Horseracing: Too Cruel?

It's that time of year again: the Grand National happens, and suddenly a lot more people than usual are shouting that horseracing is a bloodsport little better than dogfighting.

Well, I see where they're coming from. But I'm not sure I agree.

First of all, let's get out of the way the idea that horses dying is the big issue. I am not a vegetarian, and no-one who eats meat has any rational grounds to object to the deaths of farm animals. If you are a vegetarian on ethical grounds, and you object to horse racing because horses die, I respect your opinion. But I don't share it, and I have my doubts that all or even most of the people who complain about racing do. For those of us who have questioned eating meat and concluded that it is allowable, it would be hypocritical to raise thoroughbreds above cattle and say you can kill Betsy but not Dobbin.

The issue here is horses suffering.

Blogging About not Blogging

I really ought to write something, but I'm afraid you're going to have to make do with a repost about exactly why you're going to have to make do with a repost. Enjoy.

Rick Gualtieri writes about things like vampires and bigfoot, and his books sound brilliant although I can't honestly recommend them only because I haven't yet gotten around to reading them. He also blogs about writing at The Poptart Manifesto.

The Blogging Doldrums

I’m currently in the middle of writing The Mourning Woods, the third book in my foul-mouthed comedy series about a dorky vampire namedBill who’s been thrust into a world he isn’t ready for, and that definitely isn’t ready for him. Being smack dab in the middle of what I call writing mode definitely has its perks, not the least of which is constantly being able to pull more and more ideas out of the old grey matter. However, there is one definite drawback. For some reason, whenever I am in writing mode, that portion of my brain that comes up with blog post ideas just up and burns out...

Well, Rick's not the only one affected by this phenomenon (see above). But at least the novel's coming on well: the '>' bits of my daily '>1000 words' have just added up to an extra 1000, putting me at just over 68 000 words total, and an estimated two thirds of the way through.
How long is a novel supposed to be, anyway? No two estimates agree. But I digress.

...I could’ve been hit by a bus. But more than likely, barring any obituaries showing up in your local paper regarding bald men with hard to pronounce Italian names, it means that I’m busy killing off my brain cells in the mad pursuit of finishing another book...

Please don't get hit by a bus. It would be a terrible shame if you didn't finish the book, and I never got to find out what happens to Bill.
Funnily enough Gualtieri never struck me as hard to pronounce, which I guess probably means I'm getting it wrong. But I only have to write it, so that's ok.

...No idea why my mind works this way, after all one would think that all of our creative ideas come from one place, and if that lump of cells can spit out a plot point for one thing, then surely it came do so for another...

I always attributed it to that lump of cells only having so much creative juice to go around, so more novelling => less blogging.

..When calls came out for the A-Z Blog Challenge, I was like “yeah right!” I knew I’d be lucky to get out one post, let alone 26... 

I had a pretty similar thought, and I haven't even attempted the challenge. Good luck to those brave souls who are.

The rest is here.

At the Bottom of the Garden: Part Two

Last week, I wrote about my recurring battles with the abomination that used to be our garden pond.

Well today my dad and brother finally got around to helping me sort it out properly.

What we removed from the swamp (most quantities estimates):

• Nearly a mile of marsh marigold stems
• Two or three pounds of dead leaves
• Two golf balls
• An entire rockery
• One inexplicable Christmas-tree bauble which certainly never belonged to us
• Four or five pounds of moss
• At least twelve pounds of silty roots and unidentifiable things
• About twenty litres of primordial ooze

What is left in the pond:

• Two marsh marigolds
• About ten yards of pondweed
• Enough silt to cover the bottom of the liner
• A couple of dozen tadpoles
• A few snails
• Two swamp beasts (to the uninitiated, they would appear to be mere frogs, but we know better)

So we have tamed the swamp, but I doubt that it will take very long for it to be well-covered with a thick growth of weed, and by next year it will probably be well on its way to being thoroughly choked again.

I also tried to tame our resident triffid (which to the inexperienced eye would seem to be no more than a large and unruly rosebush), but gave up when it bit me painfully in the thumb.

A Basilisk's Feather: Short Story

Here is a short story I wrote. It belongs to a world I created for a novel I won't be writing until after my vampire trilogy and very likely some others as well. I wrote it for a contest, but it turned out too long for the word-limit, so I just posted it here.

