31 December
HAPPY NEW YEAR
And a Happy New Year to anyone who reads this. Don’t worry that I’m at home, alone, coughing and snivelling and feeling dizzy; don’t worry that I’m drinking Lemsip instead of wine (oh, all right, I probably wouldn’t have had wine anyway). And don’t worry that I’ll probably be asleep by about seven o’clock, trying to throw off this Thing that Small Boy had over Christmas and has duly passed to me. You just go ahead and enjoy yourselves and don’t.... hello?... hello? Is anybody there?
01 November
SfEP Directorship
The eagle-eyed among you will have noticed that I haven’t posted much recently. The reason is that there doesn’t appear to be enough hours in the day. And the main reason for that, is that at the last SfEP Conference, I was elected as Training Director, and find myself swamped with work. It’s all interesting stuff. Check out the SfEP (now CIEP) website and you’ll see that training is one of its important ventures. But quite a few of the courses are a bit out of date, so it’s up to Yours Truly to get things moving onward and upward. Watch this space. Or rather, watch the new space which I plan to create on my Editorial site - a new blog, and some revamping of the existing material. I’d get onto it straight away except there doesn’t appear to be enough hours in the day. Oh, did I say that already?
30 September
ST22
I am glad to be able to report that Supernatural Tales vol 22 has emerged from the depths of Gateshead. It was produced, as usual by David Longhorn, and the stories in it were proofread by me. In fact, the first story in it was written by me: The Badger Boy, a story that I like to think has a sort of insiduous horror about it. Here’s what I wrote about the story for my Stories page on this site:
‘I like to think The Badger Boy (7000 words) conveys a terrible sense of inevitability. Old Bill and Florence move away, into the country, to escape a dreadful memory, but equally dreadful memories from the nearby village come back to haunt them. Somehow the two combine in Florence’s mind, and nothing Bill can say can prevent her hoping against hope that what is really impossible might, horrifically, come to pass.’
Another weird thing about the magazine is that every time I get a copy of the latest one, I start eagerly looking through it, keen to read the stories, quite forgetting that I’ve already seen them all. Weird or what? Anyway, if you feel like reading an insidiously horrible story and a number of other tales of a supernatural nature, why not put in an order for Supernatural Tales?
29 September
Getting lost in York
A couple of weeks ago I drove down to York to attend the annual SfEP conference. I found York easily enough, but then I drove in and around it for the best part of an hour before I found the University. Different people told me different directions. I faithfully followed them all and saw every sight there was to see in York as a result, albeit through a growing red haze. The conference was splendid. I attended various courses, enjoyed the banquet and the very witty after-dinner speaker, met up with lots of people, and was elected to the giddy heights of Director (more of that in a later post). Then it was time to go home and - you’ve guessed it - I got thoroughly lost again. What is it with signposts in York, or rather the lack of them? Eventually a friendly garage man let me follow him as the route I wanted was on his way home, and I must have been some ten miles in the wrong direction. So be warned. If you ever find yourself planning to drive to somewhere in York, take a sat-nav, a passenger with a map, or some paracetamol. Or preferably, all three.
23 July
When Dylan met Sally
So we are now back from our driving holiday: we hired a Jaguar XF and drove down the east side of England, across the south coast, and back up the west side, dipping into Wales en route. Saw lots of people I hadn’t seen for many years and Ivy and Dylan hadn’t seen at all. We appeared to drag the rain around with us the entire trip: and when we got back, everywhere brightened up. Sheesh. But the car was a great success. Rumour has it that it will cruise at 100mph (I couldn’t possibly confirm or deny that). It’s really comfortable and although the controls are reminiscent of the inside of a 747, it’s actually easy to understand how everything works. It was the first time we’d ever had a sat nav. I could actually hear it, so that was a bonus. Dylan decided that the lady giving us all the instructions was called Sally, so that became the name of the car. If anyone out there’s got a spare £50,000, you could do worse than buy a Jaguar XF. And give it to me.
4 June
Inflation
’We’ve got some superglue,’ I told him. “We can glue it back in. Or I’ve got one of those power staplers.’
‘Dad!’
’We can staple it back in,’ I said triumphantly.
’I’m putting it under my pillow in an embalope. I’ll get two pounds for it,’ said Dylan even more triumphantly.
What? I know the European economic situation is bad, but £2 for the tooth fairy to call? That’s inflation for you!
31 May
The Magic Door (2)
I wrote a little while ago in this very blog that I had rediscovered The Magic Door, a book read to me long ago when I was in primary school, and had got myself a copy. Since then I have been reading it to Dylan. In fact, I’ve finished reading it to Dylan, and you can check out my book review for my thoughts on the story after all these years. But a funny thing happened when I started reading it out. I found quite a lot of typographical errors. ‘Funny,’ I thought. ‘This book was published x years ago, so how come it has errors in it?’ Eventually it dawned on me that Jodi Brake, Dan Billany’s niece, must have self-published it. Somebody - maybe Jodi herself - must have keyed in the book, using a copy of the original as… well, as the original. I emailed Jodi and offered to proofread the book for her. No charge: I just felt I’d like to help the book along its way. She accepted, and so I now have a pdf version of The Magic Door to work through. It feels really quite strange to be proofreading a book that I first had read out to me some (ahem) years ago. But it also feels good to be helping out, because I think this is still a good read that should be read by lots of children - mainly boys, to be sure, but lots of them, anyway. I also looked up Dan Billany in Wikipedia and discovered, much to my surprise, that he disappeared while on a mission during WW2 and was never seen again. He wrote The Magic Door and posted it back in packets. So, rather sadly, and assuming that Wikipedia has got its facts right, he never saw his book published (actually, books plural, but this blog post is about The Magic Door). I hope I’ve piqued your interest sufficiently to get hold of a copy. If so, let me know what you think of it.
