2010: An Improvement Odyssey – The Results Show
Hello there digital channel viewers!
It is time for the Matt Fishwick 2010 results show. Not many of you voted or texted this year, which is good because I had not figured out how to set up that premium rate phone number. And with that rather pitiful banter out of the way, let's just get this charade over with.
My goal for this post is to look back at the stuff that I posted this time last year (give or take a few hours) and see, on my own personal level, whether I managed to achieve the goal or not.
So here we go:
1) I need to lose weight. I have to. I have a goal in mind and if this doesn’t make me lose weight nothing will. If the weight stays I am well and truly fucked. I have enough problems that I can’t control and if I can’t beat this one that’s of my own making then, well who knows? This includes exercising more. And when I say more, I mean exercise. I bought a damn bike. It’s just sitting there. In 2010 it will be used.
Seeing as I haven't posted any pictures of me this year I think that you can guess where this one is going. And in case you can't or if your assistant is reading this to you because you are too busy or unable to see the website for yourself, I'll answer with a simple "No".
No, I haven't managed to lose any. As for the bike, I can see it now. It is holding a jacket and a baseball cap on its handlebars. And a sterling job its doing, if I do say so myself.
VERDICT: FAIL.
2) Write more. I want to finish my online story. I have set myself a mini goal of end of March. Because of goal three. There are also a few things that I also want to try writing wise. I have how to books. It may well be time to read them.
Ouch. 0 for 2.
I did not finish my online story. Stalled at chapter 11, but I do kind of know where it should go, it is just the first 11 chapters will need a redraft and probably major rewrite.
On the other hand, I have done more writing this year. I have written 2 short stories. This may not sound a lot to the literati amongst you (but really if you are literati, what the hell are you doing slumming it here) but it was quite an achievement to me. I had never completed one short story let alone two. On top of completing them I even had the balls to submit them to a competition.
Okay, so the stories did not win, or even place in either of the competitions they were written for, but I did post them to this very website, where they could be ignored in public. Click the links to read "On Ice" and "The Call" at your own risk. Lest your eyeballs melt because of their sheer brilliance.
I've also done some sketch writing thanks to taking part in the 6 week Sketch Writing course with ComedySportz in Manchester. I have also written topical sketches and submitted them to the BBC (they didn't get picked) and towards the end of the year I have even submitted other sketches to a theatre company who are developing a showcase in February 2011 at the Lowry Theatre. (I still don't know if they will be selected or not as of yet.)
So even though I haven't finished my online story, I think that I have made real progress in other areas of writing, at least from a confidence perspective of actually submitting things.
VERDICT: PASS.
3) For Script Frenzy (April 2010) I will convert the online story into a screenplay. If the story is not done I will not participate. For the past 2 years I have participated and written crap. I know that I can write 100 pages of crap. There is no challenge in that any more. I need to be able to successfully create a screenplay that has a beginning, a middle and an end. Even if it is one that I already now the outcome and it is just a case of putting the story to screenplay format. Then in 2011, I can think about doing one from scratch with a detailed plot.
While I did not finish my online story for goal 2, I did still compete and win SF10. Even though I said that I would not participate, I decided to continue my story in script form rather than prose to help me overcome the block that I was having at chapter 11. While I did go quite a way past chapter 11 in screenplay format, I did not post them as the first 11 need rewrites to join up where the story is now. After that, I think that they can be posted. It is not completed, but I think that I will be going back to it in 2011.
VERDICT: FAIL.
4) Mystery goal. If you wish to know about this one, you’ll have to buy me dinner first.
Still on track, I think. Will have to send an email about this at the end of January to see if it has progressed any. And while I'm here, I might as well admit what it is. Though you can probably guess what it is. I have been proposing to women that I meet on the Internet. I used to tell them that I was head of BP, but in the past year the shine has been taken of that lie. I have no idea why.
VERDICT: PASS.
5) Get to Liverpool more to see my friends. Until they get sick of me that is.
They may well be sick of me. I haven't been as regularly as I should, though that may be down to them moving homes and changing phone numbers and not telling me where they are now located.
VERDICT: FAIL.
6) Plan a proper novel for NaNoWriMo 2010. Oooh. Actual Plots and knowing the beginning and ending before I start. And cliffhangers, too! How will I cope?
D'Oh, as Homer Simpson would say. I had a title, which I thought was rather spiffy, and I had kind of a plotline in my head, but I was preoccupied with other stuff in October, so never got the details worked out. I thought that I could wing it, but then halfway through the month I started to hate the dullness of my story. I still like the idea, but if I redo it, it will be done from scratch.
VERDICT: FAIL.
7) Meet more people. This will be really difficult for me. Anyone who knows me in real life knows how really shy I am around people I don’t know or don’t know that well.
Thank you, ComedySportz. I have met more people and feel that I am more confident. Not super "I think I could rob a bank and get away with it" confident, but may be just the kind of confidence that would allow me to mug an old lady in the street. And by mug, I mean bestow an exquisite piece of tableware with my face on it.
To her head. And then steal the bitch's money.
