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Camy

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Blog Entries posted by Camy

  1. Camy

    Sunshine

    By Camy,

    So ... I'm fed up with my uber whiny blog entries, and much as I sincerely appreciate all the sage advice and help proffered, enough is enough - until the next time.
    We have a gig tomorrow night, and like any sensible fools we rehearsed. I wish I'd recorded it. My guitar, which has had some problems with its pick-up, has been fixed, has new strings, and sounds peachy. 'twas a good couple of hours. But not as good as the walk on the beach that followed
    Don't ask me why, but the beach was empty. It's the middle of June and there's no one around except for a few poor souls fishing. Why do they fish near sewage outfalls, and do they eat the fish they catch?
    Walking on an empty beach with the guy you love is ... well ... wonderful, fantabulous, magical, fun, erotic, inconsequential, meaningful, and very, very deeply deep. It was sunny, the sea was lively enough to be interesting and there was no wind to bring up goosebumps. We talked and talked, and honestly ... I'm one happy Emu.
    'nuff said.
    Camy
  2. Camy

    The Car Boot

    By Camy,

    Sunday car boot (trunk for those with a different vocabulary) sales have taken over from church as the place to congregate. Not only do we all worship the great God Mammon, but we either get a bargain or two, or make a few quid - depending if you're buying or selling. I've been both, but today I was selling.
    I HATE it. Hate, hate, hate it! Got the idea? It's so damn embarrassing having total strangers trawling through your tat.... But needs must when the devil drives, so suffer I did, with cheesy grins to all and sundry. Mindless gossip with penurious proletarian peasants. Not that I'm hoity toity by any stretch of the imagination, it's just that I FUCKING HATE IT!
    Then there's the guilt. Selling 'things' that my father gave to me.
    It was strange: there was an old (pre 2nd world war) small two drawer wooden filling cabinet. One person wanted to buy it, and yet if he'd offered me a fortune I wouldn't have sold it to him. The chap who eventually bought it 'felt right'.
    So here I am, back home. I'm not rich, but not poor. I guess it's better to make a few quid rather than chucking it all away, but I still hate it. There's another one next Sunday!
  3. Camy

    The Cats 'n' all.

