Tappity tap

And as the bleak hopelessness and futility of Lavinia's life overwhelms her one cold, rainy night in a waiting room at Grantham train station, the author wonders why he didn't pick a more cheerful kind of book to write.

But at least I'm nicely ahead of schedule still. All I have to worry about as the story thunders towards the half-way point is that it's going to finish before 50,000 words at this rate. It might not, though, we'll see how it goes over the next week or so. And I can always go back and add a few more scenes here and there without it looking too much like blatant padding to my inner editor and critics.

I'm re-watching this week's Torchwood ("Countrycide") at the moment - it was a very good one. The plot doesn't come close to standing up to any kind of scrutiny, but the atmosphere it creates is so brilliant that you barely notice. It's tense and scary and full of nice character interaction between the five leads. Big thumbs-up from me, anyway.