Sarah Cawkwell's Blog, page 8

This Is Your Life

The Son will be fifteen years old in February. This week brought with it something of an epiphany. It sounds kind of crazy but this week I realised that after nearly fifteen years, my life is suddenly my own again. And I have forgotten how to be me and not a mother. Mind you, I wasn’t exactly the kind of person who went out all the time before he put in his appearance.

Children had never really featured in my Grand Plan. The idea was there in the corner of my thoughts that I might quite like kids some day, but I never expected it to happen when it did. He was a surprise in all ways. His control over my life started the day he decided to turn up two months before his due date. A little tiny thing, weighing in at 4lbs 6oz, this minuscule human being had me where he wanted me the moment I untangled all the machines he was attached to and held him. I absolutely fell in love with him.

Of course, I had been completely expecting to have a girl so the poor boy had no name for the first three days of his life. Poor little Male Infant Watkins.

Being premature meant that he had an extended stay in hospital. The paediatricians estimated six weeks. He came home two weeks after he was born. Tough as old boots, he was and still is. In his ten year school career, he’s been off sick three times in total. I am blessed that he is so healthy. All around me, other mums have to take time off with their poorly kids, or they have long term conditions that require management. In that sense, I have had it easy. I have admiration for the mothers of more than one.

I get asked if I’d ever wanted more kids, and the answer is yes, I would have, but after y’know, both me and the Son almost died the morning he was born, I think I will just appreciate what I have, thanks.

Every year has brought new challenges, but every day has been a joy. He’s grown up into a bright, intelligent, funny young man. I am proud of his manners; of the fact you can take him anywhere, of his wicked sense of humour and in the last week, the fact he’s eagerly joined the gym with me. And it’s that which made me suddenly realise I’m free to do anything I like at the gym. For fifteen years I’ve put off going to classes, or the gym because I have had him to care for. Now he comes with me, or is perfectly fine by himself for an hour. His dependence on me hasn’t just gently ebbed, it’s retreated like a stampeding buffalo.

It’s a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it feels good to be in control of my own life again. On the other, it tugs at my heart strings watching every step he takes moving him ever further away from my circle of influence.

Being a mother has been the best, most rewarding job I have ever had. There have been times when it’s also been the most terrifying. I look at him and I’m pretty satisfied I’ve got him off to a good start. He’s just gone into Year 10 (that’s the 4th year to us old-timers). In 2015 he will sit his GCSEs. This is the first time in his life that I have no control, subtle or otherwise, over the outcome. I can encourage revision, but what will be will be. Now THAT is scary.

Wouldn’t swap him for anything though. He’s my life. And I suspect that even when he’s in his twenties, that is how it will always be.

And I’m glad.

The World Is My Oyster (or associated mollusc)

Let’s talk a little about Project: Carpark.

The first thing you need to know about Project: Carpark is that it is not a story set in either of the Warhammer worlds. It’s an original baby, with original characters. But the world in which it is set is boggling my tiny, tiny brain.

When I first got the writing gig with the Black Library, a few people said to me ‘it must be easy to write in an existing world’. Wrong. It’s actually pretty complicated. For a start, the world has ‘edges’. Boundaries. A set of rules and regulations of things that already exist. Writing within the confines of an existing universe is a lot harder, I think, than people might realise.

A lot of people write Warhammer fanfiction. A lot of it is exceptional. But a lot of it doesn’t colour in between the lines of the world as it exists. It goes over the edges with cheerful abandon. And that’s absolutely fine – it’s why fanfiction exists. To shape the world around your story, not the other way around. You are writing within guidelines that have been in place for a long time and if you stray even a few feet from the edge, someone somewhere is there to gently pull you back in. (Or possibly drop-kick you back in depending on who it is).

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By comparison, Project: Carpark is set in a world that’s partly of my own devising (cryptic, I know, but y’know. I’ll explain more when I’m allowed to). So that means I can bend the world in which it is set to fit the story I have to tell, right?

Wrong again.

This story requires some alarmingly careful world building, but it’s world building with certain constraints. Let’s put it this way. I have to be exceptionally careful with the geography and it’s starting to become a hindrance. In the middle of writing a scene, my brain will suddenly go ‘wait, is this actually geographically right?’ Then I have to check. Then, as I am wont to do, I get distracted by something entirely unrelated and the next thing you know I’m attempting to bake macaroons and the writing’s forgotten.

