Bryan Islip's Blog, page 37
March 23, 2012
Sometimes an otter smiles
I took this photo last evening from the garden. You probably won't see anything special about it, for I have painted and posted this kind of sunset scene before. But believe it or not this is my poor attenpt at wildlife photography! See that sort of vague disturbance central in the otherwise placid waters of Loch Ewe? No, not the riffle of breeze slightly left of centre or the line of three buoys you might just be able to make out. Come down a bit. That is an otter on the hunt for her / her supper.This has been a long winter. Not a cold one for temperatures seldom fell below freezing but with long spells of wind and rain. Today you could be forgiven for believing that Spring has arrived. I wrote (in my poem 'A Gairloch Morning') that 'This place smiles not, shows not herself / So often, nor to everyone.' But when she does smile you have to wonder if there is anywhwere on this earth that you would rather be.
Even Mr or Mrs otter seemed to be smiling when it surfaced between dives. We watched it move from right to left, perhaps half a minute to a minute from one loop-tailed dive to the next explosive surfacing. He or she often rolled in its back, four feet in the air. We knew it wasn't catching anything for it didn't stay up for long enough to eat. No, the rolling and general exubrance was all symptomatic of that good old joie de vivre, plain and simple. And why not. On an evening like this we all can smile.
I know our friend Eoghain Maclean, who is a wildlife photographer, and a very good one, is looking for otter pics. Already we are planning and working on the content of our 2014 wildlife photos and landscape paintings calendar. Wish you were here, Eoghain!
March 22, 2012
Sometimes an otter smiles
I took this photo last evening from the garden. You probably won't see anything special about it, for I have painted and posted this kind of sunset scene before. But believe it or not this is my poor...
Visit http://www.bryanislipauthor.com to read more about Bryan's writing
Visit http://www.bryanislipauthor.com to read more about Bryan's writing
The novel - what's it for?
Early on in my career as an industrial marketeer (packaging) I was sent to the USA for an extensive course in that most American of business fine arts - that of SELLING. What had been a pretty not to be boasted about way to make a living in England had been elevated there, so it seemed, to a status somewhere between high priest and mover of the earth.
The first thing you were taught and that reverberated as a constant backgound throughout your two weeks of intensive indoctrination was - FEATURES AND BENEFITS. Features were what a thing (that you were trying to sell) actually was. Benefits were the answer to that potential buyer question: what will it do for me? Nobody, they said, buys anything for what it is. They buy it only for what it does, and does for me.
A novel is a finite number of machine typed words set on turnable paper pages bound together to make a compendium (book) size X x Y x Z and with a front cover bearing cover art and title and author name plus a rear cover telling something about the story within: price, name of publisher and so on.. That's what it is. My American tutor would now say, 'So what? What does it actually do for me? If you want me to pay you some of my hard earned money for it, tell me what it will do for me.'
Reviewers of the novel will often try to tell you what the book is - is about, how well or badly written etc - but they seldom venture into the more esoteric territory of what it will do for you. As I am presently busy trying to market my own fiction I've been trying to think benefits. I would suggest some of the following ...
Reading the novel can flex your secret emotions, (very healthy in this less emotional era of ours).It can teach you things about life, your life. For as Hemingway wrote, truly written a work of fiction can be - should be - truer than the truth.It can temporarily transport you away from the mundane, the futile, the stressful and enable you to 'live' for a while in a safer, better or more exciting place. If it is good enough it can and will UPLIFT you.Of course, for an author to expound the virtuous benefits of his/her work in those terms would probably be counter-productive. Nobody believes a self-eggrandiser. So how to sell my books? I cannot but others can and maybe one day will.
There are those who tell you, often with some pride, that 'I never read novels, only non-fiction books'. I have even heard some on TV actually boating that they have never read a book - any book - in their lives! Two footballers come to mind, messrs Shearer and Redknap senior. For me, these gentlemen might as well have been born and be living with some sad disability. Sad.
The first thing you were taught and that reverberated as a constant backgound throughout your two weeks of intensive indoctrination was - FEATURES AND BENEFITS. Features were what a thing (that you were trying to sell) actually was. Benefits were the answer to that potential buyer question: what will it do for me? Nobody, they said, buys anything for what it is. They buy it only for what it does, and does for me.
A novel is a finite number of machine typed words set on turnable paper pages bound together to make a compendium (book) size X x Y x Z and with a front cover bearing cover art and title and author name plus a rear cover telling something about the story within: price, name of publisher and so on.. That's what it is. My American tutor would now say, 'So what? What does it actually do for me? If you want me to pay you some of my hard earned money for it, tell me what it will do for me.'
