[metrics] UF

Had another word war yesterday evening and managed to jiggle out another 2K or so and I'm into chapter four so we're ticking along nicely.

Project: Unnamed UF (I have no idea what this is going to be called - Tilly's Tribulations?)
New words: 2,706
Present Total Word Count: 12,113
Goal: 80,000

12113 / 80000

Is it the weekend yet?

Location: Orthanc2

Mood: Exhausted

Collie #1 had successful surgery yesterday to remove a couple of cysts and, while she was under, to be spayed. The operation went well although she was groggy and cold when I got her home, so we did the pack thing and snuggled on the sofa with her under a blanket. Collies 2 & 3 rallied round as well, so that was good.

Today I am exhausted from not having slept well. She wouldn't go to sleep without knowing I was there so I dozed with either a leg or an arm out of the bed that she could lean on (part of it was that she had the 'do not lick your wounds' plastic cone of misery on her head). Once she was sure I wasn't going anywhere she went to sleep. If she's the same tonight I'm just going to get my sleeping bag out and sleep on the floor - it's times like these I wish I'd hung on to my futon.

She's much more chipper today; the vet said to keep her quiet so the grandparents will have their work cut out for them - keeping a border collie quiet once she's feeling better is no easy task.

So, today is a day of brain-deadiness through lack of sleep and a cold (no oinking yet!) I can hardly wait to go home so that I can lie down. But at least the pre-/post-operative worries are over.

Jollification over. Reporting for duty.

Mood: Tired
Where: Orthanc

Holiday over - back to the grindstone. (The updating of publications...oh, the glamour)
I had a nice relaxing time off; read a lot, wrote a bit, went and saw Harry Potter (not bad, but it lacked the zoom zoom pace of Order of the Phoenix - bit of a filler, I think.)

Fiona Glass has been doing posts on people's desks up on her blog. Mine went up on Friday and you can take a look at it here.

meta_writer are starting a new series of Back to Basics (of writing) posts today, and these will run until the 28th of July, so go along and check them out/ comment.

The as yet untitled YA urban fantasy is jogging along (although, as ever, it's started in the wrong place, but that's what revisions are for, eh?)



I'm aiming for a first draft finish date of 7th October. We shall see.

Two things...

Location: Orthanc
Music: Mountain Crossing - Shackleton OST
Mood: Pleased


First, Lynn Viehl - author of the Stardoc and Darkyn series, will be running her Left Behind & Loving It week of virtual workshops. These are taking place at the same time as the Romance Divas workshops and RWA's National Conference. There are some great workshops in her line-up, so go check out the post!



Secondly, (and probably only of interest to me) I'm nearly on holiday! Yay! Just had a succesful school visit at work which went really well and was a good way to round off the week, so I'm feeling nicely upbeat. All I need now is about 18 hours of sleep and I should be right. I'm not going anywhere as chum #1 can't take time off in the summer due to being a children's librarian, but that's okay. I'll just lounge around the house until the dogs plague me into taking them for (another) walk.
I have writing and editing to do and no need to get up at 05:30 for work so I'm hoping it will be a lovely combination of relaxing and productive.

Romance Divas: Not Going to Conference Conference

So, you can't go to the RWA conference this year? Well, don't fret for long. Romance Divas is hosting their annual NGTCC (Not Going To Conference Conference) and it's going to be fun-filled. Already they've got great guest spots lined up, including: Josh Lanyon, Rowan Mcbride, Jet Mykles and Shayla Kersten, Carrie Jones, Marley Gibson, Linnea Sinclair, Patti O'Shea, Ona Russel, Steve Hockingsmith, Joey W. Hill and Sasha White.

There will be workshops for just about every genre, from Young Adult to Erotic to Historical. Plus, a workshop on Deep POV, one on going from e-publishing to NY, and a Q&A on how avoid and deal with burnout. And there's bound to be a few surprises, too. icon_wink.gif

The NGTCC kicks off July 14th and runs until July 18th. If you're not already a member of Romance Divas, all you have to do is go to the website and register! Best of all--it's FREE!

Oh, yeah...

White rabbits.

E-books: fair price or overinflated?

J.A. Konrath had an interesting post last month on the cost of e-books, delving into issues with DRM and publishers seeming inability to move (in a timely fashion) with new and emerging technologies.

The rules of supply and demand don't work in a digital world, because the supply is unlimited. You don't fight piracy with weapons. You fight piracy with cost and convenience.

Personally, I don't - and won't - buy e-books that cost the same (or near enough) to the hardback price. An author whose work I love had a new book out in hardback last year. I had all the others in paperback and couldn't really justfy the hardback expense, especially as hbks are less portable so I thought I'd get the e-book version to read there and then, and get the paperback when it came out a year later. Well. The e-book cost exactly the same as the hardback so needless to say, I waited the year until the paperback came out. I could have got the hardback secondhand for less, but I wanted it new - nice shiny book for me/ money for the author = win. But, if only the cost of the e-book version had been the same as (or less than) the cost of the mass market paperback, I would have willingly paid for both versions. EpicFail.
E-publishers get the model right, but (it appears to me) that print publishers are missing an opportunity.

Weekend jollification

Listening to: Infinite White - Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Mood: Cream-crackered

Visited the paterfamilias this weekend up in not-so-sunny Newcastle; they got all the rain my allotment needs. ::grrrr::
Had a nice time, though. Went to Borders as per usual and actually found some books to buy (in the last few months visits to Borders stores generally have been disappointing stock-wise.) They are still engaged in epic Locus-fail, mind. February's issue is still on the shelf with no sign of anything more recent. I may have to give in and subscribe. ::sighs dramatically::
Along with the books I bought, Dad lent me some of his so I have now added to the Tower of To-Be-Read: Acacia, and The Accidental Sorcerer. (Actually, it's quite fortunate that the TBR books are not, actually, in a single tower. Otherwise someone would come home one day and find me with my feet sticking out from under a mass of books - a bit like the Wicked Witch.

I also managed to get a DVD of Brazil by Terry Gilliam - I love this film. Taped it off the tv aeons ago and when the tape died never got round to getting a copy, but as I was wandering round the shop there it was. Right at short-person height. And cheap! So I caved, and at some point this week will indulge in dystopic wierdness with glee.

Also, despite being on a visitation, I managed to get some work done on worldbuilding over the weekend as well as fitting in time for a swim, so actually it was all rather productive. That doesn't happen often!

Currently reading: Testament of Youth - Vera Brittain
Editing: Sokoll's Hawks
Other: YAUF worldbuilding

The bathtub of perserverance

Interesting post (complete with diagrams) from Brad Torgersen (via jay lake) comparing a writer's persistence and practice with the (slow) filling of a bath.
Good stuff.

Back to the Future?

Mood: Cheerful
Listening to: Unwell - Matchbox Twenty

Went to the cinema on Saturday and saw Drag Me To Hell by the Raimi brothers? Cousins?
I have to say that I felt as though I'd been sucked right back to the 1980s, it felt/ came across very much as a film of that time. I laughed rather than being scared, and there were a couple of extremely gross moments. The best bit was the sinister, talking goat. I won't be seeing it again, nor will I be getting it on DVD, but it whiled away a couple of hours.

