So… I’ve been fine all day. No sneezing, no runny nose, no itchy eyes.

Then Paul walks in with a bag of planting potatoes and off I go. Sneezing. (And I mean SNEEZING. Like 15 times in a row.) My nose is running. My eyes itch.

I mention it, in passing, and what does he do?

Drags the bag of potatoes back in and holds it under my nose.

"I’m only cruel to be kind. I want to see if it makes it worse, then you know what you’re allergic to."

Gee, thanks hon.

*runs for Benadryl*

I’ve been trying out several Twitter plugins for WordPress, and so far… they all seem to suck.

Twitter Widget Pro isn’t keeping the settings after you save it to the sidebar, so I ditched it.

Twit-Twoo came up with 14589 days and no posts, so I ditched it.

Tried a few others too.

I have "Twitter Widget" and "Twitter updater w/ TinyURL" running right now.

We’ll see how it works out.

(Computers are stupid)

I used to laugh about this song. It’s by a German band named "Spliff".

I’ve changed my mind.

Computers ARE stupid.

Mine blew up — again. I’m sick of it. I boot up and… nothing. Black screen. Repair disks don’t work and MS won’t send me the 64bit version, claiming mine is an OEM. (It’s not.)

So I’m experimenting. I’m waiting for a friend to send me the DVD down, because all I got right now is 32bit — in a computer with nearly 7gig of RAM. However, as I said, I’m experimenting.

Once that DVD arrives, I’m going to reinstall 64bit Windows. Then I’m going to move shit around until I have a free drive. And then… I’m sticking Linux on this box. God help em if I can get everything to work.

I’m just sick and tired of reinstalling Windows every 6 months. And it’s not even because I download and install a lot of stuff. I think it’s to do with the damned updates. Drivers. Something.

I’m sorry.

I’m not into babies and stuff… but this photograph is just… totally awesome.
I don’t know where it came from, someone sent it to me, but… wow.
Even if it isn’t real (I have no way to verify if it is), it is still awesome.

Once upon a time, when you went to the post office, you could buy stamps.
Pretty stamps.
You know, with pictures on them.
Royal Mail still do them — occasionally. Getting them… yeah. Right.
I asked at my local post office and was told I had to order them. They only do the boring 1st Class stamps.
So I ended up ordering a bunch of stamps today, and not enough with having to order them, they are going to charge me £1.40 postage for them!!

Sick. The postoffice charging postage and packing for fricken STAMPS, because they can’t be bothered to supply them to the post offices around the country so you can buy them. Besides, why is the POST OFFICE charging for postage.

Not funny. Definite thumbs down for Royal Mail.

I’m incredibly slack these days.
I said I’d blog more, and write more and… well.
Good intentions, and all that.
Fact is, I’m bored.
Bored with my writing and bored with life, at the moment.
I sit down to write and… nothing. I re-read and… nothing.
I start something and abandon it.
I need to read more, crit more, DO more.

Maybe it’s just me, maybe I get into a rut sometimes and forget to reignite the fire.
The trouble is… I seem to have mislaid my matches.

Setting goals is all very well, but then I set them too high.
I said I would write a minimum of 250 words a day.
Did I stick to it?
Of course not. It lasted until the end of January, then the novelty wore off.

Argh.

I read a blog recently. (I do that, occasionally…)
The author had a "25 things about me" thing going.
I thought that was kinda fun to read, but I won’t step into those boots.
I’m just not that interesting, honest.
Instead, I’m going to try and do a 25 things I learned about writing.
I write paranormal romance, so some of this pertains to romance writing. Most of it is useful for all writing, no matter which genre you aim for.

