HAMSTERS & HEROIN: Not all junkies are purse-snatching grandmother-killing psychos. I'm keeping this blog to bear witness to that fact.

LIVE FROM LONDON

Gledwoods deutscher Blog

Bitte hier klicken ...

DIARY OF A SLOWLY RECOVERING HEROIN ADDICT

I used to take heroin at every opportunity, for over 10 years, now I just take methadone which supposedly "stabilizes" me though I feel more destabilized than ever before despite having been relatively well behaved since late November/early December 2010... and VERY ANGRY about this when I let it get to me so I try not to.

I was told by a mental health nurse that my heroin addiction was "self medication" for a mood disorder that has recently become severe enough to cause psychotic episodes. As well as methadone I take antipsychotics daily. Despite my problems I consider myself a very sane person. My priority is to attain stability. I go to Narcotics Anonymous because I "want what they have" ~ Serenity.

My old blog used to say "candid confessions of a heroin and crack cocaine addict" how come that one comes up when I google "heroin blog" and not this one. THIS IS MY BLOG. I don't flatter myself that every reader knows everything about me and follows closely every single word every day which is why I repeat myself. Most of that is for your benefit not mine.

This is my own private diary, my journal. It is aimed at impressing no-one. It is kept for my own benefit to show where I have been and hopefully to put off somebody somewhere from ever getting into the awful mess I did and still cannot crawl out of. Despite no drugs. I still drink, I'm currently working on reducing my alcohol intake to zero.

If you have something to say you are welcome to comment. Frankness I can handle. Timewasters should try their own suggestions on themselves before wasting time thinking of ME.

PS After years of waxing and waning "mental" symptoms that made me think I had depression and possibly mild bipolar I now have found out I'm schizoaffective. My mood has been constantly "cycling" since December 2010. Mostly towards mania (an excited non-druggy "high"). For me, schizoaffective means bipolar with (sometimes severe)
mania and flashes of depression (occasionally severe) with bits of schizophrenia chucked on top. You could see it as bipolar manic-depression with sparkly knobs on ... I'm on antipsychotic pills but currently no mood stabilizer. I quite enjoy being a bit manic it gives the feelings of confidence and excitement people say they use cocaine for. But this is natural and it's free, so I don't see my "illness" as a downer. It does, however, make life exceedingly hard to engage with...

PPS The "elevated mood" is long gone. Now I'm depressed. Forget any ideas of "happiness" I have given up heroin and want OFF methadone as quick as humanly possible. I'm fed up of being a drug addict. Sick to death of it. I wanna be CLEAN!!!

Attack of the Furry Entertainers!

Attack of the Furry Entertainers!

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Shiny Sunday

SHINY SUNDAY... it's been the earliest ~ and coldest ~ Easter in nearly 100 years. I say "shiny" ~ really it's a bright white day. Much of London (apparently) had snow yesterday, though none settled. We've not had serious, Christmas-card style snow to the best of my memory, since 1981. I remember tobogganing down the middle of the road (cars slippin' and slidin' all over so no chance of gettin' mown down and this was on a hill with a dead end up top) aged nine and drest in my first pair of jeans. (I'd been a couldroy kid up till then ~ how very 1970s!)

I went through a memoirs brainstorming session with a close friend last night. And emerged from it feeling less conclusive than ever before...

Also I was advised to publish electronically, online. The thought of selfpublishing memoirs or fiction, either e-wise or on paper, I have to say, leaves me utterly cold. Since starting this blog I have realized the essential paradox of the net: that with well over 100 million potential readers (in English) and all the clamour and confusion for attention, it really is hard to get noticed... without paying massive pounds-per-click to Google to get toplisted... I get only 80 hits ~ and that's on a good day.

I think a blog like mine with its sometimes challenging subject matter demands a level of ongoing emotional investment that most people feel unable to give. A book of memoirs requries such investment for only days... and then you move on. Far more attractive!

If my blog stuggles to make 80 hits, how on earth would I sell a book of 100,000 words ~ and CHARGE FOR IT (because that was the suggestion) and make anything like enough income for a 7-storey double-fronted house off Sloane Square with basement swimming pool? I really don't see this internet publishing thing working.

