Correction from yesterday. I've read some fantasy books. Lord of the Rings when I was fourteen and two or three Stephen Donaldson books when I was eighteen. Then I stopped and have never gone back to the world of pixies, hobbits, magic rings and evil monsters, which is a pity for me, because they sell like hotcakes on a winters day nowadays.

Kelly, H, and I visited Chatham Waterstones at the end of February and we were confronted with banks and banks of fantasy novels/serials.

Robert E Howard was at his peak in the middle of the depression, so I guess I can understand the need for people to escape into different, brighter worlds.

I guess I started at the top with LOTR though. Its surely the benchmark?

Should be putting a hole in my shoe leather this afternoon, but I want to put 5k in with Carla. I'm behind.

For those of you who remember, I tried to write a whole book in one weekend, like the pulp guys of the nineteen thirties were able to do in cold hotel rooms, by candlelight, with Remington typewriters and two bottles of Bourbon for company.

I managed 47k, but looking back at it last night, I'd get rid of 20k straight away. Whole chapters binned. It's about a fella released from a mental hospital who falls in love with a young environmentalist. I'm trying to pay subtle homage to the afore mentioned Jim Thompson (who seems to have been forgotten, even in his own state of Oklahoma), and its not easy. I'll get there, though.