…and we’re back.

Long periods of silence on this blog usually means I’m either ridiculously busy, or going through tough times and not wanting to turn this into a non-stop moan about how annoyingly difficult life can be. In fact, the last couple of weeks have been a mix of both, along with the joys of spending most of last week rather ill, holding my stomach and going “owww….” a lot, so it’s nice that, at least for now, life seems to be looking up. Certainly, work is continuing to tick over at a good pace- I’ve been working my way through a mountain of manuscript reading work (with more to come), and have been doing a reasonable number of screenings, managing to net plenty of them for two seperate outlets (which are print and online, so there’s no conflict. Hurrah!)

Television-wise, Lost has taken a couple of steps back towards watchable by both letting something actually happen, and remembering what made the show so much fun in the first place- contrasting the dark intense stuff with lighter humour, and letting the ensemble play while still focussing on one character per episode. It’s in no way perfect, but it’s at least watchable, unlike Battlestar Galactica, which is feeling worryingly like it’s in terminal freefall. I’d love it if I was proved wrong, but there’s only one episode that I’ve consistently enjoyed since they got off New Caprica twelve or so episodes ago. Plus, there was Heroes, finishing off its second run of episodes with another humdinger that may have had a couple of wobbles but also had some fantastic treats, plus an entertainingly nasty cliffhanger. The middle of April seems too far away…

In the meantime, the writing has been purely focussing on getting The Hypernova Gambit in a better state. I’m learning a lot about ways of spotting mistakes, and once I get tomorrow out of the way, I’m sending it to a couple of people for opinions and leaving it for a little. I’m even, shockingly, getting a vague idea of what I’m going to do next. While I’m going to be starting on TALES OF THE HARLOT soon, the big story is going to be a heavily rewritten version of the script I wrote as a pilot for a drama series ten years ago. I need to strip away alot of the big story, and concentrate on the heart of the story. There’s a lot to be found there.

More soon. Keep watching the skies…