (the one at the hotel was hopeless) and try to get a good night's sleep. We didn't fall asleep before 3:00am on either night in Paris ... you can guess how sane I am about - RUBBER CHICKEN!

- Charley R

Abracadabra!

I got the piccies back in "Revamping the Tower"!

Took a bit of doing, but there you go. Hope you enjoy them :)

Proper posts coming tomorrow, honest!

In the meantime...

GET BACK HERE THIS INSTANT VIDAL!

The British Are Back! ... And They've Got the Sniffles.

I hate being sick (surprise surprise), but luckily for me it doesn't happen too often - I seem to have a nack for avoiding even the most infectious bugs and snifflies in the crowded boarding school environment. Which is probably why I get so mightily ticked off when I do actually get ill. Especially when the thumping headache, spinning vision, sudden lack of brain functions and motor skills is coupled with whacked out temperature regulation and jet lag. I haven't slept properly in three nights. I woke up at midday this morning having gotten a grand total of five or six hours' sleep. Not a happy rabbit right now.

But never mind that - I've had a lovely Christmas, and I'm going to tell you all about that instead!

Now, follow my lead as I take you through a picture-infested guide to my trip to the US of A. Watch out Yanks, THE BRITISH ARE COMING ... AND WE HAVE CAMERAS!

First stop ... WASHINGTON DC!

The Lincoln Memorian (above and below)

The Washington Train Station 

The Capitol

(I have a million and one pictures of the Capitol - it was so awesome to photograph! I think I got a bit overenthusiastic, hee hee! These two are my favourites though, I think.)

The Washington Monument

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington Cemetery

Taken at Arlington (forgotten what it's called exactly xP)

Arlington House

View of the graves at Arlington

Taken from the top of the Post Office tower!

The White House! :D

And then on to ... FLORIDA and KEY WEST!

Taken off a pier, just south of Miami on our way down to Key West

Pelican! :D

A horseshoe crab we found on a beach near Fort Daytona (or something like that)

Pretty things from the beach :)

(Tee hee, the car has eyelashes!)

The three above are pretty self-explanatory - the stripy t-shirted individual in the foreground on this last one is me!

Taken during the famous sunset at Key West

The famous Sloppy Joe's bar! A favourite haunt of Ernest Hemingway apparently

*

There are, of course, a thousand and a half more photos, and there were several places and activities where I was unable to or simply forgot to take pictures:

* Swimming with manatees

* Whizzing around Key West on a jet-ski

* Inside the Smithsonian Space Museum in Washington

* Christmas Day with the family

and loads more.

Subsequently, I shall probably do you another post tomorrow, with a few more pictures, and maybe an amusing story or two (because I have several to tell, believe me!) Comment below and ask me if you want to hear about anything in particular, because there's far too much for me to tell you absolutely everything. Besides, I'm too ill to try and force my poor brain to do anything too arduous today.

In the meantime, I'm going to go and get some more ibruprofen. Ciao for now!

- Charley R

Hear Ye, Hear Ye, Would The Director Please Step Up and Accept her Prize!

Just a reiteration of my previous post, asking the lovely Director to comment and let me know what she'd like me to write her dedicated post about. Any topic goes - whether it be jelly, daleks, Aristotle, music trends or the funny shapes the stock market graphs make when you look at them sideways. Your prize, your say.

Also - mini NaNo update!

Current wordcount: 45,645
Current number of pages: 96
Sanity levels: So low you couldn't see them with a microscope

In the meantime, for all you other NaNo nutcases out there:

NaNoWriMo Relaunch! And a Little Sneaky Secret...

That's right, it's only 20 (21 if you count what's left of today) days away from it being that time of year again! "30 days and nights of literary abandon" is back! And, despite my workload and mountain of other commitments, I'm giving it a bash - I need variety, and an incentive to write. Plus, my idea is flying around in my head like a crazed pigeon and I need to get it down on paper before it breaks something.

Here's the link to my NaNo profile for anyone who fancies tracking me down this November - isn't it awesome and shiny and new? Eeeee!

Pity about the bugs really - can't get my picture to upload, but hopefully that will be worked out soon. That, and the Writing Buddies thingy isn't working yet. But I'll get to that the moment it's working - I like to have everything primed and ready at the earliest moment, just in case something new leaps out of the cupboard at me.

And yes, Mark Williams, I am working on those chapters too! Top priority the moment I get through my work tonight!

What am I talking about? Who's Mark Williams? What chapters?

Ah, that, my readers, is something I shall be telling you all about very very soon .... i.e. as soon as I've finished these new chapters, my homework, and everything else.

Tomorrow, shall we say? *grins*

Those of you who know what I'm talking about - NO SPOILERS! Or I will pelt you with squishy fruit!

- Spook

Poll Results and A New (real world) Adventure!

Hello everyone!
Very very quick one here, just to let you all know some last minute bits. Having looked at your comments, and thought a bit more about the matter myself, I've decided that I'm gonna work on Option Two, simply because I've been planning it the longest and it's a break from my usual type of work. Plus, I had a really weird dream last night that gave me a great idea for a plot twist, hee hee!
Expect me to start griping about this one shortly *grins*

However, the gripage may be a while in coming because, on Monday, I'm off to France! Accompanied by my brother, mum and grandad, I am planning on touring the Dordoigne (sp?) region, eating my bodyweight in yummy food, speaking Spanish where it's not warranted and terrorising the locals. Oh, and experiencing culture, who can forget that ;)

I'll be taking a selection of notebooks along with me, so hopefully I'll have some of the tale at least started by the time I get back!

Toodles!
- Spook