Hello, all.

I've been quiet here for the last few weeks because, to be honest, I've had nothing to report but chronic failure. I'd rather not get into it. I've been to a stack of interviews, and I have a couple more coming up. If and when something actually happens for me, I'll tell you. In the meantime, I'm afraid I'm losing heart a little bit here - but of course I shall keep trying, because if you don't try to get on in life you might as well kill yourself. Aren't I cheerful?

With all these interviews, the death of my cat and then my having to recruit and brief a new staff member for *simplyprose (do check out July's prompts, by the way ), I'm afraid I totally forgot that I was supposed to be judging =PoetryPlease's Epic Poetry Contest! As soon as I got the note reminding me, though, I got straight onto it. There were two pieces that particularly impressed me, and when the results are out, I'll give them both a little feature here. But until then, there's not really any point in me mentioning it.

I haven't been writing. Not at all. Oh dear! It's partly because I feel like life's against me at the moment, but it's also because I've been watching Wimbledon. Yay, Wimbledon! (If you are not interested in tennis, please skip the next section.)

--- Tennis ---

Some of you - maybe even a lot of you - are probably expecting me to lament the semi-final exit of British hope Andy Murray. I don't presume to know what you're thinking, but it's something that's put upon us Brits so much (and by no one more than other Brits), statistically it seems quite likely that some of you are in that camp. But no, I'm not at all sorry he's gone. As recently as last year, I did not like Murray at all. Since then he's worked really hard on his public image, and learnt how to behave on camera - I quite acknowledge that. But I'm not going to support him purely because he's British. Let us not forget that he went out to Andy Roddick, of whom I have been a devoted fan for many years. I so wanted to see him win that match, and then he did!

Besides all that - and this is really nothing personal against him - I wanted Murray to lose to anyone (nice! ) just to show everybody. He had a real chance at least to get to the final this year, and the press have just been so silly about it! All of the BBC's coverage of Wimbledon this year has been Murray, Murray, Murray. Yesterday it was all Murray's out, Murray's out, Murray's out, waah, waah, waah. But now hopefully they can just get on with some proper, more or less un-biased coverage of the final.

I don't expect Roddick to beat Federer, but maybe he has a chance, and frankly I'd be happy to see either of them win. It's such a shame Nadal isn't there, but given the fact that he's not, this really is ideal. Looking forward to tomorrow.

Oh, and I do follow the ladies' tournament too. Congrats to Serena.

--- Not Tennis ---

Sorry about the rant. I'm moody anyway right now, but I think even under better circumstances I'd have been annoyed by the stupid press.

Anyway, I hope to get back into writing after Wimbledon. I've still got a novel waiting to be finished, which I don't think is half bad, and I really genuinely do intend to enter that Prosetry Please contest. Don't know what with, though.

Knowing what you are all like, I'm sure this journal's comment section will soon be filled with words of encouragement and promises of better times ahead. As a general rule, people here are supportive of each other, and I do appreciate it from you guys. So thank you.

Oh, yeah, and the new Melvin Burgess novel. That's exciting.



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You couldn't possibly be as sick as I am of finding miscats, but perhaps you come close, in which case you should check out ~MissCatty.

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