Writing a book

 So, I've been writing a book.

To be honest, I'm hoping it's kind of there.  I've printed out a couple of copies of first drafts for people to give their feedback on, and I'm sure there will be a bit of refinement but I hope it's somewhere near ready for me to work on.

Now, obviously, I have a vision, and that's me on a stage at a book festival (probably at Hay-on-Wye) being interviewed by someone, lots of people sat listening, while we take part in an interesting and funny discussion.  I love making people laugh.

I have tried over the years to write a book.  And I understand the formula for writing a successful book.

The successful book is a novel, with a twist, a good plot, relatable characters, all that good stuff, fascinating detail, maybe some excitement.  I understand that.

But I can't write that.

I lose my train of thought far too quickly, at most I write a chapter and then it peters out.  My Google Drive is full of abandoned stories.

Short stories don't sell.  Any website that advises people trying to make it as an author tells you that.  Especially not "flash fiction" which I thought was stories that were fifty words or so, but apparently stories as long as 750 words can be flash fiction, and that's what I tend to write, most of my stories are short.  They're a few pages.  To be honest, they're the right length for when you're on the toilet.

Also, my book isn't long enough.  Books should be over 60,000 words.  I'm not there. I'm around 17,500 words.

So, I know my book isn't going to sell.  Furthermore, it's in fairly bad taste.  A lot of the stories have a lot of death and/or sex in it, they're silly, and sensibilities are offended by them.

But I like them.

I have one qualification for the story to make it into the book - and that is that it should make me laugh.  If I'm not smiling when I read it back, it's not going in (and there's a stack of stories I wrote that haven't made it into the book because of that).

I've also been careful with some of the stories to try to ensure that there isn't gender bias or shit like that.  People can be great, nice, lovely, alright, annoying, and outright dicks.  And they can vary between these (I know I do).  Your race, gender, religion, whatever other qualities, don't matter.  They don't affect your behaviour. Your behaviour affects your behaviour.

Beyond that, there's few limits.  There's a story about a being from Norse mythology.  There's a story about Alan the Demon.  And there's a story about Norman the Insurance Salesman.

So anyway, the book is coming.  I expect that it will sell very few copies, mostly to my closest friends and family who feel like they ought to buy a copy. I'm sure that it won't get anywhere and that I won't be interviewed on a stage or win any prizes, but it's coming.

The Relaunch of the blog

Hello!

I vaguely remember doing this blogging thing. I used to do it quite a lot, in fact.  Good for stretching the writing muscles.

Why did I stop?  I''m struggling to remember, to be honest.  I think I was finding that I didn't really have anything to write about, and neither did I have the urge.

That is changing!

I'm working on a book.  Now ideally, what I would like is for an agent to contact me out of the blue (via email, no one wants a phone call), tell me how amazing I am, and to set me up with a huge publisher who would give me a six-figure advance for a book of whatever length and quality I decide to churn out.  Unbelievably, this has not happened to date!

I'm working on a collection of short stories.  The stories vary in length and topic, but have one common element.

Immature humour.  Crude, you could call it.  And again, no matter how hard I search on literary agents websites, none of them seem to be looking for this.  Nevertheless, the success of games such as Cards Against Humanity and Joking Hazard (both of which I love) makes me feel that there is an audience out there somewhere.

So, I'm going to try to bring this old blog back to life with the shameless aim of building an audience of bloodythirsty billionaires desperate for a book stuffed full of with stories such as "Charles, the dog that couldn't stop licking" and "Chantelle the Juicy Sausage".

Hopefully it'll become a stocking filler for that relative with questionable taste you have (and if you don't have a relative with questionable taste, it's you)

I made a thing - Silly Words Educational Game

I made a thing.

Our son is eight now and reads, writes, and talks fairly well, but it took us a while to get him started. One of the challenges we found was that a lot of the books weren't really engaging for him.

What we did find that really worked for him, and gave him a start into reading sentences, was a game where you could build a sentence up out of words (a bit like this Big Box of Sentence Building). We found that our son really liked making silly sentences - in particular, I remember once he made "the cat ate the baby" and was laughing so hard that he went red in the face and almost started having an asthma attack!

We continue to have difficulty encouraging him to read, because although he can do it he doesn't find a lot of interest in it.

One idea I had the other day was to make a game, which is a bit like Cards Against Humanity (a very adult party game) where basically you've got a number of questions, and a number of answers.  What you do is you pick a question, and your child picks an answer that they find funny for the question.  As part of this you can encourage them to read both the question and the answer

Example question with a few answers

My son found it very funny, while allowing him to do some reading and speaking, he also came up with some new answers which was nice to see a bit of imaginative play.

