Dasia has a blog

Flash Fiction: Psychic Kitty

2012-02-16T00:51:00.000+02:00

My entry for The Fairy Ring Writing Contest over at Yearning For Wonderland. Because I could never pass up a chance to write about fairies, right?

Psychic Kitty

“Hey dude, you ever wonder what your cat’s looking at?” asked Amy.

Lil took a sip of wine, “You think my cat’s schizo?”

“Or what if he sees things we don’t? Cats' eyes are always focusing on 'imaginary' stuff. Even chasing it. What if he’s seeing things on another level?”

“What like, ghosts?” Lil looked at her innocent grey tom.

“Nah, a cat wouldn’t chase ghosts around –”

“Maybe the ghosts of mice.”

“Mice don’t get ghosts.”

“Look who’s suddenly an expert on the supernatural,” Lil snorted, “Please, what’s my cat seeing? Bunnies from parallel dimensions?”

“I’m thinking more like fairies.”

“I’m thinking you need to get your head examined.”

“Why not?" said Amy, "Animals have better instincts than humans… what about those goats who know when earthquakes are coming?”

“Well, since you’ve brought up the irrefutable scientific evidence of the goats who know when earthquakes are coming, I guess I have to submit to your premise.”

“You can get all sarcastic, missy!” Amy grinned, “But life’s full of weird shit.”

“The weirdest shit this cat’s ever done is somehow convince himself that I enjoy seeing dead birds on my doorstep in the mornings,” Lil scooped up the tom and looked into his green eyes, “Are you psychic, my fluff? Are you a psychic kitty?”

“Well, obviously he’s not gonna admit to it…” said Amy cheekily.

The cat had decided he’d had enough of this patronizing cuddle-fest and squirmed out of Lil’s lap.

He strutted outside into the pale light of the new moon, raising himself up on two legs which quickly became straighter, more humanoid, as he effortlessly morphed into his true form: a proud faerie prince with a plush grey fur coat.

Smirking, he decided it was a good night to hex some sparrows.

(Words: 306. Doh!)

Here are the contest details, and other entries!

SHERLOCK VID! The Gay Translation of the Roof Scene [Includes Spoilers]

2012-02-13T19:37:00.001+02:00

Guys, remember how in my review of Sherlock season two I wrote out my ever-so-slightly perverted interpretation of the roof scene conversation?

OF COURSE YOU DO.

Well I had a great laugh this weekend when I saw my very gay ~~interpration~~ translation come to life in this amazing video, made by my endlessly talented sister who, lucky for me, also happens to have a lot of time on her hands. Thanks Stas!

So now I present to you: the official video, made exclusively for Dasia Has A Blog, of that ridiculously erotic roof scene...

JUST WATCH IT ALREADY.

WASN'T THAT AMAZING?

And don't ask why Lady Gaga is playing in the background - I negotiated away from Miley Cyrus! Also, my sister insists, it's a blindingly clever play on words because see Gaga is singing about the edge of glory, and Sherlock and Moriarty are on the EDGE of a ... building.

Here's a transcript for- erm - for shits and giggles!

MORIARTY: So I've been stalking you for fifteen years because I just like watching you DANCE. And we have so much in common - we both know what kind of underwear is reserved exclusively for gays.
SHERLOCK: Oh, you! *blush* I figured out that computer code by the way, because I don't care about the solar system but memorized the precise timing of your every movement when you came over.
MORIARTY: LOL no, I was just messing with you! You're so normal! Your friends are making tea for my snipers! Kill yourself!
SHERLOCK: Aw goddamnit.......... NO WAIT TROLOLOL
MORIARTY: Say what?
SHERLOCK: You can call them off with a secret code or word, so I don't have to die AS LONG AS I'VE GOT YOU.
MORIARTY: You can't make me do what I don't want to do. *sassy face*
SHERLOCK: [some bullshit about angels roughly translated as] But I'm like you, I've got no morals or conscience, I'm WILLING TO DO ANYTHING, I've got no limits or boundaries so you can burn me, humiliate me, own me any way you like... so let's go to your place and test the mattress.
MORIARTY: OMG thank you! Bless you! Let me touch you! But actually I'd rather kill myself. *BANG*

I love that after 26 comments on the original post, nobody's offered me a decent non-perverted interpretation of this scene. That's because this isn't an interpretation so much as a translation!

So that pretty much made my weekend! I'm still grinning. Having a blog is awesome.

Review: The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy by Douglas Adams

2012-02-10T21:14:00.000+02:00

You know what I loved? It was an easy, quick, completely whimsical read with some laugh-out-loud moments. Almost every line delightfully charming, it's easy to see why this is a classic with so many pale imitators.

You know what kind of sucked? Nothing about the book itself, but how my experience of it was altered by the fact that I'm definitely not the first person to think it's awesome. The first time I saw the movie, I don't think I even knew it was based on a book. It's one of those pleasant watch-it-if-it's-on kind of movies that I've ended up seeing a handful of times – the upside of which is that I had Arthur Dent cast firmly as Martin Freeman in my mind, though back in the days before Sherlock Martin Freeman was only in my head as That Guy Who's Very Very Good At Playing Normal Guys.

The massive downside of knowing the movie well is that a lot of stuff was spoiled for me. I even remembered exactly what the bowl of petunias falling onto Magrathea was going to say. Though the ending was quite different, which was a pleasant surprise (remember back in the day when people used to actually adapt stories for screenplays instead of just making sequel after sequel?) and it certainly ended on a bit of a cliffhanger, so I'm keen to read the rest of the series.

You know what was weird? Theoretically, I shouldn't have enjoyed it. It broke a lot of rules that usually make fiction unbearable for me: there was a ludicrous amount of adverbs, it was sorta sexist*, and the narrative voice had that slightly mocking self-aware tone that usually makes me want to rip my eyes out when amateur writers attempt it. But somehow, through magic or, more likely, mad skills, everything works, because the story remains anchored to an unpretentious style and a fiery, confident imagination.

I gladly give it 4 / 5. Adams got through my stylistic hang-ups by charming my pants off, and I liked it.

*I say sorta sexist because the only woman in the story (and by proxy, in the galaxy) had no agency, no opinions, no impact on the plot whatsoever. Hell, she barely got any lines. It irked me.

Comedikachu, I choose you!

2012-02-09T21:48:00.000+02:00

So, genre - what's up with that?

I recently took a lame quiz in order to determine my direction in life. I got this rather ominous result:

You Should Be a Joke Writer

You're totally hilarious, and you can find the humor in any situation.
Whether you're spouting off zingers, comebacks, or jokes about life...
You usually can keep a crowd laughing, and you have plenty of material.
You have the makings of a great comedian - or comedic writer.

What Type of Writer Should You Be?

Blogthings: Free Quizzes for Everyone

So the question is, does a writer choose a genre - or is it the other way round? Could I write bodice-ripping romance stories with gag-inducing sincerity, or hardboiled detective novels without falling asleep at the keyboard?

Some may turn to religion for these big questions. I turn to Stephen King:

Sometimes I speak before groups of people who are interested in writing or literature, and before the question-and-answer period is over, someone always rises and asks the question: Why do you choose to write about such gruesome subjects?

I usually answer this with another question: Why do you assume that I have a choice?

Writing is a catch-as-catch-can sort of occupation. All of us seem to come equipped with filters on the floors of our minds, all the filters having differing sizes and meshes. What catches in my filter may run right through yours. What catches in yours may pass through mine, no sweat. All of us seem to have a built-in obligation to sift through the sludge that gets caught in our respective mind-filters.... The sludge that catches in the mesh of my drain is often the stuff of fear.

- Stephen King, Night Shift (Introduction)

Isn't that a neat thought? That genre is not a choice but rather an obligation, some built-in leaning you have to discover rather than invent. In this ridiculous writerly world of drafting, editing, rewriting, re-editing, agents, queries, self-publishing, indie publishing, small presses, the big six, and fifty gazillion things you have to decide with nothing to guide you but your gut and the bad decisions those around you have made... it's nice to know some things are meant to come naturally.

I have no idea what my genre is. I know I like writing funny things, morbid things, and ludicrously postmodern things. And maybe that's all I need to know. It's not the most popular or maybe even the most sensible combination, but at least I know my brain's filter-meshy things are working.

So, writer friends, what catches in the mesh of your drain? Do you like the idea of having a genre, or reject the whole concept? And, most importantly - doesn't Comedikachu totally sound like a real Pokémon?

How To Suck A Little Less At Twitter

2012-02-06T20:28:00.000+02:00

Have timeline, will bitch.

I'm hardly a social media expert, but I'm nothing if not a social media addict. There's plenty of advice out there on how to be great at twitter - be funny, be interesting, be a good curator, blah blah blah. But I've got a few pet peeves that I haven't seen mentioned on any of these lists.

Protip. (source)

This is by no means a definitive list on how to behave on twitter. The average user (myself included) probably does a few of these now and then, because we all sorta suck, right?

My mission is a small and achievable one: to suck a little less at twitter. Here are some fun tips to make that happen:

Stop detailing your bodily functions. If all you tweet is I’m so hungry! or I’m so full! then you may as well just name your account after your stomach. Same goes with I’m soooo cold. Following accounts from both hemispheres, I’ve constantly got someone whinging about being cold in my timeline. It’s dull. You’re giving me nothing. I want insight. I want a new perspective. I want frostbitten spirit-fingers!

Quit the TMI app. Specifically, abusing the TMI feature by making every tweet ridiculously long and drawn out. The joy of twitter is that it’s a series of short, readily available, self-contained messages. Usually I only click through if you’ve offered a particularly interesting comment on something you’ve retweeted, and I want to see the whole retweet. But if you start with ‘You know what’s wrong with the world…’ then I am so not clicking through.

Stop tweeting inane decontextualized song lyrics. Maybe you’re listening to this amazing song and it’s bringing your soul to delicious musical orgasm, but twitter is a text-based experience and all I see on my screen is ‘baby baby baby oh baby baby baby no’ - and I just don’t give a duck.

Limit the text speak. Perfectly acceptable for your average tweeter with three bots following them. But what blows my mind is when self-proclaimed writers use text speak when it's not necessary (we've all had to make sacrifices to save that -1 character.) But dude, you’re trying to sell me a book you wrote? You better damn well show me that you know how English works.

Quit being didactic or overly philosophical. Thinking out loud isn't always equivalent to making other people think. Being high-minded now and then is refreshing, but if every tweet is an abstract attempt at being deep, you're probably coming off pretentious (at best.)

