Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Eligible Bachelors

Looking back I am not sure I ever really talked properly about last summer and everything that lead up to the move to Oxford. Even now I am not actually sure that I can put it into words properly. Me, lost for words, that’ll be the day! Simply put, May came and went and my brain went kerpluuuuey. Or perhaps sploooooooooooodge. Or blolllllloooooooop. Some damp sounding word which evokes a sense of a soggy, inward implosion with minor visible damage, but utter carnage on the inside.

I am still not totally sure what caused it, but near two years of working in a high-stress, “supporting people” environment I neither enjoyed or was paid enough for didn’t make matters any better. With the help of doctors, little white pills, couselling, good friends and lots of tea, I started to get back into a healthy place. The keel of the Good Ship Cas was righted, and we are now back to gentle sailing with the wind loughing in the topsails, the jib sheet gently flapping. (And me being violently ill in the scuppers because I get seasick in the bathtub, but you get where I’m going with the maritime analogy). Nine months later, my life is more or less back on a respectable heading.

You would be right in thinking that it wasn’t the most sensible time to completely go crazy and move to a new city, within a month, with no job lined up or visible means of support, both financial and personal. At the time everyone was cheering my independence, and I actually really was looking forward to new places, new people and new challenges, but I would be stupid not to admit there was a large portion of running away mixed in with my motivation.

I had been in Southampton for four years, and they had been four years filled with fun, laughter, general mayhem and love, but the last year I just couldn’t shake the feeling it was time to move on. Things just weren’t working out in the way I wanted them too, and I couldn’t see how they ever would in that city. I never thought I would be one with itchy feet, but I do have this habit of jumping to a new place on a seeming whim after three or four years.

Counseling made me face up to a lot of stuff, things I am still processing and working on. Some things we cling to and form the core round which our personalities are constructed, and to have to reevaluate our very building blocks is never a fun process. I have come to realise that actually, in some aspects of my life, I am not a very nice person at times. I’m working on it.

One thing that has hit me over the past six months is that I want to settle down. I want to put down roots but I just haven’t found that place yet. That bolt-hole that is all mine and private. It’s just, I think my home is destined to be a person, not a place. Part of me wants the bricks-and-mortar, but I have a horror of “what if” and don’t want to be tied down. I want to be free to go and take opportunities as they are presented to me. I want to be able to go see the world beyond the horizon. But I want someone to share those sights with.

Yet I still dream of my dream house, all wood and glass and open to the garden, with trees and the sea and peace and laughter and life. My sanctuary away from it all where people feel welcome and come to stay because they have a free weekend and a whim, or want to, not because it was booked into a diary six months before. I want my door to always be open and never know who might be popping round for tea.

Yes I want spontenaity but I also want a structure and someone making me safe in that freedom.

I…I am scared I will never find what I want, or that I will not recognise it when I have it, or that I will chase it away before I make the most of it. I am scared that when I get it, I won’t want it.

Most of all, I am scared I will never find it. How do I get from here to THERE?Am I willing to let my dreams change if alternatives present themselves? Is the one “what if” I am never going to be able to confront, the one “what if” that takes me to my dream?

Sunday Roast: he looks like a french impressionist

A little bit of furniture jiggery-pokery and I am sitting at my desk again for the first time in months to write the roast. I’d forgotten how much easier two screens makes things! My room also looks bigger now (every little helps) and my Chinese hanging is back on the wall where it belongs. It’s hung in every place I’ve lived since my dad brought it back for me from Orleans when I was 17, and it just didn’t feel right not to have it up in Oxford. One of the landlord’s Picasso prints has now been replaced and it’s so nice not to be freaked out by the artwork in my room any longer! I have nothing against Picasso, but his splintered women are not to my taste in a room I’m trying to sleep in.

The rest of this week has been pants. A total and utter nasty, baggy, white y-fronts type of a week. Don’t get me wrong, the snow has been lovely, but…

Meh. Let’s get on with why we’re all here, shall we, before I depress the lot of us further?

Anne points to a great graphic showing how all social systems interact and revolve around a central point – me. Or you. Or the person in question. I’m not so big headed enough to assume all the social networking sites in the world resolve around me, Cas.

Because that would be getting too close to revealing my secret identity as the Queen of the Interweb.

D’oh!

I haven’t played around with Authonomy as much as I thought I would, mainly because a full time job keeps getting in the way of wasting time on the internet (annoyingly) so I am intrigued by Alexander McNabb’s experiences and thoughts on what Authonomy could have been, and actually is.

