Blah.

I'm hopeless beyond doubt, stroppy beyond reason and lost without hope. It's Saturday, closing in to 6pm and I'm in bed, hanging, and totally exhausted. The very famous "few drinks" last night went out of control, and my ill advised, and yet, note: ignored, taking of antibiotics with copious amounts of alcohol turned out as well as it possible could have. Messy nights are my life lately, oops. I'm lost behind my uni work and I'm just so uninterested in what I should be inspired by. I feel a bit out of touch, with eveything. I've recently just had a catch up with some good friends and discussed booking a holiday, and yet, I don't know why, but my heart isn't in it. Don't get me wrong, I love them, and holidays are one of my favourite things ever, but at the minute, excitement about sunny times seems so far over the horizon. Winter is thoroughly depressing me. I want to hide under my winter-weight quilt and wait for it all to blow over. Uninspired, uncoordinated, unorganised, unhealthy, under-the-influence. Blah. I don't care. It's Saturday night and I'd rather spend it in bed gorging on greasy food than leave the warm and drown myself in more alcohol, but who are we kidding, we all know I will. Exhaustion has set in and it's not great, admittedly. I'm unhappily yet happily mulling everything over. I want to change but I'm not sure what it is that I want to change, if that's even English speaking. As you can tell, I'm still on a drug-and-alcohol-and-caffeine comedown and it's horrific. I can hear Patricia Hodge's voice echoing "SUCH FUN!" repeatedly as I clumsily get ready and get paraded off to the pub rather than turn boring at a mere twenty and stay in on a Saturday night. Now that, my friends, would be sacrilege. 

Bear with me.

I'm exhausted, stressed and close to tears. It's finally happened, my belated January blues, the winter depression everyone talks about. That's what I feel like now. The bags under my eyes get darker every day, I'm irritable and getting lazier as the mornings get darker and colder. Uni is just causing me a lot of unnecessary stress, and I hate that. Assignments are flooding in, deadlines are looming and decisions have to be made, fast. I feel like I'm losing my friends, to uni, to other people, to everything. I can count on one hand how many times anyone has attempted to contact me in the last couple of weeks, and it scares me. It seems like everyone knows what they want, what their end goal is, what they're aiming for. While I sit, twirling a pen between my thumb and forefinger, absent-mindedly daydreaming about one day writing some fabulous bestselling novel or something. I want to scream (into a void, perhaps) or just disappear for a few days, hibernate and pull myself together. Sort out my work, and my immune system, and boost my mood. I'm a nightmare lately, I'm moody and stressy and I'm intolerable when it comes to anyone else. I feel like I might just eat everyone alive that comes into close proximity with me. I'm constantly checking my watch, counting down the days, until my week off. I need some down-time. Some rest. Some peace. It's hard, I feel like I push people away sometimes, I know I do, but that's only because it's for their own good. I'm just saying, if I want to be on my own, it's because I need to be. I really need to stop stressing and start smiling again.

Unauthorised absence.

Well, I've been AWOL for eleven whole days, so I think I've got some explaining, or at least writing, to do. So, where have I been? What have I achieved in that week and a bit I haven't been blogging for? 

Sorry to disappoint, but not a lot. It's like the last eleven days are one surreal blur just leaving me with fragmented memories of smiles, laughter and laziness. So, it's February now, and it's threatening to snow up north, yes we do exist, even though we may not be under water like our capital. I've spent my weekends, as usual, out drinking, making new friends and reigniting others. In absolute honesty, nothing life-changing has happened in my absence. I'm increasingly burried in a stack of uni work that keeps mounting, and I keep actively ignoring in a desperate bid for it to disappear. Unlucky for me, I'm falling behind. I've felt rubbish for a few days, totally run down, and yet again, my immune system refused to pick up the slack once more after another weekend of bingeing, eating and staying up too late, hence why I spent the remainder of the weekend tucked up in bed, doped up, feeling utterly sorry for my miserable self. 

