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Touch wood
Sorry I haven't been around much lately. I've been taking a long holiday after all the difficulties of the last year or so. I'm back in the UK now, though, and what should catch my eye but a new season of Torchwood.
Maybe you remember how critical I've been of that particular franchise in the past. I may even have blamed it for some of the worst television I've seen in my whole life. Which you might think would make me avoid it, but I don't. There are two reasons for this. One is the only sign of possible patriotism I've yet detected within myself. If the UK is exporting television to the world, I'd rather it wasn't howlingly wretched. Or maybe I just want Britain to have a thriving TV industry so that one day there'll be room for me in it. And the other reason is somewhat similar: if I ever end up selling a script to a TV production company, the chances are that shows like Torchwood will be my competition. And if that competition is puerile drivel, that's worth knowing. So with my fish-rifle in hand, I pulled up another barrel of Torchwood and prepared to open fire.
I knew they'd made changes, I'd heard there was a new direction but nothing could have prepared me for the sensation I experienced while watching ep1 of season 3: the feeling of mild enjoyment. Even excitement in places. And amusement. (And only the very infrequent twinge of major irritation.) Is it possible they've changed Torchwood so much that it's actually... good?
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E book thread
There's a corking ebook article and comments thread running on the Guardian at the moment by the delicious Sam Jordison - take a look.
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Thought you might like to see...
...our latest cover. Rahhhhhhrrrr!
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Blue Handbag review
http://bookworm56.blogspot.com/Here's a nice little review.
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Anti-plagiarism day
I scheduled this post to appear yesterday. But it didn't. Oops. Slightly out of date, here's a post on Anti Plagiarism Day:
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I was sent a couple of stories by a good friend who alerted me to the fact that one of them has won a prize. Thing is, it was written after its author read the other story, which is pretty much identical in every way that matters - story, form, even horribly similar sounding character names.
Plagiarism is dreadful. Read the comments on this post to see one author's reaction when she discovered her work had been plagiarised. And visit How Publishing Really Works today who have named today anti-plagiarism day.
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Snow tour final stop
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SnowTour
I've been off gallivanting today (in Bicester, ooh) (not shopping though) so it's a bit late in the day to tell you this, but the SnowTour stops today at Strictly Writing. Off you go!
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Snowbooks on tour
This week is rather fun. Five of our authors are on tour, together. They have all written very different books so it's very interesting to see their different answers to different questions.
Today the SnowTour bus stops at Me and My Big Mouth. Hot foot over to there now.
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free websites
You know me. Time poor and money poor. Not the best combination. So believe me when I say: when I want to set up a website, I do it quickly and cheaply. It breaks my heart to hear people I care about (or even people I don't even know, like a dairy farmer I heard on Radio 4 the other day) saying that they spent £2000 on their website. So I've written out how to do it for free, or almost free. Go to www.website4free.org to see how to set up a Wordpress based website. I'll be adding a way to set up a website for completely free except for the price of the domain name (about a fiver) in the next week or so.
You can thank me by buying a book or two.
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First review
Here's the first review of The Osiris Ritual, George Mann's hotly awaited new novel. George's wife and I spent a very pleasant Saturday mostly in the garden with our children whilst our respective husbands signed and packed the slipcase editions which you can now order!
I would suggest buying it from Amazon at the moment as they appear to have lots of money off it, plus it boosts our rankings. (Sorry, everyone who's not Amazon.)
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Another gem from The Lord My Godin
