Things and Stuff #24

Things and Stuff is a grab-bag of things that've been on my mind this week. In this edition: tragedy, singings, shadow, Tony, deadline

Thing 1: I just can't.

There's a lot gone on this week. The shooting at Pulse in Orlando, and the huge outpouring of grief and solidarity from LGBTQIA people and straights alike. The death of MP Jo Cox. The enduring arsehattery of Donald Trump. The ridiculous Brexit flotilla and the almost as ridiculous Geldof rebuttal boat. Farage's 'Breaking Point' poster, the one that echoes actual, literal Nazi propaganda.

It is... vexing. I am vexed. That is a dramatic understatement.

I could probably have made a Things and Stuff just about this, but I'm not going to. Because life, when it goes on, continues to go on. 

I will say that I've already posted my vote for the EU Referendum, because I'll be away with choir on Thursday (of which, more below). I've voted Remain, for a variety of reasons, partly having to do with ideological opposition to meaningless nationalism and the demonisation of immigrants, partly because I just don't see what possible practical benefit leaving would have. So there's my political statement for this week.

Thing 2: Many Singings

Communal singing boosts your oxytocin levels, according to some research I heard about once and can't be bothered to google because it sounds legit. I'm glad I'm doing a lot of it at the moment. Tired, but glad.

Singing 1 - Morricone at Blenheim Palace

This is really exciting! Morricone himself will be there conducting, the music is to die for and the setting should be fabulous... even more so if it doesn't pour with rain. 

Singing 2 - Prom 22, The Infant Minstrel and his Peculiar Menagerie

Fun, bizarre, challenging stuff from composer Lera Auerbach. It is definitely peculiar and hopefully should be as much fun to listen to as to sing. Including the bit with the Donald Trump reference. Yes, really... sort of. 

pretty (c) CEFC/John Bradfield

Singing 3 - Reflections

A mixed concert of lovely stuff in St James' Picadilly. Including Eric Whitacre's Water Night, Stanford's The Blue Bird, and Man In The Mirror. Yes, that one.

Thing 3: shadow cat
This is Midnight. He is a black hole masquerading as a cat. This is the first time he's been seen using the kitty seat for sitting in. It's very exciting. He may actually be learning how to cat.

Also pictured, his sister's white back paw and not any of the rest of her because again, black hole cat. (c) me

Thing 4: Tony, Tony

Hamilton won 11 Tony Awards, and the opening number was amazing, and... well, it gave me some not entirely pleasant feelings about the actual achievability of the dream of performing and then some feelings that I probably ought to put those feelings aside and enjoy the **magic of broadway** because it really was very awesome, and then I went away and wrote half a scene from the drag queen book I'm not supposed to be writing because I am the worst. (One of them loves musicals. A LOT. I'm definitely going to need to brush up on my song quote copyright law before I actually write this book.)

Also, this pair of speeches. Good god, Lin-Manuel, you precious angel cupcake, what is your face.

You call Tommy Kail and you say what's next? (c) Tony Awards

Now fill the world with music, love and oh god nope I can't even type this without tearing up (c) Tony Awards

Thing 5: Weekend Warrior

One more dawn. One more day. One deadline more. (For the moment.)

Gif possibly may not be accurate come Sunday night but hopefully (c) Friends

Things and Stuff #22

Things and Stuff is a grab-bag of things that've been on my mind this week. In this edition: comics, Wembley, Eden, pods, eyeballs

This is going to be a fairly quick one.

Thing 1: Rat Planet

I finally read two awesome comics I've been meaning to get to for ages - Rat Queens and Bitch Planet. They are both great. Rat Queens is funny, filthy, bloody fantasy about a gang of rowdy adventurers battling trolls and trying to find out who framed them. Bitch Planet is a sci-fi dystopia about the prison planet where women are sent when they commit 'crimes' that are non-compliant with the ruling patriarchy. Both of them are NSFW and feminist and diverse. Bitch Planet particularly made me fall off my chair with horrified glee. It's not subtle, but that's kind of its charm. It takes real world sexism that we're all deeply familiar with, dials it up to 100 and throws a giant lampshade on it.

One of the more SFW bits (c) Image Comics and Kelly Sue DeConnick

It is the horrifying patriarchal dystopia of my heart. If you only read one horrifying patriarchal dystopia this year, make it this one.

Thing 2: Hello Wembley, goodbye Birmingham
I've done my Hans Zimmer gigs. They were freaking amazing.

Until they take the videos down (and they seem to be far more tolerant this time than last time actually), you can see quite a bit of it by plugging 'Hans Zimmer Live' into Youtube or Instagram. I particularly recommend Interstellar and the Lion King! I didn't know the Interstellar music at all before we started rehearsing for this and now wow, that ending, I, wow.

Anyway, here is our sort of signature moment, a Crimson Tide medley that turns into the fiendishly hard and a+ perfectly named 160 BPM from Angels and Demons.

Sadly, my last Zimmer Live gig was the one in Birmingham on Tuesday. Happily, I'm going to have plenty more fun weird choir stuff for these posts in the next few months.

Speaking of which...

Thing 3: Rowing in Eden
The next actual CEFC concert with the full 100-strong choir which we've been working up to for months and months is finally here! It's on Monday the 18th in the Barbican Centre at 7:30pm.

