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Wednesday 26 August 2015

HARDBACKS AND PAPERBACKS AND SHELVES, OH MY! A REPORT FROM A FUGITIVE.

An author's library.
   A label attached to many a blog post. These library posts are all the same. What goes on in an author's library? The slow steady march of books. Aye, even into the digital age and beyond.
   The recent influx of 610 books, and the arrival of a big eff-off bookcase to handle the flood, raised a few questions. What to do with the volume of volumes?
   Stack, for now.
   Of the 609 books, a few are gems. One tome is already gone, headed across choppy water to feature as a prop in a photo-shoot for a book cover.
   I took possession of this year's Folio Society crop, and that small collection was in addition to the 610 books mentioned.


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One down, 609 to go. If I read a book a week, that'll take a while. I won't, though. Duplicates are inevitable. I spotted at least a dozen stories I've read.

   Trimming the list already.
   Question. With clones and copies, do I keep the duplicates or the ones I obtained earlier? There's a flip of the coin to that. A few paperback books came in that I'd considered buying. I've headed those purchases off at the pass.
   Hell, if I battered through a book a day, I'd call that three years of poring over tomes rather than two...
   Allowing for days each year when little or no reading is possible. And for books that can't be read at a single day-long night-long sitting.


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I asked questions of my library, paperback and hardback.



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The cheapest books were obtained freely. Gifts in.

   And the most expensive book? Well, I know the price of that, and it was free as well. Special offer, thrown in with a bundle.
   So what was the most expensive book I paid for? I'm pretty sure that was a gift out, and I managed that at half-price.
   There are few more impressive sights in the world than a Scotsman on the make.
   J.M. Barrie looms large over me. No, really. Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, illustrated by the dread pirate Calico Jack Rackham, would fell a giant if that tome jumped from the shelves.
   The lightest book? Then you start arguing over what constitutes a book. Heaviest? Then you start arguing over what constitutes a door.
   Tallest? There are too many books on my shelves. And too many of those are over a foot tall. When the tape measures an awkward 37 cm, you know you are staring at a book it's impossible to curl up with.
   Curl under and die beneath, perhaps.


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Calico Jack was too busy a-pirating to illustrate much, so he handed painterly duties to the ship's cook - young Arthur Rackham.

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What can you tell about the writer, based on the author's library? I've written of that before. A slice of another person's library was recently transfused into my own.
   So you can't tell a damn thing about me based on another person's book choices now in my library.
   Except, perhaps, that the transfused books remain part of my library, and so, are to my taste. If you can tell them apart from the books I bought myself.
   Though I hold books on my shelves that are clearly not to my taste. Again, caution. I hold books on my shelf that I didn't buy at all.


*

Oh, there were all sorts of marvels in here. Tall, short, fat, thin, young...
   The youngest books in my library are always born this year, every year. But a solid wedge of old hardbacks toppled in out of the storm...
   Giving me, to my surprise, the oldest new books in my collection. As far as I can tell, the most ancient tome on the stacks is now a volume of Milton, dating to 1881.
   Making it the oldest item in the house.
   I stared at the date in disbelief, as I wouldn't have pegged the book pre-WWII.
   Along with the other ancient hardbacks, these solid volumes carried the whiff of 1955 about them. It's a special ability handed down to most hardbacks - look as though you were produced in or around a repressed decade.
   I jest. All decades contain repression.
   But no, this book was older. I started with a volume that lied to me and said it was from 1921.
   Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat? That can't be. I matched titles and publishers to years and then to photos on Google. Exact print-run named and noted. Digging further into the ancient pile, I made my way back to 1881.


*

Books down the ages.
   Paperbacks existed then.
   The railway paperback was the airport novel of its day. With the railway creeping everywhere, introduction of widespread compulsory education, and a need to be elsewhere...
   Paperback books gave you something to read on endless steam-powered train journeys.
   No airports or airport novels then. Roads, yes, but only leaky steampunk contraptions, behatted humans, and bridled horses used those.
   The modern rise in paperbacks slid into view during Auden's low dishonest decade. Rain, and war in 1939, stopped play. Post-WWII, paper was everywhere.

*


Paper. And now we're in the Digital Age.
   I prefer the durability of hardback. The best-preserved book in my collection? No single tome, for there are many many well-looked-after books here.
   And the worst-preserved? Easily a movie guide by Leonard Maltin. It lies on the floor, just behind me, in three chunks.
   This book is a sorry thing. A thick paperback made of thin paper with no more durable a spine than that of a liquidiser-fresh jellyfish.
   Unsurprisingly, the shattered tome behind me dates to the recent turn of the century. The near-dead book on my carpet replaced one earlier time-shredded volume. I didn't buy again.
   This is 2015, and Leonard sadly announced the final volume in his long-running series.
   The internet does that book's job, nowadays. Maltin's series never had a good format, in terms of survivability. An annual book wasn't meant to last.
   Not at that ever-expanding size, and certainly not in an insufferable paperback format.
   If your paperback stops bullets, it won't halt a broken spine from overuse. Or from plain old regular use.
   Maltin's team put together a great reference work. In a flimsy throwaway format. Anyway, the internet tells me about movies when I ask. Sad but true but sad.


