There's no better method to communicate...

Every so often, I go through a phase, which maybe lasts around a month, where I start listening to a lot of James Blunt music.
One of the most clear memories I have of one of these periods is about two years ago, when I went to his concert when he was touring All The Lost Souls. He played the piano and an acoustic guitar, and ran all over the stage and through the lower crowd with very crazy eyes and it was brilliant - I only regret I didn't know more of that music at the time. I think that James Blunt show was one of the first times I came out of a gig feeling so fascinated and alive and almost drunk from it all, like it had changed everything, just a little.
After his album launch webcast the other night, I remembered how amazing James Blunt can seem, and a day of me rediscovering him followed, after our year and a half apart. Anyone who follows me on Twitter will possibly have been there the two hours I listened to a song called "I'll Be Your Man" from his new album, and the next day my parents gave me odd looks when I came downstairs in a turban towel and dressing gown after singing "I'LL BE YOUR MA-AH-A-A-AN!" happily in the shower.
Most British people will only have heard of James Blunt because of "You're Beautiful", a single about five years ago which was a bit of a one hit wonder. If that's the case, or if you just haven't heard of James Blunt at all, go listen.
From his new album, I like "Stay The Night" and "Superstar" the most, along with the song I mentioned up there. "I Really Want You" is utterly gorgeous, and others which you'll find through getting lost in the magical pathways of Related Videos.
Fun Fact - James Blunt and I have the same birthday.


It's Pudsey Bear day and I'm not sure why I'm still watching Children In Need. My parents went to bed, I'm sat here watching Celebrity Mastermind during the break and I really don't know why.

So. I finished NaNoWriMo. :D
No, that's a lie. I got to the point, late on Sunday night whilst 'Creep' by Radiohead was playing during the most emotional scene I think I've ever written when I crossed the 50k mark. But I'm realising that's not all of it. I have to actually finish the story, which is still far away, and I will but I'm slowing down the pace. For the first time, I love my characters and I don't want to leave them behind, like with Script Frenzy. They need their story to be told, and I have to do it because it keeps me sane, in a way.

Also this week I met - meaning emailed and talked to - my French exchange student, Isaline, who's coming to stay with me next week. She's nice, she plays guitar and writes and I think we're going to get on well :) Exciting.

I went to a write-in last week and it was a lot of fun, and the lovely Chester ML gave me stickers for being at 42k at the time, which made all of the late nights, caffeine imbalance, homework stress and social neglection worthwhile. I stuck my purple octopus sticker inside my locker at school, so that I feel like an American whenever I open it.

Enjoy your weekend. :)

Lizzie xx

On Neil Gaiman's birthday...

I had the dumbest conversation with someone today.

ME: You must know who David Bowie is. "Space Oddity"? "Under Pressure"? dum dum dum doo bee dum dum...

FRIEND: Uh... no. "Under Pressure" is by Vanilla Ice.

ME: Wh... ?

FRIEND: Yes.

ME: You're kidding me, you don't honestly think that? It's by Queen and David Bowie, Vanilla Ice sampled it like with Jason Derulo and...

FRIEND: Shut up. That version is rubbish.

I don't think I've ever wanted to slap somebody so hard.

So I finished watching The Only Way Is Essex, a guilty pleasure, and got in and out of the shower. I have a little more to add to my wordcount today, because 40,000 is a nice, neat number to end on for the day, and I swear I'm not procrastinating but I can't possibly write a novel when my hair is wet?! So I came to write here, and today I may actually have something worthwile to say.

Today is Neil Gaiman's fiftieth birthday. Neil Gaiman is a very, very brilliant writer. You'll have heard of him because of Stardust, Coraline, and maybe even the Sandman graphic novels/comics but the reason I like Neil Gaiman so much is because of his short stories.
I'll tell you a story about how I came across Neil Gaiman.
When I was around twelve years old, I really liked a computer game called The Sims 2, and I ended up joining the EA Games UK forum. I made some friends there and a lot of them seemed pretty into a band called The Dresden Dolls. This was a long time ago and I didn't really appreciate music like that back then, but I did love the song Delilah which I still have on my iPod from the first time around.
I came across The Dresden Dolls again rather recently, because a year or so I started listening to Amanda Palmer.
I don't just like listening to Amanda Palmer because of her music. I think that that's only a proportion of the reasons she is awesome, the other being the internet. Every so often I will read one of Amanda Palmer's blog entries and start to shake a little, because it portrays exactly something I've felt, or I will hope to feel. A few days ago, Amanda wrote here about a band she loved in her teens called The Legendary Pink Dots, and it made me smile and laugh and feel about twenty times, because it's exactly how I want to live.
I heard of Neil Gaiman, of course, through Twitter, because he's Amanda's fiancé and also the favourite writer of a lot of friends I've made in the last year. These things lead me to go read something by Neil Gaiman, simply out of curiosity. One weekend I was shopping with some of my friends and searched almost violently through all the shelves for anything by Neil Gaiman. I bought Stardust, in amazement that I'd had no idea it was a novel first, and Fragile Things, the book of short stories that in certain ways has changed the way that I see the world.
I suppose all of that was my way of telling you to read Neil Gaiman novels, listen to Amanda Palmer and The Dresden Dolls and maybe even The Legendary Pink Dots.

