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Hi all, I was supposed to be down in Melbourne for a dental appointment today, but my cold has worsened and I cancelled the appointment. So instead I get to write about my lack of progress in writing last week. No fiction writing last week, but I did finally finish and submit an article to Divine online magazine. The article basically says cataract surgery is no big deal and the benefits to your eyesight can be astounding. I speak from personal experience and that of a number of relatives. It seems that with my genes I was doomed to have cataracts. Carol Ryles pointed out a series of blog posts on the future of publishing written by Kristine Kathryn Rusch . Kristine does a good job of showing that book publishing is not the same as the music industry, so any comparison between the publishing industry and how the music industry has supposedly survived the digital revolution is out of place. I am a miserable grump when I have a cold. That demeanour would have helped me fit in with the...

Hi all, Amazon set to become world's biggest publisher. I thought that headline might get a few people reading. Readers of this blog would know that I have said that Amazon, Google and Apple will probably be the biggest publishers of books in the near future. Amazon already sells thousands of self-published titles, and recently launched four publishing businesses. Amazon Encore will buy underperforming, but well reviewed, books that have already been published and republish them. It will specialise in first time writers. Montlake Romance will publish digital, physical and audio romance books. In an interview, Jeff Belle, vice president of Amazon Publishing said they will eventually publish books in other genres, including science fiction. Amazon Crossing will publish English translations of foreign books. Domino will publish non-fiction books. So watch out. Amazon might achieve what Rupert Murdoch has tried to achieve, total domination of the publishing industry. Dentists are cold ...

The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood My rating: 5 of 5 stars A brilliant book which is perfect for the times we live in. It's message is that humanity through action or inaction will destroy itself. The book mainly concentrates on genetic engineering but has society slowly decaying from lack of resources in the background. I read this novel because it is a prequel to the equally brilliant Oryx and Crake - which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. The Year of the Flood shows how civilisation collapsed and humanity died out before the story of one of the few survivors begins in Oryx and Crake. The world is dominated by giant corporations. These corporations are heavily into genetic engineering. There are many genetically engineered animals created in place of the many extinct animals like pandas and platypus. Humans are genetically engineered mainly for aesthetic reasons. The novel begins after the waterless flood occurs and then takes us back a decade or so earli...

Divine Article on Universal Remotes I have a new article up on Divine about universal remote controls . The article was inspired by the inability of my mother to control a set-top box. The buttons on its remote control were too small for her arthritic fingers to control. She has the same problem with the remote for a Sony DVD recorder. I am hoping that someone who reads the article will suggest a universal remote control that is suitable for her. Divine Cataract Surgery If you have cataracts that are interfering with your life, but are too worried about getting them removed, you should have a read of my next article for Divine about cataract surgery. It details my first had experience. Cataracts run in my family. Both grandmothers had problems with them. My mother has had them removed, as have uncles and aunties on both sides of the family. Source Code The movie Source Code is nowhere near as good as Inception, but it is better than most of the crap alien inv...

My Epic Novella, Part 739. I slaughtered a few of my novella's darlings last week, replacing them with just as many fabulous? ordinary? deplorable? words, so the word count stagnated. But at least I did some work on it. I want to start researching/interviewing and then writing my next article for Divine magazine this week, but I am determined not to use that as an excuse to neglect the novella. Divine Article on Cataracts My next article for Divine magazine is about cataracts. If you have cataracts or have had surgery to remove them, I have a few simple questions for you: 1. Where are/were the cataract/s on your eyes and what effects did/do the cataract/s have? I had one dead centre of my left eye and had to try and read around it. 2. If you had surgery to remove them, describe your post op vision. I had surgery on both eyes. I could see a mountain range in the distance for the first time. Black was once again black and not grey. I could see my freckles again. 3. If you didn'...

Hi all, After weeks of doing little writing, except Divine magazine articles, I actually did some editing of my novella last week. Yaaa me. And things are looking good for this week as I have caught up with other activities like gardening and newspaper reading. I still need to strip the rest of the paint off a picket fence and paint it, followed by painting new guttering. Novella It is amazing how the plot needed to change in my novella after I substituted an ipad for a newspaper. My main character had been reading a newspaper, but as the story is set about a decade into the future, I decided to give him something more advanced, an ipad. He then needed something to carry it in, so I gave him a backpack. In the novella he has to make a hasty exit. He had previously just dropped the newspaper and ran, but now he had to try and bundle his ipad into his backpack while lurching for the exit. Those in pursuit catch up with him. Previously they grabbed at his clothing, now the...

Hi all, Global Warming I’ve been catching up on my newspaper reading and the global warming debate is not going well. Clive Hamilton in last Wednesday’s Age sums it up well: “What do Australians want? The answer is clear. We want symbols of action but not action itself. We want to hear words that make us fell good about ourselves but none that ask us to make any sacrifice. We care about climate change, but we hate the idea of having to do anything about it.” Even with my household’s limited resources and income we have tried to decrease our contribution to global warming, while people on much larger incomes do nothing, except whinge. We have installed solar hot water and a rain water tank. We upgraded the gas heater to one with a thermostat. Every light fitting has one of those energy saving light bulbs in it. We grow a lot of our vegetables and fruit. We don’t have a car, instead we walk everywhere. The only good thing about global warming is it makes it very...