so, it was so much easier this time getting it acepted on Smashwords - first time in fact. For some reason it took 2 goes to get on amazon. not sure why, i cut and pasted into the Carp Pond story so it should have all been pretty well the same...
On Smashwords here the story is available in many more useful formats.
Since putting bored up it got a noticeable immediate bunch of views. I suppose because the 'Murder Mystery' category is more popular.
no sales yet.
There has been a slight complication to this whole 12 stories in 12 months. I got it into my head to also release a tune for each story, and a video. And the video is completely nightmarish. its done but it won't render. or it will render but only if i break it up into parts, and those parts keep getting smaller and smaller as i get closer to the end. its a bit like infinity - will i ever reach the end??
Saturday, 23 February 2013
Tuesday, 5 February 2013
The Carp Pond available in all formats at Smashwords
The Carp Pond is now available at Smashwords in all sorts of formats - for those who cannot cope with Kindle, iStuff or Nook: The Carp Pond at Smashwords.
Goodness knows when it will be arriving at the other stores - itunes, Barnes and Noble, Kobo and Sony but i suppose at some point this month.
Will it be before the next story appears - i have no idea.
Goodness knows when it will be arriving at the other stores - itunes, Barnes and Noble, Kobo and Sony but i suppose at some point this month.
Will it be before the next story appears - i have no idea.
Saturday, 26 January 2013
First Story: The Carp Pond is up and here's the plan
SO, the first paragraph could be better i feel but the first short story The Carp Pond by TWG Fraser is up, at least on Amazon so far, others will follow:
So, i would be lovely if you could buy it and review it.
Reviews
It seems that short stories are quite popular. So to get some reviews could help push it up the ratings in its given genre and then maybe i could get a sale from an unknown person!
Which would of course be incredible.
Good bad reviews: 'i hated it but if you like Enid Blyton then this is for you' is great compared to bad good reviews: 'This is my brother, its great.' So please, if you can't write a good review (which i completely understand could be difficult), do please write a good bad one. 20 reviews, good or bad, does imply sales of many more - thus popularity!
The Plan
The plan is this: try to put up 12 stories over the next 12 months, perhaps finishing and coinciding with my 50th birthday in February 2014.
I am not sure if i have 12 stories. Here's what i think i have:
And in fact this all comes together as the Felix Tales.
The DayDream
As a professional day dreamer here's the plan. Kickstarter the printed version - softback, hardback, woodcuts, readings etc... next year.
Help
Well, obviously, reviews would be great. If anyway would like to help editing these things that would be great.
Anyway, thanks and good luck.
tom
So, i would be lovely if you could buy it and review it.
Reviews
It seems that short stories are quite popular. So to get some reviews could help push it up the ratings in its given genre and then maybe i could get a sale from an unknown person!
Which would of course be incredible.
Good bad reviews: 'i hated it but if you like Enid Blyton then this is for you' is great compared to bad good reviews: 'This is my brother, its great.' So please, if you can't write a good review (which i completely understand could be difficult), do please write a good bad one. 20 reviews, good or bad, does imply sales of many more - thus popularity!
The Plan
The plan is this: try to put up 12 stories over the next 12 months, perhaps finishing and coinciding with my 50th birthday in February 2014.
I am not sure if i have 12 stories. Here's what i think i have:
- Jan 2013: The Carp Pond
- Feb: Bored
- Mar: Imperial Ends
- April: The Birth of Barley Boy
- May: The Prussian Story
- June: Market Forces
- July: hmmm not sure
- August: Unwritten - L. O. S. T.
- September: Unwritten - How I stopped the English invasion of Scotland
- October: The Tears of Winter (not sure this is such a good title tough it is a fairy tale)
- November: The Felix Tale I
- December: The Felix Tale II
The DayDream
As a professional day dreamer here's the plan. Kickstarter the printed version - softback, hardback, woodcuts, readings etc... next year.
Help
Well, obviously, reviews would be great. If anyway would like to help editing these things that would be great.
