Book Hype? Where?
Hype is certainly something I'm familiar with and quite often a victim of. Movies, games and gadgets are all paraded in front of me, glittering in their finery. It makes me want them.
Apparently there's a similar thing going on with books. Somewhere out there is a machine churning out shining prophecies of great books to come. It seems to be missing me. Maybe I'm not talking to the right people? Maybe I'm not subscribing to the right blogs? Maybe I need to pay more attention to billboards at train stations?
Last year I was given a copy of Nights of Villjamur by Mark Charan Newton and never got around to reading it. A few weeks ago at Alt.Fiction in Derby I discovered that this was supposed to be one of the brightest new stars of the fantasy genre. Last month Amazon briefly recommended The Passing by Justin Cronin. It looked okay, but I saw the word 'vampire' and moved on. Now I'm hearing that it was hyped to hell and back and is apparently amazing.
Now I read quite a lot and this kind of hype is something I'd quite like to expose myself to. So far the closest I've come is when Warren Ellis and John Scalzi recommended Cherie Priest's Boneshaker.
So where can I find the book hype?
First Impressions of Windows Live Office
I had high hopes for these tools. Online versions of Microsoft's Office applications could save me from the file conversion hell that is often the result of using Google Docs. Well here they are and I'm sad to say (actually quite gleeful since I do so love to complain) that my first impressions aren't great.
The interface is clean and bright, and everything is stored on your SkyDrive. There are nice looking links to edit things directly in desktop applications. All seems lovely. Then I tried writing with it.
- No word count: I like to be able to see how much work I've got done in a given session. I can't.
- The editing window fills the entire width of the browser: This is not a comfortable way to work. Google Docs provides a fixed page width interface, which is actually much more like working in the desktop version of Word. It's a shame that Live Office didn't duplicate this.
- Indent != tab: If I press tab and then type until the end of the line, I don't expect the wrapped line to also be indented. Hell, if I press enter, I don't expect the next line to be indented either. I'm not going to download my files to the desktop and manually put all my tabs back in.
- No custom dictionary: As a writer of fantasy I tend use a lot of weird/made up words that spell checkers really don't like. No option to "add to dictionary" makes me sad.
Why does this matter? Microsoft is trying to take a chunk out of the Google Docs user base, but first impressions matter. They have a short window of opportunity in which to ride the wave of hype and convince people to migrate. I use Google Docs every day. I'm not going to keep checking back to see if Microsoft have caught up yet.
Live Office tools were meant to duplicate desktop Office functionality online. If they don't do that then where's the point?
A Work in Progress
A mockup of Charlotte's ring-to-be. I'm sure you'll agree it looks
quite awesome!
Campaign for Real Fear
So I'm joining the people posting their rejected submissions. This was a lot of fun!
Penance
She drags me out of the bar and I pretend to stumble, pressing her against the wall.
Her face, cast bronze and black in the streetlight, is an inch from mine. Her eyes glow golden and her lips curl up in a wicked, playful smile.
"I'm taking you somewhere very special. Don't you want to go?"
I fall into her gaze and part of me snags, begging the rest not to agree. She takes my hand, pulls me closer still. I'm already hers.
Crowds part to let us through. We turn down a side street and enter silence. Moonlight, filtered through the fading storm, gives the untrodden snow a pale blue sheen.
"Wow," I breathe.
"Told you it's special. But we're not there yet!" She turns and stares at me. Her eyes glitter. "We were meant to meet tonight."
I nod and smile, drinking in her curves.
She passes me a bottle and I tip some fire down my throat. As the warmth spreads to my stomach, we move further from the throng of the centre. I don't look back.
"You like girls don't you?" Frost has matted her hair and coated her face.
"Yeah."
"And they like you?"
Her hand is still cold. It should've warmed up by now. A corner of my mind ignites, screaming for me to flee, back to the sanctuary of other people.
Instead I shrug, "I do okay."
She squeezes my hand tight. Cold fire lances up my arm. I want so much to snatch it away, but she squeezes tighter, insulating me from my fear.
The road ends by a canal that shimmers in the pale light. On the opposite bank a wall rises high, covered in rust and moss. We lean on the thin rail and stare into the dark water.
"Look at me." Her voice is a torrent. She steps closer, her dress crackling, her skin taut and blue. "Am I not beautiful?"
"You are."
"Am I not magnificent?"
"You are."
"Am I not perfect?"
Inch by inch the world twists under the weight of my body.
She slips an arm around my shoulders, halting my descent, and pulls my face close.
Our lips collide and her flesh cracks, leaving fragments of ice hanging in the air. Heat races into my mouth, down my gullet, exploding in my stomach. I gasp, as it trickles down my spine. I'm filled.
But, once again, the cold crashes down.
She steps back. I topple forward. The snow on the ground eats into my face.
"For my Lord I do this." Her words echo through the night. "For my penance I do this. I offer a lover!"
Her boot levers me onto my back, then I'm tumbling into space.
My jacket snags on a rusted mooring, slamming me against the canal wall.