I've met many wonderful people at ComedySportz. Not just the guys that run it, but a fanastic group of people who I have taken the workshop with. The best thing? I've learned that I'm not a social leper. I just have social herpes, but I think that is the result of a misguided tryst with a pillowcase and could result in its own spin-off blog post. A Different World to this post's Cosby Show, if you will.
VERDICT: SUPER PASS.
8 ) Be a better person. I don’t exactly know what this entails, but I know I’m not good enough the way I am.
Am I a better person? I don't think that I have got there entirely there yet, but thanks to ComedySportz, my new friends and trying new things I think I'm getting there.
VERDICT: PASS.
9) Be more confident. (I’ll have to wipe the dust off of that CD)
I probably sound like a broken record but thanks go to ComedySportz. The improv course has helped me deal with people better. There is still a way to go yet though. In fact there is always room for improvement, but I'm more confident than I was at this time last year. Had I not done the improv I don't think I would have tried to submit sketches to the BBC and the whole rest of the stuff that I have tried this year.
And who knows? Next year I might even talk to some girls.
Maybe.
VERDICT: PASS.
OVERALL VERDICT
And so, when we add up the verdicts from the jurors we have a 5:4 win.
Yay.
So the year is a pass. I was afraid that I would have failed. That would only give me a few hours to invent a time machine and go back to the start of the year to change my goals or just do better. But I figured that if Doc Brown can invent a time machine and get it running in 1885, I sure as hell can do it in 2010 with a half eaten pack of Maynards Wine Gums and an expired train ticket to Manchester Deansgate.
While I am disappointed that I have not met some of my writing goals, I believe that I have made up for it in other areas such as confidence and bow tie wearing. That last one might be a lie, but I've excelled in those, too.
I think that doing all this and finally getting a new job to boot, has made 2010 quite a year. One that I am proud of, which to be honest with you I don't think that I've ever said that before.
So here's to the challenges that we set ourselves in 2011.
Happy New Year,
Matt
2010: An Improvement Odyssey
Warning: This blog post contains letters, numbers and other special characters put together in such a way to create adult language, situations, language, characters and language that you may find offensive. This blog post should not be viewed by any one under the age of 18, over 65, those with a heart condition or just people with general good taste.
I decided that I needed to update this blog, as it had been neglected over this past month. I had been hoping to update it with the next chapter of my online story but I can’t seem to get that going again after NaNoWriMo 2009 as every attempt I have made has turned to shit, so I have substituted that blog post with this one.
I doubt that there will be anything of interest to anyone out there, other than me. So read ahead at your own risk and prepared to have your illusions about me shattered like a piece of Violet Crumble. So with that said and only 3 hours and 33 minutes of the year remaining lets get this thing moving. The quest to improve Matt Fishwick begins at the stroke of midnight. As long as midnight doesn't mind being stroked.
The Past
In looking at the future I decided to look back at the past and see just exactly what I had accomplished this year…
…It turns out that it isn’t much in terms of material things.
I started the year in Australia and after a week I was back in the UK. The same old workaday routine followed for the next couple of months with me trying to start writing fiction again and other than trying to fill out an expenses form I managed very little.
In the lead up to April’s Script Frenzy I met an amazing group of new people in Liverpool. I’m sure they have been people since before I met them but I cannot confirm this. They are writerly types. They are awesome and they know who they are. I was happy to make new friends and I can’t believe that I actually plucked up the courage to go to Liverpool (See, hours of listening to a confidence building CD over and over and over again actually paid off). I know it isn’t that far away, geographically but it felt so far away. I still feel like a fraud whenever I write in their presence though. These people have so many cool and great ideas and I struggle with a shopping list.
In April for the Script Frenzy itself, I wrote a pretty shitty script. Well, actually it was a reimagining of the previous year’s script that had also end up being shit. It wasn’t even on the level of Tim Burton and Marky Mark’s reimagining of Planet Of The Apes (get me with all these cool and hip references). As I look at that sentence I realise that I should have reimagined my script to be Planet Of The Aces where at the end Dirk Diggler realises that he had an inside straight all along.
April gave way to May and there was a TGIO party organised in Liverpool. And shock horror! I actually went. Hooray for me. I even stayed in a hotel and not on a park bench. This is why many people have referred to my dress style as tremp. (Aka temporary tramp) Because let’s face it you have to dress for every eventually. What was even more amazing was the fact that the hotel room was free. Only because of the refund I got when the people in the room next door decided to brawl with each other at three in the morning. I had to ask for the refund (and I surprised myself by actually asking for it) and I got it. So that was the highlight of May.
While I tried in May and June and July to continue writing fiction it never happened. Boo! Hiss! He’s behind you! And all that other pantomime crap. But then in August there was another Liverpool Writers Meeting. For which we were asked to write a 1000 words on a topic of “That Joke Isn’t Funny Any More”. I surprised myself as I actually wrote it. (I subscribe to many a writing magazine and always plan to enter the competition but then I never manage to write anything or start it only to put it aside and then miss the deadline. I wish I had good ideas. Even writing this blog post seems like a bad move at the moment.) Actually I wanted to impress the Liverpool people. Perhaps I did just by showing up, even if the do pick out of the way places that I get lost on the way to and I did have to be lead there by someone who knew where they were going.
