Just finished the vomit draft of quick side-project short story that was only going to be a couple of thousand words then back to the main gig. Quick side project is currently 9500 words. Anyhow, put it away for a week then I’ll come back to do some rewriting. #writingcommunity #amwriting
So this was the other Saturday. Both car and dude are normal size, but my iPhone did weird things.
I used to be a local journalist in East Anglia, UK, and I thought the whole Byline network was a really good idea - a model for funding grassroots, often investigative reporting, holding local councils to account, etc.
According to their website:
“We are a not-for-profit citizen journalism publication. Our aim is to publish well-written, fact-based articles and opinion pieces on subjects that are of interest to people in East Anglia and beyond.
East Anglia Bylines is a trading brand of Bylines Networks Limited which is separate to, but allied with, Byline Times.”
However, this was on their East Anglia Bylines BlueSky account this morning. (pic also attached).
And their website is full of similar slop: https://eastangliabylines.co.uk
It’s Reach PLC style indiscriminate ‘bung it out everywhere for social media clicks’. Much as I hate the orange manchild, this has nothing in particular to do with East Anglia, or what Byline was set up to do.
Have they been taken over? Are there VCs starting to tighten their financial leash? What’s going on? Have they been hacked?
On the lake
Got some CDs
As a recidivist 80s nerd who spent high school in what we were pleased to call ‘the computer room’, I’m loving Halt And Catch Fire on ITV. It’s a fictionalised version of microcomputers in the 80s where people invent the internet on Commodre 64s.
Breaking news: the new head of MI6 (C) got started with spying when she was given the Usborne KnowHow Book Of Spycraft. I too have this book and memorised it as a kid. When is it my turn to be C?
Trump’s been outplayed by Putin, Netanyahu and every other world leader because he’s all ego and bluster and not very bright. All he has left is lying to his base
I bought a stack of very cheap CDs yesterday at a stall at a Thing. They sound marginally better than Tidal High Quality but mostly, I can’t curate what’s on them. I can’t think about which playlist to add tracks to. I just have to listen to them. #MusicSky #Music
So that’s the plotting done. Now it’s just… typing. Which is great and also daunting.
#writingcommunity #iamwriting
The world’s richest man and most powerful man bitching about each other like mean girls. Meanwhile the climate is in meltdown, there are at least 3 international confrontations that could lead to world wars, and dictators are seizing power everywhere. I’m off to watch Midsomer Murders.
Is my brain declining at a greater rate than I thought, or is this piece in the Guardian about yet more White House shenanigans badly written to the point of incomprehensibility?
Watched/went to a webinar about making money from short stories. The good news is that there are many more outlets for my genre than I thought. The bad news is that ‘payment’ is not really a thing. Good for just getting stuff out there anyhow.
Commendably long and thoughtful piece by Spencer Kornhaber in The Atlantic arguing that Substack’s @tedgoia ‘s declinism in essays about 21st Art And Culture is over pessimistic. Instinctively, I want it to agree with Ted Gioia, but Kornhaber’s main argument is that artists are being just as creative, but faster, because (essentially) The Internet. Trouble is, that The Internet demands reams of content creation, not thinking, so the actual content created is cosmetic and puerile. There might be new art, but it’s just not very good.
Try new ‘Woombitz’, the perfect BBQ crunchy snack for the menstrual woman. Artisanal and free-from most things, except hormones.
My therapist once pointed out that ‘everyone is not your mother’ - ie don’t respond to everyone like they’re a malign narcissist. Dont let that dynamic dominate everything.
But that’s how the world seems to be reacting to Trump and his fascist minions. I heard a UK politician talk about the increasing price of eggs the other day. Egg prices haven’t increased much in the UK. They were picking up on US issues.
Trump and co consciously
The US media must be incredibly supine for this to be remarkable. That exact tactic is utterly normal in the UK
Trump’s best thought of as a social media platform in himself. He exists to keep people’s attention; that’s his remuneration. more than the money. He has to come up with more and more weird, demanding stuff to keep that attention. The rest is just a means to that end.
I’ve lost interest in politics. British politics isn’t relevant, I don’t have the appetite to the learn the detail of Canadian politics, and anyway, it’s all mad and scary, and will happen whether or not I know about it.
The standard metric for measuring written English clarity in science is called Hemingway. I assume that’s because he worked hard to write clear, simple, concrete prose, rather than ending up alone with his cats, a bottle of rum, and a shotgun.
Just watching the Trump Not State Of The Union. Do you think Americans understand what a bunch of thick twats they come across as when they chant ‘USA USA USA’?
Trump planned the ambush to make up ground with his base after he was nice to other foreigners earlier in the week, but the angle of attack was a straightforward narcissistic rant because Zelensky wasn’t being grateful enough to placate the big fragile orange ego.