Enjoy, and please do tell me what you think (I don't think you can leave comments on pages, so leave it here instead).

Not So Ridiculous After All

Caution: (very minor) spoilers for Dracula and Dracula the Undead.

One thing that always bothered me in Dracula was that Lucy was given three blood transfusions, with the three most convenient people as donors, with no question of matching the blood types, with no ill effects. Of course, Stoker couldn't have known that that was a problem, as blood types were discovered shortly after Dracula was published. Indeed, that's a plot point in Dracula the Undead.

But then it occurred to me that depending on your blood type, you might have a pretty chance of a random person being compatible with you. Indeed, if Lucy happened to be AB positive, she could have transfusions from anyone.

So I finally got around to working out the odds of a random person receiving blood transfusions from three different random people, and surviving.

Using some information about distribution of blood types from this page of the NHS Blood and Transplant website, and making the assumptions that that hasn't changed hugely over the past hundred-odd years, and that no-one involved had any rare blood types, I calculated Lucy's chances:

You can receive blood from anyone who doesn't have any of A, B, or Rh that you don't -if you have it and they don't, it's fine.
Add up all of the compatible percentages, and you get the percentage of people who can donate blood to you.
Divide by 100 and you have the probability of a random person being able to donate to you.
Cube that, and the result is the probability of three random people all being able to donate to you.

But that's the probability given that you have a certain blood type, and we don't know Lucy's blood type, so we need to calculate that figure for each blood type, and than calculate:

(probability of having blood type)*(probability of three people being able to donate to blood type)

and add up the results.

I came out with 0.2970, or 30%, to the nearest %, which is not a fantastic chance IRL, but more than plausible enough for fiction, I think.

At the Bottom of the Garden

... there used to be a pond. To give that name to what there is now would be insulting to all the garden ponds out there. We have what can only be described as a garden swamp.

It's too small to be self-sustaining: there are no fish or waterbirds to eat the plants, so left to its own devices it gets overgrown. I remember once we did clean it out thoroughly, or rather, my dad did, while us (then quite small) children lent assistance which was doubtless more enthusiastic than helpful. but since then it has been allowed to drift slowly into a state of ... indescribableness.

These days, about twice a year, when I'm home in the Easter and summer holidays, I decide to clear it out. i spend some time each day for a few days pulling out dead leaves and twigs and moss and grass and silt and excess pond plants and heaven only - and possibly not even heaven - knows what else and piling up what must be nearly my own bodyweight in assorted muck. The pond is around a metre and a half across, and no more than half a metre deep. The heaps I extract make no obvious difference to it.

Then I give up. I get fed up, or disgusted, or the weather turns, or other matters press. The back right corner is nearly inaccessible thanks to overgrown flowerbeds, and by now looks more like compost than water - with an inexplicable Christmas-tree bauble that certainly never belonged to us, but the other three-quarters is bounded by lawn, and it is from there that I remove a few cubic feet of rubbish twice a year. Invariably, when I next attempt the task, it is a worse state than when I started last time.

This week I've been having another go at the job and this time (as usual) I am determined to actually finish it, or at least make a noticeable difference.

There is more moss and grass growing in there than actual pond-plants. It is monstrously choked with dead leaves, mostly bits of the conifers that overlook it (they were recently trimmed, which may be why there's more than usual in the water). I found a lost golf-ball, which was at the same time invisible beneath the matted vegetation and supported by it.

The yellow-flowered plants - which I think are marsh marigolds, but I couldn't swear to it - that used to stand tall in the centre of the pond now spread throughout, their long stems horizontal, submerged, leafless, root-trailing and in many places indecently bleached shocking white from lack of light, ring the whole pond in a tangled mass, clogged by moss above and fine silt-gathering roots below. The whole thing is a solid mass, several inches thick and intertwined with everything in the pond.

The silt is incredible. I haven't yet dared to plunge my hands into the bottom, where unknown terrors lurk - decaying frogs spring to mind - but the stuff that clings to the roots of the plants is bad enough. It is exceptionally fine, and if I didn't know what it was the soft and silky feel would be quite pleasant. As I pull each handful to light, I see things in it that I would rather not. Some are crawling, some look like eggs, some are wholly unidentifiable. And to talk about the smell of that silt is to waste a perfectly good opportunity to use the word 'stench'.

