"They're all writers Daisy"

Last weekend I managed to get out of the city, which I think is exactly what I needed. Being stuck in the house working sometimes sends me to delirium and being here for so many hours of the day means that I pick up on all of the annoying habits of my housemates, but because I'm only living in these four walls they feel amplified because I see them every day. When you're actually out somewhere at work you don't notice little things that people do because you're at home for so few hours, or just to eat dinner and sleep.

It's not their fault, it's mine for being so fucking neurotic about stuff on the draining board being cleared away every day rather than attempting a balancing act, or the kerfuffle as to who should be buying loo roll or milk next. Dwelling on these insignificant matters are a clear sign that you've been spending way too many hours indoors and it's time to get the fuck out, because really I love my housemates.

So, I did, I got away for the weekend back to Leicester to see my Mom and my Aunty for their respective birthdays and then I spent a couple of days down in Kent with the fella. During my time away I did nothing but eat: demolishing a whole special chow mein while half cut, a full afternoon tea in a very posh hotel with finger sarnies and fresh cream scones, then dinner at a friends, followed on Sunday by a huge roast down the local pub. It's no wonder that when I weighed myself I discovered that at the moment I'm the heaviest I've ever been. Not that I'm really one of these weight conscious people, in fact I'm so not feeling guilty about it that instead I'll say it's a good thing because it's been hella cold lately and that extra half-stone (since Christmas) has seen me right through the snow!

Besides food, I've been slogging my guts out with my writing work, taking anything and everything I can and still trying to come up with good pitches. Sadly for the impatient side of me it's not happening quick enough. I know this because the bills are soon to be stackin' and I don't have the moolah to pay them all. Darn, and there was me hoping shit loads of work was going to fall into my lap (jokes).

In all honesty it's not going badly at all. There are pick ups and leads all over the place - especially for the sex related writing. I just need it to pull in a bit more income, but before you say it, I know, I know. These things can take time.

Tomorrow I'll be heading for an interview for a waitressing and bar job. It's temp agency work, so you pick it up as and when you need to. Great in the sense that I can pick and choose jobs and fit it around my writing schedule, and fabulous that it'll help me beat some of this cabin fever, but I can't help feeling a little bit Daisy Steiner a la Spaced. "Oh, they're all writers Daisy," said the cruel kitchen manager in episode 2, series 2, as she taunted and jeered all the 'failed' word smiths.

I'm sure it'll be fine. I always quite enjoyed bar work because it was a good opportunity to meet all sorts of interesting people. Was definitely up on the social side of it, and having drinks bought for me by customers was always a bonus too, so by the end of the night I was cashing them in and drinking for free. Not sure this agency is going to be quite as relaxed as that though.

Wish me luck!

RoseC -x-

I like to talk about sex 'n' stuff

Every now and then I have media-type people coming to me to ask me to talk about rudey, nudey sex type things. There haven't been many, I wouldn't class myself a sexpert by any stretch of the imagination, and generally it's to ask for comments about what it's like to write about sex in the media. An interesting subject.

Such an occasion arose today, where I have been asked to take part in a two-part blog feature on sex and social media. You can read it here and there are even some pretty pics of me that put my blog photo to shame!

As you can see from the post there will be a second part on Thursday: exciting! I don't think there will be as many pictures of my face in that one though.

Incidentally, if you found that interesting then you can also see me quoted here.

  

New Media Whore

So I've been a busy little bumble-bee with all of this writing business over the last week and it seems to be going ok! Granted, I'm not making enough to really live off at the moment and am coming to terms with the fact that I'm going to have to get a 'proper' job sometime this month to pay the rent and bills, but hell, I've only been at it for a month (or a bit less) and I've already got myself three regular writing spots - did I mention that in a previous post?

"Who are you writing for?" I hear you cry, or if it wasn't you then maybe the mouse that lives in my room has just learnt to talk. Either way, I can tell you that I'm writing for:

Adventure Bike Rider magazine (I haven't ridden a motorbike since I was about 9 years old and that was my best friends mini moto, but I'm learning.)

www.CityPlanter.co.uk which is an urban gardening magazine. Again, I know I'm not the most green-fingered person, but I'm learning and I live in a city and I can write, so I qualify.

And the latest string to add to my bow, which many of you may be shocked by, yet at the same time delighted, is that I'm now editor and looking after all editorial content for www.VibrationsDirect.co.uk. Yes, it is exactly the kind of site you'd expect me to be writing for after my, ahem, long and, ahem, illustrious career at Harlot magazine.

Told you I was heading back to the gutter! In fact friends have said, "think of all the perks of the job" and, "the gutter is where you belong." Well, thanks guys.

