Ten years of Blogging

It is now ten years since I started this blog. I initially set it up to chart my journey to publication, as well as procrastinating about other issues surrounding the world of writing. Over the years the blogging scene has changed, and I guess the nature of this blog has changed, as well as my place in the world of publishing. So it seems sensible to look at these changes in a bit more detail.

1. My publication journey

When I started this blog, back in 2008, I had a total of five short story sales to my name, with four already published and one pending. Since then this figure has risen to 20. I have also had one novel and a short story collection published as well as number of competition long-listings and short-listings culminating in me winning the Yeovil Prize in 2016. I also managed to find representation along the way.

So in ten years I would say I’ve achieved a fair bit. But the journey isn’t over. It won’t be as long as I can put pen to paper. So who knows what the next ten years will bring!

2. The nature of blogging and rise of social media

Blogging has definitely changed over the past ten years. Back at the start it was fairly new and there was a lot more interaction between bloggers; people commented on one another’s posts and connections were forged. But over the years blogging has tailed off. Many people have abandoned their blogs and those that do keep them going blog much less frequently. I certainly fall into this category.

This is probably partly due to the rise of social media. The way people connect has changed. Blogging has become tired.

3. A role for the future

So what role does a blog play these days and what is the point? Well for me this blog is my online author presence and is now set up more as a website than the simple journal it was in the beginning. The blog part is updated less regularly and I try to keep it much more writing focussed than I did in the past.

But for an author a web presence is important. I’ve received several event bookings through my contacts page. For that reason don’t expect to see this blog disappear any time soon, although I dare say it’s function will continue to evolve.

So I wonder - what will the next ten years bring?

Fissures

Everything changes. The world is in a state of flux. Just like the cliffs around where I live. Last time I walked along this section of the coast path the ground had opened up, a giant fissure, the seaward side slipping downwards.

Every time I come here the landscape is different, has slipped a little further, the crack wider, the drop greater, sections of path that I once walked now empty air and precipitous falls.

This section of coastline is on the move, never standing still, constantly reinventing itself. The cliffs crumble and reveal treasure. I picked up these fossils on the beach below, pristine and new, un-battered by the waves and tides.

Next time I go there it will have changed again.

Merry Christmas!

It's December and we are winding up to Christmas!

I love this time of year, I love the mice pies, the mulled wine, carols by candlelight, decorating the tree, feasting on Christmas goodies, mass on Christmas eve and the joy of family gathered round the table for Christmas dinner!

This is the Celtic nativity scene that my father gave me. I get it out every year and every so often I add to it. Note the caganer (Queen) crouching in the background - and this year two Portuguese cockerels have joined the animals in the stable.

So I would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a successful and prosperous 2016 and I'll see you all in the New Year.

Victorian Gadgetry

During the summer break we took a trip north, and one of the places we visited was Cragside House near Rothbury, Northumberland – and what a fabulous feast of Victorian gadgetry and technology was waiting for us!

The house is stunning, surrounded by a truly amazing rock garden and extensive grounds. It was built by a very successful Victorian industrialist, engineer and inventor Lord Armstrong (inventor of the hydraulic crane) and his touch was all around, even though the astronomical observatory and laboratory were long gone.

Cragside was the first domestic house to be lit using hydroelectric power and to this day electricity is generated on the premises using an Archimedes screw. In the ancient world the Archimedes screw was used to move water uphill, but in this case the action is reversed, the flow of water from the burn being used to turn the screw which in turn runs the generator that provides electric power to the house.

The gadgets and devices inside the house were equally exciting. The house was fitted with a lift which which was controlled by a hydraulic pump and in one of the rooms I found this wonderful example of an early Victorian electric fire.

 

But my favourite was this – ever the practical man - the kitchen was fitted with a Victorian version of a dishwasher!



Cragside House is owned by the National Trust and well worth a visit if you are ever up that way.

Tides and Eclipses

Today the UK witnessed a partial eclipse. Where I was it was cloudy, too cloudy to see much, but I stood in the supermarket car park looking up at the sky as the world dimmed around me. It felt like it does on a stormy day as the thunder clouds gather, an odd brooding twilight. It was only as I drove home that the clouds thinned enough for me to glimpse a pale crescent through the haze.

