Thorn Wilde

My new year's resolution for this year was 'learn to play guitar' and 'write a novel'. I learnt to play guitar, and I've written two novels. My new year's resolution for the coming year will be 'stop being depressed, get off your arse and live'.

Happy Birthday!!

In my universe that tends to mean bisexual, not undecided. There is a middle ground, you know...

What about homohomie? That has a nice ring to it, I think.

I finished NaNoWriMo! I’m a winner! I feel really happy and accomplished and proud of myself and very happy. Look, I got a certificate and everything! Of course, this doesn’t mean that the novel is finished. Far from it. I’ve mostly finished all the chapters, and mostly done it the way I planned. But this is just a rough draft. Currently, the sequel to Nemesis (the proper title of which will be decided at a later date) is a collection of loose scenes, it feels like. That’s not to say that there isn’t an ongoing story arc and red thread, but It feels very episodic, and there are bits missing to tie the story together. It’s also full of errors (not so much the spelling and grammar kind as the continuity kind), and it’s very bare bones; I’ve written dialogue and the bare minimum of necessary description, and the language is simple and direct. Now comes the bit I like. Now comes the edit. I will read through everything that I’ve written, changing things as I go, fixing everything that doesn’t make sense, adding flourish to the language and detail to the settings, address the needs of characters who were overlooked (Chas needs more lines; Chas is funny). In the coming months, I’ll likely read through this thing a dozen times before I deem it worthy to even be seen by a beta reader. A lot of authors hate the edit. I love it. Just writing was very stressful to me (and I didn’t quite manage to do it; I kept going back, adding bits and taking bits out of what I’d already written), it isn’t the way I usually work. I always edit while I write. Now I get to take this lumpy, crippled piece of fiction and polish it and turn it into art. This is the bit that I enjoy the most. This is the part of writing that I truly love. This is the fun part.

I'll take you to Nando's when I come visit. I admit it used to be better. They removed the mango passion cheesecake from the dessert menu.

We have McDonald's and Burger King here. I never go to either. I have political issues with McDonald's which I shan't get into here. I will occasionally buy something at Burger King if I'm low on cash and want something quick. Usually, the only time I'll buy a fast food burger is in protest when Morrissey (the biggest douchebag in music) says something particularly stupid. The best burger I ever ate was served at the pub we tended to hang out at, called Kristiania. It closed down in August, sadly. Their Jack Daniels burger was amazing. Huge, thick patty, topped with red onion, pickles and lettuce, and then a jumbo onion ring on top of the bun. Served with a side salad, pan-fried potato wedges with the skin still on and a Jack Daniels sauce. Best served with a cold pint of something dark and hoppy. With that burger gone, the best burger in Oslo is probably the moose burger you can get at a pub down at the pier. It's good eatings. My favourite fast food chain is Nando's, which you get in the UK. It's a chicken restaurant. They serve peri peri chicken of different degrees of hotness, and they have awesome sides, and their butterfly chicken is succulent and awesome. Plus they have tasty desserts, and Portuguese rosé wine, which is pretty awesome stuff.

Meanwhile, I'm over here going *whispers* I have never been to Wendy's! It doesn't exist here!

Because I was attempting to make that very point, in a sort of tongue-in-cheek, ironic sort of way. Hence the .

Hi there Scotty, There are lots of artists around the Internet that take commissions for just this sort of thing. Most of them aren't very expensive at all, certainly nothing you who work full time wouldn't be able to afford. It's a pretty awesome way to support other artists. Take a look around Deviant Art or the #commission tag on Tumblr, and you're bound to find a whole heap of talented artists willing to help you out for a small fee. The problem with asking someone to create a cover for you for free is that that fucks things up for those trying to make a living. If you're planning to self publish your novel and potentially make money from it, it's especially dishonest to ask for someone to do it for nothing but credit. As authors, we too create art, and it's important that we help support other people who do, if we want to be able to make a living doing what we love. A good thing about commissioning cover art from an artist on the Internet is that they will often blog about it and show what they've done on their blogs, DA pages, etc., and that's absolutely free promotion for you. It's a two-way street. Good luck! Thorn

It is also part of the series' lore that The Master managed to get past the 12 regenerations limit, which might suggest that the limit is not biological, but rather a safeguard put in place by the Time Lords because no one should be effectively immortal. With Gallifrey safely locked away, there's no reason why the limit should still matter to the Doctor. That's my headcanon, anyway, until proven otherwise. Another thing is that the 8th Doctor's regeneration into the War Doctor was not a natural one, and when the War Doctor's job was done, he regenerated without actually being on the brink of death. I think that means that that regeneration doesn't actually count.

Here's how hilariously bad I am at US geography, btw: I got all the green ones and the blue one right. The yellow ones are the ones I didn't have time for... I would at the very least have gotten Alaska and Maine right if I hadn't run out of time. I might have been able to get some others as well if it hadn't been timed, as in the end I was clicking wildly whenever I got something I didn't immediately recognise in hopes that I would have time for the ones I do. I got 35 correct on the Europe one, which was pretty much what I expected. I get confused on all the teensy ones, and some of the Eastern European ones, but most annoyingly I accidentally clicked Hungary when it was Slovakia and Lithuania when it was Latvia, and I really know all those apart so that was dumb.

