Food for thought

Today I made it to see my lovely aunt, as I mentioned I'd be trying to while down here. We had a great time, talking for probably far too long about a surprisingly wide range of things. She's a bit of a gourmet chef (this is an understatement) so given my tentative inching into that Actual Cooking stuff we ended up talking food for quite a while, and she persuaded me to try some new cheeses and crackers. I seem to be surrounded by people who know what they're doing with food and are eager to take me up on my promise to "try anything once". I don't regret it yet...

Among the food discussion, a couple of books came up - Elizabeth David's works, which sound half cookery book, half food history and exploration of why and how regional dishes came about, due to sources of food and so on. I (as you see) whipped out my ever-present notebook and took down the name, because one area where I am very aware I am lacking in worldbuilding is food. I'm really bad at including meals at all when writing, because I don't know enough about what's available in what sort of climate, at what level of technology and civilisation. And I do rather need to include at least fleeting mention of meals when I write so many important Round The Campfire scenes. But I get lost in clickbait when I try to do vague internet research around that, and end up briefly extremely informed about the spice trails through the Middle East and not very informed at all about pre-potato British cuisine. Or pre-British potato-based cuisine, for a little continental diversity.

Anyway, I have a name and a few titles and hopefully that sort of focused attack will help. In the meantime I'll have to reread Ray Mears and make do for the moment.

Ah, the troublesome life of a writer. Nothing escapes scrutiny, to add depth to the next book.

The best kind of nitpicking

I am dangerous to things I love. The more I love a film, TV show, or book, the closer I'll be looking for flaws. There's lots of reasons for that; it means I can defend it better when someone (if we could all just take one concerted look at my brother at this point, that'd be great) inevitably tells me it's rubbish because this... It also means I get to pry open its narrative ribcage and have a poke around at the little problems inside. In the good old days this meant an awful lot of fanfiction to fix the plotholes and the dodgy characterisation and the glossed-over developments. These days it tends to mean I prod one tiny little aspect that doesn't quite sit right (this female character is irritating because with her background she should clearly have reacted in this way... this scene is great on the action but they should have escaped using this clever method... this male character has completely changed his attitude for plot's sake and obviously this must have happened offscreen to make that work...) and unspool a whole new idea from it. Switch up the setting and the surrounding plot and boom, future project.

That's how Hanith started life in entirety, after all. And it's where a lot of bits and pieces in most everything else came from. I tinker. I try to fix things.

This does mean watching films/TV with me has become, occasionally, a little tiring, I'm sure. If talking is permitted (never with my brother, usually not if I'm watching something for the first time, definitely not if I'm watching something for the first time and am desperately interested in it - this is partly why I try very hard to see everything I want in the cinema, so there's no chatter and missed dialogue if it's all new) then I have a tendency to point out these little flaws and discuss with whoever's watching with me. (Oh dear heavens, the ecosystems in My Little Pony, the briefings in the waiting room of Quantum Leap, the skeevy morality and ethics and potentials of the technology in Dollhouse...) And I have definitely got worse at that after hanging around with far too many people (you know who you are) who do the same, profess not to mind, or actively encourage it.

In totally unrelated news (honest, really... No, I didn't think you were going to fall for that) my friend down here in Cambridge and I watched X-Men: First Class this evening. Oh, my love for X-Men knows no bounds. It's just such a beautiful setup, to enable so much fun and such variety among your characters. I'm sure it had quite some influence on the fantasy world I created with twenty magics. (Really, precisely. I can probably still reel off the list. At some point I will go back to that and rewrite the plot and characters with the benefit of a dozen more years' writing and some nice clear hindsight.) I've always liked that kind of smorgasbord of power. A huge ensemble with different abilities, and the real fun kicks off when you team up unexpected combinations. It's just glorious, and I will forever, eternally, be distraught that I didn't come up with it first.

I do love Marvel for that. The films are doing a grand job of taking lots of different characters with defined skills, and smashing them together in fits of glee and beautifully CGI-ed explorations of how they can bounce off each other. Sometimes literally.

You go, Black Widow, illustrate my point.

That's definitely one thing I try to stick to in my writing - people have different abilities, and they work together in different ways. I am long, long past the days of the single overpowered has-every-skill-and-every-power-available characters. Power down and partner up, my dears. Even Dryden, ridiculously powerful as he is, needs other people to do what they're good at.

Anyway, yes. That's the thread I pulled most happily from X-Men. Power team-ups are just plain fun and there should always be more of them.

