Update 03/08/2014

It's done. Chapter Twenty-Five, all 9,503 words of it, is now written.

It's a long one, but I'm pretty sure it's worth it. I think once you come to read it you're going to find it flying by far quicker than you expect. 

This, of course, marks the final proper chapter of the book. All that remains now is the Epilogue, which is not going to be anything like as long. And then, crazily, that will be the first draft complete. 

I can't write it tonight. I need to sleep. But the end is very much now in sight.  More of an update soon.

Something new in my bedroom this week

Update 27/07/2014

Chapter Twenty-Five currently stands at 6,770 words. I had been hoping to be able to report that it was finished today, but there's still a bit of ground to cover before this one can wrap up. Unfortunately, having written about a chapter's worth of material in the last week and the majority of that in the last two days, I can't write another word of it today or else my tenuous grasp on reality will finally snap and I will spend the rest of my days trapped in the world of my own fiction. Or something like that.

I'll be able to get back on with it tomorrow, I'm sure. There's probably about another thousand words or so to go, so I'm hoping to have it finished. It's probably not too optimistic to imagine the epilogue might be finished by then too, but don't hold your breath.

One thing I can say now though is that this is going to be a really good chapter. 'Book 2' isn't quite as action-heavy as The Two Empires, but there's enough action here to leave a crazed orc needing a lie down.

I did have a bit of a break today, with a visit to the air show at Felixstowe. Here's my favourite pictures of the day:

Update 20/07/2014

Somehow that's another week gone by already, but it was certainly a productive one. Not only is Chapter Twenty-Five nicely mapped out across a sheet of A4, but thanks partly to a train ride to London and back this weekend I've also written the first 1,918 words. In most cases this would represent almost half of the chapter, but I strongly suspect that this one is going to come in at a bit more than the usual 4,000-odd. How much more remains to be seen. I think a completion this month is a little bit optimistic, but who knows?

Haven't got anything on-topic to illustrate this post, so here's a picture of a spooky-looking abandoned German military hospital for you. Hopefully one day I'll get around to providing some context. 

Update 13/07/2014

Well, I may have forgotten/been too lazy/been too hungover to put together an update last week, but the good news is I can now report that Chapter Twenty-Four is now finished. Yes, that means just one chapter (plus an epilogue) stand between me and the Twilight Zone of writing, aka editing. Admittedly not much got done last week, but I made up for it over the last couple of days.

I think I really need to plot this final chapter out in detail before putting pen to paper (thumbtip to tablet screen). There's a lot going on and it has to fit together perfectly. So, I might not be rushing through the word count next week.

As I write the World Cup final is running into extra time, and my support is torn between pan-European loyalty and the £32 I've got riding on Argentina in the office sweepstake. This has absolutely nothing to do with the following picture of me playing a large drum: 

Update 29/06/2014 - New Poster!

Another good week: I'm now halfway through Chapter Twenty-Four. It's all kicking off. The end is in sight. The Great Edit draws ever closer.

I've also prepared a poster to promote The Two Empires, which you will see below. So if you want you could always print it out and put it up somewhere - that would be really cool of you.

View fullsize

(Here it is as a pdf too.)

First Dianthus of the Year

What's that? Two updates in one weekend? What is the world coming to? Well, this bonus update is brought to you on behalf of the Dianthus plant in my back garden that has now flowered for the first time this year. Given the debt I owe to the genus (confused? read the book), I always try to keep at least one example of my own.

In other news Chapter Twenty-Four is going very well. Not only that, but the last couple of chapters are really coming together in my head. Watch this space.

Midsummer 2014 Update

Had a sudden spurt of productivity this week and so as of yesterday the first draft of Chapter Twenty-Three is complete. It'll be a memorable one. Together with the final two chapters it takes place within a twenty-four hour period, so we're well and truly into the climax now.

I'm extremely reluctant to set myself any kind of deadlines when it comes to writing - after all, sometimes you can knock out a chapter in a few days while other times a page takes weeks - but since the start of this year I've been fairly consistently averaging two chapters per month. (The observant among you may note that this is considerably faster than I wrote The Two Empires - I guess actually having people reading my words is a strong motivator.) On that basis it's not impossible that the first draft could be completed by the end of July, at which point I'll be be able to give you more information about it.

