I'm back, with five stars

I'm back! What do you mean, where did I go? At least tell me you realised I was gone. I only realised after I'd left that I'd forgotten to mention it here. Set the auto-responder for my email (and came back to an inbox full of 'undeliverable mail' auto-responses to my own auto-response...) and checked my phone was happy to dial up, but forgot to post to the blog. And while I know it is possible to post remotely, I, er, have no actual idea how to. My only internet connection is via my phone with its slightly fuzzy screen and habit of randomly changing internet settings all by itself.

Anyway. I've spent the last week in Southwold, which is like a seaside town from the 1950s, in the nicest possible way. The occasion was my dad's 60th birthday (he's officially an Old Man now, and since he's so concerened about it we have of course spent the week teasing him mercilessly). We hired a cottage two doors down from the Adnams cellar store, and about five doors down from the Adnams brewery. Consequently, I shall be spending the next several weeks attempting to cleanse my liver.

Anyway, I came back to the first review for my Madam Periwinkle book, Out Of This World, which is about an interdimensional traveller from a world where sex is synthetic, and a Yorkshire werewolf. Of course. Ladybirdrobi of Romance Junkies gave it five ribbons and said:

I loved the idea that sexual energy can power a ship. I loved the drama of how they would communicate with each other. MADAME PERWINKLE”S EROTIC DELIGHTS: OUT OF THIS WORLD is an awesome read. I liked deflowering the mystery of this story. It was totally unique.

Did I mention the five ribbons? It got five ribbons. That's the highest number of ribbons you can get. Just sayin'.

Get hooked on a new series!

Want to win the first book in a Samhain series? Then visit Moira Rogers' site, where she's running a contest for just that purpose. Yes, one of them is I, Spy?, but there are also plenty of books by other brilliant authors. Go have fun!

It's a hard knock life

For Jack, anyway. Look at what this poor kitten has to suffer.


He spent the next evening shredding the back of my hand, since it was tangled in a chenille throw and therefore didn't appear to be attached to Mummy. See how I'm excusing him? He spent this morning sprawled across the paper I was trying to read, kneading my arm with his claws out. Hmm. Perhaps he did know it was me under the throw.

Great excitement this afternoon as I get to go see the specialist about my labyrinthitis. I mean, I actually booked the appointment for yesterday morning, and in a different location, but what the hell, it's easy to take time off when you don't feel well enough to work in the first place, right? Plus, travelling is a breeze with an illness that makes you feel motion-sick when you're standing still. Am half expecting to be told I just have a cold (I do, but I didn't when I booked the appointment a month ago). Should this be the case, expect to hear headlines of Patient Battering Consultant To Death With His Own Anatomical Models.

In other news, I had a dream last night that I was waiting for a train to go to the RNA Winter Party, and spotted Richard Armitage on the platform. I rushed up, told him how much I adore him, and convinced him to come to the party with me. Well, hope springs.

Slow day

Well, slow week, actually. Slow enough for me to procrastinate with a picture of my desk. And an explanation of what's on it. Actually I did this earlier in the week, but it's taken me this long to get around to posting it. Stupid labyrinthitis.


1. My cat calendar. Wanted a Cats Protection one, but couldn't find any (possibly because I didn't start looking until January). In this picture, it's turned to December, because I was looking at dates to try and book tickets for Hamlet with David Tennant and Patrick Stewart. Unfortunately all the other Whovians and Trekkies who are got up earlier in the morning had already booked them. Waah.

2. My music stand. Without any music on it. I keep notes and bits of paper here, occasionally a book if I'm looking something up (the shelves behind it hold my history books and Shakespeare collection, as well as a handful of dictionaries that still often give clearer answers than online translation sites).

3. My kneely chair. I tried a regular desk chair, it mutilated my back, so I'm sticking with this one. Unfortunately it's lost all its padding, so it's covered with a couple of garden chair cushions. Classy.