Which isn’t to say that I’m not enjoying the freedom of my ‘own world’ – there are certain elements of it that are great fun to play with and the characters are evolving nicely. Of a core group of six main characters, I now have four in place and am about to bring in the fifth. The fifth will be fun, because her impact on the other four will be highly entertaining.

Not for them, though. My laugh is an evil laugh.

Now that I’m working on the edits to Project: Loophole as well as writing Project: Carpark, the other thing that’s happening is the division of time. I have to juggle a full time job, writing a novel and editing another, along with my own personal need to ensure I have ‘me’ time. Tuesday night, for example, is now officially my ‘day off’ from writing (although I will still bimble through and do the odd edit here and there). Tuesday night is SW:TOR PvE night. Massively therapeutic. I’m starting to get something of a rhythm going: an hour on Carpark, an hour on Loophole, another hour divided between them both then Me Time. (All timings are approximate and are subject to change at the management’s whim. Please keep your arms and legs inside the blog at all times and remember! No flash photograph!)

Project: Carpark is now about 2/3rds into first draft completion and I’ve realised that the story I want to tell is probably twice the size of the planned word count. Again, this isn’t an entirely bad thing. I’ve adopted a slightly different approach to this story, which is to get the core of the story written and then go back and ‘pad’ out the world and surroundings accordingly. It’s actually working rather well for me. I’ve also broken my ‘linear’ rule and am writing out of order. I’ve found that if I’m struggling with a particular scene, I’ll simply put a placeholder in and jump forward to another scene.

If this sounds haphazard, don’t be fooled. My draft document is full of comments and mark-ups. It will all slot together. Like a jigsaw puzzle.

It will. Slot. Together.

[Insert boundless optimism here]

Thank You For The Music…

I have a pretty eclectic playlist. I love music and enjoy nothing more than singing along at the top of my voice on the way to work in the mornings. My car is my space and I’m at my happiest when bellowing my lungs out to whatever is the flavour du jour.

Singing is my personal chicken soup for the soul. I love to sing and am almost always listening to music in one form or other. Streaming Soundtracks is my writing companion, the radio is usually on at work, or I have my headphones in. Not singing along is the toughest thing ever!

I couldn’t pigeonhole my music tastes at all, because I have everything from classical to heavy metal on my playlist, taking in an entire spectrum of film music, musicals, pop, rock… it’s all there. So for an insight into my mind, I hit shuffle play and hereby list you the next five tracks that iTunes picks, along with a little explanation.

Daft Punk – Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

I really like Daft Punk and I’ve never quite been able to say why it is. It’s… different, I suppose. Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger is one of the Son’s favourites, so that’s why it’s on the playlist. Not exactly something that’s easy to sing along to due to the robotic nature of the vocals, but you know, I can pretend to be a robot instead.

Eagles – Take it Easy



One of my top five songs, this one. It’s a girl, my lord, in a flat-bed Ford, slowing down to take a look at me is one of those lines I like to belt out at top volume. The Eagles are easily one of my favourite bands, taking up no less than three places in my top five (admittedly one of them is Don Henley by himself). I missed an opportunity to see them play live and regretted it forever.

Street Dogs – State of Grace



The Street Dogs came to my attention on a return flight from Chicago a few years ago when we were sat directly behind the band. As it was an overnight transatlantic flight, I didn’t sleep so spent a lot of time prowling up and down the aisles. I got chatting to the band’s lead singer in the kitchen area and he was a really nice guy. We talked about music (naturally) and I promised faithfully I would listen to some of his stuff when I got home. I did. And I’ve never, ever regretted it. Delicious blend of punk-folk-rock. Green Day-esque. Probably falls into the category of angry music, but I like it and so does the Son.

E S Posthumus – Kalki

Picked up on ESP when someone queued them on Streaming Soundtracks and have been hooked ever since. Orchestral pieces, some of which I understand have been used in film trailers, adverts, that sort of thing. This particular track I like very much indeed and cite it as the soundtrack for my Star Wars: The Old Republic Sith warrior theme tune. :

John Williams – The Imperial March



Hah! That’s shuffle play for you! Clearly picked up on my Sithy thoughts and responded appropriately.

John Williams. Empire Strikes Back. Favourite film composer, one of my favourite films. ‘nuff said.