Photo  © Ciara Kelly

The last eclipse, in 1999, down here in the west, was far more dramatic. We gathered round a friend’s house as the light faded and the gulls began to roost and toasted the darkness with champagne. There was the same strange gloomy twilight, but the dimming was much more pronounced since we were not far from totality. The light fell suddenly, as if some celestial being was turning down the dimmer switch. The birds fell silent, and over on Portland we could see the flashes from people’s cameras in the shadow. Then the light returned equally swiftly.

But more dramatic as far as I am concerned – and I am a Marine Scientist after all so perhaps this is not surprising - was the super low spring tide this morning. We walked right out, almost up to the Sea Life tower without getting our feet even slightly wet. I haven’t seen it out quite so far before – and tomorrow’s low tide will be even lower! Of course, there will be a corresponding high high tide in a few hours time, so I might pop down and see how the flood defences are holding up. In the meantime, here a couple of pictures.

Christmas Magic

Tucked away in the Devon countryside is Killerton House – a gem of the National Trust – and at this time of year it is one of my favourite places to visit.

Every year in December they deck out the house for Christmas, tinsel and Christmas trees, baubles and lights. It’s a chance to be transported back in time to Christmases a hundred years ago, and it’s lovely.

This year the house was decorated to the theme of the Nutcracker, we had the land of sweets and a Russian and a Chinese room to stroll through. In the Russian room the tree was festooned with spoons. In the Chinese Room there was a large red dragon on the ceiling, and when you went upstairs you walked between wintery branches and silver lights. It was like walking into Narnia – and there was even a wardrobe that you could go through to get there.

But by far the best part was the roaring fire that greeted you when you first went into the house, seats set out for the visitors to sit on and soak up the warmth and admire the decorations, and, in the corner, around the piano, was a choir singing Christmas songs. Their voices swelled and filled the room and everyone gathered around the fire to watch and listen.

And even when the music stopped and the other people wandered off to explore the house, we sat on, by the fire, watching the glowing embers and wondering what sort of a Christmas the people who once lived here must have enjoyed.

Outside the rain was lashing and it was windy and bleak, brown fields, grey skies. But here in the warmth was a little piece of Christmas magic.

Seven Things...

I’ve been nominated for the very Inspiring Blog award by Emma Haughton, a young adult author whose debut “Now You See Me” has just hit the shelves!

I do love awards, even though I don’t get them very often, and this one also involves me telling you seven things you didn’t know about me.

So here goes.

1.    I’ve recently adopted three ex battery hens which the kids have called Nugget, Tikka and Tagine

2.    I once played cricket on an ice floe in the Greenland Sea.

3.    I have a dalek on my desk at work. If I switch it on it wanders around shouting ‘Exterminate’ but I don’t switch it on very often as it annoys my office mates.

4.    I am a Runrig fan. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen them play live.

5.    My favourite flower is sea thrift

6.    When I was a student I had a summer job working as a sewage sifter – and yes, it was as disgusting as it sounds. We were part of a team carrying out a survey of the mudflats surrounding a sewage outfall in the Tay Estuary.

7.    According to my grandmother I am a direct descendant of MacIain of Glencoe. I’ve not been able to verify this and I don’t really want to because it’s much more fun to think that it could be true rather than find out it isn’t.

Now I’m supposed to be nominating some other authors for this award, but I think that anyone who stops by and reads my blog deserves an award for that alone, so if you’ve read this far consider yourself nominated.

Wistman's Wood

We headed up onto Dartmoor in the spring sunshine, followed the track north from Two Bridges – and came to Wistman’s Wood.

This is an eerie place of twisted trees and moss covered boulders - high altitude oaks that almost appear to be sprouting from the rocks themselves. Even in winter, when the trees are not in leaf, the woods are green, branches festooned with mosses and lichens, ferns sprouting from the boughs, as if to give them their own set of antlers.

Local legend claims that the devil inhabits these woods, his ferocious wisht hounds lurk among the rocks and the wild hunt rides out from here across the moor, baying for the blood of sinners. Most of the time this wood is dripping wet, shrouded in drifting mist and thin rain and you could well believe these legends to be true, the devil watching from between the trees, his hounds stalking you as you move among the rocks.

But this day of spring sunshine the woods seemed a friendly place, gnarled branches stark against the blue of the sky, mossy boulders forming a carpet of hummocks and a peaty stream bubbling over the rocks in the valley below.

It is a place of weird beauty.

A place of stories.

A place to come back to in moonlight…

Invader!

