just got my first laptop. or, rather, netbook (Acer Aspire 1, Linux edition). this means Mrs Chopper can use the base unit for Photoshop stuff while i write with the mini-thing.

why Linux? so that i can't install Football Manager and distract myself from writing.....

unfortunately, i'm writing this blog on the base unit (Bloody Stupid Thing) - i don't have wireless connection stuff yet and for some reason the Aspire doesn't like my wired connection. very odd.
...

Since the site crashed, the world has turned: I've sold my first short story, written a total of approx. 50k words this calendar year, got three more shorts in various stages of incompleteness, finished an alternate history novellette for the Shared Sheaves crew, and even found time to copy-edit the anthology for my writers' groop. All that and night shifts too!

Nice to have the blogs back - although it's one more distraction to tempt me away from my wonderful OpenOffice documents.......

well, that's what They advise, anyway. which isn't a great problem unless you're writing about dragons (unless chrispy knows something i don't....)
it's a hard slog at the moment because i have a goal to reach and some unpleasant writing to get me there. the story requires cassia to have a choice between travelling with her father and travelling with the two mysterious chaps who have spirited them both out of their normal lives. the thing is that her father is (putting it mildly) an unpleasant...

well, not really. but i do know how MC ends, and it's proper irritating because it's a long slog to get there. i'm very tempted to just write the last chapter of the second book right now, but i know i'll be doing it an injustice - i've already got the last chapter of book 1 done (it was the first thing i did) and it needs severe editing to bring it into line with the rest of the story.
this is my curse (hehe) that i seem to think of things backwards - or i can't wait to get to the end....

while i wait on my submission (time goes slow, very slow), the other idea about four short tales set in the same world as Malessar's Curse is trundling gently out of the hangar and headed for the runway. unmixing the metaphor (and what is a meta for?), one of the tales has started writing itself. there's a beginning, with 1000 words already on paper (actually, in a word document but meh), and i've been stewing the plot for the last week to see if i can concoct a decent enough ending. i think i've...