Frankenstein and his Monster - The Classic - #MonsterMondays 22

Welcome to this week's Monster Monday - for the run up to Halloween I am doing classic monsters and today I have chosen the classicest (yes, that is a word - well it is now ;)) monsters of them all: Frankenstein and his monster.

Monster Mondays posts may be fiction, film reviews, book reviews or me waxing lyrical about a particular monster. Monsters can be paranormal, sci-fi, fantasy or even simply human. So basically, anything monster goes. I also invite anyone who would like to, to join in with their own post. (See end for details).

Frankenstein and his Monster - The Classic

The most classic of all monsters has to be Frankenstein's hideous creature, since he is even called a monster in most modern references. Of course the ironic thing about the creature is, he isn't really the greatest monster, Frankenstein is for rejecting his creation in the first place. Imagine how differently the story might have turned out had creator taken time to help and nurture his creation.

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Frankenstein (or The Modern Prometheus) was written by Marry Wollstonecraft Shelly and published in 1818. The first edition is actually anonymous and her name only appears on the second and subsequent editions. It is definitely gothic horror, but it is also considered one of the earliest examples of the science fiction novel.

The novel is about the young Victor Von Frankenstein, who, following the death of his mother, develops a technique to impart life to non-living matter. He builds his creature from various parts of cadavers and then brings it to life using his technique. Unfortunately he finds his own creation hideous and runs away, only to be pursued by the creature. Alone and causing terror wherever he is seen the creature becomes murderous, killing in revenge and then demanding his creator make him a mate so he will stop. Of course everything ends in tragedy.

Here is where I have to admit I've never read the book and, of the film adaptations, I only actually really enjoy two of them. I know, this is sacrilege for a horror and sci-fi fan, but I'm just not overly grabbed by the whole story. I prefer my horror more supernatural.

"Frankenstein poster 1931"
by Universal Pictures
- site poster. Licensed under
Public Domain via Commons

However, the 1931 black and white film Frankenstein with Boris Karloff is a true classic and always makes me cry. I feel so sorry for the creature and, frankly, in that version I have no sympathy for Frankenstein at all.

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The other film I really enjoy is not actually a version of Frankenstein, but more of a sequel, that brings in the supernatural element I love. This is I Frankenstein, where, after his creator dies, the creature is attacked by demons while burying him. He is then rescued by gargoyles and learns about the age old battle between the gargoyles and demons for the fate of humanity. 200 years later and Adam, as he is now called, finds out the leader of the demons plans to use Frankenstein's techniques to create an army of soulless monsters to be possessed by demons and give them reign over the earth.

Parts of it don't really make sense and it's more than a little predictable, but I found it really entertaining. Well worth a watch.

Frankenstein is undoubtedly a classic and deserves is place as such. It weaves gothic horror with science fiction and should be praised for that alone. Thanks to the 1931 film the image of the creature is iconic and appears in cartoons, films, television, toys and even cereal boxes. Frankenstein's monster is the monster at the top of the list when most people think the word "monster" and he deserves his place.

Which is your favourite incarnation of Frankenstein and his monster, the book, the 1931 film, Hotel Transylvania, The Monster Squad etc ?

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The Share a Scare Halloween Blog Hop will run on the 31st October as you would expect, but now is the time to sign up.

Have something a little bit scary to share? All bloggers, authors and artists welcome. Just click the link to see all the details:

Share a Scare - A Halloween Blog Hop

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Authors might also be interested in this blog hop. The Trick-or-Treat blog hop is run by the lovely Patricia Lynne and the idea is to give away free books to trick-or-treaters visiting your blog.

Trick-or-Treat Blog Hop

Harry Potter Again! Because Harry Potter is Awesome ... and stuff! - #FanFridays 8

Welcome to another Fan Friday where I get to squee and geek out about things I love. I have Harry Potter on the brain at the moment so I've picked that topic again :).

Harry Potter Again! 

Because Harry Potter is Awesome ... and stuff!

If you read my NaNoWriMo post then you already know this, but for those that didn't I have decided to writer Harry Potter fanfiction for this years 50K challenge. (You have to write 50K on a novel in a month).

Way back in the dim and distant past - 2003 to be precise, which sounds like it should be closer than it is, I wrote a Harry Potter fanfic called Gold Tinted Spectacles (163K wds). I published it in weekly, 5 chapter chunks though November and December of that year to Livejournal and Fictionalley. It was one of the most amazing fandom experiences I have ever had.