I’m indebted to Moose at the moment for finding those odd little bits and pieces which pass me by in the world of international oddness. Like these two who erroneously thought they were in a cartoon

Despite some good points put across, the title of this article annoys me. I know to most people wikis are synonymous for Wikipedia, but they are SO MUCH MORE. I’m using a wiki right now to help me keep track of a mammoth character list and labyrinthine plot developments. Companies use wikis as intranets. Collaborative documentation creation. It is a tool to be used, nothing more. GRRR!!!!! &lt/end rant&gt

My dad was so pleased that Jade won our Eurovision place. Yes, my Dad watched “Your Country Needs You!”. I am so ashamed right now, there just aren’t the words

Another Moose gem, as she said to me, “It’s the undeclared aubergine that really had me GLAN-ing” (that’s Giggling Like A Nutter)

MMMMM, a character called Robert

Sick of all this talk about Twitter lately? Still not sure you get the point? This handy guide might help

I never really got into the Wheel of Time saga, mainly because the sheer number of books daunted me and I could *never* find a copy of book 1 to start me off! So perhaps a gorgeous looking graphic novel is what I need?

Normally I’d try to send you direct to the source site, but it’s an unlinkable flash mess, so I’ll have to send you to i09 instead to look at this glorious geoglyph-artwork

Fast and Furious – Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Michelle Rodriguez, fast cars, explosions… What’s NOT to love?!

G.I. JOE – I have no history with this character, so you don’t have to worry about fan-boy reactions from me: the movie just looks so much fun

I’d forgotten all about this cartoon till the Magnificent Cat sent me the link to cheer me up – The Mysterious Cities of Gold opening theme. You *will* be singing it all day, so you have been warned

Whilst I can no longer enjoy Dairy Milk (sob), I can appreciate their wacky advertising campaigns

Sunday Roast: would you be kind enough to exhibit the money?

Bonjour, mes amis. How are you today? You find me fighting a small fit of the winter greys. It has just been a very grey week, though enlivened by a flying visit from Moose. I wish I had something exciting to tell you, but a general air of ennuie seems to have settled over my little corner of Oxford. What with everyone being disgustingly industrious and working hard to meet various deadlines, I have no one to play with right now *sob*

So I shall rifle my way through the few lovely links I have found this week, then huddle in a corner and ply my muse with lots of tea. Perhaps then I’ll get something written and to show for this un-asked-for hermit-like existence.

Sometimes I get a bee in my bonnet about the strangest things. Right now, I am just craving a huge Victorian shawl. Like this one. Or this one and this beauty. Why? I really can’t explain it, but I want one to wear. Jumpers and cardigans are just so, so… normal. The problem is where to get one? Even a fake one (because there’s no way I can justify an antique one to wear!) is going to cost a bomb – if I could even find a supplier. Making my own would seem like an option, but the whole point is the fabric, and where would I get fabric of those dimensions?! Help!

A year or so back, BBC3 did an awesome one off called “Being Human” about a vampire, werewolf and a ghost trying to fit into the ‘real’ world. It was, frankly, inspired, but I remember thinking at the time that it was nice for once a show was being done WITHOUT plans to turn it into a series. D’oh, for now it is a series. I’ll watch tonight and feed back how good/bad it is (though damn it, they’ve recast the vamp and he was just the best bit)

With the new resolution to get some writing done, I have enlisted the help of two cheer-leaders/victims. Their jobs are to keep me motivated at the same time as keeping me up to standard. Right now, both are champing at the bit, so I could do with some tips on how to focus. The idea which strikes me most is the schedule. I am fairly disciplined when it comes to Roast-writing, but everything else, including the blog kinda depends on my mood. Hence long periods of silence (sorry). In order to change that though, I have designated “writing lunches” where, at least three times a week, I spend my lunch hours at work doing something constructive instead of just wasting the time.

We’ll see how it goes…

James Marsters as an outlaw alien fighter, all Westerned-up… *swoon*

Moose’s only comment? I like black squirrels

Robin Hobbs is writing a new book set in the Liveship/Assassin universe. Here’s fingers crossed it can wipe the shame of the Solider Son trilogy from my brain

John August does post-apocalyptic America so, SO well.