Also, bloody hell, look at this stunning thing, I kind of want this image framed to hang on my wall (c) CEFC

If you are in London, you should come. We're doing Poulenc's Gloria, which is fun and weirdly cheeky for a piece of classical music (one movement was inspired by monks playing football...), Vaughan Williams' Serenade to Music which is gorgeous, and John Adams' Harmonium which is utterly amazing and strange and knocks 160 BPM into next week in terms of heart-pounding difficulty.

Thing 4: Bangity Bang, Hello to Jason Isaacs, Shut Up Phone, It's Just Us Here, What's Next?
I love the Cornell Collective.

Actually, I love podcasts in general. I have a real podcast problem: when I subscribe to a new podcast I like to listen to all of it. When it's something like the Nerdist, which seems to put out an episode every day and stretches back into the depths of history (like, 2010) this is a real problem. I've been working my way through the back-catalogue of the Pharos Project (Doctor Who and dirty jokes), What's The T with Ru Paul (drag, life and dirty jokes) and The Indoor Kids (video games and... wow lots of these podcasts are really filthy). Plus I'm obviously keeping up to date with the vital ones, your Wittertainments and Empire Movie Podcasts and Adam Buxtons and Answer Me Thises and West Wing Weeklys (Josh Malina and Hrishikesh Hirway rewatch and review the West Wing one episode at a time. No massively dirty jokes yet, but they're only on episode four, there's still time.)

The only drawback to my massive podcast habit is a) that there are so many more I will probably never get to (Song Exploder, The Black Tapes, even Serial, they're on the list, I just haven't had the chance), and b) that if I hear another advert for Squarespace I think I might rip my own ears off and feed them to the nearest podcaster. (Not that I am not very grateful to all the advertisers for providing me with more free quality entertainment than I could ever possibly cram into my brain, but... seriously.)

ANYWAY - this was meant to be a fairly simple rec entry, so let's just say one of the good things about the Cornell Collective, Paul Cornell's wonderful geeky creator podcast is that it's monthly and has been going for less than a year so it's possible to catch up. Also, it's wonderful! And geeky! And stars creators from the worlds of TV, film and comics, talking about geeky things and usually some Doctor Who! If you like these things, you should listen to it.

Here you go: http://cornellcollective.geekplanetonline.com/podcast/the-cornell-collective-01/

Thing 5: [Eyeball squick warning]

Jessie tore her cornea last weekend. It was awful. She's much better now, and I know where my local A+E is and how to get there, so that's a tiny silver lining. Just a word of advice, for anyone who is thinking of getting hit in the face with a tree branch and tearing their cornea: don't.

Things and Stuff #21

Things and Stuff is a grab-bag of things that've been on my mind this week. In this edition: things, people, hair, Zimmer, Bologna. 

Thing 1: 100 things
Last week was Things and Stuff #20. Here are the first hundred Things!

1: a painless edit (it was The Last Apprentice 3: The Painted War!)
2: Iron Man 3
3: this blog
4: Alexandra Palace's lottery funding
5: ironic Blogger spellcheck issues
6: The World's End trailer
7: Liz Lemon
8: trying to move house
9: Clara's role in Doctor Who
10: Empire (the magazine)'s Cannes Videblogisodes
11: prop-making for Empire (the LARP)
12: Karen Ball's Guardian sewing blog
13: Skulk edits
14: martial arts and fatness
15: The Name of the Doctor
16: what makes a bestseller
17: CEFC on The One Show
18: The Iron Price nailvarnish
19: gay girls in Gunnerkrigg Court
20: Crystal Palace get into the Premier League
21: Malorie Blackman, Children's Laureate
22: the Red Wedding
23: CEFC Coronation concert
24: bad blogging
25: kids' toy-based TV
26: exposition
27: Once
28: spooky dreams
29: prop-making for Odyssey (badly)
30: a picture of a fox
31: a skulk
32: a rabble
33: a conspiracy
34: a horde
35: a cluster
36: no editing
37: Much Ado About Joss Whedon's Garden
38: Cleolinda's Hannibal recaps
39: penthouses
40: Skulk artwork secrets (it was the logo!)

Thing #40 (c) me, technically, because Strange Chemistry very kindly let me have the rights to use the Skulk and Rabble artwork when they went under. <3 

41: Final Fantasy VII
42: Beren and Luthien
43: rereading 2013's Nano novel
44: Elle me Dit
45: too hot
46: The Drowned Man
47: alcohol
48: ARCs
49: moving out of London
50: Welcome to Night Vale
51: Skulk blog tour
52: Game of Thrones soundtracks
53: quoth the raven
54: Netgalley recommended Skulk and called Meg 'superb'!
55: JL8
56: more Skulk blog tour
57: lost my voice
58: Skulk reviews
59: the Great British Bake Off
60: my copies of Skulk failing to be delivered
61: fetching my copies of Skulk from the delivery place
62: Skulk launch party
63: geek wedding
64: more Skulk blog tour
65: Meryl Streep in a tree
66: finally moving house
67: the first draft of Rabble
68: very bad blogging
69: KITTENS