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It was in the high days of Livejournal when that was the fandom place to be and I had some wonderful interaction with readers all through the publishing. I received some great feedback and some beautiful constructive criticism. So much so that in Feb 2004 I re-edited the whole thing and republished (which is the version currently on AO3).

This was the fic that launched me full speed ahead into writing fanfiction. I had written some before, but never in the quantity that I did in Harry Potter fandom. I fully believe it was the fandom that motivated me. There was always someone with a kind word or a piece of advice and it is a time I remember very fondly.

The Harry Potter fandom is not quite as lively as it used to be, but it is still very much alive and kicking. This makes me very happy.

I've actually been through GTS to get ready for NaNo and have edited it yet again (we live to improve) and I will be republishing the new version after November. Nothing major has changed, but I've removed some adverbs and some epithets (and here I thought that's what I was doing in the first re-edit too ;)). I have even designed a cover for it so that I can post it on Wattpad as well as LJ and AO3.

The sequel is called "Defence, Pretence, Offence" and is set directly after the end of GTS. I'm actually quite excited about getting back to it. I already have 50K words of it written, because back in 2004 I had every intention of completing it, but I never did. Since GTS is 163K words, I'm hoping to get DPO almost finished during November, but I don't know if I'll quite get there. I am very much looking forward to dipping my toes back into the Harry Potter fandom - I have missed it.

It's been a while since I even wrote a serious amount of fanfic because I've been focusing on my original work, I hope I haven't lost my touch :).

Do you write or read fanfic? Do you have fond memories of the Harry Potter fandom, back in the heyday when we were waiting for the books to come out and Livejournal was full of meta and discussion and fanfiction? Do you remember the shipping wars?

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The Share a Scare Halloween Blog Hop will run on the 31st October as you would expect, but now is the time to sign up.

Have something a little bit scary to share? All bloggers, authors and artists welcome. Just click the link to see all the details:

Share a Scare - A Halloween Blog Hop

---

Authors might also be interested in this blog hop. The Trick-or-Treat blog hop is run by the lovely Patricia Lynne and the idea is to give away free books to trick-or-treaters visiting your blog.

Trick-or-Treat Blog Hop

NaNoWriMo - Top 5 Reasons To Have A Go - #WriterlyWednesdays 12

Hello and welcome to Writerly Wednesdays 12 and my topic today of NaNoWrimo - National Novel Writing Month. If you would like to do a guest post for Writerly Wednesdays I would love to host you, all I ask is that the post have something to do with writing, be it your book(s) (book tours or a one off are fine) or something else - all Bloggers and Authors welcome. Just fill in this Writerly Wednesdays form and I will get back to you.

NaNoWriMo - Top 5 Reasons To Have A Go

Never heard of NaNoWriMo? It's very simple, the idea is to write a 50k word novel during the month of November. They also have a Young Writers Program, for those under the age of 17.

If you've never done it before that probably sounds like a hell of a lot of words, even to a professional writer that can look like a lot of words for one month, but NaNo is a great way to get those words flowing. Some people probably think it's silly, but I think everyone should have a go and here's why.

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1. Community
   Sometimes writing is a lonely life. You sit at your desk or with your laptop and you type away all by yourself. There is no one to help, no one to cheer you on. Not with NaNo. With NaNo there is a whole community out there cheering you on. If you join up at the NaNoWriMo website you can link to thousands of other people doing just what you're doing. You can find your home region and sign up with them - you'll get updates from your regional representative and your word count will go to their total. Some regions organise meet ups for during November so you can even get together in person and talk about the woes of writing.
   
   Even if your novel ends up in a file somewhere never to see the light of day again - you could make some friends :).
   
2. Word Count
   I don't know about you, but sometimes I get a little discouraged that I'm never going to finish something. With NaNo there is a word count right there to show how close you are and it tells you how many words you need to write every day to meet your target. It is awesome for keeping you focused.
   
   Quick Tip: If you're writing in Word and not starting with a blank document you'll already have a word count that isn't actually part of your novel (or if you have a few thousand words already on which you plan to build). I create a spreadsheet in Excel and put this number in it before I start, then use a formula to find out what my word count actually is so I don't have to manually work out what to put in at the NaNo word count prompt every day.
   
   
   As you can see my spreadsheet is a little more complex than a simple subtraction, but that's just because I use it at other times during the year too.

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3. Personal Encouragement
   Even if you choose not to interact with the community on NaNo, there are little personal encouragements that make you feel a little better during the sometimes hard slog. There are personal achievement badges that you collect yourself and then there are Participation badges that update as you do things in the system. At all point the NaNo experience is designed to encourage you at a personal level.
   
