Sometimes, thankfully not very often, I find myself hopelessly thinking: I'm writing a YA book about lesbian werewolves. Readership numbers: not very much. And then I fall into a wave of despair.

I know you're not meant to think about these things while you're writing, but one of the drawbacks about working in a bookstore is that you're faced with the horrible and very practical side of publishing every day, where how much a book sells can even depend on how long it gets on the bestseller wall. Sometimes it's very depressing.

It says a great deal about my job right now that I wish I could act like Dylan Moran in Black Books and get away with it. Sigh.

I had to deal with the most horrendous group of middle-aged ladies sitting beside me on the train. They were rude, offensive, loud--they gave the food trolley guy hell, attempted to smoke, and made the journey extremely difficult for everyone unfortunate enough to be around them. By the time we got into Dublin, I wanted to explode.

Cork is a reasonably quiet city, even on weekends, so I hadn't really prepared myself for dealing with Dublin again. It was like a slap in the face.

Apparently, our flat is in the middle of getting painted--the shared rooms, anyway. The place reeks of paint fumes, and the kitchen is a tip.

How much do I wish I was not here? Let me count the ways...

That said, the long weekend was really, really nice, and I think we both needed it. And now I'm back to waiting and crossing off dates on the calender again.

Well, Chiya's at the airport and I'm on the train back to Dublin. I
miss her and I want her back.

Here are the rules:

1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
2. I will respond by asking you 5 questions of a very personal nature.
3. You will update your LJ with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this and an offer to interview someone else in the post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them 5 questions.

Questions from startoucher:

1. What is your earliest memory? (I like this question.)

I don't think I actually have an earliest memory. I have memories that are pricked by looking at photographs and such, and I can perfectly visualise the photographs in my head. I have a terrible memory, but a memory that can remember some really weird stuff at times, and I suspect all of my earliest memories are from when I was around four: eating porridge in bed with Dad and ending up being late to school because I took too long; kicking a football around our garden; looking in the mirror and seeing Shirley Temple curls on my head, that sort of thing. Nothing very interesting, unfortunately.

2. If you could be any movie character, which would you want to be and why?

Chiya and I were talking about Disney last night, so it would have to be Belle from Beauty and the Beast. Belle was and still is my favourite character, and the princess trope that I could always relate to: she read a lot, and didn't fit in, and yet someone liked her anyway. I've always found the film's message that beauty is what's really inside to be inspiring, and I love that Belle has her own faults and isn't perfect and without flaw. And I still really, really want Belle's yellow dress, so much.

3. Describe your perfect place to live.

LOL. Wish-fulfilment, here we go! I would like to live in a moderate-sized period house, in a mid-sized city (like Cork, or Bristol, something that's a city, but isn't horrendous like Dublin or London). Preferably, it wouldn't be joined on to another, and there would be trees around it for privacy and such. I'd love to have a room that I could turn into a library for the undeniable amount of books I'm going to accumulate, sadly. It'd be in a quiet part of the city that wouldn't exactly be trendy, but still safe and in a good location. I'd like a garden, even a small one. And a window seat with stained glass, maybe. *_* The city would probably be in a temperate climate, like Ireland or the UK. The house would preferably be mine, but only if I had the money to afford it. Otherwise (and the most realistic option because I will likely ever be rich) renting is fine.

4. When did you first fully realize that you really wanted to be a writer?

I was eight. I was reading an Enid Blyton book, and it suddenly occurred to me that this whole putting words on paper and making a story out of it was pretty cool. And that was what I was going to do when I grew up. No one in my family believed me. I actually ended up writing my first proper story at 12 (it ended up being fanfic from a werewolf book I really liked at the time, though I didn't know what fanfic was then). I spent the next few years imitating writers I liked, as you do, and wrote a lot of fanfic. Getting online turned out to be a blessing in disguise; I don't think I would have shed some bad writing habits as quickly as I would have otherwise, and being online is very humbling for one's ego, thankfully. :)

5. What is your favorite thing about Ireland?

Despite all of my grumbling around here, I love Ireland a lot. It's where I'm from; it's where several generations of my family were born, raised, and died. For all its faults, it's generally a nice country to live in. The climate doesn't veer towards any extremes, which is important, and we get spring for a while, which is also important. The amount of rain sucks a bit, and global warming is making it even wetter (which is a little worrying), but that's easy to get used to. We do tend to take pride in who we are, and where we've come from (even if we simultaneously mock the stereotypes that have propped up about us). The standard of living is decent, even if we are being ripped off a little, something that's become a lot more noticeable from my going back and forth from the UK lately, but I think the recession is going to get that under control. Growing up, I assumed I would always live here (though, granted, some factors are now out of my control, a little XD), but I'm not quite the same person now as when I was eight, lol.

