So here’s the end reason

Hello. You’ve reached the blog of Jonathan Mercer. Jonathan Mercer is a twenty-something man who likes to write. At time of writing he has managed to complete one novel, dozens of short stories and three poems.

One poem describes flowers, but it is about his ex-girlfriend. It is not very good.

One of his stories is about a road trip through America. It features a character named Patience who resembles a woman that Jonathan fell in love with on the bus once. She got on a stop after he did and left two stops before he had to. She had four piercings in one ear.

Once, when he was looking at a girl bend over, he said “hot damn”. The people who he was with at the time laughed and made fun of him for using such a weird phrase. He still says it in his head, you can tell when he is because he has a little smile.

When he listens to songs he often mouths the words. He doesn’t care if people are watching; he likes it better that way. There are some songs that make him want to cry, because for a moment they are perfect. This has happened a few times, with Radiohead, Mars Volta, and Modest Mouse, to name a few.

Sometimes he has the power to be the worst person you’ll ever meet, but he’ll do it in such a way that it’ll be a while before you figure it out.

He left his job last week. After two and a half years of hating the place and everything in it he turned round and realised that he’d really miss hating that place.

He lives with his brother right now, but in a month or two he’ll be out. His life is going to start, and it’s going to be hard.

He falls in love with three people a day. Yesterday it was a girl who ended every sentence in a question, a girl with legs running on forever, and a girl who would be so beautiful if she weren’t ugly.

He has three best friends. One friend is endlessly interesting, one friend is scarily like him, and one friend he doesn’t talk to anymore. He regrets letting that happen.

He likes people that challenge him. This includes people who write better or more interesting stories than him, people who write better blogs than him, people who can do things he can’t and people who are smarter than him. He is never friends with anyone who he thinks is beneath him.

There are exceptions to this though. People below him tend to flatter than him and he likes thinking he’s an amazing person because no one tells him he is when it’s actually true.

He has fallen wholly in love with two people so far. He thinks he’ll take a break from it for a while.

If you don’t get to know him too well, he’s a nice guy.

I know all this because I created him.

My name is Joe, I’m a 19 year old writer from Scotland and I make people up for a living. Last year I was Jesse Sutherland. I don’t know who I’m going to be next year, but I can say that he won’t be Jonathan. Jonathan was a good guy. He was nice, simple, and just fun to write. But he became too much like me. I think it was my fault really. I put him up somewhere I couldn’t reach. I gave him attributes I didn’t have, I made him too funny, too whimsical. And now he’s dead. There’s a lesson here.

Surprise?

And goodbye!

Preemptive Retaliation (6)

I have decided to delete some things out of my life. I have so many plans for so many things, but I’ve grown wise to the idea that I don’t have enough time for these things. I am not sure if I’ve complained about this before, but my life – from here to February – has been fully booked. If my life was a restaurant and you came in with your partner or friends my Maître Dee would tilt his nose into the air and say that I am full. I am full to the brim. In fact, he would say, the fire marshal will probably show up any second to shut me down and there’s not even room for him.

From Monday to Sunday, every week, I am booked. I never used to be this way. I used to have more free time than I deemed necessary. People would phone me up out of the blue to invite me for a night out, and I would gladly accept. Now my nights out are planned two, three, four weeks in advance. I have people consecutively booking me at the same time every week. One of these I look forward to and enjoy immensely, the other I loath because he just won’t go away. He sits on my couch and plays Halo wrong.

Whenever I’ve not been booked by friends, I’ve been booked by work. Because of work three evenings a week are taken up (the other two being occupied by Writers Group and the friend that won’t go away) which means I can’t go into the library and write essays or I can’t get food or I can’t ask that really really cute girl if she wants to go for a coffee. God, I’ve missed my bus three times so I can walk that girl to her train.

Whenever I’m not in work I’m either traveling, sleeping or catching up on my reading. And everything else is taken up by everyone else. You have no idea how annoying it is when two people ask you to come out on the same day. And when I double book! Oh when I double book. Heads fly.

So I am going to delete things from my life. Deletion. I’m going to press a button and take away some things about my life. But what can I delete?

Friends.
Films.
Reading.
Writing.
Studying.
Work.
Recent History.
Internet.
Television.
Useless talents.
Driving Lessons.
Musical Instrument Learning.

Internet would be a good start, but I don’t actually spend much time on here. I read blogs, read comics, check out videos and that’s really it. Occasionally, once in a blue moon, I gorge myself on wikipedia or the entire archives of certain webcomics. This takes up a lot of time but I have an addictive personality. Televison is a negligable item too; I barely watch it and when i do it’s mostly films. But! It is the reason I stay up to 3am most days.

Driving lessons can be cut. Easily. When I move to the city centre I won’t need a car. Busses! they are the future of everything.

I refuse to give up reading and writing things. They are too much fun. Have I told you about the Kathy Acker book I’m reading? She makes me insane.

Studying I wish I could cut out. I had two essays, two projects and a presentation to give just for last week. I drank so much coffee that it’s a miracle I haven’t drowned and died.

Work has been cut down, to an extent. I worked 15 hours a week spread over 3 days in 5 hour shifts from 5 to 10. But, as of this week, I’m working different shifts in a different building! Now my 15 hours a week will be spread over four days, but most days I’m only in a few hours. I’m dreading my six hour shift of 9am to 3pm.

Musical instrument learning has be deleted for now. One day I will learn that precious saxaphone.

Useless talents? Gone.

Films? I’ll cut down, but never ever will I give them up. No matter what the expense. I love my paid escapism.

Delete delete delete.

And now I am left an empty shell of someone. Hooray for that friend that won’t leave and won’t play Halo properly!

Hmm

I have five days left. And I have written one-hundred-and-ninety-something posts! I can make it two-hundred if I want.

If I want.

I can’t believe I wrote this

“I’ll admit that writing about oneself is a strange kind of voyeurism, like by chronicling my thoughts and feelings into a thin whimsy plot I’m opening a trenchcoat and flashing the world. But the thing is that it feels too easy. All I have to do is find a trenchcoat and open it. It’s showing a personal part of myself in a blatant and easy way. Yes, some people may enjoy it, some people may recognise themselves in my naked body and feel different about the world, but ultimately it’s too easy. I don’t want to just be able to unbutton a coat, I want to strip fifty people without their consent and show the varied bodies we have.”

The Titanic sank at sea

It’s ok. It’s all ok. It’s not as if it can get any worse, right?

My mantra for god knows how long has been that worse things have happened at sea. Worse things have happened at sea. It’s true. People fucking die at sea. People freeze and drown and get eaten by octopus. Worse things happen at sea than 6000 words to be written in under a week. Oh, did I mention the lecture I have to give in three days? No? Well there we go.

Oh damn I’m having a freak out aren’t I? It’s angsty and it’s something a teenage girl would say but I’m having trouble breathing. Douglas Adams comes to mind with his everlasting advice of “DON’T PANIC” but I’m not panicking I’m just freaking the fuck out.

But worse things have happened at sea.