On being well read

So today my boyfriend linked me to http://1morechapter.com/1percent/ and we have decided to undertake the challenge. Except that! I have read 26 of the 1001 books in the free (I am too poor to fork out for the huger list) excel spreadsheet downloadable here. 26 is 2% of the total 1294 books to read before you die (or whatever) so I have decided to undertake a new challenge.

I pledge to read 5% of the full 1294 books to read before you die. That is 65 books in total. I pledge to do so before April 2011. Should be a fun year...

Anyways. The list of books I shall read is as follows:

• The Rainbow
• Women in Love
• A Farewell to Arms
• American Psycho
• Atonement
• Captain Corelli's Mandolin
  
• Cold Comfort Farm
  
• Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
• Doctor Faustus
• Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
• Far From the Madding Crowd
• Frankenstein
  
• Gone With the Wind
• Gormenghast
• Great Expectations
• Gulliver's Travels
• Life of Pi
  
• Lord of the Flies
• Love in the time of Cholera
• Middlemarch
  
• Oliver Twist
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
• Tarzan
• The 39 steps
• The Cider House Rules
• The Count of Monte-Cristo
• The English Patient
• The Fall of the House of Usher
• The Handmaid's Tale
• The Maltese Falcon
• The Reader
• The Satanic Verses
• The Shining
• The Talented Mr. Ripley
• The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
• The Thousand and One Nights
• The Three Musketeers
• The Time Machine
• The Wasp Factory
• Wild Swans

These are from a cut down list of roughly 80 and included books that I've heard of, been told I ought to read, know I ought to read, know I ought to have read and plain old books that are already on my bookshelf.

Those are all in alphabetical order save the first two as they come under the category of 'books that are on my bookshelf'. Wish me luck. I reckon I ought to be reading a book every two weeks to finish by next April and I shall endeavour to review each book before starting the next.

Tarrah xx

Magic...duh!

So I deemed it time for a new post lest I forget again for months at a time.

The subject of today's post is: duh moments. I'm reading a book by Tamora Pierce for the umpteenth time, I love them, there are a few things wrong with them but they're great nonetheless. And the time-period she has set her books in is similar to the one I want to set mine in. And she mentioned 'homework by candlelight'. Now, I've worked by candlelight and it is a pain in the BUM. You need a good number of candles to get anything done be it work, reading or making lasagne. Seriously. So that reminded me that *my* characters would have to do work by candlelight. Damn. And then I remembered there was magic in my story so...why not have lights that work by magic? Brilliantly simple and, I suppose, so very obvious. I need to work out the specifics and I'm sure it won't actually come up in the book that often -if ever- but *I* need to know.

Any duh moments when writing you'd like to share?

Willow xx

I'm BACK!

It's true, months and months later, I have finally gotten round to returning to blogging, just in time to wish y'all a very merry Christmas.

Uhm, news, I am back in Britain, Wales specifically and loving it! Back at University, applying for jobs, doing assignments (honest!) and working around my lectures at Millets - an outdoor shop. It's fun and it's so good to be home.

I could list loads of reasons for having disappeared but you don't want to hear it, suffice to say, I'm glad I'm back ^_^

Tell me your news. I've missed you guys...

Oh oh! Shout out to/for/about Marilyn Brant over at Brant Flakes who has had a book published, will be getting another published next year and is in the process of writing a third. I am so chuffed for her! Her first book According to Jane is on Amazon, and on my Amazon wishlist (and has been since it was first available for pre-order) ready for some Christmas money to buy it for me ;)

Love love love.
I promise not to wait eight months before posting again ;)
xxxxxx

Big news!

That's right! I have amaaaazing news. So you might have noticed if you're a reader of this blog that I am somewhat unhappy with my life in the Netherlands. I don't talk about it much but it might have come across... Lol, like I don't bitch about it a lot. I'm sorry about that btw. Anyways. So my contract was for 12 months meaning I had to stay until the end of June. But that's CHANGED! Yeah baby, due to a number of reasons that haven't been explained to me plus the fact I mentioned I was quite homesick I get to go home on 26th April! Woohoo! I am so unbelievably chuffed hehehehe.

