Jan 14 2013

A New Year’s Revelation

Posted on January 14, 2013 by Jo and the Novelist

It’s the start of a new year. There are lots of people jogging (everywhere, all the time), because it’s that time of year where we punish ourselves for our vices and decide that by this time next year, we will most definitely be a much better person.

I tell myself to be a much better person at the beginning of every week, never mind the beginning of every year. And every time I decide to go forth and become an infinitely better person, the whole thing quickly falls apart and I soon end up feeling much worse than I did to begin with.

This year, I’ve decided not to set myself up for failure and I haven’t made any New Year’s resolutions. There are two reasons I always totally flunk at New Year’s resolutions:

1. I expect to see changes in myself almost immediately after deciding that I’m going to change.

2. My resolutions tend to be a bit vague and immeasurable like “Be healthy” or “Be less shit at everything”.

A while ago I wrote this post about how much I wanted to be someone totally different – someone who wakes up at dawn to do yoga, someone who is creative, productive and successful, someone who has deep philosophical conversations, someone who… (the list goes on). I have to be honest with myself: I AM NEVER going to be someone who wakes up bright and early, and does Yoga while reading… I dunno, Plato or whatever. What’s more, I’m actually okay with the fact I will never be this person.

Change shouldn’t about shoe-horning myself into a personality that doesn’t fit. My ideal version of myself – the clever, healthy, active creative with a mind that’s totally Zen – is not me. It’s never going to be me. If I became this person – the “perfect Me” – and I met perfect Me at a party, I would most probably want to punch perfect Me in the face. When I really think about it, perfect Me isn’t someone I would want to spend a lot of time with. I wouldn’t know what to talk to perfect Me about. In fact, perfect Me is probably someone I would bitch about behind their back. I would roll my eyes whenever perfect Me was talking. Perfect me probably wears Lycra and goes jogging. Perfect Me is probably a fussy eater… And that’s pretty much a deal breaker.

The more I thought about it, the more the perfect Me became less perfect and more smug and annoying. I realised that I don’t really like perfect Me at all. And if I don’t like the perfect version of myself, then why tell myself to become that person in the first place?

I started to wonder what was really so terrible about my imperfect life to make me feel like I had to become this Lycra-wearing object of perfection.

I decided to review what I’d achieved in 2012. While I realise that I didn’t make any particularly massive leaps forward with my life, in review, I think I achieved a fair amount. I completed the taught seminars on my MA, where I also made loads of new friends, I re-connected with old friends, I started writing for a couple of websites, I started writing a new novel and I (admittedly, in a totally random and seemingly impulsive manner) bought a dog.

And while none of my 2012 accomplishments have earned me an impressive salary, or landed me a publishing deal, or got me into some Lycra trousers, I’m safe in the knowledge that, in the very least, I’m heading in the right direction.

In the end, I decided to stop tormenting myself with thoughts of having a massive life overhaul and of becoming a person I don’t really want to be. And while there’s still a lot of room for change in my life, ultimately, I’m doing okay. Most people are doing okay. And that’s okay.

So while I’m still fully committed to trying new things and continuing with my 30 Before 30 list, I’m also not pretending that by the end of 2013, I will be a fit and healthy, intellectual, best-selling novelist with zero financial worries and a buzzing social life. All I want to get out of this year is to learn to be more appreciative of the things I have got and to just keep chipping away, slowly but surely, at the things I really want.

So here’s to 2013 – what I hope will be a slightly better year than 2012.

Feb 18 2012

Why my attempts at being confident make me feel like a knobhead

Posted on February 18, 2012 by Jo and the Novelist

I’ve become convinced that my crippling lack of confidence is becoming a bit of a hindrance. You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve been told to be more confident (at least 9000 times a day). It’s something that has plagued me forever. Even as a kid, my school reports all said the same thing ‘needs more confidence’ as though they had been rubber stamped by every teacher, for every subject, for every year until I left. I’m now almost convinced that if I was more confident, I might kick-ass (but probably not).

