An unblocking

I don’t like this getting dark early thing, but it seems to be a good excuse to drink hot chocolate while i work. And the lights look pretty from my window. I don’t feel like i’ve been very productive today but i don’t know what else i could have done, apart from get up earlier that i did. I deserve a lie in on Saturday.

I’m still thinking about imagined conversations and did some sound recording today. I hope it works ok. I need more material though and have hit a block, so i’m typing here instead of writing in my notebook, trying to unblock something.

Block is not something i get often, even if i don’t know what to write i’m quite good at just getting myself to write anything, no matter how badly written it is and i find that takes me on and helps me to write. Perhaps the problem this time is i don’t know what i am meant to be writing. More accurately i haven’t decided. Well i have a theme imagined conversations now i just need to find the form and write a text that is interesting and exciting. A text to be spoken out loud against other text that has nothing to do with imagined conversations. Only a small thing. It shouldn’t be too hard. It doesn’t even have to be that long, only a couple of minutes worth. I could even write about writing it. I guess any subject can be interesting and exciting if it’s written well. I might go back to what i’ve written before and just copy myself, make it easy. Whatever i do i know it will work because it has to.

So much to do, so little time.

What is really here?

If it had worked, there would be a photo here.

It’s a photo taken on my phone.

It shows a factory, a power station i think, with a chimney sending smoke high into the air. If front of the chimney is a Victorian factory building and then some new (70’s?) red-brick flats with trees at the front. Next to the chimney is a rainbow, bright and big shooting off into the sky.

Hopefully sometime soon my computer will actually work and the photo will be here.

A conversation that never was

I intended to make another post before now, but i’ve been busy and haven’t been well. A headache that lasts for days is not the best time to stare at a computer screen.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about imagined conversations and different voices. I’m working on something that works only in imagination. If that can be done. I have imagined conversations all the time.

With someone famous.

When i read something i disagree with.

When i read something i agree with.

During  an actual conversation. Someone says something and instead of speaking i imagine what i would say next and before i know it a whole conversation has been happening inside my head and the real conversation has moved on without me.

These are the conversations i want to have. Not conversations with myself, that i think is something different.

My first conversation is going to be with an old lady i saw sitting at a cafe table outside BHS. I didn’t have a conversation with her. But what would have happened if i had. I wouldn’t have cheated at something i was meant to be doing in the first place. But the imagined conversation might be far more interesting than anything that really happened that day. I can make it say whatever i want to.

I need two more conversations as well and a host of people to record the voices for me. And a way of making it all work might help to.

This could be interesting, it could not. It’s only a start. I hope it goes somewhere good. It would be nice for this to move on without me and actually be a conversation. Maybe i’m not very good at those and that’s why the imagined conversation is something i am looking at rather than the real one. I think i exist inside my head too much. Usually its a lovely place where i am happy and have everything i want. Right now it isn’t because the world inside my head thinks along situations i don’t like. Things that i can’t change, even in my own little world.

Finally the sun in shining?

I wanted to write this blog, and i wanted to keep writing it.

To stick to something and to see what might come out of it. Often there are rules. For example, i have set a timer for 10 minutes and that is how long i will write for today.

When i set this blog up i didn’t want to use my name, i didn’t want to tell my friends. This invisibleness might help me to be more truthful in what i say. I also wanted to see if people would find me and want to read me blog.

People have found me, but no one has stayed or commented. I wonder why. What’s it like to write something to be read that isn’t being read?

Well, i just hold up hope that someone someday will like what i write.

Also this is not just about my blog and my thoughts being read. It’s about me. Having somewhere to write them, and keeping up a practice of writing and keeping this blog.

I want to keep writing and this is a good way of doing it.

I can’t write in it everyday. Well actually, that’s a lie. I could if i got up earlier some days, or went to bed later. But somehow i don’t think i’ll do that. I like my sleep.

This blog isn’t about a theme or written by someone well known. Perhaps the secret to a successful blog. My other blog gets looked at a lot, but then it is my professional blog and other’s that i know and have asked to take a look follow it. This is more of a diary that someone could read if they wanted but most people won’t bother.

It has made me realise what a diary could be though. It doesn’t have to be exactly what i’ve done each day. Perhaps that’s why my diary keeping has failed in the past.

I like the electronic version as people can see it anytime. But notebooks hold something special for me. I love them. They are interesting and exciting and could hold anything. I keep thinking that maybe i would prefer to handwrite this in a notebook and then read them in years to come.

I keep repeating it, but i should be working right now. I need to update my professional blog.

And that’s 10 minutes up.

A day in the life

I got confused by the time today. I suddenly realised i have forgotten to change the time on my watch. Strange how it’s taken me until Wednesday to notice. Do i want to talk about me? Probably not. Why would anyone care. It’s about not being sentimental and self-indulgent. And it would be if i did talk about myself. What’s so wrong with me that no one will love me? What have i done? Why won’t he speak to me?

I don’t want to talk about that.

I’d rather watch the telly.

I am not that interesting or exciting. Nothing amazing has happened to me. You wouldn’t make a film out of my life. You wouldn’t enjoy the book written about me.

It would just be nice to have someone who cares about me. That asks me who i am and listens and wants to know, doesn’t just ask the question because it’s convention to say “Hi, how are you?”

I should be working. I think i keep repeating that. But i should. It would take my mind of things.

Maybe continued…

Maybe he does really love me.

Maybe he doesn’t.

Maybe it will all turn out ok.

Maybe i will be successful.

Maybe i won’t be lonely.

Maybe i will write a bestseller.

Maybe i will buy that dream house.

Maybe i will get to travel round the world.

Maybe i will own a Z3.

Maybe someone will think i am pretty.

Maybe someone will respect me.

Maybe i will find my voice.

