Achieved !

Day Eighteen: Your most recent achievement achieved

Today I finished of my script for Script Frenzy. 100 pages of script in 24 days, not bad for someone that has never done it before.

It all started when I decided to participate in National Novel Writing Month last November after seeing a report on BBC Breakfast. I had heard of the event before, but at the time I didn’t have the time or an idea. A few days before I saw the report, an idea had started to form and idea that for once I thought that I had the potential to finish, seeing the report for NaNoWriMo was the push that I needed.

Once I started writing, I couldn’t stop, the story just flowed and I hit 50,000 words on 26^th November and finished on the 30^th with 50,780 words. I thought that that was a pretty big achievement. I’ve never written anything that long in my entire life. Even my fan fictions from years ago that seemed that long were only about 20,000 words. Once I had my novel, I saw Script Frenzy advertised and I decided to give that a go, “how hard can it be?” I thought. “Writing the novel was the hard part”. I was wrong, writing the script was so much harder. Not only have I been faced with the flaws of my novel head on, which I had been avoiding by not editing my novel, but I also discovered just how unlikeable one of my main characters is. In November he seemed like a lovable rogue, but now, I hate him and he really doesn’t deserve the other main character. Though of course, now I have a much better idea of what does need work and I feel ready now to take creating a second draft more seriously. I also know now that the working title ‘Meet me on the Clifton’ should probably go, the affection that I felt for it in November has officially worn off.

Since my dreams of working in science are quickly drifting further and further away from me it would be great if I could carry on working on my novel, maybe sending it off to publishers if it ever gets to a point where I would want to do that, or maybe I will publish myself for e-books. I think it would be pretty cool if I knew that someone was out there reading something that I’ve written.

A little change to the schedule...

A little deviation from my 30 day challenge, I saw a link to a Flash Fiction competition and thought that I would give it a go, my entry is below, If you like what I've written, please, please, please give it a like at, http://www.writingonthewall.org.uk/flash-fiction-submission.html at the minute, it's the first entry on the page, why not enter yourself? Ta very much =D

Final Countdown

“Impact, T-minus 100…”

This was it, months of training, and the time had finally arrived. Zara sat at her station, observing the situation in London from The Bunker. She flicked through the streams of video, pausing when she reached the Oxford Street stream. The once busy street was empty, even the pigeons had vanished. Plastic bags drifted down the street like tumbleweed, a bus sat abandoned, indicator blinking on and off.

The next station was Cian on Dublin. He nervously tapped out the ‘Final Countdown’ with his pen as a drunken man ambled through the deserted streets of Dublin. “Shut up Man!” Mukhtar said through gritted teeth from the other side of Zara, he was on Cardiff, “Don’t you realise…”
“Chill out man…”
“I will not ‘Chill out’, we’re witnessing the end of the world as we know it, show some respect” he settled back in his chair and continued to recite an Islamic prayer as the masses gathered to pray together in Roald Dahl Pass.

The Authorities had known the Asteroid would collide with Earth for years. Trojan, they called it. They saw it as the chance to make a fresh start. Rid the world of evil. ‘Recruits’ had been collected in secret, only the best were taken on, the smartest, the fittest. Bunkers, deep underground had been built in secret. The ‘Lucky’ recruits had been moved into them as they completed training, only then their true purpose was revealed. They were told about the asteroid, how it would wipe out life on Earth, but they had been chosen to survive, to repopulate the world.

Of course, some Recruits didn’t take the news well, decided that they wouldn’t abandon their fellow man. The Commanders said that they had returned to the outside world, but deep down Zara knew the truth. ‘Returned to the outside’ was code for ‘Killed’. Of course they couldn’t return outside, if people knew about the Recruits, there would be chaos. People would panic, they would find the Bunker entrances, try to get in. No, it was better that they didn’t know, Zara told herself.

“Impact, T-minus 10…9…8…”

“This is it” Cian whispered as he made the sign of the cross. “May Allah have mercy on their souls”, Mukhtar whispered. There was a sharp intake of breath.

