Wow, I haven't written properly on here in a while. I wish I could say I've been busy, but my exams have been done for a few weeks now, and I've... just been sitting around, doing cross-stitch and playing Sims and rewatching Battlestar Galactica after that OMG FINALE. I've just... always found better things to do. Like re-reading lists on Cracked. Or reading plots of films I'll never watch on wikipedia. Or... just napping. I never really appreciated napping before exams.

Basically, I've had nothing to procrastinate from, so I've procrastinated from productive procrastination by doing absolutely nothing. Perhaps this is why I always try to do so much at once - if I don't have anything to do, I do literally nothing.

Anyway! In this period of nothingness I have, in fact, done a few things which left me thinking "Whoa, this is going to be a HUGE entry on LJ" - and then written nothing. It was Treasure Trap's 3YGB, where I discovered I was very right in assuming that the refs were going to Screw Me and Screw Me Good with Plot. My character had sworn to protect a woman she'd rescued from a vampire at all costs - only to discover:

- The woman really didn't need protecting, she was practically River Tam
- The vampire hadn't been holding her captive, she'd been protecting her
- That vampire was a) extremely powerful and b) pissed at me
- Another vampire who was pissed at me was RIGHT THERE

And yet it was neither of those vampires who killed me, but a random one I met in a hallway who was bored. Still, AWESOME.

I also went to Kenilworth Castle, where Robert Dudley lived, and to Chatsworth, a big country house which they used as Pemberley in the Pride & Prejudice film, where we paddled in a fountain, did roly-polies on the lawn, and I got into such a discussion with a tour guide about a painting of the Siege of Thebes that I was allowed behind the velvet rope to point out some details in the picture! It was so exciting.

And now? Term's over, I've popped home for a quick (stupidly last-minute expensive) visit. Last night I went with my parents to a charity benefit thing a friend of theirs was hosting. My mum has clearly decided I'm her best hope for grandkids, because she dragged me over to meet a guy called Henry, whose own mum was dragging him over to meet me. Apparently he came to my birthday parties when we were kids, and we, no joke, played naked in paddling pools together. I have actually become Bridget Jones.

And now I have the summer holidays ahead of me. Nice, relaxing summer holidays. Aaaaah. I'm going to do cross-stitch and play Sims and go on holiday and CHILL. Because next year I plan to work my ass off.

Also this July, I'm going to do another NaNoWriMo. I'm hoping this will deter me from taking part this November, when there are essays and dissertation and "important" stuff like that, but knowing me, I'll still do it then as well. Mostly, it's because I couldn't decide whether to write Society of Illegal Scholars or my vampire superhero story this summer - this way, I can do both!

So if anyone else wants to join me in my July 30-day breakneck novel writing, feel free...

Random blah entry alert.

Looks like my brain was entirely serious when it turned round and said "Yo, you're doing Script Frenzy." But at least I'm being productive with it. Well, as productive as one can be when procrastinating from writing summative essays. Basically, I'm writing a script for the TV pilot of a show of a story I've had in my head, like, FOREVER. Seriously. I first got the idea for it when I was 16 or something, just before my GCSEs, and it's sort of been developing and evolving all this time, and I had all the huge backstory and huge plot twists planned out, and all of the characters spent a good amount of time living in my head offering their unwanted opinions on stuff in my life. The bad guy was the hardest to get rid of.

But I never wrote it. I tried, I started a whole bunch of times, but I never did. *~*~*UNTIL NOW!!!!*~*~*

The characters are very happy at coming out to play. Though they're a bit surprised that they're suddenly in a modern setting. They've been living quite happily in Fantasy Medieval World for some time now, but suddenly, I randomly decide to make it Urban Fantasy and bring them all into the present. SURPRISE!

But I'm already 9 pages in. It's boring as hell, and I know I'm not even really getting onto interesting plot in the pilot, but the point is, this isn't just a random story (that's been dwelling in my head for nearly 4 years) - I already decided ages ago that it was so huge and epic, I'd never have a chance of writing it in full, so I was going to use the story in The Society of Illegal Scholars as a set of legends for the region.

