Melting at last!

Well, it's been absolutely ages since I last posted. The new year went well but I spent most of the first week working from home because I couldn't get the car out of our street. It was great for dog walking, not so much for driving; but, the snow (and more importantly the ice) is now melting. When I parked the car at work this morning it was raining and foggy so I imagine the news will start saying things like "The Big [British] Melt as opposed to Freeze.

Yesterday was slightly traumatic; first I had to have a new car windscreen because there was a large crack across the middle of mine. Then I had to take Baby Bear and Mama Bear to the vets; the former for his boosters and the latter for her free six monthly check (it's not really 'free' - I pay a monthly amount so I don't have to pay when I turn up.) Baby Bear was fine; he didn't cry for the needle and the vet thought he looked very fit and healthy. Mama Bear has put on 5 kilos and is on rations, but because she's overweight we're going to have to alter her exercise regimen to avoid damaging her joints. No long walks, instead she'll have a number of shorter (no longer than 30 minutes) each day. The vet said it'll be the rationing rather than the exercise that will drop the weight off her, so I'll have to get the parentals who dog-sit to make sure she can't eat the other dogs' food and I'll have to remember to hide the cat biscuits when I go out/ go to bed. She will not be happy, but it's all in a good cause.

Here are some pictures from a walk at the weekend:

















This weekend I'm aiming to get my Lovecraftian-style short finished - I did about 1K yesterday - and then I'll be free to re-read the YA UF novel so far and crack on with that again.


If you have to go out and about and it's still snowy/ icy take care!

Clear and cold the year is old, my ramblings bimble on

First things first: Felicitations of the Season to all and sundry!

Christmas was good; I had Christmas Eve off work so I boiled and baked my ham (with cloves and maple syrup) which worked fantastically well once again so Chum #1 was happy, as was I. Christmas Day I made my cranberry sauce with ruby port which went down well, and as that was the only cooking I had to do all day I was pleased too. We went to Chum #1's parents' house for dinner, along with my mother and another friend - we didn't eat too much, it was all just right, and we played an excellent game of Trivial Pursuit (the new one with a twist - abbots, no less). Then we went to my mother's for Boxing Day and ate and drank with the pseudo-nephews and nieces and their parents.

Yesterday, we rested by going to see Sherlock Holmes which I thought was good, silly fun. The relationship between Holmes and Watson was reminiscent of that portrayed by Roxburgh and Hart in the more recent Hound of the Baskervilles, and Watson came across as being smart which was a relief. I can't stand the depictions of Watson as a bumbling idiot. >.<

Christmas presents: a fantastic telescope that the chum and I will have to put together (the horror of instructions that start with an item's individual pieces set out on a big sheet on the floor o_O ); lots of non-fiction books on Georgian history/ society; Doctor Who Season 4 and other lovely things (including socks!)

Tor.com are having a 'December belongs to Cthulhu' fest and although December is almost over I had a Lovecraftian moment while dog walking in the woods so a story will shortly be committed to paper in honour of the Old Ones. Cthulu ftagn!

It's strange to think that 2009 is almost over. Britain is still in recession and looks as though it may be for some time to come (not to mention being horrifically in debt as a nation) but I hope that 2010 will be better; higher household bills notwithstanding. The family's healthy; we all have roofs over our heads, and we're all in work so we have no complaints on that score. We are content with bursts of happiness.

So here's to the impending 2010 - may we all be, if not perpetually happy, then at least content with bursts of happiness and rich in friends and loved ones.

October has arrived, the nights are chill and early dark with felines prowling in the woods

It will soon be time to hunt for pumpkin and butternut squash to make my roasted autumn soup with, adding in my Tuscan herb mix for a last hint of summer. It will also soon be time to dust off the slow cooker so that I can set stews/ curries/ soups cooking while I'm at work. There are few things better than coming home to a house that's full of the smell of glorious food; especially as the house will probably be cool. We managed to avoid lighting the first fire until November last year - whether or not we'll manage it this year I don't know as we've already started using the hot water bottles (last night was pretty chilly.)

Took the dogs for a walk before bed, as per usual, but this time the cat decided she wanted to come to! So, at a much slower pace than normal we tramped onto the reserve, into and through the wood (this was scary - her tail was fluffed like a bottle brush the whole time), then down the trail and into a small copse before heading back out onto the main trail and back up to the house. Everyone was extremely pleased with themselves and all of the four-leggers went straight to bed because being a border collie/ cat is pretty exhausting really. :-)

I am lergified. Unlike last year I managed to fight off the germs in the first week of students being back, but I succumbed this week to the aching head and lethargy (my bed, she calls to me) but, the show must go on and all that. My writing productivity has declined day by day this week in an almost embarrasing fashion, but I am on chapter 13/ 48K and I will--at the very least--finish section one this weekend.

Anyway, how's your week been? Good, bad, indifferent?

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

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?

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!

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

Idea

A new story idea came to me last night (while watching Medical Investigations over dinner bizarrely enough) The investigators were searching for pathogens in the ocean that could be causing an illness in humans and seals, and I thought 'how would you deal with that, if it was actually in the ocean? What if it spread around the world (and you had no other world to escape to)? How would you combat it without killing everything else? What would it be like if you didn't care if everything else (in the water) died and you ended up with a dead ocean? What could happen after that?' Basically it moved on from there. I've got some notes to get down and flesh out, see where they take me; and I have a picture in my head of what it will look like. I'll work on that while I'm on holiday (1 1/2 days to go!) and see what happens. I'll also have to do some scientific research on oceans & specifically how the loss of plankton etc. would affect things.

