Wait, wait, wait--unless the Irish Times is making a huge massive joke, did the Civil Partnership Bill actually get passed about two weeks ago, making both het and gay civil partnerships legal?

I mean, on the one hand, it's going to make same-sex marriage more difficult to achieve ("What do you mean you want gay marriage? We gave you civil partnerships, don't be greedy."). On the other--YAY OMG. From what I can see it doesn't have all the civil partnership rights, but it's definitely a huge step forward considering neither straight or gay co-habiting couples had any legal rights before. \o/

One of my co-workers (who started the same time as me so we became really good friends) was studying in Austria for the past year. He's now back and will hopefully be working here again in September. He just rang and I happened to be the one who answered the phone--we chatted for about fifteen minutes, and it's amazing how much my mood has improved. I didn't know how much I missed him until now, and we're going to see if a bunch of us can get together at my place while M is visiting his family. I really hope we can manage it. ♥

The urge to write something vaguely fannish is still itching away at me, but I don't really want to write anything full length. So I am shamelessly borrowing wordsofastory's idea and doing a drabble request post. Comment with a fandom that I'm familiar with and a pairing/situation/character/whatever, and I'll see what I come up with.

...assuming anyone responds, of course.

Proper Torchwood thoughts under the cut now that I've slept:

( Click )

God, I'd forgotten how much I love Torchwood in all its dark, cracked glory.

So my rent (unsurprisingly, given the current property market) recently got lowered for the next few months. I decided to buy a Wii Fit with my new extra money when my sister agreed to give me the Wii we had from home.

While my BMI is in the ideal area, which honestly surprised me, my overall flexibility and... everything else is kind of dire. I always knew this, and I could feel it, but I didn't properly realise it until after thirty minutes on the mat tonight.

I'm going to go for a quick shower and collapse into bed with a book. My bones feel like jelly, lol.

I haven't been posting (not that anyone noticed the lack, I'm sure) because nothing much has actually happened to merit an entry, or it's stuff I don't really want to mention online. My life has generally been quiet, with spurts of hanging out with friends and/or co-workers, marked by the books I've read and the TV episodes I've watched. I've been rewatching the Japanese live-action version of Hana Yori Dango and I'm contemplating starting Goong. HMV across the street has been blasting Michael Jackson all weekend and a mini shrine is starting to develop. My sister is spending a few days here with a friend, so we're hanging out later in the week.

I've also suddenly had the desire to write a long, plotty fanfic for the first time in months. Which would be fine except I don't have a fandom right now and thusly don't have a clue what to write. Hmm.

I am feeling a little lonely, though I can't really pinpoint why. I'm also aware this entry is extraordinarily boring, but I'm afraid the longer I put off a post, the harder it'll be. So this is me checking in, I guess.

• Delicious by Sherry Thomas


• Kushiel's Avatar by Jacqueline Carey


• What I Saw and How I Lied by Judy Blundell


• Marked (House of Night 1) by P.C. and Kristin Cast


• Every Summer by Claire Hennessy


• Devilish by Maureen Johnson


• Gossip Girl (Gossip Girl 1) by Cecily von Ziegesar

( Reviews under here )

Books Read: 7
Current Book Total: 37

So, yeah, I'm watching a Dr Phil rerun about the debate over same-sex marriage (because clearly I'm a glutton for punishment).

My head hurts now.

Oh god, so Season Eight of American Idol has just started airing here, finally. I caught it while channel-surfing this morning, and I may have spent most of today quietly obsessed with Adam Lambert.

I have no idea how this happened.

Starting to catch up a bit more, yay!

• The Story of Cirrus Flux by Matthew Skelton


• Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld


• Living with the Dead by Kelley Armstrong


• Last Chance/Keeping the Moon by Sarah Dessen

( Reviews under the cut )

Books Read: 4
Current Book Total: 30

Awesomeness: finding a copy of Shrinking Violet sitting innocently on the trolley at work. Bearing in mind that I searched high and low for this book in New York and returned home defeated. I have no idea what it's doing here because I hadn't realised the US edition was also on sale this side of the pond, but I am going to buy it and it will be mine and wheee! \o/

I keep meaning to do this Friday Five thing and then forget about it until early Saturday morning. So now that this has just popped into my head, I'm going to do it before I forget again. It's mostly an excuse for me to ramble about things in list form.