   They even have word count widgets you can post to your blog as you go along to show your progress to all your readers.
   
   Sometimes all you need to keep going is something to make you smile, or something that says, well done, you've made this target. The NaNo badges are very good for that.
   
4. Freebies
   NaNo has sponsors and if you succeed in writing you 50k words their sponsors will give you coupons and things like that as well - they'll even give you some discounts for just participating. This in includes things like 50% off Scrivener for all NaNo winners and 20% off for all participants (I prefer yWriter, which is free anyway, but Scrivener is a great prog, trusted by many writers and was designed for Mac) and there are advance memberships for other things and more money off vouchers, all designed to help you eventually get your book to market.
5. Achievement and Shouting About It
   There is nothing quite like seeing that word count tick over the 50K and knowing you have done it. The sense of achievement is amazing and it can really help to boost your moral and keep you writing. I have never finished a novel for NaNo, but I have succeeded in writing my 50K for the last four years. Out of that I have ended up with 3 finished novels with just a little bit more work.
   
   NaNo will give you a badge for your website, so you can shout about the fact you've done it and they also give you a certificate and options to buy various winner merchandise. It makes you feel just a bit special :).
   
   
   If you are wondering what the little halo on the year means - it's because I donated to NaNo, but that's completely optional.

My Goal This Year

This year I don't have a new novel to work on because I'm at the point of nearly finishing what I am working on at the moment. I don't want to interrupt that flow, so I'm not doing an original novel for NaNo, I have decided to do fanfiction. Way back in 2003 I published a Harry Potter fanfiction called Gold Tinted Spectacles, a 163K word epic. It was quite popular and I started writing a sequel which people have been patiently waiting for ever sine, but I've had 50K of it sitting around all this time, not doing anything. I've decided to use NaNo to try and finish it. It's called "Defence, Pretence, Offence" and please keep your fingers crossed for me :).

If anyone would like to become writing buddies, this is me over on the NaNo site: beren_writes.

Are you a NaNoer? If not, do you think you might have a go?

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There is still plenty of time to sign up for the Share a Scare Halloween Blog Hop. It will run on the 31st October as you would expect, but now is the time to sign up.

Have something a little bit scary to share? All bloggers, authors and artists welcome. Just click the link to see all the details:

Share a Scare - A Halloween Blog Hop

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All Authors might also be interested in this blog hop. The Trick-or-Treat blog hop is run by the lovely Patricia Lynne and the idea is to give away free books to trick-or-treaters visiting your blog.

Trick-or-Treat Blog Hop

Extra Tips I Learned When Reformatting Two of My eBooks #TipsTuesdays 9

So I have been re-formatting a couple of my books over the last week because I am changing the cover and took the opportunity to give them another going over. You never know if there might be something you can improve after all :). I've also imported them all into yWriter so I now have a single point master text.

While doing this there were a couple of things I discovered that are not in my post Checklist for Creating the eBook from Your Beautifully Edited Novel so I decided to make a post about them today.

Extra Tips I Learned When Reformatting Two of My eBooks

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1. When exporting from yWriter, RTF is the best format and most useful output. Plain text puts unwanted tags in the output and I don't want the HTML yet.
2. Always copy and paste the content of the RTF file into a text editor (I recommend PSPad) before opening a clean document with the template you usually use for formatting your eBook documents and copy and pasting the clean text from the text editor. Converting the RTF file in Word can have a weird effect on your styles so it's best to start from just plain text.
3. Do the Kindle Word document first because it uses the inbuilt table of contents.
4. To do the Smashwords version of the file:
1. copy the Kindle version of the file
2. Change the one page in your front matter that is Kindle specific to be Smashwords specific.
3. Copy and paste the table of contents into a text program (Notepad or PSPad)
4. Delete the page numbers after every chapter entry
5. Delete the table of contents in the Word Document
6. Copy and paste the table of contents entries from the text program and now you don't have to type out all your chapter headings again.
7. Now just follow the instructions in the Smashwords Style Guide to link up the table of contents and your chapter headings before checking for excess bookmarks.

Hope this is useful to someone :). They are just a few things I realised as I went along, that save time, and we can all do with more of that. Everything else I did was the same as the previous blog post tips.

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Still pimping out the Share a Scare Halloween Blog Hop. It will run on the 31st October as you would expect, but now is the time to sign up.