If anyone would like to download a copy of the game you can freely download it from the link below:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1bndkzquHRSMIlP4xIT9NdnWp13_vbNpE?usp=sharing

Silly Words is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Which basically means you can print it, play it, change it however you want for your use (I've included via the link the MS Publisher file that the game is made from so you can customise it for your child), but don’t make your fortune selling it :D

Broken Dream

Happy Saturday!

I'm really sad to say that my dream is broken.

I think my son dropped it.

The dream light isn't the only thing that's broken, I also discovered that the iPad charger cable was broken this morning. Now, I actually prepared for this several months ago, by buying three reinforced iPad cables from the internet that would be handy replacements when for previous ones died (they break fairly regularly in our house).

Of course, now that I need them, I haven't got a clue where the three cables are.  So I had to go out and buy a new one.  As an aside, a bit of a tip for most of the shops near me - it might be worth opening your shop on Saturdays, that's when a lot of people aren't at work and come buying stuff! It's a pain, I know, I don't want to work on the weekend either, but if you're trying to get people to come to your local shop rather than go to the supermarket, you need to be open when they want you.

On the plus side, my son and I went to the circus this afternoon!  Neither of us have been to a circus before, and I have to say that it was great fun, I think both of us liked the acrobats most, but it was all good, I'd definitely go back.

Hopefully I'll get some writing done this weekend, most of my spare time I'm channelling into a novel I'm writing at the minute. I hope you're having a good weekend, and do drop a message in the comments as to what you're up to!

PS - Happy Beard Day! Unfortunately I had a shave the other day, so here's one I made earlier...

Writing

Typical day of writing:

6am - I'm awake!!! Today is going to be different.  I am going to get in some time for writing. But not right now, I have to get breakfast on the go.
7am - Okay, better get ready for work.
8am - Let's go to work! And I'm going to do some writing tonight. Hey, I might even do a bit over lunch.
9am - At work.
12pm - Lunch. I'll definitely do writing tonight, I just can't fit any in today on my lunch break though.
6.30pm - Home! Dinner time. And then writing.
7.30pm - Well, I can't miss the bedtime routine.
8.30pm - Okay, the rest of my evening is free for WRITING!!!
10.30pm - I appear to have spent two hours surfing websites, eating snacks, and watching The Big Bang Theory.  Guess I'll make a start on the writing tomorrow...

Anyone else? :)

The Scariest Page on the Internet

It being Saturday night and me having the house to myself (save for a sleeping child - don't worry, it's my own, I haven't kidnapped anyone) naturally, like anyone normal, I'm blogging.  With a gin and tonic to hand, after all it is Saturday evening!

I decided to write about the scariest page on the Internet.  Now, before I reveal what it is, what do you think it is? Write it down, I'm going to ask you to stick it in the comments (so that way I know that you've read this page!)

Now, what do you think it might be?

A right-wing (or left-wing) news website?  A website that talks about medical illnesses?  Perhaps something from a terrorist organisation?

No, no, and no (although I'm sure all those things could be unpleasant), because the thing is, all of those sites you can simply choose not to visit, and then they're not scary.

But the one that I have to visit, whether I like it or not, is...

The blank page in Blogger when I'm about to write a post.

I set myself a goal to blog every other day.  For regular readers, you'll know that this never happens, but it's a goal that makes me feel guilty throughout the week when I haven't written a post, and spurs me on to write.

Tonight is a case in point.  I have the ideal opportunity to write, with no distractions (except for the rapidly disappearing gin and tonic), but what do I write about?  Tomorrow is "tell an old joke day" but that's tomorrow so I can't write about it - or at least publish the post - yet.  I haven't done anything really worth blogging about today, except go in a swimming pool and be hot due to the weather (and I've done posts on risking my life in four foot of water and surviving in a heatwave recently)

I have wiped up an amount of mouse poo, because where we live is near to some waste ground where mice live, and they periodically invade the nearby houses for shelter and food, and they have to be dealt with by whatever method the house inhabitants choose, but I don't really want to blog about that because it's:
a) about mouse poo, and;
b) whatever method of rodent control I choose to employ, it'll upset a proportion of people

So, I'm writing about not having anything to write about.

You see, as a blogger (and I naturally assume that all bloggers have exactly the same view as me, because it's a lot easier to empathise with people in a world where everyone thinks the same as me), the reasons I blog are multiple, but come down to:
1) Because I like to write
2) Because I'm lucky enough to have a pleasant audience, and I love attention
3) The faint possibility of fame, riches (I particularly like the idea of riches) and free exotic holidays
(Side note to any holiday companies reading - I would be delighted to receive any offers of free holidays, exotic or otherwise, in return for a blog post. Maybe even a video.  Essentially, I'll do anything except give you money)

But the bugger of it all is that you actually have to write stuff. Engaging, interesting content (oh yes, we all love the word "content") which is so good that people don't just enjoy reading it, they share it, and their friends share it, and before you know it you're surfing on the top of a viral phenomenon about how the entire world has read a post ruminating on why butchers at markets have sound systems to broadcast their offers across the neighbourhood.