Next week - Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen! (Explosions; running; explosions; rinse, repeat.)

Adventures in Cooking...

Mood: Hungry
Listening to: The Most Dangerous Predator - Carter Burwell

Removing unidentifiable brown goo from the freezer and hoping that it is, in fact, the remains of the chicken stew you made, froze, and forgot about. Thankfully it was, although it was the really salty version as I cheated and used stock cubes, which when combined with copious amounts of Worcester sauce meant that there was lots of water drinking required.
Chum #1 made bananas in greek youghurt sprinkled with dark muscovado sugar for dessert (we saw it on Market Kitchen) - you shove everything together with the sugar on top, stick it in the fridge for an hour or so and the sugar melts. Tasted lovely!

Working today. >:( Should get home about 17:00hrs and then it's off to the pictures to (probably) see Drag Me To Hell. You'll like it, apparently, if you like Evil Dead/ Shaun of the Dead humour-wise.

What the hey?

Why is it that, when you have stuff to write and lots of editing to do, you suddenly get a new idea and a preface. (With absolutely no idea where the story's going to go from there?)

Enquiring minds want to know.

Thunderbird & Lightning

Mood: Mellow
Listening to: Five Miles a Day - Shackleton OST

Well, it's Thunderbird & Lightning, and extremely wet at the moment.The dry/ cloudy/ humid weather of the last couple of days has broken with a vengeance, so I expect I shall have to check the allotment this weekend to make sure plants haven't got washed away downslope.

I love it when it thunders; you get all that tension in your head as everything builds up and then it explodes across the sky and releases it all. Fantastic! The rain's soothing as well; not as relaxing as just hearing it on trees rather than pavement, but still nice.

Chum #1 has been to the Library & Information Show today and will be bringing pizza with her on her way home. Yay! No cooking tonight. Although I have been good and done half the washing up; I'll do the other half when the first load has drip-dried.

I know. I can barely take the excitement of my hectic social whirl, myself. ::big_grin::

Which fantasy writer are you?

Ganked from various people on LiveJournal:

Your result for Which fantasy writer are you?...

David Eddings (b. 1931)

-1 High-Brow, 7 Violent, -7 Experimental and 5 Cynical!

Congratulations! You are Low-Brow, Violent, Traditional and Cynical! These concepts are defined below.

David Eddings is the best-selling author of several series of fantasy novels, the most famous being The Belgariad (1982-84) and The Malloreon (1988-92). These books have become almost epitomic of the kind of fantasy that is fast-paced, full of humorous dialogue and written to entertain. And entertain they do. Few other writers have Eddings' ability to create characters that not only makes the reader feel as if he or she knows them, but are also very likeable. Perhaps this is due to Eddings unusual path to writing fantasy: He had tried writing in other genres with moderate success when he discovered that fantasy, a genre he had hitherto not been interested in, sometimes sells very well, and therefore started turning an old sketch of a map into a series of books. Without an interest in experimenting with form or pushing the boundaries of the genre, Eddings created the penultimate light entertainment instead, trusting his readers to keep reading because of charming characters and exotic, though not particularly original, environments.

After the success of The Belgariad and The Malloreon, Eddings turned to writing fantasy which was, supposedly, aimed at a more adult audience. The tendency towards violence as entertainment that had been present through-out his early works grew more prominent in the series of The Elenium (1989-91)and The Tamuli (1992-94). It was also around this time that David Eddings wife, Leigh Eddings, was credited as the co-author of his books, though they admitted that she had been contributing from the very beginning.

Though Eddings isn't the most high cultured of fantasy writers, few would dispute that when it comes to charm, he has no rivals.

You are also a lot like J R R Tolkien.

If you want something more gentle, try Robert Jordan.

If you'd like a challenge, try your exact opposite, Tove Jansson.

Your score

This is how to interpret your score: Your attitudes have been measured on four different scales, called 1) High-Brow vs. Low-Brow, 2) Violent vs. Peaceful, 3) Experimental vs. Traditional and 4) Cynical vs. Romantic. Imagine that when you were born, you were in a state of innocence, a tabula rasa who would have scored zero on each scale. Since then, a number of circumstances (including genetical, cultural and environmental factors) have pushed you towards either end of these scales. If you're at 45 or -45 you would be almost entirely cynical, low-brow or whatever. The closer to zero you are, the less extreme your attitude. However, you should always be more of either (eg more romantic than cynical). Please note that even though High-Brow, Violent, Experimental and Cynical have positive numbers (1 through 45) and their opposites negative numbers (-1 through -45), this doesn't mean that either quality is better. All attitudes have their positive and negative sides, as explained below.

High-Brow vs. Low-Brow

You received -1 points, making you more Low-Brow than High-Brow. Being high-browed in this context refers to being more fascinated with the sort of art that critics and scholars tend to favour, while a typical low-brow would favour the best-selling kind. At their best, low-brows are honest enough to read what they like, regardless of what "experts" and academics say is good for them. At their worst, they are more likely to read what their neighbours like than what they would choose themselves.

Violent vs. Peaceful

You received 7 points, making you more Violent than Peaceful. Please note that violent in this context does not mean that you, personally, are prone to violence. This scale is a measurement of a) if you are tolerant to violence in fiction and b) whether you see violence as a means that can be used to achieve a good end. If you are, and you do, then you are violent as defined here. At their best, violent people are the heroes who don't hesitate to stop the villain threatening innocents by means of a good kick. At their worst, they are the villains themselves.

Experimental vs. Traditional

You received -7 points, making you more Traditional than Experimental. Your position on this scale indicates if you're more likely to seek out the new and unexpected or if you are more comfortable with the familiar, especially in regards to culture. Note that traditional as defined here does not equal conservative, in the political sense. At their best, traditional people don't change winning concepts, favouring storytelling over empty poses. At their worst, they are somewhat narrow-minded.

Cynical vs. Romantic

You received 5 points, making you more Cynical than Romantic. Your position on this scale indicates if you are more likely to be wary, suspicious and skeptical to people around you and the world at large, or if you are more likely to believe in grand schemes, happy endings and the basic goodness of humankind. It is by far the most vaguely defined scale, which is why you'll find the sentence "you are also a lot like x" above. If you feel that your position on this scale is wrong, then you are probably more like author x. At their best, cynical people are able to see through lies and spot crucial flaws in plans and schemes. At their worst, they are overly negative, bringing everybody else down.

Take Which fantasy writer are you? at HelloQuizzy

The listing of to do...

Listening to: I Caught Myself - Paramore
Mood: Tired bunny.

My two presentations went well last week. They were preceded by a colleague who did a very interactive, upbeat session - nonetheless, no-one was bored to tears/ unconsciousness, nor was there a mad rush to the coffee afterwards (it was more of a dignified amble) so joy-joy feelings on that one!

