If you review books – have you said any of these? If you write books have you seen these used? I know I have

So as much as I’ve drooled every time my favourite chocolate company Hotel Chocolat sent me leaflets about their Tasting Club I’ve always successfully ignored them.

One recently dropped through my letterbox advertising their new milk only selection. I thought perfect and promptly investigated … only to find out that some of them contain alcohol. Oh well, I thought … but then I looked on their website – big mistake!

I discovered that the Chocolate Tasting Club have a selection of mostly milk chocolate non alcoholic chocolate – it’s called the Elements Selection and I’m afraid I couldn’t resist. And look what arrived yesterday

Mmmm, it looks (and smells) delicious and for being part of the club I get to taste my favourite chocolate companies chocolate before they hit the shops – win win!

I must make it last, I must make it last!!

I’ve decided that from this week onwards I’m going to change a few things here, instead of attempting to post every day I’m going to reduce it down to four posts a week this will open up more time for commenting on other blogs (and I love commenting ) I’m also going to stop posting the Writertopia meter image onto every post and only include it on this Sunday post.

So here it is:

I’m actually quite excited by this figure (I know it’s small but it’s the most I’ve ever written on a novel without it being part of NaNoWriMo (so forgive me for doing a little dance right now )

This week I discovered I think I made the right decision to keep the story in third person – it allows me to take a sneak peak at another character without the main character being there and it revealed something I wasn’t expecting – which was fun.

It’s been a weird week though as not one, not two but three alternative endings have cropped up (I always thought I knew where this story would roughly end – considering I’ve been playing around with variations of it for a good five or six years) but now I have three possibilities and they all sound interesting.

I hope everyone’s had a good week too

I’ve always been like this – doing things in the same way, keeping everything consistent means I don’t forget to do something and ensures that I don’t run out of time to do things.

So it’s probably not surprising that when I decided again to try and write this story that having a routine has helped me to actually keep writing it. The thing is I arrive in work normally at around 7:30am (this is a whole hour before I need to get there) but I detest sitting around in traffic and not having a seat on the bus, so getting in early is what I do

Better still, the office is open at this time and as I have quite a small (easily reached) writing target of just 200 words a day I can write them before work. Admittedly at the moment I get carried away and most days I write 300 but it appears that applying what I do elsewhere has also worked with my writing (so far anyway ).

At weekends it’s back to my usual I’ll write when I can but that’s because there is no way I am going to get up at 7:30am on weekends. No. Way – I need sleep

Do you have a writing routine? When is the best time for you to write?

1) Check me out, over on the Hot Key Books blog – Okay, this is actually to do with my book blog Books 4 Teens (and might happen a few times in this feature). Hot Key Books are a new Children and YA publisher in the UK and they are currently asking bloggers a few short questions and I thought it would be quite fun to take part. My answers are the second set down on this post but do read the much more interesting answers from Lynsey and then why not check out the other bloggers too!

2) Mark Grist on Girls who read – I saw this first on a couple of YA book blogs in the last week and thought it appropriate to share it here!

3) A guide through a publishing contract – I found this series posted to the Stroppy Author blog via Nicola Morgan’s Help! I Need A Publisher blog (which is well worth a read for any aspiring (and published)) writer. And of course with my ever so slight interest in the law I found this series really interesting, I think anyone reading this blog might too!

4) Talking about the law I posted last week that I will soon be starting Y186 Starting With Law (an OU Openings module). Now the modules official start date is next Saturday but I’ve been having sneaky reads here and there (you know to get ready) and it looks really good! I think I might properly start looking at it tonight!

5) Serenity arrived today. After discovering to my horror that I had watched all of the Firefly episodes it was a relief to see this little parcel on my doorstep, my journey with the crew of Serenity can now continue

And today (a bit like my post the other day, I’m going to share with you my favourties!)

First up, is Jackson’s interpretation of song Tik Tok (happily renamed, Writers Blok)

I watched this video so many times when I first saw it – it’s just amazing and the amount of time and energy that went into it must have been staggering – but so worth it

Next, is an interpretation of the publishing process:

Just imagine if the process was really this smooth!!!

