Richard Holliday's (old) online blog

Fond Farewells…

2012-12-31T19:23:00.001+00:00

This is a post I never really expected to write but alas, as the calendar rolls into 2013, it’s time to hang up my Blogger shoes and move into new fields and territories.

Blogger, it’s been fun.

But why am I doing this?

2013 will see me taking my writing increasingly seriously. I think it’s a perfect opportunity to make a clean break and instead of having to deal with cruft from times gone by, to deal with new content in a logical manner. My Blogger site has been in use for rants, thoughts and writing (an interesting but I feel clashing mix) from when I was at school five years ago and I think that from now I want to keep my writing somewhere separate.

I’ve also outgrown Blogger’s infrastructure and I can’t wait to meld something truly beautiful with WordPress. I’ll still post there with some frequency and keep you all updated; I’m not quitting blogging, rather, I’m making a fresh start for some new opportunities.

And what of this site? The domain runs until June 2014, at which point it will be left to expire. Old posts do have hardcoded permalinks back to other entries, but I won’t be updating them. This site will revert to its original blogspot URL and will still be online, but as an archive. No new content; some writing stuff may or may not get migrated… I just don’t know for now. But it won’t be forgotten.

So guys… my new blog launches tomorrow; save the URL! And if you’re reading this, you’re in the wrong place!

http://www.richardholliday.co.uk/

Best wishes,

Richard :-)

Bored of the Rings

2012-12-16T13:03:00.001+00:00

It’s very lonely to feel as if you occupy an intellectual atoll on which you are totally solitary. That is to say, you arrive at a conclusion about a certain subject you’re sure, for whatever reason, no-one else would agree with, and you almost feel ashamed for doing so.

I have wrestled with this for some time, and for me it relates to The Lord of the Rings.

I think The Lord of the Rings is not the amazingly-fulfilled and wonderful, flawless piece of literature/cinematographically-intense mithras that it would seem everyone else does.

And for once, this isn’t just jumping on the bandwagon of being “anti” something that is popular. I try my best not to do that. I just fail to understand this book and the films are anything but the masterpieces everyone else keeps telling me. Or themselves, never can tell.

Anyway, I did try my hardest to read The Lord of the Rings, and I’m about to commit what I feel others will see as a cardinal sin and say that I couldn’t. I found The Fellowship of the Ring unreadable. And by extension, yes, I think Tolkien is a terrible writer. Never have I read so many pages of dense, impenetrable text in which nothing happens to characters I know nothing about and don’t desire to. It’s literally the only book I have fallen asleep reading because of the book itself being so boring.

Bear in mind I was 14 or 15 at the time; my age is a pretty irrelevant fact but it was around the time the films came out. I went to see the first film around that time with family. I recall pretty much nothing bar the stuff with Gandalf wrestling with a dragon for some reason; I actually fell asleep during the film and lost my already spurious grip on the plot. Same happened with the second film which I went to see as an organised school trip. More impenetrable waffling for what seemed like an age. Never bothered with the third.

“Epic” is seemingly used as a euphemism in terms of Lord of the Rings for “overlong”. And these films all were way, way too long, though of course this was before the trend of splitting the “finale” of a book series into two films. The Lord of the Rings is a film series I will never watch again, nor would I willingly inflict it upon even my worst enemy. To me it is full of wooden, one-dimensional fantasy-esque characters who essentially go off on a ponderous, convoluted bullshit quest around what is pretty much the most generic of generic fantasy worlds to dispose of a deceptively powerful “whatchamacallit” is one that could be easily and succinctly resolved without wasting 8 hours of my life by Frodo simply calling a cab. But I digress; I’m not reviewing The Lord of the Rings (god no), nor the books and definitely will not be spending a considerable sum subjecting myself to more of the same with The Hobbit.

I can’t be the only person in the world that finds these films dire? And these books unreadable; certainly not enjoyable. It’s actually my experience with The Lord of the Rings that has put me off reading the actual novels of Game of Thrones, the TV adaptation of which I love. I don’t want to make a commitment like that and then realise I have wasted my time; in terms of GoT I am sure these fears are unfounded but they exist.

I am not really one who cares for fantasy to any great deal. I find it to be the actual antithesis of imaginativeness and quite dull and repetitive, certainly derivative these days. Fantasy series will always occur in what I would tem a Baldur’s Gate-eque pseudo-medieval world occupied with (quelle surprise) orcs, elves and halflings etc, and the author will perform Ass Pulls with seeming wanton abandon with the laziest plot device I can think of: magic. Click a finger and - poof! - instant resolution. How unsatisfying. Nothing grates me more than an unsatisfying ending. >:-(

What’s worse is that harbouring these views makes me feel almost mentally deficient, as if there is something wrong with me, and that as a somewhat intelligent guy who goes about writing his own stuff I really need to like something as “epic” as Lord of the Rings. It’s as if my disdain for LOTR should be something to be ashamed of, which is poppycock.

And those are my thoughts. Nice to get them out there. And I realise I have no doubt alienated (somehow) a load of people for daring to criticise, ahem, their precious.

Not that any of that schizophrenic crap made any sense either. Meh.

The World Eaters - Prologue

2012-12-14T23:17:00.001+00:00

Hey guys, thought I’d tease you today with a snippet from my brand new space opera that I wrote for Nanowrimo 2012, entitled The World Eaters.

