Plot vs. Characters

This is something I’ve wanted to write for a while now because as a writer it’s a battle I often come across. What is more important to a story, the plot, or the characters? This is a question without a straightforward answer. It’s clear that regardless of the medium – prose, films, etc. – some are more character driven while others rely on the plot. The best, for me, will have a nice mix of both.

The focus depends on the nature of the story and the person writing it. In terms of my own writing, I think I’ve discovered which is best. Often, when it comes to the initial concept, I’ll either have characters with no plot, or a plot with no characters to fill it. Most of the time for me, the characters come first.

I find it really easy to create characters. I’ll start with a basic idea and then I’ll have a whole character develop from it, with a highly detailed backstory. That’s my bad habit in writing. Of course, you have to have good backstories for your characters. Even if they don’t show up in the story, it’s useful for the writer to know how their characters became who they are.

My bad habit is that when I have a good backstory for a character, whether I came up with it on the spot or spent days thinking about it, I want to put it into the story. This is okay, but there has to be a good way to go about putting it in, otherwise it will just be annoying. If the present is supposed to be the focus of the story, you don’t want the past overpowering it.

At the same time, it’s common knowledge that the character influences the plot. They’ll react to each situation differently from another character, and that will affect the outcome. Things you decide when about a character when developing them may also play a role in the plot.

Another problem I occasionally get is that I create really great characters and then can’t think of a plot to put them in, or the one I come up with either doesn’t make sense or isn’t what I wanted. Plot is the part that usually takes a lot more work for me.

Occasionally, I’ll come up with the idea for a plot first. Sadly, it rarely pops into my head as detailed as my characters do. Then I’ll have to develop it a bit more and look around to find what sort of characters would best fit into this plot to make it a good story.

Plot holes can be a big problem for a lot of people, things that don’t make sense, aren’t developed enough, or seem to be missing from the story. Some of these can be really hard to fix and often the solution turns out to be simpler than originally thought, for me at least. Sometimes either the characters or plot will have to be changed to work with the other.

The worst part for me is an exact setting, but we’ll talk about that another day. For me, the best part is when I’ve already developed a storyline and, even when I’m not thinking about it, new details about the characters or plot will just reveal themselves. This is especially good when it fixes a problem I’ve been having.

For me, I like character driven stories and I prefer ones with more psychological elements or deeper meanings. I love characters with a lot of internal problems in addition to external ones, characters with dark pasts. That’s probably why I love writing them so much. Plot is great too though, it all just depends on how it’s written. My favourites are still the ones with the twist endings.

Of course, that's just my approach to and thoughts on this part of writing. If you've read this far, I'd be interested to know what you think. What is more important in a story, good plot or good characters? Or are they equal, or even the same? If you're a writer yourself, what's your approach?

NaNoWriMo is Hard

NaNoWriMo, one month to write one 50,000 word novel. It’s easy, right? I mean, I once wrote a 10,000 word fanfiction within a week, so something like NaNoWriMo would be nothing for me… right? Ever since I learned of this beast, I’ve wanted to conquer it. For the last three years I’ve been trying, I really have. I am a novelist dammit. So then, where are my novels to show for it?

I can’t blame my university work on it, because lots of university people do NaNo and they succeed in it. At the same time, I can’t say my failures have nothing to do with the fact that it occurs in the month before deadlines. At the start of next month I have assignments due for three modules, and that isn’t just three simple pieces of work. Then there’s the pitch for the screenwriting class I have to give on Monday. I wouldn’t say any of them are that hard, they just take a lot of time.

Even so, it can’t take up every second of my time, can it? Of course not. Does being in a writing class make me want to write outside of it less? That has been true at times, there is such thing as too much especially with multiple projects going on. Am I just lazy? Of course, I am trying to balance university work with having a social life and maintaining other hobbies, which I think I’m doing pretty well at, but that seems to be leaving me with less time to write a novel, or even this blog at times.

I think the most annoying part this year is that next semester I was hoping to write a novel chapter for prose rather than a short story. We have the option to do either and they recommend going with the short story as there’s arguably less to consider, but for people who would prefer to write novels I think it’s better to work on improving in the area you’re interested in.

In a way I think they can be easier to write than short stories as you have more time to develop plot and character. Of course, novels are longer and as such can require more planning. My plan when we started in September was that I would use NaNoWriMo to come up with a full first draft of a novel so that I’d be able to work on it through the second semester and pick out the best chapter for workshopping. Clearly, as we are now two thirds of the way through the month and I am even closer to my deadlines, that is unlikely to happen.

I truly have so much respect for the people who can successfully do this and full time education/work. Of course, this is a busier month. Which brings me to my next plan. It’s the same as getting on a self-improvement kick in any month other than January, you don’t have to wait until the New Year to make resolutions. You shouldn’t. Goals like this should be taken as they come, or as you have the time for them, while you’re still excited about it. At the very least, the planning stages for such a goal should begin.

I know a number of other people have started doing NaNoWriMo outside of the official month, at all times throughout the year, and I think I shall have to become one of them. Writing for the sake of writing isn’t something I want to do, nor do I want to continue putting off something both fun and beneficial to me. Therefore I have decided to spend December and the start of January creating a full draft of a novel. Seriously, hold me to it.

This gives me the rest of this month to at least decide on a concept for the novel. I also have a number of posts planned for this blog to keep the writing going.

As for those of you who are still participating in NaNoWriMo this month, I wish you luck. Enjoy the feeling of having a project that actually gets completed. And, if you can’t, remember you’re not alone, this is a hard challenge to take on, especially with a lot of other stuff going on, and there are other months you can finish in.

For those of you who have read this far, I thank you for sitting through my little ramble.

