What do Jedward’s Birthday, Liam Fox, Justin Bieber, Siri, We Are the 99 Percent, the Rugby World Cup, protests in London and the Korean Grand Prix have in common?
They’re all featured as keywords in this blog post, because they are the things people seem to be talking about on Twitter today and I want to see whether mentioning them drives more traffic to this page.
I don’t have a lot to say about any of them though, sadly. So what I might do is incorporate them all into a short horror story, as this month I’ve been claiming I can write a short story every single day (turns out I can’t – it’s really quite hard).
It was John and Edward’s birthday, and they were celebrating by dancing around their kitchen to the new Justin Bieber album.
This morning I got up early (for a Saturday), inhaled my wheat biscuit shaped breakfast cereal, made a cup of tea, and headed for my computer to answer questions about 12 books in 12 months from the people of the internet. (And various friends and family who had agreed to submit questions based on several days of plaintive nagging).
I ended up doing this for about two and a half hours, and as well as answering questions I stuck up some never before seen (not even here on the blog) snippets from June, July, August and September’s books. After all, it’s only good manners to offer news sources an exclusive when they offer to interview you.
And do you want to know what the best part is?
If you were busy (there were plenty of excuses – people I know were variously working, watching the rugby, asleep in bed, away on a psychology field trip for uni, attending the West Port Book festival, and paint-balling at a stag do in Wales) YOU CAN RELIVE THE WHOLE MAGICAL EXPERIENCE. It’s right here on The Edinburgh Reporter website, and later on today the text will even rearrange itself in chronological order.
Isn’t technology marvellous.
One thing that came out of the session was further confirmation of something a lot of people have said in the comments here and via Twitter; that I should definitely switch November and December’s genres. This will mean I can do NaNoWriMo this year without having to become Alan Moore (something that’d take years of work, and anyway he doesn’t do his own drawings). The only question now is, what can I write about in a literary fashion? I’ve a feeling I’ll be blogging about that in the next few days…
Ever wanted to ask me a question about what it’s like to write 12 books in 12 months?
Maybe you want to know how much planning it takes, what music I listen to when writing, or my WPM? Perhaps you want to read an excerpt, or find out what I plan to do after the 31st of December when the whole thing is over?
Well now you can, in a live Q&A session with The Edinburgh Reporter. Assuming you have access to the internet, which you must do or you wouldn’t be reading this.
I’ll be online responding to your questions and comments tomorrow (Saturday October 15) from 10am – 11am. To join in, all you need to do is go to the Edinburgh Reporter website and click on the link to the liveblog event.
If you want to be involved but can’t make that time, you can submit a question by email to theedinburghreporter@googlemail.com, or on twitter using the hashtag #askaligeorge.
So that’s tomorrow, Saturday October 15, 10am – or at least that’s the time it will be here in Edinburgh.
By way of introduction,iWriteReadRate.com is primarily an ebook website for writer’s work.
We are developing a dynamic, democratic, open and supportive community for writers and authors to receive valuable ratings and reviews to enable them to prove and improve their writing. Whether you’re a writer or a reader looking for new stories, we believe there will be something on our site for you. Writers upload their work and our site automatically converts them into ebooks.
I liken my need to build the website to that of being a natural writer. I don’t mean that it all came completely organically; rather that you simply cannot stop yourself from doing it. It is a compulsion, a need, a desire as strong as any can be. Yes, the challenge is big and yes it will be bumpy along the way, but as every writer knows the drive takes over and the act of creativity becomes all that matters. This is what it was like in the early stages of iWriteReadRate. For more on my person motivations read my post:The Story of iWriteReadRate.
It has been brought to my attention I’ve been casually mentioning NaNoWriMo all over the place for most of the year, but some readers might not have the faintest idea what I’m referring to. Read on for an explanation.
Everyone in Edinburgh loves a book festival. There was one in Portobello at the weekend and there’s another just around the corner in the Old Town. Peggy Hughes (who Twitter users might know better as the Scottish Poetry Library’s @ByLeavesWeLive) was kind enough to write me a guest post about it.
The West Port Book Festival has reached the merry maturity of its fourth year, with another programme of cracking collaborations, tall tales, award-winners, stars of the future, dead people, open mics, and of course cakes. This year we’re popping up in October – Thursday 13th – Sunday 16thto be precise. We have flirted with running in different months (August for starters and seconds and June for thirds) and find that variety is the spice of life.
We have lost a few of our sterling venues from previous years. The Lot, the Roxy ArtHouse and the Illicit Still (scene of the cause of a monstrous festival-wide hangover in year 3) are all sorely missed, while the Owl & Lion Gallery has risen like a phoenix from the ashes and resurrected itself as the Owl & Lion Bindery, further up the hill in the West Port. We’ve got a new bookshop on the block in Pulp Fiction and are comforted by the never-changing Blue Blazer and its energy-restoring ham and cheese toasties. Some things change, but the ideas and vision behind the West Port Book Festival remain.
12 Books in 12 Months 