R J Askew ~ One Swift Summer

[Patti (baconater)]

R.J. wrote: ".. yess, I see my story on his phone. I'd better be off before he starts to read and demands a refund."

Ron, you crack me up!

Thanks! I needed that!

[R.J.]

BEAT-BEAT-BEATING


This is the verse that slows you down

Down, down, down you go, down you slow

Down of eider duck a-drifting

Softly, softer in this souling

Feel, o feel, o feel, this feeling

Slow so fast you outstrip light-o

In the brillyance of this beauty

Surgent in your spate of yesses

Universing into newness

To perceive creations rampant

Effervescing into versing

Life with all in you conversing

At life's heart beat-beat-beating free

We hear perceive ourselves to be

[R.J.]

Maybe I'll sort these 14 liners into a collection and flog them on amazon. You can watch me do it. Tell me what works and -- more likely -- what doesn't

Title: THE KINDLE SONNETS ?????????????

They are all written. It's just a case of arranging, say about 100 of them. Sweat them a bit. Record. Write some witty blurb. Bingo.

[R.J.]

Nah, that title's no good.

[Gingerlily - The Full Wild]

Here have some of this nice green drink Ron.

(must get more of the absinthe next week)

[R.J.]

Gingerlily (or Cyberlily..) wrote: "Here have some of this nice green drink Ron.

(must get more of the absinthe next week)"

I've refiled it with edting .. AND! wld you believe .. Nurse Green actually features .. and I have a real live Nurse G in mind and furthermore she is a damned fine and talented poet, but very, very shy .. I admire her greatly, too much perhaps. Also, said nurse inspires me. This morning's write flowed sweetly as a result of reading some of her brilliance. But like many genuinely brilliant writers, she is shy to a fault about her stuff. Despite all my coaxing she will not consider putting a collection together. In fact if grieves me deeply to see lesser but louder writers succeeding when she and others like her are overlooked. But that is the way of the world.

[R.J.]

Ach, my wife's book group is STILL yadda, yadda, yaddering away downstairs! Will they never goooo, for gods' sake gooooooooooo?

[R.J.]

Gingerlily (or Cyberlily..) wrote: "Here have some of this nice green drink Ron.

(must get more of the absinthe next week)"

I cld use a yard long meta-spliff, if you cld oblige. One so large it needs a Y shaped stick to bare its gigantic weight of sleep-inducing verb.

[Gingerlily - The Full Wild]

I have one tucked away in my dvd collection. History of the World part 1 I think. . .

[R.J.]

.. strike a light !

[R.J.]

REFILES WITH EDITING)

More to the point, are there any here (kindle) readers for one's sheet (metaphysical zonnets in, mostly, tetrametre)?

It ain't exactly easy on the eye. Maybe you cld just use this place as a shed in which to actually nail it together and then travel back to the 14th century and get some monks to do up a nice illuminated manuscript.

A limited edition might sell. 14 copies at a million quid each. The trick wld be the time travel. The monks cld be squared away with a few carp suppers. And I cld beguile them with 21st century magic, maybe even show them a kindle and an iPhone, make a skype call from the 14th century to report back on progress. Get them to say, 'Hi guys!' Do a piece-to-camera on their life in an abbey.

Getting back to the 21st century with my 14 copies might be tricky, but if I cld get to the 14th in the first place it shouldn't be too bad. I mean I am an experience London commuter with experience of the Jubilee line and Thameslink. So noooo problermo.

And when I got back with my 14 illuminated MSS of my work I wld get them carbon dated to prove that they were a kosher amalgam of 21st verb and 14th century work.

Hell, I live in St.Albans, this should be a doddle as I believe there was a scriptorium in the Abbey here which is just a few hundred yards away.

Yeah, that's the way to scoop the 99cts indie author cage fightistas. Not that I am your rabit competitive manned-up berserker who will do anything to shin up the No.666 devilishly guuud selling amazon lap-dance pole.

