I'm moving out

I've been experiencing one or two technical glitches posting here so I've decided to give Live Journals a try. So please keep in touch, Go here: http://mylefteye.livejournal.com/

 

I must study

I got up this morning and thought: "I must take a leaf out of my friend Gerard's book (although not that 'Treatment of Financial Instruments' he's reading, thank you very much) and get some studying done."

Y'see, I enroled on a web-design course a couple of months ago, and thanks to the distractions of writing 'The Light Knight Returns' and 'Porridge and Uppers', I have barely scratched the surface of it. But 'LKR' is finished and submitted and 'P&U' is finished and waiting to be critted. Chris has offered to read it through for me. So if it passes his filters I'll drop it into the Critters queue and forget about it for a while.

So study, I must. I've no excuses now.

By ten of the morning clock I had started and completed another story. A micro fiction called 'Two Point Four Children'. It's a sequel to 'Tastes Like Chicken', which sold to SPACE SQUID magazine earlier this year.

Okay, that's done, I will now study. I will.

Arthritis, my arse.

Helen told me about that visit to her GP:

As she explained her symptoms -- back pain and sometimes in her right arm -- he typed her comments into his computer. He asked a couple of questions about the type of pain (dull, stabbing, burning?), then said, “Ah yes, arthritis.” Then, without taking his eyes off the screen he reached for his prescription pad and wrote down something off the screen. Two drugs. Helen and Mark looked them up later. One of them is an anti-inflammatory and the other a painkiller. So no doubt they will be effective whether she has pulled a muscle, trapped a nerve or any number of things. But arthritis?

As he’s given her an anti-inflammatory, one can only assume he means rheumatoid arthritis. But Helen has no swollen joints, or any of that redness or heat you would associate with rheumatoid arthritis. The doctor has just made a wild guess, not a diagnosis, based entirely on what his computer said. As my brother Steve said, "Arthritis, my arse."

Perhaps I should explain why arthritis has struck such a chilly note: there was a family friend who suffered the onset of arthritis in her twenties and she became crippled by it. She was bed-ridden and in constant pain all of her adult life. Eventually, surgeons removed her joints to give her surcease from the pain. God, she suffered, and her death was a blessing. Hers was an extreme case, but even so arthritis is one of those things that will give me sleepless nights if a young family member is ‘diagnosed’ with it.

The GP is a prat.

Sleepless

Had a dreadful night’s sleep. Went bed around midnight, but I remember seeing 3.20am come and go. Must have finally drifted off sometime after that.

Yesterday morning I was talking to a guy that came to replace some faulty bedroom lights. His name’s Andy. We were just chatting when Andy told me that his five-year-old son has a reduced life expectancy. There is a name for his condition, but it passed me by. The little boy breathes through a tube inserted in his throat and only has one lung. He had a cardiac failure at the age of two so he’s considered fortunate to have reached five. His dad phones him from work ten times a day. My thoughts, as he told me this, were naturally enough of Heather, also five. I tried for a second to imagine what this Andy’s world was like, but I realised I didn’t even want to go there as a tourist. How anyone can live and function there, I don’t know. I guess they have to.

In the afternoon I went to give blood. When I got home I felt tired and dozed off in a chair for over an hour.

My little sister Helen phoned in the evening. She admitted that for the past year she’s been suffering back pain, but hadn’t told anybody because of all the excitement of her marriage and buying a house. She went to see her GP yesterday, and he told her she has arthritis and prescribed painkillers. No examination, no X-Ray, no blood tests. He said that if the tablets help then it will confirm his diagnosis. Well, I have all respect for doctors, really I do, but in this instance I think the guy has his great fat head up his great fat arse. She should get a second opinion. I’m thinking of contacting the chiropractor my friend David mentioned in a recent posting. Just for advice. But I must speak to Helen and Mark, my new brother-in-law and good friend, first.

