Red's Story

I've started writing a prequel to Nutmeg Angel, which comes about thirty/forty years before she joins the force, when her captain, Red, first joins. It's told first person from his point of view, which is kind of unusual--I'm not used to writing first person. Going pretty well so far. Must go do homework instead though. Meh.

Recommended Books

Cherub series by Robert Muchamore. Think you read a couple of these already. Starts with The Recruit, there's ten in the main series so far (plus a little world book day one) and he's just pubished a new series which is linked to it. Not read any of them yet, but I'm going to the Trafford Centre on Saturday and he's gonna be there so I'll get a signed copy of it, yay!

633 Squadron by Frederick E Smith. Really realistic books set in the Second World War about a squadron of pilots who get set really hard missions to do. Bit hard to get hold of them, but it's worth trying to find them because the characters are incredibly realistic, as are the details of the missions, but I have to admit, I like them for the characters even more than for the action.

Seven Ancient Wonders by Mathew Reilly. Pure action, I love this book. Moves really fast, got some clever bits in. Kind of Indianna Jones brought up to date with lots of traps and stuff and an ace main character who kind of inspired some of my own writing.

Without Remorse by Tom Clancy. This is absolutely top. It comes part way through his main series, but it's about one of the secondary characters, set before the rest of the books. It's pretty long, but it's well worth reading, and I loved it. It's about an ex-SEAL who's new girlfriend gets murdered by drug dealers and he decides to make them pay. At the same time, the government wants him to supervise a totally different mission...

Transfer of Power by Vince Flynn. I love Mitch Rapp! He's an ace character! He's a CIA assassin, and when the White House gets taken over by terrorists, it's down to him to make everyone realise that trading off hostages with the terrorists is not the greatest thing to do. Lots of action and great characters.

The Maximum Ride Trilogy by James Patterson. I refuse to acknowledge the fourth book as part of the series because it's pretty rubbish. The first three, starting with The Angel Experiment, on the other hand, are absolutely amazing! Winged children, created by evil scientists, pursued by Erasers. Might sound a bit iffy, but they're absolutely incredible. The first three at any rate. As far as I'm concerned, the fourth isn't a part of it.

A Prayer for the Dying by Jack Higgins. I think this would have to be my favourite book if I was absolutely forced to pick one. It's about an ex-IRA terrorist who finds a conscience. He has to get away and so he's forced to take one last job to kill a man so he can have a passport and some money to get away. But a priest witnesses the murder and the terrorist refuses to kill him. He gets involved with the priest and a blind girl living with him and it's all about that. Absolutely fantastic.

Sean Dillon series by Jack Higgins (first one's Eye of the Storm, but I prefer Thunder Point/ On Dangerous Ground as a starting point). Also about an ex-terrorist (though not in Eye of the Storm) who gets pulled in to work for the British government. Great characters. Sean Dillon inspired my character Ash who is one of my all time favourites that I've created.

Bravo Two Zero by Andy MacNab. It's non fiction, autobiographical I guess, but it's worth reading for its value as a story. Especially because you know it's true. It's the story of the SAS patrol Bravo Two Zero, and their work behind the lines and capture. Really well written and really really interesting.

Redwall series by Brian Jacques. I love these books. Maybe they're not aimed at older teenagers, but I started reading them in Year 5/6 and I love them. Doesn't really matter what order you read them in. His other series, The Castaways of the Flying Dutchman, is pretty awesome too, recommend them. He writes really good descriptive detail and sword fights. I guess that's what inspired the sword fights that are a pretty big part of my stories.

Nutmeg Angel by me, cos I'm self-publishing it and it's gonna come out probably early next month on Amazon. About angels and demons and all sorts of exciting things.

Jimmy Coates series by Joe Craig. Again, aimed at a slightly younger audience, but still well worth reading. The first one is Killer. About a teenage boy who discovers he's not really a human...

Kissing the Rain by Kevin Brooks. Quite dark and a little scary, about a teenage boy who nobody really likes who witnesses a murder. He knows it didn't happen how the police say it did. But he finds himself getting dragged into a world he didn't want anything to do with. It's a while since I've read it, but it really stuck with me and it has a very interesting ending.

History

Well. Turned up at history today and discovered I was the only one who bothered to do the homework. Humph. Bit annoyed about that. Especially because the people who didn't do it didn't even get in that much trouble.

History

Yeh. We had John Pew (head of history) on Friday, and it was a really good lesson. I enjoyed it, more than normal even. We actually did some work, I had quiet to do my exam thingy in, and he went through it with us in a nice way and got information out of us. Good stuff. Apparantly he told Elissa he was really impressed with how much we knew. He admitted right at the start that he didn't really know much about the period, and got us to tell him about it. Which kind of brought up things we (or at least I) hadn't thought about.

