This is the kind of thing that does not endear the US right to Europe. It's also utter nonsense.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/19/gay-dutch-soldiers-srebrenica

I saw this and thought of you....
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/gallery/2010/mar/18/guide-to-pets-pet-myths?picture=360591952

Living with Ghosts has made the long-list for the BFS novel award for 2009! I am so happy and grateful to whoever it was that nominated it.

My virtue, let me show it to you. It's amazing how much I will do to avoid writing. I ahve much clean laundry, I have very shiny clean bathrooms and I have reorganised the bookshelves over my desk. The piles of books in current research rotation are now on the shelves and my desk is lovely and clear. I may have to write something at it now, I suppose.

In other news, The History Press, the purchasers of my former non-fiction publisher Tempus have decided (after two years of chaos and no attempt to sell as far as I can tell) to remainder The Four Musketeers: the true story of d'Artagnan, Porthos, Aramis and Athos, by myself and the marquis (Kari Maund and Phil Nanson). So if you want a copy, order now as it will shortly be unavailable (the marquis and I will have copies to sell on in future, but it would be nice to show THP that we in fact wrote a rather good book that people ). It's my favourite of my non-fiction and was great fun to research and write. It's a good book, I think and it has excellent illustrations. I'm not sure I am quite capable of recommending my own stuff, but if you like musketeers or 17th century France, this is one is interesting, I think.

Meanwhile, my shoulders hurt. I blame Bookworm. I must stop playing the blasted thing.

I've been down in Pembrokeshire for the last day or so, at my aunt's funeral. This all went well, and I came back yesterday via St David's Cathedral - a lovely place in spring, even on a cold day. The daffodils are out around the cathedral and there were jackdaws tumbling and fighting in the wind. I had lunch in Solva - a nice new cafe called Thirty Five, on the waterfront - and then drove slowly back along the dramatic coast road which winds around St Bride's Bay.

Since I had the whole day, I did not take the motorway on the way back but took the old A40 through Llandeilo, Llandovery and Brecon, where I stopped at the foot of the castle and bought some lamb chops with only slight guilt (my cousin has a number of lambs for hand-rearing and I have been helping with the bottle feeding). Beautiful countryside at this time of year, with banks of crocuses and snowdrops. At home, all our primroses are out, with some miniature daffs, and T has been hacking all the ivy away from the front wall. The veg garden is as clear as it's ever been.

To Trevor - he's just been awarded his degree. He's got the 'Hons' bit to finish off but he's got a good upper second (and in a normal uni, he'd have got a first). Well done!

Hmmmm......

Standing on the lip, on the edge, on the peak of a slope is a little like the moment before flight. For one instant I am hanging in limbo and then... Sometimes skiing is the closest thing I know to weightlessness.
It was good: good snow, wide clear pistes, long mountain silences. Easy and regular and cheap buses and trains meant we could go on each day to somewhere new, somewhere different. We skiied Fieberbrunn and St Johan in Tyrol, Waidring-Winklmoos and St Ulrich, Kitzbuhel and Saalbach-Leogang. I have skiied those sections of the Hahnenkamn men's world cup downhill which are open to the casual skier (things you hear yourself saying and then wonder at 'I would rather do the world cup downhill than a rope drag lift')* and neither fallen nor struggled too much. I have survived another black at the same place (Kitzbuhel) that had a 1 in 2 slope and rather a lot of ice on it (and didn't fall on that, either, though language was uttered). I have eaten rather a lot of apfelstrudel (though I left the germknudel to the marquis). All the resorts were lovely, apart from Saalbach, which was a bit icey when we were there, and has slightly irritating connectively. Waidring and Kitz in particular are heavenly -- if you have a shot at one or two days skiing in the Austrian Tyrol, Waidring is the place to go (unless you're a beginner, it's too small for a week but for a day it's delightful -- a huge bowl with runs of all levels and fabulous views).
The castle was delightful and rather barking (it's Schlosshotel Rosenegg, for those who like castles).
*I stick to this view. I hate rope drags. A rope drag broke my rib once... Black runs are far less scary.**
** European black runs. Those single and double black diamond runs you have in Canada and the USA are another matter entirely.

Having done bugger all artistically for the last year (yes, yes, I know), I optimistically signed up for a few classes this semester.

Only, of course, to be derailed by my trip to England etc etc etc. So today is the first day that I have actually ventured into a classroom at all (and that was a near-run thing, since I really ought to have been doing all my filing so I can do a tax return, having finally gotten the housework, if not beaten into submission, at least temporarily subdued).

( Here. Have some random fruit. )

I can has squirrels :) :) :) Thirty thousand thanks to hardboiledbaby for my cute squirrels: they are most appreciated, and I wish I had half their sweetness :)

In an attempt to put off any of the thousand things I should be doing this evening, I will procrastinate bed for one last moment and post a meme gacked from tinx_r

Choose five series fandoms (no peeking before you choose them), list them, and then answer the questions behind the cut. [Though I did cheat and peek first, because I didn't plan to do the meme - but that was yesterday, and I've forgotten the questions by now.]

1. Due South
2. Star Wars, The Phantom Menace
3. Harry Potter
4. (Live Free or) Die Hard 4
5. Slings and Arrows

( Questions and answers here )

MILFORD 2010

Dear Writer,

You are cordially invited to join the Milford SF Writer’s Conference, held at the Trigonos Centre in Snowdonia. The dates are Saturday 18th September to Saturday 25th September 2010 inclusive (leaving on the morning of Saturday 25th).

( Read more... )

Brothers (and sisters): it has come to my attention, via someone* with whom I am having an acerbic exchange on FB mail, that 'spelling is for the middle classes.'