    By Camy,

    We've been here now for three weeks, and the Cats have just started to get to go out. They love the garden, and especially the 'patio' which heats up in the sun. They seem to like lying on their backs and wait for their tummy's to be rubbed. Jolly sensible I think, and I'm going to do the same the next time M comes over ... provided the neighbours are out.
    The angst involved in letting them out was almost too much. The road at the front of the house, though not a main road, is not Cat friendly - unlike the last place we lived. I've suddenly realized how much I care for their welfare. But the bottom line is that they are not indoor cats, and pragmatically: what will be will be.
    As for me, I'm chilled, and starting to enjoy life again. I've even started to write a new short story - though in my darker moments I wondered if I'd ever write again. The thing is I'm almost sure that writing and music were the only things that kept me sane for the last year or so. And now the stress is over and done with I'm wondering if perhaps I don't need to write or howl ....
    Naaaaa. I like it far too much to give up.
    Oh yeah, we've got a festival gig in July!
    Oh YEAH! I've got a mac! W00T!
  4. Camy
    As a few of you know I've recently moved. It was a pain in the rear, and in order to get out in the time required I either had to throw a lot of stuff away or store it somewhere. Unfortunately I'm an inveterate hoarder - I don't mean keeping piles and piles of old newspapers or heaps of rubbish, but I've got a lot of personal stuff like photos and ... well, stuff. You know - or perhaps you're lucky and don't.
    Anyway, I got rid of two van loads at the dump, and then I found out about the concept of storage! W00T!!!
    A little on-line research, and I rented a container for a month. It wasn't cheap, but it seemed to solve a problem. I'd have a month to go through my stuff and 'rationalise.' Then I could throw away the real rubbish and keep the rest. A good idea ... NOT! The month has past and I've been there once. It's still full of ... stuff, and I'm not one iota closer to 'sorting out' anything.
    Ah well. Such is life ....
  5. Camy
    Yep, it's that time of year again. The end of October approaching Novermber and [drum roll] NaNoWriMo. After last years debacle - well, I suppose I was recording an album ... but that's no excuse - where I failed, I swore I would grow up, become sensible, buy a dressing gown, carpet slippers, a pipe, and retire.
    I had a relation who smoked a pipe. Nice chap. My Aunt's husband. The thing was I hardly ever saw him as he was generally surrounded by a cloud of acrid, billowing smoke. So, I don't like pipes (bongs are a different kettle of worms). Pipes are just [shudder] disgusting, so that was out. And, as it's cold here in November, I already have the slippers and dressing gown. Wuzzly warm I am, too!
    The bottom line is I am going to write yet another 'novel.' Notice the 'going to.' There's none of that wishy washy 'attempt to write' stuck in there. Positivity! That's the ticket! At least that's what it said on the back of the cereal packet this morning. Hmm.
    My big problem is what to write it on. Paper and pen are out. Even if I had decent handwriting you have to send in text to be verified, and a copy typist I'm not. So software. La-di-da, software! But which?
    Ywriter 5 is wonderful, as is Writer's Cafe. Page four is excellent too. I have them all and flit between them like a despotic butterfly. Frankly, and here is where the crux of my problem lies, I can't decide on which tool to use (not a word please, Des ;) ).
    And now, now I've found Scrivener has been ported to windows! Scrivener which is supposed to be the dogs bollocks.
    The very bottom line is that I have just short of a week to write a stonkingly great and stellar outline - the F1 Korean Grand Prix is this weekend, which sadly takes away a chunk of valuable outlining time - and still I can't decide on my implements.
    Ah well, such is life. Any helpful, non fatuous advice would be most gratefully received.
    Camy
  6. Camy

    The flip side

    By Camy,

    Living in the country is very nice:
    I know this now I don't.
    The grass elsewhere is always greener,
    but move again I won't.
    Ah, hindsight. Suh-weet hindsight.
    The move went well - in as much as we moved. Hard work? I should bleedin' well coco! There aren't enough web-bots or admins to remove the expetives I'd like to write - or masseurs to ease my aching muscles. Obviously I'm not fit enough to live in a house with three floors, 'cause, duh, floors mean stairs. Of course, being avian, I've settled on the top floor. Pity I forgot I can't fly. Humph.
    I really shouldn't moan ... but I will. We ordered broadband on the 6th of September. On the 28th of September we were told that our order had 'become a ghost.' On enquiring what exactly that meant, the chap said the order had gone into a void from which it couldn't be recovered - ever - and consequently it had to be cancelled and then re-ordered - though he wasn't quite so consise. Apparently, what with the de-regulation of telecoms in the UK, these things often happen. For some reason I imagined him sitting around a table sipping tea and nibbling cucumber sandwiches as he told me this, and added, contritely, "we're very sorry."
    How sorry they are remains to be seen. I should be powering up my in-game lazers and killing monsters, now. Instead I'm not. QED.
    Then I run out of petrol. I haven't run out of petrol in years. I almost pride myself (I definitely would if pride didn't come before a fall) on being sensible and not running out of petrol, which, to be fair, is always a royal pain in the arse. Long walk, then I had to buy a can (pay for the can first, then fill it up and pay for the petrol. Can't I pay for both at once? No.).
    Then the next morning I get a parking ticket. This was midweek. The Saturday before, and three days after we moved in, we saw town life as Dickens must have known it.
    Just before midnight there was a HUGE row on the steps of the house opposite as the residents arrived back, drunk. Six of them sit on the stairs watching as one girl goes nuclear on her boyfriend - apparently he'd slept with some other girl and she had the photos on her phone to prove it. And they're screaming, and effing, and blinding, back and forth across the road. And she's crying and hugging him one moment, and shouting and trying to knee him in the balls the next. A bloke comes out to ask them to be quiet and she storms across and tells him to '*&^&*@' OFF! Sensibly, he does, but meanwhile her boyfriend tries to get away on his moped and gets caught. The inevitable end result is that the police arrive. All of a sudden it's utterly quiet, and the curtain twitching audience retires back to watch the midnight movie.
    Until yesterday, when I bought a data dongle to give me a little net time, I've been sidling around to friends houses where they'd roll their eyes and point me to their computer. They say the net's addictive and believe me it is. I've been pining, and not for the fjords. I started by tethering my netbook to my phone, but the phone company wasn't impressed and got quite upset about it.
    Sorry for rambling on, and many thanks to all of you who left me a poem in response to my last post: good they were, indeed!
    Camy.
  7. Camy
    You wander along thinking life is almost perfect (I say almost, as perfection is really impossible) and then ... shit happens.
    One of my oldest and dearest on-line friends has just left the net, and I'm gutted. Gutted because they've gone, and also because I had no inkling - not the vaguest idea - that anything was wrong ... and I don't like it. The foundations of my 'world' have been rocked: there's been an on-line earthquake.
    But, as has been pointed out, change is inevitable. I might not like it, but 'that's life'. In the words of Gloria Gaynor "I will survive!"
    The net is a weird place, and investing too much of yourself in it is unhealthy.
    Hey ho. In other news: I've started writing again!
  8. Camy

