Magazines, writing and things to avoid?

29 July 2013

Here we are, 29 July and in this morning post my copy of Writing Magazine arrived.  No problem there of course but it's the September issue!  It seems all such single subject magazines work the same with both my birding and photo mags arriving well in advance.  I can see the sense in it with some of them.  Like the photo mags writing about autumn shots a couple of months early.  It allows the photographer to do any research of sites they might want o visit.  It's a similar thing with the birding mags.

Writing Magazine does a similar thing but is more idea focuses by publishing a column called Editorial Calendar (page 20 in the new edition).  Here they list a number of anniversaries and dates months in advance to give an idea as to what to write and when to write.  This new mag even has two dates for 2015!  Now that what I call advanced planning.

I wonder if like me writers get stumped for names for their characters.  I've made one up for my new Fred Cooper novel.  An elderly lady and her son are called Tubman.  But I do wonder at times just how far we writers can go in making up names.  It seems that there is no limit seeing as there is an actor called Rip Torn!  So I wasn't all that surprised when I read of a local man with the surname Badland in today's News.  Now I suspect that is one I wouldn't have thought of.       

And talking of Writing Magazine ... I've read in there at various times some of the ideas that we shouldn't use.  One of them is introducing a twin in the twist at the end of story.  My House of Pain has a twins in it; but at least the show up right at the start and it's made clear what is happening with them.  So I wonder how Peter James gets away with it in his Roy Grace novel Not Dead Enough.  It's not a bad story but it fairly obvious that there is an evil twin at the root of one the problems of Brian Bishop, one the main non-cop character.

Not so long ago there was programme on telly about Ian Rankin and how he gets his ideas and what he does for research.  We see him start to write his next book, and later he has the full print out of the first draft.  That book is called Standing in Another Man's Grave.  I saw it at the M5 services I stopped at a couple of weeks ago.  I bought it and one other - there was an offer on, buy one and get one half price.  The other one I bought was a John Grisham.  Whatever, I've read the Rankin and it's a good read.  Looking forward to starting the Grisham after the James I'm currently reading. 

In 1997 we bought our first computer, a very low spec Packard Bell which we got from Currys.  Soon after that I enrolled for a couple of computer courses at the local college.  Now all the way through those courses, and I've done more than few, I was taught that at the need of a sentence comes a full stop followed by two spaces.  Now I've read that in publishing you only leave one space, not two.  Trying to change after so many years is hard and I keep forgetting.  I wonder how other feel about it?  Ah well ... ... ...

So now to find a photo ... ah yes ... 

the girl of my dreams in Barmouth.

And an Irish funny ...

 
A large woman, wearing a sleeveless Sundress, walked into a bar in Dublin, Ireland. She raised her right arm, revealing a huge, hairy armpit as she pointed to all the people sitting at the bar and asked, "What man here will buy a woman a drink?" The bar went silent as the patrons tried to ignore her. But down at the end of the bar, an owly-eyed drunk slammed his hand down on the counter and bellowed, "Give the ballerina a drink! "The bartender poured the drink, and the woman chugged it down. She turned to the patrons and again pointed around at all of them, revealing the same hairy armpit, and asked, "What man here will buy a lady a drink?" Once again, the same little drunk slapped his money down on the bar and said, "Give the ballerina another Drink!" The bartender approached the little drunk and said, "Tell me, Paddy, it's your business if you want to buy the lady a drink, but why do you keep calling her the ballerina?" The drunk replied, "Any woman who can lift her leg that high has got to be a ballerina!"