Writing isn't a cure..

Popular chick-lit writer Marian Keyes posted a newsletter on her web site this week, admitting her ongoing battle with depression. She went on to explain that she'd be taking some time out, and unsurprisingly in the age of understanding, there was an outpouring of support on her web site.

Inevitably there'll be holier-than-thou types that berate her, and comment that depression seems to just be 'fashion' etc, these days. Believe me, I've heard it all over the years, and while they never stop irking me, I've come to expect that attitude.

But this comment from Margaret Drabble (Guardian) really rattled my cage.

"Marian Keyes, in speaking out about her current desperate state, is already moving on. She is a writer and she will probably write her way out of it. That's what writers do."

To use her own ludicrous logic, there are no words to describe this woman's ignorance. Someone already commented on the piece but I will reiterate it here - Sylvia Plath did well to write herself out of depression, didn't she? Yes, she put out some food for the family then put her head in the oven.

She also puts the current openness of depression sufferers down to fashion. Really? Audicity, much? I think you'll find that most people feel able to be open now because of the general acceptance level going up - NOT because there is a bandwagon to jump on. And even if there were, who the hell is Drabble to take away a chance for depressive people to feel better?

And anyway, anyone who has suffered with any form of mental illness, will tell you that there aren't words to describe how desperate the feelings can get sometimes. It's as simple as that, there ARE no words. And if it were that simple to get over, there'd be a very rich person sitting on a basic and powerful cure.

It just angers me that in a world that popularizes all sorts of cultures, a rambling, knowledge-less journalist would cheapen the chance that any sufferer takes to feel better.

I've never been a fan of Marian Keyes' books - but I feel thorough pity and empathy for her. Hope she's back in business soon.

Links:
Guardian article: HERE

Marian Keyes' blog posting: HERE

New year, new promises

It's a truth universally acknowledged that with the arrival of January 1st, comes a hoarde of resolutions from far and wide, slumped into one huge pot of broken promises that suddenly seem more relevant because "time is renewed". It's annoying bandwagon, but one that I am of course going to jump on and bore people with. Though I don't call them resolutions. More... targets. Makes it sound a bit more fighting.

Write more.

Here, there, everywhere. I want to blog more, at least twice a week, more if possible. There is so much I want to say both in the fiction and reality arenas and the only way this is going to happen is by forcing myself to write a whole lot more.

Take care of myself

I can't work at the moment because of a health problem that has no current solution. I'm in pain a lot of the time and always tired. Wherever this ends up leading, I will tackle it head on, and manage my time so that I devote enough of it to finally getting my body in its best condition. And yes, this means quitting smoking and cutting right down on alcohol.

Learn and master a new skill

I don't know what this is yet, and chances are that I won't know until later on this year. I'm not going to be specific about it, for all I know it could be knitting, drawing comfortably with a graphics tab, basic photography, learn the world's capital cities. I want to be able to say I've put my mind to something and learned a new skill.

Don't dream it...be it.

I've tried on several occasions to turn my hand at modelling. Shoots I have done have always come back with great results and fantastic feedback from photographers, but then I don't chase anything up. It's been this way for about five years now. I enjoy it, and I'm still young enough to try new things with regards to it. I'm learning to love the way I look, so I want to celebrate that and work hard to achieve something, even if its just getting my pictures printed somewhere, just a one off.

Stop obsessing about getting off my meds

It might happen this year, it might not. I've finally learned that the important thing is to learn to live with myself the way I am NOW, rather than spend too much time thinking about wanting to get to know the person I could be when I'm not medicated.

And as with last year, I hope this year brings me the opportunities to meet new people, some in one-off chance meetings, others might wind up imprinting themselves on my heart long enough to become a friend. But I've learned how to interact with people now, I'm not the shy, bullied little girl I was in school. I've come this far, and there is no way in hell I'm giving up now.

Happy New Year.

