Getting ideas from local news

Local newspapers and websites can be a great source of material.
I read a few local newspaper's websites also use the BBC for wider news reading.
Headlines such as 'Owner of mystery fingertip sought' can't help but catch ones attention.



What I do is scan the headline links and make notes of any interesting ones that I might use,
and jot a few notes down before I read the article. This ensures I write about my thoughts
on the matter rather than those of the people involved.



The BBC's Most Emailed and Most Read feeds are useful for this too I find. The content on these two links changes throughout the day as people wake up and read, or, email their friends about, articles they have found on the BBC news service.



Woman jailed for testicle attack spent weeks on the Most Emailed page earlier this year. This, despite the fact the original article dates from February 2005.



I'd suggest that those of a nervous disposition don't read the testicle article....oh boy!



Use a notepad, a Word document, Google notebook, whatever, it doesn't matter, just get the ideas down and then flesh them out.
Novelists are not geniuses. They just do these simple things.

Authors@Google: from the Official Google Blog

Subscribe to Book Mark here

I have been reading The Official Google Blog for a couple of months now. I subscribed to it shortly after starting to use their personalised homepage and email services. A rather interesting post on Friday 27th April seems worthy of mention here as it is about authors.


Google invite some of the worlds leading authors to speak about their recently published books at Google's offices in the US and have expanded this programme to other offices throughout the Googlesphere. Imagine going to work and Martin Amis or Max Barry is speaking at lunch time! Fantastic huh?


If you're interested in watching one of these talks, you can do so on YouTube by getting on over to the Googletalks video archive at YouTube. There is also an index of videos at Google.
Don't forget you can subscribe both this blog and the google talks video feeds by clicking on the appropriate button.



The 'official' Official Google Blog: Authors@Google is available by clicking on this link.




All the best

Mark

Does everything have to be just right before you can write?

Well? Does it?

Do you have to have the coffee in place, the curtains at the correct angle, the heating on/off/at exactly nineteen degrees? Some of this applies to me, I'm really bothered by extraneous noise and light that is too bright for me. So, as I know this, I prepare in advance. I have earplugs in my pocket and blinds on my windows - simple. The main thing that bothers me is, when I go somewhere else to write, like the library or University computer labs. What irks me is the fact the computer is different. It ain't set up how I like it. It has different applications, icons etc.
To combat this, I've started using google's online storage/email/documents facilities. Which is great until they fail or malfunction as they did this week. But, it is a free service, whaddyagonndo? I Personally suggest using Netvibes as well as a kind of back up (or primary) service. Yes it is a little bit of a pain setting it all up twice and remembering to copy content over as and when you add stuff, but, just how important is it to you to have that same 'feel' at every computer you log on at? Most 'writers' are quite precious (or do I mean precocious) about this kind of thing, playing the angst-y artist card about why they can't create until they've had their cranberry porridge and peppermint tea. I'm a but like this too believe it or not. That's why I've started using both services as well as carrying around a portable office and internet suite from the nice people at Portableapps.com.

I love this, I've used a portable version of Opera for some time as it has the built in mail client so I could retrieve all my mail from whichever PC I was sat at, anywhere in the world with an internet connection. Sweet 'eh?

So now there are no excuses, you can write anywhere, on any computer.
Blimey, you could even try a pen and paper

All the best

Mark www.markchambers.org.uk