She liked to make me run

The Balderdash (a 4x1 Mile relay race organised by the sports and social club here at work) approaches, and I get invited to run the course to see how bad it is. My time is about 7'30", which pleases me muchly, given that I only started training about three weeks ago. I feel more confident about running it on Thursday now.

Later . . .

She liked to eavesdrop

A Man Betrayed by J.V. Jones.

The trouble with the second book in a trilogy is that quite often nothing really happens. No new plotlines are introduced; we usually see the continuation of existing plotlines, or maybe the combination of them. Rarely are new major characters introduced or, if so, chances are they will only be around for the middle book, or will play a minor part in the third. It's hard to like or dislike the second book in the trilogy (or any middle book in a series) -- you find yourself having little opinion until you've finished the trilogy and you can judge it as a whole. It doesn't stand alone; if you liked the first book, then chances are you'll like the second. If you didn't, then you probably won't even read the second.

I liked The Baker's Boy, so I read A Man Betrayed. I found it quite good, although things continued to happen that, whilst amusing in the first book, began to get annoying. Page after page of the Archbishop thinking about food. Bodger and Grift gossiping and sharing invaluable advice about the ways of women (when it comes to Bodger and Grift actually getting a bigger part, it seems misplaced, part of you thinks that they shouldn't be interacting with the other characters, they should just be talking about them in a 'lady melliandra's sure is pretty' way).

Tawl and Nabber remain my favourite characters, and the way their friendship is developed and the strains that are put upon it are quite nicely written. Jack and Melli's stories are good, although at times the rivalry between Baralis and Maybor gets boring. I'll read the final book, as I've enjoyed what I have read so far. I'm quite interested in seeing just how Jack is going to save Melli ('cos you know he's going to).

Later . . .

She liked to ride some waves

'Touching you cause you're touching me.'

Our accommodation is a backpackers hostel on the road to Fistral Beach. Inside the walls are decorated with pages from surfing magazines and the model shoots from FHM. The shower room has a hole in the door at a height that -- should we want to -- me and a couple of the taller members of our party could watch people showering without too much difficulty. Our bedroom sleeps six in bunks that look like they were made by a blind carpenter with a serious dislike for backpackers, and they are so precarious that going to bed itself is an extreme sport. Amazingly I manage to sleep two nights on the top bunk without falling off. The best thing about the room is the view; we can see all of Fistral Beach if we just stick our heads out of the window. The worst thing about it is the ledge just underneath, which seems to be an early morning meeting place for the noisiest shitehawks in Newquay.

Down in the lounge the television appears to be stuck on the Extreme Sports channel. It later becomes clear that every television in Newquay is visited by a similar affliction. This pretty much sums up Newquay -- if it's not about surfing then you'd be better off going down the coast to another resort. Every other building is a surf shop, and the remainder is made up of places for the surfers to eat (all proud of their 'All Day Breakfasts!' and the 'Best Pasties in Cornwall') or places for the surfers to stay.

By night the town shifts its attentions from surfing to drinking. Anyone whoever watched Newquay Nights will be aware that there is a surprising number of pubs, bars and clubs in the town, although our party only visits about half a dozen of them. Even though it's late September the town is busy, and I shudder to think what it's like at the height of the season.

On our first night we end up in a deceptively large night club called Sailor's. My housemate is convinced we've walked into a gay bar, as the man-woman ratio is about 19. We begin to refer to it as Hello, Sailor's. It gets better though; by the end of the night the ratio is down to about 15 and we feel positively swamped in women.

The second night consists of much of the same; killer pool, cocktails, and drunken renditions of I believe in a Thing Called Love. We end up in a Walkabout Inn -- travelling 200 miles to end up in a chain pub -- catching the last few songs of a live band who in my drunken state appear pretty good.

I spend my days on the beach. I resist the temptation to get in the water myself, instead choosing to watch the others, check out the surfer girls walking up and down the beach, and throwing stones at the shitehawks with the two or three others who stayed on the sand.

Later . . .

She liked to defend her home town

'The crowd on a night out in Old Town are chiefly composed of wannabe yuppies, but no actual yuppies, as any young person with a university education has the sense to get far, far away as soon as humanly possible.'