Thing #69 aka Midnight (c) me

70: graffiti herons
71: the end of Strange Chemistry
72: Disney songs in their native languages
73: Wimbledon and the World Cup
74: Victorian research (aka Hetero Interlude)
75: my cats are really cute
76: Colditz tabletop
77: secret writing clues
77: Carmen
79: writing-spot reviews
80: Spotify
81: a secret (I can exclusively reveal this was A BOOK COVER! Cannot reveal what book it was, though.)
82: CEFC Rachmaninov Vespers
83: Hannibal
84: researching a villain
85: Morning Pages
86: Undiscovered Voices 2016 opens
87: Sense8
88: 50 Shades of Flashheart
89: Pride
90: TOO HOT
91: Only Ever Yours
92: reading
93: glassblowing
94: everything is flammable
95: MsTabularasa's Shut Up And Dance vid
96: more secrets, more clues
97: Instagram
98: Bury Your Gays
99: UV2016 launches

100: Sanjay's Super Hero Squad

Thing 2: The People I Meet On The Way To Work
Apropos of absolutely nothing except that I noticed there were a lot of them, I made a photo album of some of the names I encounter when I walk to the WP office from the station. 

Thing 3: NEW HAIR
It's actually not this colour any more - after a couple of washes the light purple has faded into a lovely kind of pastel blue colour. I love it so much. I need to win the lottery and/or strike a deep vein of book royalties so I can change it even more often. Cosmic karma make that happen for me please. Cheers.

This is the second selfie I've taken and put on here, this is very strange to me, I normally don't go in for selfies very much but like how could I not show this off? It's PURPLE (c) me

Thing 4: Hans Zimmer Live
I'm going on tour with Hans Zimmer next week, nbd.

Lol jk it is a huge deal. 

I am in this video! Back row second sop from the left. You can't really miss me because there are only 24 people in the choir. That's NOT VERY MANY FYI. (c) Hans Zimmer Live

I'm so excited. Some of my favourite music ever from some of my favourite movies, some of my favourite people (Hans, it turns out, is a really nice dude) and based on the gigs we did in Hammersmith Apollo a couple of years ago, some of the most fun/and challenging performing experiences I've ever had. There is a click track. There is strobe lighting. There are hundreds of bars of 7/8, a couple of top D sharps, chord progressions to make you lie down on the ground and weep with joy. And it's all the sweeter given that for a while I thought I wasn't going to be able to do these ones. That's how it goes, sometimes - but I am beyond chuffed that in fact, in this instance, this is how it's going instead.

The tour is epic and Europe-spanning and I'm doing two of the dates, with a tiny number of other Crouch End Festival Chorus singers - Wembley Arena (eee) on the 6th of April and Birmingham Barclaycard Arena on the 12th. If you are there, you will see me! I'll be the one in the middle of the sops with the violet hair trying not to weep.

Thing 5: #BCBF16
The Bologna Children's Book Fair is next week! Here's hoping that all of the publishers, rights people, agents etc survive all their meetings, sell all their books, drink a silly amount of Prosecco.

Things and Stuff #20

Things and Stuff is a grab-bag of things that've been on my mind this week. In this edition: secrets, Instagram, endings, UV16, Pixar

Thing 1: [redacted]
I am a woman of many secrets at the moment.

I have been sent a thing to read. I have been sent things to watch. I have been told about a thing I might get to sing. I have written things and sent them off to be read and/or sold.

Once again, I find myself either explicitly forbidden to talk about the things or uncertain about whether it's politic to talk about the things, so let's play another round of Rosie's Cryptic Clues! (And... no, I still can't do the reveal on any of the previous clues, so don't ask.)

In no particular order (ie not the order I listed them above, ooh I'm sneaky):

 

Aliens (C) James Cameron, angels (c) William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905), meme (c) The Internet, lights (c) the Internet

Thing 2: I hadn't actually logged on to Instagram in about three years
But now I have! I am rosiejbest over there and am using If This Then That (which is mostly working) to repost pics to Twitter and Facebook so now you can enjoy pictures of my cats in triplicate all over your internet. You are welcome.

And also the odd - very odd - selfie (c) me

Thing 3: these two articles about lesbian and bisexual women on television
Warning: this one is a little depressing, especially if you are LGBTQ and you like television. It's also inherently spoilery, so don't click if you're averse to hearing about character death. Lots and lots of character death.

In response to yet another dead lesbian on TV recently, Autostraddle compiled these two lists: 29 TV lesbians who got happy endings and 143 TV lesbians who were killed off.

I was talking to a straight friend who was thinking about writing a lesbian romance just the other month. She asked me for advice. My one and only piece of serious advice: please, whatever you do, don't kill off your lesbians. She seemed surprised that this was a Thing. So let me just put this out there for anyone else who may have missed this: Bury Your Gays IS A THING.

By the current Autostraddle reckoning (though they keep updating it, both numbers have been going up) I'm going to need about a hundred more happy endings before I'll accept another death without major side-eye.

Get on that, TV writers.

Thing 4: Undiscovered Voices 2016
Another SCBWI Undiscovered Voices anthology has just been released, hopefully launching the careers of another twelve writers and nine illustrators! I know we have agent news from at least four of the writers, and the winning illustrations were featured on the Guardian website.

Congratulations to all the winners, all the longlisters, and all the organisers - it was another brilliant year for undiscovered talent, here's hoping that you all get discovered very soon if you haven't been already! I know there are several of these books I am dying to read.

You can read the anthology here, and get your fix of news from the #UV2016 hashtag on Twitter!

