Careful – Men At Work

Would you believe that yesterday I forgot to post? That’s the truth, though, whether you believe it or not. My hammer and I have been fiddling about on the inside of if all else fails… and I just completely lost track of time. But it wasn’t time wasted: I’ve given the Song Title Challenge page a little makeover and it now boasts a streamlined index of all past challenges which will update itself automatically every time I post a new story. It might not impress you but it’s sure going to make my life easier.

Actually I’ve been tinkering quite a lot lately. I’ve been volunteering in the WordPress.com forums and a pleasant side-effect is that I’m learning much more about how WordPress and blogging works, and I’m trying to rectify some of the mistakes I made in the early days when I did not yet know any better.

Hard Hat and Hammer — Image courtesy of adamr / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

A consequence of all this tinkering is that things around here might go a little awry, so if you happen to stumble across any missing images or broken links, please let me know in the comments and I’ll be right along with my trusty hammer to whack things back into shape. I do recommend wearing a hard hat, though. Don’t want you getting injured by a falling hammer.

In other news, (at the risk of jinxing it) I finally seem to be getting into my stride with the studies (took long enough!). It is only natural, then, that the universe appears to be conspiring against me working this week.

First my former boss wants me to check up on my replacement by moderating some of her students’ examination scripts from the mid-year exam. That means I’m once again grading English essays – something I’d hoped I’ll never have to do again. At least they pay me to do this.

I’m also suddenly getting inundated with requests for extra lessons by seniors finally realising that their final examinations are terrifyingly close and that they haven’t been paying attention in English for the last eleven-and-a-half years. Between my inability to say no and my intense desire to have a positive cash flow again for a month or two I’m trying to squeeze them in, but we’ll see how it goes.

And the final cherry on top is that the wife’s come down with a stomach bug. Which means she’s at home. Which means when I take a study break I’m playing nurse. Or washing dishes. Or cooking. Or doing laundry. Oh, the things we do for those we love (though I do the last three even when she’s not ill, but I’m complaining here – I don’t get the chance that often).

But busy is good, right? Hopefully I wont forget about this weekend’s review 😉

Song Title Challenge #58: Midnight Train to Georgia by Gladys Knight and the Pips

It’s time for this week’s Song Title Challenge.

Write a short piece of fiction, around 300 words, using the song title as your story title but don’t listen to the song. You can pick your own genre or use the one suggested to me. Remember to link back to this post so I can find yours.

If you would like to suggest a song title for a future post, you can do so from the challenge page. You can also leave a suggestion on the Facebook page.

This week’s song is Midnight Train to Georgia by Gladys Knight and the Pips and was suggested by bumblepuppies. Genre is Sci-Fi/Fantasy.

Midnight Train to Georgia

Continue reading “Song Title Challenge #58: Midnight Train to Georgia by Gladys Knight and the Pips” →

Ten books that stand out in my reading life

A couple of months ago Emma at A Wordless Blogger tagged me for the Ten Influential Books Tag. I’ve recently decided not to do awards anymore, partly because I keep getting nominated for the same award over and over, partly because I am out of eleven facts to share about myself, partly because I never know who to nominate, but mostly because I forget about the things until I one day start clearing out no longer relevant bookmarks in my browser and discover there are a bunch of old award nominations I just never got around to.

But this blog-tag sounded fun, as I’m all about books, reading them and writing them, after all. Then I ran into a problem: this tag contained no description, only a name. And what does it mean if I say “Ten most influential books”? The most influential books ever? As Jimmy over at Dysfunctional Literacy never gets tired of pointing out, you can’t nominate any book the best ever unless you’ve read them all.

Okay, books that have influenced me, then. That’s a tough one. Sure, there have been books that have influenced me, my way of thinking and my outlook on life, but most of them were non-fiction, many of them were academic texts, and I can’t remember them specifically – when I come across something significant which I want to add to my life, I absorb it and internalise it, I don’t make a note of where I found it (I also don’t highlight novels or write down quotes).

So I decided to decided to depart a little from the brief and share with you ten books that have stood out in my reading life thus far.

Click here to see what they are

Books are treasure chests

Of course, some books are treasures in and of themselves. Rare first editions, illuminated 8th century manuscripts, limited edition collected works, and the like can fetch thousands, in some cases even millions of dollars at auctions and on the black market.

The stories inside them are also treasures, but neither of those are what I meant when I said books are treasure chests.

To find out what I meant you’ll have to click the link

Song Title Challenge #57: Number 9 Dream by John Lennon

It’s time for this week’s Song Title Challenge.

If you would like to suggest a song title for a future post, you can do so from the challenge page. You can also leave a suggestion on the Facebook page.

This week’s song is Number 9 Dream by John Lennon and was suggested by Matthew Wright. He gave the genre as “surreal”, so Sci-Fi it is. This one turned out longer than usual, but I’ve already cut two hundred words from the first draft so I’m leaving it as it is.