The past two days I've been at war with my computer - well, a better way to put it would be that the computer was a battleground. First off I had the malware Security Shield to contend with, which was a bugger in itself to remove. Yesterday, when I thought all was well and good with my computer, I found something else.

On my crappy old mp3-turned-storage-device, a 53mb folder called 'RECYCLER' that I had no recollection of putting there. I did another scan, it turned out to be a virus. So I eradicated it.

Later, I was telling Nathan about it. As soon as I mentioned 'RECYCLER', he got this look in his face - horror, and recognition. It was on his SD card. And it was on Ashley's iPod, which prompted me to check my own iPod... and it was on there, as well.

Consequently, I've spent a great deal of last night and the early morning scanning the computer drive by drive, removing all traces of infection, then scanning again for good measure. Nathan did his SD card himself - I can only hope he was as thorough as I was, because if even a single trojan is left on a device that then gets plugged into this computer... well, heads will roll.

So, I've just checked Twitter and found that my last tweet, before going to bed, was five hours ago. That's how long I was up, crushing these little bastards. The scans found literally hundreds of them. I just hope that A) this won't be happening again any time soon and B) that the viruses weren't on there long enough to cause any lasting damage. I might leave it a while before using things like my bank card on this computer, just to be safe, and maybe run a few full scans over the coming days.

In non-virus-related news, I've started to type up 'Arcane Mathematics' and 'The Timeshare Presentation of Death'. So far, including title pages and my foreword, I've got 23 pages, on which there are 7852 words. This actual count lines up pretty nicely with my handwritten estimate, which is good.

I'm having a couple of woes regarding formatting, though. Firstly, I start every new paragraph with an indentation, including ones that are only a couple of lines, such as speech (and the way I write, this means I use them a lot). I don't use indentations for paragraphs starting at the very top of a page. I was just wondering if this is an acceptable way to format a book, really. It doesn't look that bad to me, when I scroll through it, so I think I may leave it for now.

Another thing is page numbering. This has been a pain in the arse, as well. Obviously you number your pages, but a lot of books will have blank pages between chapters (if the chapter ends on an odd page number, so the next chapter begins on the following double-spread) and title pages that aren't numbered. I don't know how to include my headers/footers in certain pages, and have them blank on others. It's bugging me. I was thinking of just splitting the book into several documents - numbered pages apart from non-numbered - then printing it off and putting it together in a binder. But since I'm mainly typing this draft up for CreateSpace, that won't work. It's not essential that I fix it now, I suppose, so when I've caught up on my sleep I'll take to Google and see what I find.

If anything, it's probably even best left for when I've actually finished the book, so that all the pages are there.

Whew! After a good two hours of work, I've finished the book cover! Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you...



If ever you run across this book in your local shop, I highly recommend you turn the other way and find the Terry Pratchett section instead.

Credits for the fonts:

Title/Author text: Pointy by Pointy Design
Books One + Four: Love Ya Like a Sister by Kimberly Geswein
Phone on the 's': Phones by Signart
Speech bubble: Talkies by Iconian Fonts
Buildings in the background: Cityscape by The Scriptorium

I found out today that Syfy are axeing Stargate Universe. Only two seasons were filmed, and they've cut it off just as the plot was starting to get really good, heading in some kind of direction. It must have been a shock to some of the actors who only found out today via. the Internet (David Blue being one; he found out through his fans on Twitter) - and it was a shock for me as well because I thought it had the potential to go on for another two seasons at least. The plot had evolved in such a way that it would be possible.

I don't know what Syfy are playing at, but this has left a good deal of irked fans, myself included, wondering from whence this decision has come.

Anyway, tomorrow I'll be sleeping over at the lovely Holly's! Bllimey, it's been a long time since anyone's seen her. I'm hoping my Flash Gordon DVD will arrive in time for such tomfoolery because then we have something awesome to watch while we stuff our faces.

