RESCUE CHICKENS TO THE... urm..., RESCUE?

Ahhhhh.... Breakfast today was a fresh baked loaf from 'Taylor's Family Bakery' (Hand-made, none of this bread making machine business) fresh layed eggs from our friends rescue chickens (that should definitely be a TV movie "Rescue Chickens save Easter!") and a steaming pot of fresh coffee.

Ahhh coffee.

Not that I mean to go on about coffee but it really is my drug of choice these days. Many people would consider that to be beer or whisky but I drink beer once or twice a week and whisky once or twice a month. Its true I have a good whisky collection but the bottle I'm four good drams away from finishing I started in September. In my experience alcoholics rarely have a good collection for longer than a week or two (depending on if they use mixers or not).

I gave up smoking properly( apart from the odd cigar) just before or exactly on my first date with Em. This was back in the near pre-history when you could still smoke in pubs and dinosaurs roamed the earth. I got through a 10 pack of Marlborough lights whilst having a the most insane fabulous conversation with someone whose opinion and tastes I would come to adore and love over the following weeks, months, years. The fact that she put up with me smoking for the the first date kinda says to me that she felt something too.

Anyway I digress, as I do when I'm talking about my most favourite person. The smoke that I filled the air with was rich Virginian tobacco which probably smelt foul to anyone else but to me it was okay.

I was running today and nearly every person I passed was sucking on one of these cheap-ass half-tobacco half-sawdust brands that smell like Satan singeing his armpit hair. Seriously. If you can't afford to smoke proper cigarettes then you can't afford to smoke.

Anyway rambling over. Weekend Ho!

Week

Its been an odd week. Having sent my first submission for professional publication on Tuesday in what can only be described as, 'somewhat of a flap,' I was hit by a strange lethargy which changed into an irrational anger towards everything and everyone.

I can only think that I used up all my normal emotional energy early on this week and the sense of relief that came when I finally sent the submission email was so palpable it proved how much i'd wound myself up!

Had a lazy night last night with Em and Llion watching 'Sherlock' which was uniformly excellent. Its modern but still Holmesian. And they havent shyed away from the fact he could be a massive cock-waft which is refreshing!

Pizza tonight and a birthday party tomorrow has the makings of a good weekend. Got to start the next story tonight or tomorrow morning I think. I'm in the rare position of having 4 or 5 to choose from. I might just flirt with 2 or 3 of them and see which one catches my eye.

I'm excited about writing again which is, frankly, thrilling.

Clocks a ticking......

Some things have a timing and a symmetry all of their own. It's enough to make an atheist like myself sit up and take notice.

My current job, which was a massive step in the right direction came about because of a chance remark by someone. I looked into the job saw it was perfect and found I had two days to fill out the application and get it off. All done in a rush.

My previous job also came about because of a chance conversation with a friend but less of a pressing timescale in that I had three days to get my application form in rather than two.

So driving back from Jake Jane and Wez's excellent barbecue last weekend, I started having short story Ideas, yes plural. I had three distinct and separate ideas in the space of three hours.

This. Never. Happens.

So when I got home I started writing seriously for the first time in months. And I loved it. I was exactly where I wanted to be doing exactly what I wanted. When I could get into the PC to write two nights last week I got a little cranky.

So having had the day off today I decided to spend the majority of it finishing off the first rough draft of a short story set in the Warhammer 40K world. They can be a touch trite but they do some excellent SF books, I'd point you in the direction of anything by Dan Abnett.

ANYWAY so having finished the first (very) rough draft this morning I'd thought I'd work on it over the next couple of weeks whilst getting the first drafts of the other stories together.

However after doing teh shopping and all the other bits I wanted to get done today I checked the Warhammer submission guidelines just to see if I was in the right ball park with what I'd got.

I found out they have a very small submission window, eight weeks in total. Which ends on Friday! Yes, this goddamn Friday!

So I now have a choice. I either do nothing and wait for next years submission window (opening late may usually) or rush to get a submission in this year. They need a summary Synopsis and a thousand words. As I've got about 10000 this won't be a problem but should I wait to polish it or get it as good as I can and send it by Friday?

I think looking back at my previous experience with this sort of thing it has to be yes. Maybe I'm just a 'shine under pressure kind of guy'?

Anyway If I don't hear anything in eight weeks then I failed. but I've still got at least two other stories to work on and polish for next year!

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~Music has the right to children.~

Another disturbed sleep last night. The rugby club across the road regularly have bands on at the weekend and I can't blame them for it. They're very good at sticking to the licencing laws and I know how ever bad the music is, it'll be over by eleven on a school night and one AM on Friday or Saturday. Its a lot like halls in university that way. But when I'm knackered before those times on a weekend then going to bed really isn't an option. I've got earplugs and bottles of whisky aplenty (just kidding about that last one) but it can be very difficult to sleep when there's noise coming from across the road, especially when they open the fire doors for ventilation and the sound pours out like a audio fog, snakes across the road and hits our bedroom.

Anyone that knows me will tell you how easy going and relaxed I am generally. Unless I don't get a solid six/seven hours sleep, in which case I become something 'other'. Not exactly on a Bruce Banner/Hulk scale but similar.

"You're making me tired. You wouldn't like me when I'm tired."

Lets just call this alternate personality Less Than Pleasant Rob (LTPRob for short). If I've ever been mean or nasty to you, it wasn't me it was LTPRob. Whereas I might just let things go or not rise to jibes etc. LTPRob will get angry, annoyed and shouty then possibly fall asleep on you.

This was, seriously, one of my reasons for not joining the army. No, Really. I know they do the sleep deprivation thing and the waking you up at all hours to do a ten mile march etc.

The first time the Sargent came in to try and wake us at 3AM to do the assault course LTPRob would have beaten him to death with his own very shiny shoes and crawled back into bed. The MP's would have arrived to see a battered and bruised corpse and me, snoring peacefully, covered in his blood. (There was also the whole being a woolly leftist pacifist reason, but the sleeping thing is funnier.)

Anyways last night was not a band, and it wasn't karaoke. It occupied the no mans land in between those two acceptable and unacceptable forms of live music (I'm a musical snob.) This was a single male singer and a ipod full of tunes for him to sing over. He was pretty bad. It was clearly one of those situations where someone's tried their hand at Karaoke and through either inherent deafness or myopia he thinks,

"Hey! I'm awesome at this, I should make money from my 'talent'." thus showing complete disdain or ignorance of the crowds general apathy towards his musical ability. We'll probably see him on the next edition of Britain's got Talent. Well, you might see him. I'm a snob remember?

And yes, he went on till 1AM but I have a new solution, I made a play list of my favourite chill out music and some kick ass in-ear head phones. The Boards of Canada bleeped me off to sleep with their particular brand of odd mellow music.

It was once described to me as 'The first time you listen it's all bleeps and laid back beats. The second time you listen to it the bleeps start to make sense and the third time you can hear the depth and tone from each sound making it a audio landscape to lose yourself in.' The person describing it was an Art Student so I think we'll forgive her the flowery prose.

However those of you that don't know it I thoroughly recommend checking it out. My quote for the cover would be.

Drowns out even the most inept wannabe pub singers. - Rob Taylor, Professional Sleeper.