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[May. 12th, 2013|11:10 pm]
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This is kinda amazing.
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| (no subject) |
[Apr. 5th, 2013|08:54 am]
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I’m reading “Ready Player One”, and it’s an exercise in how to write great hooks. The futuristic/retro-geek setting doesn’t matter at all, when the current scene has the reader asking this:
"Is there a spy in the group? Could it be person 2? Why did they ask about person 3 – could the spy be person 3? Or could 2 just be attracted to 3, like we suspected earlier? Since we want them to be attracted to person 1, is that actually worse than them being a spy? How much does 1 actually know about 3?" Etc etc.
Making readers care enough to wonder this stuff is how you write a good book, in any genre. (I also love the theme though - see the website linked above for some nostalgia and recommendations.)
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| (no subject) |
[Nov. 11th, 2012|12:35 pm]
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I wrote a post for BadRep, on what happens when the guy who taught the Commandos in WWII creates a self-defence manual for women (and doesn't tone down the moves much):
"HANDS OFF! Women’s Self-defence, 1942 style."
I'm going to be teaching Women's Self-defence classes myself soon in London.
Many of the current ones start with "Don't wear short skirts. Don't drink. Don't go out at all" so instead mine will be "Do those things, and be aware of this once you're there." (I won't be including most of the book featured above, because yikes!) |
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 4th, 2012|09:41 pm]
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Ah, I'm back to ranting about politics on LJ, it's like the old days.
There was a Cabinet reshuffle in the UK! The stats are now: 4/29 women, 29/29 white, 19/29 attended Oxford or Cambridge.
The Health Secretary (Jeremy Hunt) is anti-abortion and against hybrid stem cell research, wants to scrap the NHS entirely, is pro- 'homeopathy hospitals' and anti-science, and tried to get the NHS segment of the Olympic opening ceremony stopped.
The minister for Women and Equality (Maria Miller) voted against racial and sexual equality laws, is anti-abortion, voted against lesbians having fertility treatment, and against gay adoption rights.
The Justice secretary (Chris Grayling) "has no background in law, and wants to 'rip up
the Human Rights Act'. He also thinks B&B owners should have the right to turn away gay couples."
The new Environment Secretary (Owen Paterson) is a Climate-change denier, pro-badger cull, anti-wind energy, wants to exploit shale gas faster and expand airports.
And they didn't move George Osborne, despite him being so unpopular that when he turned up to present medals at yesterday's Paralympics, he was noisily booed by the 80,000 crowd for daring to show his face.
The internet isn't sure whether David Cameron is just trolling everyone now, or if it's Opposites Day and no-one told us. But these jokers got in on 36% of the vote when they were pretending to be moderates and promising not to cut much, and they're not bothering to hide it now.
My first question: how on earth can the LibDems justify staying in this coalition for even one more day? |
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| The squarest m-fers |
[Aug. 26th, 2012|03:35 pm]
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From http://lazenby.tumblr.com/post/30206152130/well-right-naturally-you-should-hate :
"Everybody thought Kennedy and Johnson and Nixon were spending four-and-a-half percent of the federal budget each year to prove that America owned Science. This was all a fiction. The Apollo Program was an elaborate demonstration of how even the blandest among us are under the heel of the spirit.
NASA needed astronauts to go plant a flag on the moon. For obvious reasons, the astronauts ended up being the most reliable type of man America makes: white, straight, full-starch protestant, center-right, and spawned by the union of science and the military. Every last one of them was the heart of the heart of the tv dinner demographic. But then they get shot into space, tossed from the gravity of this planet, across a quartermillion miles of nothing, to be snagged by the moon after three days. Eighteen guys did this and twelve descended further to find out that moon dust smells like gunsmoke. Every single one of them came back irrevocably changed. America had sent the squarest motherfuckers it could find to the moon and the moon sent back humans. Armstrong became a teacher, then a farmer. Alan Bean became a painter. Edgar Mitchell started believing in UFOs. And also managed to crystallize the experience of seeing your entire planet at once:
"You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, “Look at that, you son of a bitch.” - (People: April 8th, 1974) |
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| (no subject) |
[Aug. 22nd, 2012|09:28 pm]
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Letter to my five year-old self:
In your lifetime you will see the surface of Mars.
You will travel above the clouds at over 500 miles an hour,
Read Da Vinci's Notebooks,
Be able to listen to any music whenever you wish, and have enough leisure time to learn to play instruments,
Touch ink laid down by Einstein's own hand to Tesla,
Handle snakes,
Shower daily in clean water of a temperature you choose,
Decide on your own religion without being outcast or killed for it,
Sigh for the girl who got away at school, and the young woman who got away at University, and then find them both later and discover that they were, and are, just as keen,
Have more wealth than most of the world, be in crippling debt, and live dreading each month's bills just like everyone else you know,
Wield a sword, shoot a gun and a longbow, and learn to jump-kick,
Celebrate the full moon dancing in a forest and the next day wear a white lab-coat to pursue hard science,
Taste food from all over the world while staying in your home city,
Be able to count 'You're horrible, f- you' and 'Oh, bloody hell...' as some of the most genuinely romantic words you've ever heard,
Know the precise best and worst days of your life,
Live in more comfort and safety than any of your ancestors.
You will know at least one life-changing love, and many mad infatuations.
You'll know suicidal despair and survive it.
Your country will make Good Cider.
You will own hundreds of books,
Sadly not marry a fictional FBI agent,
Cause crowds of people in wheelchairs to cry with grateful emotion.
You will see governments eager to desecrate Stonehenge, Tara, Pe' Sla and other sacred sites for profit,
See governments treat women as slaves, monsters and political tokens,
and not like your government much for 20 years and counting.
You will know inner peace and then lose the knack,
Shout loudly when people are Wrong On The Internet,
Step between a violent boyfriend and a crying woman on the underground. Three times so far.
You will be able to make this list not in a spirit of unthinking gratitude to the Universe or God, but in recognition that its uncaring, horrific laws of chance and decay haven't randomly killed you yet. And you will appreciate the good things more because of it.
You will do brilliantly at quizzes and IQ tests.
You will know absolutely nothing about anything until the age of 33.
And you will see the surface of Mars. |
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