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.
