Welcome to my perfumed garden

They have a new home now courtesy of the adorable tehomet all blessings be upon her.

The site is HERE.  These are the same files I had on the Temple website. The episodes are all digital recordings from UK SciFi so they're pretty good quality and as far as I can tell, they're all uncut. Media Tour, Trash and etc. all there too, so please do go and check it out.

Yes, I am still alive, I'm still on a push to finish the novel and consequently keeping my head mostly in the 'down' position. I may emerge eventually, I may yet write fic again, but for the time being, I'm trying to avoid the munificent distractions of internetly pleasures till this baby be birthed.

I hope you're all keeping well and that Americans had a pleasant long weekend. Please take this smooch as a token of my esteem till we chance to meet again. Mmmmmmmm XXXXXXX!!XXXXXX!!!! nice! *g*

Of Stephen Fry writing about writing.

And now I must go and be about some of the same. I have set myself the target of 15,000 words a day (These are rewrites, I need to add! Not actual writing, for which 15,000 words a day would be an insane target!) to complete this bloody thing in a week.

I am turning teh internets off. I am sitting down at my laptop with my serious intent face on. I may be gone some time.

The Whig sees it as a Nest of Tories, when 'tis a Nest of FOPS! Thus quoth @DrSamuelJohnson on Twitter. Never a truer word, sir.

A brief perusal of Dr Johnson's esteemed followers brought me to a veritable virtual coffee shoppe of most esteemed gentlemen and ladies in the forms of @RealBoswell (And now to th' NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY, where I aim to gaze Fondly at picktures of MYSELF), @TophamBeauclerk (Can any tell me who is the - so-call'd - Prime MInister of this land? The rogue goes a-missing it seems, whenever factional Battle looms), @LaurenceSterne (Mr Cameron,Tory, is angered that AL MCGRADY, the adopted Scot, has retired to foreign climes. Does he want the 'Med' for English OAPs alone?), @JonathanSwift79 (This is both a bankless and thankless holiday. Stella and I arrive at 'Starbucks' expecting whaling equipment, but get an AMERICAN muffin!), @MrAlexanderPope (O RUBICON! what Treachery is this? / Thou sayest, 'Water-Melon'; meanest, 'Piss') which is, frankly, just confusing. @RTristramShandy (He may walk but I enchant (so sir recant!)), @HesterThrale (Planning a trip to Brighton to catch the last rays of the dimming season and escape this frightful London summer), @AaronBurrJr (Just finished my book: "10 things I loathe about the articles of Confederation & that whoreson Hamilton". My place in history is assured.), @TobiasSmollett (feels trepanned by the Internet.) and @TrumpHogarth (The Poor do have but two Delights: FORNICATION and GIN, & of the two, Gin be the more desir'd for it lasts a longer time & is CHEAPER).

This has been the cause of most goodly giggles and yes, I hath friended them ALL.

I'm just taking a short break from the Dreade Submission (cup of green cherry sencha and a banana, should you be curious). I've finished the letter, the infamous Query the writing of which always gives me such a case of the vapours. I've been going over my first three chapters, which a good and trusted friend assured me were Good but which I now see are far from. The things in their entirety are, indeed, naught but a pile of skiddy pants and need must be re-written with a most severe pen. I've cut a good 20% of it, shunted a few pars about. Just 5 pages left to sort out now and I can send it winging through the ether to Mr Ian Drury of Sheil land in Doughty Street, then set about prepping stuff for the next agent in the queue.

It's all a bit of a bastard, I can tell you.

OK then, tea consumed, sustenance taken, loins girded, best be back about it I suppose.

I've been fighting all weekend with synopses of varying lengths (every agent wants something different). I just sent out my 'elevator pitch' (their description, not mine) to Zeno who were accepting submissions but now, are not - my email sent back by return. ::sigh::

I'm just working on my spiel to Ian Drury at Sheil Land - first in line because he accepts email subs (and most do not). He only wants a one paragraph synopsis (of a 150,000 word novel. Piece of piss. O:!!!), two chapters and ' a short summary of why someone would pay their own cash money to read your book'.

I hate this part. Hate it like a massive serving of hate with hate sauce and a side order of loathing.

Cup of tea, I think, then back to the grind. Gotta have this baby out by teatime.

and a nice cup of Lapsang.

