A Post Of No Importance

1) Put the link of the person who tagged you on your blog. Lianne waited until I was away and then tagged me. I'm going to have to stop all this travelling or who knows what will happen next time I'm away.
2) Write the rules. Please read paragraph above and a few below. Done that? OK Job done.
3) Mention 6 things or habits of no real importance about you. Talk about myself? Hmmm. I wouldn't know where to start. Still, if you insist...
4) Tag 6 persons adding their links directly. Ermmm. Well there's...nope they've been tagged. Right I can do....again someone got there first. I tag Dave, Robin, Colin (if you're still out there), Jon (also a bit quiet), Paul (super quiet) and none blogger Caroline. (Aha. You thought you could escape. Nope. There's still the comments section girl.)
5) Alert the persons that you tagged them. Are you reading this? Good. Then consider yourself tagged. Ha.

So here's my little list.

1 I can make my knees bend backwards. It does tend to make people go yuck followed by retching noises so it is a habit I've worked hard to break. But it is so comfy when you have to stand for ages.

2 I've eaten raw meat. Yes I'm a vegetarian but that happened in my late teens. Before that I was known to partake of animal cadavers occasionally. Mum bought a packet of what she thought was luncheon meat and made our school sandwiches with it. Sadly it was a slab of raw pork. Tasted kind of chewy and sickly sweet. Like you'd imagine the rotting contents of a bin to taste. Just remembering it makes me feel a bit...OK, excuse me. Got to go throw up again.

3 I was called Cannonball when I played hockey. Maybe because my technique relied completely on momentum. Once I was racing down the pitch, anyone who got in my way would make a beautiful trajectory into the distance. And I wasn't averse to hooking my stick around ankles.

4 Every room in my house has piles of books in it. And I mean every room. Last time we moved the removal company had to get a second van because they had considered all the furniture and ignored my comments of : there are books inside there; have you spotted the piles of books?;and under those books there's...well...books. (Yes I know ?; is not a valid punctuation combination but I'm being creative and anyway it's my list.) Lots of moans about not being told it was a bleeding library and did we really read them.

5 I won a limerick competition when I was 10. The judge said it was because I entered more limericks than the rest put together. Well it was a class competition and any limerick that was obscene was binned. In the school I went to that meant nearly every entry got binned. But I was a good girl so I won. And the judge was a real poet too. Little did I know that early success would be followed by years of failure.

6 I want to travel up the Amazon before I die. But first I have to invent the perfect spider detterent. I can handle all sorts of creepy crawlies and actually like snakes and lizards but those 8-legged beasties. I even have to watch Arachnaphobia with my feet off the floor and a cushion to hide behind. And in our old house you get some big, hairy meanies. The sort that bounce back like a facehugger when Dave chucks them out. That carry their own suitcase in when they arrive. That knock plaster off the ceiling when they have their wild parties in the attic. Ever told a weightlifting, steroid enhanced spider to turn the music down? They just give you that unblinking, multi-eyed glare and you find yourself wearing slippers in Tescos at 3am looking for earplugs.

So that's my list done. Hope you enjoyed the read.

Still Busy

Tum, te-tum, te-tum. Now where was I? Oh yes.

I got my 7on7 submission sent off but it didn't get picked. Rats.

I reached the end of my sitcom first episode but realised it was just too early in its development to sent out so I didn't enter Northern Laughs.

Instead I sent my Red Planet piece The Gate out to my faithful PO3s for them to rip to pieces. Seems they like the dark tone, the gory bits and the strong female characters. And I manage it without big guns and clingy T-shirts.

Lots of useful points too on pace problems and each character having its own voice. Also that Landrover winches don't work that fast. Rats. Got to think of another way to make a fast exit. Note to self. Do not rely on John Carpenter vampire films for reference.

I've also knuckled down to my page 1 rewrite of Blood, Sweat and Tears. I have the step outline done so in theory it is just a case or writing what I see in my head.

Ha. How naive is she? Yep I can hear you all thinking it. I'm a Mother. We can read minds.

And of course I am holding my breathe to hear who gets shortlisted for Alfred Bradley but that's the end of April so I may go a bit blue in the meantime.

Back to the keyboard.

Battling Dragons

I feel like I've had a good week writing-wise. Well sort of.

The night before the deadline I decided to have a go at the 7on7 shout. They wanted three topical sketches or two topical with one character.

I had a character sketch already so I ran over it once more then read through the BBC News to see if anything inspired me. Must have been a productive day because I came up with several ideas, two reaching a point I was happy to submit. I read them out to Dave who didn't groan or throw rotten tomatoes so off they went.

I then carried on with my sitcom idea. Can't say it ran smoothly. I have a problem you see. When I try to be funny it is just...duff. When I just write it then things are a lot better. So I should be just plowing ahead but I keep going back on each scene and judging it.

Bad, bad idea. Of course it is a first, rough draft so it isn't going to be funny yet. I'm getting the story sorted first. But I keep losing heart and comparing to all my favourite writers.

So I am currently banning myself from reading back over anything until I get to the end. So what if the characters aren't consistent or the dialogue is on the nose. Just get it done you wassock. It's got me half way through and the plot structure is behaving so maybe it isn't such a stupid thing to do.

Well I've got to get back to battling dragons. Have a productive week.