We have a breeding colony of frogs, but this year I wondered if they'd all died, perhaps at the claws of Poppy or one of the many other cats that haunt our garden, or simply left in disgust, as we didn't appear to have any frogspawn this year. But the pond must just have been too choked up for it to be visible, because the latest crop of tadpoles are swimming around, newly-hatched, and I feel like a murderer. I try to avoid pulling them out with the filth, but I'm certain to kill some.

And when I decide to call it a day, I still have to clean myself up. The smell is always unwilling to let go of my hands, even after somewhat more diligent washing than a surgeon scrubbing in for theatre. Once I came down with a stomach bug the day after, and I doubt it's a coincidence. And tonight I had a disagreement with the cat - equal fault on both sides, I think - which resulted in my worst savaging yet (don't worry: still very superficial injuries, and from past experience my immune system is perfectly able to cope with whatever might be in Poppy's mouth) and I'm not sure I want my lacerated and punctured right arm anywhere near that muck, so this may possibly be it for this bout. I'll see. If you never hear from me again, assume I've died of septicaemia.

Pearls of Wisdom: Grammar Nazis

I haven't done one of these for ages. Hmmm. Anyway:

 Let he who is without typos cast the first sarcastic reply.

Or she, obviously.

Ten Rules for Writing Fiction

First of all, I apologise to any regular readers for the longer than usual silence. But I'm here now.

Today Twitter led me in the direction of a rather good Guardian article. I rather like a lot of what was in it. so I thought I'd share it with you.

Playing God

I'm a mathematician and a writer. It sometimes occurs to me that both of these things are sort of like being God.

In maths, you get to say 'Let there be...' and there is, Old Testament style, which feels awesome.
And unlike every other branch of science, maths is Bottom Up. Other sciences are Top Down: you look at the world and try to work out how it fits together and does what it does. In maths, you start from the very building blocks and find out what you can do with them. It's as if a physicist started with the idea of quarks (or whatever they are made up of, if they aren't as small as you can go), and deciphered how atoms and molecules and everything bigger worked from there. Which is presumably what God does, if there is a God (I believe there is, but I have absolutely no problem with it if you don't).
This means that you can prove things in maths: unlike in other sciences where the best you can get is a theory (that is, a comprehensive explanation supported by a great deal of evidence) that is the best explanation anyone can find and fits all the evidence is the nearest you can get to proof, and still could, potentially, turn out to be wrong, in maths you can prove things, and then you can be 100% certain that it's not possible for it to be otherwise.

As for being a writer: I create worlds, and people to fill them.
I put a great deal of effort into it, and make sure that things work - you already know about my scientifically plausible vampires, and just recently I've been looking up pterosaurs to design a basilisk, which in my version is a giant flying snake-creature, for another story - and my characters are all created, to some extent, in my image, because it's not really possible to make someone up without putting some of yourself into them.
And you know, I do seriously wonder sometimes if my creations are real to themselves: I don't see why not as they're pretty real to me. And then I wonder if it's wrong of me to put them through all the things I do, although it's not really possible not to: you can't have a story without conflict, and you can't have conflict without suffering. And stories have a mind of their own, so if they decide on one route, you can either follow, no matter the consequences, or abandon it entirely.

of course that leads to the question: if God is an author, does that make Christianity the biggest work of self-insert fiction ever?

Embarrassing

I was trawling round Los Angeles on Google Maps streetview the other day, location scouting for my novel, and I found this:

Thomas and Betsy: Because I said I Wouldn't Talk About my Cat

But I made no such promise about anyone else's.

Thomas and Betsy are two cats who live in a house on a street next to the University, which I usually walk down on my way to and from Uni. Thomas is a chunky black-and-white tuxedo, and Betsy is a dainty little calico. I met their owner once - he came home while I was petting them, and he told me their names although not his own. While I'm away from Poppy in term time, they are my substitutes.

They are very friendly: Poppy takes an interest in everyone indoors, but outside she won't even come to me (she's my little Wild Thing). Betsy on the other hand, came right up to me as soon as I showed any interest. Thomas took a little coaxing the first few times we met, but now he comes running to see me, although he needed a little more encouragement the first time I saw him after being away for the Christmas holidays.