(Society of Illegal Scholars continues to bug me, by the way. I said a while ago about how, when I come up with plot, I leave it gestating in the back of my head for while - I believe I used some kind of analogy about trying to get it from smoke to liquid but getting it out before it turns solid. Well, basically, the plot bunnies are tapping on the door between the front, sensible part of my brain, and the crazy back part where the story is, yelling "LET US OUT! IT'S GONNAAA BLOOOW!!!" It's pretty much ready, and IT WANTS OUT.)

But exams. Essays. Bleh.

PS: This week's xkcd makes me so happy. (http://xkcd.com/405/). I never even realised it was possible to ship stick figures.

I've been slightly occupied so far these holidays - Heroes convention, Maelstrom weekend, and now the SFX Meet-up Weekend (where I only had 2 hours sleep in 40 hours) - and haven't gotten nearly enough work down yet. I've also realised I left my notebook with essay notes up in Durham. SMART, KATIE.

Also, it's that time of year. Where exams are looming, and my brain decides to ignore it by suddenly getting a million and one ideas of awesome things to write and do and create. The Society of Illegal Scholars keeps prodding me with new ideas, I keep thinking of new Heroes macros series to do (like that Zoolander one last night. It took me HOURS. WHEN I HADN'T SLEPT. DAMN YOU, kleenexcow!!)

Summative deadlines are in 3 weeks. Exams are in about 5 weeks. I am ready for neither. And they actually count this year. ACK.

As for after the exams, my summer is filling up pretty fast. Other than catching up with Supernatural and David Anders Alias, I'm going to:

- Do some kind of work experience, at my local newspaper or even at a publishing house
- Write The Society of Illegal Scholars already so I can get it out of my head.
- Visit reasonablycrazy in Portland.
- Go to Greece with Frankie (ASDKAGVA I'M SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS. I asked my mum if I could go, and she said, "Yes! Go!" and at that exact moment Dean Winchester yelled from my TV "GO!!" and I was like "OK Dean! If you say so!" ATHENS DELPHI SLDAGBNASA.)
- Week on Brownsea Island with parentals
- Maybe go to Germany to visit Beccy
- See David Tennant in Hamlet, SQUEE

So yeah... busy.

I've forgotten what even the point of this entry was.

OOH. This Friday, I'm going SHOPPING. And I mean SERIOUS shopping. I'm going out and buying clothes, bags, shoes and make-up. I might even get my nails done. Because, for some strange reason, I think I might be becoming girly. WTF.

I just watched Becoming Jane for the first time. While I know an inordinate amount of my love for it surely comes from the adorable beautiful presence of James MacAvoy, it was still a good film. It's kind of like Pride & Prejudice-lite, except it doesn't have a happy ending. I continued my trend of getting emotionally involved in films, and for about the last half hour I was going "No! Nononononono I HATE YOU HISTORY." But it's still really nicely shot, Anne Hathaway had amazing chemistry with James MacAvoy and made an admirable attempt at the accent, the costumes were preeeettyyyy, it just managed to not make me weep - and of course, James MacAvoy didn't hurt. He swung from scoundrel to utter adorability in way that I think it did irreparable damage to my ovaries.

And of course, the film was about a writer. Which was just all the better for me right now, since over the past few days I've been thinking about how I'm missing writing. I mean, I know I'm writing Sylinder, but that doesn't even feel like writing - just imagining scenarious and letting the crack spill onto the page. I can't believe I'm still constantly thinking about The Society of Illegal Scholars - I mean, it was inspired by a random poster on a walk through Durham! - but over this weekend, when I was pretending to be a nun and staring wide-eyed around the room looking scared, I was actually thinking about the story, and musing about plot and characters. Writing seriously, like the Sims, is something I don't let myself do during term time any more, because it's addictive - but I miss it.

Back when I first started writing, years ago, both my sister and my English teacher told me I wasn't a good writer, which didn't exactly start me off with the greatest confidence. Though looking back at the stuff I was writing then, I don't exactly blame them: horrific Mary-Sues, overambitious cliched melodramatic fantasy epics and mindless unfunny parodies of films. But hey, I kept trying. And now - after years of fanfic, two novels (one confused NaNoWriMo and one ambitious summer project that would get me carbombed by Christian fundamentalists) and now a slashy sitcom mostly reviewed in capital letters and smileys - my self-esteem is finally allowing that maybe I'm not the worst writer to ever dare approach a keyboard.