I’ve purposely not shared any of the work with you so far, mainly as the quality was… poor. However I have taken my red re-writing pen to it and I think it’s much better and ready to share. This therefore marks the start of the rewriting phase for this work. I hope you enjoy it. :-)

I’d also love if if you could spare the time to leave a comment or leave a reaction at the bottom. Cheers!

Beta Blockers and the Brick Wall

2012-12-04T21:30:00.001+00:00

I’ve actually been thinking about this for the last few weeks but really haven’t wanted to write this blog post (it is almost certainly going to be a little grumpy and a little bitter) but as things stand I feel catharsis is needed and, hey, this is the entire point of my blog so why not?

For a bit of background, you may recall I sent my almost-cooked novel Colonisation off to be beta-read exactly six months ago.

And that’s it. Colonisation disappeared into the ether, never to be heard of or from ever again.

In terms of the Colonisation beta program, my beta readers might as well have dropped off the face of the Earth. And this leaves me in quite an uncomfortable position. Not to say I’ve had no feedback at all; I’ve had some chapter notes very kindly sent to me and one beta-reader has read the book multiple times and recently completed a feedback form I created - rather, I’m a little concerned that after a considerable time, I’ve heard basically nothing.

I feel upset and confused at this eventuality. Though this is but another in a long line of disappointments that seem to haunt me throughout life. In fact, I’m feeling really quite despondent and upset that, to me at least, it seems my work is ignored and forgotten.

Really, did I upset anyone somehow?

I like to think that as I start off on this writing thing that I am personable, friendly and easy-going. I really hate to nag people about the feedback; I understand people have lives and things happen but come on, six months with nothing really substantive? As a writer, I feel like I’m being humoured (and not in a good way) and fobbed off. And I’m afraid I’m reaching the end of my patience, which I don’t feel is unreasonable.

I didn’t know how long to let people read my book for? Sure, I was enthusiastic and excited by the project but knew not to expect full feedback reports within a week. But six months with nary a note? I feel insulted almost and quite pee’d off. This is not how I would beta-read a work that someone had spent a lot of time and effort on; indeed, I’ve already been asked to beta-read for someone and can tell you I would work diligently and hard to get them valuable feedback.

Why, with anything I do, people just seem to disappear and never respond baffled me. It’s like an impenetrable wall of apathy surrounds anything cursed with my name on it. With the Colonisation beta readers I asked them if they wanted to participate, wrote them nice emails and I have always been open and easy to communicate with. If someone feels they are unable to continue as a beta-reader, fine: tell me, though. I write emails and Tweets and get virtually no response. I feel right now that I’m not quite getting the courtesy back that I have bestowed myself and it’s annoying and disheartening. Colonisation was a year’s work and I would love to get it released, but this is a barrier to that happening.

And you know what, it’s not really fair. I’ve tried to make it easier by creating a web survey for feedback and sending personal emails out about it but it really would have been more use to print the survey out, screwed it up and thrown it in the bin. I feel quite let down, upset, insulted and disheartened by how this has gone on, so screw being nice now, you’ve all had six months. Colonisation is not bloody War and Peace; I want feedback on my book, or I will just have to assume that it is perfect and ready to go.

Again, I realise my beta-readers (not naming them) may read this (lol, jk) and feel this is a personal attack. It isn’t; you’re all lovely people, but you did say you would be a beta-reader for my book, and my patience is running critical. Do what you said you would do already, or at least talk to me. Jeez.

Who’d have thunk I could feel intensely solitary and isolated online of all places…

Picture credit

Nanowrimo: Endnotes, Epilogues and Afterwords

2012-12-01T23:10:00.001+00:00

Lightning indeed struck for the third time yesterday as I finished Nanowrimo 2012 with 50,095 words on my space opera book The World Eaters (TWE). Today I would like to run through a few overriding thoughts of the month gone by:

Even though I pre-planned quite splendidly, I found TWE a difficult book to gel into, maybe because I was trying to cram a book of epic scope and original thought into a compressed timeframe, and this hampered the writing process.
I felt acutely aware this year that my writing was clunky, poor quality and garbage; hence no extract. However I am really quite excited about the prospects The World Eaters has and am keen to develop it in 2013.
However encouragingly, I really, really enjoyed the idea of an epic space opera and I look forward a lot to expanding the universe created in TWE and sharing it with you! You’re going to love it!
Scrivener was a wonderful writing environment to work in. Highly recommended!
For the first time, I hit 50,000 words without reaching the story’s conclusion; out of 30 planned chapters (eventually there will be 33) I hit 26. I’m a little disappointed as I wanted the momentum of Nanowrimo to propel me throughout the entire narrative as I really do fear losing steam after November ends; I have decided to take a week or two off from TWE and polish off first drafts of those last chapters in the latter part of December over Christmas.

I’m going to let the dust settle on another hectec year of Nanowrimo before doing any more writing. I am mentally exhausted but as previously it’s a strangely-addictive feeling of burnout that is quite exciting in a way. I’m going to for the first part of 2013 put TWE on ice for a little bit; I’m actually totally fatigued from the universe but this is temporary. My aim for now is to get Colonisation out there, so stay tuned!

I’d also really like to congratulate my Twitter Nano pals Jake and Yin for their efforts this month too. Well done!

