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I dislike journalists on principle. I'm sure that a lot of them are nice people with, heaven forfend, morals, but nevertheless when someone tells me that they're a journalist I tend to back away a couple of steps, look them up and down and, I'm sorry to say, stop trusting them more or less at all.

Which is why I wasn't terribly surprised when a Sunday newspaper doorstepped and 'outed' Abby Lee, known to the blogosphere as the Girl With a One-track Mind, one of the most honest, intelligent and funny bloggers whose writings I've ever had the privilege of reading. Abby did nothing more outrageous than be comfortable with herself and her sexuality and honest about it to boot. Of course, said paper made it sound as though she was somehow abnormal, a freak of nature to be a woman and, gasp, a sexual entity in her own right.

I shall not belabour my point here by saying anything other than this is fucking bullshit.

Abby has subsequently given an interview to the Guardian, in which I'm pleased to say that she comes off incredibly well and the journalists (in the general sense; the interviewer seems to be on her side, I'm pleased to say) come off looking like the kind of schoolyard tattletales and bullies who can't find any way to make themselves popular other than by drawing attention to - and making pointed comments about - the proclivities of others. God forbid that people should have different attitudes or, worse, be enlightened in this day and age.

Anyway, I'm just writing this post to say that as far as I'm concerned at least, Abby won. The journalists can crawl back under their stone and carry on doing whatever it is they do, but I'd rather know one Girl than I would a thousand of those little parasites.

My copy of Girl With a One-track Mind, published by Ebury Press, will be arriving dans le matin. I'm sure it'll be every bit as good as the blog, and I'd like to take the opportunity to thank Abby for being such a wonderful writer.

Knife of Dreams is done, finished, read and back on the shelf. And I'm very, very tired.

I'm pleased to say that I really enjoyed it. I didn't think that I would, mainly because I've found the later books in the Wheel of Time series to be somewhat stodgy. Perhaps my decision to only buy it when it had come out in paperback helped at bit; that and the packing up of nine out of the other ten books and burying them in Dad's loft. I'm looking forward to book twelve, but I really, sincerely hope that the main thread of the series ends there. Some things really can go on for too long, and since all good things must come to an end it follows that something that does not come to an end is cannot, therefore, be a good thing.

The novel did suffer, however, from what I'm going to call 'famous author adverb syndrome', also known as 'editor lets them get away with it itis'. Witness the following exchange as I would write it:

"What's the point?" she said, head in her hands, "It's only going to go wrong."

And as someone suffering from the above syndrome:

"What's the point?" she said dully, head in her hands, "It's only going to go wrong."

Now, there are those that would say that there isn't really any difference between the above two examples, but I'd argue that at least as far as sentence structure and impact goes, the first example is by far the stronger.

It's something that seems to happen a lot these days, mostly in the books of people who by now should know better. JK Rowling is another culprit, with everyone in the Harry Potter novels speaking dully, bouncing excitedly and weeping fruitlessly (on top of that, I still haven't forgiven her for '"Snape!" Slughorn ejaculated,' but that's a rant that I believe I've already had elsewhen on this blog).

It's as though a kind of laziness creeps in about the author's work, or at the very least their editor's. Two cardinal rules of writing are that a) adverbs are bad and b) one should omit needless words (the first also coming very much under the auspices of the second). Now, I know that there are those who argue that since Jordan, Rowling et al. are not only published but bestsellers and, as has been mentioned, famous and rich as a result, they have the right to write in this way, and I suppose that those people are right. But that doesn't stop this style of writing from damaging the impact of the text.

There are also those who would say that since I'm neither published nor famous I don't really get to have a say. I suppose that's true too, so I'll leave you to decide.

I'll let you know how I get on with Neuromancer.

I went into Ottaker's (now owned by Waterstones, of course, a subject upon which I shall rant later) yesterday and told myself to buy books. After half an hour's deliberation I came away with four:

• The Crossroads of Twilight no, silly man, it's Knife of Dreams (Wheel of Time Part XI) by Robert Jordan I know I bang on about how this series has gone on too long but the book was on sale and after investing so much time in the first ten books I would like to know how it all ends.
• The Magician's Guild (The Black Magician Trilogy Book One) by Trudi Canavan I've fancied buying this since I first saw it, but could never quite convince myself. The cover reminds me of a picture on the cover of one of the Dragonlance novels. Most importantly it's about magic, and I loves me some magic.
• The Forever War by Joe Haldeman File under 'I've been told I should read this and thought "why not?"'
• Neuromancer by William Gibson Ditto

Of course, now I've started reading I can't seem to stop. Everything else, writing included, natch, has fallen by the wayside.

You have no-one else to blame but yourself, Binns, you really don't.