My Halloween 2013

Well, this is a bit late coming but I wanted to talk about the week of Halloween. Holidays like this are special to me and I haven't really been able to celebrate it for the last couple of years, so this one was especially fun.



It really started the Sunday before Halloween. We started decorating by putting up our spiders, Quentin and Tim. Quentin, the bigger one, came from a pound shop and we had to put him together ourselves. Tim came from Tesco and was inflatable.

After they went up we still wanted to do something, so we built a blanket fort, the first real one I've been part of. We then spent the rest of the evening in the fort, doing work and playing Xbox.

 



 

It started again on Wednesday, when we carved our pumpkins. We'd settled on the theme of moustaches. I based mine on Jack from the Nightmare Before Christmas. Hers came out looking like the Pringles guy. Both were awesome and shall be missed.







 

I don't remember what I did all of Thursday, if anything, but it went very quickly. Then we started setting up the room and making cupcakes. To celebrate Halloween, one of my flatmates wrote a murder mystery for the three of us and two of their friends. The whole thing was great and the story was brilliant. Let's just say I was very happy with my role. Afterwards we played a drinking game.

 

 

So that was my Halloween week, the best I've had in a while. I look forward to the next one and though I'm sure I won't be able to spend it with the same people I'm always looking for ideas to make events like this great.

After Halloween, it was fun playing with other people's costume pieces.





Making Progress - Halfway Through the Semester

Last month I did a mini-series on starting my third year at university. This next week is going to be the halfway point of the semester. Yeah, it happened fast. I was shocked when I realised, and naturally a little worried. Then I started thinking about how things are going right now, so I wanted to give a little update.

Things are going really well. I’ve done full first drafts of my assignments for my prose and screenwriting classes and the general feedback is it’s really good. There are some problems obviously, no one has a perfect first draft, but from what’s been said it doesn’t seem like it’ll be too hard to fix. I’ll be doing that within the next couple of weeks and we still have the chance for them to be looked at again before the deadline, at which point I feel confident I’ll be able to write them up well enough for a 1^st. There are other things that still need to be done for them but looking at how the classes are laid out for the next few weeks it seems that there’ll be time for everything.

I haven’t done quite as much for my Writer at Work project but I have done a lot of research for it and I have someone I have to contact about it on Monday. Hopefully then I’ll be able to write up a full first draft of my assignment within the next couple of weeks.

So I’m completely on schedule. So much so that I don’t actually have any work that needs to be done this weekend, aside from reading the books I’m using for research, but that seems significantly easier than having whole things to write out. There’s been a lot of work going into it and it hasn’t always been easy but I haven’t felt too stressed or overworked either.

That’s the work stuff. The classes themselves have all changed in layout slightly in a way that makes them feel better for me. For example, our prose workshops have split into smaller groups so we only discuss people’s works in groups of three or four at a time, which is a lot more comfortable and allows for more discussion.

Outside of class things are going well. I’m still loving the place I’m at and the people I’m living with, even more so than when I first moved in. My hopes of having a more social year have also been answered, not just with my flatmates or being back at anime society, but I’ve been talking more to the people in my class as well which has been great.

I realise a lot of this just seems like me going on about all the good stuff happening in my life, and I’m sorry about that, but I really wanted to give a halfway update for the semester. It’s not all great, money’s never good first semester and then there was the whole computer thing that didn’t help.

My plans for the rest of the semester are just to stay on schedule, try to develop things as much as possible, and try to keep improving my social life. If nothing else, my dear flatmates and I have some very nice plans for Halloween.

Come November I’m also planning to attempt NaNoWriMo for the third year in a row and succeed finally. I’ve had this story developing for two years now, I used it in two of my classes last year, and I’m going to try to translate it into the full first draft of a novel. If all goes well, I’ll use one of the chapters for my prose assignment next semester.

R.I.P. Laptop

Hello people! Well it’s been a while since I’ve posted. Unfortunately, the title of this post may give you some idea as to why. A couple of weeks ago my computer got every sick. I actually don’t know what was wrong with it. We ran so many tests and they didn’t come up with any answers.

It didn’t seem too bad when it started. The internet froze. That happens occasionally and most of the time it just sorts itself out. Then it extended to the rest of the laptop. Eventually I had to shut it down with that big button you’re only supposed to use for turning it on. I hate doing that, and use it only as a last resort. When it came back on it said it had to do some kind of start-up repair thing. I thought it was just a result of how it was turned off. A few days later Windows crashed. It came back on fine, but by then it was worried. Then the start-up repair started happening every time I turned it on. It always said it failed but the computer always went on fine afterwards. Until it didn’t. Days went by and it was still in this state. It spent hours and hours trying to do this repair thing. At one point I let it go on for nearly 48 hours just to see if it actually did something. 

It was a lost cause, and the worst happened. So I had to find a replacement, which puts me nicely in the middle of my overdraft. I’ll be living very cheaply between now and January, but I needed a working computer. I’m still keeping the old one, in case we do manage to find a solution sometime in the future. I highly doubt it though. I had it two years but it was second hand and other parts of it had problems, it was only a matter of time sadly.

The new computer works well. It has better memory and stuff. It’s Windows 8, which is interesting. I like it but there are some parts of it that annoy me, but I’m sure I’ll get used to it. It doesn’t play Minecraft as well though. It has a lot more lag than it did on my old computer and I’m hoping this doesn’t last because I don’t want to lose my games but it is a bit more difficult to play now.

 

R.I.P old laptop, I did love you.

 

Hello new friend, I look forward to working with you (I haven't got around to changing the background yet).

September 2013 Summary

A while back I had a regular thing where once a month (formerly once a week) I would post an update about anything interesting in my life as well as plans for the next month. Following the blog restart, I thought I'd bring that back!

