...Actually it was one day's drinking and three days of catching up on the telly that I'd recorded, but the "three days" thing is a line from one of my favourite songs.

So three days of rest and recovery from the holiday, and as I sit and type this I'm three short hours from heading back to work. Then I have some writing to do for a few people and then I suspect I'll have to start work on the sequel to 'Blood, Sweat and Tea'.

I was giving some thought about the sequel, about making at least a third of it original content by looking back at my time as an A&E nurse. Then I got an email from an A&E doctor who has written a book about working in an A&E department. This meant I was going to have to trawl through this obviously inferior manuscript so that I wouldn't be accused of pinching his ideas.

Except that the swine has written a really good book.

I would say that if you like my writing, you'll like this - 'Dr Nick' explains what happens after I wave goodbye to my patients at the hospital, he also writes well on the politics that are screwing up the NHS. Funny and touching, while cynical he does also have a soft spot for the same sorts of patients that I like.

I can highly recommend this book - I enjoyed it, even though for me it's a busman's holiday.

It's also cheap.

I'm tired, my feet are sore and I have a lot to do before some friends come over to visit later this evening. However, because of some annual leave that I took I have a full 13 days off.

This makes me happy.

I shall be trying to get some relaxation on, do some writing, start prepping the sequel to 'Blood, Sweat and Tea', maybe attack my garden with napalm, tidy my house and catch up on some books that I need to read.

So really I'll be busier than I am when I'm at work...

Thankfully I have a few blogpost ideas jotted down, so there will still be regular updates here and, because I will have time to actually compose them rather than scribbling* them down, they may even be more readable than normal.

There are also a few event type things I'm going to be going to - including getting paid to talk about blogging. How easy money is that?

The only sad thing is that my travel mug at work (used for that essential 6:30am cup of tea) has disappeared - I don't know who'd want it as it is kept in a manky state for exactly this reason. Now the action figure version of myself will have to come with a different accessory. Something like a 'realistic pool of vomit' or a 'Life size "Vehicle incident" form - yes, he's reversed the ambulance into something again!'.

I have a Team Leader looking for it, such is my celebrity pull.

*Ahem*.

*What is the typing equivalent of 'scribbling?

I’m feeling really disconnected – I shouldn’t do, I have a metric ton of computers in my flat, even a few old laptops…

But without my Macbook which I’d set up ‘just right’, along with all my emaail settings and the like I feel like I’m missing an arm.  I think that it’s because my desktop needs me to sacrifice a small animal before it’ll start up…

What I would like to know though is why it takes ‘7–10 days’ to fix a problem which I could fix in forty minutes if I had the parts.

This is why blogging has been slight of late, and why I’ve been pretty much unable to answer any emails.

 

---

But…

There is superb news, both from my publisher.  Firstly my publisher Clare Christian won ‘Best Young Publisher’ and secondly I’ve sold the rights to my book to various people – which is fun.

Clare writes about the award here (where you can see my gap-toothed smile); and about the rights stuff here.

 

So it's not just St Georges day today - it is also International Pixel-Stained Technopeasants Day, go and have a look for lots of crunchy free stuff. I've included my own stuff. By coincidence I only signed up to Livejournal today.

Tip of the hat to Warren Ellis.

Apparently I'm a Pixel-stained Technopeasant Wretch. And a 'scab' (Although he doesn't seem to really understand what a scab is...)

There is a reasoned argument against his rant.

And yes, 'Pixel-stained Technopeasant Wretch' would make a lovely T-Shirt.

Here is so good, and possibly interesting, news.

I've sold the TV option to my book to Daybreak - Mentorn. This means that they can shop around the TV channels and try to persuade them that a TV series based on my book would be a good idea. The chances of this happening are incredibly slim, but one lives in hope.

But, I hear you ask, how does this tie in with the fact that my book and blog are under a Creative Commons license - surely anyone can film something based around my writing? This is true, the license that I use means that people may make derivative works, as long as it is not for profit.

By selling the option to make a 'for profit' TV programme I'm not removing any of the Creative Commons license. This is another great thing about a CC license, it doesn't remove any ability to sell my own work or stop me from letting people use my work for profit reasons.

So I'd like to thank Mentorn for accepting that the book is under a Creative Commons license and that they won't go suing people who make non-profit films.

And now I sit here with my fingers crossed.

Oh yes, and I also have a publisher in America as well - so there should be an American version of Blood, Sweat and Tea coming out later this year. I obviously hope that they want to fly me out there to do publicity. They also appreciate the CC license - more news on this later. And there may be a BBC Radio thing coming up - which would be fun.

Here is a fragment of an e-mail I received the other day. It makes me more than happy to have released the book under a CC license.

I'm an occasional reader of your blog and have just
downloaded the CC version of your book (I would've
bought the book itself but I'm in Nigeria at the
moment and Amazon refuse to deliver here - can't think
why!).

How superb is that?

I'm feeling better now, thanks for all your kind words. For some reason I got a load of 'flu-like' symptoms for 48 hours, aching joints, lack of sleep, headache the whole nine yards. Maybe it was some nasty mouth bacteria that got into my tooth-hole. The worst thing was that I had to cancel a day with Laura. Something that made me feel even more wretched.