Well, filling in a diary obviously isn’t something I’m very good at it would seem, sorry for that.

I’ve been working just about every day for about three weeks now, thanks 3Com, so glad you pulled out of the router business.

Money is still weird, life is still weird, houses are still depressing, loans are still annoying.

I’m still totally failing to keep in touch why any friends. I doubt I’ll have any left at this rate.

Grete is still amazingly wonderful.

Well, earned a little bit of extra cash doing some overtime, and thought I’d buy a new monitor. Went for a Sony Trinitron, they’re always good value.

You can see the £250 17″ monitor here and here.

It still hasn’t really sunk in. Douglas Adams is dead. No matter how many times I use the words, it still doesn’t really sink in.

I can see the closing credits of the TV series, the spaceman floating in space, that dodgy tune, and it brings back memories of being young and still understanding what Douglas was saying. A TV program for ‘grown-ups’ which I understood, which reached out to me, which said, yes the world is absurd, and it doesn’t get any better, but if you laugh hard enough it doesn’t matter as much.

I’m not usually affected by ‘celebrity death’. I don’t really idolise people, or feel like I know people that I haven’t actually met. But I feel like I miss Douglas already.

I found Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency such as soul-touching book. I can’t explain why. I’m not sure I’d want to if I could. But I just felt as though it fit me like an old coat.

In an interview with Stan Nicholls, Douglas said, “A lot of comedy is surprise and defeating expectations, and you’ve first got to create a set of expectations …”

I expected him to live forever. I suppose he had the last laugh.

So, goodbye Douglas.

It’s like 10 years since I wrote anything in the diary. Kind of.

Well, work has been insanely busy, and will be until the end of May, the last Omega event was cool, although it was muddy and we lost our car keys (which wasn’t cheap). Looking forward to the August event.

Life is generally ok, Grete’s really busy with friends and the gym and am-dram 😉

Will write more when the world slows down for ten minutes.

Today, we say goodbye to Portable TV and Video.

They hath served us well.
For 12 years they have delivered images and sounds to amuse and entertain.
For 5 years, they have been part of my life.
For 7 before that, part of Grete’s.
But now, they are no more.

Lying, alone, on the floor
in the kitchen
waiting, to be taken
to the skip.

We will miss you both.

No, really, we will.

And so – my alarm didn’t wake me up until 7:15, which is 45 minutes after it was set for and 45 minutes after I should have got up and 15 minutes after I should have left the house, if I was to catch the bus.

Sorry Grete!

Well, on the day I should be going to bed early, so that I can get up early and get the bus in to work, to give Grete a well deserved break, I’m not tired.

Can’t sleep.

Stressed. Wound up. Whatever you want to call it.

I considered annoying the folk on the GemmellFantasy list with a long rambling post which goes no where, as I have done in the past, but felt they had also earned a break, so here I am, rambling into my diary.

Which I guess is exactly what diaries are for.

Got the pager, which may explain increased tension – I never thought it would result in such light sleeping or weird sleeping patterns, just lying there, waiting for it to go off.

Everyone with any sense in asleep, so there’s no mail or news to read, and I think I’ve read every web page there is worth reading[1]

I think another round of slashdot to see if it makes me sleepy.

[1] ok, probably not true.

Ok, so I’ve tried this writing lark.

It’s not easy.

I think I managed about 1500 words and then ground to a halt. And then I realised that I’d written the end of the book, not the start of it, so had to re-jig, and then I realised that my only scene so far (after the three scene, 1 page prologue) was totally wrong, so I ripped it out for later use and started again.

Hey, but at least I’ve started right? 😉

And then I read some more on-line writing advice, and discovered I’d fallen into every trap mentioned (including the not mentioning the character’s name in the vain hope of instilling some mystery in the character, and instead just annoying the reader).

Still, I quite enjoyed it, and I’m not totally dismayed at the results. It’s pretty rough, but I just wanted to get ideas down. Another 300 attempts at that and I might be moving forwards.

One thing I did find interesting, I wrote quite a bit and then thought that I hadn’t tried playing the scene in my head like a movie, and that’s when I discovered it didn’t work. Should I have done that first? The ‘inspiration’ made me write down stuff, but I hadn’t played it out first.

Another thing I noticed is that I’m not really sure where it’s going yet. David seems to suggest that for him, it’s not something he needs to know early on. But other authors and some people who offer advice suggest it’s essential to know where things are headed.

I’m sort of in limbo, not trusting myself to continue writing in case I’m never going to get anywhere. Should I boldly step onto the road with little idea where it heads, or should I plan my route on a large map before hand.

Only time and lots of practice will tell I guess.

Grocery shopping as a National Sport.

Think of the possibilities.

Things are pretty slow at the moment. Just leaving the heart of Winter, Spring showers and cool breezes to look forward to. February just around the corner, December a distant memory, January fading away slowly.

The house thing is progressing. Having a chat to the bank on Monday with numbers and figures to see about a Buy to Let mortgage. Still not sure it’s the best route, but if it means we can cover the mortgage and move forwards, then it must be good, mustn’t it?

Started doing a bit of writing, not very good, hard to keep the inspiration flowing. Will keep trying more.

Not painting any miniatures in half a lifetime, should do really.

Haven’t made any long rambling posts to the GemmellFantasy mailing list – some probably think that’s a good thing.

Yahoo are trying to annoy me – they’ve now taken over egroups.com, and are doing the same as they did with webring.com – you HAVE to have a Yahoo ID to use the egroups.com website pages. You can currently still post with your old e-mail address, but if you want access to the files or you want to manage your e-group, you need a Yahoo ID. That sucks IMO. I wonder if someone’s started a petition or a complaint website up yet. I’m already in the process of moving lists off egroups.com and onto my own machine. I e-mailed them to complain, we’ll see if they bother replying.

Ah well, onwards, slowly but at least finally we’re moving.