Thing 5: this Pixar short made me cry, twice

Things and Stuff #19

Things and Stuff is a grab-bag of things that've been on my mind this week. In this edition: utter loathing, a silver lining, and three random nice things

Thing 1: I hated Only Ever Yours, and here is why

[Trigger warning, and spoiler for what I'm about to say: fictional sexual and emotional abuse, but mostly self-image problems and fatshaming, so much fatshaming I can barely breathe, so much I swear it has given me an actual crick in my neck from spending so much time recently feeling furious and upset.]

Only Ever Yours is The Handmaid's Tale for teenagers, so you know it's going to be pretty grim. And it is: this is a universe in which terrible, terrible things are completely normal. This is a universe where girls are groomed literally their entire lives to be perfect, submissive, blank slates. When they turn 16 they will become either wives who are killed at 30, or sex slaves who last less long than that, or sexless teachers who impose these same things on younger girls until they drop dead...

And the absolute worst thing the main character or anyone else in this world can imagine happening to them is to end up looking like me.

KILL IT WITH FIRE (c) Louise O'Neill. This is presented out of context by necessity, but also I think reading it out of context may be the closest you can get to experiencing it the way I did...

I understand that the book is meant to be condemning this attitude, making it so extreme as to be ridiculous, mirroring the thoughts of an anorexic person onto an entire culture to show how absurd the whole thing is. I understand that it's a dystopia and in that context of course the main character would feel like that. I understand.

But excuse me if I don't care. Excuse me if I can't quite focus on the worldbuilding while reading the point of view of a character who believes I am so disgusting I do not deserve to live.

This is not theoretical. When it's as constant as this, it just stops being about the context. I don't care what the author was trying to do. What she actually did was write phrases like 'nobody will ever love a fat girl' over and over and over again. What she did was have her main character be so obsessed with her weight that she does herself an injury, and violently humiliate girls who put on a few pounds (leaving me wondering what the hell these people would do if they saw me - quite possibly have a heart attack and die, which would be fine by me). 

You are god damn right I'm taking this personally. 

I think the real problem is that when it comes to this aspect of the book, this is not some wild dystopian fantasy she's presenting here. This is what people really think.

If you are not fat, you might not know this, or might not care. But this is exactly what people think about people like me. And it's not just airbrushed supermodels in all the magazines and hateful scum on the internet: in a Yougov survey I took recently, about 70% of respondents agreed that people like me should be refused medical care until they lost weight.

Refused. Medical. Care.

I respect people, especially other fat people, who can read this book and simply see its obsession with how disgusting we are as a cautionary tale of where society could go. I totally respect people who can be disturbed by the book as a whole, and tut, and say how awful, we should feel sympathy for these girls because they are victims.

I am not that person. I hated this book and I hated all the characters, and it was a reaction of pure self-preservation, because they hated me first. If I had bought it in paperback instead of ebook I would probably burn it, not because it was a bad book that nobody should ever read, but because I feel the need to exorcise it from my life.

(I really didn't need the abrupt and shallow gay panic section either - yet another example of 'oooooh look at my fancy subtext' without anything to back it up - or the utter lack of any redeeming features in any of the female characters who we actually get to spend any time with, that is until the one good boy comes along and shows the painfully stupid main character the error of her bitchy ways. To be honest, the nihilism of it all struck me as profoundly unfeminist in places. But y'know, mostly the fat thing.)

Thing 2: the silver lining

I've read more in the couple of weeks since I finished Only Ever Yours than I have in ages. I don't know if it's because my day job and my sideline both involve so much written fiction, or what, but reading for pleasure had started to feel a bit of a chore. But in the last week I devoured The Ocean At The End Of The Lane by Neil Gaiman, which I adored and which made me cry in the good way, and I'm a good chunk into Wake by Anna Hope, which is also really great so far. I think that Only Ever Yours has reset the bar for books I read so incredibly low that I'm finding a whole new joy in it now.

Thing 3, 4 and 5: three things to cheer me up after I've made myself tense and sad writing about this

I had some really good related news last week and also this video is really pretty and soothing (c) Bandana Glassworks

Good advice, Mister J (c) via alias-milamber on Tumblr, I don't know who made the image but the cosplayer is Anthony Misiano

Pure joy (c) Walk The Moon, too many movies to list and MsTabularasa on Youtube

Things and Stuff #18

Things and Stuff is a grab-bag of things that've been on my mind this week. In this edition: UV2016, Sense8, Flashheart, Pride, Weather

Thing 1: Get discovered!

Submissions for Undiscovered Voices 2016 are officially open, and you should submit something! (If you are an unagented, unpublished writer or illustrator of children's books.) As a winner and now organising helper, I honestly can't recommend it enough. Also, do yourself a favour and go and read the guest blogs on the UV website - the wisdom there is better than anything I can do here right now.

Thing 2: It's a bit gr8

Listen, if you hate foreigners, LGBT people, TV with a more interesting cast than it has mythology, or joy, then Sense8 is not going to be for you. 

Literally everybody else needs to give this series a chance. It's about eight people who suddenly start being able to slip into each others' lives even though they're all living thousands of miles away from each other. The how and the why of it genuinely doesn't matter. 

Although this relatively non-spoilery clip demonstrates nicely how it works visually and emotionally and is well worth a watch.

What matters is that each one of these characters is a beautiful perfect cupcake of a human being - they mess up, they make mistakes, they spend rather too much screentime staring into the middle distance looking melancholy, Riley, but on the whole their little faces are perfect and watching them interact is an intensely joyful experience. 

