The Day After Who

Well it has probably not passed by unnoticed by many people that Dr. Who has turned fifty years old, which certainly makes me feel old, because I remember the seeing the first episode way back in 1963 as a child.

The Day of the Doctor by Steven Moffat's was in one word awesome. 

 I sat and watched it with my beloved and we were both enthralled, and I remember muttering awesome as the first scene of the Dalek fleet doing their thing around the Planet Gallifrey came on screen.  

John Hurt's War Doctor, upstaging Tennant and Smith at every turn, awesome.  

Bilie Piper as the weapon, awesome.  

The Zygon breaking the fourth wall and talking about their performance and getting into role, awesome.  

The scene with Tom Baker as the curator, awesome.  

The arrival of all thirteen of the Doctor's TARDISs to save the day, awesome.  

The final scene of all the Doctors, both moving and awesome.  In short the show was the crowning moment of awesome that Dr. Who needed.  Colour me impressed as it hit all the right emotional spots.  I stand in awe.

In other news, struggling to finish A Game of Thrones, which I feel is about a hundred pages too long.  I don't know if this is down to watching the TV series, or what?  So I hope to read the next two books before watching the third series on disc.  It's not as if I find George R. R. Martin's writing difficult to read, so I'm a little puzzled by my response to finishing the story.

My progress ha been good this week with a total of 9,239 words that brings the running total up to 92,771 words.  So I'm well into the end run and finishing the first draft of my third novel.

Writing Log 131117

As you can see I've gone blond, and I'm not sure whether to stay blond or go back to being a red head.  Neither is my natural colour, that is sort of auburn, or was, but now with a large dose of grey, hence the assistance from my hairdresser.  

So purely in a sense of fun what do my readers think?

This week turned out to be a good week for banging those words out and progressing the third novel. 

Three chapters sent to my alpha reader, the first of which blew her out of the water.  Not literally, but she was at a loss for words.  So the weekly total was 9,693 making the running total 83,564.  Checking back on my previous two works I'm now at plus one week over the time it took to finish the previous novel.

Still reading A Game of Thrones, with 168 pages to go.  I finding it okay, but it drags a bit for my tastes.  Not that it isn't a good read, but it's not my thing; a certain lack of rockets, robots, or ray-guns.

This week we watched Warehouse 13 season 4.  

The start of the season didn't grab me, but it improved, as in it went back to what it did best and so the season ended quite well.  My complaint here is that the show tried to deal with quite serious themes, but the scripts and actors couldn't carry the weight within the format of what is basically a very light hearted family show.

As an addition I see that Doris Lessing has died.  

I had the great honour of being her minder at 45th World Science Fiction Convention held in Brighton, chosen purely on the grounds that I wasn't going to go all fan googly all over her.  I remember her as charming woman who was rather bemused by the idea of being invited to the convention, who enjoyed talking to people.

Lest We Forget

Remembrance Sunday, lest we forget.

Yesterday I was at a writers critique group day, my second as a visitor, before I have to choose to become a member, which I did.  If for no other reason that I need social contacts who get what I'm doing.  I enjoyed reading both the stories that were discussed and feel I have a good chance of fitting into this group.  Unfortunately, no more meetings until the New Year.

This week has been busy with me going to the inaugural lecture of Professor Alex Blakemore who kindly invited me to attend.  This was an outstandingly good lecture on genetics and copy number variants that I took a lot away from.

Writing wise I managed 4,743 words this week, which brings the running total up to 73,559.  I got some very positive feedback from the last chapter from my Alpha reader, which is always heartening.

I'm still reading A Game of Thrones, there's a surprise, not!  He does go on a bit.

Finished watching Arrow though.  An adaptation of the DC's Green Arrow that is very good.  The first four episodes were outstandingly good.  They gripped one from the get go and I was of the mind that this was as good as Person of Interest.  

However, while both shows share similar themes, technological Batman style vigilant, Arrow is bound by its tropes, whereas Person of Interest takes the tropes, twists them and then shreds them before moving on.  

So, if you are a superhero fan then Arrow is well worth watching, if you want to see a good superhero show and don't know where to start then likewise Arrow is a good place to start.  If you are not into superheroes you may find the story a bit melodramatic and farfetched.

Fireworks

Another week and another internet outage, which means this is a day late.  On the upside I've had more time to read, because not surfing the internet and putting it to right.  

So I'm now about two-thirds of the way through A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin.  It's what I would call a page turner, easy to read and pulls you along.  Interesting to compare how the characters are portrayed in the books versus in the TV series.  There are some differences, the biggest being the ages with everyone being younger, but more care worn.  The novel feels very much like a historical fiction with a soupcon of magic in the form of the White Walkers and the dragons.

Work wise I managed 5,794 words for what turned out to be another three day week due to having to go down to Aldershot to pick up my truck.  This months total was therefore 23.398 words, which brings the novel up to a running total to 68,828 words. So definitely in the home stretch here.  

I've just scanned my draft and realised that I'm further into act four than I thought and act five is on the horizon.  At this point I'm over schedule as both the previous two novels were finished by this time, but I feel this is the best writing I've done so far, as I've certainly upped my game at a couple of points through this story.  

Of course levelling up only means the obstacles get harder, but still it's a good sign.

We've been watching Arrow on our projector this week, until the bulb died.  So I'll say more next week about this series.  What I will say is that I found the first four episodes enthralling.  

So, to end this weeks blog, may I wish you all a happy and safe Guy Fawkes night, a peculiarly British tradition when we celebrate what can be seen as the failure of religious extremists to destroy the Mother of Parliaments and the survival of democracy, or the the failure by disenfranchised citizens to send the rulers of this country a message to the establishment of this country that they suck.