My re-telling of Beauty & the Beast is standing at 3,668 words so far. I've been 'paused' for the last week or so for downtime. My brain needed a rest, so I fed it music for a while. (The soundtrack to Channel 4's dramatisation Shackleton is fantastic btw)

In progress
Beauty & the Beast (which will not be called that in the final version) - futuristic fairy tale -- 3,668 words and counting --
Model of Perfection - Georgian romance -- 17, 439 words and counting --

On the edits roster
Sokoll's Hawks - contemporary, military m/m -- 13,212 words at the first draft --
Wish Child - dark fantasy --9,316 words at the first draft--
Does Old Earth Dream of Green, Green Things? - futuristic -- 6,176 words at the first draft --
Three's Company - erotic romance -- 37,068 words at the second draft --

To edit or to write? That is the question.

Back to work...

Well, my brief holiday is over and it's back to work - and the preparation for a presentation I have to give at a staff conference next Thursday & Friday (the 4th & 5th of June). I was volunteered for this, so it should be interesting as I have to do a 20 minute session on effective Google searching (aka Improving Your Google-fu) using interactive voting pads. *cough* I know what I'll be doing for the next little while, then. ::grrr::

Apart from that, the sun is trying to shine through the cloud cover; my vitamin D euphoria is wearing off slowly and I'm working until 21:00hrs on my first day back. Typical.

Beauty and the Beast retelling is going well; I'll do more on that later - see if I can get it up to 8k. (considering where I am in the tale at 3.6k, it's going to be over 10k by the time I'm done

Mood: Hyper
Music: Never Think - Rob Pattinson

Twilight - original score

Okay. I have to admit it. I've got soundtrack love. I watched Twilight last weekend - enjoyed the film - and the music stayed in my mind. All night. All week. I got my housemate (she of public librarian-ness) to bring the OST home from work. Listened to that and enjoyed it, but it was music from the film i.e. songs by various artists; I still wanted the score.

Gave in on Saturday night and downloaded the original score from iTunes (£7.99, as opposed to £18.99 on Amazon. I know that putting it on a CD and in a box makes it more expensive but £11 more?) Well. My ears / brain are in love. Most of the pieces are fairly short; none are over five minutes, but they work nonetheless.
Carter Burwell has done a good job of creating pieces that stick in your mind and alter your mood. He's also managed to evoke wet forests in Oregon (or Wales - to me they're fairly interchangeable. Apart from the bears. And the docking great trees) with just a few seconds of music.

I'm very pleased that I gave in to the urge to get the album, although when my housemate returns from the joys of the Hay literature festival she will probably tell me to put my headphones on when it starts to make its fifth go-round!

Rosemary...

You Are Rosemary

You are stable and grounded. You may take a slow, steady approach to live, but you're a survivor. You are an intellectual and very rational. You can see things from a logical, detached viewpoint. You are successful but not particularly ambitious. You have a way of letting success come to you. You tend to be a bit understated and modest. You let your accomplishments speak for themselves.

What Herb Are You?

This is rather ironic as it's one of the plants - despite my generally green hands - that I have difficulty keeping alive in the garden. It seems to be doing well in the allotment so far though, so let's keep our fingers crossed, eh?

Mood: Thoughtful

Music: The lion fell in love with the lamb - Twilight OST

Fairy tales & Interzone

The mental block I had in regard to my retelling of Beauty and the Beast has been resolved. (It's amazing what a cheese and pickle sandwich (Collier's and Branston, if you were curious) and a mocha in the student cafe can do to your thought patterns.) Along with the Sisters of Mercy. Thank God for the Pod of i.

Anyway, Beauty & the Beast - set in the future, on a spaceship. With peril, pride, and prejudice, and the odd threat of being chucked out of the airlock for bad behaviour.

And let's see if we can keep the damn thing short, shall we?


Also: Just read Aliette de Bodard's Ys in the current Interzone, liked it a lot - and I also want to go and visit Brittany now. Aliette's also no. 10 in the Reader's Poll top 20 for 2008! So way to go, Aliette!

Kim Lakin-Smith's tale in this issue of Interzone was also very compelling - a mixture of retro and futuristic which I enjoyed. I haven't read all the way through it yet, but it looks like a good issue so far.

Scribd Lanches Scribd Store

Of potential interest:

SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(MARKET WIRE)--May 18, 2009 -- Scribd, the world's largest social publishing company, today announced the beta launch of Scribd Store, a first-of-its-kind e-commerce destination and publishing marketplace where anyone -- from professional publishers and authors to students and enthusiasts -- can upload and sell their written works to a readership of 60 million.

You can read the rest of the article here

It will be interesting to see how this will work - will people use this as an alternative to Lulu, or other POD/ e-download stores. I imagine some authors who already put shorts/ novellas on Scribd for free will continue to do so, but I wonder whether there will be an influx (or even a trickle) of people who haven't used Scribd before listing their work and selling it direct?

Any thoughts?

[metrics] Progress & reading matter

Progress was made yesterday! Minimal amount of extra wordage on DOEDoGGT, but this has brought the first draft to a (very) rough and ready close. I shall sit on that for a bit while I do revisions on Wish Child and then attack it.

Does Old Earth Dream of Green, Green Things?

6176 / 6000

So yes, pleased with that.


Busy day today as I'm covering a desk for a colleague, and then interviewing all afternoon but it will bring me another day closer to my six day bank holiday weekend (what? why have one extra day when you can have three?)
And it will be good to have that time off (and the house to myself (and the border collies and the cat)) as Amazon UK delivered!

Waiting for my undivided attention are:

Transgressions by Erastes
False Colors by Alex Beecroft
The Turning Tide by Diana Pharoah Francis
The Trouble with Demons by Lisa Shearin

And on top of that, the latest issue of Interzone (222) has arrived so there are joy, joy feelings all 'round, basically.

Cyborg name

Get Your Cyborg Name

hehehehehe.

Weekend - not bad if you like rain.

No writing over the weekend, although Friday's wordcount was good, so I'm pleased with that as I got another 2,207 words on the short which brings it up to:

Does Old Earth Dream of Green, Green Things?

5948 / 6000

It's also rather obvious that I'm going to have to revise the first draft wordcount up (again) so I think I'll take it up to 10K and if it's done before then that's fine.


Saturday I read The Black Ship by Diana Pharoah Francis - really enjoyed it; Thorn is a great character and I liked the fact that he hung onto his integrity no matter what people did to him. I also liked the fact that the Captain and Thorn's crimpers didn't turn on him once they found out how Pilot's are made. I'm looking forward to reading the Turning Tide (Amazon UK I am looking at you. And tapping my fingers.)
It was my turn to cook, so I did cold weather food (it had been wazzing with rain on and off all day): sausage (cumberland), mash, peas, and gravy. Lovely! I then had a retro moment and watched the first two Star Trek films - it'd been years since I'd seen them and it was interesting to watch them when I'd just seen the new Star Trek film last weekend.

Sunday I was up early to go swimming with Chum #1, her brother, his wife, and their four children. Mayhem ensued, naturally and lots of pool water was swallowed by over-excited children. We all repaired home for a cup of tea and then cleaning was done, which involved the donation of a lot of my books that I'd shoved in boxes and forgotten about being given to our local RSPCA shop to sell. (It also meant that I found some books I'd forgotten about that I wanted to hang on to, so they've now made their way upstairs to 'rest' on the landing for a bit while I decide where to put them.

So, properly exhausted, I went to bed like a good librarian and now the week has started again. BUT! The second bank holiday of the month is approaching and I will be off for SIX days! Yay!

