Shorts to Novels; Passion and Drive in the Form of Art

During this 'Journey' of writing my first Novel, as is normal with anything and anyone I've found moments where my enthusiasm has somewhat lacked. Whether the reason is to do with fatigue, stress, or just pure darn laziness it's just something that happens and it's annoying. Very annoying. Because you're sat at your desk, looking at what you've written so far, one half of your brain sadistically whispering "look you've done well, just put it aside and write a different one for now... an easier one" and the other half failing to encourage "go on, look you've got half of the book left.... thats good, you know it is.... it might feel like a lot... but it's not... go on" it tries. For the first half hour I find myself battling between these two conflicts in these moods, someday's I'll give the latter half some sympathy and randomly find wonderful productivity and other days I'll get furiously competitive on a shameful procrastination game of Mario Kart. So what's the cure? For the anti-productivity bug? Well for me, and again this kind of thing varies with different people, but a lot of my enthusiasm comes from Art - and I use Art in an extremely broad sense. Anything that constitutes as a beautiful creation; from Music, Films, Books and literal pieces of Art really lift the spirit sometimes; if I run into a piece of Art that's truly fantastic it instantly makes a difference.

For example during one of my bad sessions of procrastination fueled by endless episodes of the fantastic Fresh Meat I found myself inspired multiple times. Fresh Meat, along with including Kimberly Nixon; an undeniable celebrity crush if ever there was one, is a great programme and has these incredible moments of poetic excellence, in its writing, it's choice of shots, it's use of music and its absolutely electric connections with the actors. But during one scene in the library where Oregon/Melissa (Charlotte Richie) falls in love with a student and librarian Dylan (Ronan Raftery) they recite a section from Anne Sexton's poem 'Admonitions to a Special Person' which I had never read before. It went "to love another is something like prayer and can't be planned, you just fall into its arms because your belief undoes disbelief" and that was enough to start me off again.... after finishing the episode (obviously). It made me want to write, to create something as equally beautiful as that, it reminded me why I want to be a writer, I want to be the person that creates something that really leaves a lasting impression on someone like Admonitions to a Special Person and Fresh Meat has to me. 

Cure for anti-productivity? Passion and drive in the form of art/what you love.

The Missing; Drama at its best

"Home is not just just a place, Tony. It's whatever there is in your life that stops you feeling alone."

These are the words spoken by Julien Baptiste half way through the series finalé of what could possibly be one of the greatest dramas to have graced our TV screens for a long time. I tend to stray away from watching TV as it seems to periodically get slightly worse, but programmes like Broadchurch, Last Tango in Halifax and The Missing keep the faith growing. Some may say that The Missing 'drags out a bit' but the length of time it takes to get to some form of solution simply reinforces the idea of reality... cases like those do not resolve themselves simply and quickly, so it would be wrong for The Missing to have finished after the first 2 episodes, for example. It was richly layered with multiple narratives, and sub-plots, all created with a sort of enforcement on dramatic equality; so that we not only focus all our attention on Tony and his struggles and the 'abduction' of his son but so we connect with the lives going on around it just as much. James Nesbitt has always been a favourite of mine when it comes to actors so I always knew he would be fantastic, but his acting surpassed even my original expectations, he was perfect for the role and exuded such a beautiful sense of a debilitated, and horrifically angry childless father. Just as much as Frances O' Connor who played Emily, whose character was actually quite refreshingly different to Nesbitts' in the way that she was quite a bit stronger, so it was only right to give her character the final resonating speech that tied all the narratives together. Of course, with dramas like this every single character lends itself to its success and truly every single character was enthralling, and perfectly performed. Sometimes too many characters with too many stories can become confusing but Harry and Jack Williams managed to develop everything and everyone in a way that along with the complimenting acting kept it entertaining. Praise must also be sung to the Williams' for the whole story and their ending. It's only natural with these sort of programmes that people watching will attempt to solve the case themselves, as they should, why not, right? So to bring the audience back down to earth, and keep them focused on the story and the reality of these cases, to have an ending that almost no-one could have predicted was absolutely genius. Yet the ending also left a little doubt in our minds, a little doubt as to the truth of the case, that, as is only right wont ever be fully found out. It's by no surprise that it's already been given a second series to focus on a different case.

If you watch anything; watch The Missing. Oh and Broadchurch when it comes back because that was incredible; 5th January y'all.

The Power of Observational Thought

So I've said multiple times that this blog is to do with the Arts (theatre, writing, film, music) aswell as a bit of sentiment (seemingly a lot) so it's no surprise that this specific post is going to meld the two into a hopefully understandable mixture. The other day at University in my creative writing class we had been told to create a PowerPoint Presentation that showed our influences, to explore the power of influence and to see just how creatively effected we are by the mentioned people or things. I mentioned briefly Charles Dickens, specifically 'Hard Times', Patrick Suskind and his book 'Perfume' Jane Austen and 'Emma' and Emily Bronte 'Wuthering Heights. Those were the books that have quite a profound effect on me, in the classic sense, but with a more contemporary feeling and for me on the most personal level I spoke about John Green (The Fault In Our Stars, Looking for Alaska, Paper Towns etc) Nicholas Sparks (Dear John, The Notebook, The Guardian, Message in a Bottle, Safe Haven etc) and on a more cinematic level Frank Capra and my favourite film of all time; It's A Wonderful Life. Those are truly my greatest influences but I felt that I needed to add in an admittedly cheesy aspect, but one that truly is my all time most important influence; and that's life, and observations. Before I got really into wanting writing and film as a career rather than a hobby I really enjoyed photography, and I used to take pictures of the world around me, and when you do that you realise things that you don't notice the first time. When you're sad or low, you tend to notice these things aswell, because you're looking for something to let you escape and make you happy, and find these small wonderful elements of life that normally would be overlooked, and they are fantastic influences. Small little things in this life that could quite easily be a catalyst for a piece of prose or poetry; the closing of an eye in sleep, the one bright leaf laying amongst hundreds of discoloured autumnal leaves. And its powerful, its an incredible sentimental and emotional thing, there's a connection you can feel to small objects within a larger universe, because essentially that's what us as humans are, and if one day a human can notice a leaf; something they are surrounded by and find beauty in it, then that leaves hope. If we can find beauty in something we see everywhere everyday, then surely we can find beauty in ourselves and our friends, and our lives, and our family. Yet it's a thing that not that many people seem to do; to just notice life. But it's one of those things that more people really should do, Observational Thought is a power to be reckoned with.

Shorts to Novels; Belief in the Creative Flow

As I approach the halfway mark in my Novel I've started to become a little more relaxed and positive about trusting the 'Creative Flow'. This Novel has been in development from the very first conceptual process to actually putting every bit of planning into writing it for at least 14 months. During those 14 months character profiles, brief timelines, back-stories have been changed quite dramatically, and as I've been writing it I've found myself concentrating TOO hard in order to make sure all the planning is executed correctly. Yes, there is such a thing as concentrating TOO hard, of course there is. With my writing I've been guilty of doing it before, but sometimes you have the idea and you plan it then when it comes to writing you get sucked into this worry that it wont be good enough, or that the genre wont be right, or that this wont go right so you try to mould it as much as possible. That cut's out the belief in 'creative flow'. When I say Creative Flow what I mean is the self-belief that you've thought of a good story and will thus write a good story. You have to give yourself the freedom to then go ahead and write it, write it being aware of what you're writing... but to an extent. There's no way that any writer will allow himself to write a poem/short story/epic/saga/novel without reading through it and editing about a million times. So the way I look at it is that you should write it, change things if you feel they desperately need it or they don't work with other bits, but ultimately trust yourself to finish it first, and then go back read it and edit it with a fine tooth comb. Writing is a fun thing to do, if you go through the whole process worrying and be over-critical before you've finished then you're completely changing the happiness and wonder of the process.

Perfecting the Craft

Now although calling something a 'craft' can often sound pretentious, it's still a pretty accurate word for what it is. Anything that one is good at, and that one practices in order to follow it as a career is their craft. With writing, there are very specific instructions as to how to perfect it....Write, Read, Have others read. Simple. Every book/author out there will say that you have to write as much as you can, you have to get others to read your work along with reading lots of books and getting inspiration etc etc So that's my main aim this year; to write a LOT more. As much as I love writing, since around the age of 8 I've written small things, or had a real difficulty finishing the stories, but thats improved as I've got older, naturally! But I still don't think I've written enough to properly understand my style of writing in order to make it better (its possible no-one ever does).

I'm writing Rediscovering Clarity; my novel still,but I want to make sure that is written in the best way possible so I'm taken breaks to write short stories (what I've been used to) and to write multiple different ones to develop a more distinguished style and to incorporate the work ethic element to writing.

Write.Write.Write.

