Personal space....

I am a very tactile person, who frequently sprinkles whatever part of cyberspace I frequent with virtual hugs.... in real life, if I know you, I am pretty much the same... I think one of the reasons for always having the critters is in the absence of human company I've got something I can hold, cuddle, stroke... I am even trying to type this with Gina balanced on my knee... 

Now I know not everyone else is the same, my friend I went to see yesterday is another tactile person, and yes lots of hugging was involved .... my best friend is not a hugs person, not from any "hands off" kind of outlook, but because she has an illness that means she is often in pain and a misplaced hug can actually dislocate one of her joints, or pop a rib out of place.  My half daughter's Asperger's and Autism means that I am incredibly honoured and proud that she will hug me and let me hug her as in general she doesn't like anyone in her personal space.

Today I had my personal space invaded in a way I didn't like though.... by my own mother.  As a result of the manky foot fiasco in the summer my lymph system went crazy and I developed blisters all up the back of my calf, which acted accordingly and burst.  Four months on they are just about healed up but look horrible.... kind of like a burn scar that is still healing.  It's horrible.  I hate it, I hate for anyone to see it.  Now normally this is not a problem as I wear ankle length skirts all the time, but recently in high winds I've not been able to hold the skirt down and it's been seen.... and commented on, even pointed at, in the street... which has made me even more conscious of it.  

We were round at my sisters this afternoon making things for her work's craft fayre, which raises money for an annual prize in memory of one of her colleagues at the university where she works.  During a coffee break (I love my sister... she bought me very posh ground decaffeinated coffee for when I go visit her!) without warning or asking my mother lifted my skirt to try and look at my leg..... I freaked and shouted at her I'm afraid.  She then got defensive stating she only wanted to see how it was healing... and didn't take it at all well when I informed her that it wasn't acceptable for her to do that, it was a really bad invasion of my personal space and I wasn't having it.  Apparently, in her view, I was totally over reacting and as she was my mother and worried about me I should let her look.... 

Now had she asked first I probably would have shown her, but it was the whole thing of her just actually doing it without asking.  Part of me worries I over reacted and upset her, but part of me feels still really shuddery and self conscious about the whole thing.  My leg is always going to be badly scarred and ugly, I suppose I should really just get used to it, but part of me wants to hide it, and at times the rest of me, away so other people can't see.

There are no hard and fast rules about what is acceptable so far as invading someone else's personal space goes... but I hope that I'd never do what was done to me today and make someone else feel uncomfortable about it.

My brain is too fried to think of a title for this post....

Okay, so revision... once I'd remembered how to revise - no seriously, I looked at my paperwork and the stuff that I'd pulled up on the screen to go through and my entire brain froze in terror and then went blank.....I think I sat there for a good 10 minutes staring at the wall and wondering how to even start before I found a method of going through things..... after that it wasn't so bad.

The subject material is dry, like Sahara Desert dry.... but I have read, written out lists, bullet pointed important bits, tried to digest some of the most boring things in the world.... and my head is now a swirly mess of case law and Civil Procedural Rules, with an added dose of essential topics such as contracts, proportionality and procedures......... I have post it notes in various colours marking very important things (and at one stage Gretchen but we won't go into that) I have slashed highlighter pen everywhere... there is a colour code... there might have been having the highlighter pens out slightly too long as I have a headache and can still smell the damn things even though I stopped using them a couple of hours ago.....

I just hope that some of the information I've tried to force in my brain sorts itself into some sort of order and stays where it's meant to be....

I did also discover two things........ firstly when you order your grocery delivery for between 8 and 10 am, knowing you are not going out and knowing there is bugger all in the house food wise.... that will be the day the grocery van breaks down and your shopping doesn't get delivered till 4 pm..... and, secondly, without central heating, or hell any form of heating, sitting still in your kitchen when it's only about 2 degrees outside results in you having to be creative about making it warmer........ it took some ingenuity to decide what I could do to warm up said kitchen, but you know, making the Christmas cake involves baking it for 4 hours.... after which I cooked baked potatoes for my tea.... which took the chill of just enough to keep me from freezing......

So, quite productive a day, but now I am going to comfort read to try and untangle my head... which yes, means reading Falls Chance Ranch for the umpteenth time....

Reader Greed....

Well I haven't quite fallen off the face of the planet.... I am however still quarantined and banished to the sofa with strict instructions to stay there till my leg gets better.... I was hoping to be back to work today but the interesting side effect of suddenly coming out in an all over body rash and spending most of the afternoon asleep kind of convinced me I might still be a bit poorly.