22 May
A win for Scotland
Never mind obscure football matches, the upcoming French Open or even Test cricket, the big news is surely that Scotland won the Seniors Camrose event. For those reading this who think: ‘What on earth is a Camrose event?’, let me enlighten you. It is a teams bridge match, a round-robin format with teams from Scotland, Republic of Ireland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England taking part. And rather excitingly, this year’s event took place in Ayr, although I only found out about it when it was half way through. Accordingly, I trotted along on Sunday afternoon to watch, and that was the only match that Scotland lost. I wasn’t invited back.
20 May
The end of SF as we know it
We all know the dilemma: if you go back in time to knock off, say, your great-grandmother, you start off a never-ending paradox. Dead great-grandmother = no you, so how could you go back to commit the dastardly deed? But if you didn’t go back, then great grandmum survives and you get born after all. But that means…
Fortunately I am able to report that this paradox has been solved, by none other than Dylan. Apparently there are three mutually exclusive possibilities which together solve the paradox.
Note the contact details at the top. Contact Dylan for any further explanations, not me.
08 April
The Magic Door
Somewhere in the depths of my website I bemoan the fact that when I was in primary school, we were read a book called The Magic Door, and I could no longer trace it. I couldn’t remember who wrote it, I could find no mention of it on Amazon or similar sites. I couldn’t, to be honest, remember a great deal about it apart from the fact that a magic door led through a wall somewhere, and I enjoyed whatever the story was about. Lo and behold just last week I got an email from a lady who had studied accountancy with me and my first wife Mary way back in the 70s. "You won’t remember me," she said, but actually I did. Anyway, she had happened upon my website, and knew that The Magic Door had been reprinted. If, that is, it was the same Magic Door that I’d been remembering. It was. I visited Dan Billany’s website and ordered the book forthwith. I have even been in contact with Dan Billany’s niece Jodi, who has reprinted the book and who "hopes that I will enjoy it as much now as I did way back then". Naturally everyone thinks I have bought it for Dylan; who would buy a children’s book at my advanced age? I shall review the book in due course, and the result will appear in my book review blog. I’ll write back to Jodi Brake, who has been kind enough to email me, too. But I’m fairly certain that if you have a child of, say, seven to twelve, then you won’t go far wrong by getting yourself a copy of The Magic Door.
14 February
Why use a proofreader or editor?
So why should you use a proof reader or editor? The answer is simple enough: you sweat blood and tears to get those words out onto the page, and might tinker with them a little, but the trouble is that once you’ve written them and read them over a few times, you see what you expect to see. I know, I’ve done it myself enough times writing my own stories. I write reviews for stories, and I’m a member of a writer’s circle where all sorts of fiction comes my way, and I can honestly say that just about everything I read contains typographical errors or unfortunate phrases that a proofreader or editor would have suffocated before they saw the light of day. For example, this comes from a thesis I edited:
The author would have liked more access to female supporters.
And here’s something else from a short story that was about to make an appearance in a magazine:
As the 20th century arrived, abandoned by its previous occupants, the building slowly degraded.
Naturally I made haste, once I’d finished chuckling, to correct these two infelicities, as we call them in the trade. But the point is that neither author had noticed them, or quite a few others either, and that’s not counting the occasional typing, punctuation or spelling error. But they’d had the sense to go to a proofreader/editor (me) and so neither of these infelicities were unleashed on unsuspecting readers. If you write stories or articles or a thesis - in fact almost anything - getting a professional to check over the content can be an invaluable face-saver. There are lots of good proofreaders and editors out there. Visit the website of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (now CIEP), of which I am a member, and check out its directory, as well as reading up on what exactly members of the profession are capable of doing. Or go to the Glasgow Editor’s Network (I’m a member of that too). Or just visit my own professional site by going Home and clicking on, imaginatively, Editorial. I’ve listed some more unfortunate words and phrases from published books on the site, on a page called errata. Why not take a look? You know it makes sense.
14 February
Up, up and away
I am in the fortunate position of being able to retire early (well, earlyish), so it will be goodbye to South Ayrshire Council (and lots of years auditing) and hello to: what? Having some time to myself and family, for one thing, and continuing to work ‘part time ‘ at my proofreading and editing business. And trying, at long last, to properly market some of my fiction. There’s plenty of work to be done around the house, and I have a number of friends to visit. I am in the middle of writing two short stories and a book . . .Hang on, I’ve changed my mind. It sounds too much like hard work.The proofreading business is going well. I have had quite a number of clients already, and some of them are returning clients so they must have thought my work was acceptable and acceptably priced. More detail available by going Home on this site and clicking on Editorial. In the meantime, roll on 27th April! Really.