Reviewers of the novel will often try to tell you what the book is - is about, how well or badly written etc - but they seldom venture into the more esoteric territory of what it will do for you. As I am presently busy trying to market my own fiction I've been trying to think benefits. I would suggest some of the following ...
Reading the novel can flex your secret emotions, (very healthy in this less emotional era of ours).It can teach you things about life, your life. For as Hemingway wrote, truly written a work of fiction can be - should be - truer than the truth.It can temporarily transport you away from the mundane, the futile, the stressful and enable you to 'live' for a while in a safer, better or more exciting place. If it is good enough it can and will UPLIFT you.Of course, for an author to expound the virtuous benefits of his/her work in those terms would probably be counter-productive. Nobody believes a self-eggrandiser. So how to sell my books? I cannot but others can and maybe one day will.
There are those who tell you, often with some pride, that 'I never read novels, only non-fiction books'. I have even heard some on TV actually boating that they have never read a book - any book - in their lives! Two footballers come to mind, messrs Shearer and Redknap senior. For me, these gentlemen might as well have been born and be living with some sad disability. Sad.
March 19, 2012
Four books
Read any good books lately?Mine are now all in e-book form as well as paperback
The manager of a Waterstones told me fiction is all going e-book, non-fiction is still largely staying p-book. If you can't beat 'em join 'em!
No good me telling you how great a read they are, but if you buy one and don't find it top value I'll do two laps of the equator and then have a go at swimming up Niagra.
March 14, 2012
Eden Camp and Camp David
We spent a whole morning at Eden Camp near Moulton in Yorkshire. Odd thing to do on holiday you may well be thinking, because Eden Camp is a very comprehensive world war two museum within some 24 old huts where Italian prisoners of war were housed.
These numbered huts constitute an excursion through all the phases of that awful episode in our never less than turbulent history. The growth and full fruition of naziism, food and clothes and petrol rationing, the accelerated technology of killing machinery in the air and on the ground and sailing the seas. And of course the consequent death and destruction and the disruption of so many millions of innocent lives (plus those not so innocent.) Definitely, you will think, not the right tone and tenor for holiday viewing.
You would be wrong! Now, I am old enough to be able to recall - however vaguely - those so-called dark days of wartime. In my memory and reflected at Eden Camp there was much laughter, much singing of uplifting songs, a great deal of help-thy-neighbour and a near invisibility of the latterday get-rich-quick syndrome. I think it is that we had something that everybody knew was worth fighting and if necessary dying for - and against.
My outstanding memory of Eden Camp is of hut 6 - 'The Music Hall' where you could sing along with Vera Lynn with all the wartime songs. 'Run Rabbit Run,' 'We'll Meet Again', etc. The place was packed with small schoolchildren singing along with good old Vera! They must have been pre-taught the tunes and the words. Although there was a puppet show to conduct them and kareoki style words on the wall ... they must have been taught ... just brilliant.
You have to hope the children of all nationalities have learned the lessons of history although I have to doubt it. There are two men, unborn in WW2, in a huddle over there in the States right now, and guess what they are contemplating?
These numbered huts constitute an excursion through all the phases of that awful episode in our never less than turbulent history. The growth and full fruition of naziism, food and clothes and petrol rationing, the accelerated technology of killing machinery in the air and on the ground and sailing the seas. And of course the consequent death and destruction and the disruption of so many millions of innocent lives (plus those not so innocent.) Definitely, you will think, not the right tone and tenor for holiday viewing.
You would be wrong! Now, I am old enough to be able to recall - however vaguely - those so-called dark days of wartime. In my memory and reflected at Eden Camp there was much laughter, much singing of uplifting songs, a great deal of help-thy-neighbour and a near invisibility of the latterday get-rich-quick syndrome. I think it is that we had something that everybody knew was worth fighting and if necessary dying for - and against.
My outstanding memory of Eden Camp is of hut 6 - 'The Music Hall' where you could sing along with Vera Lynn with all the wartime songs. 'Run Rabbit Run,' 'We'll Meet Again', etc. The place was packed with small schoolchildren singing along with good old Vera! They must have been pre-taught the tunes and the words. Although there was a puppet show to conduct them and kareoki style words on the wall ... they must have been taught ... just brilliant.