Having said all at, I've probably now cursed it and Chapter Twenty-Five won't be complete for another year. 

Even more speculatively, an actual release of the second book this year is looking almost feasible. I wouldn't say it's likely, though. The honest reason: it's a lot easier to make time for actual fresh writing than it is to sit down with a pen and edit that writing into something less awful. Feel free to nag me if I'm not editing fast enough.

No wild animals this week, so here's a picture of my dog Tilly from last year: 

She doesn't like to get her feet wet.

Update 15/06/2014

Well, I haven't finished Chapter Twenty-Three yet, but I have made some decent progress on it this week. Hopefully there might be something more concrete to report by this time next week.

In the meantime, and in keeping with recent updates, here's a picture taken earlier today of a young jackdaw perched on my arm. He appeared in the garden of my firm's Bury office for the open day, and was very much the star of the show.

Update 08/06/2013

Quite a good week on the writing front. Working on Chapter Twenty-Three, which as I mentioned last time is one that I've been looking forward to for a long time. All the more pressure to get it right. I'm probably nearly half way through. The completion of the first draft draws ever closer!

Short update this week so to make up for it there now follow not one but two pictures of the various animals I encountered this weekend: 

Amazon v The Publishers: Interesting Times

The chances are you must have heard something in the last few weeks about the ugly dispute between Amazon and the publishing giant Hachette (one of the so-called Big Five publishers). If you haven't please stop reading and go enjoy the lovely sunshine/apocalyptic storms this weekend. You'll be far happier not knowing.

If you're still here, I assume you're aware of the vast quantities of poorly-informed opinion being pumped into the discussion. This being the Internet, I feel compelled to offer my own poorly-informed opinion. 

If despite my warnings, you don't know what this is all about and are still reading, all we really know at this stage is that Amazon are engaged in apparently heated negotiations with Hachette regarding a contract for Amazon to sell books published by Hachette, and that Hachette books are suddenly starting to disappear from availability on Amazon. Consensus of opinion seems to be that Amazon are deliberately doing this as a way to put pressure on Hachette. Beyond that, the commercial details of the negotiations are confidential, so we don't really know.

In recent days and weeks I've seen a lot of Hachette authors arguing that their publisher is the only thing standing between us and a new cultural dark age. Who can blame them? If I was seeing my sales hit by something that threatened a system that was working out quite well for me, I'd be saying the same thing. 

The thing to remember is, Hachette (or rather, the Big Five publishers in general, since they're virtually a single business anyway) aren't the good guys here. For years they've been taking over smaller publishers and operating what is effectively a cartel. It's a rather incestuous system where authors for the most part have no choice but to accept extremely one-sided contractual terms, and where the publishing houses won't so much as look at an unsolicited manuscript if an author isn't already signed up to an agent. There's very little scope for competition in that world because they're all in it together. That's probably why they didn't quite understand that price fixing is illegal, until they got caught out last year.

Now, we all know Amazon isn't necessarily a model of corporate social responsibility. But what they are is a disruptive force in an industry that desperately needs it.  They've opened up the market to independent authors who would never previously have had the chance to reach an audience. They're not the only one doing so, but they're probably the most prominent and most successful. Thanks to Amazon anyone who can write a book is able to market it around the world as an ebook or a paperback, even if they're not the kind of person the old-fashioned publishers would ever touch, and they're going to get far better margins than they would with the old publishers. Of course Amazon aren't doing it out of the goodness of their hearts, but that's what they've achieved.

Perhaps the most compelling argument I've heard in favour of traditional publishing is the benefit of having an editor. Well, I'm sure a good editor is useful if you've got one, but they're not really doing anything that we can't do ourselves. Writers have already had to become graphic designers, marketers and webmasters, so I'm sure it won't be too much of a struggle to learn editing, particularly since at least 50% of writing is editing already. Obviously the input of someone else is invaluable, but that's what test readers are for (thank you, all of you!).

The brutal truth is that very few writers are able to make a living out of it, never mind make a fortune. That's no different if you're traditionally published or self-published. At the end of the day, in the vast majority of cases it's going to be down to the authors to promote themselves, and unless they've got a massive readership they're not going to make enough money from it to live on. The only difference is, in the old days it was only a few had the chance to reach an audience: those few the publishers and agents thought might be commercially successful.

