RIP David Bowie

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I was looking at Flipboard this morning and came across an article saying David Bowie was dead. Hoping it was one of those cruel internet hoaxes I paged through a couple of news sites. Turns out, sadly, that it wasn’t. I am stunned. Bowie’s music was part of the soundtrack of my teenage life, perhaps the largest part of it. I can remember lying on my bed in the council house in Fairhurst Rd listening to The Man Who Sold the World and Ziggy Stardust and Diamond Dogs. Brilliant stuff; great rock, weirdly intelligent, with heavy SF undertones. It spoke Read more…

Scapple for Plotting

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I am currently working on a murder mystery. I started with an interesting central character (a wizard detective),a setting that excites me (a magical steampunk version of nineteenth century Russia) and a strong idea (our hero has to investigate the murder of a rival he hated, one suspect being the woman he once loved). I was happily writing my outline until I came to the point where the body was discovered. At that point a red flag went up. I had no idea who committed the crime. This sort of thing happens to me a lot. I start with an Read more…

When You Need to Block Out the Internet Just Focus

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Over the past few years I’ve used a program called Freedom to cut myself off from the internet when I’ve needed to be more productive. It works well but it’s a bit brute force– it blocks all access to the net. Recently the makers of Freedom have started moving towards a subscription model. This leads me to believe that the standalone app might not be long for this world. I like Freedom but I am not a big fan of the subscription model so I started looking around for alternatives. I had a half-price coupon for a program called Focus Read more…

Dungeon World +2 Bundle of Holding

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Just a quick post this morning. I got an email from the good people at Bundle of Holding. They have a new Dungeon World Bundle available. There’s some extraordinarily good stuff. Not only Dungeon World itself but dark magical Grim World. (I backed the kickstarter). It does exactly what it says on the tin. There’s Iron Edda where the riders of mecha-ish magical machines fight against the coming of Ragnarok in a world of Norse-ish mythology. There’s the dying earth of Last Days of Anglekite. There’s steampunk adventure with The Green Scar and Inverse World. And there’s a whole lot Read more…

Markdown Files and the Seinfeld Method

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One of the apps I missed when I switched to Windows Phone (yes, I am one of those benighted souls) was Habit Streak. This is a very simple and slick bit of software that let me track my chains of success for the Seinfeld Method of developing a new habit. I’ve talked about this technique before here. In essence its very simple. You set yourself a daily goal and track whether you manage it. You can mark off days on a calendar, use an app to track your success or any other method you like. All you need to know Read more…

New Year Resolutions

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Happy New Year! Last year was not a good one for my blogging. I managed a total of only eight posts. There were a number of reasons, some good, some bad,none of which I particularly want to go into. This year I will hopefully have more free time on my hands and a bit of that will be dedicated to the blog. I’ve been reading Austin Kleon’s Show Your Work and I liked some of the ideas in it a lot. Kleon recommends sharing something about your work every day, even if what you have to say is very short. Read more…