Their owner says Betsy bites, but she's never bitten me, even when I once tried briefly to pick her up: she didn't like it, but she only wriggled until I let her go. If she did bite or scratch me, though, I'd just call it an occupational hazard of petting strangers' cats. Or any cats: I have had plenty of blood drawn over the years by my own little darling.

I've been a little worried about Betsy lately, since I'd not seen her since before Christmas, and I'd wondered if something had happened to her, but she was there today and although it's the best part of three months since she saw me, she came running from halfway down the street.

Greatest Hits

Nothing new today, I'm afraid. I want to post something today, but I really can't think of anything. So for new viewers or anyone who missed it, here's what you (or your pageviews, anyway) said you liked best:

Writing Tips: let them be themselves the first of my Writing Tips series, and my all-time most viewed post, by some margin.

The Agony and the Ecstasy: A Good Book to a Would-be Author second most viewed post ever: ramblings about reading and writing.

Reader Response Question of the Week: Sci-Fi and Vampires number three, and the only question I ever got a response to. If you have any thoughts, they are more than welcome.

Writer: Definition equal third, although it's only a little one, and has been collecting views for a fair while less than the three above it.

Productivity Rules how I finally got on with writing. fifth most viewed, and a few people have said they think it's a good idea.

You like Horror Stories? some recommendations for those who do: most commented post ever (because more than one person besides myself commented).

The Best Way to Wear Headphones.

Headphones are very useful, but they have a tendency to get in your way, or to get caught on stuff and painfully ripped from your ears just when you had finally settled them comfortably and just when you were listening to your favourite song. At least, that's what I (used to) find.

But never fear: there is a better way. Here's my patent method:

Just put it behind you. And if you're walking about, up your shirt as well.

Instead of having the wire in front of you, in your way, it goes behind you, out of your way. The earplugs go over each shoulder, and when you want to take them out you can just drop them and they'll stay there. If you have one of those adjustable slidy things on the bit where the wires separate, it's best to leave it down while you put them on, then slide it up until you just have a comfortable amount of slack even when you turn your head.

If you're sitting at a computer or whatever, that's it. And if you get up for anything, unplug from the computer and take the headphones with you. It;s easier than getting them comfrtablesettled again.

If you're going out plugged into your iPod etc, run the wire down the inside of your jumper or shirt so it won't get caught on anything. Best way is to drop the whole thing down the back of your neck, keeping back the earplug end, and wriggle until it falls out the bottom. If possible, put the device in a pocket on your top, not your trousers: this is much easier if at some point you need to go to the loo.

One thing to note is that it's harder for people to tell that you're wearing headphones - if, like me, your hair covers your ears, you can't tell at all. This might be useful (if you're not supposed to be wearing them!), or it might not. If you would like to be left alone, you want people to notice the 'phones, and if you're doing an a crapela version of your favourite song, you look even more crazy/annoying.

Could it Be... A Circadian Rhythm?

I have always been an insomniac: when I was younger I used to suppose that all the stuff they put in books about 'She was asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.' was not even hyperbole but pure nonsense; although it seems not, since the average person, apparently, falls asleep in fourteen minutes. Seriously? Half an hour is unusually swift for me.

And probably as a result, I am not usually an early bird. I usually wake up still tired and just want to doze for ... as long as possible, really.

But I seem to have overcome this by a simple solution:

About Me

I now have an 'About Me' page, instead of a paragraph in the sidebar that wouldn't let me put any formatting in. You can see it if you look up. It even has pictures.

No Sh*t, Sherlock

I've been re-reading Sherlock Holmes over the last few weeks (actually, I started writing this about a month ago, and never finished it, but I did finish the book) - my brother got me an omnibus edition for Christmas - and I'm not certain he's quite the genius he thinks he is.

Some of his deductions are plain silly, whatever he says. Of course, they turn out to be right. Of course they do: Conan Doyle makes it so. And then some of it is hideously obvious and yet he spends days barking up a tree in the wrong forest or just lamenting that it doesn't make sense at all.

I know that hindsight is 20-20, and I've read the books before, but some of them I distinctly remember thinking the same about first time round, and even making every possible allowance for prior knowledge I still can't understand why someone supposedly cleverer than all but perhaps three people in the whole country - his brother, Moriarty and possibly , the police detective in Wisteria Lodge - should not even consider the solution that turns out to be correct.