So, next time you see me apparently tearing something to pieces over a small flaw, bear in mind it probably means I love said thing to pieces, and am trying to dissect its problem so I can fix it forever. Or at the very least pull out its still beating heart and transplant it into something new and wonderful, to live on in a glorious, beautiful new form, with stitches around the forehead and bolts in the neck and that pure, perfect core hidden safely away inside.

Because I love it. So I will preserve it and pass it on.

Assume the Perpendicular

We'll walk the grounds, of Capability Brown...

Anyway, enough Divine Comedy. The friends I'm helping in Cambridge and I went out today, to Wimpole Estate - which I am just this minute discovering apparently has geocaching spots, gosh darnit. Oh well. There was a kids' Easter Egg Trail, which was amusing and got us to meander around the gardens well enough, before rewarding us with a chocolate egg (since my friend was generous enough to buy the official trail guides, which resulted in prizes). And we went up to the farm area and saw all the cute fluffy little baby things, which they both delighted in, and a couple of absolutely flippin' huge Shire Horses, which I sighed over. Pure research, honest. It's not just that I want a giant horse. Really. Promise.

And of course, as happens everywhere I go (I am not kidding; I have managed this in multiple supermarkets), I found some secondhand books for sale. So naturally I rescued a Ben Aaronovitch and a Harry Turtledove from the tables by the exit.

Wheelchairs, however, do not go entirely happily with pine-needle-and-bark-shaving paths, especially when on a slight but persistent incline. My back is a little twitchy and I am rather tired, so I haven't got anything written or read today and it's definitely past my bedtime while I'm writing this.

Daisy sent me an invite to a game called Storium, though, which looks interesting and still has over three weeks left on the Kickstarter - looks like it's going to be a subscription service, to a certain degree, but so far from my little poke around to get set up and join Daisy, it also looks very tempting... Sort of an odd combination of play-by-post forum roleplays like I used to do constantly, and touches of co-operative board games with cards to play and scenarios to overcome. Plus I noticed a lot of familiar names (I'm spying on far too many authors via Twitter) on the list of people they've got doing some worldbuilding for them. So that's pretty darn cool.

I even got the washing up done.

My brain is tired

In amongst all the cleaning, tidying, washing up, etc etc today, I managed to read the first 100 pages of Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice, nominee for the Clarke Award in May. I've been seeing a lot about this one here and there, since Orbit decided to pair it with Rachel Aaron/Bach's Paradox trilogy for promotional stuff at one point. Lots of the "If you like that, try this" approach, I seem to recall. And then of course it was nominated for the Clarke Award, and it's an oddball, so it's caught a lot of attention. So I'm going in with that kind of bias, and a handful of non-spoilery reviews.

So far, there's a lot of squabbling going on in my head, between writer-me, reader-me, and LGBT/feminist-conscious-me. Between my many mes, I'm pretty sure I'm arguing both sides and the middle. I foresee another far-too-in-depth-and-yet-no-plot-spoilers sort of half review, half analysis in the future. Sorry about that. But I've got another 286 pages to go, yet. That might all change.

Four of the five other nominees arrived at the library back in York, too, today, which is a little frustrating as they'll only keep them reserved in my name for so long, and I am, naturally, in Cambridge until just after the deadline. I was hoping they'd turn up before I came down here, so I wouldn't lose two weeks of reading/reviewing, but oh well. I'm sure I'll work something out.

Anyway. People other than me tried the mini carrot cakes today and declared them tasty, so I'm quite pleased there. If I can work out cooking time, perhaps I can do a full scale one and distribute the icing more evenly that way, because whoa, these things are loaded with the stuff as it stands now. Not that I'm complaining, you understand.

I also ate spinach today for what I'm pretty sure is the first time ever, and it evidently hasn't poisoned me, so that's a plus too.

Weary traveller

I managed to get almost everything done that I'd had in mind today, and since that included the two-and-a-half hour drive down to Cambridge to help out a friend, that seems good enough. And I'm sort of in the process of arranging a brief visit with my aunt, since it's been far too long since I last saw her.

Not a lot of writing, though - the drive was tiring and time on both ends was mostly occupied with cleaning and tidying and packing. I did listen to the first half of Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds in the car though, and now clearly need to go back and slip a couple of references to that into Dryden. Very easily done.

Otherwise, sort of stalled and tired and in that stare-at-the-page-and-hope-words-happen sort of state. It's always annoying when that happens, but it's worse when I know what needs to happen next, it's just that fingers and brain can't even seem to form the concept of words, never mind find the right ones to put down. So I'm going to sleep, and try again tomorrow when I have more brainpower and time.