The other day, I was bemoaning having to read a book featuring not one character I actually liked and wishing for something entertaining where good people did good things. My prayers were answered. The Wachowskis know us. They know how we like our relationships, our action sequences, our sex scenes (of which there are quite a few, and they're almost all queer, and it's amazing, because I'm not sure if I mentioned but this is one of the most stunningly queer shows I've ever seen. I put off finishing Orange is the New Black for this, I'm even not kidding. Some shows do this delicate little flirty dance around queer characters and relationships like ooh, don't you like my fancy subtext, isn't it pretty, and then run a mile when they see actual queers taking them at their unspoken word. Sense8 comes along and stomps all over that shit with big rainbow boots on and it's wonderful). 

PRECIOUS LESBIAN BABIES AND ONE OF THEM IS TRANS AND THE OTHER ONE IS FREEMA AGYEMAN WITH A GIANT HAMMER (C) LAURAHOLLIS ON TUMBLR

I think that some people don't like it because they are bothered by the fact that it is very consciously diverse and its message of universal human experience is a little heavy handed. Those people are wrong and can sod off. I think some other people may not like it because they think it's slow or because the mythology tastes of Lost and Heroes, in that there's not much of it and it's likely that if explanations do come they will be incomplete or unsatisfying. Those people are probably right, and can also sod off. 

Thing 3: Laters, Bladder

A late entry that I spotted this morning, the tumblr 50shadesofFlashheart is perfect. Enjoy. 

Genuine Grey quotes, genuine Rik Mayall faces (c) 50shadesofFlashheart 

Thing 4: Pride

Pride happened. I didn't go to any marches. I was proud in my own way, which mostly involved sitting at home playing Skyrim (of which probably more another week). 

I was happy for the people who went to the big marches and had a great time, and I was moved by people who marched in other countries where there's less corporate sponsorship and more rubber bullets. I was really happy for Americans, who can now marry in all 50 states, and I was really happy for people in Mozambique, where homosexuality was legalized in June. 

My point is... I can believe that marriage equality in the USA is important for cultural awareness reasons, and because actual American queers wanted it, and still acknowledge that marriage is not the only thing we need to be fighting for, that this Onion article is basically bang on. And I can think that Pride as an event sounds pretty tiring and believe that there's all sorts of internalised rubbish and corporate bullshit going on, and still be proud. 

And anyone who wants to suggest that either thing precludes the other is welcome to fight me. 

Pride (c) Pride (Pathe/BBC Films technically)

Thing 5: A guide to the operation of your Rosie unit in warm weather

Brr, it's a bit chilly outside
All systems online, ready player one, receiving loud and clear

Average temperature
Systems running

What a lovely day!
Most systems running normally, stress alert activated, please monitor your unit carefully and back up any important files

Woo, summer is here! I wish I was at the beach today!
WARNING, WARNING, DO NOT ACTIVATE, TODDLER-STYLE MELTDOWN IMMINENT. Restrict access to other units. Verbal instructions will not be saved into memory. Do not allow unit to use public transport. Under no circumstances allow unit to attempt shopping. Rage venting systems online, stand well back. Public property destruction mode in 3, 2, 1...

Heatwave
error no rosie detected please reboot

Things and Stuff #17

Secrets, Vespers, Vids, Villains, Pages


Thing 1: A Thing
I saw a thing. I'm absolutely not allowed to talk about it.

Having secrets is kinda fun actually.

My face when I got that one email (c) Cybill/the internet

Thing 2: Beautiful music in beautiful places
The next CEFC concerts are coming up really quite soon, like much sooner than I realised, and I need to knuckle down and practice my ppp top Es and my Old Slavonic Russian Ls (unfortunately, I think I biologically cannot do the Ls the way they're meant to be done, but maybe I can learn to fudge it...)

Gorgeous poster (c) CEFC

We're doing Rachmaninov's Vespers and some other gorgeous a capella pieces in two concerts in July - Friday the 10th in Southwark Cathedral and Saturday the 18th in St John's College Chapel, Cambridge. It's amazing music and it's going to be wonderful - potentially dodgy Russian Ls notwithstanding.

Thing 3: The Return of the Fancy Cannibal
This won't be news to anyone who follows me on any social media, but for anyone who missed it: a long time ago back in the mists of time (Things and Stuff #8 to be exact), I recommended the marvellous Cleolinda's wonderful Hannibal recaps. I stand by that rec, especially for people who don't think the show itself would be for them, but now I have a follow up rec, and it is this:

Watch Hannibal.

Restless Hugh Dancy gif and amazing comment both (c) NBC's Hannibal Tumblr account which is a work of genius all by itself

I was only reading the recaps back then, but then Cleo had to take a break from recapping and I needed to know what happened next, so I started watching.

This show is my jam, you guys. It's just come back for its third season and stuff is happening and people are dead and people are not dead and the fandom is already making plushie versions of people's horrifying visions and the queerbaiting continues to be beautiful, frustrating and hilarious in pretty much equal measure, and it's all so great I swear if you haven't given it a chance yet, you need to. (I also still recommend Cleolinda's recaps, Storify posts and entire twitter feed basically as a way to help you process all of the amazing stuff you are about to witness.)