So you write.  And write.  But if you're anything like me, you may get a little frustrated that your fascinating post about how you drew on your partners leg on Valentines Day hasn't actually quite made national news, and you start reading blog posts with titles like "FIVE EASY WAYS TO BOOST YOUR CONTENT!" and "HOW SEO MADE ME A MULTI MILLIONAIRE AND I WAS ABLE TO BUY MY SON A PONY!"

Of course, all these posts are by some smiley git in a suit...

Not this smiley git in a suit. This was a marketing pic for Hull College from far too many years in the past, I think the tie still fits me so I presume that I'm still as relatively thin as I was then...

The person in question will look like a very healthy and fit person in their late twenties, and be a social media specialist who has worked around the world for top companies in the FTSE or NASDAQ or whatever for the last twenty years, making them the household names that they are today.

Meanwhile, the post is always a top ten, or top five, or top whatever number list of actions to take to make your blog beloved the world over (and that's because people like lists, and yes I make lists sometimes too), and the post which the social media expert has written will be along the following lines:

FIVE - CONTENT CONTENT CONTENT!!!

Without the content you ain't got no readers, son.  Damn well write the best thing ever written in the whole WORLD!

FOUR - PROMOTE!

But that ain't enough, no sirree.  Get that dang thang promoted.  Everywhere.

THREE - CONNECT WITH OTHER CONTENT CREATORS!!!!!!

Oh my, haven't you done this yet?  Simply go and visit every blog, video, and podcast created in the known universe, and become that persons best friend.  And then say to all your best friends that if they don't like and share and subscribe and like and share and comment and subscribe that you'll die of chronic lack of breath.

TWO - USE THIS APP / WEBSITE THAT I'M AFFILIATED WITH!!!

Now use this app or website that I am affiliated with, because it'll do something absolutely magical to your content, and even though everyone was already reading/watching it on their computers, this will actually make your content burst into real life and drama student will spontaneously act out your content in the street.

ONE - READ MY E-BOOK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

For my AMAZING secrets of how to get that last person on Earth who, for some godforsaken reason, hasn't seen your content, to see your content and declare you leader of the human race.


And what happens?  You try all this stuff, and sod all happens.

But you know what?  Blogging is a great hobby, even if not one other person in the world reads what you've made.  You wanted to be a writer?  Guess what - you're a writer.  When you talk to people at parties, you can genuinely say that, and they'll look at you with admiration and warmth, because you're a writer.  Well done.

And the most important thing is the people that you meet along the way of your blogging journey.  The end of this post is a bit of a love fest, partially because I've finished my G&T (and it makes me feel better about monologuing about myself for so long), but also because these people are just a few of the genuinely really good and well worth reading bloggers that I've encountered over the years.

Life, Explained - by my good friend Tim, Life, Explained is funny, bizarre, imaginative, and sincere all at once.  Just watch out for that Dr Dawg when you stop by.

The Whacko - creation of the excellent Jeremy Crow, the Whacko suite of blogs covers everything and anything, and is consistently brilliant.

Adele Archer Writes - I always enjoy reading Adele's blogs, partially because she's in the UK like me (and we Brits are very much outnumbered!).  Heartfelt and with a standard of writing I can only dream of.

The Square Peg by S. Bradley Stoner - some lovely short stories here (at least I hope they're short stories and not true life, at least not the chilli eating one!).  He has a skill of writing conversations which are engaging and just something that I'm absolutely hopeless at!

Grandma Rose - I'm really drawn to Sheryl's blog, she seems like an old family friend which might be an odd thing to say about someone who I've never met and probably never will, but it's this sort of magic that I guess the Internet creates?  Go read her work :)

Good Little Indian - Ah, Rahul's blog, Rahul the ridiculously good blogger who uses social media the way it should be used, without automated tweets and actually engaging with people (yes, I do automated tweets and my engagement is... a development area, shall we say), he manages to take a topic such as "101 reasons to follow me on Twitter" and turn out a post which is actually well worth reading and I would hope has attracted more followers to him in the Twittersphere!

Christian Touchet - Christian does what I don't dare, and tells the truth.  Thought provoking, he speaks his mind extremely articulately. Every time I visit his blog I'm informed, and entertained - not an easy combination.

Lavender Inspiration - Nikki's lovely posts always make me smile - she dances in front of her children after all :)

Trina's Place - every day life blogs are my favourite type of blog, and Trina is great at picking at those fascinating details and bringing them to life, she manages to bring New Zealand that little bit closer.