Recovering now, I'm greeted unwelcomingly with looming uni deadlines. Anyone who underestimates second year's difficulties, like me, will be sadly mistaken when it rears it's ugly head. Part of me feels like I'm stifled, it's like I can't breathe. I have too much reading to do, too much writing to delay, and too much sleep to catch up on. So, as well as this, I have something else that conjures up a feeling of dread deep inside my chest. I have six days left to settle on my module options for third year. I'm very indecisive anyway, but this is like torture. I kind of feel like I'm writing my own death warrant, carving out my own failure or something. It's important, and yet, there's no telling what will happen. Maybe I can hide from reality for one more day at least? Yes, that sounds very tempting. 

Book #7: The End of Alice by A.M Homes.

I currently lie in my bed, staring at my bedroom walls, blank, expressionless. I have just finished this book, and now, I'm speechless. To look at the cover, examine it closely, it gives nothing away. Well, not to someone who hasn't read it, yet now, I've taken a second look, and this time, I get it. It's representative of what's inside the jacket, what the words are just dying to convey.

In all honesty, I had no idea what this book was about when I bought it. I just picked it up, liked the title and never even read the back of it. While the front cover reads 'this is everything fiction should be-wrenching, disturbing and emotive,' the inside is what really reveals more than I could have ever thought humanly possible. To state the absolute obvious if you've ever googled this book, or picked up a copy, it is not nice. In fact, I found it so horrific, so morally degrading, that I struggled to read it and actually get to the end.

Written in the 90's, this book got a really bitter reception, and with the subject matter, it's no surprise as to why. The story follows, and is narrated almost solely by a man, a convinced paedophile, who writes from the confines of his prison cell. In doing so, he exchanges letters with a young girl, manipulating and grooming her and all the while, tiny pieces, or in some places, large chunks of his criminal past are infiltrated into the reader's mind. 

I can't even begin to fully describe how I feel about this book. I actually dropped it when my eyes finished glossing over the last few lines, in a mixture of shock, disgust and relief. I can't even believe I'd read something like this. It's so chilling, so inhumane, so utterly perverse, that actually, I kind of wish I'd never layed eyes on it. My lungs feel exhausted, my heart is in my throat, my eyes are streaming, but whether these are tears of confusion, sadness or blinding fear, I don't know. This is not, I must stress, a book for the faint hearted. More brutal as it goes on, I can't even count how many times my gag reflex kicked in when my eyes began to feast on the monstrosity in front of me. Shocked to the core, disgusted beyond belief, I feel kind of numb now. 

It's full of manipulation, deceit and ruin; loss of innocence, brutality and mass disturbance. There's something about this book that gets under your skin. Grabs you by the throat and leaves you gasping for life. While I can sit and appreciate how skillfully it is written, I will never ever suggest anyone need/must read it. From it's vulgar, masochistic tones, to it's sheer, unadulterated courage, I can't even believe this was allowed to be published. Haunting from the first page to the very last, a book I will not forget in a hurry, no matter how hard I try. An eye-opener, a casualty you wish you'd never seen, a demon you'd never wish to discover. Read it or don't, that's not for me to say. I just know, personally, and I know most will agree, this may be a subject taken a bit too far. Maybe this novel should have been kept hidden in the dark, chilling depths of A.M Homes' mind, rather than a copy of it left discarded in disgust at my bedside. 

You. #2

The Cheshire-cat sized grin on my face is what I give you credit for. The spring in my step as I walk through the winter rain with my parka hood nestled cosily around my face, shielding my hair from the violent weather. The hot cup of coffee that greets my lips every single morning. The smell of you on my clothes, my skin and in my hair. The way I seem to struggle to catch my breath every time I see you. I clam up, I'm suddenly shy. I feel my cheeks go crimson and my tongue get tied. Your voice echoes familiarly in my ears, your face is burnt on my retina for reference when you're not around; a memory for later, a just-incase stock of happy images, words, voices. Kept for a rainy day, or just a lonely one. The one person who cared enough to push back, to stay, to have faith in me and my stubborn ways, to trust me, accept and appreciate who I am. Someone I could tell anything and everything to. A confidante, a best friend, a drinking partner, a fellow lover of literature and someone just very, very important to me. My smile doesn't shift. Even if it's not physically on my face, I am just so happy. It's silly. 

Escaping the void.

So, real-life has kind of hit me like a train. Almost two weeks into my second semester of uni, and my head feels sufficiently sore, my hand aches and my eyes look drained, bored, exhausted. As part of a new second year module, the fourty-something of us (I'm guessing) that make up Creative Writers, have been assigned to something our university is calling Writing and Enterprise. As part of this, we are required to focus in on applying for a mock-up job ad at a local writing agency. As soon as I realised this, I knew I had hit a brick walk. Hard. 