Like this beautiful nonsense (c) NBC

I have no looming book deadline so I might be spending a chunk of this weekend making Hannibal fanvids because that is how much I mean this squee. A Lot, is how much.

Thing 4: Researching the research
I've come to the point in my current work-in-progress book where the hero needs to encounter the villain for the first time. Unfortunately, even though I have most of a plot in mind, my villain is distinctly vague. I know all sorts of things about him already - it's just his motivation and methods that are still a little fuzzy. Hmm.

So I've spent this week doing a lot of Googling around the setting and themes of the book trying to research some of the directions I could go off in looking for a really good evil motive. It's exciting, because at the moment it could be almost anything, but intimidating for the exact same reason.

Thing 5: Morning Pages
Morning pages is this exercise from The Artist's Way, which is a whole big hippy scheme of how to improve your life and creativity which you have to buy the book or videos to actually access in full - I haven't ever done that, I could, but I'm pretty sure it would be a form of procrastination for me, and I'm not sure how much of the hippy crystals stuff I would be able to stomach anyway.

But I saw morning pages recommended on a blog a couple of weeks ago and I thought I'd try it out. Basically, every morning before you do anything else (at least, before you do any work) you write three longhand pages of whatever rubbish passes through your head. As mundane or silly or angsty as you like.

Basically like this (c) Eddie Izzard

It's supposed to help you sort your thoughts out and get down all the little things that are hanging out in your head so that they're codified and not so scary when you've finished. And it does kind of work, sort of. I haven't had any huge revelations of my inner self or fantastic flights of imagination - but I have also definitely had a few better days because I've written down what I expect to have to deal with that day and how I feel about it.

So yeah, I recommend it as a thing to try. You might not like it. But you might.

Things and Stuff #15

Post-Chem, music, sportsball, research, [insert fifth thing here]

Thing 1: a post-Strange-Chemistry life
Strange Chemistry closed down two weeks ago today. I've been busy - finishing one story, restarting another, rehearsing for the Proms and recording at Abbey Road, trying to persuade my cats that they want to be stroked (they don't), attending Transpose, watching Orange is the New Black and Agents of SHIELD, reading The P45 Diaries (so far I'm unconvinced but it's for Book Club). Plus, working on some very exciting stories for WP. Just... getting on with things.

Out-of-context Batman cancan gif, surprisingly apt actually (C) the internet

I have started to make some tentative Plans about what will happen to Rabble, but nothing I can elaborate on yet. Watch this space! As @maggiemassacre pointed out to me on Twitter, Amazon US changed Rabble's listing, not to delete it altogether, but to reschedule it for 2035. I can promise you right here and now, Rabble will appear in some kind of readable form before 2035...

Thing 2: this 8tracks playlist
Songs from animated movies, sung in the language from the country where the story is set. Can You Feel The Love Tonight in an African language and (I can't remember which - 8tracks hides the track list until you've listened to it, which is sort of cool but right now mostly annoying) is a highlight. Under The Sea in Danish - but still in a Caribbean accent - is surreal but also fairly awesome.

Thing 3: Sportsball!
I am unusually invested in how well the sports people sports their sports - mostly down to the office sweepstake we have going in aid of Teenage Cancer Trust. But it might all be over by the end of the day! I am rooting for Columbia to deliver an upset against Brazil this evening. Similarly, my Wimbledon sweepstake tennis player Federer is about to step onto Centre Court right now. Come on, sports people! Sports the ball! Sports it really well!

Unfortunately I won't get to see either sportsball meeting, I will be at choir attempting to get my head around some tricky Russian accidentals (c) Psych/the internet

Thing 4: I lost my keys and found my inspiration
This actually happened a month or two ago, only days after handing in the second draft of Rabble, but I suddenly remembered about it today. I was searching inside the sofa for my lost keys when I unearthed the notebook in which I started collecting my research for my next book, which I was doing when Skulk sold to Strange Chemistry and my writing focus abruptly swung back around to foxes and magic stones.

Here is an exclusive, quasi-representative glimpse of the kind of thing you can expect from this book:

Hetero interlude (c) me from Porter, James and Mayhew.

Thing 5: my cats are really cute

I mean, I'm just saying. 

Why yes, I did run out of Things (c) me

Things and Stuff #14

House, Rabble, what?, kittens, herons

Thing 1: Moving, just keep moving

I moved house two days before Christmas. This was definitely better than moving two days after Christmas would have been, but quite stressful and weird all the same.

My house is awesome. It has stairs. And a fireplace. That you can put fire in. And working wifi, and doors, and a dishwasher which has changed my life pretty much beyond recognition, and a garden although not really plants yet, and a shed, and a table you can actually sit at, and nowhere near enough bookshelves. It's pretty wonderful.

Thing 2: The Rabble first draft is in!
It was hard work and there is a lot more hard work to come, but it is done and I have done it. I have been celebrating by finally tidying my living room and spending a lot more time on Twitter.

Oh, and showing off the beautiful cover. (C) Strange Chemistry 

And just doing this whenever I look at it or anyone mentions it or I remember that it exists (C) Disney

Thing 3: Wait, are we just pretending you haven't vanished from the blogosphere for like six months?

Sorry, did you say something? You'll have to speak up, I can't hear you over the sound of me pretending I didn't vanish from the blogosphere. 

Thing 4: KITTENS!