Interesting article ripping into the place I currently reside in here. It is nice to know that someone else thinks it's 'a cultural void'.

Later . . .

She liked to check

My line manager just approached me, told me that someone in dams was looking for a young engineer to go out onto site and take care of some surveying.

'Where is it?'
Slight hesitation. Then: 'Eheh . . . Iraq.'

I told them to keep on looking. I'm after a good bit of site work (the training process demands that I have a bit of it), but the idea of standing in the middle of Iraq wearing a high-visibility jacket just didn't appeal to me. Not whilst the guys wearing camoflage are getting killed so easily.

She liked to be honest

Speaking to my ex:

'You go out last night?'
'Yeah.'
'Mission?'
'Yeah.'
'Smells like it.'

Yeah, thanks for that. I'm going to let that remark slide, but only because on seeing that I was late for work, she sent me a text asking if I was alright.

Last night was a mate's birthday. The mate in question got a little emotional towards the end of the evening, but we can forgive such behaviour on a birthday. Good night, curry, pub and club, and considering it was a week night I survived remarkably . . . intact. Now it's just a case of sitting and waiting for four o'clock to roll round.

This weekend some friends and I are going down to Newquay in Cornwall. Every year some people from work organise a surfing trip down there, and in the spur of the moment last night we decided to go along with them. I'm not a surfer, so the plan is to turn it into a bit of a drinking weekend.

Later . . .

I'm Afraid of . . . Being President.

Nothing new to report. Spent the weekend alternating between states of being drunk and being hungover. Good weekend though.

Later . . .

I'm Afraid of . . . feeling good.

Went clubbing last night.

Hungover at work. It's funny, whenever I'm in these situations (and we try and do the thursday night out a couple of times a week) I never feel that bad first thing. However, as the day wears on and I begin to sober up, I start feeling worse. I've managed to avoid the headache today -- unlike my housemate, heh -- but I'm dehydrated and I feel like doing anything other than checking reinforcement drawings. Boring enough at the best of times, but today all of the lines are become one. The paper looks like someone tried to draw a game of pick-up sticks.

Gah.

Consequently nothing to report for the past few days. I've worked a bit more on the superhero story, but I know now that I'm not going to make it this month. Next month the workshop is running a YA Challenge, which doesn't really appeal to me. Maybe I'll actually work on something else instead. No word back from either of my stories, but I don't expect anything for a while.

Later . . .

I'm Afraid of . . . her Reaction.

In case you're wondering about yesterday's cryptic message, I broke up with Louise on Friday night. It was inevitable, I guess. I'm okay with it, she's okay with it, and we seem to be on good terms still, so I can't complain.

I'm not overjoyed at being back on Single's Row; the last time I was there I got locked in.

Later . . .

I'm Afraid of . . . Fat Naked Men.

So what else?

We're now in the Swing Area. Feels like we've taken over a university computer lab. I keep turning around expecting to find a lecturer looking over my shoulder, checking that I'm working and not surfing the web or something. Only six weeks to go.

Finished reading The Hobbit. Good yarn. Not as good as TLotR, but close. Not overly keen on the way Tolkein keeps writing stuff like 'as I'm sure you remember' or 'of course, you and I know differently'. It always pulls me out of the story a little, like it's constantly reminding me this is something that someone made up. Can't remember if it was this bad in TLotR.

Later . . .

I'm Afraid of . . . hurting you again.

Title says it all really.

Later . . .

I'm Afraid of . . . heights but adore flying craft.

Don't really have anything to say today, but it's the end of week and . . . well, you know.

A hectic/quiet day at work today. Hectic in the fact that approximately sixty-five of us are moving offices this weekend to make way for a refurbishment. Quiet in the fact that I don't have a lot of work to do, and I've already finished my quite minimal packing. Hence having the time to write a journal entry with no real content or purpose. Every-so-often I get asked to assist in some lifting or moving -- because I'm young, I must be strong and willing to lift and push -- but mostly I'm just waiting for the madness to begin at four o'clock.