“Impact, T-minus 1…”

The whole bunker shook violently. Zara heard someone scream as one of the metal panels crashed down from the ceiling. The lights and screens blinked off and the room plunged into darkness. There wasn’t a sound, no one dared to breathe. It seemed to take an eternity, but one by one, screens began to blink back to life and a sigh of relief rippled around the room. The pictures of deserted streets across the world were replaced by grainy white noise. It would take some time for the cameras to stabilise and for the images to return. Then they would be allowed outside, the ‘New Age’ would begin.

Feeling Better?

Day Sixteen: Something that never fails to make you feel better

There are a few things that make me feel better. Watching Doctor Who is one of them. I can just settle down and watch it for hours on end, it’s nice to get away from the real world and loose myself in one of the stories. Same goes for reading books, I choose a nice happy book and read a few chapters of it til I start to feel better.

Other times, I write down what’s making me feel down onto paper, that helps to get it out there and rationalise things in my head.

Then, when all else fails, there is the world of You Tube, I stick on a couple of funny cat videos or the Backin’ up song

Something Missing

Day Fifteen: Something you miss

Right now, I miss being back at University. Not so much the work, I mean, right now my Facebook is inundated with statuses about the exams and final year projects. I don’t miss all that stress, in fact seeing those things make me quite glad that I decided not to do a Post-Grad course. Maybe one day I’ll go back and do one, but right now all that I need is a break from that type of stress. Admittedly, I’m more stress-free at the moment than I thought I would ever be, what with being unemployed at the moment. But I suppose that I should make the most of it while I do look for a job.

The thing that I miss most about my time at University is the people. I miss talking with them about lectures, or saying ‘Hi’ in the lab. I miss living away from home, in my little Wavertree house, where I got up to all sorts of shenanigans (Good word shenanigans XD). There aren’t many shenanigans now that I’m back at home, unless you count hiding random pictures around my brothers bedroom as an April fools.

I’m a bit naff when it comes to keeping in touch with people. I never really know what to say when the conversation starts to dry up, and there are people that I’m friends with from University, but not the sort of friends that I would be comfortable talking to not face to face. I suppose that that goes with the whole phone phobia thing. If I’m talking to someone, I prefer to be face to face unless I consider you to be a really close friend. (So, if I haven’t spoke to you in ages, it’s not that I don’t want to, it’s just that I’m at a loss what to say. Like I said in the first post, socially awkward penguin.)

Nostalgia

Day Fourteen: Childhood toys

Time for some Nostalgia: My favourite toys from my childhood =D So, if you're a 90's child like me, enjoy!

Barbie! (Of course) I loved my Barbies, and this was one of my favourites.

As well as my Barbie dolls, I had some Sindys too, I had that dog, I remember that when it had batteries in it it would walk.

Gina's world were about the same size as Polly Pocket today. I used to collect the magazine too, I think i had about 50 dolls in the end

Speaking of Polly Pocket, the Polly Pocket that I had actually used to fit into my pocket

Another pocket toy, Puppies in My Pocket! I remember the day that I got this set. In the morning I had had an Ice Lolly for breakfast, even though my Mum and Dad told me not to (Badass or what?!) we went out to Ellsmere Port, went into Woolies, I picked out this set, then when I got home, I was sick all over the kitchen floor. I blame the ice lolly. Needless to say, no Ice Lollys for breakfast after that incident.

Littlest Pet Shop, again, I had loads of these. I loved that Parrot one, it's wings flapped when you press his head down.

Couldn't find a picture, but this boat was my favourite Slyvainian Families set.

I was the only one of my friends that had Teeny Weeny Families. I remember collecting tokens to send off for some dinky baby frogs.

I have got every episode of The Animals of Farthing Wood on VHS, that's probably my favourite kids TV show, along with Noah's Island. I still have this set, but Fox is a bit worse for wear, he's lost his tail.

TV Teddy was something that I played with at my Nannas house, though she only had one tape and it was a nightmare to set up, so when TV Teddy came out it was treat!

I got my first and only cabbage patch doll for Boxing Day one year, it was like this one, but it was a boy called Herbert

I always wanted a Furby, but my parents wouldn't buy me one. Luckily though, my Aunt and Uncle got me one from Hong Kong. Loved my Furby, even though by the time I had got hold of one, the phase was well and truly over. My Furby made up me me never being allowed a Tamogotchi

Pokemon, 'nuff said. I didn't have a game boy or the cards, but I collected the figures and cuddly toys

And to finish off, the first computer game that I ever owned, Dogz. I had a cuddly toy too.