I wonder how long it will take the monks to complete the brief? They might need some close editorial management as they will not recongise 21st century English. But then that should be nooooo problermo.

Once I hit them with a few carp suppers and a case or two of Chateau Neuf Du Pape I'm sure they will crank the stuff out like crusaders. Hmmm, I'd better go easy on the CNDP thought, won't get their best work out of them if they have steaming hangovers n shaking hands.

Squaring the Abbot away might be tricky. I guess doing my 14 books will cost him a year's bible supplies. So WTF do I do for the Abbot? The St.Albans abbots were serious players. It might take more than a carp supper or two. Maybe a Beamer wld to the trick. I imagine a Beamer in 14th century England wld prompt a few gasps, even if they are as common as muck middle ego cars in our shiny times.

Yep, that will work.

As to marketing, I wonder if the monks will dig the finer points of branding? Duhhhh, they don't need to! The odd variance in spelling, layout and design will keep legions of over-qualified academics locked in decades of meaningless debaate on marginallia and other brain-numbingly innane minutia for centuries. AND! drive the price up of the individual copies. The absence of fungibility will be a massive USB. Or is it USP? UPS? OFIWFCs!?!

Actually, now that I think about it. A million quid a shot is an absurd price, the total undersell of the millenium. We have to be in the realm of the first BZILLION dollar (or should that be yuan?) piece of art. We are talking prices that even the Scratchi Bros cld not consider in their wildest image action analysis. And -- a stroke of brilliance this! -- let there be an accidental fire in a bar which destroys say 5-6 of the 14 MSS. This wld, of course, squeeze the market for the remainding stock, thus driving the beta-fibbonaci-pricing-coefficient into stochastical paradise i.e. they'd be throwing diamonds THIS BIG! my way.

Yep, I think we are talking about 100 bzillion for the remaining copies. Not that one is money driven, mind. One is a quiet, sensitive, poetic type. *bows*

That said, it wld be worth insuring the 14 and claiming for the fire-loss. The money cld be used to square away the various faces who will doubtless need a bung or two. You know how it is these days.

Item: as to finance this deal, I will have to knock on a few doors amid the faux marble halls of Cannary Wart and get a few IBs to do a little financial engineering and roadshow some tricksy now-y'see-it-now-y'dont derivatives to raise the seed capital needed to tornado the caper into the super mozone. I mean getting back to the 14th century even for a metaphysician of my kidney is not exactly a saunter to the sushi bar. There will be risks.

Actually, it is possible that a better market might be in, say, the 23rd century. Yep, has to be.

So, your 21st century Ver Sir arabesques to the 14th, gets the production work nailed, segues to the 23rd sells the product. Returns to the hear and know. Smirks. Retires to Dorset. Buys a labradoodle. Rents a flat in Covent Garden for weekend use only. And.. And..

Ach, missed her again! NURSE! NURSE GREEN! Oh please don't leave me here like this .. I needs my late night noir (110 percent capitalist cocoa) ..

Things are not all that Rosy or Alice in these cut price Bulgarinan coastal sanatoria for preening paragons of penurious positivism. PTTTH!

[R.J.]

Ach, this is just toooooo much fun. More from the scriptorium this avro. St.albans Abbey will never be the same.

[Patti (baconater)]

Jeez you're random Ron.

I love it!

[R.J.]

Patti (Migrating Coconut) wrote: "Jeez you're random Ron.

I love it!"

Wait till you meet the inimitable Orlando Furioso, who learnt all he knows under the 7" heels of Professor Elga Nerb, Director, of the Zug-based, Insitute For The Harmonisation Of European Poetry. ;)))

[Gingerlily - The Full Wild]

Thats what we should call you - Random Ron!

[R.J.]

Gingerlily (or Cyberlily..) wrote: "Thats what we should call you - Random Ron!"


THE APPEARANCE OF RANDOMNESS EXPLORED


The random clowning is, at least in my case, a reax to the intensity of the control in the short verses.