Being an author just seems like a dream career for me, and I actually think I'm going to go for it. I think I might have been inspired by reasonablycrazy - see, Jackie, your crazy is contagious. But yeah. I'm going to try to get a job somewhere with anything to do with writing - maybe journalism, maybe publishing, maybe just stay in academia till the end of my days - and write in my free time. Before then, I'm going to finally finish editing Don't They Know and give it to more people to read and get feedback on. (I've already showed it to two people - one of them already has ships and slash for it!) And then this summer, I will finally - finally - write The Society of Illegal Scholars. Because I have the opening chapter and main characters set up in my head, and a plot that seems to be writing itself, and I want to know what happens next.

In fact, since I'm in an ambitious mood and this entry's already spiralled on far longer than I was expecting, I'm going to post the first chapter here. Let me know what you think.


Moving swiftly on. Another film I saw lately? Was The Terminator. And it was AWESOME. I'm resisting the temptation to buy the entire trilogy off Amazon, and to hunt down every single film Michael Biehn has ever been in. Though one thing the film did was fill me with even more blank astonishment that Arnold Schwarzenegger could one day be president.

Oh, and my dissertation? It's now between the Apollo one and the Sci-Fi one. I think it depends on how many Classics references I can think of in Heroes in my lectures tomorrow.

I'm home for Christmas! It's nice. Weird, but nice. It took the longest time this morning to convince myself that no, there WASN'T anything I needed to do today, I could just waste time today. I still feel like I'm slacking off.

I started writing the Society of Illegal Scholars last night. It, uh... it didn't go very well. I mean, I got the narrative style down straight away, but I found myself thinking "WTF?? I have the story and characters down so clearly in my head, why aren't they instantly magically transferring themselves to the page in such a bright and creative way that my story is FAB??"

I can't believe I forgot how difficult starting a story is. I always think writing feels like trying to force the story out through a small hole in the front of your brain. When you first think of a story, it's like smoke, but the more details you think of, it becomes more liquid, and finally solid. What you want to do is get it out when it's liquid, before it's had a chance to set, so it can dry off in the open air when you've got a better idea of where it's all going - smoke, it just drifts all over the place and is totally unmanageable, but if you think about it too long and let it turn solid in your head, it takes a hell of a lot of battering to get it out again, and even then it just looks broken.

Erm. Weird unexpected metaphor. Moving right along.

I'm trying again this afternoon. I think my problem was I started writing it AFTER the prologue I posted on here ages ago, but imagining I'd go back and write it when I knew more of what was going to happen in the story. So I was writing from the POV of a narrator who had just finished saying something I didn't know about based on something he was going to say later. Which... wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff. Brain hurts.

In other news. THE DARK KNIGHT TRAILER!!! http://atasteforthetheatrical.com/deathtrap/default.htm

I love the director's take on the Joker. It looks like he could fit really well into the BatVerse he's created. I love the make-up, the clothes, and - how the hell is that Heath Ledger speaking?? I just watched a Knight's Tale last night, and I CANNOT see them as the same person.

In other news - Christian Bale looks pretty. MICHAEL CAAAINE. And whoever decided to recast Katie Holmes with Maggie Gyllenhall deserves some sort of award. And THEY FLIP OVER A LORRY. I can't wait for this film.

Hang on. Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhall in Brokeback Mountain. OK, weirdness to be acting with a guy who has repeatedly made out with your brother?

Oh, right -

I had a two hour nap.

And then I started raving about Mylar with Jackie.

This went on for a long time. We were actually on the point of writing fanfic.

And then we started talking about non-HoYay fanfic storywriting we were doing. First she told me about an awesome-sounding story she's planning, and then she got me rambling about the Society of Illegal Scholars, which seems to have grown a plot in my head without me noticing. HUZZAH.

BUT NOW IT IS HALF THREE AND I AM STILL AWAKE AND I HAVE FOUR HOURS OF LECTURES TOMORROW.

KHAAAAN!