Getting there, as you know, will be a problem. Sure, it's as simple as getting a bus then getting off at the right place. My navigational skills are deplorable. It took me two hours once to find a theatre that was only five minutes away from where I was. Literally. I am the kind of girl who could get a bus from the High Street, ask for Lowton, and end up in Zimbabwe and Sweden AT THE SAME TIME.

I feel I must talk about my writing progress. 'The Chronicles of Stan', regrettably, has gone nowhere for the past couple of days. I mustn't give up, however; this is a novel that I am adamant I'll complete, and the same goes for 'The Great Couch Happening of '69'. I suppose it's just that after all the NaNo madness, my brain has gone a bit slack. It's like running a marathon and feeling afterwards like you could spend a month in bed. My brain's a bit dead.

I've decided that I'll write Book Two of the 'Chronicles' some time next year, once I've polished off 'The Great Couch Happening'. Book Three of the 'Chronicles' will be written probably some way into my second year of university, after I've had a good sampling of uni life; enough to write in such a setting. Thankfully each one of the books is fairly short as novels go, so I can easily work them in around larger, non-NaNo projects of the same scale as 'The Great Couch Happening'. And NaNo novels, in fact. One book of the 'Chronicles' takes me about seventeen days to write.

This means I'll have to start planning for Book Two - by planning, I mean come up with a 'what if' question, then a title that's of no relation whatsoever to that question, write a whole load of random crap and then make it relevant as the story goes along. And that, in a nutshell, is how I write stuff.

Now, owing to tomorrow's appointment with the lovely Job Centre people, I must go and get some kip. Thankfully I have enough money for transport and records amounting to £10. And for some reason, I am tempted to attend said appointment with one of those Christmas cracker crown things on top of my sort-of-bowler-hat-that-isn't-a-bowler-hat-but-looks-like-one-anyway. The Twitterverse seems to be agreeing with me...

On a musical note, my recent pillaging from Amazon earned me £2 of credit on the MP3 store. It might not seem much, but when you really dig deep and have a good poke around, you can find some worthy gems; albums at less than two quid. I got my mitts on Terry Riley's 'A Rainbow in Curved Air', a very influential piece from the mid-Sixties. I remember reading about it in Mike Oldfield's autobiography and thinking 'blimey! I really have to listen to that!' - so now I have it. When I've got the dosh, I'll get the CD.

That seems to be the way with my musical journey. I hear artists' names in connection with artists I've already experienced, and check them out. Mike Oldfield put me onto David Bedford and Kevin Ayers, who put me onto a whole army of bands from the Canterbury scene, who put me onto other bands because they worked with people from said bands, and so on and so forth. It seems like the Prog genre is one big family; everybody's worked with everybody. It's bloody marvellous!

ARCANE MATHEMATICS and THE WOES OF DEATH are the two stories that make THE CHRONICLES OF STAN. The novel is handwritten this year because my computer is broke (and has been since about June) and I decided that I wouldn't let technology woes dampen the NaNo experience!

"ARCANE MATHEMATICS" - Stan's life sucks. He's a high school student (circa 1962) at a rubbish comprehensive, his teachers are evil and his best friend (a Spam freak by the name of Brian "Lazuli" Spencer) is trying to shove music down his throat.
When a strange book belonging to his Maths teacher winds up in his sock drawer, things get weird. What is its purpose? What has it got to do with the Order of Benevolent Cleaners; the mop-wielding guardians of the school? And who is the mysterious lookalike who seems intent on earning Stan detentions? Maybe that tin of sweetcorn has the answer...

"THE WOES OF DEATH" - Seven years later. Stan's life still sucks. He has run the gauntlet of Whitbrook High, gone through university, moved to a new, saner town and got a job... as a telemarketer. But if there's one thing that'll never be in Stan's life, it's normality. Closely seconded by a girlfriend.
For, you see, Stan has a "night" job. One that he frequently has to do during the day. He's a Death. And when he runs out of his workplace to reap the wrong person, he quickly finds himself jobless on both fronts. To make things worse, Deaths get paid in time to live. Stan's is now running out...