Personal Life

13 January, 2010

Best of 2009 – Part 1

I’ve finally started piecing together my highlights of 2009. I’ll be splitting this up into at least 2 blog posts – this one includes best album, movie and book. The next post will include best game, live event, TV Show and webcomic.

Obviously this isn’t an expert link – it’s restricted to only what I’ve seen, heard, read or played and to my own personal tastes. Your milage is going to vary, so leave a comment with your own “Best Of”s, suggestions for what I’ve missed out on, or a link to your own blog posts about it. You no longer have to be a registered site member to comment which should make things easier.

Best Album Of 2009

Biffy Clyro’s “Only Revolutions”

I love Biffy Clyro. A lot. They’re Scottish, they’ve got strong catchy melodies and beautiful lyrics, and since they broke out in the music scene with “Puzzle” they haven’t set a foot wrong. “Only Revolutions” takes things up a notch without compromise, and without losing the style that got them where they are.

Runners Up: Muse “The Resistance”, Placebo “Battle for the Sun”. Brand New’s “Daisy” could also be worth a place here once I give it a good play-through.

Best Movie Of 2009

“Up”

There were a lot of great movies this year, but when it comes to a balance of story-line, style, characters and soundtrack “Up” has to be my choice this year. A heart-string tugging return to brilliance for Pixar.

Runners Up: “Coraline” was a brilliant comeback for traditional claymation, and though “Avatar”s story gets a lot of slack it’s beauty, special effects and skilled use of what’s normally a gimmick have made it a game-changer for movies to come. “District 9” was another close one.

Best Book Of 2009

This wasn’t my best year for reading. I’ve been short of time to get through my own tastes, or any of the critically acclaimed newcomers like “Wolf Hall”. Instead it’s been a stream of stories forced into following the “Twilight” formula.

Not the best quality genre to pick from, but I have to restrict my choices to what I’ve read.

“Hush, Hush”

My favourite new YA of 2009, “Hush, Hush” a smart plot backed up with solid mythology, relatable characters and absolutely brilliant dialogue with sharp innuendo throughout. When other YA books are sticking to the formula Fitzpatrick unashamedly breaks out of the mold with her strong-willed protagonist and far from perfect love interest.

No book is perfect and it does suffer a bit from sledgehammer hints (inserting the words ‘angel’ in at every opportunity while the protagonist spends far too long figuring it out) it doesn’t stop the story from being completely gripping from start to finish. I can’t wait for the sequel.

23 November, 2009

Nairn Blogs

Oh my! I’m just back from my usual check of the Gurn From Nairn to see if anything exciting has happened in the town, like a new shop of a stray sofa, and I find a link to this blog on the sidebar. :O

Being a bit of a fangirl of the Gurn, with it’s psychic predictions of Nairn goings-on, reminders to go to events that I still forget to go to, and shadowy network of ‘unreliable sources’, it adds a bit of excitement to the seaside town.

For newcomers, this blog is part of the main site of myself, author and amateur artist Emma Maree Urquhart. I caused a bit of a stir in ‘ness after having a fantasy novel (and later, a sequel) published at the age of 13. It sold well, though I never made any money from it due to the less than reputable publishers who took a lot of money from budding writers in the Highlands and further out.

I moved to Nairn with my fiancé chiefly for the cheaper house prices, though I think it’s beautiful as well. =) I now work in IT and continue work on my next novel, when I’m not being a crotchety hermit getting angry at Nairn youths for sitting on the bin.

This blog is for cryptic updates on my writing, reviews of anything and everything, sketches and artwork, and guilty fan admissions of the likes of ‘Ohmygod I’m in love with David Tennant’.

In the spirit of local news, I should say that the heater is broken in the certain Nairn IT consultancy firm where I work. I’ve been surviving on tea and porridge and looking enviously towards the areas covered by the portable heaters they bussed in from Inverness. Arguments have erupted over which is a better warming drink, coffee or tea. You can leave a comment with your pick, but if you don’t say tea I will reach out of your computer screen and slap you.

Hopefully, it’ll be fixed when I get in tomorrow. Then I can shift my focus to solving the mystery of the dissappearing Ian Rankin books, which were ordered from the book club but failed to show up with the rest of the order! Egads.

Now, before I wrap up this blog post – there’s a movement among Nairn blogs right now to get the word out about local blogs, so here are my picks:

The Gurn From Nairn – The Alpha Male of the Nairn blogosphere (did I just use that word?), it knows all.
My Nairn – MyNairn offers some very well-written posts about goings on in Nairn, from rising prices to rising tides.
Where Mountains Meet The Sea – I’ve only just discovered this blog. It’s very beautifull and artistically presented, with stunning photos.