People go online for FREE information. They go to a bookshop to pay. Books are selling better than ever before (unlike newspapers, which are sinking Titanic-like into the meery gloom...)

Seeing new readers appear on my blog who might have spent two hours or more a day for several days in a row perusing my blabberings... then they mostly vanish. This convinced me that some people were reading my blog like a book anyhow.

But surely most people are still like me. They want a book they can take on the train to work each morning, eat sandwiches over at lunch, take into the bath and curl up with at night before dropping off. It becomes part of them for a week; then goes to a friend, or to the bookshelf.

In these days of pain, the socalled Misery Memoir has become a topselling category on any general publisher's list. These books sell. And I have a story to tell. If it's worth telling, it's worth selling.

My "dream", if you want to call it that, has always been to snag a top agent who will make a deal with a large conglomerate publisher with the power to orchestrate international publicity etc and get my book into every bookshop, airport, railway station etc the world over. I would be willing to play my part and go out promote promote promote on radio, on television (if they'd have me ~ ha!) and in print. Because that's the game, these days more than ever...

Books are showing no sign of any decline in sales in this so-called electronic age. It is worth bearing in mind that of all the massmedia: films, records etc, the printed word is by far the oldest and most enduring. In the last decade the highest sellers have sold higher than ever before ~ 50 million plus on seven Harry Potters and The Da Vinci Code. Distribution systems are more sophisticated than ever before. My blog gets only 20% of its readers from the UK. In other words 80% are scattered worldwide. How can I possibly selfpublish in volume format and arrange anything like such international distribution? Or even worse, e-publish and convince anyone to pay? Be honest: have ANY of you EVER paid any money for an online text-only product? I'd love to hear from you if you have.

First rule of business, as I see it ~ the customer is set in his ways. No matter how good my book might be I honestly don't see that I'd get anything like optimum revenue by putting it online and expecting people to pay ~ when there are reams upon reams of websites offering information on the same subject whether or not it's worse-written ~ for FREE.

Also, no traditional publisher would go anywhere near my work after I'd done this. When blogs have been "published", it's nearly always been on the understanding that the author adds at least 50% in fresh material.

A recent radio documentary on the future of the book surprised me in that even young children, the socalled Harry Potter Generation STILL preferred printed volumes to e-books or reading onscreen or scratting through nasty old print-outs.

I'm not against selfpublishing when it comes to roborovski books and other sideprojects. But I'm looking for a career. And I intend to make one by crafting memoirs and fiction: and by getting well paid for it!

Nobody seems to get it. I don't WANT to be a publisher. I want to be an author. Publishing is a business; authorship an art or craft. And as I said before, my ambition has always been to be an authro of heatwrenching bestsellers and to sell enough books to stretch end on end to the moon and back. Harper Collins or Random House could do this for me. I couldn't do it on my own!

Perhaps this soudns arrogant. To me it's just ambition. As the saying goes: reach for the stars and you might just catch the moon.

*

EAster has so far passed me by with nary a chocolate egg. All my talk of "trotters" and I've had a dose of the trots myself (yeah: you really wanted to hear that!)

If you're enduring fractious relatives after a ten hour road trip you have my sympathy.

It's a bleary day here. What do people actually do for Easter? I've no idea. I've never done it.

OK: bleary day; cheery day. It's what you make it. I hope all goes well with you.

***

Easter Bunny Doggie...

*

Music of the Day:
The Specials: Ghost Town


*

Hey! Spherical did a furry entertainment yesterday, when she poked her head from the teabox where they all sleep again... the hole is only JUST gnawed big enough to let a tubby robo in or out... so her head, protruding from this teabox, looked moosehead-on-plaque just like a bizarre piece of weary Victoriana ~ she was so entertaining

15 comments:

Napaboaniya.Elaine Ling said...

That's a roborovski right? Tiny cuties :P
Happy Easter :)

Gledwood said...

o yeah: robos = the very best

hey how did you know that? you ever kept robbies?