You have to hope the children of all nationalities have learned the lessons of history although I have to doubt it. There are two men, unborn in WW2, in a huddle over there in the States right now, and guess what they are contemplating?
March 12, 2012
A brief Yorkshire holiday
We've just spent a few days holiday down on the Yorkshire coast. Wonderful. So much to do and to see, pubs with good music and Man Utd in action, small but perfectly formed hotel close by Scarborough seafront. 'The Raincliffe' is one to visit and visit again. Katherine is the perfect hostess, always with time to chat, nothing too much trouble, unstinted Yorkshire breakfast (for those who need all that), confortable room with en suite, TV et al. Whilst we were there it didn't even rain on The Raincliffe!
We took a long walk along the sea front past the harbour and Marine Drive. Some of the shops and cafes were already open although of course the proper holiday season had not yet started up. We live overlooking the sea - or at least sea loch Ewe - but there's something about looking out over the limitless North Sea. We also have lots of seabirds here but there's something about watching the early nesters wheeling and sitting up there on Scasrborough's imposing, castle topped cliffs.
Takes you back to your childhood if you're anything like our age. The excitement as you piled into the car or on the train. 'Sixpence for the first one to see the sea' we always declared. That is of course before everyone jumped on an airplane heading for sunny Spain. Why? The heat? Well personally I can't see that, having lived for long month after never ending month in countries where the sky was never anything but blue, where there was little or no no green to the land, where you felt it difficult to continue working or doing anything much but siesta-ing after mid-day.
Whitby we enjoyed tremendously; had a memorable lunch there. Dover sole simply exquisite for me, fresh from the ocean dressed crab for Dee. We walked up the pier to talk with the fishermen because that's what I myself would have been doing (casting my bait out from the harbour wall) when I was much younger and the boys were very young. How vivid the memories; thrill of massive big seas rearing up to dowse us all as they hit the wall, the beauty of a wide-mouthed codling, all fabulous green and browns and silver whites, being reeled up for passing strangers to admire, fingers freezing cold as you put several fat mussels on your hook, tied them on with elastic thread.
Then we went to Filey and to Bridlington and inland to Moulton and that simply marvellous WW2 museum called Eden Camp ... but that's for another day.
We took a long walk along the sea front past the harbour and Marine Drive. Some of the shops and cafes were already open although of course the proper holiday season had not yet started up. We live overlooking the sea - or at least sea loch Ewe - but there's something about looking out over the limitless North Sea. We also have lots of seabirds here but there's something about watching the early nesters wheeling and sitting up there on Scasrborough's imposing, castle topped cliffs.
Takes you back to your childhood if you're anything like our age. The excitement as you piled into the car or on the train. 'Sixpence for the first one to see the sea' we always declared. That is of course before everyone jumped on an airplane heading for sunny Spain. Why? The heat? Well personally I can't see that, having lived for long month after never ending month in countries where the sky was never anything but blue, where there was little or no no green to the land, where you felt it difficult to continue working or doing anything much but siesta-ing after mid-day.
Whitby we enjoyed tremendously; had a memorable lunch there. Dover sole simply exquisite for me, fresh from the ocean dressed crab for Dee. We walked up the pier to talk with the fishermen because that's what I myself would have been doing (casting my bait out from the harbour wall) when I was much younger and the boys were very young. How vivid the memories; thrill of massive big seas rearing up to dowse us all as they hit the wall, the beauty of a wide-mouthed codling, all fabulous green and browns and silver whites, being reeled up for passing strangers to admire, fingers freezing cold as you put several fat mussels on your hook, tied them on with elastic thread.
Then we went to Filey and to Bridlington and inland to Moulton and that simply marvellous WW2 museum called Eden Camp ... but that's for another day.
March 6, 2012
Books not paper
I'm now numbered amongst the millions who go nowhere without their Kindle. The device is so easy to use, so innocuous a travelling companion, so, well, valuable. For me it's one of the brightest stars of this digital age, a perfect bridge between what was in the way of life-enhancing literature and whatever the hell is to come. I'm sure that many people will be doing more reading and less of the pointless timespend things than ever they used to.
But what of my initial choices - all of Hemingway's short fiction and a thriller high on Amazon's bestseller list? The Hemingway is a re-read (latest of many) and perfect as always for dipping into and out. The thriller is bollocks - a total wate of $2.99. Badly written, formulaic, just a nasty tale with liberal and gratuitous doses of the old S&P. Read five pages, binned it.
I've bought Roth's 'Everyman' instead and am well into it. As always with Mr Roth it's nicely composed, no holds barred, "an everday story of NY Jewish folk" (apologies to The Archers). Good.