I have spoken to the rest of the proletariat and I'm afraid that, come the Revolution, everyone on this LJ who takes trouble to spell correctly will be lined up against the wall and forced to communicate in text speak for the next 36 hours.

*This is someone who got busted for writing positive reviews of his own work on Amazon. Presumably fair competition in the literary marketplace is a filthy capitalist habit upheld only by the smug bourgeoisie.

Following on from yesterday's post, cairmen has now announced the rest of the voice cast for Death Knight Love Story.

As well as Brian Blessed, Hugh has secured the voice talents of Jack Davenport, Anna Chancellor and Joanna Lumley. Jack's recording was done remotely (apparently, directing a recording session via Skype works pretty well) but Anna and Joanna were recorded in December, and after having to sit on the news for nearly three months I can now say that I was documentary photographer for that as well. Yes, pictures will follow.

It's been a hectic couple of days. Yesterday I was helping with more urgent amendments to the Digital Economy Bill; today by contrast was a long-standing appointment for a very fun photo assignment.

As cairmen has now revealed, the veil of secrecy over his SEKRIT PROJECT can now be lifted. He's been working on Death Knight Love Story, an attempt to show just what can be achieved with Machinima if you try hard enough - and that includes getting serious professional voice talent.

We did one recording session before Christmas, of which more will be said soon, and the second today. I went to take pictures for the publicity material and extras package; I've been involved as legal adviser on the project and it's very nice to get to see actual production.

And when I say 'serious professional voice talent' Hugh has not stinted. Today we were graced with the presence of, yes... Brian Blessed! Or rather BRIAN BLESSED.

It went absolutely splendidly. Brian is a thorough professional, who had clearly read and thought about the script and his character, and put huge amounts of effort into trying different readings of the lines to get exactly the delivery Hugh wanted. And contrary to what you might imagine, that was by no means entirely shouting very loudly - Brian's a serious actor by training, and it very much shows. Mind you, there were some lines that required a very emphatic delivery, and I think it's safe to say Hugh got his money's worth.

Brian Blessed is also screamingly funny, very personable, swears like a trooper and, it turns out, is an absolutely fanatical space advocacy enthusiast who's on good terms with Zubrin, Pillinger and the rest of the Mars crowd. Apparently his latest exploration project is to get a ride to the ISS, for which he's been in training in Moscow; this led to a series of anecdotes on the ghastly enthusiasm of Russian space medics...

See the cut for some pictures from the day; including some animation. You have been warned...

( Pictures )

I seem to have a mild cold. 'Mild' as in not in the least making me feel ill, but enough to mean that I only got about three hours of sleep last night before having to be up early to go and teach down at Exeter. Fortunately my students were very tolerant of me blowing my nose every five minutes.

However, I'm now a bit shattered, especially as this all comes after a weekend spent casting glances out the window at the beautiful sunshine whilst chained to the computer (a) writing my lecture and (b) making corrections to my 3D-printing-meets-intellectual-property paper in response to referee feedback. ("The referees like it but have a long list of comments and suggestions. If you can address them this week we can publish in April rather than August...")

Normal service to be resumed ASAP etc.

We hired a jetwash today and washed one and a half shops (the other is due to be repainted soon, so we didn't do that one), nearly several passers-by, and me. I also seem to have blasted a small hole in the pavement, resulting in a fountain of crud. Still, the Magick Box looks a lot better.

Then I came home and attacked the vegetable garden again. T, A and I (particularly A) have put a big effort into this over the last week and it is really showing. Most of the beds are clear, and ready for things to be put in them if they haven't already got plants in (we have a lot of winter leeks). We also cleared all the old tomato bags out of the greenhouse and put some new ones in. I am inspired by St Nige's latest effort, Tender, which is a combined cooking/gardening book: having marvelled over Slater's little Elizabethan box borders, I then admired his honesty in remarking that he wouldn't put them in again, due to their tendency to act as a snail hotel. Given that he apparently lives in a fairly bog-standard London terrace, he's done a lot with a very small space.

I am going to try anti-slug plants this year - I think marigolds are recommended. Any advice is welcome (may also go for copper rings). We are organic, and heading towards the biodynamic thanks to P and A, so although I will probably cave in and use slug pellets in the greenhouse and around the pansies, I won't use them in the veg patch.

Next week's effort will be the front garden, which is currently a bit of a tip, but which has violets and primroses lurking.

Came into Witchcraft Ltd this morning to find that Phineas the strange small cat has gleefully knocked all the business cards off the counter and spread them over the floor, in the manner of strange small cats first thing in the morning.

There is also a little bowl of 'goddess messages' on the counter (small slips of card with the name of a goddess and a one-line message for your day).

Phineas had not knocked the bowl over, but one of the cards was on the floor. When I picked it up, it read 'BAST: remember to be playful.'

I'm running a 2 day workshops in London on the 20th-21st March (London).

This particular workshop is directed at people who are aiming at publication and covers the basics of:

- short story writing
- novel writing
- preparing work for publication
- marketing your work
- contacting agents and publishers
- genre as an industry

There are a maximum of 10 places and no entry criteria. We will not be doing a lot of writing during the workshop itself, though we will be doing some - the idea, which has proved successful in the University of Sussex workshops, is to download as much as possible of what I have learned in a decade-long pro career into your heads!

Please email me on mevennen(at)hotmail(dot)come for full details.

As some of you know, I have been working for Adventures in Fiction, a creative writing mentoring programme based in London, which takes a limited number of apprentices each year for various genres. I am now offering this service privately, and hope to be able to offer it both online and in person (I met my previous student on a regular basis, but this is dependent on geographical location!).

( Read more... )