So there you go – just a brief insight into the way my musical mind words. Just for the record, here’s the next five on the shuffle playlist:-

Phantom of the Opera (film version) – Journey to the Cemetery

Barnum – Original London Cast – One Brick at a Time

Jimmy Ruffin – What Becomes of the Broken Hearted

Iron Maiden – Hallowed Be Thy Name

Christina Aguilera – Candyman

I love the contrast. Nothing like a bit of variety.

Right, off to sing quietly under my breath so as not to disturb people in the office. Can’t wait for hometime and my own car so I can resume top volume squawking.

If You’re Not Happy, Change Something…

This is one of the best bits of advice I ever got at LRP.

If you’re not happy, change something. If you’re still not happy, stop doing it.

Well, on Thursday, I had one of those ‘down on myself days’, where I kept complaining about myself. I have painfully low levels of self-esteem (no, really?) and sometimes that manifests in the worst way possible. The ‘I need to buy some new clothes but I won’t go into clothes shops for fear they’re staring at me’ way. Long term effects of playground bullying are no fun. Don’t do it, kids. But given my current ‘up’ mood, I turned that negativity into positivity. I picked the Son up after work and about two minutes after he got into the car, turned to him and suggested we drop into a local leisure centre and see what activities we could do together. He was quite keen. That startled me, but also pleased me.

I used to go to this particular leisure centre when he was about six, doing the ‘Body Balance’ classes. I loved Body Balance. To this day I can’t tell you why I stopped going. It was a weird class though, had the most bizarre effect on me. The last bit was always a ‘stress-relieving relaxation’ where the instructor turned the lights in the room out and we closed our eyes and did the whole concentrating on breathing thing. The music she played varied, but there was one bit that just… got me. Every time I heard it whilst being all relaxed and chilling after the session, I would just cry. Buckets. Not even unhappy crying. Just a release of tension, I think. Even now, I can’t hear that particular bit of music without tearing up. Someone on the interwebs took that bit of music and attached it to a bunch of utterly glorious space images. It just moves me.

So anyway, this leisure centre is no longer council run and I have to say… what a good thing. It has a completely different air to it now. Active Life is a community project and I cannot help but admire that. For two years, they’ve been investing every penny of profit back into the place and it shows. The dance studio is utterly glorious and they are buying new equipment to replace the old, inherited from a disinterested council stuff. So I stroll in, indicate the Son and say ‘so… here’s the deal, we both want to get fit. What can we do?’

The lovely lady on the front desk showed us the obligatory forms and paperwork, then took us on a tour round the place, including the X-Bike studio, where they run virtual rides from a projector. Utterly brilliant. ‘There’s several instructor-led classes,’ she said. ‘They’re hard work, but fun.’ The tour was great and I cannot stress enough how excellent the customer service in this establishment is. Bigger places could do with taking a few tips.

So because I am the kind of person who has to strike whilst the iron’s hot, I signed myself and the Son up for an instructor-led X-Bike session this morning. At 9.30am. After checking that the Son actually knew what ‘Saturday morning’ was, of course.

My goodness me, I’m unfit. I didn’t get particularly out of breath – I’m not that bad, but oh god, my legs now feel as though they are made from sponge. I happily admit that I couldn’t keep up with the whole class. It is only thirty minutes, but it’s thirty minutes of solid workout. I feel good and energised (and spongy) and although I couldn’t manage all of it, at least I now have a goal. We’re going back tomorrow for the gym induction and I’m going – by myself, which is the hardest bit – but the staff make me feel so comfortable – to Zumba on Monday.

Best thing of all, of course, is that the Son thoroughly excelled and enjoyed it hugely. Having him to go with means that there’s more of a chance I will go as well. It’s brilliant: something we can do together, motivate one another with and generally bond over. So I’m changing something. I’m swapping the sitting around doing nothing lark for getting into the gym and doing classes and burning off that stress.

Oh – and utilising the Dulux ‘reds’ colour chart?

This is not a natural colour for anybody to be.

 

 

Peaks, Troughs and the Boring Inbetween Bits

It’s been a busy week.

I had a meeting with my editor down in Nottingham last Tuesday and have a bunch of edits to start cracking on with. Project: Loophole rises from the ashes like an ever-so-slightly lethargic phoenix cracking one eye open and going ‘eh?’ I enjoyed writing this particular story and am looking forward to getting my chops around it again. It’s been a while since I was able to properly get my head into that of my Silver Skulls and they’re sat there, waiting for me. Possibly grinning in a crocodile kind of way.