Solsbury Hill - Mike Senczyszak is not only a great writer but also brilliant at photography, if a picture is worth a thousand words his photos are worth a million.  And he's Canadian, automatically giving him an extra five awesome points in my book.

The Gratitude Letters - I sometimes dream of writing something earth shattering, important, such a fantastic piece of writing, talking about how to live your life.  Then I realise that The Gratitude Letters are already here.  Beautiful writing that can make you a better person :)

Susan Joy Clark - Susan's blog I feel reflects my own, it's not all about a single topic, and I love how each post can be so different.

Blog of a Working Witch - I wouldn't dream (or dare) to miss off this list my mum's blog, I suspect that we both find out more about what each of us are doing through our blogs than by old fashioned talking! My parents have run their own business for fifteen years now, selling all kinds of weird and wonderful magical and new age goods by mail order (do stop by the Facebook page, it's well worth a Like, you get fun and interesting daily updates - today apparently is a good day for beer and fried fish!)

I apologise in advance to anyone that I've missed off this list, there's more bloggers than the above in my favourites and there's other great bloggers linked to on my blog, the simple fact is that I'm not as good at reading and keeping up with blogs as I should be, I spend far too much time drinking G&T's um, helping homeless children, yes that sounds good, to do anything else!

Well done for making it all the way to the end of this massive post :)

Google is trying to help

Working on a story, I wanted to find a good location accessible across the world, and so turned to Google.

Got halfway through typing "easiest place in the world to get to" when Google leapt into life suggesting what I wanted.

Thanks Google - but not this time...

In other news, here's a video of me attempting to drink three beers infused with chilli, while playing FIFA 16, with some Baileys as a backup if it just got too bad. Don't worry, it's heavily edited!

The 400th post

I wasn't sure what to blog about for this one.

This is my 400th blog post published on thoggy.blogspot.com, which I started in August 2012, and I continue to enjoy blogging, and feel as good about blogging as I ever have - I've been fortunate enough to make contact with some other fantastic bloggers, and all in all it's been good.  There has been times when I've struggled to come out with posts, but I'm pleased to have been able to keep it going for so long.

I was going to perhaps do a post all about the number 400, or, as the excellent Jeremy Crow suggested, I could have just done a blank page and made up a reason why it was blank... perhaps because 400 is an important number to do with leap years, and because 2015 isn't a leap year it HAS to be blank?

But then this morning came.

I like writing stuff.  But, I'm not brilliant with a pen and paper - I know people talk about the romanticism of a (quill) pen scratching on paper into the little hours, but I know that ultimately whatever I write, if I want to do something with it, I want to be electronic in some form.  It needs to be in a MS Word document or in a Blogger post or something that I can copy and paste and share and upload and email and do all of those things that you just can't do with an inky scrap piece of paper.

As I've mentioned before, I'm getting married soon (and I promise that those guest posts I've been saving up will start leaking out!), and we'll be hopefully going away for a honeymoon - we don't know where yet, we're going to head into the travel agents after the wedding and just see what they have on offer.  And I'd like to be prepared if I want to scribble stuff down while I'm away.

Now, I could take a tablet with me, but I just don't like typing for long times on tablets, the keyboard is just a little bit too small for me.  Same for phones, although my phone will certainly be coming along as I can't imagine being parted with it for any appreciable length of time.

I don't know if you're aware of USB OTG cables, but basically it's an adapter that lets you plug USB stuff into things that you wouldn't think USB stuff can go into (I'm still talking technology though, it's not a fetish or anything like that)

As an example, here's my smartphone with a full size keyboard plugged into it.

Works perfectly and the keyboard LEDs are even lit up

So, I went on Amazon to select an appropriate device.

Amazon has approximately seventeen million items when you search for "smartphone otg keyboard", none of which are actually keyboards that connect to smartphones via OTG.  You can get smartphone bluetooth keyboards (which would be perfectly acceptable except for that I don't like bluetooth and they were more expensive than I wanted to pay), you can get OTG keyboards for tablets, that come in a case a suitable size for a tablet to fit in.  You can get hundreds of OTG adapters.  And hundreds more absolutely normal keyboards, which are fine except that I don't want to carry a full size keyboard around, if I'm doing that I may as well just bite the bullet and take a laptop.

In the end I went for a seven inch tablet case with built in OTG keyboard - I do have a 7" tablet that might fit into it, and if not I can always sellotape my phone into position and use it.

However the item I went for is apparently something called an "Add On".

What this means is that I have to spend £20 before I can buy it, because it's a special offer or something.  The price was really good so it was understandable, but nevertheless I was now on Amazon, the place that sells everything, trying to think of £20 of stuff that I wanted.

And all of those things it does, recommending items, was totally useless, none of the things it was recommending was what I wanted.