But what of my initial choices - all of Hemingway's short fiction and a thriller high on Amazon's bestseller list? The Hemingway is a re-read (latest of many) and perfect as always for dipping into and out. The thriller is bollocks - a total wate of $2.99. Badly written, formulaic, just a nasty tale with liberal and gratuitous doses of the old S&P. Read five pages, binned it.
I've bought Roth's 'Everyman' instead and am well into it. As always with Mr Roth it's nicely composed, no holds barred, "an everday story of NY Jewish folk" (apologies to The Archers). Good.
March 5, 2012
What in truth lies ahead
In association with Sony, The Guardian newspaper has launched a short story competition. Not much new about that, you're thinking, but this one is different. Very challenging. They ask you to write a story of not more than 3000 words set in year 2025. The story will be judged as a fictional story i.e. with a beginning, a middle and an ending and peopled with characters who really resonate with the reader. As in all good stories, you have to care about them. But the story must indicate, alsost as an incidental, how life will really be 13 years hence. Of course in the opinion of the writer, but we all are futurists if you think about it. Who is there who hasn't got a view about what lies ahead - especially if they have children / grandchildren?
I may or may not enter but as a pre-exercise I wrote down some thoughts about the shape of a future UK society. Not sure if all of the following will happen in as short a timescale as the next 13 years. Of course, I cannot be sure of anything that hasn't already happened. As someone pointed out, even the sun one day will not rise....
Local community on the road to self-sufficiency. Stock dealing, commodities dealing, newspaper writing, art works and photography, all work that can be done from home and incidental tourism provide the income. Own build own run community school with long range advanced tutorials, own build cottage hospital with long range diagnostics, total waste re-cycling and out-sale, local shop targeting 50% locally made / grown general stores. Mobile shop offers house to house fresh produce (meat, fish, fruit and veg). Mobile cinema. Own build own run village bank (local tokens only - see 11) Own area energy supply generated publically (hydro and wind and tidal) and privately (all new houses have rooftop wind turbines and solar panels).All houses except those for the elderly have to produce an allocation of foodstuffs via livestock and/or cultivation.Council rotates monthly. All are called for duty. Local issues raised on-screen anonymously including this month's chairperson decided by anonymous electronic vote in the hall. Westminster has closed its doors after the riots and major damage. New constitution for England (only) based in Manchester with one representative per county. (60 counties in the list up to 1961). Similar for Wales. Similar for independent Scotland. Party system discarded with the new constitution. National issues including election of no-party-less individual representatives voted en bloc by majority vote of the village council - like union vote for some party leadership today. Few can afford to operate private motorcars. Most are in store. Motorised bicycles and all-weather clothing are the norm. Public minibus on 12 hour local circuit and long-range bus on constant shuttle, paid for and running cost paid by the community. Ascertain availability by continuous on-line position and heading. International air transport for the very wealthy only.International radio and TV on free offer, only e-newspapers, (no newspapers) and a thriving used paper books exchange in the village hall topped up by exchange with other similar communities.Payment locally by cash or local work-token. Payment to outside by barter or e-cash.In other words the small, largely self-run village has re-emerged as the way to go. That's what I think, anyway.
I may or may not enter but as a pre-exercise I wrote down some thoughts about the shape of a future UK society. Not sure if all of the following will happen in as short a timescale as the next 13 years. Of course, I cannot be sure of anything that hasn't already happened. As someone pointed out, even the sun one day will not rise....
Local community on the road to self-sufficiency. Stock dealing, commodities dealing, newspaper writing, art works and photography, all work that can be done from home and incidental tourism provide the income. Own build own run community school with long range advanced tutorials, own build cottage hospital with long range diagnostics, total waste re-cycling and out-sale, local shop targeting 50% locally made / grown general stores. Mobile shop offers house to house fresh produce (meat, fish, fruit and veg). Mobile cinema. Own build own run village bank (local tokens only - see 11) Own area energy supply generated publically (hydro and wind and tidal) and privately (all new houses have rooftop wind turbines and solar panels).All houses except those for the elderly have to produce an allocation of foodstuffs via livestock and/or cultivation.Council rotates monthly. All are called for duty. Local issues raised on-screen anonymously including this month's chairperson decided by anonymous electronic vote in the hall. Westminster has closed its doors after the riots and major damage. New constitution for England (only) based in Manchester with one representative per county. (60 counties in the list up to 1961). Similar for Wales. Similar for independent Scotland. Party system discarded with the new constitution. National issues including election of no-party-less individual representatives voted en bloc by majority vote of the village council - like union vote for some party leadership today. Few can afford to operate private motorcars. Most are in store. Motorised bicycles and all-weather clothing are the norm. Public minibus on 12 hour local circuit and long-range bus on constant shuttle, paid for and running cost paid by the community. Ascertain availability by continuous on-line position and heading. International air transport for the very wealthy only.International radio and TV on free offer, only e-newspapers, (no newspapers) and a thriving used paper books exchange in the village hall topped up by exchange with other similar communities.Payment locally by cash or local work-token. Payment to outside by barter or e-cash.In other words the small, largely self-run village has re-emerged as the way to go. That's what I think, anyway.
