It's ten to one in the morning, and I start my new job at nine a.m. And what am I doing instead of resting my world-weary head on my pillow? Blogging.

Hmm.

Anyway, my name is Rainey, and this blog has been created in a vain effort to get me to continue writing my novels. I don't know how. I mean, it can't exactly poke me in the side repeatedly chanting, 'Write, write write!' in my ear, nor can it really do anything. But it is late (or early). And it seems to make sense to me.

To tell you a little about myself, I'm twenty years of age, living in Belfast, Northern Ireland. I'm at Queen's University studying English, and probably should be working on my dissertation. Representation of the Self in Renaissance Literature. Yeah, I know, it's boring. I don't even like Renaissance Literature. But apparently I'm writing ten thousand words on it. I suffer from a variety of mental health conditions including a recurrent depressive disorder and borderline-Borderline Personality Disorder (meaning I just fall short of a definite diagnosis).

I have four permanent house-guests in the form of Guinea Pigs -- two bonded males and a neutered male living in sin with a female. The first two, Bill and Ben, were sold to me as 'brothers', but there's no way they're littermates. Neutered Cookie is incredibly aggressive and tries to mount anything and everything in sight, except Heidi, who has breathing problems, and usually just smacks him in the face with her arse. Don't know if that deters him or not, though... They live in a block of wire flats under my bed (my bed is one of those top bunk with no bottom bunk jobbies).

I'm working on three novels and a play at the moment. The first novel is a fantasy book called Child of Light. It's becoming increasingly feminized. Female protagonists living in a matriarchal world, with two goddesses at war with each other. Oh, and they're lesbians, kind of like me (I'm bisexual -- or greedy, as manys a person has called me).

The second is a story from the point of view of Dominic Kelly, a nurse born in Dublin, raised all around Ireland, who attends QUB, falls in love with his best friend, and subsequently gets his heart broken. He's an affable chap, my Dominic, but nothing seems to go quite right for him, bless.

The third is an untitled autobiographical account of my mentalness. Well, as autobiographical as any autobiography can be. What I remember may not actually be accurate. Memory is unreliable. So perhaps it should be semi-autobiographical. Or maybe just fake.

The play deals with mental health issues too (hey, most writers just write the same thing over and over. Take Jane Austen, for example. Or Stephen King, in my opinion). I've quite blatantly stolen a dramatic technique from Brian Friel in his play Philadelphia, Here I Come! wherein he has two actors play 'public' and 'private' versions of the main character, Gar. I have three actors playing the same character. One is the 'everyday' version, the true character. Another is the vehemently negative and self-harming version, and the final character is the voice of positivity. The idea is that as the character's mindset changes, the actors slip on and off stage as fluidly as possible. I'm trying to visualize how it feels to be in such a position.

So it's now thirteen past one, and I'm getting a bit tired. The pigs are safely tucked up in bed, and I feel that it's about time I joined them. Not in the cage, obviously. I don't find hay comfortable, or nutritious.

Thanks for reading. Hopefully I'll be back.