*

Solid construction. That's why I like hardbacks. Durability. Yes I'm a digital author, and yes I have a Kindle. And a Kindle app. Maybe even two, last time I checked.
   There wasn't a point to this blog post. I'm just waffling. Thinking about the nature of physical books and the physical nature of books.
   Ethereal digital books are easy to store and retrieve. But what the fuck would I put on all these shelves if I converted every single title to electrons?
   I'd need to start collecting. You can only buy so many Batman figures. I'm sure any gathering palls after the first 1,500. And that lowly figure means paring the collection down to the essentials.

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I don't feel as though I have anything to blog about. Officially, I'm off blogging weekly. If an item comes along, I'll blog. Especially if it's book-related.
   Discovery of a pile of books dating to Victorian times. That qualifies.
   Something I haven't found in more modern hardbacks? In several of these ancient Victorian tomes, I saw a page made of tracing paper near the front of the book.
   That spoke of ancient custom and great age. One day, people will uncover dust-stained Kindle reading devices and declare...
   Look what they used in days of yore, before books downloaded to the brain.
   And they'll smile, as we smile now.




Monday 24 August 2015

COUNTING THE COST OF A BOOKCASE: A REPORT FROM A FUGITIVE.

Marvel of marvels. Two blog posts in one day. I had to let people know I wasn't killed beneath an avalanche of books.
   No, I'm not counting the financial cost of a bookcase. In my last post, which I wrote a million years ago earlier today, I mentioned three or four hundred books.
   As these books migrated to the new big eff-off bookcase, the numbers grew clearer. Stacks behind stacks, ahead of or to the side of other obscured stacks, were hard to count. Until they landed on the new big eff-off bookcase.
   I added. And added. Added some more.
   Worth blogging about. I'd carried 610 books into the house, and dumped them on the floor. Gradually, these tomes clambered into position on the shelves.
   Six hu...
   What the eff was I thinking? They aren't staying. For sheer convenience, I threw books on shelves. In time, I'll weed out the duplicates. That calls for checking against the rest of the bookcases.
   And I'll eliminate obscure books destined to see recycling in charity shops. For the first time ever, I've gathered a few books destined for a harsher form of recycling.
   But, for now, they'll do as they are on the shelves. For I have a mind to make use of this unexpected library, photographically.
   Stay tuned.

NO MORE NO MORE BOOKS: A REPORT FROM A FUGITIVE.

Weather turns on a shadow.
   An unfeasibly hot summer's day ended without thundery incident, though it was a close-run thing. I stared into the misty rain, savouring the midnight chill sweeping in on the air.
   And with that before me, I closed the door, knowing a pile of some three to four hundred books, squatting to my left, would linger on a new bookcase come the next day.

*

Well, it is the next day. Up earlier than I cared for, not knowing the hour, not wishing to know, my stomach wrestled with an item I'd eaten in haste.
   Returning to bed glad I hadn't vomited the problem free, I studiously avoided catching sight of any and all clocks. Fevered dreams of famous people haunted the

*

Pardon the interruption. Haunted the night. Then the alarm I'd set for 6.30 alarmed me. Luckily, the mechanical contrivance frightened no horses.
   I was ready and waiting for a delivery of a new bookcase, one I knew I could just about squeeze in beside all the other cases, cabinets of curiosities, and caskets.
   No bookcase came. I busied myself shifting books upstairs to a staging-post inside my library. The bookcase, destined for the other room, requires assembly-space in that other room.
   Books begat books.

*

The morning weather is decidedly autumnal. Scottish summer weather generally is. While waiting for the bookcase, I was ambushed by the arrival of yet more books.
   Why does a digital author, living and working in the digital age, buy hardbacks? Durability. I like reading them. Storing them is a puzzle, a challenge, and a danger.
   At this rate, my autumnal purchasing of Folio Society books will fill the top layer of my bookcases in a decade. No, not the top shelves. Above that layer.
   It's the mix of mass market paperbacks and assorted misfits of hardbacks, plaguing the living room floor and other staging-posts right now, that I must worry over.
   Not for long. The interruption to this blog was caused by the arrival of a text message. That new bookcase was packed by gnomes, pixies, or leprechauns.
   I take delivery from noon onwards.

