The Critters Strike Again....

*Sigh*... tonight I find myself repeating the mantra "I love my dogs, I love my dogs, no really I love my dogs".... although they have all just been put into their night crates in disgrace with no bed time treats and in complete silence..... yep, that too angry to say anything kind of silence ....

And the reason for this?  Well let me explain....... my dogs are, relatively, well behaved.  They come when called (except Gretchen), they aren't overly noisy (except Gretchen), they play nicely with each other (except, on occasion Gretchen) and they are great with visitors (especially Gretchen... who can be a complete tart).....  Unfortunately, all of them, well the three girls, have a tendency to believe that possession is 9/10ths of the law, and that sometimes things are best destroyed before another dog gets hold of it... or in fact I catch them with it......

Which brings me to tonight...... I noticed earlier when I switched books that the Kindle needed charging overnight, not an unusual occurrence, after all I would hate to be caught short somewhere with time to kill and no battery (not that I don't have portable knitting (socks) with me at all times...)  So I meandered through to the kitchen, where I keep the necessary recharging apparatus for those small bits of technology that make my day more fun in one of the fruit bowls (the other fruit bowl contains yarn.... the fruit is kept in the fridge away from thieving hell hounds),  only to find the charger for the Kindle wasn't where it should be.....

After checking all the sockets in the kitchen, where I usually recharge things I stood shaking my head trying to work out what the hell I'd done with it.... as I did this the dogs were milling around my ankles, wandering in and out to the yard and generally wondering what exciting thing I would do next.  Absent mindedly I started to pick up the various dog toys that littered the floor and return them to the toy box.  It didn't register at first but as I dropped the last toy in I noticed a wire, a white wire, or a bit of one at least, in amongst the toys..... further investigation revealed what was my Kindle charger....... which is now in several pieces and no use whatsoever.

Now, ranting at the dogs has no effect at all........ Ivan always looks as guilty as sin and like he's about to wet himself, although I can almost say with 100% accuracy he'll have had nothing to do with it.....  Hope leaps up and down barking back and getting over excited, Kammi looks at me blinks and wags her tail in a hopefully cute fashion and Gretchen has mastered the art of the "sod you" expression of disdain for such outbursts... I ranted anyway....

I then demanded that the guilty party own up to the destruction......... yeah, okay, so I possibly was slightly irrationally irate by that point....and when they refused to do so issued dire threats of stopping pocket money (erm, no they don't actually get any) and going on strike if they thought they'd be getting liver cake or salmon and cheese muffins in the near future (yes I do bake for them)...  I am not actually sure how they managed to get the charger off the kitchen work top..... but that's besides the point....

They are being exceptionally quiet now as I am upstairs on the computer .... a new Kindle charger having been ordered (sadly with my two replacement kindles they didn't send a new charger.... which would have been useful really)....and the cats are still sniggering that the dogs are in trouble..... I may have calmed down and forgiven them by morning.......

Books I read in September

What a busy reading month I seem to have had!!

1. Counterpoint – Rachel Haimowitz
2. Crescendo – Rachel Haimowitz
As a bit of a fantasy junkie I’m not really sure what took me so long to get round to these two but really glad I did as I really enjoyed them... Though I did read the reviews from those that read the first long before the second came out and laughed at the wailing.... for me it isn't at all unusual for a multi book fantasy series to take several years to complete - I remember waiting for most of the books in the Belgariad/Mallorean and other fantasy series by David Eddings taking forever... mind you it wasn't as bad, or so my mother tells me, as waiting for the final book of The Lord of The Rings to come out.....

3. Hoarse Play – Sean Michael
4. Lord and Master – Jules Jones
5. Texas Heat – R.J. Scott
6. Heaven – Jet Mykles
7. Bear, Otter & the Kid – TJ Klune
8. Of Being Yours – Anna Martin
9. A Serving of Love – Andrew Grey
10. With Love – J.L. Langley

11. Rocking Out – Emily Veinglory
I had reasonable hopes for this story, but whilst it was good premise for a story but it doesn't work if your mc’s are only on the page together for about 1/8th of the book .... that and it might win awards for how many things can you put and mc through in one not very long book....