Nanowrimo Progress Report (Day 22)

2012-11-22T00:15:00.001+00:00

Hey guys, just checking in with my third Nanowrimo progress report to let you all know how the challenge has progressed:

I remain just shy of where I should be, but this is not a big deal and should cruise to 50,000 words by the last day of the month. I’m in the low 30,000s so the end is relatively near!
I’ve taken part in some phenomenal writing sessions at my local library; achieving 3,000 and 3,700 words respectively. I love writing in the library I have found, and I’ll definitely be continuing to visit there once the focus moves from writing to editing and revision. It’s such a nice environment!
For the first time I’m facing the very real possibility of not getting to the end of the story within 50,000 words. I want to avoid this really as otherwise I fear I may lose the impetus to finish the first draft from one end of the narrative to the other if I don’t complete it within the month.
I’m really enjoying switching points of view in my story. I was originally a bit uneasy about this, preferring previously to follow my “main character” around almost to the ends of the Earth, but it does make a nice break to focus elsewhere for a chapter or two. I expect the reader will enjoy the break from the claustrophobic atmosphere on the protagonist’s tiny ship too, and get them to explore the universe I have set up.
I’ve also really enjoyed these update posts and they’re keeping me thinking about the project in the medium and long term.
No extract has been published – on purpose! Quite a lot of the draft is what I know to be low quality, and I look forward to hitting editing in January!

That’s enough for now! Expect a finale post in the next few days as November draws to a close. :-)

NaNoWriMo Progress Report (Day 10)

2012-11-10T21:05:00.001+00:00

Hey folks, thought I’d let you know how Nanowrimo’s been going as I hit the one-third stage:

I’m meeting my word count targets on pain of death, as I’m determined to stay relatively ahead.
I was ill for a short time last week which deflated me somewhat but I did try to write at least something; since then retained my modest word-count surplus.
Writing after work is actually going better than expected! I usually am tired but I just tell myself to sit down and do my words and I can manage to get them out. It’s quite relaxing in a way!
Aiming still to roughly do a chapter per day; on weekends I’ll try to do a chapter and a half or maybe more.
Weekends are proving the hardest to motivate myself on as I have all day to do everything else bar writing!
Lastly, I’m aware that my writing is absolutely drek at this stage. However, all is not lost, and I already look forward to editing The World Eaters come January; while the actual content of the chapters so far is awful, I’m pretty happy so far with how the scenes are playing out, the moods created and the characters interactions. So something good to build upon!

I’ll do another update periodically! :-)

NaNoWriMo Progress Report (2/11/2012)

2012-11-02T23:21:00.001+00:00

Just a quick aside on the progress of NaNoWriMo this month.

Made an excellent start to The World Eaters, bit subdued but I’ve made enough progress to have gotten enough of a “bite” into my story to get into it.
Outlining really has helped so far.
Running at an above-average word count surplus; I’m aiming to hit 10,000 words by Sunday to put me well out in front.
Already know which bits are going to need major revision but the bones are there

More updates throughout the month! Check out my Nanowrimo profile while you’re at it! By all means feel free to ask me questions on Facebook or on Twitter!

Nano Workflow Toolkit

2012-10-28T12:49:00.001+00:00

I’m really excited about Nanowrimo this year; I’ve a really engaging, epic storyline ready to go (I talked about it here), I’m well and truly into my characters and I feel it’s just going to be an epic adventure – and one I’m not going to be embarking on in total solitude!

But today I want to talk about something equally as important as the actual meat and potatoes of writing as part of Nanowrimo: my Nano-workflow.

The past two years I’ve been exclusively chained to my desk and bashing hundreds of thousands of keystrokes into Microsoft Word. But Word hasn’t really helped the matter of writing and rewriting, and I’d have to say it’s a partial factor in why my first ever book, steampunk adventure The Last of the Steamers remains in development hell.

Crucially, on the software side, I’ve taken wholeheartedly to a new way of working which I strongly feel will help me flourish more easily as I embark on this crazy journey.

And more importantly, I’m no longer chained to my desk! So let’s start there, shall we?

NaNoWriMo 2012: Announcing “The World Eaters”

2012-10-16T12:26:00.001+01:00

I’m extremely excited to announce the novel that I will be working on for National Novel Writing Month 2012 and beyond: The World Eaters.

Let me start you with a synopsis:

In the far future, there was an Event, and worlds were consumed by great aliens and left as dust floating around a star. Humanity had fought hard to protect its fragile galaxy but the war had been lost, every man, woman and child fighting for their very survival, for that was what was at stake.

And they lost and paid a heavy price.

A hundred years later, the scattered vestiges of humanity cling to fragments of rock orbiting a burning star. Some form factions, some remain leaderless, some take advantage of the leaderless, but two new civilizations emerge and lock horns. And it is up to one pilot – Jack Dante, dragged into a war he couldn’t care less, a war engineered by leaders about by a power he knows nothing of – to prevent total annihilation of one faction by the other – for humanity’s sake, and his own.

Over the last few weeks I’ve been working hard to refine the idea from a concept that crossed my mind into an actual story, with cohesive characters I can’t wait to write and I can’t wait for you to meet. The World Eaters is going to be a new thing for me as it’s in my mind to be a trilogy of three books charting the journey of Jack Dante, the war between the Orbital Federation and the Shard Triumvirate and more, and I’m really excited to set up an epic space-opera setting.

There’ll be elements inspired from lots of classic sci-fi, yes. Firefly, Star Wars, Star Trek and many others whose names escape me, annoyingly, have been great inspirations and themes as I plan this book, but I do hope my premise is original and stands up on its own.

