A Cavern of Black Ice by J.V. Jones was a hard read for me, but I made it all the way to the end. I should warn you that there is no resolution whatsoever; it’s one of those series books that simply stops, rather than providing a self-contained story. According to the Internets, there are four more books planned, but only two have been released.

I really don’t remember how the last season ended, and I haven’t yet seen the Christmas episode. (Thank’s for nothing, Netflix.) 00:00 - Who’s Hannah? Oh. 02:30 - WTF! They’re all grown up! And broken! 04:15 - Why doesn’t Matt Smith look human? His face is all … weird … 05:20 - And why is he slurring his words? I mean, more than usual for British television. 06:00 - The intro looks different somehow. The tunnel is more blue-green than blue. And, oh, that red fire is definitely new.

Liveblogging Dr. Who stream on BBC thanks to a proxy … 00:35 - Sometimes it’s impossible to figure out what’s going on without rewinding a bit. 01:40 - Oh, the dog barking outside was actually on the stream … 02:30 - Wow, he doesn’t even ask anymore. 02:50 - That was a super-fast setup. 06:00 - Wait, is that a two-headed dinosaur? Oh, it’s just a pair of them hanging out together.

I’m trying an experiment. You may have already noticed it. I’m going to post the text of my novel draft “Airworld” as I write it (more-or-less). Some days I might post thousands of words, and some days I might post a couple of sentences or nothing. (Lately it has been more of the latter.) I’m also trying an email subscription plugin. The idea is that you subscribe and new posts are sent to your inbox, so you have a serialized story delivered right to your doorstep without the hassle of using a bookmark link. The emails don’t seem to be working yet, but I’m still tinkering with it.

[The following is the abandoned first draft of “Curses.” If enough people say, “Wow, this is awesome, you should finish it!” I might try to resurrect it.] Olivaer Toebem woke from another dream in which had two arms, startled by a loud commotion in the common room downstairs. He threw off the bed covers and tried to stand, fumbling for balance in the near-darkness. He staggered to the doorway of his small room to find out what had happened. Perhaps Tias had dropped a stack of books.

I have heard for quite some time that Joe Abercrombie was more of a “gritty” fantasy writer, more in the vein of George R.R. Martin than Robert Jordan. So that’s what I expected in The Blade Itself. What I read was not gritty. I would describe it more as an action-adventure with a fantasy flavor. Actually it felt more like an urban fantasy style of writing in a medieval fantasy setting. The characters had a lot of flippancy in their dialog, and it was very fast-paced with no setting descriptions. But I’ll admit I only made it 15% through the book before I got bored.

I’ve been distracted a bit by moving into a new place. Which is a flimsy excuse for not writing, to be honest. Even in the middle of moving, one can easily take an hour out of one’s day to write a thousand words if one really _wants_ to. The truth is I have gotten out of the habit of writing every day and getting back into it is kind of hard, which is why 95% of potential authors don’t ever write

I forgot to do a status update in June, so this will be a two-month report. So, yeah, I haven’t written much. :) I’ve been playing The Secret World and Rift and rebuilding my computer and watching tv and other non-writery type things. If I had a deadline coming up and an editor or an agent or something like that depending on me, they would probably be quite distressed over it.

I’m taking a break after Book 8 of The Wheel of Time and reading some other things. I’ve started Joe Abercrombie’s The Blade Itself. Thusfar it’s not growing on me, but it’s still early. It is, at least, a very different style than Robert Jordan. I know, I know, I haven’t written enough in the last few weeks. I’ll get back to it any day now! I will. Don’t look at me like that.

I think this sums up everyone’s feelings on the matter. Write Like the Wind (George R. R. Martin)