It just gets better and better... tape a bow 'Sizzling Shane' Williams :)

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Km2VARzN4DU&feature=user

EDIT: little description for anyone who can't access the video link

Happy St David's Day everyone! I'm up early to get a headstart on the leeks....

Amazon's 'Your Store' can be a bit of a pain - if it's not the scrolling through, ticking 'own that' and 'not interested' boxes, it's the liability to spend, spend, spend. Once in a while however, it turns up something that suits you down to the ground.

I've been working on a story for the last few days (unplanned, the idea came to me on the bus home from work), but I'm a bit concerned about the setting. Originally it was to be set partly during the Great War, but I was afraid of it being too dark, so I switched it to the Second Boer War, and a lighter ending. Here's the problem...

I have written nothing this weekend, but I've some good excuses...

1. really nice weather gave me a chance to launder the pile of bed linen that's built up since the last one - everything's washed and ironed now, so that'll be OK for a few weeks.

I thought I'd try something tonight by way of an experiment. I'm still plugging away at my Edwardian story so I thought I'd programme some appropriate music for the period, so far it's been Parry and Elgar orchestral pieces, with a chunk of Vaughan Williams ('London Symphony','Lark Ascending','Songs of Travel') - I'm not sure it's working as I intended, I seem to be listening more than typing :)

anyone else tried something similar?

Woke up this morning to find I had no control over my left leg, no bigee really as it's happened before, and is generally a bit wonky anyway. What it did mean was a day off work, to read through what I've been writing, and to rifle through my record collection (it really is a record collection, I never said goodbye to vinyl) for songs for Firestorm's repertoire...

As I started to look for background detail for the Edwardian set stories I've planned, I quickly realised I knew next to nothing about huge chunks of the period (as opposed to the forties setting I've used before when I could rely on books, films and personal reminiscences of family who lived through it).

Which are of course - reading, writing and relentless research (I never was much use at 'rithmetic).

I'd cracked on with my household chores all week to leave myself clear to write over the weekend. A story of my mother told me at Christmas gave me an idea for a neat short story plot set in wartime Wales, which I reckoned was going to be about 2000 words - so do-able over two days.

Blwyddyn Newydd Hapus

In my last blog post I was looking forward to a long productive holiday back at home in Wales, with everything I planned to write laid out ahead of me... oh dear.

I've spent the time reading... my childhood favourite Enid Blyton largely, just the school stories though, which has given me an idea for a short homage.

I read a lot of Enid Blyton when I was a child (probably at the tail end of her greatest popularity). I had a bookcase full of the 'Famous Five', 'Secret Seven' and '...of Adventure' series, but my favourites were the school stories. I especially loved Mallory Towers, where all the girls were very grown up, level headed and well turned out (even the beastliest of girls came round in the end).

Has anyone had an element of their fiction make an unexpected connection with real events?

In 'Midnight Angels' Jess paints a white rose on the tail of her aeroplane... officially it would have been red but she is from Yorkshire and a red rose would never do. When it's copied to the other aircraft it makes the squadron very easy to recognise and earns them a nickname.

Well here I am barely an hour after finding this site and sure that I'll commit some dreadful faux pas (if I haven't already).

'Scordatura' was written a few months ago and was the second story I ever completed - though I think there's enough there to expand it... though it's mostly about violins with a few frocks thrown in. It's been posted elsewhere before now, and fairly well received.