And I can’t wait for November 1 to roll on!

Check out my NaNoWriMo profile HERE.

I’d also like to thank Jake (check out his website) for being jolly useful in bouncing ideas off of. He’ll be doing NaNoWriMo for the first time this year!

Colonisation update: Colonisation is still being beta read, and I hope to have feedback and an eventual Kindle release early in 2013. Sorry to have missed the September/October-ish release date I’d promised previously.

Writing Cinematically

2012-10-15T15:22:00.001+01:00

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been planning like mad for NaNoWriMo 2012 – this is becoming a yearly thing and, after having a ball the past two years I’m not ashamed of that fact – and it occurred to me that my way of visualising scenes and chapters, almost, might be quite interesting to some people.

Basically, my new novel (which I’m not quite ready to announce) is going to be a sci-fi epic in its own right. And the first in an actual pre-planned series – the first major series I’ll be writing. And I can assure you, you’re going to love it?

But what’s been helping me get these vapid, ethereal ideas out of my brain and into some sort of logical context? Why, of course, I visualise every scene in my mind as a mini-movie.

Now that might sound stupid, but consider this: writing a fiction book is like guiding an invisible “narrator” who tells the story around a series of situations and makes observations on what they see that the reader can synthesise appropriately. My new book will be in third-person (I tried Colonisation in first-person to… mixed success.) and essentially what I’m doing with the writing is using the text as a camera in a film to showcase events, characters and settings.

And getting your head into that frame of mind really helps. Basically, I imagine what the “movie version” would show and I aim to fill that textual frame with all the detail to make it a rich, vivid and most importantly believable cohesive whole that the reader will be able to visualise similarly.

My new book is going to be a no-holds-barred space opera, and this poses its own challenges. I’ve some pretty amazing space-based showcase events that I want to really do justice to, and the absolute easiest way I’ve found it to get a scene from, say Star Wars and take cues from that, and hope to emulate the atmosphere and energy portrayed there. You really have to imagine you’re there in the fictional universe you aim to create for it to be believable, but also you have to make sure the reader also gets there in a way similar to how you picture it in your head.

This may seem quite odd and weird, but it isn’t. It’s very easy to lose yourself in details that don’t matter, but if you want to write a blockbuster scene, imagine it’s a blockbuster movie. I find it really does help.

Oranges and Lemons Kindle Release - A Quick Note

2012-10-07T14:34:00.001+01:00

Last week I released – as a total test of the KDP platform – my short story Oranges and Lemons onto Kindle, and I’ve been making some effort on Twitter to market this product, with some success I must say!

Today’s blogpost will be short – the promotional weekend (which is still in force until the end of Sunday 7th October, I think…) has been quite a huge success I think, with some quite unexpected sales figures and also… my book reached #21 in the bestselling free short story category!

I just really want to thank all the people on Twitter and Facebook who’ve been so helpful and nice in retweeting, sharing and most importantly downloading and reading the short story. I won’t name you all personally here, but you know who you are and I know who you are and you’re my favourite people ever right now!

Just one small favour on top of this rather large favour… do send your thoughts and reviews over to Amazon; I’d love to read them, or just post a star-rating if that’s all you’ve time for. Cheers! :-)

Download Oranges and Lemons HERE if you haven’t already!

Oranges and Lemons available NOW on Kindle Store!

2012-09-30T19:52:00.001+01:00

ANNOUNCEMENT – My short story Oranges and Lemons is now available on the Kindle store!

This is it, folks, my first actual tangible product is available for purchase, just as I planned to make it so previously. So go forth and tweet, email and forward this link to all those you think may be interested and most importantly… download my story!

This is testing the water for my upcoming full novel release and I’m very excited to be able to make this announcement!

Oranges and Lemons is priced at $0.99/£0.77; the lowest amount permitted.

BUY ON AMAZON UK HERE AND AMAZON US HERE!

Lightning Review: Kindle 3.3 for iOS

2012-09-22T14:59:00.001+01:00

A bit of an unusual review today, but one I’m very pleased to be able to write.

Seeing as iOS 6 fever has hit the Apple-sphere, developers everywhere have been rushing to inundate my phone with app updates that proclaim right at the top to add “iOS 6 functionality”, whatever that is. Now, I’ve just been installing these as they come (without having to enter my password every time!) but one came last night and I was intrigued.

I don’t really use the Kindle app as my primary reading experience because I have a bona-fide eInk Kindle that I absolutely adore. But what I really dig is Amazon’s ethos of buy once, read everywhere: that is, you buy a book once, it’s tied to your account and you can read it on any device, Kindle or not, using either the Kindle or an associated Kindle app.

However, I did try out version 3.3 of the Kindle app last night once it downloaded and I’m impressed. Why? First of all, you’re able to pick more fonts than the standard one, Georgia, which is an important consideration as I didn’t think Georgia really worked on the Apple touchscreen; I’ve set it to the ol’ favourite Helvetica and it’s very nice.

The single biggest improvement in Kindle 3.3 is the brightness setting. One of the main drawbacks I find for reading on LCD panels late at night in bed is that it’s tantamount to shining a bright torch in your face while reading – it strains my eyes, affects my sleep and isn’t ideal. Amazon however have made improvements to Kindle 3.3 to make the lower brightness setting considerably lower than iOS itself allows, and this actually really enhances the late-night lights-off reading experience when using the phone. I’ve posted a screenshot to the side; in normal light it looks unreadable but when it’s completely dark the faint glow is just enough to be legible but toned down to avoid most of the eyestrain. I imagine this is to emulate the new Kindle Paperwhite e-readers that are flurrying onto the marketplace; if a Paperwhite is like this, I’m very much interested!

