If I were to tweet about my day, it would go something like: ‘sat on my arse eating scones and reading The Last Dragonslayer cover to cover #myperfectsunday #bliss’. Obviously I would be using these hashtags for comic effect, because I’m cool and ironic and whatnot. Continue reading “How to cure back pain”
Those of us who live in Edinburgh (i.e. me) are two weeks into the Edinburgh Fringe, a rather massive arts festival that annually bankrupts countless comedians, actors and spoken word artists. Continue reading “Five free literary events for the fringe”
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Things are about to get seriously busy in Edinburgh, as the 2014 Fringe Festival is nearly upon us. This year my partner, who is variously a freelance writer, poet, stand up and poor person, has taken it upon himself to write and perform two shows as part of the free Fringe. One is a spoken word show called Knife Whimsy, taking place at George Next Door. Continue reading “Alternative Walking Tour at Edinburgh Fringe 2014”
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I spent my last post bemoaning the fact that my printer was behaving like a total helmet, thus preventing me from printing out my latest magnum opus (or 26,000 word nonsense for 8 year olds, if you want to be pedantic).
Now, it’s quite often hard to know who is reading this blog (assuming anyone still is aside from the spam bots, who are as vocal as ever – shout out for my home boy Ben Sherman Shirts, Great Prices). Since I finished the initial ‘write 12 Books in 12 Months’ thing, the site has been a strange mixture of stuff aimed readers, stuff aimed at writers and amateurish attempts at photography. But the ‘my printer needs to stop being an arsepiece’ post provoked the most tangible response I’ve ever had, namely that one of my best pals got in touch after reading it to ask if I want a new printer for my birthday next week. What a result!
I swithered about this for approximately ten minutes before deciding that the post, rather than a childish rant, must subconsciously have been my equivalent of Amanda Palmer’s TED talk about asking for help – and replied saying YESPLEASETHANKYOU.
The upshot of this is that I have now printed out a nearly readable first draft of a bookish piece of writing I’ve been working on for more than a year, and I’ve even started scribbling edits on it (using a schmancy Parker pen gifted to me by another friend. Thinking about it, I’m pretty lucky that they all humour me in this way…).
To explain why printing is important to me – I’m not sure if anyone does do edits onscreen, but I can’t work that way myself. I get to the point where whatever is on a computer screen seems to be written as I meant to write it, but as soon as I have a printed version the typos (and plot holes) make themselves known much more readily. And now I have such a print out, hooray! Or boo, because it means no excuses for procrastination…
My aim now is to finish these scribbles and transcribe them back into the word doc before I head south for the Birmingham Beer Bash this Thursday. This timeframe is probably slightly over optimistic, given that this morning I put my alarm on the other side of the room to make myself get up at 7am to edit before work only to get up, switch the alarm off, and go back to bed again. Oops.
Still, last time I blogged I was despairing of even getting this far without an expensive trip to an Internet cafe, so maybe the mere act of writing this statement of intent will be enough to make it happen. After all, blogging can change your life. It says so in the header!
(If you still need some convincing, how about this story from the BBC about how starting a blog changed someone’s life in a much more dramatic way than mine..)
P.S. Thanks again Jo! x
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Dear Printer,
Why must you be such a colossal arsepiece?
You recognise there is a full black ink cartridge in your belly, and yet you blast my attempts to print with an error message:
‘Uh, that cartridge is recycled. I’m not printing with that.’
Why not, you fussy sod? It’s not like I didn’t try to get brand cartridges, but there were none to be had because, dear printer, you’ve long since gone out of style. Quite frankly you were past it when I bought you, in a sale, at Tesco – nestled in amongst cheap kettles and cutlery for the student crowd heading to uni for the first time. EVEN BRAND NEW UNDERGRADS KNEW TO AVOID YOU, PRINTER. You ain’t all that.
‘Also,’ you press on, dear printer, oblivious to the anguish you are causing, ‘also, there’s nothing left in the colour cartridge. So, y’know. That’s a problem.’
Why, pray tell, is that such an issue for you? I am not trying to print in colour, printer. The text of my manuscript is black (arial size 12) and you’ve got a brand new black cartridge ready to deal with it if only you’d give recycling a go. And what is so wrong with reusing an old cartridge, exactly? Something something printer heads, foam and alignment… I call bullhockey. You’re probably one of those climate change denying printers, too. You probably think the weather’s super erratic these days because women have the right to vote now. YOU MAKE ME SICK.
I will not be wasting any more of my time looking for on brand cartridges, printer. You are obsolete, and I will shortly be sacrificing you to the gods of Freecycle or Gumtree with a strong recommendation that your future owner considers using you for parts.
Kind regards,
Ali
PS If anybody wants a couple of recycled black ink cartridges for an HP 4200 series printer let me know, apparently I can’t use them.
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You know when you read something completely immersive and wonderful and you almost don’t want to finish but you find yourself racing to the end because you want to know how it will be resolved and all the loose ends are accounted for in a narratively satisfying manner? The sort of book that makes you do a little cry or maybe a manful sigh at the end and then you go on Goodreads and give it five stars and look at the reviews by people that didn’t like it and put them on your enemy list.
And you know how later, when you return to your own work in progress – which is a completely different project and isn’t supposed to resemble the thing you just read in any way – you see just how far you still have to go with it and the whole thing makes you feel very tired even though it’s Saturday and you’ve had ten hours sleep and two coffees.
And you know how then you sit and eat pringles and listen to Red Sparowes and Explosions in the Sky as your living room gets darker and darker (it’s probably going to rain soon, like nature knows you need a bit of pathetic fallacy in your life) and think ‘there’s no point blogging about it, I need to crack on,’ but you’re not sure how to start somehow so you blog about it anyway?
That’s been my afternoon.
12 Books in 12 Months 