For the love of pie, quit with the ever-so-unique nicknames for people in your life. You can’t just say my husband or Dave (if your husband’s name happens to be Dave), oh no! It has to be The Man, The S.O., Mister BetterHalfington, and all that shit. And kids become The Princess or Little Winner. You’re not being cute and creative. You’re being that married person or parent who makes all the other married people or parents look like lame, kitschy dorks.

Now that I've alienated everybody ever, here are some things other people say to stop doing, that I say keep doing on twitter:

Swearing. Apparently not many people like swearing on twitter, but I think if that's part of your personality, don't censor yourself to appeal to the masses. Fuckbuckets.

Drunktweets. Yup, it's an art, and completely depends on what kind of drunk you are. I happen to be a happy and inappropriate drunk, so my drunktweets are by far what gets me the most followers. Unless you're tweeting on behalf of your boss, or your parole officer is following you, I'd say drunktweets are harmless fun.

Oversharing. Twitter is beautiful because it gives you the freedom to post whatever you want. And if you want to post “The thing that bothered me about my ex is that he had really weird junk.” then I am totally gonna follow you and favourite that shit.

Did I miss anything? What would you add to the list, or take off it? Have you ever tweeted about a fire before fully evacuating the building? Share in the comments!

Review: A Sudden Bout Of The Plague

2012-02-03T18:38:00.000+02:00

Last night I had a tickle in my throat. This morning I felt for a dagger sticking out of my neck. That's right, kids - I have the plague again. And because I don't have the heart to leave you guys without a review two weeks in a row, please enjoy this out-of-ten approximation of my misery.

Suddenness: 8 / 10. Truly impressive, would recommend. If you're looking to get out of a fun weekend or a shotgun wedding quickly, just let me know and I'll email you some of my germs!

Plaguiness: 7 / 10. Quite plaguey, especially seeing as it's just getting started.

Boutiness: 10 / 10. It's a fun word, isn't it, boutiness? I wish it were real.

Reviewability: 6 / 10. Not as reviewable as a book but far more reviewable than a passing phase of existential doubt.

Forethought and Planning in Event of the Plague: 0 / 10. I had planned to casually read a hundred pages of the book I'm busy with, to get a review done today. But I decided to pass out for the majority of the day. If it's any consolation, I had fever-dreams about some water park I was trying to review for you guys. I even had a screen full of text in my dream.

Odds of Survival: 6.6 / 10. I've had bronchitis twice before. So this is either going to be a piece of cake, or the third bout that kills me.

Temperature: 3 / 10. An unimpressive 37.3 C. I'm sure it was higher before the Degoran, but I don't care about my blog enough not to take medicine. Medicine is my favourite.

Achiness: forever / 10. My back, hips and every single joint is radiating unhappiness. This must be what Woody Allen feels like all the time.

Sexy Croaky Voice: 8 / 10. Could totally belt out a verse of Sticky Shoes by Phoebe Buffay.

Overall Rating: I'm Too Tired To Do Maths / 10. I'm all reviewed out. Hope you guys have a good weekend full of rainbows, ponies and strong immune systems!

Clandestine - Five Sentence Fiction

2012-02-01T20:08:00.000+02:00

A tiny story based on this prompt from Lillie McFerrin Writes.

The room was dark. Cold tile pressing into her bare feet, she followed the path she'd memorized long ago. Sweaty palms opened the single door that didn't creak, careful not to leave fingerprints on the aluminum handle. Pupils dilated, ears twitched at the crackle of the foil and then the simple, sweet snap between her teeth.

The tastiest cookies are the ones you steal.

The Great 2 A.M. Wasp Drama

2012-01-31T15:45:00.000+02:00

So on Sunday night, I'm casually headed to bed after a not-so-fun day at my job that I don't really love too much, and a night of far too much youtube, when I happen to see that there's a GIANT-ASS WASP on my bedroom wall.

I hate wasps. I really, really, really hate wasps. They're like the sick result of a three-way between a bee and an Orc and Satan. Usually I would just scream and slam the door and avoid the wasp-infested room for as long as humanly possible... but my bed was right there. I was tired. I was already in my pyjamas.

So I decided to be brave and went (okay, ran) to the kitchen to get what is possibly the most ridiculous weapon available for a war against the devil's spawn: a long-handled bright pink feather duster.

I had a vague plan to smoosh the wasp in the feather duster and then shove it out of the open window from whence it came, but as I stood at the door to my room I sorta lost my nerve. The more I stared at the wasp, the bigger and scarier it looked - I'm sure it grew from the size of my thumb to a decent-sized rabid terrier. What if the smooshing went awry? What if it escaped and stung me, or - even worse- GOT STUCK IN MY HAIR?!

This whole situation just crystallizes my plan that when I'm a grownup I'm going to have an industrial strength beekeeper's suit in every room. Actually, make that in every corner of every room.

So I figured the safest thing to do would be to gently shoo the wasp towards the window - but the bastard would not be shood. I'd fluff the feather duster at it and it would fly up and freak me out and settle down a meter away from where it was.

HEY LOOK, I drew you guys a picture of my epic struggle between woman and beast!

Accurate.

So every time I got it flying I would suppress a shriek and bolt out of the room. For something so obviously menacing, it didn't seem to have much forethought going on, because it wouldn't go to me and it wouldn't go out of the window, it just hovered around aimlessly like a big dork. Then it'd just settle down on another obviously-not-window part of the room. We carried on this stressful dance of lameness for a fucking hour.

At one point I got ridiculously hopeful because I saw it dart behind the curtain of an open window, heard it buzz a bit, and then stop. It MUST have flown out! Already feeling victorious, I gave the curtain a little prod to make sure it wasn't just sitting on the other side. Nothing. I started to relax, giving it one last sharp poke just to reassure myself. Out zooms the fucker, circling me (and I'm sure I heard its buzz go a bit higher in its waspy lulz) before sitting quite resolutely on the light in the middle of the ceiling.

The wasp and I had battled it out for the territory of my room, and it had won. I admitted miserable defeat and went to sleep on the couch in the lounge.

Now, you guys know I'm a sensitive soul, right? Here's another fun fact about me: I don't react well to sleeping in strange beds. Most times I'm not in my own bed, I don't sleep at all. And if I do, I have weird icky dreams and wake up feeling hungover.

Lying on the couch covered in blankets that smelled a bit like cat, I was prepared to have an uncomfortable sleep. What I didn't expect was the epic nightmare I had about evil ghosts that were eating my soul. I'm not even exaggerating, this was some trippy existential shit. And it had one of those awful patterns where you wake up and think everything's okay but then it turns out you're still in the nightmare, so you wake up again but you're still there, so you wake up again...

Eventually I woke up for realsies and decided no amount of scary wasps would make me stay on that couch for another second. So I got up, checked that I still had my soul, (just in case), and went to my bedroom.

The wasp was still sitting on the light, its wings closed. It suddenly looked small and unimpressive. It was minding its own business. I let it be.

I left the door open and climbed into bed. I'll admit I had the covers up over my head until I got too hot and tired to care anymore.

In the morning the wasp was gone.

HELL YEAH IT WAS. Apparently I'm most intimidating when I'm unconscious.

Tiny Hibernation Post

2012-01-27T18:10:00.000+02:00

No review today because I didn't finish a book this week. I think I've forgotten how to read.

But for your merry amusement (and to prove that I'm not dead) have a snoring dormouse:

 I love 

I love the way his little hands move up and down, like he's knitting a dream-sweater!

(Regularly scheduled tomfoolery and skullduggery will resume on Monday.)

Keep Your Trenchcoat Closed

2012-01-25T10:27:00.000+02:00

A writer's impulse to flash can be a dangerous (and occasionally illegal) thing.

Because once you're past that point of OMG OTHER PEOPLE SEEING MY WRITING IS LIKE FALLING INTO BOILING ACID FULL OF SHAME AND REGRET, well, it's rather pleasant to show your writing off. Especially when (not to name names) certain relatives and fellow amateur writers say nice things to you.

Things like:

I like this.

This is nice.

This is great.

This is excellent.

This is my favourite thing ever.

You should be worshiped as a goddess.

Of course, there are those negative (oh, excuse me, I meant constructive, helpful, and my personal favourite: just being honest) comments that send your ego screeching back into the boiling acid stage. But more often than not, I find if people don't like something they just wander off - someone who takes the time to comment is generally pleased with the thing.

And that praise, however lukewarm, tends to be a little addictive. For a sensitive (read: cripplingly insecure) soul like mine, there's something edifying about someone (often a stranger) telling you that what you're doing is worthwhile, that something you made had an effect on someone else.

And there are so many options for flashing now: between FictionPress and Jottify and Livejournal and Smashwords and blogs and facebook notes and haikus that fit into tweets. It's all about showing off, pimping, and the instant gratification of comments, likes and shares. And all the cool kids are doing it - tweeting lines from their books and even posting 'deleted novel scenes' to their blogs (which I really don't get - isn't that the literary equivalent of serving leftovers to dinner guests?)

While deep in this oversharing phase, I happened upon the first piece of advice in Dorothea Brande's Becoming A Writer: Don't whore out your amateur stuff, you idiot. It's counterproductive.

Okay, maybe I'm paraphrasing. But that's the gist, and it's been bothering me ever since.

I have the manuscript for my first novel, Sarai, complete and sitting on my laptop. I could format it tonight and have it up on Smashwords by tomorrow. And that is so bloody tempting - but I know it's not good enough yet. It's far from good enough. It's embarrassingly inadequate, actually.

But the truth is that I've posted writing - here and on my Jottify account - that I didn't like, that only marginally passed the not-embarrassingly-inadequate mark.

But I posted it anyway, because it was 'good enough for the internet.' I flashed it because I wanted a reaction, even if it was just a passing like by someone who simply hoped I would like their stuff back. But the hard truth is that unless someone is a professional writer or editor, their opinion, however glowing, will not make you into a better writer.

So I've made a resolution to keep my trenchcoat closed, and face those hard edits, ask those hard questions of myself and make my work stand up to my own (punishingly high) standards, rather than taking the easy road and flashing bits that I know aren't at their best yet.

Do you think writers these days - especially n00bs like me - suffer from chronic oversharing? Share (or overshare) your thoughts in the comments!