I've fallen into writing 14-liners in strict tetrametre often with intricatly woven rhyming schemes. The intensity of the control is that of a tightrope walker. Almost all the verses have 122 syllables and 4 syllable titles. As I've been writing like this for I don't know how long, I need the odd (very) kick of the heels and a roll around in the grass every now and again, or I really wld go mad.

If you scroll back through this thread and check out one of the 14 liners you will see that the form is the opposite of random. If you read it a couple of times you will also see - I hope - that the content is far from random also, though it may seem so at first acquaintance. The creative focus in the 14 lines is total. On the face of it they are without passion, but to so conclude wld be an error as the concentration needed to create them is intense and can't be sustained without a passion for it.

The wild free writes are necessary counter-balances to the intent of the 14-liners. The contrast between the free ramblie and the metaphysical form is total.

If you compare the two you will be viewing a state of perfect creative schizophrenia.

Writing verse in form is a fantastic mental exercise. Attuning the mind to the rhytym and meaning of the language is a joy - when it works. When it doesn't... the poet dies. In some, ways the verses may be seen as high-precison word machines. Yet, this is to miss their point. A poet's verses are bits of the poet's life. I don't feel that mine are finished until they have been breathed into live. A poem on a page is a corpse. A poem in the air, betwix lips and ear - is alive. That is what this is all about.

Alas poems are not at their best on a computer screen, and look very flat and sorry on a kindle screen especially.

The fusion of any writer's life with that of our living English is an astonishing experience as our English is such a beautiful being. The life of anyone who writes expands in their creative blooming. Though there may also be moments when a writer feels that his or her life is being drained by it, too.

For me, writing is always an intensely physical which leaves me feeling hungry, and often tired to the point of dizziness.

So, yes, there is randomness in play, but the full picture is far more complex. And simple.

Martial artists practice their forms intensely with absolute discipline with a view to them being second nature when it comes to free fighting which has to flow in an imperceptibly connected way. Perhaps this is true of writing, too.

So, perhaps, we have to write a thousand sonnets in the quest for one seemingly random line of perfect beauty.

Hmm, I needs me a bizkit.

[Marc]

R.J. wrote: "Gingerlily (or Cyberlily..) wrote: "Thats what we should call you - Random Ron!"


THE APPEARANCE OF RANDOMNESS EXPLAINED.

The fusion of any writer's life with that of our living English is an astonishing experience as our English is such a beautiful being. The life of anyone who writes expands in their creative blooming. Though there may also be moments when a writer feels that his or her life is being drained by it, too...."

That

[Marc]

Language is a membrane or a crystal lattice or a spider's web. The process of construction may appear random, but it can produce a work of astonishing symmetries than resonate layer upon layer upon layer of structure and meaning.

When the matrial artist reaches the highest echelons of his art, he no longer has to fight. His adversaries merely look in his eyes and are enlightened as to the inevitable outcome of their defeat and so they withdraw (wordlessly & bloodlessly). The writer has to aspire to texcts that tilt at the same.

[R.J.]

Marc wrote: "Language is a membrane or a crystal lattice or a spider's web. The process of construction may appear random, but it can produce a work of astonishing symmetries than resonate layer upon layer upon..."

Well put glasshopper *bows*

[Patti (baconater)]

Getting deep in here.

Better fire up the sump pump. ;)

[R.J.]

Patti (Migrating Coconut) wrote: "Getting deep in here.

Better fire up the sump pump. ;)"

Arf, arf .. you are right .. writers going on about writerly matters is like listening to garage mechanics going on about spark plugs, essential but ..

[Patti (baconater)]

Oh no. Do please go on.

I'll just sit over here in the corner and discuss learning styles and pedagogy with myself. ;)

[R.J.]

ach, I cain't spell cacoughanny .. an me an ed-dit-tor to

[R.J.]

cacougfanny ?

[R.J.]

kacorphanny ?