Had history again today. Little disappointed about not having him again if I'm being honest. Felt a bit like a repeat of all our homework. I guess she forgot about setting it or something, but she basically gave us the same stuff to do in class that we should've done for homework. And I did 'extra reading' too, with that Osprey book I said about before, so I was a bit like 'argh! I know this stuff!' and it didn't feel as detailed as what I'd got from that book. And the text book. Which kind of annoyed me. But oh well. And then I asked a couple of questions and basically got 'don't know'. I wanted to know where the Indian Mutiny fitted in, and also about this fighting in Afghanistan the book mentioned. But for some reason, I thought it a plus when our 'supply' admitted he didn't know but just annoying that Elissa couldn't answer my questions. Oh well. I guess that's life. And she is teaching this bit and it would be nice to know. I kind of want to be a history teacher myself. I seem to have had a succession of non-amazing ones and kind of want to sort that out by being a really good one myself. And everyone keeps asking if I'm gonna be a teacher. So, maybe. Shall see what happens. Might be kind of fun. We were watching a video in sociology today, showing all this rotten behaviour in classrooms that this substitute sneakily videoed and it made me feel so sorry for them having to put up with that and having that complete lack of both discipline and education and almost no chance after high school because of it that I want to do something about it. Don't know. Hard work, but you never know...

D of E Meeting

I went to a D of E meeting with a new group last night. Almost learnt more about maps doing the basics with the Bronze group (not entirely sure why I wound up in the wrong place) than I ever did before going on my expedition. Actually, I think I pretty much did. I now have the grounding in map reading (the absolute absolute basics) that I never got. And had to attempt to pick up while out there in the field. So it mostly got left to other people and so we got lost. But never mind. This time it looks like we might actually be organised. Wow! That's gonna be a novel experience for me...

The Boer War 1899-1902 (Osprey publishing)

I always see these Osprey books, stacks and stacks of them, in the big history museum shops and the good book stores (I don't count WHSmiths because it sells too much other stuff to be called a book store) and it seems that everyone puts a lot of stock on them, says they're the amazing history books. Got one on the Boer War out the library and I can see why. It might have helped to have the context bit at the start, but the whole thing was easy to understand and very informative. I especially liked the fact that there were two chapters on specific people who contributed to the war in some way, one a Boer soldier, one a British civilian. It was good, I'd recommend this to anyone with an interest in the subject. I'm not ready to recommend those books (it's from the Essential Histories series by Osprey) unilaterally until I've read a couple more of them, but this one is certainly good and I have another on the Indian Mutiny to read at some point.

Editing

There is a reason very few of my stories have been completely (or in some cases even partially) edited. That reason is... Editing is an annoying process which is time consuming and brings far less satisfaction than writing in the first place. And it's nowhere near as exciting, because you already know where the story's going and that's just annoying. What's the point in writing if your characters aren't going to throw in little surprises every now and again? Or maybe a little more often than that. Although it has to be said, I have added in a couple of new bits while editing Nutmeg Angel. And it is improving. I just wish I could click my fingers and let magic editing fairies whizz through it. Although then it wouldn't be my work and that would be even more annoying than taking time out from writing new stuff to make the old stuff readable. Be best if I could just get it right first time. But it seems nobody does that. In fact, I'm pretty certain of it. So I guess I'll just have to carry on working on this darn story. At least it doesn't need as much work as One For Sorrow (before version), which really is in something of a state. Winged Fire I'm rewriting because there was that much needed changing, and that did take me off in another random direction. Although I'm now getting back close to what the original story was. Which could make things easier for me in some ways, but also a little less exciting. Never mind.

Bookclub

I went to Bookclub at the Harris today. A bit irritating to be honest, not as good as it could have been. The book we've been given to read looks pretty rubbish, and all the younger lot were arguing and some of the older lot were joining in and it was just a bit chaotic. I got out more non-fiction books than fiction, which has got to be a first for me, except when I've gone in exclusively for non-fiction stuff for college. Which I wasn't doing, but they had so little in the fiction that looked interesting, just ten/fifteen copies of the same book and nothing else by that author coupled with a pretty rubbish fantasy/sci-fi section that I just figured I'd read some real life stuff. Some of which might be useful for college, most of which just looked interesting. How much of it I'll read remains to be seen, but still.

Fireproof

This is the first DVD I actually have that's mine! James seems to have nabbed all other DVDs in the house. Think this one's safe, because it's a romance. It's absolutely amazing. It's about a firefighter and his wife who're about to get a divorce. Caleb's dad gives him a book, called The Love Dare, and asks him to wait forty days before going through with divorce. It's amazing! There're a lot of emotional ups and downs, and the firefighting action is really good. As a matter of personal choice, I would've put another big fire right at the end, maybe have had Caleb out on call when Catherine comes round, but that's just a tiny nit-picking thing. I loved it. Want to go watch it again, but James has kind of nabbed the TV back again.