Make my cake and eat it

I finally got round to making those mini carrot cakes I've been meaning to do for a couple of weeks now, today. And oh my, they turned out tasty. They're a bit slapdash and flung together with hope rather than technique, but the cream cheese icing I added (from a different recipe) worked out all right. They taste, in fact, like cafe cake. But minus those pesky chewy walnut bits people keep insisting on ruining good carrot cakes with. And the process of making them has revealed exactly why it is that carrot cake is often my favourite cake, surpassing even chocolate at times. There's cinnamon and dried fruit in the cake mix, and vanilla and cream cheese in the icing. It's like they came up with the perfect cake just for me.

I should probably segue into some deep thoughts about the perfect ingredients in storytelling and how there are some stories I'm always going to like if they have these key four elements in them, but it's late and I am tired after two rounds of washing up and a slight tidying spree to boot, and I have a long journey ahead of me tomorrow.

Really, I should try and figure out some way of writing in the car. It sort of feels like the hours on the road are wasted. As hard as I try to cling to the conversations and plot points I come up with on the way, my brain is always so focused on driving that everything else just slips away by the time I arrive. At best I remember the one key plot twist that made me laugh for twenty miles. I suppose it does filter things down to the really important, memorable bits, though. Better than nothing.

Back by popular demand

You may have noticed a lack of posts over the last few days. Interestingly, I've had complaints about that. I was expecting complaints about the excessive chatter, not the lack of it. Oh well.

So, quick refresh: the daily posts were part of an intent to focus on the happy, good things in each day and try to stay positive. You can draw your own conclusions from the lack of posts, I suppose.

Despite that, there were actually quite a few good things over the last few days. I helped a friend plan a complicated cosplay on Wednesday, and received art (and random little presents too, which was so sweet) from my friend Cally. She drew me a dragon for the new pen name, and named her, naturally, Leaf Pendragon. Ah, the puns. I should've thought of that one. Leaf's now the background of my Twitter page. I'm still playing with settings to work out if I can get her onto the background of the blog too, and keep everything legible. She's a pretty thing, though, you have to admit.

I also got some more feedback on Dryden version whatever it is at this point, and more again on Thursday. I was getting very lost in attempts to rewrite, second (and third, and fourth) guessing myself at every turn, certain of some problems and hating other bits but not sure if that was just me or if they actually needed work. Hearing back from my readers settles that - even if I disagree with the odd comment, it still solidifies what I have to do to make progress. It clarifies matters, and reassures me that there's something worth saving in the draft.

There was also the NaNoWriMo group chat on Thursday night, which meant I got a little writing done. Hanith again, poor lad.

On Friday I made it into town to pick up the latest Loki: Agent of Asgard comic, because Loki. It did make me laugh like a drain, too.

Saturday included a trip to the cinema to see Captain America: The Winter Soldier for the second time... So I really can't complain about that. I even managed to do almost all the dishes and cook again, afterwards.

Today was monthly NaNo in-person meetup, too, so I spent the afternoon hanging out with half a dozen other writers, generally geeking out, chatting, and keeping up to date with everybody's plans and current writing status. It's nice, though this particular meet did leave me more exhausted than usual. I think I'm still not quite entirely recovered from the troubles of Tuesday through Thursday. Remember I mentioned how the food and the happy overlap a lot? This does mean that lack of happy equals lack of food, especially if I'm feeling guilty. That in turn slows me down for a while, which does mean a much lesser chance of sparking off further guilt-inducing incidents, but also means it's difficult to get back up to doing a full day of normal stuff without ending up utterly shattered at the end of it.

Oh well. The delays in getting round to actually writing Dryden 2: The Second One have meant that the plot is getting longer, more in depth, and crueller with every passing day. Shame it all makes sense and follows on from the chaos of the first book. My poor characters. They did so little to deserve this.

I babble, because I care

Today I got quite a bit of necessary stuff done, including feeding my car and myself, and foraging successfully for food in the wilds of the supermarket.

I finally started watching season two of Dollhouse, which I never did quite get round to before. At the moment I'm consumed with horror... at the different hairstyles...

And I almost finished the Honour's Knight review, though it's now over 1200 words and I should probably run it past someone else who's read the books to make sure it's not inadvertently spoilery. But I am having far too much fun doing odd sci-fi lit-crit writing analysis on it. I should probably tone that down a little too.

I can't help it; when I find an author doing something well, I want to pluck it out and show it to everyone and go, "Look! See! This is how you do exposition! Just like this!" And then I get so wrapped up in that I forget what my original point was.