Amazing Guest Post: Top Ten Torrid Moments In Period Film

2012-01-23T23:51:00.000+02:00

[By The Awesome Anna!]

In a recent post, Dasia listed my blog Yearning for Wonderland as one with which she’d most like to do a post-swap.

I have never guest blogged. However, given that Dasia sometimes writes her posts by MASHING HER BOOBS ON THE KEYBOARD, I felt confident in writing this post as I, too, have boobs.

Also, as you can see from the previous paragraph, I have mastered her advanced blogging technique of ALLCAPS. This technique shows how EXTREMELY IMPORTANT THESE WORDS are. See, don’t they leap right off the screen?

These techniques (boob mashing and ALLCAPS) are but two of the reasons why Dasia is my blog/Twitter buddy/Siamese twin separated at birth. She is also brilliantly funny, not to mention the originator of the “Benedict Cumberbatch weequashing in crisp twilight” meme. I kid you not.

Well, okay, I’m kidding about the separated Siamese twin thing…unless they found a way to separate us by *gasp* nine years. Time traveling Siamese twins! I think I’m onto…no, I’m just digressing.

As I pondered how to transcend my own whimsy for DHAB, I direct messaged Dasia on Twitter.

In typically Dasia fashion, she immediately popped back with:

A splendid solution - I could write a post on period films that would be too saucy for my own blog and yet likely bore Dasia’s jaggedly sophisticated readers to tiny tears of despair.

I started researching this post, if you call eating a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos and numbing yourself with endless video clips of men in tight-buttoned pants (excuse me, BREECHES) as research.

For inspiration, I stared a lot at this photo:

Then I went to the kitchen and made some nachos. I decided I needed further inspiration, so I stared awhile at this photo:

This is how you can tell I am a real writer. I intersperse my writing and research with lots of eating (hard) and daydreaming (harder). I watched endless clips of period pornography, involving lots of glove squeezing and longing glances. I suffered, gentle reader, so you need not.

After hours of extensive research, I blotted my now-damp forehead with a dainty embroidered cambric handkerchief (conveniently on-hand for steamy period film viewing), and offer you TOP TEN TORRID MOMENTS IN PERIOD FILM.

My first conundrum was one of semantics: Torrid implies erotic, which implies (sorry mum) S-E-X. But there’s plenty of that in modern film. Clearly, most people who love period film do not watch it for merely the bodice ripping (not that there’s anything wrong with that!). I believe they seek the romance, the repartee, and the barely contained passion in a framework that does not allow its expression.

So it’s not just the muscular gentlemen in the tight-buttoned breeches (though, so help me, that can’t hurt). It’s that those gentlemen frequently cannot express their love: either the one they love is promised to another, of a different class, or merely does not return their affection. Thwarted love, for any reason, is the central theme of just about every great period film.

There is a longing that propriety does not allow them to express. Yearning is a theme that I explore extensively on my blog, wanting something that you cannot even precisely define, a dawning awareness of something beautiful and precious and sometimes unachievable.

For your edification and delectation, I bring you TOP TEN TORRID MOMENTS IN PERIOD FILM, in no particular order. (There’s that ALLCAPS again. My, it just sparkles off the page.)

1. A Room With A View – lush Edwardian landscapes, floaty Edwardian costumes and a lovely circular moment where George and Lucy end up at the exact Italian pensione where first they met.

2. Becoming Jane – This list is a little Austen-heavy, given the glut of Austen movies in the last decade. As Becoming Jane is based on a fictionalized idea of Jane’s life, not her novels, I am not counting it as an Austen movie. I am writing this post, so I make the rules even when clearly nonsensical!

3. Shakespeare in Love – the moment where Will unwraps Lady Viola’s, um, chest bandage I find unintentionally hilarious. Gwyneth, lovely as she is, has no boobs and would not have to tape down to play a man. Therefore, I may feel superior in my boob mashing post writing abilities. Instead I included the scene following, where they exchange heated kisses behind the curtain.

** Side note: in college, I taped a photo of Joseph Fiennes to my microwave with the explanation of “He’s so hot he cooks my food”. End side note **

4. Dangerous Liasons - I must include a villainous seduction, if this list would be complete. John Malkovich as the Vicomte de Valmont is the gold standard of callous rake in period film. Also, there are no Empire waist dresses in this film, thus not Austen.
[Silly youtube won't embed! Click here to watch!]

5. Pride & Prejudice (1995) – I could probably do a top ten list with moments just from this miniseries, but I am restraining myself to the divine proposal at the end. Do yourself a favor and watch it again.

6. Jane Eyre (2011) – If I had one quibble with this version, it was that Michael Fassbender is just so beautiful that Rochester’s line “Do you think me handsome?” is absurd. This is a compilation video with spoilers if you don’t know the story. Then again, if you don’t know the story, go read it!

7. Bright Star –poet Keats finds his muse in this Jane Campion costume love fest. This is the first kiss between Keats and Fanny.

8. Gone With the Wind – the great grandfather of period films and much longer lasting than, say, Greer Garson’s Pride & Prejudice. Rhett Butler was my first period film man crush. *fan self*

9. Persuasion (1995) - One criticism of Austen is that she writes her heroes as no man would actually talk. I contest that theory, though admit I have yet to find a man to speak to me like Ciaran Hinds writes to Amanda Root here:

10.… - Well, obviously I had to leave one off. You tell me…what is your most swoon-worthy moment in a period film? Include a link to a video if you can find one and we can all use our smelling salts together.

Thanks to Dasia for the sublime opportunity!

Review: SHERLOCK SEASON TWO OMG!

2012-01-21T00:55:00.000+02:00

Can we talk about Sherlock now OMG.

Here be spoilers, carry on if you dare! Or if you already know!

Or if you don't care.

By the way, this isn't so much a "review" as a very long, disconnected, slashful, ALLCAPS SQUEEFEST. Cool? Cool.

So I couldn't imagine anything that could upstage the first season, which was the best television I've seen in years (possibly ever). But OMG, the second season completely exceeded my expectations, which is shocking because I’m one picky weequasher. I tried to tell myself it would suck, because that way it's easier to not get disappointed if it DID suck. But in many ways the second season is even better than the first, and I just can't stop thinking about it.

CAN WE TALK ABOUT SCANDAL NOW OMG

I’ll admit they way they ended the cliffhanger pool scene annoyed me. I was expecting explosions and wet t-shirt contests and I didn’t get any of that. Despite that, I think Scandal In Belgravia was my favourite episode of the series. The 90 minutes flew by and it gave me so many warm and fuzzy feelings.

In fact, I might even use the trite term EX-FUCKING-HILARATING to describe this episode. It was so awesome.

Irene Adler was hot, though I don't find visible ribs sexy I think she had swag and hey, everybody likes lesbians. I also deeply respect her for pulling The Naked Man on Sherlock (pity it only works two out of three times!)

Sherlock finally got those x-ray contact-lenses to work.

It does irk me that Adler was Sherlock’s intellectual equal except she was worse than him because she was a woman ("Sentiment is a chemical defect found in the losing side" – smooth.) That was lame.

BUT WAIT, she's gay but straight-for-Sherlock, and my big heart-wrenching THING that I had to rip out of the subtext was that Sherlock was straight for her too.
Watching it a second (okay, eighth) time, I guess I have to concede that was probably what happened - BUT my headcanon** is that Sherlock didn't like her, he just wanted HER to like HIM because she was smart and kept bugging him so he was like Hmmm I wonder if she really thinks I'm foxy - because, you know, he cares about his looks and generally likes it when people are obsessed with him.

Also, in my headcanon, Sherlock is a natural ginger who dyes his hair. And he takes John scarf-shopping. And then they make out.

By the way, I was one of those body-policing squibs who didn't like the promo shots from season two because Benedict Cumberbatch was looking a little too... healthy for my taste. I thought the fact that Cumberbatch wasn’t OMG THINSPO* thin anymore would bother me, because I’m shallow, but he’s still drop-dead gorgeous and to be honest after the first scene I forgot all about it.

This episode also makes it really obvious that this show is written by old guys. First of all, having almost 2000 hits overnight doesn’t make you an INTERNET PHENOMENON. Having 2000 hits in FIVE MINUTES makes you an internet phenomenon. Having 2000 hits overnight makes you a mildly successful amateur porn producer. And do I need to mention the 'cameraphone' talk? Has anyone used that word since 2005?

You know what else was awesome though? SHERLOCK SMOKING. I know it’s a bit taboo or whatever now, but damn. To quote Chandler Bing: “I’ve had it with you guys and your cancer, your emphysema and your heart disease – the bottom line is smoking is cool and you know it!”

And John, oh John, sweet John. Though I disagree with Moffat about a lot of things (women are ALL ESSENTIALLY needy? fuck off) I can't deny he's my favourite Sherlock writer. The way John reacted to Adler was just so spot on, both protective of Sherlock and trying to keep his distance and feeling ever so slightly jealous... and that little head-bob as he said "You were... flirting... with Sherlock Holmes?" said a thousand words.

I loved the whole John-Adler conversation. Sherlock and John ARE a couple, they just don't have sex ~~onscreen~~. But they're together, each is the other's Significant Other, In Case Of Emergency person, and holiday buddy. You know how something like 30% of marriages are sexless? This is one of those.

And can we talk about how perfect, how nuanced, how gorgeously ordinary Martin Freeman plays John? The man's a genius. I'm just saying. I love re-watching episodes and TRYING to tear my eyes away from Cumberbatch, and seeing Freeman's tiny strange gestures and pouts and his beautiful hobbit-face just makes every scene richer.

And THE PULSE THE PULSE OMG SHERLOCK FEEL MY PULSE.

That was hot.

Though I enjoy the idea that Sherlock hasn’t given anyone his flower*** I do think the virgin thing was a little overdone. Probably because personally, I don't even buy it in the first place. But anyway...

CAN WE TALK ABOUT HOUNDS NOW OMG

First, let me share my favourite tweet regarding this episode:

Damn! These things are almost never right!

This was the silliest episode. As in the first season, the middle episode is a tough one because it has none of the excitement of starting nor the drama of finishing the season.

And I was a bit disappointed in Gatiss (though I love him to death) for recycling no less than FIVE lines from the first season. You could tell even the actors thought that was lame - the stiffness with which Cumberbatch said "I wouldn't miss this for the world" was jarring and the only time anyone's acting bothered me - erm, except the guy who had the nervous breakdown. Shit son, I know that's what they teach you in drama school, but I had to put the volume down on you.

