Nicky Bond's Blog, page 23

Old Films Cause New Perspectives. Discuss...

It feels wrong to open this week's ramble with the words, 'One of the upsides to COVID has been...' so I won't. COVID has been an absolute fucker. There. I used a proper swear word and everything. It's caused pain and fear, grief and uncertainty. And it's still here. People are still in intensive care. Families are still dealing with huge loss and having to adapt to their specific version of the new normal. It's been no force for good. Not at any point. 
It's important to say that from the start ...

Sequel, Schmequel...

I don't know if I've mentioned it (LOLZ, only a bajillion times) but I've got a book coming out. Assembling the Wingpeople will be published on 7th October and you can pre-order a copy here. 
In preparation for its arrival, I've been sending out copies to reviewers. Lovely people who have agreed to give up their time and read the thing, resulting in a bunch of reviews on Amazon and Goodreads. Over the past week, those reviewers have received their books and been posting online, telling the world ...

Bad News Cycle...

Judge Judy would
have fitted right in.Every so often, when I was a teacher, a new Government initiative would be introduced. We'd sit in a meeting as the Head, or whichever senior staff member had been given the task, gamely trumpeted the exciting new ways in which we were going to raise attainment and be better at our jobs. Without fail, the older teachers would roll their eyes. 'This is just XXX with a new name'. Or, 'I remember the eighties when they called this XXX.' Insert your abandoned ed...

Clambering Up the Learning Curve...

Circa 1986A memory from 1986 popped into my head recently. I was eight, and during a moment of frustration with school life, I calculated there were only eight more years of statutory attendance before I could leave Education behind. I only had to relive my entire lifespan in order to be done with it all - getting up in the morning, school uniforms, Maths... it must have been a bad week in Junior One.
I'm sharing this now so we can communally laugh at my naivety. Not only were there eight more ye...

Change is Coming... Probably...

Achtung, bitte! I have a small announcement. Well, it's not really an announcement, more an interesting thing that's occurred to me that I thought I'd pass on. In hindsight, my opening German command might imply it's a much bigger deal it is. Apologies. Blame my daily Duolingo. Es tut mir leid! But let's crack on. 
Here's what I wanted to share. In a few weeks' time, this blog will hit a milestone. I'm sure I'll alert you nearer the day, but can you believe it? We're coming up to five years of Ra...

Writing Group's Back, Baby...

My writing group's back. The Liverpool-based Poised Pen Writers' Group have reassembled post-pandemic*. Fortnightly meetings in the backroom of a Portuguese restaurant have returned. Hurrah!
The ideal reaction.
(Only if I've read something
intentionally funny.)It was one of the things I missed, you see. At least, I think I did. In the before times, I'd turn up to each meeting, clutching copies of the latest chapter that I'd prepared to share. I knew it was a deeply useful thing to do. Of course i...

Was für eine Woche!...

Another week's over and I'm not entirely sure where it went. Because of a series of random events, I've fallen down a few online rabbit holes and immersed myself in all sorts of stuff. Before you panic that this blog will suddenly turn to anti-vaxxer, climate-change-denier, flat earth territory, let me reassure you. There are many rabbit holes on the Internet. I found some of the ones less catastrophic for humankind. Let's me lead you through the twists and turns of my week.
I do, Leo. I really d...

To Boldly Go or Boldly Give?...

My kind of space travel.
Button MoonBesides the Euros and the Olympics, the floods and the heat, there's been another news story skirting the edge of my peripheral vision this month. Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos have been to space. Individually. For a short time. And fair play to them, I guess. Like Gandhi (may have) once said, 'Be the change you want to see in the world.' Clearly for Bezos'n'Branson, the change they want to see is every billionaire being launched into the sky for a bit. And wh...

The Opposite of Publishing's Billy Big Bollocks...

Pst... you. Yes, you. Can you see me? Am I visible? You caught me prepping what I like to call my 'professional marketing campaign'. Even though I have zero knowledge of marketing or the professionalism within it, that's what you've stumbled upon me doing. Guilty as charged. I'm blagging it once again.
The idea is, that in a month or so, I'll start bombarding my socials with pictures, links, and excerpts. If I do it as a planned campaign over the course of a few weeks, there's every chance people...

If You Wannabe a Writer...

The plan, ten years ago!

I was having a root around some old laptop files recently, when I stumbled across an interesting bit of info. Ready? Nice one. This week it'll be ten years since I became a writer.  Yep. Ten. At the time I didn't consider myself an actual writer. I saw myself as a wannabe. In fact my first stab at blogging had the word wannabe in the title. I soon gave up that blog, as well as using such a belittling word to describe something I'd started to take pretty seriously. But tak...