Tag: writing

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A Quick Word About Postcards

Although postcards are now virtually obsolete in daily life, I can remember a time when they were used to enter competitions, to cast votes in polls, and to let friends and family know you’d reached your holiday destination safely.

But when I’m going away for a day or two, I like to maintain the last of those traditions. In most cases, I know I’ll arrive back home before the mail does, even when it’s within Great Britain, but it doesn’t diminish the surprise for the recipient.

A typical card measures around four inches by six, although there are wide variations, with the front featuring a picture or design. The back is split into two equal sections, so your text has to fit into that left section because the address and the stamp will take up the right-hand side. You can also buy books of plain postcards where the address and stamp go on the front, allowing use of the entire rear side.

Still, the fixed format forces you to pick your words wisely or to minimise the size of your handwriting. The inventors of the SMS initially chose 160 characters as the limit based upon those restrictions.

In the earliest days of mobile messaging, each one typically cost between 5p and 10p to send; those figures are not adjusted for inflation. Some handsets supported longer messages, but each block or partial block of 160 characters was charged separately.

Despite this, an SMS easily undercut the price of a stamp in the second half of the 1990s – shown by this table from The Great Britain Philatelic Society – especially as you didn’t need to buy a physical postcard either.

The cost of SMS and similar messages today is negligable. Most phone subscriptions have some element of inclusive or unlimited allowance, putting the higher cost into perspective. On a day trip to Birmingham yesterday, I sent just two cards, but they cost me 87p apiece in second-class stamps.

Knowing I might not have a chance later in the day, my intention was to write them both on the flight and post them at the other end. I forgot to take them out of my bag until we were almost ready to land, but they’re both now safely in the post awaiting delivery.

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Memorable Names for Fictional Characters

Most of the time, I find it easy to think of what the characters in my stories should be called. Their names often appear at the same time as the storyline.

I wrote one such piece in 2014 titled Adrian Eats the World, which appeared at the same time as the title. Until I found the file while writing this, I thought that was still its name. In 2015, it seems I had a change of mind and amended his name to Mikey. I can’t remember what made me change this, so it’s now been restored.

More recently, I’ve included a Rosalind McQueen because the cadence simply worked well. During the story, she changes this to Scott McQueen, which has a different cadence but is equally as pleasing.

The most difficult character to name was a sci-fi story set during the 1960s in a world where a group of intelligence agents were worried about an impending visit from aliens. This character was supposed to be the young man who had been drafted into the unit as a favour by his father.

I looked to take the James Bond approach, with an ordinary first name and a distinctive last name. It took weeks to settle upon Malcolm St Clement. Even then, I wasn’t certain because the only other person I could find with that last name was the actress Pam St Clement from EastEnders, and even that’s a modification of her real name: Pamela Clements. However, it sounded good, and I kept using it.

On other occasions, a name is the least of my concerns.

In one of my series, the first-person narrator remained unnamed until the 24th part. I didn’t even realise I was omitting the name at first; it simply wasn’t central to the storyline. Besides, the 2004 film Layer Cake pulled off this trick nicely.

Even once I became aware of the omissions, there were workarounds I could employ to avoid saying it. It helped that the series was an ensemble effort comprising seven other named main characters. Eventually, I decided to reveal the narrator’s name as a minor twist in what was intended to be the finale. I’ve since added a surprise 25th story.

The other layer to this discussion is the use of nicknames. I find these hard to pull off convincingly. Unexplained nicknames can be jarring, yet when they are explained, the backstory can feel contrived or a little too perfect.

In this instance, it might be wise to take a cue from real life. For instance, there’s a website for pilots and fans of the F-16 fighter jet that has a whole section devoted to the imaginative callsigns in the forces. A few are clever, but most are a little ramshackle and that makes them sound a little more convincing.

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What We Talk About at Writing Group

For the last ten years, I’ve run a weekly writing group. This has almost always been on a Tuesday and with a co-organiser.

I inititally joined in 2010, when the group was still a branch of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). I took over in 2015 once the original organisers graduated and moved away. After withdrawing our affiliation from NaNoWriMo two years ago, two of us now jointly run it as an independent group.