I ended up buying a pile of mostly Bill Bryson books also for the honeymoon - I love Bill Bryson, but I've only recently discovered his work, so there's a whole back catalogue for me to work my way through.  Originally I wanted to get them all as e-books so I could take a tablet with me and read them all on a single device, but it's just cheaper to buy secondhand paperbook books.

Once I reached the magical £20 figure where I could buy my tablet case, I went to checkout.

I selected my delivery address.

I entered my new debit card details.

And on the final confirmation screen I saw that I was being charged nearly £3 for postage - not a lot of money, but I had been careful to select free delivery.

One - just one - of the books wasn't being dispatched by Amazon, so I was being charged delivery for that one.

I'm not allowing this to happen! I furiously thought, went back, deleted the book in question, tried to find the book again (took me two attempts), and then discovered that I couldn't buy the book from Amazon, so I picked the first seller that did sell the book, resolved myself to paying £3 postage, and went back into checkout.

Then discovered that the seller of the book that I had picked the second time was based in the USA, so it would take an extra week to get to me.

Went back - deleted the book - added the book with the original UK seller I had in the first place - and checked out and confirmed purchase before I could spot anything else I wanted to tweak.

So, I have a pile of books and a new tablet case with keyboard winging its way to me, probably as I type this there is a chap in a huge warehouse on a forklift (no, it's probably a Segway) picking it.

I realise that this post has gone on a bit, I'll bring it to a juddering stop soon.  I'll just finish by thanking everyone that's been kind enough to read my posts over the almost 3 years I've been doing this, and I sincerely hope that you've gleaned at least a little enjoyment from some of them.  Here's to the next 400!

Here's some of my most popular posts should you feel the need:
Your Internet Connection is unstable
I hate nappies (diapers for non-UK people)
I'm eating Pocky (no idea why this one was so popular)
Subscribers and Dan Abnett (even though most of the post is actually about the game FTL)
Dawn Park Patrol returns (which is actually a guest post from my dad, many more posts from him to come!)
4 rants about products that have cornered their markets
8 things you learn when you go to a slimming club

I also make videos at youtube.com/ravenswingthog - they're not very good, but you're still welcome to go and watch them!

What Shall I Write About (Bill Bryson apparently)

I'm sat at my computer.

This isn't an unusual event for a geek like myself.  Off the top of my head I'd guess that I spend something like 19 hours a week on my computer, playing games, checking emails, watching YouTube videos, all that sort of thing.  Indeed, we have the attic designated as a "computer room", with desks, computers, husks of old PCs and stacks of components that would probably be of use to people if only the component managed to make its way from Location A to Location B, be fitted into another PC, drivers installed, system configuration tweaked, component removed again because it wasn't working, component blown on (because nothing makes a piece of computer hardware work like a momentary breeze of lung-processed air and sputum), replaced, new drivers installed, various forums searched via Google, even resorting to trying the Microsoft Windows Diagnostic software (which as far as I can tell does nothing except display various windows on your computer and taking up sufficient time for you to make a cup of tea) until you discover that the component in question is only compatible with Windows 7 service pack 9 (with hotfix KB18947391734810), and not Windows 7 service pack 10 (with hotfix KB18947391734811) and you end up eBaying the thing, selling it for seven quid and spending nine pounds mailing it to the lucky buyer.

I've recently discovered the works of Bill Bryson, a writer and author.  Many people will be well aware of Bill's work, but I hadn't read any of his material until this week.  I was vaguely aware of Bill as a "travel writer", which I must admit had made me exclude him for consideration when purchasing books - travel writing makes me think of something writing about the delights of some sort of Caribbean or South American resort, the sort of place that I am unlikely to ever visit and therefore have little interest in carrying out homework upon.  I live in northern England, where the weather is variable and the language clear and often heated - my desire to experience a place in which these two characteristics are swapped is limited.

However, I do sustain thoughts of visiting North America, and while those thoughts have not as yet formulated themselves into firm plans of any sort, I do enjoy reading about the USA and Canada.  And so, when in Oxfam Books the other day (a brilliant invention where a charity shop gets rid of all of those clothes that generally take up place, and replaces them with shelf after shelf of literature) I looked at the travel books, I decided to pick up "Notes From A Big Country" by Bill Bryson, using the following complex rules of logic:

1 - I had heard of him.

There were several of his books on the shelves, meaning that either he was quite popular and therefore a good writer, or he had a very good PR machine that meant that people bought his books, then realised that they had made a terrible mistake and gave them to Oxfam.  I'm pleased to report that the former reason seems to be the case.

In this book Bill talks about life in America having newly returned to America after many years living in the UK.  I'm not going to talk about the content of the book in detail (I'll let the pleasure of the content stay hidden until you read it) but suffice to say that Bill is very funny, intelligent, and erudite in his writings.

