OUUROBOROS

(The picture of the cat is unrelated. I just befriended it this morning and took some photos. It was a pretty awesome cat, to be fair ♥)

But I am having a bit of a problem :<
I really want to include two new short stories into the set - and they should actually be quite short this time - but it's just giving me more work to do. Originally I was going to maybe do a first and second edition of the set and include them in the second but I want them now ugh :< This is so lame. I really like them, too! I plotted them out a while ago and wound up procrastinating on my actual stories by writing some parts, and now they're better than my actual stories and it's just not fair OTL.

The first one is 'Quantum Entanglement' which is a story about a couple of scientists (who just so happen to be the parents of a character in another story) - perhaps my first love story ever, if it can count as that? I really don't do romance, but the plotline follows how they met, became friends etc, wound up having a kid, the works. The guy's a neuroscientist and the girl's an astrophysicist so that's pretty interesting in itself to write, and basically they wind up finding out a whole bunch of the Government's plans and it doesn't end so well for them.
I'm mostly just proud of the name of this one, okay? :<

'Quantum Entanglement occurs when particles interact physically and then become separated'.
You see what I did there? You see?

The second is 'Death of the Hour' which I just thought was a pretty interesting concept. The character it centres around is called Cassandra Trent, and she's from story number 8 'Against the Machine'. She's an ultra-paranoid computer genius with a twitchy demeanour who is obsessed with conspiracy theories. You know, the works - doesn't like to go outside in case the Government take her away to do experiments on her, that sort of thing. Death of the Hour chronologically takes place after Against the Machine (though it appears before ATM as a story in the collection, the timeline of this is a bit wibbly-wobbly and back-to-front, though it's all put in order again in the final story.)
Cassandra is now an even more paranoid computer genius with a even more twitchy demeanour, gone a little bit off the rails during the years she's spent alone. Now her time is spent recording the names of everyone who has died because of the Government's crimes. Every hour, on the hour, she updates the record. It's hidden away online so that they can't find it. She sees this task as 'penance' for her actions in ATM, which I can't mention because it would give away the story. :> Also because no real record of the dead is kept in the city, at least not an honest one - and she feels that someone has to do it. Prior to this in the story all the people who get sent off to labour camps for various sins are referred to as 'forever missing'. As they never come back, they are eventually forgotten. I guess Cas feels that if their names and numbers go on record, if they are remembered, it wasn't for nothing.

'Citizen 2788145AS Alexander Saker deceased, mind-wipe, 13/07/69 21:00
Citizen 291045200LM Leon Malenkov deceased, death by officer, 13/07/69 23:00'

She's sort of vital to the plot as she holds the circles of revolutionaries together online and acts as a go-between, passing information along, but she was never intended to be a major character.
I just thought that the idea of keeping record of the deaths in such a way was pretty interesting. I think it would unhinge most people, after a while.

Interestingly enough, both of these are written as a second-person narrative. I've never really dabbled in second-person much before, but I found it fit these two well!

As to personal shenanigans - I spent last evening with my friends (who are all back from uni, it's brilliant) and we went ice-skating in town. On an open air ice-rink the one night it decided to rain. The ice looked like it had a sea on top of it with all the lights, it was so cool - if just a little bit dangerous. ;> I haven't been for ages, which was unforgivable - but I still managed to do all the turns and spins and crossovers without killing myself.
I actually need to get my own pair of ice skates, the stubby ones without picks that they give you at these places are horrid. The only reason I'm any good at skating is that I spent most of my life from the age of twelve to fifteen down the skate park, so used to be pretty hot on rollerblades. I'm nowhere near as good as I used to be, which is a bother, but I can still look snazzy if I want ;>
Afterwards we all went to the bar, looking like seven drowned rats. Brilliant. ♥

Oh, and my statcounter on here says that I've been visited by several people from America and also people from Germany and Ukraine? If you guys are reading this, hi from the UK ( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ Nice to meet you!

This was totally written to procrastinate on my story. I'd apologise, but I'm not sorry at all.

Forgot to update this. A lot of stuff has happened, okay? :<

First of all - and quite clearly, most important of all - I'm going to the Houses of Parliament. That's right! I have two days of work experience there this summer, and it's going to be fun! What can I say, other than this is blatantly just the beginning of my rise to power? First the UK, then the world!
I'll actually post about the story behind this work experience at a later date. The politician in me is super excited!

On the other hand, this is my current progress with my short stories (the titles can be found on the current projects pages)

Stories 1, 2, 3, 6 & 9 are completed, and I actually like them. 1, 2 & 3 are in the final stages of editing, 9 is close behind, 6 needs lots.
Story 4 is completed and I absolutely hate it. It took a whole month because I kept blocking on it, and it still sucks.
Story 8 is being worked on right this minute and is half way done!
And story 10 has a bunch of ramblings written for it that I mostly don't like and will change.
7 will be written but will be super long, and I still don't know how the hell I'm going to do story 5.

Over the last few months the overall storyline of the collection has developed a lot! I'm really excited by it now, even though it is super behind schedule.
I also completed NaNoWriMo this year, beating 50,000 words easily! Unfortunately I didn't know you had to submit your work once you finished, so it didn't even go on the damn record. Boo!

I'm super behind schedule with it and won't get the ebook completed in time, but I'm going to do my best to hit my new deadline - Easter. I've got no work until early January but I've also got to revise for my Chemistry retake, which is pretty lame. I'm going to fail it, I already know. I don't just hate Chemistry, I actually despise it. I'd forgotten how much I hated it until I picked up my old notes again.

Everything's going well in general, though this short story collection project is taking far longer than I'd hoped. It may well eat up most of my gap year, but I don't mind so much any more. I really think that the plotline, now completely refined, will be enjoyable for other people to read. At least, I hope so! We'll just see what happens.

I also sent off my UCAS form (just before I got my parliamentary work experience - so I can't put it on there, which sucks) and am nervously awaiting my results! Regrettably Cambridge said they'd take me for English but not Biology (or NatSci as it would be there) so I've had to start gunning for Durham. Please let me in, okay? If I get to the end of my three years and haven't made my fortune as a writer/get sick of science I'll just convert to Law, I suppose.

I'll update this more, I swear :<