NaNoWriMo is going very well - by the time anyone reads this, I hope I'll probably have reached forty thousand words. Most of it is garbage, but I'm proud of me. Forty thousand words is a lot of words, to write in a week and a bit. Plus, my homework isn't getting too neglected either; no NaNo inflicted detentions, yet. Yay. :)

Now I have to go. I have to write 1k more, and listen to a band called Hollywood Undead to prove to my friend that I'm open-minded.

Subliminal Messaging

Something weird happened today, and I don't feel very safe here anymore. I realised in the bath just now that, a little like in Joanne Harris' blueyedboy my blog doesn't just possibly have an Albertine who reads it but also a JennyTricks. And she isn't trying to kill me, not quite, but it was weird walking into school and having quotations from my own writing shouted at me.

I'm going to try and carry on as if nothing's happened.

I'm writing this to prove a point, but it's out of time which I don't really have; I haven't done anything towards my NaNo today and also my homework is growing and catching up to the point that I can't ignore it anymore. I planned on getting going as soon as I got home from school, I promise, but then I was watching TV, and then eating dinner and then in the bath and then asleep in the bath, and I've done none of it.

Today, I asked one of my friends, "If you could be anyone in the world for a day, who would it be?"
He shrugged, simply. "I don't know."
"Okay, how about this one," I persisted. "Any five people in the world for dinner at your house. Who would they be, what would you eat...?"
"No idea. And chicken caeser wraps, with bacon."
I don't know why, but I felt annoyed that he hadn't even considered it. I ask people that all of the time - sometimes famous people doing Q&As on twitter, who mostly seem to choose family and friends, and my own family and friends, who'll choose famous people.
I was a mind blown by the fact that he hadn't even thought about it. One night I asked my best friend this, and we both tried to come up with our five. We struggled, so pushed to ten, then unlimited, then went into extravegent detail whilst planning the seating plans and order of performances and the buffet, which Mrs Beaver and Monica Gellar-Bing had prepared between them. Today, instead my friend went on to change the subject and ask about which accent I'd have, if I could choose.
"Canadian," I told him.
"Awesome. I'd take Irish."
"Northern or Southern?"
He shrugged. "Irish."
A group of us spent a few minutes trying to say "about" (ah-boot) in a Canadian way, and then it all seemed pretty much over.
That's all for today. I have to go to a website called mymaths now. For once, homework > NaNo.

Lizzie xx

What've we got, got, got to lose?

I want to say hi to my awesome friend Beth Holmes. I got an email from her Friday night, saying that she'd read my blog and that it was beautiful and made her cry. I felt happy for a long long time after that.

Last night, I went to see Imogen Heap at the Royal Albert Hall.
This is going to be a long blog.
Know that I also saw Immi a week ago, in Liverpool, and that was a small, intimate standing up venue. There were several times I thought I made eye contact with my absolute hero. Afterwards, she signed my ticket (we didn't meet her, but it's a long story, and I met some brilliant and lovely people in the queue, whilst half of me felt sad for my ashtmatic friend, choking on the fumes from my new friends' cigarette smoke). It was an epic gig. I'd go as far as saying better than the time in February, and even more so maybe than the Royal Albert Hall, which I wasn't expecting. It was just completley different, I suppose. The Albert Hall was beautiful and grand and amazing, the orchestra was so powerful, but compared to the other two shows I'd been at, I felt disconnected and faraway. In our area, only Poppy and I sang "Just For Now". I'd say if I had to choose, between only going to one gig, I'd choose a small Academy show. But I didn't: I'm lucky enough that a woman named Antonia let Poppy and I stay at their house, and that my dad came to Liverpool with me and so many people I know try hard to understand, and meet my odd little addictions. But I loved being in the Albert Hall last night. I'm NaNo-ing and I don't have time to talk about the shows as much as I want to.
But I think my footage may have been used in Love The Earth. :D
London was wonderful, Poppy and I ran around a lot being late for the tube and other trains. it rained. I left my red umberella behind in the Royal Albert Hall (on the off chance Immi reads this, may I have it back if you found it :p?). And after the movie in the interval, I had what I'll consider as my first ever big heart-to-heart conversation, which sounds lame. But it was in the Royal Albert Hall, with my best friend, about to see my favourite musician, and I got things off of my chest. Now Poppy knows what she deserves to. It should be all over, really. Only I just mentioned it on Teh Internetz, so I suppose that made it slightly more real.

NaNoWriMo is going really well. I haven't been to any write-ins yet, but my word count is much ahead of what it needs to be and I don't know why. This year, I love my characters and everything's very easy all of a sudden, it's great. Right now I'm sat eating a plate of noodles at my desk. I barely have time to write this, because I told one of my friends that if I've not written 30k by Monday, she can slap me, three times. Tonight I plan to stay up late and write the 5k I need to, and then tomorrow, go out for breakfast with my friends.
I won't lie. It makes me feel brilliantly important that I don't quite have time to write a blog.

I'm happy at the moment, I think. There's nothing going on really anymore. Things are calm and still. I think I've realised, after several things that have happened, I want to live in the moment now.

Remember all that stuff I said, about still and calm. I'll be complaining about living where I do, soon, and that I'm stressed and lonely and that nothing is going on. it's all still true. But going to see Imogen Heap just stays in my mind for a few days, and clears away the cobwebs.

I'll go write now.

If you're reading this, I do love you.

Lizzie xx