Authors Electric

Happy April Fool's Day, all!   Worksheets - completed before breakfast, of course.  Somehow I don’t think there’ll be a lot of pranks played today, at least not in the media. Maybe in households up and down the land cries of ‘Worksheets? What worksh- oh those. Yeah, all downloaded and done before breakfast,’ will strike joy into the hearts of parents – before they discover they’ve been had. But no one will be combing the national press for stories about spaghetti trees or  straight bananas,  Looks straight to me. and it seems that Google has actually cancelled this year’s April Fools’ jokes, judging that no one will be in the mood. (Though given this example of the best techie prank of 2019  -         Spotify… put together a "Discocover Weekly" playlist that is largely disco covers of non-disco songs.    -  I am tempted to wonder,  à  la Dorothy Parker, if anyone will be able to tell.)...

“Splendid Isolation,” a song written by Warren Zevon is about the difference between being alone and being lonely. I’ve featured it on the Music Monday segment of my blog today. Being alone is spending time with oneself; being lonely is a state of mind. Though the two are distinctly different, we can slip in and out between them. Many of us have probably done just that, more so this past week than any other time. Life with the COVID-19 pandemic has meant self-imposed isolation for us here in Canada. Like most countries, we are asked to “social distance” and to isolate ourselves physically from others for fear of spreading the virus.   I believe it’s the right thing to do, and whether you are living on your own or with others, you must reconcile how to do this.   Social distancing is a misnomer, really, as we’re not being asked to socially cut ourselves off from others. A more accurate description would be physical distancing. As writers, many of us are ...

The covid19 scare is affecting even normally socially-isolated authors like me. Activities essential for our mental health and wellbeing, such as meeting other socially-isolated authors for coffee in a halfway cafe (often tens of miles away) are now almost impossible... either the cafe itself has closed, or the other authors are too afraid to venture out. Both of my local National Trust properties, which provide valuable respite from all the wireless radiation in town, as well as being a source of creative inspiration, have also closed for an indefinite period - possibly all summer - and further flung NT places that are kindly keeping their parks open for free during the crisis (but not their cafes, sadly!) are too far for me to reach on my bicycle without planning an overnight stay, which is now difficult because most hotels and B&Bs are shut. Pretty much all of my summer activities have been cancelled, including an authors' conference in rural Oxfordshire I always look forwar...