Goodbye, London

When I moved to London about a year ago, I was terrified. I'd never been to the UK before. I'd never lived anywhere but Missoula, MT and Portland, OR. I was lonely, scared, missing Greg, and completely culture shocked. My mom was there with me to help for a few days, and thank god for that. Moving to another country is scary enough, but doing it completely alone? I could have done it, but I might have gone prematurely grey as a result.

But now, a year and a lot of mental adjustments later, London feels like home to me. A while ago Shaun and I were sitting up on the Heath with a picnic, watching night fall over the city. And we agreed that despite its size, its mess, its millions and millions of unfriendly people who rudely bump into you in the street, and its lack of Target... London felt like home. To realize this only a matter of days before I was set to leave the country for good was particularly tragic, but it's pretty much what I expected would happen. It's okay.

Living in England has been the most rewarding, exciting, frightening, difficult, and worthwhile thing I've ever done. Brunel's Creative Writing program was so excellent, and I met some incredible people there, not to mention the fact that I completed the first draft of my very first novel! It's always been a dream of mine to live in England and write, and look what I did -- I moved to England and wrote a novel. I'm so happy with everything I've accomplished in the last year, especially with my writing. I feel like my life has a direction now, and it is to follow in EL James' footsteps and write porny romance novels for a living. JUST KIDDING, my romance novels won't be porny. But seriously I'm gonna be a writer, and I'm going to get a book (or two or three??) published, so keep your eyes peeled!

Anyway this post isn't about writing! It's about London. And how much I am going to miss it. I think mostly I'll miss the Britons. They are seriously the best people. Great senses of humor, fabulous senses of style, and constantly guzzling tea (seriously I didn't realize how much tea these people consume until I stayed a weekend with a British family. I was blown away). The Brits may not understand customer service, unbridled enthusiasm, or efficiency (sorry guys), but they make up for it by having the best accents in the world, and Wagamama. Actually Wagamama may not even be a British chain but seriously there are like three of them in Leicester Square alone and it's probably not enough. Wagamama is GREAT.

I'm also going to miss: Cider on tap, Pimms, River Island (oh god I'll miss it so much), rolling hills dotted with sheep, people saying "cheers", Nandos, watching Doctor Who on the BBC, being trampled to death on Oxford Street, walking along the Thames at night, cold rainy days year round, fruit pastilles, proper chocolate, random British celeb sightings, Heinz baked beans, chips with everything, Topshop, history, architecture, the pigeons outside my window, being a cool American, the tube, people saying "Alright?" and not knowing how to respond, Brick Lane, and my friends.

I'm mostly going to miss my friends. Lucy and Shaun, you are the actual best and I don't know how I'll survive without you. It's been great. ♥

London, you've been great. I may not be back for a while, but I'll be back. Don't go anywhere while I'm away.

London Geekery

I really should be working on the second draft of my novel (I feel like I've made no headway after weeks of working on it uuurgh),  but instead I'm gonna get this blog post out of my head to make room for more Duke/Cecily UST moments.

I already made a post about some of my favorite moments from living in London, but a lot of the best memories were left out because they've been waiting for this post -- my favorite geeky moments in the UK! Yeah okay most of my life is a series of geeky moments, but these are the super cool ones okay. As a fangirl, I have to say, moving to London was a really good idea in terms of meeting famous British hotties, seeing my favorite musicians live, and basically having an amazingly geeky time.

In no particular order:

The Olivier Awards. This was perhaps one of the coolest things Shaun and I did in London, partly because it was utterly unplanned. Shaun managed to win tickets to the awards show on twitter, about 2 days in advance. We were way up in the balcony about a thousands miles from the stage, but what an amazing experience! We got to walk the red carpet, drink free champagne at the interval, and I had an actual conversation with Harry Lloyd. Total highlight of my year! (You can read my lengthy post about the Olivier Awards here.)

The European premiere of Avengers Assemble! Shaun and I met up with a bunch of internet friends and wore matching Team Loki shirts. Basically the dorkiest, most fun film premiere ever. (You can see more pics from the premiere and read more about my fangirl obsession with Loki here!)

Meeting Gail Carriger at the Steampunk Soiree at Foyle's. I'd only read her book Soulless at this point, but I was already a huge fan. Gail Carriger is my literary hero, and the kind of author I strive to be. She's funny, she wears steampunk outfits to her signings, and there was tea and cake. Can you think of anything more awesome? (Full post about the Steampunk Soiree here.)

MARK GATISS AGAIN!