How did your weekend go?

[metrics] Earth story

Took part in word wars yesterday on LJ and managed a fairly decent word count (for me, anyway.) I had to increase the word limit to 6K, but I'll work on getting it back down again when I go through the first revision as, although I need to know how things started, I don't think the reader does. We'll see.

Anyway, added 1,670 new words yesterday. Progress. We haz it.

Does Old Earth Dream of Green, Green Things?

3024 / 6000

Interesting article: The Eroticization of Equality and Social Justice

alex_beecroft

pointed out an interesting article written by Hillary Rettig, who talks about love as a progressive activity and how (and why) it's denigrated in society. It's very thought-provoking - as are some of the texts she quotes - and I think it's well worth a read.

You can get access to the article here: The Eroticization of Equality and Social Justice

ETA:

"Therefore, they have to be made good...a good person -- a moral person -- is someone who is disciplined enough to be obedient..."

This quote, from George Lakoff's Don't Think of an Elephant which is mentioned in Rettig's article, is often (I think) the basis of many dystopic stories, where the elite's self-percieved utopia is brought about by demanding absolute obedience from the proles (whoever they may be in the context of the story.) And of course, a side effect of that is the creation of a dystopic society where individual freedom or expression can be seen as disobedience and is therefore punished.

Interesting reading, anyway.

New, Genre Creative Writing MA

Edinburgh Napier University has launched the UK's first genre-based Creative Writing MA which could change the landscape of creative writing in Scotland.

This is via the literaturetraining newsletter - more details on their website here; information on the part-time degree here, and the full-time degree here.


NB: I do not work at Napier University, have never worked there, and I'm not endorsing the course (never having been on it). I just thought it was interesting that someone was providing a course specific to genre fiction - although they seem to have left off a couple of genres as historical fiction, westerns, and romance aren't mentioned (although perhaps that's due to a lack of tutors/ perceived lack of interest from potential students - who knows?)

Early start to the weekend!

I shall be finishing work shortly to head off up to Newcastle to visit my Dad for the weekend - always best to get an early start when the M1/ A1 is involved :-<
Hopefully we shall follow the time honoured tradition of heading out to Borders at Silverlink tonight (where I shall whether they still have epic Locusfail or not - even in the UK; even with the economic downturn, one would think that they could - at the very least - get the next to latest issue of Locus in the shop. We shall see. I am not holding my breath as hypoxia is not good for Merry.)

Then perhaps, the cinema? Trek, or Wolverine? Choices, choices.

And hopefully there will be the sun, so that I can sit outside while reading more of Roy Porter's English Society in the 18th Century

Have a good weekend!

Taters! And other stuff...

Spuds are in the allotment; tomatoes are in pots (and cloches) in the garden, along with some spinach, and a lot of weeding / de-nettling of areas has taken place.
There're still a number of spinach / cabbage / chinese cabbage plants to go into the allotment, but now that I've found the fleece I can protect them from any frosts we may still get in the next month.
Will it get warmer; colder; wetter? Usually if it's nice in April we get huge amounts of rain after that with the odd frost - hopefully it won't be enough to kill any of the veg off.

I planted a lot of hundred-weight pumpkin seeds, as well as a whole tray of sunflower seeds, so we'll see how many of those come up and can be transplanted. I've still got beans to plant along with sweet peas for pollination and I have a packet of tagetes that I can put in around the cabbages etc. which should encourage pollinators and (hopefully) keep most of the munchers away from the food plants.

We live in hope.

The chap with the allotment next to mine has moved his ferrets & polecats down from his old plot. They look sweet and are apparently very friendly and don't bite, so I may end up holding one at some point.

Joy for yesterday: My car passed its MOT (eventually - needed a few things fixing) so I can keep going for at least another year, unless something drops off.

Joy for today: a 3 1/2 hour meeting for work (interesting subject - all about student induction - but I hope there will be a decent break for coffee in there somewhere)

Joy for tomorrow: taking the day off so that I can have a long weekend to go with Bank Holiday monday.

[travel] Oxford jollification

Lots of jollification lately!
Went to Oxford on Saturday to have the extended tour of the Bodleian. We travelled from work so I had to leave home at 06:30hrs to get there for 07:15; we made good time and got to Oxford's park and ride at about 09:20 so we had a nice, steady walk to the Library.
The tour started off in the School of Divinity and headed off to Duke Humfrey's library - he was the person to first set up a library here in the 1400s; Thomas Bodley restored it around 1602. Duke Humphrey's library contains chained books and was used in the Harry Potter films. We weren't allowed to take any photos there, so here's a link to a picture of the restored ceiling.

I did get to see Convocation House where Parliament met during the Civil War:


and also managed to get into Christ Church cathedral to see some of the windows:


More pictures can be seen here

Bath Pic Spam

So, a bit late but, I was in Bath last week for a bit of a jolly and took some photos of interesting sculptures that were placed around the Abbey. I also took some of the buildings as a visual research guide for the Georgian WiP.

The Big Bull and the Big Hare were right next to each other on plinths.































The Hares and Dogs were outside the Pump Room (which does nice, but expensive, afternoon tea)



All in all I had a nice time despite being ill, and it was nice to visit the town again.

A few other pictures can be seen here.

Edited to add: Sculptures are by Sophie Ryder.

Sunny Sunday

Well, I've just had a gloriously sunny day which has more than made up for the grim hanging disease I've had over the Easter break. The cough is still with me, but at least I can go out in public without twenty boxes of tissues to back me up.
The spa was great. I had reflexology in the morning which was incredibly relaxing - I could've gone to sleep quite happily - and then went and did all of the water treatments & had a swim after lunch (after a decent interval, naturally).
The day after that I went down to Bath and had a lovely time wandering around and getting some pictures of the streets and houses. I also had a gorgeous, cinnamon butter Sally Lunn bun on one day, and a Lady's Tea on another - very nice.

Came home and spent a few days in bed with the chest infection, but got out and about in the last couple of days. Yesterday, I got a load of veg plants to go in the garden / allotment and today I weeded one of the beds and planted some peas, while a mate dug another bit over. There will be be fresh veg throughout the summer! Also, there will be fresh eggs as the chap with the patch next to me has chickens who are good layers and he has more eggs than he knows what to do with!Back to work tomorrow, and there will be a lot to do, so it will be busy, busy, busy but I'm hoping to get the second draft of Wish Child done as it does need tidying up, but at least the core is there.

I hope everyone had a lovely Easter break (of whatever duration it may have been) and that Spring has finally sprung.

Joy, joy feelings...

First draft of Wish Child has been completed and comes in at 9,316 words so I'm pleased with that. I'm away at a Spa tomorrow - sort of a birthday present to myself for Monday - and then I'm down to Bath for jollification on Thursday so while I'm there (in between sight-seeing and eating) I can revise Wish Child in the evenings in the Youth Hostel. Ah, the glamour!