Also, I have to say, the green-on-black text option works best here. There’s also the option of black-on-white or sepia paper.

I’m very impressed overall with the reading experience offered by Kindle 3.3 for iOS; it’s free and syncs wirelessly your reading position with all other Kindle devices so you can easily switch devices and not worry about losing your place. It was one of the first apps downloaded to my iPhone when I got it and I’m not regretting that decision one bit.

Sample text from xhupf.com/blog – read the story here, it’s very good!

Rating: 5/5

Testing Grounds

2012-09-16T20:41:00.001+01:00

Last night I had a bit of a brainwave, but before I can go any further, I feel I should step back and give you guys a bit of background.

Over the course of the past 9 months (starting with Nanowrimo in November 2011), I wrote a science fiction novel entitled Colonisation that is currently in the hands of a select few beta readers, and I hope to be hearing back from the first soon to make the changes needed and get the book ready for general consumption.

I’ve also always had the intention of publishing Colonisation on the Kindle store for people to buy there and enjoy on their Kindle e-readers and so on. I’ll add it to Smashwords (another popular ebook distribution site) and maybe even a print-on-demand physical copy in time but the Kindle avenue is going to be my main means of distribution for my writing works once they’re polished and pristine and perfect.

However, I have no experience whatsoever on Kindle publishing and I felt it might be prudent to test the waters before I drop Colonisation, a 78,000 word labour of love and effort on there, so it occurred to me that I should release something now, something short and, not inconsequential, but not as boneshakingly important as Colonisation just to see how the Kindle publishing process works and help Colonisation’s eventual release be as painless as possible.

Over the summer I have written two 10k-ish word stories, Quigley Hubb 1 and Oranges and Lemons, and it is these that I will take test material (rather, the entirety of one of the works) from. As Quigley Hubb is part of a hopefully-on going series and will be collated into collections and anthologies eventually, it left Oranges and Lemons the only story available to be my Kindle debut, to test out how this thing works.

So what I plan to do over the next week or so is get Oranges and Lemons edited, polished, and then… onto the Kindle store! Then I can gauge how easy this process is and adjust my workflow for the biggie – still aiming hopefully to have Colonisation out before the year is out! For now, enjoy the Oranges and Lemons cover image i prepared!

Look forward to seeing how this happens!

Spindle When You’re Winning

2012-09-03T11:23:00.001+01:00

Last night I fancied testing out my newly-upgraded computer with a game I’d had for a while but not really played properly, which was my dad’s copy of Command & Conquer 3.

However, being my dad, he bought it on DVD a few years ago and it’s been quite used, left in its case to buffet around, left on coasters… the usual sort of stuff CDs seem to go through. And I know that CDs are actually pretty fragile so it was no surprise (but plenty of disappointment) that the install took so long that I cancelled it, and the disc was covered in a litany of smudges and little scratches.

This post is not a call for EA to replace my game; I know I’ve no chance of getting one. And I suppose both I and my dad cannot be absolved of all responsibility in what happened to C&C3 over the last five years. But I did want to play this game that I have, and can’t.

My dad paid a considerable sum for this game back in the day – technically, for a licence to play C&C3, but the physical media is unusable. Therefore, am I forced to either buy the game again (it’s £14.99 on Steam) or go without, and I don’t think that’s right.

Though of course, I could just pirate a copy of the game and play it. But I feel… morally grey about that. Will Big Content let me essentially “steal” a game I already own to replace my worn media? I think that, yes, this is a situation where piracy – or, more accurately, the acquisition digitally of data I bought before but can no longer access.

File sharing has been under quite immense attack by Big Content this year, so I’m reticent to go downloading a .iso of my game without considering the consequences. I’d rather not get a nasty threatening letter, and I can’t rely on the defence of “they’ll never know” – sooner or later that will catch up. And it’s not like the facts that I’m in possession physically of the game I’d be “stealing” would matter – my IP would be logged, file transfer logged, letter sent thank you very much.

There’s a few lessons in this that can be taken while I mull this over, however:

Take care of your discs – As I found out in an excellent Ashens review video, even whirling a disc around momentarily on a presumed-flat, clean surface can cause tiny scratches, so always place discs back in cases when not in use, and don’t swirl them around. Even in the cases.
Buy games on online distribution sites – And by that I mean, buy games on Steam. I never used to like Steam but once I started using it in 2010 it’s been great. You don’t ever have to worry about damaged discs and lost serial keys as it’s all attached to your account and totally machine-agnostic. Of course, there’s always deals too, and a large selection of old games which is nice'; for instance, I recently bought SimCity 4 for £1.75, for two reasons: it’s a great game and, yep, I own it already but my discs are almost ten years old…
If you can, back up your discs to your machine – I use a duo of excellent, free related programs called ImgBurn and it’s “banned” predecessor DVD Decrypter (Google it, shh!) to back up the discs I already physically own (so shush, lawyers) to .iso files on my hard drive. That way, I can either burn these files to disc to create “new” media if it ever breaks, or better, use these .iso files in virtual DVD drives and eliminate the need for a spinning piece of plastic, which is the weakest and most vulnerable part of this distribution method.

