September

I recall writing a blog about September last year, though I also vaguely recall I split it into three and it was halfway through October before I finished the segments. This year is different.

September has always filled me with ambivalence, a swirling mix of emotions both positive and negative that tend to leave me a bit spaced out until I get into the swing of things.

Work
This year will be the first year since I had my breakdown that I’ve been working in a school at the start of the academic year. A part of me — the part that values any kind of financial security — is pleased by this. Summer has been a slippery slope of expense, with various bits and pieces I rely on threatening to fail (looking at you, PC) or actually failing entirely (yes, you, Graphire4: though we had a good run, didn’t we!) As well as technical stuff, I spent too much money on alcohol. Sure I don’t really care that I’m spending money on the drink — I’m not in danger of becoming an alcoholic in any way — but my motivation for spending so much time in Chicago’s has been perhaps a bit skewed and, ultimately, foolish. Time will no doubt tell on that one.

Financially, then, things are on the up. 2 days departmental training and organisation this week, followed by 3 days per week until Christmas, and possibly after depending on the state of play at Pensnett in the coming weeks/months.

The downside to this, of course, is the work itself. Already I seem to have spent an inordinate amount of time trying to get something as simple as a timetable and half-term-plan sorted out. The upheavals at the school are noticeable. There is a miasma of disbelief and an undercurrent of anger at what the establishment is enduring in these last few months of its existence. Shakeups to the established systems of the school are, in my lowly opinion, unwise. But perhaps that is what separates the Senior Management from the lowly grunt on the front lines. Maybe their vision for what the school can be in its final year will be a triumphant swan song. I just don’t know.

What I do know is that splitting a GCSE class between three teachers and trying to get a coherent curriculum going is fundamentally idiotic, and difficult to even try and put into practise. Yet that is what much of today was spent doing. Trying to work the hodgepodge timetable to not disadvantage the students’ learning.

I do go on.

Television
As with last year, part of why September excites me is the new lineup of television. I’m not going to go into a big list like I did last year, but two shows I’ll certainly be checking out this autumn are Supernatural and Castle, both of which premiere within the next couple of weeks. The latter, especially, I find very inspiring as a writer, and hope that the stories will continue to fuel my own imagination and creative process over the next few months.

Writings
Speaking of my creative process, I recently received feedback from a couple of proofreaders of the almost final draft of novel #1, with its finalised title of “Chains of Memory” (assuming a publisher doesn’t change it). I’d say its 99% done now. I’m tightening up a last few scenes and then knuckling down to get it sent off to agencies. Publishing is a fairly arduous and lengthy process, so even if somebody snaps it up, it’s likely to be 12-18 months before it gets spotted on the shop floor. Expect excited blogs/twitter/facebook updates should the unimaginable happen however!

While I’ve been polishing that one with my finest literary chamois, I’ve also been hard at work on the sequel, “Chains of Time”. The second novel is a real change of pace, as well as setting (and time period, as the title might suggest). So far I’m thoroughly enjoying having the creative output, though I admit the going has been slow due to distractions over the summer and the lack of an actual deadline for me: yet another reason why I should try and get a three-book deal signed. Publisher pressure is a great motivator, so I’m told.

Distractions
As I mentioned during the holidays, I’m prone to hoarding games. I tend to start playing them in a burst of vigour and then peter out after a few hours. I play games for stories, not the exciting and dynamic whatever systems that games these days try and show off. Artificially lengthened games where the story pace is slow and there is, for example, a lot of wandering down darkened corridors, annoy the hell out of me. A game that is 8-10 hours long is just perfect for my attention span, and while it may seem outlandish to pay £35 or whatever for a game that long, I put it into perspective that I spend more than that on alcohol on a night out, and at least I can sell or trade the game in after I’ve finished with it.

During the course of the holiday I went back and finished Half Life 2. I bought HL2 way back when it first came out, and got bored of it about a third of the way through. Since friends very kindly purchased me a copy of the Orange Box via Steam, I decided that I would definitely have to finish not only HL2, but its episodic successors, creatively titled Episodes One and Two. And I’m glad I did. As the games are now pretty old, my slowly dying PC didn’t struggle running them at maxed settings, and the atmosphere they evoked, and the stories they told (while a bit linear) were definitely more in tune with my more mature gaming sensibilities these days. I also finished a couple of other games, made some headway into others, couldn’t for the life of me get Crysis to run for more than a couple of minutes without crashing, and tried out Return to Such&Such MMO offers: Lord of the Rings Online, Age of Conan and Warhammer: Age of Reckoning all threw freebie time at me, though I admit it took me longer to download the clients and install than I actually ended up playing the games. Nevermind.

I think that is enough on games.

Looking Forwards
As you will know if you tend to read my blogs with any regularity (there’s what, maybe 3 of you?), I’ve been trying very hard since my breakdown and back injury to stay positive and look forwards to a brighter future. This has obviously been fairly difficult recently due to the economic crisis, but I feel I am making some progress into getting life back on track.

Ideally I would like to move out into a place of my own sometime within the next couple of years. As much as I love the free rent of living at my parents’ house, with both brother and sister having now moved out, I feel a bit like the odd one out these days. This is, in many ways, a ludicrous feeling to have since I spent eight years in Lancaster and the North West, but nevertheless I shall be twenty nine years of age in January and I simply don’t like the idea that come thirty I may still be here and alone.

Obviously I don’t mean alone in the sense of people surrounding me. I run into people all the time, it being the very nature of my job, and me being an inherently social person (despite the time I spent chained to the PC or my netbook). But I am committed to the idea (and, I would hesitate to add, probable fact) that if I wish to move out, I have to find one of two kinds of people to interact with.