It must be stated that we have a manageable number of members, so other than a few word-of-mouth referrals, the group is not actively recruiting at present.

In its current form, members can drop in at any time during the two-hour session, either in-person or via Discord. They’re welcome to stay for a short while or the whole session, and there isn’t even an expectation to write. We frequently end up chatting, joking, making plans and/or solving problems.

But although that format is consistent these days, it took some trial and error to figure it out.

As the main NaNoWriMo challenge only took place during November, the weekly meetings coincided with that. After some enthusiasm by members, we cautiously extended the-e weekly meetings on a trial basis through December, then January, then February, and so on. People were still coming along, so we confidently started meeting up all year round. We now have a recurring table reservation and the staff know us well.

On a couple of occasions before the pandemic, I even brought the members around to my house on 31 October so we could begin to draft our novels at the stroke of 1 November.

While the meetings themselves have always been a hit, the members have rarely been interested in any formal activites such as writing sprints, feedback sessions or homework challenges. Variations of these have been attempted with different leaderships in different years, but none have caught on.

In Dundee, at least, the thirst is simply for ringfenced time to write every week and that’s what we provide.

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Sitting – I Won’t Stand for It

Five years ago this month, I finally started working from home on account of the pandemic. This was a major change after 14 years being in an office, although the transition was delayed from March because my employer at the time had only had desktop PCs and needed to buy us laptops.

Before this, I’d already been interested in a standing desk. Regular use can help improve your overall health. To this end, I’d experimented with differnt layouts for my own computer, settling on a tabletop stand that could hold a laptop and nothing more.

With the prospect of working from home, however, it was necessary to find room for an external monitor because we used several software applications and it was easier to keep them all on screen at the same time. I quickly found a gas-lift standing desk adaptor and the employer made a contribution towards buying it.

In this time, I’ve changed jobs twice and moved house once, and I still work from home for the majority of the time. I realised recently that while the setup worked perfectly well, the equipment took up more than twice the space of what I actually required, so it was time to scale down.

My new desk is just 600mm square, split horizontally, as seen below.

The desk set up in a standing position, with a monitor, laptop and keyboard on the tabletop parts. Towards the bottom is a bank of electric sockets; to the right of the picture, wooden shelves can be seen.

The far half of the tabletop can hold the monitor arm and laptop, while the keyboard can be at a different height and/or angle on the near half. It even has a built-in extension cable and LED lights, eliminating the need to use my own cable.

I’ve had to compromise slightly, with the wooden shelves providing a handy place for a few of the electrical adaptors. However, all the essential parts are present and the new setup fits much more snugly into the room.

Here’s to this lasting at least the next five years, if not much longer.

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Six Vital Writing Items

Since becoming a writer, I’ve found I’ve come to rely on a several useful items and resources. Let’s look at six of the more important ones, divided equally into two lists.

Related to technology

  1. Privacy screen
    If you regularly use a laptop in a public place, such as cafés or trains, grab a privacy screen yesterday. These narrow the field of view so anyone looking from the next seat is unlikely to see your screen. I used to own one that was stuck to the screen with near-invisible tabs, although dirt found its way behind that, so I think I’ll buy a removable one next.
  2. Text shortcuts
    When I’m writing, there are certain words, phrases and symbols that I often use, so I’ve set the AutoCorrect in Microsoft Word to generate these; for example, the letters ‘wr’ type out ‘whether’ into the document. In tandem, I have an AutoHotkey script, allowing me to generate a en-dash with a simple key combination, among other useful symbols. Finally, if you press Win+V on a Windows machine, you can access the multiple copy-and-paste feature to save time when transferring a lot of different items.
  3. Mobile hotspot or tethering
    After a decade of running a writing group, the one constant is a hit-or-miss Wi-Fi connection, sometimes from week-to-week in the same venue. I recommend finding a mobile phone plan that allows you to use your own Internet connection where the house Wi-Fi fails, perhaps even a cheap one seperate from your normal phone. Indeed, some tablet devices support a SIM card, which does the same job.

