The Word Cloud

There’s a time when the muse can creep up behind you and whisper sweet somethings in your ear. It can strike anywhere. Like a viper. Like a virus.

            It can be ignited by a scent, a sound, a snippet. By a random thought that infected you when you least expected it and yet suddenly you’re in its thrall, its chains wrapped tight, its padlock impenetrable.

            And that’s the time when you like it most.

            It drags you.

            It wrestles you away from the everyday, it strangles your hold on the now, snuffs it out, smothers you, breathes new air into you, replaces your cells with others that vibrate and rattle your bones, it rips at your skin and inserts Machiavellian notions of purposeful prose until you submit to its eager enchantments and forego other pleasures just to sate it.

            And that –

            Is when you love it.

Chapter 1- start The dream had come to an end… Why do I always dream of them?? I thought. I abructively started to sulk as I looked around the small room, the room in which I would never see again. Care isn’t a nice place, all care offers is a roof over your head. A safe place to be. “Misty Dawn!” My stern social worker shouted outside my door. “I know, I’m getting up!” I told her and I heard her sigh. “The taxi will be here in 30 minutes so HURRY UP!” She ordered. “Okay… Okay!” I said, her footsteps were heard moving across the carpet as she was moving onto another room. Misty Dawn, god, I hate that blasted name I thought as I put my top on. The taxi gave a short pip of its’ horn. I knew that was for me so I gathered my stuff together and put my trainers on. “Goodbye!” I paused and shouted up the stairs. “Bye Leonie!” Leonie was my best friend in care and I knew that I was going to miss her. I didn’t hear her reply. I carted my suitcase outside when I heard someone yell. “MISTY…. WAIT!” I heard my friend shout. I turned around; Leonie flung her arms around me. “I’m going to miss you so much!” Leonie cried down my left ear. “I will to!” I told her and tears ran down my cheeks. Both of our faces were red from crying. “Oh yeah, I’ve got something for you.” I handed her a keying with both of our initials under it. “Thanks this is for you!” She told me. It was a necklace with both of our names on. The taxi piped, obviously becoming impatient. “Goodbye… please doesn’t do anything stupid.” I said grabbing her wrists where she’d slashed at them about a year ago. “I might come back… and I wanna see you in one piece.” We laughed and I opened the door of the taxi. She waved at me as the taxi turned the corner and then I saw her smile vanish. Please let her be okay… The journey was long and uncomfortable. The roads were long and boring with nothing but fields and trees. I tried talking to the driver but he didn’t reply to any of my questions. The most interesting thing that I saw was a rabbit squelched on the road. I shook my head and tried to ignore the sickly feeling that was beginning to form in my stomach; I rolled the window down hoping it would pass. The wind made my hair feel alive as It twisted and swirled In the summer breeze. At least the landscape looked pretty with flowers dotted around the many fields that I passed. I should be happy as the summer holidays were so near. A sudden thought struck me like a chime of a clock. I’m going to be in boarding School for the summer holidays. I had been ordered to boarding school after being expelled from 3 schools in my local area. My social worker could no longer control me and my neighborhood thought of me as a bad influence. This resulted to a bad reputation. This was my last option available to me; the one that I was about to screw up. I hoped that “Cadmium School” had lots to offer, just like the leaflets said it had. The taxi started to slow down and the iron gates opened slowly. My thoughts were interrupted by the driver talking. “I’ve dropped many teenagers off here. They never came out the same. Most of them go mad after a while saying about “Trees and another world.” He said with a dark look. “Is that supposed to scare me?” I asked and he raised a nail bitten finger. “No. Just be warned… this school is haunted by history.” He paused. “Read worlds of them by Chris Walters.” “Right…” I cried. The taxi drew to a halt; I stepped out. “Thanks for the ride.” My belongings were by my side so I turned to face the building. The gray stone