I failed so hard at doing this last year - and the year before that - that I'm determined to do it now. The bold ones are my favourites; re-reads are asterisked.

( This is what I do with my time )

Just read Blood Red Snow White by Marcus Sedgwick. It's a fictionalised account of Arthur Ransome's time spent in Russia during the Bolshevik revolution. It's beautifully written, and I particularly enjoyed the beginning where images of the revolution are interwoven with fairytale language. There's a lovely dreamy quality to the beginning.

However. The thin characterisation of Evgenia was a real disappointment, especially given how much I enjoyed the start of the novel. It's a sadly familiar feeling. You're trundling along, having fun reading, and, whoops! Here comes another writer thinking that attractiveness counts as a character trait. My enthusiasm severely dropped off once I realised Evgenia wasn't going to get much more depth than "too beautiful to look at". For a character who affects the plot so much, I would have liked to get more of a sense of her personality via showing rather than telling. It was only within the final paragraphs that her stated cleverness and audacity shone through.

Sigh.

In response to the petition, Gordon Brown has apologised to Alan Turing.

There are things involving me and the possibility of employment which will have a concrete outcome by the end of the day. I want the end of the day to happen now, of course. But I resolve not to spend the day gnawing on my fingernails, and instead write! (Including rewriting and heavy editing, I've written the equivalent of 1000 words per day during this year. It's the most regularly I've ever written, and it feels goooood.)

Jeff Somers, author of the Avery Cates series, has some thoughts about literary criticism. Worth bearing in mind.

( Someone somewhere will think your work sucks )

So I just wrote something in my novel that made me get tears in my eyes. Writing skillz or PMT? Who knows? To help me ferret out such mysteries, I'm planning to join an online writing workshop. Currently I have Critters and Critique Circle as my shortlist. Has anyone had experience of them - good, bad, indifferent?

I watched Glee. I feel...cautious. On the one hand, Will is hangdog cardigan!porn, and Terri was less uniformly awful in the second episode. I also like Sue the horrific PE teacher. On the other, I find Rachel so-so, but Finn seems a little too good to be true (great looks, great voice, great athletic ability and an angsty past? No real flaws other than a tendency to follow the crowd? Hmmm, I say. Hmmm, indeed). I hope there's going to be more focus on the other kids later. Still, I'm definitely going to watch more.

(Thinking about Glee has made me realise how much Leverage has spoiled me. It's raised the Bar Of Entertainment high enough that little compares to it. Sigh.)

Whee! Back from a ten-day stint in LA with Fay and her family. Cuteness overload from Tiny Cousins and Giant Cats!

In other news, I have been doing loads of writing, more than I've done since the move. Yay!

In other news, I have the internet and am posting from my nice computer in my living room. Woohoo!

Also, new Leverage! I've only seen episodes 2 and 3, but they were awesome. It's like they have a cable connected to my brain and know exactly what I want to watch!

I'm in Devon right now, and became hilariously allergic to the countryside in such a way that's meant I can't go to the wedding I was planning to attend. I do have Fay with me, but it's still disappointing.

On the plus, we met up with tivunel in Exeter for chats and catching-up.

Happy Independence Day to the American folks about! I'm not American, but Fay is, and we supported Andy Roddick yesterday from our vantage points on the sofa (tennis is fun!) so that's good enough for me. Fireworks and tasty food all round, and yay for constitutional rights.

My sister had an exhibition of her A Level art projects. It was awesome.

And also, if things go to plan, Fay and I might be able to obtain a Ragdoll kitten sometime next year. Which would be just swell. Fingers crossed...

In non life-related things, I've lost momentum on Battlestar Galactica but raced through Full Metal Alchemist just before I moved out of my old flat. It's fabulous. Anime with vaguely Edwardian setting, military dictatorship with science/magic of alchemy in which two pre-teen brothers performed a ritual That Was Not Meant To Be and spend the series trying to make up for it. And I'm very tentatively roaming into Criminal Minds. I find it quite discomforting so am watching an episode here and there. I like the characters a lot, just not the subject matter a lot of the time. Hmmm.

Busy busy busy.

Moved into a new flat; did work experience at a primary school and was good at it; swimming in paperwork.

But woo, Sims 3!

I has a dreamwidth! miss_haitch.

Off to Cambridge today to see an old school friend. Woohoo!

On FeministSF I found this Dollhouse meta with a link to giandujakiss's Dollhouse fanvid, It Depends On What You Pay. Contains images of sexual violence. Icky, squicky, spot on.

In more cheering news, thank you to all of you guys who have been mentioning Leverage! Finally got round to watching it last week, and I love it. I have a new programme to watch. Elliot love. <3

Waiting for Godot happened, with Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart.

Now I've got time to read, Corambis by Sarah Monette is happening, and it's awesome.

Do any of you folks play Baldur's Gate II? If so you may be interested that programming and writing is happening. Faren nears completion after a crazy-intensive couple of days with Fay in which we decided we would finish the mod once and for all.

And editing is happening. Chopping and changing scenes, rewriting how things go, is so much fun.

Last night I dreamt that one of the main characters from my story (who bears a passing resemblance to Lee Adama) was on the Galactica and spent most of the time angsting about there being no trees in space. Then I was reading Corambis, and it was an advance copy and had lots of cool notes in about the etymology of certain words. Not quite a narrative dream, but getting there.

For yesterday, happy birthday blackdublinski. Lots of love!