Semi-annual rant

Well, I would have put all of this crap in several hundred tweets on Twitter, but I feel a full-on rant is needed to cleanse me of my recent mind-blockages. I'm going to be a pedantic fuck and put everything under neat little headers. We don't all have to be neanderthal about our outpourings now, do we?

Bon Fucking Jovi

Yup. It's happened, as I suspected it might one day. I have fallen out of love with the New Jersey rockers that have shaped so much of my life so far. But after Lost Highway was such a disappointing album they had everything to prove with The Circle. And what did they give us? An album of regurgitated tosh that is ripped off most of their old stuff, clearly just pumped out of the music industry machine, so they can justify making huge amounts of money from a tour where they charge fans extortionate amounts of money to see them from even a huge distance away. Then charge REAL fans (said with tongue firmly in-cheek) a gastronomical amount of money to get close to the fucking sell-outs. Not happy. Crue, you have my heart.

There are NO MORE Christmas songs

Having dragged my exhausted self out of bed this groggy Sunday morning, switched on TV to discover a rundown of 50 best Christmas songs. Now, my favourite festive tune always has been the original Band Aid single, Do They Know It's Christmas?. I'm talking the 1984 version here (it was at number 1 when I was born). This happened to be playing when we switched over. Then imagine my disappointment to see it at numer 27. Nay mind, I thought. There are, after all, a great deal of Christmas songs. However, two tunes later, meaning MORE HIGHLY RATED than this yule classic - Cheeky Girls "Have a Cheeky Christmas". Mortified, horrified, but more importantly, unsurprised at the lack of integrity remaining in the music industry. I for one will be purchasing RATM's Killing In The Name in a bid to push it towards the "coveted" number 1 spot on the big day later this month. Fuck you Simon Cowell, you ruined entertainment.

Girly-girly-cutespeak

I've spent a long time building up my vocabulary, and it grows by the day. I like to think that when people meet me and converse with me that they think I am an articulate woman and respect me. But there is something that has superseded this in terms of like, love, desire and respect. Cutesy speaking. First witnessed it on a forum I used to use around a year or so ago. Grown women my age and often older would say things with a z at the end, with the seemingly innocent enough intention of making it sound fluffy. So hugs, became 'hugglez'. (Yes, sorry for overuse of quote marks here, but sorry, I cannot bring myself to say these are real words). Another one that appeared to grow out of control was 'plox' which I recently discovered means please. 'Lulz', 'oh em gee', 'nom' (and its derivatives), 'woot' are examples of the spawn of this horrific phenomenon. The worst thing about it? Men seem to eat it the fuck up! On several occasions I was set upon by males of the aforementioned forum for turning my nose up at a 20-something woman saying "snufflez... plox gimme hugglez, nomming choc would help" or something juvenile like that. Men apparently think it's sweet and endearing. Of course, these girls can swivel on a sixpence with their language use and tell a guy she can "choke on his dik till he screamz" to become purring sex vixens.

Now, before I come off like a jealous hag that I don't get attention like these army of net-cute-speak lasses, I would like to stipulate the reason it fucks me off is because I like a companion to have a good range words, some imagination. Male or female. And as I said, I work hard to make sure that I am always learning new things. Engaging new words that I can then use, on person, and online. I don't buy the "it's easier to type short words" argument. Nope. We all write covering letters on computers these days and do we start "Dear Sirz"? No. We don't. Past caring how I'm perceived for my stance on this, because quite frankly, I am disinclined acquiesce to comment on juvenility.

Ageism/discrimination in general

Two things I would like to say to people I work with/customers I serve. Number ONE. I am nearly 25, this does not make me too old to understand that it's hard being young. Fuck off. Number TWO. My hair colour does not make me fair game for creepy come-ons/satanist accusations. Point and whisper all you like. But I don't walk up to you and ask you if your prostitute mother let her pimp rape you now, do I? Grow some tact.

I really should put an extreme content warning at the start of these things, but being myself and backwards in forward thinking... here it is now.