Anyway, until next time, hope that’s been of help as I mull turning fifty shades of morally grey…

Preparations for Nanowrimo ‘12

2012-08-28T22:29:00.001+01:00

OK, my blog has been a little desolate and deserted this month, and for that I apologise. I’ve actually been very busy preparing diligently for National Novel Writing Month 2012 which will be taking place this November.

It’ll be my third Nanowrimo and I’m pretty stoked! Last couple of years it’s been really quite exciting, and every year I feel I’m writing better. So it’s something I hope to continue improving with for the future. I aim to at least do this annually until the end of my twenties, and I probably will carry on.

There’s still two months to go until November 1st and I can start writing prose, but this is time I’m spending well this year, planning my new book. I’m not quite ready to announce it yet, but it’s going to be something along the lines of a grand space opera. I’ve begun building the universe this book (the first in a planned three – yes, I’m planning a trilogy) takes place in and I’ve conversed with a couple of friends who think my initial arc and premise is definitely going somewhere! I’m teasing you to the right with my initial notes in Scrivener with only the briefest hint – the title, The World Eaters…

I’d really urge all of you to give Nanowrimo a try if you’re that way inclined – it’s actually a lot of fun, daunting but you can end that month knowing you tried to create something, and if you reach 50,000 words that’s great, but if you didn’t, you still gave it a good shot and maybe next year you’ll reach the goal!

Writing in the depths of winter is relentlessly solitary, and I’m fine with that for the most part, but I’m also planning to make my Nanowrimo a bit more social this year, and if you want to add me as a writing buddy please go along to my profile HERE and click the link up top.

For now, go ahead and read my two short stories, Quigley Hubb 1 – Munro’s Wager and Oranges and Lemons while I keep at it! A new Quigley story is in the works for the interim between now and November!

An Audio Adventure

2012-08-20T12:07:00.001+01:00

This is a little bit weird, because it related to my in-hiatus steampunk novel The Last of the Steamers, but I shall press on nevertheless, for I’ve something very exciting to announce!

Well, rather, over the course of my blog, I’ve strongly hinted at an audio reading of the first three chapters of my novel, The Last of the Steamers quite a few times, so sporadic in fact that it took me a little while to collate these hint-er-oonies. But I found them and you can click through down memory lane in no particular order here, here, here and here.

Over the last 8 months though, I’ve worked with my good friends Elliot and Jamie and we’ve produced to quite a professional standard a nice audio reading of these chapters. They’re accompanied by some very fitting music from classic (and downright awesome) steampunk RPG Arcanum which was written by Ben Houge, whose music really did fill out and polish off an epic game of its own right.

Below, I’ve embedded a Soundcloud player where you can stream all 3 chapters in their entirety; you can also download the MP3s for later, as the whole three chapters runs to about an hour and a half. Maybe sync them to your smartPod or iMusic or whatever. I find I can listen to audiobooks and podcasts quite nicely in bed.

Hopefully we’ll do more audio readings, maybe of Oranges and Lemons or Quigley Hubb, but to do an amateur audiobook for my upcoming finished (shock, horror) novel Colonisation will be a ton of work but we’ll see how Steamers 1-3 is received. It’ll be an interesting experiment to see how this method of distribution and awareness-raising works!

I also realise that Steamers is already an anachronism here; I tend to go for sci-fi almost purely now. But my plans for Steamers have been reignited by this audio project, and next year I’m going to devote the time it deserves to finish Steamers and maybe get it out there in full! I’m sure you’ll love it!

The Last of the Steamers Audiobook Preview by Richard Holliday

I’ve also included a little video we made when recording Chapter 1 in December 2011, which is quite cool:

Oranges and Lemons

2012-08-07T12:23:00.001+01:00

Hey guys! It gives me great pleasure to be able to announce the immediate availability of my newest short story, Oranges and Lemons on my blog today! Scroll down on this entry to have a read!

You might recall that I talked about Oranges and Lemons previously; I was able to bring about a conclusion that was less dangerously-similar to a particularly prickly act of terrorism IRL to something a bit more tragic but serving the same purpose.

You’ll also note that Oranges and Lemons isn’t sci-fi per se, but rather… I dunno, how would you categorise a story set in the 1980s about a struggling farmer? Tell me in the comments!

Updated 2/10/2012 – Oranges and Lemons is now exclusive to Kindle! Be sure to check out my Twitter to find out about promotions and click the link below to go straight to Amazon to get the book.

Oranges and Lemons on Kindle

Look forward to all your comments; enjoy it! – Richard :-)

Picture credit: DMC Garvey

Lightning Review: New Tweet RPG Website

2012-08-02T20:22:00.001+01:00

An unusual subject for today’s review…

I don’t usually review websites or services, but yesterday a Twitter friend of mine who runs a mighty interesting project recently overhauled the website that is pretty key to it, and I’m really impressed.

First, what is Tweet RPG? A full review an analysis of Sam’s idea is beyond the scope of this little ditty, but it’s a rather cool idea that harks back to the dark old days of text-based multi-user dungeons but with a twenty-first century twist in that it’s all facilitated not through MS-DOS and Telnet, but through Twitter.

I like to feel I’ve helped Sam over the course of the last few Tweet RPG yarns, and I’m pleased to have done that. So, what do I think of his new website, and how does it compare to his old one (still accessible in a sort-of retirement mode here) and, more importantly, how do I think it will help him out in running Tweet RPG?