It was probably a combination of thinking about the Andy and his family, dwelling on what Helen’s back pain means and my falling asleep in the afternoon that kept me awake in the wee small hours of the morning. Thinking how much I love my family and what they mean to me, how I would take their illnesses and pain on myself if it would spare them. I recall my Mum saying that you love your children so much you would take their place rather than see them suffer. It’s true.

Jill and Heather have gone to Hanley today, to see the Aussie band Hi-5 performing live at the Victoria Hall. Andy’s terminally ill son will be there too, and arrangements have been made for him to meet the band afterward. Andy said he’ll try and get autographed photos and pop them in the post for Heather.

La Grippe, Porridge, Uppers . . .

The novella -- now called 'Porridge and Uppers' (which is just as bad a title as the original, 'La Grippe') is near completion. So confident I am of getting it done in a few days I submitted it to Critters. I will swap the file before it hits the top of the queue, hopefully! If I don't I'm gonna look pretty stoopid.

It stands at 12700 words now, with another 500-1000 required to finish it off. Further polishing may add to or subtract from that rather hefty total. So, a non-genre story (my first, although I'm sneaking it through Critters as a fantasy, ahem) and a novella to boot. God knows what I'm going to do with it. I'm used to looking at Ralan's for potential markets, I haven't a clue if markets exist for quirky historical fiction.

Suggestions on a postcard to the usual address.

Rogue dots

Last night I decided to write to several friends -- new and old -- in my address book. Some of them I haven't contacted for several months, or even years. I wanted to let them know how I'm faring and re-establish old ties. So I invited them to look at my revamped website at www.mylefteye.net

Now I must have typed the name mylefteye a thousand times.

I managed to invited everyone to my.lefteye.net (I didn't see the rogue dot!). That URL leads to an eyecare website.

Quite appropriate really.

Prevention is better than cure

Saw this response to bird flu somewhere on the Net. Had to share it.

Lasering my left eye

My left eye is better than the right. Since having a detached retina at sixteen, my right eye has always been pretty useless. Then there were those cataracts last year, which threw things out of balance and both eyes were abysmal. The operations were a success and I had lovely clear vison for a while, or at least as clear as I'm going to get with retinitis pigmentosa.

Just before Christmas my vision was clouding: this happens sometimes. It isn't the new lenses, but the old lens sacs that turn opaque. This can be rectified by laser treatment. There is, however, a small risk of irreparably damaging the eye with the laser. The doctors were very reluctant to do my left eye as the treatment could bugger it up entirely and I'd be reliant on the pretty useless right eye.

Lately though, it's been really getting me down. I can no longer read normal print, not fluently anyway. Two pages of a book will take ten minutes and I feel sick afterwards. Not worth the hassle. And I love to read. It's an escape. I know there are alternatives such as reading on a VDU or with magnifying equipment, but they lack -- for me anyway -- the relaxing, tactile quality of lounging in a chair with a great book.

So I'm taking the risk. I've made an appointment mid-May to go and see a specialist. It's a low risk, and the benefits will be enormous. Just that if it does go wrong, I'll be in a right mess. If I blank my left eye and use just my right, this screen just becomes a bright white square with a black border.

Bit late for a gap year, but...

I had to go to the doctor's yesterday to update my sick note. He's signed me off work -- even though I recently joined the ransks of the unemployed -- for a year. That's to give me time to get myself adjusted to this encroaching blindness, without being pressured to find work. Hopefully I can retrain and somehow get my confidence back.

A year. Kind of good news I never wanted to hear. Does that make sense?

Let's all pester Blair

There are signs that some of the promises made regarding debt relief for Africa at the G8 summit in Scotland will not be honoured. Politicians, eh. Slippery bastards.

I don't know if these things make a difference. I guess they must do, or organisations like Oxfam wouldn't waste resources on them. So click below and send Blair a message. Tell him you think debt relief is important to end poverty in the world. The message is already typed in, you just have to add your name and address and click SEND. How easy is tha? And it might make a difference.

http://www.oxfam.org.uk/what_you_can_do/imin/action/tonyblair02.htm?ito=2376&itc=0

'Soapocryphal' sold

Dred magazine has bought another story of mine.