PS But at least I've developed a narratorial voice for SoiS - very Victorian, and ever-so-slightly disapproving of these madcap antics he's been compelled to record for posterity. Also, I think I may have a first line.

'Charles was at what must be considered as the most dangerous age for a young man; unsure of what lay in the world ahead, but dreamy enough to be sure that, whatever it was, it would be terribly exciting.'

.... and already my days suddenly seem that much emptier.

I mean, I know it's a Saturday, but I was just sitting at my computer thinking about what I had to do over the coming week - and it all seemed so SIMPLE.

I'm sure that this will be remedied tomorrow when I start that 'rhetoric of traditionality' essay and realise how difficult it is, and that I'm not just going to be able to easily slip it between lectures and preparing the stupid amounts of Latin I have to for each tutorial. Not to mention the Christmas social and entertaining Frankie (who's coming to visit, yay!)

OK, scratch what I just said. I DO have lots to do.

But... I already miss writing. I mean, I know it's only been a day, but I miss having a plot and characters to look after. Truman Capote once said finishing a novel is like 'taking a favourite child outside and shooting them'. Well, this isn't quite as bad as that. I've only known this story for a month, and we never really completely got along - we had arguments, and sometimes it went off and did things on its own I didn't approve of (like KILLING KITTENS) and it never liked to listen to me when I tried to get it to behave.

It was more like an argumentative child I was babysitting than a favourite child.

But now it's gone away, and I miss it. I know I could babysit for it again, but I don't know if I want to bother with the hassle, when the lovely child next door - Don't They Know - could still use looking after, and there's that new kid down the street The Society of Illegal Scholars who I quite want to meet. But I still remember when we got along, and how much fun we had then, and I'll quite miss those moments.

OK, that analogy got a bit carried away. But I think it sums up how I feel quite well.

So what next? I actually concentrate on work for the next two weeks, and then, come Christmas holidays, I sit down to edit Don't They Know already. At least get it to a standard I don't mind being read by people who are not my self-professed fan club (love you, Thea and Clare, thanks for early comments).

I try to get that done by Christmas, or at least New Year's, and then in the New Year I get to start the Society of Illegal Scholars! Yay! My goal is to have that finished by the exam period. Yes, I'm actually going to take this one slowly. I'm still not entirely sure what it's going to be about, but I'm unashamedly borrowing elements from Heroes (not the superpowers part), Maelstrom, Stardust, the Song of Milman Parry and a story I conceived ages ago in great detail but never actually wrote. I have real high hopes for it, I can't wait to start!

And then? Stop for exams. Then, over the summer holidays, start a new one. Yes, I'm repeating the process that produced Don't They Know all over again. Because it was so fun last time. Maybe I won't be quite so anti-religion in this one. Who knows what issues I'll be going through by then?

Wow. I'm planning really far ahead. But I didn't realise till I started writing Don't They Know how much I've missed writing. I wrote loads before I came to uni - half my comments in my yearbook from school are people asking for first copies of my first published novel - but then in my first year, I kinda just stopped. I tried NaNoWriMo, but didn't get far. I was just concentrating on Treasure Trap and living life.

But now I'm back into it, and I've remembered just how much I love it. The sound of typing keys is one of my favourites in the world, and the thrill of realising your characters have taken on a life of their own and are flying free from your control is just the best feeling. Nothing really compares to it.

Well, this entry's gone on longer than I was expecting. I'll stop now.

I just realised while talking to Jackie. Latin isn't a dead language. It's not a living vibrant language, either.

No, Latin is an Undead language.

By all accounts, it should be dead. It should be dead and buried in the ground. And yet it somehow KEEPS ON GOING. It limps on, eating classicists' brains, and no matter how some try to bring it down, it just infects more and more and survives against all odds.

This is clearly why all scary rituals in movies are done in Latin.

In other news, my NaNoWriMo continues to go amazingly - but it comes at a price. I still have not managed to subdue my plot. And my plot is a sociopath. Not content with killing my main character, tonight it killed the Cute White Fluffy Kitten.

A KITTEN DIES IN MY NANOWRIMO.

