Writer's block? What writer's block?

You  know, they say that when you have absolutely no bloody clue about what you should write, you should try doing some free writing. I'm not entirely sure who 'they' are, but what I do know is  what free writing is. It's when you don't censor yourself and you just sort of let words pour forth from out of your brain and onto your computer. It's a bit like freestyling, except with far, far less street cred.

The reason that I'm doing it is that for the last few weeks I haven't had a single solitary clue about what the hell I should write. I've kept the whole sports blogging stuff ticking over as, frankly, it is ridiculously easy to mock the sporting world. But in terms of other, actual writing? Forget about it...

I currently have three books which are really not doing a whole lot. One is finished and just needs some early chapter edits before submission to the editor, one is 30,000 words in and needs some extra early early chapters pumped in to it as it is apparently bad form to start your main 'call to arms' half way through the second chapter, and one which is 11,000 in, but is serious and I can't make dick jokes in it. That means that my entire vocabulary runs out at around the 11,000 words mark. Well, frankly if I can't make jokes I run out of words at around the 11 mark, but we'll ignore that.

Then you get to here, where I generally spend each Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday sitting around scratching my chin looking at a blank page for a few minutes, then switching off by computer and trying hard to crack the top 10,000 lap times around Road America in Forza 3. I've lost my mojo a bit, frankly.

On top of that I have a script which has about two scenes finished and a lot of scribbles on a white board, college applications which are sat unfilled on my desk and a 'To Do' list which is off the bottom of my white board and onto Postit notes.

So, has all of this helped? Well.... no, frankly. I still have absolutely no clue how I'm going to structure new opening book chapters, no idea how I'm going to introduce 3 more characters in a script, no idea how I'm going to write an entire book without making dick jokes and no idea how I'm going to shave 7 seconds off of my Forza 3 lap time. Still, at least I got a Thursday blog posting done...

Who needs a sleeping patern?

Look, I'm going to admit something here - I  messed up. I know, I thought I was perfect too, but no...

I've spent most of this weekend covering The Australian Grand Prix and watching UFC 111 and Wrestlemania 26 as a fan. That means that I have absolutely trashed my body clock. I've always had a somewhat lapse grasp on my sleeping patterns, but this weekend it has gotten ridiculous. It is like jetlag, except I didn't even get to go on fucking holiday.

Anyway, the upshot of all of that is I've fallen off the ball here a bit. I intended to do Thursday's post inbetween the first F1 practice sessions, but I couldn't keep my eyes open for long enough to do so. I meant to do today's while watching Wrestlemania, but instead we started doing shots whenever anyone was on screen in just their trunks and it all got a little fuzzy...

Because of all of that, I'm left with the immortal question that plagues students the world over - do I stay awake for two days to correct my body clock, or do I just wing it and stay on a messed up body clock. I mean, it can't be THAT bad for you to sleep at 7am and wake up at 4pm, can it?

Actually, compared to some students, a 7am till 4pm sleep pattern is sort of normal. I'm up late at night quite a lot watching\covering sport and without a word of a lie, a huge number of students I know are known to turn up on Skype calling me at 3am saying "Yeah, I just woke up. What day is it?"

And that is another reason while I'm always jealous of students. They seem to live the life of a king - sleeping as much as they want, whenever they want and they ALWAYS have money to go drinking. All the more reason why I'm strongly considering becoming one, just to take a 3 year holiday... I mean, getting a degree can't be that hard, can it?

Anyway, I'll be back to normal tomorrow as , even though today is Monday, this is Sunday's post...

Dear Cold: Fuck You

Dear Cold,

I understand that you chose to infect me, and frankly I enjoyed the fact that it gave me an excuse to develop a borderline Night Nurse addiction and spend three days on the sofa. Now, though, it is Monday. I need to work. I quite enjoy earning money, and if I don't work then I don't get any. Giving me sporadic fits where I explode in a snotty cloud of germ isn't really conductive to me being able to buy food this week.

Neither are the pounding headaches, either. They really bug me. I do NOT like headaches, you see. To put it bluntly, Mr Cold, they fuck me right off. In a week where I'm having to do far too much web design work, which gives me a headache anyway, they are totally NOT helpful.


I also have to be awake all weekend covering the Australian Grand Prix for The Black Stuff. Colds do not help that.

Please. Go away. Now. The Night Nurse can stay though....

Thank you in advance,

Me

Odd Ideas That My Brain Comes Up With...

As anyone who follows my Twitter feed will attest to, I have some really frigging odd thoughts at times. I mean, the main reason I have a Twitter feed isn't to tell the world my activity each and every fucking second of the day, oh no, it's just as a place to jot down all the odd little thoughts that pop into my brain as the day goes by.

But sometimes, just sometimes, I have a batshit crazy idea that I can't express in just 140 characters. Mostly, they are book and short story ideas (or as I call them, 'stuff I whore to publishers that never gets picked up') but here is a collection of some of my stranger ideas.

• I want to write a comedy book about a nuclear explosion from the perspective of a bunny who nibbled through the wires and set it off. Imagine it - it would be epic. Everyone convinced that some rougue nation would be the one to set a nuclear bomb off, and instead it's just a rabbit.
• I want to write a sitcom about a group of students, except whenever I try I just make the characters stereotypes of some of my friends. And, the thing is, should I ever get round to piloting the thing they would all be like "dude, that is so obviously me! Fuck you!"
• Is it weird to want to change me name to, like, Justin Time or Barry Cade and just write a journal of what people say to me in response to my name? Although I would need to obtain fake ID for that, as I'm sure people would want proof and I doubt writing it in my underpants would be enough. Also, I am NOT changing my name by depol to Barry fucking Cade, alright?
• Finally, I'm not entirely sure if I should know this, but the computer graphic for POD on the BBC 3 makeover show 'Snog, Marry, Avoid' is the exact same graphic as the one ESPN use for their world famous SportsCenter logo. You know the one, the red dot with the lenses focusing around it? Yeah, you know the one. Anyway, they are the same. And I want to know what would happen if the two of them changed places for a day. Would POD start doing a Tony Kornheiser on the SportsCenter crew? Would the SportsCenter graphic tell Bianca Gascgoine about baseball? Oooooh the possibilities!

I hate you, you stupid bloody computer!

Oh, you think you're real smart, huh? Freezing just as I'm trying to save a blog update? You think you will make me write it all out again, do ya? Well no deal, buster. I'm just going to wing it.

Usually, whenever I update here, I'll write it in Open Office then just copy and paste it across. I'm weird like that, as despite the fact that Blogger gives me lots of nice tools to play with here, I'll entrust my computer with the data first. Today, that turned out to be one big royal fucking mistake.

I admit it, maybe I should have saved it more often. Maybe I shouldn't have written a page and a half before hitting Ctrl + S. Maybe I should have saved it as soon as I opened it. After all, as my old music tech teacher used to preach to us, 'Jesus Saves'. Oh well, it doesn't really matter. You've been toying with me all week, you dumb computer, running like mud. Then when I try to de-frag you, you tell me nothing is wrong and everything is hunky dory. You tell me that you haven't got a care in the world and everything is just a-okay.

I don't care. I will take you a fucking part if you test me again, you hear me? I know you can hear me, Mr Computer, and I know you are reading everything I'm typing! Mark my words, buddy, I know where you sleep and I will put you in the bath tub if you do that again!

TL:DR - My computer is a bastard.

P.S. SUPER BOWL SUPER BOWL SUPER BOWL SUPER BOWL SUPER BOWL