It’s like I blinked, and a week and a half has rushed past in the interim. Suddenly, I’m packing a bag again, as I’m heading off again tomorrow, this time for London Book Fair (which is likely to be an even odder experience than I was expecting, thanks to the fact that a massive number of international publishers have been stranded thanks to the Icelandic Volcano). So once again I’ve packed, and am primed to set off tomorrow at about 10am.

It’s been a fast week and a half. Last week was tricky, thanks to the end of unit 4 of my proofing course being amazingly traumatic (I can only liken it to having my brain squirted out of my ears – and this isn’t even the hard bit – there’s still the hardest unit to go…). Thankfully, since then I’ve been able to do an amazing amount of writing (I even notched up 7,500 words in one day, a wordcount I haven’t managed in a very long time), and have made significant progress on the book. It’s now standing at 137,000 words, and the words left are significantly large but not insanely large. It’s got a real chance of being very good. All I’ve got to do is just keep going…

And Eastercon? Eastercon was tons of fun. It didn’t quite reach the heights of Rock Band and singing ‘Hungry Like The Wolf’ last year, but then I wasn’t expecting it to – it was wonderful getting to meet up with people, have fun, socialise, and actually feel like I was getting into the con vibe in a way I’m not sure I’ve managed before. To be honest, the actual convention side of it was… a little disappointing. There were fewer panels that actually grabbed me this year, which meant I went to very few – and even the ones that did interest me seemed to be scheduled very bizarrely (either early on Friday morning or very late on Monday night). It was good, but it didn’t seem to have a cohesive identity – something which next year’s Eastercon (the pulp/military-themed ‘Illustrious’, aka ‘ManlyCon) does at least seem to have (even if the guests of honour – David Weber and Peter F. Hamilton – don’t exactly fill me with excitement). And, as if that wasn’t enough, in another week and a bit, I’ll be heading off to London again for the annual bunfight of the Arthur C. Clarke Awards.

So things are good. I actually feel like I am where I need to be in my life right now. I’ve got tons of projects I need to complete, lots to keep me occupied, and the regular fun of Thursday’s Comics Night at Travelling Man to keep me entertained (where, this week, we proved that there isn’t a single line from any Star Wars film that can’t be improved with a West Country accent).

Right. Off to finish packing…

(And there’ll be an understandable silence on Who-related topics while I’m in London. I might save it all up for a double-blog post, tackling this Saturday’s ep along with the first half of the Weeping Angels two-parter. We shall see…)