The evolution of publishing

This one is for the Cheerleader In Chief – a UV skeleton tattoo

A nice bit of quality fiction for you: Selene, by Lilith Saintcrow

Me and handbags have a long history – I have been searching for the *perfect* bag for what feels like forever. Part of what has made it so hard is that I have found it difficult to articulate what exactly it is I want. I know it has to be big enough to hold my Filofax, but small enough to be good for daily/light use. And I don’t want just any old bag, it needs personality. Other than that, I’ve been working on the principle of “I’ll know it when I’ve seen it”. Well now I’ve seen it. I want. I lust. I crave. I yearn. I am just so close to reaching for the credit card, cost be damned. I just wont eat for a month or put the heating on to pay for it. Save me from myself someone!

(The briefcases are gorgeous too, but I just can’t justify that expenditure. Plus I don’t live a briefcase kind of life right now.)

That’s it for the roast. I am off to dream of my bag. Oh, my bag…

One thing more whilst I remember – how the flying fuck did Backstreet Boys get to be so prevalent on my top 25 played list?! Who’s been meddling with my iPod. Come on, fess up!

What’s in a name?

I do keep coming back to the problem of names and identity and authority, so forgive me if I am repeating myself slightly, but it is an issue that continues to run through my head at different angles. (these are just a few times I’ve approached it in the past).

Our names are one of the most intensely personal things about us. They can form the basis for our whole identity and people can get remarkably possessive over them. Names have magic and power. Cultures around the world have traditions of evil powers taking control over people by the use of their name – witches and wizards. Rumpelstiltskin was banished when his true name was revealed. To this day, many modern religions have taboos over the naming of god, thinking his “true name” is too sacred to speak aloud. Some feel it is considered bad luck to name a child before it is born, whilst in Christian traditions, children are baptised and formally made known to their god.

People often say “that which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet”, but really, Romeo is railing against the inevitable: it is Juliet’s “name that is [his] enemy”. No matter how he might wish it otherwise, they cannot be together because of what they are called. (And part of me suspects that she wouldn’t smell so sweet if calling her a rose didn’t make her so unobtainable).

We obsess over genealogy and family trees and our ancestors. We spend our lives with the names our parents give us, some more fortunately than others. I kid you not, I went to school with a Neil Down and a girl called Muffin. All through my childhood I thanked my parents for giving me a name that could not become a nickname, despite people’s best efforts to the contrary. At the same time, part of me does think it would be nice to have a nickname because they are signs of affection. Someone did call me Mercedes and refused to explain when others got confused. It was a joke between me and him and it felt all the more special for that.

In the end, I have given myself a nickname of sorts – Cas. The first few times someone said “do you want a cup of tea Cas?” and used the name to my face, it felt slightly odd, but I like it. What started out as just a way of keeping my ‘real’ identity secret, has become something more. Something I am very, very attached to. It has become a concrete identity in the last few years, crossing over from online mask to reality, and a name with its own weight of Bright Meadow and whatever attached authority has accrued, behind it.

Cas and CLK are now firmly linked – google one and you get the other, something which was a semi-conscious decision on my part. As the online became so intertwined with my offline life, it became harder and harder to keep the two separate, so I gave in gracefully and claimed as much of the CLK identity online as I could. It is still something I debate constantly though, and there are instances where I wish it hadn’t happened. There are times I wish my father didn’t read Bright Meadow, but at the same time, I do not like compartmentalising my life to the degree it would have required to keep it all apart.

So I tread a fine line between Cas and CLK, online and offline. Most of the time the two aren’t even distinct entities. Cas wears jeans to the office and has awesome tattoos, but it is CLK who answers the phones, draws up the contracts and is a consummate professional.

Names are important, clearly. Names of people, names of things. Names become brands and authorities and you build trust in a particular name. Which is where I finally get to my (sort of) point:

If, and it is a BIG if, I do ever finish what I am writing and go down the path of publishing, do I want my author-part to be linked to the rest? Do I want the world and their shark to hop from CLK the author, to Cas and Bright Meadow and all the attached kit’n’kaboodle? Or do I want something completely fresh, without a history. Do I want to write under a pseudonym? Is publisher CLK compatible with author X? I can hear a future editor yelling at me for tipping a whole pre-built brand down the toilet here, but is Bright Meadow a legacy an author could be proud of? Note, I am not saying *I* am not proud of it, but would it help or hinder in that sphere?

