New Beginnings?

Hi!

Here we are – the first blog post. God knows how many I’ll actually write, or if what I’m endeavouring to write about will even come to fruition, but at least I can say with absolute authority that this is the first!

So, hello, I’m Billy! I’m twenty-three years old and I’ve been living with my parents for the past year since graduating university. My life lately has become very small which is a new sensation for me – I’ve always enjoyed living life quite outrageously, but recently I’ve found myself enjoying going to sleep at 10pm.

In this past year I was shortlisted for the Channel 4 production scheme and just narrowly missed out whilst also not being selected for promotion within the shop I’ve been working at for the past two years. I mention this not because I’m bitter (I am) but because I’m currently wallowing in a staggering amount of self-pity and a whole lot of self-proclaimed failure.

My closest friends are quite literally living all over the world and I’m trying to colour coordinate shelves in the name of capitalism.

BUT I have had enough of this self-obsessed pity party. My goal is to work (AND TO SAVE) over the next few months so that I can move back to my beloved Cardiff in the new year! However, if I am to make this move worth my time, I need to beef out my portfolio of work!

Here's me holding a pickle. It's symbolic because you could say in many ways that I am in a pickle. I'm reclaiming the pickle.

My most fervent ambition right now is to create an intricate video essay about the work of my hero Derek Jarman. A few weeks ago, I spent far too much money on a selection of queer film theory books and I’m slowly but surely gaining on completing the first, ‘It Used to be Witches: Under the Spell of Queer Cinema’ by Ryan Gilbey. Admittedly it’s not been the most helpful and the writing is a bit stifling at times, but it has given me the idea for the basis of my essay: political queers. Must all queer films be politically conscious? Must all queer films be rooted in positive representation?

I’m not married to this theme, but it is certainly the springboard for this exploration.

Over the next few weeks, I’m going to be exploring the books I’ve been reading, delving into them in blog posts and developing my ideas for the video essay. It might not be high octane but fuck me at least it’ll give me a better reason to wake up in the mornings!

I’ll keep this post short and sweet. My aim is to finish this bloody book by Friday (today is Tuesday) and to watch Sebastiane (1976, Dir. Jarman) by Saturday so that I can offer something up on Sunday. I only say this so explicitly so as to actually force myself into doing this because I’m a filthy procrastinator… but you’ll come to see that for yourself no doubt. However, we start as we mean to go on!

And so it begins!