Quick Update - Yeah, It's Been a While
Ever made a bunch of promises to yourself that you just couldn't keep? We all do it I guess. Well my writing targets were one of those. I wanted to get the 1st full draft of the novel I'm writing done by the end of 2017. It didn't happen.
There were reasons for it - there always are. Some of them are valid reasons. As I may have mentioned back in November I was ill. Well I've been ill again. I had a bout of stomach flu in November and then just before Christmas I managed to also catch the good old regular flu - or one of this year's variants of it - possibly Aussie flu but who knows for sure.
Well I managed once again to keep going as far as the day job goes only to collapse on the sofa each evening and try to recover for the next day. The day job was as much as I could manage. Put it this way, that's the part of my life that pays the mortgage; it will always come first in such considerations.
The Christmas break came and I spent some time with the family (a wonderful time), binge-watched a few TV shows (Tunnel S3, Travelers S1/S2, Nobel) and tried to recharge the batteries. Only the flu thing didn't totally go away. It settled down low level but it stayed put. Going back to work has seen it pick up a little and I'm back to coming home and not writing. It seems to be easing and I'm hoping this time it will finally go for good.
All this is suggesting I didn't write anything. That's not completely true. I have done some writing. When I wrote of the illness in November the novel was on 25K or thereabouts. It's now up to 38, 505 so some progress has been made; just not as much as I would have hoped. I'm staying hopeful I'll be back to my normal self so maybe I'll have better news soon. I don't like being ill. Fortunately (and you might not believe this from recent blogging) it doesn't happen all that often. I hadn't had anything more than a sniffle or a slightly iffy stomach in the past three years until November Hopefully I can go back to normal service soon.
Away from writing, but sticking with books, my hunting for older books has seen some successes. here's an image of some recent finds.
I have a great fondness for these old books as anyone who has read my blog before or follows my twitter feed will know. Coming home with seven additions to my collection was definitely a good day.
As far as reading goes this year I have read just one book (and yes I know there's only been eight days but I would have expected to have finished two by now). The one book is the latest Stephen Donaldson novel Seventh Decimate. Since the first of his I read back in about 1980 I've enjoyed his writing style and I still do. Is it as good as the early Thomas Covenant books? Well, if I'm honest, no. I found it easy to read but lacking of a character as strong as Thomas Covenant - or for that matter a Mhoram, a Linden Avery or any of them really. And the setting isn't a patch on the "Land" of the TC novels. It's okay but does suffer from trying to live up to Donaldson''s earlier work.
That's just about it really. I've not done all that much; not that you'd want to read about. So I'll quit this before I start to bore you (no commenting that that point was reached long ago). Toodle-pip
There were reasons for it - there always are. Some of them are valid reasons. As I may have mentioned back in November I was ill. Well I've been ill again. I had a bout of stomach flu in November and then just before Christmas I managed to also catch the good old regular flu - or one of this year's variants of it - possibly Aussie flu but who knows for sure.
Well I managed once again to keep going as far as the day job goes only to collapse on the sofa each evening and try to recover for the next day. The day job was as much as I could manage. Put it this way, that's the part of my life that pays the mortgage; it will always come first in such considerations.
The Christmas break came and I spent some time with the family (a wonderful time), binge-watched a few TV shows (Tunnel S3, Travelers S1/S2, Nobel) and tried to recharge the batteries. Only the flu thing didn't totally go away. It settled down low level but it stayed put. Going back to work has seen it pick up a little and I'm back to coming home and not writing. It seems to be easing and I'm hoping this time it will finally go for good.
All this is suggesting I didn't write anything. That's not completely true. I have done some writing. When I wrote of the illness in November the novel was on 25K or thereabouts. It's now up to 38, 505 so some progress has been made; just not as much as I would have hoped. I'm staying hopeful I'll be back to my normal self so maybe I'll have better news soon. I don't like being ill. Fortunately (and you might not believe this from recent blogging) it doesn't happen all that often. I hadn't had anything more than a sniffle or a slightly iffy stomach in the past three years until November Hopefully I can go back to normal service soon.
Away from writing, but sticking with books, my hunting for older books has seen some successes. here's an image of some recent finds.
I have a great fondness for these old books as anyone who has read my blog before or follows my twitter feed will know. Coming home with seven additions to my collection was definitely a good day.
As far as reading goes this year I have read just one book (and yes I know there's only been eight days but I would have expected to have finished two by now). The one book is the latest Stephen Donaldson novel Seventh Decimate. Since the first of his I read back in about 1980 I've enjoyed his writing style and I still do. Is it as good as the early Thomas Covenant books? Well, if I'm honest, no. I found it easy to read but lacking of a character as strong as Thomas Covenant - or for that matter a Mhoram, a Linden Avery or any of them really. And the setting isn't a patch on the "Land" of the TC novels. It's okay but does suffer from trying to live up to Donaldson''s earlier work.
That's just about it really. I've not done all that much; not that you'd want to read about. So I'll quit this before I start to bore you (no commenting that that point was reached long ago). Toodle-pip
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