Anyway, thanks and good luck.
tom
Monday, 19 March 2012
2 new tunes: CASIOM.T.B and WIlliam Gerard
William Gerard & CAS10 MTB: Its nice to have you home again at last .mp3
and
Cas10 MTB & William Gerard: Oh My Dear God She.mp3
for more info read this:
http://www.floppyrecords.co.uk/cas10-mtb-oh-my-dear-god-she-mp3/
and
http://www.floppyrecords.co.uk/william-gerard-cas10-mtb-its-nice-to-have-you-home-again-at-last-mp3/
and
Cas10 MTB & William Gerard: Oh My Dear God She.mp3
for more info read this:
http://www.floppyrecords.co.uk/cas10-mtb-oh-my-dear-god-she-mp3/
and
http://www.floppyrecords.co.uk/william-gerard-cas10-mtb-its-nice-to-have-you-home-again-at-last-mp3/
Monday, 12 March 2012
120312 Spotified or Radio 6'd, not sure
Continuing the debate as to whether to stop paying for Spotify, I just can't decide. This weekend is a very good example of why it is difficult.
On Friday evening we were listening to the unbelievably good Tom Ravenscroft show, which has a couple more days before its taken off line. The thing is that its difficult to keep up with what you are listening too, often the radio can't be bothered to say, now the website, and if he does speak it can easily be a series of vowels and consonants that often make little sense: Inigo Ugarteburu Aeraberan being a particularly good case in point. Even now i am not sure if i am correct, bu this may have been a brilliant tune.
So, on saturday night i found the track lise for the show and decided that the closest thing i could find to what i had written down the night before (i had written 'beringi el berengar' about 3 minutes after he had said it as by then a second or even third track had been played and i had no idea what he was referring to.
Yes, i do sit there with a note pad to write down things we listen to and talk about.
Anyway, staring at the set list of fridays show i decided that Casiokids Kaskaden, Ben Butler & Mousepad was what i had liked, and tried to find it in Spotify - and couldn't. Though i did find Casiokids by Kaskaden but thats a different thing. (And who knew Bernard BUtler was doing interesting things with Mousepad, AND as a big big fan of my casio and what can be got out of it i liked the idea of the tune Casiokids. But it wasn't that. So i wondered down through the set list, thinking that was where i had been listening.
And thats when i found Sugar Minott Ghetto Youths. But i dodn't play that. What caught my eye was Sugar Minott Exit Music. Surely no?! But yes, digging deeper into Spotify it turns out that there is an album called Radiodread, what a fantastic name. And what a fantastic album, well mainly anyway. According to wiki Radiodread 'is a 2006 album by the Easy Star All-Stars (on backing it seems), a collaboration of reggae and ska artists', so its not as varied as i had originally hoped (i had hoped it was completely different artists playing any Radiohead song, when actually it turns out its OK Computer). But still worth getting and listening too. Actually, its just brilliant.
And they have an earler album called Dub side of the Moon! Just makes me laugh even saying that. Got to hear that too.
Anyway, i have to go back and continue relistening to Tom Ravenscroft's show, i am beginning to think the songs i am after are:
Inigo Ugarteburu — Aeraberan
A Giant Dog — Trash Can USA
Kromestar — Wooo
Groundislava — Creeper Shit
Trans Upper Egypt — Cleopatra
or maybe it was the The Haxan Cloak — Untitled - which i think is a 20 minute mix.
i dont know. More work needed.
So, the result is i need radio 6 and spotify. I need spotify to find the bands i hear on radio 6, and to branch out to find more.
Whoops, sorry forgot another song that got played: The Beach Boys — Feel Flows. Reading about that on wiki too. Its surprising late, 1971, but a lovely tune. I dont like like the Beach Boys, i bought Brian Wilson's Smile, and liked it a lot, yet somehow it feels wrong. But maybe Surfs up is the album to actually listen too. Just a surprise i suppose.
On Friday evening we were listening to the unbelievably good Tom Ravenscroft show, which has a couple more days before its taken off line. The thing is that its difficult to keep up with what you are listening too, often the radio can't be bothered to say, now the website, and if he does speak it can easily be a series of vowels and consonants that often make little sense: Inigo Ugarteburu Aeraberan being a particularly good case in point. Even now i am not sure if i am correct, bu this may have been a brilliant tune.
So, on saturday night i found the track lise for the show and decided that the closest thing i could find to what i had written down the night before (i had written 'beringi el berengar' about 3 minutes after he had said it as by then a second or even third track had been played and i had no idea what he was referring to.
Yes, i do sit there with a note pad to write down things we listen to and talk about.
