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Welcome to Aidan's BRAIN EMPTYING TIME! *catchy theme tune plays* here's your host: Adonis!

"Hi and welcome to the show! I am lord of all I survey, bow down and give me shinies!"
*well polished black kettle lands on the stage after narrowly missing his head*
"Alright then, moving on from being egotistical. Today on ABET we are looking at the wonderful world of writing and reading."

This will come as no surprise, or even an understatement to those who know me, but I love books. I would not want to live if books didn't exist. Fiction drives my mind to dream of better things, and to counter against worse. Novels are the pinnacle of the active human mind.

I'm actually quite bad when it comes to obsessing over them. Take my typical reaction when I see the name of a sequel book at the end of one I just read. My example is the most recently finished book I read; The Red Wolf Conspiracy. The page after the ending of the book reads; Here ends The Red Wolf Conspiracy, book one of The Chathrand Voyage. The story is continued in The Rats and the Ruling Sea and concluded in The Night of the Swarm.

Immediately I hit the internet running. Google > "The Rats and the Ruling Sea" > find the nearest official-looking link... Letters from Alifros, Robert Redick (the author's) blog.

It was like a graveyard. Untouched. Nobody had found it and posted a comment on any of the entries save his sister (I think), ONCE. I was surprised. I even wrote to him through e-mail after leaving a comment of my own. I was pleasantly surprised to get a personal response. If my own works ever get published, I will certainly strive to respond in the same way should I recieve any feedback or praise.

I often find myself motivated but blank, or filled with ideas but unmotivated. Naturally, I usually force myself to at least note down my ideas when I have them, even if I feel like just brooding on those ides for a while. I find myself wondering, how many published, powerful word-artists like Robert Redick get problems like that, and what do they do to get around them? I bought a book recently, The Maeve Binchy Writers Club, to try and answer those questions, and it has helped me know more about the problems, but it hasn't helped me stop them.

I joined a group for writing 'smut' stories not long ago. VSF. And as soon as the chance arose I began writing for one of their monthly competitions. This month the theme is the future. I love sci-fi, and so naturally I dived on this prompt like a tiger and began to write. I have written erotica before, so it's not unfamiliar, but I found myself constantly bugged by something: what is expected? Their archives are completely closed until one has written and submitted a smut, there is no way to see anything, even a single story as example, of what has gone before. I don't know if deep, dramatic erotica is the norm, or political intrigue with sex in it is anywhere, for all I know I could be putting a plot with some sex in it, into a pit of "Plot, What Plot?" fiends.

In my writing life, currently, confusion reigns.


Now, enough of that. Laser guns I hear you ask?

Yes, laser guns, or more technically "L.A.S.E.R." guns. I find myself indescribably annoyed at the 'Lazer' Americanisation. Sure, I dislike most americanisations, but this one doesn't even make SENSE. I gave you the technically correct version of laser (with abbreviation dots) to make a point. LASER IS NOT A WORD, IT IS AN ABBREVIATION. You can't americanise it because with the 'Z' it becomes "Light Amplification by Ztimulated Emission of Radiation". ZTIMULATED?! YEZ, YOU HEARD ME, THEZE ZTUPID IDIOTZ UZED THE LETTER Z.

This happens everywhere. Americanisation ruins my home language, a language with centuries of use and refining. Nothing annoys me more than one thing though... I am surprised at the frequency with which I am asked "why do you add a U to some words?"

F#&%ing stupid sh*$-for-brains IDIOTS. I added a U to a language that is older than your COUNTRY?! ARMOUR, COLOUR, THESE WORDS HAVE A U IN THEM... I DID NOT ADD IT, YOU F%^+ING TOOK IT OUT!

I have no problems with American English writers who recognize that English (proper) came first, is the original, and is not an altered, wrong version of their (their like they OWN it) language. But so help me whatever deity or power watches this planet, if I hear anyone talking like English (proper) is incorrect again, as though American English is the be-all end-all of world language and is infallable and perfect, I will hunt them with a blunt, rusty knife

P.S. It's Aluminium (AH-LEW-MINI-UM), you don't miss the I out of the pronunciation of other materials, do you? You might as well say "SODUM" for Sodium, or "TITANUM" instead of Titanium.



Oh, also, I played Laser Tag friday afternoon with a group of friends. It was fun but exhausting. I held the end of a corridor alone for ten minutes against three others. I also came fourth on a "all vs all" game despite my pack malfunctioning and me having to switch out halfway through the game. 4/6, meaning two people were worse than me, and they all played the whole 30 minutes.


Aidan has to go write a smut now, so "it's time to wrap up this imaginary, prizeless gameshow with the usual! See you all next time!"
*bad theme music plays again, ingraining into your mind and bugging you just when you thought you had forgotten the sound of it*