For today's entry, I want to talk a little about insults, lies and the effects they have on us. I'm terribly sorry if that's a rather negative subject for a blog post, but these are just some things that have been going through my head lately and so I thought I'd write them down.
    I'm not all that bothered by insults, really. I find that insults normally come in the form of a joke which may have hit a nerve, or things said in the head of the moment which aren't really meant anyway. So, for these reasons, I don't often let myself get offended if somebody says something insulting towards me because there was no ill will. Of course, there are exceptions of course (just as with anything). I think for me, or anybody else, insults carry the most weight when they're coming from the mouth of somebody who you trust and you would think understood the impact their words would have, but then again, most often it's still a case of things said in the heat of the moment and so best left ignored (though I understand that it may sometimes be difficult).
    Lies, on the other hand, are an entirely different can of worms (no, I'm only lying, they aren't worms at all. Sorry). I find that it is much worse to lie to somebody than it is to insult them because then it's a pre-meditated act of cruelty. If somebody says something that upsets you during the day, they probably didn't wake up in the morning and think "I'm going to say something mean to them today" while if somebody has realised there's something they don't want to be honest with you about, they probably have decided in advance that they're going to lie to you. It then brings into question whether or not they've lied without you knowing before, and just generally how honest they are with you. I think, the main thing is, that if you choose to lie to somebody, it shows a lack of respect and care for them. But, of course, if somebody does lie to you, that's no reason not to forgive them, or even trust them again.
    So, you can threaten to stab me, punch me in the face, pour vodka in my eye, but just don't lie! Not because I'd hate you for it, but because it would make me very sad.

This week, each of the three blog posts will be on a lecturer from one of my three years at Bath Spa University. So, today I'll write about one from the third year, Monday was one from first year and Wednesday was one from second year. Each of them has had a significant influence on me and my work and so I just wanted to dedicate a post to each of them. Today's will be on somebody named Colin Edwards.
    Despite being the person I'm writing about from third year, Colin was actually the very first member of the Creative Writing staff that I ever spoke to. Before I properly started, there was an induction week and during that Colin gave a lecture. Based on a prompt he gave, I wrote a short poem about missing my friends from The Corsham School, but also how I was happy to have made new friends. I can't remember what was said, and I'm sure he probably can't remember, but I had a short chat with him about something after the lecture was over. Curiously, it seems he may also turn out to be the last lecturer I speak to as well (albeit via email).
    Anyway, first and second year went by and I had heard positive Colin stories from my friends before having him assigned as my guiding tutor for my Creative Enterprise project. For that project I was polishing up my Finger Puppet Show webcomic, taking steps to make it more professional and so on. I have to admit, I was kind of in two minds about it: on the one hand, I have fun making it and had lots of ideas for it too, on the other, I thought, maybe it was too silly. Perhaps I should be focusing more on serious writing like short stories and novels (which I still work on, but of course, a degree of my creative energy has to go into the webcomic) and I wondered if Colin, as an English Literature professor, might feel the same. But, on the contrary, Colin loved it. His comments were extremely encouraging, and he especially enjoyed the ones that tackled social issues, which has then spurred me to think of several more storylines that cover those topics.
    I have to admit, as he didn't teach a class of mine, I didn't see that much of him, instead I just had a few one on one meet ups. But even from them I was still left with a very good impression because  Colin is such a nice and pleasant man, that his feedback was always eagerly awaited. I remember I’d often look forward to our meetings. I remember he said to me once too "There's something about you. You're just so incredible sane" and I thought that was very nice. The Creative Enterprise was one of my biggest projects for third year and I certainly couldn't have asked for a better guiding tutor than Colin.

(Don't miss today's Finger Puppet Show!)