Around this, I am also cracking on with Project: Carpark. It’s picked up some nice momentum now and I have actually started to tease out the threads that will lead to the ending. I’ve done something new with this particular project and that is to write it out of order. I have left placeholders for scenes I know that need to be written but just didn’t want to write at the time and gone ahead with other parts of the novel regardless. This has actually worked remarkably well for me, which surprised me. I’m a linear kind of person. I like the most direct route from A to B, although I have occasionally been known to take the meandering path. Peaks and troughs are, after all, different from the endless straight bits.

What’s been best of all is the return of my enthusiasm for writing. I’ve made no secret of the fact that last year whacked me around the head with some fairly horrible low periods of depression, something I’ve had to deal with pretty much all my adult life. I know my own moods very well now; over the years, I’ve learned to recognise the oncoming storm, as it were, and make preparations accordingly. But it’s a weird, fickle thing, depression. You can brace for impact, anticipating it and then you wait. Then you wait some more. Then you wait just a little more. Then you find yourself saying ‘oh, maybe I got it wrong OH GOD, WHY BOTHER?’

It’s very hard to lever yourself out of that pit when you are stuck in it. No matter how much you want to, you can’t. It’s like… being caught inside the body of a sad, unhappy person and screaming to be let out. When you do finally break free, when that first ray of sunshine pierces the gloom, it’s the most glorious feeling. I am phenomenally lucky that I only hit that sort of low perhaps once every five years or so. But it’s horrible when it happens. The old ‘smiling on the outside, crying inside’ adage is true.

The good news is that I am most definitely almost back to the top of Mood Mountain. I will soon be planting my little flag and stopping for a bottle of beer and a sandwich. Recent boosts of confidence have helped this enormously; the pleasure of being invited to write a 1,000 flash-fic short for the Black Library’s Angels of Death series and the subsequent response to that, for example. People have started messaging me asking when I will be doing more and that is the best tonic you can start to imagine.

(The answer to that question is: see second paragraph).

There has been some exceptional unpleasantness on the internet in the past week surrounding an author whose work I enjoy very much. He has been on the receiving end of some incredibly unpleasant internet rage which culminated in people firing off messages that included suggestions of burning his work, etc., etc., etc. As a consequence of all this unpleasantness, the author in question has removed himself permanently from direct involvement with fandom. It’s a topic that has had a few online people stirred up in the past and raises the question about how much interaction should you have with a readership and/or fanbase.

Now, I love meeting people. The signings I’ve done so far have been great fun and it’s always a pleasure to have a few minutes to chat with people about a shared interest. I have also engaged with Warhammer 40k fora around the internet in the past, but apart from regular posts at the Black Library Bolthole and a couple of specific threads on the Bolter and Chainsword, I tend not to visit them any more. For the most part, people are lovely. But there are one or two people in any fandom who take it to extremes and generate a less pleasant environment. The internet gives them a certain anonymity that empowers them to become needlessly rude and abrasive.

The Husband (who is being re-christened ‘The Servitor’) found that he was getting so irate with ‘the only opinion that matters is mine’ attitudes that he swore off internet fora completely. I have abandoned one or two of them because the levels of venom being directed towards authors, companies and worse – each other – are pretty much an example of bullying in action. I suffered the bullying thing at school (see: depression) and don’t need it now I’m older. The difference is, I can walk away from this kind.

The first time I saw something exceptionally negative about me – not my work, but about me personally – on a forum, I was really upset about it. But then I stepped back and viewed it objectively. These people don’t know me, I thought. They think they have the right to tear into me and rip me to shreds without even knowing anything about me at all. When I thought of it that way, I realised just how silly being upset about it actually was. I learned very quickly not to rise to it. There’s no point. If people want to engage in adult conversation, I’m all for it.

Of course people will always be entitled to their opinion. It would be a dull world indeed if everyone like the same things. But there are ways of expressing dislike of something. Simply posting ‘huh, that was [insert expletive of choice]’, say why. Critically appraise, don’t criticise. ‘I didn’t enjoy xxx because…’ It’s really not that difficult. And the correct response to someone who disagrees with you isn’t ‘well, I’m right and you’re wrong’.