-eve- said...

I like the title; heroin and hamsters (although would wish you could get yourself off :-).

I love Roborovskis! Everytime I pass the petshop, I stand and look at them (and then convince myself that i have no time for a hamster, and need a dog more than a hamster). it's relaxing to watch them, isn't it... :-) and they look just like balls.. :- )

P.S. Your hamster pics are great, and the one with Pandable is a classic... :-)

Gattina said...

You can't compare reading a book and reading a blog ! If you want to read all posts you want to from top to bottom then you need a lot of time. With a book it's different you read put it away, pick it up again and continue to read. If you want to read again the post on a blog there are already several more posts and it isn't up to date anymore.
So you also had snow in London, in Brussels too and today sunshine. I think the weather mixed up Christmas with Easter ! Happy Easter !

Akelamalu said...

I'm not sure butI think you are reffering to my suggestion about self publishing with LULU.COM in this post? This is not publishing online. Your book if you publish this way can be for sale or not. No-one can read it without buying it. You decide how much you want to make from your book by adding that amount to the publishing/printing cost i.e. my grandmothers biography costs £9.60 to publish/print in hardback but I did not add anything for myself because I did not want to make money out of it, so anyone buying it will pay £9.60. In the event you cannot find a publisher and would just really like to see your book in print you could publish it through LULU but not put it on sale. Hope that makes it clear. If you want any further information you can contact me by email if you wish. :)

Deb said...

I agree about the printed word and being an author vs publisher. I think when people venture into the internet world, they're looking to skim and scan and not stay in one place too long...it's too inviting to move around when there's so much available.

I definitely agree that you should look to an actual book for your memoirs - but perhaps you could use the internet as a tool to approach prospective publishing companies to throw your idea at them?

Anyhow, as for Easter - it's very low key in this household. My Dad's making a dinner and it's just half a dozen of us who'll be attending. My brother's gone to church for the day beforehand (something introduced to him via the NA program - he's embracing the spiritual side of things). But I'm cleaning house. :(

Deb said...

or I should say I SHOULD be cleaning house...I'm taking a little "coffee break" right now.

It's actually looking a bit like sun here so I might have to work a bike ride into my day somehow.

Bimbimbie said...

hi gleds my Mil emailed photos of the snow, she said they got 7 inches
Loved the Specials ....from back when lol thanks for the memory jolt. *!*

.... did you check your email?

Carver said...

It's mild where I live today but in the past we've had snow on Easter and warm days for Christmas which is always weird to me. Your snowy Easter reminded me of that.

sofia said...

i just want to thank your comment on my blog and i hope you keep up seeing my stuff. thank you very much...
:)

tut-tut said...

My advice: develop a few chapters, and hound the agents like the devil. You write well, you have a story to tell, you obviously have an idea of the marketplace. Get going!

Gledwood said...

Eve: Pandable WAS a classic!!

Gattina: you're right that's what I think too. People buy books on recommendation, by browsing bookshops and on impulse. A good seller can do 100,000 in this country. Bestseller of the year does 500,000 or more. I couldn't see that e-publishing could get me equivalent exposure. And of course I want success!

Akelamalu: No: isn't there some system where you can dump a novel/etc online and people pay to get it out? I meant that I couldn't see people paying for info online when there's so much for free.

Selfpublishing books: I did want to do one on hamsters; but the memoirs I either wanted to publish and have (hopefully) in every bookshop up and down this land then hopefully every other land; and to leave the hassle of ordering print runs/organizing posters etc down to the publishers.

Does LULU do photo/picture books? I wanted to do one called The Tubby Roborovski/or something like that.

Debs: If I got buzz around my blog in vast numbers I bet they would gravitate towards it... Easter. Strange time of year!

Gledwood said...

Bimbimbie: No I haven't checked my email! That tune was very much part of an era wasn't it??!?

Carver: It's just FREEZING COLD here now!

Sofia: your illustration's very funky where on earth did it come from?