Next up
-- More research for the Georgian novel
-- More worldbuilding for the paranormal YA novel
-- Revising Sokoll's Hawks
-- Fairy tale re-telling of Beauty & the Beast (or Rapunzel - haven't quite decided)

On the (immediate) TBR pile

• Deader Still by Anton Strout (antonstrout ) (this one is actually on my desk at work, staring accusingly at me because the bookmark is still stuck in the back where I put it on Sunday afternoon - my excuse reason for that is that I'm really tired and looking forward to a few days off work)

• Gym Dandy by Storm Grant (storm_grant )

• The Immortal Hunter by Lynsay Sands

• Georgian London by John Summerson

• The Cipher by Diana Pharoah Francis (difrancis ) (a re-read in preparation for The Black Ship)

[Links] Link Salad: Writing

Almost, but not quite, caught up on the blogosphere after having been away at a conference for three days (leaving Cardiff ahead of the Wales-Germany match) and I've come across some interesting / useful links. Which you may have already come across as I'm a bit late to the party. But, hey.

valarltd talks about writing now, rather than waiting for that mythic golden (time) egg to land in your lap

seanan_mcguire talks in a similar vein about managing your time against the time-suck of life (and she has other useful / interesting opinion pieces of which this is #26 out of a proposed #50)

jimvanpelt has an interesting post on dialogue (and a lot of posts generally on writing which are linked at the end of this post)

And Melanie & Steve Tem have a post at Storytellersunplugged about fitting writing in, finding bits of time to write, and also making time for life as well

Haven't fallen off the edge of the world

I'm quickly typing this after breakfast in the hotel and hopefully I'll have a chance to upload it when I get near the university's WiFi network. I am at a conference for the day jobbery (Monday through Wednesday) so there isn't all that much opportunity to get online - especially when the hotel charge £15 (c. US$21.30) per 24hrs for the Internet. I'll wait for the free WiFi, thanks. So if I haven't responded to any messages/ e-mail etc. I *will*, it's just at the moment I have extremely small pockets of time to get online so most things will have to wait until Thursday.

I still have a fairytale to write as well as finishing the last scene of Wish Child, but with any luck I'll be able to do that on the train home on Wednesday as it's more direct. (so I won't have to keep turning off the laptop to dive off the train!)

TTFN

Flycon - Day 2

flycon2009 got off to a good start yesterday, although I didn't manage to join in until 3pm UK time - I took the afternoon off work but then had to pick up the dogs, have lunch, get laundry on etc. but then managed to sit down at the computer in time for the Panel on The Business of E-Publishing - it was interesting, with some very good comments going round. It was held in the forums on sff.net so should still be up there if people want to go along and see what was said/ add commentary etc. Check the Flycon community for links.

The next Panel I 'went to' was When is Young Adult not really for Young Adults - again, interesting and I'm definitely going to go back to that one to see if any more comments have been made on this topic.

Book Promotions: What works.. was the last one I attended (10pm my time) and what came out of that - to me - is that there are no glaring examples of what works, rather you try different things and build readers up that way. But, offering excerpts of the new work or a free copy of an earlier work are more likely to inspire people to buy what you're offering, because you're showing them why they should (through the quality of your writing.)

This morning, I've just finished attending a Panel on Is the Vampire the new Zombie? And while we didn't really come to a conclusion on that one, we did discuss a little the short-shrift zombies get in comparison to the vampire (with all their sexy, sparkly moodiness that makes them more human) although it was agreed that the idea of a 'sexy' zombie would be a hard sell - what with bits dropping off, the smell, and the whole trying to prevent them from eating your brains. But it was good, and interesting, and I'm looking forward to the rest of the Panels / chats I want to go to.

But now...Laundry! Yes. My life is that exciting. I may even get to hang it on the line today. \0/

Progress (& convention)

Another 947 words on Wish Child, which brings it up to 5,454 and we're on the downward slide to the finale. One and a half scenes to go and the first draft will be done! Joy joy feelings!

Also, I plan to 'attend' the LiveJournal online convention FlyCon - take a look at the schedule; there's a fantastic range of panels to choose from (although I may have to cry off some of the early morning ones -- even though they look really good, I'm past the age where I can stay up till 4am, go to bed and then get up at 6:30am and actually be coherent.)

So...Wish Child



Now, off to swimming!

Technology...we loves it.

What is it about 2009?
My DVD player croaked. Then my video decided it didn't want to work anymore. Then, my housemate's stereo and PC gave up the ghost as well, so I've spent today getting a new PC and installing software etc. in between doing the washing-up, making dinner and feeding the Pack.

Touch wood, everything seems to be working okay - but honestly, it's like all the tech has been cursed to give up at the same time! Hopefully, that's it for tech trauma this year!

It's 1 minute away, so Happy St. David's Day!

[writing] Progress

Wish Child
Previous count - 1961 words
New count - 4507
New words - 2546
Woo! Except, I was aiming for around 3K - the story isn't finished yet and I'm already 1.5K over my planned limit.
Does this happen to other people? Do you aim for a story of a certain length, go over and then cut? Or do you manage to stick pretty much to the word count you set yourself? I must admit, I didn't plan this story out - no outline at all - but even with an outline I'm prone to exceeding my self-imposed word limit. ::blows raspberry at self::
Ah, well. Time for a bath and then the joy that is...Iron Man! yay!!!

Proof of snow! This is what it looked like last week when it first started on the Sunday / Monday.



And this is how we keep warm. Open fire heats a back-boiler which sends lovely hot water to the (4) radiators we have in the house. (With varying degrees of success - with only one radiator downstairs it will always be cold in winter.)

Got a good start on the dark fantasy / horror short 'The Wish Child'



I'll hopefully be able to get some more written (and maybe typed up) tonight as I'm not working late this evening. Yay!


Listening to: Wish you were here by Pink Floyd
Mood: Chipperly productive, dahlinks!

First draft done! (Finally!!)

First draft of Sokoll's Hawks is done, coming in at 13,212 words (as opposed to the 6,000 I was originally aiming for). So that's off to sit in a drawer while I:
~ plan another short
~ take 3's Company out of the drawer for revisions
~ look over Model of Perfection ready to continue with chapter 4

I worked from home today due to excessive ice on the road outside and had a very productive day there, and now I've had a productive evening too! All iz joyful.

Last day of January...already!

Well, it's been a little while - I've managed to keep up with reading friend's entries but with little else. (I shudder to think what my cumulated Google Reader entries number now).

I'm typing up some longhand I did on Sokoll's Hawks (God - when will it end? It was only supposed to be 6k long!). I did manage to write some longhand during the week, not as much as I'd have liked because my coughing has meant disturbed nights and therefore knackered days. Ended up with a migraine on Tuesday which probably had nothing to do with the cough, but certainly didn't help. :o(

And then on Thursday night I read Josh Lanyon's The Ghost Wore Yellow Socks. I was only going to read a couple of chapters before going to sleep but ended up reading to the end (at 00:50hrs) as every time I got to the end of a chapter I had to read 'just one more' (yeah, yeah - I should know better by now!)

Today I've:
Read Passage - book 3 in Lois McMaster Bujold's Sharing knife series - loved it. Want to read it again.

Recieved Jim Hines' Goblin Quest, as well as the I Do anthology today - so they've been added to the TBR pile

Made chicken stew and discovered we had hardly any potatoes, so then made dumplings with Tuscan herbs to with it (thank you interwebs for a 3 ingredient recipe)

Thought about doing the washing up but then allowed myself to get distracted. ;oD

Anyway, not a day of huge achievements - but I didn't spend it in bed asleep either, so it's not all bad.

