#except the books still sell in spain and russia

[miserywizard]

i didn't know ruthless gods was out in poland huh did they buy the third one i don't think they did

#i have no idea what's going on with any foreign editions #except the books still sell in spain and russia #actually really well in spain? i got an actual royalty check from them a few months ago #'really well' it's all relative

[eurosong]

Undo my ESC 2021 - Semi-final 1

Good afternoon, folks! Every year, I take a look at each semi-final and share what feasible change I would make – as small as changing a few lines of the song or an element of staging, or as big as a different song completely winning a national final – to make it even better (just in my own opinion of course!) This year will be harder than usual, but I’ll try to set aside my conviction that every 2020 artist should have been able to return to see how different SF1 might look. Let’s go!

🇱🇹 Lithuania: PiN was in the Roop's hands, and whilst I fell in love with some of the underdog songs they were up again, most notably Home and Never fall for you again I wouldn't take away the chance away from the Roop. There's nothing I'd change about Discoteque, and I love their nod to On fire, but the way that they also took things in a different direction to last time.

🇸🇮 Slovenia: I may be in a small minority, but I absolutely love Amen and I loved Voda too! Ana Soklič has so much presence and stunning vocals with so much texture and depth; she can sell me pretty much everything. My only change would be to insert Slovenian language lyrics!

🇷🇺 Russia: I was initially really disappointed that we wouldn't see the iconic Little Big on the ESC stage - but I commend the way they wanted to share the limelight with other artists. The unexpected Russian mini-NF ended up being a revelation and very diverse for its size. I liked all three songs, but I think that the best hands down won. There is nothing I have to change to Russian woman, one of the most powerful propositions of the season for me. I just hope juries will value it and we won't see a Telemóveis style situation!

🇸🇪 Sweden: After a year of being happy with the result in Sweden - I was always in Dotter's corner, but who can't love the Mamas? - we return to more familiar terrain of an MF result disgruntling me. Tusse has charisma and talent, but his song is lacklustre at best for me. My fav was, once again, Dotter, and I wish that either she'd taken the win or that the Mamas got their shot at ESC as main artists.

🇦🇺 Australia: I really enjoy Technicolour, one of the more out-of-left-field entries from Oz. I am so intrigued as to what the Diane Warren song offered to Montaigne was like, as I'm certain that this isn't it, but I'm glad she trusted her gut and went for something so distinctive. My one change would be to get rid of the unnecessary key change at the end.

🇲🇰 Macedonia: When there was a nationalistic furore with attempts to stop Vasil from representing MK, I was entirely on his side even though his song for me is one of the least appealing of the edition. I'd still want him to get his chance at ESC - but his Sudbina would have been such a more compelling entry for my taste.

🇮🇪 Ireland: Lesley Roy served nostalgic pop wonderment for the second year in a row, and another song that has etched itself already onto my life's soundtrack. I don't know what I'd change, except perhaps translate one of the choruses into Irish Gaelic - it'd make the message of a return to home even more resonant for me.

🇨🇾 Cyprus: Cyprus and I haven't seen eye to eye for several years now, and it's a shame as they were one of my favourite countries of the 90s. I do enjoy El diablo more than their last trio of songs, but I find it leans too heavy on a clear inspiration from Gaga, which takes away from some of the more original elements of the song. So, I'd rework the chorus, and also change some of the lyrics elsewhere because some lines just flat out make me cringe.

🇳🇴 Norway: I seem to have been in the minority of people delighted at MGP's final results! I had bigger favourites - the rambunctious sea shanty that is Vi er Norge, the kickass empowering Witch woods or the pulsating groove of Playing with fire - but I wouldn't take Tix' win away from him given how meaningful it was for him and what the guy has been through. My change? Revert partially or entirely to the Norwegian version, Ut av mørket; for me, it hits my heart harder.

🇭🇷 Croatia: Sincerely, my biggest disappointment of the NF season potentially - I wish Damir had been internally selected, not just because of my wish to see all ESC'20 alumni return, but because his was the best Croatian song for me since Moja štikla. Tick-tock is harmless but if we can't get a Damir return in this hypothesis, then I'd go for Rijeka, which captivated me with its epicness on first listen and has just risen in my estimation since. Though, given Nina's histrionics after coming second, maybe I'd have Albina perform the song instead.

🇧🇪 Belgium: I was prepared to not be on board with Belgium this year despite my long-lived love for the country - I found Release me, whilst orchestrated beautifully, entirely lacking in dynamism; and I really couldn't stand the way the band dumped Luka unceremoniously. And yet... this lush piece of art is one of my favs of the entire season. And there's something different and singular in Geike's voice. So the only thing I'm changing here are the dudes' attitudes to ESC so that they can value it more, especially Alex.

🇮🇱 Israël: As one of the most naturally charismatic performers of 2020, I had high hopes for Eden's return and the original idea of a mega-NF for her seemed really promising. Instead, we ended up with an uninspired strewing of songs, of which the best didn't even get the chance to be recorded by her. Set me free was my favourite of the three that got to the final, but I feel they've really worsened it with the revamp, in between the hail mary pass of the whistle vote and the extra emphasis on "I'mma". I would have Eden perform Shoulders instead - I don't know how it NQd and think it would allow her to showcase her personality a lot more.

🇷🇴 Romania: I really enjoyed Roxen's selection last year - small but quite diverse, and I felt the best song won. My change would be to have seen a similar national final with 3 or 4 other songs of hers this time, because I'm not convinced in Amnesia anywhere near as much as I was of Alcohol you.