This week, each of the three blog posts will be on a lecturer from one of my three years at Bath Spa University. So, today I'll write about one from second year, Monday was one from first year and Friday will be one from third year. Each of them has had a significant influence on me and my work and so I just wanted to dedicate a post to each of them. Today's entry will be on Anthony Nanson, and it just so happens that I had 'Anthony Nanson' in my blog's suggestion box a while ago, so with this post I'm also providing an overdue response to that.
    I was very lucky in second year because Anthony actually taught two of my modules, so quite a significant portion of my classes were taught by him. I remember in the first class I had with him, he arranged an activity for the whole class where we had to describe our writing in a single word. The word Anthony used to describe his word was 'ecobardic' and I would later learn all about the very interesting subject of ecobardism through him. However, at the time I thought he said 'Ichabodic' in reference to the obscure Biblical character Ichabod and for a short while I wondered what exactly he'd meant by that. But, anyway, that wasn't the only activity we did in his first class; we also did an unusual thing were we loosened our muscles and shook ourselves around and I was quite confident after that first class that I was certainly going to enjoy Anthony's teaching.
    The two modules he taught were the second year's Core (compulsory) class and Genre Fiction. His Core classes were extremely helpful is getting me to present myself as a professional writer and to understand the value of my writing talents, while the Genre classes always got me keen to try writing in a variety of styles. Often, at the end of the class, we'd all get a special treat and Anthony would tell us a story in the distinctive style for which he's known and I remember often hoping that he would as a class got to an end. One time, he even told the class about a live performance he was doing at a local theatre and so David Tubb and I both went along and had an absolutely marvellous time. I do hope I'll be able to attend another at some point.
    I think the second year at Bath Spa University may have been my favourite, and regular classes with Anthony are certainly a part of that. A prompt he gave in one of his classes lead me to produce a short story which I consider one of my best, he was kind enough to contribute a piece for this very blog and an upcoming Finger Puppet Show is an adaptation/retelling of a story I heard from him (he was even going to appear in it, but I'm not sure if that's still going to happen). My favourite memory of him will have be the time he said in a lecture “Sadly, nobody will ever know the story of the King of Bath… Until now” and then he stepped behind a screen for a second, then stepped out wearing a costume and delivered a monologue in character as the King of Bath. Needless to say, I feel very grateful that I had the opportunity to be taught by Anthony.

(Don't miss today's Finger Puppet Show!)

(Also, here's my latest article for Avoid Drowning it's about Conker's appearance in Project Spark.)

This week, each of the three blog posts will be on a lecturer from one of my three years at Bath Spa University. So, today I'll write about one from first year, Wednesday one from second year and Friday one from third year. Each of them have had a significant influence on me and my work and so I just wanted to dedicate a post to each of them. As you may have guessed, today's is about somebody named Emma Hooper.
    Emma taught the core (compulsory) module for Creative Writing in first year and it was those classes that convinced me that I had made a very good choice in doing a Creative Writing degree. This class was right in the middle of a nine hour day (11 a.m. to 6 p.m. of classes, plus at least two hours travelling all the way from Corsham to Bath) but I still always looked forward to this class because it was such a fun environment for developing writing.
    Emma herself always seemed to be especially full of energy and I imagine it was a great help for those who may not have been feeling entirely enthusiastic. I can't really put my finger on what it was, but while other classes would have writing prompts that weren't all that exciting, I remember that I was always eagerly writing up my piece to workshop in the next of Emma’s classes whereas with the others it was occasionally a bit of a chore. Perhaps it was because she gave such excellent and positive feedback, or perhaps it was the prompts that were excellent, I don't know, either way it got me to write more. In fact (and I know this because I list all of the writing I do) my year with that class is the most productive I've ever been writing-wise and I've been listing my writing since 2004! I’m sure that’s no coincidence.
    I remember once, I was wearing my Tetris badge (a kind gift from Chris Hunter) and she spotted it almost as soon as I walked through the door! That made me very happy. The same thing happened when I was wearing my Christmas badge too (she also held an excellent Christmas class too). I think the best thing was that she made every class member feel important and really encouraged everyone with their projects, while at the same time being a really fun person to be around. In one of the last lessons we were listening to music (working on song writing, I think) and she played the song "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen and it's quite a sad song, so I felt especially sad that the classes were coming to an end and whenever I hear it now it reminds me of those classes. As I’m sure you can tell, I'll always have extremely fond memories of my first year of Creative Writing with Emma Hooper.

