Oh.  My.  God.

One of the biggest challenges I have, other then actually producing content, is the holding together off all the ideas and story threads that pop into my head on a regular basis.

So tonight I’ve been doing something that has been needing done for weeks/months. I’m rewriting my Desert of Zin roadmap.

The roadmap was the loose collection of ideas that led to the initial thoughts of actually writing the book in the first place and as I’ve progressed I’ve singularly failed in keeping the original notes up to date. And as the work has moved on I’m referring to notes that don’t accurately match the path the story is now taking.

Which isn’t very handy.

So, as I’ve said, I have been rewriting the notes, keeping in mind that the document has to be a bit more organic (that is, it has to be able to grow as the novel does) and actually reflect where I’m going.

The main benefit of having some quality time with my imagination is that my new written notes now resemble something more coherent than the original notes.

Which is very handy.

And reworking my notes gives the added benefit of really firing up my passion for the project again.

So far, in the new and improved notes, the lads are off to the Carnival. Which I’m sure will not end well…

Always something gets in the way…  Just as well I’ve extended the self-imposed deadline to somewhere around 2020…

Yeah, there really IS a novel being written.  And now that I’ve got the bulk of the website I’ve been working on out the way, I can get back in the saddle.  I know I’ve said this before but I’m having to learn to ignore distractions and organise my time a bit better.  Yeah, I’m sure I’ve said that before as well. 

But it IS coming along.  And quite nicely I might add.

If I’m feeling benevolent I might put some titbits on the site to prove that there has been SOME progress… 

Heh.

Saturday night saw myself, Edgy and Skiv attending Barfly, easily the crappiest venue in Glasgow, to watch the Rapcore wonders called Senser.

Wonderful.

To put this in perspective, Edgy and I were into Senser back in ‘93/94 on the back of the Eject single and the album Stacked Up.  But I had never seen them live.

So comes the chance when the Edgemeister and I see that they’ve reformed and are playing in Glasgow!

It was a good night, with the band on after a few support acts who were mostly forgettable.

And while they played a fair selection of stuff I didn’t recognise, they DID play Eject, Age of Panic, Switch and No Comply which justified the price of the ticket alone.

Ah, to be easily pleased.

Let’s get this out the way.

It’s good film. It’s an Indy movie. Go and see it.

I had mixed feelings as the opening titles began. It’s hard to get away from the fact that the Indy I remember I watched as a boy. I wasn’t sure it was going to translate into a new feature.

Sure there are some rough patches. I didn’t get into the film until the scenes at the college. THEN it seemed like Indy to me. Before it was a bit forced. Or I was too cynical?

Anyway, keeping the review as spoiler free as possible, the story had me thinking of Indy meets Quatermass (with a hint of the X-Files thrown in for good measure).

The film was hampered by Cate Blanchett whose accent was all over the place and the at times overly comic book feel the movie seems to have adopted.

Ford is well weathered and can still pass it off, despite his age, and had some able support from Karen Allen, returning as Marion Ravenwood, Shia LaBeouf as “Mutt”, John Hurt who wasn’t given much to do as Prof Oxley and Ray Winstone as Mac.

There are some moments I thought “come one, give me a break”, you’ll know when you get to them, but generally it delivered the adventure-laden goodness I was after.

Was it the best of the four? Not by a long shot. But it’s not “Phantom Menace bad” either.