THIS KITTEN RIGHT HERE: http://mfrost.typepad.com/cute_overload/images/litter_kitten.jpg

And whenever I try to subdue it and keep it under control, it just sits down in the middle of my brain and does nothing, sulking.

Maybe we need relationship counselling.

Therapist: "So when did the problems start?"

Me: "Well... it were a bit shaky from the beginning. I mean, it was a new relationship, but I couldn't put as much time into it as I wanted - I still had lectures, and banquet to organise..."

Plot: "She just kept me locked up for most of the day. I felt stifled. Ignored."

Me: "I'm sorry!"

Plot: "Bit late for that now, isn't it?"

Therapist: "So naturally, when she did you let you out for the night..."

Plot: "OK, I may have done a little nuts. I just wanted to show her how fun and easy everything could be if she'd just trust me to look after myself."

Me: "You killed my main character! AND A KITTEN!"

Plot: "Hey, you set up both those situations. I just carried them out to their logical conclusions."

Me: "Oh, do NOT try to load the blame on me for this-"

Plot: "You're the one typing! I just make suggestions!"

Me: "And I HAVE to listen, because otherwise you completely ignore me! You just sulk, and it's impossible to do anything with you! We never go anywhere!"

Plot: "YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND ME!"

Me: "WELL, YOU'RE NOT THE PLOT I MARRIED! YOU'VE CHANGED!"

Plot: "Oh, oh, NOW it all comes out! You're still enamoured with the 'Society of Illegal Scholars', aren't you? You already had your eye on THAT slutty plot when we first got together. You'd been eyeing it up all summer while in your first relationship with 'Don't They Know'-"

Me: "Oh, don't start-"

Plot: "- and it warned me, 'Oh, she's flighty, she gets easily distracted by whatever bright young thing walks past, and she's still got a thing for 'Society of Illegal Scholars', she won't be entirely faithful', and how you were ignoring THAT now, after your fantastic summer relationship. But I didn't listen. It misses you, you know."

Me: "I know, I want to spend more time with it, but-"

Plot: "But what? You had your problems, and now you don't want to try to make it work! So you're running off with 'Society of Illegal Scholars' as soon as you're off uni for Xmas! DON'T TRY TO DENY IT!"

Me: "You don't understand! 'Don't They Know' and I, we - we had a very public relationship, and we've got a lot of history - I will go back and sort things out, I promise!"

Plot: "Oh, just like you promised to go back to the Elementals?"

Me: "I was a different girl back then... it was fun while it lasted, but in the end, it was wrong for me."

Plot: "Huh."

Me: "Please can't we work this out? Just... try to work together? Till the end of November? Surely we can live with each other for another 15 days?"

Plot: "... I suppose so. But! As long as I get to do what I want."

Me: "Yes, fine."

Plot: "I want ninjas."

Me: "OK."

Plot: "Yay!"

Good. All sorted.

PS To make up for not being able to buy the SHINY STEAMPUNK LAPTOP OF SHININESS (http://www.datamancer.net/steampunklaptop/steampunklaptop.htm WANTS SO BADLY) I ordered myself THIS: https://www.gelaskins.com/skins.php?Device=1&Category=4&Skin=138&ProductCode=257

*dances*

Huh. Seems that when I'm not writing anything to babble about, I don't have much to say on here.

Well, lectures have started again. I'm very happy that half of both my Advanced Latin modules are being taught by Dr Wolfenden, or, as Olwen calls her, 'Crazy Lady', the lecturer I got utterly pissed with the other day and started insisting I had to sleep with the guy who leant me his stool. AND I don't have to do architecture, because Dr Thomas dropped out, and Dr Ingo rightly also believes it is boring as hell and is teaching us Cicero instead. YAYZ.

There was quite a bit of confusion earlier with my first 'History of the Hellenistic Age' module. My friend Elizabeth and I got to the classroom, only to find it full of Russian students. Also, no-one else in our class was there. Eventually, the Russian students left, and we went in, now joined by a small blonde Scottish girl with an amazing accent and a rather dull boy who spoke in a monotone and seemed terribly serious about everything. Oh, and an elderly post-grad, who sounded more British than cricket.