[Gingerlily - The Full Wild]

big noise?

[R.J.]

here goes .. this just a writerly jam session .. to amuse myself ..


DEEP IN ST.ALBANS SCRIPTORIUM, 1339

(two monks toiling taking a tea break from illuminating bibles, late one dark late November afternoon. Note: Bishop's Finger is a strong dark ale)

BROTHER JAYDEN: I tweets you not bruv, this guy strolls in, crazy mother, got the biggest kissass carp you've ever see. This big! Carpus mirabilis. S'truth! God's hooks!

BROTHER ROGER: Yeah, yeah. You been at the Bishop's Finger again Brother Jayden?

BJ: Nah bruv, God blind me! THIS! big. Two days to cook..

BR: Pass the gold leaf brother.

BJ: No can do, bruv. Used it on a bit of freelance.

BR: What?!

BJ: N.C.D. gold-leafed out.

BR: Listen, Brother Jayden, when the abbot hears, you're going to end up shovelling his night soil. Or the rood screen, up on the rood screen.

BJ: God's hooks! Bibles, bibles, bibles, bibles, year after year, nothing but 'The sins of Israel and Judah .. Deuteronomy .. reproof of the shepherds'. I tweets you not bruv, that dude man! Was from the twenty-first century, man! Just walks in! What you looking at me like that for bruv?

BR: (rolls eyes heavenwards) Holy Mother, save me from this poor deluded sinner!

BJ: Loook at this freebie the dude laid on me. Signing on fee.

BR: What's that?

BJ: iPhone.

BR: I?

BJ: iPhone. Look. Inter-centurial-internet-con!-nec!- tiv!-it!-eeee! Wanna see?

BR: (gazes at phone, which Jayden has set to a free online porn site) AGGGGGGGGGGGGH! The four-legged-two backed beast! (staggers back) Let me look again.

BJ: Hot babes, frotting the bacon.

BR: (looks over shoulder guiltily) Brother Jayden, let me see, one more glance, so I know what to pray for salvation from. Please.. Thank you.. What is she doing now? Gates of heaven! Ahh, now there's another one! What devilish work be this? Let me see. No, I can't look. Let me see, let me see! They are alive in there! Tiny devils in.. I don't know what..

BJ: Nah bruv, just an iPhone. They all have 'em in the twenty-first century.

BR: Devil's boy you!

BJ: Listen up bruv, I tweets you not, there's a wedge in this for u, you-n-me bruv. We're going to be R I C H bruv.

BR: Rich?

BJ: As earls.

BR: How so?

BJ: The guy, Orlando Furioso, he's this big shot indie author, you know a bike that robe you worked with in France..

BR: What, Geoffrey Chaucer?

BJ: Roger, Roger. My man wants me, us, to do a job for him. God blind me! I swear to you the carp could've swallowed Jonah's freakin' whale like some freakin' abbot's anchovie. This big! As succulent as a virgin's..

BR: Brother Jayden! We are in the abbot's scriptorium, were he to hear a word of this..

BJ: Sorry bruv, as succulent as the abbots pate!

BR: Brother Jayden! (draws closer) Go on.. The riches..

BJ: Orlando Furioso's, like, this crazy author from the twenty-first century. Don't! ask. He wants me, us, to, like, erm, illuminate his oeuvre, make God's light shine from his fundament.

BR: Brother Jayden! Go on.. The riches man, the riches!

BJ: Ten pounds a piece, enough to quit this living hell..

BR: I wish you wouldn't say such things. Go on..

BJ: ..a hundred hides in some sleep shire, sheep! Become sheep barons! Buy a wife, yesssssss Brother Roger, your very own maidenhead to frot. S'truth God send him.

BR: How many books does said authurial palladin crave?

BJ: Fourteen. You do ten. I do four. You being my devil in this device. And you being quicker.

BR: Yet I only get the same as you.

BJ: Yeah but, yeah but, I'm, like, his agent here, K? No me, no deal, no deal no sheep, no wives, no nuffink, K?