Do you have a blog I haven’t mentioned? Local, personal or otherwise, feel free to link to it in the comments. :D I haven’t seen any Inverness blogs out there, so I’m curious if some will make an appearance.

E.Maree
xoxo

21 November, 2009

Reading, Writing, Attorney-ing and Time Travelling

Bear with me, I’m being a bit experimental here – I want to do a round-up of all the random awesome stuff I’ve seen on the internet. If I was cool, I would do this on Wednesday and make it Web Round-Up Wednesday – however, I’m not, and most of my randomly articles tend to be gathered throughout the week.

So instead, let’s make it… Skiver’s Friday! AKA. I should be working but it’s almost the weekend and I’ve found some funny links – day. Then I got distracted and didn’t finish the post, so really it’s Skiver’s Saturday. Shh.

99problems

WOO ENTERTAINING IMAGES. If I posted every image that entertained me, I’d never sleep.

Then there’s Iconic Photos, some great photos from throughout history.

In the news, we have lots of stupid people. Including yet another woman who can’t live without her expensive things and someone who got a Pit Bull to look ‘hard’ and couldn’t be bothered to train it.

It seems people are having divorce parties now? Can’t decide if that’s a good thing or not – I like the idea of making things a bit easier in a rough time, but the cakes there – particularly the ‘Hooray, I’m free of them now’ feel of some of them – are just laughably bitter.

Awesome Christmas presents – Fondue Mugs, EatMeCrunchy Bowl, Baconnaise and Marshmallow Fluff. I don’t like Christmas much – not only is it generally quite unlucky for me, but the pressure to find the perfect gifts for everyone really bothers me. I’m quite far behind on my Christmas shopping, argh. D: Feel free to leave a comment with your go-to gifts when it comes to finding Christmas presents for people – this year I’m abusing the use of cute microwavable teddies, and presents from last year that I never managed to post out.

edgeworthgumshoe — *resisting the urge to comment*

For gamers, there’s a Flash demo of the newest Ace Attorney game. I am rushing to play it as soon as this post is done. <3

(EDIT: Played it! Be careful, when examining the scene it’ll glitch if you examine the chess board first. Examine something else instead.)

If you’re a fan of sparkly vampires, 11 Points’ 11 Random Observations Outside the New Moon Premiere is very funny. The Vatican have also complained about Twilight leading Christians into a world of undead romance, or something.

On the fanfiction front, I’ve been reading some Doctor Who fanfics. Today’s recommendations are short, standalone stories that are suitable for all – ‘This Moment Has Been Prepared For‘, a cute re-imagining of Donna’s ending with a winning first line and ‘Drinking Tactics for Nine Hundred Year Old Minors‘, a comedic story of Elven & Sally Sparrow’s drinking trip turned feminist nightmare and the only good thing related to the Eleventh Doctor Matt Smith that I’ve found so far. Oh, and it makes me giddy that a campaign to Save (Torchwood Character) Ianto Jones raised £12k for Children In Need.

Last stop are some writing related links. The Reality of a New York Times bestseller has been crushing dreams for a while now, but it’s still required reading for anyone expecting to be the next J.K.Rowling. A follow up to the post is here. There’s the guide to Write Badly Well, which has taught me things like the word ‘syllepsis’. I knew what it was, but didn’t know there was a name for it? Now I can proudly say that syllepsis is (are?) awesome.

For those of you who like reading more than reading about writing, there are the ‘Very Short Stories’ of Edith Zimmerman. An example is below the cut, so click ‘Continue reading’ for a sample.

17 July, 2009

Swine Flu & Stormfronts

It’s getting kind of creepy how much news I find out online nowadays. Yesterday, as I finished work I found out on Twitter about the first swine flu death in Inverness – I know swine flu’s minor compared to normal winter flu, it’s all hype, it’s NuLabour trying to distract us from Brown’s failings, etc etc…

swine_flu_pig But it worries me. It may only kill those with underlying health issues, but my health is fragile at best – I get knocked out by nausea or fatigue very often, if I miss a meal by ten minutes, sleep too long, get too cold, or for no reason at all. I bruise easily, have all the pallor of a corpse and…. well, there’s something up with me. Vitamin deficiency, minor illnesses, after-effects of some mistakes in my youth maybe. I don’t know and my symptoms are too vague for the doctors to help, so I’m not comforted by the fact that should I catch this illness I could easily be discovered as having underlying health issues.

What was at first a fairly entertaining panic (imagine it’s a zombie outbreak and it just gets even better) has become a bit of a ‘what if?’. It’ll blow over eventually, I guess.

After that swine flu update we watched Series 2 of Torchwood (review post of Series 1 soon) and then heard the rumble of thunder outside. I’d been checking Twitter occasionally and hearing of the bad storms down in London – and checking my g-mail to see it’s weather forecast theme depicting heavy rainclouds didn’t really help.

