Welcome to my perfumed garden

wot I found on the electric interwebs.

6 writers who accidentally crapped out masterpieces.

Why oh why does SF never get the Booker?

Well, they tell me it's Saturday. I suppose they could be lying but then, why would they bother, you know? But then the Met office said it would be sunny and they lie! for it is darkly grey and ominous and suspiciously warm.

A sleepless night after a tiring week has left me a well-knackered bunny. I had planned to use this day wisely and well in printing out the 3rd draft of Entanglement and doing that all-important 4th edit but I'm mildly scared I'll find that it's wall to wall shit now it's been sent to an agent and then worry. Why do that to myself, I cannot help but ask? Also the continuous interruptions - water meter man, post men, couriers, an itinerant hedge cutter - have done nothing to help my resolve to stare at the wall work on the book.

So, all of the above plus the aforementioned tiredness and my natural inklination to idleness leads me to endlessly peruse Twitter, t'internet and my current crop of reading, some self-chosen, some chosen for me (and for which I shall have to write reviews alas). For the bookly minded, these be:

Breath, Tim Winton. Surprisingly readable and really good.
Makers, Cory Doctorow. Frighteningly long.
Day After Night, Anita Diamant. A review copy and not my cup of tea at all ('Extraordinary true story', internment, Polish Zionist, Holocaust! run away, run away!!!) but I shall do my duty and hope (but not expect) to be pleasantly surprised.
The Thirteenth Tale, Diane Setterfield. Been wanting to read this for ages but work keeps getting in the way.
Vineland, Pynchon. Ditto.
The Men Who Stare at Goats, Tom Ronson

Tea now, I think. I'm currently working my happy way through a box of Twining's Lemon Grove which I hadn't had before and is surprisingly delicious. It tastes of lemon Opal Fruits which can only be a Very good thing. New Californication on the box tonight, also a repeat of the Robbie Coltraine, John Sessions Boswell thingum.

In short, life is currently pleasing me in a sound and goodly way, I hope she is doing the same for you, too, my esteemed and doxilicious flist. Here, have a sprinkling of pink sugar-dusted, sparkly cherry-vanilla kisses. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Whatever Mark's using in the bath, it smells bloody awful.

ETA: Too good not to share (Caution, contains Dan Brown).

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...

I'm off to stock up on Darjeeling.