Start of a new month, and I really want to catch up on my other project, "Gate of Bone". The trouble is, my head has been so firmly stuck in the late sixteenth-century that it's proving really hard. I'm also daunted at the prospect of writing a YA novel - it's going to be hard to rein in my elliptical expositionary style in favour of something that is intelligible to readers with a relatively limited experience of the wider world.

It's fortunate, I think, that I'll be on holiday (in Scotland) the week after next and thus will miss a CWIL meeting. I can - in theory, at least - forget all about "Powderkeg Walk" for nearly a month, since my fellow writers won't be critiquing the next chapter until the 27th.

So, away with all my books on Elizabethan London - I need to be reading about Ancient Greece and Rome!

After much soul-searching, I've decided to put my 2YN project on hold and carry on with PW revisions. I really like the story, but I know that to break into the UK market I need to write the very best book possible, and I can't do that if I keep stopping to work on something else.

In preparation I've ordered some recent historical fantasy so I can size up the competition. Luckily it all seems to concentrate on the 19th century, so at least I still have a niche to myself...

What can I say? Palm have cancelled the Foleo, thus proving they have totally lost the plot. Having put so much R&D into their new device, they cacked out and pulled it at the eleventh hour, fearing poor sales. They say they are still committed to the Foleo concept when the time is right, but I think they may have shot their wad. By the time Foleo II is ready for market, it will be up against the Asus Eee 10", the rumoured Apple solid-state sub-notebook and all manner of competition. A classic case of too little, too late...

If Apple do come out with a sub-notebook, I fear it will be either

a) a clamshell version of the newly-announced iPod Touch, i.e. running a very basic OS similar to the iPhone

b) an expensive executive toy, similar to the Sony TZ (currently two grand!!)

Frankly I've given up on these people and ordered a Samsung Q1 Ultra. OK so it comes with XP Tablet (yuk!), but there's a project afoot to create a mobile Linux distro for it, and it might even be capable of running Knoppix or a similar low-profile Linux distro. I guess if you want a truly mobile computer right now and aren't made of money, you have to bite the M$ bullet or get your hands dirty...

My Samsung Q1 Ultra shipped this afternoon, so it will be with me tomorrow. Deep joy! And to add to my confidence that I've made a sound choice, I've just found out that Ubuntu are planning on releasing a mobile version of their Linux OS next month - and guess what they've been testing it on...

My Samsung Q1 Ultra arrived on schedule this morning. First impressions: very sleek and well built, with a glossy "piano black" finish, and the screen is every bit as stunning as I'd been led to believe. I'll be taking it on holiday to Scotland, and writing a review of it for tabletpcreview.com when I've had a chance to put it through its paces...

I've just finished reading "The Lies of Locke Lamora" by Scott Lynch, and I have to say it's pretty damned good. I've tried to avoid spoilers in the following review, concentrating instead on Lynch's writing...

This morning I decided that if my WiP wasn't going to be a standalone, I really ought to sketch out the whole series before I go any further! After some thought I decided that, whilst trilogies are a bit predicable, I'm not ready to go as far as JKR or Robert Jordan, so I'm planning on "Secret Theatre" being a tetralogy (with another similar-sized series set a century or so later).