Let’s start with his original site, which he hosted via Blogger. It was effective, yes, but Sam definitely saw the limitations – Blogger is designed pretty much primarily for chronological entries, and has pretty rudimentary functions for static pages – for a project like Tweet RPG, it’s important to have timely updates but also important to have pertinent information anchored and accessible. With only ten “pages” available, space was running a bit thin. From a design perspective, too, the top-level menu was starting to look quite cluttered, with text running off buttons and such like. But this was all due to the limitations of Blogger and the template (which, despite gallant efforts, really did look template-y) and not Sam’s fault.

His new site is, by stark contrast, lovely. It certainly doesn’t look like a template, and that’s a plus, as I know Sam wants Tweet RPG to grow and the “bedroom” look of the Blogger site maybe would be hindering the project as it reaches a wider audience. With a bespoke layout, with an attractive theme and also the ability to segment crucial static pages for easy access alongside a hopefully-updated blog page with a robust comment system, I think Tweet RPG’s new home will give it plenty of room to grow and definitely facilitate more players taking part in this quirky little timewaster that I’m certainly a fan of!

So good work Sam, I look forward to seeing how the site performs when an adventure is “live”!

Visit Tweet RPG here, find out more here, and see Sam’s “bedroom” here.

You’ll also be able to access Tweet RPG at any time from my links bar to the right!

Disclosure: Sam is very nicely beta-reading my book Colonisation, and heck, if this doesn’t get me onto the “Friends of Tweet RPG” page, what will?

A Story Soured

2012-08-01T09:56:00.001+01:00

I was originally going to write a blog post about the upcoming/current Olympic games, but after being pretty irate about it, I just couldn’t get the impetus to codify my thoughts into an actual blog post. I made the mistake of starting one, but not finishing it – which is a terrible idea. Statistically, blog posts are written in one go in about fifteen minutes, and I am very prone to losing creative steam if I pause and intend to finish off later. I never did, and so my “big Olympics rant” never materialised. Sorry.

At any rate, the Olympics can be summed up effectively as a bit of a disappointment. The opening ceremony was somewhat bizarre and clichéd, our athletes (Mark Cavendish, looking at you) are gold on expectation, paper on actual delivery, and the expected inrush of tourists and their much-needed money hasn’t happened. I’m just doing my best to avoid all contact with the Olympic games and the associated illogicality that surrounds it. Maybe a retrospective on one of the more interesting notions surrounding this event, the maniacal protection of global multinational corporate sponsors.

Not that any of my valid criticism and concerns is welcome, at any rate; I’ve been tweeted multiple times to basically “keep my mouth shut if you don’t like it”, which is another classic example of an opinion being silenced and shouted down just because it goes against the grain of public expectation or opinion. Hey-hum.

Anyway, where was I? Oh, I wanted to talk about a story I’ve been writing that has me actually quite perturbed.

For the last two weeks I’ve been working on a new short story entitled Oranges and Lemons which if I recall is mentioned on my Writing page; it’s a bleak story about one man’s struggle against a great corporate power that is hell-bent on doing what it wants regardless of the consequences. And all has been going fine, it’s been great to write and, as you can probably imagine knowing me, everything has quickly, in this fictional world, gone absolutely to sh*t. Just as I intended.

But I’m coming up to the end of this and I feel that my ending is going to be sailing a bit close to the wind… it’s going to quite spookily mirror one of the most notorious domestic acts of terrorism in US history.

And I don’t know if I really like that.

I mean, fiction’s fiction but I’m steaming toward this unhappiest of unhappy endings to Oranges and Lemons – and I’m not sure if it is the right path to take. I knew from the outset that the story would end with a huge explosion, but as the details have crystallised: a desperate, lone protagonist with nothing to lose, giant corporate headquarters, fertiliser bomb et al, I’m feeling uncomfortable at the message this might portray.

I don’t want to glorify what happened or what is going to happen, so I think as I consider how to conclude this story, it’s my responsibility to not glorify or make light of any aspect of the situation the protagonist finds himself in.

I’ll give the story tomorrow to simmer in my mind, and I’ll just see if i can think of a different ending, one that’s still bittersweet and shows the futility of such desperation, but maybe, just maybe, doesn’t feature a truckload of ammonium nitrate. As a writer, even I think, for dramatic purposes or just to tell a stupid story, I’d be cutting it to close to unpleasant reality.

Passing Thoughts: JK Rowling and Pottermore

2012-07-19T22:30:00.001+01:00

A thought occurred to me that might shock you: JK Rowling is a bit of an ass.

I actually never finished reading the Harry Potter books and looked them up on the Kindle store, as I think it’s about time to revisit them and read them. I mean, can’t go wrong with Harry Potter, right?

Now, getting Harry Potter as a set of legal, proper ebook has literally been the electronic book equivalent of getting the Beatles onto iTunes. Everyone’s been wondering where the biggest book franchise has been, and finally the publishers have entered the digital age and relented to let us read the damn books on one of those new-fangled e-reader dealies. (They’ll never catch on, I tells ya!)

Anyway, my point is, they did release Harry Potter on ebooks – but you have to go to the overly-snazzy and totally redundant Pottermore (wtf does it even do?!) site in order to actually buy them. So instead of leveraging Amazon’s excellent storefront, payment and delivery systems… the Amazon “phoney” listings for Harry Potter instruct customers to click over to Pottermore, to create another account they’ll probably use once, and then enter their payment details across.

