every day should be a susie day

Lovely blog readers, let me steal your brains!   This here shiny website is shortly to undergo a grand transformation, and (as well as exclusive extracts, noisy things on YouTube and general time-wasty shenanigans) SusieDay Towers will be getting a new coat of paint.  This makes me happy.  And confused.  I am so indecisive I have been known not to have any lunch because I can’t decide if I want cheese on toast or soup, so picking my favourite of two colour schemes is utterly beyond me.  So: halp?

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Am currently reading The Official Nancy Drew Handbook: Skills, Tips & Life Lessons From Everyone’s Favourite Girl Detective.  V handy as I bunked off Girl Detective School the day they did How To Train a Carrier Pigeon and Advanced Kidnap-Thwarting.  Alas, I am less interested in Nancy’s help in flower-arranging and, um, How To Get That Ring on Your Finger and That Man to the Altar.  Hush now, Nancy dear: I’m reading the Usborne Detective’s Handbook which has proper criminals with straggly beards in.  Now where’s my Whifflepoof?

CUT CUT SNIPPETY TYPE CUT SLASH HACK ARGH! SLURP.  Or: I am editing Project Poppy.  So far this mostly involves deleting entire chapters and drinking a lot of tea while trying to think of things that are funny.  Dairylea triangles = funny.  Explaining how time travel works = not funny.  Oh, but guess what I’ve got?  The brand new not-out-till-March-1st North American paperback of serafina67 *urgently requires life*!  Still as pink and gorgeous as ever, and now with a sneaky peeky at My Invisible Boyfriend tucked away at the back too.  Woo, etc.

cooking tagine in my new tagine (eee! even if I need to learn to actually read a recipe on occasion); wondering who thought BSG’s Razor was a good idea; giggling at the sheer lolarity of the new Doctor Who trailer; throwing things in skips; eating lotus flowers while harassed by a dragon for Chinese New Year.

Joshua Files launch: Agent Peter Cox, MG Harris and BBC Oxford's Bill Heine

In a change from our regularly scheduled bacon sarnies, this week I got to hear good mate MG Harris nattering about books in a slightly more glam context.  The launch party for the third Joshua Files book, Zero Moment, transformed Oxford Blackwell’s into a riot of excited readers and luminous cake.  MG even dished a big secret about Book 5!  Now, if only I can persuade her to give me her Lime Cheesecake cupcake recipe…

I confess, I snagged an early preview so I read this a while ago – but gosh, Zero Moment really does live up to its limited-edition glowing green cover.  If you’re not up to speed with all things Joshua File-y, I suggest you kidnap the nearest 11-year-old boy and insist he fills you in.  (Then let him go again: it’s only polite.)  Josh leaves Oxford for Mexico once again, with Mum and Tyler along for the trip, but a thrilling buggy ride across the sand ends in disaster.  This time Josh isn’t the one in obvious danger – but while he’s chasing one set of bad guys, there’s another lot closing in.  Throw in some nifty time-travel and a car chase on a winding Swiss mountain pass that will leave you utterly breathless, and you have, undubitably, the best Joshua book yet – and that’s high praise indeed.

The downside of having finished the first draft of The Poppy Project is that this week I had to read it.  Ugh.  AL Kennedy sums up the state of mind beautifully in this weekend’s Guardian: could do better.

Discovering that Wii swordfighting brings out my, um, forceful tendencies; watching so much BSG that I sincerely pondered the potential charm of an invisible blonde giant whispering in Poppy’s ear all through draft number 2; lamenting the de-relaxation properties of cancelled yoga classes.