Have something a little bit scary to share? All bloggers, authors and artists welcome. Just click the link to see all the details:

Share a Scare - A Halloween Blog Hop

---

And here's another wonderful blog hop all you authors might be interested in. The Trick-or-Treat blog hop is run by the lovely Patricia Lynne and the idea is to give away free books to trick-or-treaters visiting your blog.

Trick-or-Treat Blog Hop

Zombies - The Shambling Classic - #MonsterMondays 21

So for the run up to Halloween I have decided to talk about classic monsters of horror for Monster Mondays. These are the monsters everyone thinks of when someone talks about the classic horror movies of the twentieth century or the classic books in the genre.

Monster Mondays posts may be fiction, film reviews, book reviews or me waxing lyrical about a particular monster. Monsters can be paranormal, sci-fi, fantasy or even simply human. So basically, anything monster goes. I also invite anyone who would like to, to join in with their own post. (See end for details).

Zombies - The Shambling Classic

I have to admit zombies are not my favourite classic monster, but they are definitely one of the big horror genres. For me, for it to be a proper "zombie" movie, it has to have reanimated corpses with a taste for the living, a la "Night of the Living Dead", although there are broader definitions of zombies.

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I was looking up a list of zombie films on Wikipedia and frankly there are a lot on the list that I wouldn't count as zombie movies at all. The Fog, for example is on the list, but I wouldn't say it's about zombies - it's a ghost story where the dead come back in terrifying form to kill the living, not shamble around trying to eat them.

For me a zombie is a simple creature with little brain (most of the time - there are exceptions) and a desire to eat living flesh. Which actually makes it more of a ghoul in strict terms, but you can't argue with a whole genre, can you? :)

One of the reasons I've never been overly fond of the genre, is because they freak me out so much. One of the freakiest has to be from Zombi 2, where there is an underwater, swimming zombie. For some reason that just give me the jitters.

I have no problem if the zombies are created by toxic waste, a virus, alien parasites or anything else that isn't supernatural, but for me zombies need to be tied to something in "the real world" for them to be real zombies. Even Voodoo is supposed to use powders to bring back the dead, which counts as toxic something to me.

Another example on the list of zombie movies I didn't agree with was Evil Dead and the sequels. Those are possessed bodies, Deadites, they aren't zombies. It's too supernatural to be zombies :).

Yes, I know, I'm picky about my zombies. Feel free to disagree with me :D.

My favourite zombies are as follows:

• Warm Bodies
  
  I love this movie. I love the zombie mythos, the rules and the way things are happening that no one suspects. One of the things that gets to me with zombie movies is how depressing they often are. There is no way out, all is dark and there is nothing at the end of the tunnel. This movie is the other end of that. This is the light coming back, not the darkness descending.
  
  R is a zombie, but he is rediscovering communication and he rescues a human from the other zombies. He seems to be regaining some of his humanity, but he's a zombie, what good can it do him?
  
  The book is slightly different than the film, but it is just as good. I thoroughly recommend both.
  
• Resident Evil
  
  
  Not gonna lie, I mostly love this franchise because I love Alice - she is awesome. These zombies are a little different in that they are not slow and they mutate, but they are still mostly mindless with a bent on killing, so they count in my mind. In the first movie, the Umbrella corporation has created the T-virus which mutates human beings and animals alike into merciless killing machines. Alice wakes with amnesia in the Hive, one of their facilities, which has been infected with the virus. She has to survive and find the anti-virus. Things go downhill from there.
  
  I haven't played the video games only seen the movies and I love them. Each one brings something new to the table to make them exciting and Milla Jovovich is brilliant and I am looking forward to Resident Evil: The Final Chapter in 2017.
  
• iZombie
  
  
  I have only seen a couple of eps of this so far, but it is great. Everyone should watch it. Liv is turned into a zombie and needs to eat brains, so she takes a job at the morgue. She then eats brains of murder victims and tries to help to solve the crimes.

As you can see the original big classics by George A. Romero did not make my list nor did The Walking Dead - this is because they are just too dark for my taste. I know Resident Evil should be dark too, given the premise, but somehow, all the sci-fi makes it better for me. I do not begin to understand quite how my brain works, but there you have it.

What is you favourite zombie movie? What makes a zombie for you?

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Monster Mondays Links 

If you would like to join in, please feel free to make your Monster Monday post and add it to the list.

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Still pimping out the Share a Scare Halloween Blog Hop. It will run on the 31st October as you would expect, but now is the time to sign up.