Depression Testimonials/Interviews

Hi, as my previous post shows I'm making a Documentary on depression, and I'm basically asking for anyone who has suffered or knows someone who has suffered to come forward, anonymously or otherwise and answer some of my questions over email. In fact anyone who would be interested in lending their opinion and answers can contact me at ltxavi@outlook.com. It would be much appreciated. Thanks

Film Assignment Preparation

So here I am in the 2nd year and generally speaking, I'm off to a good start, I'm doing quite a bit of what you would call 'extra-curricular' writing back in college days and I'm having a good time again. The pressure of the first assignment however is looming, and we have to start pretty soon to get the most time! The task itself is to create a documentary between 8 and 12 minutes and its due in at the end of this term, which if I'm not mistaken is just under 3 months now. However, the documentary I'm planning to do is an investigative one into depression, the psychological and scientific effects of it, the personal ones told by sufferers and the perception of it within the general public sphere. There are so many elements to this and a few complexities, along with personal connections to the condition so I really need to be prepared for this project. It's a project that I believe has the potential to be great, and possibly one of the best and personally pride filling things I've done so far, but having that pressure and knowing the possible emotional stress caused by it makes it even more daunting. Preparation for any film is needed, it's stressful I wont lie. The preconceptions of a film course, and the process in general is that its easy and you watch films for inspiration, the latter is partially true but it is not easy. Emotionally its demanding and stressful, and physically tiring at times, but the end product, if its good makes everything worth it and the love of film makes everything you do fascinating and thrilling. So I am excited for this next project, especially because it means so much to me and I know my passion for making this condition more public as a CONDITION and not a selfish means of attention seeking will come across in the film, but it definitely requires even more careful thought and preparation. Never give up, people.

Shorts to Novels; Musical Accompaniments.

No matter what kind of writing you do, fictional or otherwise the question of what 'noises' to have around has long been debated. Some people believe that pure silence is the best thing to give someone's mind complete space to reach its full ability, but then some people who aren't comfortable with silence prefer music, some more instrumental, others more lyrical. But what is the best? Well, quite simply there is no 'best' because writing is an incredibly personal thing to do, people are vastly different, and although there is always something similar in everyone when it comes to this sort of thing it can truly differ, and most probably always will. That's the way it should be aswell.

However, for me, as a person who doesn't really work too well in silence I have to have music but when it comes to the argument of lyrics or instrumental I kind of sit on the fence. Depending on what kind of mood I'm in, or what kind of genre I'm writing depends what I listen to. Generally I listen to slow soft acoustic songs from artists like Gabrielle Aplin, James Morrison, Joshua Radin, Norah Jones etc. These kind of songs relax me very easily and get rid of any stress I have, and obviously stress is a high creativity-blocker. I also find sometimes the slightest lyric in a song might spark an idea in my head for whatever reason. If I'm writing a particular intense scene full of action or horror though I listen to heavier rock like Thirty Seconds To Mars, Linkin Park, Emarosa, The Fray etc so that the faster speed, and inclusion of a heavier percussion puts me in the appropriate mood for the scene.

Lastly, for emotional scenes again I might just use the acoustic songs, but sometimes I find instrumentals help just as much, because when I write a particularly sad or poignant scene I like to imagine the kind of cinematic trope of complete silence except the characters and faded music. These kind of film scenes really engage the audience and effect their emotions, so if I can listen to music that coincides with this kind of scene I feel like I will produce a much more worthy piece of writing.

But as I said at the beginning everyone differs, this is merely what I do.

Approaching the Second Year: 12 days to go

Over a year ago I started this blog to document my entrance into Uni, and to write about any tips or experiences I encounter. Now 47 posts later the summers coming to an end, I once again realise the incredible changes that can occur over a year and in 12 days my bags will be packed ready to move into my new house to start the second year of University. So naturally I feel the need to re-cap, and talk about how I feel about the second year etc.

My first year was an experience full of MANY emotions, lots of stressing and best of all, new friends, old friends, wonder and personal development. Yes emotions did run extremely strong throughout the first year, emotions that I truly never knew existed, people react and deal with different things in completely different ways but for me settling in was quite difficult. I was a partial recluse at the beginning of my journey, because I was already feeling quite emotional before I had joined Uni for varying reasons, so being placed in an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar people was quite a strange occurrence. But soon enough I began to warm to the lovely people I was living with, and I decided the feeling of discomfort I had was a good thing, because it forced me to be more open-minded and willing to do things. Once I had this view in my mind adapting to student life, the night's and all became easier, and I truly and thoroughly enjoyed so many aspects of it. There were friendships that were being made stronger and stronger by the day at Uni. It is such a wonderful feeling to think that just a year ago I never knew any of the University friends I have now, and yet I've become so close to some of them. When I came back for the summer holidays 4 months ago, I honestly felt like a large part of me had changed, I'd lost weight, I had a better view on trust, I felt like I could talk to people easier and I felt better about myself in general.

Considering that is the tiniest snippet of my first year, it makes me feel so positive about going back now. Originally the idea of returning felt a little scary because I'd been home so long, and I'd made new friends, and had some of the most fantastic times, however simplistic they were. But remembering everything that happened and knowing that any problems in my mind that exist will be so much easier to deal with in, what is effectively my 'second life' is such an exciting thought. I finished my first year with a 2:1 and I was so utterly ecstatic when I found out, so that made me even more motivated to finish this next year with a First. I think that's quite an important part of uni...the future, you have to keep thinking about it, and what opportunities might arrive, who you might meet, what could change because that unpredictability begins to make 'the unknown' a little less daunting.

Dont Underestimate The Powers of Anxiety.

I've written about this before, or rather the subject of Panic Attacks but I wanted to go further into the extent of Anxiety so that people might realise things and hopefully somehow calm their anxieties before it gets to an overly unhealthy stage.
   I didn't want to do the awful thing and research just how common anxiety is because really there's no need to, it's a lot and we don't need graphs and charts to tell us that. Dealing with it is the important thing, but in order to deal with it you have to realise just how affected YOU personally are.
   The plethora of people affected by anxiety are not all the same, there could be millions of anxiety sufferers and each one has something that makes it a little unique to themselves, so you need to home in on that specific element of anxiety in you. Allow other people to tell you they understand, accept that people will understand and accept their help, but whatever dependency you have on people you still need to kind of sit down and work out what is going to calm things down for you personally.
   Anxiety stretches from losing breath and heart racing to full on physical weakness and pain. Depending how much you're worried about obviously affects what extent you get to, but if you get to the worse stage where you literally feel ill, not just mentally, but physically ill and achey, weak, hurt then that's really when the reins have to be brought in and control has to be taken.
   One of the most overused lines to an anxiety sufferer is "Calm down" sometimes it'll work and sometimes it won't and most of the time you can bat it off as useless, however when you start becoming physically affected "calm down" becomes an order, not a suggestion or a light offering of dialogue. Once physical affects start happening its even harder to cope with, it can come in the form of shakes, pain, headaches etc and stress on top of this starts to put you in a cage, that gets trickier to get out of and eventually reclusiveness can happen.
    No matter how dependent you are, you always need someone at some point so being reclusive is very very self destructive. I guess it's alright me saying "stop when it gets hard" "don't become a recluse" but how do you actually succeed? I find these three things help even a little bit;

1.  Forceful Desensitisation - If your anxiety is connected to something specific, for example a bus and the claustrophobia of a bus then if you feel you can, try and go on buses more often, try to get used to the hustle and bustle and try and lose the entrapment feeling by making it become a regularity. Put buses or whatever the source is in a routine that's happy. If it's transport, go somewhere happy then the mode of transport will be connected in your mind, no longer as a source of anxiety but a means to become happy.
2. Calming Techniques -  Sometimes all it takes is for you to look into ways of calming yourself down, whether its controlling your breathing (often the way to stop anxiety spiralling from the beginning) breathing in a steadied and structured way, where you concentrate on it can often relax you. Also the internet is amazing (with exceptions) and there are tonnes upon tonnes of techniques.
3. Selfishness - Arrogance and general selfishness is one thing I cannot stand, but in terms of anxiety you sometimes need to be more selfish, if your stress is brought on by other people, limit it. Don't limit the amount of times you see them, just try to limit the stress you have for them by telling yourself that YOU will become worse, which will only make things worse for your friend anyway. 

Anxiety is a [take your pick of swearwords] but there are ways of dealing with it. Just find the one thats best for you.

Fantasy; An underestimated genre?