Current word count on SH = 10,891 / 6,000. And it's in third person when it should be in first. ::Sigh:: That's a job for another day.

Update

I'm a bit behind in the cumulation of my daily goal of 2.5 pages a day minimum (although, in making up for not writing at all for four days I did manage to crank out 9 pages yesterday as well as doing some longhand afterwards (while watching the Dark Knight which my DVD player didn't want to let me see the last 10 minutes of ::grrrr::), so it's not all bad.)

I went swimming despite the cough that will not go away and I also did a load of laundry and swept the upstairs carpet, so I'm feeling productive in one sense, anyway!

I'm looking forward to properly light mornings, though. I can't quite get into the joy of getting up when it's pitch black outside and wazzing it down with rain. It just makes me want to curl up under the covers for another couple of hours - even the dogs don't want to get up when it's like that.

Anyway, past time for day jobbery. Onwards and upwards.

Update

Word count for today achieved - it's brought me back up to where I want to be; I skipped a few days so had to make up for that. 10 1/2 pages so that's good. I know it's technically Sunday, but as I haven't been to bed yet I'm still classing it as Saturday!

And now to bed, for there will be early rising tomorrow and the shopping of staple foodstuffs. (We haz no rize) ::mopes::

And then there will be the consumption of stew which was gorgeous. Nom nom nom. The collies thought so, too. Had to fight them off with my elbow while I ate. Tsk.

Anyway. Night night. Time for bed, said Zebedee.

Half the day gone and not a dish washed...

I did get stuff done today, even if it wasn't everything I wanted. The car's in the garage (the water pump is disintegrating) so I'm borrowing one of the garage's - a Peugeot 306, which is about 1/3 again bigger than mine. I will be driving very carefully to work on Monday.

The Allotments are paid for for another year (£50 this year - it's gone up £34 - which is a lot for a completely unmanaged, rural plot of land. Basically a small field.)

Stew has been made and is burbling away on the stove. I should have used a bigger pot, as I had to stop adding vegetables when I ran out of room. I'll wait until everything's settled down and add some leek.

The fire is lit (and didn't go out - it can go either way when I'm in charge of it) so the radiators should be heating up now. It was -1 degC at two o'clock - 2 hours ago - and it feels a damn sight colder now. Hot water bottles and socks tonight, I think. And China will probably stay curled up in the airing cupboard except for emergencies. Smart cat.

Right. Another cup of coffee, quick stir of the stew, and then more wordage - want to add an extra 2.5K today if I can.

Hope your day is warmer than mine!

Let it snow, let it freeze, let it snow...

Snow at 05:30 Monday, followed by lots of freezing and exciting driving to work (I have to drive up 2 1/2 un-gritted roads to reach a bus route that is gritted. Always an exciting prospect in icy weather!) Then last night it got down to about -10 (thank God for hot water bottles and border collies - bottle on the feet, border collies down one side, so nice and toasty!)
Tonight it's supposed to be a bit colder so socks will probably come into play at some point. It's not as bad as when we first moved in and were getting to grips with the fire / back boiler situation though - I haven't had to resort to the wooly hat in bed yet, although if it keeps up that night may come.

It's only the second day back at work and I'm looking forward to the weekend already. No afternoon off this week, in return for the late night, so I shall be flagging a bit by Friday.

But on saturday I have a mission! I have to clear out all of the non-essential / underused / never used pots and pans from the kitchen cupboards and restrict the contents to those that have a clear and useful purpose, as well as a more than vague chance of actually being used in the next decade or so.

Then I have to re-organise the tinned foodstuffs (mostly spicy mixed beans) into one cupboard, before heading off to a metropolis to stock up on all of the foodstuffs we do not have. And make stew. I will no doubt be persistently aided by collies and a cat. Such is life.

Goals for 2009

I've done a new plan for 2009, looking at the goals I want to achieve, so:

Complete Model of Perfection & revise (novel)
Edit & revise 3's Company (novella)
Complete Kieran's Kiss (novella) *
Do Sokoll's Hawks (short story)
Do Phelan's Fate (novella)**
Do Rapunze (short story)
Do Stranger at the Door (short story)

* & ** - it may be that these two can be blended into one novel, rather than two novellas with Kieran's story being at the forefront. I'll have to see when I re-outline K'sK and outline P'sF

And, as a new endeavour goal, I want to work on haiku and see what I can produce.

2009 got off to a good start with 3,301/ 6,000 words on Sokoll's Hawks done. If tomorrow goes well I may be able to complete it before I go back to work.

Happy New Year!!!

Happy New Year to you all!

I have the lergy, but am still cheerful for all that. Had a lovely New Year's Eve, with home-made lamb chilli and nibbles at a friend's house to ring in the New Year. It was nice and relaxed (and warm!)

Hope you all had a good New Year's celebration.

Merry

=^..^=

A (Belated) Merry Christmas...

Christmas Day went well - a nice family meal with m'mater, chum #1 and her parents and our friend from uni (many moons ago, seems like). I was quite busy the day before, roasting a ham with maple syrup, cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg. It was, I am assured, fantastic. The fact that I had to actively fight the collies off to eat my portions would support its excellence. I think I will do this every Christmas; it's cheaper to buy an uncooked / smoked ham and roast it yourself, and it invariably tastes better (even with the cremating oven from Hell).

Nut roast tonight with steamed veggies; pork roast tomorrow (we would have had the pork roast on Christmas Eve - traditional Danish fare - but I didn't check the cooking instructions until about 2 hours before we were going to eat, and it has to be fully defrosted before use. :( But, that means we get it tomorrow and I still have the red cabbage to do as well as the hasselback taters. 's good.)

I haven't done any more on the novel, although I've planned a short story (started out as a ghost story, but I don't think it is now). So I've got more writing to do, as well as a plan of things I want to do / complete in 2009. I'm working on the 30th of December (a librarian's work is never done) but then I'm off again 'til the 5th of January, so it's been a lengthy holiday, which is nice.

I have been blessed with Amazon vouchers for Crimble, so there will be a trawling through the book book - adding titles, deleting some I've decided not get etc. - and then there will be purchasing of books. Yay! Bibliomania will be appeased! And in between everything else I can watch Season 2 of Dr Who. ::blinks:: I need to check that all of the discs are working ::blinks:: Honest.

Anyway, Joy to All & Peas on Earth. Time to go and sort out dinner before the 39 Steps starts!

Adventures in cooking...

Having been given a bag of frozen prawns, squid, and mussels by m'mother a little while ago, I finally decided what to do with them last night. (We won't discuss how long they were in the freezer. It'll be fine.)
Chum #1 is currently suffering from the hanging mucosal lergy and felt in need of zinc (hence the prawns) and I thought lots of nice vitamins and minerals couldn't hurt.