September Summary

-Went to Alcon
It was my first time at this convention and I had a brilliant time. I'll add a link to my review when I finally get it up.

-Moved back to Liverpool
Doing this the day after Alcon was probably a bad idea. I've basically covered this in the 'back to uni' posts.

-First classes of the year
It's going well so far. I already have a plan for my screenwriting assignments.

-Back to Anime Society
Sadly I missed the first week but the second was great. I'm glad I went despite being tired and I can't wait to go back.

Admittedly, most of these have already been covered this month, but there it is.
All in all, it's been a fairly busy - and fun - month.

Plans for October:

-Go back to London for a few days
This is planned for the 3^rd-6^th of the month. It's partly to see my family and partly to go out with my friends as I can't afford to go to MCM Expo this year.

-Create a first draft for all my assignments this semester

-Go back to Anime Society & attend the Halloween social

That's about it for now. At the end of the month I'll also be allowed to give blood again but I'll only do it if I can find someone to go with me in case it ends the same way as last time. I hope I can, otherwise I'll have to wait and hope I can get an appointment some time when I'm home for Christmas.

Hope everyone's had a good September and have a good October! I know I'm looking forward to it.

University Goals for the Year

Every year I try to set a number of goals to achieve before summer. Most of this year's will be copies of previous years, but I thought this would be an appropriate post.

My Goals:

1. Make more friends.
2. Attend more social events.
3. Attend all classes.
4. Get more 1^st's.
5. Come up with a plan for after university.
6. Graduate.

I would say I am making some progress toward each of these goals already, but there's a lot of work left to do.

Well, this was a short post but that conclude's this week's 'back to university' theme. There will no doubt be many university related posts to follow but for now it's back to free posting.

Thanks for reading everyone! If you want, tell me in the comments what your plans for the year are!

Shopping Fun!

What does a poor university student with almost no money do when they need something? In my case, it’s a special kind of shopping spree!

Since starting university, September-December has always been the worst time of year financially for me. The September-December rent payment is usually a bit more than the others, for starters, and it seems like there’s always some problem that forces me into overdraft before the money comes in. This year was no different so I thought I’d do a post about the ways I’ve saved money (sort of) and the fun I’ve had living on a budget.

I’ll start with the less exciting bit first. I live further from the city centre now so shopping for food isn’t as easy. I can’t buy too much because I have to carry it home further, and multiple trips are harder than they sound. Buying everything I need in the smaller shops close by would only cost more, so I decided to do my very first online shop. It was the first for food anyway. We’ve done it before at home but then my parents are in charge of it so I didn’t know what to expect. The process was all very easy though. I’m just sad that Iceland online shopping doesn’t deliver to where I’m staying yet. Tesco was my favoured backup. I managed to get over a month’s worth of food for about £40, treats included, just by picking all the cheapest options.

Picking the cheapest options led to some interesting experiences. They have these whole meals in tins, like Spaghetti Bolognese, and I had never been lured in by them before, it just seemed a bit unusual. I’m used to food like that being either homemade, or at the very least, from a box. The tins have been great so far though. Another nice surprise came with the Tesco value microwaveable cheeseburger and chips. Usually I love microwave meals, but I wasn’t sure cheeseburger and chips were meant to be made like that. Well, admittedly it’s not as good as the ‘real’ ones, but I thought it was pretty good considering.

It was also funny having it delivered. The delivery guy called me, and because signal is bad here the phone cut off, which made me worry a little. He called back immediately, the problem being he couldn’t find flat. Again, I moved in two weeks ago, so I still don’t know the whole area. I couldn’t tell him how to get here so I ended up running outside to find him. Luckily, it didn’t take that long, and I got to ride in the Tesco van back to the flat. He was a really nice guy as well.

Now, food wasn’t the only thing I needed here. A week ago, I went on a special shopping trip. I wanted to get some new clothes because I found four outfits weren’t quite enough when some of them were taking longer to dry. Since I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on them I decided it was time to get to the charity shops, and since the way there just happened to pass by Forbidden Planet, I thought I’d take a look in there as well. Of course, I got myself some treats as well. Here’s my little collection from that day:

- Minecraft Poster – £3.99 – Forbidden Planet

I was in the store a few days previously and noticed the poster then. I really wanted it and as it was cheap enough, I decided I was going to get it.

-Star Trek Mug – £5.99 – Forbidden Planet

Just because I need more fandom mugs, especially since my Doctor Who one had to stay behind in London, and Star Trek is my big addiction at the moment.

-Mock the Week Book - £2.50 – British Heart Foundation

I love Mock the Week and every time I see books for any show I love I tend to want it. This one is all ‘scenes we’d like to see’ stuff, which is my favourite part of the show, so this was an obvious buy.

- A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan - £2 – British Heart Foundation

I haven’t actually started this book yet so I don’t know how I really feel about it. It’s not the sort of thing I’d usually pick up to read but it’s been recommended a few times now by people on my course and it sounded good so when I saw it in the shop at a cheap price I thought I might as well try it.

-Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice - £1 – Scope

I read this book ages ago and loved it – and the film is still one of my favourites – so I again gave into temptation when I found it in the shop.

-Trousers - £3.25 – Scope

Originally from Marks & Spencer’s, if anyone cares, I chose these because they looked and felt really comfy. Plus it can hard to find trousers in my size where the legs aren’t too long.

-Top - £4.25 – Scope

Again if anyone’s interested, originally from Dorothy Perkins, a shop I don’t think I’ve ever even been to. This one I chose because I thought it was cute, and it turns out it’s really comfy to wear too.

-Fluffy cushion - £4.50 – Scope

Actually it’s a fluffy cushion cover that came with the cushion inside it, even better. I’ve wanted a fluffy cushion for ages and this one was beautiful. I think it’s a really nice addition to my room.