Possibly the BEST geeky/fandom moment in my life, EVER, was going to the Sherlock screening at the BFI, in advance of the series 2 release. We got to meet the cast and crew, not to mention see "A Scandal in Belgravia" weeks early, and seriously LOOK IT'S BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH IT DOESN'T GET MUCH BETTER THAN THIS GUYS. (Full post heeeere!)

Going to MCM Expo and meeting Gideon Emery and Adam Howden, the voices of two of my very favorite video game characters, Fenris and Anders from Dragon Age 2! It was so great, they signed photos of their characters. Fangirl squee! (Read my post about the MCM Expo here.)

Meeting David Tennant at the Entertainment Media Expo! This was such a crazy day; I woke up at noon, saw on facebook that David Tennant was doing a signing at a convention in London, and went to full-on crazed fangirl mode for the rest of the day. Spent way too much money on an autograph, but hey DAVID TENNANT LOOKED AT ME AND SAID "HERE YA GO" AND HANDED ME THE SIGNED PHOTO, I can basically die happy. (Lengthy and spazzy post about the whole day can be read here!)

Game of Thrones related fangirling at London Film and Comic Con! I did not make a full post about this, because I'm really goddamn lazy, but I mean look at these photos, this is all you need. Shaun and I had our pictures taken on the Iron Throne, and Shaun met Iain Glen (I was too cheap to pay for an autograph but I took many creepy photos from the sidelines). KHALEEESIIII! I also had my picture taken with a British Boba Fett, Chris Judge as Teal'c, and found some really cool Dragon Age cosplayers. It was a good day!

Okay this one doesn't have a pic to go with it, but it's arguably my very favorite geeky/fangirl moment in London. Shaun, Lucy, and I had just gotten out of a concert to see one of my fave artists, Lights, and were heading to the coat check when I thought I recognized Allen Leech, the chauffeur Branson from Downton Abbey standing with a group of guys in the bar. I kept being like, "No seriously Lucy I think that is the guy from Downton, does it look like him? Is it him?" and craning my neck like a creeper. At last I had to find out if it was him, and after a few minutes of standing in line for my coat staring at him, I was pretty convinced. So I went over and awkwardly said, "Hi, sorry, but do you just really look like, or are you..." and he goes, "Tom Branson? Yeah!" And thus we ended up standing around with Allen Leech and some of the dudes from the opening act and various Irish hotties, for a while. It was so much fun because it wasn't a fan event, it was just running into a minor celeb who happened to be super cute and fun to talk to! Also he was a bit drunk, so that helped. He let us touch his hair extensions, and he tweeted at Shaun because she followed him on twitter. It was basically really ridiculous and fun, and I'll probably never forget it! Those are my favorite celeb encounters, or really the sorts of ones I fantasize about, because they're not sitting at a table being paid to sign stuff for you; they're just doing their own thing and hanging out and willing to chat for a few minutes.

So there you have it, some (most) of my favorite geeky/fangirly/fandomy moments in London! I'm sorry this is such a long post. But it is mostly for me and Shaun to look back on for nostalgic purposes, and if you enjoy it, then awesome!

Wow I have done a lot of really cool stuff in England, haven't I? Life is really good. I am a really lucky person and I can't say enough how grateful I am for every single moment I've had here in the UK. Seriously I can't say it enough. I am so grateful.

Overture

All I can think about right now is Patrick Wolf. His new album, Sundark & Riverlight, comes out in October and I can't even tell you how excited I am. It's celebrating the 10-year anniversary of his music career, and is rearranging a bunch of his old songs for an all acoustic album. He's doing an acoustic world tour to coincide with it, so definitely check to see if he'll be in your area! He's so incredible live; you can see my post about his gig in London last November here.

Anyway, I am going to see Patrick again next week at the Old Vic with Shaun, so I will likely make a post about the show afterwards, but I can't in good conscience go about my day without first sharing this new video with you. Patrick just released it today. It's one of my favorite songs of his, rearranged and acoustic-ized for maximum prettiness! Seriously though, do yourself a favor and watch/listen. I wish I could try to explain Patrick's music, or express how much it means to me, but every time I try it doesn't come out right. So just press play or whatever.

Excerpts From a Year Abroad

I'm nearing the end of my stay here in London. It's only three weeks and a few days before I pack it all up and head back to the States. There are a lot of conflicting emotions happening in my head, the dominant of which is stress. I only have a little over three weeks to finish my dissertation, write a critical essay about how hard it was writing a stupid novel, and put together some sort of presentation about my time doing work experience at Little, Brown. I also have to pack up all my stuff, get rid of the things I don't want or can't take back with me (my pillows and duvet, sob), and do as many awesome things as I can in the UK before it's thousands of miles and an ocean away.

