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Dralala-ping
“Dralala-ping, dralala-toc-toc, drala…” “Francis, do turn that phone off. Unless you are keen to get yourself fired. Private phones to be turned off at all times. Ever heard of that rule? Now is the time to stick to it. Or you’re gone. Fired, as in sacked. Got me? And off, as in not on. Not…
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Virtual Voices
Don’t you worry, miss Basil, this is just a plug. It’s perfectly ordinary. Just like the ones for electricity. This one is for oxygen, as it says on the label. And the one next to it, that’s for air. Nothing to worry about, miss Basil. And some patients need it, too.“ Here they go again.…
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First episode hurrah
This first episode of the 1kYears series was so much fun to write I’m at advanced risk of jumping right on to the next one, instead of starting work on Parole?, the next long format. Bad Troim. It’s probably the Dilbert angle of the 1kYears project. A completely fictional global IT service provider, located in…
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Carpe Diem
What a difference two nights can make. Spending them in a hospital, after undergoing extremely minor and totally successful surgery, has a way of sharpening your mortality awareness. This in turn can lead to all kinds of unexpected non-medical side effects. Less than a month ago, the plan was to submit Think-o-mat to three agents.…
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Three submissions
Writing fiction is tremendous fun, but by the last chapters long format projects tend to turn into a bit of a tedium, as described and tentatively analysed in a previous post. No problem, though, won’t happen again for at least a year, now is hurrah time: Think-o-mat has been defined completed. And another dreaded task, writing…
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Mad old bark
Again?! Bloody pests, why can’t they just go easy, for a change? Indigestion guaranteed, with them around. There can be too much of a good thing. Food aplenty is good in principle. Makes you grow big and strong. But overshooting four seasons in a row, that’s an aberration. Mour feels obscene. Waking up to this…
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Last stretch urge
Spent months loving, nurturing, developing, refining and generally never getting enough of my cast. Reach chapter 9 out of 10 and wham, change of mindset. I just want to get it over with. AFAP. Judging by what happened with the Pluggers, the last stretch of Think-o-mat will again consist of a fortnight of tedium. Writing fast and…
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Alt Left SciFi pitch
Some amazing advice kindly provided by Ariel Ayangwo: Eight Ways to Spark More Social Shares on Your Content Fast It’s targeted at bloggers, but Ariel’s 4U-rule can easily be applied to fiction writing. The corresponding Alt Left SciFi pitch reads: Useful: Feeling challenged? Your life no paradise? Regardless of whether you love or hate the changes…
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Inside the box
“It’s no worse than an office or a cubicle, Elisa. Will you stop making a fuzz? People were upset, when the first open space workplaces appeared, you know? Saw a documentary about this. One day the workers had each their own office. The next they were assigned cubicles, in a large common room. They suddenly…
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We are not alone
Really love a post by Elisabeth Giovani on LinkedIn, about the scares and doubts about not writing in our mother languages. Feels good not to be alone, shared scares are lighter scares! Funny, though, how we automatically refer to native speakers as arbiters who might grant or refuse us permission to write in English. As…