Fantasy is a highly creative, imaginative genre that pushes boundaries of books and films similarly. In comparison to some other concepts/genres of entertainment, fantasy constantly surprises us. More and more people are showing us their ability to en-capture an entire selection of film-buffs and book-lovers with their incredible talent for the extraordinary. Authors such as J.K.Rowling and J.R.R.Tolkien, directors and writers like Steven Moffat, Tim Burton and a whole host of others have given us a means of escapism, a highly marketable selection of films and books and a more open-minded view of the world. The question is, is it underestimated? The power and influence of it, that is. A lot of people are aware of the genre, and possibly too many are a little quick to place it in one specific category, or restrict purely to a young generation. It's probably true that the younger generation and my generation (late-teens) appreciate fantasy more, and are more interested in it, but in no ways can it be specifically and solely for us. One of the best things about fantasy, for me, is that it does give a huge sense of escapism. I'm sure Noel Fielding would agree that it's impossible for us to live our lives and only look at things realistically, and that for happiness, for sanity, and for a bit of fun a little fantasy in our lives is healthy and necessary.

A piece of fantasy that has seriously affected my generation, as we've basically grown up around it and with the characters is Harry Potter, the book series took the world by storm, just as the films did. Wizards, witches, creatures, monsters have been around for ages, years, centuries even in myths and literature, and yet there was something strangely relatable about Harry Potter, which is what I think makes it so popular. Fantasy allows people to take ordinary things in life, and exaggerate them, fantasy itself is a more elaborate version of the word we already live in. Peer Pressure, the existence of strange and unfamiliar people, things. ideas and such have been used as stimuli for films and books such as Harry Potter. Even though that particular series was such a wonderful, fantastically and endlessly interesting one, the idea of going to a new school, new surroundings, nicer parent figures are relatable to a wide audience. Within fantasy, you get hints of reality, essentially its the basis...just made a bit more fun. This is why I think its so underestimated, because a lot of us, I don't think realise the possibilities that come from it, within these great fantasy creations are moral questions, statements etc that not only allow us to escape from whatever problems we have... but in someways give us hope, and allows us to confront them in our own way, in a more bearable way. Lets be honest as well, life is so much more incredible when we believe anything can happen. If you're sad and you see the world and just the world, just plants and people, it's not gonna make anything better, but if you imagine beyond the mundane and the ordinary that there is something larger, something so much more fantastical, how could that not lift your spirits?

I'm gonna wrap this up by saying that the entertainment sector, specifically books and films are underestimated in their powers to makes us feel better anyway but fantasy in particular has such a huge affect on people. Even if you don't realise it, after watching a Fantasy film or reading a fantasy book your mind is more likely to be widened, to be expanded to consider other things....and maybe that gives you room to find the solution you're looking for.

Shorts to Novels: Recovering from the loss.

I will not sugar coat it, when I realised my laptop had died, and there was a possibility that the hard drive could be so fried that I would not be able to recover any documents, it wasn't a pretty sight. I was stressing, I was annoyed, but obviously once the initial shock had subsided I set out to think positively and find alternatives. I searched around for backups of things that I had on there, very very focused on mainly finding the incomplete novel because the idea of re-writing the 14000 words that I'd managed so far was a little scary and upsetting.  But there are hella worse things that could have happened! Nevertheless I had found a backup of the novel on my external hard drive, but it wasn't the most recent, it was although still a copy. Today, my positivity hit the roof and I thought that this could actually be a really good thing, because there were parts of the novel that I was a little unsure about, and not totally happy with, so this gave me a chance to re-create and refresh. My plan today was to go on a long walk to a little park/reservoir/lake thingymajig that I like to go to, looking around finding inspiration and writing ideas now, sentences, phrases etc and luckily what I'm writing now I believe is probably better than what I had. I think the main problem with my story was that I'd given myself quite a short deadline to finish a certain amount of words, so I had started to rush myself in parts which obviously is a shameful and sinful thing for a writer to do! With a more refreshed, quality-focused mind I've been able to write something better, and improve. It's like my laptop dying was actually my novels way of saying "I don't care about this laptop, you need to improve me, I'm shockingly bad right now, get your act together, slow down, refresh and clear your mind, and come back and write a better version of me.... I wanna sparkle!"

So with most things you just need to take your time! Just needed to remind myself that.

Childhood and Blogging disappearance.

First of all I wanna explain why I've not been blogging in quite some time, basically I'm an idiot. I broke my laptop, and messed up the hard-drive and I don't particular have a large amount of money, so I haven't been to fix it yet, nor have I recovered the data from the hard drive (here's hoping the story's still safe). See that was quick and simple, disappearance is down to me being a bit of a prat.

CHILDHOOD. Standard definition would probably dictate that your childhood is the age between your birth and about 13-14 where you turn into a teenager and you get all grumpy and things start changing. This is not the type of childhood I'm talking about here, I'm talking about childhood with more a mental perspective. Over the course of our life, we tend to hear "grow up" "stop living in a fantasy world, you're not a child anymore" and "stop being so childish" at least once. In a lot of cases those saying them probably have a point, and you probably are being a little childish! BUT Childhood as a mentality should never disappear. Let me explain what I mean, yeah you can't crawl on the floor, with a dummy in your mouth expecting to be carried everywhere or transported in a pram for the rest of your life but Children have a lesser understanding of the world, which is good. Lesser doesn't mean bad, it means that they're not old enough to understand everything yet, they haven't necessarily learnt some of the harsh realities of life. I'm not saying that we should ignore the truth behind aspects of life, but children have this amazing ability to see the light; the positive in everything, they laugh at everything, they have a huge imagination where they can make vast worlds out a blank page. It's incredible really and its this part of our life that we should hold onto for as long as possible, no-one said that we had to decrease our imaginative thoughts, no-one said that we had to lose the innocence of childhood. A person who loves and truly lives is much happier than the one focused solely on the realities and seriousness of life. No-one should go through their life, seeing the world in a mundane way, of only paying bills and going to work and nothing more. The happiest person will be the one that can understand reality, and can still pay bills, work, and do the necessary and compulsory things that we, as humans have to whilst also hanging on to a brighter, more child-like side. It's also a great mentality to escape to if anything bad happens to you. escape to a part of your mind where you can see the world as more than just a sphere of nature, wildlife and people because it is more than that. The world contains a huge plethora of creative minds, of beautiful people (in every sense of the word) of people that dedicate their lives to making people happy. It contains places and things that hold almost emotionally healing powers, just by being there, or around them. Even if for one day, you should try seeing the world through a childs eyes.  

'Remember Sunday'; Simple, Sweet with a touch of Sadness!

(Photo Credit: http://hhof.tv)

So, to my knowledge 'Remember Sunday' isn't a greatly well-known film, which is a shame, but I believe if my memory serves me correctly then it is a TV film, several of which often end up overlooked and disregarded as 'real' movies or in the same league as those made for the silver screen. Okay it's not a breakthrough in any technical way, and it doesn't leave a huge mark on cinematic history, but the film is still an absolute gem! People categorise it as a Rom-Com and I suppose in some ways that's true but it's not an OVERLY comical film, there's comic relief but not constant comedy that I would associate with a Rom-Com. It's not a bad thing at all, no no! I'm not a right miserable git that loves depressing films; I love the fact that I can't really pin point this film to a genre other than to generalise it as 'Romance' and even then it's not too typical. 

What makes it different from a 'typical romance?':

1. No sex. "Whaaaa? No sex? It's a romance and there's no sex what-so-ever? Well then what do they do through the whole film, talk? or actually build their relationship? IMPOSSIBLE!" yeah it seems quite crazy that such films actually exist, but it's one of those small things that makes this film better and a little less typical. There's something appealing about watching a film and knowing you can watch it with ANYONE and not feel excessively awkward during the sex scenes. Yes folks, it's a family friendly one! 
2. Real chemistry. This ones a little nitpicky I guess but during my time of being a romance film/book freak I often find what can get in the way of the film being complete are the actors connection. When I say nitpicky I mean REALLY nitpicky! Granted the majority of films have a real believable and convincing love story, with great actors/actresses making us think they're actually together but there comes a time when we see a film like Remember Sunday and we go "Now THAT is chemistry". I can't really explain it in any other words but to say that other relationships in films often seem hollywoodified (sorry for the terrible word) and fit for cinematic purpose rather than making it a little more ... normal? Zachary Levi and Alexis Bledel look good together, sound good together and their on-screen connection is just beautiful to watch. Their acting is so solid and honestly the casting is perfect, they both retain the attractiveness that often sells a film but at the same time they're both a little different. Alexis especially has this certain thing about her I guess, she's beautiful but with an essence of reality, again most film-girls are hollywoodified but everything about Alexis' beauty seems natural and not so 'man-made' as others which I love!
3. Concept. Now I'm not gonna lie and say the concept doesn't have any loopholes or possible inconsistencies, I'm also not gonna say that it does because it's all scientific and I only just passed science in school so forget that! But the concept is in a interesting one, it's one that allows us to feel compassion and sympathy for our protagonist and we understand that every day is confusing and tricky, so when he meets this girl and does everything to remember her (Despite the difficulties) it makes it all more amazing to watch. 