We adopted a very beautiful, very timid pair of kittens, Misty and Midnight, from the local RSPCA. They are getting bigger and less timid every day and it's a joy to watch.

Misty (top) and Midnight (bottom) being beautiful (C) me

I wrote most of Rabble sitting in their room and getting distracted by their wonderousness so if at any point the first draft suddenly says something like:

'But we have to get the Cluster stone because OMG Midnight you are the cutest look at you licking your sister,' I said, and spontaneously turned into a butterfly from sheer joy.

that will be why.

Thing 5: A siege (or 'sedge' but Rule of Cool means I'm going with 'siege') of graffiti herons
Spotted along my bus route to the station over the last couple of months. There are at least five of these, most of which I haven't got pictures of, because moving bus + photo tends to come out like this:

Yeah, no. There is a graffiti heron in this picture I promise. (C) me

But I did manage to grab a picture of this one:

Awesomeness (C) me/the graffiti artist

And my favourite:

EXTREME awesomeness (C) me/the graffiti artist

Things and Stuff #13

Things and Stuff is a grab-bag of things that've been on my mind this week. In this edition: BOOKS, partay, wedding, blogs, witch.

Thing 1: my copies of Skulk arrived!
In fact, they failed to arrive so I had to go to the depot to pick them up and get mildly lost in Acton and wear a high-vis jacket and walk down a special customers-only path and search through a big pile of boxes looking for the right one but then I found it and it had Grantham Book Service on the side and I got it home and opened it up and omg.

It's a real book with real pages and my real name on the really shiny cover and a really minor typo that J found almost instantly and I'M REALLY HAPPY ABOUT IT (C) me

Thing 2: be there or be somewhere else
The Skulk Launch Party is officially on for October the 12th at 5pm in the Big Green Bookshop. Facebook event with RSVP function here: https://www.facebook.com/events/552926601463023/?notif_t=plan_user_joined

Thing 3: wedding!
Last weekend I went to Edinburgh for a really fabulous wedding. Geeks I love and don't see enough of were everywhere, the registrar said she'd never seen anyone impersonate a zombie during a reading before, I cried all the way through the ceremony, there was a very adorable baby at our table, a tiny Indian woman in a brightly-coloured sari danced a ceilidh with an incredibly tall Scottish man in a kilt and stompy boots, Jessie literally danced all the way through her tights, and two of the best people ever joined together in legal matrimony. It was fantastic.

Thing 4: the blog story so far
I've worried about making London seem too touristy, listed awesome fictional foxes and gone off on a tiny tangent about Nazis, revealed Meg's favourite music video and comfort movie, linked to a video of me singing on the day I got the Skulk offer, revealed my own comfort movie and admitted to a weird impulse related to romance novels, come out as a terrible procrastinator, waffled about identity and diversity and code switching, referenced Neverwhere for like the eighth time and Hellblazer for the first time, and admitted that getting spiders to emote is really tricky.

Thing 5: this picture of Meryl Streep in a tree

I'm not good, I'm not nice, I'm just right. (C) Sondheim/Lapine/Entertainment Weekly

Awesome.

I've been all excited about the Sondheim musical Into the Woods getting made into a movie, especially when the director is the Rob Marshall who made Chicago. I've devoted a fairly goodish amount of time recently to daydreaming about just how they're going to manage the massive tone shifts and the big group numbers where everyone's in different places and the big meta twists and the fact that it's just so stagey... and yet for some reason I hadn't checked its IMDB page until today. Simon Russell Beale! Frances de la Tour! James Corden! The kid who was Gavroche in Les Mis! Christine Baranski! I'm a little worried that there's no narrator listed because the narrator is one of the best things about the show, but then, but then, thanks to The Mary Sue I just found these - unofficial set pics of a bunch of the cast in costume!

I mean really. L-R: Prince Charming, Baker's Wife, Baker. (C) Chris Pine, Emily Blunt, James Corden, plus Disney and Rob Marshall and the heroic observer who took this photo

OMG.

how. perfect. is. this. (C) as above plus Anna Kendrick and Anna Kendrick's 'oh god what did I just marry' face

Yep. Officially excited again.

Things and Stuff #10

Things and Stuff is a grab-bag of things that've been on my mind this week. In this edition: theatre, drinking, ARCs, home and Night Vale.


Thing 1: The Drowned Man

Jessie and I went to see Punchdrunk Theatre's new London production The Drowned Man. It was several weeks ago, and I'm still processing the experience. It was like being in a dream, more literally than I can really express. We were surrounded by mysteries. We walked through strange places and found ourselves in even stranger places. We saw things, and we missed other things, and we were moved and incredibly creeped out and got seperated and found each other again. We imagined that things would happen that didn't happen, and had several what the hell just happened moments. We were told that there was a bar, where we could take our masks off and sit for a moment... and we never actually found it. 

One of the things we did see, (C) Punchdrunk Theatre

I would love to literally walk you through everything that happened and everything we saw and felt and thought. But I won't do that, because some of you might want to go, and for the rest of you it'll be like someone telling you in detail about this weird dream they had last night... 

Thing 2: alcohol
I also saw The World's End last week. I have to admit, I don't think I loved it the same way I adore Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. I really did enjoy it, but what with the Gary King character and the way the whole thing is based on nostalgia and wasted lives and the concept of a good life not necessarily being what you think it is, and death and friendship and, y'know, some really self-destructive alcoholism... it was a lot of fun in places and soared past the six laughs rule, probably on the music choices alone, but at the same time it was really, really melancholy. Much more so than either Shaun or Fuzz. I think that fight in the final pub is going to stick with me for quite a long time. 