I’m really happy because I knew I’d be tempted by a lot of things so I set myself a budget for the day of £30 and all this came to just under £27.50. New stuff with none of the guilt!

On the way back I ran into one of my friends and we ended up spending two hours just talking, which was the perfect end to my trip. This post has gone on pretty long now so I’ll leave it at that.

Thanks for reading everyone, bye bye!

Fighting Apparent Laziness

I do all my own stunts, you know.

Has anyone else had a really slow couple of weeks? To be fair, it hasn’t really been slow for me, what with moving back to uni, having to buy food and other supplies, go back to classes, but everything outside of that has just been… well almost non-existent.

There’s no doubt that it can be hard sometimes, transitioning from summer back into a work environment. I suppose I should be happy, since this is the last year I’ll likely have such a transition. I still seem to spend a stupid amount of time just sitting in my room watching youtube or reading some useless thing on the internet. I can barely even wake up! To be fair, I have been having some sleep related problems recently, but as someone who usually wakes up at 8 in the morning, trying to get back to waking up at 7, progress has been terrible. Almost every day I’ve woken up to my alarm at 7 only to immediately fall asleep again and wake up around 10 (the one exception thankfully being the day I had a class at 10). This usually leads to a very slow start. Then I’ll occasionally get tired in the afternoon. I’ve never really been a nap person but occasionally I’ll give in and take one for the sake of being able to do more afterwards. Unfortunately the last couple of times I’ve done it I’ve stupidly not set an alarm and woken up over an hour later even more tired than when I laid down, which leads to a lack of anything being accomplished.

I’ve been actively trying to break this cycle, with only minor success so far but it shouldn’t be too hard to resolve now. Yesterday my classes went from suspiciously easy to ‘ah, there’s the work’ when I realised just how much reading I would have to do. I love reading, but there is a lot to get through in a short space of time. I’ve started that now, as well as work on my assignments for the semester, so at least that’s back on track even if I could pick up the pace a little. I also went back to the anime society last night, having missed the first of the year due to tiredness. I was tired last night but forced myself to go anyway and I’m really happy I did. I’m sure in a couple of weeks everything will be back to normal but in the middle of this transition things are pretty rough (even if they are mostly relaxed).

Has anyone else ever had this problem? What do you do to fight laziness when it rears its ugly head?

(Please don’t tell anyone in my writing class I used a cliché!)

My Uni Supplies

I wanted to talk a little about the supplies I brought for my classes. I was going to mention them in my previous post but I didn’t want it to run too long, so I thought I’d do a separate one for it.

First of all, this is the bag I use for my classes. Actually, it’s the bag I use for everything right now because it’s the only one I brought with me. 

I love Soul Eater. I don’t love this bag’s strap because while it can be adjusted, it doesn’t like to stay adjusted, and when it’s filled with uni supplies it has the nasty habit of swinging around and hitting my other leg, which lead to a pretty nasty bruise.

My first year I had a notebook for each class. Last year I had a big one that I wrote everything in. I decided to have one notebook between all my classes again this year (it’s really not bad if you have a big enough one and mark each section properly. It took me until my second class to realise it had a bookmark, which I love.

I wanted to get an academic diary again this year as I had one last year and found it really useful. Then I found this instead and I couldn’t resist. It has separate sections, a timetable which is great for classes and anything else planned at specific times, a to do list for everything else and even a section where you can write down notes, great for homework as well as diary entries and anything else you need to write down. It is shorter though, I’ve worked it out and it will only last until December. After that I may get a regular diary again, but we’ll see when the time comes.

So, I was stupid and when it came to packing I couldn’t find my pens anywhere. I had to run out and buy some. I’m one of those people who needs a specific type of pen. I’m not limited to just one, though I have my favourites, but I like ones that feel a certain way in my hand and ones that I can write easily with. This doesn’t mean I actually know the difference between different types of pens. I couldn’t get my favourite so I bought these because they looked similar. ‘Roller pens’, again I don’t actually know what that means, but they aren’t the easiest. I like the way they feel and most of the time the way they write but they only really write properly if I have the notebook flat rather than at an angle, which is how I often have to write in the lecture room. It has gotten easier as I’ve become used to them though.

Honestly, that’s all there is for now. Undeserving of its own post? Maybe. There were some other things (sharpie highlighters, certain pencils and rubbers) but I didn’t have the time to find them before I left. That is the downside of having a convention right before moving back to university.

I'm also lucky enough that my course doesn't have a lot of required reading. There's a lot of suggested reading, but only two or three we've actually had to read.

What I Brought to Uni

And now an impression of my cat.

It’s common knowledge that people moving to university tend to take too much with them. My first and second years here, it didn’t matter to me that I would be part of that stereotype. I would be miles away from home for months at a time, I wanted as much of my stuff with me as possible.

Now, having that mind-set might not be too much of a problem if you weren’t going too far away, or if you or anyone in your family have a car as seems to be the case most of the time. But if you’re someone without any of that, the distance is larger and you have to stick to trains or coaches (I gave up on trains a long time ago. £50 one way? No thanks.) then its’ going to be a lot harder. If you fill up your suitcase so much that you have to stop every five seconds and by the end of it you can’t use any of your muscles without intense pain, then that may be a sign you need to change things. Of course, it might also help if you have any strength whatsoever.  

So yeah, this year I decided I wasn’t having any of that. I wanted easy, light travelling. I only wanted what was absolutely necessary (plus a couple of extras for entertainment). The number of each thing I took was cut down significantly and some things were eliminated altogether.