    The occasional wobble

    By Camy,

    Part of the reason I originally moved from 'the big smoke' down to the coast was to avoid the membership dues of the 'Getting Off One's Face' club. So, it was with trepidation (yeah right) that I got the call, and rushed for the train (Whoopee!!!).
    Mental salivation is just as good as physical in my opinion, though on the way up I much doubt anybody watching me would have known, and on the way back I could have cared less.
    London: one thing I have missed is the eye candy (paragraph two equally valid here ... though they can cross over). Not that I knew it until I realised it was lashing down with rain. Normally, when I'm in central London, I walk. But the rain made it impossible - so I got the tube. People watching is the only pastime for brief tube travel, and lawks-a-lawdy there were some fine specimens of mankind to watch.
    I knew there was something I was missing!
    Finally: I make it from the parochial windswept coast, to the urbane dealer's pad ... and much fun was had by all.

  9. Camy

    The point

    By Camy,

    The point. Of life. Is there one?
    I'd like to think there is. I'd like to think that it's not all for naught ... but I wonder.
    The years roll by and I find myself getting more and more jaded. More and more meh. That's not to say that I'm giving it all up to join a hermitage. I know what I want to do, and I know that I can do what I want to do ... but the shear amount of effort required sometimes seems pointless .... I wish I didn't ponder. I wish I could slob out in front of the tube and 'hey presto' some poor bastard would eventually arrive and shovel me into a re-cycling bin.
    Ho hum.
    Maybe not.
    ... more coffee ....
  10. Camy

    The world of Emu

    By Camy,

    I ain't blogged in an age, so seeing as how I'm in the mood I thought I would.
    I'm now past halfway in my NaNoWriMo tale 'Harvest Time', which started out being one thing and has now turned into something else. I still have faith that it will be a good something else, but who knows.
    That's the trouble with being a pantser. One the one hand it's like exploring a vast empty city - you're constantly surprised - and on the other you really, really wish you'd thought about it a bit before you set off, and had a map.
    I went through my 'work in progress' folder yesterday, and found a whole slew of stories that I'd forgotten I'd started. It was actually rather nice, 'cause I read them fresh, and with dispassion.
    There are painters who hang up a bunch of canvases, then paint them as they see fit. If they get stuck with one they move on to another - which is all very well, provided at some point you finish them. I feel similar, though I have almost too many half written and not enough close to being finished. Hmm.
    And then there's The Dude! He shocked the hell out of me the other day, by saying he wanted me to be part of the AD Family of sites. I don't have a webcam, so he missed the point where I fell off my chair and hastily dusted myself off. He also missed the dance I did ... which was like this - but for one:

    The cats told me it was 'entertaining'.
    Then - 'cause I'm a total moron with money, my bank hates me, and I couldn't do it myself - Dude organises camysgaff.com. There was a repeat of the falling off the chair followed a dance thing. Though this time cats stalked off shaking their heads.
    The best thing was that when I woke up the next morning, it wasn't all a dream!
    Back to 'Harvest Time'
    Camy
  11. Camy

    This Thursday!