I've been fairly restrained so far (well you know I love to be tied up), but I have many plans for the site that I hope I can pull off. (Oh god will the innuendo never end?!)

I know I ask for a lot of support from my friends and family already with what I do, but if you have it in your hearts to follow our Facebook page or follow the company on Twitter @vibesdirect (which I totally look after) I'd be eternally grateful. I'll make it worth your while though by filling it full of tasteful smut, comps and may even ask a few of you if you fancy writing a review. We'll see how it goes :-)

Oh and you can read some of the blogs I've put up there already by heading to http://www.vibrationsdirect.co.uk/blogs/blog 

I've totally become a twitter whore over the last week or so too. It doesn't help that I've upgraded my phone so I now have one of these new fangled smart app telemaphone things. Although I'm on it a lot, especially for the new jobs, I'm glad to say I've not quite reached the point where I'm telling the world that I'm going for a shit.

The downside is that because I'm on it so much, tweeting, texting, playing Word Scramble, I think it's giving me repetitive strain injury, or RSI as us suffers like to call it. I find my hand spasming at the end of each working day and constantly fixed in the smart phone grip and finger point position. Hopefully it won't become possessed due to all the demands I'm putting on it and turn on me like some freakish, murder hungry Idle Hands situation.

RoseC -x-

Red wine + opinions = danger

I've come out of the other side of this weekend thinking that I couldn't actually be happier with my life right now. That's quite a statement to make and I think it's taken me a while to get here, working through life-changing decisions and facing up to the fact that I could actually be making things harder on myself, but at the same time knowing that they're right decisions and so ultimately I will end up happier.

Thankfully that's happened. I think I came to realise it in the pub this afternoon with my fella. Sat chatting, putting the world to rights and just smiling, just knowing that I'm having the opportunity to pursue a career I enjoy with people I love supporting me.

Smug, sickening, self-righteous I may be, but I've taken a step that I know many people have admired, or even envied, because at least I'm no longer wasting my time stuck doing something I don't enjoy.

It's funny really, the people I've spoken to this weekend that have told me they're 'hoping to stick it out for another year' or they're 'so fed up it has to change' and knowing they're where I was two or three months ago. All I can honestly say, in my slightly tipsy, but perfectly lucid, red wine state, is that if something doesn't feel right in your life, then fuck it. Jack it in and move on. It's tough, but by far the best thing you can do.

Ok, so I'm not sure how to get the rent together in the next month or so, but I'm not worried. It will work out. So far it has. Since I've quit my job I've managed to score three, yes three, different writing jobs and have been encouraged to pitch more ideas to a national women's mag. A year, or even five months ago I never thought I'd be in this position because I never thought I'd have the bollocks to do it. Obviously, it was never going to be an easy ride, but the fact of the matter is that three weeks into my self-employment I've managed to get regular, paid, writing spots goes to show that if you want something bad enough then it will happen...because you have to make it so.

Today I heard that a friend of a friend had jacked in his job to give it a go at being an actor. Risky, but he's committed. He's down-graded his home/rent and followed his heart. As people have been saying to me over the last few weeks, I really admire that's he's doing it, putting himself out there, and you know he'll work his bollocks off to make it, no matter how small the personal landmark will be that he's "made it", because we all have our own goals, but he's doing something about it. He's not staying somewhere for the sake of it, feeling duty bound like so many of us do because at the moment we're pressured into the feeling of having to keep a job because they're simply gold dust.

It's bull shit.

My heart goes out to my friend that's stuck in a job she's 'sort of' enjoying, working for a wage that's getting her by and living in a town she's desperate to get out of. If I could, I'd pack her bags for her and tell her to take more of a chance. In some ways I admire her, she's following the map and the plan I once had, but was thrown off because of circumstances out of my control. At that point I was forced to tread water, as it were, and make (sometimes shitty) decisions as to the direction of things. But it's worked out fine, and she'd be fine, but she's too sensible and I hate the thought of her being unhappy for another two years.

Overall I think I'm just fed up of people being unhappy; of seeing people I care about stuck in situations they feel they can't get out of because I know that's the shittest feeling in all the world. I hate that as a young person, supposed to be full of beans and starting on their career, we're given nothing but negativity and shit in the media about how bad things are and there's literally no resolution at the end of it. It's sad, it's depressing, it's scary as fuck and I guess the only positive I can see is that we're being pushed into these gold dust jobs, but we can only withstand it for so long before it motivates us enough to say "fuck it" and try to make it anyway because at least there's been an attempt to do something that makes us happy and fail, rather than work in a two-bit job that makes us miserable.

Realisation can be tough sometimes.