Compared to how I used to be, I think I am pretty confident these days. At one point I was too scared to go out for a meal or drink in a bar, because the prospect of actually having to order food or drink from another person was completely terrifying. In the past few years there have been various little confidence hurdles I’ve (somehow) managed to get over, but others are a little trickier. What’s frustrating, is the way that people tell me to ‘just be more confident’ as if a) I’d never realised that before and b) there’s some kind of switch inside that just needs flicking on – releasing some kind of previously untapped super-confidence resource that’s just been lying dormant until now. I don’t think that switch exists, or if it does, it’s faulty and I keep flicking it on and off out of boredom. I don’t know how to be more confident and (hand on heart) I have tried.

The thing is, whenever I attempt to be more confident, I get stuck in an endless loop, because I hate cocky, over-confident knobheads. While I want to be confident, I don’t want to be a knobhead, and it is a scientific fact that there is a fine line between confidence and arrogance:

My problem (as with everything) is I try too hard. Whenever I attempt to be confident, I accidentally launch myself over that fine line, and end up talking like a cocky-know-it-all. Afterwards, I tend to despise myself for being a knobhead and thus, remind myself why it’s much better to just keep quiet and not speak at all. But then, not speaking at all reverts me back to my coy little ways, which in turn makes me feel like I’m missing out… It’s a vicious cycle. No. Really – here’s a diagram to prove the theory:

A perfect example of a vicious cycle – it’s super vicious. You just have to imagine it having really sharp teeth.

So, anyway, vicious cycle, endless loop whatever you want to call it – I can’t escape it. I’m pretty sure most other people manage to go through their daily lives without lurching from crippling shyness to cocky-knobheadedness, and if you are one of those people, then I feel I desperately need to know your secret. My question is: how do you become confident without becoming a knobhead?

PS. I’m not sure how you spell knobhead. ‘Knobhead’ and ‘nobhead’ are apparently both acceptable. I think.

Feb 5 2012

Six Steps to the Starbucks Reward Scheme…

Posted on February 5, 2012 by Jo and the Novelist

I spend a lot of time writing in coffee shops which, apart from being the best way to waste money I don’t have, means that I have a selection of loyalty cards to choose from.

There are so many loyalty schemes that it’s actually hard to be loyal to any one retailer. My most favoured loyalty schemes are the most simple; using a flimsy piece of card and a stamp. Every time you buy a coffee, you get a stamp. 9 coffees = 9 stamps = 10th coffee free.

I’ll stretch to the slightly more complex points system, in which you earn a certain amount of points every time you buy coffee. These points are converted into a cash value. When you have lots of points, you can use them to buy coffee.

I rarely go to Starbucks, because I don’t want to be one of those pretentious people who goes to Starbucks to write (so I just go to other coffee shops instead). I wasn’t aware that they had a loyalty/reward scheme, until a recent meet with my SIL, who kindly gave me a Starbucks card (which I thought was a gift card until the first time I used it). When I presented the card at Starbucks, I was a tad thrown when the guy was all “Oh, let’s just see how many points you have on here” and I realised it wasn’t gift card and assumed it was a points reward card instead. I paid, using the card, thinking it had deducted a certain amount of points.

For my second visit to Starbucks, I decided to pay with cash and collect some more points. Sadly, this caused a surge of confusion.

Starbucks woman: So which are you paying with?

Me: Er, cash. I just want the points on my card.

Starbucks woman: [stare].

Pause.

Starbucks woman: have you got cash on your card?

Me: I’m not sure, a friend gave it to me.

Starbucks woman: [Frowns] In what context did your ‘friend’ give you this card?

Me: She just gave it to me, she doesn’t drink coffee that much.

Starbucks woman: So how much is on the card?

Me: Er, I have no idea. I just want the points.

Starbucks woman: I’ll check it for you. [swipes it]. You have £2.50 left on your card.

Me: Okay. But I just want to pay with cash, I’ll save the points.

Starbucks woman: [sighs] We don’t do points. They’re stars, and you have to pay with your card to get a star. When you get 15 stars, you get a free drink.

Me: [Gives look of utter confusion]

Starbucks woman: Here’s a leaflet explaining how it works.

Then she sent me away, because I was causing a backlog in the queue of people who did understand how the reward scheme worked.

But, it turns out that the new reward scheme outraged thousands of Starbucks customers up and down the country. That’s right, even people who understand how the scheme works are pissed off.