4. My scythe. Every office should have one.

5. A bumper sticker that says "Destined to become an old lady with lots of cats". See #9 for details.

6. The reason I only have a small computer desk is my amazing capacity for clutter. The smaller the desk, the less crap on it. However, it still holds three pairs of glasses, two mini fluffy cats, a plaque announcing that it's Sophie's Room (technically true), the lyrics to Neil Finn's Driving Me Mad, a dozen or so CDs I've put on my Sony Walkman, my Sony Walkman, a Latin dictionary, a calculator that only works if you don't use the '0' or' .' buttons (and '+' is a bit shaky too), a tape measure, nail file, glasses cloth and about ten hair thingies. And pens. Oh, and a Swedish dictionary. And a pin cushion. Don't ask.

7. My Doctor Who screensaver. See above re #1.

8. The mouse is one my dad got free and therefore the liquid bit has some tiny beer dispensing widget in it (but sadly no beer). The mousemat contains a photo of me and Tinker, back when Tinker was a) alive and b) not ancient. It's fairly old!

9. My picture of Spike, tucked into a picture of Spike. That's the cat in the first instance, and the vampire in the second. Adjacent to that photo, on the side of the bookshelve that's not visible here, is a picture of me with Sugar (also when she was alive. This is perhaps a practice I ought to stop). Above that is a magazine ad for Dunhill Pursuit, because the guy in it looks just like Luke.

10. A ribbon holding some badges I got from the RWA national conference a few years ago. They say: "Writing is cheaper than therapy", "(Socially acceptable schizophrenic) Writer", "Piss me off and I may kill you in my next book", "Write to live, live to write", and my personal favourite, "Don't tell my mom I write romance, she thinks I play piano in a whore house".

What's on your desk?

Names

(okay, the world didn't end. But they're still firing it up)

So, this morning my mum read in the paper that Clarissa Dickson Wright's full name is Clarissa Theresa Philomena Aileen Mary Josephine Agnes Elsie Trilby Louise Esmerelda Dickson Wright, which, quite apart from almost being child abuse, must take her forever to initial clauses and correct cheques. The other week I read that Dido's full name is Dido Florian Cloud de Bounevialle O'Malley Armstrong (at least, being a Christmas Day baby, she was spared the cliche of Noelle). And I recalled reading in Bill Bryson's Mother Tongue about a WWI army major labouring under the almost endless name of (take a deep breath) Leone Sextus Denys Oswolf Fraduati (it gets better) Tollemache-Tollemache-de (still here? keep breathing) Orellana-Plantaganet-Tollemache-Tollemache.

Quite apart from the breathtaking madness of four uses of the same name, I think it's Denys coupled with Fraduati that really gets me. Denys: the guy who sold you your third-hand car. Fraduati: a bohemian artist from Florence.

So, naturally, it got me thinking about character names. My own name, in full, has twenty-one letters and seven syllables (most of which come from my middle name, Elizabeth, without which I've a paltry eleven letters and three common sylables). When I was little, I used to hate being called Kate, very boring and pedestrian, not even Katherine. I preferred Elizabeth. You could be a princess with a name like Elizabeth (I always wanted to be a princess. It was the clothes, you see). There was never a Princess Kate (although give Wills and Kate a few years and we'll see). Now I quite like it, not least because it's easy to spell and people can usually pronounce it correctly.

My characters have to have names that reflect them. Sometimes it happens accidentally, as with Sophie (who was originally called Sally). I gave her the surname Green because I wanted her name to be entirely ordinary (much as Fleming gave James Bond an ordinary name). Later I realised it describes her fledgeling status perfectly. Luke Sharpe, on the other hand, I named purposefully: he's all acute angles and biting wit. He's smart, he's quick, he's a great shot. He is, basically, sharp.

Plus there's a minor pun in his name, or at least there is if you can do a northern accent.

I named Major Harker because I wanted a name that was, again, hard and sharp, but a little less refined, a bit rougher. Harker is a harsh sound, it's unpleasant to say and sounds like it's being barked out--well, he is a military man. He's an officer by virtue of hard work and promotion, not class and commission. His name also has a more literal sense: I ended up cutting a scene in which his 2ic explains that Harker, while never reading memos, always knows what's going on because he has his ear to the ground.

