Jaque Thay's Blog, page 2

Cleaning up behind the scenes

Depending on how and where you view my blog you might not have been able to see all my posts recently. Part of that is my fault, part of that falls on the backend of the website. Suffice to say I think I've now sorted out the problem so all my posts should appear in all the right places at all the right times.

Glee

Once in a while I like to get out of the house and away from work. Last night was one of those times. A friend picked up some last minute tickets  to the opening night of Cardiff's Comedy Festival at the Glee Club featuring compere Matt Price, Wes Packer – who won So You Think You're Funny 2006, local funnyman Johnny Disco, and Ardal O'Hanlon (who should be familiar to anyone with watching Irish priests on TV in the  90s).

It's been… ooh, at least a year since I've been to the Glee club. The last time I went wasn't brilliant; the night before I'd gone to see a local band play and the sound system had been incorrectly set up – the result: one perforated eardrum. Needless to say, being incapable of hearing the comedians hardly made them stick in my mind. At least this time I can remember who they are and what their sets were about.

Of them all, I think Johnny Disco was my favourite. There was something about his slightly panicked, manic persona that appealed to me. If he performs another set sometime in the near future then I might go see it.

EDIT: I've written a better review of the night on the Sprout for anyone who wants to know more about who said what.

Don't like Facebook? On the plus side, there's Google

That's right folks, I managed to blag an early invite to Google+. What's it like so far? Empty is one word that comes to mind. The figures I've heard vary enormously but there are somewhere between 10,000 and 1million users right now – but very few people know each other on here yet.

What are my first impressions then? Well, it has a nice clean interface – none of the clutter that Facebook brings, and circles are an interesting feature. I don't think I'm getting the full value of them with only 9 contacts though. There are a lot of features that I think should have been included right from the start; people keep telling me not to expect so much and that G+ is only a beta for what is to come, still, I can't help but feel that like with Google Wave it's a nice product but it doesn't do anything useful yet. Google have had years at this point to develop an industry beater, yet they've launched with so few features (there's no support for businesses or brands, starting a conversation with people on their wall or real-time chat) that they effectively have a pretty website and some circles. I expect this to change, but it certainly doesn't have the wow factor that I'm used to seeing with a Google roll-out.

It doesn't help that I'm not sure what to use Plus for; on the one hand I could use it as a second location to broadcast my twictions, on the other that might take away some of the appeal that made them popular in the first place. That leaves it trying to fill the niche that Facebook currently takes; a place where I can keep in contact with friends and acquaintances – and frankly, right now, Facebook does it better.

Things will likely change over the next few months, and I'd like to think that I'll be made to eat my words, but right now I'm not that impressed.

"Find me on Facebook" or… "Plus me?" We're going to need a better phrase for that…

The years fly by so fast!

It's quite strange thinking that a year ago today my first book was published. Since then a second one has been released and there's a third well on the way.

Not a great deal has changed – it hasn't brought me instant fame or fortune, but I have met a lot more authors and writers and book signings are becomings pretty normal occurances for me now.

As they say though, onwards and upwards. Depending on what the guys at Deadstar say I might be able to show you the cover for Twictions 2 before too long.

Congratulations to Deadstar Publishing

I often do a spot of on-the-side work for Deadstar Publishing so I was among the first to hear that they've managed to acquire Welsh literary imprint Leaf Books Ltd. As it wasn't public knowledge when they told me I agreed to hold off but now that they've announced it to the world it should be fine for me to tell you.

To all the folks involved: well done and good luck.

Upcoming Creative Writing Workshop

If you've checked my appearances page recently then you'll be aware that a proposal I put in to the Sprout before Christmas has been picked up and I will soon be running a creative writing workshop for 11-25 year olds in Cardiff Central Library. To start off with this is just a one-off, but if it goes well they are considering having me run them on a more regular basis.

As well as going over the basics of short story writing, people who attend will be able to fill out a form to get an OCN level 1 qualification in Creative Writing. I'm not sure on attendence numbers at this stage but I think there should be a good turnout. To find out more about it (and anything that comes after it) check out this page.

Deadstar Publishing is one year old too

You might remember a month ago I posted that it was the first anniversary of my starting post a new twiction every day (if you still don't know about it, where've you been!) well now my publisher, Deadstar Publishing, is officially a year old too. In reality they're a little older than that because they'd accepted my book more than a year ago but today marks the anniversary of them officially forming and having a name and finances and all that other fun stuff.

They're having a big celebration on their Facebook page at the moment, and as a bonus they're offering a 25% discount on anything bought through their store today. If you've been meaning to get my book, now's the time to do it!

It's fascinating thinking about how fast they've progressed. In just a year they've now published three books and a graphic novel, have become a growing name on the publishing scene and are planning to release a full-length novel early next month. Added to this, there are three monthly comic book titles on the way. Exciting times!

Cliché title about being busy

Lets face it, when am I not busy with one thing or another? These past few weeks though I've been particularly rushed off my feet. The last event in this period happens tomorrow with my book signing at Forbidden Planet Cardiff. After that I think I'm entitled to a well deserved break.

London is fun!

And huge. I should mention huge.

You might have guessed, I was in London this weekend. The original plan involved a signing at one of the Waterstones stores near Oxford Street but that fell through a while ago. Instead I used the weekend as a vacation of sorts. Admittedly it wasn't a vacation in the typical sense of "time off work" as I brought the work with me, but it was time away from the office.

There were three of us, Sam, Hannah and myself and we did all the usual touristy things; walking around museums and sightseeing. Normally when we go to London we'll hit Camden Market and spend a day wandering through boutiques and arcades. This time we fancied a change so we tried Portobello Road instead.  For the girls it was great; pretty much every second shop sold antique jewellery or vanity items… I was a little bit bored.

We also took in the National Museum and the British History Museum (at least I think we did, there are so many similarly named places around London that it's hard to be sure) but for me, the highlight of the weekend was going to the London Cartoon Museum. The exhibition there dealt with the history of comics right from their very origins to modern day, and featured original works by such a huge variety of people that I couldn't begin to name them all. I really recommend it for anybody who's interested in the medium.

Know what was best though? I finally managed to find a copy of Scott McCloud's Making Comics. I've been after a copy of this for a long, long time, but keep forgetting it. Once I've read through it I'll post a review and let everyone know what I thought. That's it for now – I may have taken some of my work with me, but now that I'm home again I have even more to catch up on!

One year!

Can you believe it? I've now posted a different short story on Twitter every day for the past 365 days! Since I started that I've had two books published – one of those a compilation of my best twictions before September 2010. A second compilation is due out in the near future covering even more of my 140 letter stories. Before long you will be able to pre-order that from Deadstar Publishing's recently revamped website.

I've got no intention of stopping either; I'm still bursting with ideas and if you keep buying books then I will keep writing stories.