12. Chaser – Rick Reed
13. Spoils of War – Kari Gregg ..... so want there to be a sequel to this short story
14. False Colours – Alex Beecroft
15. Keeping Promise Rock – Amy Lane
finally read this one, enjoyed it though the middle dragged... but it’s official, I still don’t get “angst”

16. Mind Magic – Poppy Dennison (r)
17. Body Magic – Poppy Dennison .....roll on early 2013 for Soul Magic – really enjoyed this one and looking forward to the next

18. Inherit the Sky – Ariel Tachna (r)
19. Chase the Stars – Ariel Tachna
20. Russian Bear – C. B. Conwy (r)
21. Happily Ever After – C.B. Conwy
22. Unacceptable Risk – Kaje Harper (r)
23. Unexpected Demands – Kaje Harper (r)
24. Above the Dungeon – SM Johnson
25. Gemini – Chris Owen
26. The Good Fight – Andrew Grey
I have a very hit and miss relationship with this author, whilst I enjoy The Range series most of the others I am not that bothered about. For me, this was probably the best book of his that I’ve read

27. Dark Horse – Kate Sherwood... took ages to get to grips with the tense this is written in

28. Letting Go – M. J. O’Shea .... a disappointingly pro-forma type story that this genre seems to churn out more and more frequently

29. Beyond the Edge – Elizabeth Lister.... I should have enjoyed this more than I did but the characters and situations just didn’t work for me

30. The Good Thief – James Buchanan
31. Gasp! – Z.A. Maxfield
whilst I enjoyed the book, as I do most of this author's writings, as someone whose musical tastes really evolved in the Britpop era that was supposed to have spawned one of the MCs I struggled to relate to him as he bore little resemblance to those British musicians who I am very familiar with from the time and have followed since.

32. Power Exchange – A.J. Rose.... aside from the rushed ending a good combination of mystery and kink in this story

33. For the long run – Elizabeth Noble
34. The Hot Floor – Josephine Myles
probably the best book of this month (though it gets extra points as I am a sucker for UK based books with correctly done local accents and a good sense of locale)

35. Switch – Sean Michael
36. Bound: Forget Me Knot – H. B. Pattskyn ....what  is it with rushed endings... am beginning to think some publishers are putting word/page limits on authors

37. Pressure Head – J.L. Merrow

Hum, I wonder if I can make 40 books in a month next month...... well I have to avoid revising somehow!

Right, off to go see how much hair dye I spread around the bathroom whilst I was applying the chemical concoction and sniggering to myself as my mind rolled into the gutter at the rather mysteriously kinky (well in my mind) black plastic gloves they now supply.......

To NaNo, or not to NaNo, this is the question...

So last year, for the first time, I decided to try my hand at the whole NaNo thing... I had an idea, a drafted plot and even lots of inspiration I'd bought together.... and then life, or rather work, de-railed everything by throwing at me a couple of cases to do some drafting of legal documents on that involved historical child abuse.... and that was it, the muse shut down, because my mind could not write a fictional story (which on route to a happy ending did have some abuse in it) when I knew it was horribly real for some people.

Now, the time is fast approaching when I have to decide whether to try again.........I possibly should, because I need to get myself back into writing to build my own confidence with it.  Then again I possibly shouldn't given that my finals are on 16th November.... and I will have to revise.

I'd just about talked myself out of not bothering when I came across this picture...

which started giving me some thoughts and ideas, at which the dreaded bunny pricked up his ears and joined in.....

Then over the last couple of days the radio has kept playing me this song.... which seems to want to lend itself to the story ....

And when I looked closer at the lyrics gave me even more ideas ..... and now I am not sure whether to just give in (with as little grace as possible) and start plotting much more seriously .... and *gulp* a proper f/f story.... 