Striker took ages to name. I remember sitting there with my massive thesaurus and a pad of paper, trying to find the right name. I looked up all sort of synonyms for hard, cutting, cruel, harsh--those sorts of names. His love-rival I named Tanner--a warm name, like summer sun or supple leather. Incidentally, I gave them both nicknames or surnames--their real names are Captain Leander Tanner (nearly always addressed by his rank and/or surname; he does Not Like being called Leander) and Ganymedes Lorek (a person Striker stopped being many years ago).

Chance and Dark came, fully-formed, with their names. I can't imagine them being called anything else. Chance is a person who isn't supposed to exist, who's only there in one out of thousands or millions of realities. Dark is someone with a lot of demons inside him. I gave him a proper name, but it didn't seem like it belonged to him.

For me the names have to suit the characters, but also the universe they inhabit. Since I don't write historicals, I don't have to worry so much about accuracy, but even a contemporary character has to have a name that matches their age and social background. You wouldn't have an aging society lady named Chantelle, any more than a modern teenager would be called Doris. For my fantasy characters, I like to have a bit more fun, and sometimes make up names or use obscure ones--although what's obscure to me might be very ordinary to someone else.

Then again, you can have fun with names anywhere. I named Harker's sister-in-law Tallulah Watling-Coburg just because I felt like giving her a silly name (and I felt she could cope with it). Sophie's shadowy associate is called Macbeth, and no one ever finds out his real name (I don't even know it). In The Book That's Still Being Ignored the heroine is called Lolita Muffy, usually shortened to Loli. That was mostly me being silly, but the tone of the book is very light and fun (and it affords the hero, no slouch himself with the name Benedick, plenty of opportunities to playfully tease her).

What are your favourites? Are there names you just can't stand for characters, and why? Do you have favourites? (I keep naming characters Jack and Will, please stop me.)

But the day I in all seriousness call a character Reighnbeaux, feel free to shoot me.

It's the end of the world!

Or might be, if that large hadron thingy goes into effect. When I explained to my mum this morning that it could, just maybe, create a black hole into which we'd all be sucked, she said, "Yes, but what happens to us after that?" And you know, I have no idea. Any astrophysicists out there?

Dr Horrible...again

I finally got the Dr Horrible soundtrack! Thank you, UK iTunes. Well, you know, I'd rather not use iTunes since the formatting is screwy and the sound quality isn't great, but beggars can't be choosers.

All together now: "The day needs my saving expertise!"

What I'd do if I swapped places with Tess

I've been watching Lost in Austen, which for those of you who either don't get ITV or don't get Austen (you're probably male), is about a modern woman who finds herself swapping places with Elizabeth Bennet and getting stuck in the middle of Pride and Prejudice. And it got me thinking. The girl playing Lizzie (who we didn't see much of in the first ep: I'd really like to see how she gets on in modern Hammersmith) is Gemma Arterton, who is also playing Tess of the d'Urbervilles in a new TV adaptation this autumn. So, naturally my brain goes, "What if a modern woman swapped places with Tess? What if I did?"

Oh, the worlds of fun (and not, for once, a rant about Tess The TSTL Doormat). For a start, pious, naive Tess would last about thirty seconds in a modern world. And me? Well, I'd pick the rich, tasty and exciting Alec d'Urberville--a man who makes it clear he wants Tess to be his mistress and showers her family with gifts and money on more than one occasion. He takes care of her financially, and is never less than honest in his intentions (even if the intentions themselves are less than pure). I'd shoot Angel Clare, who is the very worst example of a romantic hero I can think of (marry a girl, confess you had an affair before marriage, then when she confesses the same thing, tell her she's too wicked for you to live with, and bugger off, leaving her penniless and alone? Ooh, baby, come closer....so I can punch you in your smug, hypocritical face).

Which novels would you like to be dropped into? Which ones would you fix? And which ones could you happily ride out to the end, knowing you'd make the same choices as the heroine?

A few of my favourite things

What a photo op! Too good to miss. The book there is my well-read copy of Welcome to Temptation by Jennifer Crusie--I can't count the ways in which I love it.

