Xtro

Hopeless romantic? According to my other half, he's never known anyone be more cynical, bitter and twisted!

Congratulations! A proud parent is a wonderful thing

Lacey, the one thing which can never be taken from you are your memories of happiness. So go wild - but not crazy, okay?

Let's face it, at the moment even Fairy Tales aren't safe - Just watched Snow White & The Huntsman (don't ask - the other half has some weird tastes - I'm beginning to think he's turning straight...) - excellent camera work, simplistic script, weird mix of CGI, and apparently they're already doing a sequel - how do you get a sequel from a closed story?

At the moment the novel is with Three-Legged Fox (I know the graphics guy there, he worked on the UK magazine Interzone for years, before that we ran Nexus SF magazine) Paul is, however, going through a rough patch, so I'm looking to help him out in regard to suggestions. I have about as much graphic nounce as a dead polecat - I write, I typeset, but I don't do graphic design etc. Lugh - good point re colour & grey scaled - again, something to take up in regard to eBook publishing. Hopefully this will run eBook and PoD Paper - still negotiating the percentage, but the start was 60/40 post overheads. The Blurb:- California Twist – Modern Private Investigator, first person narrative with occasional second character viewpoint. Being dumped sucks. Big time. So when Harry Rhimes helps Lindsey Fairfax walk into his office, and she dumps a runaway fiancé case in front of him, Harry knows exactly what’s driving her to look for Preston Llyle. And that’s where the problems start. What should have been a simple hide-and-go-seek missing persons case explodes into a rolling life and death situation as Harry becomes more and more involved with murders – old, new, and some yet to happen – old family money, even older malignant greed, calculating siblings, the city police, hot IT specialists, cold relationships, college football, drugs, Californian girl gangs, the Richardsons dog, and not forgetting a sadistic killer who has a taste for opera. But that’s just one week in the slightly surreal world of American born, but British bred, ex-Army major turned Californian Private Investigator, Harry Rhimes. California Twist sees the start of a new series of novels featuring the life and times of Harry Rhimes, a Private Investigator who likes to think he’s funny – as in ha-ha, rather than just peculiar… ----------------- I have a full 950 word synopsis if anyone feels like carrying on with this. BTW - in regard to publishing experience, etc - Between 1979 & 2000 I used to edit and often print magazines, chapbooks and the like - so I'm coming at this with a good idea of how the prospective publishers might feel if I suddenly come up with the comment about it being up on the Internet. It was bad enough in regard to the version which was on Authonomy for a time.

Then what? 2030 the full remastered redigitised redirected remarketed repackaged and resold - The Ultimate Star Wars Collection! Lucas took Fox for a good ride when he held onto the Merchandising Rights to the first Star Wars. After that, the companies got wise...

If this is the wrong place for this then my apologies to the Gods! - er, sorry! the Mods! I have a completed novel I'm looking to get published. The person I usually trust and value comment from has been having a rough time for the last 5 months and so I'm looking for cover suggestions as to what would be (a) good examples, or ( just rough comments. If anyone is interested then I can post the blurb here (short, around 150 - 300 words) - or if you really want to, then I can put up the novel. However, after a particularly nasty experience with Authornomy (long story involving magazine serialisation that didn't happen, etc) I'm loath to drop the whole 87,000 words in one go, but will do so if you want. Anyone interested?

No worries. It's what this forum is good at, after all.

Love works at first sight. However, for it to become meaningful then you both have to want it and work for it. Attraction is just the turning of the key to your heart. Okay, even I'm going to barf at that bit of sugar. However, the thing still stands - the first signs of Love is Attraction.

As Cia says above - depending on how comfortable you feel with your story and plotline (ie, it has a beginning, middle and end - even if that is only in your head at present) then one method is to go and create a Bible/Book - that contains the character's backstory, arc, or whatever the kids are calling it these days. Once you get your character created in the head, use the Bible to keep you writing the same character. It's no good having them doing something that is out of character, because the writing will feel wrong. A Bible also helps you to go back over things without filling your head with clutter every two minutes. Blue eyes change to green eyes in real life over a period of time, not from one paragraph to the next. Patchworking is a successfully proven method, but each scene has to have some kind of motivation to drive it, and unlike TV, you cannot FTB and pull in a narrator to voiceover.