I’ve spent some time going through the leaflet, to save myself further embarrassment. If you wish to avoid a Starbucks reward scheme faux pas, then please consult my handy six step guide:

Step 1: Go to Starbucks, pick up a Starbucks card at the till, put money on it, then use the card to buy coffee. For every coffee you buy with the card, you get a star.

Step 2: You then register the card online.

Step 3: On your next visit to Starbucks, buy more coffee using your Starbucks card. This puts you at Green Level. Green Level doesn’t really mean anything. At Green Level you get a free coffee for every 15 bought on your card. If you buy coffee with cash, you don’t get a star.

Step 4: Of course, if you use your 15 stars to get a free coffee, then you’ll forever stay at Green Level. Although, that doesn’t mean you lose out or anything, because the next level is GOLD LEVEL, which equates to the exact same thing as Green Level, except you need to buy coffee another 35 times (after the original 15).

When you reach GOLD LEVEL you get free shots of espresso (which almost no one wants) and free soy milk (which almost no one wants and only costs an extra 50p anyway).

Oh, and you still only get a free drink for every 15 you’ve already bought.

Step 5: You could keep saving until you reach 100 stars. This is PLATINUM LEVEL which still means you only get a free coffee after buying 15, but you also get half a free muffin for every 10 coffees*

Step 6: Keep saving until you reach 200 and you’ll reach DIAMOND STUDDED SIREN LEVEL to get… well… free coffee for every 15 coffees purchased, plus free napkins!

Okay, so I made up Steps 5 & 6, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this is where the reward scheme was headed. If you’re only ever going to get a free coffee for every 15 you buy, then what’s the point of having levels in the first place? Also, to reach Gold Level (i.e. free espresso and soy milk) you’d have to spend about £250 at Starbucks.

*sigh* I miss those days where you could just buy coffee with your iPhone…

Dec 20 2011

Dealing with shit

Posted on December 20, 2011 by Jo and the Novelist

As someone who might be classed as catastrophically disorganised, I have to make a conscious effort to put various systems in place to ensure, not only that I organise myself, but so that I actually do things.

One of these systems (which has recently become a regular feature of day-to-day living) is to write a list of things I need to do that day. This list is designed to motivate (and remind me) to actually do all of the shit I need to do in order to qualify in having some sort of productive and functional existence. Sometimes there’s quite a lot of shit to do. Sometimes shit has built up over time – shit is carried over from phases of depressive apathy where I do nothing but sit around eating cake and watching cop shows. Sometimes there’s so much shit to do, I don’t know what shitty job to start with first. When this amount of shit has mounted up, one of two things happens: 1) I feel overwhelmed by the amount of shit to do (and retreat into a depressive, apathetic state of lethargy and ‘meh’) or 2) I get all proactive on myself and write a list. As the former reaction merely adds more shitty jobs to the pile, I try to be more proactive in my approach to dealing with shit.

Please consult the following complex mathematical equation which will go some way to explaining this logic further:

Reaction #1

Reaction #2

So now I stick religiously to lists. I can’t live without a good list. I have lists for everything. I have lists for my shitty jobs, I have lists for my non-shitty jobs, I have lists for the supermarket shop, I have lists for things that in no way require a list. Despite the fact that there are a multitude of things which simply do not need to be put on a list, I will place them on one anyway – the more things I have on a list, the better. Because the truth is; without a list things tend to, sort of, not happen. At all. In fact, without a list, shitty jobs or supermarket items, or whatever will cease to exist. Due to relying on my impeccable list system for while now, my brain has become really quite dependant – to the point where it simply fails to acknowledge that something needs doing, or buying or fixing (and so on) if it hasn’t been written on a list.

This is a slightly worrying development.

I suppose that this whole obsessive list-making habit could, potentially, develop into serious case of OCD. But seeing as “consider therapy for developing case of OCD” isn’t featuring on a list anywhere, I’m not going to worry about it.

I love my list system. It works significantly better than simply relying on myself. When I have constructed a list, I congratulate myself for being organised. Having a list makes me feel like a good person because rather than merely ignoring the fact my brain retains very little information, I’m actually doing something about it – which is so unlike me. So, yay! Good for me! Everything will be fine as long as I have a list. I don’t need to remember things, because everything I need to know is on my list (this is starting to sound a bit like the plot from Memento – except no one murdered my wife. I don’t think…. *consults list*).