I shall be returning to Oxfam to see which other pieces of his I can pick up.

Anti hacking jeans and more brilliant writing

Well, time is counting down to Christmas, in one weeks time it will be Christmas Day, we still have quite a few presents to wrap (and a couple of buy) but we're not too far away from being ready.

If you're yet to finish your shopping, how about some anti-hack clothing?

Betabrand have worked with computer security firm Norton to create RFID blocking jeans (and a blazer, if that wasn't enough) to protect your credit cards from being attacked.  With the establishment of contactless payments, cards are becoming increasingly easy to access remotely, and I wouldn't be surprised if features like this become commonplace in clothing.

Today I have been listening to the classic Llama Song.  Yes, it's annoying.

And awesome.

I've also been reading through my stories of the spaceship Explorer and its crew in their struggle to save the United Systems of Earth from the Belan Empire (see my previous post for more details and examples of exceptionally bad writing).  I've come across the following gem, written by myself (aged 16ish)...

"Follow me!" Hardy ordered, and the escapees began to run. Gold led the way with Hardy, as several sets of legs came around a corner.  - I hope that the legs were attached to bodies, otherwise it's a bit gruesome.

The other day I did a shout out video the other day about my favourite five YouTubers.  Do check them out if you haven't already, and if there's a YouTuber that you love, let me know!

Finally, time is counting down if you'd like a question about your future answered by the pyramid of mystery - if you've got a question pop it in the comments!

Writing in a morning on a bank holiday

I'm writing at about half part 5 in the morning.  The sun is up, birds are tweeting... and in my house, I'm the only homo sapiens conscious.

I love writing and creating in a morning.  I always have more energy to be creative in a morning, and I prefer it when I don't have any other pressures around.  Ideally, I'll take a day off when everyone else is at work/nursery and be able to spend the time writing, but days off work aren't unlimited and need to be saved for a variety of more worthy purposes than to allow me to type at home as opposed to typing at work.

I've drunk a pint of strawberry Vimto cordial (no added sugar) and half a pint of cream soda cordial (probably with sugar in but what the hell) as I work up thirsty, there is a can of Asda Smart Price Lager sat on my desk that wasn't opened last night - yes, I can afford better lager but I like it - it's a quarter of the price of any other beer, it's low alcohol so I can drink several cans if I want, and also it's low in calories (a can of this stuff is half the calories of a bottle of Budweiser - and I can easily drink at least two bottles of Bud in an evening) so as just something to drink in an evening it's good.

It's actually taken me about half an hour to write the first three paragraphs of this post.  In between I've been promoting my new video (if you thought marshmallow fluff was sugary try it with shortbread!), updating AdAware, watching a vlog from Scott Tumilty, and cleaning up a friends slow laptop.

Any moment now my son will be waking up and the day will begin - it'll begin fairly gently, with an episode of NCIS (perhaps even two) over some toast while we snuggle under a blanket.  If I feel really proactive I'll put some washing on as well.

If you're having a bank holiday today, I hope that you're enjoying it and have something good planned.  Let me know in the comments.

I love bank holidays.

Of course I'm not doing anything important

Today I'm extremely fortunate to feature a guest post by the one and only Duncan Swallow.  Duncan, amongst other things, runs an excellent blog, nobodysreadingme.  His blog is, unfortunately, significantly better than mine.  I'm actually delaying the publishing of this post because I've just realised that his latest one is up on his blog and I haven't read it yet.

(Minutes go by...)

That was really good.  I'd recommend after you've been here that you head over to his blog and read it.

Okay - Mr Swallow, you have the floor!

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Mike is doing a guest post over on my blog http://nobodysreadingme.wordpress.com/ and he kindly allowed me a guest post here. I’m going to take the opportunity to have a rant.

I spend a lot of time writing. I blog every day, apart from Sunday. I’ve got a lot of short stories published on EtherBooks. I’m working on two separate versions of my memoir. I’m in the thick of my second novel, having given up on having the first one published. So I have quite a lot on my plate, or page as you might say.

For reasons we needn’t go into I work a lot in my local library. And for some reason I attract the lunatic fringe who seem to think that if I’m pounding the keys what I’d prefer to do is be interrupted by something more important. And what could be more important than their misguided and unwanted ramblings?

There’s the rather plummy voiced eccentric man. Maybe you’ve met him, or his ilk. He’ll ask ‘What are you writing?’ then proceed not to listen as he bangs on for five or ten or fifteen minutes about how what I should  be writing is similar to his amateurish and singularly unfunny satirical magazine. This has a circulation of three, including him and his mum.

