Mista J

I've just been approached by the editor of Cheers magazine, to a) write a piece about me shaving my hair off during MEAW. and b) look at a list of regular articles to see if I want to have a job as a regular article writer for them! Exciting times people...

I've just submitted 2 shit articles to magazines. One a spiritual article on how I cleared a 'haunted house' and that article on phrases healthy people say to ill people, only this time I've submitted it to a load of womens weekly's. I'm not exactly hopeful about either of them, but I'm just trying to give myself a fighting chance whilst I await inspiration for another article to write...

So, I've heard back from Mensa NoW and my article has been accepted for November's issue :)
I've also submitted a poem to Cygnus-books magazine, it's being considered still atm.

I've sort of made it an unspoken (til now - haha) goal to get published 5 times this year.
So far I'm onto number 3...

The Good: I got an article about moving house published in Cheers magazine. Woo!
The first Oops: I mistimed it and it's not the 100th edition...
The final Oops: This is the last thing I've submitted and has been accepted. Bollocks, I've got to start writing again... Ahhh...

 

Sad words written by a slowly breaking heart

Two minds separated, one remove apart

Good intentions silently floating up the stairs

Poetry being lived by the ones who truly care

Little harmless whispers simmering in ease

Dreams play schoolyard games with the breeze

Unmade beds and stillness in the mind

Subtle reminders of a life lived refined.

 

Jet-Spero©6thMay2012

Here's an article I've just finished and submitted to Mensa. I'm less than confident it will be accepted to Mensa, but if it is rejected I'll just post it to AYME instead.

 

( Out and Nout )

This was to be my fourteenth house move in twenty three years. I was expecting it to be the easiest yet – all the others had become gradually easier than the last, as I established a form of routine around packing, planning, and notifying people of my change of address. However, all did not go to plan.

            Things started to go wrong very early on. I had no cardboard boxes readily available, as I had on the last few moves. This was because the last time I had moved house I swore I wouldn’t be moving on again for quite some time, and as I was living in a one bedroomed flat there wasn’t the storage space to keep a dozen big boxes – even folded down.

            An afternoon spent going into every shop on the high street produced very little return. In all I managed to get my hands on about three small boxes and one or two medium sized ones.

            I hadn’t realised when I began mentally sorting through all the things I needed to pack just how much ‘stuff’ I had acquired just since the last move. Even if I had got hold of a dozen big boxes, it wouldn’t have been enough.

            My partner came over about three weeks before my moving in date to help me pack. In all honesty, he did most of the packing for me. I was exhausted for most of the time, and in pain the rest of it. My Myalgic Encephalopathy (a neuro-immuno disorder) had been steadily getting worse for months, and Christmas took more energy than I had to spare.

            But together, with many trips back into town to the only shop that held on to their boxes after delivery day, we collected just enough boxes and bin bags to pack everything up, with only days to spare.

            A couple of days before the move date, we decided it would be best to take apart my bedframe. The first two corners were easy, as was taking out the support slats but the other two corners wouldn’t budge for love nor money. Eventually they did come apart, but it was obvious that they would not go together again. And so the only option left was to get rid of the bedframe and buy a new one after I’d moved.

            On 1^st March I moved out of my city centre flat, and into my boyfriend’s terraced house about twenty minutes from the shops.

            The removals van came, along with three strong men, and with the help of a friend at each house, we began the process of loading all of my belongings onto the van.

            After about twenty minutes, the lead man-with-the-van came up to me and said that their initial quote wouldn’t be accurate, and what I would be charged would be a lot more. Apparently there was a mix up on my details. On the phone I had said there would be twenty boxes and twenty bags, but the man in charge had written down ‘twenty boxes and bags’. This just proves that correct grammar can save money.

            I didn’t know what to do. I was afraid that if I said I wouldn’t pay the hundred pound difference, that they would start to unpack my boxes and go away and I wouldn’t get moved. Grudgingly I agreed to pay, and silently thanked the Gods for my savings bank account.

            The actual move only took around two hours – one at each end. And by 4pm the removals men had gone, and myself, my partner, and two friends tried to rearrange the furniture and boxes in the living room so that we could have a sit down and much needed coffee break.

            We all then had a quick half hour moving all of the bedroom boxes upstairs to my new room (well, the others moved things whilst I had the job of supervisor), and clearing a bit of floor space so that my drum kit could fit somewhere behind the sofa without being damaged.

            Once everyone had gone, myself and Johnathan got my bed sorted out (though of course this was just a mattress on the floor with my bedding on it) and then we sat down and breathed out.

            A week later and all of the problems encountered were more or less forgotten. Life was steadily moving along at its own speed, and I was enjoying having company again. Sitting on the back step with a coffee on a sunny Thursday afternoon, I reflected that all the problems had been worth it, and life hadn’t gone back to normal – it was better than normal.

Just heard back from neon literary magazine, they felt my poems weren't quite right for their magazine unfortunately. (Don't have more feedback than that due to the large number of submissions they receive.)

But at least I've got the Mensa NoW thing going on :)

And because they won't be published this means I'm free to try submitting the poems to somewhere else... !

This week I've submitted 8 poems to 2 magazines - The New Writer, and Neon Literary mags. Hopefully at least one of the poems will be published but as I've got to wait a few months I'm going to now try to forget about them...

There is a house, not on a deserted hill, but right there in your street. This house is full of negativity and it is devoid of love. It had inhabitants, but they were not people such as you and I would know. They looked quite normal from the outside, one tall, one small, one barely there. But once they were inside the house, they were transformed, as all who entered were, to shells of creatures.

Within the house nobody could thrive. All endeavours were doomed to failure. All hope dispelled. But for these broken creatures, the house was home. The gloom comforted their tortured souls, and as they wandered the landings and entered the almost bare rooms, they felt at ease.

One of them, it was hard to tell which one in the darkness (for only a tiny sliver of natural light crept through the newspapered up windows) was sitting on an undressed mattress, staring at their feet in the low yellow lighting.

Noises on the stairs meant one of his companions would soon be joining him. Eventually, all three of them would end up in this large dull room, sitting on the grimy mattress and staring at their feet.

Sometimes one of them would light a fire, but it would not be anything normal people would call a fire. It would be a small spark, and then a damp crackle as newspapers burnt through and left flame enough for anything they had managed to salvage that day for fuel.
And that was their life and how they lived it, for we don’t all have the same ideals…