Thanks to my lists, I no longer need to worry about forgetting to do things, or picking something up from the supermarket (or whatever) and so I allow my brain to go to sleep while I work through the list.

Last week, I noticed a little problem with my list system, thanks to human conditioning which provides me with a glimmer of satisfaction any time I cross something off a list. While I realise it doesn’t sound like a big problem, it does mean that I now have a tendency to rush through the things on my list just so I can have that fleeting sense of satisfaction when I cross them off. This also means I’m putting simple things on my list which require absolutely no effort whatsoever, just so I can cross them off, whilst ignoring bigger, actual jobs which involve lots of effort, as these are too big for me to really do (and just end up on tomorrow’s list instead):

Worse still, lists do not allow for unexpected events. For example, this weekend my brother and sister-in-law came to visit, and for whatever reason the entire plumbing system went hay-wire causing the kitchen sink to fill with waste water anytime someone used the bathroom. As “clean up flooded kitchen” and “consider plumbing issue” weren’t on the list, I went into a blind panic – telling myself that I had failed because I wasn’t organised to think ahead about how I might deal with such a situation, thus taking the plumbing disaster extremely personally. When the sink started gurgling and filling with what can only really be described as hot liquid rust sick, I almost cried and actually asked the series of pipes beneath the sink why they were doing this to me.

Having spent the past four days being vigorously organised, and writing lists for Christmas presents, Christmas cards, Christmas shopping, cleaning, changing bed linin and a vast array of other Christmas/family visiting preparations, this whole plumbing thing felt like a whopping slap in the face – as though life was mocking me for thinking I could ever be organised.

After this minor household disaster, I’m wondering if I’m going to have to start writing absolutely everything on a list in order to actually make it through the day. I’ve also noticed that I frequently miss things off the list – my forgetfulness doesn’t stop even when I’m being organised and writing lists. So I just make a list of all the things I can remember and ignore all the things I can’t, and because I’ve told myself not rely on my brain (because I have a fail-safe list system) I simply refuse to do anything that didn’t make it onto the list – even when I remember it later.

I’m now at the point of having to write absolutely everything down – BECAUSE ANYTHING THAT DOESN’T FEATURE ON A LIST DOESN’T GET DONE.

The prospect of trying to construct a list covering absolutely everything I have to do, including the things I can’t remember, and the unexpected things (such as plumbing disasters), feels somewhat overwhelming and, well, nearly impossible.

And so phase #1 reoccurs and I retreat into a state of depressive apathy.

Thus, rendering the entire purpose of constructing a list a bit pointless.

Aug 3 2011

Just be better. Way better. At EVERYTHING.

Posted on August 3, 2011 by Jo and the Novelist

‘Why am I not a much better person?’

This has to be the most frequently asked question that my psyche asks. Why am I not better? Why am I not much better? Why am I not a million times better than I currently am? And I’m not just asking why I’m not better at one thing, I want to know why I’m not better at everything.

My head is overcrowded with variations of this question – a constant swarm of voices telling me to just. Be. Better.

Way better.

There are so many things that I need to not suck at doing, that I’m completely overwhelmed as to what I should stop sucking at first. As ever, please consult the scientific diagram below which fully illustrates my neuroses:

I know that it’s bad to compare yourself with other people and not to quote Desiderata too much, (there will always be greater and lesser people than yourself) but I do. I still compare myself with other people because people are getting married, and promoted and having babies all over the place. And while I’m not jealous because I don’t really aspire to any of those things, I still feel as though I’m seriously lagging behind.

In my head, my life should be an all-round wholesome sphere of joy and harmony, and I should feel engaged with life rather than detached from it.

