He likes what?!

Despite this journal having a readership of one... although maybe it will become more eventually, or possibly I have a secret stalker I don't know about... but that is beside the point. In spite of the fact that no-one beside myself views this sad little corner of the internet, I would like to promote to you all a little piece of silliness that restores my sanity just by looking at it. I wish to present to you the website "I firmly believe that Mr Tulkinghorn likes muffins", generally found at http://www.loggods.com/pestilence/tulkinghorn/home.html. It is a delightful piece of whimsy (and you know how much I like whimsical things!) and it is just so funny.

Granted, it takes a fairly extensive knowledge of "Bleak House" to fully appreciate it. Not to much a sense of the ridiculous. But since I have the latter in spades, it is matters very little whether I have the former or not. But how can you not be amused by such a line as "Perhaps you missed the subtleties of what occurred during each jam-packed (strawberry jam, I assume) episode." I grant you in isolation, it is merely amusing, but in the context of the whole website, it is hilarious. In fact, the whole site is hilarious. I mean, a website dedicated to the idea that one of Dickens' most despised characters could have a secret yearning for good muffin is incredibly amusing, is it not?

A Little Comedy of Errors

Every week I send out an email newsletter for a club that I am part of. And every week, without fail, there is something that goes wrong - a piece of information that is missing, a late submission, an mistake in a time or a date... There's always something.

This week there were two things...

• Despite contributing to the newsletter almost every single week, there is one guy who always manages to update the website at the exact time that I am sending the newsletter off. This frustrates me immensely. I can't keep checking the website all night for updates and I send this newsletter at the same time every single week. Yet, every week I feel guilty, feeling certain that if I had just checked the website one more time, the late change could have been included.
• This week, there was a document to be attached to the newsletter. Unbeknownst to me (being merely the secretary), one of the senior club organisers had promised several people the registration form would be attached to the newsletter. When I came to attaching it, however, I found it wouldn't open properly on my computer without crashing my Word program. So instead of emailing the organiser back and letting him know the problem, I just ignored because I have an assignment due tomorrow and this crashing Word business was scaring me. So I sent the newsletter off without it.

One small newsletter. One of the many millions of emails some people may receive in the inbox each week. But every issue has its own story.

Breaking the Habit

It's always hard to kick a habit - or in this case, an obsession.

I am a Fanfiction Addict. I admit this, freely and openly. However, from now on I am hoping to say I will be a Reformed Fanfiction Addict.

I love to read. From the age of about 3 or 4 - I think - obviously my conscious memory isn't particularly good on this stage of my life - I began to read. And I would read everything. By age 6, I was practically devouring books from my school library. Anytime I could, I would read.

In high school, however, I began to find myself a bit short on time to sit down and read a whole book. At the same time, unfortunately, I discovered the internet, and the treasure trove of reading material available here - long, short, fiction, non-fiction... anything I wanted to read, right at my finger tips. And soon enough, I discovered that Holy Grail of FF on the net, the originally named 'Fanfiction.net'....

Hours upon hours of my time during the last few years have been consumed reading creative genius from all around the world. I've helped critique it, edit it and even write it. I've branched out from plain old FF.net to some of the more specialised sites out there - too many to name, though the Derbyshire Writers Guild (DWG) and Longbourn Loungers deserve a special mention as my favourite haunts for the past couple of years. But my addiction to fanfiction has grown to a point where I feel that it is seriously impinging on my life, in several areas.

Worst of all, is that I know that I sometimes place feeding my habit over really important things, like spending time with God. I don't know who will be reading this, but let me explain. I believe that the most important thing I possess on this Earth is a relationship with God, the creator of all things. And I want to invest time in this relationship, by seeking to know God, through prayer and reading the Bible. (If you disagree or agree with my beliefs, feel free to comment, but do so politely. Please treat me the same way you want to be treated when discussing your beliefs.)

There are other relationships that suffer too. I wonder sometimes if I am a stranger to my parents. Do they miss me, when I am at my computer, giggling away at a witty line in a story written by someone halfway across the world? I send her encouragement and ask her how she is. Have I asked them yet?

I know my work suffers, as I slip off into daydreams of the latest land I have just read about, or sneak onto the net for another fix, even when I know I shouldn't. And my health, as I spend hour upon hour of precious sleep time trawling the net for 'just one more story, before I go to sleep'.

I am not saying fanfiction is a bad thing. It is wonderful that so many young people are writing and reading, in a generation hooked to the audiovisual. It gives young dreamers like myself a creative outlet - a place to fly free and invent (although still safely tied to the canon of whatever world you are writing in...) But like almost everything, it must be done in moderation. When it begins to feed upon your life, you know you need to break free. And breaking free for me has to mean breaking all ties. Or that one story will lead to another, and then another, and another...

Welcome to the Land of Blog?

I'm not even sure why I am starting a new blog... It is completely unnecessary - a downright waste of time, in fact, as I have too much to do as it is, without even spending more time pouring out my soul into the vacuum that is the internet.

Oh dear. I've begun to sound quite depressed.

You may be surprised to learn, wide world, that I am not actually depressed. In fact, I am quite the opposite. In the past two years, I have discovered even more joy in my life than I knew was possibly. I have found the love of community of people united by a common hope and faith, and friendships that run deeeper than I thought possible.

And now I've decided I'm going to grow up a little bit. Not that I'm going to stop having fun. But it is time for me to start taking a lot more responsibilty for how my life is lived - and who it is lived for. And I want to be able to keep my promises to myself and to Him. It's very easy to keep promises to other people, you know. If you don't, you know you'll be wracked with guilt and shame for days afterward, and they may never speak to you again. But a promise to yourself? Who cares?? We don't respect ourselves enough to keep these kinds of promises. And promises to God? Well, at the time of fulfilling the promise, He always seems a long way away, doesn't He? But He's not, is He? And He sees and He knows. Thank goodness for grace.