Wow, just typing that made me super emo. Never mind. Let's talk about nicer things! Namely my favorite memories over the 11-ish months that I've been here so far. I have so many awesome memories that it's actually kind of impossible to pick only a few, but these are some of the bigger events and the things that really stick out to me. I might do more of these later but who knows. The first, the photo above, is from a couple weeks ago when I visited my friends Richard and Emma in Stockport (just outside Manchester). Richard drove me and some of his grad students around in the countryside, and I got to see where the Bronte sisters lived in Yorkshire. A really amazing, and totally English, weekend. I could have stayed there forever. It was truly one of the most magical few days I've ever experienced.

A (very cold) November weekend in Vienna. It was so fun to meet up with Rachel, who I'd only known on the internet until then, and who turned out to be super awesome! This is Rachel, her flatmate Samantha, and me at Schonbrunn Palace in Vienna, freezing slowly to death. We visited Christmas markets and drank mulled wine and wandered the streets of Vienna. It was so magical (lots of things are magical it turns out).

The orangutan/camel/llama hybrid from Hampton Court Palace. We laughed at it for ages. Seriously the best moment ever.

MARK GATISS. Enough said.

Spending Christmas with my super good friend Lily and her partner Angus. We stayed in a flat right below the Edinburgh Castle, and wandered the streets of Old Town, ate stew, drank pints, and spent cozy nights indoors watching weird British television. I also slammed my finger in a door, which was exciting. Lily hugged me and made me drink mulled wine afterwards, which totally helped.

Shaun and Lucy! I know they're not a memory, but meeting Lucy and becoming such close friends with Shaun was one of the best things to come out of moving here, hands down, no contest! I absolutely love these girls, and they're now two of my best friends. Every second with them is always tons of fun!

When Greg came to visit! Wow, what a perfect week and a half. We hadn't seen each other for over 7 months, and by the end of his stay it was like I'd fallen in love with him all over again, even more than I thought possible. We had afternoon tea at Chatsworth House (where this picture was taken), watched The Apprentice while it hailed and rained incessantly outside, ordered pizza, wandered around Walthamstow, and generally had a very very good time.

The traumatizing day in Lewes! This creepy dalmatian life-size furry doll thing accurately sums up the bizarreness of that day. Antiques, bad taxidermy, over-priced burgers at the Real Eating Co. (bastards!), rain, 3+ hours in a pub with drunken creepers, and at the end of it all... hysteria in the train station. So good.

Brenn's visit! Shaun's and my mutual friend Brenn (the reason we met in the first place!) came to visit us for a week in July. It was so fun to see her and share London with such a good friend!

Visiting Emily in Bonn, Germany. I've known Emily since college, and I haven't seen her since college either -- silly girl went off and joined the Peace Corps, and then moved to Germany to be with her German lover. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision, but I flew to see her for a short weekend (only one night) in Bonn, but it was so much fun to catch up, buy tons of Haribo from the Haribo shop, and visit Beethoven's birth house! We also saw the corpse flower the day it was set to bloom, but were a few hours too early to see it in full bloom. Regrets!

Being in London during the Olympics. Wow, what a seriously awesome summer to be in London, you guys! First the Diamond Jubilee, now the Olympics. So much British patriotism! Sadly I haven't been to any Olympic events, but the atmosphere in London is amazing, and watching the Opening Ceremony live on the BBC was seriously incredible. We could hear the fireworks from Shaun's flat! So cool!

Shaun and I are leaving on Saturday morning for Northern Ireland, where we'll stay two nights in a B&B in County Antrim along the coast. We're gonna see the Giant's Causeway, Dunluce Castle, and hopefully lots of green hillsides, rain-lashed cliffs, and pints of Guinness! I'm beyond excited, and hopefully if I'm not a giant pile of lazy, I'll make a post about it when we get back. We also recently went to Bath for a day, and I mean to post about it, but who knows if/when that will happen.

Anyway... I think I'll leave the sadsack goodbye post until just before I leave. But I do want to say some of my life's best, most memorable, and incredible experiences have taken place in the last 11 months. I can't begin to describe how grateful I am for every moment I've had here!

First Draft Epiphanies & Fears

I finished the first draft of my novel on Monday. At least I think it was Monday. The days tend to run together for me, especially after a holiday visiting friends up north. Anyway, that's not the point. The point is that I'm done with the first draft! I'm finished! Time to pop a cork and celebrate with cake and high-fives!