So, sauted onion and garlic in olive oil; added two big handfuls of freshly chopped parsley, and two big pinches of Tuscan herbs (similar to Italian herbs except it also includes fennel seeds - yum).
I added the fish and then I cheated a bit, using one of the (Schwartz?) fish sauces in a bag (tomatoes, olives and rosemary) because I didn't have enough time to let a homemade sauce settle*

Added a small bottle of passata, 3/4 of a green pepper, 1/4 of a red one, a sprinkle of freshly pestled peppercorns, some chopped fennel bulb, and two flat mushrooms, also chopped.

Let it burble for about 30 minutes, added two handfuls of arborio (sp?) rice and let it burble for another 15 minutes.

Lovely. Nom nom nom.

*If you've got the time, and don't have a ready sauce then I would just substitute another jar of passata and add in fresh rosemary, some olives, some capers and whatever other herbs and veg you like and let it burble slowly for a few hours. You can always add the fish later** once the sauce has settled in.
**Otherwise there will be rubber shellfish to chew and your jaws will ache.


Mood: Hungry

Gaaaah!

I hate budgets with a great, pointy stick / head-banging / give me more caffiene kind of hatred.

They are all kinds of suck.

I am going home now. Hopefully, there will be cake. I know there will be curry - this is good. If it is followed by cake it will be lovely.


Mood: annoyed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Music: This is Gallifrey - Our Childhood Home : Murray Gold

Tarot..who?

From wilde_tales

You are The Moon

Hope, expectation, Bright promises.

The Moon is a card of magic and mystery - when prominent you know that nothing is as it seems, particularly when it concerns relationships. All logic is thrown out the window.

The Moon is all about visions and illusions, madness, genius and poetry. This is a card that has to do with sleep, and so with both dreams and nightmares. It is a scary card in that it warns that there might be hidden enemies, tricks and falsehoods. But it should also be remembered that this is a card of great creativity, of powerful magic, primal feelings and intuition. You may be going through a time of emotional and mental trial; if you have any past mental problems, you must be vigilant in taking your medication but avoid drugs or alcohol, as abuse of either will cause them irreparable damage. This time however, can also result in great creativity, psychic powers, visions and insight. You can and should trust your intuition.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Nearly the end of the holiday...

Okay! Only four more days to go of my holiday and I've finally got round to getting the Internet access sorted out. I've made some progress on Model of Perfection, bringing the wordcount up to 16,116 words; I hope to top 20k before I head for home on Friday. I've also mamanged to read a fair bit (although, not as much as I would have liked. Partly because I've seen most of season 1 & 2 of Supernatural this holiday and that took me out of the reading somewhat.)
I have read:
Tempting the Beast - Lora Leigh
The Man Within - Lora Leigh
Elizabeth's Wolf - Lora Leigh
Nymph King - Gena Showalter
Atlantis Rising - Alyssa Day
The Rogue Hunter - Lynsay Sands
Blood Dreams - Kay Hooper
Turbulent Sea - Christine Feehan
Dark Moon Defender - Sharon Shinn
Reader and Raelynx - Sharon Shinn
My Wicked Enemy - Carolyn Jewel
Lord of the Fading Lands - C.L. Wilson
Lady of Light and Shadows - C.L. Wilson
King of Sword and Sky - C.L. Wilson
Sebastian - Anne Bishop
Belladonna - Anne Bishop
1700: Scenes from London Life - Maureen Waller
Women's Costume: The 18th Century - The Gallery of English Costume
The Period House: Style, Detail & Decoration : 1774 to 1914 - Richard Russell Lawrence and Teresa Chris

And also there's been sleeping, eating, dog walking and frisbee throwing; so it's all to the good. Although I wish I had enough holiday each year to be able to take three weeks in a row and not worry about not having much holiday left. And having the money for the cottage for three weeks as well. Photos to follow later because, of course, I forgot the cable for the laptop-camera connection.

The weather's been mostly sunny, with the odd bit of rain and hail - not bad for Pembrokeshire in November / December, especially as most of the rain has been in the evening. I have been palgued by a robin who keeps trying to come into the house for a look round. It had a wander round under the dining table the first time and now it just stands on the step outside looking at me. I usually give in and crumble some seeded bread for it. Giving in to the blandishments of a bird. tut-tut. I also saw, this morning, a bullfinch. First time I've seen one since I moved away from Dorset. They don't appear to be that common in Derbyshire and it was nice to see that they are still around.The only downside to staying in such a lovely cottage is that central heating is included, so of course we have it on. This does mean, however, that when we get home we're giong to be terribly nesh for a week or so as we adjust to a house with a back-boiler and open fire, rather than full on central heating as we have now.

Anyway, that's me and my little update. I shall no doubt spend most of the weekend going through all of my newsgroup digests and trying to clear all of those before I go back to work on Monday. It will be a definite case of hitting the ground running, but after a presentation on the morning of the 18th I can relax a bit and think about Christmas.

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::

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,

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?

Time to go home...

Early finish today (worked 'til 9 last night) so I shall go home to get changed and then over to m'mother's to use her laptop - our PC is not yet re-connected after having been fitted with an ethernet port and a shiny USB 2.0 port. 21st Century, baby. Oh, yeah!

::ahem:: Anyway. I shall use the time to re-draft my Model of Perfection outline for NaNo ready for Saturday - I'm working until 1pm but should be able to get cracking in the afternoon. After I've set the cawl on to cook. If I can get that planned this avo then I'll work on getting my short done so that the decks are clear and ready for the off.

And, Chum #1 has found a number of internet cafes within easy reach of the farm where we're staying at the end of November, so I'll be able to upload my totals after all!

Iz pleased.

Free ebook from Juno Books...

As a special Halloween treat, Juno Books has a FREE ebook (PDF format) for you! Five frightening classic tales–all written by women–that should send a shiver or two down your spine. FIVE CLASSIC GHOST STORIES: A HALLOWEEN TREAT FROM JUNO BOOKS includes:

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• “Kerfol” by Edith Wharton (1916)
• “Spunk” by Zora Neale Hurston (1925)

Go here to download a copy.

Iz cold...

Long day at work today, and the building renovations go on. Men in hard hats and fluorescent jackets have been ripping out windows and putting new ones in all day (accompanied by horrifically chilly drafts) and now the building refuses to get warm. I've also just used up the last of my milk in a rather strong cup of coffee, so now I'll have to wait until I get home to have another one. (I don't really like instant coffee without milk.)
I'm regretting not putting a pair of gloves in my coat this morning as I could really do with a pair about now.

Lots of people are gearing up for NaNoWriMo in preparation for next month. I'm going to be doing it again - even though I probably won't be in a position to upload anything as it's doubtful I'll be near an internet anything for the last week. (But, you know, I may surpass 50k in the first 3 weeks so that won't be a problem, right? ::rolls_eyes::) No idea what I'll be working on, although I may re-draft the outline to a novella and start again. The secondary story was shoehorned into the original projected length so a litlle re-working should place it more comfortably without things feeling rushed and crammed into too few words. Hmmm. That would work, actually.

No afternoon off this week (meetings, meetings) but that means I get to save some more hours to be used later, so I may actually have Christmas Eve off instead of having to work it.

Speaking of Christmas Eve, in a roundabout way, does anyone else follow the tradition of listening to / watching / reading aloud ghost stories before bed? Chum #1's family have always done this (usually M.R. James' stories) and she's continued this and I just wondered if anyone else did it too? If you do, what ghost stories? Or do you make up your own?