I stand by everything I have said on this blog, but I can think of more than a few things in the archives which would get one audience or another hot under their conservative collars. As an author, would I not also be entitled to a part of the web where I *could* unload and talk about the price of tea, if I so wished, without feeling the pressure of my audience? If CLK was to get published, Bright Meadow would come out regardless. I am not ready to loose this place as my sanctuary.

But do I want to create a whole NEW identity for my writing? I want to talk about it, god damn it! If it were ever to happen, getting a book published would be like the biggest blog event EVA!!!!! and to not share it with you lot here? Unthinkable. I want to think that one day someone from school might see “CLK” on the spine of a book in a bookshop and be jealous/proud.

For now, my gut reaction is gurgling “pseudonym” but am I right? Am I being silly? Am I being dishonest to my family, denying them seeing Kemp in print, refusing to connect part of my (potential) accomplishment to the name they graced me with when I was brought into this world. To go for a pseudonym, is that not saying “CLK is not good enough”?

Sunday Roast: along the dark desert highway

I remember now why I haven’t sat at my desk to compute since November – I just can’t get comfortable. Pretty old antique desks and chairs look very nice, but they can be a pain in the ergonomics. Still, even I can get a bit fed up of spending nearly every hour god sends on my bed (other than the pretty, painful chair it’s the only place to sit), so I am giving it a whirl. Perhaps it will force me to be concise with this roast? Nah.

What are your guilty reading secrets? I’m also a Georgette Heyer and Anya Seaton fan. Plus, at the moment, Julia Golding (awesome children’s author). Have I mentioned lately how much I love my job?

My mum used to make some spectacular cakes when my brother and I were younger. A tipper truck that actually tipped, a shark and a piano being some of the more memorable. But even she never went this far

I want! (Even though experience has taught me that American Apparel t-shirts don’t fit me 🙁 )

Cute Dr Who action figures – because I need more little toys cluttering up my room *rolleyes*… Sod it, if you can’t buy things you want when you are 26, when can you?

Wow, this is turning into a lust-list for me! Pity my timing sucks and it is now after Christmas. I am NOT a paper cup is just perfect for me with my thing for mugs

What’s the cure for readers block? Reading. A cure to which I will heartily concur. Just before Christmas I had reached the point where I just couldn’t look another children’s book in the eye. Jaded after three months on the job? Not a good sign. Then I thought about my reading and realised I hadn’t actually read adult books, or a YA title I wasn’t analysing in the back of my brain, pretty much since I had started. So I sat down with a few old favourites and new stars and *yum* THAT’S why I like reading! Now my wake-up 15 minutes and last-thing-at-night half hour are sacrosanct. No work books!

Dyslexia, a fiction? (I can’t respond to this right now, I am still too busy spitting at the screen in fury)

How would *you* pitch a book in 140 characters? At the moment I’ve got “Mercenary escorts clients into foreign lands on mysterious quest. Needs help from locals. Fighting, philosophy, swords and magic follow.”
Not selling it to ME and I’m writing the damn thing!

And just one movie trailer to finish with. I am sure I have shown it before, and I expect I will again, but this one is for Cat and me. Mmmmmmm yummy Gambit goodness…
X-MEN Origins: Wolverine

Fresh Slate

I just made a very hard decision: I nuked the contents of my “Sunday Roast” bookmarks folder. There was stuff in their going back to last November and I just don’t know if I can weed through it all! Sorry folks.

So this week is going to be a carefully selected bouquet garni of movie trailers and a few choice things that made me LOL or Hmmmmm when I read them the first time around.

Before we get down to that though, let me fill you in with a little that has been going on this past week… Um. The holiday is over and I worked all week? Not really very thrilling, is it? I have, however, finally come to a decision over the story that I have been writing for longer than I care to admit! Not only will the bloody thing get written this year, but I actually know what shape it is going to take. As in, it has a beginning, a middle and an end. And something approaching a plot. And a refined character list!

I was just lying there in bed last night mulling things over before I fell asleep and *bam* I saw it all lain out in my mind. Previously, my problem has always been it was just too frelling big and I SERIOUSLY doubt by ability to do justice to the sprawling world in my head. Plus when I am unsure of the ultimate loyalty of one pivotal character, it’s kinda hard to work out the full arc. But something shifted and I saw a natural break I can write to.

So I am going to write it. Why this determination? I will be honest, mainly because I am starting to get just a leetle bit sick of the story after eight-ish years. I want to get this one put to bed, so I can start putting this OTHER idea that has been spawning in the depths of my brain down on the page. Turns out, the beauty, and horror, of having built a whole world is that there is more than one tale to tell…

Gar. So keep prodding me folks. 2009 will be the year I get this bugger written, you see if it isn’t!