There’s the plummy voiced Baroness. Really, she is. She doesn’t know one end of a computer from another, so frequently enlists my help. I’m fine with this, until she goes all Lady of the Manor on me. ‘It worked yesterday,’ to which I have to reply, ‘Well, that may be true but it’s not working today.’ ‘You don’t have to do that!’ ‘Oh yes I do, I miskeyed a command so I need to retype it, as soon as I can get my hands back from round your throat.’ She thinks she’s speaking to the bootboy or something.

An acquaintance who will insist, while I’m typing, on regaling me yet again what a bitch and a cow, and a moneygrubber, his ex-wife is. You married her pal. I really don’t want to hear this again, for the nth time in a year. I’m not interested in the fact you missed your bus this morning either, now I come to mention it.

Then there’s the man who reads the Guardian every day. No problem with that at all. It’s a fine newspaper. Generally it attracts people who can think, so it’s a surprise that he not only has to move his lips as he reads, he has to read aloud! He also feels honour bound to issue a running commentary, and ask himself questions that he then answers. Himself.

But hey, it doesn’t matter. I’m not doing anything important. I’m just writing, that’s all.

I am a guest blogger!

I've been let loose on someone elses blog!

Rosemary Richings, a writer from Toronto, has a great blog and I've been lucky enough to have a post of mine about writing up on her blog - guest blogging is something I've thought about doing but I've been quite nervous about, Rosemary was really nice about looking over a draft of my wording and putting it up on her blog for me.  The issue I have is that my blog tends to follow the pattern of "news about me, and something (hopefully) funny" and posts about a particular topic I don't always fit that well, so I'm really pleased that my writing is of a quality reasonable enough for other people to use!  Do go check it out if you can, at http://rosiewritingspace.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/so-you-want-to-be-writer-mike-raven.html and fingers crossed I may have some more guest blogs out on the interweb somewhere in the future - some are in the pipeline now I'm gaining my confidence.

While I'm writing, I need to say a big thank you to Solarwall near York - I've just come back from a Introduction to Renewable Energy Technologies event they put on for G4C Yorkshire & Humber.  The event was excellent, the presenter Grant is clearly very knowledgeable not only about the theory and science behind the technologies, but also the practicalities of installing, usage and maintenance.

Have you seen The Wanted's new video, Walks Like Rihanna?  I've never been a huge Wanted fan (nothing against them, just never really listened to much of their music) but I do love their video - I've always had a weakness for videos like these that reference other pop songs!

And while I'm on about music videos, a TOTALLY different one... Honeydewyeayea from the guys at the Yogscast.  Amazing.

What should I write?

 I'm of two minds at the minute.

I do try to produce a blog post roughly once every other day, for two reasons - one, so that those people who read my blog get something new to read fairly regularly, but secondly so that I keep practising my writing, which is the main aim of me doing my blog in the first place.  I've neglected my writing for many years and my blog is the way that I keep my hand in.

But I am beginning to understand the importance of producing not just content, but quality content.  I don't want to just produce stuff for the sake of producing it, I want it to be interesting or funny or thought-provoking or just have some sort of value.

I also don't know whether I should spend more time consuming or producing (and I'm not talking about food for once!) - one school of thought is that while you're 'consuming', i.e. reading, watching, listening to stuff, you're not producing and I shouldn't be procrastinating in that manner.  On the other hand, logically the only way to produce material is to consume material so that the mind has stuff to work on - right?

But that might just be me trying to justify working my way through The Big Bang Theory - I've been watching a minimum of six episodes a night since last week, very much enjoying it :)

Anyway - apologies for the contemplative post.  Fingers crossed I'll have something new for Thursday!

My hundredth blog post!

This is my hundredth blog post!

Apologies for the delay in blogging but I've been working on a new writing project (plus I've been under the weather).  Details of my new project are sketchy but suffice it to say that it's going to be my biggest writing project to date - it's going to be a book - and I may be needing help over the forthcoming months to undertake various activities.  As things become clearer I'll let you know!

Today I thought I'd point you to something fun that we can all try - easter eggs on Google.  If you don't know, easter eggs are fun little things that programmers put into programs and websites for people to find.

Take a look at the Wikipedia entry for the ones on Google.  I particularly recommend going on to Google and searching for zerg rush.

Sticking with the Google theme, it's Safer Internet Day and Google have released some guidance on how to stay safe on the Internet.  It's always been a bugbear to me that while people are able to use computers and the internet easier and easier these days (which is good) the traps and dangers online are getting smarter and better and it's consequently more dangerous for the non-savvy computer user.

Anyway, thank you for reading my posts - very pleased to get to a hundred and let's go for a hundred more!

Labelling

I've just popped into the oven a Birds Eye cod fillet - very tasty by the way.