BR: K.

BJ: K then. Coolio.

BR: Might one see that cunning piece of devilment again?

BJ: All in good time Brother Roger-the-Roger. I'll let you look after you finish each book, K?

BR: K. When do we start?

BJ: Soon as the abbot goes off to devastate France with the king. K,we'll be behind with the bible quota when he gets back, but that won't matter as we'll soon be R I C H enough to naff off, K?

BR: Our vows? You saw what befell Brother Kyle when he tried to leave for his lady-of-St-Albans-town. Ordeal by torture. You helped me heap the weights on him until he..

BJ: S'why we've got to get out of this place bruv. It's crshing us.

BR: Speak for yourself. I'm up for spicer when Brother Ferkin dies.

BJ: Do you want to see the four-legged-two-backed beast again or not? I take it that's a yes. Good! Don't look so worried, Orlando of the future will square the abbot away with a series 7 Beamer. All will be well, we're going to be R I C H, rich as earls. Morphic reasonance, bruv. Right here, right now, sweet dreames are made of this, it's a beautiful day bruv!

(more anon)

[R.J.]

Orlando Furioso *bows*

(The Frenzy of Orlando, more literally Mad Orlando; in Italian furioso is seldom capitalized) is an Italian epic poem by Ludovico Ariosto which has exerted a wide influence on later culture. The earliest version appeared in 1516, although the poem was not published in its complete form until 1532. Orlando Furioso is a continuation of Matteo Maria Boiardo's unfinished romance Orlando Innamorato ("Orlando in Love", published posthumously in 1495). The action takes place against the background of the war between Charlemagne's Christian paladins and the Saracen army that is attempting to invade Europe. Ariosto has little concern for historical or geographical accuracy, and the poem wanders at will from Japan to the Hebrides, as well as including many fantastical and magical elements (such as a trip to the moon, and an array of fantastical creatures including a gigantic sea monster called the orc, and the hippogriff). Many themes are interwoven in its complicated episodic structure, but the most important plot is the paladin Orlando's unrequited love for the pagan princess Angelica, which develops into the madness of the title. After this comes the love between the female Christian warrior Bradamante and the Saracen Ruggiero, who are supposed to be the ancestors of Ariosto's patrons, the d'Este family of Ferrara.[1]

The poem is divided into forty-six cantos, each containing a variable number of eight-line stanzas in ottava rima (a rhyme scheme of abababcc). Ottava rima had been used in previous Italian romantic epics, including Luigi Pulci's Morgante and Boiardo's Orlando Innamorato. Ariosto's work is 38,736 lines long in total, making it one of the longest poems in European literature.[2]

[R.J.]

38,736 lines of verse! RE-SEPECT! to the GREAT Ludovico.

Hell, if he had a FB page I wld LIKE it.

Lord, how shallow the times.

[Patti (baconater)]

Yep, you're pretty awesome, you are.

[R.J.]

.. have just advised a successful London lawyer at the top of his game to load these books onto his Kindle ..

1)Waterland ~ Graham Swift
2)Brazzaville Beach ~ William Boyd
3)Bomber ~ Len Deighton
4)Agincourt ~ Bernard Cornwell
5)I was going to say Watching Swifts but something stopped me .. maybe it's not a book for busy guys who only read occasionally .. phps it's too emotional .. esp for a busy professional chap for whom golf is more his bag. Not that I have anything against golf.

I am sure he will really enjoy at least a couple of the others though. Waterland was the No.1 choice of guys' book groups not that long ago. And all the others are stonewall choices for the what-do-i-read-next-on-my-kindle middle-aged professional English male who is actually unsure what to read.

So just who exactly might my typical reader be?

Probably female, probably 30+, probably of a creative disposition, certainly thoughtful, defintely better-read than most, possibly more sensitive, more compassionate than average, possibly someone who has succeeded yet harbours a linger sense of vague disappointment, yet someone whose default mentality remains, on balance, instinctively optimistic.

