Ho hum. Rranduhm

Dreary Monday. That traditional slow start to the week, as if your carburettor was contaminated with calcified weasel poo - surely we've all experienced that mechanical failing? Ah yes, I can see you identifying with that universal 'dried faeces of small mammal preventing efficient combustion' problem.

I'm struggling - can't even do ironic overuse of metaphor today, so don't feel as clever as I want to feel. Trying too hard. Too self-conscious.

My dog's unusually musical. Oh really? Yep: she's very fond of Bach.

I enjoyed doing this week's homework. Thinking about a character by working away from a few posessions is something I haven't done before. I'll be trying it on the characters in my novel to see if I can bring them to life a bit more: I tend to just let them develop organically, and not really think about their back stories (except where those back stories directly concern some aspect of the novel). This means that my characters tend to be constrained, one-dimensional, and lifeless. And they all end up thinking and sounding like me, which means that their interactions are really dull - no contrast, no sharp corners, no quirks, no life. They're the lifeless products of intellect, not feeling. They're cyphers, not agents. They're passive, not dynamic. Bollocks.