It's just sweet, okay? Oh and the ending isn't perfect and happy...well I suppose its happy but its sad aswell, doesn't really make sense writing that but I promise if you watch it (its on Netflix) you'll understand and agree with me! It's one that should make even the manliest of men feel a little beat in those stone hearts that they so eagerly protest they have! And this slight self-confessed not-all-that-manly man here still recommends it to anyone, it's quite a daytime film aswell, chilled, if that makes sense!

From Shorts to Novels; Slow Down, Take a Break, Carry On.

Alright, so I can get quite carried away with some things and other things I can be absolutely useless at and forever dis-enthused by. This story that's started my 'From Shorts to Novels' blogs has been something that I was constantly excited about and so it got to the point where I thought "Look, you need to calm down, you need to slow down and quite frankly have a break" because for someone like me who has hand tremors excessive and long amounts of writing results in constant hand spasms. Funnily enough hand spasms take the fun out of writing. Instead of some heart-felt love message or bone-crushingly thrilling chase scene you get something along the lines of "and so, my darling petal, I cannot explain in any language on this planet how much I lov-£$%aksldn,ag vbvef nkllsdfgm  bvcnmndkjd kfdjc djkhjfddjj" Thus forth the beauty of the scene is ruined. My hand tremors were pretty much everyday at this point and it wasn't going to be too long before I left Uni, so I thought I'd finished my exams, relax, read and get inspiration then go back to it. This gap was about 3 weeks or so and has made a huge difference, the problems and inconvenience the tremors brought with them made the process of writing more of a annoying task rather than the usual enjoyable, thrilling feeling. So here we are, once again talking about the novel I'm working on; Rediscovering Clarity and it's good to be back at it! and it's Summer here in England and although the country is normally synonymous with miserable weather there's plenty of sun, inspirational beauty and happiness about! Nothing more influential and uplifting than good weather and good atmospheres!
The story itself is going well, the break hasn't disrupted the voice or narrative at all it just helped me collect ideas and images in my head ready to put into words and descriptions. Practically the whole story is now completely mapped out in my head, and what's REALLY annoying is I really want to just write the end (not to finish it, oh no!) because I'm just excited to write it, it contains the largest amount of fantasy, sci-fieyness, beautiful locations (most of which are real places) and just the right amount of sentimentality!

Texting.

Nearly everyone on the entire earth now has a phone, it's one of the inventions that took over the world and became a necessity; one that while breaking limitations...somehow put more in place in terms of sociability. But let's be honest they're too useful to go moaning about, and there are theories upon theories about how phones make us 'more sociable' along with theories that say they do the exact opposite and we would have been better without them. Socially restricting, socially free-ing or a bit of both, either way it's a pretty darn important piece of technology. As we all know with all technology ranging from government computers to the simplest of things like an electric pen (I'm sure that exists...) there's always something that we find tricky or that goes wrong. In this case, with me and with texting there's plenty that goes wrong. So starting with the keys and predictive text; so many texts around the world are sent with hilarious or kind of awkward implications because we've pressed the wrong keys and been pulled into the inescapable grasp of predictive texts. So when you get someone like me with overly large hands equipped with equally large fingers these mistakes are all too frequent and being a fairly talkative person I text quite a lot but then we get the second problem; over-thinking. Because in the past I've fallen into the predictive trap I tend to take longer to reply because I'm spending a few minutes staring and re-reading the text over and over again to make sure there's no mistakes but then you've just wasted 2 minutes of your life checking a text...
Now this next problem doesn't seem to affect many people that I know, but I'm convinced that it affects lots more than me! When you get someone that enjoys writing in whatever form it be, blog, fiction, non-fiction etc or in-fact if you just have someone that has a lot to say writing a text that is brief becomes one of the trickiest tasks ever encountered. Honestly I can't get my head around it, I've sent texts before and thought after "Really? Couldn't you just have said that in a few words?" and I probably could have but when writing it my brain is just incapable of shortening it down unless it's really needed. Other problems faced texting; sarcasm and the problem of making it actually come across and for that matter any emotion at all, I mean let's be honest we'd be useless without emoticons; someone would say something that was gut-wrenchingly heat breaking for them and without some cartoon sad face we might never know how hard they've taken it! The problems of modern day people, hey? How do we ever survive?
Just to put it out there this isn't a moany blog, this is just my way of talking about phones and trying to relate with y'all (whoever you may be) phone's are great, I use mine SO much, GO TECHNOLOGY!

Destiny, Love and Inexplicable Moments

Maybe it was a little adventurous of me to try and cover three extremely broad subjects, but everyone loves a challenge! Destiny and Love are two subjects that the world is obsessed over. No debate there, people are obsessed with the concept of love, aswell as being in it, hence the large abundance of romance books/film and the endless success of them. Destiny is a word that on its own once mentioned in a conversation creates a large chain reaction in people who don't 'believe' it or have alternate views, and the conversation turns into a debate and lasts far into the night.So merely because its the first word I placed in the title, Destinies up first! What is it? Is it real? To what extent do we control it? Three questions constantly asked about it. As far as I know destiny is pretty much fate; the events, direction and success of one's life, normally pre-planned or supposedly 'set in stone'. But does it exist and can we change it? first off by typical and conventional definition the ability to 'change' your destiny...stops its being destiny anyway. Thus the questions is really, can we control our own lives? Of course I am no encyclopedia of tangible and definite answers but I believe that destiny kind of works in some ways, primarily for friends and partners. Yes, you can change parts of your life, and you can change how you're treated by people but I think when it comes it down to it there is an element of 'destiny' to our lives, in the sense that we are meant to meet certain people. Even it appears that people have put a bad mark on our lives, these experiences and people allow us to realise when we have something better. Friends come and go, especially in our younger years, but no matter who you are, they'll always be a few, if not more that will stay, no matter when you meet them. The more bad friends we have, the more appreciative we are of the good ones. The good friends, the ones that stay for a long time will not only help to re-define or help you understand yourself, they'll become another part of your life and sometimes it just seems that some people were meant to meet you. Similarly this goes into love, we're all meant to meet different people that we have feelings for or sometimes think are "the one" but is there such a thing as 'True Love'? and again this is argued a hell of a lot, but of course its real. Whether you're large, obnoxious, racist, fascist, sexist and everything bad in the world or you're a stunning/handsome slim lady/man they'll be someone for you. But what some people doubt is how many there are, there's nothing to say we cant have more than one person for us in our entire life, but we just wont meet them unless we're single. You may meet someone that you fall in love with instantly and they become your soul mate and your true love for the rest of our lives. You may genuinely fall in love with someone and for whatever reason that love fades, it doesn't mean it wasn't 'true love' unless of course you were a prat, or they were a prat and treatment of each other wasn't right, then you find another person that similar becomes your new true love. Believe it. Don't doubt it. Where's the reasoning behind doubting it?
Lastly and briefly; 'Inexplicable Moments' - still pretty much relates to the destiny and love sometimes but there are moments or events that are somehow impossible to explain. You meet a group of people, they become your life and they become part of you, and then after a little while that changes and you meet completely different people. There are times when everything seems low, and something happens to lift the mood. There are people who walk into your life, and positively or negatively change it by TONNES, and no matter what they are memorable. These times, however impossible to explain are ones not to be challenged, questioned or forgotten, they are ones to be cherished.