This is why a lot of the time I don't mind that whole "reading as a writer" thing. Sure, half the time it means I go, "Oho, blatant foreshadowing, therefore this is about to happen", but sometimes it means I stop halfway through a book and just blink at the page, going, "Wait... you just... you set that up, and it fits in perfectly, and you haven't compromised anything else to get to it. That is a piece of art right there."

Basically, I get to see when writers are trying really hard and putting in the thought and the effort, and I really appreciate it. And I want everyone to. I want people to go flocking back to the author and go, "This bit! This bit must have taken ages to get right. We are grateful for your time and for the fact that you worked hard so that this particular little bit would be a joy to read. We know you did more than just phone it in. We see how much you cared. Thank you."

Maybe I won't cut too much from the review/art essay after all.

Surprisingly relaxed

Today I did such things as sort out recycling, some housework, the washing up, tidying, and various other bits and pieces. I wrote stuff (poor Hanith and Irin) and maintained the calorie counting thing and entertained the cats.

I also spent most of the day, really, reading Honour's Knight by Rachel Bach, taking my sweet, sweet time over it, and finished it.

Then I spent most of the rest of the day working out the key points I want to cover in the review post. So that should be tomorrow. Unless I get completely sidetracked by... oh, I don't know, making mini carrot cakes or something. Hm, sounds like a plan.

Aside from the small amount of plotting for Dryden's sequel (with a side order of mad cackling for the new horrors Sarah helped me come up with for those long-suffering characters) that's pretty much today. Read a book, relaxed, got little things done. Feels like achievements. No complaints here. (EDIT: Also, laughed like a drain at the first couple of episodes of Helix; the musical choices are superb.)

I did have an invite to go round to friends', but didn't go, for once. Part laziness, part book, part today was Mother's Day here in the UK and I sort of wanted to stay indoors and avoid all mention of that this year. Normally at this point I'd be starting to get anxious and worried that I'd offended people and would never ever ever get asked to hang out again and oh dear gods I should have gone what was I thinking... but today, actually, I seem to be not doing that. These are, after all, the same friends who forgave me so readily when I was an hour and a half late getting to theirs last week, and I have no reason not to believe them when they said it's fine. It's kind of relaxing to not be worrying about that for a change.

There, feels like another achievement. Not too shabby.

Incidentally, I drink like a camel.

I did a lot of tidying and cleaning today, which has helped since the cats are determined to shed everywhere at the moment. Particularly in my face, whilst purring. This is adorable, but did actually get past the antihistamines and start to cause breathing issues earlier, so the sweeping up and binning of large amounts of cat fur is not entirely altruistic or just for appearances...

Other than that I was split between writing more Hanith (hurrah, Hanith and his healthy, healthy relationship. It makes such a nice change from Dryden) and reading Honour's Knight by Rachel Bach.

Basically, I want to go to bed now so that it's tomorrow and I'll have the time and energy to write a proper squeeful review of it. In summary: FUN. (Also packs emotional punch. But still. FUN.)

Oh, and I've been trying to drink more, in an effort to eat less, stay better hydrated, be a little healthier etc etc etc. I really don't know how people manage to drink the supposed recommended 8-cups-a-day allowance, never mind folks who go for the weird calculations where it ends up saying 12 cups or more as a daily dose. I'm only just keeping up with my self-imposed lower limit of about 6 cups. And I feel sloshy. I'm used to getting by on two or three...

Anyway. Progress is maintained. Not bad.

(Also, my friend Sarah is absolutely amazing at reading my stuff and pointing out the very simple, very twisted, very perfect thing that I should clearly have written in and somehow managed to miss. It's amazing. Every single time, she reads through, and comes back with, "Ooh, and then this?" and I am left sitting here going, "How did I not think of that? Yes ma'am, writing it this instant!" She just did it again to Tick Tock, and now clearly I have lots of revisions and a possible sequel or epilogue to do when it gets rejected and I want to submit it somewhere new.)

40 days: halfway. Score!

Another writing day, though interrupted by pestering cats who decided that I had much better things to be doing, like stroking them for an hour or so. They are incredibly cute, though, and it's still such a nice change to be able to touch them and not stop breathing in response (all hail antihistamines) that I can't resist.

Did a couple of little bits around the house again, including clearing as much space for Dance Central as I'm able to without getting into stuff that I really don't want to be putting in the wrong place. And Daisy has talked me into calorie counting as well to try and get back into our good clothes (and cosplay, over here). So far so good, helped by the portions of homemade meals I still had left. I am rather competitive, which is keeping me from devouring (at least all in one go) the wonderful stash of chocolate I've still got from the Christmas sales...