Anyway, staring at the set list of fridays show i decided that Casiokids Kaskaden, Ben Butler & Mousepad was what i had liked, and tried to find it in Spotify - and couldn't. Though i did find Casiokids by Kaskaden but thats a different thing. (And who knew Bernard BUtler was doing interesting things with Mousepad, AND as a big big fan of my casio and what can be got out of it i liked the idea of the tune Casiokids. But it wasn't that. So i wondered down through the set list, thinking that was where i had been listening.
And thats when i found Sugar Minott Ghetto Youths. But i dodn't play that. What caught my eye was Sugar Minott Exit Music. Surely no?! But yes, digging deeper into Spotify it turns out that there is an album called Radiodread, what a fantastic name. And what a fantastic album, well mainly anyway. According to wiki Radiodread 'is a 2006 album by the Easy Star All-Stars (on backing it seems), a collaboration of reggae and ska artists', so its not as varied as i had originally hoped (i had hoped it was completely different artists playing any Radiohead song, when actually it turns out its OK Computer). But still worth getting and listening too. Actually, its just brilliant.
And they have an earler album called Dub side of the Moon! Just makes me laugh even saying that. Got to hear that too.
Anyway, i have to go back and continue relistening to Tom Ravenscroft's show, i am beginning to think the songs i am after are:
Inigo Ugarteburu — Aeraberan
A Giant Dog — Trash Can USA
Kromestar — Wooo
Groundislava — Creeper Shit
Trans Upper Egypt — Cleopatra
or maybe it was the The Haxan Cloak — Untitled - which i think is a 20 minute mix.
i dont know. More work needed.
So, the result is i need radio 6 and spotify. I need spotify to find the bands i hear on radio 6, and to branch out to find more.
Whoops, sorry forgot another song that got played: The Beach Boys — Feel Flows. Reading about that on wiki too. Its surprising late, 1971, but a lovely tune. I dont like like the Beach Boys, i bought Brian Wilson's Smile, and liked it a lot, yet somehow it feels wrong. But maybe Surfs up is the album to actually listen too. Just a surprise i suppose.
DOSBox on Ubuntu ( and then Android!)
My son wants to play more computer games on my computer. We have been talking about getting him a Raspberry Pi, i guess because there is nothing like torturing a child by getting them sort of what they want but making them work for it - like programing their own games. What am i thinking of? Its just cruel. We'll see.
In the meantime, as Wine seems to be massive problems with Steam/Half Life 1 & 2, in a no sound and or no game sot of a way. I thougth that at least i should be able to get Doom 2 running.
Which considering the Half Life failure of the last few weeks, went OK. I installed DOSBox (via Ubuntu program installer, so no problem there.)
Then i wandered the internet trying to work out what to do next. Until i found this: OK lost the address. But the gist was.
# Lines in this section will be run at startup.
mount c /home/USERNAME/dos/c
c:
# cd Doom2
# DOOM2.EXE
#exit
# cd Genesys
# GENECYST.EXE
If you un-comment out:
cd Doom2
DOOM2.EXE
exit
Then when you start DOSBox, not only will it mount your fake c drive, but it will also start doom and, when you close doom, exit dosbox.
Or, as i did, open Menu Editor, add a new Item, say DOSBox Doom, with these properties: dosbox -c "cd Doom2" -c "DOOM2.EXE" -c "exit" i now have a item in my Games menu that starts Doom.
Now i just have to persuade him that Doom 2 is great.
Sort of Update: i got so excited by this that i downloaded the free app aDosBox for my phone, having copied the Doom2 fodler onto my phone - and it worked! Well almost, cant actually seem to work out how to control the game, but both doom and genecyst load.
In the meantime, as Wine seems to be massive problems with Steam/Half Life 1 & 2, in a no sound and or no game sot of a way. I thougth that at least i should be able to get Doom 2 running.
Which considering the Half Life failure of the last few weeks, went OK. I installed DOSBox (via Ubuntu program installer, so no problem there.)
Then i wandered the internet trying to work out what to do next. Until i found this: OK lost the address. But the gist was.
- Make a folder in your home/username folder called dos, and inside that a folder called c
- move the Doom2 files (from my old pc installation files circa 1998!) into the c folder: home/username/dos/c/doom2
- Unhide your hidden Files in your File Browser and look for .dosbox, and the file inside called something like dosbox-0.73.conf, and open it.