And this is where the writers signed a lot of slash-cheques that the director couldn't slash-cash. There was that odd moment when the innkeeper says he couldn't get them a double room, which was OBVIOUSLY a nod to the slash fandom (pretty sure this is how 80% of fanfics start****) and then we didn't have a single awkward "I'll sleep on the couch" scene afterwards? Fine then, I assume coitus.*****

BRB getting souvenir t-shirts printed for this top-secret mission I'm working on. So -

CAN WE TALK ABOUT REICHENBACH NOW OMG OMG OMG

Just... wow.

THIS WHOLE SHOW IS SUCH A COCKTEASE THOUGH.

There were at least five moments when I thought SHIT THIS IS IT, SHERLOCK'S GOING TO MAKE OUT WITH JOHN / JOHN / JOHN AGAIN / MOLLY / MORIARTY.

I MEAN COME ON. (source)

I have a theory that Gatiss and Moffat get their awesomeness from harvesting all the static sexual energy generated by fangirls who honestly expect these characters to make out. There was so much gratuitous slash-fuel (hold my hand? Sitting together in the dark waiting for the reporter? THE ENTIRE ROOF SCENE?!)

Speaking of, let's have full disclosure: I LOVE MORIARTY. He's crazy fabulous. If I were a villian he would totally be my career idol. And the way he dresses? I don't know who I want more, Andrew Scott or that gorgeous grey suit he was wore in the trial.

That tie pin is just... unf.

Regarding the roof scene, APPARENTLY I've got this wrong, but will somebody enlighten me on the non-perverted interpretation?

Because I've watched it four times now, and this is how I keep seeing it:

MORIARTY: So I've been stalking you for fifteen years because I just like watching you DANCE. And we have so much in common - we both know what kind of underwear is reserved exclusively for gays.
SHERLOCK: Oh, you! *blush* I figured out that computer code by the way, because I don't care about the solar system but memorized the precise timing of your every movement when you came over.
MORIARTY: LOL no, I was just messing with you! You're so normal! Your friends are making tea for my snipers! Kill yourself!
SHERLOCK: Aw goddamnit.......... NO WAIT TROLOLOL
MORIARTY: Say what?
SHERLOCK: You can call them off with a secret code or word, so I don't have to die AS LONG AS I'VE GOT YOU.
MORIARTY: You can't make me do what I don't want to do. *sassy face*
SHERLOCK: [some bullshit about angels roughly translated as] But I'm like you, I've got no morals or conscience, I'm WILLING TO DO ANYTHING, I've got no limits or boundaries so you can burn me, humiliate me, own me any way you like... so let's go to your place and test the mattress.
MORIARTY: OMG thank you! Bless you! Let me touch you! But actually I'd rather kill myself. *BANG*

'The fuck Moriarty? You kill yourself without even copping a feel? I thought we had the same priorities.

But seriously? What was all of Sherlock's I'll shake hands with you in hell stuff if not basically admitting that Moriarty could have him front back and sideways? I SEE NO OTHER POSSIBLE INTERPRETATION.

The fall though.

THE FALL. Everything was true and perfect and I LOVE THAT JOHN DIDN'T DOUBT SHERLOCK FOR A SECOND. NOT A SECOND.

Just for the record, I know there are a lot of theoriesbeing bandied around about how Sherlock did it. My theories generally go like this:

Molly was hanging out of the window with a giant butterfly net
Sherlock’s coat has airbags
The pavement was actually made out of trampolines like in the WWE
And of course, this is my favourite: IT WAS ALL A DREAM.

As you can see, I’m not very good at figuring stuff out. I’m a B.A. kid, what do you want from me? It was probably gremlins.

And can I just say that I love Molly? I’ve loved Molly since before it was cool to love Molly. I’M A MOLLY-LOVIN’ HIPSTER. I loved Molly since her first scene – I can’t remember where I read this, but the accepted theory as to why (in the beginning of A Study In Pink) Sherlock makes a face when drinking the coffee she brings him is because IT’S SALTED WITH HER TEARS.

But now everyone sees how awesome Molly is. I feel like the AVPS song The Coolest Girl was written for her.

The coolest bitch on Earth goddamnit! (source)

I know they brought in Kitty (I was so disappointed that she didn’t die, her voice made my ears bleed) to be the ironic Sherlock fangirl – but Molly’s always been the earnest, sweet, slightly pathetic, original and best fangirl in my eyes. And when she said ‘You look sad when you think he’s not looking’ a little part of my heart broke for her. Because she’s smart and sweet and insightful, and deserves to have someone lovely in her life instead of dating gay psychopaths and obsessing over asexual sociopaths.

Actually, a little part of me hopes that Sherlock is hiding out at Molly’s place, and as a thank-you for helping him fake his own death, he decides to give her his flower.

During the graveyard scene - it was beautiful but I admit I didn't cry, I'm sorry, I'm dead inside - but there was this massive tree right next to the grave and I kept thinking WOULDN'T IT BE FUNNY IF SHERLOCK JUST HOPPED OUT FROM BEHIND THAT TREE and was like BAZINGA and John would be like I HATE YOU BUT I LOVE YOU LET'S MAKE OUT - and that was basically what happened except for that last part and the part before that.

I'll admit I did let the fandom panic get to me a little, and was basically a zombie dreading the apocalypse for two days before I watched Reichenbach. But after seeing it I felt RELIEVED, because it was a beautiful story with a hopeful and graceful ending - if they get a third season (which they obviously will with all this hype) there can be so many feelings fleshed out with Sherlock coming back and, maybe, John having to choose between going back to Sherlock or staying with Mary (his wife in the books.)

But even without a continuation this ending is perfect - it's heartbreaking, but Sherlock threw his life away to protect the people he cared about.

I love that. I love everything about this story. Actually, my love for Sherlock is second only to my love of the Harry Potter books - which I've been re-reading in a loop for the past five years, so that should tell you something.

Allcaps and cockteasing aside, this show is the epitome of what television can be: engaging, fun, intense, thought-provoking, and IT'S ALSO A LITTLE BIT FOXY.

So yeah, I GIVE IT A GAZILLION OUT OF TEN.

*Thinspo = thinspiration = someone who’s ridiculously underweight. Right before Sherlock S1 started shooting, Cumberbatch had filmed Third Star, where he played a cancer patient (a beautiful cancer patient) so he was unreasonably skinny when he got on the Sherlock set. And they STILL managed to find shirts that were too tight for him!

**Headcanon: subtext or deviations from canon one chooses to commit to in one's mind.

***IF YOU KEEP CALLING IT THAT, NOBODY’S EVER GONNA WANT TO TAKE IT.

****18% start with the riding crop. 2% involve Sherlock and John holding hands and giving each other valentine's cards, and usually adopting a kitten.

*****Judging by the amount of retweets that thought got, I can objectively say that everyone else assumed coitus too.

A Fascinating Glimpse into the Psychology of Dasia Has A Blog!

2012-01-18T18:03:00.000+02:00

{Edited To Add: If you're at this post to see Benedict Cumberbatch weequashing, kindly skip to question 19, and from there read until the end, and then stop. If you hit the comments, you've gone too far!}

I know it's Writing Wednesday, but the thing I was going to post today was super lame. And this post is about blogging, which is sort of like writing, EXCEPT WITH MORE ALLCAPS.

I've realised far too late that today is the SOPA and PIPA blackout day. While I totally support the fight against this, I can never be as hilarious and on point as The Oatmeal about it, so check out his page today and learn more about why American censorship would break the whole internet.

Meanwhile, I've had this in my drafts for like a month...

Community Meme from Sunday Stealing! I can never resist a meme! Found through The Geeky Shopaholic.

1. As a blogger, what do you draw inspirations from for your posts?
Generally when a rant in my head / to my sister starts forming itself into bullet points, it'll turn into a post. As a rough guide, anything that excites me or pisses me off will make for a good post!

2. If you could swap blogs with another blogger for a post, who would you switch with and why?
I'd love to post on Yearning For Wonderland once, because Anna's blog a) is really awesome and b) has a vastly different tone from mine. She's all whimsy! fairies! fancy hats! and I'm all CRASSJOKES and SNARKYREVIEWS and MASHBOOBSONKEYBOARD. Come to think of it, it'd be funnier to see what she comes up for my blog rather than what I'd do for hers!

3. If your blog had a theme song, what would it be? Why?
IT'S THE EYE OF THE TIGER IT'S THE THRILL OF THE FIGHT.
Excuse me for the text-karaoke, I can't resist allcaps when it comes to this song. Not only is it hilariously motivational on its own, please observe this very beautiful man doing a very silly lip-sync to it.

4. What is your writing process for a post?
I usually decide on the topic about a week before it's due. Then I draft it up and feel really productive. Then I forget about it and freak out on the day it's due and spend about two hours re-reading and previewing it until I finally post. Then I hyperventilate until someone comments on it. Healthy, huh?

5. Your blog requires a cute, new, mascot - what would it be?
Well I'd be hard-pressed to find something cuter than a momonga, which was my first mascot!

squeeeeeeeeee. (source)

6. Do you feel you express your "true self" on your blog?
In a way. I'm far more honest and - erm - expressive here than in real life.* But I'm also aware that people on the internet don't care about the stuff that real-life people have to care about. So when I'm a sadface I don't post about it, I JUST SQUEE THROUGH THE TEARS.

7. What is your biggest online pet-peeve?
Oh, so many. The biggest ones are probably when people on twitter beg for followers (OMG I'm nearly at 1000 followers I just need 998 more PLS RT!!!!!!) and when bloggers put cheesy, distraction animations up - snowflakes falling, bats flying around, etc - I saw one recently where a poorly-animated twitter bird actually flew around the screen and sat in front of the text. It irks me, I feel like there's bugs on my screen!

8. If you could live in a fictional universe, where would you live? Why?
I'd live in the Pokémon universe because there isn't any intense fight-for-the-world thing going on, but it's still pretty magical. Also, you don't need an education and nobody ever dies. I'd totally apply for Team Rocket, they were my favourite. Prepare for trouble! And make it double!**

9. You're having a bad day, you're upset, you're angry, or you're sad - what is your go-to comfort?
Tin-roof ice-cream or emo rock - I know, I know, I'm a walking cliché!

10. What is your favorite inspirational quote?
Oh, so many. I love quotes, don't make me pick my favourite! But here's one I dig, by Goethe:

Plunge boldly into the thick of life, and seize it where you will.