An alpha woman wld probably have no time for Watching Swifts, which she wld find too slow and too sentimental. There's no money in it, no sex, no thrusting alpha male to hate or lust after, and no alpha woman to measure herself against or get tips from. An alpha woman reader wld find Leonardo's disposition far too philosophical. His purity of soul wid clash with their need for sub-servient adoration. She wld far rather be lied to her qualities, real or imagined, than engage with his savant flights of fancy, which she wld see as absolutely pointless. She might even dismiss him as a narcisistic sociopath, or a wuss.

And many readers of either sex wld be deterred by the book's poetic content, which they wld find either difficult or impossible to cope with.

Many of us read impatiently, we are there to be taken by the nose and led along by a firm-handed story. Ox-bowing along in a more leisurely manner is, erm, not exactly ..

All of which narrows my field rather. And means I am not going to be troubling the #1 bestseller slots any time ever.

That said, there is a good chance that anyone, of either sex, with a stronger than average feel for English as our collective soul's blood, veins, arteries and heart might draw some nourishment from my words. This is my aim.

Another group of potential readers springs to mind: those who may never have read literary fiction before, for whom reading outside their normal fare stretches them. I'd love that.

Ach, glass half full. Time for a beer.

[Marc]

I have something against golf. A lot actually.

I have never read Swift, but an author friend of mine whose taste I trust implicitly, absolutely doesn't rate him.

It's an odd mix those 4. Thriller writer, HF writer and two supposedly literary writers. I assume you were consciously offering him a range across the spectrum?

And yes your work is nourishing.

[R.J.]

Marc wrote: "I have something against golf. A lot actually.

I have never read Swift, but an author friend of mine whose taste I trust implicitly, absolutely doesn't rate him.

It's an odd mix those 4. Thriller..."

Hi Marc,

I'd be glad to hear what you wld direct me towards.t. I am always open to new stuff. I was a starnger to William Boyd until recently, but I loved Brazzavile Beach and Ordinary Thunderstorms. I like historical ficion, but I suspect it wld be good for me to broaden away from known likes. I remember we discussed Fahrenheit 451. Maybe I shld start with that.

[R.J.]

O your art, your artistry!

You weren't thinkig about your sales, Vasily Grossman, when you wrote those two fat bullfinches into the final few hundred words of your massive LIFE AND FATE. You thrilled me you did, Vasily Grossman, you did. I loved you at that moment. I loved you tenderly for those two fat bullfinches and all they symbolised. And, yes, yes, yes, I had to agree with comment about 'the poetry of prose'.

O your art, your artistry!

Erich Remarque. Those damn butterflies! The butterflies in the case at the boy soldier's home. His boyhood. Gone. Those damn beautiful butterflies flitting about among the wire. You were not thinking about your sales when you wrote those butterflies.

O your art, your artistry!

Ernest Hemmingway. When you deftly landed that tired little bird on the point of the old man's rod, right in the midst of the sea, in the midst of his war with his fish. That tiny mote of life perched on the point of tension betwix man and nature. I have tears in my eyes now. You wern't thinking about your sales when you created that beautiful mote of art.

These beauties make our lives the better. How can we be sad when we have such art to distract us from our little selves? To love the art of literature is to be alive the more. These writers were not brands. They made beautiful art with words because they loved doing so. Because their lives were bigger for so doing.

And that river in Cannery Row, 'all a river should be'.

'Move him into the sun'

'Open wide the mind's cage door'

'Call me Ishmael.'

[Marc]

R.J. wrote: "Marc wrote: "I have something against golf. A lot actually.

I have never read Swift, but an author friend of mine whose taste I trust implicitly, absolutely doesn't rate him.

It's an odd mix thos..."

depends how radical you want to go? :-)

[R.J.]