Years ago, when I went to Corsham Regis Primary School, I remember being told very often by teachers and MDSAs that I was living the best years of my life. At the time, I was rather surprised, not because I was being overly pessimistic, but because I just assumed life would get better. Sure, life was nice, but I imagined it getting much better as I got older. Before long, the time came for me to leave Regis and so, of course, a big celebration assembly was arranged for me and all the other students in my year. We were all told to pick two cherished memories of Regis to say on stage. That was hard. I didn't really have any cherished memories. In the end I just picked an arbitrary conversation I remembered having with my friend Davey four years earlier and something about getting hurt while doing rock climbing.
    From there, I went on to The Corsham School. I was still occasionally told, though not as often, that these were the best years of my life and unlike when I was at Regis, I actually started to believe it. As I aged through my teenage years, I developed into the person I am today and formed strong bonds with lots of people who I'm still in contact with today. I had so much fun, and had I been asked to give two cherished memories of my time at The Corsham School, I'd have struggled, but this time the struggle would have been narrowing it down to just two. At the end of compulsory education, there was another big leavers' event, but I didn't really see it as an ending, because I had two more years there in the sixth form coming up. When I got to the end of the sixth form, however, I felt rather sad. The best time of my life really was coming to an end. Each of the year's tutor groups I had to make a presentation, and since my group wasn't very keen, I pretty much made the entire presentation myself. People found it hilarious, "wonderfully dry" the head teacher said to me afterwards, but there was actually a lot of emotion in it. I felt rather gloomy that day, really, as I watched all of the presentations. It really felt like life would never be that good again, I'd be going somewhere away from all my beloved friends and the routine I'd be used to for seven years would be gone forever.
    Then I went to Bath Spa University (today is officially my last day as a student). I loved it there. I met several new people and I grew to love them just as I did my friends from The Corsham School. I was expecting the worst, but then that turned out to be the time of my life. I've never been happier than during my time at Bath Spa Univerisity. I've been able to work a lot on my writing and to take it in a more professional direction which has been infinitely helpful. I've had such close, intense friendships with several people and I feel that I've been enriched as a person because of it. I recently found myself walking alone around the university's campus fairly late at night and I knew it would be one of the last times I got to be there. I felt so sad because all of the wonderful times of the past three years were running through my head and now it was over. I was feeling very emotional indeed and I wrote a few text messages to different people, trying to express the feeling, but I didn't send any of them because I didn't feel I could capture it in words. I slowly walked up to the bus stop and got onto the 15 bus. I love riding on the bus, but as I sat and looked out of the window, I couldn't enjoy this bus ride because I knew it was taking me away from my fantastic time at Bath Spa University.
    But while this is an ending, it's also a new beginning. I'm sure that in three years’ time (or however long it takes for the next change to come along) I'll be sad that the next 'time of my life' is over, because life just seems to get better and better as the years go by. As life goes on, endings get harder and harder, but we mustn't forget that each new beginning can be better than the last.

(Don't miss today's, related, Finger Puppet Show!)

I tend to find it extremely interesting to read about the writing habits of other writers and so I thought that the writers in the audience may enjoy reading about my writing routine. Not that I actually have any real writing routine, so to speak, but I'll talk about my habits nonetheless.
    Firstly, there are the regular posts here on the Trusty Water Blog. I never write an entry in advance, I always write them on the day (except book reviews, which are nearly always written on the day I finish a book and then saved). I suppose it seems a little reckless, but I've been doing this for over three years now and I still manage to find time on every update day. I took a break from updating for a couple of weeks in the early days because my laptop broke (if that happened now, I wouldn't stop) and other than that, I've only missed an update once so, I'm quite proud of that. Usually I have three vague ideas for the entries at the start of the week and then they may or may not end up being what I write. Sometimes I'll just be talking to a friend and then I'll be reminded of something that happened to me and then that'll be the entry for that day.
    Then there's the second of my 'public' works, the Finger Puppet Show. Unlike my blog, I fairly often do this in advance. Usually, at the start of a week I'll have the two strips already uploaded and ready to be automatically posted at 12 p.m. on Wednesday and Friday. Last summer, I actually had ten weeks’ worth of strips ready and waiting. That’s not to say I’ve never been up late the night before getting one finished! Oddly, despite it being a rather childish thing about talking animals, the inspiration for these often comes from real life. Sometimes I'll be in a conversation with a group of people and somebody will say something and then I'll think "Wouldn't it be funny if somebody replied with ..." and then I make that into a comic strip. At the moment, this might be the most fulfilling writing I do.
    Finally, there're my short stories. I've written 240 short stories of varying quality since 2004 and the 241st is in progress. As I like to list things, I noticed that when I started writing this blog, I also started writing fewer short stories, presumably because my creative energy had to be spread over a broader area and I've noticed that I've been producing fewer still since I started the Finger Puppet Show. Sometimes I'll think to myself that I need to focus less on the Trusty Water Blog and Finger Puppet Show and focus more on my 'real' writing, but I quickly reassure myself that that's silly. First and foremost writing should be a pleasure and if you're forcing yourself in any direction, your writing might be of lower quality. At the moment, I'll usually go weeks without doing any of this 'real' writing but then I'll get an idea, and these ideas usually come at about 3 a.m. and keep me up for hours, then the next day I'll write it all in one go, no matter how long it turns out. On the other hand I am currently working on a story that I've been slowly adding to for the last month or so. It's an idea I really like, but I always find myself doing other things, so I should probably focus on it more.
    I so often think to myself that I don't write enough, but I don't worry about it for long. Every writer I’ve known has expressed similar concerns to me about themselves at different times, and I think I know why. I tend to find that I just have an infinite number of ideas and no matter how much I write I still have loads of new ideas. Perhaps I, and others, feel that I don't produce work because any amount is small next to infinity. I'm sure this is true of most other artists (not just writers) too.