I swear I wasn't this food obsessed before I started a) cooking, or b) writing these blog posts. But it's actually a very good thing, honestly. One of my clearest warning signs of dipping back into the self-hatred and the dark spirals is when I have no interest in food and stop eating. Which in turn, due to lack of energy and the side effects of hunger, spirals me down further. So focusing on happy and focusing on food actually overlap much more on the Venn diagram than you might expect.

Anyway. Other stuff.

Claire tidied up her next Lavendar short story, we discussed one of the finer points on Twitter for a bit, I fired it at a couple of lovely, obliging friends who were able to give it a quick read and answer a single question for her. (They both enjoyed it, too. I do have awesome friends.)

So yes, you should probably go read the story: here.

(And the first one is here if you didn't get to that before. Tut tut!)

Prose in motion

Quiet day after all the Marvel excitement, today. Read all the comics I borrowed, so I can give them back next time. Managed a couple of little bits and pieces around the house, including starting on clearing some space for Dance Central to happen. Soon...
A couple of things are in motion, and indeed in the post, winging their ways to me to remind me that people are amazing sometimes, and exceptionally kind and generous. More on those when they arrive.

Otherwise I generally fell into writing and got stuck all day. The current Hanith short story has more than doubled in length today, and thoroughly distracted me from everyone else. Poor Dryden isn't getting a look in at all at the moment.

What happened there is that I drew up a week plan and assigned one short story idea to each day. When I immediately went, "Damn, I'm looking forward to Friday," that clarified which short story I should obviously be writing next, so out went the plan and in came Hanith. I've even managed to hit the point where I can actually write, where I stop hunting for precisely the right word and put in info-dump filler for now. It's a point where I know what information my characters need to convey but phrasing it in a pretty way is going to take far too long, so they just get on with it and say it.

Ie, first draft. Though it's surprising how much of that kind of blunt, straight-to-the-point dialogue ends up staying, actually. Often it just works, and you don't need the prettification you think you do. People are blunt sometimes, especially when they're tired or stressed or angry or in pain, which characters in the middle of a medieval fantasy adventure usually are...

Enthusiasm is infectious

I actually got in after midnight so am sneakily backdating this one because otherwise the list of my posts will skip a day and wind me up for eternity (perfectionist? Me? Never...) but let's stick with "today" terminology anyway:

I helped a few friends out today, with some driving, a ridiculous amount of overdone feedback for poor Claire's latest short story (from whom I fully expect absolute reams and essays of red text on whatever I send her next which will be really helpful and is definitely not at all an ulterior motive at play), and some more driving - in which I transported Enthusiastic Geeky Friend to the cinema and in return she provided tickets.

To see Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

Be still my little Marvel fangirl heart.

There was much geeking, and lending of Hawkguy comics, and trailers for Amazing Spiderman 2, and Guardians of the Galaxy (oh, so very pretty on the big screen), and an X-Men Days of Future Past trailer I had not already seen (I adore X-Men. It rivals Loki for getting my instant attention. So this made me flap about in joy while she flapped about for Guardians of the Galaxy, and everyone was happy).

And, you know, Winter Soldier.

We asked, but they wouldn't let her have the giant Black Widow wall hanging. And they wouldn't let me have the huge reversible cardboard stand of Professor X and Magneto. Boo. But oh well, saves us trying to find space to display them properly.

So generally a rather Marvelous evening, aha. (I'm sorry, that was terrible and entirely predictable and I feel very little shame for it.) And I got home gone midnight, since we, as usual, spent at least half an hour geeking out wildly and discussing at top speed everything Marvel related while I was parked in front of her house.

Basically, at this point in Marvel phase 3, I am left wondering why there's such a focus on origin stories (though I do love a good origin story) in other franchises, and say, constant rebooting of some superheroes so as to go over and over the origins until they become boring, when they could be moving on to the really fun stuff like Avengers, Thor: The Dark World, Iron Man 3, Winter Soldier...

Yes, it's fun. I was pleased. I will say no more.

Geekery is the song of my people

I really do have awesome friends. I've been a little bit too sedentary and apt to eat for the sake of it recently, and it's starting to have an impact. So I figured I'd try to get back to something that actually helped and was fun; dancing. Sadly the specific sci-fi conventions I used to go to and dance till I dropped three nights in row have now stopped running, so I need a more local alternative.