'Soapocryphal' was first published in Fusing Horizons magazine, May 2004. Dred publisher/editor Bill Hughes admitted that, having already purchased two of my stories and being awash with submissions anyway, he was heavily biased against taking 'Soapocryphal'. . . until he read it. Then he felt he had no choice but to take it. His sub-editor seconded the motion and that was that. I'd scored a hat-trick at Dred!

My fifth reprint too.

Ebay follow-up

The Verve paperback fetched £28.

Just as unbelievable are the empty plastic sleeves I listed. I nearly chucked them away, but then thought what the heck, seeing as I'm listing other stuff I may as well list these. They're just vinyl sleeves that came with some U2 singles I bought years ago. There's a piece of purple card in them that says U2 4PLAY and U2 PAC II. They fetched £9 and £3 respectively.

Amazed I am, but pleased.

eBay surprises

I bought a book a year ago, on eBay. I paid about 40p for it, plus a bit extra for p&p. A Verve (the indie band) biography. I've read it and, while thinking it was okay, knew I would not be reading it again. One for the charity shop.

But as I'm listing some other bits and pieces this week, I thought I may as well list this book. I started it at 70p. Someone bid that amount pretty quickly and there it stayed. Until this morning when it jumped to £26. What? Shome mishtake, surely. But no, someone else has topped that with a bid for £27.99. The auction ends Sunday. I for one can't wait.

eBay. You gotta love it!

Word counting

I did a spreadsheet. In column [a] I wrote the titles of my completed stories to date. In column [b] I entered the wordcount of those stories that have been accepted for publication, and in column [c] I placed the wordcounts of those stories I have yet to find a home for.

Results:
I have sold 15 stories over a thousand words in length.
I have sold/published 13 stories under a thousand words in length.
Total wordcount = 73,500 (not counting reprints).

In column [c] lies 5 stories over a 1000 words in length and numerous flash pieces and micros totalling 23,000 words,

I'm not counting the 90,000 word novel (because it's just too heartbreaking to think about!).

Conclusion: I have written and sold enough words to quaify for a collection. So publishers looking for an eclectic slection of SF, fantasy and horror fiction should form an orderly queue.

You take up writing, you become obsessed with plots and characters, themes and conclusions. Then you join a writers' workshop in an effort to improve your technical skills. You become inundated with advice. People line up to stamp on your tautologies (ouch!) and pour words of wisdom into your head. Hundreds of hours see you stooped over a keyboard perfecting your craft. You have to if you want to get anywhere, right?

Well, d'you know who the third biggest selling author is on this planet?

Roger Hargreaves.

The Mr Men books.

I can't think of anything to say to that. It just seems so wrong.

But then I'm a little biased because I've had to read three of these 'delightful' books every night for the past four years to my darling daughter. They wear a little thin, after a while.

'The Butcher Shop Quartet' has gone to the printers. Boyd E. Harris and Frank L. Hutton will be taking it to the World Horror Convention in San Francisco, May 11-14.

http://www.whc2006.org/

I can't believe how many copies are being printed. Pick a number between 1 and 2001. And aim high. Very high. The publishers are showing a lot of faith in the contents. And as I provided a quarter of those contents, I can only hope they are justified.

And I hope they booked a big table at the convention.

Boyd is doing a website, I'll post a link as soon as he's done.

Wow.

'Pretty Useless' lives!

As it may be a day or so yet before Chris Hall completes the mammoth task of overhauling mylefteye.net, I'll announce it here that my story 'Pretty Useless Says' is now live at www.dredtales.com

And pretty lovely it looks too. Check it out folks, and let me know what you think.

Oh, yes, and besides that . . .

In yesterday's post I rattled on about submitting 'The Light Knight Returns'. I forgot to mention what was probably a bigger event in my life -- I was officially made redundant after 22 years. I got the (not-so-fat) cheque, the sweaty handshake and the "Thanks for all your hard work over the years, if there's anything we can do..." spiel.

And that, I suppose, was very much that. Now what? The DHSS, I suppose. For the time being.