🇦🇿 Azerbaijan: I wish they had gone with something at least a bit different rather than this cut, smudge and paste from last year that is so on the nose with its "you loved Cleopatra, so you will love this, won't you?" feel that it even namechecks the previous song. Efendi has a lot of talent and could have shown more diversity here.

🇺🇦 Ukraine: I'm getting used to the surprise revamp of Šum by now, but the question still remains for me, why did they do it? They needed to cut about a minute off the duration of the track, but to me, that doesn't explain why they also had to change the melody in large parts of the song. I'd be tempted to revert to a shortened form version of Šum version 1.

🇲🇹 Malta: Another unpopular opinion, but I'm just not that into the Maltese song this year. The lyrics are great and Destiny has poise and presence and PIPES and I'm sure she'll do well, but the style - a glammed up Electro-Velvet, essentially - doesn't heat me up, and I feel like the different parts of the composition are too dissonant from each other, like we have 2 or 3 songs in one here. My change would be for her to have gone with something more soul-ish in its sound, like AOML was.

And the AQs of this semi

🇩🇪 Germany: How did juries decide upon this, especially when there seems to have been many promising artists in the German selection? No shade against Jendrick who seems like a lovely chap, but the song sounds like the cheerful four chords on a ukulele you hear repeated as royalty free background music on Youtube tutorials, merged with a post-chorus breakdown taken from a Stefan Raab b-side. I would have gotten out my phone book and given Lilly among clouds a call - she gives me the vibes of being able to create something totally show-stopping.

🇳🇱 Netherlands: My original slight disappointment at this was more because of how high I have Grow than any fault of its own. It's another gorgeous composition from Jeangu, with probably the best set of lyrics of the year, and this is going to be a moment. I change nothing.

🇮🇹 Italy: I like Måneskin and their performances at Sanremo were brilliant - but they were far from being at the top of my favourites list. I would have given the win to Madame with Voce, or Ermal with Un milione di cose da dirti. Both would have been my #1 of the entire year, both move me deeply. Madame showcases contemporary Italian style with classic songwriting, whilst Ermal almost created a companion piece to Fai rumore - Diodato wanted to hear the sound of his loved one, whilst Ermal struggles to make a noise and say what he feels about his love.

Join me soon as I take a look at SF2 and its songs (and France, Spain and the UK, the auto-qualifiers from that semi!)

#eurovision 2021 #esc #eurovision #eurovison song contest #opinion #esc 2021

[willridgard]

Adnams - What a story!

Give the gift of the perfect present

Buying gifts for loved ones often comes with its challenges.

Christmas presents. Birthday presents. Valentine’s Day treats. Mother and Father’s Day gifts. It can be hard to decide what to buy. And stressful, laborious, and expensive.

I mean, we’ve all been there haven’t we? Wrong style. Wrong colour. Wrong size. No warranty. No refunds. And while vouchers can be seen as boring and too safe, we can easily insult and upset the ones we care about by not putting enough thought or effort in.

Good presents in my opinion are ones that are appreciated, ones that excite, and ones that offer things to look forward to.  

People like adventure, challenge, and experience… Step forward, the Adnams Brewery Tour!

If you have an interest in beer (who doesn’t?), I highly recommend booking up this gem of a gift. Which is exactly what I did for my old chap.

Maturing taste buds and award-winning beers

The change in my taste buds, from lager to ‘real ale’, has been duly noted by my dad – and in recent years, we have spent many an evening together sipping on Adnams’ award-winning beers. And while Broadside tops the tasting palette for him, it’s Ghost Ship for me – but there are plenty of other tasty beers that also tickle our fancy. Mosaic. Ease Up. Bitter. Lighthouse. Explorer. Blackshore Stout. Dry Hop. And even the more exotic choices in Earl Grey and Cucumelon Sour. We’ve sampled a fair few…  

At the end of the day, I suppose we are just a couple of ol’ Suffolk boys that love drinking quality beer now and again! And so, the Brewery Tour was the perfect, ultimate Christmas gift. ‘Sunday Funday in Southwold’ we called it. Caw’d a Hell buh, the missus came along as well: the more the merrier!

Our excellent tour guide, Rob Denny, was absolutely superb throughout. He made us feel very welcome from the start, answered all questions thrown at him, and also held a popular taster session that everyone enjoyed at the end!

Brewing liquor, tasty samples, and growing beer in coat pockets!

One of the first things Rob asked us was ‘Which four main ingredients make up beer?’ ‘Water,’ answered one enthusiastic tour goer. ‘Correct,’ Rob replied. ‘More commonly known as brewing liquor in the industry.’ I liked that reply. Can’t beat a good bit of brewing liquor! Yeast, malted barley, and hops are the other three answers as he talked us through the interesting brewing process (more on that later).

Good Tours include interaction – and samples. And we were lucky enough to experience both at Adnams. Adnams work closely with a number of local maltsters and we got the chance to taste some of the malt used to make some of our favourite beers. Handfuls of rye and pale ale malt were very tasty indeed – but just a word of warning, if you’re not a coffee drinker / fan, do not get overexcited (like I did) when you hear the word ‘chocolate’ being briefed! I slightly overpoured my take, much to the amusement of Poppy, and had to sneak several grains into my coat pocket! Sorry, Rob!

Ghost Ship: a spooky tale or two!

