It's been a bit of while since the last journal entry, and a bit of a while, too, since I've managed to get online. I don't seem to have missed much: several hundred pieces of spam in my mail, and that's about it. Nobody wants to send me real emails. :sob: Maybe I should send someone an email myself....

Anyway, I'm sitting in a nice cafe in East Lansing. Steph and I are having the day to ourselves today, just taking it easy and hanging out. Steph's been writing her new novel and I've been trying to force ideas for my next couple of novels, with mixed success. I'm getting fragmented ideas that I like, but I don't yet have proper characters or plots. Also, I don't know where I'll start the damned things. That may be a good thing, of course. It'll stop me launching into the writing too early.

We've both been massively jet-lagged for the last couple of days after 24 hours straight travel to get to Michigan from Leeds. Added to not enough sleep since, and by about 4 in the afternoon we're pretty useless. We're having a good time though, and it's nice not to have to think about work at all for 3 weeks. Of course, now I'm thinking about work again.

We went to two Iron Maiden concerts in England last week. They were incredible. Steph had never been to see a heavy metal gig before, and she did a good impression of enjoying them. I loved them. The support band were an emo band called Funeral for a Friend, and, quite frankly, they were rubbish. I've said this before, but I'll repeat myself. For a band to work live, they have to interact with the audience. That means that they have to look at the audience, make eye contact, work the audience. Funeral for a Friend had lots of energy and all the right poses, they threw all the right shapes, but not once did one of them look at the audience. I got the impression they had learnt their performance in front of a mirror. No doubt the photographs look good, but the audience was at best apathetic. There's a lesson in there for writers: work the audience, look them in the eye and make them follow you.

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We saw The Return of the King a couple of days ago. It's a great film. I'm not sure which of the three films is my favourite, but I suspect it may be The Two Towers, because of its focus and the way it builds towards its climax, but having said that, unlike the first two films, The Return of the King doesn't have any crappy moments. Everything works in it, and the Frodo story is far stronger. (Okay, there is one crappy moment in the Return of the King, but I won't say what it is here, to avoid spoilers.) Email me if you want to know what I think it is.

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Right, I'm off back to my table before someone steals the dregs of my tea. Happy Christmas.