The Art of Wasting Time

Dolce Far Niente - John William Waterhouse

I have often thought myself to be a Jack-of-all-Trades, the silent "Master of None", always quite audible to my mind. I was an all rounder at school (except sports which I forgoed as soon as I realised that my lack of co-ordination, read concentration, meant that I would have to work extra hard to be just average.

Since leaving University I have walked through my professional career believing that I am decent at most things I try my hand to, but not especially exceptional at anything. I have since realised that this is perhaps an ingrained mental belief in “not being good enough” that finds safety in hippity hopping between skills and completing them with passable ability rather than stepping out of the safe box and owning brilliance in something or other.

It is a classic trait of insecurity and something I am now trying to rectify. In leaving a traditional, full time, salaried job, I am having to learn to fight against all these learnt instincts. My life and career is now what I make of it and I need to believe I am the best person to do X, Y, Z.

This is especially true in the novel and play that I am writing. For the best friends of Jack-of-all-Trades are Unfinished Projects, Procrastination and the skill of Wasting Time.

The amount of times I have said I wanted to do something whether that be enter a particular writing competition, join a rowing club, a drama club, do the three peaks challenge etc and not completed it are innumerable. Sometimes it has taken me three hours to make a phone call to, for example, the dentist to make an appointment. My talent in time wasting is exemplary.

Shamed by Clutter

Even the word clutter makes me shiver with anxiety. Its onomatopoeic potency - at least to me - is such that I imagine myself being buried alive by piles of paperwork, old fancy dress costumes and chargers for unknown phones or laptops that I am just too scared to throw away.

The thing is - as you may realise - I actually don't like clutter, but for some reason in the last three years I have let the stuff accumulate. And in the last few months before I quit my job, it was so bad there were just some drawers I wouldn't dare open.

This past week, I have been spending a lot of "freelance time" sorting, throwing away, tidying, cleaning. I have discovered a cacophony of obscure objects that bring back memories, but crowd my space. Three Union Jack flags from the Jubilee, two fancy dress soldiers' hats, three sets of Christmas lights, mail belonging to housemates that lived with me three years ago, health drinks that went off in 2013. Parking tickets and solitary placemats, candles with no wick and calendars well past their dates. Numerous bits of electricals and nails and scraps of paper, crusty nail varnishes, men's scarves, a book on the Karma Sutra that I definitely didn't buy...

The thing is, I'm trying to clear my head - to clear my vision. Working from home and trying to write a novel as well as searching for commercial work, I need an inspiring environment. And all this chattering clutter is not helping. Objects remind you of times gone by, of feelings gone by, they shame me with the person I have been sometimes. I don't need them here... haunting me, taunting me. I'm detoxing my life... and most of it has got to go.

So that's why I haven't written for a while... I've been in the midst of clutter Cold Turkey and it's killed my voice for a bit. But I feel it's back, stronger and more sure of itself now. 12 steps of freedom.

xx

I Mean... Writer's Block

 

Is it writers block or is it laziness, this feeling that overwhelms my fingertips. They buzz like they want to work, but they're disconnected from my brain which seems to have nothing.

Nothing.

Life is full of wonders it really is. I know that. My eyes say that. Meditation class, yoga, books, nature has taught me that. Life is FULL. Yet, when I want to buzz with the wonder and my hands are ready, my brain is reluctant; like a petulant teen, it says "No, not today. Today we have nothing for you. We're just going to lie here and muse about what we want to eat later..."

Is it laziness though? Or is it self-esteem? Something is telling me that however much my finger tips buzz and I write... it will not be good enough, maybe that's why I stop.

Or maybe it will be good enough and that is what I am frightened of. 

Who knows?

Are you good enough at your job?

If you are a writer do you write enough?

The other thing is the mood... I am trying to write a sad scene but my brain is elated, full of happiness, full of life... it can't write the solemness for this passage... or it is scared of it...

Or the opposite.

Which is worse...

I am melancholic.

How can I write anything but sadness, depression, anxiety... how?

But a good writer - (says my ego) - a good writer could write all the time, anything they are - or they are not - feeling...

"NO", argues my soul, "no", it's better when you are soothed. Are you soothed?

Go to bed, talk, laugh; soothe your soul darling...

Your writers block is not laziness, it is you fighting yourself darling, that is what it is.

You are not listening....

Listen, please.

It will get easier if you do...