I don’t know the full details of why it was that this particular author reached the decision to withdraw from fandom entirely. I am sure that internet fuckwittery is involved somewhere down the line; the fact that on the internet, everything you say can and will be misconstrued in a negative way. Maybe in this modern day and age, English classes should contain a module on ‘communicating via social media – basic etiquette’. Whatever the reasons, I think it’s a real shame.

I am just glad that the majority of people with whom I communicate are brilliant, enthusiastic and interested. Keep it that way. You? You’re awesome. And yes, I’m talking about you.

That Was The Weekend That Was

Stream of consciousness incoming.

I can’t work out if I’m turning into a hermit, whether I’m antisocial or I just prefer my own company, but I only left the house once over the weekend. Himself works weekends – the joys of working in retail – and on the weekends I don’t have The Son for company, it’s just me. This isn’t necessarily a good thing, I’m not actually good company most of the time.

The highlight of the weekend was disappointing the cat by taking porridge out of the microwave. Seriously, from the expression on her furry face, you’d think she was hoping for a roast dinner. That she could then proceed to steal.

I was moderately productive to be fair; got housework nailed, did a veritable mountain of washing and ironing. What is it with ironing? I wonder why is it that I go ‘eh. I’ll wait until there’s more to do than this handful of… OH MY GOD IT’S BECOME INSURMOUNTABLE MY LIFE IS OVER ETC., ETC.!’

Invariably I actually enjoy doing the ironing. I set up in front of the TV and pick a flick to watch. Having just dived into Netflix, yesterday’s session was accompanied by ‘Cool World’, a film I both enjoy enormously and which I haven’t seen for ages. Its running time coincided nicely with the size of the pile. Of course, now there’s two more loads waiting to be ironed. The cycle of washing never ends.

I’m not a fan of pristine houses. They unnerve me. My mum had a friend who didn’t have anything out of place, which y’know, is fine if that’s your bag, or if you’re selling your house… but the one thing that made me feel really uncomfortable was the lack of books. No books, no magazines, no papers… no reading material at all. It was bizarre. I prefer houses to have that ‘lived in’ look. Given that both myself and the Husband are hoarders and our house is full of disaster-levels of complete rubbish, I don’t have a lot of choice. We live in a two bedroom house, but have enough junk to fill it and most of the attic. Sometimes I think ‘RIGHT! Time for a clear-out’. But thinking is where it stops. It’s a curse, I tell you. A curse.

I’m the first to throw my hands up in the air and admit that I am rubbish at keeping a tidy house. I resent the whole tidying/cleaning/polishing/vacuuming thing. I have hardwood floors downstairs which makes it all a little easier, but every direction I turn, I fall over sprues of GW figures that are waiting to be built. Or I triumphantly close the cupboard door after vacuuming and the cats have shed another cat-load of fur in the middle of the floor. The phrase ‘hiding to nothing’ springs to mind.

I resent it because I have to work all week and don’t much feel like housework when I come home. I also kind of don’t care, because we never have guests or visitors anyway. The bizarre nature of living in a part of the world where you don’t really know that many people. All my friends are in the Midlands/down south area. I’m only still in the north east because I won’t leave until the Son finishes school.

The worst thing of course, is that I know if I expended the effort and took a day to do it all properly, I could end up with a pristine house. But I won’t. So there. If I didn’t work full time, or if I worked from home, I might be more interested in my environment. But it’s just a place to sleep, really.

There. That’s my Monday rebellion. A staunch grumpy refusal to conform and have a show-house style dwelling. But at least I admit it.

How was your weekend?

Confessions of a Part Time Writer

So, blog reader(s), I am struggling.

There. The wound is laid bare and bleeding for everyone to have a good poke at. The salt’s just over there behind you if you’re fancying a nice bit of Friday sadism. See it? On the shelf there behind the bottle labelled ‘Your Own Medicine’? Tip: don’t swallow any of that. You’ll regret it.

Got it? Right. Rub away.

I am struggling to get my head back into a writing rhythm and it’s making me increasingly angry with myself. I have got approximately 50% through Project: Carpark. I’d have gotten a damn sight further if I hadn’t decided to scrap 75% of what I’d written and start over. But it’s achingly slow. I can’t work out if that’s my own lack of discipline, or if I’m just over-analysing every single word that goes onto the page… or what. In my more optimistic moments, I reassure myself that it’s because I’m putting extra love and care into the process. In my moments of clarity, my inner self simply points and laughs.