    By Camy,

    This Thursday, after a month and a week of waiting, we finally get Broadband switched on. And, supposedly, it's between 5 and 7Mb - which, considering it was 0.5MB at our last place, is like giving a kid a Porche.
  12. Camy

    Time crawls

    By Camy,

    We released our album nearly a year ago.
    Eleven months ago I sent a track off to BBC radio. Last week I got a reply. It looks like they're going to play it, and if they do they'll let me know.... I won't be holding my breath. ;)
    You live and learn. In this world of instant communication we seem to expect an instant response. Fat chance: it's really like dancing through amber.
  13. Camy

    Time zones

    By Camy,

    Time zones. I don't like them. They are there to annoy.
    I suppose I should be honest. If the world revolved around the time zone I was in I wouldn't mind so much: having to think about them would still irritate, but I'd cope. BUT having an editor who lives eight hours behind is just ... well bloody inconvenient. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't change her for all the tea in China (hmm...). Let me re-phrase. For all the tea in China - which I would sell and then be able to pay her a vast salary and re-location fee, I'd be daft not to.
    Ho hum. It's not going to happen. I can't see the Chinese being so foolish. Although saying that, one of my stories has been 'taken' and put up on a site that might possibly be Chinese.
    Anyway. Time zones are not my favourite thing.
    Neither are slugs. They keep sqidging through the bottom of the back door and 'frightening the horses'. Treading on a slug in the middle of the night whilst half asleep is not to be recommended.
  14. Camy

    Today

    By Camy,

    Today I am packing my life into boxes.
    Today I am packing up.
    Today all I want to do is veg out
    but for that I am all out of luck.
    Fuck.
    I'm sitting here - when I should be packing boxes - writing this blog and wishing it was Wednesday. If this was a movie: the camera would be on me and the background would melt away, morphing into my new room. Sadly, I don't have a 'make Sunday Wednesday' machine, nor am I in a movie. Hohum.
    Can't loiter here, nattering. Gotta get on (looks around at the bomb site his house has become and a tear rolls gently down his cheek) ... or perhaps I could stay here for a day or two and it'd all be magically done (by pixies and elves)!
    Bye then. I'll be back ... sometime.
  15. Camy

    Too many blogs

    By Camy,

    It's taken me an age to decide to blog here. Dunno why I am really, except secretly I like a lot of the people who hang here, more than a lot of people who hang elsewhere I blog. No names, no packdrill. Which is a very silly cliche.
    I'm trying to be more positive. I spend a lot of time bemoaning my lot, and tend to forget that I'm really quite well to do compared with others, even though I only have three pairs of jeans in comparison to some who possess more. Then Jeans do not maketh the man. Broadband speed maketh the man these days. That and how big your laptop is. Under those rules I'm not a man at all as I live too far away to get fast DSL and don't have a laptop. It's sad. Very sad.
    Why is it that it's always greener elsewhere?
    Blog, blog, blog. I think that's enough for now. Oh. No. News. That's what blogs are for - on occasion. So: I've up-loaded six spoken pieces of 'poetry'. Which can be found here should you be so inclined. Performing is not easy, as you'll probably hear. Singing is much easier than speaking.
    Finally (clears throat nervously), on this inaugural occasion I must thank the Dude. After all, it's only polite. AD rocks, as do those who reside here.
  16. Camy

    Tooooooooooo much

    By Camy,

    WAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!
    too much to do
    too much bleedin' everything and not enough (read none at all) "how's your father"
    can't be bothered with capitals or punctu-blinkin'-ation
    must get back to it
    don't want to
    want to play
    squark!
    WAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!

