OUUROBOROS

Okay so I don't really have anything to write about today but I'm lazy and can't bring myself to start properly writing my shorts so will proceed to post something pointless so I don't have to.
I had my first actual driving lesson recently (was too poor and Scrooge-y to pay for them up until now, so up until now my driving experience has consisted of being shouted at by my dad for nearly crashing the car into a bin, a lamp post and an old lady) and, to my surprise, it went extremely well. I managed to blag a practice theory test and get 90% using common sense, didn't stall at all and got into fifth gear on the road with other cars!
I also experienced my first bout of real road rage. I've had it before, of course, but you can't really shout obscenities while you're cycling because passers-by can hear you and you feel self-conscious and then it's no fun any more. Prior to my lesson my dad would not allow me onto the road with other cars and made me stay in a carpark, mostly because I wasn't very good at steering. Turns out it was just poor instruction ;> I'm not that lame a driver! But I think I gave my driving instructor a bit of a shock when I started shouting that the car driving very closely behind me was a peasant. I was clearly a learner (if they couldn't see the massive bloody 'L' plates on the back of the 'RED driving school' car they probably shouldn't have been driving in the first place) so they should have been more thoughtful and not bothered me. I'd have been thoughtful and not bothered me if I were them. Peasants.

Isn't 'peasant' a wonderful insult?
I use it for everything. People starting to bid heavily on an eBay item I've stalked and coveted and longed for for days? Get off my lawn, you peasants. A BMW driver cutting me up without indicating when I'm on my bike? Peasant! Most of my family? Peasants!
It lets out so much pent-up frustration without actually being offensive. It's cathartic, it's wonderful. I'm sure it's beneficial to my health. It's one of my favourite words, beaten out only by shenanigans, bumbershoot, abyssopelagic, flummery and tatterdemalion. If you want to get fancy a variation of peasant is, of course, pleb. Everyone can use this word except Tory ministers, apparently.

But by far my favourite of the class-related insults is the word prole. It's wonderful because most of the time people won't realise you've been being obnoxious and will let it slide, but occasionally you'll get someone who understands. Then you both can have a doubleplusgood nerd moment where you squeal over the ins and outs of Newspeak, thought crime and George Orwell. You are both lords and everyone else is a prole and this is just how life the universe and everything should be.
It's a damn good litmus test when meeting new people.

Yes, I have writer's block today. When I have writer's block I get bored. When I get bored I get facetious.

Diana, this is for you. ❤  
Thanks for a wonderful afternoon discussing our respective stories, novels, plans, potatoes, theology, life, the universe and everything. Respect for putting up with me and my lameness! We must do this more often and I want to see that story, ok? I know you read this so :>

Yeah so I haven't updated this for a few days, I've been too busy procrastinating on my stories to do anything else. Forget 'We've Lost Our Moral Compass', I'm working on the tenth short and the final one in the collection (both physically and chronologically) which I should not be doing because I really ought to be finishing the others but whatever. It's fun.
I have worked a couple of new concepts that I really really wanted into the shorts so I'm fairly pleased. The first one is the story of Icarus - obviously a slight distortion of the original, since the setting is a parallel future. It ties into the idea of swallows symbolising freedom of thought - in the shorts Icarus was a man who wanted to fly like the swallows that he watched from his window, so he made a pair of wings and flew away. Then the ending is the same, of course - he flew too close to the sun and burned his wings. It's my favourite of the old legends, always has been. I'm just a little bit obsessed with the imagery in it. And it fits because in a way, most of the characters in the shorts could be compared to Icarus. Nick, John, May, Richard, Chyber - all of them fit.
It also gives me so many ideas for digital paintings, which is something I really need to get back in to. And just drawings in general. I'm ridiculously lazy and unmotivated these days.
The other concept that I've worked in is to do specifically with Richard's character. One of the recurring phrases in the shorts is that 'The Government always win'. Richard Deaux is a gambling man, addicted to cigarettes and vodka, and it pretty much mirrors the idea that 'the house always wins'.