Superhero

I'd just like to say how much I love this band. Some of their tracks were played on Crossrhythms the other day and I thought 'hmm, that's pretty good', so I went and downloaded a couple and I love love love Emergenza. It's amazing! I know the words to it already! (Having said that, I've probably listened to it about a dozen times sicne I got it four days ago...). Anyway, I just thought I'd say they're a great band. Cool Police is pretty awesome too.

Snow, yay!

It snowed! Got up this morning and everywhere was nice and dusted with white. Although it all melted while I was at college. And then snowed again as I was walking home but didn't stick so that was a bit meh. Still, could be worse. It could not have snowed at all. And that would be a pity. At least this way we have had some snow on the ground.

PS: This is how you tell I'm English. I'm doing that stereotypically British thing and talking about the weather...

Bravo Two Zero and The One That Got Away

These two books detail the same patrol in Iraq. Andy MacNab's (Bravo Two Zero) was the one I preferred, I have to admit. There was a lot more excitement, partially because his part of the patrol contained more people. When I looked at the map in the book before reading it, I couldn't believe how close they'd got to the border before being captured. As I was reading them, I found myself analysing them as source material, which was kind of an odd experience. There isn't a whole lot of contradiction, but the patrol split part way through and Chris Ryan was running about on his own trying to get home, while the other group did the same in a different way. Bravo Two Zero had everyone's story in too, which I really appreciated, because it gave you a bit more of a background. I don't want to sit here and do a full source analysis type thing of them though, so I'll stop on that bit. As a piece of writing, to be enjoyed, I preferred Bravo Two Zero, though I think if you read one it's worth reading the other, just to get a better idea of the picture. Might get a couple more books on it from other sources, the SAS is certainly an interesting thing to read about.

Cobra 405

Whoops, just kind of published that with nothing in here. That's why edit buttons are always useful. I've just finished reading Cobra 405 by Damien Lewis. It was absolutely fantastic! I picked up another of his books by accident, didn't realise until I saw the biography thing at the start, and the other one I've now got sat on my bed waiting for me, and it's a nonfiction one, which accounts for the realism of the book. Cobra 405 isn't happy all the way through, but it is remarkably good. It tells of a bank raid on a bank in Lebanon, carried out by nine SAS members. They'd put forward a plan for the raid, and their major ripped it to shreds before the whole group. So they decided to prove him wrong. And take 50 million for themselves in the process. But it isn't as easy as it first seems, and they have to leave the gold for a later pick up. And that's where all the complications fly in. It's amazing, the action is ell written and gripping, and I expect good things of Operation Certain Death, a nonfiction. I seem to have a bit of a thing about the SAS at the moment. It's interesting stuff for sure.

Amelia?!

I went through all my story files yesterday. Well, not all I suppose, but most of the ones on the computer, sorting them out. And I figured that I'd continue with a story I came up with a while ago and have actually started. Wrote a load of it (well, four and a half pages handwritten) while babysitting last night. The name of the FMC (female main character for those of you not up on all the authory slang--took me a while to get my head round it after joining Nanowrimo for the first time, trying to work out what all these SCs and FMCs and so on were all about) changed from Flo to Flaya part way through, but I kind of made a conscious decision after writing Flaya instead of Flo a couple of times. The name seemed to fit her better and she was getting called it anyway. I've just looked at the version on the computer, and have discovered that Flaya's name is really Amelia. Huh? How did...? Never mind. I'll stick with Flaya, because that's what I've come to think of her as.

The Case of the Stolen Month

So. Own up. Who was it that stole January? I mean, it's February the first today. So who was it? It seems like yesterday that I went back to college after the summer holidays and sat through a load of exams, and now, here it is, with people telling me it's February. How am I supposed to believe that? I suppose I ought to change my calender and all of that. But... Well, I guess it was a busy month. College, coursework, exams, mum's health variable, writing an entire story in three weeks (that's probably where the month went. I'll have to go chase Cowboy and tell him to give it back...), what else? Babysitting last night, reading, all sorts of stuff. Well, it's been a crazy busy month. And February doesn't look like it'll shape up much quieter. Still, I'd get bored if there was nothing happening. And at least I have the excuse that February is a short month anyway. I'll still be writing 08 in August at this rate, but I guess I don't ever write the date at college like I did every day in Wilfrids. Doesn't seem necessary to put a date on everything. Just put it in order in my folder. But I would like to know if anyone was responsible for the loss of the month. All comments will be treated annonymously. Apart from the fact that anyone in the world with a mind to view them will find them of course...