Model of Perfection got paused briefly as the day job has been insanely busy and brain-draining with finishing off phase 2 of a project. Now we just need to hand it off so that the rest of the work can be incorporated into everyone's normal day job activities and roles.There'll still be some steering from us, but we can devolve a fair amount of the work to relevant people. Term starts in another month so when I get back from my leave I'll have a few last minute things to finish - presentations and the like. And then we'll be ready to rock for at least 3 weeks of utter madness and hectic (possibly even frenetic) activity, before things slow to a more manageable level. Yay.

Now I have a stabbing pain in my head when I cough - yay, lergy. So I'm going home to lie down. My life. It is full of speshul exzitement.

Progress...ongoing

Okay, I'm now 42% of the way through Model of Perfection (8,461 words, if you're interested) and everything's ticking along nicely. (So far - plenty of time for things to go horribly wrong).
I am really looking forward to my holiday (2 more weeks to go, YES!) it's only for a week, but as the H.E. term starts mid-September it'll be nice to have some time to prepare for the mental and physical horror that comprise the induction weeks. Oh, yeah. I'll take zombies any day. I'll need to make sure I get some flat shoes beforehand, though. I did all of induction in high heels last year because my flats had died...never again. My feet were killing me at the end of the day. I like the heels because most 14 year olds are taller than me, so the 18 year olds certainly are. Maybe I should get some goth platforms to raise me up? Hmmm. There's a thought (and, unfortunately an image to go with it. No, no. Out damned vision.)
Anyway, back to work - chug, chug, chug.

How's your day going? Productive, unproductive, frustrating or fantastic?

Listening to: Going Under - Evanescence

It's hot! Damn hot!

Well, it's another day in paradise. NOT!
It's insanely muggy (and it seems to have worsened in the last half hour or so). There was a rumble of thunder this morning, but all attempts at stormy weather have ceased and we just have mugg instead. I have a headache of muggness. Not happy.

Also, my chair in office no.2 is not comfy and my tailbone keeps locking, so every time I stand up I walk like Long John Silver for the first couple of minutes. ::pouts::

Model of Perfection is jogging along. Not as quickly as I'd like, but it's forward motion so not to be sniffed at. It's at 4,459 / 20,000 words which is around 22% so it's getting there. I've fleshed out the later sections of the outline, so I've a better idea of what will happen when, I just need a block of time to sit down and crack on. I should get some tonight when I go home (checks watch: 1 hour to go!) and on Friday. Saturday I've got the house to myself, but may go over to m'mother's and use her laptop instead as she has an incredibly comfy office chair and a bigger garden for the dogs to play in. Choices, choices.

Still dreaming about Contraband. I will crack that sucker on the head. I refuse to let it beat me. It's going to sit to one side for a while until I decide where the beginning really is, and then I shal attack it. Again.

3's Company is to one side and is due for its 2nd revision in August. I'm on holiday the week of the UK Bank Holiday so I may leave it till then - I'll see how I go on the other projects first. I know I won't be able to get anything done when I'm at my dad's except a little long-hand writing when I go up to bed, so I can strike 4 days off (with possibly a 5th for travelling - depends on the traffic) but I'll have the rest of the week to go through it. 37K shouldn't take too long, eh?

Interesting posts I've read today:

David de Beer's looking at flat-fee vs. by-the-word payment for shorts, and is looking for feedback

Orson Scott Card gives matociquala a headache

Apex Digest Online are looking for a slush wrangler and an editor

And, Stacia Kane is up to part nine in her 'Be a sex-writing strumpet' writing series

Also, don't forget to check out Paperback Writer's site for the Left Behind and Loving It series of workshops. Not only includes her own workshops, but also links to posts/ workshops offered by other people on a huge range of topics.

The weekend's nearly here...

Plans for the weekend:

Working tomorrow until around 2-ish, so I should get home at about 3 o'clock, maybe a bit earlier (note to self: remember to take sandwiches).

Once I'm home I've got a number of things to do:

• Get my teeth into the write-up of Model of Perfection (* & **)

• Delve into the bottom-most collapsible crate in my bedroom to rescue the fantasy/ dark fantasy books that have been languishing there for the past year and move them onto my re-organised bookcases

• Hoover / laundry

• Visit chums - may have to playstation on Saturday rather than tonight, as I'm working tomorrow. Can't turn up to work all sparkly if you didn't go to bed until 03:00hrs!

• Visit the Mater

*I've estimated 7 chapters and I've outlined up to chapter five, scene three. I'm hoping that the ending will come to me as I approach it. I've estimated I need a minimum of 1333 w.p.d. to get it done and leave me with enough time to revise and edit. The outline is quite detailed (in some cases down to specific bits of dialogue / action I want, so this will (should!) aid the smoothness. If I've done it right.

** The title's a bit trite, but I couldn't think of one I really liked and didn't want to work on Short ER WIP # 'x' so I can use this one as a filler and hopefully come up with a better one around the same time I find out what the ending is.