In the infinitely-better-version-of-me:

I get up at 6am everyday, do yoga while eating organic yogurt and homemade granola and reading The Guardian from cover to cover and tweeting my every thought on Twitter to improve traffic to my blog.
I write 2000 words of a potentially best-selling literary masterpiece, before briskly walking to work feeling somewhat alert and spiritually Zen and wearing clothes that are sharp and stylish and make me look super-hot.
I have some cool job or other, which involves having a desk by the window, a cappuccino machine, pleasant telephone conversations and people asking me for my opinion.
At lunch I meet my agent or editor or whoever to discuss my latest creative project, and afterwards I go to David Mitchell‘s house for a cup of tea and chat about all the stuff I’d read in The Guardian that day, as well as his recent article in The Observer and I’m all ‘David, today’s article was brilliant,’ and he’s all ‘Thanks Jo, would you like sugar in your tea?’ and I’m all ‘David, you’re so funny – you KNOW I don’t take sugar because I’m so damn wholesome and well-rounded,’ Then we laugh and eat organic wholemeal scones.
I go to the gym and work out like a ninja before sprinting home to cook some kind of delicious culinary taste-fest for my friends (of which there are many), who later descend on my trendy city centre loft apartment for an evening of philosophical discussions, cocktails and Nintendo (not necessarily in that order) until the early hours of the morning when I snuggle up in my King size bed and have a restful sleep that doesn’t involve having troublesome nightmares about zombie-cat-vampires.

And that’s pretty much it. That’s all I want out of life. Oh, and maybe bigger boobs. And a smaller nose. But in my head this is the person I should try to be… A British, politically minded, Carrie Bradshaw who is big chums with David Mitchell. And is really good at Nintendo.

Actually, thinking about it, SJP has a big nose and small boobs and everyone freaking loved her as Carrie Bradshaw (except some people kind of hated her with a passion). So I guess, that technically, I don’t need to worry about the boobs and the nose for now.

Anyway, given the unlikeliness of any of this ever filtering into my petty existence, not to mention how worryingly idealistic I am, it’s little wonder that I give myself such a hard time for being the exact opposite:

In and amongst the endless list of things to do to change and become an infinitely better person, there’s this list of startling reality points which I endlessly torture myself with.

Earlier this week, I read this blog post by the fantastic Hipstercrite, and I actually began to feel a little, sort of, maybe okay again. Because even though I shouldn’t constantly compare myself with other people, at least I can be safe in the knowledge that I’m not alone. There are other people stuck in the colossal nightmare that is their twenties, still bumbling around in a post-graduation haze wondering what it is they’re supposed to do with their life. And they’re all poor and in miserable admin jobs too. The twenties is a suckfest decade. And all I can say is that I hope I get this self-doubt confusion stuff out of my system now. If only to prevent myself from having a complete meltdown in the future – when I’m a forty-year old British, politically-minded ninja Carrie Bradshaw and regular tea and scone guest at David Mitchell’s house.

Jul 14 2011

And then from nowhere, you feel like smashing things…

Posted on July 14, 2011 by Jo and the Novelist

This isn’t quite the sneaky hate spiral, the one which Allie Brosh describes so brilliantly on Hyperbole and a Half. This is something else. Entirely.

In recent years I’d say that I’ve managed to knock a lot of my self-loathy behaviour on the head. But every now and again, I wake up feeling like I am the worst person to ever have existed. I’m terrible and everyone knows it etc.

Sometimes I can even wake up feeling fine, happy almost, and then at some point in the day lurch frantically into this evil state of unadulterated rage.

What’s a classic trait of this state of mind is that I can’t say what it is that’s making me feel so terrible. I feel bad, and I have no explanation as to why that is. Which, in itself, makes me feel more upset.

Generally, I try to hide feelings crappiness, but even a minor set back (in any capacity) seems to open a floodgate of anger fuelled by a back-catalogue of negative thoughts from my life so far. It looks a little something like this:

Stage 1 – A Minor Setback:

Stage 2 – Irrational Feelings of Anger and Rage:

Stage 3 – Self-Loathing:

Stage 4 – Crying:

Er… No illustration needed.

When I’m not falling out with printers or other bits of technology, I’m punishing myself for other minor mishaps. The other night for example, I found a tasty looking recipe (complete with mouth-watering picture next to it) in a book and decided to give it a go. Despite my best efforts, however, the end result did not, by any means, mirror the appetising delights in the picture. Immediately after sitting down to consume it I found myself yelling "THIS FOOD IS DOGSHIT" because honestly, that’s what it looked like.