And finally, why you should buy a laser printer (it was on the strength of this video alone that I bought one (and at a discount too ))

I think from this little sample we can come to the conclusion that Jackson Pearce is awesome, right? Jackson posts vlogs which range from helpful writing tips to funny videos to thought provoking videos, well worth a follow. So go check out her You Tube channel, blog and twitter

This post is really referring to yesterday evening. Shortly after I got back from work all the power went from our house and all houses in the surrounding area (not to mention all the streetlights going dark too!).

In contrast to what has gone in the past this was relatively small – 20 minutes or so without power, not really a big deal (well unless you’re me and having post work Twitter withdraw symptoms lol).

It was wierd, with all the power gone I’d expected it would be quiet – peaceful perhaps, fat chance! The first thing I heard was three or four house alarms blaring out over with there constant sirens going on and on and on and on and on ….

Then there was the sound of the engines nosily working there way home from work on the main road that runs not far from our house. Not to forget the people who had come out of there houses to double check that it wasn’t just there electricity that had suddenly gone off.

So, yeah – not so much quiet – much more noiser than ever!

It does make you wonder though what would the world be like without electricity? We rely on it to keep food fresh, to entertain us, to deliver us news, to keep us warm to enable us to read (though we could use candles – actually paper and candles probably not a good idea!) and so much more. It’s quite scary to think what would happen if / when it all just … runs out.

Of course that didn’t happen yesterday, 20 minutes later lights in windows across the streets start flicking back on and then a gentle escalating hum that sounded a bit like the buzzers on catchphrase (but a lot quieter) and our lights and TV flicked back on …. and TWITTER WAS RESTORED TO ME!!!!

Hey, that was fun hehe!

I am learning to play the piano, now I’m not particularly good and always chicken out and select the easy play pieces to play – so I’m nothing like these guys who are awesome. I hope you like them as much as I do!

I’ll start with a booky themed one (okay a film theme tune based on a book), I give you the Piano Guys playing the Harry Potter theme tune….

Do you see what I mean, now for something a little bit faster – the Pirates of the Caribbean theme tune…

I’m actually going to be learning to play this soon (I have the book ready and everything ) but it’s not going to be anywhere near as complicated and amazing as this performance is.

What do you guys think of them? Are they good or are they good?

Anyhoo, I said on Friday that I would post a writing update today and I intend to do this every Sunday as a solid review of the words I’ve written and any thoughts I’ve had as I’ve written. This is also to help me revisit the goal I made at the start of this blog and to ensure that I’m actually meeting the weekly target!

You may have also noticed graphics appearing on the bottom of my daily posts – this is so I (and you if you wish hehe) can keep track of my daily word count.

Here is today’s so far (though I think I might write some more later):

My only thought so far is that I was thinking about changing it to first person, only to find that it wasn’t working in the first paragraph and I kind of prefer it in third person – so I scrapped that idea lol

In the UK in order to open a bank account or other financial product you need to prove who you are, fair enough. But the ID required is particularly limited. The two big one’s that banks can accept – I don’t have:

Passport – I have never left the UK and to be honest I don’t intend to – not because I don’t want to see the world but I don’t like the idea of flying, I worry a ship would sink and that the eurotunnel would crash down around my ears if I was ever to go through it. Completely irrational I know but there you go. Disney world is never going to happen for me lol. As a result I begrudge paying £75 and going through an incredibly long process just to get ID!

Driving License – similar really, I don’t particularly want to learn how to drive, I’m far happier relying on public transport. Seriously, I think I would be a danger to the people of Bristol if I was let loose on the roads! And again I don’t want to spend £50 just for ID

There are other forms of ID that can be used … all of which I don’t have, birth certificates are only accepted for those under 20 and while I used to have student ID (this is surprisingly on RBS’s list), that is now out of date lol.

So technically speaking as it stands I can only open an account with banks I already have accounts with, so I’m slightly thankful I went on a bit of a bank account opening spree when I was younger and have three current accounts with different banks hehe (those free gifts were just a little too tempting!).

Would you get a driving license / passport just for ID?