So. What have I learned from Serenity?

"Some people juggle geese." (Well, no, that was Firefly, but, well, still awesome.)

a) "I don't want a back-space ship driver!"

b) Joss Whedon is awesome. Knew this already, but it can't hurt to say it again.


Chiya: Put down you want to be Joss Whedon when you grow up.
Me: ...may have already been planning to. >.>;

b²) I want to be Joss Whedon when I grow up. (Sans receding hairline.)

c) River is awesome. OMG.

d) Squee. (<--- this was Chiya typing. :D She still needs to make her own post, anyway. :P)








e) ...Joss Whedon is awesome. Wah.

I'm finishing off a module exercise on profit and loss for my full-time training and, oh dear god, this is so boring. I'm supposed to illustrate examples from five books in stock (since I'm doing this at home, I found five books I bought recently) with the use of profit, loss, and discount (I'm making up my own discount since no one told me I had to use the actual one we got; I suspect this may not be the case, but, hey, whatever helps me understand this, right?). It's all percentages and maths and, ugh, haaaaate, but this is part of what I need to know when I eventually get to buy from reps, I suppose.

In conclusion: I could never be an accountant.

Today has been productive: I watched the Doctor Who finale, bought food, swapped two books at work for two others, and did laundry. I finished a book, read over 100 pages of Emma Donoghue's latest (v. good, I should add), and almost finished the latest chapter of the lesbian werewolves. I didn't catch up on email or LJ, or play KH, but there is still tomorrow evening.

I've also had four cups of tea and one cup of coffee. *sheepish*

And now I'm off to read some more, and then go to sleep.

Three more days until Chiya gets here.

So, I finally managed to watch it. Oh my god. I'm still sort of... stunned, I think? There were parts I loved, parts I hated, and parts that made me laugh out loud. But it's still digesting.

Mostly, I am stunned and muttering, "Oh my god," to myself every so often.

I wish the rain would stop.

I like the rain along with the best of them, but we had no summer last year, and the grey weather has been dragging, and even I've started to get so tired of it. I don't even want a heatwave, just a couple of pleasant spring-ish days together where I can go outside and read.

Failing that, I want to be reading in bed.

I've spent most of the evening torn between writing or starting a new book, with the result that I haven't accomplished much in either aspect. Bah. There needs to be more hours in the day.

I've suddenly started listening to Muse again. Am getting flashbacks to being fifteen. Um.

I'm now officially a full-timer on the payroll. I don't feel all that different, sadly.

A week left before Chiya gets here.

- Work was shit this weekend. It's coming to the point in summer where weekends are shit. It felt like a huge weight was suddenly gone from my shoulders the moment I locked the doors and started to walk away.

- My Doctor Who love is returning. Have started making my way through Season One of Torchwood, properly this time.

- Writing is slow but steady. Day off tomorrow, and I did most of my cleaning etc. when I came home this evening, so I'm looking forward to tomorrow. :)

- I needed background noise that wasn't music while writing this evening, so I stuck on Season One of The L Word. Man, it's amazing to see how much it's changed. I sort of want to watch it all through, now, lol.

- Will read for a while, and then go to sleep. No alarm for tomorrow = bliss.

OMG DOCOR WHO AHHHHHHHH.

Am so happy I have next Sunday off because I can stay up and watch it right when it's downloaded. *bites nails*

I'm trying not to post my word counts, especially because my words since I went down to my family's have been abysmal to non-existent. However, I feel this is a little accomplishment in itself.

This was my word-counter last Sunday night, when I was facing my days off:

8,015 / 75,000 (10.7%)

This is tonight's word-counter:

12,148 / 75,000 (16.2%)

Not bad, eh? Now I'm going to finish Charlotte Mendelson's When We Were Bad (fabulous book, go and read it!) and get some sleep.