...Except not. Because the first draft is just that: the first draft. I mean, okay. I knew that, and I knew what I'd written needed a lot of beefing up, a lot of editing, a lot of reworking and rewriting and dramatizing. But I think I secretly imagined that as soon as I finished the first draft of my first ever novel, the skies would open and a chorus of angels would emerge from above and serenade me with trumpets, and Barack Obama would roll up in a carriage with a bottle of champagne and tell me I'd done America good. It's always disappointing when you expect fanfare and don't get any, even if your expectations were subconscious and delusional.

In reality, I met with my supervisor and he said, "Good first draft! Really. Now go home and make it better." Then I ate a cheese roll from Tesco, sat in the shade for a while, and took the tube home to Walthamstow. 

I guess I didn't realize how overwhelming it would feel when I'd finished the first draft, but was still faced with all of this work I had yet to do. And it's not just a bunch of useless busy work, like searching for grammar and continuity errors. It's adding flesh to the bones of a story. It's dislocating the limbs so I can reset them again, so they'll work properly this time. It's building a story from beginning to end, one that makes the reader feel something, one that happens from the start, one that creates drama and conflict and romance and excitement. It scares me.

I'm scared because I'm worried I don't have the skills to inject my story with these things. What if I do it wrong? What if I don't know how? I worry that it'll never be up to my standards. These are silly things to worry. I've never done this before; why should I know how to do it from the start? I have to figure it out as I go, just as I did with writing the first draft. And I'm sure it will be fine. In fact I know it will. But it's so scary!

I'm scared of going back in and upsetting things, for fear I'll make them even worse. I'm scared of changing the characters beyond recognition until it's a completely different story. I know it won't happen -- these are my characters, this is my story, and everything I do to it will be my choice. I only want to make it better. 

But what if I do it wrong?

Writing is hard. Everyone keeps telling me the hardest part is over, but I can't believe that's true. How could it be? Editing and rewriting 86,000+ words sounds pretty damn difficult to me. It doesn't sound like much of a walk in the park. But, I guess, neither was writing those 86,000+ words to begin with.

I think I'd better just accept that this whole process, from start to finish, is going to be one of the hardest things I've ever done, and will feel like being punched repeatedly in the gut most of the time. But it has been, and it will continue to be, one of the most enjoyable and utterly rewarding things I have ever done. If not the most rewarding thing I've ever done, in my whole life.

Hey, people who give other people shit for reading shit: STOP

Since when do we have the right to state a preference for what people read and what they don't read? People who mock others for reading books like Twilight, making the broad assumption that whoever reads it must be too stupid or confused to make a better choice about what they read, can shove it up their ass. Seriously. 


I'm an intelligent person who enjoys "classic literature" or whatever bullshit I'm supposed to read, I'm getting my goddamn masters degree in fucking WRITING for godsake, but I actually enjoyed reading the Twilight books. Oh shit, fuck, what does it mean??? SMART PEOPLE CAN READ STUPID BOOKS? Yes, they can. And so can non-smart people! And every person ever. Because they are allowed to make that choice. 


And, weirdly enough, they're allowed to read whatever trashy books they want, in addition to Twilight. When I see a woman reading Fifty Shades of Grey, I don't think, "Oh I wish she would read something better than that." Fuck, no. I think, "Oh I bet one of her friends recommended that, or she heard the buzz and thought she'd see what it was all about. I wonder if she likes it?" I've seen professional women reading it, teenage girls, women my age, everyone. Just because it seems cool to hate on something due to its popularity doesn't make it so. 


Yeah, from the snippets I've read online, the writing in Fifty Shades is terrible. It is horrible. It is so bad. But so what? Intelligent people are not REQUIRED by some law to read ONLY books that are well-written and high quality. Nor are people of average or low intelligence! Surprise! 


I mean what's the standard here? Are we only allowed to read classic literature like A Tale of Two Cities and Lady Chatterley's Lover? Oh, wait. Shit. Dickens wrote popular literature and Lady Chatterley was considered porn at the time. So... maybe we should only read books that express a high standard of style? Like prose poems? Yeah, let's just read artsy books that don't tell a story but are just written really well from now on. No more stories, no more enjoying yourself, just quality writing OKAY? Otherwise PEOPLE WILL JUDGE YOU.


Give me a goddamn break. 

