after_the_light

In memory of family and friends who have lost the battle with cancer; and in support of the ones who continue to conquer it! Post this on your LJ if you know someone who has or had cancer. 93% won't copy and paste this. Will you?

Have a great day, everyone :)

I've been toying with doing a 10 week photography course with the OU, starting in October. Cost £185. It's as much about how to manipulate photos digitally to make them better, as it is about learning how to use a camera and take good pictures. The course gets good reviews, though.

However, as we're (hopefully) moving house, my thoughts turned to taking up spinning wool. I had a go at it one holiday in Ireland (on Clare Island!!) and enjoyed it, but I've never had the space or need to take up the hobby. At the moment, my mum, friends and myself are all knitting/crochet factories, so it would be nice to have some hand spun yarn to use, rather than acrylic wool all the time. Taking up wheel spinning isn't cheap! You can do it much cheaper by hand spinning, but obviously the output isn't as fast and the results aren't as consistent.

So basically, I figure I can do one or the other, but not both.

So which should I do? What do you think?

There's something to be said for going to the cinema for morning showings, 9:50am on a Saturday to be precise. The cinema was practically empty, so we were able to feed Ella before the film started and it was a chilled out atmosphere.

The film was ace! Really nicely done and some fantastic retro quotes including Kyle Reese's immortal "come with me if you want to live", line. I have to say, Anton Yelchin was completely wasted in the latest Star Trek movie. He was far better as a young Kyle.

Anyway, I won't say anymore except - go see it! It might have been one of those films I would have paid to see more than once (Transformers being the only other one... 3 times...), only it isn't entirely possible with a baby!

Ok.. my first attempts at crochet...



Sorry the picture quality is a bit blurry!

I was talking to my mum last night and she said the weather looked awful and that we might get snow. Snow? Snow? I can't remember the last time we had a decent snowfall where I am! Of course, on waking up this morning, we do indeed have nice soft fluffy snow. Not a huge amount, enough to have laid on cars but be all but gone on the roads :( Certainly not enough to cause any issues getting anywhere, but hey... snow!

Because it's a sweet idea....!

Pay It Forward: I will send a handmade gift to the first 5 people who leave a comment here on my LJ.

I don’t yet know what that gift will be - it could be anything: cloth, metal, paper, wood, a song, anything goes - but you will receive it within 365 days. The gift will be something I can make and to my ability. Hopefully it will be something you like, but I make no promises.
The only thing you have to do in return is "pay it forward" by making a similar agreement on your blog.

And, as I probably won't get online tomorrow:

Happy Christmas!!!

I hope everyone has a wonderful day :-)

Mighty, mighty fine film :-)

The performances were fantastic, it was packed full of twists and turns and clever plot layering. Nothing happened for no reason, even if you didn't immediately see the connections, it was one of the most clever pieces of scripting I've seen in quite a while. The cinematography was absolutely gorgeous and the necessary gadgets weren't overbearing. There were some moments of pure comedy and other moments where your stomach was turning in knots and you were gripping the edge of your seat. Heath Ledger's Joker was a marvellous performance, but then so was Christian Bale as Batman/Bruce Wayne. Ledger had a better script to work with, but he was so much more sinister than in the original set of films.

Basically, go see!

Friday night: Forbidden Kingdom. Good for a laugh, some scenes are a blatant excuse to have Jackie Chan and Jet Li showing off their fighting skills, but overall very well done and some gorgeous cinematography. No surprises.

Saturday daytime: went to the theatre in Leeds to see a stage version of Monkey! I don't know if anyone remembers the very hammy, poorly done (low budget, 1970's, what do you expect?) Chinese TV series? it's based on a myth. funnily enough, Forbidden Kingdom is the continuation story. I didn't realise that when we went to see it. It was very good. Obviously not as spectacular as the film, but really good in its own right with some gorgeous rope work. Good laughs.

Sunday night: Kung Fu Panda. Very very funny. There is something after the credits, just so you know, plus the credits themselves are worth watching anyway, as they are very well done. Some big name stars doing the voices. It was a good laugh. Again, no real surprises, but it was a film with a lot of laughs and a lot of heart. Well worth going to see.

All in all, a very Kung Fu orientated weekend!

I have updated my origami xanga with pictures of some of the stuff I've been doing this past week.

That's my stack of books (some borrowed, some bought). I've read 5 of that pile and need to dip into the others. One is a bit useless (second from the bottom), but hey. I also have 26 web links saved, with more to be added and a couple more pdf files saved from the internet.

I have NEVER done so much research for ANYTHING before.

It's been a while since I have had bad troubles sleeping. Tonight seems to be one of those nights where I can't relax or drift off to sleep. So, may a well do something useful, I guess. One of the dead end stories I've written probably isn't so dead ended at all. I'm going to see if I can slot it together (there were two versions of it and some cut scenes), to get a half novel length story that I'm happy with, then I can finish it. I do actually remember where I was heading with it, which is good.

I need to make more notes on my story ideas. I really do. Blah.

Hamlet essay done and sent off. Phew. I hope it's ok. It's marginally shorter than the last one, over the word limit but within the 10% allowed excess.

Now I am going to get tea and relax.

At what point is it ok to kill a character? And what would you see as a 'good' death?

For example.. Boromir in Lord of The Rings has a 'good' death. There was no way he could not die at that point in the novel, given everything he had done. He needed to redeem himself and it would have felt flat if he had just be captured along with Pippin and Merry. The Orcs didn't want a smelly human, only the hobbits...

On the flip side, Wash in Serenity/Firefly had a rubbish death, imo. Yes he had his 'heroic' moment, but he was killed partly due to contracting issues (if I remember rightly the actor couldn't promise to be around for follow up films) and also so the director (yes Mr Whedon and this isn't the first (or last) time you've played this trick...) could show that he COULD kill a main character. His death came totally out of left field, in a way that really shouldn't have happened given the dynamic of the scene and only a few minutes later (in film time), there was a much better opportunity to kill the character...

I'd really like people's input on this... I'm debating killing a character in Guardian, but I don't know if it would be the right thing to do. I won't go into specifics because I don't want any plot spoilers. My main concern is that it would feel either wrong and hollow, or simply unjustified (depending on which route I take with the ending plot)....

So... please comment and let me know what you think about my opening questions...

Ta muchly :-)

March's challenge is going to revolve around the Post Secret website (http://postsecret.blogspot.com/). New secrets are posted each Sunday. So, for each Sunday in March the challenge is to pick one of the secrets and use it to spark your writing; be that a bought of timed, free writing, a short story, a poem, or anything else that you might want to write!

If you're interested in this challenge, please come across to the <a href="http://www.writingrocks.org/smf/index.php:>Writing Rocks boards</a> and join in. At the moment, we're a small community and we would happily welcome new members :-)

I think this news story proves that the world has, indeed, gone mad.