A friend used to send Wizard of Id, and Conrad (the frog prince) in batches of 30 or so, clipped out of a Scottish daily newspaper. That was back when postage was cheap!

Apologies - I didn't know what your work was. Take care & stay safe. Last word from friends in New York was that they're still good for water & power.

Love is... Being able to disregard things without them getting under your skin. Being able to come together again after a row (not an argument, but a full-on screamer) and know that both of you are genuinely sorry. It also depends on your circumstances. I met my first long term partner in an empty bath, and lost him in a warehouse accident while we were 8,000 miles apart, December 19th 1982. We had been together for 6 years. However, Den and I have been together now for 12 years, and before his previous partner died they had been together for almost 25. On both occasions I knew they were the people I wanted to spend as much of my life with as possible.

Maybe you should ask how she's doing for Death In Harness Insurance, should something happen. Main thing from past experience (Disaster Relief - 11 years West Indies - in the Royal Navy) will be lighting and a radio (AM/FM doesn't matter) but pick up a local station and just keep it playing in the background. TV Transmitters are less robust. Radio will also broadcast through most anomalous propagation/weather conditions. Lights make you feel more at ease, but use them sparingly. Den and I are keeping a candle burning, and our thoughts are with friends here, and family as well.

Not sure we get the same output this side of the Big Spit - Warehouse 13 still has wheels - but the rest is a little well-trodden-path. Not sure what happened to Bar Karma? That was interesting in its production and creation (I scavenge this stuff off Interweb torrent sites, even though I'm on UK cable - all that has are reality shows, or double-up HD channels, or +1s ie screened an hour later. There is little new originated material at all.) Perception completed in the US, then three weeks later we get it on the Watch channel, with a big round of publicity. That was a good first season, but I don't see where they could take it further. Another sadly lost in action was Raines - only screened 7 episodes, though, before it got cancelled/binned?

There is also a worn belief that by altering your state of reality you can both (a) gain insight in ways that your readers cannot, and ( remain sober enough to either remember it, or write it down before you pass out. In some respects, the criticising world knows exactly what it has - and that only becomes valuable when the supply is no longer available.

There's a 600+ page pdf kicking around the 'net which claims to have every C&H strip. Got to admit, I've been dipping into that from time to time, just to get my humour going again. Will look out Alro & Janis on the Go Comics site

On the 'funny papers' strip side, Calvin & Hobbs did for me every time

Depends on the quality of both. Some Anime lacks detail and vocal synch with narration/dialogue - even when running subtitles - which makes me lose interest sometimes. Originally what got me into the graphics side of things - back in 1965, a character came along in the UK called The Spider. Possibly the very first anti-hero in UK comic history. Now, I have to admit, I'm hooked again, this time on Blacksad Hmmm, didn't realise they were so big - anyway, google them if you're interested.

Mathematically pleasing proportional ratio = Beauty? Hmmmm - I think it's more to do with cultural and social convention, which changes more often than the wind, in some cases. There has also been the school of thought that David was originally fashioned from a female model - with obvious amendments to the final design.

To toss my tup'pence in the ring - JS is right, you need to read, read, read - go out of your comfort zone. If reading is a problem, the get audio books. Listen to how things are constructed, how a writer moves things along. Old comment: show, don't tell. The more you have to explain, the less involved the reader is. One resource is https://www.writers-online.co.uk/Features/ - but that's not going to write the thing for you. When you say a writing assignment, what exactly are you talking about? Is this course work for something, a project you're working on yourself, something from a writers' group? If the piece is complete raw first draft, or incomplete, then KC's comments re beta testing is the more helpful route.

Involved with setting up a new ebook press for a writers' group, and rather than run around making mistakes I was wondering if anyone here knew of a good file host - to store ebook reader files, and provide download accountability without creating hassles with the likes of PayPal, etc? Intention is to use several affiliate-style outlets, but we're looking for something other than hosting the files ourselves due to bandwidth limitations on the site we have at the moment.

Don't worry - every new BBS-style place is different - so don't be afraid to ask someone

Boxers - no specific brand, just so long as they are a good mix of cotton and lycra.

Ah, from the land of Oztralia! Pretty cruise-y? Oh, wait, I see you've met the muppet....