As we moved through the Tour, taking in the sights and smells of the Mash Tun, the Whirlpool and the Fermentation Vessels, we learned that Ghost Ship, Adnams’ best selling beer and biggest commercial winner, was originally only meant to be a three-month trial! Thankfully, this decision was reviewed after the ‘hauntingly good pale ale’ proved hugely popular after its release in Halloween 2010 – and it now proudly leads the line in a number of Adnams pubs up and down the country. Life without Ghost Ship would be simply unthinkable! Now just to get Spindrift and Early Grey back on keg…

Rob also gave us the chance to smell some of the hops, which add delicious, unique flavours and aromas to the beer during the brewing process. Intense citrus aromas wafted through the air as we put our noses to ‘Citra’ – one of the most sought after hops in the brewing industry. Rumour has it that Citra made its way over to the UK, from the US, via Adnams’ Ghost Ship – such is the extreme power of citrus given off! 

Citra is also used in Ghost Ship 0.5%. Zero to low percentage beers are proving mightily popular in an ever-growing market. In fact, Adnams recently had to double its production of the low alcohol Ghost Ship. And I must say I’m impressed – the same great taste is produced, but there’s the added bonus of waking up without the hangover the next day too...They offer the perfect solution to driving as well!  

The contrast and challenge of ABV

At the other end of the ABV scale is Broadside – Adnams’ dark ruby red beer which takes its name from the famous ‘Battle of Sole Bay’ sea battle in 1672. Boasting rich and malty fruitcake flavours, Broadside is brewed differently in cask (4.7%) from bottles (6.3%) because of two main reasons: price and ABV. Generally speaking, the higher the ABV, the more expensive the beer will be in the pub. Adnams have therefore adapted the recipe to make it more ‘sellable’ in pubs. It’s also very rare to see high percentage beers in pubs – as they must be consumed very carefully! Makes sense, right?

Adnams all over the world!

One thing I was surprised at was the size of the brewery. I thought it would have been bigger seeing as how rapidly the Adnams name and brand is growing locally, nationally and worldwide! Not only do they own 44 pubs, inns and hotels, they also work closely with 1,000 free trades pubs and bars in East Anglia and 4,000 pubs nationally. They also export to more than 22 countries around the world, with their beers available to try in Abu Dhabi, Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, China, Colombia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Northern Ireland, Norway, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Slovenia, South Korea, Switzerland, Sweden, and USA. Look out for them the next time you’re on your travels!

Being Southwold and proud: a sign of success

All things considered, Adnams are doing a sterling job. It’s been reported that their turnover is in excess of £80m a year and they produce more than 34 million pints of beer and 250,000 bottles of spirits per annum – an extraordinary number seeing as they only brew and distill during the week.

They are also extremely proud of their Southwold roots – and this video perfectly highlights what they are all about and what they are looking to achieve moving forward:

Southwold is a beautiful seaside town in the heart of Suffolk, blessed with a beautiful sandy beach and a promenade of colourful beach-huts. It’s a very attractive and desirable place to live - and brew beer! The first beer produced on site was apparently in 1345 – nearly 700 years ago! It was in 1872 that Adnams was founded. Brothers George and Ernest Adnams bought the brewery from Sole Bay and to this day, alongside the Loftus family, who joined the business in 1802, it remains an independent family business. Current chairman, Jonathan Adnams OBE, has had a massive impact in driving the company forward in terms of innovation and sustainability: two elements Adnams look set to focus on in the future. 

And while there’s no doubting that the Adnams story is a resounding success, things haven’t always been straightforward…

From cranky crocodiles to ‘the beast from the yeast’

Rumour has it that George was eaten by a crocodile in 1880 after moving to South Africa. 140 years on and we’re still waiting for a snappy beer to be released in his memory…

More recently, an overflow in the fermentation vessel meant that yeast escaped its home and started chasing employees down the stairs! How we giggled when Rob told us that story. But brewing is like a scientific experiment I suppose – and it was also fascinating to hear of brewers throwing in malted loafs of bread to the mix. Trying different things to produce more great beers.

It is also the second most easterly UK brewery. Lowestoft-based Green Jack hold that prestigious award – and I can confirm, from testing a few samples in The Engineers Arms, Leiston, that both Gone Fishing and Trawlerboys Best Bitter are two exceptional drops worth trying!

A rum owd dew!

The beer sampling after the Tour was a joy to behold. Rob was a fantastic host and there was a great variety of scrumptious beers to sample. Cask. Keg. Cans. Bottles.

Of course, there was still time to (literally) sprint to the shop before it closed. Which is also very impressive. Boasting an array of their beers, spirits, and wines – as well as other merchandise, Adnams now have 13 retail stores in the UK. These are mainly based in Suffolk coastal towns – and I couldn’t help but purchase an inviting six-pack of award-winning beers for a very reasonable £10. Heck! We even received a free bottle of our choice as part of the Tour as well. After trying it for the first time with Rob’s guidance, I opted for a Blackshore Stout to go alongside my six-pack!

There was even time to visit The Lord Nelson. Situated close to the seafront, ‘The Nelson’ is just one of several fantastic, bustling pubs serving Adnams’ award-winning beers, wines, and spirits. Happy days.  

All in all, we had a wonderful time, and in my opinion, the Tour is well worth the £20. Thank you Rob and thank you Adnams. Book it up. Now! By visiting: https://www.adnams.co.uk/experiences/1

What’s next for Adnams? Well, rumour has it that collaborative brews are in the pipeline, alongside celebrations to mark the 10-year anniversary of the Copper House Distillery, which has now won more than 100 awards. We might have to take up the offer of visiting again soon. Adnams. What a story.