RoseC -x-

Completely missing the point

Sat in the pub with the boyfriend on Saturday night, we got onto the discussion of 'shit films' after one of his housemates was watching a particularly cheesy piece of cinematic shite, Beastly - a remake of Beauty & The Beast. Have you seen it? If you have and you enjoyed it then you are now dead to me, and if you haven't seen it then take it from me that it should be avoided like the plague because it's the biggest load of wank with cliched lines and weak acting. In my opinion.

Anyway, that's how the conversation on films started. It then progressed to my boyfriend telling me he'd read a story in the news that Odeon cinemas had been refunding tickets to people who went to see The Artist, but then demanded a refund because there was no talking in it.

After a moment of spluttering and trying to get my head around what I'd just heard, the only response I could come out with was: "What complete fucktards!"

"Who?" asks the boyfriend, and to be honest I think that's where my confusion really started because I don't know who that was directed at as it appears to me there's a fine line between who's stupider: the members of the audience that went to see a SILENT film and then complained when there was no dialogue, or Odeon for refunding these culturally inept twats. Who was to win the 'fucktard' title?

Seriously though, how can people go to see a film which has received so much acclaim and coverage for the fact that it's in black and white and that the trailer is completely silent except for members of the audience commenting on it, that they completely missed the point and concept of the film? My guess is that they're band waggon hoppers that thought, "oh my god like everyones talking about this really amazing film, that's like so cutting edge and because we're edgy and stuff we should go and see it and totally get it because we're big cinematic fans."

Well, you didn't get it did you? You completely missed the fucking point of the beauty and irony and historical context of the film and because you're so bought in on glitzy Hollywood anything that breaks the conformity you're used to, or that you have to think about, or god forbid you should be asked to be slightly more active in watching the film by reading rather than a completely passive member of the audience where your eyes look lazily at the screen expecting to see all the whizz-bangs and CGI effects that are usually so lovingly put together in your blockbusters, you felt the need to ask for a fucking refund because you needed to engage with what was in front of you.

Twats.

The cinema's no better though in my opinion. I don't think they should have refunded the fucktards, thus also making them stupid too. Apparently Odeon have a policy whereby you can get your money back if you leave the film 10 minutes in and you're not enjoying it - wish I'd known that when I went to see Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland. Terrible.

Something just doesn't sit right with me about it though. Even though I didn't like Alice In Wonderland, I knew what I was getting myself into, it's just unfortunate that the story retold in the way it was, wasn't very good. The fact that The Artist doesn't have any dialogue in it shouldn't be justification for people finding the film crap. They're entitled to think that if they wish, but not because of the lack of sound because that's the point of the film. If the plot was rubbish too, then fair enough, walk out, but you can't go to see a silent film and then criticise it for being too silent. That's plain stupid.

What we can learn from this is people need to pay more attention to reviews or at least take half an interest in what they're hoping to see at the cinema rather than jumping on a band waggon and feeling obliged to see it because it's 'critically acclaimed'. If it doesn't sound like (pardon the pun) the sort of film you'd like, then don't see it. I avoided Avatar for that exact same reason.

Here's the article I read up about it. Don't even get me started on the typos in there...

RoseC

LETS GET READY TO, er? Ramble?

In the blue corner we have THE CITY AKA BIG SMOKE!

In the coat, scarf, gloves and hat corner ready for the Antarctic, but just going for a walk around London we have Rose "THE CROMPTONATOR" Crompton!

NOW LETS GET READY TO RRAAAAAMMMMBLE!

Yes that's right ladies and gentlemen, with feet that move as quick as Charlie Brown's scuttling little legs, I ducked and weaved my way around zone one, taking on the sights and sirens of the city for an evening walk, with a walking group.

One of my ambitions for 2012 that I've put on my list (which I'm yet to publish in a blog) is to find two new hobbies or interests. I've thought about how much I used to enjoy walking around the local fields when I lived back in Leicestershire, so it led me to look up groups to go walking with in the city. Slightly different scenery, definitely no cows [insert desired catty comment here] but I need stuff to get me out the house and after a bit of Googling I managed to find a walking group right in the centre of London.

Geez, you don't even know how stir crazy I've been going working from home. Literally sitting in front of my laptop with no where to stroll to apart from the kitchen, then back to the living room and then maybe a short trip to Tesco across the road if I'm lucky. That's it. No one to talk to. It's a wonder I've not gnawed off a foot yet - obviously I wouldn't chew off my hands, that would be crazy, I need those to help me make money typing/writing. So, tonight I got myself out there and attended my first walking group ramble!