August was an important month. As I wrote the story or at least the first part of a story I realised that I should pay more attention to actually writing stuff if I was ever going to get serious about it. So this very website was born.
Other things in my life didn’t exactly go as I planned them. Like the time that I bought the book Yes Man by Danny Wallace after seeing the film earlier in the year. I decided to follow his example and start saying yes more. Sadly I had to stop on day 3 after the Gonorrhoea symptoms started showing. They say you can’t have everything, but at that clinic, I learned differently.
In September I decided to focus on writing more of my online story and I was true to my word. I did write more and over the next several months (until December 4th at least) I had managed to write a publish the first 10 chapters.
At the start of November I took a break from my online story to participate in NaNoWriMo 2009. That was successful and as detailed in other blog posts that I have put more effort into I met many more cool Liverpool people. They are aces. Still, no matter how many times I listened to that CD I still felt a fraud when I was writing near them. I should probably be listening to it more.
After November came and went, I felt used as I hadn’t even been paid. Now it was December and I made the foolish mistake of having a break from writing and now I can’t seem to get started again. I guess I’m writing this in an effort to kick start my brain. Though I do find that when I kick myself in the head I blank out for long stretches of time.
Other non writing related stuff and accomplishments didn’t really happen for me this year. I failed at losing weight. I failed at a whole bunch of other stuff too. Stuff that I don’t particularly want to talk about. Well, I succeeded in one thing, but the outcome wasn’t what I would have wanted. Oh and for most of the time that I have been off work. Actually, all the time since I finished work on Dec 18th until yesterday I have been snowed in. So even when I was forced to not go any where, I still didn’t manage to pull my finger out and get any writing done.
Well, I seem to have mastered personal failure, so let’s see if I can turn that in to some success next year.
The Present
I’m sat here at my desk writing this while I listen to music through my headphones. The music that I am listening to isn’t important to this story. Just imagine something unimaginative and you will be pretty close to my playlist. The fact that it took me two songs to write this short paragraph should also be ignored.
The Future
And with 2 hours and 7 minutes left to go, what do I want from 2010. Well, it is a simple list really.
Really simple.
1) I need to lose weight. I have to. I have a goal in mind and if this doesn’t make me lose weight nothing will. If the weight stays I am well and truly fucked. I have enough problems that I can’t control and if I can’t beat this one that’s of my own making then, well who knows? This includes exercising more. And when I say more, I mean exercise. I bought a damn bike. It’s just sitting there. In 2010 it will be used.
2) Write more. I want to finish my online story. I have set myself a mini goal of end of March. Because of goal three. There are also a few things that I also want to try writing wise. I have how to books. It may well be time to read them.
3) For Script Frenzy (April 2010) I will convert the online story into a screenplay. If the story is not done I will not participate. For the past 2 years I have participated and written crap. I know that I can write 100 pages of crap. There is no challenge in that any more. I need to be able to successfully create a screenplay that has a beginning, a middle and an end. Even if it is one that I already now the outcome and it is just a case of putting the story to screenplay format. Then in 2011, I can think about doing one from scratch with a detailed plot.
4) Mystery goal. If you wish to know about this one, you’ll have to buy me dinner first.
5) Get to Liverpool more to see my friends. Until they get sick of me that is.
6) Plan a proper novel for NaNoWriMo 2010. Oooh. Actual Plots and knowing the beginning and ending before I start. And cliffhangers, too! How will I cope?
7) Meet more people. This will be really difficult for me. Anyone who knows me in real life knows how really shy I am around people I don’t know or don’t know that well.
8) Be a better person. I don’t exactly know what this entails, but I know I’m not good enough the way I am.
9) Be more confident. (I’ll have to wipe the dust off of that CD)
10) Start smoking and then quit smoking. If I only manage 50% of this then at least I won’t have to worry about a pension any more.
Okay, I only added the last one to get the list up to 10 things, but that isn’t really the point. The fact is I never wrote these goals down before. Mainly, because I just made them up on the spot (well, computer actually). There are one or two other things that I am thinking about, but I shall not write them down as they have never come true so far and I’m sure that this year they will be no exception.
I may well redefine my goals as the year progresses or even just delete this blog post if I’m failing dismally at one or any of them.
Good riddance old me.
The new and improved me begins shortly.
Check back for updates.
NaNoWriMo 2009 Is Go!
And we are off...
... Time: 12.01am...
Words written... 0.
I'm here at the Everyman in Liverpool with a great bunch of people.
Time to Knuckle down and write.
... Just wish I had a plot.
One Year Craptactular!
That's right, it's been one year of inane posts that nobody has read.
You may be the first, unless you are reading this over someone's shoulder and that means you are a close second. So take a step back, and stop invading my personal space.
So while this is the Internet, happy e-paper anniversary. (An anniversary of this magnitude doesn't warrant an exclamation point.) But you could have at least sent an e-card you unsentimental bastard.
Will we reach the next one? Probably, unless I forget my login details.
Don't forget the traditional Anniversary Clip Show Featuring 10% New Material!
Coming up next.
(Recycling, not only is it good for the environment, but it removes the need to be creative.)
