I LOVE THE MODERN WORLD

Beautiful songs for what I hope are some beautiful chapters.

It's struck me I am listening to the same music over and over again, writing House of Cards. It's as if it's a movie in my head, so some songs become "Toshiya's theme" and some become "Kyo's theme", and some start to get associated with certain settings, and so on.

So maybe they add something; who knows?

If you feel like having literally MINUTES of fun you can try and match up the song with the character or setting. Har har har.

1. The Rip - Portishead (low fi 101, perfectly simple)
2. Gentle Hour - Yo La Tengo
3. Try Try Try - The Smashing Pumpkins (and it's simpler alternate version. its redneck cousin, if you will. and YOU WILL.)
4. Something In The Way - Nirvana
5. Ana - Pixies
6. Afraid of Everyone - The National
7. Falling for You - Weezer*
8. E-bow - Sigur Ros**
9. Amber - Dir en Grey


*'Pinkerton' is the best Weezer album, and I ain't even mad
**Sung in a made-up language based on the vocal sounds of the band's native Icelandic, and all the better for it

A right motley collection of tunes for Chapter Six, which I'm writing at the moment. I'm just over 600 words in, and there is draaaamaaaa! 

Also, totally weird musical crossover that happened: so I was searching on youtube for samples from Animal Collective's first album, Spirit They're Gone, Spirit They've Vanished, hoping that I could sneakily find an upload of the whole album*, and one of the results on the first page was...the entirety of X Japan's The Last Live?! What?! These are two bands that have very little in common. The only similarity in the search criteria was the repetition of the word 'spirit'. Huh, youtube?! Whatchoo trying to tell me about my roots?! 

But anyway...

*I couldn't, by the way.

1. Peeping Tom - Placebo
2. Bye Bye Blackbird - The History Boys 
3. The Damned Don't Cry - Visage
4. Europe - Allo Darlin'
5. Boa Constrictor - The Magnetic Fields
6. Softshock - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
7. Ticket to Ride - The Beatles
8. Lion In A Coma - Animal Collective
9. Black-Eyed - Placebo
10. Temptation - New Order

Because I'm back in the office!

Productive(ish) day today. Giving one fic the planning stage it so desperately needs, and also wrote 1700 word prologue. Third potential prologue for the same fic, so maybe I'm not being productive at all, and I'm actually going in circles. If it gets written, though, I think this version is the keeper. Occasionally I have these times where I think "no, it's all shit, abandon it", which is actually what happened with AMLOR three years ago. So my own self-confidence is the hindrance at the moment, because producing stuff which I deem inferior severely bums me out. 

Also did research into the availability of cars in pre-war Japan, conscription in WW2 and 1930s pornography. 

The latter was necessary but so funny. Silent movies are kind of campy as it is, so a silent movie porno only makes everything that much stranger. Quite a surreal experience. Also flicked through some samples of 1930s pin-ups. Concluded that the research was not  actually all that vital, because naked people are basically the same today as they were eighty years ago. 

Anyway, the plan at least is helping, because if this fic gets written then the timeline stands to be very jumpy indeed. Almost as jumpy as my shitty internet connection.

I was going to type a fairly long-winded rant about the Olympics Opening Ceremony, but I think a simple LOL will suffice. What was with the fucking sheep? And the "industrial revolution" dancing?? And Kenneth Branagh?! Also, the fact that they used a New Order song instead of a Joy Division song irritates me. I like Blue Monday as much as the next person, but hello? Love Will Tear Us Apart? Transmission? Disorder?! 

But anyway...


1. Lucky - Radiohead
2. Help! - The Beatles
3. Lull - Radiohead
4. Orenji No Taiyou - Gackt & Hyde (really)
5. Kasumi - Dir en grey
6. Amber - Dir en grey (still)
7. With Whom To Dance? - The Magnetic Fields
8. Railroad Boy - The Magnetic Fields
9. Transmission - Joy Division
10. The Ghost of Tom Joad - Bruce Springsteen

So today I wrote the penultimate chapter for The Glasshouse, and I'm currently just over 1,000 words into the last chapter. 

Being the jittery soul I am, I'm already thinking about what should come next...whether I want to start on the AMLOR sequel straight away, or give sequels a rest for a while...on my hunt for inspiration, I placed an ad in dir en grey yaoi, asking about favourite pairings, so it's be really cool if any of you would fill that out! 

I also went to Hard Rock Calling yesterday, so I'm really tired...but it was cool, it was a pretty chill day.

Honestly, I'm really sad to be almost done with The Glasshouse. It's sort of the benchmark of a new era in fic writing for me; it's a lot darker, the subject matter is a lot more mature, and...well, whether or not the ending is happy depends on how you define happiness. It certainly does for Kyo. (Har har.) 

Anyway, the office chart for this week: 

1. Army of Me - Bjork
2. Railroad Boy - The Magnetic Fields
3. Unravel - Bjork feat. Thom Yorke
4. One Slip - Pink Floyd
5. Vinushka - Dir en grey
6. Between My Legs - Rufus Wainwright
7. The Things We Did And Didn't Do - The Magnetic Fields
8. Harrowdown Hill - Thom Yorke
9. Amber - Dir en grey
10. Cymbal Rush - Thom Yorke

Particular lines from these songs that have proved especially inspirational:
"You held me down when I had seizures."
"While you are away, my heart unravels like a ball of yarn."