11. If they were to make a movie based on your life, who would play you, your leading lady/man, your best friend, and your rival?
I would be played by Merrit Wever (the amazing ball of awkwardness who plays Zoey on Nurse Jackie) and the movie would be me in a padded room with a laptop surrounded by gremlins who represent the voices in my head. It'd be deep.

12. Do you think the world is going to end in 2012?
Did you know that 150,000 people die every day? So a lot of people's worlds are going to end in 2012, when you think about it. And that number's probably gonna go up once the zombies take over.

13. If you could change anything about yourself, what would it be?
My self-worth or my thighs. I can't decide. My thighs think my self-worth would be the more mature answer.

14. What is your favorite season and why?
I love Autumn because the world cools down.

15. You've been bitten by a vampire. Would you fight it with all your undead being or would you embrace it for all it is worth?
I'd embrace it. I'd finally have an excuse to sleep in all day! And kill people all night!

16. Have you personally met any of your blogger friends?
Yes! I know Ali in real life. Though I knew her before Linguisticali Speaking was even a thing so I'm not sure if that counts. I bet it does though.

17. What does your favorite pair of underwear look like?
Your mom.

18. Have you ever drank something right from the container in the refrigerator knowing other people will have to drink out of the same container later?
Yes, it's the first step in my plan for world domination.

19. What is your favorite word and explain why?
Oh no you didn't just ask a writer to choose a single favourite word. A short sentence is the best I can do:

Benedict Cumberbatch weequashing in crisp twilight. ***

I might have mentioned that I like Benedict Cumberbatch, and his ridiculous name is one of the things I like the most about him.
Weequashing is a lost word I came across in The Phronistery, which is an awesome site. It means 'spearing of fish or eels by torchlight from canoes.'
Crisp is one of the best words ever.
I've always loved the word twilight and its abuse is just one of the many, many reasons I dislike Stephenie Meyer.

20. 2011 is soon coming to a close (told you I took forever to post this), is there anything you'd like to do different on your blog in the year 2012?
Well I made the biggest change late last year by starting to post regularly and, um, putting more effort and thought into my posts. This year I want to read more about comedy and decide if I want this to be a comedy blog or an everything-blog.

If you guys are bored and you have a blog (what am I saying - everyone has a blog!) you should post this and link it back to me so I can read it!

*Although I'm quite inappropriate in real life as well - but because I don't have a week to edit the things I say in real life I come across as awkward and deranged rather than witty and ironic.
**It makes me sad that I had to google the exact phrasing of that quote. I'M SO OLD.
***If somebody would photoshop this scene, I'd love you forever.

EDITED TO ADD

The Amazing Stasia has proved her amazingness once more...

Ladies and gentlemen, I now present to you...

The picture that made me laugh until I cried tears of squee...

BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH WEEQUASHING IN CRISP TWILIGHT!!!

:D :D :D

View the larger, fancier version of this epic piece of art at my facebook page - and while you're there, click like!

Awesome reader Lair Sapir also made a version, in which the good canoe itself announces Benedict's mission! Those eels better watch out!

MOAR WEEQUASHING

So yeah....
I LOVE YOU GUYS.

The Amazing Dehydration Diet

2012-01-16T14:07:00.001+02:00

Are you feeling a bit plump? A touch too fleshy? Do you dream of a flat stomach, flat butt, and flat... everything else?

Are you positively ripe for a change?

You don't have to roll yourself around anymore! Introducing The Amazing Dehydration Diet!

There's no need for special foods, pills or shakes - all you need is willpower and time! A very very very long time!

Look at Mr. Tom Ato's incredible results* with The Amazing Dehydration Diet!

"I feel great!"

*Diet only effective when you forget about yourself in a dark dry cupboard for what archeologists estimate is at least six months.

Snarky Review: No Excuses! by Brian Tracy

2012-01-13T21:04:00.000+02:00

Oh hey, guess what? I have a facebook page now! So follow the link and click like if you want to want to keep up with me over there, or if you want to contribute to the part of my self-worth that I gain from the internet (which is a pretty big part.)

Now, let's talk about THE POWER OF SELF-DISCIPLINE, BITCHES!

This double-negative stresses me out. NO No Excuses! This is an excuse-only zone!

Of course, I got this book because I'm a loser. I doubt many winners bought this just to feel good about themselves, right? In my constant half-assed quest to get my shit together, I figured I could get a few tips on how to stop sucking and be awesome instead.

Here's what Brian Tracy taught me about winning:

You should stop doing those things that make you a loser, and start doing things that winners do (Though I'm paraphrasing, he literally doesn't get more specific than this.)
Your suckiness is at the very core of your identity and personality – so “to achieve greatly, you must become a different person.” Yup.
WINNERS DON'T HAVE FRIENDS. Socializing is an overrated waste of time. Are your “friends” going to give you a yacht? No? THEN WHY ARE YOU HANGING OUT WITH THEM?
WINNERS DON'T HAVE FUN. They're too busy winning. And if winning is fun, you're not doing it right.
WINNERS DON'T EAT ICE CREAM. Ice cream is equal to “personal weakness, underachievement, and failure.” That's on page 13 if you want to look it up. I'm not even kidding.
Winners accept responsibility for everything. EVERYTHING. Even Hurricane Katrina (p.57).

Sure, all the loser / winner talk is alienating because Brian Tracy doesn't understand that the audience of his book are obviously looking to better themselves, and so fall into the 'loser' category most of the time he mentions this great divide. But goshdarnit, Brian Tracy's a winner.

A winner who will fuck you up without getting blood on his lovely sweater.

The worst part of this book wasn't even getting called a loser every few pages, it was the constant barrage of invented terms, arbitrary definitions, and RULES. All the rules. Brian Tracy loves rules*. Rules He Can Capitalize Because That Makes It More Official. And the rule about rules is “we can put them in quotation marks because it sounds like we're quoting the Grand Handbook Of The Universe, even when no external source is noted.”

The amount of rules and invented terms is really astonishing. Because I love my readers (and hate myself, apparently) I made a list of my favourites:

Someday Aisle – the place where losers live without goals (but presumably with ice-cream?)

Excusitis – the disease losers have.

Path Of Least Resistance – the path that losers take.

The Expediency Factor – this is defined at least three times in really ambiguous terms. But I get the gist that it's something about losers not thinking of the long-term consequences of sucking so much.

The Law Of Unintended Consequences – Uh... sometimes when you do stuff, other stuff happens... that you didn't intend? Apparently this only happens to losers.

The Law Of Perverse Consequences – Not as fun as it sounds. Zip up, losers.

The Iron Law OF THE UNIVERSE MOTHERFUCKERS – It's fantastic that Brian Tracy just casually mentions this as if he irrefutably knows how the entire universe works. Also called the Law Of Cause And Effect and the Law Of Sowing And Reaping.

The Law Of Correspondence – if you suck on the inside, your life will suck on the outside. So, look around you... that's how much you suck, apparently.

Choosing Organisms – what everyone is. Because people make choices. And are also organisms. Don't capital letters look like they're having more fun? Let's put them on every word!

The Law Of Concentration – Apparently, this law ensures that whatever you concentrate on becomes a greater presence in your life. So Benedict Cumberbatch should spontaneously materialize beside me any moment now.**

Response-Ability – the ability to take responsibility (?!) I'm so glad we have a term for that now.

The Failure Mechanism – an incredibly vague part of your brain that clicks your default life setting to “lame.”

The Success Mechanism – an equally vague part of your brain that is triggered by having goals, and turns your brain into the rudder / compass / ship / mermaid of your life.

Major Definite Purpose – the goal that's most important to you. So important it gets its own military ranking *salutes* Major Definite-Purpose!

Mindstorming – exactly like brainstorming, only without the copyright violation.

Just Over Broke – the hilarious acronym that the word job apparently stands for – when it comes to losers who are just getting by that is.

Personal Services Corporation – an odd extended metaphor that has something to do with growing your own stock and also investing in yourself and also making yourself a company that you work for. Ignorance is strength. We were always at war with Eurasia.

I get the feeling the first draft of this book was 50 pages long, because the amount of padding is incredible. And it's not just tangential anecdotes, it's mind-blowingly condescending explanations of really obvious things.

Here's a list of things that apparently take at least a paragraph each to explain to the humble reader.

Why dinner comes before dessert.
When to pay in restaurants, and when to pay in cafeterias.
Parenting is an important responsibility (as opposed to the popular misconception 'parenting is a ham sandwich'.)
The (American) Constitution and the Bill Of Rights are legal documents.
Doing good things makes you feel good.
Doing bad things makes you feel bad.
Children are dependent on their parents.
Frivolous lawsuits are frivilous.
Writing things down is a good idea.
Watching TV is unproductive.
Homing pigeons are neat.

Like any condescending self-help book, this one has exercises. Deeply unhelpful stuff, too – every single one is a variation of Make a 'To-Do List. Do it. Loser.'

It's achingly clear that Tracy really believes that life is a competition with winners and losers, but when he puts it like this it's really a bit scary: “In biology, life forms are categorized from the least to the most complex, from single-celled plankton all the way up the increasingly complex spectrum of life to the human being. Similarly, human beings can be organized along a spectrum as well, from the least to the most developed.” (p.42) GOSH THAT SOUNDS AN AWFUL LOT LIKE A PREMISE FOR EUGENICS.

No Excuses falls into every trap of bad self-help books (and even invents a few ones) – it's condescending, vague, unsympathetic, badly written, and, well, unhelpful. It also does that thing where arbitrary words are bolded AND italicized to bring the point home – I'm sorry, but unless the message is THIS PAGE IS POISONOUS DO NOT LICK, there's really no need for this ugly double-formatting.

This book is not about how to get your shit together, it's 293 pages of why people who have their shit together are happier than those who don't. SPOILER ALERT: because having your shit together makes you happy.

So I'm gonna give it a big fat 1/5, or 2/10. Avoid!

*As Monica Gellar would say, “Rules CONTROL the fun.” Frankly, I doubt Brian Tracy would approve of the fun at all.

** I actually do believe in the law of attraction, but it's just so darn easy to make fun of.

Short Story: A Girl And Her Skeleton

2012-01-11T16:09:00.000+02:00

Inspired by The Skeleton Song by Kate Nash. Since this is basically a fanfic, let's have a disclaimer: these characters are not mine and I'm not making money off them. Cool? Cool.