It got to about quarter past and still no-one else had turned up, and the excuse 'well, they are Classicists' was fading fast. The guy texted one of his friends to discover that they were actually in Palace Green, and that e-mail I'd got earlier wasn't about Emperors & Dynasties switching, but this one. OOPS.

That wasn't a very interesting story. Why the hell did I write it? I think I just loved that old guy's accent. He was like Gandalf.

It's also slightly unnerving how our lecturer, Dr Petrovic - who has Tennant hair and glasses, and I therefore already love - keeps assuring us that we can still drop out of this module. He told us in the lecture, AND in an e-mail, and kept reminding us how there was going to be a heavy workload and we might not be able to handle it. Gee, that's encouraging.

I still have Advanced Latin 2A this afternoon, with Crazy Lady. I've never read Lucretius before (I have a sneaking suspicion I was supposed to for Monuments & Memory) and it looks crazy difficult. Latin prose is hard enough to translate, let alone verse, where they seem to throw grammar and word order to the weasels for the sake of rhythm and discerning meaning seems to be more like scrying than translating.

NaNoWriMo soon! I've been missing writing a lot since finishing the first draft of 'Don't They Know'. My brain keeps bubbling with ideas, and my fingers are twitchy, like they want to be typing. My latest idea for the pile is that the Greek gods have all chosen their favourites in the student house, and are backing them like the ancient Greek heroes in an upcoming Sausage Flinging Championship.

I've also found a very useful thing for the Society of Illegal Scholars - a website encyclopedia on Victorian life, http://www.victorianlondon.org. Yay facts. I can feel the story for it forming in the back of my head, but the plot bunnies aren't telling me anything yet. My main thinking point is what terrible scandal there can be surrounding the man's death they're all investigating.

In other news, I now find Sylar the prettiest out of all the Heroes. This is oddly disturbing.

AND, check out this thing: http://www.greengoblin.com/internal/corner/shark.html

I haven't done much editing for my novel lately - I've had Frankie round, but also, I think my plot bunnies are taking a break. They're pretty worn out. Also, I've discovered it's quite difficult to approach your novel with the Delete key and vanish huge chunks of text which you know don't work but still took you ages to write.

But they haven't stopped completely. They're still buzzing quietly about the Society of Illegal Scholars, and I get the impression that something is taking shape back there, but they haven't deigned to tell me about it yet.

Also, they're plotting my NaNoWriMo. I had a dream last night where I was at Maelstrom, which was randomly on the seafront, and a stall had been set up there by two guys who weren't in kit, but were offering hand painting. Olwen and I went up to see them, and Olwen got a rose on her hand, and I asked for a little castle on mine, but the guy looked at me and grinned and said, "No, you want this design", holding out a Celtic-looking thing, like the brooches on cloaks. So I shrugged and said OK, and he painted it, and then I woke up. The dream had felt really real, so I looked at my hand, but surprise, there was nothing there. But I started imagining what I would have done if there HAD been.

So - yoink! Into the NaNoWriMo pile.

All I know for my story so far is that it's about these students, each of whose form of escapism suddenly becomes part of their everyday life - like, one who reads and writes suddenly has their life turn into a story, one who plays the Sims suddenly notices diamonds hovering above everyone's heads, one who LARPs is suddenly getting chased by vampires and werewolves, one who watches sci-fi has the characters turning up everywher, and one who just daydreams finds their daydreams becoming real... yeah, I have no idea how this is going to work coherently, but it should be fun.

I'm also playing with the idea of the Seven Basic Plots. Maybe the one who gets lost in literature has to try and work out which one she's stuck in to be able to survive.

But it's not going to be serious. In any shape or form.

About to start my day's writing. It really feels like there's not long to go now. It's a weirdly exhilarating feeling. But the plot bunnies are terrified at having to write an ending. I distract them with looking forward to plotting the Society of Illegal Scholars, and the NaNoWriMo, which now also involves a cannibal dreaming of eating Daniel Radcliffe.

In fact, I think it's time I made a list of everything I want to fit in my NaNoWriMo:

- The characters being students living in a house in Durham. Write what you know and all that.

- One being Udo Smutney, the boy in love with himself but too shy to say anything.

