Shattered

[erastes]

Went to bed early last night and didn’t sleep until about 5am. Not good. Going to bed early tonight and no watching tv on the laptop. Just a nice warm bath, then a read (am reading Tangled Web by Lee Rowan and thoroughly enjoying it) then SLEEP. My trouble is that i’m at my tiredest from about six (e.g. now)pm to 11pm – after 11pm I’m WIDE awake and ready to party until about 5am… They say it’s because of when one was born, but I don’t know if that’s scientific at all. I was born at midnight.

Heavy Rain continues to horrify and enthral. It’s so intense I can only bear to play it for about half an hour at a time. Yesterday, for reasons that are too complicated to explain, I had to make my character cut off part of one of his fingers. This is all done with the controller like the Wii so you use the controller like the knife, bringing it down hard at the appointed time.  I had a choice NOT to cut his finger off, but as I’d failed two of the tasks up to that point, I thought I’d better win one of them. There was much screaming. I mean, you put your character through a lot with games, but usually you are the protagonist, not the victim.  Next time I’ll choose not to cut his finger off and see what changes. There are many different endings, and going by the crappy way I’ve played so far, I don’t see anything positive coming out of it.

Muffled Drum is moving along, hit 8k words today, it seems to be running very smoothly, which is wonderful – nothings run quite this smoothly since Hard & Fast. Goodness. Don’t tell me I’ve got the work-life balance sorted out?

Dad suggests we sell both houses and buy another. Needs thinking about.

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Comments

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

I've got that night-owl rhythm when I'm writing--best working hours are between about 10 pm and 3 am. I was born at night--not as late as you--so maybe there's something to it. When I'm not writing, I can do early to bed and early to rise, but if I'm up past midnight, forget it.

Consolidating your houses makes a lot of sense, especially since fuel prices are only likely to go up. And your cats would give your dad some furry company. But would you wind up where you are, or where he is? That could be... interesting.

Glad you're enjoying the book! And, hey--nice "Finalist" button!

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure yet - we'll see how the daily visits go. I think personally that will be enough for now--I'll start them next week--and I'll arrange for copies of the POA to go the banks and take over joint responsibility for the accounts - it seems to be during the day he can get muddled. Getting a joint house would also solve the problem of residential care (e.g. a care home) if that becomes an issue, normally they'll expect him to sell his house to pay for care, but if I'm living in it, they can't do that - all they can do is put a Charge on the house, and take the costs out when it's sold. Whereas if he's living alone when care becomes necessary, the house will be sold and I'll lose that inheritance. It's a worry. Bah.

The book is an utter delight. I deliberately didn't allow myself to review it for SIN, but believe me, it would have only set me up for "more favouritism" attacks, as it would have got five stars with no effort at all. I'll do a comprehensive review on my LJ, Blog and Amazon when it's done.

I LOVE the subtle way you've emphasised the age difference, - the part where Brendan says "Oh, she's all right, for a girl" really made me cringe (on his behalf) because he so showed his age--and relative immaturity in some things. I also love the cant and slang and appropriate language which is perfectly - PERFECTLY - balanced. This is the book that Heyer SHOULD have written, I loathe her heavy handedness with her slang, but often like her characters, you've pitched it entirely right.

I'm hugely impressed with the horse-knowledge; just a simple term like "turn them out" made me smile, because it's not a term used by anyone else.

It's a shame that RP didn't put it into the Bisexual category, it might have made the cut there, and it damned well deserved to do so much more than Transgressions and that's no false modesty.

Well, you know me - I don't do a lot of flag waving, but I thought that merited a button.

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

With the remarks I've made about the Lammys, I hardly expected them to fall all over my book. And since the official publication date was January 2010, I hadn't expected my book, or Don's, to show up in this year's competition.

I wish you had reviewed it--I was kind of disappointed with the 4 stars, and the reviewer didn't seem to get what I was doing at all. Ah, well, such is life.

I read tons of horse stories as a teenager, and had a couple of excellent 'go-to' peeps for the details. 8-D But actually making a horse do what I want it to...? Would probably be a lot harder!

[taylorbooks.livejournal.com]

You were seriously born at midnight on Halloween? That's got to be unusual.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

heh - yes, the family legend is, according to my mother, that when I was born with bright red hair (like a blooming orang-u-tan) she thought I was a changeling and refused to pick me up.

sadly, I didn't turn out to be one!

[cassiopaya.livejournal.com]

I was born on Traditional Mid-Summer Night's Eve at 11:30-ish and was still-born because the cord was wrapped around my neck. I was blue and strangled, but they but me in an incubator and got me to breath and got my heart started and I bounced back. The nurses refered to me as a Pixie. Fun stuff!

[baritonejeff.livejournal.com]

Well, of course, the matter of consolidating houses would hinge, for me, on whether or not being able to escape to my own, solo, environment were important.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Exactly -neither his house - nor mine, is big enough. Two bedrooms and he has one lounge and a largish conservatory and mine has one combined room downstairs, so neither is ideal. If we could find something with a granny annexe or something, that would be more ideal. I'll just have to start looking around.

[baritonejeff.livejournal.com]

Well, we have this duplex - Mary downstairs, us upstairs, and it works pretty well.

[cassiopaya.livejournal.com]

I think I know how you feel about your character dismembering his finger. I'm trying to write a scene where my main character contemplates ripping his eyes out with his fingers. That's only because I'm currently obsessed with the idea of pulling my own eyeballs out. If I can write it out I can purge myself of the obsession. On one distant ad detached level I'm horrified, but twice now I've woken up in the middle of the night because I was poking my finger against my eyelid. It's like a point of no return. Once you do something like that, you can't go back.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

That's a good idea, actually - I have always had a bit of a finger damage phobia so doing this in the game was very hard - perhaps I should write about it in one of the books and see if it helps.

[cassiopaya.livejournal.com]

::nods:: You really can rid yourself of your demons/obsessions by seriously writing them out as a character. it works for me at least. And it's cheaper than therapy.