Followers, Fibro and Purple Hued Cocktails

No real bunnies were injured in the taking of this photo.

My weekend was fairly uneventful, because I was sick for most of it. My fibromyalgia hasn't been bothering me much lately, but it has come back this week and seems to want to make up for lost time. Great.

I had a good week though. I am now godmother to my beautiful brother Jack. There's almost twenty three years between us, but as I plan on sticking at 25 for at least a decade the gap will soon narrow.

I got my husband an Xbox for our anniversary, and he's been solving crime in 1940s LA ever since. We did manage to squeeze in a meal at a nice restaurant to celebrate two years of marriage and many cocktails were consumed. My new favourite is an Avation, a mix of gin, maraschino liqueur, lemon and crème de violette. It's a pre-1916 cocktail, which means it comes from my period of history so could conceivably be called research. Unfortunately, it doesn't come from the right continent, as it originated in New York instead of Europe, but there were a lot of Irish people in New York then, right? All I need to do now is link cocktail bars to the spread of smallpox and I can come at my historical research from a whole new angle.

 I also got a new iPhone, which I love. I had an iPhone before, but I lost it in the Big Snow of 2010 (for my North American friends, the 'big snow' was around five inches, and the country ground to a halt. Ireland doesn't usually get snow). It's handy because it means I can check my email on the go and I don't have to be at home to update my Facebook or Google+ status. I can also take pictures for my blog, like the one of my dog at the top of this post.

And hello to all my new followers! I've broken the 150 follower mark, so a contest of some description is called for. I'll try to come up with a suitable prize. And for those of you who want to take part in Rachael Harrie's Platform-Building Campaign there's still time to join in. You can sign up until August 31st.

Hope everyone had a great weekend! :)

In which Christine Discovers The Secret To Success...

First of all, I'm really excited because my blog has now had over a thousand page views! Which is great because, I love blogging. In fact, it may have overtaken perusing internet for as my number one form of procrastination. I really enjoy reading other people's blogs, because I'm inherently nosy. I've only been writing

here since March 23, but I've met so many great people in the blogosphere.

But anyway, the secret of success. As I've mentioned before I have fibromyalgia, which is basically a disorder of the central nervous system that affects how the body interprets and deals with pain. Right now I'm going through a rough time, but I won't bore anyone with the details here. Right now, I can't sleep, which is a pain, but it means I get all my journalism work done in the small hours of the morning, leaving the rest of the day for fiction work. It's amazing how productive insomnia makes you. Of course, this is a ll short lived and pretty soon I'm going to look like an extra from Dawn of the Dead, but right now it's working for me.



The second secret of success, I take no credit for. Ever wished that the whole story-telling business was less subjective and unwieldy? Well, then rejoice, for Computer Sherpa  has drawn up a Periodic Table of Storytelling. Cool, eh? It's even available in a print out format for those of us who like to prettify our workspaces. Seriously, you should check it out. You can't see it here, because the image is too small, but some of the 'element' listings are really funny. You can find it here.

Off to edit and to try in vain to increase my BuNoWriMo word count. If anyone else has any new 'secrets of success,'feel free to share them in the comment section :)