*

Though I am not currently blogging weekly, I am, to my surprise, still blogging. And I had the time, away from arranging a business letter, away from shifting and stacking books, away from taking delivery of yet more tomes, to waffle in this blog.
   Letter? Occasionally, e-mail won't cut it.
   I know I won't write of an author's library again. For there'll be no more books, hell, no more bookcases.
   And every time I think this, I know I'll write of an author's library again. That there'll be more books. It's hard to imagine more bookcases sneaking in, after today's behemoth lies installed. I've measured the stacks, and know that truth down to a decimal point.

Friday 21 August 2015

WHAT-THE-SHIT?!-LEVELS-OF-FUCKBUGGERY?! A REPORT FROM A FUGITIVE.

I am struggling to write.
   Not because I am struggling to write. Fuck, no. I'd blogged that I would do a follow-up blog post after the conclusion of a court case. And I will blog about that, before year's end.


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If you missed this, GO RIGHT AHEAD AND CLICK.


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It's just that I keep seeing...

   What-the-Shit?!-Levels-of-Fuckbuggery?!
   And I find it hard to write about harsh things in publishing without, er, publishing. But I am forced to hold off until a court case concludes.
   So, yes, I have a lot to say in a long writing piece. But legal reasons prevent publication at this time. I am struggling to write. Oh. There'll be a volcanic eruption, come the revolution.
   You will fear for the seams of this blog, as they strain to contain the ever-expanding universe-sized rant that's lodged in the vaults as I type.
   I speak of...
   What-the-Shit?!-Levels-of-Fuckbuggery?!
   And tonight I saw more of the same, and I felt that I had to blog. But I can't blog with specific detail. The court case comes first.


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I stress that I am not involved in a court case myself. Yes, I can sit back and say nothing when the time comes. But that's not the way of things.

   For I am involved in humankind. Therefore, send not to know for whom the blog tolls. It tolls for thee.


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It amused me to see, that, in typing John Donne into the blog post's labels, I was called on to hit DONE after I'd added Donne. This blog post was a vent of steam. But quiet quirky moments in writing vent steam better than any rant ever could.

   Stay tuned.

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Next blog post in this series - guilty verdicts, awaiting sentencing: INTERIM REPORT.

Monday 3 August 2015

DINORAGE! A REPORT FROM A FUGITIVE.

All is not well in Writerland, but I persevere. There are many files with half-stories in them. I do what I can to finish those tales.
   Not all is bad in Writerland. Ideas slip into files and they grow, slowly, into stories. I publish these tales.
   Or reorganise. Sometimes I run favours. And so. A recap of activity, visible and invisible...

*

I stripped blog posts from MIRA E. Reorganisation from hybrid product to standalone novel. Trickier than I thought it'd be, even though I thought it'd be trickier than I thought it'd be.
   And I bundled FICTION FACTORY tales into an OMNIBUS collection.
   For that, I changed notes at the end of five stories, revamped all blurb, and revised back matter in all my Kindle books.
   Details drifted a little inside the Amazon bookshelf, and I squelched things in the name of consistency. One isolated work lied to me, listed as a series. WTF?! If you accidentally mislead yourself, think of the women and children! Or, at least, the customers.
   This year I went from ten products on Amazon to eleven products on Amazon. I published once. And that was an omnibus. But I republished my bookshelf items 95 times, so the e-mail trail tells me.
   Amazon changes. And what wasn't a glitch before suddenly becomes a glitch now. Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?! Better fix that. Fix that, I did. Yoda, I am not.

*

I looked at JAPANESE MONSTERS, half-written and in sore need of finishing. And I looked at DOUG CHAMBERS: ZOMBIE! Also half-finished. Easier to finish, too.
   Invisible work? I decided to roast away all those blog posts about the zombie story. That tale goes to KDP Select when released, so it runs exclusively. No lengthy excerpts on the blog.
   It's all reorganisation. Invisible mending.
   As a favour, I finished editing the Kindle version of Lady Injury by Melissa C. Water. She sneaked into the top ten on a paid-for chart on this side of the Atlantic. Guess we did something right.

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All of this stuff takes time, effort, energy, and coffee.
   I look at the Ghost of Blog Posts Past, and I see projects still unpublished. Now I'm in the business of busying myself over unfinished business.
   That meant scrapping things. The blogging-plus-novel format croaked. No regrets. MIRA E. survived the divorce. You try a mad experiment. It bites the dust. You stand up, dust down, and plod on.
   Major reorganisation of Neon Gods was a good thing. Other stories in that series are now easier to write up. Occasionally, writers manage to type stuff - but, hell, we don't make it easier on ourselves.
   I made it easier on myself.

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What the hell is DINORAGE! when it's at home? Just another FICTION FACTORY story sitting on the shelf. Unfinished business. Time to dust that off. Soon. There'll be dinosaurs. And rage. In a toyshop. Toy Story, it ain't.