Bits and Bobs...

First the good news on the Blackbird family nesting in our garden. Two days ago the first fledgling appeared among the pots and overgrown grasses by the patio...

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I've been having to look at computers with a view to replacing the current desktop. It is still functioning but the loading time for any web page with pictures is slowing down; so the graphics card is no longer adequate for a lot of the visuals you get everyday.

So it will be Windows 7 and that means I have to sort out all my saved work on XP so it will be in a form the new system can recognise- anyone got any tips?

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If you haven't visited Sally Quilford's blog today, then do pop over and have a look at the pdf of the new guidelines for the longer My Weekly Pocket Novels.

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Jane Austen's unfinished manuscript of The Watsons was sold at auction a few days ago and sold for just under a million pounds. It was bought by the Bodleian Libraries of Oxford, so it will not be going out of the country.

She was very neat in her editing- crossed out lines were quite straight, but you'd certainly need good eyesight to read it...

You can read what there is in book form, details here.

Despite our digital world with lots of means to communicate, in the end paper will probably last a lot longer and still be able to be read...

Character Queries - Speaking Italian...

Yesterday I started chapter two and (just like the previous time I'd tried to write it) found myself changing my mind. After the fourth attempt I got something I was satisfied with and that's when queries started occurring...

My hero is stood looking at a neglected field and he curses. Now if it were in English then it wouldn't be a problem, I could have toned it down, but he curses in Italian.

(I had already decided that this story was not going to fit the pocket novel formula and this moment confirmed it.)

I considered whether I could find an alternative way, but that wouldn't have been true to how I see and hear him in my imagination; it would also have denied part of his back story.

So off I went and googled Italian curse words and phrases. I discovered that just like the UK, there are different dialects in various areas of Italy too. Plus I have to remember that my story is based in the early 19th C not the early 21st...

So whatever I choose will be simple (and likely to have been used at the time) but will still get over his anger and upset at that moment.

I think I will be looking into the Italian language in a little more depth, and it won't be wasted- yes, there's an attractive Italian waiting for his story to be written, he's the brother of another character's love interest...

But I mustn't get sidetracked, those are other stories. :-)