Approaching the end of Freshers Year

This is insane. No other word for it. Insane. Around a year and a bit ago I started this blog, originally to blog about my uni preparation, arrival and general experience and now I'm nearing the end of my freshers year, and this blog has turned into a multitude of different things (hopefully not a bad thing). So how about I recap how my first year has gone? After all, a lots happened, and University has been one hell of a good thing to do so far. I arrived at my Uni accommodation on the 30th September 2013 at around ... 2? 12 hours before I was in a fit of panic with a friend of mine, stuck in London (far more frightening a situation to non-Londoners) as all the trains had stopped after the Paramore concert we'd been to. So, after going to sleep at about 4 after eventually arriving back in my little town in Essex when I had arrived at Uni I was in a state of extreme fatigue. Not the best mood or way to arrive I know, but Paramore was still absolutely incredible, so I was at least still happy about that and of course the prospect of actually finally reaching UNIVERSITY. THE BIG U. What I had been waiting to do for so long. Moving in was actually fairly simple, we were given a random trolley to hold all our stuff, and we took about 3 trips back and forth to fill my new bedroom. There I was, happy, excited and nervous. Talking to people was tricky for me the first week, everyone in my flat was quite up for going to parties and club nights during freshers week, but I was in a strange mood because of various things and the fact I was in a different place with different people, and it freaked me, so I was somewhat of a recluse that week. Shameful really. Nevertheless I came outta my shell later and showed my flatmates who I was later on. Since then, my confidence has grown, my experiences have grown, my open-mindedness has grown and so on.  I've been to club nights that absolutely blew my mind they were so fun, most of which I finished feeling absolutely exhausted and waking up feeling absolutely awful. I got involved in some societies; mainly Theatre Arts and Tennis.  Tennis I kinda forgot about after a while, but theatre arts was good fun and a little stressful with a certain production. Then
came a slight crash... personal issues arose for TONNES of reasons, and I got pretty down in the dumps for quite a while, which meant that I stopped auditioning for some of the productions and I missed out on some good things. Now I'd like to say that although this time of unhappiness, shall we say was affected by University, (not the main reason) Uni was also a way for me to get past it. University is an incredible place no matter what mood you're in, so much life and so much culture, puts a smile on the face of even the saddest of people. Skip some more club trips, stressing over deadlines, christmas dinners, mexican dinners, cinema trips, zoo trips, problems with washing machines, reading, writing, reading, writing, writing , reading, revising, and we come to now. Now, I have 1 exam left, and have done pretty well even if  I say so myself, excitement for the summer ball is rising, and excitement for the next 2 years is also rising. Overall Uni is worth it. Uni is great. Uni is awesome. Uni changes you. Uni goes by faster than you can ever bloody imagine!! So much happens in such a small time. Brilliant.

From Shorts to Novels; Finishing What You've Started

So in terms of turning back I'm pretty much into the story now with 8,000 words done out of the target 40/50,000 and so it comes to the point of making sure that  I do in fact finish it. It's gonna happen, however long it takes! One thing I'm not keeping unique to myself, and something I've heard authors mention before in interviews is that you can start something and love it, and then during it for whatever reason the enthusiasm can start to lower a little. I wouldn't say I was at that point just yet, but I must say that the amount of words still left to write is a little daunting, but it's all part of the process, and I'm putting in some basic steps that I'm taking to ensure my enthusiasm for the story is as high as possible, and ditto for the productivity! So what are they? At the moment they are as follows:

1. Have breaks - Whether this is a couple of days, or a couple of hours, or even just a couple of minutes! On top of sleep of course, I believe breaks are essential, yes you want to get it done and yes you want to make the most of your creativity and your productivity. BUT without breaks your enthusiasm will inevitably lower and your creativity becomes a little stressed, because you're concentrating so hard and becoming tired. You also start to miss out little grammatical mistakes or rush through parts! 
2. Get feedback - You may not be done, it may not be your last draft of that particular selection but get feedback from friends or family on writing that you've done so far. If they like it, it will you give you more confidence to continue, and if they have negative opinion's it give you something to work on before you write the entire novel and then find out people don't like it!
3. Watch and Read - It may appear to be procrastination but its not. If you watch films and you read books as rest from writing your own, you'll have the get up and go to create something just as good, you'll have influence/inspiration from the author/writer/director and certain things might spark ideas! Keep the creativity alive!! 

The Hunger Games; More Than Just A Franchise.

One thing that I cannot deny about myself is that I over-think, and I read into things more than is needed, so obviously that doesn't always work to my advantage, however it does help with the film course and makes watching films a little more interesting, and my poor little mind went a little crazy with The Hunger Games. There is an abundance of intelligence in the film franchise (haven't read the book collection yet, don't shoot me) with some films I'm able to relax and say to my mind "fancy just chilling and watching and not reading into everything?" to which it occasionally goes "alright then mate, go on then, why not?!" (apparently it's a geezer...) but The Hunger Games, nah don't think so. EVERYTHING about it is brilliant, it's one of those films that if I went into my second year and found out I was studying it and had to write an essay about it, I'd go back to my bedroom and never stop writing. I mean there's almost too much, is that possible? Narrowing it down to The Capitol and The Districts, as this is probably the best thing of all; the representation of these two communities and their relationship makes me happier than it probably should. You get the total and utter dilapidation of the districts and the dark monotone voices and colours of the district completely contrasted with the outrageously bright colours and charisma of The Capitol, especially when Effie first enters district twelve I mean she looks, no doubt intentionally, ridiculous and overbearing. Entering The Capitol aswell, is astounding, to come from such a down trodden area into a more futuristic and privileged place; it clearly has something to say about the current society that we live in, all films have some sort of realistic commentary to it, this satirises greed and humans ability to take pleasure from peoples pain (The actual Hunger Games). The absolute ecstasy of The Capitol and the audience that watch The Hunger Games in joy and excitement is really quite disturbing but it does question ourselves, it's as if The Capitol represents the unconscious part of our minds, the part that secretly is interested by things like that. The very fact we watch The Hunger Games, which is full of violence and violent subjects shows that we have a curiosity to the macabre, we pay money to see it and to enjoy it. Nevertheless The Capitol is somewhat substantially worse than we are, no doubt but its clear that those in The Capitol are not meant to be seen as serious beings, apart from when Effie starts to change in Catching Fire, when the audience begin to see the wrong in the games and when it matters, they are meant to be ridiculed by us, to be seen as something overtly ... frustrating? This is only an informal blog so I wont go too much more into it but if any of you have seen posters or adverts and compared it to something like Twilight, thinking "oh its just another teenage craze that's probably not all that good" Well, its far from just a teenage craze, personally I would say it appeals to all ages and all varieties of people, its fascinating and captivating, no matter who watches it. Watch it or if you've already watched it. Watch it again. One last thing, a key line in Catching Fire is "Remember who the enemy is" which I absolutely love, you can apply this to nearly every situation you're in, sometimes your brain gets a little confused, and you find yourself questioning others, that have always and always will care for you and you just need to step back and say "who is the true enemy here?. Equally, if you are trying to chase the dreams, remember the enemy is the block, its the non-believers, the trajectory and eventual finish of a goal is inevitable, you want it to happen, you chase it enough, it will happen. Remember who the enemy is and live your life, not avoiding them but instead hold them at the same significance as the best of your friends and family, because those who will support must always be remembered but those who will not and will try to stop you are just as significant, so you can learn to ignore them, to use them as fuel to do exactly what they tell you you cant. The Hunger Games is more than just a franchise, and your life is more than just what is given to you from birth, it is what you give yourself, what you create for yourself.

From Shorts to Novels; Skeleton Blocking

If I'm completely honest here I've not been writing my story as often as I'd like for differing reasons, but I have written more! I am still being fairly productive!! As I said before moving from short stories, (the majority done at a younger age) to attempting a Novel I wasn't absolutely certain how to approach it but I've found a way of writing now that suits me and that I think is a good way of getting more out of my story and will help to make it into the length of a novel. This particular way of writing, imma go ahead and call Skeleton Blocking; this consists of me writing a good block of stuff, the way I would for a short story (conserving certain words, information etc to make the most of the words) and just by doing this for the introduction I've already got to the length of my longest short story. Once this initial writing is done (basically blocking) I then go back to certain sections of it, and decide to add a character introduction/description, or a little bit more descriptiveness to an event and basically  attempting to make it as effective as possible. Then when I'm happy with the additions or alterations I've made, I'll continue with the story and do the process again, whether i'm gonna do this for the whole novel I'm not sure but in terms of getting me use to the length and scale of the novel compared to the short story and to help me understand my own story even more. There is always more you can comprehend about your own work, even when you've written so much background you think you could actually live in that town with those people and understand how the town works and how the people tick, there's always more that can be done to enhance the story. This is an extremely brief post compared to the others, I realise that...and its a little discomforting but still, if its short maybe that means there's not many negatives about the project? YAY

Xavi's 5am Natter!