You are so totally going to miss your deadline on this.

That’s the phrase that keeps rattling around in the cavernous wasteland of my thoughts. You are going to have to ask for an extension at this rate. Part of me knows that should that happen (and there is still plenty of time, I’m probably panicking over nothing), my editor will likely be OK with it. But I don’t want it to come to that. I am going to have to get knuckling down and increase my output.

I think for me, part of the problem stems from the fact that I am neither a leisure writer nor a full time writer. I have a full time job (because as everyone knows, being an author is NOT going to keep a roof over your head unless you’re established, tap into a social vein or are just pretty financially stable to start with) and that takes up eight hours a day of writing time. On the weeks that I have the Son, I lose another hour driving up to Durham to collect him and bring him home. Then, when I have him in the house, I don’t like to shut myself off and write. I like to spend time chatting and laughing with him. He’s my son. It’s what I’m meant to do.

Next week he’s not with me, so I may be more productive. I think I need to go back to the way I was when I wrote The Gildar Rift. My whiteboard with ‘current word count’ and ‘monthly target’ written on it. That actually had the desired effect of driving me forwards. The simplest methods often work.

A potential boost will hopefully come next week. I have a meeting in Nottingham with one of my OTHER editors (I’m getting myself a collection of them – they’re kind of like Pokemon, only more literate) and I’m hoping to come out of that meeting massively buoyed up and re-enthused in general.

To be fair, I was reading something yesterday that totally fired me up. Unfortunately, by the time I finished reading it, it was bed time, so it took over the writing window! But… it’s OK. It’ll even out. I know it’ll be OK – I constantly second-guess myself. Onwards and upwards.

In other news, I just finished reading ‘Southern Gods’ by John Horner Jacobs. I bought it quite some time ago and got about halfway through. Then something happened and my attention was pulled off it. That was a mistake. I finally read the whole thing and I recommend it heartily. It’s creepy, it’s quite graphic in places and it just has this… slightly grimy and humid feel to it. If you get the chance to read it – do so.

Right, it’s Friday. One more day of work and the weekend is upon us. See? I write a blog post and my enthusiasm for everything, ever is renewed.

Put the salt back on your way out, would you?

And… Action!

I have Space Marines on my mind.

Not literally, because obviously they’d crush my head like an overripe watermelon. They’re pretty big lads, after all. But over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been contemplating them more than I’ve done for a while.

My Silver Skulls got kind of put on the back burner whilst I was writing Valkia the Bloody, so it was a delight to root them out for the short-short story Skin Deep that recently featured as part of the Black Library’s Angels of Death series. This series is a fabulous idea: daily 1,000 word short Space Marine stories, each focusing on a different chapter.

(Note: even as I was in the process of writing this, Fifty Shades of Geek posted up a review of the first handful of stories – including Skin Deep – here! Clearly I’m tapping into the collective consciousness without knowing it. Must stop that. Curse you, precog super powers).

Writing that little story fired up my enthusiasm for writing Space Marine goodness all over again. There’s one or two things waiting ‘in the wings’ as it were and I’m alarmingly hungry to get my mitts on them. This is good. This enthusiasm has been sorely lacking for quite a while and it feels amazing to have that drive injected again.

I’ve been writing steadily on Project: Carpark and I’m reaching a stage now, about halfway into it, where I’m really starting to get a feel for the protagonist. Up until the scene I started this morning, I wasn’t really liking him all that much. Now I’ve found out what it is that makes him tick, I may find it easier to write on. That, coupled with the fact that I’ve just introduced what is likely to be the breeziest, most light-hearted character of the piece, means that I’m quite looking forward to the next ten thousand words or so.

Project: Carpark is different from anything I’ve written before. It’s different because there are no prescribed guidelines like there are to writing in the Warhammer universes. That in itself makes it an astonishingly daunting task. It’s a little like walking a tightrope with the safety net burning beneath you. But, you know. Challenges are cool.

So Space Marines. Big, clunky, oversized monsters of the 41st millennium. I was flipping through the new codex the other evening and getting a delighted tingle every time I saw the Silver Skulls get a mention. They sort of feel like my babies. Obviously, they’re not – they’re anybody’s – but when someone contacts you on Facebook and asks questions about them so they can paint up their army in the most ‘true to the book’ way, it’s incredibly flattering. Also, this guys army looks phenomenal.