#The100DayProject, #100DaysofWriting, Day 21

Leading Our Own Life

Soooo... I've been a little quiet lately because I've been figuring my shit out, to put it bluntly. You might remember in a post I wrote about reading the signs that life was battering me a bit - or really I was battering myself. The thing is that I was working in a job for some great people, had been there for four years and I just wasn't feeling any joy from it any more, you know. It was becoming something that I had to get through every day and instead of waking up and thinking what can I achieve today I was letting the fear of change and failure crush me, standing still and curled up, feeling lower and lower.

I was preaching all this stuff on Instagram and in my blog posts about how to live your life but I wasn't doing it. I half-heartedly looked at other positions, but I knew it wasn't what I wanted. I didn't want to work for someone else doing the same thing. That wasn't why I was unhappy, it was because I wasn't using my best qualities. I was living a life governed by what I thought I should and it was destroying me.

On Fear Defining Us...

 

I didn't want to have New Years resolutions this year. A list of tick boxes that defines how I feel about myself when I read them the following year, older not wiser, still growing. Yes I'm still too fat and I haven't fucking read War and Peace OK

I thought of only two things that I wanted. Two words that don't have a Yes you have achieved or No you've failed, but are part of how I want to live better, every day. Nourish and Fear. (insert sarcastic comment here)

Nourish is about faking it till I feel it. Nourishing myself, my mind, my body, my self-esteem. I often struggle to love or respect myself, being the constantly self-critical yawnsome type that I am. My heart often beats to not-good enough, not good-enough, not good-enough.

It's hard to fake self-love is the thing because no matter the look you direct to the outside world, the little voices inside still chatter away. Irritants that they are repeating ones own shortcomings to ourselves, drowned out only by hard cardio, hysterical laughter or vodka.

What Future for Words?

This is the first in a series of posts Ì have written on the Cheltenham Literary Festival. I tried to blog #live-ish from the event, but bearing in my mind I'm rubbish at filing my blog copy when I have a laptop and three free hours...trying to do it between talks and book signings and dinners was a little difficult.. and I was a little lazy.

The What Future For Words? debate was sponsored by Warwick University and asked just asked that questions and furthermore, what the challenges and opportunities facing a new generation of writers in the shifting cultural landscape were. 

Chair Roly Keating of the British library was joined by writer, AL Kennedy, publisher Gail Rebuck, spoken-word artist Amerah Saleh and games writer and novelist Rebecca Levene to discuss the future of writing in the UK.

Eight Online Gurls Worth Stalking

I've been working so much recently that my evenings haven't been filled with the sort of sparkling shenanigans that usually grace these pages*. So I've decided to write a post that I've been meaning to for a while on the beauteous women of the internet. The fiercest tribe of womanhood wit, repartee and just damn humour that keep me clicking, liking, scrolling, tweeting and just generally abusing the www until my thumb aches. These gurls inspire me to write better, banter quicker, live more and just generally be the types that they are. They all blog or write to some degree (though some are also marv on twitter) and they're 90% Brit, because I'm patriotic like that. Generally though they just put life into succinct snippets that are digestible over your lunch hour or during a particular dull day at your desk. So subscribe, like and follow etc etc and I promise your life will be rosy.. Or at least you'll feel that someone else says it like you may think it. 

Superlatively Rude
@superlativelylj

Laura Jane Williams is my soul girl. She writes from the heart. From her sex life to her job situation all of it flows with warmth warmth warmth. She's cynical and sarcastic and talks about vaginas, yet the most earnest person ever and totally not afraid to say how she feels. Totally my kind of woman. She recently did a whole fitness body makeover kinda thing after being a "fat" girl for years... All of it was documented and she never lost her voice. 

On Instagram she posts pics of her enjoying London and heartfelt quotes that somehow she never makes corny- how does she do that!

She also gave up a regular job to go traveling round Europe recently. I mean, the fire! <3 

60 Postcards

@60Postcards

Rachel, Rachel- actually started her blog for a reason and with a big project and then less than a year later she got a a book deal. And she bloody deserved it. It's unusual for blogs I read to actually have a point. Rachel lost her Mum to cancer, very quickly and she left her a ticket to Paris and she used it and started the 60 postcards journey. It was an admirable feat that left her leaving postcards (60) with messages around Paris and then waiting to hear the response. It became an international journey where she made friends and inspired people along the way. And obvs got a book deal.

These days she writes about other admirable ideas or causes as well as updates on her own life. 

