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...of some of my blogmates' books:

Heaven Can Wait by Cally Taylor

Hens Reunited Lucy Diamond

How to Write & Sell Short Stories Della Galton

Clishmaclaver

Last month I posted about Chambers Online dictionary (here), and have been following their blog, Clishmaclaver, ever since. If you've not been over to see them yet, I strongly encourage you to do so. Recent posts have such inviting titles as: A Hairy Situation, Not Everything from Mexico is Bad, Textual Intercourse (you'll have to read it!), and The Emergence of Gambit, as well as the one I mentioned previously, Filth.

Those of you with a love of words - and I suspect many readers of this blog have a fairly intimate relationship with words - will find Clishmaclaver a great place to lose a few hours broaden your education. They also Tweet @ChambersOnline.

And if you don't know what Clishmaclaver means, I invite you to look it up in the dictionary!

Comfort Blankets

Having declared not so long ago that I had abandoned N1 for N3, I made the mistake of using one of my protagonists from N1 for Sally Q's Character Workshop earlier this year. I stupidly went and fell in love with him, and the bloody book, all over again. The trouble is (excuse coming up here...) we've been together a lot of years now, this book and I, and it's like a mad bad old friend without whom I can't quite bear to live, despite its appalling treatment of me (or should that be the other way around?).

Okay, I admit it, N1 is my comfort blanket. I feel particularly safe fiddling with chapter fourteen; I like that bit best.

Oh, Leigh! I hear you cry in exasperation. You'll never get a damn thing done like this.

I know. I know.

Sooo, I have to tell you that, having been re-inspired by many happenings this year, I am killing all my darlings (including a few characters), cutting out a terrifying amount of crap, and oh-so improving the rest. Such fun!

When you edit, do you, like me, find yourself going back over the same favourite bits over and over, or are you ruthless and determined and plough on through? (Or do you, even more like me, sit and procrastinate on Blogger/YouTube/Facebook/Twitter/iTunes, etc.?)