By the power of friendship (which is magic, don't you know) I've now acquired a spare... well, everything, required to get Dance Central on the XBox 360 running in the living room. Circumstances have led to my lovely friends having even a spare console sitting quietly gathering dust, so I don't feel like I'm inconveniencing anyone or imposing too much (aside from the enforced trip to a storage unit today, wherein I pretty much appeared, grabbed one of them, and kidnapped him for the afternoon. Next time, remind me, I will simply arrive on the doorstep and intone, "Come with me if you want to live").

Hopefully, therefore, there'll be a bit more activity shortly, as soon as we've (me and Daisy, who's both kind enough to let me stay at hers, and also keen to get the dancing going) cleared space for the Kinect to work. I did enjoy the Kinect games a lot when I lived with said briefly-kidnapped-friend and we had space. I used to be quite good at them... We'll soon see if I've lost my touch completely.

Before I dashed round to their place to steal all their tech and run away laughing, I also made it back in to the charity bookshop where I worked up until last September. One of my friends who's still there had essentially summoned me via the arcane email ritual of "We've had a ton of Dragonlance donated, help", so I appeared to perform the solemn rites of "Here, they go in this order and you should put these ones out on the shelf first; they're the rarest, and oh, I'm just going to borrow this one for the moment and let you have it back later..."

So I've acquired another book to read. But it's all about Raistlin, and he's cut from the same cloth as Loki, Dryden, all the wicked, dangerous characters I like so much. So that pleases me a great deal.

Not that I have a type in fiction, or anything like that, oh no.

Also there was much flailing and geeking out, which always happens every time I see that friend. Her enthusiasm for everything is wonderful, if occasionally a little like being flattened under a landslide of excitement. It doesn't leave you room to be annoyed or upset by anything, because the only way to survive such wild delight is to go with it. It pushes you into the frame of mind where you want to give back the same level of glee, so suddenly you're focusing on all the. best. possible. things, and the happy spiral twists into the most excitable snake eating its own tail you've ever seen, and everything is a reminder of something else wonderful that must be shared right now until your face starts to hurt from grinning and you remember the parking's about to run out on the car and have to leave... on the third attempt, because each time there's just one more thing either of you absolutely must mention before you go.

It is exhausting, when I'm so out of practice at sustained excitement, but very, very entertaining. And has a tendency to gear me up to go and achieve something, hence the unexpected and most useful trip round to the others', with the bonus of lots of hugs and chat with my lovely people.

Anyway, when I got back in I settled down and beta-read a friend's 8000 word fic and returned it, as I promised I would. I seem to recall, actually, promising I'd do it yesterday, but yesterday ended up being weird and almost-migraine and I got practically nothing done, so we're all counting today as a success and not too late.

I've even got another short story from the writing group to read and critique tomorrow, so that'll be fun.

When I type it all out like that, it seems like a very productive day. Which is, after all, the point of these blog posts.

Now I'm going to go and write more Hanith, because Hanith is fun.

Prep work

Today was slow to experience and quick to pass by. The little I got done was mostly invisible work; plots and plans and concepts coming together, deciding on a few important worldbuilding points for one novel and spotting a couple of flaws in another, realising the thing I want to write most at the moment is, helpfully, next in sequence for Hanith's short stories, getting scenes straight in my head.

It was hard work to get anything done aside from that. I got lost in plots for too long and ate and drank far too late as a result, so have had a headache most of the day, which in turn has prevented me from doing much else. I did manage to send my friend in the US (see yesterday) current completed short stories, though, and dealt with a necessary and very unpleasant family matter.

Oh, and there was the X-Men trailer, which warmed the cockles of my geeky heart. I am a shameless Marvel fangirl and rather looking forward to this.

As the tiger sang: That's what friends are for...

Today I was an hour and a half late meeting up with friends... Because the lovely people I'm living with happen to be epic, amazing board game geeks, and yesterday they acquired the latest expansion set for the game Sentinels of the Multiverse - which is a hilarious riff on classic comic book superheroes and villains, and a thoroughly enjoyable co-operative game too. So we started playing a game at 1pm, I needed to leave at 2pm at latest... I started to feel like maybe the game was taking a little too long shortly before we beat the scenario and wrapped it up, went off and checked the time... 3.20pm. Whoops! Fortunately my friends are lovely and understanding and most of them have played Sentinels before and know how absorbing it can be.

In any case, we made it out and about and tried a different restaurant to usual. Pulled pork all round, and much gossiping and silliness and relaxing in good company, so happy days.