and cement made the large school look ancient. The small windows made the place look like it was a prison. I could just make out that the door had many interesting swirls carved into it; this backed up my theory that the building was old. If the garden hadn’t held flowers I would have thought that the building was derelict. The window frames were newly painted and there was a path leading up to the door. My legs stiffly marched up the path like I was a robot who had been connected to a remote control. I glanced down along the corridor on my left hand side; on my right was another corridor. Straight in front of me was a small reception area. My shoes clicked against the polished floor as I staggered towards the reception (leaving my suitcase by the entrance.) "Hi," I said. "I'm here to attend the boarding school." The women at the counter ignored me, so I tapped my fingers on the desk in front of her."Hello??" I wafted my fingers in front of her face and (finally) caught her attention. She removed her earphones and politely gave me a smile. "How can I help you?" She said in a strange Australian accent. "I've come to board!" I paused. "My name is Misty Dawn." Smiling back. Her fingers slid gracefully across the keypad of her computer. "You’re in dorm 5." The women said, reading from her computer. "Where’s that?" "Left hand side..." She was interrupted by a loud shout. “Who put these bags here?” Someone asked, I turned around, and a teenager was rubbing his calf. “Sorry…” I exclaimed. “Oh Josh…you’re in dorm 5 aren’t you?” The women asked and he nodded his head. “You can help Misty around then!” Josh was a middle age teenager with a very skinny body. Josh’s eyes were dark brown and his hair was jet black with jell that made the look casual. His skin was golden brown like he had been in the sun for too long. “I like your name!” Josh said, I noticed that his voice had broken. It wasn’t a rough voice; in fact it was kind of soothing. “I hate it!” I told him; I saw him look shocked. “What is matter?” “Nothing,” We came to a door; his fingers twisted the knob and it opened with a squeak. The room held two rooms. One was a boy’s dorm, the other was a girls. “Everybody is out at the moment…” Josh cried. My eyes traced the many beds that were accompanied with wardrobes. “This is the girls’ dorm then.” I said, raising my eyebrows. “Yeah,” We walked into another room. “This is the boys.” It was exactly the same as the girls. Josh walked to a bed. “This is my bed.” He paused. “If you ever need me…” “Okay. Where’s my bed?” I asked. He led me back where we came from. “Here!” Josh pointed, I noticed that it was the closest to the boys’ dorm, and smiled. The large hall was filled with faces that i didnt recongise. I started to become nervous, so I turned around and grinned at Josh. He looked quite happy at my expression, but he turned away from me and contiued his converstion with his mate. The hall went silent; nobody moved. A dall figure walked smartly down the isle that ran down the middel of the hall. The middel aged man wore black trousers, a white t-shirt and a muti-striped tie. "Good morning Cadium School!" He greeted, happily and (maybe) too chearful for my liking. "Good Morning Mr. King!" The hall said in a loud chorus. Oh my god...do we have to say that every morning??! i thought " I believe we have some new students in today!" The headmaster announced. "Could you please come out!" My blood turned cold as i imagined myself tripping up. I knew three of the new students. "Misty!" I heard them mumble. I grasped each of their hands. "Yes Mia." I greeted, smirking. "Yes Hannah and Rachel!" I said, continuing to grin broadly. Mia, Hannah and Rachel met me in my first school that I went to. Then the second and then the fourth, it was like they followed me everywhere. "Right, now that we know who are new-comers are lets give them a clap!" The man said and the hall did as he pleased. "How sad is this school!" i mumbled to Rachel, the other two giggled. "You haven't changed." Mia whispered. "No, Misty Dawn never changes." i said to them. "Weve been reunited... the Aces are back!" Hannah cried. The Aces were a group that had been formed over 3 years ago, having realised that we shared the same talent. Having realised that we shared the same interests. We all want to shire, to prove that we wern't that bad. But nobody had given us the chance. So nobody knew about our talent.