The Husband painted my Silver Skulls army for me. My attention span means that I get one arm done and immediately discover a whole list of things to do. Determined to build and paint an army of my own, I picked Necrons. So far, my entire Necron army consists of a single Immortal. I’ve decided that he’s simply ultra-hardcore and will kick any opponent in the nads before running away, giggling.

I was in discussion with someone at work the other day about why Warhammer is such a good hobby. It incorporates so many things: the need to understand a pretty comprehensive rules set, to design your army, to build and paint your army and then to develop game-playing strategies. It’s a sociable hobby – no matter how the media tries to portray it – and I pretty much love the vibe I’ve got from most Hobby Centres I’ve been in. Also, and it has to be said, I’ve generally found that the kids in most GW stores are more pleasant and socially aware by far than those who hang around outside the chip shop terrorising little old ladies.

As well as the game, there’s obviously the Black Library books to go alongside it. The Son has been making his way through the Horus Heresy series (although he broke off to read ‘1984’ on a whim – I wasn’t going to stop that) and seems to be enjoying it. I’ve fallen hugely behind in my BL reading, largely since I started writing it. Not entirely sure why that is. Time, mostly. That’s why a series of 1,000 word shorts has been a joy for me.

But it has made me hungry for some boltgun and chainsword totin’ action…

Hmmm.

Six of the Best

Today is my wedding anniversary. My sixth to be precise. I checked online this morning: the sixth wedding anniversary is traditional represented by gifts of sugar. I just ate a Bounty bar, so that angle’s covered. Himself, naturally, is at work today. This is only a tiny bit depressing, but it’s not the end of the world. After all, we just had two weeks off together.

For me, six years is quite a milestone. Himself and I have been together as a couple since late 2002, although our paths crossed, literally, in August 2001 at Renewal. It was my first ever LRP event and I was completely confused and bewildered by the whole thing. One of my more vivid memories is of going from the Lions camp to the Viper camp at about 1.30am in the complete darkness and slamming my leg against the very sharp edge of a firepit that someone had seen fit to abandon right in the middle of a thoroughfare. Spent a productive half hour up with the paramedics discovering the joys of instant ice packs. Man, that hurt.

Latterly turned out that Himself and one of his friends had left it there.

I met him properly at the next event I went to: Crusade, at Bloody Wigan, in May 2002. He helped me to put up my tent when I was flailing around with guyropes. He zipped up the front so it didn’t get soggy when the rain started coming down. He loaned me his coat so I didn’t freeze to death. From friendship came something else. And eleven years later, we’re still hanging about in the same place and he still leaves things there for me to fall over. He has been there since The Son was three years old and the pair of them are as close as close can be. He never had any problem with taking on board a child who was not his and that alone has been reason to love him. The fact that he’s actually pretty awesome in his own way may help, I suppose. But don’t tell him I said so.

I don’t go in for massive public displays of affection. I don’t quite know why this should be. When I meet my friends, I hug them gleefully. It may give the outside world the impression that Himself and I are not very close. The outside world doesn’t have a clue. The outside world hasn’t sat on the sofa on a boring TV night with the sound off and listened to us giving dull TV programmes our own voice-overs. The outside world wasn’t there the other night when Himself found a YouTube video that rendered both of us helpless with giggles for about half an hour. Fuck you, outside world. You don’t have a clue.

We got married six years ago today, on board the HMS Trincomalee. This was my suggestion, because I’m an absolute sucker for beautiful old ships and it turned out to be a remarkable venue. The ceremony itself took place in the Captain’s Cabin, which was diligently set up by two volunteer ladies who work for the Historic Quay. I rang Himself before the wedding and reminded him to pop and buy some ‘thank you’ flowers for them. This led to two things: first it led to Himself rushing into Tesco in all his wedding finery to buy some flowers, prompting a comment from the security guard that ‘he was cutting it a bit fine, wasn’t he’ and secondly, it led to tears from the two lovely ladies who insisted that nobody had ever said thank you before. I find it hard to believe some people. However, Himself and I aren’t those people. Those people suck.