Below is a list of everything I took:

-Clothes – I took all my underwear but only 4 tops and bottoms, because they can be re-worn and if I spaced them out right I wouldn’t have to worry about running out of clothes (new place has washing machine but no dryer so we have to hang them up which takes longer)

-Hairbrush, deodorant, toothbrush, toothpaste and 1 towel (everything else like that was either coming back from storage or could be bought when I arrived)

-Blanket and dressing gown (for Winter, and I wasn’t sure if just walking around in my pyjamas in the morning would be acceptable here, plus I just like having something to wrap myself in)

-3DS and games (so I’d have something to play if I wanted, but restricted to save space)

-3 books (again for entertainment, and justified because I’m on a writing course)

-Uni supplies (I’ll go over these later)

-3 Plushies (because I just couldn’t eliminate anymore, plus one is smaller ayway)

-Camera, phone and laptop plus chargers.

That was all I brought and so far it’s been enough. I haven’t even had time to touch the games since starting class again!

So my advice for anyone about to move to uni (though it might be a bit late for this year) is to only take what is absolutely necessary. Add a couple more things for entertainment if you like, but you definitely won’t need as much as you think you do.

This is particularly true if you have to get the coach and then walk half an hour with suitcase and any other bags to get to where you’re staying. I'd talk about my journey but it was pretty boring. The only notable thing about it was how freezing it was on the coach.

My New Uni Home

For the first time in my university life, I’m not living in student halls. This has definitely been a change for the better.

I’ll start by talking about how this came about. Now, I know I’m not the only one who had trouble finding accommodation this year! Of course, this happens to people every year but this was my first experience with it and now I know just how scary it is. My first year I found accommodation through my university and the second year I booked a place in the same building again, but this year for a number of reasons I wanted to be somewhere else. I ran into a lot of problems trying to apply for new places and things weren’t looking good when I unexpectedly received a message on Facebook. One of the girls on my course, who I hadn’t spoken to much before, offered me the spare room in their flat. I agreed immediately – it sounded great, it was significantly cheaper than the last place, and generally it was just a definite place to stay, I couldn’t turn that down.

The price is a major improvement and I got to know my new flatmates a little over the summer so I wasn’t as nervous moving in. I’d like to think in the short time I’ve been here we’ve already become friends, which is brilliant. I’ve had bad flatmate experiences and some really good ones, but I’ve never been able to become close enough with anyone to be friends.

The place I’m in now is still student housing but it’s a lot different from the hall I was in before, it’s more like a real flat. It’s really nice, in an area which, on first impression, I thought looked too nice for students to be able to afford. I expected it to be a bit smaller but it’s a really nice size. The living room has a really big window and there’s an archway that connects it to the kitchen. An archway! The oven is electric. I still prefer gas but I’m not complaining because this one hasn’t given me any problems yet. The fire alarm is a lot more sensitive than I used to but apparently people are setting it off all the time so I haven’t felt too bad the couple of times I’ve done it.

The bedrooms and bathroom are downstairs on basement level. I’ve always wanted a basement room, though I have now discovered the downside as it can get quite cold. I have a double bed, which is just awesome. It’s also very comfortable. The bathroom is shared, which is something I had originally worried about when looking at such accommodation, but that really isn’t a problem for me when I know the people I’m sharing with, plus everything is kept clean.

The flat itself is a bit further from the city centre than I was before but I can still get there and to classes within twenty minutes so I don’t have a problem with that. It’s also a lot quieter than the regular student halls, which means no interrupted sleep at night and no annoyances during the day!

All in all, I really love this new place and look forward to the rest of my year here. Here’s part of my room, just to show you all (I’d do a full flat tour but I’m not sure how my flatmates would feel about it).

So, if you’re in student accommodation too, what are your rooms like? What do you love/hate about them? And do you have any tips for decoration?

Uni 3rd Year Classes - I'm Suspicious

Is anyone else here in the third year of university? Is anyone else suspicious? Okay then.

Hey everyone, the first post in this week’s back to university theme is going to be my first impression of this year’s modules.

So, a quick recap of what I do. I’m a Creative Writing student. The classes I’m taking are prose, screenwriting and something called ‘Writer at Work’ where we have to develop our own project and then either do it or talk about what we would have done if we were doing it (we have to do at least one work related module or we can’t graduate).

To be honest, my first impression was actually ‘why these colours?’

Are they taking anyone else back to primary school? Who decided these were the educational colours?

The induction for the course came on the 13^th. This is where they supposedly introduce us to what we’ll be doing in the year, and it when pretty much the same as the last two years:

‘Here are your timetables.’

‘Are there any clashes?’

‘Any questions?’

‘Okay, you can go.’

It was scheduled for two hours and lasted about 45 minutes (half an hour longer than last year).

It was all very quick and I still wasn’t that concerned, though it did surprise me to learn that this year makes up 75% of the overall grade. I knew it would be worth more than last year, I just didn’t expect that much more, I thought it would be more 40-60 or something. I don’t know why.

Last week brought us out first classes. I’m surprised that this year there’s nothing where we have to write an essay on an already existing film or story. I also didn’t expect myself to be so disappointed about that.

The classes are as they were last year, lectures followed by workshops. The assignments seem almost too easy, hence the suspicion. Yes, they have to be professional quality now but it’s still hard to believe there aren’t any nasty surprises they’re waiting to spring on us.

I already have plans for most things.

I’ve gone completely sci-fi for screenwriting. Over the summer I started watching Star Trek again, for the first time properly since I was a child, and became completely addicted. Already being in love with another popular sci-fi series, Doctor Who, I’ve gone a bit mad for the genre, currently making plans to re-watch all the other old sci-fi shows I used to love. I think it’s probably best if I move on now before I lose track completely.