#beer #brewery #brewerytour #adnams #southwold #suffolk #brewers #goodbeer #lovebeer #christmaspresents #birthdays #gifts #beergifts #beerexperience #fathersday #fatherdaypresent #mothersday #adnamsbrewery #brewedinsouthwold #sundayfunday #awardwinningbeers #ghostship #broadside #caskale #bottledbeer #local #beertasting #gin

[helptowriteabook1-blog]

How To Write A Book

Very simple. It starts with understanding the market. A scary business Writing books is a scary business, but the scariest bits of the entire game is this: it's very easy to make a complete mess of the entire project before you get written your first word. You can misjudge the market. You can foul up your plot. You can have a hopelessly insufficient knowledge of your characters, or the world in which they find themselves. If you get these things badly wrong in the outset, you're headed straight for a giant mess. So planning matters. At the same time, any form of creative composing needs a kind of fluidity. It's just not possible to plan a thing out completely. For one thing, it's hard to help squash all your inventiveness into the three month period you've allotted. For another, the process of writing might reveal more to you about your characters and your story, and you need to give yourself room to answer these insights. The seat of your trousers There is no one single way to approach these issues. I know one publisher who wrote so many notes when it came to researching her first novel that the notes ended up increasingly being longer than the book itself. I also know an excellent author (one of whose books was a great deal promoted on TV and which sold a huge number of copies as a result) who takes precisely the antipode approach. she likes to research a period, get interested in some aspect of it, then she just starts to jot down. she barely knows her character and knows nothing of the story; she just throws the door available and waits to see what will come along. There are a number of other commercially successful authors who work in a similar way. Which means that there are different routes you can take, but most new writers who take one of these more extreme territory will have cause to regret it. If you are an extreme note-taker, then ask yourself honestly whether your book must have more research or whether you are simply procrastinating. It may well be that you are afraid of starting, which is a correctly understandable fear and one to be cured in one way and one way only: by getting stuck in. Since Kinglsey Amis famously put it, 'The art of writing is the art of applying the seat to your trousers to the seat of one's chair'. There's a little more to it than that maybe, but it's still Session One, the only lesson that tolerates no exceptions. Equally, if you're attracted to the vigour and boldness in the 'just get started' approach, ask yourself if you are not, in fact , afraid of the disciplines of planning, if you are not necessarily afraid of them because they're precisely what you most need. It's possible that, without planning anything out, you certainly will write a wonderful novel, appear on TV and sell a zillion copies - but statistically conversing, you are vastly more likely to end up with an unsaleable manuscripts, most of whose flaws were entirely predictable from the get go. Chasing Kay Scarpetta Let's assume, then, that you're sold on the idea of planning things out to some (non-obsessive) span. Where should you start? You start, inevitably, in the place you hope to finish: in a bookshop. A bookshop isn't simply a repository of all the world's greatest fiction and non-fiction; it's a marketplace and a catwalk too. You might want to learn to read wisely, commercially. Let's say, for example , that you intend to write crime fiction. Perhaps you happen to have a delicate spot for the British crime fiction of the 'Golden Age'. You love Agatha Christie, Dorothy L Sayers, Margery Allingham, Bulldog Drummond, the 'Saint' and all the rest of it. So you want to do something similar. Something which includes a modern setting, of course, but nevertheless a novel that brews up the same attractive blend of comfortable living, provided social values, amateur sleuths, decent but bumbling policemen, and a good old splash of upper class experiencing. So you do. You write that book. It boasts strong characters, warm prose and a deft, when contrived, plot. (The contrivances are part of the feel. ) You may well achieve a manuscript that appropriately accomplishes its goals. And it will never sell. Perhaps, in truth, if the book was good enough, you might find a second collection publisher to take it off you for a very small advance. You might even, with a little luck, lure a giant publisher into launching the book at the cosy crime market, where you can perhaps aim to sell 5 and 10, 000 paperbacks tops, and little hope of cracking any overseas market. But you'll never earn a living from writing and indeed, because agents know the way the dice are likely to fall, you'll have the greatest difficulty in gaining even this success, because it won't be worth most agents' while to help you there. Why? Because you're authoring for the market as it was seventy years ago, not as it is today. The modern crime writer has to respond to that Dashiell Hammett / Raymond Chandler revolution of the 1940s. They have to deal with an audience that has learned forensics from Patricia Cornwell, seen society from the viewpoint of a Michael Collins, encountered feminism from Sara Paretsky, learned place from Ian Rankin, studied mood and light with the Scandinavians, and that expects books, enjoy Hollywood, to deliver thrills as well as mysteries. You can't even model your work after current bestsellers. Take the forensically driven novels of Patricia Cornwell as an example. She's still an active writer, and her work still regularly tops bestseller lists on both sides of the Atlantic. But if you write like her, your booklet won't sell. That seems crazy at one level. She's a smash-hit, number one, multi-millionaire bestseller. If you happen to write like her, how can you not do well? At another level, though - the level of commercial reality, in truth - it makes perfect sense. If people want to read Patricia Cornwell, they will read Patricia Cornwell. Next her exhilarating decision to put forensics at the heart of the crime novel, others have followed suit, notably Kathy Reichs and the CSI