Sirens by Nell Bryden

Last night I dreamt I was floating with you
The river so deep and the sky perfect blue
If we leave behind the dust in the sky
From the sound of Sirens the city will rise
Hold your hand in mine, we’ll swim against the tide
From the sound of Sirens love will survive

And when your heart is on the run
When its chains have come undone
I will always be the one to carry you home

Streets lie so empty, the lost avenues
The lights of Saint Vincent are too much to lose
If we leave behind the dust in the sky
From the sound of Sirens the city will rise
Hold your hand in mine, we’ll swim against the tide
From the sound of Sirens love will survive

And when your heart is on the run
When its chains have come undone
I will always be the one to carry you home

If we leave behind the tears in our eyes
From the sound of Sirens the city will rise
Hold your hand in mine, we’ll swim against the tide
From the sound of Sirens love will survive

And when your heart is on the run
When its chains have come undone
I will always be the one to carry you home

It appears to be Autumn....

My walk in the park of a morning involves
kicking up lots of leaves, much to Gretchen's
annoyance when they land on her....

So, we have passed the Vernal Equinox and are official in the dark side of the year.....

The weather is getting colder and the trees changing colours and losing their leaves..... though there is a stunning amount of berries on some which makes me concerned we are in for another really stupidly cold winter (okay, by British standards that is - I know in other parts of the world you just think we all moan and gripe when really we have it easy in winter.... but we still aren't used to it and there are parts of the country that go into complete melt down if it gets below about -2 or there is an inch of settled snow)

So, I am back to dog walking in the dark in the morning and it's now dark by 8 pm..... (in fact today it's been dark all day .... and we've apparently had a month's worth of rain in 24 hours).....we have had our first frost of the year .... I love walking the dogs when it's frosty and a whole story line once evolved from meeting a family of foxes out on the park in the very early morning light with frost and fog about.....

I've broken out the winter foods and by default am back to baked potatoes and macaroni cheese (no not together)..... and crumble, I have a craving for crumble.... though still definitely not apple!

The temperature dropped massively over the weekend .... I did however have pre-warning of this..... as the pilot light went out on my boiler and refuses to re-light...... no, I was sensible, I didn't start taking the boiler to pieces I called the boiler man..... but until he makes an appearance I am without central heating....

Which meant tonight I lit the gas fire in the lounge for the first time in about 3 years...... erm.... the sparky ignition thing appears to have died... .which meant matches......I thought long and hard about it, removed the dogs from the room, held my breath, lit the match and switched on the gas flow....... and what do you know it lit.... okay, on the third attempt...... there might have been some minor burning of stray dog hairs that I'd missed when cleaning....... and perhaps a little popping banging sound on the 2nd attempt........ and it smelt a bit of burning dust for a while......... but hey it got us all warm again .....and didn't set anything alight that wasn't meant to be... which is probably a record for me!

My weekend has plans....

Hugo keeping his beady eyes on the yarn stash and
waiting to make a stealth attack...

My mission this weekend appears to be mainly to knit! The first of the three pregnant people in my life phoned in work today to say she was in labour... some three weeks early..... which begs the question why do I leave things to the last minute.

So I have looked at the stash, scratched my head a bit and then decided on an Itty Bitty Sock Yarn Bits Blanket....(basically a mini log cabin type blanket) cos I appear to have a carrier bag full of odds and ends of sock yarn waiting to be used for something or other....

I cast on this evening and have managed a couple of inches so far - small needles (3.25) do not make for fast growing projects..... I have also had to speak sternly to Gretchen regarding the edibility of the points of my interchangeable circs....... ie... go away, stop eyeing them up, they are not for you to chew on....

I do have some other plans, though they mainly involve things like housework, laundry and other such boring stuff..... oh and I planned chilling out with some of the books I'd managed to load on the Kindle (this time on purpose, I've not repeated the other night's adventures of buying 3 books in my sleep.... mainly by not taking the phone to bed with me)

I fear that by lunch time on Sunday I will be out knitted and might actually find my writing inspiration again......we shall see.... in the meantime, I must knit for there may well be a recipient for the blanket within the next few days......