I came into the room to the following song. I don’t think I’ve ever told Himself how close I came to not coming in at all. Not because I didn’t want to, but because of the reasons I chose the song. I chose it for its lyrics, first and foremost. But beyond that, I chose it because my mother loved the song. She loved the song and she loved the film and I loved her. She couldn’t be there, having passed away in 2000, but in playing this song, she was with me the whole time. I almost collapsed in a soggy mess of tears the moment the opening bars played. But I went on and married him anyway. And my mascara didn’t run. Bonus!

The ceremony itself was lovely and it does have to be said that the Trincomalee made for lovely photograph backdrops.

In which I admire the bouquet apparently growing out of Himself’s stomach. He manifests flowers! What’s not to love?

So… to Himself, who I rarely dedicate anything (except, you know, Valkia the Bloody), I dedicate today’s blog post. Love you, you fool.

Right, enough soppiness – here’s a tiny hamster with a tiny weapon. Don’t piss off the rodents.

Poke my belly one more time. I dare you.

 

Guilty Pleasures

Normality, it appears, has resumed. The two weeks annual leave is all spent and work has spent the past three days whacking me repeatedly around the chops with its cold, cruel ‘you have a mortgage to pay’ reality.

That makes it sound as if I don’t enjoy my job. I do. I completely enjoy what I do for a living. The way the NHS is run occasionally causes mild fits of rage and – on one memorable occasion when an executive director asked me to put my thoughts down in writing – a four-page rant. But I like what I do. I get to spend most of the day nerding in spreadsheets. This makes me happy. Happy-ish, anyway. In an idea world, I’d not have to come to work. This is because I am inherently anti-social. In the office environment, I periodically struggle to join in the conversations about the previous night’s TV viewing (although I can contribute for a while now to Bake-Off Wednesdays and Strictly Mondays – the only two TV shows that I will make every attempt to watch).

The Great British Bake-Off is a bad influence. After this week, I am filled with an overwhelming urge to attempt to bake macaroons. I love baking. I’m rubbish at it, but I love doing it anyway. I think the problem is that I’m impatient. I don’t WANT to wait. I want it to be done NOW. The science of baking is terrifying. A gram over here, a gram under there and you end up with a catastrophic mess in a tin. Bst advice when baking is to follow the recipe. Don’t deviate. If you deviate, baking demons will rise (as long as you added baking powder and bicarb) and mess with your end result. Thus, instead of a perfectly risen sponge cake, you turn out a Frisbee. Instead of your perfectly even-baked muffins, you get one giant one and eleven blobs.

Even Himself has started watching Bake-Off with me. It’s a weekly event, not just a TV programme. It’s comfortable viewing, like a pair of old shoes that you can’t bring yourself to part with. You know that the fashionistas are sneering at you for it, but you just don’t care.

There’s an element of schadenfreude, certainly. When delicate sugar work breaks into a billion pieces. When someone ‘accidentally’ steals someone else’s custard for their trifle. Watching people’s faces as they contort with comedic agony when Paul ‘Silverback’ Hollywood and Mary ‘Jesus, That’s One Scary Lady’ Berry comment on their pie’s soggy bottom (GBBO in-joke), or discuss the ‘even bake’ and ‘crumbly texture’ with the kind of intensity that makes it shamefully obvious that you haven’t got a clue what they’re on about. You feel like an intruder in this dainty environment; an elephant stepping amongst the snowdrops.

Weirdest of all is the fact that you suddenly develop this air of superiority. ‘Well, that’s not a bad genoise sponge,’ you find yourself saying, ‘but I could make it better. And that Sachertorte? Pff. Call that ganache? More like Ganesh.’

And so on.

Strictly Come Dancing starts on Saturday and I can’t wait. This is the only other programme I find myself riveted to year on year. I have absolutely no idea why. But just like GBBO, I suddenly become the world’s expert on ballroom dancing. ‘That,’ I say with unshakable confidence, ‘was a splendid foxtrot.’ Said foxtrot is usually then torn to pieces by the judges, but I stick to my guns. ‘I don’t care,’ I say, snootily. ‘I liked it.’

Those two TV shows really are a guilty pleasure for me. What about you guys? What do you watch without fail that’s just ever-so-slightly twee or a bit naff? (My dad watches ‘Storage Wars’ and ‘Duck Dynasty’, for example. I watched a bit of ‘Duck Dynasty’ whilst I was down there visiting. Holy hell.)