Looks like my attempt to stop the badger coming into my garden and digging up my vegetable plot has failed!

I have the feeling that for every hole I block he’s just going to dig another one!

Any suggestions?

Rockfall at Durdle Door

There was a massive rockfall along the coastpath between Durdle Door and Lulworth Cove on Monday night. So yesterday I popped over to take a look and here are some pictures.

 

The rockfall as viewed from Durdle Door.

Close up so you can see where the footpath has disappeared. It's a good job this happened during the night - it's a popular tourist destination and the path is usually teeming!

 

And just to give you an idea of how unstable the cliffs can be around here - this used to be the path down to the beach!

Durdle Door looking particularly lovely in the evening sunlight.

 



On Top of the World

This is an ancient landscape and if you look you will see the traces of past civilisations – from the tumuli that form grassy mounds along the skyline, to the roman roads that run straight and true and, often, are still used to day.

 

 

For a long time the flat topped hill you can see in the picture, Pilsdon Pen, was throught to be the highest point in Dorset. But a few years ago it was re-measured and its neighbour, Lewesdon hill, was found to be a couple of metres higher. It is from this second hill that the picture was taken.

But both are part of the ancient landscape of which I speak, for both were Iron Age settlements. This was an area on the border between two of the tribes of that ancient world, the Durotriges to the East and the Dumnonii to the West. What ancient battles did these ramparts see? What lives were lives out on these hills?

The fortifications are better defined on Pilsdon Pen, rampart and ditch, and I stood, on one of the few sunny days this winter, staring out at a landscape that stretched below me.  I thought of the people who stood here over millennia past, and looked at this same view, as the landscape changed from forest the field. Did they stand here and watch as the Romans came? Are they watching now?

My Top Ten Martian Tales

Sticking with the Martian theme I thought I'd share my top ten Martian tales. So there they are - in reverse order:

(10) The Martian Way by Isaac Azimov  - No SF list would be complete without Azimov, so here he is.

(9) Voyage by Stephen Baxter - an excellent alternate history where mankind is already out exploring space.

(8) The Outward Urge by John Wyndham - Not a writer normally associated with hard SF but this is an exception to the rule.

(7) Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson - okay, so this is really three books, but they deserve a slot of their own - Martian terraforming in all its glory!

(6) We can remember it for you Wholesale by Philip K Dick,  which you probably know as the film Total Recall - the first one that is - the latest one isn't set on Mars, which I think spoils it.

(5) Captain Scarlett and the Mysterons - I just had to include this - well, just - because :-)

(4) The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut - because he's one of my all time favourite writers!

(3) Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A Heinlein - an all time classic in my opinion - that stayed with me long after I'd finished the last page!

(2) War of the Worlds by HG Wells - The original Martians and probably the best!! (And I have to mention here the Jeff Wade album by the same name which I love)

(1) The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury - Both the book and the TV series - I loved these stories! Really original Martians too.

So what would be on your list?

The Apocalypse? Or just another Christmas?

Will it? Won’t it? Will we even notice?

This isn’t going the be the first time we’ve lived through the end of the world – the Millennium – the eclipse – not to mention the various prophesies that come and go.

So enjoy your mince pies and mulled wine. Have a great Christmas everyone and (if we’re still here) I’ll see you all on the other side.

Tagged!

Looks like I've been tagged - twice!!

First by Jess and then by Celesta

Instead of answering two sets of questions I've mixed them all together and picked a random subset of 11. So here they are along with their answers.

1. How old were you when you started writing?
I've been writing ever since I was old enough to hold a crayon.
2. What's your favourite movie/book?
Tricky question - how do I decide this one! Okay - let's go for the book I've read the most times and in that case it is The Crysalids by John Wyndham.
3. If you were the main character of a book, what genre would it be?
Some sort of Space Opera - definitely!
4. What genre do you write in?
I write SciFi thrillers for kids.
5. If you could have a superpower, what would it be and why?
I would be able to take away sadness.
6. What do you like to read?
I read pretty widely. But I particularly like discovering new authors.
7. What is something unusual that you've done?
I once had a snowball fight on an ice floe in the Greenland Sea
8. How do you get names for your characters?
Phone book, and baby name lists.
9. List the top three websites you use.

Litopia
New Scientist
Will it rain today - well I do live in Blighty :-)

10. Besides reading and writing, name two other hobbies you have.
Hillwalking and growing my own.
11. Where in the world would you like to go?
I'd love to go to Japan.

