Had a family party at the weekend -- it was my aunt Maureen's 25th wedding anniversary. We held it at the Woodlands House Hotel, which is fairly close to where I live. Had a great night -- the room was the perfect size, the food was tasty, the band (Keep In Touch) were top-notch, the company was ideal!! I was up dancing for much of the night, which is a rare enough sight! I have to admit, I haven't been naturally blessed in the dancing department, and am fairly graceless on the dance floor. But when I've had a few drinks, I don't care -- in fact, I start to think I'm John Travolta in Grease!!! So up I hopped and off I boogied for a night of swift-footed fun!!! Hola!!!!!

Went to see the new Harry Potter film on Saturday morning. It was nice and dark, so of course I enjoyed it!! In truth, I don't think any of the films fully capture the magic of the books, but they take a bloody good stab at them!!!! Given the size of the novels, I don't think anyone could have done much of a better job of them. I also think they improved once they stopped being overly faithful to the source material -- I remember watching the first movie and thinking they just tried to cram too much in. To make a thick book work as a 2 hour movie (or even a 2 and a half hour movie!) you have to cut lots of it out and focus on the parts that will work for a movie audience. Fans who can't accept that, who moan about characters or plot lines being dropped, are simply being unrealistic, and don't understand the fundamental difference between a book and a movie. It never bothers me if a movie isn't faithful to its source material -- I only care whether or not it works on its own terms. Something worth bearing in mind when you come to watch The Vampire's Assistant, because it's going to be a film which is VERY different to the books!!!!

I also saw Pulp Fiction again over the weekend. What a great movie!!! I don't know if I'd still consider it one of my Top 10 favourite films of all time, as I did when I first saw it back in the mid-90s, but it's certainly not too far outside! If only all of Tarantino's films could work as effortlessly and majestically as this one...

Today I started editing the first book of the series which I'm working on to follow up my one-off fantasy book and four-books series. Even though I've completed first drafts of the first three books of the sereis, most of the rest of it is still in the dark -- I've no idea whether this will be a short or long series, or where exactly I want to go with it. I have some ideas, and scraps of scenes which I want to write, and I had an idea for what might be the end of the series a few days ago. But for the most part, it's not there yet. This is fairly common when it comes to writing a series (at least in my experience). I know everything looks neat and straightforward when the books are published, but the creation is often a chaotic, uncertain time, with long periods of struggle to make breakthroughs and take things forward. I wrote the first book of the series more than a year ago, and I'd been playing around with ideas for at least a couple of years prior to that. Right now I'm bouncing ideas around like crazy, exploring different angles, piecing things together a bit at a time, deciding on how I plan to proceed. There's no simple way of making ideas flow -- you just have to keep punching away and exploring until things begin to link up. And if they don't? Well, you just have to keep believing that they will -- a lot of writing is self-faith. Without that, you're sunk before you begin!!!!