Monday 26 May 2014

100 Things To Do

In no particular order:
  1. Finish this list
  2. Knit a scarf
  3. Try 3 new recipes
  4. Make ice cream
  5. Have a picnic
  6. Create a painting (acrylic) that I'm proud of 
  7. "" but with watercolour
  8. Write a screenplay
  9. Write a radio play
  10. Write a children's book
  11. Volunteer and help the homeless
  12. Write and sell a book
  13. Write a letter to a politician
  14. Go for one day away from screens
  15. Go on a hike
  16. Go to the movies by myself (2014 - Lego Movie!)
  17. Visit a cafe by myself
  18. Learn a song on piano
  19. Play 'Syrinx' (Debussy) on flute
  20. Play 3 songs on ukulele
  21. Make a skirt/dress
  22. Learn French to a conversational level
  23. Learn Italian ""
  24. Learn Japanese ""
  25. Get a tattoo
  26. Read the Bible
  27. Read the Qu'ran
  28. Read a Confucius text (bonus points if read in Chinese)
  29. Perform a spoken poem (March 2015)
  30. Create a collection of 20 poems
  31. Go to a gig (bonus points if it's an Amanda Palmer gig) (Saw and met her in Bristol in May 2015)
  32. Dye my hair (Put semi-permanent bright red dye in my jet black hair - had a nice red sheen for a while)
  33. See a Shakespeare play in the theatre (MacBeth, March)
  34. Be in a theatre show (in orchestra or on stage)
  35. See the Northern Lights
  36. Spend min 2 weeks living abroad
  37. Vote
  38. Swim in the sea
  39. Swim in a river
  40. Be part of a flashmob
  41. Go to a convention
  42. Have a sleepover
  43. Go to the Hobbit (pub)
  44. See Muse live (Fri 20 March 2015, and met the band)
  45. See Regina Spektor live
  46. See Einaudi live
  47. Eurovision party
  48. Hold a dinner party
  49. Go inter-railing across Europe
  50. Live in London for min 2 weeks

Tuesday 20 May 2014

Make Good Art - Make Bad Music



(All photos courtesy of Beth)
Some friends and I went off to Wagamama's to celebrate the end of our exams and the academic year.


(I was too pro at chopsticks to even be offered a fork)
We ended up buying 2 tubs of Ben & Jerry's and 3 packets of Oreos (we looked like three teenage girls who had been simultaneously dumped) whilst the lady next to us carried her Ryvita crackers and whole wheat food.

Back at Beth's, we were going to watch a movie but ended up lounging around, eating melted ice cream and talking about music. Beth is pretty good at flute (to say the least) and plays viola, and Emily plays/ed the violin and piano. I used to have flute lessons and mess about with the guitar, whilst longing for a piano and a ukulele.

Thursday 1 May 2014

"Make Good Art"

In 2012, Neil Gaiman made his famous commencement speech at Philadelphia's University of the Arts, which you can watch here:


There's a lot of great messages in his speech, but the one I love most is; whatever happens, make good art.

So that's what I'm going to do.

I want to write. It's my way of making sense of the world, and if I try chasing after anything else, it just doesn't feel right.

I've been waiting for long enough to write properly. For a while, all I could see was roadblock after roadblock, and with no idea how to get over them (I still don't). The problem is; I like to plan well. I want to know what to do at every step. So, if I write, how do I know it's any good? If I do anything good, what do I do with it? If I want to publish it, who's going to accept it? And if it published, will it be successful? What if it is? What if it isn't?

But - there's no point worrying about those problems when I'm nowhere near them. And if I'm going to even get close to these roadblocks, I'll need to actually start.

I'll be using this blog to record what I'm doing (about time I knew what I was doing with this blog), how the writing is going, and so forth, creating something to look back on.

In the long run, I'd like to support myself by writing, but money is a poor motivator for creating things. So, just make good art. Make things up and record them. Write short stories, novels, poetry, scripts. Pick up that cheap notebook and scribble down notes, doodles and ideas. We all have to start somewhere.