I had a student say to me today "I'm so relieved about my Classical Drama essay. It's only two thousand words long. Don't get me wrong, it's still hard... it just means that I can remember what the first word is when I'm writing the last one." I said: "I know, totally, exactly, and utterly what you mean ( Read more... )

So, apparently the "I write like" meme is a skeevy cover for some kind of vanity publishing "Christian" site, see here: http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/012502.html. Thanks, embroiderama. So apparently I don't write like Stephen King after all, *sadface*. It ( Read more... )

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I went round to see my mum today: we baked an apple pie, which I subsequently brought back home and now is COMPLETELY EATEN. Mum is tremendously better (still with some symptoms of this and that, and recuperating still so not very well in lots of ways, but really, filled with energy and awesomeness). It was possibly the best apple pie I ever ( Read more... )

Mum is doing better today, they are beginning to think about when they might let her go home! Probably not for at least a couple of days, but it is on the horizon! Fingers crossed, yet again! She is really beginning to chomp at the bit in terms of thinking through things that she will be able to do. It's still astounding to me. My sister (the one ( Read more... )

I was just writing away quite happily, and had one of those moments when something happens quite unexpectedly, and you find something out about a character that you didn't know. This was an OC, and yeah, this wasn't expected ( Read more... )

Meep, just got the reminder that Big Bang drafts are due in two months. TWO MONTHS. Holy moley. That's a very useful kick in the pants. It was cool going to look at the sentence-or-two-or-three that everyone has posted over there, though. Great excitement all round... it's just so intriguing and interesting and nice to think of all those stories ( Read more... )

Somehow I have become the person in our department who people are sent to when they're having writing problems on essays or whatever ( Read more... )

I'm almost dangerously relaxed! I finished the first draft of my book review! YES, that book review. It's not quite the last minute: it's due at the end of the week, so I can look at it again and fix it up, but for now it is out of my hands! Yee ( Read more... )

I've got this new pair of swimming goggles and they're great because they're prescription! Which means I can swim AND see at the same time. I'm really very short-sighted indeed, to the point of not really being functional at all without contacts (which I usually wear) or glasses, which I wear to give my eyes a rest. Swimming therefore is always a ( Read more... )