There’s a wave of graphic/information geeks out there who are making seemingly boring data look attractive via the medium of flow-charts, graphs, pie-charts, etc. Information is Beautiful is the best known site featuring loads of ‘Infographics’. Charting The Beatles is a great one charting the lyrics and songs of The Beatles. GraphJam contains loads of
AuthorBen
You can lead a writer to research but you can’t make it produce a plot
My initial goal this year was to start writing my second novel on January 1st…well, 3 months down the line I still haven’t actually broken ground on it but I have been researching and note taking and thinking and sketching like a madman. I’m very close to starting, I can feel it. I’m also realising
Is Your Sci-fi Story Original?
I submitted a short story to Strange Horizons, an online speculative fiction magazine, and reading their thorough submission guidelines was an education. They have a great section called ‘Stories We’ve Seen Too Often‘ which details up to 37 plots which they’ve seen too many times. Some of them are blatant no-brainers such as ‘it’s all
Learning rules about writing to write posts about writing rules learnt
There was a good article on The Guardian, ‘Ten rules for writing fiction‘, coming on the back of Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing. The first rule I’m going to make up is; Learn who Elmore Leonard is. If you’ve done any research into writing tips and rules you’ll have come across quite a few
“Advertising is getting personal”
An interesting article on the Telegraph site, ‘Advertising is getting personal‘, about how companies are better utilising technology to track customers and offer them an improved service. Of course, companies have always tried to do this but with more powerful technology at cheaper prices, the amount and type of information they can gather increases. ‘Railroaded’
Power 2010
Came across the ‘Power 2010‘ site via ‘Big Brother Watch‘. It previously gathered political ideas from the public, ideas people wanted to see implemented regardless of political leanings, eg. proportional representation, fixed parliament terms, etc. Watch the vid for a better explanation… Power 2010 are now in Phase 2, which involves everyone voting on their
Manuscript requested! …then rejected :(
A step forward, that’s what I keep telling myself anyway. An agent came back and asked to see the full manuscript of ‘Railroaded’, but then quickly rejected the whole thing. I’ll ignore the obvious negative and take some positives; I grabbed the interest of a literary professional and, albeit briefly, viewed the slush pile from
‘The Intensive Care Unit’ by J.G.Ballard
I’ve just read ‘English Short Stories 1900 to the Present‘ and by far my favourite short story in there was ‘The Intensive Care Unit’ by J.G.Ballard. A great little story where people live in isolation from each other and only have contact via tv screens and cameras, much like webcams basically. A family eventually meet-up
Short Story: Prins Kobaal – The Little Dutch Demon
This is the first victim of my ‘5 strikes and you’re out‘ rule for short story submissions. The fifth rejection was a very pleasant one but it commended the submission cover letter and rejected the actual story, not a great sign to be honest. This was originally written for the Writing Magazine ‘Seance’ competition in
Railroaded Wordle Word Cloud
Well, Max Barry did a word cloud for his online novel ‘Machine Man’ so I thought I’d try the same with ‘Railroaded’…takes my mind off rejections anyway. Using the online service at Wordle you can easily create your own, my one above is also live on their public gallery here. Quite interesting; Isaac, Amy and