Worse still, whenever I’m in a total funk this way, people seem to collect around me, more so than usual. They’re everywhere – popping up left and right with their smiles and polite conversations and telephone calls. And I know it isn’t them, it’s me being angry. I know that they’re merely existing, and I’m merely existing and we’re all just existing together. But their existence somehow fuels my feelings of irritability. Therefore, anyone who even so much takes an inhalation of breath within a five mile radius of where I am, is subject to endless sighs, tuts and aggressive rolls of the eyes by yours truly.

Ironically, less than a week prior to my stonking rage festival, I had attended a training course on building confidence and learning the power of positive thinking. I really felt as though I was feeling the benefits too, until the end of the week rapidly transformed into the beginning of the week and for whatever reason, I woke up feeling like a failure and hated everything.

Sometimes, to clear up these weird feelings that seem to appear from nowhere, I just need a good cry, or a long sleep or a massive piece of cake. Eventually my brain shifts back into gear and all the hating flows back into whatever dark abyss it came out of in the first place.

Afterwards, when I’m wringing out my pillows, and wiping the smears of chocolate cake off my bed sheets, I feel a quite stupid about it all. I have this feeling of ‘Seriously, what was I so upset about?’ and I still can’t really figure it out. And while I’m being honest, I also still feel a bit of resentment towards printers.

Jun 14 2011

No. It’s nothing like “Twilight”…

Posted on June 14, 2011 by Jo and the Novelist

In my relatively limited experience of being a writer, I’ve found that the worst thing about writing a novel (apart from actually sitting down for long enough to write it) is talking to other people about it.

I’m so bad at talking about my work that I try not to mention that I’m writing a novel in conversation. This, in theory, should be fairly easy (it’s not as if people just come out with, “So, written any novels recently?” or anything) but if I’m small-talking with someone I don’t know and they’re asking me about myself, I tell them I want to be a writer and inevitably I come to tell them I’m writing a novel.

I hate telling people what my novel is about: Condensing a 200 page story into one, vaguely interesting summary, is tricky. When I think what my novel is about, I don’t know where to start.

So I either:

1. Stare blankly at the person who asked me. Then I say “er…” lots. Then I blush. Then I say that I don’t really know. Then I laugh nervously. Then I change the subject/run away in the opposite direction.

2. Take a deep breath, and embark on what is possibly the most boring and lengthy description of a book possible, punctuated with many fillers such as “sort of”, “kind of”, “um”, “er”, “if you know what I mean”, “if that makes any sense”. The other person quickly loses the will to live.

When it comes to talking about my novel, I’ve got a ‘fight or flight’ thing going on. Scenario 1 being flight – I know that my attempt to explain the book is going to be a disaster, so I simply abort the conversation entirely. Most of the time, I simply opt to run away, on the basis that I’d rather people think I am a bit crazy than think I’m a non-stop bore festival.

Which brings me to the second scenario, the ‘fight’ reaction, which I’m much less prone to doing because the other person gets this glazed over look on their face about 10 – 15 seconds into my 3000 hour explanation. They stop making eye-contact, they look at the floor, then out of the window, then search for the nearest exit, and after a minute – they’re pretty much checking themselves for a pulse.

When I start explaining what my book is about, I start off okay. I give a quick description of my main character and a rough outline of the story. In my brain, it’s all pretty clear.

But very quickly, my mind floods with a surplus of information. I start thinking about all the minor details, all the sub-stories, all the stuff that no one really needs to know about but I cram it into my synopsis anyway.

I just stand there talking, thinking of more things to include as I go. And then I’m aware of how long I’ve been talking, and how bored the other person looks. But I’ve still got so much more to say and so I accelerate through more book talk, which only really turns what was a boring, convoluted description, into a fast-paced, unfathomable whirlwind of talk that means nothing to anyone, anywhere.

Eventually, once I notice the noose hanging around the neck of the person I’m talking to, I slam on the brakes and finally manage to stop talking.

There’s an awkward pause.

Then, they either run away, or start speaking to someone else.

And every now and again, they ask “So, it’s nothing like Twilight, then?” To which there is a very short answer: no.

Jo and the Novelist

Neurotic/writer/mentalist…

Category Archives: Trying to be Clever (and failing)