Setting up, slowing down and protectionism

28 April

What a day we have front of us now! Our new 'puters are still sat in their unopened boxes while we make copies of files we want to keep. I know there's a way to do it directly between the old and new machines but I don't know how to do it. Anyway, we need a back copy of them all so it's not really a waste of time. A back-up of my photos alone will take 12 hours according to the program.

I've read a number of times about writers removing parts of their work if it slows down the flow of the story. Well that Peter James novel I'm reading now is slowing down on just about every page. The way he's doing it is to describe characters and where they are. He's telling me about every twist in every carpet in every room his people walk into, or at least that's how it seems to me. I'm finding it a tad annoying to have the story held up like that.

But I'm wondering if other readers don't feel like that? Perhaps they feel the descriptions essential to the story. As with all modes of art, it's all very subjective. I'm sure all of us writers have heard or read stories of how someone in a publisher has got a writer to change things to their way of doing things only to have the finished work rejected for one reason or another.

This then leads onto the issue of who you are writing for. Are you writing for yourself, a set market, an agent, a publisher; who are you writing for? I would suggest we write mainly for ourselves initially, to ease the itch of the new story line we have to live until we have safely stored on a hard drive or a printed paper copy. Of course, we are always hopefully that our story will be 'discovered' and we become the next big thing in publishing. It's good to dream isn't it.

Call me cynical if you wish but I'm now starting to think that perhaps some of the people who make suggestion to writers and then reject a novel, do so as a way of protecting their current chart-topping writer. As I say, call me cynical if you wish!

And now I need to find a photo, and I only have 47,000 to choose from ... that didn't take long folks. 

This pub is the King William IV on Coton Road here in Dorktown. At one time it was my local pub and it was where I got the taste for real ale. It was a good a busy place, friendly, and with a lot of folks willing to help out where they could. Such a shame it has gone.

And today's funny ...

Alex Salmond was visiting a Scottish primary school and the class was in the middle of a discussion related to words and their meanings.
The teacher asked Mr. Salmond if he would like to lead the discussion on the word 'Tragedy'.
So the illustrious SNP leader asked the class for an example of a 'Tragedy'.
A little boy stood up and offered, "If ma best freen, wha’ lives on a ferm, is playin' in the field and a tractor rins ower him and kills him, that wid be a tragedy."
"Incorrect", said Alex, in his best trying-not-to-sound-too- patronising-Scottish-accent, "That would be an accident."
A little girl raised her hand, "If a school bus kerryin' fifty children drove ow’r a cliff, killing a'body inside, that wid be a tragedy"
'I'm afraid not', explained Alex, "that's what we would refer to as a great loss’’.
The room went silent. No other children volunteered. Alex searched the room.

"Isn't there someone here who can give me an example of a tragedy?"
Finally, at the back of the room, a wee lad raised his hand and, in a quiet voice, said: "If a plane kerryin' you and your deputy ' wiz struck by a 'freendly fire' missile & blawn tae smithereens, that wid be a tragedy."
"Fantastic!" exclaimed Alex, "and can you tell me why that would be a tragedy?"
"Weel", says the lad, "it has tae be a tragedy, because it certainly widnae be a great loss, and it probably widnae be an accident either!"