I don't mind. Just give me five you really love. That will do. If I enjoy a couple I will be grateful to you. In a way I will be cherrypicking what your intellect has selected as great reads. I will learn as you have viewed life differently to me, but I know that you are discerning and that there is sure to be something in your choices that will expand my horizon.

By the way my list of books wld vary according to who I was giving it to. Remember the guy I gave those books to is a lawyer. He is stuck in the tyranny of fact based reality and does not read all that much. He wld prob be just as happy reading 5 books on golf as the ones I suggested. Also he is very British so there was a strongly British flavour to my recommendations. Anything too challenging wld not work with him I believe, so I was playing safe.

I mean, had I recommended LES CHANTES DE MALDAROR to him I wld probably never get another invite to his Xmas drinkies. On second thoughts, maybe I should have ..

[Andrew]

I find I can never quite judge what a person will enjoy reading based on their profession or even personality. My somewhat younger, Rowling-loving girlfriend tends to borrow my books almost at random. The biggest hit so far was when she stumbled across Douglas Coupland's bitter rants in JPod, whereas the works of RJ Anderson (an old LiveJournal and even Usenet acquaintance whose work is broadly not my sort of thing, but it's solidly written and I like to lend support, in order to pathetically imagine some sliver of her commercial success rubbing off upon me) such as Arrow leave her cold, despite apparently being right up her street.

[R.J.]

Andrew wrote: "I find I can never quite judge what a person will enjoy reading based on their profession or even personality. My somewhat younger, Rowling-loving girlfriend tends to borrow my books almost at rand..."

I know whaat you mean, I have no real idea what said lawyer will actually like. We can but guess. He was biting at all the ones I floated his way though. Of course he cld have just been being polite to shut me up in some lawyerly way.

[Marc]

I didn't think Coupland was particularly bitter in J-Pod. There was some experimental post-modern stuff where he inserts himself into the story as well

[R.J.]

Who is THE very best writer on the dark side? On this site, among the indies? And in the wider universe of all things written?

[Marc]

David Peace - you don't need to know anything about Brain Clough or football, this is simply the best damn journey through a human psyche EVER in the history of literature

Thousand Autumns Of Jacob De Zoet - David Mitchell I don't do Historical Fiction, but this is so beautifully rendered, like Japanese netsuke or any other filagree detail art form.

Classical music, my childhood bete noir and yet this short, elegant novel(la) traces all the cadences between the characters of a modern compositional small choir. Fabulous one sitting read.

Released as a movie this year, but as per the book is infinitely superior. All Dellilo's usual linguistic panache with surptising word and image detonations, but his social commentary is particularly acute and prescient as he spotlights a Wall Street Financier and his corroded soul.

-Tom McCarthy should have won the Booker but they gave it to the completely unremarkable work of Howard Jacobsen instead. (the British Woody Allen). McCarthy's book is a luscious trawl through the first 2 decades of the 20th century with stunning images concerning the proliferation of technology & communication. It's about Modernism without being Modernist in approach. Sumptuous, intelligent writing

[R.J.]

Chrs Marc I thank you for that. I will DEFFO have a look at all of those. And i will get them in P (for purist and proper) book format, too.

[R.J.]

Ach, time to reconsider my pricing soon. I wld never consider anything given free to be worth having. Nor wld I ever go into a pound shop looking for quality. But is this a naive approach in the online amazon cage fight?

Which is better: 100 sales at, say, $2.99, or 1,000 free downloads? OK it's a no-brainer. But is it?

Pricing at 99cts is perhaps the worst of all tactics.

But the notion of going free only for a hoard of people to hoover a freebie up but never actually read it seems like a sugar-high to nowhere. Unless it spurs hard sales. But does it?

I have a lot to learn.

[R.J.]

The making of a verse ..