That's why I don't have the slightest bit of sympathy for the old publishing giants. They've had their time, and they've done extremely well out of it, but the world is changing, for the better, and they're unable or unwilling to adapt to it.

Not really sure what else I can say on the matter. Don't listen to the publishers and their authors; they're naturally inclined to side with Hachette. Don't listen to me; I've only got a book on the market because of Amazon. So who should you listen to? Hell knows. Just whatever you hear, take it with a pinch of salt, and consider that there's two sides to this argument. And if you know any more than me, please let me know.

Update 01/06/2014

As promised, here's your weekend update. Happy to report that after a couple of weeks stalled I've had a sudden burst of progress and have just this minute finished Chapter Twenty-Two. Three more to go now!

I've been looking forward to this one for a long time. There are some chapters that you need to figure out as you come to write them, like the one I've just finished. Others you know in intimate detail well in advance. Chapter Twenty-Three is one of the latter, and one of the first parts of the story to appear in my head. It's needed writing for a while, and now its time has come.

Thanks for following these updates, and as a reward here's a picture of a day-old foal I met a year ago on a hill in Norfolk: 

New Finland Page

Hi guys and gals,

Just to let you know that I've set up a new page on the website here to collect the things I've written about Finland in one place. Hopefully there will be more to fill it in the future.

Should get a proper update together later this weekend.

On The Road

As I mentioned recently, I've been reading Jack Kerouac's On the Road and it's been bringing back some great memories of my own trip to America. Thought it might be quite fun to try to put them into writing (ok, and pictures too). So, here we go.

I visited the USA for the first and so far only time in the summer of 2012.  It was the gap between the completion of the Legal Practice Course and the start of my training contract in September, and so potentially the last chance for a six week holiday for quite some time. I got together with Rob (an old friend from primary school) and Strev (Rob's friend from university and subsequently a good friend of my own) and we booked flights, a hotel for the first few nights and a hire car for the duration.

​We flew out to Las Vegas on the 4th July, as it happens. It was the first time I'd been on a plane for more than a couple of hours, so the strange neither-day-nor-night of a transatlantic flight was a new experience in itself. We eventually landed in Vegas itself in the early evening and checked into our hotel near the South end of the Strip, and then set out to explore.

Venice? No the Venetian Casino, because whyever wouldn't you build an artificial canal in the middle of a desert?

Vegas is, at least in my limited experience, a unique and incredible place. It's quite exhausting, actually: both from the deep dry heat that drives you quickly from one air-conditioned relief to another, but also from the sheer quantity of things going on to grab your attention. The city seems to be set up to cater purely for visitors looking for a good time, and it fulfills that purpose admirably. Everywhere you look there's something different. The casinos, of course, are a big part of everything, but you don't even really need to gamble if you don't want to: each casino is also a showhall, shopping centre, hotel, leisure park and architectural curiosity in itself. Each has its own theme, and they offer all kinds of free entertainment to get people in the doors, so it's well worth seeing as many as you can. As it happened I didn't really have the money to really gamble it away, but I did put $10 on red at the roulette table and doubled my money, so I like to think I came away having beaten the house.

You don't actually need to see the rest of the world; it's all here in Vegas

This is the old side of Vegas, at the north end of the Strip

On the second day we collected our car from the airport, a Mazda Versa. Having never driven an automatic before, or driven abroad at all, this took some getting used to. Somehow on the way back to the hotel I managed to end up on a huge Interstate road and the Strip itself, but once the initial terror was past driving became rather fun. One thing you can say about America is that it's big, and so once you get out of the cities it's like you've got the roads to yourself.

Fact: you can't photograph a car in America without it looking like an advert

After a few days in Vegas we set off into the desert. Our first day's destination was Kingman, a small town in Arizona on Route 66 where we visited the town museum and the extremely friendly man there told us all about the presidents in his gallery and showed us his snakeskin. Then we carried on along the 66 to Flagstaff, from where we had a day exploring the Grand Canyon. Without wanting to sound too obvious, it's pretty spectacular. I've seen no end of pictures of it, of course, but none have ever really captured the true scale of it. Took a bus ride along in one direction, and then drove out along the other. Really worth seeing if you ever get the chance.

From there, the next destination was Los Angeles. We didn't really have any kind of plan, but generally navigated based on how far we thought we could drive and where we could find a cheap motel. This took us one night to Prescott and the next to Parker, then Twenty Nine Palms before reaching Lancaster just north of LA.

The food, throughout the holiday, was great, although not by any standards healthy. It turned out to be surprisingly hard to find fresh food, but all too cheap and convenient to sample the many chains of fast food far nicer than the ones that have made it over to the UK. One place I really wish we could import is Denny's, a twenty four hour diner where you can stroll in at 1am and order a massive plate of pancakes (as we did on one occasion). One warning though: the brightly-coloured non-alcoholic cocktails they serve (with free refills, just like everywhere else!) have a very odd effect on your digestion. You've really got to see it for yourself to believe it.

This place was every bit as awesome as it looks

As was this little diner on Route 66

In Lancaster we went along to the local minor league baseball game. I'd seen a couple of games on the TV and Rob and Strev had managed to explain the rules, which are essentially pretty simple. It was a very fun evening; it seemed quite a large proportion of the town had turned out to the game, but no-one seemed to take it too seriously. It was more a chance to hang out with friends, drink beer, eat hot dogs, chant songs and cheer a lot. Would be nice to have something like that over here.

Hard to beat for a summer evening's entertainment

From Lancaster we drove through the hills down into LA itself. It's a strange city full of strange people. We were staying at a Motel 6 in Arcadia, a place in the north of the city which allowed us to avoid driving through too much of the city. Also, the options for cheap motels were either there or Compton.

LA!

There's a lot to LA (unsurprisingly), but it's generally pretty spread out. There's the downtown area. and then there's Hollywood, and there's the various beaches, but you definitely need to take the bus to get between them, and there was nowhere that really felt unmistakeably LA - you could have been in a city anywhere, which is certainly not something you could say about Vegas or (as we would later find) San Francisco. Don't get me wrong, I still like LA, but I don't think it's a place you can really get to know in a few days.

Hollywood!

Home of the Dodgers. A little bigger than the Lancaster JetHawks' stadium, but the atmosphere is the same

We went to Downtown, Hollywood, Santa Monica and Redondo Beach, as well as a baseball game at the Dodgers' stadium. On Santa Monica pier we watched a band playing a few songs as a soundcheck before their gig that evening. They were very good, and it turned out Rob and Strev had given them their first UK airplay on their university radio station. The band's name: Haim. Bear in mind this was July 2012, six months before they were chosen as the BBC Sound of 2013 and a year before they played Glastonbury. Anyway, that's enough hipsterism for now.

I doubt you'll be able to find such a small audience for Haim these days

I said people in LA were strange. Probably the best example of this was encountered one night when we made the mistake of trying to walk back to the motel after catching a late bus back from Redondo beach. Here's a tip: any distance that is visible on any map in the USA, no matter how small it looks, will turn out to be massive. On the way we met a chubby man in a bright pink shellsuit, who was being pursued by a small dachshund trailing its lead behind it. He asked us what city this was; we told him LA. He continued. A little while later we passed a burger restaurant surrounded by the police. No matter how many times I've considered this story, I've yet to come up with a plausible interpretation.

Santa Monica beach

Sunset at Redondo Beach

After LA we headed north, to the coast and up towards San Francisco. Victorville, Bakersfield and then Pismo Beach. Nice place. Had a bread bowl full of clam chowder, which was delicious. Really wish I could find some in England. Standing by the pier that evening I somehow got talking to a young lady who it seemed had spent the last few days in Pismo dropping acid and antagonising the police. She told me she had declared herself to be a sovereign state, and that the last time she had gone in the sea she had washed up three miles along the coast, and so she was here tonight to make peace with it. I hope she was alright.

Pismo Beach

We eventually reached San Francisco. I'd say out of all the places we visited it's (earthquakes aside) the one I'd most like to live in. For one thing it's got a much more reasonable climate that those places further south and away from the coast, which for someone who doesn't deal well with heat is quite a major advantage. It felt like it had far more character than LA, which is I think helped by the fact it's geographically pretty small: you can quite easily walk around San Francisco itself. It's very hilly, too, which means that most places have a pretty decent view out over the sea or the bay. Plus it has trams, which is always a bonus.

The Bay Bridge to Oakland

We stayed in a hostel near the centre, and shared a room with another Englishman. He was probably in his late thirties and was far more well-travelled than us; he seemed to have visited most parts of the world at some point or another. Unfortunately, he described almost everywhere he'd been as shit. The one exception was North Korea, where he had visited on a guided holiday from China after getting bored of Tibet. From the way he described it, North Korea was the only place that had impressed him. His opinion of San Francisco on his first day: "a load of crackheads". To be fair to him, we did see the most overt drugs deal ever going on just down the road, so maybe he had a bit of a point.

Tram? Well, it's a cable car actually

Did I mention trams? They're pretty cool. San Franciso has all sorts. There are the really old ones, technically cable cars, that are dragged along by moving cable - you can visit the winding station that powers them - as well as the more modern electric ones. One night we were riding one of the old sort home when it got stuck going up a hill around a corner. We jumped off and gave it a push to get going again. Now, that's an experience you're never likely to get on the Tube.

This is the place that moves all those cable cars

There's obviously far too much to do in San Franciso in the few days we were there, but I think we made the most of our time. One day we walked out across the Golden Gate Bridge, which is a stunning view.

Sorry, only one picture of the Golden Gate Bridge allowed, or this technically becomes an Apple advert

We left San Francisco and carried on a bit further north before cutting inland, eventually reaching Sacramento. I must admit it's not a city I'd heard of before visiting, but it's actually the state capital of California. Pretty cool place, too. You can visit the Capital building, which looks a lot like its counterpart in DC, and see the legislature chambers and the governor's office, previously home to Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Me and a bear outside the Governor's office

From Sacramento we drove next to Modesto, where we caught another game of minor league baseball. It was a good game, but all the better for the presence of the slightly-mad but brilliant local cheerleader Mike on the Mic. We drove around the town for a bit beforehand looking for anything else to do, but weren't able to find anything. One thing we realised on this trip is that a lot of US towns, at least on the west coast, don't generally have what we'd think of in Europe as a town centre. There's the main street, stretching for miles and interspersed with commercial and residential buildings, but nowhere that you could point to as a focal point of the town. Particularly in this heat, you'd probably want to drive between shops rather than walking. Perhaps that explains why in Hollywood films at least everyone always goes to meet at the Mall.

The Modesto Nuts

The next stop was Merced, from where we were able to take the bus into the Yosemite national park and walk out from the centre. I loved Yosemite; it felt just like how you would imagine the untamed forests of America, even though we were largely keeping to the trails. Was kind of disappointed not to see a bear, especially given the number of signs warning you not to take your eyes off your lunch.

A view worth climbing a dry waterfall for

You should definitely come to Yosemite

After a day in Mariposa (where we learned all about John Fremont, whose name was on street signs everywhere we went - check him out, it's a hell of a story) we drove across Yosemite to Bishop. This was probably an even better way of seeing it, since we could cover a wider area and stop off wherever seemed interesting. Had several stops and a couple of treks for some spectacular views. It was a long day, and by the time we reached the other side of the park it was dusk. As the sun was setting we stopped at a carpark overlooking the massive Mono Lake. At first it looked like clouds on the horizon, but then we saw an awful lot of lightning strikes and realised we were looking out at the smoke of a massive wildfire. Quite a sight.

Nature is angry

We saw a bit of US television in the motels over the holiday. There were different comedies, of varying qualities, and we became connoisseurs of the various late shows. We caught some of the London Olympics, although from the NBC coverage you could be forgiven for thinking the only events were beach volleyball and Michael Phelps. By the way, Fox is just as awful as you may have heard. We saw Bill O'Reilley state that England had legalised drugs and that Boris Johnson was a liberal. It's sometimes comforting to think that, however terrible our own national politics are (which is pretty terrible at the moment, you have to admit), the USA's got it a bit worse.

Saving this for my inevitable country album

The next stop was at a little town called Beatty on the edge of Death Valley. After checking in to the motel we drove out to a place called Rhyolite Ghost Town, which we had seen marked on our map and couldn't resist visiting. Turns out to be just what it says on the tin: a ghost town which sprung up in the gold rush but died once the gold ran out. Now the buildings stand empty, in various states of disrepair, and the only other occupant was the man who ran the museum and its collection of art, including a ghostly sculptural recreation of the Last Supper. He was extremely welcoming, but I'd be lying if I said we weren't a little bit scared when he appeared behind us playing a tin whistle.

Rhyolite Ghost Town

I've traveled through worse stations in England

The next day we ventured into Death Valley itself. The first thing you need to know about Death Valley is that it is hot. Really hot. Like, 114 degrees Fahrenheit/45 degrees Celsius hot. It made Vegas feel quite pleasant by comparison.

Hot

Fortunately the dramatic scenery makes up for the heat.

Not the Lake District

We drove around the Valley, sometimes venturing out of our air conditioned Mazda to explore. We had been climbing up through a canyon when we began to notice the a lot of grey clouds in the sky. Made it back to the car and drove down a steep gravel road just before the heavens opened. Bear in mind that Death Valley gets an average of 60mm of rain per year - we must have got a good proportion of that.

The curse of the English Tourist

The rain was intense but brief, and it didn't do much about the heat. There were a couple more hairy moments, such as when the air conditioning stopped working and we worried the engine was overheating, or when the only petrol station was closed and the pump didn't look like it was going to accept our cards. Still, we made it out unharmed, and glad to have seen it.

Having come full circle, we were now returning to Las Vegas, from which we would be flying in a few days time. We were going to return to our first hotel, which with its free breakfast at the on-site Denny's would take some beating, but found a cheap last minute deal on a room for the night in the Luxor casino. You really don't pass up the opportunity to spend the night in a massive black pyramid topped with what Wikipedia assures me is the strongest beam of light in the world.

The Luxor casino. No self-respecting fantasy writer could ever resist this.

Inside the Luxor

We had another day in Vegas, and then that evening got caught in another almighty rainstorm. Six weeks, and the only rain we get is in Death Valley and Vegas? It seems the Vegas sewers hadn't been designed for such precipitation as the Strip was rapidly turned into a river.

Vegas in the rain

Just like in Ocean's Eleven

The next day we took a drive out to the Hoover Dam. It's one of the most impressive works of engineering I've ever seen.

It was then our last full day in America. Managed to fit a lot into it, including visiting the famous 'Welcome' sign, a chocolate factory and an aquarium. Saw a circus display, rode on the monorail and saw the melancholy sight of the Sahara, a dead casino standing abandoned.

The next day we caught a plane across the country to Philadelphia, where we had a few hours stopover and so took the opportunity to make a brief trip into the city. It feels a lot more European that the west coast, which I suppose makes sense. For one thing it's got a lot of history to it: we were able to visit Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence was signed and the Constitution was drawn up. We saw the Liberty Bell, and of course had a Philly Cheesesteak for lunch.

History!

We couldn't stay for too long, unfortunately, since we had a transatlantic flight to catch. I'd like to see some more of the east coast; definitely want to visit New York and Washington DC sometime. In fact there's so much of America that I'd like to see. Despite all the miles we covered and the variety of places we saw, I'm aware that's barely scratched the surface of what the continent contains. It was definitely a good way to spend six weeks.

So that's my experience of America. I'm sure I'll be back some day. If you've got any recommendations, or any stories of your own to share, please do let me know!

Update 24/05/2014

There hasn't been a whole lot of progress on Chapter Twenty-Two this week, if I'm honest. I've got the plot nailed down but the details are, for now, eluding me. I'm happy enough to let it turn itself over in my mind until it figures itself out, which hopefully won't be too much longer now. That's one of the luxuries of not being a part-time writer, I suppose: if I was reliant on the next book to feed myself I suppose I'd just have to keep writing by brute force.

While it hasn't been a particularly good week for writing (or for UK politics, for that matter), it has been a good week for reading. I've had Jack Kerouac's On the Road on the to for a while and this week ended up reading quite a lot of it. It's a fantastic book and I'd definitely recommend it if you've not read it, particularly if you've ever been to the USA.  It's not a typical novel, in that not a lot of any great drama seems to happen (I've not got to the end yet, I should point out!), but it conjures such a wonderfully atmospheric image of travelling through late 40s America, and the characters and situations inside feel strangely relatable. Oh, and the Penguin Modern Classics edition is, as always, a quiet masterpiece of book design.

It also helps that whenever the book finds itself back on or around the West Coast it seems to make a point of passing through the same places I visited while on my own Great American Roadtrip in 2012. Reading On the Road is making be want to write something about that and the dozens of stories it produced...so watch this space.

I'm not usually a filter kind of guy, but some shots practically demand it

Update 18/05/2014

Pleased to report that Chapter Twenty-One is now complete. It's a good one, I think. Now I've started on Chapter Twenty-Two, which is also going to be a good one. As should they all, if I'm doing this right.

I've also today started on a secret project that ties in to the book. Most relevant to Book 3, actually though it will put in a bit of a cameo appearance in this one. But I'll say no more for now - more on that to come :-)

For now, here's a picture from the roof of my office in Ipswich. Though given the weather at the moment, you could be forgiven for mistaking it for Monaco.

Update 12/05/2014

Apologies for the delay since the last writing update. Between trips to London for training, a run and of course a Eurovision party, and a week in Finland - in case you missed it, here's the obligatory blog post - I don't seem to have been at home much. Still, all that time on trains, coaches and aeroplanes has worked out quite well for the writing. Chapter Twenty-One is three quarters done, and I quite like it.

Just four more left after this one, plus an epilogue. We're very much in the climax now. It's good to see everything coming together now - I'm looking forward to revealing the plot.

Not much else to report, so here's a picture of the mysterious bottle of ten year old beer that appeared in a cupboard in my garage. I have no recollection of having bought it or seen it previously. The only reasonable explanation is that this is a bottle of Jennic Ale somehow escaped from my book into the real world.  That said, it tasted extremely good. 

Spring Holiday

I spent the last week on holiday in Finland, so I guess that must mean it's time for another instalment of these irregular travelogues.

My visit this time coincided with the holiday known in Finland as Vappu, which falls on 1 May. The celebrations actually start (at least for students) the day before with big public parties. Part of these parties involve the placing of hats on statues. 

In the case of Jyväskylä, this statue is of Minna Canth, a leading Finnish feminist in her day.

Once the statue is wearing her hat, everyone else dons their own. You might be forgiven for thinking I'm surrounded by sailors in the picture above, but these hats are actually given to all Finnish students on completing school.

No, I didn't graduate from Finnish high school, and no, I don't know why I ever uploaded this photo either

Vappu day itself is more relaxed (possibly a consequence of drinking the night before?). It's a day for speeches, music and chilling out with friends and family. People drink sima, a generally non-alcoholic form of mead, and eat tippaleipä, a tasty type of cake most accurately described as 'brittle'.

I missed Easter in Finland, of course, but I knew when I arrived that I had to take the opportunity to try out the traditional Easter food, mämmi. The Finns eat a lot of rye, from bread to pasties to crisps, all of which are delicious, but mämmi is perhaps the ryiest of all. I'd not heard particularly encouraging things about it, to be honest. I'd like to say that it was surprisingly tasty and my new favourite food, but unfortunately I'd be lying. 

Perhaps the best that can be said is that it tastes a whole lot better than it looks

While in Jyväskylä I managed to attend a game of ice hockey. It's the most popular sport in Finland, but this was the first time I'd seen it played. It's a very fun sport to watch: fast paced, filled with displays of great skill and just a little bit violent. It's particularly impressive to me given that I wouldn't even be able to move around the pitch, so poor are my skating skills, nevermind play hockey on it.

This was actually a charity game for Vappu with celebrity players, and the rules may have been relaxed somewhat. For example, I might not really understand the rules of ice hockey, but I'm pretty sure the scene below wouldn't take place on any other day.

For scheduling reasons, I flew for the first time with Finnair into Helsinki airport. It was considerably more luxurious than my usual flights, with free coffee and sandwich. It was also a good excuse to spend a day in Helsinki. I'd been before, staying on the outskirts, but this time I stayed with a friend in a youth hostel that as it happened was part of the old Olympic stadium.

Nice hostel, nice location and remarkably good price, so worth remembering if you're in the area. Also free parking, and it's half an hour's walk from the centre along the river. Plus I can't think of a youth hostel I've ever stayed in with its own athletics track.

While in Helsinki we took the ferry across to Suomenlinna ('The Castle of Finland') , which is an island fortress just off the coast. It was originally constructed by Sweden when it ruled Finland, but was captured by Russia in 1808 after a three-month siege. It became Finnish when Finland became independent, and it's now a UNESCO monument, a home to about 900 and a rather impressive place to visit.

Land ahoy!

Of course the Finns even have a better class of fortress than the rest of us.

The weather at this point had taken on something of an English bank holiday feeling

The King's Gate

That evening in Helsinki we visited a bar named Stone's, which has a good selection of beers and unlike a lot of places is open on a Sunday. My own knowledge of Helsinki is very limited, but if you want to know what to do there you should check out the blog HelsinkiIn, which is full of good ideas and also offers regular insights into Finnish life that I've always found very interesting.

If you've got anything to add to what I've said, or if there's anything else you'd particularly like me to write about next, let me know in the comments below. If you haven't already, you might like to  have a look at my other articles on Finland here. And if you need even more to read you could always try my book!

Ed Balls Day 2014 Update

One more week past. It's been relatively productive, actually, thanks to a few long train journeys: Chapter 20 is about a third done now. This is the one that really marks the transition to the climax, so there's a good amount of momentum built up. Also took part in the Electric Run at Wembly at the weekend, which was a lot of fun.

Tomorrow I fly out to Finland for the week, so should be time for some writing on the coach and plane and at the airport. Don't be surprised to see a write up in the following week, especially given the absurdly large surge of traffic I had last weekend when This Is Finland promoted my design piece on Facebook.

Probably ought to get packing then. Have a good week. All that remains for me to say is "Ed Balls". 

A Long-Awaited Upgrade; or A Photo Map for iOS 7

I'm a big fan of my iPhone and iPad (and I've written almost a whole novel on the latter) but until today I was still using iOS 6, the previous version of Apple's mobile operating system. (If the previous sentence doesn't mean anything to you, you can probably safely give this post a miss.

My reluctance to upgrade was primarily due to three reasons: 

- It requires an upgrade to iTunes 11, which I've been avoiding for reasons

- The visual redesign is an atrocity

- The Photos app has lost my favourite feature, the Places map

In case you don't know what I mean by the last point, the old iOS 6 Photos app allowed you to see all of your photos on a single map, a feature from which I have always derived an inordinate amount of satisfaction.

Look at me, I've been places!

The new version does allow you to view a map of all photos taken in a single year, which is a perfect replacement provided you don't take photos in more than one year.

Without any real advantage to the upgrade, I'd not been too worried about sticking with iOS 6. However, over the months since the new version came out it's become a prerequisite for an increasing number of apps. The final straw came when I thought I'd be clever and use iCloud to export the most recent chapters of my first draft to my PC, at which point they promptly became converted to a new format and inaccessible on the iPad. "Aha," says the Pages app, "you just need to update me and I'll be able to open them!"  Yes, but the app can't be updated without upgrading to iOS 7 first. It Just Works (Except For When It Doesn't).

Now that Apple has finally made remaining with the current version more unpleasant than the alternative, I made yet another attempt to find a replacement for the Photo map. You'd think there would be plenty; it's fundamentally a quite simple idea. Unfortunately I'd never previously been able to find one, but yesterday I finally found it: Picture-Map! 

It's a splendid little app that does exactly what I want, which is to display all of my photos on a single map. You can't tell from the screenshots, but you can actually have proper map pins rather than thumbnails. I'm more than happy with it.  Turns out there's also a free version, but I can't tell what the difference is.

With that dealt with, I finally gave in and upgraded. To tell the truth, I'm starting to get used to the new design, although I wouldn't yet say I like it. But at least I'm now up to date. And the new version of Pages only requires a single tap to tab and indent, rather than three, which should improve my overall typing speed by about 40%.

Easter Update

Pleased to say I've had another productive week. Chapter Nineteen of Book 2 is now complete, and so it's time to move on to Chapter Twenty - only six more and an epilogue to go!

In case you missed in on Friday, I posted a few of my sketches and a map. I know several people have mentioned they wished there was a map in the book itself, so hopefully this goes some way to making up for that!

I'm going to be in London the end of next week and next weekend, and then on holiday the week after, so progress may be temporarily slowed. But be assured that I'll be back at it once I'm home!