One of the things I've been doing whilst resting is, of course, reading..... which has led me to do some pondering....

I am an unashamed series addict.... after all why buy and read one book when there are three or four out there and possibly more to come.  Now here's the thing.... I've been doing a bit of digging around and am kind of astounded by the speed at which authors can put books out there.  Now I know this is the digital age, but really, 4 books in a single year for a new author?  Even some more established authors seem to be rushing forward into getting the next book out regardless.

Which leads me to ask.... is this normal, or is this down to reader greed??

Taking one of the most prolific writers of this century (and the end of the last) and someone whose books I love and have been collecting since about 1984, Sir Terry Pratchett..... who has a huge fan base, that beg and plead for more stories, who have conventions all over the world..... I still wouldn't expect to see him put out more than one title a year... I am sure that he could write and publish faster than this, but why would he? I can't see him sacrificing anything within his books just for a faster turn around.

In fact looking at my shelves, the minimum for most authors appears to be one title per year to 18 months, with fantasy and historical novels taking significantly longer (my favourite historical writer, Sharon Penman, had a huge gap between the publishing of When Christ and His Saints Slept and Time and Chance, one of her writers actually wrote to her a single line enquiring about the book which read "did Eleanor get lost in Aquitaine", but as the author explained, she had glandular fever which put her writing on hold for several years - it was worth the wait).

Going back to the M/M genre, in which I appear to be mainly stuck, I am left asking myself.... what price are we paying as readers for the speedy and frequent release of books?  Most of the books are in e-format and to be honest, in a great many I have found poor editing, continuity and little niggly issues that I am sure could be solved with a greater time spent in editing/proofing.  These aren't issues for the self published, these are issues for those publishing through some of the larger presses.  The lack of attention to detail shows and it is off putting.

There is also the big sacrifice regarding actual plot lines....... characters and plots need to develop, and whilst a particular pair of MC's or an author themselves may have a huge fan base that means what ever is put out will seemed be universally loved, there are some readers that will be put off, that will perhaps take an author or series of auto-buy.

I do love the way that the majority of the M/M authors are involved in the community, but I sometimes wonder if perhaps they need to step back for the sake of their work and not listen so much to the chants and pleadings for yet more story...

Deadlines and Disorganisation...

Well here we are in July... I still don't know how we got here so soon, I am sure not 5 minutes ago we were just hanging up the Christmas lights and moaning about a couple of inches of snow...... I mean my own personal opinion is that someone stole March...

Now I am in my 3rd and final year of my course, and each year when I get my course material in September I have said very firmly to myself, with commitment and dedication, that I will do an assignment a month and it will all be done and dusted long before the 31st July deadline looms on the horizon...... nope, didn't manage it in my first two years and guess what, I am not going to do it this year either.  With only about four weeks left I have 3 assignments to do. So there goes my weekends for the whole of this month

I was trying not to panic too much about this earlier today when the e-mail arrived giving me details of my final exams... 2 of them, on the same day, 16th November to be precise..... Yep automatic flat out panic as a response..... luckily I appear to have a fully mobilised support crew to get me through this courtesy of the YA GLBT group over on Goodreads..... I have warned them I have a tendency to go into full blown panic spin out of control and run away screaming because I can't do it mode....

The funny thing is, at work, as well as within my family, I am the organised one. The one who keeps to deadlines, who is the bane of my sister's life because whereas she is always late I am at least 5 minutes early for everything...... I am the one who has a perpetually tidy (if not always completely clean) house, who is organised down to the last detail and makes lists for everything.  Whose desk at work is usually immaculately tidy, who meticulously files paperwork and knows what stage all the cases are up to......

until you look a little deeper..... the house is tidy because (a) I've a habit of walking about in the dark without my glasses on and if it wasn't I'd fall over a break something (okay, do more serious damage than I can usually manage) or (b) the dogs (Gretchen!) would destroy things left lying about.... I keep deadlines, yes, by leaving things right up to the last minute and then scrabbling around like mad trying to meet them, staying up too late and obsessing over them - I mean how many people do you know that have a note book and pen in the bathroom because their work brain switches on in the shower and remembers things that then must be written down straight away.

I am 5 minutes early most of the time because I was running late in the first place and managed to get ahead of myself.... and whilst yes I have got a good memory, as my boss said at my last appraisal, it's all very well but if I got run over by a bus the rest of them are screwed because nothing is ever written down where it's meant to be!