What we have here is a slice from my real life. Most of what I do is covered by confidentiality agreements and so I can’t reveal much about it. Some of it is priceless and I wish I could, but I can't. The events I am about to relate are, however, well in the public domain, just not given from my point of view. Until now, that is. I shall provide a link or two at the end for those who may want to read further, if I can follow Steve's recipe.

I was in recent times engaged in a dispute between a computer supplier and a TV broadcaster to provide technical advice to the lawyers, because the broadcaster was suing the supplier for rather a lot of money over the supply of a computer system. They were doing this because the project to design and build the system had gone horribly wrong, as these things do on occasion. However, they were so miffed, along with certain other legal necessities, that they decided they had been lied to about the capability of the computer system supplier to do the job and wanted enough money to run a small country in compensation.

Five years passed and rather than settle, as most such disputes do, it actually went to trial. The key witness, let’s just say an American gentleman in the employ of the supplier, had been the main negotiator at the time they won the contract and we had spent considerable time and effort in checking what he claimed, his spreadsheets, calculations, technical and business assumptions etc etc. Despite a certain propensity to feel somewhat nervous about the chap in general, for example I would not have been very happy were he to propose marriage to my daughter, we felt that what he had to say was true and defensible.

Which made it all the worse when, rather than attempt to destroy his evidence about the matters they had brought the case for the other side chose to discuss his academic qualifications. Don’t get me wrong, they attacked his evidence too, but not to the same spectacular effect. In fact his evidence stood up rather well.

Our man, you see, had but one academic qualification; an MBA from somewhere called the Concordia College in the US Virgin islands and they had a copy of his CV. Under questioning our man described the buildings, the classrooms, the course material and many other details of the course of study he undertook; and much much more. They kept him at it for seven days in all and kept returning to the MBA like a bit of sport every once in a while. He never wavered for a moment. It was a magnificent performance under enormous stress.

The great pity is that there is not a Concordia College in the US Virgin Islands. In fact there is a swamp in the location given. The opposing barrister, a Queen’s Counsel no less and a Spurs supporter to boot (which just adds insult to the injury) had obtained over the internet at a cost of a few hundred dollars an MBA for his dog, the now famously well qualified Lulu. In fact Lulu had achieved better grades than our man. My immediate stance that Lulu is not a proper dog’s name was not considered relevant; not that I voiced it outside the padded room against whose walls we were beating ourselves nightly during this torment

In consequence the judge elected to not believe a word that our man said and as in one or two places he was the only one saying it it rather destroyed our defence as can be seen 

here   and

here  

Obviously we did not idle our time away while this was going on, although by law we were not permitted to discuss his evidence with the gent we were shoving fingers in the dyke all over the shop. In the main we spent our time furiously cross checking what other witnesses, not likely to be so exposed, had to say on the serious matters. Unfortunately, there were some bits that only our man knew about. If you have read the links you will know that, for my client, this did not end well.

The issue in the end was vanity I suppose; and arrogance. In his spare time our man was something of a well known international poker player. Working in a company surrounded by first class degrees in computer science, business, etc etc he must have felt he needed some letters after his name. So he bought some and, being a poker player, decided to bluff his hand when the stakes went up. The problem was that the truth could be proved, as it eventually was.

One late and depressing night I proposed that we should find ourselves an expert in alien abduction. We could then present the possibility that our man had been abducted for a year and that his memory of the college was implanted to account for the missing time and to replace the memories of the dreadful experiments to which he had been subjected. My argument was that it was going to be rather hard to disprove, unlike the existence of the Concordia College. My proposal was judged not worthy and it was suggested that I return to my spreadsheets, where I was supposed to be. But I still can’t see what was wrong with it to this day, other than its not being true and our team being somewhat scrupulous about honesty. Waste of a perfectly good lie in my view.

This past week has been miserable, truly miserable. I was always convinced that I was a loner, a thinker, one of those anti-heroes from the movies who are grumpily saving the world while refusing to be civil or friendly. But I'm not.