I’m going a different route for prose. I love sci-fi, I do, but here’s the problem, I watch it. I’ve read a little before but nowhere near enough to think I’m qualified yet. It comes down to this – do I research a new genre now and hope I’m good enough to get high marks by writing it in two months time, or do I go with another genre that I have significantly more experience in and love just as much? Honestly, I’m leaning toward the latter, which would likely be horror, though I suppose I could try a combination. I haven’t decided anything for definite there yet.

I’m not sure what I’m going to do about this work module and I have a feeling it will be the hardest one. I have ideas, but they’re all just small fragments right now, and there isn’t a lot of help available for us in terms of deciding what we want to do.

So there it is. My general view is ‘it seems easy, but it probably isn’t what it seems’.

At least I only have 8 hours a week actually in class, and I still have my three day weekend!

Why I should never be asked to pose. Wanted to add a second picture to this... it went quite wrong. Those eyes look ready to kill.

So, my question of the day is, if you’re studying anything right now, what is it and what do you think of it so far?

Please Bring Order To This Blog

Hey guys! Hope you’ve all had a good summer? The reason I ask that of course is because I’m now back at university (and I haven’t posted a thing since July)! Oh, before I forget, 20 points to whoever gets the reference I was trying to make!

Things are going to be changing around here. There are a few things I’ve said in the past about this blog, specifically that I want to post every day and I want to improve a few things. Well that’s all happening right now!

For a while now, my posts have been sporadic, both in terms of posting and theme. I enjoy writing about a variety of topics but I want them to be more organised. Currently, I’m trying to come up with some kind of schedule, so that I can talk about what I want but still maintain some kind of order.

As another way of creating more order, I’ve removed a majority of the tags, since they were a bit of a mess as well. I kept ‘university’ and ‘lists’ as they are two larger topics I plan to continue with. More tags will come with new posts I’m sure, and others may be added for older posts that I still really like or have proven to be more popular.

To start off, following what I said at the beginning of this post, this week is going to be dedicated to posts on starting my third year at university!

I’ll also give a small list on things I plan to post about so far:

-University

-My life in general (interesting things I’m doing, strange experiences, etc.)

-Reviews/thoughts on things (TV, books, games, etc.) both old and new

-Lists, about anything really

Actually, that’s about all I have planned so far, but I know I’ll probably come up with more.

All my posts will now also be complete with pictures!

I can't tell if that's well placed lighting or not, I just wish it did more to hide my messy bed. By the way, that guy on my head is my new mascot. There will be a special post on him when this week is over.

This is going to be a fun restart.

So if there’s anything you’d like to see here, let me know in the comments!

Room Tour/Redecoration (Video)

Another of my DZP goals being fulfilled here, this is actually something I’ve wanted to do for a while. I was originally going to do it as a photo post but decided it would be better to show you on video rather than try to explain pictures. Below the video I’ve also added a couple of extras I forgot to talk about, as well as a bit on why I love redecoration.

Extras:

1.       On the closet doors I forgot to talk about the non-music decorations, which is weird because they’re more important on a personal level:

Top left – A chalk drawing of a spider I had to do for class back in primary school (just realised how bad it would have been if someone had severe arachnophobia back then). I found it in my closet and just decided to put it up.

Bottom left – Chinese style artwork made for me by a friend of the family. So beautiful.

Bottom right – This is actually a picture taken of me a few years ago by a close friend, I think back when she was doing a photography course. She gave me the picture and I’d always meant to put it up but never got around to it until now.

2.       Everything fits together perfectly. I didn’t spend anytime focusing on the little table, which holds my laptop and drinks. It’s perfectly places so that I can easily reach it whether I’m in bed, on my chair or on the floor. The game controllers are also perfect. I’m surprised they can stretch all the way across the room from where my TV is to where I can sit back on my chair or lay back in my bed and still play comfortably.

3.       One thing I haven’t gotten around to changing yet is my curtains. That’s because the rod they’re attached to doesn’t come off the wall. So someone put the curtains on it and then permanently fixed it on there. There’s a regular curtain thing behind it so hopefully we can get that sorted out soon too.

I mention in the video that one of the things I loved most about redecorating was that, while I liked the way my room was before, it looked the way it did when I was a kid. The very best part about redecoration I think, is making your home match you. I did this by changing the colours to ones I liked and putting more loved items where they would be easily seen within the room, such as my plushies and wall scrolls. They’re nice things to show off and finally having the room finished meant I was finally able to put them up. It’s so much nicer to be in here now everything’s the way I want it to be where I was almost feeling uncomfortable before the change. I think the solid colour acts to the ‘tidy’ look I wanted to give it (not that my room can ever completely be tidy) where the varying patterns on it before, while nice, added to the cluttered look.

Another really great thing about redecorating a room to suit you is when you’re doing it yourself. As I’ve never done something like this before, the painting part at least, the new experience was very exciting. As the room hasn’t been redecorated since I was a child, I never had a part to play in it back then and I think one of the things that makes it so much better now is knowing that I made it happen myself. Oh, I’m not a professional painter by any means and you’d definitely see that if you look along the edges, and I thought that it would bother me unless the final product was perfect but it never has.

One piece of advice I can give to anyone else who may be redecorating is don’t buy your painting supplies from the 99p shop. I bought a pack of three rollers. One broke as soon as I started using it and the others broke the second I tried to clean them. The paintbrushes I bought from the same place were a fair bit better but I’m not sure if it was their quality, my lack of skill, or if it’s normal but their bristles were falling off all over the place (really annoying to pick out of painted sections of wall). I ended up doing most of the job with a single paintbrush.

