Bloggers Bloggy Blogosphears

Right, in my last post I promised a list of my favourite blogs, so I'm just going to dive right in. Think I'll put them into catagories and use lots of bullet points.... because I'm a massive geek.

Aparently.

FASHION:

http://facehunter.blogspot.com/

This is just a simple photo blog of Mr face hunter stalking style around the world. Amazing for inspiration for future shopping trips.

http://www.showmeyourwardrobe.blogspot.com/

A great blog showing us exactly what we want to know- what is in the wardrobes of the elite and stylish. Features in Elle magazine monthly and just really quite addictive.

http://stylebubble.typepad.com/

The queen of style blogs, Susie Bubble. I love her style and just find it fascinating to see an origional and quirky perspective on things.

http://www.whatkatiewore.com/

I love the idea of this blog- basically Joe and Katie are a couple and one day Joe decided he needed to share his girlfriends eye for style to the world and set her a challenge: To be photographed everyday in her awesome outfits for a year- the catch? She has to wear a different outfit every day. Again inspiring to see how to mix up your wardrobe.

MUSIC:

These are a mix of websites and blogs, some of which I've written for...

http://www.forfolkssake.com/

My new favourite music website focusing on all elements of folk music from global, conventional and indie. Gorgeous illustrations on the site too.

http://thefourohfive.com/

Covers the essentials in music and films.

http://anikainlondon.wordpress.com/

A lovely blog following Anika's musical pursuits. Awesome photography and funny content- loving her taste in music too.

http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/

Just covers some cool artists! Big fan.

ART:

http://www.little-doodles.blogspot.com/

A blog found through twitter- Kate is an illustrator with a thing for lil birds- such cute drawings and she's done some very cool projects including working with Marc Jacobs! Jealous much...

http://lucyplayer.blogspot.com/

A graphic designer- I just love looking at illustration and graphic design! I wish I could draw/think like these guys!

http://www.pictureyear.blogspot.com/

The year in pictures- a great blog for lovers of photography or anything visual.

http://www.katemoross.com/blog/

Another illustrator who I wish I could be....sigh...

LIT:

http://jennashworth.blogspot.com/

A blog by writer Jenn Ashworth- have been following her blog for a while now, was actually partly why I decided to start my own! Just like her style and can't wait to buy her book.

http://www.dogmatika.com/dm/index.php

Covers the kind of books I want to write.

http://www.sixsentences.blogspot.com/

A blog that encourages writers to submit 6 sentences. I've always liked a challenge! And even though my 6 didn't get published I still enjoy reading others!

http://www.readtwelvestories.com/default.htm

12 stories- simple as. And again even though these guys chose not to publish my submission, (boo) I still go on regularly to see what new stories are up. Great for the short story lover.

FRIENDS:

http://zoelavender.blogspot.com/

My friend Zoe's blog about Public Relations- fascinating even if you aren't in the buisness yourself. Trust me, she knows her stuff and has got a huge future ahead of her :) and I hope she lets me crash in on it from time to time hehe.

http://lawrencebarrettotalksmotorracing.wordpress.com/

My fellow journo Lawrence has made his way into sport journalism and has started to carve a nice little future for himself. Again I know he will go far, and again I hope he lets me crash :D

So there we have it- my current favourite places to be in cyber space. Check them out and let me know if you like them too. Or if you have any suggestions of other blogs I might like give me a shout :)

In other news I have had one rejection this week from a submitted short story which, yes, sucks but hey it's expected. Not quite sure what to do with the story now though? Maybe I'll post it on here one day. On the positive side, I've just emailed a new magazine called 'Libertine' (a kind of I-D/Vogue/Dazed and Confused for under 25's) asking if I can contribute. So fingers crossed I'll be able to get more work out there. In the meantime I've got a review of Duke Garwood to submit and a review of Alice in Chains to prepear for! Lot's going on still which is nice.

Non-work related news...I'm off to Portsmouth this weekend to see some girlfriends and I cannot wait! Has been far too long since I saw them and can't wait to check out their new house. May have to get the rest of my rib piece tattoo done while I'm there aswell....because tattoos make you sexy. Just like these kids-->

The Art of Doing Nothing

Sometimes you just have to slot in a bit of time to sit back, reflect and re-boot. How do we do this? By doing nothing. Nowt. Nada. I felt the need to do this today after self doubt (the bastard) encroached on my otherwise optimistic outlook on life. I’m trying to get into the (apparently) glittering world of music journalism and have been lucky to have a few jobs recently to beef up my portfolio... but not all has gone to plan. First a fashionable self harmer managed to make me feel inadequate, then gig venue politics prevented me from doing my job properly. Fantastic. Neither of these things were my fault, but somehow they still manage to creep in your subconscious and whisper “You are shite.” And that’s never nice is it?



