Woman-Stirred and Seasoned

It's alright, I haven't abandoned my blog. I've just been a bit busy elsewhere - contributing to other blogs as it happens, including designing a blog layout and logo over at Woman-Stirred.

Woman-Stirred is a new venture, a quartet of queer women writers - Mary Meriam, Jan Steckel, Liann Snow and me. It's a support network, a promotion of our work (there's strength in numbers) and a place to spotlight writing on lesbian themes. It was Mary who got me writing sonnets. She is now taking commissions for original gift sonnets penned by her own hand, and I can tell you, a Woman-Stirred Sonnet is definitely worth having.

I was also busy completing the Season of Inspiration course. Sadly this is the last course the trAce Online Writing School will be running. The course was another excellent opportunity for gaining and providing supportive feedback with other writers, and there are already plans to continue networks amongst the participants. It looks like blogging is going to help quite a lot with this.

The course also gave me the opportunity to blog as a 17 year old young man who dreams of getting on the telly and being a first-class entertainer while stacking shelves at his local supermarket. You'll be pleased to know he's well on his way, learning great lessons in life from his down-to-earth Auntie Peggy and from another fascinating blog character who began to interact with his story at the Season of Inspiration group blog. The prediction of this 106 year old visitor from the twenty-second century is that the young man will be a famous illusionist by hologram in years to come. That's all I'm going to tell you, but hearing this news from the future makes me very proud. As I usually write very much in my own identity this was an interesting exercise and helped to underline many of the pleasures I gain from interacting online.

The X Factor starts again tonight. That's two of us very happy - my 17 year old character and me. The difference being, I'm happy to stay at home and watch from the settee; I'm not aiming to get on the programme. Saturday nights are looking up. However much I enjoy this format of reality TV, I really couldn't get into Big Brother this year. Partly because, for the past ten weeks, I seemed to be plugged into my computer after work each evening. I'd almost forgotten what the television is. But there have been silver linings for Andrea. There have been no arguments over the remote control and how many 24-hour news programmes can be watched. That reminds me - it's almost time for me to claim the remote ...

A piece of TV-inspired conversation which made me laugh from today:

Andrea: I used to love watching black and white cowboy films as a kid.
Nicki: That's because there weren't any colour ones.