Have something a little bit scary to share? All bloggers, authors and artists welcome. Just click the link to see all the details:

Share a Scare - A Halloween Blog Hop

---

And here's another wonderful blog hop all you authors might be interested in. The Trick-or-Treat blog hop is run by the lovely Patricia Lynne and the idea is to give away free books to trick-or-treaters visiting your blog.

Trick-or-Treat Blog Hop

Harry Potter - The Top 5 Reasons I Love It - #FanFridays 7

It's geek out day again :) For Fan Fridays 7 I have decided to talk about one of my minor obsessions: Harry Potter and why I love it.

Harry Potter - The Top 5 Reasons I Love It

So I never really expected to get into Harry Potter, but it was one of those fandoms that dragged me in and it was the fanfic that did it. I'm pretty sure I don't have to tell anyone what Harry Potter is since it's one of the most successful franchises in the world. I fell into it back in 2001.

1. The books are a great read
   

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   Sometimes I see these huge fandoms with so many people singing the praises of a book/ set of books and I take a look and I can't see what all the fuss is about. Not so with the Harry Potter books. The world building alone is so incredibly amazing that it would have hooked me, but the characters and stories are (mostly) great as well.
   
   I will admit to refusing to read Order of the Phoenix ever again and not liking the way The Deathly Hallows  broke the formula. I really enjoy the formula of Harry goes to Hogwarts and then something bad happens - the last book didn't feel right to me because it didn't do that. Also the less said about the epilogue the better IMHO ;).
   
   My favourite book is The Prisoner of Azkaban. closely followed by The Half Blood Prince. Azkaban is absolutely wonderful in it's story telling and HBP has such wonderful character development. Both books are superb in my opinion.
   
   These books have opened the world of YA fiction so much and encouraged so many people to read that they have to be remembered for that at least, even if you don't appreciate the content of the books. JKR should be commended for everything she has done to bring children (and more) back to books.
   
   ~*~
2. The films are very well done, unlike many film adaptations
   
   So many film adaptations of books are terrible, either they try to keep in too much information or leave out all the good bits, but, on the whole, the Harry Potter movies found the right balance. I think the fact JKR had so much to do with them helped.
   
   I don't think the movies are perfect, and I have it on good authority from a non-fan (my darling husband) that The Prisoner of Azkaban doesn't make a whole lot of sense if you don't know the book. However, if you are a fan, the films are great.
   
   ~*~
3. The cast of the films seem to be absolutely lovely
   With some famous film franchises/TV shows, it has been known for the stars to come to resent the fact they can never quite get away from  who they played. The cast of Harry Potter don't seem to have this chip on their shoulders. They are all off doing their own thing and when Harry Potter is brought up in interviews they smile and talk about it rather than closing up and asking for other questions.
   
   I think it helps that Dan Radcliffe appears to be a jewel of a human being and a very, very talented actor to boot.
   
4. The fandom is wonderful
   Okay, so there are sections of the fandom that got a little weird and obsessive back in the day, but, on the whole, the Harry Potter fandom is a wonderful, supportive, fun place to play. Whether you can recite all the spells, potions and charms, have read all the books, seen all the movies or any level of participation, you can enjoy the fandom. Pottermore is great and there are more Harry Potter websites out there than you can shake a stick at.
   
   In the real world you can visit Harry Potter locations from the films. You can do the Warner Brothers Studio Tour and of course there is The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal in the US.
   
   There is something for every fan.
   
   ~*~

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5. The fanfiction is absolutely amazing
   Some of the best fiction I have ever read has been Harry Potter fanfiction, I kid you not. The most amazing writers were drawn to Harry Potter and they have and still are creating some of the most brilliant works you can imagine.
   
   It was Harry Potter that dragged me in to writing fanfiction in any quantity and it still has a place close to my heart.
   
   Harry Potter fandom was around way before Archive of Our Own (AO3), but it still has 84036 works under it's Harry Potter tag.
   
   Here are just a few of the other sites out there as well:
   HarryPotterFanfiction.com
   MuggleNet FanFiction
   The Sugar Quill
   Harry Potter at Fanfiction.net
   Fiction Alley
   
   And there are so many more - see the list here on the Harry Potter Wikia.
   
   I once swore I would never write Harry/Draco, slash fanfiction, but that lasted about as long as it took me to read the first good one I found on Livejournal all those years ago. Harry/Draco is always my pairing of choice these days ;).
   
   Just in case you are interested, here's a link to my Harry Potter fanfiction on AO3 - all 63 works.
   