All this being said, I decided today needed to be a day of nothing. Except that never quite happens does it? Turns out I’ve run out of clean underwear and am currently borrowing Antony’s (love you!)- so lot’s of washing needed to be done. On my third lot now, not quite sure how my wardrobe is going to cope with the sheer volume of clean clothes, bless it. Then of course after I got that dull job started I needed to tidy my room as the junk in it was upsetting me. So I cleared that then stopped for lunch which ended up being cereal as there was no bread in the house… sigh. After this I needed a break. This break may have involved sky+’ed Britain’s Next Top Model and The Hills finales….don’t judge me. Then it was onto my favourite past time- lying in bed reading fashion magazines and listening to I-tunes on random. This all took my thoughts away from career/dreams/crap and took them to pretty clothes and witty articles about fidelity (Elle). GOOD TIMES.



After this I needed to get my social networking fix and spent quite some time on facebook and twitter. I now have 90 followers by the way…! I’m sure they care about my self doubt crises…. Yuh. Fascinating though, just getting incites into strangers lives, discovered quite a few awesome blogs too, (will type up a pretty list for you in the next post, promise).



Anyhoo- after all this doing nothing malarkey I realised I needed to get over myself and my self doubt and to just keep on marching. You have to do your fair share of wading around in crap before you reach the top of the hill right? All I’m saying is that it better be bloody good up there.



Ultimately this is what doing nothing is for, because when we do nothing we get the chance to just be. For me this is usually when I stop panicking, breathe and re-boot. So the moral of the story is this- doing nothing can be good. Mustn't get addicted mind you.....my bed is calling at the moment actually.....veg out with a mind numbing film maybe?....yeeeah.


This kitten's got the right idea...

Wish list

For some reason lately, even though in general I am incredibly unorganised, I seem to be a little obsessed with writing lists. At work I spend a good chunk of the day writing what needs to be done instead of actually doing them (oops), and even at home I love covering pages with bullet points of things to do or purchase this month. Thought I'd share a pseudo to do list for this summer, thanks to work commitments and lack of mula, half of this wont happen/ be bought, but hey, pretending's fun.

To Do:

• Interview Crystal Fighters next week (that ones real- woop woop)


• Install Spotify*


• Visit the Rankin live exhibit (http://www.rankinlive.com/)


• Write a short story and submit to some lucky buggar


• More interviews/reviews for For Folk's Sake site


• Review Guildfest


• Go to Laitude....Reading....and Bestival


• Go to a spa with the girls and get lotsa treatments


• Go on beachy hol with Antony in Sept


• Sort out internship for next summer


• Figure out a route for travelling


• Shopping in Camden


• Eat at yo sushi


• enjoy a cupcake at Candy Cakes in Covent Garden


• Go see Lisa Mitchell play at Monkey Chews


• Win lottery, travel, move to Fiji, live in tree house

*Just installed Spotify- GENIUS

To purchase:

• New laptop- Mac Air


• Vespa scooter and scooting lessons


• Apartment in Brighton to move into next year


• Books galore- Nocturnes (Kazuo Ishiguro) The Thoughtful Dresser (Linda Grant) Apples (Richard Milaward) Poems by Lara Dockrill.....etc....


• Musack- Florence and the Machine, Lisa Mitchell, Bat for Lashes, Blue Roses, Alessi's Ark, Marina and the Diamonds, Emmy the Great, Prodigy.....etc....


• Tipi to festival in


• Ditsy floral shirt from Zara


• New giant day bag


• Hair cut and colour


• New tatts....lots....


• More equipment for camera to take better pictures at gigs


• Fish eye camera from Paul Smith


• Round the world ticket

I expect I'm asking for too much yes? Oh well- that's life isn't it. Wouldn't be as fun if we could do/have what we want all the time would it? Thrill of the chase keeps us all going in life- gotta keep chasing those frisky lil dreams. Speaking of which- I've got to dash, I can see one making a run for it....

Update!

Wow, I'm getting lazy with my blogging- Haven't posted anything in a while have I! Well I'll give you a quick update....



Work-wise:

• Promotion going well, not burnt the shop down yet or anything. Had a few disheartening run-ins with the area manager, but then I reminded myself that this isn't life or death I'm dealing with, its SHOPPING.

• Used my discount wisely this month- peg leg trousers and beautiful shoe-boots, mmmm

Writing-wise:

• Have finally had work!! Written two reviews for 'For Folks Sake' website- has been awhile since Ive done any reviews, was nice. Hope to do more with them.

• Just emailed a couple more websites trying to get more work! I've got the hunger.

• Have not written in my diary for weeks. Bad Kat. My diary is my therapist.

Life-wise!

• Boyfriend is beautiful and making me happy :D

• Sister is home from Australia and taking me out drinking a lot!