Either I need to find a small group of friends willing to rent a place together. Or I need to blunder about blindly in the hopes of finding a girlfriend, an endeavour that I continue to be awful at.

I’m still not particularly sure what the problem is in this regard. A lack of confidence and self-esteem may be part of the problem, but recently I’ve been finding it easier to talk and flirt my way into at least friendships with women whom I would consider quite attractive. I suppose my main failing is a complete inability to tell if women are interested in me in that way. I’ve always kind of fallen into relationships, without any real kind of dating process, so I’ve never really asked women out, or chatted them up at bars, or whatever the accepted social norm is (if there even is one).

I’m not exactly a bad example of the gender, either. I’m smart, I’m savvy, I have a certain kind of dry wit that perhaps has limited appeal, and I’m not altogether unattractive, though a couple of trips per week to the gym might help improve self esteem in that department.

I think maybe I get entangled in the “What ifs”. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. The “If I ask her out, what if she’s not interested. Will we still be friends? Will she etc etc” quandary.

My notion of relationships is a bit of a slow burner, I suppose. Taking time. Romance. None of the cheap, quick sex and its over that many of the men I see out and about on the weekend are so obviously after. I’m sure I can’t be too unusual, the this regard, but again, an inability to read if people like me as a friend or as something more is a huge mental and emotional hurdle to try and overcome.

It’d be so much easier if people just told me, but then there may be issues of a similar kind from their point of view, and I am nothing if not cursed with huge amounts of intellectual and emotional empathy for other people (thanks for that legacy, Mom).

I meant for this to be a fairly positive diatribe. Don’t think I quite managed that did I? The message to take away from this, should you care, is that I am getting better with all this. Even so far as to ask somebody out, though nothing has come of it yet. This at least shows an improvement in my confidence. Some would say a huge improvement considering me and my crippled emotions.

(Speaking of which, there has been no improvement in my recovery of so many lost memories from before my breakdown. I find sometimes that fragments of times and events that I don’t consciously remember seep into my dreams, but they always leave me somewhat disturbed upon waking, as you might expect.)

Fin
I think that that will do for me splurging thoughts, feelings and beliefs onto the page for now. I always have a tendency to feel embarrassed about what I write after I’ve posted these irregular monologues, (it’s one of the reasons I don’t spell check/grammar check/read through them) but I am not so easily embarrassed these days it seems, though I sincerely hope people don’t think ill of me for voicing my thoughts and opinions in this way.

We all need our outlets, after all, and when I cannot use analogies in my novel writing, this is the purest option left open to me.

~Jon

British Summer Time

The very words, 'British Summer Time' conjure up a varity of images, depending on who you are and where you live. For most of us brits, BST is a time where we constantly have to debate whether to take a brollie with us, as it just might rain, even if there isn't a cloud in the sky. As well as the mercurial weather, it is a time for camping, beer gardens, sitting outside on the patio and gazing at the sky, and being assaulted by greenfly and wasps.

Last year's summer is a haze. Not a heat haze, a literal, drug-induced haze. By this time last year I was on full-time tramadol. It's no wonder I can't remember squat about what I did, who I saw, or where I went...if indeed I went anywhere.

This year is different. No drugs except alcohol this year. Having just done a half term of teaching, and having a full term lined up come September, this summer holiday was, nominally, a time for writing; in theory I was going to get as much of novel #2 written as I could during this six weeks as once the teaching starts, its ever so difficult to put (virtual) pen to paper.

Unfortunately, the words aren't flowing very well. I feel bottle-necked, distracted, and it is buggin' me.

One of the key distractions is this pile of games. As well as writing, summertime is oft the time where I try and finish as many of the games I've got laying around as I possibly can. Since I've had a month off WoW, I figured I was onto a winner this summer. Of course, that was before I decided Final Fantasy 12 was one of the games I really should complete - especially as FF13 is due sometime next year. I failed to take into account just how much time FF games eat up though.

Anyway, my list of unfinished or unplayed games stands at:

1) Final Fantasy 12 (36hrs in now)
2) Final Fantasy 4 DS (still haven't quite finished it)
3) Prototype
4) Devil May Cry 4
5) Half Life 2 + Expansions
6) Conan (on the XBOB360 - almost at the end, and have been for 6 months+ >_<)
7) Tomb Raider (the latest one)
8) The Last Remnant
9) Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (GCN)
10) Dawn of War
11) Blood Bowl PC (still need to finish the single-player campaign)

As well as these, I've also had quick bashes on Age of Conan, Warhammer Online, and Lord of the Rings Online, all 3 of which have decided to give me free trials or week of free "re-evaluation" time. LotRo has been the most fun of the three, and its very very pretty as always, but none of the three really hold a candle to WoW, which is kinda a shame.

So anyways, really long list of games that need finishing. Might have to put FF12 on hold for a bit, as it really does eat up the time. Very enjoyable though. Not sure why fans of the series hate 12 so much. I like the characters, and the plot seems to be developing well enough - and story is mostly all I play games for after all.

As well as games, I've also been painting a bit. Got a couple of pieces on the go, which is kinda unusual. Haven't worked on them in a few days (see above comment about FF12) but they should both be done by the end of August. Still keeping up with my new year's resolution, which is nice. Hopefully I'll last the whole year.

Three weeks left of the summer hols. I know my parents are going on holiday next weekend, and I too am taking a couple of days off to head up to Macclesfield to see Rick and Tom, but thats mostly as far as I can stretch money-wise this year.

Really am going to try and stick some sample novel chapters up in the next week or so, let people have a read and see what they think of my style and stuff (as well as point out any glaring mistakes I've made :P)

This blog sounded much more organised in my head...