By the Blog of Zues?!

How is it it's been over a month since my last post? Cripes, why didn't anyone kick my ass over this, this is bad. BAD!

Okay, crap, what happened since March 20th? Well, my work experience in London. Titan Publishing was a great place to work, it was very casual and the people were great. I was doing a lot of filing, organizing, mostly office bitchery but I only had to make tea a couple of times. I did some cool things too, including screen captures for a compendium book to the TV series Supernatural, a fast-edit of the prequel novel to the upcoming Transformers movie, some press packet preparation (don't say it three times fast, it's Not POSSIBLE!), and a wee bit of copy writing for a couple of their magazines. I did get to take home just a few magazines and a couple of books too, so really I couldn't have asked for a better time...

OR COULD I????? Work was exception, the living situation less so. My first few days were at a bed & breakfast. A small closet was my room, a chest of drawers my en suite bathroom, and the breakfast was... you know, the less I think about what I ingested, the better I'll be, I'm positive. For about $100 a night, for some unfathomable reason, I expected more. I got out of there as fast as humanly possible. After posting around Gumtree for a couple of days I found a shared flat with an open room - covered the remainder of my time in London to the day for 80 pounds, a huge Huge HUUUUGE deal especially after what I was living with. Everyone else there were internationals as well: two Spaniards (no Inigo Montoyas, I checked), a Turk, and a Polish girl (walk into a bar... sorry, couldn't resist) and they were all lovely people. I ended up having a great time with them. The space itself wasn't bad; smaller than I'm used to, but so much better than the B&B.

Then I came back to Falmouth. I would've loved to come home, but I had so much work to do I'm still not done (hence the lack of posts). Top of the list was an industry analysis, kind of a report on any aspect of the writing industry. I chose a market report on graphic novels over the past six months pertaining to thrillers - figured it was directly related to my MA, might be interested. I got 2000 words and 20 pages of appendices out of it, and I was surprised a couple of times by my findings, so I'm better for it. I also had to update and upload my web site. The updating went fine, the uploading's hit a snag. As soon as it's online, I'll post the addy here, no one fret.

I had to write up a scene outline and a few scenes for Screenwriting class. The subject? Resnick. If you've heard me rant about this property already, you know my pain. If you haven't, I've implied it enough. The review of it went pretty well. Teacher (who worked on the actually-aired Resnick series) was interested in the story and said I might be able to use it outside the property well, and it also showed I tend to write in static images. Shows I spend too much of my time thinking in terms of comic panels, need to loosen up a bit.

The thing I've been working on more or less since I got back to Falmouth is this web site we need to make for Business Writing. We've designed the concept, mission brief, and now we're conducting interviews in order to host profiles of regional artists (or creatives, as we're putting it here to allow more than visual art). I've just today secured two more interviews, and if I can get this last guy in then I'm solid. I don't know how much I can comfortably say on this blog, but I will state that I will be SOOOOOOOOOOO happy when I'm done with it. Can't be happier, in theory.

Last weekend a bunch of us went out of a kind of new place where some of the coursemates were in a Samba drumming gig. They've got a lot of great, bassy rhythm and in general I think everybody had fun. There could have been better alcohol facilities on premises, but hopefull they'll address that in the future.

I am also, because apparently I hate myself that much, writing a short story to enter in a contest that RANE is sponsoring. Short version: submit art that addresses climate change. If you've seen Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth you get the idea. Focusing solely on climate change, I wasn't very inspired, but add in acid rain, Chernobyl's unique wildlife situation, and I got me a trip to the zoo H.P. Lovecraft would get giddy over. Even if it doesn't win, I'd like to try shopping it around. Hopefully after the term is over, I can focus a bit on selling some of the stuff I've made in my time here.

Speaking of, the term has three weeks left in it. I am so doomed.