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

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.

"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.