Maybe i will achieve everything i want to.

Maybe i will get to grow old.

Maybe i will learn another language.

Maybe i won’t always be so lazy.

Maybe i will stick at something.

Maybe i will have a family.

Maybe i will have time to do everything i have to.

Maybe i will be rich.

Maybe i will move on.

Maybe the time has come.

Maybe i should cut my losses and leave.

Maybe i should try harder.

Maybe i should know when to stop.

Maybe the rain will continue to fall.

Maybe my friends will always be there for me.

Maybe i will finish what i’ve started.

Maybe i won’t always blame myself.

Maybe i will never be cold.

Maybe i don’t like the word Maybe.

Maybe i should stop using that word and focus on what is.

Maybe…

Maybe i’ll just wait and not do anything.

Maybe i’ll crack and say something.

Maybe this isn’t what i think it is.

Maybe it is.

I’m alone and it’s a raining day. The weather always makes you feel worse. The weather fits my mood quite successfully.

I don’t want to cry.

I don’t want not to know.

I don’t want to hurt.

It doesn’t really work like that though. I don’t have a choice. You made sure of that.

I should be working but i can’t concentrate. I have things to do. It will take my mind away to somewhere else. Maybe i need another cup of tea. Yes, i think that’s exactly what i need. There isn’t anything have can’t be solved by a good cup of tea. With one sugar in it i think this morning. That will be my third tea this morning, but only my first with sugar in it. That’s good, that’s an improvement. Wouldn’t the bottle of wine help more? Quite possibly but then i really wouldn’t get any work done and its way to early for that anyway. Tea it will have to be. It could even be tea in another place. I haven’t been to the tea shop down the road in a very long time. I  could go and have some exotic tea and some food and sit with people who don’t know me. I can pretend i’m happy and sit and write. Or i could venture further afield and go to the pub/bar/cafe i’ve been meaning to go back to. It won’t be tea there but hot chocolate. But the hot chocolate there has memories attached to it, that was the last time i was there and right now i don’t think i could stand that.

Maybe i’ll just stay here and make myself endless cups of tea and convince myself to do some work. There is so much to do. I don’t really know where to start. I don’t really want to start, which isn’t quite like me.

It’s the weather. I am better than sitting and mopping anyway. And it will be you that regrets what you did.

These years are marked. They were meant to be one thing and they turned into another. I want them to turn back but i don’t know how to.

Who thought you would pass so many people

A day like any other.

Sitting listening to music, writing, reading. Trying to make something work.

I went for a walk last week and was suddenly struck by how many people i see everyday and don’t notice.  I live in a big city and in just one hour think i past or saw over one thousand people.

Each one going about their own life, each one with a purpose and their own preoccupation.

Each person has a name and a family and a life story.

And that was only in one hour.

Do those people ever notice those around them. How many of us there are? Wouldn’t it be interesting if we could listen to the thoughts each person was having.

I saw a young lad coming out of a shopping centre with a bag which he pulled some new trousers from. Obviously he was very pleased with his new purchase. It was from Madhouse. Chav.

A man who could have been retired was having a cigarette and reading a newspaper on a bench.

Two men in casual dress were walking very quickly, almost power walking though a square. They were nerds running to a fantasy games conference.

The man in a track suit who was sitting smoking was obviously trying to trick his wife into thinking he was really trying to get fit.

My made up lives for them probably fall short of what their lives actually consist of.

I am motivated

Have too many days off and you wast them. You always think ‘i can do that tomorrow’. Only you never do because you’ve got the next day too.

Motivation is a hard thing to have. I’m always more motivated when i don’t have to do that thing now. It may be two in the morning, the gym is closed, i can’t go to the gym right now, but now is when i’m most motivated. I will go, or course i will go. Maybe you have to love the thing you’re motivated about for that motivation to work. Life was never meant to be easy anyway. Self-discipline is easier said than done.

• I will do yoga every day, not just in my two classes a week.
• I will eat less chocolate and biscuits and crisps.
• I will write my book and my blog everyday.
• I will be organised in my work so i don’t leave everything to the last minute.
• I will go swimming every week. (This is actually an easy one. I love swimming and  my Wednesday mornings at the pool.)
• I will keep the flat clean and tidy. (Not that it’s dirty, just could do with putting things away.)
• I will go to the gym every week

Does motivation need reward. There is a pair of shoes i really want. I can’t afford them so i keep trying to think of reason why i deserve to buy them. Things i could achieve that would deserve such a ward. Perhaps if i do everything on my list for a couple of weeks that will be enough. I would deserve those shoes then. That seems to work for the first couple of weeks. There’s a goal to get to.

I’m not lazy, well not really lazy, but sometimes the list looks so long and i haven’t had a lie in ages and i’ve actually been working really hard, so i deserve a bit of me time. I deserve that chocolate and not to have to go to the gym. The yoga and swimming i’ll do because i love both.

Perhaps motivation works if someone else is being motivated with you. I want to run the race for life next year so am planning on inviting a friend to do it with me. That way i can’t just not train and not do it.

The imagined life i lead is so much  more interesting than my own, but the difference is in my imagined life i do all the things in my list. I am fit and beautiful and successful.

Maybe today i’ll get a little bit closer to that imagined life.

A long day

It’s only 8.20 and i want to sleep. Why do i always feel so tired?

It’s been a long day today, but a good day, starting with an hour of yoga and then the rest of the day was spent on some hard text work. This included me acting extreme hysteria and extreme sadness. It was a day of extremes.

How far can you push text and what happens when you do?

I just got very tired, and  i sound like i’ve smoked a thousand cigarettes. Extreme hysteria will do that to you.

Now for a candle lit shower (the light in the bathroom has stopped working) and then to curl up with book.