I'm starting to think that I'm going a little doolally as it were, as I'm sitting downstairs in the accommodation dining room, after productive revision, multiple coffees, tea, a beer, and no sleep, and I'm feeling a little strangely energetic. Nevertheless, I thought I'd pause from my revision (I'm not encouraging any all nighters just to clarify, in the moment it feels like a good idea... it probably isn't) and do something I haven't really done in a while, which is basically have a chat. That's probably the simplest of ways to put it, this blog started off being fairly chatty, with preparation for Uni, then there was more on books, music, film etc then I started writing more sentimental and advice-giving posts, which is all well and good but after a while, you need a bit of an anticlimax in some sense. So, I'm taking advantage of my current willingness to be scarily productive, and taken into consideration the probability that because of my lack of sleep this week, especially tonight (this morning?, don't really know what to call it, covers both) I am unlikely to be able to write a more intense post like before! Hooray I say! Let's have a breather from crazy 'be happy' posts, or reviews of different things and just have a natter...well I, caffeined up and a little mad will type my ramblings into this post, with the hope someone might be interested, not really a natter, but I notice as I write this that I'm speaking out loud anyway so I guess I'm talking to my laptop?.... No, that's worse than not nattering at all... where does the word natter even come from? Oh well... Cool.... Natter. As you can see, as it is just a natter, there's not a planned structure as such, but you don't meet up with someone and turn up with a 20 minute schedule on what you're gonna talk about now do ya?! ...do you? 25th May and I am becoming more and more excited and more ready for the summer, for when exams are over and uni is paused for 4 months holiday, and I get to enjoy the warmth (presumably, but you never know!) with my friends and just generally relax a bit more! People can say anything about Britain, and its weather, but when it is sunny, and it is a nice day there are some blooming wonderful places to go! The beaches, the countryside, the lakes, and I can guarantee you there's a place outside your door that you haven't explored yet. Explore it. Why? Because you can, and because, for you, it will only exist when you see it, and why deny a place existence if it could hold some of your best future memories? I was always think as well people feel compelled to makes so much of summer, pack so much in, do everything, spend all your money, go to every place you can, which by no means is a bad thing, it's great, summer's meant for that, but strangely some people forget to relax. If what you're doing or have organised to do is causing you too much unneeded stress, then how can you enjoy the summer?! Always give time to relax, grab a beer/cider/pimms/fanta/coke/juice carton/milk/water/ trough water (if you're horse...but then you wouldn't be so forget that). 

There's a strange feeling at Uni at the moment, because it's just revision and minimal lectures/ classes the campus is always a lot quieter, people are not downstairs as much anymore, and the summer term is beginning to show similarities to some apocalyptic event. Revision; The Apocalypse, where nearly everyone looks tired and half-dead and their sensitivity may cause them to snap at you, where most places you go only have a few of these people who occasionally smile, but the majority of the time stay staring into the distance yearning for brains. Of course I'm exaggerating but it is definitely weird, and it's strange to only be here for 6 weeks, but summer terms is giving me chances to think (not always a good idea, so be careful what your brain stumbles upon!) and work out post-graduation things, quite exciting actually. Okay, so that was a strange and completely unorganised post, but you gotta love days like that, can't have a blog being rigid and regimented, it's gotta be fun every once in a while, keep smiling people. 

Being in control and Recycling the negatives.

I'm going to attempt to keep this one fairly brief, because I've touched on these before, but I was re-attaching my posters to my Uni bedroom wall, which seem to just decide every once in a while to be like "Ha! Screw you, I'm gonna jump off the wall and land on your head while you're sleeping" and I read a couple of quotes that made we want to write something. In case you haven't already guessed, the quotes came from the one on the left, not catching fire, although "Remember who the enemy is" makes me smile every time, but we'd be here for days if i started chatting about Catching Fire. Although, my love for the film combined with the fact that this blog is somewhat lacking in film posts probably means a catching fire post will happen. Indefinitely. ANYWAY, the two quotes I like the most on the poster are "Don't wait for the perfect moment. Take the moment, make it perfect." and "Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass, it's about learning how to dance in the rain". They're fairly self-explanatory, but both of them emphasise a point that we often seem to disregard as being the truth, which is that, when it comes down to it we are quite heavily in control of our life (putting any thoughts on fate aside for a second). People can often become disheartened by previous life events, or if something in their life doesn't appear to be improving, but on quite a few of these occasions, if people are honest with themselves there is often something that can be done. This something could be a 'moment', a skill, a situation, a feeling etc that, by regaining control, and believing you have the power to take control can be improved on and made 'perfect'. It relates quite well to the second quote, which is why I like them so much together because it's quite understandable and common for people to get stuck in a rut, after being subject to something that appears negative. You get upset, you get angry, you get confused. You become stuck. Being 'stuck' means that it's a little tricky to see everything and you might miss certain things, so if you are 'stuck' then it's best to look for the smaller, less obvious things, because these are often the things that, pardon the oxymoron, can be insignificantly significant. What I mean by that is what at first seems irrelevant to consider or think about may in fact be the key to alleviating the problem and leaving the rut you're in. You look for these things, and allow yourself the ability to get better and that will be your 'dance in the rain'. Recycle the negatives. Take control. Stay in control.

Facing the Future

The future is a huge thing, I mean it applies to literally everyone and everything, it covers a massive variety of things; the future of the world, 1 person, careers, a certain industry, advancements etc. So I guess the title 'Facing the Future' is a little vague, but what I'm defining the future as in this post is career and personal progression. One of the best things about living where I do is most times you can find somewhere at a some point in time that will be completely peaceful and gives you space to think and to breath. One of these places for me is the sea wall by Heybridge Basin (pictured on the left) the walk from my house round the sea wall and back can be between an hour and a half to 2 hours so there's plenty of time to reflect, decide, or just chill.

The other day I'd spent the day with a friend of mine and he lives fairly close to it, so at the end of the day I thought I'd go down there as I hadn't been in a while and I found myself considering the future, and what it means to me. It's always been something that's troubled and worried me, and some of my friends and lets be honest, the majority of the world, which is part of the reason I'm writing about it here. Around my age (19) and basically adolescence to early adulthood the future can be quite a curious thing. Learning new things, discovering hobbies and meeting different friends means its easy for the future to become nothing but a blank canvas, which is good, because really that's the best way of moving forward, filling the canvas with what will make you the happiest. Personally, all the career paths I've wanted to get into (Acting, Directing, Writing) have all been ones that come with their fair share of restrictions and rejections, and the idea of instability. Right now I'm focusing more on becoming a writer, and so using a couple of websites I've looked into it more in terms of how I can have it as a valid and stable career option. I think that with everyone's dream, there's always going to be that central ambitious path that leads to the desired career, and we can't just mock or give up on those ideas or desires, because they are essentially what represent us, as individuals. It's far from naive to believe we can succeed in getting to where we want as along that central path there's always smaller things that can keep you stable while you progress. No-one ever said achieving dreams is a simple and overnight thing - that's more naive, but there's nothing wrong in keeping you're dream going until you reach it. Like with writing, yeah it's true I'm not gonna write a book, get it published and have my life sorted, for one thing its unlikely that publishing would be that easy and even if it got that stage life wouldn't be financially stable at that point. So I could start off becoming a journalist (entertainment content not news) which then along with this blog which I want to continue for ages to come, will promote my name, so if it does come to me getting a book published the name might mean something to even just a small minority of previous readers. A stable job that is more likely to let you survive and keep going, relevant to your desired career, is probably an extremely essential thing, as it allows you to keep positive and optimistic and still be in a career that revolves around a part of your life you're passionate about. I know even at this age, that if you have something small that you're passionate about, you're a lot more likely to cope through trickier situations within your life, and fearing the future is ... natural but really not conducive, so why not look forward to it if you can?!

Appreciation and Self-Comprehension.

It's that time again, another sentimental blog post is here; Appreciation and Self-Comprehension, what do I mean? Well appreciation in general, but more specifically of those around you and the situations available to you, and then Self-Comprehension; understanding ones own changes and positives, and in some ways their negatives in order to improve. I think it's probably best to start with this idea of a better comprehension of oneself, both are really equally connected anyway! So, as humans I think it's fair to say some of our most common traits are self consciousness and a natural sort of blindness to our own behaviour, good or bad. As natural as these traits are they can be rather destructive if they are continuous, if we allow ourselves to become over self-conscious and not realise the potential or positives within us then we not only manage to destroy ourselves in various different ways, but in turn we can often hurts those we care about because of varying reasons. Some of these reasons could be that we envy them for not being self-conscious (whether they are or not is irrelevant, because we can't see it, and in that state, blindness to oneself and others is way too common) We think that we do not deserve them and that we are insignificant in comparison or that they do not like us and are just hiding it (mainly paranoia, but paranoia is often caused by consciousness). For us to carry on life in a conducive and healthy manner we have to take control of these, we have to make sure we treat those we care about in the best way possible (it made be hard while having all these thoughts and ideas about what they might think of you but the truth is they are the main people that can help you out of it) and this is where self-comprehension comes in.
Once in a while, especially if you're feeling depressed or down in any sense of the word it is important to take a moment to comprehend who you are as a person; whether its negative or positive. I've said before in previous posts that realising the good in yourself; whether its big or small is essential to getting better, and it is but if you do not know how to get better and still are feeling negative about yourself, then you need to work out what it is you do not like, if there is quite a few things then narrow them down to 1 or 2 that you feel are actually a problem. Then it only remains to make sure that the problem is a literal problem that will get in the way of interacting with others or in the way of the rest of your life, then simply find a solution to it; it's not always easy but its necessary, whether it takes you a while or not, I can guarantee it is a fantastic feeling to finally fix it, improving these 'negatives' should be handled in a gradual manner as well, slowly find a way to become better, if you rush into changing yourself you could make yourself worse.
I am becoming aware of the length of this post so I'm going to move quickly onto appreciation, this isn't too long because in all honesty it's not particular hard to explain. Basically, when you're in a bad state such as you may be when self-conscious (it applies to most things but, this is one of the most common things) you can often forget about the help those around you actually give you. For example if someone is in a state whether it is volatile and dangerous or relatively passive and merely just a little sad, simply just having good friends who are there to listen or to just distract you without even knowing it (as is often the case) then it is utterly incredible to getting better. Recognise who is there for you, appreciate their existence, and do not lose them. At the same time do not lose yourself in the process of getting better, understand your qualities and probably one of the most important points, and the one I'm going to end on; Do not fear time, things vary, getting better can take years, and similarly it can take mere days.

