Back Catalogue

It’s time to go through stuff. I’ve shedloads, literally: comics, SF paperbacks, & Fantasy, Penguin Classics, PC Games (in their boxes) etc.

This time it’s my back catalogue. When you go to writing groups you, almost invariably, get a writing prompt.

“Write something about this word I found on the net; come back next time and we can have a jolly laugh at the frustration it caused us.”

Some things you don’t finish, there isn’t time.

“Have you anything to say?”

“Write what you know.”

It’s that or… well finish what you started with the prompt. They’re a waste of time. If you haven’t anything too say, what’s the point of a random narrative you’ll never finish. How about a carefully crafted poem that looks like a shape, or is produced to a pattern?

“Ooh look at this. It’s got 15 lines and if you look at it sideways through a mirror, repeating the Lord’s Prayer backwards, you can see something crawling out.”

Yep, more creative writing to a nice easy formula. Sounds familiar, mechanical and dreary. Do your best to avoid getting sucked in.

The are some areas where a mechanised approach is essential, my poetry… indeed most of everything I’ve done is tabulated. It’s in Excel: Unfinished Schedule.xls. Rather than explain why – kinda obvious – I thought I’d note the categories I use for analysis.

• Status: There’s all sorts of considerations for this: is the work aborted? / to redevelop? / a fragment-chapter of a longer piece? / the most recent fragment (and thus the one I am working on)? / completed? (a, d, f, l, c)
• Year – self explanatory
• Timestamp – when I last worked on a piece
• Wordcount – self explanatory
• Expected length – how long’s it gonna be
• Title: of each respective fragment-chapter
• Story – the writing process gets broken by attending writing group but I do actually write stories 🙂
• Genre: Anecdote, Children’s, Detective, Dystopia, Fantasy, Historical, Humour, Poetry, Retro, SF… I find it worth identifying significant sub-genres. This is great for tracking down those bits of unfinished whimsy e.g. a pantomime I once started – The Glass Slipper – my only attempt (so far) to do something from stage.

Finally I have a marker to make sure I know what’s self-published and what’s in the locker. Keep on top of your catalogue and know where you are.

I Hope the EU Fixes Itself

Don’t rejoice in Brexit failings. We remoaners must shape the future

(says Zoe Williams in the Guardian)

Zoe Williams

Juncker is the compromise candidate propelled to to prominence. There is plenty unremarkable about him as well as some murky areas that his supporters would rather remained murky. The debate on the merits or otherwise, of EU membership, was overwhelmed by meaningless soundbites. I didn’t expect a reasoned argument for staying in and Cameron didn’t disappoint. The fundamental challenges facing the EU won’t change and neither will the stance of those that lead it. UK is the voice for reform and it has left, long time followers of this issue will recognise this. It’s not all sweetness and light out in the wide world. The UK has advantages shared by few other EU member states (which goes without saying).
By morphing into a political project, the EU has triggered its doom. All empires fail. The fall-out from that will be horrendous. I hope the EU fixes itself — better it remains a point of aspiration. I’ve long maintained that there’s a case for an halfway house between the EEC and the EU… the process by which the nations and peoples of the world leave the shadow of despotism / autocracy / self-destructive zealotry of social upheaval / rule of religious bigotry, takes a time that’s measured in decades and longer. Those who want to move from there to here i.e. to democratic & economic freedoms, need a template. A model that works.

The Last Library

Finally coming to the end of this. Back in December 2016 I expected it to max out at about 6k words; it’s now over 20k. Phew.

It concerns a wannabe librarian, fallen angels, civilisation forced to live by the rules of art, a Supreme Being (just don’t call him God), WelteMenn (men of the world)  and odd bits of dystopia.

Am still writing.

Nearly at draft.

Genre: Fantasy / Dystopia / SpecFic

How real books have trumped ebooks

Has the Guardian identified a publishing revival?

The Guardian | Books | 2017 | May | 14: How real books trumped ebooks

This article has plenty of anecdote but is short on hard data.

What do I expect?

Units shifted, sales + margins, the author’s cut. Strip out the JK Rowlings — do a little market segmentation, show where e-books sit. While you’re on with that say something about how, by gaming Amazon’s book metrics, the traditional publishing model is hollowed out.

Is it equilibrium or just a brief respite?

China’s Xi lays out $900bn Silk Road vision amid claims of empire-building

China lays claim to the world’s biggest project

The Guardian | world | 2017 | may | 14 | China’s Xi lays out $900bn Silk Road vision amid claims of empire-building

This could  fundamentally change the pattern of  world trade. There are big challenges but, other things bring equal, this could mark a high-water mark of containerised ocean going freight. A significant side effect will be the impact on Central Asian economies which could be very significant.

