Sunday 29 May 2011

oh, so fickle

A while ago, I wrote about why books are better than Kindles, about how I had no interest in Kindles, and would never, ever, ever even entertain the thought of buying one.

Last month, I bought a Kindle.

And I LOVE it.

I love that it is so light, and when I travel instead of having two (or more) paperbacks in my handbag, I only have to have one little Kindle.

I love the fact that it is linked to my Amazon account, so if I'm browsing and fancy a book, I can have it immediately (although that is quite dangerous).

I love the fact that there are hundreds of free books. Yes. Free books. Books that cost no money.

I love the fact that there are hundreds of cheap books.

So, I can't read it in the bath. So, I've heard a rumour that if you subscribe to a magazine, and end the subscription, all the back copies disappear. You can't share books (that is a bit sucky. I do love to find a good book and lend it to my friends) But...you know what? I don't care. I love it. Love, love, love it. I love it so much, I've bought one for my dad.

Will it stop me buying real books? No. There probably isn't anything in the world that would stop me buying books. But I'm getting quite a fine collection of unread books on my Kindle. Which is awesome. Next time I'm on a train, and I can't settle and I want to read something but I'm not sure what, I'll have a not-so-little library at my fingertips. What's not to love about that?

Sunday 22 May 2011

Happy Sunday

Well I've had a story accepted for publication! What a lovely thing to wake up to! It's for Gumbo Press, and will be in the first edition of their Word Gumbo magazine. I'll post a link when it goes up at the end of the month, but until then, woooohoooooo!!!

It's one of my better stories, and one that has been doing the rounds for quite a while. I've sent it to Aesthetica (twice), Mslexia, Global Short Story Comp, Writer's Forum...and I'm sure there are some other ones that I've missed off. So it's nice to finally have it accepted somewhere, and (at the risk of sounding trite) it does just go to show that you just have to keep sending stuff. Someone will want it, somewhere!

Last week, I was feeling quite rubbishy about my writing. I thought it was crap and I might as well give up and the small successes of the past were just a fluke and blahblahblah. Today, I feel a bit more positive. So I'm going to give my story back-catalogue an overhaul, get more stories to the stage where I can send them out, and I'm going to send them. Because as a wise man once said to me, "if you throw enough balls at enough coconuts, sooner or later you're going to win a prize".