March 4, 2012
And now for somethig different
It's very early to be out there selling calendars for year 2013 but that's what I was doing Thursday and Friday last week.
Of course after spending an inordinate amount of creative and admin time in getting this thing all up together for yourself and business partners Eoghain & Susan Maclean you could be forgiven for holding your breath a touch when unveiling the finished masterpiece in front of hard nosed shopkeepers, whether new to you or not. But I had no need to worry. This 'Unique Picturebook Scottish Highlands Landscape and Wildlife Calendar 2013' was received better by some way than any product I have shown around the shops of Wester-Ross since Pictures and Poems came into being in 2004.
How very important it is, these days, to be able to offer the great buying public something not only of as high a quality as anything else, or better, but something that's visibly different; so that those who choose to hang it on their kitchen wall (or in this case, living room wall) experience a different and more rewarding journey through the whole of those twelve long months of their lives to come. £8.50 or $13.50 plus postage must be good value,
It's the combination of painting and photography, of the land and the life and the little accompanying stories to each painting or photograph. There's nothing like this calendar out there. That's why the comparison with hot cakes is for once an apt one.
Of course after spending an inordinate amount of creative and admin time in getting this thing all up together for yourself and business partners Eoghain & Susan Maclean you could be forgiven for holding your breath a touch when unveiling the finished masterpiece in front of hard nosed shopkeepers, whether new to you or not. But I had no need to worry. This 'Unique Picturebook Scottish Highlands Landscape and Wildlife Calendar 2013' was received better by some way than any product I have shown around the shops of Wester-Ross since Pictures and Poems came into being in 2004.
How very important it is, these days, to be able to offer the great buying public something not only of as high a quality as anything else, or better, but something that's visibly different; so that those who choose to hang it on their kitchen wall (or in this case, living room wall) experience a different and more rewarding journey through the whole of those twelve long months of their lives to come. £8.50 or $13.50 plus postage must be good value,
It's the combination of painting and photography, of the land and the life and the little accompanying stories to each painting or photograph. There's nothing like this calendar out there. That's why the comparison with hot cakes is for once an apt one.
February 29, 2012
Books and Stories
I've just ordered my first 'e-books' on my new Kindle (present from Herself). What books? The complete short stories of Ernest Hemingway (£8 odd - saving of £12 v the paper book) and a thriller by an unknown that has risen to number five on Amazon's e-books bestseller list. (£1.99) I'm as excited as a boy with a new toy.
Recently I managed to re-edit and successfully installed my own first novel, 'More Deaths Than One' into the Kindle 'Book Store'. You can read it for a couple of pounds. I'll present my Kindle verdict on here once I've 'used' the thing.
Am I prejudiced one way or the other? No. There are books and there are stories, no longer necessarily the same thing. I love them both.
Meanwhile chapter two of my novel in the making - The Book - has today winged its cybernatic way out to all FOC subscribers on http://www.bryanislipauthor.com . As I've said before, if Charles Dickens could do it a bit at a time - albeit on paper in a monthly magazine - why shouldn't I? A cat can look at a king, right?
Recently I managed to re-edit and successfully installed my own first novel, 'More Deaths Than One' into the Kindle 'Book Store'. You can read it for a couple of pounds. I'll present my Kindle verdict on here once I've 'used' the thing.
Am I prejudiced one way or the other? No. There are books and there are stories, no longer necessarily the same thing. I love them both.
Meanwhile chapter two of my novel in the making - The Book - has today winged its cybernatic way out to all FOC subscribers on http://www.bryanislipauthor.com . As I've said before, if Charles Dickens could do it a bit at a time - albeit on paper in a monthly magazine - why shouldn't I? A cat can look at a king, right?
