Wednesday, October 19, 2005
George R.R. Martin

It's been a while since my last entry, and so much has happened - finishing my dissertation, moving house, searching for a job, trying to write a story... A lot of stuff, none of which I can be bothered to discuss right now.

The only thing I want to write about right this moment is George R.R. Martin. I met him tonight at his signing in Manchester and he is the most fantastic guy - humble, polite and very, very funny. I felt privileged just to be in the same room as him. I finally got my hands on Feast and it's pretty big...cost me an arm and a leg as well as it is the hardback version, but it was worth it. The staff at the store were trying to hurry people up but I thought "screw this" and rather than just getting him to sign my book, I got him to write "good luck with your writing" which he was more than happy to do. I had my photo taken with him and had a brief chat about the story I sold recently to Nocturne magazine (it was him that asked - it wasn't like I was on an ego-trip or anything!) and I went away happy, like the60 or 70 other folks. Great night - cheers George. Now go and get working on Dance!

Posted by James L 2005-10-19 18:04:34

Tuesday, July 5, 2005
The Return of the Beast

The Beast is back. I successfully slew the Beast last April but now, with my dissertation deadline growing steadily closer, it's time to get ready to tackle the monster again. This incarnation of the Beast is more monstrous than the last. Whereas the last weighed in at a considerable 10,000 words (including footnotes, making the actual work about 8,000 words long) this new incarnation is 12,000 words excluding footnotes. An extra 4,000 words this time around.

I've been busy recently preparing for job interviews and applications, as well as writing. Now I've gathered all my resources and am getting stuck into my work. The subject is piracy in the Caribbean, 1715-1725, just like last year. Dissertation writing to some people may be a chore, but I generally enjoy the experience. Pirates are utterly fascinating and the research can be so satisfying when you stumble across a passage in a goverment letter from 1716 lambasting the Caribbean pirates for their depraved acts. :)

So, my sword is sharp and polished and I'm ready to tackle the Beast again. By the way, anybody who is interested in piracy - pick up a copy of Charles Johnson's History of the Pyrates, published in 1724. Absolutely riveting stuff, even if half of it is made up. Some of the pirate tortures are particularly gruesome...but not that far removed from the practices in the Royal Navy at the same time.

Pirates aside, I've discovered online poker and proceeded to lose my first $1000 dollars pretty fast (play money, of course!). Once I got into the swing of things I started to win a few hands and now I can more than hold my own on the medium tables. The best winning hand I had was four aces - 'four of a kind' - raking in a pot of $2672, not bad at all.

Having realised I'd not read a book for almost a month, I went out and bought David Gemmell's The Swords of Night and Day,devouring it in 5 days.Pretty standard Gemmell fare, but entertainingnonetheless. Of course it helps when you've got both Skilgannon the Damned AND Druss the Legend in the same book. :)

Finally got around to watching the first disc from my deluxe edition of Transformers - the original series. Great stuff, but personally I feel the later series (particularly 3 and 4) were more imaginative. Despite this, I have to say I prefer Megatron to Galvatron. :)

Guild Wars has still not arrived! However I only ordered it on Friday, so it'll be here tomorrow. Well, it better be. I've always wanted to have a crack at a MMORPG and have always been put off by the subscription fee (I'm only a student afterall) but Guildwars incorporates no hidden costs. You pay for the game and that is all - free online play. Plus the visuals are stunning and all the reviews I've read have drooled all over it. Can't wait. :)

To cheer myself up whilst waiting for GW to arrive, I ordered The Land That Time Forgot on DVD. A great film I used to love as a kid. I mean sure - the effects are dated as hell but who cares when you've got dinosaurs, volcanoes and neanderthals. Classic adventure stuff, the sort I have a weakness for...which is why I'm also looking forward to the new King Kong film. The new trailer looks sweet, and the island natives are very, very freaky. Plus in the film we'll get to see Kong wrestling with a T-Rex and that is simply too cool to describe. We'll just have to wait until December.

Ok, I really ought to go and get back to the books. I could go on about how excited I am by the prospect of the Smashing Pumpkins reforming, but I'll leave that for another day.