1. If you want it to sound authentic — do your research.
2. If you make it up as you go along — keep a record of what you make up.
3. Try to establish a sense of time and place in the first paragraph.
4. Don’t describe something just for the sake of description.
5. GMC (Not the car company!) Goal, Motivation, Conflict are what moves the story. It needs each to progress and without GMC you don’t have much of a plot.
6. Suspense. You need it. It doesn’t mean a dramatic event, it just means you need to keep your reader reading. Keep the anticipation alive!
7. A book is (usually) about a person, not an event. Therefore you need to have a strong central character whose story you tell.
8. Avoid passive verbs.  Adam held the rope. vs. The rope was held by Adam.
9. Adjectives are the devil. (Allegedly.) (Don’t ask. I have no idea what I’m talking about! The link is a list of them.)
10. Adverbs are the devil. (That’s the ‘ly words, in case you wonder which I mean.)
11. You’re the reader’s entertainer. Not the lecturer.
12. Try to make dialogue sound natural, but don’t overload it with information.
13. Don’t tell me Eva cried. Show me the tears running down her face. 
14. Know thy Enemy. It’s not enough to know all about your protagonists. You need to know the antagonist very well too. You need to know what makes him / her tick, flaws, strengths and motivation.
15. Make it immediately obvious who the hero and heroine are.
16. You need a black moment where everything is lost. It’s the turning point, the place where the ending starts.
17. Read the genre you intend to write. Just because you think you can write something, you need to know the market you write for, know what’s out there.
18. If you get stuck, put it down, put it away. Let it rest. Don’t look at it, do something else. Come back a week later and look at the story with new eyes.
19. Avoid unnecessary subplots and superflous characters. (GUILTY!) If a character only shows up once in the story — consider killing them. Unless it drives the story forward, and is integral to the plot, cut it out.
20. Don’t stereotype your hero and heroine. Make them stand out. Give them quirks. Know them. 
21. If your characters sigh with relief, gasp in surprise, jump in excitement and burst out laughing a lot.. then you’re guilty of clichés. I know I am. I’m going to get a damn book on the things and try to weed them out.
22. Use clear action words. Adam ran toward the car. Did he? Or did he dash? Jog? Barrel? Race? Flee? It gives an entirely different feel if Adam fled toward the car.
23. Said. Sometimes… people just say things. I try to have action tags, rather than said’s. (That goes for gasped, breathed, choked etc too.) I could do better, but at least I’m aware of it.
24. Edit. You have to. We all sometimes write complete tripe and it needs to be cut or restructured.
25. Never, never throw anything out. If you cut a scene, save it in another file. Just because it doesn’t fit the current story — it might come handy for another one. Did I say never? I mean it.

Well hopefully you’ll find these useful.

Some may know, I piddle around in WoW. (World of Warcraft, for the uninitiated…)

I have a paladin, and a hunter.
Now, the levels went up to 80, but I don’t play that much… so I only hit 80 the day before the last patch. (3.0.8)
Hunters use pets.

Now, I wanted to tame the Spirit of Atha (see above) because… well it’s cool.
I worked hard to get to 80, but this thing is spawned and I didn’t have the quest, which is the daily A Cleansing Song, in Sholazar Basin.
By the time I got the quest — the beastie was no longer tameable.
I was gutted. Seriously.
Now, the other pet I wanted, was Gezzerak the Huntress, a black Warp Stalker.

That one.
It’s the only black one. I tried several times to tame her but I got nailed every time.
I tried again last night — and they made her untamable now!
God Dammit, Blizzard!
They are hard enough to get, you need help with them, go through quests and whatnot — and every damn time I can finally get there… you nerf it!

Seriously, stop that crap. It’s not fair on those of us who play regularly, but aren’t grinding levels like mad.

I used to read (still do, occasionally) Edgar Allan Poe.

When I was in school, we were given a choice of poets, and he was the one I picked.
I don’t think I’ve found any poem I didn’t like.

However, every now and then I trip over something I like (and I’m a morbid person, so watch out) and add it to my favorites collection.

One of the ones I like, and think people should read at least once, is "The Bridge of Sighs" by Thomas Hood (1789-1845) (I like quite a few of his.)
Another is "The Sleeper" by Edgar Allan Poe. I’m sure everyone knows the famous Raven, but how many know The Sleeper?

There are many others out there, which ones do you like?

Today I found myself writing a letter to someone I’ve never met, to someone I don’t know.

The guys at FPN (The Fountain Pen Network) decided it’ll be a good idea to put our pens to work and write… postcards.
Not enough with the postcards keeping the postal service busy, it now progressed to letters.

When all this started, it got me to thinking.

When was the last time I wrote a letter?
By hand?
A personal letter, that is.

I struck a blank.

Then I realized the last real, proper letter I’ve written and sent… was to my other half.
Twenty years ago!
That’s just bloody scary.

Now, those letters… I dug them out over the weekend and read them.
They are love letters. Mine, and his, bundled together, with a ribbon around them.
Yup, we actually wrote proper love letters to each other.
He was in the UK, I was in Germany. For three months, we corresponded by postal mail. This was pre-internet, pre everyone having a computer, or mobile phones, or whatever else you could name.
We’d barely progressed beyond carrier pigeons!

So.
What about today?
People correspond by text messages and emails.
Not very enduring for memories, is it?
There is something about seeing your loved one’s handwriting, knowing he or she took the time to put pen to paper and compose their thoughts, hopes, worries so you can read them. And seeing those letters twenty years later… wow. Amazing. I’m glad, very glad indeed, that my dad kept yelling "Write a postcard" the second I picked up the phone.
Do you think the lovers today, who keep texting back and forth, will still have those text messages in twenty years time? I doubt it.

So lets all just realize something.
The letter you write today is more than just a letter to a friend or a loved one. The letter you write today is a memory in the making, a record of your life, a snapshot in time which would otherwise be lost forever.

Get writing those letters, so my postman doesn’t have to knock on the door and hand deliver a letter with the words "You’re the only person on my round who still gets personal letters, hand written and hand addressed. I just wanted to see who they go to."
That’s the really scary part.
The postman noticed!