I love words. I love words with a passion that sometimes frightens even me. I love words for the images they paint in my head, for the sound they make, and I love words because I don't think I could live without them. I love them because they can communicate so much, encompass a whole eternity of feelings - and yet never be enough to paint a picture of something that sits so grandious and vast in my heart.

I love words that melt on your tongue like the first summer ice cream.

I love words that roll in over your mind that waves over the shoreline.

I love words that shine like beacons in the night, guiding the weary traveler homeward.

I just love words.

What's your favorite word?

Booking Through Thursday

Here's the lil meme from Booking Through Thursday:

“So here today I present to you an Unread Books Challenge. Give me the list or take a picture of all the books you have stacked on your bedside table, hidden under the bed or standing in your shelf – the books you have not read, but keep meaning to. The books that begin to weigh on your mind. The books that make you cover your ears in conversation and say, ‘No! Don’t give me another book to read! I can’t finish the ones I have!’ “

Now, I know I have a pile as big as... my arm. Unfortunately, though, I cannot remember all the titles, since some of them are also packed down in boxes. I know, I know. I need to sort through my boxes of books and get rid of some...

So here's the list... eh, so far.

1. The Big Over Easy by Jasper Fforde. (First of his Nursery Crime books... the man is a genius, but I think I was kinda full on twisted fairytale stories when I picked this one up. Still gonna finish it though. At some point.)

2. A few books (Bloodstone, Last Sword of Power, Wolf in Shadow, The Last Guardian) by David Gemmell. (Fantasy, I think. Bought them when they were cheap, haven't even opened them. Yikes.)

3. The Conan Chronicles 1 & 2 by Robert E Howard. (Classical fantasy that I got, tried to read....I swear, I go to sleep when I open the books. Need to get rid of these.)

4. Herakles by Theodor Kallifatides. (Yawn. Christmas gift. Haven't even started to read it... not sure I ever will)

5. Diplomatic Baggage by Brigid Keenan. (Bought it, it was cheap.. started it and lost interest. Meh.)

6. The First Book of Lankhmar by Fritz Leiber. (See Conan.)

7. Spartan by V. Massimo Manfredi. (Gift, and whenever I try to read the book, I just seem to find other things to do...)

8. Night Watch by Terry Pratchett. (Another gift, and I love Terry, but I haven't ...been in the mood to read it. Plus, I have a feeling that I should read some of the books before this one before attempting it.)

9. A trilogy by Michael Scott Rohan. (See 2.)

10. Forging the Darksword by M Weis and T Hickman. (See 2, again!)

11. Warrior Rising by PC Cast (saving this one for my flight to Phoenix next week. Yay!)

12. Kushiel's Justice by Jacqueline Carey (saving it, but I am afraid I will be a lil disappointed by it...)

13. Dreams Made Flesh by Anne Bishop. (just haven't had the time to read this one yet!)

14. Time and the Gods by Lord Dunsany. (See Conan).

Big list. Could be bigger, if I had all the titles. And these are books that are either not read... or I managed to read a few pages. Still, yikes. Need to get rid of some of them!

I must be crazy...

Truth is, I must be more than a little crazy to sign up to do NaNoWriMo this year. Well, actually, I must be more than a little crazy to sign up, start writing, and then realize that nope, this is not working, so I will switch my entire story to something else on day 5. Which I did, and now I am now running behind in keeping up with the word count, but hey, it is the weekend, and my Muse might kick in.

On top of that, I just have to keep up with everything else. Work is being really uninspiring at the moment, as I finished one project and am now between projects meaning that I get to do a little thing here and a little thing there. Still, it would not have been all that bad, if it had not been for the working conditions that keep getting worse. And no, Internet, we are not talking about the physical working conditions (cause they managed to turn on the heat finally, after just a week or two of testers complaining about freezing their asses off), we are talking about all the policies that the company is currently enforcing. Written warnings for arriving late (sure, it is understandable, but noone gives a shit about you staying a few minutes late after work to make sure that you have everything in order) and now, the 20 minutes of talk allowed between testers.

Atop of that, dear readers, we also have the admin staff telling us to act professionally and arrive on time and so on. But is it really professional to stand by the screen where we punch in and say to people "you are late"? No, it smells of kindergarten, and that, my friends, is just not...cool.

Gah. Oh well, at least I can now disappear into my own fictional world and think about something else to calm down and relax. Who knows, maybe frustration will make me write 50 000 words this year.

Canada...and an update on me

Yup, Canada. I am here, since the 25th July. Sometimes, I cannot believe that a month has gone by already. Where the heck did August go, anyway? Probably into the jaws of work.

I am now a Swedish linguistic tester at Enzyme labs in Ste-Adele. That means, I play video games on different consoles, and test them for bugs in Swedish. Like...wrong translations, inappropriate language, overlapping text...and so on. And when I am not assigned to a Swedish project (which will happen in the low season, noone apparently wants to release games in Sweden), I am doing functionality testing. That means, I am checking for everything that will make the game crash, freeze, not work, looks funny and so on. You get the idea, I am sure.

It is an interesting job, that I will gladly admit. You get to see a lot of different things, you are certainly stimulated when trying to get to the next task/level and so on - and the people you work with are great. We are linguistic testers from all over the world - Scandinavia (Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark), Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Holland, Japan...and I am pretty sure I might have missed some countries. So, it is so awesome to get to meet all these people - and to hear all the languages.