I probably should try a little bit harder to be as organised as I appear, but if I spent time doing that I'd definitely never make another deadline again!

A question of "Angst"

I think I might be missing something when I am reading...... but I just don't get the concept of "Angst".... Now I don't think this is a British stiff upper lip thing, I think it might actually just be me.

I can come with the concept of plot lines where bad things happen to characters and their is much drama and woe, though admittedly I do rely on the author to sort it all out by the time we get to "The End".  Maybe it's me, maybe I don't invest myself enough in the stories. Maybe I just don't get that connection with the characters... maybe my mind is just very slightly out of kilter with everyone else.

I see time and again book recommendations and reviews, even comments about authors that refer to "Angst" but actually, just what the hell is it exactly??

I have googled (as one does) and see that there are in fact numerous definitions, and in fact a whole load of gumph about the fact there is no definition of it....... The nearest I can work out is that it's to do with anxiety, worry and dread... but when reading, is this what I should feel about what might happen next or is this what the characters are portraying??

When I am writing, I am pretty sure I don't write "angst"... I know I can do emotional (or so I've been told....) I know when I've accidentally killed off characters (yes, accidentally, I never start with that intent, it just sort of happens occasionally) I haven't felt that it's been particularly traumatic but my beta readers have said that it is.... again is this me, can I just not connect with the characters, even my own  (okay admittedly half the time I am writing I kind of feel like the character is talking through my hands and my own input is pretty minimal)

Maybe I'm just not an angsty person.... I shall try harder to find the angst to see if I can work out what on earth I am missing out on.

Writer or Author...

Now if I am honest, I probably brought the 2 am panic attack on myself.  Last night, having some time to kill before my brain shut down so I could go to sleep I was dipping in and out of the teasers for the LiAW stories and thinking about which ones some of my favourite authors were writing that I should keep and eye out for.... eventually feeling my eyes grit I wandered off to bed and fell asleep.

Cue a rather more real feeling than I'd like dream about my own story going up and no one commenting at all on it... which was when I woke up thinking "what on earth am I doing?"  After giving myself a stern talking to along the lines of

(a) it's too late, the story is written and submitted and you can't get it back, 

(b) you are not the only total novice doing this, and 

(c) it's not a sodding competition no one is going to judge you against anyone else's story

I managed to get myself back to sleep before I worked myself up to the state of e-mailing to demand the story back.  Thank goodness I asked not to know when my story was going live as if I can work myself up this much for virtually no reason I'd have had to go hide on a small island with no technology for the week it went up!

Now, I am quite happy to define myself as a writer, after all I write things, but an author, no, definitely not.  I write things for pleasure, usually my own, not for publication.  

And herein lies a small hurdle in my thought processes.  As a dog breeder (yes, even though I have only bred 3 litters in 16 years) I have bred a litter, therefore I am a breeder.  This goes for anyone who breeds even just one, perhaps even accidental litter, you have bred, therefore you are a breeder.  In my mind though I have twisted I write, therefore I am a writer, but I still can't make the leap myself from writer to author, though technically the definition is about the same.  The stupid thing is, I am not sure it really even matters!

Weekend in a nutshell....

I have a new bookshelf!  Which is possibly the highlight of my day....

Yesterday I was grown up and went and did "ladies who lunch" followed by a trip to the theatre - ok, so that wasn't so grown up as it was to see the musical of Swallows & Amazons... which was really rather excellent and given that it is one of my favourite children's books (well series of children's books) I had been a bit kind of "erk" about it before I went.... What was interesting from where we were perched on the slip seats of the 1st tier in the Lyceum was the diverse age range of the audience.

As expected there were lots of children (with parents/guardians etc) but there were also a lot of older people... ie older than me people in groups, with friends, with other family members which was really nice to see and appreciate that a good book can span the generations, I could easily imagine some of the older people enjoying the books as children then passing them down to their own children/nieces/nephews/grandkids etc.... I think for me, if I was a proper author, that sort of longevity of a piece of work would kind of be the icing on the cake over and above any instant best seller lists/popularity at time of publishing achieved.

Today I was meant to do some work for my course... instead I appear to have read 3 books and been out and purchased a new bookshelf..... which given that bar about 3 books all the books I have bought this year have been for the (Smut)Kindle seems a bit optimistic.... but the evil cats from hell started throwing things off the top shelf of the book case next to my computer so I decided that it would possibly be a good time to reshuffle the books again.....

New book case is in the bedroom... so now just have to decide what genre is going to joint M/M and fantasy in there......