Where do I begin?

So, welcome to my new blog.

This is really just a place for me to cram all my ideas; a journal which will not be left to gather dust, half completed, under a bed or pile of old clothes. I really must begin writing again but...

• I have a dissertation to at least draft within the next 10 weeks. On average that means 1000 words per week plus a fuck load of research into the dark realm of Jack the Ripper and Victorian Whitechapel. Add in the fact that my Jack is a vampire slaying hero and therein lies another work producing issue - how do I go about researching all this vampire malaki, whilst maintaining a certain degree of believability within my future masterpiece. The main plot will still be based on real events with real places at real times and real characters. Hell it's even gonna be acurate as far as what the characters were wearing at the time. But then come the Vampires. Bram Stoker's Dracula is a masterpiece; that novel is believable yet entirely fictional. I mean when I was reading that, every little tap at the window was obviously a bat. I think I almost shat myself several times on an hourly basis whilst perusing that piece of work. Why then do I struggle to make a link between the believable and the supernatural?

• I need to crack on with my poetry, however, having just submitted 13 poems for a unit at university, I seem to have stumbled across a block. I need some sort of inspiration to begin again. At uni i was using photos I found on the web, but I need more than that; I need something I relate to personally. I am fed up of creating fantasy environments and imagining situations for characters I care so little about I don't even bother to name. I guess even the made up characters sympathise with my own characteristics, but even then they are very far from the true me. I need lubrication for my brain, oil for my mind...but where?