This was brought to my attention by niannah:

Most people have heard about the Heinz Mayonnaise ad that featured the same-sex kiss that has now been pulled from broadcasting due to 200 complaints; if you have not heard, you can read all about it here at the Guardian website. There's also a vid of the ad there. When I first saw this ad on TV I was IMing with best_of_five and she can tell you how squeeish it made me. I was seriously proud that this ad could be on TV.

The ad is basically a joke, with the 'Mum' figure (the kids address him as Mum) a stereotypical New York deli guy, the point being that the kids' lunch sandwiches taste deli-made because he uses Heinz mayonnaise. However, the relationship between the men seems real, as they both wear wedding rings and the man who is leaving for work gives the sandwich-making man a peck of a kiss before going.

200 people complained about this ad, and last Friday Heinz pulled it.

I have already responded to the Guardian article and have emailed Heinz at this address: Consumer.Contact@uk.hjheinz.com. I copied the email to the British Advertising Standards Authority at this address: new.complaints@asa.org.uk. I got these addresses from derryderrydown.

I mentioned in my email that I was Irish and the ad was shown here too, as some channels still show UK ads rather than filling in with Irish ads. I expressed my disappointment at Heinz's capitulation to 200 homophobes. I pointed out that, with civil partnerships legal now in the UK, this ad portrayed a real family structure - happy, domestic, perfectly normal for an ad of this kind.

There is also a petition to sign here.

I hope that if there is enough outcry, this ad will be reinstated. If you feel the same as me, please email the addresses above and let Heinz and the ASA know.

I've just finished sending emails to the two addresses above--I personally think the ad is rather adorable, and now that I've had time to think, I'm actually very angry that they bowed to pressure from simply 200 complaints (complaints that didn't make a whole lot of sense, either: the ad was specifically never meant to be shown during children's tv hours, for example, yet people complained about their children seeing it, or how they would have to explain about same-sex couples to their children. This isn't an ad's fault--it's a parenting problem).

I hope people will email about this--even if you didn't see the ad on TV, you can mentioned that you saw it online at the Guardian website and can't see any reason why it was pulled.

Left lower wisdom tooth has finally started appearing after over a year of dithering about it. That explains a lot from the past few days. Ow.

The FST Meme (songs that remind you of someone)

I like this one! (People, get your names on because god knows I have enough music to go 'round...)

I'm off to meet up with my thesis supervisor to see if he likes my outline. Fingers crossed because I have no other topic as well-planned out as this one. ._.

- Woke up at 7.30am yesterday. Woke up at 7am this morning. Have given up on trying to sleep more, so I just get up and read until my head feels properly clear. I suppose it's best not to mess up my sleeping pattern now that I can wake up at 7 without the aid of an alarm.

- One of my left wisdom teeth has started making its presence known again. One side of the tooth is starting to become visible under the gum, finally. Attempting to numb the gum isn't helping much because I have mouth ulcers as well which are probably a delayed reaction to stress or something. Eating is lots of fun right now. :/ (Do I really need my wisdom teeth, honestly? No wonder babies screech when they're teething. I feel like screaming the house down myself.)

- My days off have settled into a comfortable pattern of getting chores done, reading, and writing. I miss Chiya, which is nothing new, but she'll be over here soon. Thanks to having the dregs of the full-time holiday roster to choose from, however, I won't get to see her again until the end of September. I'm trying not to think about that, really.

- My plan today is to do some more writing, and then go to either Starbucks or Waterstones to work on my thesis outline, then possibly print it out secretly at work for my meeting tomorrow morning. I might also do a quick run to the secondhand store and trade in some books I no longer want to make some space. (I also have to fill out forms and send them off tomorrow, but. uh. don't want to think about that.)

- So, apparently I work best on the teen lesbian werewolves when I'm listening to Lacrimosa's music. No idea why, but hey, I'll take what I can get for my wordcounts to go back to normal.

( Books by Kelley Armstrong, Anne Bishop, Anna Godbersen, Shannon Hale, Erica Mailman and Vivian Vande Velde )

I have another book post coming very soon, just have to finish putting it together. When I can't write, I tend to read a lot. XD