Gabrielle Aplin - An Underrated Music Genius

Yet again I found myself struggling to think of something to write about, and yet my mind didn't quite click to the fact my day has been a rather Gabrielle Aplin obsessed day, just working, milling around, endlessly strolling through Facebook and watching vines, all of which with the soundtrack of either Paolo Nutini or Gabrielle Aplin, and as much as I love Paolo Nutini, I have so much musical love for Gabrielle Aplin, right now. Every so often I just sit around listening to music, and enjoying the melodic tone of it, but there are days like today where I can do nothing but focus on the lyrics within a song, and appreciate them to their max, look them up and rejoice/cry over their genius. As much as Gabrielle is able to be appreciated as a musician to purely listen to in the background, I think its undeniable that once you hear just what she is saying you will also become even more obsessed than you may have previously been. Seriously this girl, and any other co-writers she works with have such a fantastic mind, the songs More Than Friends, Please Don't Say You Love Me and Salvation are 3 I especially love, here's just an example of how good these lyrics are;

More Than Friends:

"Let's stay awake for hours, just like we did back then. When you draw pictures on my hand in permanent marker pen. We watch the sun go down, but never fee the end. Cause I know the sun and darkness are more than friends" - The song is called More than Friends and to not mention the title until the description of 'Sun and Darkness' as being more than friends is just so lovely, it's a perfect way to write this kind of song without making overly predictable lyrics or cliche things, the song is beautiful and well written.

Please Don't Say You Love Me:

"Just please don't say you love me, cause I might not say it back, doesn't mean my heart stops skipping when you look at me like that, there's no need to worry when you see just where we're at, just please don't say you love me, cause I might not say it back" - I'm not even sure what I like about this in particular, it's just writing dealt with in a such a smooth manner, that makes even the most masculine butch man break down into a little "aww" even if it's inside hidden underneath...deep deep down underneath.

Salvation:

" I never meant to fall for you but I was buried underneath and all I could see was white, my salvation." - Again I'm not 100% sure what it is about this lyric, but it just seems so slick, this person who has fallen without agenda and can only 'see white' their 'salvation' is just perfect and realistic, compared to other overly flowery and a little fairytale-ish songs.

I guess the point in this blog was A) To have another post this week B) To say how much Gabrielle Aplin so awesome and C) To tell anyone who sees this to go and listen to some darn Gabrielle Aplin!! I have to stress these songs are not the only good ones, I have not found one of her songs that hasn't been good, these were just 3 of my favourites. She is utterly brilliant, and her remake of The Power of Love (Featured on John Lewis) shows just how good she is. Awesome. So good.

Til next time ,y'all.

Moving Out and Homeware Shopping

As I continue this blog if you keep reading you will realise that there are 3 types of shopping I really enjoy; Clothes, Entertainment (Books, Music, DVDs) and Home-ware. As I approach the end of the spring term of my freshers year here at Uni, I'm feeling super excited for moving out of campus accommodation and into a house with 3 of my wonderful current flatmates, as I thought of how we were going to be decorating the place to our own styles I realised....my bedroom here is a mess, and I haven't done much to it...this of course  gave me an excuse to shop for home-ware! So I sat on the sofa and looked up B&Q (As there is a shop about 5 minutes walk from us) and specifically looked at storage towers because it was the best thing for keeping my bedroom tidy and organised, once I worked out the stuff I was looking for, myself and my friend (who will be in the new house) headed out to B&Q. It's fair to say we were in our element, I don't go to shops like this too often because in the simplest terms... I never really have an excuse to... And so we walked around, mouths open at the large selection of awesome looking canvas', gimmicky ornaments, lights, storage units, and general decorative thingamajigs, we once again realised just how excited we were to move out and start decorating the new place. So as not to get overly excited with it all we stuck to our original plans which was to focus more on things we could do with now, so I got myself a nice desk lamp (simple black head and silver body) - Lamp: £6 Bulb: £4, a surprisingly large (tall and wide!) storage tower, very minimalistic and very practical, simple black outer frame and transparent boxes which came to £18, an absolute bargain for the size! and after having a look around Tesco for other different things I got some new Duvet covers and pillowcases (because my previous ones didn't close at the end, so silly!) which rounded in at £8! I got home and instantly went upstairs to put it all in place, tidied my bedroom spotlessly, put posters that had fallen down back up and bish bash bosh my bedroom looks lovely again...needless to say I'm still going to be working out and browsing online for things to buy for moving out.AGAIN needless to say I will be posting non stop pictures and writing....mainly pictures of the new house and decorating.

Post-Graduation and Travel (More Entertaining than it sounds, I promise)

Picture the scene; I'm sitting on one of the sofas at Uni with no-one around, enjoying the wonder of only having 1 lecture, which at that point had been done and dusted, then one of my flatmates comes down and we enter the dark and mysterious world of discussing 'Post-Graduation' and the speed of Uni. Part of the reason we began this discussion is because its nearing the end of the spring term and only having 1 term left of the entire freshers year seems...well....incredible and daunting. Nevertheless it got me thinking, with nearly 2 years left (the speed of which, judging by this year is likely to zoom past) What is my post-BachelorOfArts-graduation plan? and if I'm truly honest I'm rather undecided right now. I'm not saying that once someone has been in Uni for a year it is imperative that they have a 50 year plan, but I like to know what I'm doing, and it's a little disillusioning when I'm left without too much clarity as to my future plans. So, as much as I comprehend the fact that having too many choices as to where my career and life is heading is actually quite freeing and exciting, I still want to lay down some metaphorical paving stones in the way of prospective possibilities. My  'paving stones' or Paving Stones of Resolution as I'm going to call them because it just sounds cool, similar to New Years Resolution (but it's past that so yeah, lets just create something fun and original) are as follows;

• Blog more (I know I've mentioned in at least 3 of the previous 20 posts that I'll try to write more, and I just  get caught up in other stuff, but I really feel it would aid my personal sanity and from a more professional perspective; it'll help develop my writing style, so hopefully I'll write at least 1-2 times a week if not more)
• Pictures - This is a bit of an extension to the above Paving Stone of Resolution but I want to start adding pictures to my blogs, even if they are only slightly linked to the post I'd still like to do it, to give this relatively blank blog a more personal and attractive touch. (The picture in this post is of a fairly small Ferris Wheel in the centre of Paris - truly one of my favourite times, only there a week but it was incredible)
• Relax (Not much explanation needed. Stress is not fun, take own advice.)
• Look into Travel

Aaaaaaand that last Paving Stone creates a nice little segway into the next point; Travel. Travel, travel, travel, what do I actually mean? and why has it taken so long for me to get to this point? Well after the little discussion with my flatmate, I also thought about the idea of travelling, whether its to a couple of countries or even more, I've always wanted to do it! Does it or will it conflict with possibility of graduate study? Weeeell for now I don't care! In my opinion, it's not going to conflict with anything because whether I do it before I do post-graduate studies or when I'm going through some mid-life crisis I intend to do it! So now we've settled on if when I travel matters to me, lets go to where...For me, France has always been a personal obsession for me, I've been twice with my last school (1 day trip to Boulogne-sur-mer and a week trip to Paris) but I absolutely love it, and even if my 'travelling' was simply raising enough money and funding myself to be able to rent out a house in the South of France and stay there for a few months just writing and getting inspiration, that would be a dream/goal fulfilled. Places like Greece, America and Italy are also places I'd love to go, it doesn't have to be for too long, or to too many places, but what I'd like to end this post on, similar to my previous post on dreams and goals, if you sincerely have a dream (like to travel to [insertwishfulplace]) then you'll raise the money, and you'll have the drive for it. I will travel at some point, and that's not taking into consideration any possible monetary positives or negatives, it's because I want to. Don't be telling yourself you cant do what you want! YOU CAN. DO IT. NOW....well maybe not now, depends what you're doing. Can do if you want, why not?!

Ambition, Drive, and Patience.