TV series. There is now a huge forensically-led crime literature, dominated by the names which created it. If, more than two decades after Kay Scarpetta first emerged, you are seeking to chase an identical crowd, then you're twenty years out of date. Instead, you need to learn the market. You need to feel out its leading edge. You certainly essential info the big names in the market you want to write for. In crime fiction, for example , no writer can afford to never read Patricia Cornwell, because she's created such a large chunk of the contemporary crime vocabulary. But that is the historical part of your research. The current part is this: you need to buy and read debut novels issued as a result of major publishers in the last two or three years. You need to pay very particular attention to the novels that have done abnormally well (won prizes, been acclaimed, sold lots of copies), because these are the novels that publishers independently will use as their lodestars. The recency of the novels matters acutely, because you that guarantees contemporaneity. The reality that they are debut novels (or perhaps second novels) also matters, because it proves that the work is being produced for the qualities of the work itself, not because of the author's name, fame, or past achievements. That a serious publisher has its name on the book also matters, because it's likely to indicate that a good n amount of money has been paid for it. It's a probable indication that the market considered that book by that author to remain 'hot'. Needless to say, it's not enough to read these books. You also have to know what to do with them. Pigeon English, a first innovative by Stephen Kelman, recently sold for a high six-figure sum, following an astonishing auction contested simply by 12 different publishers. The book has been sold to publishers in the US, the UK, Brazil, Canada, China, People from france, Italy, the Netherlands, Russia, Spain, and elsewhere. Books like this come along very seldom and its author was altogether unknown beforehand. Yet his book looks set to be a massive world-wide hit. If you are seeking to write with the similar territory, then you need to understand the ingredients of Kelman's success. You don't need to understand them, because you propose slavishly to replicate them, but you need to understand literature as being in a kind of long-running conversation with again. You need to understand what feels current, what feels settled, what feels disputed, what holes and voids and additionally gaps may be opening up. Needless to say, you need to understand this conversation as it applies to your particular genre, whatever that is, but virtually no genre exists in complete isolation from the rest (though sci-fi and fantasy gets closer than most). If you read narrowly, you're likely to miss an important part of the developing conversation. Reading the market well is an extraordinarily challenging art. It is also an extraordinarily important one. It's both the most elusive and the most vital skill this any writer can have. Remember that you're at a huge disadvantage in this area. Every agent and every publisher is actually in the market, buying, selling, talking, comparing. These people aren't mostly reading the books that are on the bookshelves today. They're reading the books that will be on the bookshelves in eighteen months' time. They know exactly what guides are most hotly contested at auction. They'll know which books almost didn't sell at all. They are going to know the advances and the sales stats. When a book does unusually well or flops unusually severely, the trade will grope towards a consensus understanding of the outcome and alter its buying habits consequently. Reading this, most writers will draw the only logical conclusion, and instantly seek out marriage with a literary solution or successful commissioning editor. That's a good strategy and one that I'd commend unreservedly. If, however , people suffer the misfortune of being happily married already, you'll simply need to rub along as best you can. Imagine reading a lot, reading widely, and staying current. Looking inward These strictures might sound as if they're dealing with something external, but they're not really. They're talking about you. Most books that fail at the very first hurdle : that of concept - are more than anything else failures of honesty. You need to approach your own ideas using radical honesty. Is your idea for a book really founded on a good idea, or do you simply have a personalized attachment to it? Are you attached to it simply because it was the first idea that came to you? In very many cases, it does not take latter. Clear-sighted honesty is desperately hard to come by. It's taken me five or ten years to get close in addition to I've plenty more to learn yet. But one powerful tip is this: you must cultivate a positive posture towards contemporary fiction. In my role as editorial consultant, I often hear new writers say, 'There's so much rubbish published these days, ' or words to that effect. No one who has ever spoken those key phrases has got within a mile of publication. Of course, not all new books are good. There has never been a short while in history when they were. But it's very rare indeed that books are published which are incompetent for their sort. Dan Brown writes bad prose, but his audience doesn't care, as long as the story cracks with. John Banville's narratives may sometimes seem to have stalled completely in a flow of beautiful sentences, nevertheless his readers don't come to him for shoot-outs and car chases. Both authors excel at what people do. If you treat contemporary fiction as an embarrassment and a let-down, you can't hear its conversation. You won't generate anything which seems timely or pertinent. You won't get published and don't deserve to. The cynical path to failure It's also worth being clear about one other thing. I am not advocating cynicism. No cynically prepared book has ever sold. At the Mills & Boon end of the market, perhaps, a few cynically penned books are acquired, though not often even then. You must write for the market, because if you don't the market is usually unlikely to want what you produce. But you must also write with passion and conviction. You must - we should call a spade a spade - write with love. This game is so hard, so filled with challenges, you don't stand a hope unless you do.

