Paul Schiernecker

Category: Other

  • Frustrated.

    I can’t help the feeling that I waste an awful lot of time, and I don’t mean that in the terrible habit of procrastination sense. What I mean is that there are around twelve hours every week day when I am out of the house and unable to work. This is because I am at my job, which I must tell you is far different to my work. My work is writing, something I’ve wanted to do since I was about five years old, and have done with guiltless abandon since. My job is a different matter altogether.

    When I was at university I wondered where I would end up, how I’d earn my way in the world, how I’d start paying back those damn student loan cats and here we are, I work in an office in London. It’s a far cry from the boy who wanted to be C.S. Lewis or J.R.R. Tolkien. I know it has to be done, I know we all do it, but that doesn’t change the fact that I don’t think it’s fair and that it just seems to detract from what I want to do and what I now appreciate I am capable of doing. I know writing will probably never be stable enough for me to rely on it as a steady form of income but I know I’ll keep doing it as long as I’ve got ink and fingers (and even if either of those should go I’ll find a way).

    The fun of writing is therefore restrained to weekends, a time when I can’t really face doing anything a lot of the time because I’m trying to get over my job. Oh woe is me, stop it this instant, you’ve got a job, you’ve just finished your first novel, you’re young and in love and there’s plenty more of all that (wherever it came from).

    I’m sorry, sometimes it is just hard to remember the track you are on, and you have to just scream into the abyss.

  • We need more Sundays.

    It’s such an underrated day, anything can happen on a Sunday. Today I’m going to visit my Mum to watch some home videos of when I was five that I haven’t seen forever and then me and the girlf are going to hers to see her cousin (and her baby) and then I’m going to see my friends from Improv perform, what a mixed bag of a day, no other day could get that combination going on.

    The important thing to remember is you can do anything today. Go.

  • Why they were right all along.

    I went for a bike ride at lunchtime today. I think it’s the first time I’ve ridden a bike since approximately August 2005, they were right, it isn’t something you forget. That wasn’t even the point I was trying to make, that was just (possibly) a fact. The thing that I’ve realised they were right about all along is the benefit of fresh air and exercise.

    I have found (since I started my fairly laissez-faire routine) that I breathe deeper and clearer, that my posture is better, that my eyes seem bluer for fucks sake, and it’s all down to the fact that I managed to quit smoking, cut back on my drinking and get out and do something. It’s such a basic thing to do but the benefits are really impressive. I feel brighter. I’m more focused, it’s like everything that Ritalin promises but it’s a natural high. Isn’t that a kicker!

    What I’d say is put down the remote control/controller/pipe and go out in the sun for a bit, it’s better than spending five minutes contracting cancer in a UV booth in a pair of paper knickers.

    Written in my garden.

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  • Redrafts are hard.

    Straight up. Simple as that. I could just not write anymore. The statement alone does it all. I won’t stop there though, because you’re already hanging on my every word.

    I’ve established the reason I don’t ever redraft anything is that you’re basically accepting that you didn’t get it right initially. I’m one of those incredibly annoying trivial people who like to be right about everything (and to be right in the first instance). I hope there’s a bit of that in you as well or you will have already been turned irreversibly from me.

    Last night I started redrafting my novel, a task I have simultaneously put off myself and been told to put on hold by others. Everyone says you should give it some space before you start in on it again but I can’t sit still. In the three weeks since I finished my novel I have drafted no less than five short stories for a compilation due by the end of the year, in the words of Led Zeppelin: ‘I gotta roll, can’t stand still, got a flaming heart, can’t get my fill’ – yeah, that works quite nicely.

    It turns out that an appropriate amount of time has passed because in the four pages (of one hundred and sixty eight) I managed to read through last night there were bits that jarred or just should have and could have been written better, and that’s just what the process is for, I know it’s going to cause me many a sleepless night but the whole thing is a true labour of love, and therefore something I want to get exactly right.

    For those asking when they can read it start an orderly queue outside your local bookstore, I’ll be right with you.

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  • I miss you.

    I keep getting to thinking about the people I’ve lost in the last couple of years, it’s a process which I’ve been nobly informed is called ‘reality checking’ where you think of something you want to tell the person and then remember that unfortunately it isn’t a possibility, that they aren’t there to be told, and that really hurts. I think that’s when I miss them most of all.

    After finishing the first draft of my novel there were five people I immediately wanted to tell and three of those aren’t with me anymore. It upsets me that they never got to see me finally get my act together and ‘finish it already’ as my dear Grandma put it, I know they’re all watching over and that’s all well and good but it doesn’t change the fact that not a day goes by where I don’t have to reality check.

    I guess what I’m trying to say is never leave a room on bad terms, always tell people you love them and hold them forever.

  • I’ve lost today’s blog

    I’m really annoyed. I started a post this morning about why we should legalise weed and it’s decided to delete itself before I could finish it. Curses.

  • Why being a quarter of a century didn’t destroy me

    I turned 25 last month, an age I previously would have referred to as being adult. At eighteen I assumed that by twenty-five I’d be set in my ways, have my own place, maybe even be married, silly little eighteen year old me.

    The state of play as I see it id that I’m twenty five, living at home, in love but with no intentions on getting married any time soon and just beginning to lay those first tentative steps on the way towards my chosen vocation. There are a number of reasons that I’m behind on the assumed goals, some are/were outside of my control but I was blocking myself for quite some time.

    A lot of the problem was that I was obsessed with the 27 Club, a group of artists and musicians who died at that age, I’m sure you’re aware of that stigma. That obsession turned into me believing I would expire at twenty seven as well, and that I needed to get everything done before then. It turns out that there is nothing that inhibits me quite like a mortal deadline. Once I got over that, and started thinking about the outrageous range of jumpers with elbow patches I could enjoy well into old age it lifted that blockade and made writing a lot simpler, because I was doing it for me, not to be idolised and thought of as a tortured genius, but in the hope that my love of writing could provide for me. It has been deeply refreshing.