Daisy and Jack have just had a little trip to the vet, in order to ensure they're the only kittens we have around the house if you know what I mean. While Jack has no stitches and no cone (boys have it so easy) Daisy is looking rather sorry for herself.

And here's a funky sign I picked up in Evolution in Cambridge. It's on the side of the bookshelf next to my computer where I have various other things to inspire and remind me: my Spike poster, a cologne ad with a guy who looks just like I pictured Luke from the Sophie Green books, and a little card that says "To have hope means everything, and to believe makes anything possible."

Am still feeling a bit rotten with labyrinthitis, but at least I have an appointment with a specialist who might be able to at least tell me why I'm still plagued with it. In the meantime, since labs has symptoms not unlike a hangover, I think the only sensible thing to do is get drunk!

RWA Nationals

I know, it only ended about a month ago. But I'm looking forward! Next year the conference is in Washington DC, which aside from being somewhere I'd like to go to, has the definite advantage of being on the east side of America, and therefore a lot easier to get to--both quicker and more direct. I also have a little bit of money coming from both my nannans, which I can at least put towards it. I mean, this is probably all I'll get in the way of an inheritance, so I'd rather not spend it all on a working holiday, but if I can't earn it before then, at least I can afford to go.

Besides, I haven't used my passport in two years. It's starting to gather dust.

However, I've run the figures and it's not pretty. What'd be really nice is to share a room with my old roomie, Amy, but I don't know if she can come (Amy? Can you?). Plus, a room for two is pricey--pricier than a room for four, anyway. Well, at least I have eleven months to find roommates!

If You're Going To Sing, There'd Better Be A Damn Good Reason

I've been watching Once More With Feeling again. And reading my OMWF scriptbook (it was a gift, okay?). And I've been thinking about things I've learned from the works of Joss Whedon. I've got a list, y'know. No, I really have.


Anyway, what I was reading in my scriptbook was that Joss had wanted to do a musical episode for a while, but hadn't wanted to just stick one in gratuitously. He figured a lot of sitcoms had been doing them, and the songs had just been stuck in for entertainment--they hadn't meant much or explained anything or moved the plot along. In OMWF, he moved along the character arc for pretty much every character, and also the story arc for the whole season. In brief:

Going Through The Motions: the opening number. Buffy sings that since she was brought back from the dead, she's felt as if she's "going through the motions, walking through the part" of being the Slayer, and indeed the sister and friend she's always been. She desperately wants to feel alive again.

Under Your Spell: Tara's love song to Willow. The least obvious of the numbers in terms of subtext...well, apart from all the innuendo at the end. But what Tara's singing is that it's Willow, and her magic, that have brought Tara out. "I'm under your spell, how else could it be anyone would notice me?" The only reason she's feeling so happy and in love is because of her magical girlfriend. But we know Willow's been using too much magic, and she and Tara have rowed about it...and Willow has cast a spell on her girlfriend to make her forget the row. Viewed like this, it's kind of bittersweet that Tara's only so happy because of the one thing that's driving her and Willow apart. In the next episode, Tara leaves Willow, who becomes over-reliant on her magic and spirals into self destruction (note to writers: yes, we get it, Willow's on drugs).

I'll Never Tell: a retro pastiche by Anya and Xander, who are getting married soon. The song exposes their doubts about each other, and about their relationship as a whole: "Am I crazy/Am I dreaming?/Am I marrying a demon?". Is Sunnydale's sparkiest couple going to be able to live happily ever after when they're so riddled with doubt? sure enough, later in the season Xander walks out on the wedding.

Rest In Peace: Spike's Billy Idol-type rock song. Tired of Buffy continually coming to tell him all her problems, without ever considering him to be a friend, Spike tells her to give in to her darker urges or just leave him alone. It exposes the conundrum at the heart of Spike: that he's a soulless, murderous Slayer-killer of a vampire, in love with the one woman who poses a serious threat to his unlife ("There's a traitor here beneath my breast, and it hurts me more than you've ever guessed"). He wants her, but deep down he knows that if she ever gives in, it'll be a betrayal of everything she stands for--everything he loves her for.