Unrelated to technology

  1. Diary with note pages
    For many years, I’ve kept an A5-sized paper diary with a week spread over a page or two pages. When you’re on the phone to organisers, it’s much easier to check your availability. I also make sure there’s plenty of note space, as many of my pieces begin life as pencil on paper. Speaking of which…
  2. Sharpener with shavings container
    These days, I never buy a pencil sharpener without a little bin attached to it. It keeps all the shavings contained so I don’t need to move away from my desk to deal with a blunt pencil.
  3. Subscription to Writing Magazine or similar
    I feel obliged to point out that other magazines are available; this is simply my go-to publication. I haven’t grouped this under technology as printed magazines still appear to be thriving, even if the content is also available digitally, including Writing Magazine. I like their sheer breadth of featured publishers and competitions, although only a handful will be suitable for my work.
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The Story of a Faulty Laptop

About 2½ weeks ago, my laptop developed a fault. It had been tucked inside a protective sleeve, which was itself inside a rucksack, when I was caught in an exceptional downpour on the way to a pal’s place.

Although the machine wasn’t especially damp, I suspect the rain was the culprit. It initially switched on and worked as normal, then a blue-screen error was displayed. Fortunately, after being left to dry out for an hour, it gradually returned to normal.

And it kept working as normal until Tuesday night of last week, when the problems suddenly reappeared. This time, there was no blue-screen warning and no resolution even after drying it out for hours. It simply would not load Windows from the local hard disc.

Knowing I would need a PC for the weekend’s activities, I immediately looked for a replacement, settling on a second-hand Acer from CEX.

That said, I wasn’t worried about my actual files going missing. They were synchronised with OneDrive, and I have an external hard drive where I diligently back them up at the start of each month.

Well, all except one file.

On my desktop, I had a shortcut to Microsoft Word document where I’m writing a current story. I’d most recently updated it between the first and second failures of the former laptop. I thought this pointed to a location in OneDrive. To my surprise, it was on the local disc, the same one that became unreadable, and it didn’t appear to be backed up anywhere on the external drive.

I thought about the problem for a few days. While I don’t have a great deal of knowledge about the inner workings of a computer, I do know many systems are modular, so individual components can be swapped if you’re prepared to dive inside the cover.

I also discovered it was possible to buy an inexpensive piece of kit to turn a bare hard disc drive into a makeshift USB thumb drive. This allowed me to verify the disc itself was still working – and that document was intact. While the case was open, I also took the opportunity to swipe one of the RAM units from the old computer and double the memory of the new one.

At the time of writing, the new computer is almost entirely set up. By coincidence, this week’s entry was supposed to cover five or so items I rely upon as a writer. In light of current events, that’ll be pushed to next week or a future entry.

Meanwhile, here’s a timely reminder to back up your work.

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Reaching Fever Peach

On Saturday just gone, I was given the opportunity to perform a 15-minutes of poetry at the Keiller Centre in Dundee. This was organised by local comedy band Fever Peach as part of their Monthly Indulgence event and here’s how they announced the event.

That said, I only learned of the opportunity on Wednesday and I didn’t have a themed set ready to go. After looking through my collection, the structure came together quickly, with the verse generally moving from more serious to more frivolous.

The actual reading time clocked in around 12 minutes. This was helpful as I knew there would need to be time left for applause and possibly banter with the hosts and the audience; I even gave out Biscoff biscuits as part of the performance.

And there was one other factor at play. When I go to events, I often like to write verse in situ. On one occasion, I wrote clerihews for all the performers who had gone before me. On another, I offered a poetic critique of all the art on the wall of the café. This time, I scribbled a short poem during the soundcheck, based on the, ‘One-two, one-two,’ that sound engineers often use to test microphones.

While the Fever Peach duo kept the show together, the other act on the bill was a travelling Mexican musician called Ed Stone. Despite breaking two different strings on two guitars, he acted as a melodic counterpoint to my poetry.

These shows always end with a complicated improv game, during which my mind went blank more than once, and Ed struggled a little because he was playing in a second language. Still, it was all a bit of fun.

The only downside was the size of the audience, with just five tickets sold. While it is true that the venue is quite hidden away, they always go down a storm and they deserve more eyeballs.

I would happily perform for Fever Peach again, and I look forward to similar opportunities in the future.

