ladygavgav

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You know how the folks in Dune have that special walk to avoid attracting the sandworm? Is there an urban equivalent to avoid the attention of seagulls?

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Plagued by Plagiarism

New blog post: Plagued by Plagiarism.

Back in 2015, Sheree Mack was accused of plagiarism by another writer. The claim was that her story The Tracks was based upon A Mercy by Judith Turner-Yamamoto. The publisher New Writing North believed the accusation had merit and pulped the remaining copies of the Mack story. It subsequently emerged that other writers had similar concerns, coming to a head that year when Mack published what was…

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Ideas Coming Out My Ears

Occasionally, I sit down to write this blog on a Tuesday only to find my tank of ideas is empty. At the moment, I have a different problem. I have a list of subjects, but I can’t find a way to start on any of them. For example, today’s entry was meant to be about the problem of plagiarism among poets, but I couldn’t move past the first line. Instead, let’s pick this up next week, once I’m able…

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#blogging #ideas #Plagiarism #tuesday #writing

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Persons! Do this!

I’m noticing an increase in new fic writers on AO3 who…uh…mayy not know how to format their fics correctly..so here is a quick and VERY important tip

Using a random fic of mine as example..

The left example: ✅✅✅

The right example: ❌❌❌

Idk how many times I’ve read a good fic summary and been so excited to read before clicking on it and being met with an ugly wall of text. When I see a huge text brick with zero full line breaks my eyes blur and I just siiiigh bc either I click out immediately or I grin and bear it…it’s insufferable!

If a new character speaks, you need a line break. If you notice a paragraph is becoming too large, go ahead and make a line break and/or maybe reconfigure the paragraph to flow better. I’m not a pro writer or even a huge fic writer but…please…ty…

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With the hype now truly over, it was time to dive into Wordle. With just a 96% win rate, I'm annoyed there's no way to make up for it, other than to keep playing until the losses are statistically less significant and the win rate starts to edge closer to 100%.

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The drink itself is pretty tasty, but the graphic designer appears to have found an old clip art CD-ROM, typed in 'sunset' and applied the first effect that came up.

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Discussion Questions About Discussion Questions

New blog post: Discussion Questions About Discussion Questions.

On Sunday evening, I reached the end of the Richard Osman novel The Man Who Died Twice. I always like to read over the acknowledgements, and then I turned the page to find a section titled ‘Discussion Questions for Readers’. Most of the questions give away plot points, so I won’t repeat those here, but there are a few only tangentially related to the story, such as ‘Have you ever been lonely in…

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#fiction #groups #man who died twice #novels #penguin random house #prose #Reading #richard osman #writing

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Sky Writing and Railway Reading

Yesterweek, I talked about going to Dublin for a few days and what I would bring to read and write on the three-day trip. The flight there takes about an hour and five minutes from Edinburgh. I used the journey there to write six postcards, which I would then post on arrival, and tackled some other writing on my return. As predicted in that last entry, the cashier was indeed rather bemused as…

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#fiction #notebook #plane #poetry #prose #Reading #suggestions #travel #writing

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Sky Writing

If you’ve flown with Ryanair before, you’ll know the company doesn’t have a generous baggage allowance. So when I head off to Dublin for a few days tomorrow, I’ve had to be selective about what I bring for reading and writing for the journey. I’m definitely bringing my laptop, which will sit alongside my plastic A4 document holder. This comfortably holds my A5 paper diary and a commercial-sized…

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#blogging #dublin #laptop #magazine #postcards #prose #richard osman #ryanair #writing

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Horse sense is correctly known as cartificial intelligence.

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I've been invited to film a documentary about insects. I'm shooting the bee roll.

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Nice NaNo-ing You

Long-time readers of this blog will know I’ve been involved with National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) since 2010. This is a not-for-profit initiative that encourages members to draft a 50,000-word novel every November. In 2015, I began to organise our local Dundee & Angus region. A local leader is known as a Municipal Liasion (ML). Each ML needs to sign an agreement every year promising to…

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#affiliation #Dundee #fiction #independence #nanowrimo #novel #prose #writing #writing group

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An old-fashioned city is called a retropolis.

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I've Started So I'll Finish

New blog post: I've Started So I'll Finish.

On Saturday, I made my annual visit to StAnza in St Andrews, billed as Scotland’s International Poetry Festival. I’ve been going for around a decade, but my commitment has varied from year to year. Sometimes I’ve been to as many events as possible during a day trip, and sometimes I’ve booked accommodation so I could stay for the late-night slam. This year, I made a conscious decision to buy…

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#composition #editing #email #poetry #rachel mann #St Andrews #stanza poetry festival #writing #wyverns #yomi ṣode

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A happy birthday to Peter Doherty from The Libertines who turns 45 today. If anyone happens to know him, do pass on my best wishes.

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I need to update my pop culture references like 118 118 needs to drop its prices.

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We already have a quote of the day: 'Nothing like a Bonio dipped in Branson's.'