   The Harry Potter fanfiction community helped me to improve my writing and to just love writing so much. It is a wonderfully friendly place, no matter it's ups and downs, and writers and readers alike can learn so much as well as having a wonderful time. I have never been in a more supportive and friendly fandom, ever.

So there you have it, the reasons I love Harry Potter. I have so many more fandoms now, but I will always look fondly on Harry Potter and it still inspires me to write every now and then.

Are you a Harry Potter fan? Movies or books, or both? Do you read the fanfiction? Have any recommendations?

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Still pimping out the Share a Scare Halloween Blog Hop. It will run on the 31st October as you would expect, but now is the time to sign up.

Have something a little bit scary to share? All bloggers, authors and artists welcome. Just click the link to see all the details:

Share a Scare - A Halloween Blog Hop

---

And here's another wonderful blog hop all you authors might be interested in. The Trick-or-Treat blog hop is run by the lovely Patricia Lynne and the idea is to give away free books to trick-or-treaters visiting your blog.

Trick-or-Treat Blog Hop

The Rugby World Cup - A Non-Fan's Perspective - #ThinkyThursdays 6

Welcome to another Thinky Thursday, which is basically my excuse to talk about anything that pops into my head. Since I really enjoyed the rugby match I watched on telly last night, that is my topic of choice.

The Rugby World Cup - A Non-Fan's Perspective

So I don't normally watch Rugby - I'm not really into watching team sports where men or women run around chasing a ball - I prefer watching things like gymnastics and snow boarding. However, I make an exception when it comes to the rugby World Cup, because Rob likes to watch it and I like to keep him company.

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I have to say I like rugby much more than I like football. It looks like it should be a much more down and dirty sport, but actually it's seems far more civilised to me. You don't often hear a football player say, "Yes, sir, sorry, sir." when he's told off, but it happens all the time in Rugby. One minute these huge guys are nearly in a punch up and the next they're apologising for their behaviour because they know they let the testosterone get out of hand.

The fact that they have a TMO, camera and mics everywhere and they use them is also brilliant. There's none of this grandstanding - if the try is in question, it get's looked at and the ref is not afraid to admit if he's made a mistake. Twice I've seen a try given and then the off pitch ref calls in a problem and the try is taken away and no one argues.

They're also trying to make the game a lot safer and all the eyes on the field really help with that. All the shirts have GPS trackers in them these days as well, which is quite amazing. I have no idea if they do that in football as well now since I tend to avoid it like the plague.

Also, where else could you hear ref Nigel Owens utter the immortal words: "Dive like that again and come back here in two weeks and play."

For those not in on the joke, the World Cup has taken over several football grounds for their games, this one was being played at St James Park, usually the home of Newcastle United.

Also Nigel Owens is an openly gay ref. That's why my favourite quote of his is from the European Champions Cup where a line out went completely wrong and the ball was way off course: "I'm straighter than that one".

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His top 10 quotes from other games before the World Cup can be seen here: Nigel Owens Top 10 Quotes. He's awesome.

All the refs seem pretty good for this World Cup - they are taking no messing from anyone and most of them seem incredibly good at calming down over testosterone powered 6'3'' rugby players who get a bit over enthusiastic.

I've found myself actually watching the games properly and finally figuring out the rules - never managed that before. I mostly used to just watch for the nice muscles in tight shirts and not bother about the intricacies of the game ;). Strong men wrestling on a muddy pitch - what's not to like? ;) I was very disappointed that the Italian team no longer have the disintegrating shirts though - those were entertaining.

My favourite game was definitely Japan vs South Africa - the score just kept going one way and then the other and South Africa just looked kind of shell shocked at the end. It was as if they couldn't believe what had just happened.

If you are a rugby fan, I hope you are enjoying the World Cup, if you aren't sorry for wittering on about it. Not too much longer ;)

Are you a rugby fan? Do you watch for the tries or for the muscles in tight shirts and shorts, or both? ;)

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Still pimping out the Share a Scare Halloween Blog Hop. It will run on the 31st October as you would expect, but now is the time to sign up.

Have something a little bit scary to share? All bloggers, authors and artists welcome. Just click the link to see all the details:

Share a Scare - A Halloween Blog Hop

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And here's another wonderful blog hop all you authors might be interested in. The Trick-or-Treat blog hop is run by the lovely Patricia Lynne and the idea is to give away free books to trick-or-treaters visiting your blog.

Trick-or-Treat Blog Hop