Authors Electric

I recently discovered that AI is being trained to do something I want it to do even less than I want it to write novels or design book covers or publish social media posts. It’s organising travel. Although there is very little point in making travel plans myself at the time of writing, because, for various boring medical reasons, I can’t actually travel anywhere for a while, I am no stranger to the task of organising travel. I must admit that in some cases (though not always) the planning process has been quite a bit more fun, or at least very much less stressful, than the actual travel. In fact I am quite tempted to start planning a trip now even without making any real bookings, just to keep my hand in. Of course, the more complicated the trip and therefore the more fun to organise, the more potential there is for things to go wrong. I had several panic attacks in the time leading up to my ‘North American tour’ of October 2001, partly because I hadn’t flown since 1978 and partly ...

 As I write this, at about lunchtime on Sunday, I'm trying to listen to part of an online conference run by a Facebook group I'm part of. On Friday I took in an online discussion on publishing at Edinburgh Book Festival. This morning, between washing my hair and having lunch, I tuned into a family history conference on Zoom. A hot tip from this one, by the way,  is not to try to style your hair while wearing headphones! Tomorrow I'll spend much of the day watching a folk festival online. One of my friends has alerted me more than once to the availability of various theatre productions online too, although I haven't got round to watching any of those yet, having spent much of my down-time viewing old television series I didn't get round to watching the first time round. There does seem to have been a glut of online conferences and festivals just this weekend, which is a bank holiday weekend in much of the UK. But at least there aren't any work meetings at weekend...

I don't think I've ever needed a break so desperately. Even at the last moment it seemed as if there were forces at work trying to stop me from escaping. I had just finished packing that morning when one of the kitchen lights suddenly began flickering on and off rather dramatically, even after I used the nearest switch to turn it off. Of course it could have been caused by an alien invasion, as in the scene from 'Close Encounters' where the little boy sees all his toys start to work on their own, but I suppose that was always an unlikely hypothesis. When I tried again with the other switch, at the far end of the kitchen, it gave me an electric shock. While still waiting for the taxi, I sent an online message to an electrician begging him to hurry round and do something about it, ran upstairs to tell the bed-ridden member of the family to drag himself downstairs and out the door if he smelt burning -- leaving the door open for the cat, naturally -- and a few moments l...

I have a love-hate relationship with conferences, of which I've been to quite a few over the years for my day job and a couple to do with writing. For a start, I almost always welcome the break with routine that they provide. One of my colleagues recently remarked that I have the patience of a saint, which is probably how it seems to many people who don't know me all that well. The people I share an office with see a rather different side of me, however. They have met the evil twin who alternates between having the attention span of a gnat and getting so engrossed in some tiny detail of a computer problem that she isn't aware of her surroundings. She breaks into rants about difficult colleagues just after speaking to them quite politely on the phone, and she takes advantage of any excuse to avoid being present at in-house meetings. In the depths of the Field Museum Going to a conference means getting away from the office grind for a while. There is always somethi...

As any independently or mid-level traditionally published author will tell you, unless your first name is Neil or Stephen or J. K. and your last name is King or Rowling or Gaiman, you are going to spend a goodly portion of your time attending various conventions to promote your work. This is especially true if you are writing genre fiction. If you are traditionally published and lucky, your publisher may foot the bill for your hotel, and the convention planners may buy a few copies of your books for you to sign and sell throughout the weekend. If you are and independently published author or a traditionally published author and unlucky, you are going to be footing the bills for these things and setting them up yourself. Results may vary. You will still do it, though, because it's part of getting your work out there and building your own name recognition. However, regardless of how much you plan and prepare, every once in a while, things will turn out much differently ...

I've blogged in the past about conferences and conventions. I've done a fair few over the years - from the early days of the Southampton (later Winchester ) Writers' Conference to the many years of attending and/or running British Fantasy Society conventions. I've been as a 'guest' to Sci-Fi Weekender , and I even once went to a Star Trek convention - purely for research , you understand? A couple of weeks ago, I went to CrimeFest - one of the annual crime festivals around the country. Harrogate is the other biggie and I'm sure there are more. When I first booked for CrimeFest, I was a little miffed to see that they really don't recognise indie writers at all; there's one small panel featuring indie writers and to be considered for this, you have to satisfy a long string of criteria. But conferences and conventions are not all the same. Winchester for example is very much about learning . There are talks and workshops about how to do stuff ...