So ends my trip down memory lane =D

Admiration

Day Thirteen: Talk about someone that you admire

So after months of waiting, Pottermore finally opened up the other day. I spend most of this morning exploring the site, finishing the first book a few hours ago. I didn’t think that I could love Harry Potter any more than I already do, but here I am falling in love with the books all over again. It’s all thanks to one woman, and that woman is JK Rowling. In my ‘Table for Ten’ post I said that she would be one of my ten dinner guests because she is an inspiration to me, and I thought that I would expand on that.

If you don’t know who JK Rowling is, where have you been the past decade?!? She’s sold well over 400 million books and is responsible for getting an entire generation of kids interested in books again, myself included. Although I’ve always read books, none of them ever captured my imagination quite like the Harry Potter books.

The Harry Potter books have had such a large impact on my life. The books really fired up my imagination and I would often write my own short stories based around the Potter universe. Knowing about JK Rowling, and her story has encouraged me to write more.

As a person, he has faced adversity and come out on the other side, and I admire that. It would have been easy for her just to give up, to throw her ideas away after the constant rejections from publishers. Knowing about the struggles that she has faced and how she has come through them has taught me not to give up when things get hard. I hope that once I’ve edited my NaNoWriMo story, I can send it away to publishers, I would love to see something that I’ve written on a bookshelf, it really would be a dream come true.

Something else that I admire is that you can see that she cares about her fans, how many other authors would agree to work on something like Pottermore.

I like the thought that has gone into the books. She has meticulously planned out stories for everything, and some of this extra information is show cased on the Pottermore website.

Phobia

Day Twelve: Write about things that scare you

Spiders? Not a problem. Heights? Not a problem. Flying? Not a problem. Some people seem to think that I’m fearless, I like to think I’m fearless, but I’m not. In fact, I would rather be afraid of those things than the two phobias that I do have. I know that phobia’s are irrational, but my two really are pushing it a step too far.

The first is needles, can’t stand them, just the thought of them brings me out in a cold sweat and I feel sick to my stomach. It’s stupid, I know. You need to get needles to protect against disease and I have had them all done, but it’s not for want of trying to get away from them. I had to have a blood test and it was my worst nightmare, they had to restrain me in the chair as the nurse poked around trying to find a vein, which hasn’t helped one bit. Horrible. The fear is so bad that it puts me off having children because that would mean having more needles and I’m terrified every time that I visit the dentist in case I’m told that I need to have a root canal or teeth removed. On the upside, I take excellent care of my teeth. It’s a phobia out of control and I have no idea what to do. In theory it shouldn’t be a problem. In my first post, there’s a picture of my using a needle to tag a mouse. That was a massive step for me. When I started, I was terrified to even touch the needles, I did a pretty damn good of hiding it though, So maybe that’s helped me out, I don’t suppose that I’ll know until the time comes for me to have more needles. But that’s not even the worst of my phobias.

Answering the telephone, it should be easy. Not when you find yourself feeling sick to the stomach every time the phone rings. It’s a real struggle to answer if I don’t know who’s on the other end. If it wasn’t for caller display I don’t know what I would do. Once I’ve plucked up the courage to answer, it’s OK, I can muddle through, and anyone that I’ve spoken to over the phone at work has told me that I have a lovely telephone manner. It’s being the one to make the phone call that’s the bigger problem, it should be simple, I watch my friends and family do it without thinking twice, given the choice, I avoid making phone calls. Again, a phobia that’s getting out of control, but I’m taking steps to try and stamp it out. If I have to make a call, I go somewhere quiet and I keep some prompts with me, I make a note of the things that I need to say and that helps out quite a bit. I hope to make a phone call in the week about some voluntary work, once I’ve built up my courage and prepared my little crib sheet.

More rationally, I’m afraid that I won’t be able to find a job that I like. I can think of nothing worse than having to spend the rest of my life either unemployed or in a job that I detest.  This fear isn’t helped by the constant refusal for every job that I’ve applied for so far. I know that if someone gave me chance, I could prove to them what a good worker that I am, and I will prove it once someone offers me an interview.