In turn I will tag the following Campaigners from Rach's Platform Building Campaign. And I'm asking each of you the same set of questions.

Sher A Hart: My Best Part
Six Impossible Things
alberta's sefuty chronicles
David Powers King
Gina Carey
Katharine Gerlach
Imagine Today

Welcome to the Apocalypse!

A new year - new beginnings and new opportunities. What will it bring I wonder?

Some people think that the world will end. But I prefer to take a more optimistic view. Perhaps it will be a year of change.

I'm not going to make any resolutions this year. I think I'll just blow with the wind and see where I end up.

The idea that took seed a few months ago is taking form. Perhaps that would be a good place to start the year.

Happy 2012 everyone!

Good out of Bad

We were discussing the review comments you see on the front of books the other day. Someone had read something that they felt didn't fit with any off the comments on the cover and was wondering why it should be.

And so we started talking about how these comments could really be taken out of context. Maybe "I was blown away..." really came from a comment that said "I was blown away by how awful this book is."

So we thought we'd play a little game - find a really bad review of something and extract a few choice phrases that make it sound like a good review!

It turned out to be rather fun!

So if you ever get a bad review - why not try this - and turn it into a good one!

Followfest 200

I turned away and when I looked back I noticed my followers had topped the 200 mark! Yay for followers!

So I'm going to run another followfest - a bit like the one I did when I reached the first 100, but this time I'd like you all to pass it on!

So here's the plan. I've created a little "One To Follow" award and I'm awarding it to ten other bloggers who I really think you ought to be following if you aren't already.

So head over to their blogs and if you like what you see then add yourself as a follower.

And to the bloggers themselves - please take the award and pass it on to ten more bloggers of your choice!

So here are my ten 'One To Follow' Fab Bloggers (tough call this one - there are so many great blogs out there, but I'll leave it to you to pass this on to the ones I've missed!)

Creepy Query Girl - I love this blog - it's seriously sassy and fun!
Adventures in Space - There's a really interesting series called "After the call" running over here - worth a look.
That Elusive Line - an author/illustrator with a book coming out in 2012
To Stalk a Publisher - A Romance author to watch - you'll be hearing more of Emma!
"Living with and Author" - by Brunella Labrador - I just love the whole dog thing that's going on here!
Ellie Garratt - a very lively blog with lots going on that I only stumbled on recently.
Scribble and Edit - another lively blog with lots going on!
The blogger formerly known as... - a real enigma, this one :-)
Spellmaking - a SF author with quite a few publications under his belt - and more to come I'll bet!
Desperately Writing Susan - This is a really new blogger - go on - give her a warm welcome to the bloggosphere!

Star Trek Blogfest

I simply couldn’t resist this one – the temptation to indulge in pure Star Trek geekery (cheers Ellie) was too much – so here you go – my 5 favourite Star Trek Characters are:

Spock (okay, boring but I love his logical view of the world)

The Holographic Doctor in the Voyager series – for being the only character with any real depth amongst a crew of cardboard cutouts!

The borg queen – always good to include a strong female role model (plus the borg have to be the scariest aliens ever)

Jean Luc Pickard – for saying ‘Merde’ on the Bridge of the Enterprise! Shame on you Jean Luc - there’s children watching!

A tribble – no – several tribbles – Oh hang on a minute – lots of tribbles….

Anybody want a tribble?

Aha - a blog visitor - here you go - you are now the proud owner of a Tribble!

Making Hay

They were making hay in the field behind my house and I paused to watch the tractor going back and forth, the bailer towing behind and the bales spitting out into piles.



I watch the bailers every year with the same fascination, and each time I do I remember, many years ago, when there was magic.

We were kids, sitting in the sunshine by the edge of a cornfield, watching a bailer just like this one. And on one of his circuits the farmer stopped.

“You kids,” he said. “You can play with this stack if you want. But don’t go touching any of the others.”

We waited until he had gone.

And then…

Those bales became a fort, and a castle, a dungeon and at one point just an ordinary shop. We fought battles, held sieges and made daring rescues, chasing our enemies across the stubble in the summer sun.

Later the farmer came back with a trailer, loaded them up, and the magic was gone.

Signs of Spring

Spring has arrived and you can't get more spring like than the lambing. This little chap has just arrived. His brother was born a few minutes later.