Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Progress XXXVIII

Can I just say that I absolutely love the OST for Doctor Who Season Four? A lot of the music is brilliant, but my favourite piece out of the whole album has to be The Greatest Story Never Told. Unfortunately, for maximum impact it should be played at ear wobbling volume.

Strangely, this is another piece of music where I can envisage being on the prow of a sailing ship as it moves at high speed through the waves. It will also do very well for the car, although with the dogs in the back it will not be played loudly as their hearing is much better (and more sensitive) than mine. The Voyage of the Damned Suite is also excellent, and I spent a lot longer listening to the album lst night than I ought to have done. (But, lunchtime tomorrow and I'm on my hols for 2 weeks (!!!!!2 weeks!!!!!!) so I can cope with a bit of tiredness.

Things on the job-sheet

1. Continue working on Model of Perfection (2 chs / 12,051 words in so far)
2. Revise 3's Company - reworking the beginning to take into account the new setup
3. Finish rough draft of the military short & revise
4. Start new outline on Rapunze
5. Plan / write something for the Realms of Fantasy Halloween 2009 issue {this one's tentative}
6. Outline some other pieces i.e. 1-2 lines per scene (F &SF shorts) {This is for when I get bogged down in any of the above, need a break and don't want to read / sleep / watch a DVD / take the dogs for a walk / or cook} (Hey, it could happen.)


Current Research

Georgian London

1. Maps
2. Buildings
3. Social / Political History
4. Clothing
5. Transportation / distances / times
6. Crime & punishment (including the other kind of transportation)

Model of Perfection
Total words: 12,051
New words yesterday: 2, 143
Marcus: Got Penelope to relax. But then she ran off.
Penelope: Not sure a lady would have relaxed that much. Ran off after eating most of the sandwiches.
Trouble: On its way.


Listening to: Voyage of the Damned Suite: Murray Gold
Mood: Sick. I has lergy. {It's because I'm going on holiday-it's punishment} ::mopes::

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Poetry Quote

I finally got around to looking up a quote from The Impossible Planet in Doctor Who and found out that it's from a huge, docking great poem called Horatius by Thomas Babington Macaulay. The whole poem can be found here, and below is the stanza containing the few lines spoken in DW by Mr Jefferson.

Horatius (from the Lays of Ancient Rome – 1842)

Verse XXVII

Then out spake brave Horatius,
The Captain of the gate:
‘To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers,
And the temples of his Gods,

Saturday, November 08, 2008

Challenges

NaNoWriMo is currently underway and not going too badly, although if I don't pick the pace up I won't be making 50K by the end of November. But, Sweating With Sven is almost ready to kick off once more and that is a more genteel race to word count greatness. If I don't achieve one, I will more likely achieve the other.

I know, for NaNo that you're supposed to turn off your internal editor, but mine's just told me that chapter four should be chapter six and so now I have to discover what happens in chapters four and five, so that will be something to go over this evening, after m'nevvy's birthday party (he is, he proudly told me, five now. He's been 'almost five' since he turned three!) His dad made him a giant jaffa cake, cake for yesterday and today he's having cake in the shape of a train, so he and his sibs will be pinging off the walls on a sugar high.

It's cold, but I'm putting off lighting the fire until it actually gets dark. 14:00hrs is a little early yet for getting the coal in so it'll be on with another layer (and you see, this is where being a werewolf would come in really handy. On the one hand you'd have a higher metabolism so you'd be warmer anyway; and if it got really cold you could half-shift (so you could still type, naturally) and be all furry and whatnot while still being bipedal and opposedly thumbed. I think evolution missed a trick on that one.)

Anyway, anyone doing NaNo? Doing well?

Anyone about to start Sven?