Everyone thought Kate was strange. She didn't look or act particularly strange, but someone who's friends with a skeleton can't be that normal, can they?

Everywhere they went, people would ask Kate about the skeleton.

"Is that a real?"

"Does he talk?"

"Why's he wearing clothes, then?"

"Where'd you find him?"

"How does he talk? Where's his voice box?"

"Don't you like real people?"

Kate didn't know how to make people understand that the skeleton was always kind to her. When her parents got divorced, the skeleton listened to her cry and patted her back with his bony hand. When the kids at school teased her and threw prestick in her hair, the skeleton would cut out the sticky mess with such care that you could barely see the difference, and soon they'd be laughing about buying a silly hat for every day of the week.

As she got older, Kate became more conscious of herself, and of her skeleton. She used to stick her tongue out when people sniggered at her friend without flesh - now she'd blush and edge away from him.

"What's with the bone-bag?" A boy called as they walked down the street, "if ya want a real boning you know where to look, sweetheart."

The skeleton simply pulled his spine a little straighter and ignored the calls. But Kate crossed her arms and wished the skeleton didn't insist they always walk together. Didn't he have any other friends?

After she left school, Kate realized that skeletons lived a long time. The indulgent smiles some strangers gave her happened less and less – a little girl or moody teenager with a skeleton for a friend might be seen as a phase. But after she'd grown out of pigtails and later out of black nailpolish, her skeleton began to look more and more like an ominous sign of upcoming spinsterhood.

At night, Kate would lie awake and wonder how different her life would be without the skeleton. She could walk down the road with nobody bothering her. She could go to the shops and not have to deal with the awkward explanations that every passer-by and curious shopkeeper forced her into.

One night, Kate was still awake as her room began to glow with pre-dawn light. She rolled over and stuffed her pillow over her head, as if that would drown out the voices in her memory, all those worries she wished she could do something about. She quickly thumped her head on a cold metal object - a hammer. Underneath her pillow? She hadn't the faintest idea how it'd gotten there.

She pushed it aside and curled up in her blankets. It wouldn't get any better, of course. She was twenty-two and couldn't even get a proper boyfriend with that skeleton hanging around all the time, his gaping eye sockets scaring away every guy who even thought about asking Kate out. What if she wanted to get married one day? What if she wanted kids - would the skeleton scare her babies? Would she finally snap, sleep deprived and protective, and tell him to go away and never come back?

But he wouldn't go away. She had tried, a few times in a flash of teenage anger, to scare him into leaving. But he would stick around, ambling outside her house, standing for hours on the street corner in front of her school, silently pining until her soft heart took him back. He couldn't leave, because he had nowhere else to go.

She was his only friend, she was his home.

Kate knew, somehow, that there was nothing left to do. She felt her hand groping blindly towards the splintered wooden handle of the hammer in her bed. It felt strong. Sure. Irreversible.

The skeleton would sleep in the sitting room of their little flat, often just leaning against a wall in the corner of the room. He had no possessions that were strewn about. He didn't even have a face that could go on a Missing Persons poster. Imagine, a skeleton on a milk carton - people would think it was a joke. Or a crass ad for healthy bones.

Before she knew it, Kate was in the hallway between her bedroom and the sitting room, the hammer held low against her thigh. She could barely see the skeleton but could tell that he was sleeping. Her palms began to sweat. She stood there a long time.

Though he had no lungs, she could hear him breathing. Sighing, she stepped softly back to her bed.

She lay, her eyes open and empty, waiting for the dawn to break.

Barely an hour later, Kate rushed out of the house with her hair up, and wearing the single smart blazer she owned. She had slipped out of the blankets (the hammer tossed under the bed, far from reach) and gotten ready in almost total silence, tiptoeing out of the house without even making herself coffee.

She was halfway down the road to the bus stop before she heard the sickeningly familiar clatter of jointless bones behind her.

"Kate, wait up!" called the skeleton.

Kate let out a sigh of defeat before turning around, "Hi."

"Morning!" panted the skeleton, catching up to her, "You gave me a fright when I woke up and you weren't at home! Lucky I just looked out of the window in time to see you crossing the road.”

Kate didn't have the energy to nod along. The skeleton's voice became tinged with nerves.

"Um, did they change the time of your job interview? I thought it was supposed to be at ten?" he asked.

"Oh no, they didn't change it - just - uh -" Kate's caffeine-deprived brain worked reluctantly, "I just wanted to head into town and - and do a bit of shopping before the interview."

"Well, why didn't you wake me up?"

"No, you were sleeping so - erm - peacefully."

"Alright well, no harm done. Let's go before we have to run after the six-thirty bus!" the skeleton marched ahead of her.

Kate followed, her shoulders slumped.

The city centre was full of people rushing to work. The skeleton looked around, "Looks like most of the shops aren't even open yet."

"Let's have some coffee."

"I don't drink coffee - "

"I KNOW. I just - you know what I meant." said Kate, rubbing her eyes and realising too late that she'd already put make-up on them. “Damn – am I smudged?”

“A little – on the bottom.” the skeleton answered.

“Right, thanks.” Kate traced a finger under each eye, as if she were wiping tears away.

They walked to a cafe where plenty of people queued for takeaways, but all the tables were free. The waitress completely ignored the skeleton, and was so desperate to be out of his reach that she took Kate's order whilst standing directly behind her.

"She was a bit rude," the skeleton mumbled once the waitress left, "She didn't even ask if I wanted anything."

It took quite some effort for Kate to remain quiet instead of pointing out that he didn't eat at all. By the time her coffee arrived (passed over her shoulders by the waitress' shaking hands) Kate could feel a headache coming on.

"Once we get there, could you wait outside the office building for me?" Kate said carefully as she took the last sip of her coffee.

"Why?"

"Well, it's hardly professional that a friend came with me to hold my hand in the interview."

"I suppose so. Okay then, I'll wait for you. Oh, I bet you're going to get the job, Kate! You'd be brilliant at it!"

"I'd be brilliant at data-processing?" Kate said with the ghost of an indulgent smile.

"Oh yes, of course you will! You're so smart." said the skeleton earnestly, "They're going to love you."

They came up to the little office building at a quarter to ten.

"Right, skeleton, just wait here - " said Kate.

"Oh look, they have a lobby! I'll wait inside shall I?" the skeleton walked in, "You know sometimes I get in trouble when I'm on my own." (Once, a gang of boys had strung him up on a telephone pole, and Kate had been in tears until the fire brigade was called to get him down.)

"Super..." Kate mumbled as she followed him. The skeleton settled himself into the farthest chair from the door. Kate came up to the reception desk, where a bottle-blonde woman in her forties stared fixedly at the skeleton.

"Good morning, Kraven and Katz..." the receptionist said absent-mindedly.

"Good morning -"

"Are you with that skeleton over there?"

"Yes, um, I'm here for -”

"Is that a real skeleton?"

"Yes, um, I was -"

"Is it a man or a woman?"

"He's a man," Kate tried to check the bitterness in her voice.

"Is he your -" the receptionist dragged her puffy eyes to Kate, "Is he a relation at all?"

"No, he's just a friend. My appointment's at -"

"How'd you become friends with a skeleton, anyway?"

"Oh, how does anyone become friends..." Kate gestured awkwardly in the air, "Just, you know, we met when we were kids, so..."

"How does he go to the toilet?"

"Excuse me?"

"Well he must need the loo as he's alive and all. How does that work?"

Kate blushed and looked back at the skeleton - "He doesn't eat so, um..."

A woman in a smart navy blue suit came out of the door behind reception. She smiled and held out her hand, "Kate? I'm Lily, we spoke on the phone?"

"Yes, lovely to meet you." said Kate a bit too quickly, at first holding out the wrong hand and then clumsily trying to switch her bag over to her left hand and then dropping it to the floor.

In the kerfuffle the receptionist chimed in, "That skeleton over there's her friend. She says he doesn't go to the toilet!"

Twenty minutes later, Kate walked briskly out of the office building. The skeleton watched her zoom past before following. He felt the receptionist's eyes boring into him as he left.

"Kate?" he called after her.

"What? WHAT do you want to know?" she walked quickly down the wrong side of the road and did an abrupt hairpin turn, looking back at him, "It was horrible. All she did was ask questions about you. She didn't even look at my C.V.!"

"I'm sorry, Kate."

"Don't be sorry - you should have waited outside! Or better yet, at home! I don't remember even asking you to come anyway!"

She stormed past him. Though he had no eyes to brim with tears, she knew she had hurt him.

He let her walk on and on until she was out of sight. Realizing far too late that he didn't have any money for a bus ticket, he sighed and began the long walk home.

By lunchtime the skeleton's tired bones had come up to the house, and across the street he could see Kate's curtains drawn in her bedroom. He wondered if she had forgiven him, or if she even needed him anymore.

He was wondering what to say to her as he crossed the road. He didn't see the black car speeding around the corner towards him.

Kate had planned her small apology to the skeleton by the time she heard the bang of the impact and the crackling snaps of his bones. She looked outside and saw no blood on the street, only a crumbled pile of whiteness.

She was finally alone. Alone with the aching horror and gaping relief of losing her best friend.

Here's The Thing About Benedict Cumberbatch...

2012-01-10T01:20:00.001+02:00

Disclaimer: I'm just a girl with a crush on an actor. I'm not crazy, my mother had me tested.

But here's the thing about Benedict Cumberbatch.

He’s flawless in his strangeness.

Above: beautiful alien.

Oh, it's so hard to keep my squee in check when we're talking about him. But I’ll try to explain my love using words rather than just mashing my boobs on the keyboAEFEZANJL.OHNJSDFVGJHYDSFGVA

Ahem.

Right, we're going to use words. Here are some words:

THAT VOICE THOSE CURLS THAT TALENT THOSE PIERCING BLUE EYES THAT BRITISHNESS ALL THAT CHEMISTRY WITH MARTIN FREEMAN THAT UPPER LIP HIS GENERAL SWEETNESS AND GENUINE INTELLIGENCE AND PASSION FOR HIS JOB AND HUMBLE SELF-DEPRECATING BEAUTY OH AND THAT EFFORTLESS GRACE THAT PERMEATES EVERY PART OF HIM WHEN HE ACTS.

You might have guessed that I'm serious about Benedict Cumberbatch. I don’t mind being called a cumberbitch. I don’t mind being called a leperous prostitute with an enthusiasm for the b’cumz. Any label that shows my devotion to this man I’ve never met is FINE with me.

