Stu vs. Changes

Forgive me blog its been two months since my last confession... I mean blog post. In my defense 2012 has been a crazy year so far. I landed myself a short term teaching post in a year 4class and to say its been an eye opening experience is an understatement. In just 6 weeks I 've learnt more than in the past 18 months and I have a fantastic class to boot who'll jump through hoops for me. This, however, will end in just over a week which leads me onto the next reason for a crazy start to 2012...

In Feb the truely unthinkable happened, my wife was made redundant from Orange, something people were telling her couldn't possibly happen. Well it did and as a result we are upping sticks and moving out of Bristol. Just today we found a house in the lovely town of Crewkerne in south Somerset. We move in 10 days!

To ease a little of the pressure, well not really, Ruth starts a new job on March 12th. She also using her spare time to promote her business www.littlesprinkles.co.uk where she provides cakes, biscuits and sweets for ALL occasions. She's already booked in at some wedding fairs (you can thank me later honey for my prmotional efforts)

So as you can imagine writing has truely been put on the back of he back burner and the resolutions I made with such good intentions are seemingly a long way off. I refuse to give up though. The move has reinvigorated me across all areas. I'll be joining the local library and a local film club - my other passion.

On the reading front I am literally half way through The Hunger Games Trilogy and it is EXCELLENT, just can't put them down. I've actually read quite alot more so far this yeara nd have no intention of slowing down. 5 books down 25 to go!

Oh and I almost forgot the new series of A Game of Thrones starts in just over a month. I'm salivating with excitement!! Cold winds are rising!

Stu vs 2012 (Resolutions for Next Year)

2011 has gone by in a blur and was filled with ups and downs. More on that another time. However by far the best part of 2011 was watching my son go from this:



To this:


Anyway onto 2012. Usually new year resolutions are either made to be broken or are so ludicrous that we have no hope of actually achieving success. I've thought long and hard over the last few weeks about what I actually want to achieve next year and believe my resolutions are actuslly achievable. Some of this determinations comes from reading about my wife's aims for 2012. Please feel free to read about her passion for all things sweet related at http://little-sprinkles.blogspot.com/

Next year I intend to:

1. Read more (My bookshelves are filled with books left untouched). Please look to the left for more on what I intend to read in my 2012 Reading list.

2. Push on with my Writer's Bureau Children's course. I started last May and am currently bogged down with assignment 2. By this time next year I want to be booged down with assignment 6.

3. My lifelong passion is to become a published author. Next year I intend to finish my first children's Book and publish it via the Kindle. So watch out for Captain Cosmo: Space Adventurer on a Kindle near you.

4. Finally get a fulltime teaching position and do away with all this unpredictable supply malarky.

5. Spend more quality time with the family (anyone who knows me knows how much I depend to technology and my gadgets. In 2012 I promise to use these less. Ironically I'm typying this out on my IPad - lol.

6. Lose a little bit of weight. Tone up a little.

Well that's it. Not too far fetched I hope. Anyone else care to share thier own?

Stu vs. The 2012 Reading List

My new reading list for 2012. Most are left over from last year and I fully intend to purchase (I don't condone stealing at all) all the books I dont have to avoid this years debacle.

There a quite a few children's books on this list, I'm doubling up with some research for the Writer's Bureau course.

The Minipins
World of Warcraft - War of the Ancients: Book 3
Magyk
The Borrowers
Astrosaurs: Riddles of the Raptors
The Adventures of Captain Underpants
Muddle Earth
The Brilliant World of Tom Gates
The Warcraft Archive
Scott Pilgrim vs The World: Book 5
Scott Pilgrim vs The World: Book 4
Tales from Earthsea
World of Warcraft: War of the Ancients - Book 2
The Wyrmling Horde - Sum of All Men
Brisingr
Inkdeath
Tom Trineheart and the Land of Dark Stories
The Amulet of Samarakind
How to Train Your Dragon
Edge Chronicles: Curse of the Gloamglozer
Assassin's Quest
Royal Assassin
Assassin's Apprentice
The Bromliad
The Complete Spiderwick Chronlicles
The Subtle Knife
Inheritance
Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief
Five on Treasure Island
Tollins

