Hi. Sorry, but this post is going to be very uninspired. I've been struggling to even get any descent work done outside Wikipedia work to help me escape into something totally derivative and fact-driven without the need of invention. I thought I'd like to give you an update, at least as much of one as I'm prepared to give without shouting my woes from the rooftops.
1: Family matters. I won't go into details, but things within the family have demanded my full attention. This required extensive work outside, and moving about inside. It's still not finished, but the current major pieces are finished. Things also came together so that I had to do washing-up on occasions where I might've been working. Don't get me wrong, I don't regret taking the time to do it. But it was still work time lost.
2: Work space move. For much of my time as a blog writer, I've been writing in my room. But there's only so much of that one can stand. I've since had to move out of the nice new place I had due to the family matters above, and am now getting used to another new working environment. On the plus side, I've got a nice view.
3: General tiredness. This can be expected from the two above reasons, but it's also because I've been coping with some kind of flu. This means that much of my general output's been somewhat muted, and I've also had to pull myself back from overworking. If I do, then my quality of work plummets.
And...that's it. Told you this post would be uninspired. Didn't mention it might be short. Sorry if this is a little underwhelming. I might be able to make up for it next week.
Sunday 25 March 2018
Sunday 18 March 2018
Four Books I Couldn't Put Down
I'll admit it; I haven't got the best track record for reading and finishing books. A combination of being an avid viewer and listener, and the type of dyslexia I work with make it difficult to read some text fonts with or without glasses. But when the font -- or the story -- is right, I'll plough through a book at lightning speed. These are four books I devoured with uncharacteristic voraciousness.
1 -- A Wizard of Earthsea: I was quite sad when Ursula le Guin died in January. I haven't read as much of her work as I should, but I've gone through her entire Earthsea series. And that's due to the first book. I got my own copy for my bookshelf, and when I got it I just couldn't put it down. I didn't work that day, or do anything much beside take the book on walks up the garden, lie on my bed, sit in a chair by the fire, and read. I finished the book in six to eight hours. I was utterly entranced by her world and the flawed protagonist Ged. It convinced me to get the other four books in the series, and I've never looked back.
2 -- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: I was almost entirely put off the series by the plodding pace of The Order of the Pheonix, but the next two books were bought by the family. I picked up the sixth volume and read the first chapter or two. The next day, I picked it up again, and when I put it down later that same evening I'd finished the whole book. The story hooked me in a way both The Order of the Phoenix and The Goblet of Fire had failed to do, and it prompted me to read the final book and see the story's conclusion, which I did in a week.
3 -- Dune: This took a bit longer to get into, but it's still wonderful. I tried reading an old edition in the house but the text font defeated me. I finally got round to reading a new edition bought for me, and I was utterly entranced. I didn't expect the story to be quite as mature and arresting as it was. But then, my only exposure to the Dune universe was under twenty minutes of fragmented clips from the poor movie adaptation while I was channel surfing. I'm still unsure about whether to get the next two books, but this original work will always stand as one of my best reads.
4 -- Angels and Demons; I'd first seen the movie adaptation of The DaVinci Code and Angels and Demons before my sister got me both books as part of a large charity shop haul. I started reading the original Robert Langdon story, and found myself devouring it over a few days. It can get quite long-winded, but it made me realise how far from the original the movie strayed. Darker, uglier, more pessimistic about what people are, the book was a wonderful bit of fluff to pass a few days between work sessions and housework.
And there you have it. Perhaps you've read it, perhaps you haven't. Perhaps you loved them, perhaps you hate them. But to me, they're special. Because I read them.
1 -- A Wizard of Earthsea: I was quite sad when Ursula le Guin died in January. I haven't read as much of her work as I should, but I've gone through her entire Earthsea series. And that's due to the first book. I got my own copy for my bookshelf, and when I got it I just couldn't put it down. I didn't work that day, or do anything much beside take the book on walks up the garden, lie on my bed, sit in a chair by the fire, and read. I finished the book in six to eight hours. I was utterly entranced by her world and the flawed protagonist Ged. It convinced me to get the other four books in the series, and I've never looked back.
2 -- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: I was almost entirely put off the series by the plodding pace of The Order of the Pheonix, but the next two books were bought by the family. I picked up the sixth volume and read the first chapter or two. The next day, I picked it up again, and when I put it down later that same evening I'd finished the whole book. The story hooked me in a way both The Order of the Phoenix and The Goblet of Fire had failed to do, and it prompted me to read the final book and see the story's conclusion, which I did in a week.
3 -- Dune: This took a bit longer to get into, but it's still wonderful. I tried reading an old edition in the house but the text font defeated me. I finally got round to reading a new edition bought for me, and I was utterly entranced. I didn't expect the story to be quite as mature and arresting as it was. But then, my only exposure to the Dune universe was under twenty minutes of fragmented clips from the poor movie adaptation while I was channel surfing. I'm still unsure about whether to get the next two books, but this original work will always stand as one of my best reads.
4 -- Angels and Demons; I'd first seen the movie adaptation of The DaVinci Code and Angels and Demons before my sister got me both books as part of a large charity shop haul. I started reading the original Robert Langdon story, and found myself devouring it over a few days. It can get quite long-winded, but it made me realise how far from the original the movie strayed. Darker, uglier, more pessimistic about what people are, the book was a wonderful bit of fluff to pass a few days between work sessions and housework.
And there you have it. Perhaps you've read it, perhaps you haven't. Perhaps you loved them, perhaps you hate them. But to me, they're special. Because I read them.
Sunday 4 March 2018
Shared post: Erica Verrillo's "One of my books saved someone from suicide"
I've been keeping my weather eye on authoress and general font of advice Erica Verrillo. One of her more recent posts caught my attention: from December last year, I bring you a sample of her story of how one of her books -- an early co-authored effort self-published as a second edition -- saved someone from self-destruction.
Read the rest on her blog. And hope that your writing, or a book you find online or in a book store, can help someone in a similar way.
Five years ago, I self-published the second edition of a book I’d originally written with my friend and associate Lauren Gellman in 1998. The first edition, which was published by St. Martin’s Press, was out of print, and I didn’t want to go through the long, grueling process of finding an agent and publisher again. So I went ahead and published an electronic second edition on Amazon.
After a few months of promotion, during which I gave away more than 15,000 copies, I turned my attention to other projects. I stopped reading the reviews on Amazon — until yesterday, when for some undefinable reason I decided to see if anything new had popped up.
The book is Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: A Treatment Guide, 2nd Edition. At the time of its first release in 1998, there were no other books on the market focusing on treatments for the disease, which is not only difficult to treat, but permanently disables about a quarter of the people who contract it. (In the late 90s, the press was still calling it “yuppie flu.” It is properly called myalgic encephalomyelitis.) The book was groundbreaking. But only 5,000 copies were sold. The book’s release was, as a British friend of mine put it, “Silent as a pee in bath.”
The second edition was about twice as long as the first. (One reason I published the second edition as an ebook was that nobody would have been able to afford, let alone lift, a 750-page book.) I put a year of work into it, which I chalked up as a “labor of love” — something that was a noble effort, if ultimately unacknowledged.
All of that changed yesterday. Below is the review I found of my book. I don’t know this person. I will never meet this person. But my heart was torn when I read this review on Amazon.
Read the rest on her blog. And hope that your writing, or a book you find online or in a book store, can help someone in a similar way.
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