(Don't miss today's Finger Puppet Show!)

Just yesterday I was talking about drink driving with my brothers. I'm not going to make an entry about how or why drink driving is bad, because it's so very obvious, but while I was discussing it I thought of a way that the number of drink driving related accidents could be cut down quite easily. Why don't they just install breathalysers into cars? Not just arbitrary ones either, ones which are used to actually start up the car. If you're over the legal limit, the car won't start. Somebody be pressured into having a drink or two and be able to mentally reassure themselves that they're good enough drivers to get home and it will probably all be fine anyway. But if you knew your car would be stuck there all night if you drunk, you wouldn't do it. I don't imagine it would take much work for this to be added to cars either. Remember, years ago, cars didn't all have seat belts! So, I don't really see any real reason that they aren't added.

One nice new feature in Animal Crossing: New Leaf is the Dream Suite. The Dream Suite essentially allows you to visit a version of people's towns which is just a copy of their actual town. You can cut down trees and dig loads of holes, but that's all reset once you go. You're also unable to take items from dream towns. But, anyway, the reason I'm telling you this is because one of the towns is really creepy and mysterious. It seems to tell you the story of a little girl, neglected by her parents who then went on to kill all her friends at a birthday party (and maybe herself too?). There's a lot of room for interpretation as a lot of it is very symbolic. I took several photos of the place last time I went so you can all see it. If you have the game and would like to visit it yourself, the dream address is: 2600-0218-7298

Obviously, I haven't photographed everything, there is a lot more to it than these few pictures. I just wanted to show some highlights and to encourage people to visit themselves.

(Don't miss today's Finger Puppet Show!)

Lately, I've been playing a lot of Animal Crossing: New Leaf for the 3DS and it's very fun (I'll write a review at some point). One thing that adds to the enjoyment of New Leaf is the fact that a number of my friends also own the game as well and we often 'visit' one another in it in order to exchange items and so on.
    I've mentioned my friend Rhino Water before (I can't post his real name) and he is a big fan of the Spyro series of video games. His town in Animal Crossing is even called 'Dragon's' in reference to the series. Now, because of all that, he thought it only appropriate that his town flag be a picture of Spyro himself. Sadly for him, he wasn't that good at using the picture making feature in the game and so it wasn't that likely that he could get the flag.
    Wanting to be of help, I offered to try and make the flag design myself. However, while I may have been a little bit better at using the design feature in the game, I couldn't make one which was up to a standard I was happy with. A short while afterward, I was paying a visit to my friend Sophie's Animal Crossing town. While there, she showed me some designs she'd made herself of some Pokémon and of Link from The Legend of Zelda. These were of exceptionally high quality and I was very impressed. Could she be the solution to Rhino Water's flag problem? Well, I thought about it for a while and I almost wasn't going to ask her as I reasoned that it would be wrong to ask her to make a design (which would surely take some time) for somebody she doesn't even know. In the end I did ask her, but I also offered to pay one hundred thousand bells (which is the currency in the game and quite a lot too). Extremely generously, she made the design for free which was then sent over to Rhino Water's game and he loved it!
    Now, perhaps this sounds like a fairly mundane sequence of events, but I thought I'd write it down because I thought it was quite nice. Animal Crossing allowed my friend Sophie to do a kind thing for my friend Rhino Water who she'd never even met. It made him really happy and I'm very pleased that a video game connected people like that, and also that I was able to act as a link between the two of them.

(Don't miss today's Finger Puppet Show!)

When I started this blog I had just finished doing all of my A Levels (or, at most, I had one or two exams left) and was just working as an MDSA at my secondary school, The Corsham School. Now, just over three years later, I've finished up all of my Creative Writing degree and I've just been offered a position as an MDSA at my primary school, Corsham Regis School (or, Academy, as it is now).
    So it seems I've gone completely full circle. Just as it was then, the future is now uncertain. In 2011 I was waiting to see what grades I'd gotten and whether or not Bath Spa University would accept me or not. Now I'm waiting to see what grade my degree will be and thinking over the possible career paths before me. When I first started this blog, I was worried about losing contact with my friends and indeed, I've drifted away from some people and I now have little to no contact with them. Thankfully, I've stayed in contact with others though and, if anything, our friendships have been strengthened by their continuation even after our separation.
    Of course, at the time I was entirely thinking of not seeing people anymore, when the upside of it was that going to Bath Spa University meant that I met so many wonderful people (each word links to an entry about a different person) and now it's them that I worry I'll lose contact with. But still, I'm exciting. I've come full circle. I'm back where I was to start with and where I was to start with was on the brink of new and exciting changes in life.