I also managed to finally pull myself together and talk to one of my best friends in the world, who is insanely busy and lives in the US so has completely different time zones to me and we never get to meet up face to face. I miss her a lot, all the time, but I'm notoriously bad at keeping in touch and she, as I say, is ridiculously busy, so it's been a little while since last emails etc. I'm pleased I managed to get a little contact going again, and must try to email more often. My only resolution this year was to be better at keeping in touch (with a lot of people), and I've already let it slide too much.

I've been chatting to a couple of other friends on Skype as well, including my lone friend back in my hometown, who, similarly to my US friend, I don't talk to enough. Those two in particular always brighten my day. They somehow manage to settle some unstable part of me, even on the other side of a computer. I do get more anxious if I haven't talked to them in too long.

So generally today has been a day of my people, which is good and calming and helpful and fun. Tomorrow will be reading and writing again, and possibly even that weird cooking thing too...

To-do lists

Kitchen clean? Check.

Borrowed DVD watched? Check.

Gospel of Loki review done and posted? Check and check.

Not a bad day all round, there. And Joanne Harris remains utterly lovely on Twitter. I think all the authors I've met have been nice, all generally kind and appreciative of fans and readers, but at the moment Rachel Aaron and Joanne Harris are the most prominently sweet online (that I have seen). I appreciate the time they take to respond to people, and the effort they put into being helpful and generous and polite as much as is humanly possible.

If I ever do make it into the realms of having fans of my own, I will try to do the same.

Oh, and today is two weeks of Happy Things blog. The second week was a lot harder; a lot of things happened that made happy very, very hard indeed and which I'm still getting over, but aside from maybe one day I still haven't had any that were a total loss yet.

One down, five to go

Couple of successes today, after a rocky few days. Made it into town and requested all of the Clarke Award shortlist from the library, aside from the one I've already been lent. They had none of them in stock yet at all, which is kind of a shame, especially considering the amount of buzz I've seen about a few of them, but I suppose I move in different circles to the library. In any case, the five I haven't got my hands on yet are now on order, and I hope they'll come through soon enough that I'll still have time to read and review them all before May 1st, when the winner's announced.

I picked up a couple of other books while I was there, including a steampunk short story anthology, because I've been writing those recently and am always happy to read more. Also one of the stories is by Jody Lynn Nye, and I need to read more of her stuff.

The other success was, naturally, food related (as usual). I managed to make a faux shepherd's pie (not lamb; pork - the suggestion came in of "swineherd's pie", which I like) from scratch, with no recipe. I even mixed it up a bit and made the mashed potato topping half Maris Pipers and half sweet potato, and that turned out pretty spectacularly. I'm very pleased with it all, even if it did take a long time and cause a bit of a mess in the kitchen. I'm starting to like this cooking thing, especially when it results in tasty food rather than just edible food. Focusing on something other than writing for a while is helpful, like sorbet between courses. Cleansing the palate of the brain.

Now I want ice cream. I wonder how you make that...

(Bonus: Everyone who read the title in Benicio del Toro's voice, take ten points and a nod of geeky appreciation.)

Infinite feedback loop

Today I finally managed to send some feedback to one of the friends who gave me feedback on my stuff, and whose NaNoWriMo novel I'll be reading at some point to give feedback on that...

I used to be better at feedback/critique, I think. I studied Creative Writing at university, and the group feedback sessions were a pretty big part of the whole thing. It was generally a lot easier to critique their stuff than it is to critique my NaNo group's, because many of them tended towards cliches much of the time. That seems less common among my lot, possibly because all of those from whom I've read stuff are, ahem, a few years out of uni and better read as a result.

Also, probably, I'm out of practice.

It is very difficult to critique something good, though. You'd think the few flaws would stand out more than ever - and that might be true for typos - but think about it. Think about your favourite films or books. They're not flawless (nothing is). But if they're good, if you're enjoying reading or watching them, you forgive them the odd fumble here and there. You wince at the clunky line and let it slide by. You handwave your own explanation for the minor inconsistency. You flagrantly ignore the giant plothole in the basic setup.

So it's much, much harder to remember to point out these flaws that we've trained ourselves to ignore when we're trying to help our fellow writers polish up the next draft. It often feels like nitpicking, like we're bent over the manuscript in candlelight, muttering wildly to ourselves that they won't get away with it this time and cackling into the night when we find something to pounce upon...

Or maybe that's just me. I do all my best critiquing in the crypt, swathed in black cloak.

I know, though, that for my stuff I'd much rather have the cackling circles around every typo or unnecessary adverb (leave the necessary ones alone, all of you waiting with your red pens uncapped already) than have the entirety of the feedback read, "Yeah, I liked it."