- Then at the bottom, last line add::
# Lines in this section will be run at startup.
mount c /home/USERNAME/dos/c
c:
# cd Doom2
# DOOM2.EXE
#exit
# cd Genesys
# GENECYST.EXE
If you un-comment out:
cd Doom2
DOOM2.EXE
exit
Then when you start DOSBox, not only will it mount your fake c drive, but it will also start doom and, when you close doom, exit dosbox.
Or, as i did, open Menu Editor, add a new Item, say DOSBox Doom, with these properties: dosbox -c "cd Doom2" -c "DOOM2.EXE" -c "exit" i now have a item in my Games menu that starts Doom.
Now i just have to persuade him that Doom 2 is great.
Sort of Update: i got so excited by this that i downloaded the free app aDosBox for my phone, having copied the Doom2 fodler onto my phone - and it worked! Well almost, cant actually seem to work out how to control the game, but both doom and genecyst load.
So, back to Sour Dough and starting your own starter
I stopped making sour dough bread a couple of years ago. Whcih i felt bad about, i dont like to kill things that are struggling with life, that being my sour dough starter that i got from a friend in the Borders and who had, it turn, got his from France and could easily have been hundreds of years old. And i let it die, or worse threw it down the sink. Maybe it still lives somewhere in the sewage pipes of Olde Edinburgh.
But, i was the only one who ate it, the kids were not impressed by it even though it makes wonderful toast. And bread and butter are not great for anyones waistline. Sadly, bread and butter ( and cheese and wine and salami and grapes) pretty well cover my favourite foods. I do love a picnic
But i decided a few weeks ago to start making bread again - sour dough at that.
But i had no started so i read up about making my own here over at SoughDourHome. And generally by halfing the measurements and kind of following the instructions, and then really not botering to follow the instructions - i made asour dough starter! And it works!
I have learnt to put in less water, as it separates and smells rancid. I have learnt to feed it with teaspoons of whatever flour i can get my hands on - rye is especially good, but so is wholemeal.
And i do cold whatchamacallit - leaving the bread to rise - overnight. It does make for very sour sour dough bread. (which i don't mind but is proving even more unpopular. Oh, is the word 'proving' not rise?
So, now i am experimenting with feeding the sour dough with less water, to make it thicker, putting more into the flour, but going for a shorter rise, in the hopes that this makes it less sour.
We shall see.
Update: Stopped Proving (first )rise after 8 hours and put in cold oven set to 180 (fan oven) with a dish of water in the bottom of the oven. It hadn't risen a lot - maybe doubled in size, but it held it together in the oven and 25 minutes later i pulled it out and it looked lovely. This evening both children asked for some, and then, miracle of miracles, aske for more. It is slightly less sour than my overnight risers. I probably should have cooked it longer.
But, i was the only one who ate it, the kids were not impressed by it even though it makes wonderful toast. And bread and butter are not great for anyones waistline. Sadly, bread and butter ( and cheese and wine and salami and grapes) pretty well cover my favourite foods. I do love a picnic
But i decided a few weeks ago to start making bread again - sour dough at that.
But i had no started so i read up about making my own here over at SoughDourHome. And generally by halfing the measurements and kind of following the instructions, and then really not botering to follow the instructions - i made asour dough starter! And it works!
I have learnt to put in less water, as it separates and smells rancid. I have learnt to feed it with teaspoons of whatever flour i can get my hands on - rye is especially good, but so is wholemeal.
And i do cold whatchamacallit - leaving the bread to rise - overnight. It does make for very sour sour dough bread. (which i don't mind but is proving even more unpopular. Oh, is the word 'proving' not rise?
So, now i am experimenting with feeding the sour dough with less water, to make it thicker, putting more into the flour, but going for a shorter rise, in the hopes that this makes it less sour.
We shall see.
Update: Stopped Proving (first )rise after 8 hours and put in cold oven set to 180 (fan oven) with a dish of water in the bottom of the oven. It hadn't risen a lot - maybe doubled in size, but it held it together in the oven and 25 minutes later i pulled it out and it looked lovely. This evening both children asked for some, and then, miracle of miracles, aske for more. It is slightly less sour than my overnight risers. I probably should have cooked it longer.
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