Language, yes. I am a non-French speaker in freaking Quebec - that's one tough thing, Internet. Mostly, I can get around it with an "English, please?" - but not all people in Ste-Adele do speak English (did I mention that Ste-Adele is a small countryside town?) so you have to be good at coming up with solutions. Yeah, and I am already learning the useful stuff like "Bon jour/Bon soir", "Comment ca va?" and "Do you want to eat it here or bring it with you?" (well, the last one I understand, but I certainly cannot spell it in French).

So, the job is good, the pay is less good. I suppose I can survive on it, but it will be a little tougher when the low season comes (that's when you do functionality testing, and just work 35 hours a week). Less work, a lot colder - yes... I do come from a cold country, but it does not get that cold. And Halland - not so much snow there, either. So, this is going to be...interesting, to say the very least.

Ste-Adele, yes. Small town, and for rich people, I would think. There are tons of hairdressers, art galleries and cafes/restaurants - and that is about it. Then there is one or two boutiques with expensive clothing...and um. Yeah, that is pretty much it. And considering that I do not have a car, it is slightly more difficult to go to the other towns around here to get some shopping done. And to go to Montreal, which is an hour away. I will have to go there by bus some weekend, I think.

Well, I will keep you posted on this adventure. Sometimes, it does feel like Wonderland to me...but eh, that's Quebec for ya.

Reading, writing, scrapping, all the good things!

I have to admit that I have been laxing lately in all the things I should do. I have not committed enough time on the lessons that I am writing for the Green House, 100 words per day crashed the other day, so I have to start over again...and well, I have to say that I do not feel all that terrible about it.

Over the last couple of weeks, I have just been enjoying myself, and done avatars for the fun of it, discovered digital scrapbooking and found that it is damned addictive - and well, it feels good. I have learnt a lot of new things in Photoshop too, and that's always something that makes me feel good.

I have been pondering a lot, too. When it comes to Art Garden, it is hard to not always look forward, try to come up with new things to try out, to always stay ahead when it comes to developing the community. And well, that's what you have to do if you want your community to be successful - you have to give it an edge, develop that edge and continually try to think of new ways to stay ahead of other rivals, to offer your members something unique. And that, my friends, is not easy. It is never easy to start something new, and keep it going.

My latest read has been "Wicked!" by Jilly Cooper. I do have to say that I love Jilly Cooper as a writer - and Wicked! has been one in the line of her Rutshire Chronicles. These are a series of novels, with recurring characters that bind together the novels. Technically, they are standalone books - but as they reference back to previous books, you kinda have to read them in the order they were written. Wicked! is about...ah well. I'll give you the backside blurb!

At Bagley Hall, a notoriously wild, but increasingly academic, independent, crammed with the children of the famous, trouble is afoot. The ambitious and fatally attractive headmaster, Hengist Brett-Taylor, hatches a plan to share the facilities of his school with Larkminster Comprehensive - known locally, as 'Larks'. His reasons for doing so are purely financial, but he is encouraged by the opportunities the scheme gives him for frequent meetings with Janna Curtis, the dynamic new head of Larks, who has been drafted in to save, what is a fast-sinking school from closure. Janna is young, pretty, enthusiastic and vastly brave - and she will do anything to rescue her demoralized, run-down and cash-strapped school.

Neither parents nor staff of either school, are too keen on this radical move, although some can see the possible financial advantages. For the students, however, it offers great opportunities to get up to even more mayhem than usual.

There you go. I highly, highly recommend Jilly Cooper's novels - they are my favorite summer novels to read in the sun. The stories have adultery, infidelity, melodrama, money issues, murder - and they are set in glorious England (ok, maybe not so glorious) but with lots of glamour and wealth.

Riders
Rivals
Polo
The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous
Appassionata
Score!
Pandora
Wicked!

So yes. Read Jilly Cooper, you won't be disappointed.

Writing Woes

You know, I made a very optimistic resolution at the beginning of this year - I was going to write everyday. Well, essentially I have been able to do that, but I have cheated and counted everything from journal thoughts to writing tutorials as that. So now I have just made a new resolution - I will write at least 100 words a day for 100 days.

This is an idea from Club 100 - you can find more about it HERE. Write 100 words a day for 100 days, very simple. You can write more than 100 words per day, but they do not carry over into the next day. And if you do not write 100 words in a day, well, then your 100 days simply starts over.

So far, I have been at this for roughly two weeks, but I have managed to write at least 100 words every day - and the 100 words have been the continuation of my NaNo piece, too. So all good on my behalf. I might even be able to finish this story (I wish, at least). If not...well, then I have at least something to work with - I havea fantasy world brewing in my head.

Hell on Heels

Ok, so I figured that in order to actually get some posts here in the blog, I ought to post about what I am reading. Or have read. You get the idea!

Hell on Heels by Julie Kenner, Kathleen O'Reilly and Dee Davis.

Alright, so the Devil wants to retire. To get more time for...well, whatever the Devil does when he is not all busy in Hell. So, he needs a heir, and so he turns to the children he has spawned over the years - in this novel, his daughters. Three ladies, devilishly delicious, each with her special talents and history. Oh, they just have to finish this one assignment for Daddy, and Hell is all theirs.

I really liked this one, it was a good read - oh, and some steamy sex scenes as well. Not too bad when it comes to characters and such, but a little flat - only to be expected since the book is divided into three parts, and each daughter has her part (written by one author). And apparently there is a previous book where the Devil turns to his sons - I have to get that one to read it too. It was funny, smart and I just have a thing for this kind of supernatural chiclit where the Devil plays a role - funny as hell. Hehe.