Well, no, that's not entirely accurate. England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are not states, they are countries. They each have their own government and parliament (Scottish Parliament, National Assembly for Wales and Northern Ireland Assembly). The UK is not really one nation; it is four nations united under the same crown. This cannot be said for the United States, which tends to define itself as one nation made up of several states. The United Kingdom is a unitary state, while the United States is a federal state. As such, they are difficult to compare at all. The administrative geography of the United Kingdom is complex, multi-layered and non-uniform. Nor is it in any way correct to compare the United States to the European Union, which is just a trade union where the central administrative body has very little power at all. A fair comparison would rather be Germany, or Russia, which are both federal states. Germany has 16 states. Russia, as previously pointed out, has 83. Feel free to name any of these off the top of your head.

...Yeah. I actually knew that, Captain Obvious.

Interestingly, those are all cities/counties in England as well... I can name all the counties in Norway, and place them on a map. At least I think I can... It's been a while since I learnt Norwegian geography, but I've got a pretty decent clue, anyway.

Agreed. The one they played after the episode was way better. And they catered to the fangirls by running a teaser for the new series of Sherlock after that.

Dear Orkneys, Can we buy you back please? Love, Norway Sounds like a fun tradition, that ba' game. I would love to see that some time.

Magpie and I came up with the following between us: Ottawa — Canada Winnipeg — Manitoba Edmonton — Alberta Quebec City — Quebec Toronto — Ontario Halifax — Nova Scotia Yellowknife — Northwest Territory Iqaluit — Nunavut Territory Fredericton — New Brunswick Russia has 83 subdivisions or federal subjects. I'd love to make something for Norway, but I doubt anyone would be able to answer it if I did.

So, I read the comment you referred to, and she actually said all the counties in England, which is NOT the same as all the counties in the UK. Another person then said that asking Americans to name all the countries that make up the UK would be closer, but that most Americans would probably fail at that too. Someone then goes ahead and demonstrates this by saying, 'England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales'. And I'm thinking, 'Wow, you done goofed, matey... Do you also think the Queen is still the Empress of India?' Okay, so a county is not a state. Name all the states in America, then. No, I don't mean the United States of, I mean the continent. Let's make it a little more specific. All the states, provinces and territories in North America: Go! Mexico has 31 states. Can you name even one?

Ooh, I know this one! 300,000 km/s!

I love that the first one says, 'I'm so sorry', and the second one says 'oh dear'! That's the most British thing ever! I think I'd do a little bit better. I mean, I'm good for the west coast, most of the east coast and the south, but there's a lot of the stuff in the middle where I am totally lost. I second Aditus's suggestion. Now you guys fill out a map of Europe. When I was in school, I had to do that without any borders drawn in.

I would like to see the following exchange happen: Guy 1: Dude, you're looking hot! Guy 2: Haha! Thanks. No homo, right? Guy 1: No, TOTALLY homo! Like, I would bend you over a desk and fuck you six ways 'til Sunday!

This song gave me a happy:

We do our Christmas celebration on Christmas eve, and eat traditional food for my part of the country, which means pork rib grilled in the oven, with crackling and stuff. Very different from the way ribs tend to be served stateside, I think. Looks like this: It's served with potatoes, red cabbage, a sort of gravy made from the rib fat, various pickles and jellies and the like. For dessert we eat ice cream with cloudberry jam if we're at my mum's and cloudberry cream if we're at my brothers' mum's. Christmas was always very important to my dad, so even though our family was basically split three ways we always celebrated Christmas together. He broke up with his ex-wife, with whom he had two children, in 1974 or there abouts, but they kept celebrating Christmas together, and when my mum and I happened, we were included in that, and even after my parents broke up in '96, we continued the same way we always had. After my dad passed away, we kept at it still, though we don't do it every year anymore, and not everyone's always there, as two of my brothers live in Sweden now and have families of their own. Magpie and I have started our own tradition of having a Winter Solstice dinner party for some of our friends on the day of the Winter Solstice (which is usually some time between the 20th and 22nd of December). This years we have grand plans of serving Christmas goose, just for the hell of it.

So, I was a bit inspired by the Christmas Tree topic, but thought I'd take it a step further. I'm interested to know about traditions that are particular to where you live, or even to just your family. We have users here from all over the world, so there is so much to choose from. Do you celebrate Christmas? If not, do you celebrate any other holiday around the same time? What do you eat? Do you decorate your house? Do you get a visit from Santa Clause? I really want to know! A thing we do in Scandinavia that I think is pretty unique is the televised advent calendar. Every day in December, there's a short episode of an ongoing story that culminates at Christmas. It's made for kids, and you can buy a calendar in the shops where you open a door every day and there's a picture related to the story. It's how I knew it was nearly Christmas when I was a kid, was when I sat down at 7 in the morning, before school, and watched the advent calendar on telly.