Oh... and said person going into labour means *gulp* I've been promoted to Deputy Team Leader at work....

Friends.....

I have been reminded over the last couple of days how wonderful friends can be.... I've not been a very positive person lately and some of my friends, none of whom are on the doorstep (usually anyway but we'll come to that) and none of whom I see on a regular basis (or in fact at all) have all be fantastic in the last few days in helping me find some good things to focus on and giving me encouragement

My last post mentioned that my beta readers, if they saw the post, would probably administer a cyber slap upside the head for being so negative and, sure enough, last night the phone rang and when I picked up the phone the voice said, "consider this your cyber slap upside the head".... we then proceeded to natter for a further 90 minutes or so generally putting the world to rights, talking about our families, work and trivial things.... okay and not so trivial things as we got onto the subject of bullying in schools and how it had affected us but that is a topic for another post.  When I got off the phone I was actually smiling, which has been a bit of a rare occurrence here lately.

About half an hour before I left work this evening, I had a text notification that read "I am sitting on your doorstep", now my first reaction was 'huh?!' because being something of a techno numpty and despite having my lovely smart phone for approaching a year I have still not got round to programming the names to the numbers and I couldn't for the life of me work out who the hell was sitting on my doorstep.......... after all, my mother and sister are still in Turkey (and mum has a key), I'd spoken to one friend yesterday and she was safely 600+ miles away, the other friends it was likely to be, well one I knew was at home as I'd spoken to her earlier and the other was on a course somewhere..... oh and I'd not ordered anything from my friend who runs a mobile pet shop...... So I hastily scrabbled through the phone directory and eventually worked out it was my friend who was on the course.... which is in Lincolnshire .... apparently today is there day off and she was bored so she drove over to mine.....  We've had a lovely evening, and even a Chinese take away (I don't eat take away food unless I have visitors as it's a slippery slope of convenient if unhealthy eating) whilst we've gossiped and reminisced, we've known each other over 20 years and spent 5 years house sharing as students and afterwards.... Though we speak, or text, most days we don't see each other regularly - in fact the last time I saw her was at the beginning of the year - but she's one of the only people that can usually get through to me when I am not thinking particularly straight so it was fantastic to catch up.

Even if I don't see my friends everyday, or in fact even if I've never met them but we have become friends through cyberspace, a solid friendship, where there is give and take on both sides, where we can support each other, cheer each other on and just listen are immensely valuable things and things for which I am incredibly grateful.  I am so lucky to have friends like these in my life.

Confidence crash....

Meh, I appear to have lost all confidence in my ability to write.....

Which is stupid.  There is no reason for this.  You'd have thought this would have happened, if it had to happen at all, whilst I was trying to write my LiAW story.  After all, that was the first thing I'd written in the genre, the first thing I'd put out there for people to read (save for some very short YA stuff and fan fic that was posted on friendly sites).... but no, instead, it waits till after that story has posted.... and got nice comments...

It's not that Rupert isn't still having ideas about stories.... hells no, I've got the beginnings of four short YA stories from the prompts all with about a quarter written, I've three longer M/M stories with plot out lines and even some work towards them, and then there is book 2 of the YA fantasyish thing that has about 2 chapters done....... but every time I look at any of them I just end up thinking, nope, tis all a load of gumph, then I give up looking and go read something else.

Now I originally started writing original fic about 4 years ago.... after having read a series of really really badly written books and thinking to myself 'I can do better than this'..... and it's not like I'm only reading masterpieces now... I am still occasionally picking up books and thinking 'sheesh, and this got published!'.... I just can't translate it into having confidence in my own work.

Now should my beta readers see this post I can just about guarantee that I will get a cyber slap upside the head and be told to pull myself together....... oh heck, just realised, I am being visited by both of them... together.. at the same time.. next month... oh this isn't good.....  I need to find my writing confidence asap.....