Ok, ok, so before you go off on one thinking I've aged about 40 years, this was with a walking group for people aged 20-30s, who all live and work in London so they're all quite like minded city dwellers and it wasn't going for an amble with people aged 60+ wanting to talk about nothing more than their post office pension scheme or whatever. Bit of a sweeping generalisation, apologies, but I'm trying to ensure you don't have the same bemused smile on your face as my housemate as a stereotypical image of a walking group pops into your head.

It was all very sociable and around 30 people rocked up. I chatted to an ex-teacher who'd had enough of the rudeness of young people that he quit after a year, a chap from Australia who loved coffee shops and banana bread too and a fellow newbie that was from Poland and schooled me on the finer points of vodka. I don't even like vodka.

Overall everyone was really lovely, they kind of all reminded me of my Mom and her walking group and friends, but younger. Shit, well there's that stereotype I was trying so hard to not get you to think about. But they were, they were all just friendly, nice to chat to people. Good to get out into a new social circle and apparently with over 800 members I'm sure there's many more people to meet!

Even though it was in the city and I've lived here for five years, and even though the route from Old Street to London Bridge was one that I trudged everyday because it was my work commute journey for nearly two years, the leader still managed to find a route that lead us down city back streets and around buildings, statues and monuments that I'd never seen before. Just goes to show, London always has something new to show you and there's no way you can ever see it all, not even after five years. It's nice to be reminded of that, especially because it's so easy to narrow your sights in London and just stick to places you know and so end up seeing things you've seen a thousand times before.

As soon as I fix myself with a decent pair of walking boots I'm off on a 10 mile proper ramble. The last time I walked 10 miles or more was when I was in the Brownies, so bring on the challenge!

RoseC -x-

Mind the gutter (NSFW, probably)

There used to be a time when sex was an everyday part of my life. No, I don't mean I was 'doing it' every day (chance would be a fine thing), but I was either reading, writing, watching or talking about it. For most people rocking up into the office and turning on their computer means they're usually faced with the same old desktop - a cute animal of some sort, or a favourite holiday snap to remind them that there's a goal to the dreary existence that makes earning money all worthwhile - but for me turning up to work on a morning I would be faced with images of tits or close ups of a woman's fanny.

We'd then sit and discuss the finer points of using sexual lubricants during foreplay, if the latest designer sex toy really is that good because it only made me come twice in five minutes, or whether it's acceptable to wake your partner up by fucking them or whether that amounts to some form of relationship rape as they're technically not conscious to consent. (This is still to be resolved or clarified, feel free to wade in.) These were every day discussions and points of interest, and I've been missing it.

Obviously when I was working in the school I had to keep quiet about where I used to work or some of the things I'd write about. There were a few people I told, perhaps because I liked to shock them, I liked that reaction when they went, "Oh my word! And now you work in a school, that's a bit of a change," and yes, quite frankly it was; it was a change that forced me to clean up my act and watch my mouth and be grown up and honestly, it was so unsexy.

Thankfully though, the last few days I've been putting my filth hat back on and am happy to trip back into the gutter. I still have plenty of sex feature ideas in my file left over from Scarlet that I've had chance to go back over and rehash into better ideas. I've been writing some of my own erotic fiction. Granted this has never been my strong point, but I find it fun to write for myself so I've been doing that.

Today I put together a sex-related pitch that I hope will get me into a national women's magazine and then have been researching another, but can't say I've had much success. Apparently there aren't many logical, good reasons to get naked everyday, other than showering, if you're a naturist or if you're an egotistical sod. I mean there are no obvious health or well-being benefits so I may have to prod and probe to create my own!

I've managed to unearth many illogical ones though, such as World Naked Gardening Day (it's on Saturday May 5th in case you were wondering, and no it's not something I'll be covering on the gardening website) which appears to be nothing more than encouraging people to get their kit off in the garden for a day and there's no 'political agenda' behind it, or reason. It's just a get naked and do a bit of gardening day. Hardly a good enough reason to get nude, imagine all the nettles if you've got a garden full or weeds, or all the pricks you could get. From the rose bushes I mean...

I found stuff on naked changing room etiquette, that getting naked in front of your partner everyday can help keep the romance....oh wait hang on, that might actually work for the article. Again, knowing whether it's good to strip off in front of your brother (er, no) or if it will help you get laid by your neighbour who happens to be a swinger, is not particularly useful to me and then I just knew it was going wrong when I got into all of the 'abused naked' regions of Google's dark side and decided to stop looking.

I mean there's being in the gutter and enjoying a bit of filth and nuddy fun, but then there's places you should never go. At least not for the articles I want to write, then they're practically tame in comparison to some people's debauched minds.

It feels good to put at least one foot back in the gutter for now.

RoseC -x-