Saturday, March 28th, 2009

starting to put down roots

it's been a funny old week. Started off Monday with a trip to the Doctors and a, not entirely surprising, diagnosis of Type2 Diabetes. After absorbing that blow, it was off to get a new gizmo for recording blood glucose levels, a nifty finger pranger, and a large bottle of pills.

I seemed to have struck gold with my doctor not only being a woman around my own age, but one who has type2 diabetes, and recently went through gastric bypass surgery to deal with her morbid obesity at the same level as my own. So I can talk to her and know that she understands, with acute intensity, everything I'm going through, and have gone through most of my adult life.

so I've been recording every bite of what I'm eating, took my measurments, *faints* and did the finger pricky thing twice during the week. I'm sure there'll be a ton of adjustment when I finally get the call to visit the Diabetes Clinic, but in the meantime I contacted a local support group and look forward to monthly meetings to answer questions and get the latest information on my condition.

I also made contact with Lesley Marshall of the New Zealand Society of Authors, with a view to becoming a member, and attending their monthly meetings. I feel a bit of a fraud, as I haven't written anything 'original' in over eighteen months, and my manuscript is still waiting to be 'accepted' or 'rejected' for publication in the UK, but maybe if I surround myself with those that are quite a bit more successful and dedicated to the whole process of writing than I am, right now, then it will ginger up my muse to return and pick up where we left off.

might even allow me to finish all those outstanding stories waiting in vain to be completed.

all that will have to wait until I can throw off the most disgusting head cold that developed yesterday...haven't had one of these in awhile, and it sucks donkey balls!!

S3 of Primeval will be starting in the UK soon.....am I excited?.......not even remotely. It will be fun reading what other fans think of it, but I've pretty much jumped the shark on that series - dinosaurs notwithstanding.

in fact tv at the moment is one big yawn. I have enjoyed rewatching the x-files late at night, and I find time to watch Desperate Housewives and Lost on mondays and wednesday, but once you count them out, the rest is totally naff. I've even been going to bed around midnight, which is almost heresy, given before I left Wellington I was regularly staying up to 2 or 3am, but still not achieving very much.......now I'm getting up at 7.30am *shock horror* but still not finding my groove.

I think I just need to give myself some more time to adapt to the new environment......how much, I have no idea.
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Wednesday, January 14th, 2009

Nearly Half Way through January already

Yup....time is flying by, as usual.

The court case got bumped from the 14th of Jan, which sucks. But we're still going up on the 18th to sort out a rental - just hope it doesn't take more than a week to do so.

We have plenty of places lined up, so we should strike it lucky with one of them. This time I go loaded with references and credit checks to satisfy the pickiest of landlords....

My wonderful cousin from the UK, over here for a few weeks, bought me the hardware to enable me to set up Skype on my puter...so...I'm on skype now!!! I have a webcam eyeball looking at me, and a microphone/earphone thingy to handle the talking part. The software was free, (21mb dowloaded from http://www.skype.com) and it means I can talk to my cousin when he gets back to the UK and see his mug up on the screen at the same time.......cool.

I'm sure Skype will become more popular when people realise how easy, and relatively inexpensive it is to set up.....only took me half a hour from opening the box to testing the speakers...piece of cake.

If you are on skype and want me to add you as a contact, send me a message.....

Hope everyone is having a positive start to the new year.

I'm still working on finishing two fics on my 'need to get done' pile......but might take a little longer with this week away up north coming up.
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Monday, August 20th, 2007

James Murray - Primeval (ITV)

Or several very good reasons why I'm writing short fic in this fandom.

Primeval Photo Album on Facebook

Oh, and I'm now on Facebook. (why? Because a good friend invited me, and I thought I would)

*ticks off fingers*

I'm now on :-

Bebo
Myspace
Facebook
Wordpress
Livejournal
Yahoo Groups

as well as creating/maintaining/updating five websites

*phew*

No wonder I don't have a social life off the web.

cheers

x x x x x
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Friday, August 17th, 2007

A New Obsession

Like I really need another fandom to get caught up in. *sigh*

Anyway......Primeval.......(the ITV uk series, not the movie)....just finished it's six episode, series one, run on NZ tv. As usual we are about six months behind the rest of the world (except maybe the US, who don't usually go big with UK SF series, except Dr.Who)......that aside, the DVD gets its release as of yesterday, and it's on my birthday wish list *yay*

Where was I?.......oh yeah, Primeval.....new fandom obsession, largely due to the on screen pairing of Hannah Spearitt and James Murray (characters Stephen Hart and Abby Maitland). Knew absolutely nothing about either of them, and in fact watched the episodes at first with a jaundiced eye.  I mean, I adore dinosaurs and have watched anything with the scaly big buggers that's been on, but somehow I didn't expect and wasn't disappointed when the series looked as cheesy as only a dinosaurs-in-present day can look.   

But then a funny thing happened.  By the time it got to the sixth episode, I was completely and utterly hooked.  To the point where I'm even considering writing some "missing scene" fanfic, as there is little available at the moment on the web.  I kind of liken it to having a school girl crush, which, despite my advanced age, I do remember getting in my teens, when you look at something and can't stand it at first, then take a second look and fall in lust!! (couldn't stand 'the young ones' when it first played, now I consider it a classic comedy..and there are others)

Certainly I'm seriously in lust with James Murray, who has some seriously wicked eyes to die for and just a lovely package all ways round. Together with Hannah (Abby) they make just an adorable couple.  Admitedly the dialogue leaves a lot to be desired, and the acting, as it always is at the start of a series, a little stiff and sometimes forced, but by the sixth episode they are working together well as a team and I'm well and truly along for the ride.