CONTAINS SWEARING AND OFFENSIVE MATERIAL.

Until next time.

The kids aren't alright...

So, sex education is to become compulsory after the age of 15. I am aware that this is now old news, but there have been many waves of opinion from various MPs, journalists, TV presenters, teachers etc.

My absolute favourite of these was Mary Wakefield's column in last Saturday's Independent. Now I usually am fairly tolerant of broadsheet columnists because their editors are generally cufflinked facists. But Wakefield has some rather interesting (read stupid) points to make as far as sex education in schools is concerned. I quote:

"Where's the need for sex ed in the 21st-century Britain? There's sex on movie screens, on billboards, in magazines; sex in pop songs trickling down iPod wires straight into auditory cortices of every sentient tot."

Ok, she has a point about sexual content being easily accessed, but that's as far as my agreement goes. With a culture that shifts at the pace ours does, there surely has to be the flexibility in a child's upbringing. It's just a fact of life now that children aren't as innocent as they were. They are exposed to unconventional things much earlier in life with the evolution of the family unit; divorce, same-sex marriages, step siblings. Of course it would be lovely if we could raise our kids as beautiful cherubs right up until they hit adolescence and THEN teach them how to live as an adult, but the truth is that kind of excuse just won't wash today.

I read a very interesting article in the Times, it's a long one so I'll just link it HERE. Dutch kids at the age of 12 display blase attitudes as they talk about anal sex, masturbation and the age of consent. They live in a place where the red light district isn't just a Saturday night cat-call, it's a way of life. So you'd expect there to be far more debauchery among their young, right? Wrong. They have the lowest teen pregnancy rate in Europe, with the average age of a teen losing their virginity being around 17. I don't need to remind ANYONE of the figures for Britain.

And look at the way we do things - parents would rather plonk their kids in front of Eastenders or Coronation St, where we see young actresses often portraying young mothers being glamourised in relevant awards shows with accolades going to the "sexiest soap star". I agree that parents should be wanting to protect their children from certain things, but I find myself right back at my previous point that times have changed, and I cannot stress that enough.

Children are impressionable. If they see an adult become awkward and protective at the mention of anything sexual, they are going to be even more confused about it, far more likely to avoid placing that adult in the same situation again, and god forbid they might actually want to approach a parent with a query about why they see big brother pitching a tent more often in the morning than any other time of day.

Knowledge doesn't mean action. Just because people might know how to fire a gun doesn't mean they're going to sod off and massacre a small town in rural England. Until we can sit down with children and treat them in accordance with the way our lives are led in the 2000's, there is still going to be debate on the soaring figures of teen pregnancies, STIs, and horrified broadsheet journalists' hearts breaking at the lost innocence of childhood.

Grow up, it's only sex.

Girls are no longer girls

Anyone who was anywhere near adolescence in the late 1990s will remember the girls pictured to the right. B*witched. One of the many pop acts of the 90s that make me smile whimsically when I see them, or hear them mentioned. While watching some old music videos recently, this one cropped up and it really did just strike me how different girl groups are just 10 years apart.

For example. Girls Aloud. Yeah, it was fairly inevitable that I was going to use them as the benchmark. While pop music isn't really my passion of choice, I do appreciate a good pop song and there's no doubt that Girls Aloud have had more than a few during their stint in the UK music scene. Clearly more of a longevity thing than B*witched. But my pang of sadness was for the lost innocence of girliness. Putting on your jeans, hanging out with friends, singing about tying boys up in treehouses (yes, bad analogy). Look at Girls Aloud.

I don't even need to post a picture of them, they're eponymous with sexiness, seduction and desire as far as a lot of people are concerned. Surrounding their pop careers is the unstable and delectable details of their personal lives, how they stay "skinny" and what footballer is flavour of the week. Magazines fawn over what they are wearing, how skimpy the outfits. I accept that times will evolve. Things change. But I can't get past the obviously sinister undertones of placing so much emphasis on physical appearance.