Standing: Giles watches Buffy training, and knows he'll have to leave her soon, or she'll never be able to stand on her own two feet and face the world. It's a wonderful description of his fatherly love for Buffy ("I wish I could lay your arms down and let you rest at last, wish I could slay your demons, but now that time is past"), but also his increasing realisation that by protecting her, he's just holding her back. This leads to:

Under Your Spell/Standing Reprise: one of the loveliest numbers, and in fact one of the loveliest duets I can think of. Short and very bittersweet, it reprises Giles and Tara's numbers as they both know they'll have to leave. Tara has just discovered that Willow's been ensorcelling her to forget about their fights--which hurts a great deal as Tara's mind has already been messed with recently, by the evil god Glory ("You know I've been through hell; Willow don't you see, there'll be nothing left of me?"). Giles sings, "Believe me, I don't want to go, and it'll grieve me 'cause I love you so." At the end of this number, we know that Giles isn't going to help Buffy any more, and that Tara isn't going to let Willow use her magic much more, and that both of them are going to have to leave while they still can.

Walk Through The Fire: the 'Tonight' quintet (only, er, there are really four parts: Buffy, Spike, Sweet and the rest of the Scoobies taking turns). After Giles refuses to help Buffy when she learns her sister Dawn has been kidnapped, she walks off by herself. Spike offers to help, but Buffy embarrasses him by mentioning his song, and his humiliating crush on her, so he rescinds his offer.

Buffy still can't seem to feel anything, but she knows she still has to save her sister, even if she dies in the process: "To save the day, or maybe melt away: I guess it's all the same." Spike is incensed that Buffy has walked away from him, and vows to kill her...but can't follow through: "I hope she fries, I'm free if that bitch dies...I'd better help her out." Giles is torn: "Will this do a thing to save her? Am I leaving Dawn in danger? Is my Slayer too far gone to care?" They all know the inevitability of coming together to fight: "We'll see it through, it's what we're always here to do," even if they don't want to.

Something To Sing About: Such a world of explanations in one song! To start with, Buffy, still feeling numb, begs, "Don't give me songs—give me something to sing about." The force of Sweet's demon musical spell (don't ask) compels her to spill her biggest secret, one only Spike knows. When her friends resurrected her, they expected they'd rescued her from a hell dimension. But, "I live in hell, 'cause I've been expelled from Heaven," she tells them, and they're appalled. No wonder she's been so nihilistic lately.

Buffy nearly dances herself to death (cf the Red Shoes), but it's Spike who saves her. Yes, Spike, and he'll continue to save her, physically and spiritually, until the series finally ends. "Life's not a song, life isn't bliss, life is just this: it's living."

Where Do We Go From Here: The gang have all revealed things they didn't want to, and now they're all appalled by what their friends and family know about them. "The curtains close on a kiss, God knows, we can tell the end is near." Nobody really knows where to go, except for Spike who gets sick of the whole singing thing and escapes before he does something really embarrassing. But he's too late: Buffy catches up to him, and while she sings, "This isn't real, but I just want to feel," he replies, "I died so many years ago, but you can make me feel," and then...well, then they both make each other feel something, and finally kiss.

But while some fans (like me) were jumping up and down screaming happily, Buffy and Spike weren't quite riding off into the sunset. Because their physical relationship is just about feeling something, killing the numbness, it's hardly healthy. both of them eventually come to realise that their relationship is destroying Buffy, and Spike has even sung, "You're scared, ashamed of what you feel." Because he's a vampire, and soulless, and she can't let herself love him. And because he's a soulless beast, when she ends it Spike can't really let her go, which is where the attempted rape comes in, and...

Okay, now I've veered off into another lesson. We'll call that one I Love You, But... and it can be all about conflict.