The thing I love about cumberbitches (or cumberladies, cumbermuffins, cumberpuffs, what have you) is that it takes a certain sensitivity to understand why Benedict Cumberbatch is so awesome. That sensitivity usually comes with cleverness and an almost manic loyalty which makes Cumberbatch fangirls just the funniest, craziest, most entertaining fanbase I've ever come across.

See, Ben* is not just a Hollywood hunk with fake teeth and a six-pack. He's one of those serious actors that does plays and movies about war and the past and shit. Despite his mesmerizing performance as Sherlock, he's played Stephen Hawking, Vincent Van Gogh, Victor Frankenstein, and of course, plenty of important old guys from the past. He's not famous because he's hot -

Doesn't hurt either... *smolder smolder smolder*

He's famous because he's a fucking amazing actor. And that's exactly why I'm totally spectacularly ridiculously obsessed with him. Do you know how short my attention span is? Do you know how superficial I am? I get BORED, you guys. I get over most crushes in the time it takes me to tweet about it. But since I saw the first season of Sherlock six bloody months ago, I can't get Benedict Cumberbatch out of my head.

He defies logic. He has an unfortunate name and he's one of those cursed people who has a double-chin even when they're really skinny. Anyone that posh is usually crippled by his own privilege. He's not supposed to be a star - he's not even supposed to have the self-assurance to be an actor. But he's got this confidence, this charisma, this endless talent-tinged energy that gives you a glimpse of something far deeper than ordinary life when he performs.

And once you get that glimpse, it's a little addictive. You end up watching really depressing period dramas and poorly written Hugh Laurie shows just to get your fix. If you're really lucky, you'll even discover a hilarious and perfect radio sitcom** that takes Benedict Cumberbatch's voice to new levels of endearing sweetness (did I mention he has great comedic timing? Because HE TOTALLY DOES.)

But it's not all perfect. So he's cheating on me and THAT'S OKAY. Apparently he's still with "designer Anna Jones" (the obnoxious air quotes will never die) whom he began dating a few months ago. I loved how on twitter all the girls were all like "ooh we're so happy for him" and I was all WHO IS THIS BITCH and taking my earrings off.

It's one of the perils of him being so extraordinary - it's easy to forget that he's an actual person who lives in the world, as is his girlfriend. He wants babies, she has lovely childbearing hips. I'm sure they're very happy together (she typed as blood poured from her slit wrists onto the keyboard.)

That neck will be the death of me.

He's lovely, and I want him to be happy of course. It's just that a big part of me wishes he'd realize that "designer Anna Jones" has a boring name, break up with her, and then one lonely night he'll be drinking red wine and on a whim decide to google his own name. And then he'll come across this blog and see what a lovely convoluted name I have (my middle name is Shamilevna, bitches, I'm fascinating) and then he'll smile and send me an adorable email and we'll chat and get married and stuff.

IT COULD HAPPEN.

*Of course we're on a first-name basis. We're dating, remember?

**Pretty please click on this link, because Cabin Pressure is the source of almost all my sitcom references nobody will get tags!

IMAGES USED DON'T BELONG TO ME. FIRST AND LAST ARE © BBC (SHERLOCK SCREENCAPS), I'M AN IDIOT AND CAN'T FIND CREDIT FOR THE SECOND PIC. IF YOU KNOW WHERE IT'S FROM, PLEASE TELL ME SO I CAN CREDIT! THANKS FOR READING ♥

Friday Review: Becoming A Writer by Dorothea Brande

2012-01-06T23:20:00.001+02:00

This book is dope.

A short but content-rich read, Becoming A Writer is a fluff-free gem of sensible advice about how to stop being a tortured artist and start being a happy and productive writer.

Written in 1934, it's a classic of the writing-on-writing genre. It's easy to see why. Even though it's been around for over 70 years, the message was fresh and relevant to me.

I repeat: dope.

There are some cool exercises, all practical things that should turn into habits rather than fill-in-the-blank homework. Some I haven't tried yet, as they tend to build on each other, but the one I love so far is getting up a little earlier than usual each day, and writing FIRST THING.

You shouldn't read (or preferably even speak) a word until your allotted writing time is up. I've done this for a few days and let me tell you: it's a pain in the ass, and it's totally worth it. Writing before consuming any information (and therefore influence) really lets you find your own rhythm and voice. Highly recommended.

Though the tone is generally kind, one moment Brande actually says that if you consistently fail at one of her exercises, you're probably not cut out to be a writer. (To be fair, the exercise was focused on discipline rather than skill.) I really respected her for saying that. Though she condemns instructors who aim to discourage writers, she doesn't offer blind encouragement either.

Did I mention this was written seventy years ago? That tripped me up a bit. Here are some fun archaic moments:

The word 'behooves' always makes me chortle. Behooooooves.
"The typewriter has made the writer's way more rocky than it was in the old days of quill and pen." Ah, the old days! When you had to climb into the eagle's nest to get a fresh quill. Good times.
Brande suggests that you not allow your fancy white friends judge to you for listening to "Negro spirituals" while you write.
NEGRO SPIRITUALS. At no point between 1934-2011 did anyone think to backspace that and replace it with something not so ridiculously offensive? 'Gospel' would've worked.
"Talking pictures should be very rarely indulged in." Oh, them talkies are the devil's work!
She uses the idea of 'duplicity' (every writer has two sides, the one that makes shopping lists and the one that writes poems about the moonlight) and spends at least five pages convincing the reader this duplicity is "not psychopathic". I guess back in the olden days of quill and pen, people spontaneously went on killing sprees after doing a particularly creative scrapbooking project.

Despite these jarringly oldschool moments, some of the advice is nothing less than New Age by today's standards. Brande encourages clear-eyed awareness exercises that would make Eckhart Tolle proud*, and the main technique she prescribes for unleashing your 'genius' is simply a focused meditation.

But you know what's really great about this book? It gets to the root of why most writing advice misses the point completely. Anyone who's suffered from writer's block, stared at a blank screen (or blank vellum sheet, their quill unyielding) or wondered why inspiration hit only once in a blue moon has usually sought advice. But studying plot structure and approaches to dialogue aren't the solution, because the problem isn't the writing, it's the writer themselves. Brande understands the personality pitfalls of being a writer and offers imminently practical solutions.

This is one of those rare books that makes you want to go write! I'd give it a 4.7/5 or 9.4/10 - if you're a writer, this belongs on your bookshelf right next to Stephen King's On Writing.

D. O. P. E.

*Does Eckhart Tolle feel proud about anything? I get the feeling he's perpetually just-okay with the universe, man.

Writing Not-Quite-Wednesday: WIP500

2012-01-05T12:27:00.000+02:00

I might have forgotten to mention in my incredibly generic New Year's Resolutions that in 2012 I plan to Write Everything All The Time ALWAYS.

Which is a big change from pre-2012 when I'd Write Some Stuff When I Feel Like It But Maybe I'll Take A Nap First.

So by a lucky coincidence (on Twitter: light of my life, fire of my unemployment) I came across Cara Michaels' WIP500 challenge.

Sorry, what about whips? [source]

Basically the challenge is to write 500+ words a day towards your current Work In Progress (WIP). Sadly, this does not include tweets, blog posts (unless you aim to be a pro blogger), or even long achingly witty facebook replies. Only what you're - gasp! - actually working on.

While 500 seems like a tiny number to those who've ever attempted NaNoWriMo, it really, really adds up. See, the challenge carries on for the whole of 2012, and by the end of it you'll have written 183,000 words! That's one meaty novel (The Grapes Of Wrath), or two short novels (Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone), or almost 80,000 tweets. Cool, huh?

It's only been a few days, but I'm feeling pretty productive already. Cara Michaels and everyone in the twitter community is pretty supportive (check out the #WIP500 tag to see what I mean) and it's nice to connect with people who have similar goals.

If you want to join up, go to the WIP500 page and click on the right-hand 'Join' tab or find the linkytools list at the bottom of the intro post. If you're curious how I'm doing, find @awkwardoptimist on the participants page (currently I'm #11 - and I know, I'm already in need of a catch-up!) I'll also be posting about my progress here on my blog, so watch this space!

Oh, and apologies for this post being a day late (although it'd be silly to think that anybody sets their clocks by me!) I had a bit of a self-imposed internet blackout yesterday, and chose margaritas instead.

Go Build A Tree

2012-01-02T15:10:00.001+02:00

I have almost a dozen trees outside my window, the tallest standing at least ten metres high. It struck me, while I was lying on my bed and putting off opening the first draft of Sarai, that a novel is like a tree to me.

All those thousands of leaves (words?) anchored to their branches (chapters?), which are anchored to the trunk (of plot?), which is supported by strong yet invisible roots (themes!). Who knows how deep they go – the point is they hold the tree up against the harshest storms (of criticism?)*. These trees are calming yet interesting: serene, they have nothing to prove because they're old and know they belong here.

The novels I love and admire are like these trees: strong, graceful, whole.

And someone telling me to write a novel is basically saying: Go build a tree.

That 'someone' is of course a part of myself. The ambitious part that wants a Jag in my driveway even though I don't drive.

Go build a tree? It seems a bizarre and unachievable task. I may have a pile of sticks and some half-rotten leaves, but any Frankenstein's monster* I construct out of those bits would look pretty bleak. I couldn't call that odd thing a novel any more than I could call a scarecrow a person.

I never believed I could write a novel until the 29^th of November last year, when I looked back at my NaNoWriMo attempt and realised I'd written one. Maybe it wasn't just selfish ambition – it'd be nice if Sarai was a bestseller, but even nicer if the people who read it (even if it's just the four poor souls I bribe into beta-reading) would enjoy it. And if they don't? If they give me the stinkeye for wasting their time? It's dangerous for the ego, this whole writing thing. I don't know what's scarier, that the whole thing might fail – or that it might succeed and people would actually expect even more from me next time.

So here I am, with my first-draft monster made of sticks and leaves in front of me, wanting me to bring it to life. I'm rubbing the paddles together and shouting CLEAR, not knowing who I'd like to electrocute more, my novel or myself.

But maybe if I love it enough to siphon more and more life into it, cutting away the dead bits and supporting the scrawny trunk with one of those little splints you get at the garden centre, it'll start to grow. And maybe once it's finished, a reader I've never even met would download it, fly through it in a day, throw it down and and inexplicably yell, “It's alive!”