A Rant about Eye Tests and Contact Lenses

I wanted to do this for a while for two reasons. Firstly, most of the time my eyes are completely fine but I had noticed a couple of things that made me think they weren’t 100%. I decided it would be best to get them tested just in case. Secondly, I was (and still am) considering getting coloured contacts for some of my cosplays. Generally, I don’t think it matters if my eyes aren’t exactly the same colour as the character’s, if my eyes are blue and theirs are green it’s not going to stand out that much. In the case of those with completely unnatural eye colours however, it does feel a little weirder. I had done research and read that it was best to get my eyes tested first to make sure it would be okay to wear contacts.

It turned out that these were two different tests so I made appointments for them one after the other. I went around the middle of May, so this post is even later coming than my previous post. Luckily, I still remember the experience and the things I wanted to talk. I took my mum along again for support. We went to the local Specsavers. This is the point I’ll say that I consider my experience there to be a bad one. I wouldn’t say the place itself or most of the staff there are bad. They were the people my parents went to for their eye tests and glasses. I went with them a couple of times and everything seemed just fine there. Making my appointments and going in that day, the staff that greeted me were very friendly. That’s where the negatives start.

The wait was fairly short and the same staff member did both of my tests. I’ll admit I’m not familiar with the way they do all their tests so their behaviour may have been totally normal. I however, was not happy with it. It was all the typical things you would expect, read letters from the chart, being shown pictures and asking which ones were better and so on. The entire way through things seem slightly rushed. I also felt like I was being pressured to give certain answers. The man would show me two different images, ask me which was better, only to turn to one and immediately say it was that one, before I could give my response. When I did manage to tell him what I thought it seemed like he wasn’t really listening. I was given a prescription at the end of it but because I didn’t feel like the right answers had been given I still can’t help feeling it may be wrong. I don’t want to go back there for another test and I’m not sure about getting one anywhere else at the moment. I may try to find a cheap pair of glasses that fit the prescription and see if it does anything. They said I would only need it when I’m doing things like reading for a longer period of time but I can do that well anyway so I may just wait a while.

The contact lens test went similarly and then I was told I’d need to practice with a pair in store, which I was happy with. He asked me what colour I wanted but again didn’t give me a chance to answer before deciding for me. I feel like he was too impatient. I’d like to believe they were just busy that day.

I was taken to another area and joined by a different member of staff. I had previously looked up how lenses are supposed to be put in and removed but it was nice to hear it from a professional too. She showed me how to make sure they were the right way round then told me to put one in. I have to admit I failed pretty badly here. I’ve heard that most people have trouble putting them in the first time so there is some comfort in that. One of my fingers kept slipping from where it was holding my eyelid open so that didn’t help. Holding the eyelid open wasn’t easy as it kept instinctively trying to close, not only in response to something trying to get on the eye but just from being kept open so long. Then as it failed again and again the eye was starting to water, I’m guessing a mixed response the eyelid thing and trying to keep whatever was trying to get in away. One of them was red both on and around the eye for a couple of hours afterwards. Again, I don’t think the staff member helped much. I understand that she had to supervise me, tell me how to do it and encourage me, but more than that it kept putting me off. I wished that she would just be quiet for a moment and watch so I could concentrate only on what I was doing. I don’t think that came out sounding very nice but that was how I felt. I’ll admit I’m one of those people whose internal response to being told the same thing over and over is ‘yeah okay I got it the first time, do you think I’m too stupid to understand?’ But then I was still feeling negative about the previous experience and feeling like a failure in my attempts to get the things in.

Eventually, it didn’t end up happening. They made me an appointment to go in and try again. I later cancelled it. I’m still going to try lenses but I want to try it in my own home where I can feel comfortable while I’m trying to do it.

There is another complaint I have. Now I will say I didn’t hear this myself, but my mum told me when I left and I see no reason she would make something like this up. It doesn’t sound that bad but it was annoying at the time. Apparently one of the staff members had voiced her disgust that they were giving contact lens appointments to people who didn’t need them while they didn’t have enough for those that did. I have to say, I agree. I do think that people who need something for medical reasons should have priority over those that want it for cosmetic reasons. However, they gave me the appointment. I specified even when I made it that I wanted them for costumes. I admit I don’t know everything about the law but I’m pretty sure they don’t have to serve you. If you want to give all your appointments to people who actually have eye problems, then that’s fine, but don’t give it to someone who wants it for a certain reason and then complain about it in front of the customers. I just find it a bit rude.

So, that was my experience. I’m sorry it wasn’t a happier one and I apologise if my little rant annoyed anyone. I will say on the bright side, the whole thing turned out relatively cheap. I was only charged £10 total when it was supposed to be £10 each, the first member of staff I was with told them to give me the second one free. Now, if anyone’s actually read to the bottom of this, I’d be interested to know what experiences others have had in this area, positive or negative. 

My First Blood Donation

Getting my appointment

Donating blood is something I’ve wanted to do for a few years now. It always seemed like a great way to help other people that required very little time and effort, as well as costing nothing (other than whatever is needed to get to the location). I signed up to do it a while ago but it was hard getting an appointment at a time and place I could do. When some have presented themselves I’ve been unable to get an appointment and I’ve been offered one in London before when I would be in Liverpool at the time. That’s just part of the awkwardness of having your home and university so far apart. I was surprised at the difficulty I had trying to do this.

Finally I was able to get an appointment on June 20^th. Around a week beforehand I received a form I had to fill out about my health, lifestyle and so on, everything they need to determine whether they can take your blood or not. That was simple enough, though I’m still unsure whether it was good or bad that I was able to answer ‘no’ to everything. I also spent my time pre-blood day researching the process. I was a bit worried. I’ve spent a large part of my life fearing the doctor needles and the one that they use did look pretty big. I was questioned by several people why I would choose to do something like this with such a fear. Simply put, I didn’t want to be afraid, and I didn’t think being afraid was a good enough excuse not to go through with something that could save another person’s life.