The point about OMWF is this: that while it's spectacular and entertaining, it's also very important in the story arc. Take it away, and you've lost a lot of the impetus of season six, and indeed seven. And a lot of the things that five was building to. So...the lesson for writing? Don't put set pieces in to make things more shiny. You'll end up like the Transformers movie, which I watched last night, and I still haven't figured out why the big set piece ending was in a city centre (you're hiding a MacGuffin you know these gigantic destructive robots are after, and you're on the Nevada/Arizona border. You're surrounded by nothing. So what do you do? Take it to the middle of the desert, of which there is a local abundance, or to a heavily populated area where the gigantic robots can destroy buildings and kill people?). The only possible reason is that it's really spectacular in a city. Sand isn't so exciting.


Gratuitous scenes are...well, pointless. Look at all those books leaping on the erotic romance bandwagon. All that sex crammed between the pages...you can take most of it out and the story is unchanged. And that might as well be porn. The sex should alter the relationship, the character development, it shouldn't just be there to titilate. Same goes for the sort of conflict that relies on a Big Mis--can it be solved by a simple explanation? Yes? Then why can't you explain? The reason why...that's your conflict. If there is no reason why, then there's no conflict at all.

See, back on conflict again. Bad Kate. Save it for another day.

Sugar

A year ago today, Sugar was hit by a car and killed. She was eighteen months old. Tonight I drank some seven year old wine in her honour. Well, and also because I like wine. But I do really miss my baby girl. No two cats are the same: I have Spike, who is so incredibly beautiful to look at and a total darling who adores his mummy; Jack who's a handsome little devil, not afraid of anything, ever; and Daisy who's as sweet as she is pretty but terrified of her own shadow. None of them are like Sugar, who was sweet and frivolous and silly and adorable in a way you only can be if you have a name like Sugar.

Miss you, baby girl.

The house in my downstairs loo: £625,000

No, really. A year or two ago I painted a mural in the downstairs loo, at my mother's request, of Port Isaac harbour. This weekend I saw one of the houses depicted thereof on the Houses of the Week page of the Sunday Times Homes section. It's pretty pricey for a two bedroom cottage, but then a) the views are spectacular, and b) it's used in a primetime ITV drama as Doc Martin's house (we go to Port Isaac most years, often in June, and there's usually some film crew wandering about). I'd upload a picture, but I can't find one online and I've absolutely no idea where I filed the one I took when it was finished, and I'm far too lazy to go downstairs and take another one.

No, not quite lazy. This last week I've been suffering with labyrinthitis--again--which has symptoms somewhere between motion sickness and the sort of hangover where you're still quite drunk. To combat this I take a whole cocktail of tablets, which reduce the nausea to disorientation, but leave me rather sleepy. So I'm not terribly productive right now.

Although I did just draw a little sketch of Jack, asleep on the windowsill in the sunshine. Hard to draw a black cat without just crayoning black all over the place. Not sure how well it came out, really, so I shan't be scanning it in to show anybody.

Have been watching some Buffy and reading my Serenity scriptbook, and remembering why Joss Whedon is so clever. Making notes--I could do a damn workshop on it by now--and applying them to improving the Untied Kingdom. Which still needs improving. I'm also using the plot chart I made for Kett's book, and going through scene by scene this time (great fun when you have 115k words, at least 15 of which need to be cut). I've already cut a few scene4s which were just repeats of things I'd already said and done.

Last weekend I got the sewing machine out and made a pink butterfly version of a 1957 Vogue pattern. Still not finished; needs a petticoat to hold the skirts out. Still waiting on the fabrics (ordered from cheapfabrics.co.uk; about a quarter of the price I'd have got at John Lewis). Am thinking of making another dress too, if this one comes out okay.

Oh, and I picked a winner for my contest last week: Janet Worley has won the free download of Out Of This World. For those who didn't win (thanks for entering!), you can still buy it, or read a free sneaky peak (or two) at the Changeling chat loop. Be warned, it's spicy.

Stream of consciousness here. Told you I was a bit floopy this week. I guess it's official now: I'm just a dizzy blonde.

Haven't had a picture of Richard Armitage for a while. Here's one from my Richard Armitage picture file (I also have a James Marsters file, a David Tennant one and a Huge Ackman one).