- One being Atobe, the gay gorgeous Japanese boy who is pursued by fangirls in denial, who is good at everything he tries.

- One being Charlie, the person none of the housemates are sure whether is a boy or a girl and too much time has passed for them to be able to ask.

- One being a geeky LARPer.

- And one being the central character, who has the amazing ability to turn every guy she fancies gay.

- A cannibal who only wants to eat Daniel Radcliffe.

- Vampires, Werewolves, Aliens, serial killers, Gods

- An object which turns your life, unknowingly, into one long game of Unfortunately/Fortunately.

- Jesus, the Re-born Ultimatum, returned to Earth with amnesia and hunting down members of the Catholic Church.

As for plot? Noooo idea. I did consider them all trying to win the Sausage-Flinging Championship in Faversham.

In other news - The Lies of Locke Lamora. I just finished it. And OH - MY - ZOD - it's AMAZING. READ IT. READ IT NOW.

And apparently, this guy I went out with in February for two days before realising I didn't like him in that way, I just liked the fact someone liked me that much, and that I just wanted to be friends? Yeah, his friend told me today that I broke his heart. Thaaat's great to know.

Anyway, I must go write now. Last night I realised something for the ending that actually made me grin and wiggle my toes in glee.

... but every time I start to get into that mood, I start thinking about the Society of Illegal Scholars instead.

This has happened regularly since I got into writing again. New ideas occur, and I get excited, but I just throw the various ideas onto the NaNoWriMo pile and promise myself I'll get to them in November. At this rate, that story will just be plain ODD.

But I don't want to put the Society for Illegal Scholars on there. I feel like it could carry a story all by itself.

I already have a prologue fully formed in my head.

( Which I will cut for the sake of those not interested )

I have to tidy my room today, so I have room to sleep on the floor when Becca comes to stay. And I'm going to have to get dressed at some point, even though I've been awake for four hours now and still haven't gotten out from under my duvet, let alone get dressed.

But I'll try to do some more of Don't They Know today. Because right now, it glares at me every time I plan about the Society of Illegal Scholars, like I'm cheating on it. It's my long-term partner, but I'm ignoring it for some new hot charming young thing that's caught my eye. I've got to patch things up before it asks for a divorce.

So I just completed the mahoosive load of washing up that had formed in the sink. Most of it belonged to a Certain Sideburned Budgie That Will Remain Nameless, but since he has just gone to Greece, I can't hit him.

But I also just bought the Atonement soundtrack, which is fab, because a) the music is beautiful and b) it often uses the rhythmic sound of typewriter keys to underscore it, which makes it perfect writing music.

Bah. I'm sleepy though. And I haven't written anything in the past two days, which is guilt-making. I've been thinking more about my 'Society of Illegal Scholars' idea though, and it still really excites me - which, as I've discovered with 'Don't They Know', is the important thing.

OOOH. I just had another idea for it.

Well, it wasn't actually that far. It took me about three and a half hours, and I kept stopping and getting distracted by something and scribbling notes about it on my arm.

KATIE'S WALKING TOUR OF DURHAM

I left at about 1 and headed along Gilesgate, then down a slope, across a metal bridge, up the other side, along the path there through some trees and came out at a park at the top of Gilesgate, which just has an AMAZING view. I love it up there so much I rewrote part of 'Don't They Know' just so that it could be a location in it.

So I sat there, eating my sandwich and looking across Durham, and trying to think as a considerate killer would about where I would stand my victim when I killed them so that she'd have the best view when she died.

I then set off down the hill, where the path leads along the river, over a bridge, past the sports ground and into the woods. We use those woods a lot for Treasure Trap adventures, and they're one of my favourite places in all of Durham. When you get far enough in, you can't hear anything else, and it's really pretty and there are squirrels and deer - and walkers, occasionally, which can get annoying in the middle of a line fight.

When I was walking through there, I saw a couple of squirrels seemingly in the middle of an energetic game of hide and seek and catch. They were tearing after each other through the undergrowth and up and down trees, occasionally hiding for a moment on opposite sides of the trunk, and then off again, round and round and round. Their feet were making this 'shooka-shooka-shooka' noise on the tree bark, like shaking dried peas in a matchbox. I stood there and watched them for ages.