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Closing Times

On Saturday, I was sitting in Blend on Dock Street and thinking about what to write for this entry. During my visit, I found out the café itself was about to cease trading at some point next month.

The following day, Blend released a more detailed statement on Instagram, confirming the end date as Sunday 10 August. From the pespective of its customers, it’s not just the closure of a handy city centre café, it’s the loss of an ideal place to run events. Off the top of my head, I can think of at least three pals who use the place for shows or gatherings, including the Hotchpotch open-mic I used to organise.

However, there are two factors in its favour:

Firstly, this is not the first time Blend has closed. In 2023, after a few years on another street, it was offered its current location and was quickly able to re-open. I’m not privy to the details of that arrangement, but who knows what the next 19 days might hold.

Secondly, there’s a second branch in the middle of Baxter Park, a largely residential area, that will remain open. This is handy if you were visiting the park anyway, but it requires a bus trip or an uphill walk from Dock Street.

From a personal perspective, I’ve already booked to be in Lancaster on the day of closure. As such, I won’t be there to see the shutter pulled down for the last time, but I will keep an ear out for this emerging story.

Separately from this, the publisher 404 Ink announced its upcoming closure earlier this month.

This is different from Blend because it won’t be an abrupt end. Rather, it’s a gradual process until summer 2026. Any upcoming launches will still be going ahead, and there will be discussions with authors about retention of rights.

As such, there isn’t much else to report on this situation at the moment, but it sounds like it’s all in hand and I’m sure we’ll hear more over the next 12 months.

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Discovering Andrea Gibson

It was announced via Instagram yesterday evening that the poet Andrea Gibson had died.

A few years ago, I had the privilege of seeing Gibson live on stage. You can read the write-up from the first time in 2018, at the Mash House in Edinburgh. Unaccountably, I haven’t covered the second time; for my own future reference, this was on 20 May 2019 at the Queen Margaret Union in Glasgow.

Yet I’m struggling to add anything further than what I wrote in that first entry.

What I really want to do is encourage you to pick up one of their albums, from Bullets and Windchimes (2003) to Hey Galaxy (2018) and just listen to a few tracks. The imagery and the metaphors are delivered at a machine-gun pace, so don’t be surprised if you need to pause for breath. You can also seek out one of their collections, but – cards on the table – I think there’s more to be gained from listening rather than reading.

Andrea Gibson was someone who would never dream of demanding plaudits, but conversely, won so many fans by simply speaking about the world as they saw it. Had they lived past 49, I have the feeling we would have heard so much more over the coming decades.

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Looking Back at Past Readings

At the beginning of May, I spoke about having my computer kitted out with 12GB of RAM, giving its processing power a significant boost from the previous 4GB. This meant Windows no longer had to leech space off the hard disc for basic tasks.

Even without that leeching, the disc was still almost at its limit – and that wasn’t including my videos, which had to stay on OneDrive only. A few weeks ago, I decided to have a look at these videos again and see whether any could be discarded.

After watching a few, I decided not to delete them. I instead followed the recommendations from several forum posts to convert them from the current data-intensive format into a more space-efficient one.

Many of the videos are poetry and story readings from live events spanning 2014 to 2022, with a heavy skew towards 2015 and 2016. They were intended primarily as references so I could improve my performances rather than finished products, so some of the camera work is shoddy, but the audio is crisp. I’ve fallen out of the habit of filming as I’ve gathered more experience.

Instead, the videos have become a memento of a new era. In the earlier ones, I’d just taken over my open-mic night Hotchpotch. We were in a different venue and the format was more like a story circle than a staged event.

Then there were other readings I’d forgotten, held in places such as Dundee Contemporary Arts and the Scottish Poetry Library. I recognised early drafts of works that have either become substantially different final products or have languished unseen since their composition.

While there are a handful of videos made after 2020, just two of these are readings. These were specific projects and were intended for a wider audience, so more care was taken over these.

Now the collection is under control, I’ll be more selective about what’s added. Any run-of-the-mill readings probably won’t make the cut, even if they might be interesting in years to come. Maybe I’ll make an exception if I’m ever on telly.