Hey! I can almost see the weekend from here!

Well, I am suitably punished for staying up past my normal 'school' day bedtime last night--I'm absolutely cream crackered. Hopefully I'll be getting my second (first?) wind before my meeting at 2pm!

I stayed up to finish the book I was reading (isn't it always the way?) and then it took me ages to get to sleep. Someone was doing DIY in the house next door until about 01:30, and I was a bit frustrated that I'd had to read books in a series out of order. A couple of weeks ago I bought Josh Lanyon's Man, Oh, Man! (non-fiction) and in that he had some excerpts from his Adrien English series. Interest piqued I ordered the first three and because life does this to me I got books 1 and 3 at the same time but book 2 has not yet arrived. I finished the first book--Fatal Shadows--yesterday (enjoyed it, although I thought it could have been longer) and wanted to dive straight into book two; I hesitated for about, oh, five seconds before giving in and reading book 3--The Hell You Say. Hopefully book 2--A Dangerous Thing--and book 4--Death of a Pirate King--will arrive at about the same time and I can read them all together. In order.

What I like most is the character of Adrien. He has a great voice which makes his personality come across well in the first person form. The mystery and romance are intertwined, with a little more weight given to the mystery but that works really well. The relationship tensions come across especially well in The Hell You Say: Adrien's relationship with some of his writing group; his staff; his mother; and of course his relationship with Jake, not to mention the tentative friendship building with Guy. All were very well drawn and came across as people rather than characters (if that makes sense). Adrien really comes over as the kind of guy you'd like to know.

Anyway. Looking forward to the tardy volumes' arrival so that I can read all four in one go. I am valiantly ignoring my TBR pile. If it ever fell on top of me I'd be one dead librarian; crushed under a mountain of unread books, their pristine spines a silent reproach to my obvious lack of dedication in whittling it down.

Also recently read are: The Fifth Sorceress - first in a fantasy trilogy by Robert Newcombe. OK, but not brilliant in that, I didn't really like the main character. He was supposed to be 29 but acted like a very whiny 19 year old (going on 9) and the wizard chappy got on every nerve I had. I'd have decked him. But, I have the other two books so I shall read them anyway, just not yet.

I re-read Magician by Raymond E. Feist - loved it all over again. Can't find my copies of Silverthorn or A Darkness at Sethanon so I've ordered replacements (but at least all of the covers will match) and I may re-read Faerie Tale now as well.

I've taken Stacia Kane's Personal Demons off the shelf and that will be the next to be read in the fiction line, and I've got some non-fiction (oceans) to read up on too.

Progress XXXVI

Untitled
Total words: 3520
New words yesterday: 437
Ashe: Is confused & angry
Konstantin: Is frustrated & angry
Weather: Snowing

This isn't flowing as well as the last one. Normally in a lunch break I can crank out 1K longhand with little to no problems but, as you can see, I barely got over 400 words before running out of steam. I'm going to keep going rather than go back and try to fix whatever it is that's not working, but I think that in the revision(s) there will be a lot of rewriting to do, to correct whatever it is that's gone tits up.
But, I do like the characters of Ashe and Konstantin so that's something. I just need to get their dynamic right - I think that's where the brain tickle is coming from. ::mopes::
Once that’s sorted – and it may take me another couple of thousand words or so, I can go back and rewrite it with the dynamic in mind; but at the moment it seems I need to write it badly in order to get it right.

Anyway, it's all practice and so never wasted.

Listening to: A builder's radio somewhere else in the building
Mood: Tired. Few more hours to go before I can go home.

Another quick update...

Just got back to work after being off for a few days with a stinking head cold. ::booooo!:: I've got a cough, but I don't think I'm contagious anymore and I don't fall asleep at the drop of a hat either.

Done another 1K on the short so will aim to get that finished this week and into first revisions, and then I've got the novella to do third revisions on before returning to the paused novella that I'm going to expand. 20K is too short, there's too much I want to go on there (secondary storyline has more depth that I need to into), so I'll bump it up to 40k-60k I think and see how that goes. It may go up - or down - in revisions anyway, so I'm not going to hugely panic in the first draft.

Dog walking when I get home - get some fresh air into the lungs, mud up the leggings etc. and then some sort of sausage casserole for dinner, I think. Chum #1 is making it, so I'm not entirely sure of the ingredients. Pumpkin & butternut squash soup to be made next weekend. I have the ingredients so I shall be culinary. I may even go the whole hog and make bread! Lovely.

Time to go. Hopefully tomorrow will be a tad less frenetic.

Quick Update

The new term has started and it's busy, busy, busy!

Lots of inductions; lots of 'please be quiet in this area / group study and chit-chat areas are elsewhere' etc. (That bit is going to get old hat very quickly)

Started a new short story and made notes for another, so on a bit of a roll. Other than that, not much is going on as the new term sucks up a lot of time and energy (and brain power). I've got three late nights this week, which means I'll be home at 22:00, 21:00 and 19:30hrs on three consecutive nights (not tonight, thank goodness) and then it's off to Newcastle to the pater's for the weekend and lots of relaxation and sleep.

Then I get to do it all again, but slightly less frantic, next week. It should begin to calm down after that, though.

What's your week looking like? Good, bad, indifferent?

It's (Not) the End of the World As We Know It

Oooops!

Got this from desperance, who got it from flyingsauce.

So funny, I had to share. Well, that brightened up my morning!

Mood: Amused
Listening to: Shabda - Mike Oldfield

New Britwriters Blog post up

Just a quick recap before I head off for lunch! I'll try and post more later.

I've just done a new post for the Britwriters Blog. It's on outlines, and my use of them. So have a look here and post a comment. Also, if you have a(nother) spare minute - check out the previous post on Birmingham's influence on Tolkein, by Fiona!

Hope you all had a lovely weekend! (I had rain)

Hey, I can see the weekend from here!

Well, I am back at work after a week off...and it isn't raining! I had to stay at work an extra half hour yesterday because I'd left my umbrella and coat in the car and it decided to thunder with torrential rain just as I was about to log off. New term is only 19 days away so I'm gearing up for that and trying to maintain a facsimile of wakefulness to do other stuff during breaks and home time. I think I will be pinning most of my productive hopes* on the weekends at the moment; I'm still trying to get back into the habit of getting up at 5am to get the dogs out before I get ready for work.

What am I up to?

Contraband - paused while I figure (yet again) where I'm going wrong. I'm pretty sure I'm starting it in the wrong place, but I'll be damned if I can figure out the right place at the moment. I really want to write this story (which is possibly part of the problem - I may just be trying too hard to force it where I think it wants to go)

3's Company - due for second edits/revisions in the next couple of weeks

Model of Perfection - paused while I get a short story (6k) off the ground. This is going to be longer than I thought, so I'll be aiming for 40k rather than 20k and see how that goes

Untitled short (6k) - research done, need to get a map to make sure I get place names correct and then I'll be ready to dive in



*And if the 'war' on the WiFi network (don't laugh - that's what the tech on the other end of the phone said "there's a war on your network") doesn't get sorted out at least I won't be able to pizzle the time away on the interwebs.