An intriguing idea. I used this as part of the backdrop in Erisse of the Illyany.

Man Cannot Survive on Mobile Alone.

For Xmas my eldest bought me a smart mobile. I’d been struggling along on my ailing Nokia. It held battery charge great but internet connectivity was a chore. I didn’t bother. Other things being equal I was quite open to the idea of getting a smartphone. The one he got me was a HTC Desire 530.

The big gripe about smartphones is battery life (& unwanted screen activation & fiddly text handling & invasive browsing experience but those are further down the gripe experience). The big embarrassment is commenting. Anything beyond a snappy sentence becomes a marathon; might as well not bother. I tried various ways to engage – it’s just not worth it. I put this down to CKS (crap keyboard syndrome) Even my laptop suffers from this – any serious typing won’t work unless you have a decent keyboard. Laptops (mine’s an Acer Aspire ##something-something-something##) have the magic of a touch pad which, if you accidentally activate it while reaching over in order to type, becomes a dead weight in which you’re constantly fighting with the touch pad’s desire / aspiration to activate the mouse pointer.

In the middle of a word? Activate the mouse pointer, quick, quick, so your typing is shared more equally among open applications.

Anyway, I finally got my old PC up and running following a disastrous move some six months back, and onto the net.

Here’s the proof:

Yippee. Life isn’t prefect but it’s a sight better than faffing about, all clumsy fingers, on my mobile or laptop. All I have to do now is decide whether to backfill all the crap I put out since September 2016

Because I’m like that, here’s a better view of Thomas Lessman’s Eastern Hemisphere, 400 AD.

Eurasia 400 AD,
after Thomas Lessman

 

World leaders congratulate Macron on victory as EU breathes sigh of relief

M Macron

What is Macron’s remit: France or the EU? He’s President of France, has a lot to say about the EU, and as an elitist product of the French system, he’ll be imagining all he can do with his power.

So let’s see what he can fix in the EU:

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• CAP reform? Nope, can’t see him stopping France from grabbing the lion’s share of CAP. However, something outside his power: Brexit will finally put an end to the EU’s (over-) fishery policy.

• Migration crisis? Merkel’s rash promise – on behalf of others as all politicians do – is already made. A constant flow if migrants is still seeping in despite the deal with Turkey to shut the door to the East. The merits of Merkel keeping her trap shut are considerable – yet how can he affect this, he is merely French President.

• Club-Med nation state debt (Greece / Portugal / Italy / Spain)? Dealing with this means either mutualising debt or debt forgiveness. Even if the EU are busy with catchy ‘more EU’ slogans like ‘let’s all do away with the nation state so we can all be happy together’ sorting nation state debt means persuading the German public to cough up; not in Macron’s remit.

• Long-term unemployed in Club-Med countries? Just like Club-Med debt, Macron might hop about and make a noise or two but has the effectualitée of a frog.

Does Macron comprehend the audit issues surrounding EU books? Does he understand audit? Hmm (see also mutualising debt)… the particularities suggest this is above his pay-grade. Perhaps we should look at his remit as French President and thus problems closer to home:

• Communities that don’t integrate…. surprise, surprise the UK is seen being better at this than France… and it’s an issue we’re fed up with, an issue that’s helped drive Brexit.

• How about jobs being exported – leaving pockets of poverty in France? Well Macron is a globalist; he’ll be preaching about how the hidden hand of economic mysteriously gifts jobs. No answers though (apart from ‘tough luck’ for those put out of work). Here we close in on Macron’s credentials which rest on glib words, sound bites and no experience.

07/05/2017 was flag waving day. France is saved, the EU is saved, everything is saved as if by stage pantomime. The réalité is the EU needs to reform. Reform: ugly word implying management and controls. Yet that would-be agent of reform, the UK, will soon have left. Reform is what the UK wanted and reform is what Brussels resisted. What are Macron’s reform credentials? Something to ponder.

Oh and the terrorists are quaking in their boots.