1) The book is chugging along. I've reached what I call the obsessive stage, where reading and social interaction fall to the wayside in exchange for writing. Now that summer is here, a lot of my shifts don't start until 11am or noon, so I've been getting up at seven or eight to write for an hour or two. Then I take out my laptop during lunch and try to squeeze out an extra hundred or so words. Since the flipside is that I don't finish work until eight or nine in the evening, I tend to make dinner and either go over what I've written or read for a while before bed. Then I get up and do it all over again the next day. I'm more of a morning person when it comes to writing, so at least the current routine suits me.

2) A positive aspect of being able to write for more than an hour a day is that I now spend so much time with the book, I immediately notice when a scene drags because it's not going the way it should. It might take a day or so before I figure out what's wrong, but at least I know there's something I need to fix.

3) I've been spending too much time in the Starbucks on my way to work as it's one of the few branches where I can't get internet. The morning staff are starting to recognise me. While I'm trying not to think about how much I'm spending on coffee this month, I also found my Starbucks card--there's some promotions involving free stuff going on, so once I use that to pay, I'm not spending as much. (And there are free samples!) If the end result is a finished draft by the end of the month, then it's a price I'm willing to pay. I can always spend less next month.

4) It looks like M and I aren't going to get new housemates until the end of August. The landlord is going to be lowering the rent anyway, so even if we have to pay more on bills, it'll mostly even out. I pity whoever moves in at the end of the summer because we're going to be horribly set in our ways. I also foresee another Gilmore Girls marathon over the next two months.

5) I am really glad I have the weekend off. God.

So, yeah, went to sleep around 1am. Woke up at 5am. Can't get back to sleep and I know I'll just feel like crap if I try to nap for a while, so I might as well just get up now. Sigh.

I'm going to have some tea and toast, and then I'm off to Starbucks to write until work at 11am. Argh. Early night for me tonight, I think.

I am hideously behind on book reviews, so I figured I might as well attempt a catch-up with the reviews I've written so far. I also decided that it might be fun to include the covers along with the titles, since seeing a book's cover is also a very important aspect of the purchasing decision. ;) And there are many reviews yet to come...

• The Summoning (The Darkest Powers: Book 1) by Kelley Armstrong


• Damsel by S.E. Connolly


• Men of the Otherworld by Kelley Armstrong


• The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan


• Hand of Isis by Jo Graham


• Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

( Reviews under the cut )

Books Read: 6
Current Book Total: 26

So, instead of forcing daily updates where my word count veers from 300 words to 5,000, I figured it might be interesting (possibly only to me) to do weekly word counts. So my word count last Sunday was 5,000/60,000. This week it is:

14975 / 60000 words. 25% done!

Originally it was actually over 15,000, but then I went back to edit something and cut words, and now I'm too tired to even attempt to put down 20-odd nonsense words just to round up again. Still, it means I wrote over 10,000 words this week, which feels quite good around work and hosting a mini work party at my house last night. (Which was a success! I tweaked a Mars Bar Squares recipe and people loved them, always a relief.)

Anyway, for anyone who might be interested in my ridiculous writing process (which usually involves getting ideas at work and having to scribble them on the back of old reports so I don't forget), I fixed three plot problems this week. One of them involved having to buy more time around the middle of the book but not knowing how, since some things obviously need more time to develop. The other two involved needing to hint at things which become crucial later on much sooner than I had, and which I needed to fix without making them seem blatantly PLOT POINT HERE-ish. I think I succeeded, but I'll know for sure when I actually reach their place in the draft. And since I'm in no position to spoil anyone yet, that's all you're getting.

Seriously, if anyone tells you writing a book is easy, regardless of the word count, they're LYING. They're telling you a ridiculous whopper, and you should throw something at them. Some days, and this was one of them, it feels like pulling teeth and also like a juggling act where I've spectacularly dropped all the balls and I'm left staring at them while feeling like the biggest idiot in the world.

The problem with having a productive wordcount on my day off is that I'm now at work and all I can think about is writing. :(

I shall be strong and have an early night tonight so I can get up obscenely early tomorrow to write on my weekend off. \o/

I wrote almost 5,500 words today. Scrivener may be one of the most awesome things ever.

One of my RL readers is going to Thailand for seven weeks (!) at the end of June, so for better or worse the current draft has to be done by then. I spent about three hours last night reworking the first two chapters and adding new things, so this is my current wordcount:

5000 / 60000 words. 8% done!

I only have one more thing to reference in Chapter Two tonight (which is currently written on the back of my hand) and then it's onto Chapters Three and Four tonight. Chapter Three has a lot of new stuff in it, so that will take a while. I'm a little panicked, but it's the good panic that will propel me on, not make me flee into a corner and hide.

I'm also finally getting the trial download of Scrivener tonight, which I'm excited about.

Eep.

Star Trek was awesome!