[chberglund]

Tell you a secret

Tell you a secret, I was there.

I was the one exploring the forms of nature, creating the lines on the cave wall, painting the scenes on the stone.

I’ve carved in every material, molded al the clay and shaped those details that drew your eye to my work.

To tell you how I made the temples to God’s and rulers would take more time than you have, for how could I ever explain the struggles of life that led to me raising the sphinx from blocks of stone or adding color to a surface tricking you to believing whatever you saw was real.

The Seven Wonders of the World was created by me but I did so much more.

Once…

I was called Masaccio I painted The Trinity in 1425, a fresco that people say is the first fully developed adaptation of linear perspective. I set the vanishing point at 5feet nine inches off the floor, the height of the ideal male Florantine Viewer. (Chadwick s.72)

In the 14th century I was known as Marietta Robuti the eldest daughter to Jacopo Robusti who was better known as the painter Tintoretto. As a youth I worked in his workshop where I became famous as a portrait painter. I was invited to the court of Spain and Austria but Father didn’t like it and found me a husband instead of letting me leave, he even put the condition in my marriage contract that I was not to leave his household during his lifetime. Well his lifetime was longer than mine, I died four years after I got marriage at the age of 30 during childbirth. (Chadwick  s.17-18).

I assume you’ve seen the work I finished under the name of Leonardo da Vinci, and I do say finish because I could only finish a few of my works a lot of my work went unfinished like my first major painting “Adoration of the Magi” that I started on in 1481. None of the buildings I designed was ever built nor was any of my thousands of pages worth of illustrated notes on artistic theory, human anatomy, natural history and my numerous mechanical contrivances ever published. (Honour & Fleming, 2009. S.466-467).

Later I became known as Sofonisba Anguissola. My father at the time raised me and my six siblings according to the humanist ideal of the renaissance in the belief that we would bring honor to our city. His way of thinking let three of my sisters and myself become painters. My father’s ambitions for me were expressed in two letter to Michelangelo. In the first letter he asked Michelangelo to send me a drawing of his so that I could color it with oil and return it finished in my own hand. And so I did, he asked me to paint “Boy crying” and so I painted my brother crying.

The duke of Alba was the one who called the Spanish Court’s attention to my work. I was escorted to Spain with great ceremony in 1559 and there I remained for a time serving as both Court painter and Lady-In-Waiting to Queen Isabel of Valois and later Anne of Austria until I left in 1573. As a lady-In-Waiting I was given a salary and later a lifelong pension, payable to my father of course. Because my social status prohibited me from selling my work it was given as gifts in elite social circles and thus I became the first female painter to achieve fame and respect within the constraints that removed me from competing for commissions with my male contemporary. (Chadwick S.78-79, 82-83)

People has sometimes gotten confused over the work I did in the 15th century. The confused my work as Artemisa Gentileschi with that of my father’s Orazio Gentileschi. While it is true he was the owner of some of my works he could never really create the same expression in his paintings as I did. I didn’t hide the woman’s feelings and struggles in my paintings of popular biblical subjects like “Susanna and the elders” or “Judith Decapitating Holofernes” for the scenes were bloody and gorse, I might even have made the paintings to emotional and violet for some peoples taste. My father asked his friend the artist Agostino Tassi to teach me perspective and so he did. He also wanted me to be his lover, asking me time and time again to marry him, my answer was always no. Inevitably the situation became complicated and I told my father and he believed my and even if Agostino was a powerful man and dangerous enemy father didn’t hesitate to take him to court. Even if Agostino denied everything I kept to the truth and he was eventually convicted. When I in 1630 arrived in Naples I was a celebrity living magnificently and enjoying the patronage and protection of the nobility. This was where my style transitioned to a more refined style and I made my self-portrait there, “Allegory of Painting”. (Chadwick S.100, 107-108. Timbuktu 2016, s.20).

I wasn’t always a painter in late 1700 I was a writer as well. I was one of eight children and my name was Jane Austin. I wrote stories and published them without my name to begin with and later when I became famous I published them under my name instead of “Written by a lady” that it always said before. People expected me to marry but I always said no except for one time when I said yes, I regretted it and the next day I told the man that no I didn’t want to marry him. What a lot of people find interesting in my books I think is my humor and my attention to details. To this day you can still read my works and my letters. (Timbuktu 2016, s.76.  Föreläsning 17/10, Literaturhuset, Jane Austin)

In 1822 I was born as Rosa Bonneur, My mother taught me to read, draw and play the piano before she died when I was seven, after that was it up to my father, a minor artist, to train me. I was an anomaly among women artists of my day. Gaining a critical and financial success by 1853 I was seen as radical in my personal life but not in my paintings where I had a more conservative style, I tended to have a more realistic take on my art and was soon eclipsed by the more radical pictorial style of French modernism. (Chadwick s.193)

I became Tamara De Lempicka in 1898 and one day an artist was invited to paint my portrait. I was 14 at the time and I didn’t like his work and decided that I could do better myself. A couple of years later I met and married Tadeusz, we met at the opera and I saw him in the audience and decided then and there that he was the one I was going to marry. When the revolution broke out in Russia Tadeusz was imprisoned but I managed to get him out and we fled to Paris where I managed to fufill my childhood dream of becoming an artist, famous people stood in line to get their portraits painted by me. When the Second World War broke out I left for America where my artwork wasn’t as appreciated and when one of my exhibits got a bad revue I decided never to exhibit again. I moved to Mexico after that and as many artists my true fame came after I died in 1980, turns out that one of my greatest admirers is Madonna. (Timbuku 2016. S.182).

…these are just a few of my names, the more famous of my identities I’ve held.

For I was never a single being, nor was I anything more than human. I am you and you are me, I am the creativity and inspiration that the world can’t see. I am the artist that will always be.

[captainehren]

List of anime that influenced me

While watching CDawgVA talk about the anime that influenced him, I got to thinking of what has influenced me. I’m older than many fans now, so what I grew up with isn’t what everyone else grew up with. 

1) Sailor Moon

This show was the first real anime show I ever watched, though I had watched “anime” when I was younger in Voltron and Akira. However, they didn’t have nearly as strong an impact on me as Sailor Moon. I heard about it from one of my friends, and she was the kind of overly obsessed fantard that makes you cringe when you think of anime fans, but that came a bit later. I was in 6th grade and she told me I should try watching Sailor Moon in the morning. So I did.

