(Another) 15 Minutes of Fame

Those of you brave enough to venture into the twilight zone of the BBC2 Friday night gardening slot (assuming you can view UK TV), will have the chance to see me make a fool of myself (again) in ‘A Year at Kew’. Not content with tailing me to St. Helena for 3 weeks, the BBC have followed me for the third series, this time carrying out some seed collecting in the UK.

I agreed to do it the first time because I was hoping to get some publicity for my writing (mercenary, I know). I contacted Prince Andrew School on the island of St. Helena and offered to do an author visit. Being about 1500 miles from the coast of anywhere, and a bit off the beaten author track, they jumped at the chance and organised a whole ‘fantasy fiction’ week, with me as the guest of honour. The BBC followed me as I gave a speech, donated copies of my books to the library and did a couple of classroom sessions.

And it all ended up on the cutting room floor. I suppose, really, they had to focus on the plant-hunting angle. Still - what a wasted opportunity!

Anyway, it’s all good publicity for the ‘day job’, so I agreed to do it again. Who knows – it may impress a publisher one day. A whiff of fleeting fame?

So, tune in around March/April time next year to see me fishing for berries off the edge of a cliff in the Brecon Beacons.

And if that’s any way for a grown man to make a living…

Keeping my hand in

Every year, thanks to my good friend Erin, I get a commission to do a series of illustrations of wildlife subjects for the Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust. The Trust have a deal with Castle Rock Brewery - they brew a series of 'wildlife themed' beers through out the year, and the Trust gets a donation for every pint sold.

And I provide the images for the beer-pump handles. You can see this year's selection here. As a one-time wannabe artist, it's good for me - it makes me sit down and paint, which I wouldn't otherwise do, and it forces me to tackle subjects I wouldn't choose myself (a cranefly?) - but it's rather time consuming.

Even with my rather slap-dash painting technique, 10 images will take me at least 10 evenings, so Personal Demons is on hold - again.

Actually, it was on hold anyway - I was suffering a wee touch of writer's block. I'm halfway through the time period covered by the book - two weeks - and I was fine as long as my characters were at school. But having decided to write it pretty much 'real time', I was faced with the hurdle of getting them through the weekend. And I hadn't really planned anything for the weekend.

Anyway, the great advantage of this project (for me) is being able to call on my potential readership. So I did just that - I explained to Jack where I had got my characters to, and asked him to get the kids to work out what happens next. Already they're coming up with some interesting ideas, not necessarily always what I wanted to hear, but sometimes it's useful just to clarify what I didn't want to happen.

So, once again the project proves its worth, and I heartily recommend it to you (yes, you), fellow author.

Steve

PS - apparently my aunt in Germany knew I had a blog, so I must have some sort of search engine visibility!

Viral marketing

You see that post below? That's clever, that is.

Simon probably thinks he's suckered me into promoting his books with the promise of beads and trinkets. Little does he know! All the time, I'm watching what he does, and stealing his ideas!

Mwuhahahahahahahaha!

Speaking of Simon Haynes...

I joined Hal Spacejock's Support Crew

I didn't pay anything,
I didn't sign anything,
and I didn't read the fine print.
Just like Hal!

No space pilot can exist in a vacuum (hah!), and behind every successful pilot there's a talented and dedicated support crew.

Hal Spacejock is one of the least successful space pilots in the history of the galaxy, and a worldwide support crew is needed just to get him off the ground.

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Hal Spacejock ... Après moi le wreckage

MySpace is YourSpace...

I won a book. No, really. I did. I never win anything, me. But I won a book from the excellent Simon Haynes. On account of him asking me if I wanted to be a MySpace ‘friend’.

Now, I’ve always thought the idea of these ‘friends’ was a bit cheesy, but that’s based on looking at the MySpace sites of a few weirdoes, who seem to have huge networks of similar weirdoes they regard as ‘friends’. And they spend their time messaging each other – ‘hope its goin gud coz u deserve it babe! u best introduce us wen i get back coz if he eva messes u about he got me 2 deal with!! i wont scare him off honest!!!’. That’s quoted verbatim – apologies to the young lady whose site I nicked it off, but I didn’t have to look far for an example.

But now I’m starting to see the value of ‘friends’. Several fellow writers have approached me with ‘friend requests’, and as a result I’ve learned interesting things a bout people I would never otherwise have heard of. Oh, and won a book. Did I mention that?
Simon Haynes is an English science-fiction writer living in Australia, and has a very interesting website. As well as running competitions to give away his books, he also has a whole list of free software available for download. I will be checking out his yWriter, which sounds very similar to Liquid Story Binder (see below).

Anyway, I’m looking forward to my copy of ‘Hal Spacejock’ (I’ll report back when I’ve read it) and feeling rather more positive about MySpace.