Week four. Blimey. An episode of WHO that didn’t make me feel like my childhood was being stomped on. Not perfect, and a few aspects I could have done without, but very nicely done and the first episode of the new season that I can imagine watching again. Who’d have thought it?

Weekly blog activity isn’t ideal, but I’m spending so much of my life in front of this computer that it’s easy to resist the temptation to type more than I absolutely have to. The novel is making progress- I’ve dumped one character who was giving me serious problems, and rewired the “exposition” bit of the story. It’s not fantastic, but- as I have to keep reminding myself- it’s like writing an utterly gigantic article, and with my usual methods- throwing stuff at the wall to see if it sticks, and then trimming and trimming and trimming- it’s going to take as long as it’s going to take. Annoyingly philosophical, and annoyingly true. I heard back from the first “outside” person (i.e.- not George) to read the first six chapters, and the feedback was very positive and- in true artist tradition- I ended up getting a bit depressed and miserable about the few criticisms they had. Rather silly, especially as they’re right, and I’m going to concentrate for most of May on just getting the actual guts of the story down on the page. I’m at Chapter 11 at the moment, and I’m about to get past the stuff that I’ve already worked on, and into slightly more unfamiliar territory, which is horribly scary. Nevertheless, I’m going to throw myself in and see what happens. What I’ve got at the moment is time- and that is a luxury that I can’t afford to waste. Sooner or later, I’m going to have to get back to ‘proper work’, which is something I’m not entirely looking forward to…

Also- the first new episode of LOST Season 2 for ages, and it actually made me realise exactly how much I enjoy that show when it’s firing on all cylinders. Narrative curveballs galore, and an ending that had me going “WHAAAAAAAT??????” I am doing my best to avoid spoilers for the rest of the season, and am hoping that the season finale is as much fun as last time.

Finished watching Season One of The West Wing this week (thanks to nessreader), which was utterly fabulous and ends on utter bastard of a cliffhanger. I then proceeded to confuse the hell out of myself by watching an episode of Season Seven, which is currently airing on digital station More4. I’d heard that tone-wise, it changes almost completely once Aaron Sorkin left at the end of season 4, and it looks like I may have heard right…