• Went to Cyprus with some girlfriends to soak up the sun and chill by the sea- gotta love holidays.

• Travelling fund is growing! Hope to get away in January :)

So there ya go. My life in 9 concise bullet points. 9 feels an odd number. Might add one more...

• Went to see 'Drag me to Hell' last night- bloody awesome! Sam Raimi- Raimy? However you spell it is a genius. And quite sick in the head.

Magpies and Artists

I just saw two magpies fighting in my garden. Made me wonder....what do birds have to fight about? "You ate ma worm fool?" Luckily a third peacemaking pie flew into the middle of the beak biting and flapped its wings so madly that the other birds looked on with disgust, thought "Screw this, I'm flyin' to Barbados." and left. Who needs soap operas when there's so much drama in the magpie world?

Anyway, moving on... I just read my friends PR blog (http://zoelavender.blogspot.com/) and read about a website that analyzes your blog and describes the writer....here's what I got:

ISFP - The Artists

The gentle and compassionate type. They are especially attuned their inner values and what other people need. They are not friends of many words and tend to take the worries of the world on their shoulders. They tend to follow the path of least resistance and have to look out not to be taken advantage of. They often prefer working quietly, behind the scene as a part of a team. They tend to value their friends and family above what they do for a living.

Hmmm. I agree with most of it. Apart from the 'not friends of many words', I love the words, the words are the loves of my life, I'm a wannabe writer for Gods sake! The rest of it is quite accurate though- I do take the path of least resistance (especially today when I wanted to avoid conflict with a mouthy customer at work) and I do need to be aware of people taking advantage of me. I would like to think this description is of a slightly younger me however, I'm a lot more confident and do not want to work quietly in the background anymore. And I am trying not to take the easy routes every time. Am even considering going back to studying....get a qualification in Counselling. The path of least resistance right now would be me staying still, whereas I have plans to develop and grow in all aspects. So thank you Mr typeanalyser for being pretty accurate, but I'm working on getting over some of those habits.

In other news I got me a promotion at work!! (It was technically a promotion by default, but shhhhh), so that's made me happy. Another happy bit of news is that I'm going on Holiday in May! Going to Cyprus with a couple of friends and I cannot wait, so excited to feel the heat of the sun (yuh, apparently it is still giving off heat, but I understand it's easy for us Britons to forget) and lie on a beach. Beaches are my happy place. Move me to Hawaii and see my brain squeeze that serotonin.

Happy times all round! Thank god I'm not a magpie caught up in all that drama....

Snapshot

Had a sudden urge to write after listening to Radioheads 'Street Spirit' on repeat for 20 minutes. Really wanted to write a short story or even my last piece for the Vogue competition, but distraction formed itself in webpictures of strangers living incredible lives on Twitter. (My Internet was down for two days, so its all incredibly novel again...)



Find myself quite fascinated by strangers actually. Compelled to write about them in some sort of snapshot prose...possible short story brewing. We all seem to promote a snapshot version of our real selves, especially on the Internet or in first meetings- displaying fast and furious facts. Me like fashion. Me like writing....indie music, guys with beards, beaches and arty films. We present our blurb to strangers hoping to entice them, encourage them to take a closer look to learn more. To learn we are a Pieces. We used to be anorexic. We hate our brother. We are scared of being hurt.



We all have a story to tell and it seems now with social networks booming that more than ever we need readers. Condensing our lives to short stories and then micro fiction so the easily bored eyes of the public don't wander. Must remember the people that truly count are the people that sit down and read the full length novel.



And demand a sequel.







P.S Throughout this snapshot pondering I decided on a trend to 'comment' on for Vogue comp! LOVEWORN. Clothes that are creased, crumpled and feel all soft and worn in. Because I love looking pretty in scruffy clothes :)

Short Story

A Short story I wrote a while ago and don't know what to do with....

Night Walker:

Dragging her eyelids open only to see the fermenting clementines next to her, she let them shut slowly back down. Eyes still shut she lifted her heavy limbs out of bed and walked towards the front door. She kept her eyelids down, though she knew exactly what was surrounding her- bodies lying comatose, ashtrays filled to the brim and pools of beer sitting stagnant in forgotten cans. She didn’t care to look. Instead she felt her way to the door and opened it, she left the smell of death behind her and embraced the iced breeze of the night.

Her feet were bare and hurting as she walked over the gravel path. The tarmac road felt heavenly. Her tracksuit bottoms were too big for her and left her fresh tattoo completely exposed. Her hoody was shrunken and tight, riding high to reveal more tattooed skin on her stomach. She stretched out her arms and pretended to balance on the pale curb by the road. Not a single car drove by, not another life for miles- exactly how she hoped it would be. She headed to the middle of the road and lied down, the cold cement refreshed her rotting body. She stared into the sky at the two stars on show and half-lit moon. She stared at them with no thoughts running through her head- there wasn’t need for thought tonight.