Yeah, it really annoys me when people claim, in all seriousness, "Stephanie Meyer is suuuuch a good writerrrr!" And it probably annoys me extra because I'm a writer and it's frustrating to see someone with such a poor grasp of the language becoming so successful as a writer. So yeah, that annoys me. But I don't assume that just because someone is reading a badly-written book that "OMG THEY DO NOT UNDERSTAND BOOKS AND LITERATURE, I WISH I COULD SHOW THEM A REAL QUALITY BOOK INSTEAD OF THAT TRIPE." Who the fuck are you to assume what this person has or has not read? My goddamn dad has read the Twilight books. He liked Bella. He also reads a fuckton of nonfiction, philosophy, news sites, blogs, and other fictional works. He's written a series of essays on philosophy and the evolution of consciousness, and published them in his own book. So... are you gonna tell him that you're glad he's reading, but wish he'd just read something else, something better? No, because you now know that he does read other things, "better" things, and you'd sound like a condescending dick if you said that to him. So why is some stranger on the tube any better? Why is someone on the internet more worthy of your patronizing shit than someone who you know is well-read?

OH AND ALSO, guess what, even if somebody loves Stephanie Meyer and thinks she's the best writer in the land and wants her to write a million more Twilight books, you are STILL a dick if you belittle them for reading trash. Yeah you can be annoyed; it is annoying, I'll admit, when people genuinely don't realize how horrible some things are (e.g. Justin Bieber, Jeffrey Campbell Litas, Comic Sans). But that doesn't mean it's cool for you to make fun of them, feel sorry for them, or be condescending all over them for reading what they want to read. OKAY?

I mean for fuck's sake. I'm gonna read Fifty Shades of Grey as soon as I get a chance. I may not finish it due to the shitty writing, but I'm super curious about it, and I want to see what all the fuss is about, and shit, it's not like my life is ruined and I'm sullied forever and I can never wear white at my wedding because I've read glorified AU Twilight fanfic.

So SERIOUSLY people. Be elitist assholes in private all you want, but just shut up and let people read whatever they want. You don't know the whole story, and more often than not you'll make yourself look like a prick. So stop. Thank you.

Blah Blah Writing

There's a reason I haven't been blogging much lately. It's also the reason why I can't sleep at night, waking up in the wee hours with a cold sweat and fast-beating heart; it's why I can't speak to another human without muttering unintelligibly about fox hunts and clockwork, and it's the reason I don't do or think about anything anymore except this one thing. You probably already know -- it's this damn novel I'm writing. 

I always used to dream of getting so immersed in my writing that I became one of those irritable, unwashed, upsettingly eccentric people whose only drive in life was their art. I always wondered, "Why do I feel okay taking breaks from writing? Why aren't I obsessing over my characters 24/7 and waking up in the night, sobbing because I hate myself and everything I've ever written? Why can't I be one of those horrible anti-social people who does nothing but babble about their stupid novel that nobody cares about?" It sounded so exciting, so bohemian, so cool. I'd never have guessed that I would actually become the smelly, unhinged writer that I dreamed about. But now I have! And it's everything I wanted and more! More self-loathing, lost sleep, and malnourishment, anyway. (For instance, today I'm eating a Mars Bar for dinner because I don't have the time or energy to boil water for pasta. I already made coffee; what more do you want from me?)

It's actually kind of stupid how much I enjoy doing nothing but eating terribly and staying up until the sun rises, writing and hating what I've written and then liking it again, and then writing some more. Making up worlds and characters and ball gowns and cheese-eating viscounts is like crack to me. It's like eating a stack of chocolate chip pancakes covered in whipped cream and strawberries without throwing up afterwards. It's like a hundred pug puppies, rolling all over me in a field of daisies. It's like Tom Hiddleston reading me a story every night before bed. It's pretty much the best. The only things that would make it better were if my room was fully catered, and if Greg were in the corner somewhere playing video games, so I could occasionally throw things at him or demand kisses. Even so, it's pretty great.

People have asked me about the novel itself, and I'm hesitant to talk about it in great detail, because it's my beautiful child and I don't want anyone on the internet to steal it. I've already talked about it on here, but in case you can't be bothered to scroll back and find that post (who has the energy?), here's the run-down: It's about a girl who plays the harp and lives in a fantasy land that's in a state of perpetual winter. There are clockwork things. There is a fox hunt in the snow. There is an anti-social duke who can't tie a cravat to save his soul. There are ball gowns. Tea. Hummingbirds! The end. 

Suffice it to say, I'm busy writing a piece of literary genius so if I don't update here very often THAT'S WHY. Busy living the dream and all that. I'll let you know when I'm the next Stephanie Meyer.