The Shanster

If you read my blog post yesterday, you would have read that I sent an email to Darren Shan regarding my joblessness and the woes around it. Well, he's taken the liberty of posting my email on his blog, with his response, my response, and then some additional made-of-awesome comments to go along with it.

As a direct result of this blog post, I am jumping off the walls with excitement, and I can barely contain myself long enough to type this post. Just thinking about it gets me ecstatic all over again.

I encourage you to go read the post, here. It's really awesome.

In other news, that isn't related to Darren Shan, I got most of my essay done for my Justice and Peace module. I had thought I was finished, until I discovered that the word count was meant to be two hundred words higher than what I'd written. Personally, I blame the lack of a posted word count in the email the lecturer sent us... but don't tell his son I said that. (I'm just complaining for the sake of it, of course; I'm sure I can find something to write about, with regard to a message of justice in the book of Amos in the Old Testament).

Also managed to buy some paper. It's been a while... and we were running out. I think my dad is repaying me... if not, he's not allowed use the paper. I'm unemployed, and I demand to have full use of what I pay for. (Now I'm being bitter for the sake of it...)

With said paper, I printed out a good few more pages of Meet Sam to be edited as soon as this darned essay is done. And my tutorial work is finished... And when I can successfully begin my coursework journal for my Fiction to Film module... which all requires an essay. Bugger. Well, I will edit, I promise. I have more time at the weekends than I used to, so I will. I will. Stop looking at me like that, I WILL!

*ahem* I was talking to you, reader. There's no one in my head who ought not be. Fictional characters, yes, but they ought to be there.

I sound crazy...

Back to Shan related news, there's only two full months between me and The Thin Executioner. I know what you're thinking - "Paul, you just lost your job! Should you really be thinking about buying more books?" The short answer, yes. The slightly longer answer, Yes, I need them. The unnecessarily long answer...

Books keep me at the stable balance between normality and insane asylum. Without access to literature, my mind melts into a state of not being able to function properly, which then needs to be treated with several intense doses of reading before I can write again. By several, I mean about a dozen. By intense, I mean four hours at a go. Otherwise the process takes much longer, and while I can write, I can't write anything that's worth reading. Even with editing. This is partially why I'm editing now, and not working on something new. I haven't had the chance to dive into a book properly since Mr Mumbles, which didn't take very long. I have to whip out a novel of some description tomorrow or my brain will turn to mush. Fact.

And before I go, apparently I don't want to know what Maureen Johnson did before she was a full time author... Gotta love Maureen for her small bouts of revealed insanity.