Giggles, Shanequa and Sneaky Drafting...

Russell Howard

What a funny little man. Definitely worth the £30 ticket just to see his lovely pink thong. That, my friends, is dedication to comedy.  He was ace. If you are thinking of going to see him anytime soon, definitely do - I haven't laughed so hard since, well, since Ross Noble to be honest. I'd say that's a big compliment to Russell Howard. Rob and I both couldn't stop smiling the whole weekend. Imagine having a job like that - where your job description is purely based on cheering people up and making people smile. Perhaps it is escapism, and I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with that. Because we'd never get anywhere as a country if we were all always miserable, which seems to be the case these days. Lets all cheer up a bit, agreed? 

The other thing that's making me smile this week is about two inches long, orange, and currently rearranging her gravel. My friend Samm is a fish enthusiast and has had this little Cichlid for a while now. He began to resent her after she killed her sister, but noticed how fond of her I was becoming. One day a few weeks back, he offered to give her to me for free, because he derived that I loved her more than he did. She moved in with me just two days ago and is settling in very well :). She woke me up this morning by throwing her gravel at the walls. Her name is Shanequa, and I'm very pleased that she likes it in my room. I'm afraid she's quite camera shy, so I will post a photo when I can sneak one of her.

  

So I finally renewed my subscription to Writers' Forum a couple of weeks ago, and with the forwarding service my two wonderful parents have in place for me, I have received not only March's issue, but February's as well. So I have a lot of catching up to do. A Facebook friend had mentioned to me that there was a response to my letter in the March edition, so naturally, I flipped right to it. It seems my idea of shameless plugging has caught on. That makes me happy, but remember, you heard it here first. I hope to respond to this letter in time for the next edition, so keep an eye out.  

In writing news, I'm afraid I don't have much. It's been all go on the wedding front these past few weeks, but now I have my beautiful Nokia E5 working again (after 3 replacements, it turned out it was the battery all along, which they insisted I keep each time), I am able to edit on the bus and such. I know, whatever happened to a good old fashioned pen and paper? That's fine for first drafts, but when I've got so much to work with, it's difficult not having it in front of me. That said, though, when my colleagues are out at lunch I have been known to be scribbling ideas on scrap paper. It's just finding the time to write them up which I'm struggling with.

Still, the more time I spend here worrying about it, the less time I spend writing, so I shall keep this entry short and sweet. 

One final thing, though, relating to my last entry on the use of profanity in a story; I'm still reading The Book Thief (I know, get a move on), and there is little profanity in this book. However, there is a high use of the phrase 'Jesus, Mary and Joseph' as a curse, and other variations of the sentiment, which actually bothers me far more than the F word would. Swearing is one thing, but the use of names in this way is a bit far, I think. 

Anyway, have a good weekend :)

Welcome to the life of a receptionist.

Russell Howard, Comedian.

 I am a very happy bunny. For Christmas, my parents gave me a Ticketmaster giftcard, which I was over the moon about. The one thing that I have felt the lack of from living on benefits is going to gigs, both of the music and comedy varieties. So I logged on the other day to see if, by any crazy chance, there might be any seats left for Russell Howard, and, lo and behold, there were. I spent every single penny of my giftcard on the man and have been grinning from ear to ear ever since. I think he's lovely, as Rob will bear witness to. There's just something so positive and optimistic about most of his comedy. His philosophy of life seems to be 'cheer up, stop moaning and see the funny side', and I love that. The tickets came through the door this morning, so bring on February. 

I must apologise for my lack of posting. I started my placement on Tuesday and haven't really had much time to spare. I'm just getting used to the working world. I'm really enjoying it so far - I'm working on reception in a building owned by Goodwin, and the people I'm working with are lovely. (I'll get my fiver later for saying that.) I'm just getting to know who's who and who works for which company, which is all a bit confusing, but I'm getting there. 

Anyway, Writing news. I don't have huge amounts other than a few things I forgot to mention last time. I tried to go sale shopping the other week, and I realised that I completely suck at it. I tried on one pair of jeans, which I didn't even buy, then I ended up in Blue Banana talking to a member of staff about my 'sixteen year-old sister, Lauren.'

In case you didn't know, I don't have a sixteen year-old sister. My sister is 23 and called Heather. Lauren is one of my main characters.

Does this mean I am officially crazy? Or just a filthy liar?

Well, it was fun, and it got me thinking on my feet. I actually found it to be a really good excercise, because she really came alive in my head. I was imagining her response to all the things I 'was considering buying for her', and at the same time working out her style and outfits. If you've never done it, try it. It's cheaper than the cinema.

Or if you're not into the whole lying thing, then good old-fashioned hot-seating is just as good. I used to love Hot-Seating in Drama. It's essentially where you have someone interviewing you as your character, so it's all about initial reactions and what feels right. 

I bought a fancy big folder for my First Draft, which I'm still putting into all the folders. I have had a bit of a chance to work on it again, but only scribbling in pencil on it. I woke up thinking about the latter scenes this morning, which does happen a lot. I'm just trying to make the damn thing actually work. I'm also wondering just how messed up Andy really is, bearing in mind that this is a teen/young adult fiction. So one of the things I'm looking into is some flashbacks into Andy's childhood to get a feel for his motivations. 

But right now, I need to buy treacle and other such stuff because I plan to bake a ginger cake to test run my Christmas present from Nikki... check her blog to find out what it is ;). 

Hopefully it will look like this...