FIVE SECONDS AGAINST A WHITE BACKTROUND NOT UNLIKE THIS

Spike-eared d-doberman trots into verse
Trot, trot, trot, trot
Exits to right
Yellow f-f-flashflower
Orange f-f-f-flower
Yellow f-f-f
Orange,ORANGE,orangeflashflower
Gently ruffling in the breeze
Naked elbow in palm o f h h h a n d
Orange,yellow,ORANGE,yellow
Naked face of strong German stern
Naked faces of six Ramms
Red flower, red flower
Fist pounding knee
Side of f a c e with naked ear sliding slideways
Redflower
SixnakedRamms
Redflower
Face with hand holding flower, yellow flower
Six naked Ramms
Negative flash
Six naked Ramms
And the face of a d-d-d-dobmerman looking our way
And the face of a doberman looking our way
With pointy ears and a chain round its neck
With pointy ears and a chain round its neck

[R.J.]

(adds editing)

FIVE SECONDS AGAINST A WHITE BACKGROUND NOT UNLIKE THIS


Spike-eared doberman trots into..trot, trot
Exits right
Yellow f-f-flash
Orange f-f-f-flower
Yellow f-f-f
Orange,ORANGE,orangeflashflower
Ruffling in breeze
Naked elbow in palm o f h h h a n d
Orange,yellow,ORANGE,yellow
Naked face of strong German stern
Naked faces of six Ramms
Red flower red
Fist pounding knee
Side of f a c e sliding slideways
Redflower
SixnakedRamms
Redflower
Face with hand holding yellow flower
Six naked Ramms
Negative flash
Six naked Ramms
And the face of a doberman looking our way
And the face of a doberman looking our way
With pointy ears and a chain round its neck

[R.J.]

A 6 mile walk is the best way to forget about all this. But here we are one hour later. Tapping away again .. to myself.

Ach, must get my lazy webbie working. Learning how to make sales directly from it will be interesting.

[R.J.]

So, my wise new friend tells me that 82 sales in 11 months is not bad. He adds, helpfully, that in 2 years he had 35 .. thousand.

Way to go.

[R.J.]

Went to see Skyfall on Friday with my infantry .. I half expected to fall asleep as I have never ever been into anything to do with Bond .. but I Enjoyed this one .. I even felt a bit peeved that the film kept me awake as I'd been looking fwd to a snooze. Anyone with three kids will know what I mean.

[Marc]

I've never understood the categorisation YA. Didn't have it in my day, but okay I get the idea behind marketing books written directly for young adults, to open up that demographic more to reading than maybe previously. All tickety boo. But to push it out to adults, like the whole Harry Potter thing? Just baffles me. I have my theories on HP, but I'm going to keep them to myself cos it will just get me into trouble. But what always bothered me, was whether all those adults I saw reading HP on the Tube ever went on to read any other books or not? That HP rather than being some sort of access return to reading which would have been great, it was only read cos it was de rigeur. That it didn't actually lead people back to reading. I don't mean to pick on HP cos there are other YA books that momentarily flame in such a way.

I also get a sense that new self-published fiction is being read by adults way more than it is kids? There seem a lot of YA authors and of course they have to read in the genre that they write, but it can't just be them accounting for adult sales can it?

Ron, put me out of my misery. What did you enjoy about the YA read?

[Marc]

Yes I get that, cos that's who it's written for. I have no problem with books for teens, read by teens. It's the adult fans I struggle to understand.

I think your analysis of the faults in plot, tension, language can apply to books across all genres, not unique to YA. But it hints at my perceived problems with it; particularly the gritty YA books about drug addiction or coping with divorce or whatever, they are again perfectly pitched to a young mind, but too simplistic for an adult mind. That's what I can't get past.

And I don't think I've ever read a series of books in my life. I suppose there's a couple of detectives I've read who recur, Joe Nesbo & Kate Atkinson, but are they a series? I don't know. For me, each book is a unique, self-contained thing. I've only read 2 Nesbos, but already I wonder at what "new" revelations about the central detective the author can go on and reveal in other books that weren't deemed to be vital pieces of knowledge to transmit to the reader within those two books I have read...

All this curmudgeonlyness after I've had quite a productive marketing day too...