That's why I try (and don't always succeed) to point out anything I can. It would be a darn sight easier if people didn't write such enjoyable first drafts, that's all.

The spider dream (or: Never underestimate your brain)

Today seems to have been an intermediate day. I have short stories in progress, and have read other people's too. I made it round to friends' (one of whom has started blogging) place and helped with shopping and appointments. I even got some Gospel of Loki review written, though not an awful lot, since everything was delayed today by a very late start. I woke up at about 2.30am kneeling at the foot of my bed with my hand on the light switch, you see, so I slept in later on.

See, when I get particularly stressed or anxious, my brain decides to punish me with the spider dream. This is almost exactly what it sounds like and arachnaphobes may wish to stop reading here. Suffice it to say that I don't always get a full night's sleep, I can be a little paranoid about spiders in my bedroom, just in case, and I keep a close eye on how I process what's going on around me.

This started off a very long time ago, in the run up to exams at school (possibly GCSEs, so I may have been 16, that formative age when your brain chemistry is a bit off kilter and you're under more stress than you've ever known to boot). I was just nodding off one night when I caught a glimpse of a horrific, huge spider (big, fluffy, tarantula-size) lurking among the books and papers on the floor by my bed. Naturally, I summoned my mother, but no amount of searching could find any sign of it. Somehow she persuaded me to go back to bed and sleep.

For years, I was convinced that that thing had been real and had vanished somewhere in my bedroom.

A while later, I woke to the terrifying scenario of a big, long-legged spider crawling up the covers towards me. I gained full consciousness on the other side of the room with my back against the wall, in tears. It took a lot of effort to drag myself around the corner to get to my bedroom door and run for help. Again, there was no sign of it, though we stripped the bed and shook everything out and remade it. I can't remember properly, but I think I may have gone and slept in the guest bedroom for that one.

The next one was a big spider sitting on the pillow three inches in front of my face. I hit the bedside light and it was gone.

At that point I suddenly realised that it had been dark, absolutely pitch black, in the room. There was no way I could have seen a spider. So I shook the pillows out just in case, checked thoroughly, and talked myself back into bed and sleep.

After that I started applying logic when I woke up in a panic. There couldn't be a tarantula on my bed. The odds against it were astronomical.

My brain fought back, though. If I came up with a logical reason to ignore the panicked awakening and go back to sleep, it would change the scenario. Tarantulas were too farfetched? Okay, so it was just a gangly standard (if overgrown) house spider. It couldn't be crawling up the bed, because I would have felt the weight or heard the rustle? Okay, then it was slowly sliding down from the ceiling on a web. It couldn't possibly be descending from the ceiling on gossamer because when I switched the light on the gossamer wasn't there? Okay, it would be crawling up the headboard instead. I couldn't have seen it so clearly and vividly because there just wasn't enough light in the room, even with street lights or a bright moon muted by the curtains? Okay, then it was just a silhouette, a fuzzy shape, a suggestion of movement.

I checked the ceiling and bed thoroughly for spiders every night, so I'd know for sure. And I really knew for sure that none of them had ever been real when it started happening when I was in other rooms, other houses. Modern, hermetically sealed sorts of places. Hotel rooms with nowhere for them to hide. Friends' rooms that had just been cleaned.

I think it was shortly after that when a close friend started on her medical degree and excitedly brought up hypnagogic hallucinations. She described them as auditory or visual effects that usually strike just as you're about to fall asleep, in the first stages of a sleep cycle, when you think you're still awake but you're not, or if you're halfway through the night and you've almost resurfaced and woken but think you're still fully asleep. They're most commonly voices calling your name. I've never had that, though I've heard of it a lot and it crops up all the time in fiction (usually as a lead in to ghosts or telepathy, to be fair, but it's a common enough effect that most people I've discussed it with have admitted to it happening every now and again). I think I'd much rather have eerie disembodied voices than spiders.

My point (I have a point, honest, though not a particularly blogworthy one, really) is that the brain is weird, and persuasive, and likes to trick itself. This is relevant to a lot of the things I'm writing at the moment.

It's also very odd to be aware of something like this. It makes me step back and think twice about everything, all the time. I overanalyse pretty much everything I think in case my brain is trying to trick me. I cling to logic in everything. At the moment this tends to mean I over-explain everything as well, because I'm aware that most people aren't in the habit of laying down half a dozen logical arguments just to get back to sleep, so I'm a little too eager to present all my reasoned thoughts for whatever choice has come up.

It does help with spotting plotholes, though, I must admit.