  17. Camy

    Trust on-line

    By Camy,

    I'd like it if I could assign more than one category to a post. It would be peachy, because this might well end up being claptrap as well, and possibly include a whine or two. So.
    Trust is the most important part of any relationship, be it in real life or in the relationships we have with people we are never likely to meet. There are people here I like, there are people here I admire, but as far as trust goes is it right, or indeed safe, to open up and be truthful about who I am. Stupid question really. The answer has to be no, but I'm asking it nevertheless.
    I always tend to trust first and then be very disappointed when the trust I've given is thrown back in my face. Ultimately, as humanity spends more and more time on-line, the question of trust is going to become more important. Can you have meaningful relationships with people in cyberspace? Can you open up to a bunch of similar minded people without fear of recrimination? Can one come out from behind a pen name and say 'This is who I really am'?
    My muse is saying yes, do it! I'm not so sure.
  18. Camy

    Uber stressed

    By Camy,

    I'm stressed. Stressed to the point of twanging like a human harp - except without the nice chilled music.
    Another 48 hours will see me either beamishly copacetic, or in a damn nut house. I Pray (or I would if I wasn't agnostic) it's the former ... 'cause I've never really fancied a straight jacket. Too dashed uncomfortable, don't you know.
    Pshaw.
  19. Camy

    Update

    By Camy,

    My hubristic outburst along the lines of 'shan't write a thing until I've finished a novel na-na-na-na-naaaaaa!' has caused me a lot of grief. So much, in fact, that I'm amazed I haven't exploded - or should that be imploded ... or possiby both?
    Anyway, I've given up on it. If I do, then I do. If I don't, then c'est la vie, or somesuch. Life's way too short not to write because I've been a tit. There I've admitted it: I'm a tit.
    -----
    Let me commend to you www.fawm.org. Lots of fun, and remember that if you can't twang thump or wail: songs need lyrics - and writers write them!
    -----
    Shock horror! I was tidying up my bedroom and I found a cobweb. Shocked to say the least, I was. Mainly because there were no spiders to be found. Lot's of spiders must have been partying, but narry a one in sight. Why? Where have they gone?
    -----
    I have in excess of a few part finished short stories that I'm working on. Proud I am of this nugget, but I'll be prouder still when I actually finish one. Soon.
    -----
    And that is that for the moment.
    Ave all.
    Camy
  20. Camy

    Walk Under Ladders Pt XXVII

    By Camy,

    I'm marginally happier now since I finished www.camysgaff.com, and Codey's 'Broken Heart'.
    It's kind of strange that I worked harder on that song than I ever work on my own stuff. I know I'm genuinely lazy, but that - that recording - has shown me I can achieve more if I want to. Now all I need is a month in a proper studio and a band. Fat chance.
    My new short 'Gin' was almost finished when I showed it to a mate. Now: I'm ripping it apart and re-writing. I wanted to post it soon, but there it is. One day it'll see the light of day.
    I've had two shorts accepted for 'www.iomfats.org', which I'm chuffed about ... and the weather seems to be getting better, too. I don't know what it is about the weather that affects my moods, but Lord do I get depressed during the winter. Yes, yes, I know it's raining outside. I'm not that stupid.
    Ave.
    *shuffles off to write another line or two before tea*
  21. Camy

    Want

    By Camy,

    Want! Want want want want want want want.
    *sighs*
    I'm wound up tighter than the tightest spring, and I feel like I'm going to snap.
    The human condition sucks.
    *sighs*
  22. Camy