9 – I’m not sure how to describe this, but it’s from the minds of some pretty groovy people, so it should rock.

Good

The Ugly Truth – it had me giggling, so it stays, ok?

Terminator Salvation *tingles*

Nothing but the Truth

New in Town – so I have a thing for Harry Connick Jr.

Duplicity

Watchmen *tingles* *tingles* I’m re-reading the graphic novel and this could be very, very good. Or awful. Because I recognised some scenes in the trailer as lifted DIRECTLY from the comic. Recent horrendous experiences from The Spirit have only reinforced my concerns over such slavish adaptations. We’ll see.

The Proposal – predictable cheesy chick-flick. We all need a weakness, and these are mine!

And before I head out into the chilly, sunny Sunday afternoon for a nice walk, I would like you to turn your attention to The Guild, a hilarous independent sitcom webisode about a group of online gamers. It is written for gamers, about gamers by a gamer. Episodes vary from 3-6 minutes in length, and follow the Guild members’ lives online and offline. It is funnier than it has any right to be and hooked me from the first episode. I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to find this!

Sunday Roast: What a crazy random happenstance

Well hello dear things and welcome to 2009. I’ve already done resolutions post, so I won’t bore you with that here. I decided to do something different for the first Roast of this sparkly new year. Instead of sending y’all willy nilly off to the far corners of this here internet, I am going to take you on a journey through the last year as seen here on Bright Meadow.

So buckle up Dorothy, cause Kansas is going bye-bye…

The year started with me having to say goodbye. I then entered into a period of intense hatred of Motorola and all their devilish works. Sad after a week, by the end of the second week with the replacement Razr, I was ready to do something a lot more damaging than just sit on it! God the phone was awful. Makes me appreciate my shiny E71 all the more now 🙂

In 2008, you had to have been sitting under rather large rock to have avoided e-books. Even my mum has heard of the Sony Reader and asked if she should get one! So did I ever find my dream e-book reader? Yes. It’s called my E71. A very handy app called BooksInMyPhone. There is also MobiReader and I can even read word documents – very handy for the odd manuscript I don’t want to kill a tree by printing out.

I talked about moving to a new city and I actually did it! But boy was I wrong about Oxford! The reality is rather different, and I love it 🙂

2008 saw a LOT of health crap coming back to kick me in the stomach with huge hobnail boots. At least I have stopped loosing my voice so spectacularly!

I have thought long and hard over the year about what I want from Bright Meadow. Did I want to keep making the commitment to the blog? (There has been a time or three I thought I would jack it in) then I went and splashed out on a new design, and so many good things keep happening because of the blog, I just couldn’t let it go. One thing that I have noticed lately is a drop off in comments and I miss you guys! Time to follow my own advice I think.

Looking back, I seem to have spent an inordinate amount of time over the last year navel gazing. But then as we all decided that I am cool, clearly my mid-section deserves the odd glance now and then.

We all shared a lot, this year, and it turns out more than a few of you are as obsessed about notebooks as I am. (The collection has grown even more since then, I blush to admit)

Don’t believe me when I say things are happening to/because of Bright Meadow? I made it into the Guardian, didn’t I?

I still haven’t gotten a satisfactory answer to this you know: how the frack do you mass produce honey?!

I never really talked about my last job when I was doing it for a vast number of reasons, not least because it didn’t seem appropriate and I wanted to keep my personal life as separate from work as possible. As part of a team that helped support disadvantaged people, the job I was hired for was back office (admin etc). In practice I ended up doing a lot more to the point of being an unofficial support worker for the support workers. Not my bag at all, but I hadn’t realised how much it had affected me till this day, shortly before I left. That phone call was the one. The proverbial straw. Much though I miss the folks I worked with, I remember putting the phone down and saying “I can’t do this any more”. Within a month I had moved to Oxford and I haven’t looked back.

Which brings us to the BIG news of 2008: the job. My head is STILL whirling, three months later. God, has it only been three months?! It feels like so many more.

It’s always nice to find out that the career you’ve been dreaming of is actually what you want, isn’t it?

And so ends our little tour through the last twelve blogging months. I’m not sure if I want 2009 to be as eventful, or if I should be crossing my fingers for a quiet patch!