In other news I finished a story! OK, so it was one of those sub-ops and was *definitely* written to a deadline which is less great but all two of my readers enjoyed it soooo...Whatever. I submitted it about eleven pm my time last night which is about five their time and I haven't heard back yet I doubt I will for a while. I'm not really sure how these things go. It's a story for Circlet Press, this e-book in particular so I'll let you know if I get e-published or not!

Fun times ^_^

Whooooooooa it's been a long time

So, as you might have noticed I haven't blogged in a while. I decided to give up on that whole blogging once a day thing because I realised that I had nothing interesting to say anymore. I was always tired when I was writing the post and it just wasn't working. Unfortunately *now* I managed to forget to blog *ever* Sooooooo here goes a MAHUSIVE catch up!

Testing week went well, version 24 of the company project was released. Yar for them.

MY PROJECT WAS RELEASED!!!! Seriously this time. It is actually actually actually out there. In the big wide world. I'm *so* proud. And it's nice to think that, given that I have firmly decided to leave this business behind, I have left something out there in this field that people are really using. And not just that, this technology is, I'm told, really quite desirable so the company having it available might well just have been the deciding factor in people using it. It's not the same as some interns projects that never see the light of day or aren't used widely but mine...Is really out there. Yay for me.

I have been lazy on the book-writing front too, so! I decided to write some stories from some sub-ops Paperback Writer mentioned. They're very *very* different from my story but I figured they might get me back in the writing frame of mind, plus then I can write some stuff and get some feedback on it, even if it's just "No thanks that's not what we're looking for" I haven't got my heart completely set on being in their (e-)book though I'd be immensely proud of myself if they did print it. But it's good practice and thinking in other genres is quite fun.

Oh, and the lovely Marilyn actually commented on a post to ask how thing were going *sends Marilyn a hug* specifically to do with my website. So here it is: http://faeryforest.co.uk/ Slightly different from before lol I'm working to work on the "theme" as Drupal calls it. You can use a whole bunch of set themes or there are configurable ones. So I decided to get one of those so I can fiddle with it, make it my own. I'd encourage any readers I might have to sign up so you can join in the forums or something but a) nothing much is going on and b) I'm not sure how much you'd have to discuss with 18 yr old computer science students in Wales! But hey, it'd be nice if you wanted to :)

I guess those are the big things, people are coming to visit me soon though, my mother is coming today and my boyfriend and some friends are coming over easter!

The weather's turned lovely over here which is nice, I've made some fun cakes, I made brownies last week - yum!

I should go - work time and all that jazz!

Love love love.

Maybe I'll write more often again. *sigh*

P.S. Happy Equinox every one

Testing week

It's begun! Not testing my stuff, no that'd be far too easy. Nope, yet another testing run for visible. Seriously, sometimes I wonder who designed this. There are so many illogical wtf moments it's ridiculous. But anyway, testing means not working and not working means not thinking so let's hope the rest of the week is taken up with testing ^_^

Other than that, not much going on! My friend wants me to scan my face... I declined!

Night.

Catch up

Oh dear. It happened again. Mass distraction. Mmmkay.

So, Saturday. Fragalot came over \o/ I overslept, was almost late and then his train was delayed. For an hour ¬_¬ But meh. It's all good. I finally went in a little restaurant that had often looked tempting but I don't eat by myself so I'd never gone in - amazing pancakes! They were so yummy. Then we mooched around and finally got to the square where we were supposed to be meeting the others. And there were skateboarders <3 But then my camera died out of the blue. I hope it's just the battery or I'm so screwed and so gutted. I love my camera, it can't be broke :S But Fragalot took some cool pics so it's all good in the end. We also went to see Yes Man. Such a good film. Jim Carey is an excellent actor methinks. I mean, I think he goes over-board on the weird faces/noises things that he does. But without them he wouldn't be Jim Carey so...

Sunday... Electricity went out, a fuse blew or something. I can turn back on all the fuses except for the wired lights. Meh... cooking by candle light is fun ¬_¬

Work still blows. Talked to Dad today though he has fun skiing! And is going again next week... Ugh, I want SNOW!

Have been encouraged to take up writing again. I shouldn't have abandoned it really. So yeah, maybe I'll get some done... I hope so. I like my story!

Night night.