I'm in Jerez de la Frontera, in the south of Spain, for a week by myself - just a week - and I'm already lonely. A trip funded by my own self-importance and desire for adventure, I've found that it's been the opposite of everything I imagined. I'm not a loner, just lonely; I'm a thinker, but I really want a break from my own company; and I'm certainly not someone who lives off shunning people.

Some of you will quite rightly point out that I'm 27 and that I should have grown out of trying to be like a character from the movies, like Indiana Jones or Wolverine, but I guess it's been ingrained since my youth. The truth is that I admire them for their ability to be independent, to walk through life with only their thoughts for company.

You see, I'm an extrovert. I love being with people, huge groups of people, for as long as possible. It sounds like attention-seeking, but it's not. Or maybe it is. But somehow, as a human being, I depend on social interaction to sustain me. Without it, I feel like I'm going mad. I'm sat in my hotel room now, writing this blog whilst my extroverted self is frantically trying to pull down the walls inside of me.

So I have my heroes because I want to be able to be independent from people, like they are, but I can't. I want to not have to rely on people, but it's not possible. Without people, I would go crazy.

The irony is that I came here to write a story set in Cadiz and, although the trip has been invaluable for setting and plot, I have had no inspiration for my writing, nor even any desire to write. How shocking. How disappointing. But I have no doubt that, after I've returned home and spent a few nights with good friends, the juices will flow again and I'll want to lock those same friends out and write for a while. Then I'll need to see them again. People give me energy, passion, desire. I want to be self-reliant, but I can't.

Some of you, of course, will think completely contrary to me. You will admire the people who are the centre of everyone's attention, who draw laughter or engage an audience without even trying, while you curse your inability to socialise. You long to be the extrovert, despising the fact that you draw your energy from being alone. You cannot stop yourself being introverted, but you damn well fight it.

Sadly, you are, and always will be, the introvert. And I will be trapped in my own head until I can escape Jerez.

I am one unhappy bunny.

Ever since the start of last year, myself and my friends have been planning a short holiday together.

The idea was, that my one friend Rachael drives three people and my other friend Lucy drives two. It was all set, the hostel was booked, we were happy. I had asked Lucy and Rachael again and again that they were happy and comfortable driving and every time they said yes.

However.
Like all the best laid plans, it went to absolute hell in a handcart. Rachael's car died like two days before we are due to go and Lucy suddenly starts to get annoyed that she's going to have to drive.

& to top it all off, when I go to her "oh it's all gone down the drain." she adds insult to injury, (after just whining at me about driving), by going "alice everyone is trying to do their best, I think you should really be more positive."

What the preverbial heck!?

Not only that, but my stupid sister who has drank all of our coca cola, is insisting that I drank it.

Sometimes I hate people and even a holiday wouldn't make things any better at all. Holiday for one?

If truth be stranger and more curious then fiction I'm finding it very difficult indeed not to write real people into my novel. I mean just how do you do it? Please help! How do you create characters that are nothing like the people you have met in your life? It's impossible surely? I guess you do the obvious of course-you change names and descriptions. And you should steer away from real conversations you have had. But that's one of the hardest temptations I'm having to resist-conversations. Some real conversations I have had would make great dialogue when put into the mouths of my characters. There's one particular character in my novel who is based on someone that I once had a bit of a fling with in my youth. In real life the sex was OK-nothing earth shattering but if I make him in my novel out to be an absolute sex God would I be forgiven for using the odd bit of conversation? I'm being a little tongue in cheek here but maybe it could be about a question of balance. Many first novels have an autobiographical element and mine is no exception. The Mother of my protagonist is very like my real one. She's of a similar background with similar life circumstances so how the hell do I write without offending my own dear Mother?? I'm finding it so hard to separate my characters from real people which is probably the sign of a bad writer but maybe with a bit of practice and some advice from you guys I can avoid an expensive law case but most importantly not upset those I love and care about.