TutTut: at the moment I'm writing on paper. To get a first draft finished then I'll type it out and check nothing's missed out. I would love to hound them earlier but not having the wherewithall to finish the book quickly under pressure my brain might go POP if it all happened too fast. Maybe on the other hand it would actually HELP to have someone on my side. Get the bloody book finished!

Akelamalu said...

You can do whatever you want on LULU you just upload the photos as far as I know.

Gledwood said...

I'd love to do a massive full-colour picture book with entertaining quotations... yeah!!

;->...

I WANT OFF METHADONE AS QUICK AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE!

METHADONE ~ A FATE WORSE THAN DEATH







Heroin Shortage: News

If you are looking for the British Heroin Drought post, click here; the latest word is in the comments.







Christiane F

"Wir, Kinder vom Bahnhoff Zoo" by "Christiane F", memoir of a teenage heroin addict and prostitute, was a massive bestseller in Europe and is now a set text in German schools. Bahnhoff Zoo was, until recently, Berlin's central railway station. A kind of equivalent (in more ways than one) to London's King's Cross... Of course my local library doesn't have it. So I'm going to have to order it through a bookshop and plough through the text in German. I asked my druggieworker Maple Syrup, who is Italiana how she learned English and she said reading books is the best way. CHRISTIANE F: TRAILER You can watch the entire 120-min movie in 12 parts at my Random blog. Every section EXCEPT part one is subtitled in English (sorry: but if you skip past you still get the gist) ~ to watch it all click HERE.

To See Gledwood's Entire Blog...

DID you find my blog via a Google or other search? Are you stuck on a post dated some time ago? Do you want to read Gledwood Volume 2 right from "the top" ~ ie from today?
If so click here and you'll get to the most recent post immediately!

Drugs Videos

Most of these come from my Random blog, which is an electronic scrapbook of stuff I thought I might like to view at some time or other. For those who want to view stuff on drugs I've collected the very best links here. Unless otherwise stated these are full-length features, usually an hour or more.

If you have a slow connexion and are unused to viewing multiscreen films on Youtube here's what to do: click the first one and play on mute, stopping and starting as it does. Then, when it's done, click on Repeat Play and you get the full entertainment without interruption. While you watch screen one, do the same to screens 2, 3 and so on. So as each bit finishes, the next part's ready and waiting.

Mexican Black Tar Heroin: "Dark End"

Khun Sa, whose name meant Prince Prosperous, had been, before his death in the mid 2000s, the world's biggest dealer in China White Heroin: "Lord of the Golden Triangle"

In-depth portrait of the Afghan heroin trade at its very height. Includes heroin-lab bust. "Afghanistan's Fateful Harvest"

Classic miniseries whose title became a catchphrase for the misery of life in East Asian prison. Nicole Kidman plays a privileged middle-class girl set up to mule heroin through Thai customs with the inevitable consequences. This is so long it had to be posted in two parts. "Bangkok Hilton 1" (first 2 hours or so); "Bangkok Hilton 2" (last couple of hours).

Short film: from tapwater-clear H4 in the USA to murky black Afghan brown in Norway: "Heroin Addicts Speak"

Before his untimely death this guy kept a video diary. Here's the hour-long highlights as broadcast on BBC TV: "Ben: Diary of a Heroin Addict". Thanks to Noah for the original link.

Some of the most entertaining scenes from Britain's top soap (as much for the poor research as anything else). Not even Phil Mitchell would go from nought to multi-hundred pound binges this fast: "Phil Mitchell on Crack" (just over 5 minutes).

Scientist lady shows us how to cook up gear: "How Much Citric?" Lucky cow: her brown is 70% purity! Oddly we never see her actually do her hit... maybe she got camera shy...

And lastly:

German documentary following a life from teenage addiction to untimely death before the age of 30. The decline in this girl's appearance is truly shocking. "Süchtig: Protokoll einer Hilflosigkeit". Sorry no subtitles; this is here for anyone learning German who's after practice material a little more gripping than Lindenstraße!































Nosey Quiz! Have you ever heard voices when you weren't high on drugs?

Manic Magic

Manic Magic

Gledwood Volume 2: A Heroin Addict's Blog

Copyright 2011 by Gledwood