Old Morris Vans and Brand New Books

Image: Wikimedia.org

Very slow day at the day job yesterday. The morning dragged like an exhaust scraping along behind the back of an old Morris van, so I cheered myself up by booking a table for two this Saturday in a top notch Indian restaurant while daughter is away to Guide camp.

I felt much better after that, and thank you for thinking it.

Workshop
The Advanced Dialogue Workshop at Savvy Authors began. I was checking the forums every quarter of an hour at one point to see if the introductions had started, completely forgetting I’m five hours ahead of the instructor. No worries, though, as it all kicked off mid-afternoon.

There was a lot of stuff to ready through, most of which were refreshers (having done the intermediate dialogue course) but I took it all in and printed off all the tip sheets. Something tells me I’ll be referring to them a lot over the month.

The first exercise is a belter. It’s *very* open to interpretation and the use of specific words has already caused confusion among those who are possibly new to the instructor’s style. Knowing her as I do, though, I know they weren’t the wrong choice of words and were placed there precisely for that reason.

I read over the requirements several times and went to bed thinking; I want to come up with something that’s not just fresh but that’s also going to challenge me. I’ll start writing the assignment today.

Reading
As well as reading my course notes, I read a fair bit from other books today that’s worth mentioning. I finished The Immaculate Heart by Andrew Raymond Drennan. It took me a coupe of weeks to finish because I began it before the book festival and so never got much chance to pick it up. It’s a great book; most enjoyable in the way Drennan characterises Maggie and places her in the family situation she exists. It’s set in Paisley and a lot of memories came flooding back as I read it (the Safeway at the piazza!). I have to admit to not seeing the twist coming as the story built into a quite exciting crescendo. Bravo Mr. Drennan! You might remember I posted a video of him reading his entire novel in one day while standing in Buchanan Street, Glasgow, a few weeks ago?

I bought a new book and began reading it over my lunch: How To Write a Dick by Shaun Kaufman and Colleen Collins. No, it’s not a farce about a gay man and a writer, it’s a book about P.I.’s written by P.I.’s. Also, it shouldn’t be taken as an indication what my next book is about and nor is D.I. Lennox about to become the next Magnum, it’s for idea research and general interest.

I also started reading One Day by David Nicholls. I bought after it was recommended by Ian Rankin at a library event in Edinburgh without realising it had been made into a film or had climbed the best sellers. No wonder, though—I got two chapters in before tiredness took over but it’s a fantastically written book so far. So much happening… so many questions…

Tweets
I, and some of my fellow bloggers at this year’s book festival, received a very nice Tweet from Nick Barley yesterday, the book festival director. It’s always nice to know when your work is appreciated.

iMac
I spent way too much time trying to export my Windows Mail and trying to transfer it over to my Mac. I tried Thunderbird but it misses mail and only captures some folders despite me having exported the lot. The Windows side is a bit of a mess, mind you—no surprise there then—and although I’m still getting used to Mac Mail, if I could continue from where I left off it would be easier in terms of continuity. I’m starting to fall behind my email and things are getting busy.

I did manage to backup my external HDD with all its data so I can now reconfigure it to use as my Mac’s Time Machine, a system that keeps hourly backups of all changes that are made to my system automatically. I’ll never lose data again!

Today
That’s all for today. Later I’ll be working on the Dialogue Workshop, finalising my book festival wrap-up article and podcast, and probably some more work in the house. A busy day lies ahead.

Peace, out!

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