Then it rips free and the water squeezes the breath from my lungs.
Above, twin points of gold fade to darkness.
Appropriate Reuse
So we were out searching for a stone circle to the east of Penrith. It was a beautiful day and we were enjoying views of the countryside and loving the lack of pressure to be anywhere and do anything. We spotted a family of bears while driving through the village of Lazonby. According to the workman, who kindly stopped his work so that I could take a picture, the bears were being put up to make up for the loss of the tree. Quite awesome I'm sure you'll agree.
Click here for a streetview of the tree that used to be here. Now I don't necessarily agree with chopping down such an awesome looking arboreal, but if it does have to be done, this is a fine idea to make up for it.
The Lake District
We went to the Lake District at the weekend and, according to the laws of random, I managed to take one half-decent photo. This is from the bottom of Place Fell at the south end of Ullswater.
A Few Things
First off this is a quick test to see how well MacJournal works. I was told it had issues connecting to privately hosted WordPress blogs, but this seems to have downloaded me stuff just fine. Hoping this will post!
I’ve got two more minor edits left until I consider draft five of my short story, Bad Fuel, finished. This is unless I read it again and discover a bunch more. Each time through I just seem to discover more and more things that need to change; overused words, consecutive sentences beginning with the same word, poorly qualified dialogue, description that doesn’t quite have the right effect. It goes on and on. The damned thing is only 7.5k words. Anyway, I’m hoping that by the end of the week the story will qualify as the first-story-Sam-sends-to-Interzone. Hey, at least I’m writing every day now.
I’m rationing my social networking too. Facebook was an unwanted and near-unavoidable distraction and Twitter was just silly. It was getting pretty annoying talking to friends and have them say “oh yeah I know, I saw your post/tweet”. Very little of what I post on either site warranted the effort made to type it in the first place. So I’m slowing down. Each site will get checked once a day, or so.
Also of note is my new found hatred for iDVD and it’s utter inability to reliably create a DVD that will not only play, but also not completely break my MacBook into the bargain.
I’ll conclude this with a brief wondering... Where the hell did MacJournal put the tags/categories that it apparently downloaded from my blog? Does this thing even support WordPress categories? Aha, yes it does, but only when you “Send to Blog”...
Consumption
I am defined by time. "Obvious!" I hear you say. Well yes, but I would say I am more so than others. Everything I've ever done has felt bound by time. It all has to fit in. All of it. I harbour great envy for those able to maintain an attitude so laid back that they don't appear to need to tackle life, so much as slide through it. I say appear...
The proliferation of information on demand has compounded this. We receive so much stimuli that it's possible to blink and miss critical facts/opinions. How do we know they're critical? My answer: How do you not? You just missed them.
Social networking - oh how I hate that label - websites are a particular problem. They lack one thing, which for me is key to controlling the rate I absorb information. Mark as read. Those three little words, so important! Imagine having to search through your inbox every hour, trying to work out what is and isn't new.
I realise the sites likely lack this feature by design. After all, the more often you visit the site, the better for them. But it's limiting. Our brains are capable of consuming far more information than current tools allow. TweetDeck has the right idea, but if you use it to access your feeds in more than one location the system breaks. RSS is okay, but API calls become an issue and you lose so much in terms of site-specific features.
Perhaps my attitude is wrong. Perhaps every single scrap of information is not meant for every single person, but it should be damn it. We live in the future after all. I don't want to have to just dip in... For now though, I'll carry on absorbing as much as I can, praying that the things I miss don't contain moments of inspiration.
Resolutions for 2010
2008's resolutions were a grand success. I no longer have sugar in coffee or tea and I only drink skimmed milk if possible. In contrast 2009's were a total wash, but I did buy a house and graduate with a distinction, so things worked out in grand fashion.
Here's the list for 2010...
- Write every day.
- Eat better (less pastry and bread).
- Exercise more.
- Keep school nights free of guests.
- Learn more career related skills.
- Watch less TV.
- Drink less coffee.
- Get up earlier.
- Work harder to ignore anxiety and annoyance.
- Take regular holidays.
Lofty goals indeed. Here's hoping I stick to at least one of them.
Onward!
Fundamental Change of Outlook
I've decided to stop getting stressed over things I can't change. No. Really. Stop laughing... I'm right here you know!
Anyone who has spent any amount of time around me will know that anxiety is a good friend of mine. All those sad little thoughts mount up at the back of my mind until they spill over and show me exactly how the life I've built for myself could go horrifically wrong. Then comes the sadness, the anger, the frustration and the absolute shitting terror. There's a lot out there to worry about and I tend to let it influence me more than other people I know... unless they just hide it better.
Anyway, it took living with someone to really understand what a problem anxiety was. Living alone you have no perspective. You don't know what it's doing to you and the potential it has to mess with other people. It's very hard to get a good sense of your own mannerisms when you live on your own. That and you just don't care as much.
So here we are at the end of the decade with Christmas bearing down on us. This is me making a conscious decision to not sweat the small stuff, or the big stuff that I have no control over.
We'll see how it goes...
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