    This means that I am only a third of the way through my life, everything I have done so far I could do again twice. That’s not something to balk at, it’s something to embrace, that’s a long time to get things done, and something that I can’t help but cherish.

    I was recently talking to one of my friends about the pair of us ‘getting old’ and both agreeing that it only felt like it had happened recently, the truth is I know I will never grow up, especially with friends like him around. I hope I am still laughing at felt tipped custard creams at fifty, sixty, seventy….

  • You’ve got to try.

    I was on a bus this morning (because I’m a sucker for sharing my travel time with twisted broke fuckers) and spotted an old school friend who I haven’t seen in a while. We had a bit of a catch up on the way to our mutual destination and he asked what I had been up to.
    ‘I finished my novel’ I said. It still fills me with pride to be able to say that, despite the fact I know the hard part comes next.

    I told my friend that I had been in touch with a girl from our school year who had her first novel published last year to ask if she had any advice, she did; she was very helpful. It’s annoying because I am jealous of her, as we should be because she’s done it, she’s got to the goal that I can’t get out of my head, she tried and she got there and a lot of the time that is all it takes, a point proven by our continuing conversation on the bus this morning.

    My friend said to me ‘did you know [boy we were at school with] just bought an Aston Martin?’
    ‘Oh wow’, I replied, ‘that’s awesome. I’d love to be in that position one day’.
    ‘Yeah’ my friend replied, ‘it makes you wonder what you’ve done in your life to not have deserved an Aston Martin’.
    I couldn’t help but dwell on that statement. Firstly there is nothing to say that our fortunate school friend deserves that, he may be excellent within his field (which I’m sure is the case) but he could be killing people for money, or worse still, be working in banking. What matters is that he tried, and this may be a point that some of you disagree with me on because it’s quite a new concept to myself. I wonder if my friend (the first friend mentioned, the one on the bus) has tried to be in a position where he could own an Aston Martin, if he has given it his all, because as humans that’s all we can do really, just give it a shot. I know that’s what I am doing, there’s no guarantee that anyone beyond my close friends will ever read my novel but I’m going to try and make that happen and maintain that nobody deserves anything.

  • Gigs AKA How to tell if you’re becoming a cranky old bastard.

    In the last week I have been to three gigs, namely Civil Wars, The Shins and Noah & The Whale. I’ve got a few observations I would like to share with you, but heads up now, this isn’t a triple review.

    The first is the issue of cameras and smartphones being used to capture the action. I don’t remember things being this bad before, maybe I’m just not going to gigs where people get chucked about so much they wouldn’t dare venture into their pockets for their camera/phone. I really don’t want to watch the gig I’ve paid £20+ for through the smeared screen you’re holding above your head. Do these people not realise that the pictures from anywhere other than the barrier are just going to be a sea of blinding lights and the backs of heads. Maybe for each of them this is their first gig and they want to capture it by taking blurred distant shots of the band, I don’t know. I really can’t understand why someone would try and record it, there is no pocket sized device in the world that can cope with the light and sound of live music, I don’t see what purpose it serves, people know what those songs sound like, you could just tell them you were there, show them your ticket, tell them the set list if you must but why would they want to watch and listen to the chino-clad morons you surround yourself with chanting along to L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N? It reminded me of when I was in Paris in 2005. I was really snap happy at the time and one of my travelling companions and very dear friends stopped me from taking a photo of a man fixing a photo booth in an underground station telling me it would be much better as a memory than as a picture. I didn’t understand what he meant at the time but now I do, it feels better in my head than it ever could look in a single frame, it’s everything that happened before and after, it’s all part of the trip, that’s what a memory is.

    My second problem is people who now like the bands I like, I read somewhere recently that nothing will put you off a band like meeting other people who like that band, it’s painfully true. Last night I watched as everyone stood stock still through the wonders of Rocks & Daggers and Blue Skies but then erupted when Charlie introduced Tonight’s The Kind Of Night in a way that made me cringe for about four minutes. If I discover a band I will always delve into any back catalogue to see how they got to the conclusion that is the current album, it’s ignorant to act otherwise, nothing will develop your love of a band like working out what got them there. Shout ‘Charlie, I love you’ all you want, it doesn’t change the fact that I was listening to this band before you even started getting periods.

    And that’s how I know I’m becoming a cranky old man…

  • ‘Just finish it already’.

    That was the best piece of advice I got for my novel, and this weekend I managed to finish it and now I’m bummed out that I won’t be able to feed that back to the person who provided me with such a sound turn of phrase.

    I don’t know if you read my blog often but you may have noticed that I don’t write at weekends, the reason for this is that for the last nine months I have spent my weekends writing my first novel. I’ve always had massive issues with finishing anything off, I’ll make all these grand plans and schemes but when it comes down to it I can never reach a conclusion, and it was only ever down to me. There was nobody stopping me but myself. I’ve cleared that aside in the last year and started work on a story about one of the highlights of my 25 years, University. It dawned on me that all I’ve ever wanted to do was write, it’s been in me since I learnt to read and got wrapped up in Lewis, Tolkein and Blyton as a child, I’m not comparing myself in any way, just outlining the kinds of brilliance that initially coaxed me into what I now call my chosen vocation. I’ve had dalliances with other bits and pieces but the core of it has always been a love of writing and completing my first novel feels like the longest first step ever, I want to continue with this for as long as I can. It’s the reason I don’t want to go ice skating – for fear of losing my fingers under some sucker’s blades. I just wanted to share my joy at having finally finished it already.