Transistorised, and anodised

I had my first lesson of the second year today - Medieval and Renaissance Literature, i.e. Chaucer and the Canterbury Tales. When I read on the reading list that we were going to study him, I was neither worried nor excited. I studied the Wife of Bath in college, but gained little from it as the teacher I had was very much a joker. While I liked him as a person and found him entertaining, hardly anything he taught me sunk in,as he spent a great deal of his teaching time poking fun at the material. It was not at all fun going into an exam room knowing nothing but a handful of 'handy' anecdotes.

Influences

Here's an idea I got from Dan and stole - an account of my influences. As writers, we are often asked to explain them and the opportunity to get them in writing is rare. So...here they are (you never know, it might surprise you):

I don't remember having a specific favourite book as a child - I loved reading and would engross myself in any book i could find. There are so many books and authors from then that have influenced me - Enid Blyton, Roald Dahl, E. B. White. In secondary school, i talked the librarian into letting me read Roald Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected - she believed a book of such macabre brilliance would affect an eleven year old. I believe she was right, for I was never quite the same.

I began to read Harry Potter, on the other hand, at around ten and loved the fantasy aspect of it. Fantasy stories carry a flame for me, as reality in my opinion is quite a boring thing. When i was about twelve, I read 'The Heartstone Odyssey', a story about an Indian dancer named Chandra, who sets out on a mission to find the heartstone for the talking mice who request it of her - a beautifully charming book that I read countless times over the course of my school career. The more I wrote as I grew up, the more I combined normality with something quite impossible. I don't remember at what age I decided I wanted to be a writer -wherever I went I carried a pen and paper and that has always been the consensus. Before I could write, I drew all the time.

Writing for a very long time offers advantages, such as the ability to rifle through scripts produced years before. I know for a fact that I have never really been frightened by the notion of violence, rather, curious of it - because one of my earliest stories involved an axe murderer. I used to be a great animal lover and would go to great lengths to involve a talking horse in the plot. Much of this is down to the fact that at the time I was writing, I was quite young and influenced by shows such as Starla and the Jewel Riders (I miss that show >:) and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

When I was in my late teens, I heard for the first time 'Bring me to Life' by Evanescence - back then, it was the anthem to my life and moved me - the lyrics spoke out to me as if I was the only one who heard them.




Evanescence became and still are, one of my favourite bands, I fell in love with their mystical sound. 'Bring me to life' had reached out to me, and now each song spoke to me personally.



Evanescence was one of my first favourite bands and inpspired me to write poetry.

By this point, I was 14 and heavily into the 'mysterious', 'gothic' and 'horror'. I went to my local library, where the librarian recommended Edgar Allan Poe.



The copy of Poe our library had was very battered indeed. Anyway, upon inspection I learned that it contained 'The Raven', a verse I had heard about but never got around to reading. Once I did, I felt like I had skipped the enlightenment level all together. Within days I had scoured our library shelves for everything I could find.

After leaving school, I entered college and began to read the classics. In my first year, i studied 'Wuthering Heights' and 'Frankenstein' and loved them both. In the second, our teacher gave us a booklet with several stories to analyse inside it- one of which was 'The Company of Wolves' by Angela Carter.




Angela Carter has been very influential on my writing in recent years, a favourite author. Her writing is profoundly original, making use of magic realism and science fiction, writing the darker counter parts of Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, Little Red Riding Hood and Puss in Boots. Carter skillfully wove themes of gothicism, eroticism, feminism, violence, surrealism, myth and contemporary society into her work. Reading her work gave me high hopes for the careful tapestry I might someday be able to produce.

Up until this point, I haven't mentioned manga, mostly because it didn't enter my life until very late when compared with everything else I have mentioned so far. I didn't pick up a manga novel until I was 16 at least, and even then it was just to ask my friend why the heck it was backwards. Even so, manga and anime are very firm influences in my writing because they are, without a doubt, one of my favourite genres. Mangas such as Death Note and Immortal Rain reinforce what Poe and Carter's writing first defined.

Jumping on the bandwagon

From what I've read, a lot of people are writing about their new houses, so I thought I would jump on the proverbial band wagon. Only a little, since I'm not actually living in a house. Out of everyone I've spoken to, I'm the only person who has lived in a flat again, which I find odd, but *shrug*.

The people I am living with this year (all two of them) are all right I guess. Out of the two of them, I've only met one of them once. I like this arrangement. She's from Liverpool and is a third year. Other than the fact that she studies fashion and enjoys kareoke (¬¬), that's about all I know about her.