I dare you not to get involved in the 60 postcard journey once you read about it...

It was Against Her Better Judgment

@Blonde_M

I'm not sure what Blonde's name is I just know she's bloody cool and she writes in that succinct, observation of life kind of way that I so admire and so can't do.

From stories about her life to what she reads it's all with the controlled loquaciousness that perhaps Bridget Jones would of had if she had a few less Chardonnays and channeled a smidgen more Anna Wintour/Beyoncé.

Horses, courses, men and novels. What more could you want. On twitter she's dry as fuck. How I lurveee that. 

Girl Lost in the City

@girlostincity

It's hard for me not to put the entire Debrief staff on this list (there's two(ish) of them on it) because quite frankly, they're all fucking fabulous. But Emma Gannon (Social Media Editor at Debrief) writes one of those to-the-point blogs that you just gotta read. Whether it's on social media, the pay gap or marriage, she talks about it, like you'd talk.. you know. 

Bloody amazing on twitter too. To the point and not too up her arse to fangirl Zoella, cos that's what we all wanna do really. We want to talk about serious shit then get excited about what we're having for lunch. Biggggg stalking love. 

Marawilsonwritesstuff

@MaraWritesStuff

Otherwise known as Maltida and the little girl from Mrs Doubtfire and Miracle on 34th Street, Mara is now a fiery, smartcastic writer with an attitude. I'm new to her musings but all know is she's hilarious on twitter and the bits of her writing I have read are to the point yet really intelligent. Take her piece on OCD, as an on-and-off sufferer, it's really impressive to me that she write about it with such clarity and no hysteria. 

Also she's just one of those girls who dismisses the haters with a cool, clean nonchalance. 

LLG
+Liberty London Girl 
@LibertryLndnGirl

I feel a bit bad putting Sasha on this list like she's a newbie because she is the one who introduced the concept of blogging to me. I've read her blog since I basically knew what one was and despite her immense success she still does it with calm class. Writing on fashion, events, cooking, her life, her friends it's all casual and engaging. Unlike some lifestyle bloggers who seem to live the life of dreams  with no awareness or gratitude for what they are so lucky to have, you know with Sasha that she's working her arse off, but she loves it. Also she always says when she's been guested or comped by someone.

And she's bloody stylish and I just wanna go for a glass of champagnne with her and talk about how she did it. My idol.

PandoraSykes.Com
@PINSykes

Pandora Sykes should be one of those girls that jelly bitch girls hate... incredible wardrobe and figure, good haircut, oh so fashion forward and yet bloody intelligent, but she's not. 

She was Fashion Editor at the Debrief (there's the other one), but has moved to Sunday Times Style as Fashion Features editor, big hurrah. She bloody deserves it (not at all simmering, I'm all gal power me).

The thing with Pandora is, it's more than one read. Because basically she's a wordsmith too. Fucking love her instagram pics and her satirical comments on life.

Love London (Formerly This Little Lady)
+LOVE_LONDON 
@Love_London

JJ Miller know lots about London and she tells us all about it with ease and modesty. She just your mate, you know. I'd always take her restaurant and bar reccs. And the fact that she has lived with CFS and Fibromyalgia (look it up it's bloody horrendous to live with and basically means chronic pain) for the last few years is just an additional fact. Because she writes about well-being and happinesss from a place that really understands and values it. Her posts make me happy and appreciate my life and then she chucks in a sample sale or an unknown London event and I love her even more.

Big kisses to JJ.

So these my gurllllssss yeah. Go and stalk them and read their bloody amazing writing, because they're all class.

PS: Hope none of them are too offended by my stalker tendencies... I'm just a fangirl ya know

On Still Being An Inbetweener

Firstly I'd like to point out that the original series of The Inbetweeners started in 2008 when I was neither a teenager, nor male, however certainly identified with that late-teenage claw through life. Time was when everything was a potential embarassment or fuck-up and you really didn't know whether you were coming or going. Whether it was cringe-worthy encounters with the opposite sex, the endless quest for "cool" or the feeling of being slightly out of place in every possible situation.

I also identified greatly with the sentiment of the "Inbetweener", halfway between childhood and adulthood and not really sure if you want to be either. The thing is now in my *cough late twenties, I would have assumed that my "Inbetweener" stage was over and I'd be well into my adjusted adult phase where everyday life was a breeze and my problems were only important, real things like death and taxes.

I have since discovered that is not the case.