Spoiler warning.

Writing Tips: B*gger Embarrassment

This is the one I couldn't remember on Friday. I remembered it (obviously).

Sometimes, your characters say or do things that you wouldn't. Or they do something in hot blood that you have to write and eventually, hopefully publish in cold.

For instance, I wrote a sex scene - sort of: vampire sex means drinking each other's blood - for the first time last week, and it was ... awkward. Not least because I was writing part of it in uni in a gap between lectures, and my computer screen was a bit exposed. Everyone else in the room was either social networking or doing something maths related, and there I was writing ... that.

But even at home, in privacy, it was just out of my comfort zone. I don't think I'm exactly a prude, but I don't generally go around talking about sex in all the gory - literally in this case - detail.

But I had to do it. The story demanded it, and when the story says jump, you say 'how high?' And then you spend an hour or two researching how high and what colour and anything else you can think of plus several things you would never have expected to have to know. Thank goodness for google, is all I can say. But I digress.

What I'm saying is, if you think you need to write something, or write in a certain way, or whatever, that you find awkward or out of your comfort zone, do it anyway. B*gger embarrassment.

On Dressing up Pets

The only things that are acceptable for dogs to wear:

Actual functional dog things e.g. collar, harness.
Dog coat. That is, an actual dog coat: one of those things like a miniature horse blanket. Not baby clothes adjusted to fit a quadruped. In bad weather only, except for hairless breeds, which might need one most of the time.
Boots, if the dog needs them.
Hats and deely boppers, to pose for a photo only. The dog can get them off in three seconds, and if you didn't get a picture, you missed your chance.
Those neckerchief scarf things. They are acceptable.

The only things that are acceptable for cats to wear:

If the cat is supervised and confined to indoors, hats and deely boppers are acceptable as described above.
Similarly socks, which are applied at your own risk.

Harness (or puppy collar, but a harness probably works better), which is only for walking it on a lead and must not be left on when the cat is unsupervised.

Specially designed cat safety collar, with release catch. This is the only thing that it is safe to ever let a cat wear outside, unless under the control of a lead.
Cats climb, and any clothing or accessories may become caught on twigs etc and unless it has a safety catch the cat could be strangled.
You may find that the cat disagrees with you about wearing this, and soon works out how to pull it off. If so, you will either give up on the collar, or buy a new one every month (sometimes less). This will continue until you either give up, or for a few collars after you buy an electronic catflap because the neighbourhood bully, a big black and white thing appropriately named Arnie, keeps coming in and stealing your cat's food. In the latter case, the cat will soon learn that without its collar and attached magnet, it is locked out.

Forgotten Post

I had something good to write about today, but I couldn't start writing it until the evening because I had to write 1000 words of my novel first, and now I can't remember it and I can't think of anything else. So here's a post by Fishducky, who posts interesting things on Elisa Hirsch's blog on Fridays, about not being able to think of anything to blog about.


WHAT IF I RUN OUT OF IDEAS?; Fishducky Friday

You like Horror Stories?

I'm partial to the odd one or two myself. Anyway, here's a few horror writers I know that I think you might enjoy:

Lake Lopez is a little over halfway through a really rather good horror novel about a rather ... interesting guitar, which he's publishing on his blog in weekly instalments, along with various short horror stories. Well worth a read, IMHO. Take bug spray.

Dacre Stoker, author of Dracula the Un-Dead, a fantastic sequel to his great-uncle's book. Loved the ending, and loved the way he treats the title character, who (the historical non-vampire version) has had more than enough bad press.

Rick Gualtieri, author of, amongst other things, Bill the Vampire and Bigfoot Hunters, neither of which I have read but both of which sound excellent and both of which I am intending to read if I can find them in paper versions (since I am a philistine who doesn't have an e-reader) and get around to buying them. Anyway, he tells you more about them on his blog.

A couple of people I follow whose books I can't recommend only because I don't know much about them, but sound very interesting:
Guido Henkel, who's written some ghost hunter stuff.
Rob Cornell, who writes crime and horror. There's definitely some vampires in there.

If you have any recommendations, let us know in the comments.