Our flat is on the ground floor, unpacking should have been a pleasant experience. But nooooooo.... The douchebags who lived here last year had, to all intents and purposes, trashed the place and the landlords had just painted over everything. Our hoover was broken, we had an iron (no ironing board), my bathroom to be was not clean and neither was the kitchen, the microwave was broken, the internet lead was missing - my mother, let me tell you was having palpitations. It took ages to clean everything, (and everything is clean now) - but the chaos wasn't over.

A couple of days later I was woken up by a car alarm at quarter to 6 in the morning and ended up with an awful headache. Because of the headache, I went to make myself a cup of tea to help myself get back to sleep, forgetting to lock my bedroom door on the way back from the kitchen.

Of course, on any other day, for anybody else, this would never have happened ¬¬.

A few hours later, the door to the flat was flung open and one of the rent collectors came storming in, thudding on everyone's doors. Apparently, someone in our flat hadn't paid all of their rent and they were coming to get it? And apparently they didn't know exactly which room it was, hence the THUD THUD THUD. Of course my bedroom door wasn't locked and of course they came right in DX.

I was only half asleep and all of a sudden they were there. My reaction went along the lines of 'huhWAAHHHH'

Anyway, as it turns out, they were after the room next to mine, which was empty anyway. Bloody typical. And it doesn't end there. Oh no.

On the day we unpacked, I noticed a new building behind our flats and went to check it out - my Dad thinking I was being retarded or lost or something, called me back. Anyway, these past few days I've been searching for a Council Tax exemption form and thinking that I was all of the above since the building I got it from before seemed to have disappeared. I must have seriously travelled all over campus looking for this stupid exemption form (seriously, things a student will do for money off). Anyway, in the end I checked at enquiries and got redirected back to my flat - remember that building I was told not to check out? Turns out that it's the new finance department - got my loan scanned as well while I was there.

You'd think my parents would apologise, though, for dragging me away when I could have made this discovery ago - wouldn't you? Apparently not. The first thing my mother said was: You stupid twonk.

I said 'I love the boy'

In blinded words
I spoke your name
Just like an
Abandoned child.
In the sand
I drew your face
And made it mine.
It isn’t real
It isn’t true
How could I ever
Acknowledge you?
He left me here
To dance and sing
That face I drew
It isn’t him
He found my porcelain
My soul
Shattered both
Made it so
That I should sit
Upon the sands
And trace my finger there.
Painting masterpieces
With a single broken
Finger nail
You came to me
On the shifting tides
I said
‘I love the boy’
Ever lasting?
Ever changing?
I know you are not mine.

Back

So summer is over and I am back. The new flat is bigger than the old one - the bedrooms are twice as big and everything seems the wrong way round. It was trashed when I got here, the ironing board was missing, the hoover was broken and the microwave didn't work; it was like the previous tenants had well and truly destroyed the place before they left and the landlord's answer was to paint over the mess. There was even a chunk missing from the wall in the kitchen, plastered over.

My flatmates seem okay - there are only two of them so far, both of them third year fashion students. It's odd, because they make absolutely no noise. I know this is probably tempting fate, but it's weirding me out. O_o

Haven't got my timetable yet, so I don't know what expect about anything. I've spent most of my time so far wrapped up in bed watching Ugly Betty and eating crisps. I hope my timetable isn't too bad, if it is, then I might actually cry.

Little Miss Muffet

Little miss muffet,
Frozen in habit
Alone on your throne
Like a lost little rabbit
Your coat is unruffled
Your hair is pristine
Your mother thinks that I
Am something unclean
Stroking your lips with
Honey nectar, I see
Smiling, you’ll call me
And say I am ‘Thief’
This spider, this spider
He held you too close
Run, run Miss Muffet
Tell them your woes.

Silent Sally Sue

Dusty doll upon my desk
My dear old Sally Sue
She hasn’t sang me lyrics yet -
Hummed a merry tune
And yet somehow, I know she would
If only I asked her to
Dusty friend upon my desk
My silent Sally Sue.

Dusty doll upon my desk
My faithful Sally Sue
Her lips are sealed together
By some sort of splendid glue
Forever in the likeness
Of a girl of twenty two
That dusty friend upon my desk
My silent Sally Sue.

Dusty doll upon my desk
I named her Sally Sue
She doesn’t tell me stories
Of a world I never knew
And yet I often wonder
Where might they take me to?
The one with all the answers
Is my silent Sally Sue