No matter how hard I try my blog entries are always far too long. Owen, is this a record do you reckon?! :)

Posted by James L 2005-07-05 09:02:18

Monday, June 20, 2005
Life and how to live it

Nah, nothing as presumptuous as that; I just like it as a title! :)

Yeah, so...what's up? Hayfever, that's what. Every year. Same time. Doesn't matter where I am. At the first hint of summer my nose just gets totally blocked and I walk around for days with my voice sounding like someone has just kicked me in the goolies. We've had more than a hint of summer here in grey old Manchester- it's been absolutely blazing for the past few days...I would enjoy it if I could breathe properly. :(

One of my shorts seems to have been rejected by Thirteen Magazine. I don't blame them. It is total crap. Luckily my new one (that as usual has been sent to Owen for bashing duty :)) is far better. In fact I was reading it last night and I was very pleased - I feel it is some of the best writing I've ever done. Sharp, concise and to the point. No blathering, no rubbish. Just the goods, plain and simple. Nice. I'll be sending that off soon, not totally sure where to yet. May try Thirteen again.

Went to the largest graduate careers fair in the UK the other week. Now that I have to get a job, the old student approach has gone out the window. I've cut my hair (how tragic, took me a good 8 months to grow that long) and removed my earring. To complete the effect, I dug out my one and only suit that I've only ever wore once before and gave it a good dusting down. I spoke to several companies at the fair, having determined prior to going which ones I was interested in speaking too (not an easy task when you have no idea what you want to do). I've already got my first interview lined up - next Tuesday at 11. It's a very interesting job that I think would suit me down to the ground (it's market research) so all I have to do is do a good job of the interview. Having only had one job interview in my life (and that was about 5 years ago) I'm not exactly experienced. It'll be ok though. :)

So yeah...have been uber busy recently. Aside from spending these stupidly hot, balmy days writing application forms (and trying to think of answers to stupid questions - when was the last time I solved a vital problem as part of a team anyway?) I'm also trying to start thinking about getting started with my dissertation. AND on top of that I've only got until Friday night to get my entry in for the Games Workshop Black Library competition. Have to write a 1000 word synopsis and 500 words of the story. Must get on with that. Have an idea of what I want to write - the theme is betrayal - I just have to get my ass in gear. The prize is pretty tasty - if they like what you send them, they will commission you to write a full story. Not only will you get paid for it, but it'll appear in an anthology entitled "The Cold Hand of Betrayal." Nice. Thinking caps on then. :)

I've finally managed to sort my diet out. Usually I manage to get two or three portions of fruit and veg a day, and am now managing to eat cereal again. :) I'm also back on the exercises - push-ups, sit-ups, weights, etc.. Bring on the muscle. Talking of muscle...lol...was out on the town with my flatmates and some other friends. To cut a long story short, on the way home this guy starts on my mate as he thought my mate had been taking the piss out of him (which he didn't). Que an amusing scene with this one dickhead trying to start a fight with us. It was lucky for him it didn't, as it would have been him vs 6 of us. One of my flatmates used to play rugby and is a big lad, the other is pretty hefty and I'm far from a pushover, being 6 foot. He would have been beaten black and blue had it not been for myfriends deciding their statuses as newly-qualified teachers were not worth wasting on some twat who was just trying to prove how hard he was to the ugly wench he'd picked up from some gutter. Lol. :)

Asked my dad for some money so I can buy some shoes for my interview. He gave me £70. :) :) :) So I'll get a pair for £40 and spend the other £30 on Guildwars on the PC. Sounds like a plan? Yeah, I think it does. :)

Posted by James L 2005-06-20 18:20:06

Thursday, June 2, 2005
It's been a while...

Oops, it's been quite a while since I wrote a blog entry. No real excuses, apart from the fact that I've been majorly busy recently.

So, what's up in my wacky world right now...

Writing continues to progress pretty well; have sent one story (kindly 'bashed' by our very own Owen :p ) off to 'Thirteen' magazine, which according to their website is Britain's leading horror mag. They have a maximum of 4 weeks respond time (as indicated by the nice confirmation email I was sent) and w're currently two weeks into that period, so I'm hoping to hear back in the near future...

Have almost finished the first draft of (yet) another short horror story - what the hell is it with me and horror? I've hardly read more than a handful of horror books in my life and somehow it has ended up as my favourite genre to write in...crazy how things work out...

Anyway, the new story ispretty dark and involves a train (partly inspired by how spooky the last train back from Waterloo is in the middle of winter, partly inspired also by the brilliant opening to Resident Evil 0 when you have to navigate through a train of zombies.) Fantastic stuff. I have pretty high hopes for this one; will probably send it to Thirteen magazine as well, even if the other gets rejected. We'll see.