If this was any other book or author, Amazon would be able to tell them to stop trying to use Amazon to forward traffic to their own stupid site, and get in with every other author. But because this is Harry Potter… logic and rationalising this is out the window and pandering to JK’s every whim is in.

Since when is JK Rowling suddenly “better” then every other Kindle author? Why hold Amazon to ransom to make life a little bit more difficult for us customers?

This is nonsensical. She already has more money than most small countries off the back of this book, but for some strange reason has colluded with her publishers to make the very readers that made her a success and a new generation just getting into reading via Kindle have to jump through a completely arbitrary set of hoops. And what for? Advertising on Pottermore? Or that crappy “experience”? Please…

So screw you, JK, you giant bitch, and screw your “exclusive to Pottermore” ebooks.

Plot Wholes

2012-07-14T10:13:00.001+01:00

More haste and less speed is sometimes key with publishing on the Internet.

Felt like doing a quick blog to share something interesting. Had a funny story with regards to the Quigley Hubb story that I published here very recently. I left some plot notes in the actual book! Ouch!

That’s to say I’d left some bulleted lists written purely for my own purposes for future ideas and scene finishing in the actual story, which blew the plot on two occasions! I was pretty embarrassed but a good friend of mine, Jamie (whose site you can visit here) was kind enough to read the story and email me to say I needed to revise them. Done so now, all current links sill function.

Got me thinkin’ about this online publishing business. With Quigley Hubb and other short stories to come, I plan to put them here without any editing or whatnot. I just want them out and available for general consumption while I work on my big book, like Colonisation; however, for these online edits, there will be basically no redrafting. The double-edged sword has nicked me on this occasion.

But the best way to learn how to get the optimum workflow is to make these little errors and learn from them. So if you read the story (and quite a few page views suggest this is the case) and were confused or deflated by the presence of these writer’s notes, no worries. I’ll try not to be quite so hasty and give everything an actual proofread, even of the brisk kind, before I click the big button.

If you haven’t read Quigley Hubb 1 – Munro’s Wager click HERE! Thanks! :-)

Lightning Review: Id

2012-07-08T19:25:00.001+01:00

I thought I’d do another one of my Lightning Review things for a recent book I finished. Today’s subject is a book called Id by Paul Craig.

Picking up Id for only 77p on the Kindle store, I intended to read the book while on a couple of long train journeys last month. Naturally, travelling with a friend put paid to any serious bouts of reading on both occasions, but with Kindle in hand I made a good start, and got a third of the way in.

Id has an unusual style to its construction – each chapter works chronologically from the “end” of the story through to the “beginning”, which is a very intriguing way to do it, and I think it worked. It was sure interesting to find out why the harrowing events of the initial chapters happened, what led the protagonist, who is quite mysteriously described only as “the man”, and to have a sense of foreboding when working backwards, knowing what happens to these characters before it happens to them. I found myself hoping, waiting to see if things might magically end up differently, without so many bloodied corpses littering the floor, but knowing what was going to happen left a macabre sense of thrill when the focus of the current chapter ties gruesomely into the end of the prior one.

My only real complaints were that it requires a little bit of mental gymnastics to loop what is happening at the end of one chapter you just finished to the beginning of the previous chapter that you might have read a while ago. I didn’t need to flick back but you need to be sharp and alert not only to make sense of the book, but also to enjoy it to the full. I was also a little let down with the ending/beginning of the story not quite in my mind tallying up with the picture built up throughout the rest of the novel of “the man” being a serial killer, but there’s only one way to find out if I got it right, and it’s to do something that you can’t do with many books, which is: to read it backwards.

All in all, I was very pleased with Paul’s work here and it was definitely a steal at just 77p. Check it out!

My rating:

Get Id on Amazon here, and follow Paul Craig on Twitter here.

Under the Weather

2012-07-03T19:26:00.001+01:00

When I feel unwell, mopey, self-centred blog posts usually result.

I usually seem to have the constitution of an ox, but unfortunately this constitution is not invincible, and thus when I do succumb to illness I really, really feel it. But having a “summer cold” doesn’t really do it justice, heck, it makes me seem like a right wimp.

But when one’s sinuses are loaded with goo, and one has an incessant cough that is like a chainsaw and a throat that for hours upon end feels like it’s lined with rusty razor blades, I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say I’m not feeling great. And I haven’t been, for the last 4-5 days.

Luckily I seem to have conquered the worst of it, but it’s left my creative endeavours in tatters, which has most upset me. My imagination has evaporated in a sea of lethargy, and thus, I’ve not read or written a single word in 4 days, which means that my chain (as set out earlier) has unfortunately been broken. Even worse considering I managed not to break it during a 3-day trip away by transferring my work and typing on my friend’s computer using a USB memory stick.

But to be honest, it’s good to break it in a way, as I can make a fresh start with my new project. Also, breaking the chain makes it more valuable, and I can take it less for granted. I also know now that I am totally fallible, but that’s fine. I’m human and I accept that. 68 days for my first chain is a superb effort, I have to say.

I’ve already got my new project – a industrial story called Oranges and Lemons – ready, with characters created and scenes outlined in Scrivener; just waiting for my bout of illness to subside and my imagination to fire up again! I can’t wait!

And if you think about it…. I wrote a blog-post, which means I wrote something! Salutations!