While the class is clearly divided in one sense, I sat earlier today, very obviously, stuck. Certain individuals have their futures cleverly, clearly, or even obsessively planned out, and a career in "the arts" let's say (because I've heard it enough lately) isn't for them. They have chosen to go down a more traditional route, maybe safe, maybe vocational, maybe just something they know will pay their bills and enable them to live comfortably on. While I want all of the above, kind of awkwardly, I push the idea of a career in teaching or something like that, aside. While I know quite a few people close to me are pursuing various degrees in teaching, I know from the bottom of my heart, the pit of my stomach and the blood that races through my veins, that teaching is not for me. I never, ever, have considered a path like that. It just isn't what I see myself doing in ten years. Instead, I've opted for something I'm really passionate about, writing. For years, I've loved the feeling of picking up a pen, and letting my thoughts escape freely onto a page, or a word document, or even more recently, a note app on my phone. I want to share my words, and in doing so, I want people to react. I want my name on a book spine, in a newspaper or a magazine. I want to publish something, get something out there, become read as a person. Flaunt my opinions and let my personality leak through every word I write. 

So, back to the brick wall. After being addressed with this assignment, I realised something. Or rather, something hit me with such a violent force that I felt it could knock me straight into next week. I have little/no experience in the field I want to work in. I've never had anything published, I've never made connections with important people or acquired tips from an agency that could point me in the right direction, along with a good word and a thumbs up for encouragement. While on the one hand, I have never been more sure of anything in my life, that if I don't try to follow this, I'll spend a hell of a lot of time miserable, sinking further into regret, so I have nothing at all to lose. Well, pride maybe. University fees I may never pay back. Self-confidence, but that dwindles unknowingly anyway. I feel like I could really come across well, given the chance, even if on paper, I don't look so appealing. I'm really not sure what I should do. Grab any opportunity tightly between my fingertips and hold on for dear life? Keep everything crossed. Run in totally blind. Stay hopeful. Stay positive. Become an optimist. Learn to believe in myself, and most of all, in my writing ability. 

I'm taking a deep breath, and just giving myself some time to think. The assignment must be done regardless of what I'm debating. I don't know how to, or even if I'm good enough, to get my foot in the door of such a competitive field, but I'm sure as hell going to give it my best shot.

Writer's Block.

An icy, lonely, irritating destination. A labyrinth of misery and headaches. It gets under your skin, makes your fingertips itch and your head feel like it might implode any minute. I've arrived. For uni, I've been asked to write 1000 words on something of my choosing, in prose. The only specification being, it has to be my interpretation of 'face.' I shrugged it off when we were assigned this activity, underestimating how much that actually was, when I was given the freedom of writing something of my choice. Evidently, I've got too much to choose from. My eyes can't focus, my fingertips are dying to write something wonderful and explosive that will leave everyone speechless when I read it out, but there's nothing coming. My wonderful/explosive/decent ideas have all seemed to run dry. There's nothing interesting anywhere in sight. I feel like I either go gushy and scarily into my real-life when writing today, or otherwise, it's totally emotionless and let's be honest, my gushing is the lesser of two very close evils. I have Arctic Monkeys playing, (I did have Neil Diamond in some desperate bid for inspiration, but it just made me want to cry into my coffee, so AM will substitute.) Saying that, AM always make me want to go out. As One For The Road strums, I imagine myself slumped effortlessly in the Brit, a drink in my hand, and the jukebox overloaded with demands for Arctic Monkeys and the Beatles. Writer's block may be the most frustrating thing ever. I know I can write. I realise I have the ability, and the enthusiasm, the intellect and the drive, and yet, blank. My word document sits lonely in another tab, engulfed in white space. It's screaming to be filled in, with anything. It's craving letters of some description, and a subject matter I just cannot seem to settle on. My indecisivity (is that even a word?) has hit me. My phone keeps buzzing familiarly, a welcome distraction from this awful dilemma. I give up. I can't force myself to write, evidently. So, my thousand words will have to be postponed. Don't cry now, will you? I'll try not to, but I'm not making any promises.