I think it was Oscar Wilde who once said "There's only one thing worse than being talked about .....and that's NOT being talked about." Have I got that right? Anyway I just love that quote. Sometimes I feel quite happy with it because at least if you're being talked about you must have something interesting about you even if it is negative! At least you inspire a reaction in people.

There's another quote which I love too taken from a poster that was up in an office I used to work in. it read:

Small people talk about other people
Average people talk about things
Great people talk about ideas

If that is the case then I am sometimes a great person but I have to admit I do love to talk about people. I mean we all do though don't we? Especially as I am a woman. We love it. Show me a woman who says she doesn't EVER gossip and I will show you a liar!

As a writer I HAVE to be interested in people and what makes them tick and I am sure you will relate to this too. The meaning of the word gossip has changed over the centuries from it's original definition of "kindred relation" to empty talk.  Now the Oxford English Dictionary definition of gossip is  casual conversation OR unsubstantiated reports about other people. Therefore I would say that the former is human nature-we all talk about other people and the latter is the bad thing. So gossip I think is only a good thing if we're not maligning people or spreading rumours. I've probably just stated the obvious I know but maybe we all need to be reminded from time to time about what is acceptable gossip and what is not.

Some people dream of fame but I'm so glad I am not as I think I would be having nervous breakdowns every day with the amount of gossip you get in today's media.I think that is an utter scandal in itself and people like the paparattzi and  gossip columnists should bow their heads in utter shame making a living out of other people's misery. It's worse than it's ever been.


 As long as gossip isn't malicious or maligning it can be a good thing surely. For example I really want to have a gossip about one set of neighbours on my Close to another! The reason being that one set of neighbours are being utterly grumpy sods with us these days. They've suddenly gone from being really nice to really grumpy and almost shunning me and my partner. I've tried the proper route by talking to them direct but to no avail. Now if I were to talk to the neighbours on the other side about them I may discover something useful like Bob and Linda are grumpy sods because Bob lost his job or someone in their family died. That way I would understand what is going on and I wouldn't want to gossip about them anymore!!!!

Anyway I guess I'll keep on gossiping (in the "interested in people" sort of way) because if I didn't I don't think I would have much to write about!
"Hell is other people" John Paul Sartre once said and when it comes to malicious gossip they are. But I think just talking about other people generally isn't so "small" after all.  

'Til next time,
 Jazzgirl

I can write my mouth off (when the inspiration strikes) but people seem more likely to talk when you voice a opinion--oh I don't know--on religion. The biggest con since paying for water, ice or the requirement to spend three to four years at university to gain a bit of paper over some random ass subject.

You point any opinion towards Religions pointless tirade of being helpful towards those in need, yet somehow, it is the cause of more wars then I care to consider. Christians "Let us burn those who do not conform to our beliefs"....actually I have the biggest problem with Christians when you consider they're the kind of religion who populised the method of  "Destroy those who do not believe" instead of "You believe what you want and we'll leave".
 
Richad Dawkins is logical and makes sense when he blasts anything outside the realm of science (good for him), nice to consider he's married to the woman who Romona 2 in Doctor Who.

George Carlin knew what was what, knew that everything of religion was a waste, was pointless, was a disesed type thing to exist within the realm of human thought. All religion's are wrong and honour fictional ideas, I rather follow the commandments of Fairy Tales, thou shall not build a house from sticks, thou shall not cast away the wolf before he has consumed my grandmother, thou shall--fuck this. Bottom line, if I declare myself to follow that type of religion, I'll be considered unhinged but honouring a man in the sky is perfectly acceptable.

Let the world be a realm of science, free of religious ideas of fearing a god--get this--loves us so much to have so many bad things happen to good people. Enjoy your one sided relationship, where you're the beaten housewife and he's acts completely free of guilt while--and get this again--loves you very much to keep you on the strainght and narrow.