everything

From the Warren Ellis Forum (hosted by Delphi:)

I don't make New Years Resolutions usually, but this year, Some Things Have To Change. In rough order of importance:

1. Help the sainted Mother get through her operation.

2. Get a Job. Sha-na-na-na, nananana-na-na.

3. Lose some Damn Chob. I'm tearjerkingly tubby. Stretchmarks and all.

4. Go to the cinema once a damn week. I love me the Movies, although you wouldn't know it - I had lived a five minute WALK from the pictures for three years of my life before I came home, and saw less than a dozen pictures in that time. Unforgivable.

5. Make some Damn Comics, and show them to people.

6. More Animation for Me. Also, to Learn Flash so I can do some.

7. Get Laid. With all that entails...

8. Get my Music Back (I play me a mean Horn...)

9. Get Me Some Cable TV. I love Comedy. I love Cartoons. I love not having to pay for videos of old movies. My sainted Mother loves Melissa Gilbert (I prefer Sara, but I've always had a Goth fetish).

10. Live Comedy. Mattscrew See, Mattscrew Do. For Christ's sake, I'm nearly thirty and I've never had a go at Open Mic. Even if I get boooooooooed off the stage, I'll have had a go.

11. See the Spider-Man movie a shitload of times, starting with the preview or the premiere. Buy all the merchandise. Buy the DVD in November. Yes, I know...

12. PS2. DVD. Blakes 7. Hoopla.

13. Take up Karate again. Whupa!

If I can do a half of those things, I'll be happy...

Come back in 363 days, and let's see how I got on.

But don't go just yet...

EVERYTHING NEW IS OLD AGAIN

By Matthew Craig

So. That was 2001. Shit, wasn't it?

Well, okay, so I'm speaking from a strictly Mattscrew-centric point of view. But, then, it is my website.

I mean, okay. Some of last year was okay. I read a lot of great books, saw one or two good movies, and had a nice long holiday. So. Okay. Yes. Evenhandedly, last year was good and bad.

When it was bad, of course, it was horrific. But you already know about that.

So what lessons did we learn last year? Short answer: none. But that's another rant for another time (and not for the Internet). But, personally speaking, the longer answer is: I haven't the faintest fucking clue what I'm going to do with my life.

The Dole stopped my money last week. That left me with �24 in my pocket. Like a fool, I paid for cinema tickets with some of the �50 left in the bank, which means that the MRC might be sending the legbreakers -round.

I say "legbreakers:" Three pasty asthmatics with clip-on ties called Malcolm (the men, obviously). But they'd probably still take me in this state.

What this means is that I have to justify still being unemployed after six months, or I won't get any money. None. Which is scary, because I rather thought I'd have time to think about things.

Six months isn't enough time for you, I hear you cry. Well, okay. Maybe I've wasted it.

I remember those dark days, back in June, when I first knew I was coming home. It was a week or so before they told me I was to fuck off. I'd been wondering what I could do, in the unlikely event they would stop my PhD. I knew I didn't want to go back to Cambridge: as much as I liked the people I worked with - enough that I hung out with them after work (Hello, Cambridge!) - there were no jobs there that I could really feel comfortabe doing. And once I'd been bounced, I realised that I didn't want to work in science, full-stop. So what else was there for me to do, but come home?

I knew, though, that if I came home, I'd be here for ages. And I remember the last time all too vividly. I basically surfed the 'Net, read comics and ate for eight months. But at least I knew what I wanted to do.

And at least I had an overdraft to keep me afloat.

I knew, I bloody knew, that if I didn't get a job straight away, that I would end up sitting here on the Dole until, well, they told me to fuck off as well. Or my folks, whichever came first.

And that's exactly what I've done. Sat here. On my arse. And earned exactly nothing.

So, to summarise: Six months on the Dole, and I have:

-�1200 (owed to Barclays)

-�450 (owed to the Medical Research Council)

�24 (in my pocket)

I'm fucked, aren't I? Seriously screwed. And I don't know what to do.

I don't want to go back to science, to work I've spent the greater part of my life learning to do. I don't want to have to go back to school. I don't want to work for some boss again. I don't want to have to tread on eggshells around people again. I don't want to work in a bloody factory. I don't want to work in some rough-as-fuck pub, and have to pretend that I'm not smarter than every bastard who walks in off the street, just to avoid getting battered. I don't want to have to work in Telford at all, in case I bump into people I used to know. I don't want to be in this fucking black hole of a town.

I can't afford to move anywhere. I can't get a job in any other professional field without training, and I don't want to have to go back to fucking school: I'm done with that. I'm through.

So what am I going to do?

What the Hell can I do for a living?

I can't afford comics. I can't afford rent. I can't afford food. I can live without just about everything else.

What the fuck am I going to do?

You know, writing would be the ideal career for me. I could live just about anywhere, I could relate to people as people, and not have to put up a stupid fa�ade. I could get ouit of this stupid, stupid town. I'd just write, and not write. I wouldn't have to get up early, because my hours would be determined by me and my deadline. I wouldn't have to get dressed: I could type in my pants, like right now (whupa!). I could think about anything, write about anything, and I wouldn't have to be knackered out by a day out of the house.

I love it when my head explodes with ideas and words. I love being able to just sit down and type and let the ideas pour out. I hate being sat here with a blank screen.

I have a secret.

Apart from the Hondle comic that I'm putting out in February (to about six people at the last count, so don't be rushing down to Waterstones just yet), I'm being published in another comic.

That's right. Someone else's comic.

It's just an amateur thing, a bit like Hondle. And there's no money involved. But it's a comic. And I didn't have to do all the work, myself. So that's something, right?

Of course, as soon as I heard that the guy wanted to use the piece for his book, I instantly became Tom bloody Clancy in my own head. Delusions of grandeur come easily to someone with my imagination.

I know I'd quite like to do comics. I don't know if I'm good enough to make a living at them. Probably not. I might be enough just to put them on the Web. But that still leaves me with a big hole where all my money should be - and not in a good way.

I wish I knew what to do. I wish I...I wish I was good enough to write for a living. I don't want to settle for second best again...

I go back to the Dole next Wednesday. If I don't have a job by then, I have to apply for Income Support. Which means I have to be willing to take any oul' schlub job. I don't want to a schlub. I don't.

The New Year always attempts to bring with it a new sense of hope. Hope for tomorrow, hope for the present. Ultimately, however, it turns out to be just another day...

Matthew Craig, January 3rd, 2002.

Note Added In Proof:

I guess what I'm looking for is for someone to tell me what to do. To throw a big pile of cash in my lap and say, "that's okay. You stay home for a bit." The world doesn't work like that, I'm told, although I'd be willing to be proved wrong...
Maybe I shouldn't be looking for signs and portents. Maybe I shouldn't be waiting for the world to come to me.

Maybe I should just get off my arse and do something.

Maybe tomorrow...

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws