Zaragoza nights

I'm in Zaragoza in Spain to learn the language. Three weeks, three hours a day and three hours homework. Can I order a beer yet? What do you think...I tried and apparently ordered a head (cabeza) followed by a cherry (cerezas).  I'm getting thirsty waiting on a cerveza (beer, or so I hope!)

Just a Thought

I guess some of us thought the jump from letters to email left us a little content light, but social media is testing my adaptability right now. I'm Twittered up but still struggling to find the ideal form of the Tweet.

So, let's try...A pithy opinion, clearly expressed? A fresh slant? A slogan? A snapshot. A headline. An overheard comment in a bar? A thought?

Just a thought. Hmmm...

LIke a William Carlos Williams note to explain why there's no plums left in the fridge.

The tyranny of trinkets

A friend, also a writer, talks about the tyranny of choice as a modern ill. Where once our lives were circumscribed by class, religion, wealth or politics, now our mobility, our access to cheap goods and aspirational advertising appears to make everything possible, and if not possible then at least tangible. Only the sheer plethora of offers and enticements, desires and needs, leaves us in a limbo, paralysed by too much information and too many options to process.

Of course, he may only have been talking about writing a book.

Fact and Fiction

There are many ways to tell this story, few that will be satisfactory to all. My hope is that the combination of popular presentation, an element of the comic book and the political thriller, together with real events, will encourage those with no direct knowledge of the revolution, or the fifties and sixties, to go further on their own in finding facts, coming to opinions formed independently. A good read, a really good read, that's primary...

Going Public

April 22nd is the anticipated publication date. Review copies will go out shortly thereafter.

Typos and Tipos

Publication day approaches, though suddenly there is the sense of an acceleration, shortening days for a growing number of tasks. Designer, lawyer, proofreader, editor, illustrator, Spanish language expert, accountant, all are running neck and neck with me towards the finish line...and the odd thing is, the thing I fear most? The typo, or, if you prefer, the tipo. Strange huh?

Getting it in the neck...

...the hazards of this sedentary, desk-bound life are coming home to roost. Rebel took three years to write and the research and original screenplay another two. That's a long time craning forward to a screen, crossing legs, leaning on one elbow waiting for le mot juste or just a sentence that comes close to expressing the idea in your head.

Consequence, cn't hit the 'a' on the keyboard, due to numb left hand, due to nerve compression, due (says Jane the sports therapist) to 'treating your body like a stray dog.'

That is so unfair. I've been unusually kind to stray dogs at all times, bar those salivating and frothing at the mouth.

Hey-ho.