I had my mum go along with me, partly for support and partly because I wasn’t sure how my body would react. I’ve never lost a large amount of blood before and I knew some people fainted afterwards so I didn’t want to be alone, though I was determined not to be one of those people (keep reading for a good laugh).

The Process

My appointment was in the morning so we headed out after breakfast and went to a couple of shops first. I’d been joking around then and the previous night about having my blood ‘harvested’, though the concern began to increase as we got closer to appointment time. I entered the place and was unhappy with how cramped and crowded the whole thing was, even more so when my mother decided to wait outside because of it, so much for support. The cramped and crowded feeling really only lasted while I was waiting to be seen and I’d say this negative beginning was made up for with what followed.

The staff were all really friendly. They were all older women so there was a nice sort of motherly vibe, very comforting. I was first taken in for a few questions to make sure I’d be okay to give blood and then I had to be given a test, I think it was for blood levels or iron levels, and I feel bad that I can’t properly remember or find that information right now. I’m fairly sure it’s the same thing they use to test for diabetes. I’ve had that test before and it hurt a lot, but this time I barely felt anything. I was hoping all the sewing I’ve been doing would desensitise my skin to needle pricks and now it seemed I’d got my wish. My fear of what would come next disappeared instantly and I felt like an idiot for being worried at all.

Next I was taken into the area for the actual blood taking. This place was less cramped than the waiting area and the bed was comfortable. There was a nice window view and if I sat up I could see my mum sitting outside. At this point I was busy being amused by everything I saw. I was given some water to drink first and then they brought out the needle. It was big. It was a big medical needle that I wasn’t afraid of, but I was still going to feel it. I lay down and waited for the nurse to do the blood pressure thing and then analyse my arm for all its veins.  It hurt a little, but no more than a sewing needle or cat scratch. I didn’t make a noise but it made my leg give a random jump.

Then the needle was in and the waiting began. I thought it was weird that the needle was going in more at the side of my arm when I thought it would be just under the inside of my elbow. The process was slow because apparently the vein didn’t want to co-operate. The blood flow was slow ad I had to squeeze a little ball to keep it going. It was nice just lying there, listening to the music, squeezing the ball. It was calm and relaxing. It was actually so slow that they decided to stop before they had fully filled the bag, though it was very close. The needle felt like nothing going out. It might sound weird, but I enjoyed seeing my bag of blood. The colour was nice and the bag looked squishy.

My first glass of juice was brought to the bed for me with a straw. It didn’t seem necessary, but I was grateful for their kindness and it made me feel good to just be lying there drinking. Afterward I sat up and waved to my mum and she came in when they took me to the recovery area. During the entire process, I honestly felt completely fine, no different to how I felt before the appointment. If anything I felt better. I still had some more juice, I can’t remember the brand but their lemon juice was delicious. I had some crisps though I was disappointed they didn’t have salt and vinegar. I waited a few more minutes as suggested and then we left.

Sadly I couldn't get one with the needle in.

The Super Fun Aftermath

As I said, during the process of giving blood and immediately afterwards I felt completely fine. After we left this remained the same. Around 20 minutes after giving blood I was walking around a shop with my mum when I started to feel really dizzy. I said ‘I’m starting to feel it now’ and the next thing I knew I was waking up on the shop floor. Yeah, that was funny, aside from the part where I seriously wondered for a moment if this was what dying felt like. I was pulled up from the floor and immediately had to lie back down. I felt very dizzy and I felt incredibly hot, more than I have this entire summer. To top it off there was this loud rushing noise in my head which sounded a lot like the ocean but right inside my ear. I remember asking out loud if what I was hearing was in my head or not though I knew what the answer was.

My mum left me (with a couple of store workers) to buy me a carton of juice, and as a couple of people in the line had seen me collapse they were kind enough to let her go ahead of them. The juice made me feel better a bit better but I was still dizzy and hot when I stood up so I sat on the ground outside for a couple of minutes. One of the ladies who had seen what happened said I should have sat on a bench. I laughed only internally because I knew she was only trying to look out for me but come on, the bench may have been only a few metres away but there was no way at that point I’d get more than a few steps without ending up on the ground again.

Eventually I felt well enough to leave. I decided against going to the last shop I’d wanted to visit in case it happened again. Instead of the closer bus stop we walked down a bit to the one where the bus started just to ensure I’d get a seat. One of my mum’s friends were there and we enjoyed the first retelling of what was now a funny story. Halfway home the sickness returned. I didn’t lose consciousness but I felt like I might throw up any minute. Luckily I didn’t. We went home and celebrated with apple pie. I had a slight headache from the fall for the rest of the day but I was fine. That night I realised my lower back hurt. The next morning I woke up to a lovely bruise that took around two weeks to heal.

My pretty bruise, sorry for the bad picture.

A Short While Later

A couple of weeks later I received my blood donor card in the post. It told me my blood type. Learning this was something I wanted to do for a long time. It turns out I’m AB+ which is the same as only 3% of the UK population. This left me feeling happy and a little special for the rest of the day.

Conclusion

After all this I have to say I greatly enjoyed this experience and am looking forward to doing it again. I can next give blood in October but I’ll be in Liverpool by then. I’m a little worried I won’t be able to find someone to go with me. I’m not worried about the process anymore but I am worried about what will happen if the effects come in late again and I’m alone, though I hope the reaction from this time will turn out to be a one off. I’m also not sure if I’ll be able to get an appointment there. If they send the form to London again I probably won’t get it but I don’t want to change my address with them just for a few months. I’m not sure how relevant any of that actually is.

I would also definitely recommend blood donation to anyone who is able to do it, though again, be warned, you can feel fine one minute and be affected the next. I really was surprised by how long it took for that to happen.