Gosh, I'm tired, and bored, and fed up but mostly tired. I've stripped the beds, cleaned the bedrooms, finally got Dad to change his shirt (long involved story, not for the faint-hearted either), done the laundry, moved, fed, watered and pinched out the rampantly crinoidal tomatoes. Should be writing the novel but needed fortification first.

I won't say it's not going well, it's just going slowly. Very. There is much work to be done - far, far more than I'd thought. A week in and I'm just working on chapter 8. Is it really only a week since I started this last draft? It feels so very much longer.

Hey ho, back into the fray. Oh, look at that, it's raining. There's a thing...

151,390 words, mercifully shorter than I was anticipating.

Starting the third draft tomorrow, as soon as I know I have the first three chapters up to speed, I'll need to start the grind with the agencies. Hey ho the nonny, it has to be done, alas.

But, hey - second draft, finished! That's good, isn't it? :o)

I've still not finished the 2nd draft, a major disappointment as I was rather hoping to have had the submission ready and have it out to agents this weekend (she laughed in a hollow fashion). It's taking way longer than I'd thought because I keep running into wee holes that need filling so it's been at most, a chapter a day. Only two to go now though but nothing will be done over the weekend as I'm heading in an easterly direction for alibongo 's Abigail's Party. An evening of kaftans and platforms, Miner's blue eyeshadow and Blue Nun, Twiglets, Cinzano and bits of cheese and pineapple stuck in a grapefruit, Marc and David and Bootsy Collins. Some Demis Roussos might creep in there too, but no olives (because they'e horrible, aren't they? Nobody likes olives, Lawrence.)

It is going to be awesome. It has to be, how could it not?

And now it's time for cocoa and bed. Sleep tight, shipmates.

Staring at the lappy in dazed confusion, one coffee already consumed, more in the offing I suspect. I'm not sleeping well I never really do when we're at Dad's, too much going on till the wee small hours, too much happening in my head. I tried Horlicks last night but all it did was make me need to get up and pee at 2.30am.

::scratches head::

Where was I? Oh, yeah. Entanglement. I'm 4 chapters from the end of my second draft and on a push to finish by the end of the weekend. Then it's on! with the third draft. In between drafts I'll be attempting to make myself work out a submission for literary agents, the bit I hate most.

Look at that, sun is shining! Oh, and potatoes need to be got from their pot too, also laundry, clean the kitchen and a work out. Oh yeah, it's all thrills, spills and dizzy excitements all the time round here.

OK. Enough with the yapping.

No coffee till eleven. Woken (again) at some ungodly hour. I'd advise everyone to keep well back.

I seem to be craving toast.

And I've been reading The End of Mr Y by Scarlett Thomas in a state of some fear and trepidation. You know when Amazon tell you, if you liked that, you'll love this! Well, this one came up and I read the blurb and omg! It sounded horribly similar to the novel I'm writing, so I ordered a copy and - there are similar themes, to be sure. There's this 'other world' that runs on quantum physics but in every other respect, it's nothing like mine at all. Mine has more plot, an entirely different story, an entirely different premise and construction and characters and - gosh, I hope mine isn't half so depressing. TEOMY is a brilliant book of massive imagination and a real page-turner but it does seem to be trying to suck your life out with a straw. And it means I'll have to be extra careful wth my query letter now, or run the risk of being binned with them thinking Entanglement's the same as this book.

::sigh::

There's always something, as my mum would say.

OK. What's the time now? Only an hour to the test. After the test there will be coffee and breakfast. I can do this.

and still tired. What's that all about then?  Sun's out but the clouds look decidedly dodgy. I have toast and coffee.

Urm...

That's pretty much it. Why am I telling the world this shattering news? I have no idea. This sort of thing is best saved for Twitter really. OK. Time to make the bed, shower and press on with the doings of the day. Three more chapters maybe? Or maybe not. I'm starting to fray a little at the edges. I might just (omg!) have a bit of a day off.

It's gone so dark out there again!  What the merry heck is going on with this weather? Yesterday I saw *2* waterspouts in the clouds, just from where I'm sitting on me sofa. That's not normal, shurely? The Met keeps on about jet streams, I still say we should sacrifice something. I have rather a glut of routers, would an immolated router appease the rain gods, think you? 

OK. Carping on with the deum, I hope you are too, or something. Whatever.