I was instantly hooked. The girly clothes, the magic, the romance, the daring and mysterious Tuxedo Mask... I was in love! And so I got as many Sailor Moon things as I could get my little hands on. I got the small dolls, I also managed to get a hold of an Artemis plush that got ruined, and a big Sailor Venus doll. I really, really wanted a Tuxedo Mask doll, because good God he was pretty, but I could never find him. 

Over the years, I frequented anime stores, or Japanimation as we called it. I got a couple of Sailor Moon CDs, one of which was an import from Japan. I got a couple of imported manga from Japan that I could never read. And when the manga started being translated by Mixx Entertainment, I got the Mixx Manga magazine, which was kind of like Shoujo Beat or Shonen Jump except they smashed both the Shonen manga in with the Shoujo manga. I think I sold my copies to Half-Price ages ago because I needed whatever money they were willing to give me for it. And when I saw that Mixx was finally putting out the manga volumes for $10, I got my grandma to buy them for me. I was in high school when they were coming out then.

I learned to draw anime style by copying Sailor Moon’s style. My first attempts were awful, but I kept trying. I had a Sailor Moon character of Sailor Neptune way before I ever knew about the outer senshi showing up later in the series. (she was Serena’s sister and showed up to take Tuxedo Mask.) And later in 6th grade, my too obsessive friend not only claimed she had written a script for a Sailor Moon play that I was to play Sailor Jupiter in, but that, over the phone, she claimed she was turning into Sailor Moon when she looked into the mirror. And that she was having adventures in the mirror while talking to me on the phone. As I said: too obsessed.

Needless to say, Sailor Moon is one of my staples. It broke my heart when I had to sell my old Mixx manga Sailor Moon volumes and the newer ones that I had collected so that I could get some money. It’s okay. One day I will get them again.

2) Tenchi Muyo! or Tenchi Universe

I had not watched a lot of anime after Sailor Moon. There just wasn’t a lot that interested me and no real way of watching it unless I convinced my grandma to pay for it. I think I was in high school when Tenchi Muyo! showed up on Cartoon Network. I know I was thrilled to learn that Cartoon Network was airing Sailor Moon, so I was still in Sailor Moon mode. Whenever it showed up, I was hooked. I got on that train and careened right off the cliff. I love this stupid show, but the manga is soooooooo much funnier. Oh so much! This is where a lot of my old humor came into play when drawing my Harry Potter fancomics in high school, as well as the numerous comics that I started, but dropped when I got bored with them. (Attention span of a gnat.) It became more fun to just tease the shit out of my friends who wanted to know how the stories ended, but were sorely disappointed when I didn’t bother with them.

When I started writing out my super long and stupid Harry Potter fanfictions, it was a few years after high school. Before then, I was drawing them in high school when I wasn’t doing homework. And lo and behold, I’d copy the page layouts from Tenchi Muyo! and Oh! My Goddess, but only Tenchi Muyo! got a lot of interest from me. It might have helped that Tenchi Muyo!’s humor is pretty on par with Monty Python and other such British comedies I had grown up on, so it wasn’t a huge stretch to start picking up on how to draw some of its humor.

3) Fullmetal Alchemist

If you’re a long time fan of mine, then you know that this was bound to show up. FMA was one of those animes that I had no idea about until I randomly caught it on Cartoon Network when I was staying over at my great grandpa’s house. I was with my grandma and we were taking care of her dad--my great grandpa--who was suffering from dementia among other problems. The rest of the family took turns taking care of him and accompanying him on trips so that he was never left alone for too long. He had a problem of ending up in trouble and never bothering to ask for help when he couldn’t get back up. Now, I knew about a few more anime at this time, because I had anime loving friends in high school and out of high school who knew of stuff to suggest to me. I’d watch it on Cartoon Network and be somewhat interested in it. I watched Cowboy Beebop, Trigun, Outlaw Star (which has one of the best anime closing themes I’ve ever heard omg)... I can’t remember anything else at the moment.

I turned on the TV and found cartoon network was playing its late night anime block and watched FMA. And never looked back. Now, while my love of FMA is not as apparent as my love of Sailor Moon, it’s still there. I made my own Edward and Alphonse Elric dolls, for crying out loud! I would get the manga and I loved the art style so much I started trying to incorporate it into my own a little, much the way it happened with Sailor Moon and Tenchi Muyo. I would sit and listen to the soundtracks I would get from one of my friends. I have a signed picture of Vic Mignogna that I have stored away in a nice, safe place. I’m a fan. And it still stays with me to this day. I spent so much time playing with Harry Potter and FMA with one of my friends that we blended them together. 

Yeah. That’s right. My Mini-Erik series shows this bizarre shit in there and i will always be proud of how insane we got with it.

4) Princess Tutu

This one sounds goofy, and it is a little goofy, but it is so much deeper than you can possibly imagine. if you love magical girl stories as well as ballet, then you will love this. I love this. I LOVE THIS. This seriously came about when I found out that we had an anime channel. Back when my mom had a premium package for the cable, I could get free anime series to watch. I watched Pretear on there and a few other things, but what I took to the strongest was Princess Tutu. And trying to get my mom to sit and watch it with me because I know she will enjoy it if she gives it a chance was ridiculous. For some reason, she can’t handle anything where the characters have high pitched voices. She equates it to children’s voices and she can’t stand that. Not only that, but she, to this day, equates animated shit to cartoons for children. As I said, it’s fucking ridiculous to get her to watch this thing and enjoy it even though I know for a fact it has everything I know she will enjoy if she just stopped being a dumbass about it.

