Exciting Day!

Good times ahead, because today I'm getting my first foster placement! I'm lucky, because the three year old will be staying with us for a week, and this weekend is the August bank holiday. So my husband will be off for three days of it.

Things are still fairly chaotic, as is our way, and we discovered last night that the stair-gates that we bought because they were the only ones that fitted our super narrow staircase need a drill to put up. Do we have a drill? No. We're currently ringing our way around friends and family trying to find one before she arrives. This afternoon. Our disorganization will come as no surprise to those of you who remember us losing our keys the week we were moving house, and came close to having to move the contents of our three bedroom home, including furniture, via Dublin Bus. Dublin's bus service should not be confused with bus systems in other world cities, which usually arrive on time. The Dublin Bus schedule is more a hope of what could happen, rather than a prediction of what will happen. It is the New Year's resolution of transport timetables.

In other exciting news, my main journalism job is stopping for August. That means that while I may still have some random projects to work on, my Monday to Friday job is on hold for four weeks. Which means that my plan of finishing the first draft of Lemons in August may actually come to fruition (See what I did there?). Good times.

Right, I'm off to write my last business segment for the summer, and to locate a drill. Hope you all have a good weekend!

Review: Divergent by Veronica Roth

Thanks everyone for the beautiful comments on yesterday's post. I've met so many lovely people since I started blogging here in March, I'm incredibly lucky.

I bought Divergent to take away on holiday, pulled in by its shiny cover, my love of all things dystopian and favourable mentions on blogger. Also because it was part of a three books for the price of two special in Eason's book shop on O'Connell Street. Hey, there's a global economic crisis on don't you know?

Whatever the reason, I'm glad I picked this one up. Roth's writing style is engaging and full of beautiful imagery that easily evokes a dystopian Chicago. Tris is an interesting character, though I wish we had gotten to know her family a little bit more before everything changed.

There's not much that I can say about the plot, without rapidly wading into spoiler territory, but I really liked this gritty YA novel. There were some parts that I didn't buy, like the trains looping round the city constantly for the sole use of the Dauntless faction, but generally it was a solid enjoyable novel.

The ending is obviously set up for a sequel, but I didn't get that annoying feeling that the sole purpose of this book was to set up the sequel. This is becoming very common lately with the rise of popularity of book series. I'd recommend any fan of YA or dystopian fiction to pick this up, it's well worth a read.

Oh, and I think I'd plump for Erudite, if you're interested ;)

I've been approved as a foster carer!

Remember that thing I said a few weeks ago about waiting for something non writing related? Well, it happened yesterday. Myself and my husband have finally been approved as foster carers. We first applied in June 2010.

The great thing is, I can tell everyone now! I was afraid to tell people before, in case I jinxed things and made it less likely to happen. Our social worker was certain we would get approved, but I wanted to wait just in case.

We're getting our first placement on Friday of a three year old girl.  I'm so nervous, but really excited.We'll only have her for a week, so it will ease us in gently. Our friends have given us a pram and a playpen, and I've bought some essentials like baby shampoo, wipes and other things like that.

I'm not sure quite how this is going to work alongside my writing, but watch this space!

Taking Stock

It's been a weird week. First there as the awful atrocity in Norway, which was just horrific. And then there was the death of Amy Winehouse on Saturday. Amy's death was sad in itself, but it also highlights the millions of lives that are ruined every year throughout the world due to addiction.

It's hard to see the justice sometimes. Almost 100 lives were lost in Norway due to one man, innocent people with the rest of their lives ahead of them. So too, hundreds of people have lost their lives through addiction in the past week. How is that all right? I'd class myself as spiritual rather than religious, and I can't seem to see through to the meaning behind it all.

Then there's the famine in Somalia, genocide and wars elsewhere in the globe, millions of people who seem to have the odds stacked against them from the very beginning. Sometimes it's hard to see how that is ok, and hard not to lose hope.

Liebster Award!

The fabulous Catherine Stine has given me the lovely Liebster Blog Award! Thanks Catherine! I encourage as many people as possible to check out Catherine's blog, she's an author, artist and teacher who is never too busy to give newbie authors some advice and encouragement.


 The aim of the award is to spotlight up and coming bloggers who currently have less than 200 followers. The rules of the award are thus:

1. Thank the giver and link back to the blogger who awarded you.

2. Reveal your top 5 picks & let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.

3. Copy & paste the award on your blog. (see award image above!)

4. Have faith that your followers will spread the love to other bloggers.

5. And most of all—have bloggity-blog fun!

My Five Picks Are:

1. Aspiring YA novelist and all round entertaining person Juliana L. Brandt

2. Alicia Gregoire has one of the most entertaining blogs around, it's laugh out loud funny.

3. Alleged Author is an aspiring MG and YA writer with a unique take on the world of writing. 

4. Agent intern and astrophysicist Brit Hvide blog is very informative and illustrated with lots of Microsoft Paint diagrams. Reminds me of a publishing centric  Hyperbole and a half.

5. Chelsey Blair is a sharp and witty aspiring author and her blog always makes me smile. Definitely worth checking her out.

Hope you're all enjoying the weekend!

Winter Is Coming

I quite like the motto of House Stark in Game of Thrones, 'Winter Is Coming'. It feels like winter has arrived early in Ireland, with grey skies, incessant rain and cool temperatures. It's not just a blip, the weather has been like this for the past couple of weeks. There's a reason why the Romans called Ireland Hibernia, land of winter.

I haven't been writing on my blog much this week, mainly because I've had a bit of a stomach bug. Also because there hasn't been much to say. My writing is go okay, I haven't had any feedback from potential agents, and I'm really busy with the copy for the beer festival.

Tonight I'm heading out to a comedy show and a tapas bar, which I'm really looking forward to. Spanish food and comedy shows are two of my favourite things, so I'm looking forward to that. I have a huge amount of writing to do before I get to that point though, so I better get going.

Hope you're all having a good day :)

I Couldn't Help But Wonder...

I loved Sex and the City. The television series that is, the less said about the movies the better. Apart from the fantastic clothes, the handbags and the glimpses of New York life, we also got to see the inside track on the life of a journalist.

I, like the fabulous Carrie Bradshaw, am a journalist.Unfortunately, that's where the comparisons begin and end. I don't write about sex, I write about the lifting of the European Union milk quota. The only relationship issues I attempt to hammer out are the link between the Greek riots and the price of Irish bonds.Carrie Bradshaw said in one episode that when money was tight she bought a copy of Vogue instead of dinner. If I even attempted such a thing, I'd end up eating the pages, glossy sheen or no. Which is probably how she manages to fit into all the designer clothes that she somehow manages to afford on a freelance salary. A column a week does not a Burberry trench-coat buy, my friends.

As far as I'm concerned, the biggest myth that show spawned was not the fact that one 'average' woman could use four different Dior bags in a single episode, or that friends will forgive you if you repeatedly slam their other half. It wasn't even the unrealistic dynamic of female friendship that Holli Moncrieff wrote about. It was the 'one take' idea of writing. I never saw her do rewrites, for example. She just sat down, made a scrunched up face, smoked a Marlboro Light and 'wondered'.She never once wrote an article on, say, sheep-farming in Bavaria, to make ends meet. She never made writing look like the hard work that it actually is.

She did wear some cool clothes though...