As well as the general sound/atmospheres of Harrowdown Hill, Cymbal Rush and Amber. Three very good songs. 

Aside from that, I also listened to Uroboros and Dum Spiro Spero all the way through whilst writing today, so that was very inspirational...I don't know what to do next...half my mind is buzzing with thrillers and the other side is roaring with dramas...!

Anyway, I hope all readers enjoy the ending to The Glasshouse. Thanks for reading, guys! x

For applying for my Canadian Study Permit and trying to wrestle out this most recent chapter of Fifteen Years. I'm very slow today. I'm only halfway through! Ulp. 

At least the Study Permit stuff is (finally) going alright. I am slowly wrestling my way through the billion and one pieces of paper they seem to think will certify that I won't mess up their country. 

1. Disorder - Joy Division
2. Don't Look Away - The Magnetic Fields
3. Atmosphere - Joy Division
4. When You're Old And Lonely - The Magnetic Fields
5. Peacebone - Animal Collective
6. Hearing Damage - Thom Yorke
7. Harrowdown Hill - Thom Yorke
8. Beneath the Fire - Evaline
9. Catherine - PJ Harvey
10. This Mess We're In - PJ Harvey

All of them were songs for the writing of Fifteen Years. Apart from 'Catherine'. I was listening to that because I like it. And my name is Catherine. 

The office chart for my days of revision, laptop withdrawal and...revision again. I do a joint honours degree in English Literature and American Studies, so my mind has been going kind of crazy with very old bad poetry, critical theorists and wicked novels relating to hyphenate American identites.

I've had to make some more academic choices recently. My dissertation proposal needed revision, so I've been writing that up in a frenzy, and I'm presenting it tomorrow to my head of department. She's a scary lady. I'm scared.

It's kind of typical English Admin sloppiness. I met with my personal tutor yesterday and he fiiiinally saw fit to let me know that, since I'm going abroad, my dissertation must be related to American Studies rather than English Literature. This would have been a wonderful thing to know in, say, February, when I began planning the academic focus of the next two years of my life.

Luckily, I keep a backup plan at all times, so my new (pending) dissertation topic is an examination of the roles that liminality and transformation play in the development of Sylvia Plath's female. Praise god for American literature, because I am not doing a dissertation in history! I considered film options briefly, but I guess I am (and always will be) a book girl. And Sylvia Plath is very close to my heart, so I can't honestly say I'm unhappy with how this has turned out. I do love me some Angela Carter though, so I shuffled her gender-bendingly awesome novel, The Passion of New Eve, to my Critical Theory essay. So...huff, huff, huff, so much work...!

Oh, and the AMLOR sequel grows in plotting. It needs a guest star...and I have some plans about that. Ahahaha...
Most of all, I am scuffling around for a name for it.

So a two-part office chart: one for music, and one for book recommendations - both newly discovered and old favourites.

1. Andrew in Drag - The Magnetic Fields
2. Honeycomb - Animal Collective
3. I Spy - Pulp
4. 100,000 Fireflies - The Magnetic Fields
5. I've Seen It All - Björk feat. Thom Yorke
6. Take a Walk - Passion Pit
7. Love Will Tear Us Apart - Joy Division
8. The Headmaster Ritual - The Smiths
9. Promises of Eternity - The Magnetic Fields
10. Gotham - Animal Collective


1. The Passion of New Eve, Angela Carter
2. The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
3. Beloved, Toni Morrison
4. Jasmine, Bharati Mukherjee
5. The Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong Kingston

Okay, so I'm finally done. It's hard not to ramble when you're in the uni library at one in the morning. There's an uncommon amount of people still around. Damn it, exams!

The office chart is in a little state of flux. 

The songs I've been listening to are those that apply to projects both present and upcoming. At present I've almost completed chapter 23 of AMLOR, and I've put down the first notes for my new fic plan. 

I'm quite excited about it. It's a Kyo/Die, which is something I've never written before - so that'll be interesting in itself - and it's also a good deal less cuddly than my previous fics. The plan is also to make it a bandfic, which will be another new experience. The only bandfic I've written before is Break the Limits - which, you may be aware, was X Japan - because I could make my own myths with that one. DEG bandfic has flummoxed me more than once before though, so I'll have to be careful. I think having a concrete plan will make things a good deal easier. I'm basing a lot of it around characterisation more than events, too, so that should help. Dunno!

I'm in the process of trying to think up a title for it. I was lingering over 'No Other God' for a while - a song I've been listening to a lot, and also it just fits well. Don't know though. Ag, ag, ag. So my mind is full of potential titles concerning false prophets and idols. And the like. 


1. The Rip - Portishead
2. Goodbye Horses - Q Lazzarus
3. Unravel - Bjork
4. No Other God - Kristen Young feat. Brian Molko 
5. Fuck U - Placebo
6. Ambulance vs. Ambulance - The Blood Brothers
7. The Headmaster Ritual - The Smiths
8. Like Spinning Plates - Radiohead
9. Human - Human League
10. Land of Confusion - Genesis