Finally finished my film - three months in the making, and untold hours spent in front of a dual-screen pc (yeah, very weird at first) in the edit suite. It's looking pretty smart and swish now. The end credits are especially cool - I managed to blag the use of a certain song by a friend's band, and it fit the tone of the film perfectly. Beats paying £50 to use ten seconds of music. Anyway, a lot of blood, sweat and tears went into this film (which looks at the impact of WW2 on German people living in Britain today) and I'm relieved it's finally over. Happy with the final result, particularly the stuff we shot on an old 8mm camera - this particular footage has a brilliant old-skool style to it...nice....

What else...yeah, got pretty pissed off yesterday. This weekend I'm going with my better half to her aunt's 60th birthday. My girlfriend's brother (who is the most lazy, pathetic, childish, lying bastard I've ever met) couldn't even be bothered to get a present. Whena present was ordered for him and all he had to do was pick it up, he claimed he couldn't because "there is nowhere to park in Manchester" - this is the most blatant lie I've ever heard. So what happens? I get roped into picking this present up for him - having to go into town on my own accord (while he lazes in bed, I hear later)and pay for this present with my own money, just because he can't be bothered. I've already warned my girlfriend he better have the money ready when I next see him or the sh!t will hit the fan, big time. :(

I'm eating healthily now! No more cake, digestive biscuits or other fat stuff! Well, not as much at any rate... ;) I'm trying to eat more healthily really because my diet totally sucks. I've also started doing my weights again, hoping to regain my nice tonedfigure that I had in the pre-cake/biscuit/curry days. :)

Only have my dissertation to do now! And that isn't due in 'til September! So I have 3 months to do a project which I have practically already done 50% of (as I did a very similar thesis last year). Nice!

Typical British summer seems to be kicking in. As usual we have a roasting Arpil and May, and then as soon as June arrives the grey skies come over and the rain starts... :(

Dammit! I finally succumbed and played a few Warcraft games, after a month or so of quitting. I wasn't even that desperate to play, I simply did so as I had little else to do. Next week I'm gonna finalise my Morrowind character and get stuck into that, so maybe I'll stop with WC then. We'll see. At least I won 4 of the 5 games I played tonight. Who is the daddy? :)

Saw the new Star Wars movie and enjoyed it. Probably the best of the three 'new' films. You can pick apart and slag off the lack of character development (not so much a problem in Revenge of the Sith), plot frailties and whatnot, but at the end of the day it's Star Wars, it's lightsabres and The Force, it's Yoda and Obi-Wan, it's Wookies and droids and all the other tasty stuff, and you love it. :)

Ok, well I think that's enough for now. :)

Posted by James L 2005-06-02 19:31:17

Wednesday, May 4, 2005
Addictions

I've had my fair share of addictions in the past. In the first year of university I had an unhealthy fixation with the 'imachine' in our local bar. Many 50 pence pieces were shovelled into the machine just so I could play 'Strike it Rich" and usually very little prize money came out. But that wasn't the point; it was the fun, the addiction. The possibility that you might just get lucky. Plus I like to entertain the notion that I am a bit of a general knowledge buff, but I know that my general knowledge prowess pales into comparison with one of my flatmates; we have a pile of booze in our lounge from the pub quizzes he has won single-handedly...

But to get to the point. Addictions can be fun, quite often financially damaging and occasionally counter-productive. My addiction to Warcraft 3 is one such counter-productive addiction. In the last few months when I was playing a lot of Warcraft, my writing total stood at a pathetic, soul-destroying 0 words.

Since quitting Warcraft, I have written 6000 words in 5 days. Considering that I have been extremely busy doing filming and editing for the last two weeks, i think that's pretty good going. Resident Evil 4 still commands some of my time, but writing is now being given a much more prominent part in my day. Which is just as well really, as if you want to be successful you have to work at it. And as the genius that is Jose Mourinho states in the American Express advert, "you have to believe you can score." Having kicked my Warcraft addiction into touch, I'm believing I can score alright. Once I'm done with this story (which Owen very kindly agreed to "give a bashing") I've got another couple lined up.

Writing aside, my film partner and I trekked all across Manchester to do some filming, only to find that our young lady who we were going to film had to dash off to work. We had to walk all the way back with our gear. In the rain. It was miserable. Plus I was wearing my Chelsea shirt in die-hard Man Utd territory. Unsurprisingly I got my share of abuse. :)

As for the game last night, it was barely a football match. It was Chelsea's attack against Liverpool's defense. And their goal never crossed the line! Still, credit where credit is due. The way things have gone for Liverpool in the Champions League this season,I think they may just win it.

Right, I'm off to get in some Resi Evil 4 before bed. Yes, bed! I get up early these days, it's good for the soul :)

Adios.

Posted by James L 2005-05-04 18:16:05