My Writing Odyssey

I haven't bought a television guide for years.  I always found that there was never anything of interest in the terrestrial and free-view listings, I never found a layout for the sky listings that didn't leave me confused, and there was always one answer on the bloody crossword that I just couldn't get! So it was a complete stroke of luck that I turned on the bedroom television after my bath on Thursday, and flicked across to BBC Two in time to catch a fascinating documentary called The Last Days of Anne Boleyn. Tudor history has always been a subject of great interest to me, long before my nose started burying itself into CJ Sansom's addictive Shardlake series, and even people with little interest in that period if history have heard of Anne Boleyn.  The first Queen of England to be officially executed (although I doubt she was the first - and we know she wasn't the last - Queen to be killed off by her husband) was also the cause of Henry VII's forming the ...

Being married to a gamer - and being with aforementioned gamer for ten years before marrying him - it was unavoidable that I would learn a thing or two about video games!  Happily for both of us, I developed a tiny interest in some of the games that appeared on our screens. The really nice thing about some of the game series is that they remember the reader and publish a book or two.  My favourites at the moment are the very excellent Assassins Creed series by Oliver Bowden, which I have read with as much enthusiasm as any other series.  Oliver Bowden is a very talented author with a very comfortable writing style, which is not hampered in the slightest by his novel's need to tie in with the video game it was published alongside.  Another author of note, John Shirley, enjoyed a little more freedom by writing Bioshock: Rapture  as a fascinating prequel to the hugely popular game series.  This proved to be a bit of a slow starter, but a patient reader was q...

Because apparently it's spring now!  With its icy rain and dismal grey clouds (yep, still spring), a weary traveller returns to her blog after eighteen months of silence... I can only apologise for leaving everybody and just vanishing for what is now eighteen months.  A lot of things have happened, some of them were good, but I've been under a self-imposed silence for coming up to a year now, thanks to a particularly unexpected - but thankfully not literal - back-stabbing that left me feeling lost, confused, and with no clue whatsoever who I could trust.  Not that I thought any of my patient and lovely blog followers would be contributing to my new troubles, but I do share this blog on my Facebook and Twitter accounts where anyone can see them.  For that reason I just stopped talking on either account completely, thinking that nobody could use anything I said against me if I ever said anything.  On principle this is fairly sound, provided you don't have a vola...

Most writing enthusiasts will have heard something of NaNoWriMo throughout their journey.  I heard of it about three years ago when a Deviantart friend entered, but I had not decided to try going further with my writing career at the time, and hadn't really appreciated what it was or what it meant.  The second time I heard of it was on another blog.  This time I knew what it was, but it was the middle of November, and far too late to try.  This year I have registered well in advance for NaNoWriMo, which means I have either had some sort of epiphany, or gone mad again! I really must apologise to my patient followers for my two month silence.  Stepping away from my blog was not intentional.  In the space of three weeks I began and deleted a dozen blog posts before deciding to give it a rest.  My writing batteries had somehow managed to run down completely, to the point where I opened a word document or new post and did nothing more than stare a...

After my first visit to the doctor in January regarding my stomach pains, I finally went back to the hospital to find that my results all came back clear.  However, I am now being referred for more tests because they believe that my stomach pains are caused by the very thing that the doctors convinced me were nothing to do with it! This was the result of an unexpected phone call on Monday morning, when I was asked to go to see the consultant on Thursday.  Like any self-respecting 25 year old I chose the most mature option and panicked like a long tailed cat in a rocking chair factory.  Luckily my mum was on hand to come with me and stop me from mewling like a damp kitten whilst I waited to be seen.  One thing that I am very, very  good at is panicking for no real reason.  As it happened I had nothing to worry about, but by the time I got to the doctors I had diagnosed myself with everything! Fortunately I was wrong, and now have more tests to look forw...

The more eagle eyed of readers for my last post will have noticed that the title promised "and other stories," which did not materialise.  Truth be told, I completely forgot with the shiny excitement of blogging on my phone. Since then, I have tried the office capacity, for reasons I will explain, and was thoroughly impressed.  Much simpler to use, and with its help I think I got the hang of typing with my phone.  That been said, now I will never be able to type anything correctly using my phone again - silly me! Once I had posted my last entry, I noticed that my blog had found itself a tenth follower - hello J L Dale and thank you for following my blog.  I must be doing something right, after all, now that my followers now add up to double figures. Anyway, the other stories... The most exciting one is that I finally bought and paid for my wedding dress today!  I also got the chance to try it on for the first time and felt like a princess.  My mum h...

After eighteen months of putting up with my horrible old phone, the time finally came where I could upgrade.  So yesterday I went to my local shop and am now typing from my swish new HTC 7 Mozart!! I had been eyeing the Windows phones for a few months, and I had heard some very positive feedback about the HTC phones. Everyone who doesn't have one seems to want one, so I'm pleased to have one of my own. The main reason for getting this phone was the built in Microsoft Office, which I...er...haven't tried yet.  However, I will be having a play with it as soon as I get the hang of the way this phone works.  Anyone watching me yesterday would have been sick of the cries of "What's it doing NOW ?!" as compared with my old phone it is extremely fast. So, here is my test post.  Hope it turns out okay . HC x