Eventually she rose from the road and continued walking. To her right was a 24 hour MacDonald’s, inside the workers had taken off their hats and were falling asleep on the empty tables. She walked in and ordered a milkshake, a chocolate one. She was greeted with strange looks and disgusted eyes as she smiled dreamily at the acne ridden employee. He gave her the milkshake and she gave him a quid and a kiss on the cheek. “Thanks gorgeous”. She left them with their bemused faces and drank her milkshake as she walked. Which she did a lot. She walked and walked. She saw houses, most of them sleeping, some of them not. She heard arguments between husbands and wives, she saw kids smoking out of their windows, she even saw a couple making love on a kitchen table. Now I say making love, but I don’t mean that- I mean sex. Sex in it’s purest form. She watched in awe sucking her straw absent mindedly, how she missed sex, passion, all of that. Continuing on she returned to the house with the child smoking. The girl smoking out of her window reminded her of herself when she was 12. The two met each others gazes and after another sip of her milkshake, our night walker gave the child a wink and weak smile as if to wish her good luck. And with that she continued on.

Pass the housing estates now and towards the outskirts of the town. Here lay abandoned warehouses and empty petrol stations. She had left the world of the living and entered a ghost town. She wondered through these buildings, half expecting to be raped or murdered- half expecting? Half hoping. Instead she met a stray cat. Black as her hair and undernourished, she let it have the remains of her milkshake and gave it a scratch under its chin. Just a couple of lost souls passing in the night. She extended her hand as she walked and felt the chipped bricks of the building. She liked to do this, touch things as she walked passed them, she imagined this would be how life would be if she was blind- she imagined it would be tremendous.

Leaving the ghost town and stray cat she climbed over a wire fence into the skate park. There was a single skateboard lying upturned on a ramp. She flipped it over and wiped the mud from it’s wheels. She took it to the top of the ramp and settled her feet onto it. Using her arms she propelled her way down the ramp, with arms outstretched as always. She was flying alone with only rolling wheels for company. She continued skating for another hour until moving on. She took the skateboard with her but did not ride it- she preferred to walk.

She was far away from home now and saw no sign of civilisation. Her thoughts briefly drifted back to her home and the fermenting clementines, forgotten and rotten. No. She was not there anymore, she wasn’t even in the same universe right now. Looking to her left she saw the beginnings of a wooden fence. Fantastic she thought, we’re nearly there. She stroked it as she walked, secretly enjoying the odd pain from loose nails. She giggled to herself until a shadow stopped her in her path. The shadow from the bushes slowly revealed itself to be a lone wolf. It stopped in the middle of the road and stared at her. She looked into it’s eyes with no fear- she was beyond that now. The two creatures stared for an eternity, (or two minutes, actual time). She felt no terror, no horror, just a pure calmness throughout her entire body. Here she was looking into the heart of a killer and she felt totally at ease. Was she dead? She must be, no living person could do this. The wolf lowered it’s head in pity and returned to the bushes in a blur of silver fur. She wanted to cry, to fall in the road and cry it all out- but alas, she was numb.

She climbed over the wooden fence and down onto the soft sands. She walked and walked, legs moving without prompt now, as if some force was controlling her limbs. As her toes touched the sea she stopped dead. She sat herself down on the wet sand and stared at the ocean like she had stared into the eyes of the wolf. Why wasn’t she cold? It was the middle of January and she wasn’t wearing shoes or socks- let alone a jacket or scarf. She should be shivering, hurting, aching for heat- but no. here she was motionless without a single goose bump. She wasn’t crying either, despite the desire to still raging through her. She wanted to scream, to run, to at least keep walking- but something had her rooted to this spot.

Her eyes followed the waves as they slowly lapped around her. She wondered what she would do if she saw a man drowning right now. Would she run to his aid, call an ambulance, attempt to save his sorry life? No she thought. I probably wouldn’t. her head began to ache, much to her pleasure. She loved her tension headaches, they were the one thing that linked her to the rest of humanity. She did suffer the delicious pain, she was human after all. Was this fresh pain serving as a reminder that she was still alive? Or just a dull ache to remind her she’s not part of this world anymore? She didn’t know, it hurt too much to contemplate.

Somehow she managed to pull herself up from the sand and onto her feet. She looked at the ocean with envy. She wanted to join her imaginary drowning man. She walked into the sea, the freezing waters doing their best to tempt a reaction from her weary body- notice the pain! Turn back! They screamed. She felt nothing. She walked on to the ends of the earth, hoping for some sort of salvation. Sadly all she found was the floating corpse of her once walking body. A tear fell for the first time. She smiled.