H.O. Charles's Blog, page 14
May 5, 2012
May 2, 2012
Muse Day today!
Sometime in the misty depths of 1999, a friend gave me a bootlegged cassette of Muse's Showbiz*. I loved it. I must have played it thousands of times. I went to see them play live the following year at a music festival, when they were consigned to a small tent and the Mancunian TV-destroyers (Oasis) were on the main stage. Muse were awesome. And when Origin of Symmetry came out, I obsessed over that for a long while. What a little goth I was!
Anyway, if you like your tunes with lots of depth, a touch of hammy over-drama and hints of Rachmaninov, these are your guys. I find it hard to select my favourite track as it changes with my mood, but this is one of the top ones:
*And yes, I did later buy a legitimate copy!
Anyway, if you like your tunes with lots of depth, a touch of hammy over-drama and hints of Rachmaninov, these are your guys. I find it hard to select my favourite track as it changes with my mood, but this is one of the top ones:
*And yes, I did later buy a legitimate copy!
April 30, 2012
Badly behaving authors
They're out there! Hopefully not in here...
A new group has been set up on Goodreads, designed to name and shame naughty authors. I think such groups are a GOOD THING. Poor behaviour gives indie authors a terrible reputation, and that makes me sad. I hope that the BBA group on Goodreads will work as a sort of clean up operation, and hopefully becomes renowned enough for new authors to hear about it and learn from the mistakes of others.
If you've ever had an author write abrasive comments all over your reviews, had fans descend upon you for disliking their hero's work or discovered that an author is writing their own 5-star reviews you can now have a moan about it.
The group is here
A new group has been set up on Goodreads, designed to name and shame naughty authors. I think such groups are a GOOD THING. Poor behaviour gives indie authors a terrible reputation, and that makes me sad. I hope that the BBA group on Goodreads will work as a sort of clean up operation, and hopefully becomes renowned enough for new authors to hear about it and learn from the mistakes of others.
If you've ever had an author write abrasive comments all over your reviews, had fans descend upon you for disliking their hero's work or discovered that an author is writing their own 5-star reviews you can now have a moan about it.
The group is here
April 27, 2012
Big thanks
To all those who've taken the time to write reviews... as well as reading the book! It's very encouraging, and it makes me write faster! Keep them coming :-D
I've added a 'contact' link to this blog so, if you ever wish to email me, you can.
Still no word on whether B&N or iTunes are going to post AoB to their sites any time soon. I've prodded the various parties involved, but we'll have to see if it produces a reaction.
I've added a 'contact' link to this blog so, if you ever wish to email me, you can.
Still no word on whether B&N or iTunes are going to post AoB to their sites any time soon. I've prodded the various parties involved, but we'll have to see if it produces a reaction.
April 16, 2012
Word clouds for the novels
You can 'word cloud' anything on the web, including whole novels! There is a surprising absence of fire! Some heavy usage of the words 'one' and 'man', but it seems this is very common in fiction: http://www.brainwavez.org/books/featu...
City
Nation
Anomaly
Snowlands
Images produced at wordle.net
City
Nation
Anomaly
Snowlands
Images produced at wordle.net
April 14, 2012
Volume Four of The Fireblade Array
Vol. 4 is currently under construction! 4,000 words in so far...
Smashwords shipped Anomaly (Vol 3) to iTunes last week, but there's still no sign of it on that platform... I'm hoping that the people who run iBooks are a little delayed because they're all reading and enjoying it(!) Should be just a few more days before it turns up there. It's now been sent to all of the other distributors, so you should see it on those sites very soon.
Update - Anomaly seems to have fallen into an anomalous black hole of listings! It's being re-sent to the various distributors this evening (20th April). I have my fingers crossed it'll show up THIS TIME. Bah!
Smashwords shipped Anomaly (Vol 3) to iTunes last week, but there's still no sign of it on that platform... I'm hoping that the people who run iBooks are a little delayed because they're all reading and enjoying it(!) Should be just a few more days before it turns up there. It's now been sent to all of the other distributors, so you should see it on those sites very soon.
Update - Anomaly seems to have fallen into an anomalous black hole of listings! It's being re-sent to the various distributors this evening (20th April). I have my fingers crossed it'll show up THIS TIME. Bah!
April 11, 2012
I have created a new T-shirt design...
...that may cheer up all those authors who occasionally get poor reviews:
April 4, 2012
Finally! Book 3 is on its way to other distributors
After ten days of doing other things, one of the Smashwords people got back to me with a curt, "Thank you for your emails." I imagine that she really meant, "Sod off and stop bothering us." Anyway, she also said that Anomaly was on its way to iTunes, B&N, Kobo, Diesel and Sony. With luck, it should turn up in those portals by the end of the week.
I thank you all for your patience!
I thank you all for your patience!
March 30, 2012
English accents in Fantasy
Interesting thing on the BBC today about English (or British if you include the Welsh and the Scottish) accents in fantasy.
I cannot help but write in an English accent with all its slang, but I wonder if readers abroad read it that way? I've always thought of the other accents in The Fireblade Array world as sounding Italian, French, Japanese or Russian, but strangely never North American or Australian.
Silly really, since Aussie came from the estuarine/East London accent, and (broadly speaking) North American accents aren't far-removed from Western Irish and old English. So, rather than asking "Why British?", why is it that TV adaptations or films on fantasy tend to avoid North American, Aussie and South African accents? Is it some deep-seated association with colonies? Is it to do with our view on mediaeval history and who was in it?
I think it just goes to show that no imaginary world is understood in isolation from our own perspectives on this one. This is hardly a new observation, but I suppose it can actually offer film makers and writers greater freedom in playing with some existing cultural assumptions. I have to agree that it's good to see English accents not reserved solely for 'the bad guy'! And it's a nice way of illustrating distance or social boundaries by using existing parallels, e.g. having Yorkshire accents vs southern.
I cannot help but write in an English accent with all its slang, but I wonder if readers abroad read it that way? I've always thought of the other accents in The Fireblade Array world as sounding Italian, French, Japanese or Russian, but strangely never North American or Australian.
Silly really, since Aussie came from the estuarine/East London accent, and (broadly speaking) North American accents aren't far-removed from Western Irish and old English. So, rather than asking "Why British?", why is it that TV adaptations or films on fantasy tend to avoid North American, Aussie and South African accents? Is it some deep-seated association with colonies? Is it to do with our view on mediaeval history and who was in it?
I think it just goes to show that no imaginary world is understood in isolation from our own perspectives on this one. This is hardly a new observation, but I suppose it can actually offer film makers and writers greater freedom in playing with some existing cultural assumptions. I have to agree that it's good to see English accents not reserved solely for 'the bad guy'! And it's a nice way of illustrating distance or social boundaries by using existing parallels, e.g. having Yorkshire accents vs southern.
March 29, 2012
Still waiting for Anomaly to check into other distributors.
I'm just as impatient as anyone else to see that AoB makes it into iTunes, Kobo and B&N as soon as possible! Everything with the book is set to be shipped, so I don't know what the hold up is. It will turn up there eventually, I promise!
Started work on Volume 4, which I know will be the most passionate of the series... Really looking forward to getting my teeth into the plot. Think I might be addicted to this writing thing!
Started work on Volume 4, which I know will be the most passionate of the series... Really looking forward to getting my teeth into the plot. Think I might be addicted to this writing thing!