In other news I'm falling behind on nanowrimo which is bad, and I need to feel bad. I was also reading my new book on quantum physics on the bus home (it interests me, all right? It's the only part of physics I really like) and one little paragraph in there somehow made most of Chemistry A-level clear to me. It was about electron shells in atoms and how e- move between energy levels and emit different shades of light and that's why spectroscopy works because each element does different colours due to different numbers of atoms and shells/energy levels and I don't know it's not the most thrilling stuff in the world but I had an eureka moment and then felt really lame. Why didn't I understand this last year? Maybe I wouldn't have got a B if I'd actually understood Chemistry instead of parroted it, and then I wouldn't have had a B ruining my other nice A-level results.

So, Obama won the American election. Excellent. For a moment there I was extremely worried. I wouldn't care so much if it wasn't going to affect my country but that's the thing - it does. If Mittens had won we'd probably have been dragged off to war with him against Iran in a couple of years at the best estimate. He's already rabbited on about attacking Iran, and guess who he'd take along for the shenanigans? I like to think our Government would have had the guts to stand up and say no to America if this had happened, but sadly they're lapdogs and always have been. They never listen to what the people want, they're too pathetic for that. I despise most of them for it. Quite possibly the only politician I like in my entire country is Boris Johnson, because he's absolutely brilliant and should definitely be Prime Minister, at the very least because it would be hilarious.
So, good job America.

In writing: did some editing of Souls of Machines today, need to get on with We've Lost Our Moral Compass OTL. Possibly will revise Opposite Day.

All in all, a rather fabulous day. ❤

Having a little trouble with 'We've Lost Our Moral Compass' to be honest. I've settled on third person to write it in, but I worry that it won't be as strong as any of my other stories. I also got some reviews back on stories 1 & 2 and am waiting on 6, so I'm going to try and make some edits there, I think.

Numbers 4 & 5 were always going to be 'iffy', and I always thought they would be difficult. It's annoying because I really enjoy their concepts, but I suppose I'm just not good enough yet to make them work. I'll keep trying. No, I'm not going to finish 4 by today, as I'd hoped :<
Boo!
However, some of the books I ordered came in the post, and I finished reading them. One of them was 'Siberia' by Ann Halam, and I first read this when I was thirteen. It was one of the original books that got me into the genre of dystopia, and I hadn't read it for years so was really pleased to be able to pick up my own copy. Basically, it's a beautiful book, absolutely fabulous, and everyone ought to read it. I'd forgotten how amazing it actually was! I find the main character easy to relate to, which is unusual, and it keeps your attention. I've read it twice in a row now because I'm pretty lame. But I'm not going to apologise.
'Now, it's Siberia everywhere. The whole world has been sent to Siberia, we're all in Siberia'.One day I will write something as beautiful as that. :<
This is the goal.

The picture is from my way to work with the birds; I love autumn so much! The colours are so beautiful, it's like all the trees are burning. ❤

So, for NaNoWriMo I'm going to work on completing my set of shorts. At the moment five are finished, there are only five more to do, and I'm well on the way with number 4: We've Lost Our Moral Compass. Only issue is that I can't decide whether it should be first or third person. I normally hate writing in first person and it's not my forte, but it seems to be the best option for this particular story; which is effectively a dystopian Alice in Wonderland. Think Alice in Wonderland where the dream world wins out and there is no happy ending.

I have also realised that creating this blog was an excellent way to procrastinate and writing in it will be even better. Since hardly anyone is going to read it I'll be mostly keeping it as record for myself, to make sure I hit my self-imposed deadlines. I want We've Lost Our Moral Compass completed by tomorrow, which is quite possibly not going to happen, but we'll see how it goes. There may also be the odd opinion post because I'm a fairly opinionated little swine and no one will listen to me ranting about stuff in real life :<

Things I have learned today: I look pretty silly when I wear my glasses. I literally have bottle glasses, I'm so damn blind.

Procrastination over.

So, this is my first post. Just trying to work some things out with the blog theme, layout etcetera.
This blog will be to document my gap year, during which I am trying complete both a novel and a set of short stories. There's very little to see just now. Sorry!
Ouuroboros