A second series has begun production, and I'm now going to be looking for other stuff by James (appeared in Under the Greenwood Tree and other stuff).

Still got to finish my current PP project, but I had already decided that was going to be the last for awhile as I'm starting to repeat myself and the stories are getting waaaaaaaay too long. Plus I've been neglecting my Original Novel sequel, as well as doing some seriously editing and getting the manuscript ready to show for publication.  So I think some short fics are just what I need to keep the creative juices flowing and Primeval could just be the ticket.

Can't wait for the DVD to arrive......I'll be hanging out for the next season (which we won't probably get until next year some time *groan*)

tootly pip

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Sunday, April 29th, 2007

Competition Results

Well........got the results back from my first ever writing competition.

I entered a month or more ago with the first 25 pages of my original novel written last year. Submitted by email, which was a mission as each time I sent it something else went screwy with the page numbering or format. Anyway, wibbling aside, it was judged by 3 judges - none of them published, but one a prof/award winner and two keen readers. One loved it - gave me a really high mark and lots of lovely comments, both useful and flattering. The second judge completely hated it - gave me the lowest possible marks without using zero *LOL*...but also gave me lots of useful criticism, but really, I think she wanted to burn it *LOL*...the last judge was right down the middle, brief comments, spare criticism, and moderate marks. So there you go, I'm not the next JK, but I can consider myself well and truly blooded!

I've already sent away two more competition entries, and another is due by June 1st, so I might do some thinking about that one, and maybe indulge in some tweaking.

Just goes to show...writing success is entirely dependant on your audience - some will love you, some with hate you and the rest ??? well, maybe a really sexy cover will suck them in. *LOL*.....

cheers all
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Wednesday, April 25th, 2007

I have a blog



http://louiselangton.wordpress.com/

You may wonder at the name.....why not my usual moniker??

well, as you may know I am hoping, one day, to be published.

Squeezynz and Weezer42 really don't cut it on a book cover, now
do they!! really......so I had to come up with another name
to use as my nom-de-plume......so I came up with a combination
of my real name and a name from a recent relative to arrive at
Louise Langton. I could use my 'real' name, of course I could,
but that's no fun *grin*

Anyway, my blog will be a tad more serious than my LJ, with
entries geared more towards my thoughts on writing and the whole
business of publishing and being published.

In the meantime, I'm working on the next chapter of Flying Boy, and
hope to post over the next weekend. Depends on how much time I get
to myself - it was ANZAC day today, which meant the kids were off
School after only two days back after the school holidays *sigh*
so patience please, I'll post when I can.

I was reading more of my own fiction, this time from my LOTG site
and I really enjoyed it....I was worried that it would suffer from
being my first foray into writing, but despite a couple of spelling
and grammar mistakes, on the whole it made for a great adventure yarn.

I'm happy with that.

TTFN
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Tuesday, April 3rd, 2007

April is here - hurray! hurray!

Goodness know why I'm cheering.......must be mad!

Anyhoo.....discovered something disturbing when I was on Fanfiction.net updating my latest epic.

I decided to dip into another of my stories - Whither by Moonlight - and found that in some of the chapters strange things have happened to the text in places. The word "on" has been put into the oddest places, completely disrupting the flow and making me wonder if I was blind that day. I know I make a few mistakes, but these are too bad to overlook and I can't believe I didn't notice them before posting. They appear in another chapter and I'm going to have to trawl through all of them to see how widespead the problem is. So anyone thinking that I'm a crap editor of my own work,......I'm sorry but I don't think it's my fault, I think Ff.net has done something screwy. Heck when I first posted ch.10 to Flying Boy the download left off the last two paragraphs!! I had to repost to make sure they got it all!....and when I posted ch.10 it took two days for it to appear - when it did there was only the header not the content until another day passed! AAAAGH!

So now I have the mammoth task of checking all my stories and reload corrected chapters or else look like a nitwit unable to see the most blatent editing mistakes. GRRRR.

Well.....that's my gripe for the week.

Happy Easter one and all.....and I sincerely hope that the problem with my websites is sorted soon or else I'll be very, very cross indeed. *humph*

cheers all *bunny hugs to one and all - pass the chocolate*
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Friday, March 16th, 2007

Good Grief...........it's March!!

Hah......missing in action again. Me bad.

So much has been happening in the month or more since I last posted, I'm not sure where to start.

So I won't.

Hah.....in a bloody minded mood at the moment. Could have something to do with writing an entire chapter and having the computer eat it....AAAAAAAAAAGH!!! so I have to re write it.....$%@#$%$#

I did get to enter my first writing comp, in the US no less, by email too boot! wonders of modern technology. If they'd only allowed hard copy submission I wouldn't been able to enter.....but with the whizz bang speed of a flying gnat, I'm in!!! yay!!

In real life I was hoping to start a course in editing/proofreading/publishing via a correspondence course...well that was tromped on by WINZ who wouldn't agree to fund the further education....it wasn't on their LIST. The provider was, but not that particular course, despite it being the same price, and the same provider....they would only fund a FreelanceJournalism course.....$%#$&%* again. If I wanted to be a Journalist I'd be working at the local paper.....not writing historical novels and fanfiction in my spare time.....*sigh*

next time on earth.

Anyway......we're starting to look winter in the face again....summer has fled and the nights are drawing in. Joy.

cheers all

*hugs*
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