Then the rain started. I was pottering about picking up rubbish and plotting baking, watching it flood the uneven and poorly-concreted lane outside our house, before the lovely fiancé called me upstairs. There, I could watch it lashing down through the trees, flooding the gutters, and continuing its relentless onslaught on our lane.

I tried to stick my head out the window then got a bit worried about the rain flooding in the window and the chance of slipping to my death, so went downstairs and out to stand in it.

I love the rain. It’s determined and punishing, dark and miserable and it quietens the worlds and gives you space to think – unless you’re under a metal or plastic roof, then it just makes the world very noisy. It’s a part of my heritage, pure British and Scottish spirit, dour and grumpy but never letting up.

That and I’m just a bit weird.

So I stood out in the middle of the storm, hoping the trees didn’t get struck by lightning. Last time we had thunder I did similar, running around the high street excitedly and laughing a tad psychotically. :P

Then I realised the rain was absolutely freezing and went back inside to sniffle for a bit.

It’s morning now. Streets have flooded, the river is at high tide and rushing by cloudy brown, and I had to avoid getting soaked by cars and lorries as I walked to work in a hoody and warm, fluffy

boots that unfortunately turned out not to be waterproof and had to have the rainwater poured out at the door. I was also eating ice lollies half the way in the icy raining, because ice lollies are tasty anytime!

It’s been about two hours since and I’m still trying to dry out my jeans. I think the boots are a lost cause and I’m going to have to walk home in pumps. Oh dear.

As soon as I got into work, the downfall stopped.

That’s Scotland for you.

Love,

E.Maree

6 July, 2009

Little Bit of Optimism

Hey all,

Sorry for the lack of posts – life has been busy, and fantastic.

The Blog has a new theme, it’s a temp one until I can redo the site to something more lightweight.

It used to be I would post about anything important – and, as things go, the important things would often be the worst. Unfortunately, when I post negative or awful things, having to go back over them later just makes me regret ever writing it…

So today, have a post about the good things.

– I got to work with my fiance, and the transition between lovers and mates is a flawless as its ever been. Treating him as a colleague just works and it’s so nice to have such a close friend.

– On IM he made some lame joke and posted ‘It was worth it, it made you smile”. Long after the joke was forgotten, seeing it still made me smile.

– My friends caught wind of some issues we were having with a tenant and we talked (well, ranted, in part) about it over e-mail. Seeing them there for me when I’m stressed or low never stops being unbelievable.

– They helped me get a present for someone very special to me! (Hint: It’s not Dave. This time.)

– Dave and my friends conspired together to bring home a tub of Ben&Jerry’s Cookie Dough ice cream. I’m undersleeping and overstressing so thinking of me like that makes me squee.

– Just e-mailed my agent and stated something I’ve only just realised: I am happy with my writing right now. Sure, I edit and re-edit and angst about my style and prose; I never get enough writing done to satisfy me… but I’m very confident in the direction my work is going, and the way this series is going to turn out.

To summarize: Everything is awesome.

Hope you can say the same.

Love,

E.Maree
xoxo

15 March, 2009

Being Understood

I used to want someone who could understand writing and would care about my work. I’ve seen both, but never together – it seems like when somebody decides they understand what it is to be a writer, anybody elses work becomes meaningless alongside their greatness.

Which is quite miserable, really – so high-five to us empathetic souls who care about those around us, learning from them and listening to them, and are not afraid to view the flaws in our own writing. Sure, there’s a certain amount of confidence involved, but I’d still call angst over ego as the sign of a good writer.

Lately, I’ve been caught up in this fantasy that writers are meant to be with writers – if you look at famous authors, they always seem to have a less-successful spouse in tow. Because that way, they can be understood. And I wanted so dearly to be understood.

But the truth of it is that, as (eccentric, erratic and arguably insane) humans, our minds are unique and fucked-up, dark and dirty and fascinating – and anyone who claims to understand that is either basing it off their own experiences as a dark-hearted author, or making it up because they think they’re smart. Aaaand I hate to break it to you, but most come under the latter category.

I embrace the fact that my messed-up, hormonal self is far beyond any real understanding (without lengthy explanations after hours of analytical self-examination from myself, and even those don’t really make too much sense).

And I know now that it is better to have someone who cares about your work – someone who will help you with research, listen to your ramblings, and be there for hot drinks and hugs when you’re feeling existential – as opposed to some up-themselves want-to-be-Kerouac who can give you an explanation of literary minimalism quoted straight from wikipedia, debate the beauty of adverbs and never really be there at all.

What matters is having someone who cares.

(I love you, Dave.)

E.Maree
xoxo