Set off again, and eventually emerged out into Grey College. I saw a sign for 'The Society of Legal Scholars' - which my brain immediately seized upon for a story idea, 'The Society of Illegal Scholars'. About a secret society in a steampunk setting, where the government has realised knowledge is power and restricted it accordingly, and they meet once a year to discuss a forbidden subject, with honour and glory going to one with the most interesting story which they have clearly gone through the greatest adventure to retrieve. And, of course, one of them getting embroiled in something far bigger than he can imagine, and trying to stay alive, and also trying to decide whether to share the story with the others, where he will surely be heralded as that year's winner, or keep it secret and protect the people involved...

I actually got so excited when I thought of this I did a happy little jumpy dance. I stopped when three people came round the corner and saw me.

Thing is, now my brain was set onto 'noticing things' mode. I was taking photos of pretty things with my phone. A dog running up and bringing me a stick was the best thing ever. And when I stopped to read a monument next to the road, and saw it was the remains of a cross, and that crosses used to line all the roads leading into Durham, I immediately imagined a town surrounded by crosses trying to keep out vampires, and vampires hiring mercenaries to sabotage them so they could get in. My arm was getting covered in blue and red ink now as I jotted everything that occurred to me down. This is why I should always have a notebook with me.

So then I headed down onto Prebends Bridge, which is also beautiful and set me thinking about maybe switching one of the story locations to here, and up to the cathedral. I spent a lot of time here, walking around, getting ideas for the climax of my story, pausing to appreciate the irony of two professional photographers setting up their cameras right next to a sign saying 'No photographs please'.

Weirdest coincidence. In a little side chapel, where Bede is buried, they have a statue of the Annunciation - of Mary when she found out that she was having the son of God. In the cathedral where Kirsten finds out she's having the Second Coming. HOW. FREAKING. WEIRD. I doubt Kirsten'd appreciate that coincidence either.

Many other weird coinkidinks. There was a cloth banner for the Durham Miners Association, which said 'They being dead yet speaketh' - if I was filming my story, I'd so have that framed behind Kirsten when she first comes back from the dead - and a stained glass window which was a picture of what appeared to be someone holy descending from heaven on wings to reach out to a miserable looking mortal on a black raven, with the message 'As birds flying so shall the Lord of Hosts protect Jerusalem'. Very fitting considering there's being to be a massive aerial battle between the seraphim and the Fallen.

I stopped to look at Bede's tomb too. It has on it 'Hac sunt in fossa Baedae venerabilis ossa' - 'Here in this grave are the bones of the venerable Bede' - which is a pretty creepy little Latin rhyme, if you ask me. I looked at it and thought, "Hey, Bede. Weird to think there you were writing and praising God all those years ago, and now here I am, writing and saying he's a bastard. Times change, eh?"

Then I copied down the message above his grave, which was also oddly fitting,

'Christ is the Morning Star
Who when the night of this world is past
Brings to his saints the promise of the light of life
And opens everlasting day.'

It was very weird being in this place and realising most people were going to find it WEIRD, the idea of Jesus trying to cause the Apocalypse and kill God...

Then I saw some signs as tributes for people who'd died in two world wars. For people 'who died so that we may live', on land, sea and in the air. It was nice. But then at the bottom of each was 'Thanks be to God'.

Thanks be to GOD? How about thanking the people who actually DIED?

I left then. I'd already annoyed the photographers by walking down the central aisle while they were trying to take a photo. By the time I was across Palace Green, I'd decided to make my point about not only cathedrals being good defences against demons by having college bars acting as defences as well. I've been hardpressed trying to think of somewhere that inspires as much hope and relief from despair in people as religious buildings, and then it came to me - college bars! Where you moan about your problems to your friends and they get you drunk and you're happy again! Perfect!

So, I'm going back with a notebook some time to take proper notes. One important thing I noticed was that the pews aren't solid blocks, so Kirsten couldn't hide behind one. She'd have to hide behind a huge pillar.

Then I headed down into the city, got this week's More and the SFX Heroes special - many pictures of the pretties, yay! - then got back home, where I am cooking for everyone tonight. Joy of joys.