Stu vs. 25 Books in 2011: An Update

Well as we near the end of 2011 and think about what's in store for us in 2012 (I'll deliberate that later) I thought I would revisit my reading challenge. Looking back this challenge was flawed and doomed to fail from the start. The reason: I didn't actually own all the books on the list. Yes, I intended to but them all eventually but never got around to getting all of them.
Now I'll admit I'm a slow reader but I honestly thought 25 books in a year was doable. I managed to finish... 6! Yes just six. I blame A Dance with Dragons tbh. That book alone took me over three months to get through. Since then I finished a fair few others. My latest conquest being the first book in the Warcraft: Ancients trilogy.

So the list to the left will be altered to 30, yes 30, books in 2012. I'm going to remove those I've finished and add a few more. To quote Yoda, 'Do or do not, there is no try.'

This will probably be my final post pre-christmas, so I will take this opportunity to wish my readers a Happy Christmas. Eat. Drink. Be Merry.

Stu vs Another Book Down

Well, that was an easy read. I'm talking about about a Diary of A Wimpy Kid and it was ok. Much better than the film, which was poor. Yes I know it's a kids film but even so.

The book did make me chuckle in places but nowhere near as much as the Horrid Henry books. I did buy the complete set but will hold off on the others while I get back to some meaty fantasy. I'm just about to sink my teeth into the ancient lands of Azeroth and Kalimdor. This is of course the world of Warcraft and has been recommended to me by my brother.

On another note I'm sinking my teeth into another writing project. The Facebook writing group I belong to are creating an anthology of poems and short stories with song titles as the focus. My attempt will be called Wonderwall and that's all I'm saying for now.

Now with all this writing stacking up, I'm going to sign off and actually go do something about it.

Nanu nanu

Stu vs 25 Books in 2011 - update

Well folks by my own admission I'm a slow reader but A Dance With Dragons took me much longer than anticipated - roughly two and a half months to be precise. As a resultI am way behind my quota of 25 book read in 2011.

I am notgiving up however and have moved onto some lighter reading in the form of A Diary of a Wimpy Kid which so far is turning out to be quite funny and much better than the movie which I recently sat through; completely uninspring!

Not sure which of the remaining 20 I will tackle after this, maybe make a suggestion for me in the comments box!

Keeping reading folks, and to all those aspiring novelists out there, A Diary of a Wimpy Kid was written by a video game develper and if he can do it so can we.

Stu vs Finally Finishing A Dance with Dragons

To quote George R.R Martin: The last one was a bitch, this one was three bitches and a bastard!

Now I intend to talk a little about the book and there will be a few possible spoilers so please discontinue reading if you intend to read said book.

At 957 pages, plus a 50 page appendix (yes George likes to keep us informed on how each character is related) I thought I would whizz through A Dance With Dragons purely on my love of the world and characters. I was wrong and I put this down to not reading A Storm of Swords beforehand. There were a lot of secondary characters I'd forgotten about and the parts of the book set in Mereen were confusing to the point of being laborious.

The book started with a bang and proved Jon has balls to go along with his new title and carried on in muchthe same vain. However George I am disappointed in the direction you've taken Bran. I've been invested in this characterfrom book 1 and his story seemingly came to an end with a whimper in this book. It also seemed there was conflict included just to prolong stories and in parts this was unnecessary. That being said however in the end Dance was a great book and finished on numerous cliff hangers and with the death of one of my favourite characters...

Poor Jon. (what I said there'd be spoilers!) He only tried to do the right thing and along with Dany he paid theprice of trying to help everyone else.

Now come on George and begin work on the Winds of Winter, there is an empty space on my bookshelf waiting to be filled.