The 3 words I have chosen for the title summarises the basis of this blog post, I wanted to write this for a while but I could never quite visualise it and get down to actually writing it, plus essays and deadlines tend to distract your mind at times. So, just to give pre-clarification to this blog post; its purpose is to hopefully give a little more hope to everyone who ends up reading this (whether it be today, or years from now) specifically hope toward ones future. Unfortunately in a world containing people who seem to derive their happiness, satisfaction and pleasure from lying to people and manipulating people into thinking what they want to do isn't "possible" or "logical" it's quite easy to find solace in giving up. Giving up is all well and dandy if you're fine with letting go of what is your true dream but if you know that at some point, whether it be 10 years, or 50 years from now that you'll look at your life, and regret that you didn't chase your dream further, then grab it while it's fresh in your mind. The thing that changes peoples perception of certain dreams as being "impossible" or "Illogical" to completely "worth it" and "achievable" is the person that wants the dream. When I say "want" I mean someone who is truly passionate about achieving that dream, and therefore will go through any stress or problems that may arise in getting to that eventual goal. That is one of the main things that will stop a person achieving dreams; the obstacles such as finance, stress etc  and if its that,the people are talking about in relation to the "impossibility" of your dream, then obviously take it into consideration but don't give up because of that. If you have a dream or a goal, you should only ever give up on it if there is a really serious and imperative demand for you to give up...and right now I can't really think of one. So think to yourself if you ever feel like giving up; "Why am I giving up?" question your motives and your reasoning, because most of the time there's very little to support the reasoning, and unless its something horrific, demeaning and of course illegal then don't let others dictate what you're true dream is. We're all born with a talent, or love for something and it's wrong to send someone in a direction they don't want to go.
I also want to stress that a 'dream' can be anything, it doesn't have to be a dream career, it can be a personal occupation such as being a parent, or as simple as making sure you enjoy your life. Ambition, drive and arguably the most important; patience - They key factors to achieving any goal. Ever.

P.S. Even if you're not young, or think you're too old to grasp the bull by the horn as it were, that's also not true, whatever age, you can do what you want to do!

Self Recognition and Positive Realisation.

Sorry for the absence on this blog, A) I've been rushing around like mad with various deadlines for Uni, B) I've been in varyingly weird moods recently so didn't want that to come across on here and finally C) I've been trying to work out the demographic chart on my dashboard, its get rather frustrating. Anyway, something I have done recently and many times before is the focus of this blog post today. So, basically when I'm feeling down I delve into the world of what I'm going to call, for the purpose of this blog; 'Self Recognition and Positive Realisation'. This works quite a bit with self-consciousness problems or in general, things affecting one's view of oneself, but it can also be applied to other situations. The idea is that when you feel down, you take a step back from the heavily negatively focused world you might be in at that time, and take a metaphorical and literal look around you. Where are you? Who are you? What have you done up to this point? and most people, unless you're a murderous, rapist, racially abusive psychopath currently in jail plotting the next attack, will realise that small or big they have something to be proud of. I'll put it in the example of myself, if I feel down when I'm here, I try and snap out of whatever mood I'm in and remind myself "GOSH DARNIT LIAM, YOU'RE IN UNI, YOU MADE IT TO FREAKING UNIVERSITY" and it allows me to reluctantly, no doubt, squeeze out a little smile. Once you've got the smile out, you can use it over and over again, but then try and realise other things, for example you might have recently helped a friend through a tough time, or you might have helped someone across the street, you might have even just  picked up someones purse for them. Big or small, these acts of kindness that you come to realise relate back to you and yourself, which is where Self Recognition comes in and you must 'recognise' your talents, and your  generosity, or your kindness and honesty. Generally speaking, if you care enough to become upset, and especially towards you're self, it means you care what others think of you, and this ability to care about others perception about you means that there must be some element of respect for others. This respect is very admirable, because it means you're more likely to be sensitive to others feelings and emotions, and means you can be kinder to others and subsequently happier in yourself. So please, if you're feeling down, step back and enter the Self Recognition and Positive Realisation universe, find something and lift your spirits.

A break for procrastination.

This isn't a post I expected to be writing any time soon, as since I've been at Uni I seem to have been a master of procrastination, playing games, socialising with the flatmates, going out when I can, and generally trying to embrace the uni experience. However today, on a day where, taking me by surprise I have been rather homesick for some reason, I decided enough was enough, it was time to stand up against procrastination. So after a long session of playing Mario Kart, and watching films, I said to myself "Liam, get up stop being lazy and do some work", and I turned off the TV, brought my laptop upstairs, shoved some music on and stayed away from that procrastination inducing game!! Began to work aaaaaaand....have now found procrastination temptation in blogging....oh well, it was good while it lasted. BUT I'm sure I'll go back to working after this post, and I have done quite a bit of work....while also signing into skype...HEY! Laptops hold both my University work, and the possibility for educational development but also hold the most tempting and wonderful of all evils; The Internet, great and powerful in its own way, blogging, watching YouTube videos, skype friends, checking Facebook....oh the list goes on and it begins to build and build til I begin to give up on working. No fear there is always a solution! Insane half of me: "So sane half of Liam, you've written 3 film reviews since you've been up here, take your time, go on the internet for a little while, chill out, 'ave a cider, relax, put your feet up...fall over because your seat is too small for you to put your feet up without that happening.... then write one more review, go downstairs socialise...THEN WORK WORK WORK TOMORROW!! .... and procrastinate again because thats fun... Maybe do some writing, your course is about writing, that counts as work, right?! maybe...a bit of blogging...that's kind of writing, its creative....I suppose Facebook and twitter are also a type of creative writing... I mean just a look at all the imaginative bull some people write on them!" ... Just to explain this post a little bit, I'm a little tired, a little hyper, indulging in some procrastination so there is really no structure to this post what so ever, so that's cool. moving on from my insanity and to something a little more concrete, I'm going to end it here with this little message, with the hopes that other students like myself wont make themselves go insane with the fear of procrastination. Students everywhere, know this, working hard for a long period of time can be bad for you...in the same way that chugging alcohol til you fall over is bad for you in the morning, so don't fear what you might call procrastination, because chances are its not always so certain as that. You see, you can have breaks with work, it's not procrastinating its stopping you from losing your mind, no essay, no review, no blog for that matter is going to be of any considerably perfect content if you've exhausted your mind to the point of no return! A break is healthy. Procrastination is the complete avoidance of a task from the beginning, whereas, stopping working for half an hour or so is healthy, and is the correct way of going at things, you'll return to working with a more engaged mind, and a happier mood. So go forth students of this world and give yourself a break every once in a while!!

Positivity and Belief.

Another sentimental post coming up here guys... Don't moan, there's nothing wrong with a bit of soppy sentiment, and I feel the internet, with its social network sites that have a fair amount of bad media for cyber-bullying etc is currently lacking in a bit of good old happiness, and encouragement....Not that there isn't such people or blogs, there are just not as many as there should be!
So, specifically I'd like to write about positivity and belief, not just self-belief, but belief in general. I won't lie, I'm 18, 19 this year, teenage years haven't exactly been amazing all the time, and sometimes belief in situations, others and oneself can seem somewhat impossible to find and this can apply to anyone at any age. However, despite accepting I'm young and haven't experienced everything the world might throw at me, I've had enough happen, big and small to understand some basics.

It's also the most basic of things, for the smallest of problems that people sometimes seem to lose track of. There have been years, for myself, and for others I know, and undoubtedly practically everyone, where everything seems to collapse on itself, and where only the negative times and memories stand out, where they overtake some wonderful and fantastic moments. So we'll start there, it might happen, but if you realise that looking back on a year all you can remember is the negatives, then first of all work out where in the year there are gaps in your memory, and slowly go over the good memories, small or large. TRULY, you can be going through an awful time, and having a troublesome year, but if you can recollect the smallest moments of happiness; A conversation with a friend that made you laugh, or reminded you just how much they care for you, an evening with family that was enjoyable, a concert, a school trip, a lesson, a walk ANYTHING. ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING. Once you grasp one of these memories, you will have created, what I like to call a 'Catalytic Memory'. This is where you think of one memory that makes you smile, and it creates a dominoes effect where you start to remember other good memories, and it builds upon itself, when you do this, it will make you happy in the present time, for however long. Whether its a little while, or a long while, guaranteed it will make a difference. Once you've made this difference, it will effect you in the long term, because you keep recollecting and there'll come a time, where you're fed up of looking negatively, fed up of letting bad things ruin your mood, and trust me whether its a truly horrible situation you're going through or a smaller one, it should help you cope with whatever is going on. If you improve your mood, you are more likely to think more positively, if you think more positively, you'll be inspired to do something incredible, again big or small, if you do something for others or yourself it should make you feel better about yourself. NEVER underestimate the power you have, you can help others, you can help yourself. Positivity and Belief are big things, once you come upon them in the briefest of moments, you will have started to make yourself feel better. Belief = Positivity, Positivity = Belief.