For example, Cheryl Cole's solo debut on the X Factor was nothing short of vocally weak. She sounded out of her depth, and I get the feeling that most X Factor winners would blow her out of the water. But she was hailed as a success, the leading line being "Cheryl looked hot..." or some other derivative of the stupidly tiny outfit she was wearing clinging to her rail-thin frame.

When B*witched performed on Top of the Pops, or SMTV live, yeah it was cheesy. But it was music. Four girls singing (or, ahem, miming) while jumping around having a bloody good time. But yes... now it's about the show. If you can mime, while looking smoking in a latex one piece, then you're practically halfway there. Doesn't help with halfwits like Simon Cowell being a fickle tart.

I know I sound like a fat, bitter and jealous woman. I have to say that the only thing I am jealous of is the bank account that these waifs come home to. I'm a normal sized woman (size 10 thank you very much) and I'm not bitter that I didn't chase fame.

On second thoughts I can breathe fire through my nostrils....

Feministic Tendencies

I've a line that I would like to draw, blur it, then throw it away. That would be the one between being a strong-willed woman with fighting spirit, and being a bitch.

I witnessed an incident in an old job (that shall remain nameless) whereby a junior member of staff was pulled up on a few minor mistakes, and during this exchange, the female superior asked if there were any personal reasons that she should know about that might be affecting the junior's performance.

Speaking with the girl later, she remarked "How DARE she ask that, what a bitch!". At the time I agreed. But in hindsight, I believe that this was probably quite a diplomatic way of approaching a member of staff that had made numerous mistakes, no matter how small. There are several occasions where I have wished for such an approach from authority. But then, would I also take the standpoint my former colleague had?

In essence, this really is just another rant about how hard women have to fight in the world to be taken seriously, but then this fight must be reigned in at the right moments, lest we be labelled bitches. I for one can't stand having to be pigeon-holed - but it happens. And I work hard to try and make sure that I achieve a balance of polite, shrewd and ambitious, but friendly, approachable and intelligent, but not arrogant. It's hard. But there's something I have learned in the past year or so... I can't keep working THAT hard.

Who am I kidding. I'll slap a whimsical but hardened smile on, pull on some smart (but not arrogantly priced) shoes.

Ain't life fucking grand when you have tits.

Riding High

Finally got myself a horse to ride out the recession - a job. It's only part time, and it's not my career choice, but it's something I have done before, and something I am passionate about. I now work a the flagship HMV store in London's Oxford Circus. It's always crazy busy, and there's a lot of people that work there. Not to mention the sheer size of the store. But I'll get there. I've got a far stronger mind than my body could ever be.

It did make me think about the recession, and just how bleak it is behind closed doors. My favourite shop on Oxford St was always Borders. I could genuinely lose a couple hours in there, perusing the shelves, reading chapters as a taster, having a coffee, learning things from random reference books. Now it's gone. Apparently it's been in trouble for some time, suffering the undercurrent of the supermarket chains, undercutting them on prices. Which I think is so desperately sad. Supermarkets meet their supply demands from external suppliers that I don't think are affiliated with publishing houses, now, I'm not sure how accurate that is, but if it is, then publishers are losing money. Or at least not making as much as they used to.

I don't know what I'd do if publishers started going out of business.

I know that the futureheads of the world might start moaning that I should get with the times... it's all about ebooks. Reading stuff online. Hm. I can't get on board with that I'm afraid. Of course, bringing reading to a new audience is never going to be a bad thing. But I just cannot deny myself the pure pleasure of finding a book I've been itching to read, buying it, getting home, and turning those all-important first few pages. That feeling of having the labour of the author there, in front of you - in physical form.

I just hope that like some industries, the publishing industry can come out the other side of this dull time with something to smile about. Sure, it looks really shitty at the moment. But I am confident that I am not alone in wanting it to survive more than most industries.