It’s notable that the Guardian (from which the first image is drawn) has love-bombed the result but prevented comments. You can get stuck into their coverage at: World leaders congratulate Macron on victory as EU breathes sigh of relief

CWG 2015

I am currently working on the long delayed 2015 Anthology by CWG (exiles of My Telegraph). The anthology will contain 36 of their best stories taken from from their 2015 series competition. CWG are a net based writing group, their early existence is due in no small part, to the innovative blogging platform maintained by The Daily Telegraph between 2007 and 2016. The writers have a get-together every so often – in this way they confirm the fact that they aren’t merely figments of each others’ electronic dreams.
Peter Barnett has written an introduction, the book comes to 284 pages (70,000 words) and it features the following contributors:

AmericanMum,
Araminta,
Atiller,
Capucin,
Chester_Goode,
Danthemann,
ExpatAngie,
FizzeeRascal,
Gazoopi,
Giselle,
Lostinwords,
PavlovaQueen,
Ponsuda,
Seadams
TurkishJenny
and finally (under my net name) Archietp

The book cover is based on pictures from Sabina Ahmed; here’s a peek:

courtesy of Sabina Ahmed

EU Reveal Negotiating Stance

Attitudes are beginning to harden as the EU lets slip its negotiating stance in Outrage as Spain given effective Veto on future of Gibraltar.

 

Credit: Daily Telegraph 31/03/17

In the spirit of openness I’m gonna put all my cards on the table and I have a number of demands:

 I demand the return of Aquitaine and Calais.

 On second thoughts they can keep Calais.

That’s cleared the air so here’s my predictions:Next week the EU plans to give Brussels a veto on the internet on the grounds that the internet is international, the EU is international: the matter speaks for itself.

In other developments, it (the EU) is still debating whether to take back those parts of London settled by French emigrées. Residents of Little France, as it’s known, are brushing up on their German, just in case.

Women Writers of SF and Fantasy

At the very outset, Naomi Alderman in the Guardian makes the case for Mary Shelley and Margaret Atwood to be considered Science Fiction writers in  Dystopian dreams: how feminist science fiction predicted the future.

Would Mary Shelley have recognised Science Fiction? Some in the genre (eg Aldiss) have made the case for appropriating her Frankenstein. Margaret Atwood has made clear she doesn’t consider herself a Science Fiction writer; she’s appropriated some of the garb, that’s all. Obsessions with sex plus nihilism and added miserablism really are tedious fare. Doris Lessing made a far better job of appropriation but then her Canopus in Argos had added Sufi influence.
For a long time there weren’t enough women writing in the genre. My collection includes a good deal by Andre Norton —not a feminist, for baggage she brought her American Indian heritage to bear; and CJ Cherryh —also not a feminist, she just did loads of good SF. Both were prolific and covered the genre from different angles.

I’ve collected everything I can by Ursula Le Guin and still have a high regard for her creations. Elements of Katherine Kurtz’s Deryni cycle prefigure Game of Thrones (just don’t go looking for gratuitous sex & violence). There’s too little by Zenna Henderson (sadly overlooked). Perhaps Joanna Russ had a lot to say but I found her shouty.

Going back a little, Leigh Brackett struck me as a slightly superior Edgar Rice Burroughs. The problem with ERB was he reworked old material (if he’s the original formulaic fiction writer, he’s got a lot to answer for). My Leigh Brackett collection is mostly Ace books from the 60s. It includes
The Secret of Sinharat / People of the Talisman (an Ace double)
The Planet Savers / The Sword of Aldones (another Ace double)
The Sword of Rhiannon
The Coming of the Terrans
The Big Jump
The Ginger Star

I enjoyed Evangeline Walton’s reworking of the Mabingonion (The Children of Llyr, The Island of the Mighty, The Song of Rhiannon, Prince of Annwn). There’s a tendency for publishers to typecast their authors which is a real shame. New Wave Science Fiction should have sorted that out but it seems the accountants have taken control (I’m an accountant and mostly what I see is writers treated like machines – but that’s a different tale).

That’s missing out many others including Jane Gaskell, Marion Campbell (I was mesmerised by her Dark Twin) James Tiptree Jr, Cecilia Dart-Thornton, Louise Cooper, Leigh Eddings (who cowrote with David Eddings), Mary Gentle (savage and bleak), Tanith Lee. Anne McCaffrey…

Feminism has a point but it isn’t all. Science Fiction is 🙂

Might scan some paperback covers later and doll this post up (I can hear the abuse already).

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Afterthoughts.

Writing isn’t just about the final form, or offering a well machined product that delivers precise dollops of enjoyment; it’s also about exploration and change. Agitprop (or agitpop 🙂 ) can suffer from the energy of the participants which makes it hard to see the art.

Rarely, some sublimate themselves and their work to the up and coming authors. Andre Norton achieved this by abandoning her space creations to develop Witch World, a series that ran to many books. In Tales of the Witch World, authors such as Robert Bloch, Elizabeth Scarborough, A. C. Crispin, Ardath Mayhar, and Robert E. Vardeman (from vol. 1) contributed to the world. Andre Norton was never highly regarded by the critics which pushes her contribution — an American Indian world view, a reflection of her heritage — under the radar.