P.S. for a more indepth 'review' please stay tuned as a micro review should appear shortly on my website.

Stu vs The Research

If people actually read my ramblings then you'll know I've finally submitted my A1 for the WB's children's writing course. This logically leads onto to A2 (I know I bet your as shocked as I was). Whereas the first was all about characters, and as there are so many stored in my head, seemed easy to write (though more difficult to hone), this second one is actually requiring some thought; it revolves around story and plot.

So I've taken it upon myself to do some research while off on summer holidays; yes being a teacher has its perks. Now my local library has proven to be quite crappy in the past and it didn't fail to surprise me yesterday either. All I managed to pick up was Cabbages From Outer Space (yes it is as bad as it sounds) and The Day of the Monster Pigeons, which I have yet to sample but should be more appropriate.

Waterstones yielded a greater selection of books and a hunt on Amazon has found them at more affordable prices so will be making a bulk order over the weekend. I'm hoping to find a gap in the market with a series of space-based stories for 5-7 year olds. I have a couple of fantasy-based ideas for the others. More info to come.

Stu vs Character Profiles 2

Here's another profile ready for my first assignment. The characters aren't from the same world. This character is from a story for teens.

Biography - Ryan Phelps (The Eldar Chronicles)

Name: Ryan Phelps

Nick-Name: ?

Age: 16

Sex: Male

Nationality: British

Appearance:  Tall, matted brown hair, stoops over, hans always in pockets

Hair Colour: Brown

Eyes: Brown

Voice: Quite low, calming, friendly

Features: Wears contacts,good upper body strength though this is deceptive, 

Favourite Colour: Orange

Favourite Food: Italian food (anything)

Least Favourite Food: cows milk (allergic)

Best Character Trait: Outgoing

Character Flaw: Short tempered

Personality: trusting in his friends. His mother moves around a lot with her work and he never knew his father. Very independent due to his mum not being around much. Helpful child who looks out for people. Decisive when he needs to be. Strong willed.
 
Likes: Italian food, reading

Dislikes: School bullies (he himself was bullied at primary school)

Habits: Quick temper

Pets: None

Best Friend: Doesn't have one

Worst Enemy: Doesn't have one

Secret Desire: To have a proper family


Stay tuned for the third and final one in the coming days

Stu vs. 25 Books for 2011

If I want to be a children's writer I need to read more modern children's literature. So I decided to do a reading list for this year. I'm setting a target of 25 books for this year. Now I may read more but I do read quite slowly and not as often as I would like. Here's the list in its full glory, though not in any partcular order.

NB: Current book - Swallows and Amazons (a book I've wanted to read since I was a kid and never got around to it)

1.   Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief
2.   Beast Quest: Book 1 - Ferno the Fire Dragon
3.   Dance with Dragons (released July - can't wait!)
4.   Diary of a Wimpy Kid
5.   Inheritence (released September)
6.   The Subtle Knife
7.   The Complete Spiderwick Chronicles
8.   The Edge Chronicles - Beyond the Deepwood
9.   The Bromliad
10. Assassins Apprentice
11. Royal Assassin
12. Assassin's Quest
13. How to Train Your Dragon
14. The Amulet of Samarkind
15. Tom Trineheart and the Land of Dark Stories
16. Inkdeath
17. Brisingr
18. The BFG
19. The Wyrmling Horde - Sum of All Men
20. The Warcraft Anthology
21. Tales From Earthsea (this book is really four stories in one and I have read the first)
22. Warlock of Firetop Mountain (technically an adventure book, but I want to return to the books of my childhood).
23. The Subtle Knife
24. Scott Pilgrim: Book 4
25. Scott Pilgrim: Book 5 (yes these last two are graphic novels but I still need to read them)

Well there you have it readers; my mammoth reading list for 2011. These will hopefully open my mind up so I can write some more.

P.S. I am currently working on my top 50 films of all time. This list will be up shortly and I'm sure I'll have some controversal titles.