Also, today I am rather hungover as last night we said our WP goodbyes to Karen Ball, Commissioning Editor extraordinaire who is tragically leaving us to become Publisher at Little, Brown and Atom books. I think we all needed to drown our sorrows a little, because we don't know what on earth we're going to do without her... 

Thing 3: ARCs
The advance reader copies of Skulk have gone out! And when I say they've gone out, I mean apparently there were enough requests that every single copy is accounted for. I'm officially on the edge of my seat, hoping that anyone who reads it and likes it will say so loudly and often and those who hate it will never tell me... 

Thing 4: maybe it's because I'm a Londoner
Some unexpected househunting developments this last week have left me thinking about London and whether I'll even know who I am any more if I move away. 

I was actually born in Holland, though my parents are both English, but I've been a Londoner for at least twenty one years. Whether it's North, South or East (West London is the only compass point I've not lived in), London is London. Whatever you want, whatever kind of entertainment or culture or food or shopping or anything, it's about an hour away on the Tube. I've spent probably more hours of my life on the Tube than doing almost any other thing. There are places in London I've never seen and other places that feel like coming home every single time I go there. 

I just don't quite know how people live outside London, and not in an obnoxious 'oh how can you bear it' way - more in a 'I don't know how busses work or what it's like to live more than seven minutes walk from a supermarket' kind of way. It's silly, really, but being a Londoner is a big part of my identity. I don't think I'll ever stop being a Londoner, even when I don't live here any more. 

Thing 5: Carlos' perfect hair
Welcome to Night Vale is a very strange, very wonderful podcast about a sleepy desert town and its everyday problems, such as strange pyramids appearing out of nowhere, PTA meetings being interrupted by an invasion of pterodactyls, all wheat and wheat by-products turning into snakes, and Desert Bluffs' underhanded attempts to win at football. Also, the weather segment is unexpectedly brilliant. Here is some beautiful fan art: 

As made by the rather absurdly talented alackoforder on Tumblr

You can download the episodes on iTunes or from Commonplace Books' website.

Things and Stuff #9

Things and Stuff is a grab-bag of things that've been on my mind this week. In this edition: Final Fantasy, a blog tease, first draft potential, Elle Me Dit, and weather.

Thing 1: Final Fantasy 7
I first played Final Fantasy 7 when I was about fourteen, on the Playstation 1, and it blew my mind a little bit. Nerds everywhere will understand how exciting it was when I discovered I could get it to download to my laptop for a fiver. In the last couple of weeks, I've played through enough of it that I've reached the point where I normally stop, and now I actually don't know exactly what's about to happen any more. 

Except that I will always feel strangely drawn to this collection of 90s polygons forming an evil, long-haired, apparently fire-proof shirt-avoider inexplicably armed with a katana the size of Wales. Be still my shameless fangirl heart (C) Square Enix

This tends to happen to me, with games of all sorts. I play through once and attempt to finish it (often don't, though I did complete FF7 and get the Knights of the Round materia and damn right I felt smug about it), and then go right back to the beginning and play it again until it gets hard, or I get bored, or the disc breaks. And then go back and start again. And again. I've played the beginning of Final Fantasy 7 so many times... and then suddenly, something happened in the plot that I didn't expect, and I realised I don't remember where this is going. I remember the big plot points: amnesia, cloning, major character death, meteors, a big fight in a cave, and something about spending 120 hours catching and breeding giant chickens. 

IT WAS ALL WORTH IT (C) Square Enix

I thought that meant I remembered the plot, but it doesn't, not really. It's making the game almost like new, and while there's no regaining the sense of shock from your first experience of that major character death, I'm really happy that fifteen years on there are still parts of this game that made me sit back and say WAIT, WHAT?

Thing 2: that blog about Beren and Luthien
This Tuesday! I promise! As a teaser, here is an illustration from The Silmarillion that accurately depicts part of the romantic tale of the great love between Luthien the elf-maiden and Beren the mortal man.

Yes, really (C) Ted Nasmith

Thing 3: a partial first draft with some potential
I decided, on a whim, to reread the book I started to write for Nanowrimo last year. It needs a lot of work. The romance is a bit forced, the historical setting is there but not coming across like I want it to, the action is patchy. But there are things that made me gleefully happy in there too, and things that made me cackle evilly, which is a very good sign. I think there's actually a slightly brilliant book out there in the ether, waiting patiently for me to be able to do the hard work it's going to need. 

Thing 4: this song

It's only a silly pop song. It's not new. It's not hugely inventive. It's not even in English. I actually didn't know what the words meant until I looked it up just now to make sure it wasn't horribly offensive or anything. (Here are the lyrics for the curious. I like them! Which is nice. But it could've been about anything...) But it is totally infectious. I think part of it might be because it is in French and it sounds awesome? But honestly, I don't know what it is about this song. All I know is that I cannot stop playing it. 

Thing 5: it's too hot
It is. It's too hot. I'm too hot. Oh god, can you imagine playing tennis - let alone important, life-changing, £1.6 million pound winning tennis - in this weather? I'm off to stick my head in the freezer.