I've been gone a long time...

Well, that blog holiday was practically a gap year. I'm not going to go into why I've been away for weeks and weeks, because it's all long-winded and dismal and boring, but I will say I'm now back (yay!) and have lots of exciting things to talk about in the next few weeks. Plenty of amazing books to recommend, movies and TV to force down your throats, and maybe I'll scrounge around for the odd cute baby photo or two. Because we could all do with a little more cuteness in our lives.

I'm also going to start posting here once a week (on Tuesdays) unless I have something special or exciting to say. It's not that I don't love blogging, but I feel like I'm not doing it as well as I'd like to and I'm hoping that giving myself one post a week will make that one post a better one.

And so, to tide you over till next Tuesday, here are a couple of movies I've recently seen and loved... 

What to Expect When You're Expecting 
I was always going to watch this, given I was pregnant and had a baby not all that long ago, but it's surprisingly and refreshingly fun!

Harry Brown 
Gritty and dark. And it's got a vigilante Michael Caine. (I know! Alfred gets to be the superhero!) What's not to love?

And this isn't a movie, but I recently started watching ITV's Doc Martin. I'm most of the way through the five seasons already. It's absolutely brilliant.

Seen anything good recently?

I'm Back!

To hell with a fancy title - I'M BACK! This is terribly exciting for me. I've sorely missed the blogosphere. Without the blogosphere, working at home has reduced me to a hunched-up, crawling, muttering shell of my old self.

Okay, not quite. But you get the idea. 

It's been a very busy couple of months. Work's been most of it: lots of writing, lots of revisions, lots of annoying 'tasks' like sorting out my new visa, etc etc, but there's been a lot of other stuff too that I won't talk about just yet (don't worry, no bad news!). Things are still crazy here but the craziness has let up slightly and I've seized the opportunity to return.

And not just return! Return - with questions! What have I missed? How are you, fair readers? And I am also returning with structure. 

That's right. I'm going to try Structuring My Blog. I don't mean that to be as boring as it sounds. I'm just going to try posting on specific days of the week so that readers know - more or less - when to expect me. I don't know if this will work for me, but I thought it worth trying.

So I will be posting on 

Tuesdays - with news, ramblings and/or something random

Wednesdays - with a character-themed post (yay!), like this one or this one

and Fridays - with a Reader Request, until I run out (which doesn't seem likely in the near future as a ton more requests came in while I've been away)

If something mind-bogglingly amazing strikes me, I might drop in on other days of the week too.

And now, before I bid you farewell, I feel that I should offer some writerly wisdom. Well, here it is: I am pointing you to William Shakespeare's 10 Rules O' Writing at author Declan Burke's blog. It made me laugh. A lot. So go forth, intrepid friends, and enjoy some lolz.