Ya haaarrrr, me hearties!

[chibikelzafox]

Blimey. All my posts of late have been Twitter posts. You know what? I'm not sure I like it, having all my tweets posted automatically onto here. Not because I don't like you all seeing my tweets - quite the opposite - it's because this is supposed to be a journal, dammit, not a Twitter feed. So I think I'm going to go ahead and disable Twittinesis. Those of you who would like to continue reading my tweets, you'll find me on the Twitterverse under the wonderfully obscure name of @ SirKelsalot. I can usually be found slaying malware or going on about how much better the world is with sandwiches in it.

I've had a thoroughly uneventful start to the New Year. Apart from the partial eclipse faffery the other day, not a lot has gone on. I've been working away at my voluntary job and I had an interview in St. Helens which gave me an excuse to raid the record shop before going home. I haven't written much, I've drawn a bit. I've listened to music, bathed, slept a lot, had one or two weird dreams - just the usual, really.

I seriously, desperately need to get off my arse and start my novels up again. I miss them terribly.

Another thing I need to do is start saving. The last thing I want is to reach September and find that poof! I have no money, I'm still in England and term starts in three days!

Tomorrow is the very first day of my Prince's Trust adventure. We're gonna be tripping over mountains, gallivanting about and painting things... for the community! And I'm very excited for it, I must admit. Not just for the experiences I'm sure to have, but to see what a positive impact my team will have. According to The Prince's Trust website, the 12-week programme involves...

• Spending a week away at a residential activity centre
• Undertaking a project based in their local community
• Completing a work placement
• Participating in a team challenge, involving caring for others
• Staging a team presentation, during which they recount their experiences

The residential sounds awesome. That kind of thing is right up my street. From what I've seen, it involves a lot of teamwork to help the group bond, outdoorsy stuff like mountain walks... if you know me well, you know that I absolutely adore mountain walks. The community project and work placement sounds pretty exciting, as well, and I can see how it can be valuable - gaining important skills, along with a sense of how good it feels to give something back to the community. I'm really looking forward to the team challenge, caring for others. when I did my interview, Tim showed me a video, and seeing how the team spoiled a group of the elderly was really touching - I nearly cried.

As for the presentation bit - well, we all know what a geek I am for presentations.

I should probably talk a little about my projects. I have a title for the second novel in 'The Chronicles of Stan' - it will be called 'Tea-Time With Vikings'. I find it appropriately silly and irrelevant, and shall have great fun making it a believable part of the story. Zurie and I have also decided to collaborate on something; a graphic novel called 'The Ballad of Haymarket Platform Zero'. This one will be in the works for a while as we've both got a lot going on (being busy writists and all, we spend far too much time being witty), but I assure you all it will be awesome. When it finally arrives, that is.

I've started a sketchbook for 'The Ballad of Haymarket Platform Zero', so as time progresses you'll be seeing many images and scans being uploaded. It depends on how fast I work.