    Weird week

    By Camy,

    This is one weird week.
    I've received both an awful bit of news - in that The Hub is closing, and a great bit of news - in that I've made Dude's pick for July with my short story: 'JJ and The Boys.'
    First, The Hub. Rob and Kitty followed a dream, and built a small, but vibrant community. They went through awful trials, worthy of Greek myth, and finally won through. Then ... stuff happened, and Kitty left. Rob carried on for a while, but he has a life to lead and rightly decided that enough was enough. They were my friends, and Kitty my mentor and editor. Now they've gone, and I'm saddened. Truly saddened. The only upside is that Rob will have some space, and hopefully, he can start writing again.
    As Richard Attenborough said in Jurassic Park "Life will find a way." And to get a Dude's Pick has ... erm ... Picked me up. :)
    Thanks Dude!
    Camy
  23. Camy

    What?

    By Camy,

    It's been yonks and yonks since I've put finger to keypad and blogged. My bad, but then I have been somewhat, nay, frightfully busy. Yep, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.
    We made a second video, which was erm ... yes. It was. Lo-res is one reason I'm not trumpeting it to the hills. Never again will we make lo-res videos. It's not worth the time spent. We've also been rehearsing 'till our fingers and tonsils bled and the studio had to be emptied by paramedics (name the film that includes the line: 'send more paramedics' and you can win a prize!).
    The weather broke today. For the last ten days it's been like high summer in the UK and I was becoming convinced that some universal calamity was in the offing. Ah well, tonights drizzle has slapped me back into place. No more praying at the top of hills waiting for spacecraft for me. Oh no! Just another 'English person waffling about the weather - they like that, don't they?' sort of thing.
    Hmm. Writing. Yes. After all, this is a site for writers, and in the past I've purported to be one, too. And I have. A little. I'm writing now, aren't I? And if I'm not then I have folders of the stuff to wax lyrical about. The thing is none of it is finished ... yet. Bleh. Mea culpa and all that jazz.
    End of waffle. Ave.
  24. Camy
    So ... CERN's Large Hydron Collider has been switched on, and amazingly, the world is still here, and still in one piece.
    Having recovered from cowering in the corner and attempting to kiss my bottom goodbye (why anyone would want to kiss their own bottom is beyond me) I find that a lot of people were really, Really worried about it.
    I guess if my Dad had told me the world might be ending I'd have been worried, too. Though I'd probably have tried to use it as an excuse to not do homework.
    Admittedly they haven't got to the real experiments yet, and as they won't be starting until next year, I'll have time to practise my bottom kissing technique ... hmm.
    Anyway, here is a link to the 'turn on'. Do watch the movie, it's ... well, riveting.
    This is well worth watching. It's Steven Hawking. Will he or won't he win his $100 bet?
    Reassuring children about the world's end
  25. Camy

    wuz'appening.

    By Camy,

    I'm finally starting to write again, which is, quite frankly, an utter Gawdsend, as I'd pondered the thought that perhaps that was it and I'd shot my authorial bolt ... as it were.
    Now I know I haven't - or perhaps that should be 'think' rather than 'know' - I'm marginally happier. Not that I haven't been happy ... just a tad depressed.
    I went to the doctor last week and told her - I had a choice of a her or a him, and I think if you're going to spill your emotions to a doctor it's probably best to do it with a her. After all, hers are supposed to be nurturing and caring, whereas a him would just tell me to buck my ideas up and be a man.
    Anyway, I told said her that I was depressed, and swifter than the fastest swallow (unladen with coconut) I had a prescriptiion for Fluoxetine - which is another name for Prozac. Yum, I thought, cantering out of the surgery. Okay, actually I had no idea what Fluoxetine was until I read the leaflet and enquired of our Oh Lord Wikipedia what doest thou say?
    And then ...
    #shudder#
    ... I read the side effects.
    I'm still a tad depressed, but I'm not going to be joining that band wagon, thank you very much. I wouldn't mind a therapist to talk to, but as the bottom line is 'know yourself,' what on earth would I say? It'd end up being a very expensive hour of silence.
    Yours, most felicitously,
    Camy

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