And to keep me safe, Captain Birds Eye decided to pop a little warning on the back of the packet.

It read, "Contains fish."

I don't have a problem with Birds Eye for putting such a ridiculous warning on their packet, I blame the culture that makes them feel that they have to.

But I can quite see why they did. Obviously there's a need to tell people what ingredients have been used, so that they can avoid allergens.  And therefore stop them from suing the Captain and having him thrown in the brig.

But we already have something that does this - it's called a list of ingredients.

They've tried to make it easier for people by highlighting common allergens, but the trouble is in the world, there will be someone allergic to the thing that you make.

Off the top of my head, I can think of people allergic or intolerant to milk, wheat, nuts, garlic, and water. Yes, water.

So, as much as I understand the intent behind warning me that my fish fillet contains fish, it is a little bit overkill.

It would be much more helpful if I had something that warned me of the contents of my son's nappy.

Hang on, I do - a nose.

It's this culture that makes signs like the below exist:

Grapes on the floor can cause accidents?  I don't blame them - they've been ripped off a vine in some lovely warm country, lobbed in a ship and brought to Hull.  If I was a grape and was free to roam I'd cause some chaos too.

I currently have a 150g bag of sweets in my hands.  The dietary advice tells me how much fat, carbohydrates, sugar, salt and saturates are in a "portion", which is 37g.  Does anyone divide their bag of sweets into portions consisting of 24.7% of the full bag?

Before I go, for anyone interested in writing I strongly recommend a blog I came across by a chap called XJ Selman.  His blog posts are very insightful and well worth a read.  His blog can be found at http://xjselman.wordpress.com/

Ey up!

Ey up!

Welcome to my blog.  I've had one of these chappies in the past, but it kind of died due to neglect a while back.

I'm Thog (or Thoggy if you want a cutesie name to call me by), I work at a council, and I have a partner and a kid which are both epic. (just to round that off my job is excellent too)

Here's a pic of my WoW character and my many companions!

Basically I like to game and read, and write, but the writing bit I do far too little of. As 99% of writers in the world do, I imagine of the day that a publisher will come round to my house and say "You're so great! Here's ten million pounds! Please relax and enjoy your life because you're brilliant!"

But apparently not too many publishers actually do that, something to do with reducing their carbon footprint by staying in the office more.

So basically I'm going to use this blog as a good practice for me to get into writing more and more, and hey if it entertains some people for a minute or so then all to the good.  I recently got into the Joel Runyon's website - basically if you need any inspiration for getting on with your life go check it out at http://joelrunyon.com/

I have colitis - meh, you're not going to need to know about that and you're probably not interested unless you have it.  And fortunately it isn't that bad (lot better than it used to be, if you suffer with this you have my sympathies).  All I would say if you do have it is take your medicines, use your doctors, and look at your diet.  This week I basically fasted for 2 days (well kept to 500-600 calories) which was due to some documentary that I refuse to watch but apparently is really good, and actually it made a fantastic difference to me, so I'm seriously looking at reducing my food down to what I actually need, bearing in mind that I'm overweight, am an office worker and do very little exercise so my calorie intake is generally way over what I need.  Obviously anyone reading this and thinking about changing your diet - go get some professional advice, doctor or dietician.  If you want a nutritionist speak to me, I'd be an ace nutritionist. (apologies to steal from the master that is Dara O'Briain, but basically anyone can call themselves a nutritionist)

What do you call condensed milk? Mlk!

I tried to have some evaporated milk with some fruit for supper but it floated out the window.

There's a couple of extremely bad jokes I thought of this morning.  I harbour some ideas of trying to be a stand-up comedian but I suspect I simply don't think quickly enough, especially to handle heckles. Perhaps a comedy writer like David Mitchell (must go check out his latest Youtube video at http://www.youtube.com/user/davidmitchellsoapbox?feature=watch)

For those on a budget and that like a beer can I suggest Lidl - they've currently got (at least in my local one) Mann's Brown Ale, a decent and inexpensive basic brown ale for only £1.19.  The sneaky thing also is that it's only 2.8%, which for a lightweight such as myself is ideal!  So far I've had two various beers tonight (one of these and a "Lucky" beer which my mother suggests smells of fish) and I'm somewhat relaxed so that gives you an idea of how little alcohol it takes for me to go from sober to unsober.

I saw the trailer for Mists of Pandaria today, the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion, and it looks ace.  It definitely made me want to go and preorder the expansion.  I used to be a big WoW gamer but I lost enthusiasm a while back and despite going back once or twice for short periods I've mainly moved on from the game.  That said, I'm sure I'll be getting the expansion and levelling up to level 90 along with everyone else!

Okay, I've kicked this thing off so I'm feeling pretty good. Time to go conquer the galaxy in Birth of the Federation!

Thog