*I promise the actual novel doesn't have so many cumbersome mixed, extended flora / zombie metaphors.

Friday Review: The Selected Works Of T.S. Spivet by Reif Larsen

2011-12-30T22:54:00.002+02:00

Basically what happens is that a twelve-year-old genius, T.S. Spivet, is obsessed with mapping the achingly ordinary world around him, until it stops being quite so ordinary – he wins a major scientific prize and has to decide whether to stay on the dry Montana ranch he calls home, or somehow travel two thousand miles across the country to claim his place among the scientists he so reveres.

Guys, it was so good. If you missed my hints on the blog and twitter, here's how freakin' good it was:

TWO THUMBS UP KINDA GOOD! [Doing two thumbs up while holding heavy book: unsuccessful.]

You know what I loved? The experimentation with sidenotes and illustrations. I literally got this book because I saw it and went “Ooh! Pictures!” and I definitely wasn't disappointed. The little maps, sketches and graphs all add to the story and appeal to my incredibly short attention span.

Almost every page has a little sketch leading from the text with a delightful dotty arrow.

Reading a sidenote, even at the very end, feels like you're unlocking a secret layer in the narrative. It creates an intimacy with the reader that isn't easy to come by in contemporary lit.

You know what could've been better? The language didn't strive to be childish at all, but there were glaring times when the voice was all “hello, I am an adult self-consciously writing from a child's point of view.” Luckily those moments were few and far between.

Another thing that irked me is the micro-story in the middle, which had its thematic appeal, but dragged on a bit too long. It was compelling at first, but I got through the whole thing only by devouring the side notes. There's also an annoying deus ex machina that pops up towards the end to iron over some dodgy plot points. But hey, this stuff is forgivable.

This isn't an action-packed story, but it's certainly a compelling one. Though T.S. is a little genius, he's far from cold, and there is a pervasive curiosity and clarity of vision that sticks with you after you've put the book down. What's most fascinating is the way he charts and maps his family – from the traumatic accident that killed his brother (this broke my heart a little bit, because it was never fully fleshed out, but constantly hinted at in the narrative) to the series of muscle contractions that make up his father's expressions. Larsen's also a kickass illustrator when he's not doing the whole measuring-and-charting thing, too.

One of my favourite pages, a swarm of sparrows.

Much of the book is set on a very long train ride, and it was described so well that I felt a little fatigued and motion sick whenever it was mentioned. I don't generally recommend books that make me sick, but there you go.

Too charming for words.

I loved it, not only for the rich, endearing story, but because it's so visually interesting I couldn't wait to turn each page. I could argue that the tangential structure hints at the way a genius' brain works, but to be honest it felt very natural and not at all contrived to prove some abstract literary point. It's a brief and intoxicating return to picture books mixed with the secret thrill of reading someone's journal and turning the page sideways to check what vital insight is squished along the margin.

I wonder if Larsen designs tattoos? *pines*

I recently got a Kindle (yay!) but The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet is exactly why I'll never stop buying print books. I may be downloading classics I'm not sure about, and new stuff that'd take ages to ship to S.A., but something as beautifully crafted as this book could never really live on a screen. It's meant to be held, the weight of it showing how much talent and hard work went into it.

Also, I cried at the end. SO YOU KNOW IT'S GOOD.

I give it a 4/5, or 8.2/10, or :) / 9000. Do pick it up if you get the chance!

20 Followers! Yay!

2011-12-28T22:27:00.002+02:00

I'm so thrilled to say there are 20 beautiful people following this blog - only SOME of whom are related to me! - and I want to say THANK YOU to every single one of you!

♥ Stas ♥ [Top Commenter! Top Sister!] 

Amy

Autumn

Elsha

Dana

Dav

IndianaRonaldo

SJW

Ali

Lady Minya

Anna

Sarah

Daniel

Mouse

Mabel

Angie

Lillie

Sagitarius167

Dawn

Janet (aka MOM!)

Thank you all for reading, commenting, sharing, liking, skimming, bookmarking for later, hugging the screen (am I only one who does that?) and generally being awesome. I'm in perpetual awe that even one person wants to read my ramblings, let alone twenty! You guys rock!

These are my Blogger / Google Friend Connect followers - if you follow by email or RSS, I don't know about you! If you'd like a shout-out, leave your name and preferred colour+font combination in the comments!

Now everybody GROUP HUG!

Writing Wednesday! Extract from 'The Singing Diamond'

2011-12-28T21:53:00.001+02:00

Clear. Something like birdsong, almost like a voice. The diamond sang and would always sing.

Nobody knew how or why.

They say it was found by a rogue traveller in the rainforest, who had walked past the trees and his eyes had been blazed with a beam so white and so strong he turned towards it. He marched out of magnetism he took for curiosity, and found it perched in a tree amongst birds of paradise. It was flawlessly cut and heavy as a pebble in his hand, and as it pressed against his palm he could have felt the tiny vibrations of the throatless voice, if he'd stopped to notice.

Many people stole it and sold it, and their lives felt quiet and cold when they let it go.

It was a myth and a curiosity. The bloated aristocrat who owned it for twenty years and wore it in a pendant to every party (where she had to talk over it) held it in a room on the very farthest tip of her estate. She hated the sound and loathed wearing the damn thing, and even so far away she'd swear she could hear it, taunting her, interrupting the self-obsessed whirl of her thoughts with its lilting song.

When the opportunity came to pass it on came, her greed gave way to her frustration. Her son's new wife, whom she hated only slightly more than the diamond, was suffering under the truth of the aristocrat's disapproval. The aristocrat saw the gorgeous opportunity to both appear vastly generous while making the new girl's life secretly miserable with this sparkling curse, and she gave the diamond to her daughter-in-law with manic flourish.

As the aristocrat lay down in bed that night, knowing full well the damned thing was traveling further and further away in a padded box in her daughter-in-law's arms, she wept. Because she knew the diamond was gone, but she could still fucking hear it.

The Singing Diamond is a completed short story that I'm not sure is strong enough to put into my collection. It's hard to make a compelling story from the point of view of an inanimate object. It's gone through several edits and... I still don't know.

My Incredibly Generic New Year's Resolutions

2011-12-26T19:47:00.000+02:00

My Christmas was lovely! Hope y'alls was too (that's a totally grammatically correct sentence.)

In this weird week between Christmas and New Year's Eve, the temptation to completely rehaul my life in one fell swoop is upon me. I love New Year's resolutions and make them every year, and they're always almost exactly the same as the year before.

So instead of trying to sound unique and special (to myself and to the internet), I'm going to embrace my vanilla-ass resolutions for what they are: completely generic.

Enjoy my complete lack of originality!

NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS

1. Stop being lame and be awesome instead. Stop procrastinating. Be productive. Make lists of shit to do. Actually do aforementioned shit instead of feeling satiated by the existence of the list and never looking at it again.

2. Completely change my personality. Be nice. Don't be passive aggressive. Stop hating people who are better than me, for making me look bad. And stop hating people worse than me for being happy anyway, the selfish bastards. And stop hating people exactly the same as me in abilities and talents, because they're stealing my unique thunder. Bitches.

3. Spontaneously discover an untapped talent for athletics. Use workout gear instead of compulsively buying sports bras and hoarding them as if they appreciate in value.

4. Be cool, man. Stop being awkward. Google how to stop being awkward. Choose twitter handle which accurately describes me without using the word 'awkward.'

5. Get my shit together. Learn to drive. Maybe go to a hypnotist to dissociate killing people with driving.

6. Pimp my finances. Get bank balance up to four digits. Actually do things that make money instead of figuring that sort of stuff is for grownups.

7. Date someone who is real and not made up. Celebrities don't count. The other person has to know I exist, and be aware that I'm dating them. Harsh terms, I know.

8. Pretend I don't have deep-seated psychological issues around eating. Google “How to get Jenna Marbles' body in a week” and do whatever the article says, even if it's something ridiculous like three fudge sundaes a day (God I hope that's her secret.) Google bone shaving and organ reduction for weight loss. I hear meth helps?

9. Don't do meth. This one's easy because I'm sort of on a roll with that already. I've gone a whole lifetime without doing meth! Sometimes you've gotta give yourself a freebie in between ridiculously aspirational resolutions.

10. Get enlightened and shit. Meditate for two hours a day. Don't judge. Don't judge myself for not meditating. At least it's on the list.

11. Google how to do stuff that you put on lists.

12. Google how to stop being so dependent on Google.

Man, if I made all these changes, next year's list of resolutions would only contain one point: keep being awesome.

That's the dream!

Friday Review: My Lame Day At Work

2011-12-23T22:03:00.001+02:00

Friday's review day! This particular Friday is also the day before Christmas Eve (or the day before the day before Christmas Day, if you prefer), which means I'm working at my job which I totally love. Which also means I didn't get to finish the book I planned to review today (the enchanting The Selected Works Of T.S. Spivet,) nor the series which was my backup review option (the oddly engrossing anime Chihayafuru.)

But since it's review day and I'm nothing if not an obsessive blogger,* here's a review of My Lame Day At Work.

My level of enthusiasm.

Crowds: 3/10, because nobody knew we were open today.

Soul crushing: 8/10. Three people asked me who Humphrey Bogart was. One person told me my accent was weird, apparently believing this was new and valuable information to me. My second cup of coffee went cold. Trading was extended by two hours for absolutely no reason. My mp3 player's battery died. I wondered if you could really mail-order bazookas from ACME like Wile E. Coyote does.**

Sinus torture: 6/10. Dust + incense = suicidal sinuses (which would be an awesome name for a band. Give it up for the Suicidal Sinuses!)

Food: 7/10. Standards are pretty low here. I bought spring rolls and kept them down. Exciting times.

Music: -9000/10. A delicious medley of Afrikaans folk, the most arbitrary of Christmas songs (Christmas At Sea? Throw that track on repeat!) and covers of dance covers of 80's songs (you know what's better than some douchebag remixing I've Had The Time Of My Life? A random nobody making a cover of that remix with nothing but a casio keyboard, a handful of singing lessons and a heart full of dreams.)

Overall rating: :( /10.

At least tomorrow's my last working day of the year, and then I get to chill until 2012! And that's aaages away - hell, it's the end of time! Woo infinite holiday!

*For a contradictory view, see the catching up and I'm not dead tags.
**Fun fact: I always thought his name was Wiley Coyote. But turns out his middle initial's E. Go figure!