Elydian has relaunched his blog, this time with one of blogger's designs as opposed to his boring old design. It's still pointless.

I've got a bit more word count to report, but I wasn't quite as productive last night as I would have liked.

Still reading The Hobbit. Still writing my superhero story (gonna miss the challenge? yep).

Started running again. Seem to have the time now -- more time than I know what to do with -- and I actually have something to train for. Hopefully, by the time this event has passed, I'll be motivated enough to carry on running.

New Chapters -- 1;
Words -- 14200;
Stories in Circulation -- 2 (The Well, He Missed the Sea);
Rejections -- 6.

Later . . .

I'm Afraid of . . . Vampires.

He Missed the Sea has gone back out.

Later . . .

I'm Afraid of . . . it and I Wrote it.

Finished Talon of the Silver Hawk by Raymond E. Fiest over the weekend. Not a bad story, as it stands, and managing to avoid the 'Pug and Nakor debate the nature of evil' that soured the last book of the Serpentwar Saga for me. It was nice to see a change of setting however; the eastern kingdoms seemed fairly well thought out. Talon's a good enough protagonist, although that 'master of everything I try' thing always seems a little hard to believe.

Next up: The Hobbit. Hard to believe, especially given what a fan of The Lord of the Rings I am, that I've never read this book before, but there you go.

Later . .

I'm Afraid of . . . being Nothing.

The Well has gone back out, but I'm sitting on He Missed the Sea until next week. Ideally I'd let it sit a week until I reread it, but I'll see how impatient I get. If I can get someone to read the new version for me, all the better.

New Chapters -- 1;
Words -- 14000;
Stories in Circulation -- 1 (The Well);
Rejections -- 6.

Later . . .

I'm Afraid of . . . Non-Americans.

Made the required changes to He Missed the Sea last night, but I'm not quite ready to send it back to the market. I want to sit on it for a day or two, so I can have a read through with a little distance. I don't want to send it out full of new mistakes, and I don't particularly want to send out if the new bit doesn't match the tone and voice of the rest of it.

On the subject of submissions, following the latest rejection of The Well I've spent some time at Ralan's looking for another place to send it. I've decided this time that I'm going to remove the italicized biographical sections, see if it fares any better. The dislike for these sections has been fairly consistent. I might try and send that out tonight, but I'm not too worried if it goes out tomorrow.

Later . . .

I'm Afraid of . . . Mandated "Educational" Television.

I saw your blog today - nice - yeah, don't be discouraged by that, I've sent stuff and never gotten a response - good luck with it.
Sincerely,
A Complete Stranger

Um. Thanks?

Later . . .

I'm Afraid of . . . it and I Wrote it.

Finished Talon of the Silver Hawk by Raymond E. Fiest over the weekend. Not a bad story, as it stands, and managing to avoid the 'Pug and Nakor debate the nature of evil' that soured the last book of the Serpentwar Saga for me. It was nice to see a change of setting however; the eastern kingdoms seemed fairly well thought out. Talon's a good enough protagonist, although that 'master of everything I try' thing always seems a little hard to believe.

Next up: The Hobbit. Hard to believe, especially given what a fan of The Lord of the Rings I am, that I've never read this book before, but there you go.

Later . .

I'm Afraid of . . . Addiction.

Finished Soulsaver last night. Great book. Sent a rather sycophantic email to Jim telling him how much I enjoyed, so I won't bother repeating any of that here :) Seriously though, I would definitely recommend this one. It's funny, it's thoughtful, it's well-written.

Going to watch American Pie: the Wedding tonight. Think I might leave my brain at home. To go expecting too much would probably be silly.

No new words on my Superhero challenge entry, but still got plenty of ideas for where I can take what I've written so far.

Later . . .

I'm Afraid of . . . the Police.

Word count!

Woohoo. Managed to get 2000 words written yesterday afternoon. I was feeling very happy with myself so I wasted the evening.

It was for this month's Superhero challenge at the workshop. All last week I was unable to think of an idea for a story, when all of a sudden one comes to me whilst I was in the shower. Of course, the words are very rough as yet, but they're NEW words. Here's to hoping I can keep it up.

Later . . .