Sunday, July 10, 2011

Sickness, singing and searching for intelligent life

Book News:

NB THIS SECTION HAS BEEN REMOVED DUE TO LEGAL NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE PUBLISHER CONCERNED, AT THEIR REQUEST.

I'm also happy to say that Writers News Magazine has accepted my article for publication, and I had a nice chat with one of the editors there on Saturday. They asked to be kept updated on what happens next, so I'll certainly be doing that.

Meanwhile you can find my comic short story, Creative Accountancy for Beginners, for sale at Untreed Reads for only 99 cents so now's the ideal time to buy.

The next line from The Gifting is:

‎"There is no need for us to be here, Johan. Every moment that passes means another Gathandrian dead."

Though seeing as it's Isabella speaking, who knows if she actually means it or not, eh ...

The Sunday haiku is:

Morning eases in:
the soft promise of sunlight
for my darkest thought.


Finally, in this section, I've been unable to update my writing website since we moved as Dreamweaver doesn't seem to work properly with the Dongle (as it were) so I'm really getting behind there. I'm thinking of rebuilding it from scratch on a system I can actually use, so if anyone out there has any good tips for website providers that are simple and idiot-proof, please do let me know. Thanks!

Life News:

Since the launch of The Gifting, I've fallen rather sick, alas. The usual heavy cold/catarrh thing (dammit) which has meant 2 nights of mainly sleeplessness on the living room sofa. I'm treating it with Sudafed, lemsips and Lucozade, as ever. I did manage actually to go to bed on Friday night, but in the end that just gave me something of a relapse, sigh. As a result, I had to miss my day at Hampton Court Flower Show on Friday, though we did manage to get to Glyndebourne yesterday to see Handel's Rinaldo. Gorgeous music & singing, naturally (well, it's Handel, after all), but the production was rubbish and occasionally embarrassingly laughable in the wrong places, oh dear. I can't really recommend it as a result.

Also sadly, there's bad news on the thrush nest outside the spare room window. The young foxes got them sometime during the night late last week so nature is indeed red of tooth and claw. I really miss those birds. Ah well.

Oh, and as a result of spending most of my time, day and night, on the sofa, I'm getting through a hell of a lot of puzzles. K is helping with some of the answers too by giving essential clues as to what the answers are as he's much better at them than I am, much to my shame (aren't I supposed to be good with words and he's good with numbers?!?...). This morning, he was just soooo irritatingly good that I said, with a noble sigh, that it must be so difficult for him coming as he does from an alien planet where they're all so clever with crosswords. K's answer: ah yes, how true, though we're still looking for signs of intelligent life in other races, you know ... That's me told then, ha!...

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