So this one has forever inflicted itself upon me. I still want to come up with a knight and princess like Fakir and Ahiru, but that will come when it comes. In the mean time, it will never leave me. Ever. I will always recommend it.

5) Fate/Stay Night (Fate series)

If you’re a long time fan of mine, you also know of my obsession with this series. It will never leave. NEVER. It always calls me back! Just like FMA, Princess Tutu, Tenchi, Sailor Moon, and a few others! But I think the most inspiring thing about the series is not so much the story, but the characters. Namely the heroes. See, I had a book I had taken from my great grandpa’s house upon his death. Actually, I had a lot of books that I had accumulated after his death, and all of them were mythology based. I staked a claim on those faster than you can blink. I have a Welsh Mythology book, an Irish mythology book, and two Scandinavian folk tale books that I got from his house. Well, I had read through the Irish one and enjoyed the Cattle Raid of Cooley and Cuchulainn, but it didn’t stick in my head. It was Fate’s Lancer that shoved that bastard right into my brain and he made a home there. I had always been a huge fan of King Arthur, and seeing a female King Arthur kinda weirded me out at first, but I liked the idea so much that I kept it for my own versions of King Arthur. 

“The Dark Queen”, “The King’s Hound”, and “Hound of the Dark Earth” all came from utilizing the images of the characters of Lancer Cu and Saber Arthur, but using them in my own way. So even now I’m still playing with these stories, and it has everything to do with fate/Stay Night being a huge influence on me.

6) Axis Powers: Hetalia

Oh, Hetalia. We have a love/hate relationship, you and I. I love you to pieces, but your fans tend to be fucking psychotic and/or stupid. Or at least the ones I always encounter minus one of my besties. My bestie Alex introduced me to Hetalia and I keep coming back to it while she’s kind of stopped caring. I always come back to things I enjoy, such as Harry Potter, Narnia, Lord of the Rings, King Arthur, yadda yadda.

 I instantly fell in love with America and continue to this day. I also fell in love with England, and later France, Germany, Spain, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, China, Russia, Lithuania, and Japan. To this day, I have characters that are at least in some part influenced by the characters of Hetalia. My character Jimmy Stark was influenced by America, my character Bastian Wylde came from England, same with Fabian Santiago from Spain. I think even Darius Lis came from my usual portrayals of Lithuania in roleplays. How these came about was from a lot of role playing with Alex in various stories, including,but not limited to, Twilight and Harry Potter. We always paired Alex’s version of India with England, so in Twilight they became vampire lovers and in Harry Potter they were students. And then we used India in The Witch’s Son/Phantom of the Opera type shenanigans back when I was just trying to figure out how to make The Witch’s Son work.

However, I stayed far from the fandom outside of making overly dramatic fanfictions of a dumb parody cartoon. I know I had at least two Mexican idiots try to tell me that the Texas Revolution was America stealing Texas from Mexico instead of Mexico being an abusive dickwad and Texas raising a shotgun to his face and saying “No More.” Or that Palestine would have never picked on a young Israel, even though Palestine, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and a number of other places around Israel all declared war on Israel for simply existing. Israel won its independence in fire and blood, and then kept on surviving every single time these same nations never learned their lesson and declared they would “drive the Jews into the sea” ie kill them all. Or that America was never a conservative nation. However, they’re small fry in comparison to the bizarre fantards on gaiaonline. Had at least one of them molest my America and then, when I played such a thing straight and had America scream “BAD TOUCH! I NEED AN ADULT!” they started screeching about “straight helatians” being impossible and “straight hetalians” in their fandom. Like... dude? Seriously? The boys liking Hungary’s tits and ass don’t connect with you anywhere?

7) Hellsing

This one is more for two characters, specifically Alucard and Anderson. I played Alucard for years and then finally wanted to incorporate him in something without like... actually doing Alucard. If you know me, you know what I’m referring to. Anderson, however, kind of more just... visually influenced another character that has absolutely zero to do with him... though I suppose you could make the connection because they’re both priests that murder. The image in my head was more of the scarecrow variety, though, with Anderson’s long arms being more lanky, as well as his body. So perhaps a little of Batman’s Scarecrow fell in there somewhere, too.

8) Fushigi Yuugi

I literally only heard about this when I was... I think high school and then got out and ran into it later because of my bestie Amanda. This one is one of the lesser influences, but I suppose it still counts because some of it still lingers with me today. 

9) Ouran High School Host Club

A silly manga and a silly anime that makes the Captain a super happy person. This influenced more because of the stereotype characters in the same way Hetalia did. I’ve been noodling with the idea of romances surrounding similar types, including twins with a chick. We’ll see where that goes... if it goes anywhere. 

10) Anything CLAMP has created

Not gonna lie... I was a huge CLAMP fiend when I got out of high school. While I don’t really give a shit about the yaoi in the stories, my interest has always been in the cute, girly, adventure, or the DESIGNS. Jesus fuck, I would kill to be able to design some of the outfits they design. I’ve never been that imaginative with clothing. The detail put into the designs made me try to do the same with my own artwork, for good or ill. And the art styles were ones I emulated, particularly from eeh... Angelic Layer and Tsubasa Chronicle. I, in fact, used to rely on the manga from Tenchi, Sailor Moon, and Tsubasa Chronicle to get ideas for page layouts and whatnot when I drew comics. I incorporated a lot of it into my drawing style and then let it relax into something else when I finally got bored with keeping up with CLAMP. 

#the captain #file this under #things that people don't really care about #anime #manga #yup