Many other blogs have open threads and I’ve been thinking about having the same here. In fact this is one. People often want to comment (or vent) about something that is not the subject in hand so this will give them the opportunity to do so.
Ever since seeing these ‘Maunsell forts’, while on a fishing trip, I’ve been fascinated by them. They’ve put in an appearance in Cowl and now, sort of, in The Departure. They came up in a chat on Twitter about that book (about the stinking reviews on amazon). In the book they aren’t there but in their place is Maunsell Airport … in fact Boris Island Airport. Thanks to David Hutchinson for the link to this video clip.
So, I just passed 30,000 words on Penny Royal (having been slowed up over the last two days by feeling crap). The backstory I previously mentioned is now at about 29,000 words and looks likely to turn into a book by itself. What more can I say? Nothing. I don’t want come-backs of the, ‘But you said so-and-so was going to happen’ kind. Everything is up in the air at the moment and I’m just writing where the fancy takes me.
John Scalzi has asked those who read his site what they prefer reading about so, never being one to be shy of nicking a good idea… What have you enjoyed reading about and found interesting here? And what bugs you?
Let me know in the comments below…
Right, I’ve stuck a forum up on my website here. Why not pay it a visit (all you IT buggers) and let me know what I’m doing wrong. I’m sure there’ll be something…
Oh, and as I mentioned in one of my previous comments, I’ve now added a Galleries Page.
Here’s an email I recently received. Perhaps those visiting here would like to address some of his points? I do have some answers, but let’s see what others have got to say….
You should put a section on your blog so people can raise questions without resorting to emailing.
This is a question that’s been annoying me for a while. I grew up with books and with tapes, then CD’s then crappy windows media player and now all my music’s on a 300Gb hard drive as well as every important (and unimportant) photo from my life.
I feel good that all my music’s accessible this way and I’ve binned, or sold all my old CD’s. That was easy.
I also threw all my books prior to 5 years ago away, which at the time seemed good but now is a niggling regret. Mainly because my daughter has just started reading ravenously and a lot of the stuff I had she’d love (she got into fantasy via Harry Potter!)
Should we throw away books in favour of digital text? I’d love to think this is progress but most of the writing I’ve discovered is through browsing bookshops. I buy books from Amazon from time to time
but I don’t ever discover anything via that. Discovery’s are always made in bookshops, be it from a cover or a few first pages etc… I have never found that from a web based system.
I bought a beautifully bound and illustrated edition of “the secret garden” for my daughter as well as a new edition of Philip Pullman’s “Northern lights” Which I know she’ll enjoy (she’s 7 I can’t subject
her to the wonders of masada yet)
A year ago I had this conversation with my partner while considering buying an e-reader. She was horrified that I’d consider sending our books the way of our CD’s and at the time I thought that was
ridiculous however now I’m wondering how people will find new fiction without bookshops? I’m happy that I can access medical journals for work instantly and without wasting tons of paper a year plus emissions related to moving articles to me only 5% of which I want to keep and I don’t know how I’d work without Zotero to catalogue my articles now but I just can’t get comfortable with the loss of bookshops.
Sci-fi never really touches this, writers always just seem to accept that all information is always permanently available at minimal cost to anyone who want’s it but never get into how people might access fiction or even look for it? The only time I’ve heard mention of libraries properly is Ian Banks in “The Algebraist” where the dwellers keep vast uncatalogued libraries stretching back millennia and
further.
Is the future just a library of information where fiction is controlled only by corporations such as Apple and Amazon who “Recommend” the fiction they know you’d like (scary). Or is it vast
quantities of fiction churned out by anyone who feels they can be an author dumped into a huge repository where no one can discover anything of quality? Either way it looks pretty shit for my children or grandchildren.
Sci-fi seems to be comfortable with future tech but lacks depth in social problems. Do you think someone should try writing from that angle?
Kind regards
Marcus
Okay, for all you techy minded IT guys. I’ve rebuilt my website using the program Webplus X4. I still need to do a lot more work on it. A lot isn’t displaying as well as it should, it could do with navigation bars and I’ve yet to make the ‘video clip’ page.
Apparently a late Turner Prize entry said to depict the failure of capitalism in the modern world didn’t quite make the grade:
A fleet of Ferraris and a Lamborghini Diablo have been involved in one of the most expensive accidents in history after a high speed pile-up in Japan.
Meanwhile it is rumoured that an early visitor to the gallery was arrested for planking on the prizewinning exhibit:
