Blog Archives
A Long Delayed Posting
I have been a most slack blogger of late, but then a lot has happened recently.
So now The Spiral Tattoo is available for sale from Smashwords and Amazon. I have been guilty of watching the Amazon rankings a little too much 
It is very exciting because obviously people are buying my story, I just wish I knew how many! I am sure my publisher will tell me sometime soon what sales are like.
On the writing front I have finally finished writing The Oaks Grove, book two of the Tales of Elanore and Gurt. I have been wrestling with the manuscript for months, and only today came to the realisation that I was stuck on writing to “The Plan” and that “the Plan” involved a whole lot of unnecessary twaddle meant to build up to a predetermined word count. So I wrote to what seemed to be the end of the story and that meant dropping several chapters of stuff that wasn’t needed. It means that the story at this stage is a bit short, but I am confident in the next editing pass it will come out to the right length.
In a random moment we went to Cars2 yesterday at the Civic Theatre in Waipukurau. This might just be our family outing theatre now, as the cost was cheap, the environment friendly and non- frantic, and the munchies of good value [$5.00 for lollies, popcorn and fizz]. I liked the movie but felt it was too adult aimed for the little kids.
The Glories Of A Deep Spa Bath
In one of those mad cap moments we decided to zip off to Palmerston North with the kids and spend the night with the kids in a hotel. The main motivating factor was a desire by certain members of the family, everyone but myself, for a nice deep bath. We booked a hotel with a double spa bath and headed off. Checking in just before lunch, there was soon a procession of children, and the E.I.C. through the spa bath. With absolute decadence it was filled to near maximum. I watched the cricket of sky sport.
We then took the boys to the movies, which was the youngest’s first time. We took them to Tangled in 3D, so we also introduced the youngest to the 3D glasses at the same time. Now both of us have been reluctant to go to 3D movies, thinking them gimmicky, and remembering the really bad old time 3D effects. Much to our surprise we actually liked it. Not the lame coming out of the screen effects, but more the depth added to the normal scenes.
Later we watched movies after a second deep bath for those inclined. In pure hedonistic joy all three had a third this morning. O the wanton waste of water.
I Love It When A Plan Comes Together!
Myself, and the Eldest T.B.T., had a big boy adventure last night. I took him to a late night session of the A-Team in Palmerston North. Popcorn, action movies followed by late night drive through burgers! What fun. When I left for work this morning he had briefly emerged from his pit of despair, only to go back to bed. I poked my head in to say goodbye, and was greeted with the sound of gentle snoring… Gosh how they grow up so fast… 
One thing the adventure has done, is confirmed to me that we have a mouse either living in the car, or making it’s way in at night.
The first clue, was the pile of shredded padding from the youngest T.B.T.’s booster seat, found on the back seat on Tuesday. The second clue came this morning, when I noticed that all the popcorn that had spilt onto the floor on the way home had disappeared!
The little beast must have easy egress into the car, as so far it hasn’t started smelling of mouse doings. I am tempted to lock the mighty hunter Rose (Our Big Fat Black Cat) in the car, but I suspect she might do more to make it smell than the mouse! I might then have to put a mousetrap in over night…
Movie Values
I am not one to decry over moral values in movies {much}, but a couple of things recently has had me thinking. I was watching Revenge of The Nerds the over night, and was struck with how much casual nudity was included in eighties comedy. A lot more than now! And also how much more violent movies seem to be now.
That was illustrated by this article from Stuff Peter Jackson asked to up the agony. After test showings of his new movie The Lovely Bones Peter felt he needed to up the gore and suffering.
“Jackson told Reuters he was taken aback to find that in early screenings audiences “were simply not satisfied” with a scene of one character’s death.
“They wanted far more violence,” Jackson said, so the Lord of the Rings director went back to the editing room to “basically add more violence and suffering”.”
Isn’t the story horrific enough? That just seems wrong…
The EIC and myself think if there is going to be more of anything it should be external skin and not internal organs!
