richard whittle _____________ PlaypitsPark

7,700 views

2011-10-09T22:25:00.000+01:00

My other blog has now had 7,700 views.

Whitmuir Organics

2010-12-19T08:54:00.000Z

Is here:

http://playpitspark.wordpress.com/2010/12/17/whitmuir-organics-2/

Still going strong....

2010-11-07T11:35:00.000Z

Not this blog, my other one. Click the link on the left.

My blog

2010-09-26T08:44:00.000+01:00

This isn't my blog. My blog is at www.playpitspark.wordpress.com and is sometimes worth reading. Give it a try.

Whitmuir Organics

2010-08-20T22:47:00.001+01:00

See my other blog....

Imps Motorcycle Display Team

2010-08-14T18:31:00.000+01:00

On my other blog.
Click this

CHECK MY OTHER BLOG

2010-07-20T10:05:00.000+01:00

My other blog (see left) is working well. Approaching 3000 visits. Give it a try.

Embrace life: road safety video

2010-06-24T17:47:00.002+01:00

link here

Authonomy, Stephen King, Airships, Edinburgh, Stieg Larsson....

2010-06-07T17:04:00.000+01:00

All on my other blog at www.playpitspark.wordpress.com

MY WEBSITE

2009-12-04T14:18:00.000Z

I know this old blog still comes up on searches. See my new blog instead, www.playpitspark.wordpress.com. Better still, see my website, www.richardwhittle.co.uk

MOVED BLOG

2009-11-11T16:08:00.001Z

Blogger does not have enough functions. Because of this I have moved my blog to www.playpitspark.wordpress.com

Click the 'playpitspark other blog...' tag in the left hand column

Creativity vs. logic

2009-11-10T09:16:00.000Z

‘I’ve drawn a picture of you,’ said the three year old. ‘That bit is your wiggly tail.’ I looked at the paper. I did indeed have a wiggly tail. ‘Dogs and cats have tails,’ I said. ‘I haven’t got one.’ ‘You have in my picture.’ ‘That isn’t right. What if I drew a picture of you with wheels?’ ‘I haven’t got wheels, I’ve got legs.' ‘And I haven’t got a wiggly tail.’ ‘You have in my picture.’ I did a quick sketch, a head with a body and beneath it, two wheels. ‘There you go,’ I said. ‘That’s you.’ He looked at it,delighted. ‘I’ve got roller skates!' ‘They’re not roller scates, they’re wheels.’ ‘I haven’t got wheels.’ ‘You have in my picture.’ Logic had triumphed. I suggested we both drew each other again, this time properly. I drew one of him with legs, and he drew one of me. His had a squiggle coming off what looked like my head. ‘What’s that?’ I asked, pointing at it. I knew what the answer would be. ‘That’s your wiggly tail…’

Dickens, Charles; censorship and other stuff

2009-11-06T18:56:00.003Z

My blog has now been going for three weeks. In that time I have had nearly 200 visits, though 45 of them are my own – because WordPress counts even me. I suppose I could sit here logging off and on, taking a Walter Mitty view of the world by fooling myself people are interested in what I write. I suppose an average of 50 visits a week from complete strangers isn’t that bad. No, I won’t write for myself – honest – so keep logging in. And, if you like it, spread the word. Tell your Gran.
I love writing. I have written a lot over the years. Some of my early stuff was dire – or as they say up here, complete sh*te. Well, probably not that bad, as some things I wrote years ago now look so good to me I can hardly believe that I wrote them. I need an agent or publisher, I really do. I won’t consider vanity or on-demand publishing. I would rather give my work away.
Talking of asterisks… I visited a readers’ forum early this morning. On one single page of entries their censoring system produced the following: Es***; ****ysis; and ****ens. If you are puzzled, as I was, the first is an English county. The second is what you do when you examine things closely. The third is a rather well-known Victorian writer. Think Oliver Twist. I logged out, convinced the site was a complete load of b*ll*cks.

2009-11-04T19:43:00.001Z

My brother tells me that it was Harry Worth, not Harry Hall. He is right, of course. Sorry, Harrys. However much I try, it isn’t possible to be right all the time.

Sony ebook reader

2009-11-04T18:56:00.000Z

I have been looking again. I really DO want one of those Sony ebook readers. My birthday is in November, two weeks away. The reader isn’t cheap, so there is no point adding it to my Amazon wishlist. Perhaps I shall ask Santa if he will agree to one of those combined birthday / Christmas presents that people like me, with close-to-Christmas birthdays, can justifiably demand. Demand…? Request, is what I meant. I rather like the Sony PRS600R ebook Reader. It has lots of functions. Rather like the Psion Organiser. Sorry, I promise I won’t mention that again, it is old technology now, but it was really, really good. Honest.

2009-11-04T18:12:00.002Z

I went to Glasgow Science Park a few weeks ago. On an upper floor was a mirror the size of a shop window (Argos rather than Harrods). The idea was that you, if you were stupid enough, stood at one end of it and did that thing of raising an arm and leg so that you appeared, to anyone looking in the mirror, to be leaping in the air, spreadeagled. All the surrounding exhibits were populated (is that the right expression?), but not the big mirror. My grandaughter wanted to know why the mirror was there, so I tried to explain. Explaining was insufficient. Do you remember comedian Harry Hall on TV? He stood at the end of a shop window and did just that, raising an arm and a leg. The designers of the Science Park must have remembered it. And it was funny, sort of, as was my demo (solely for my granddaughter, you understand). Surrounding adults laughed, perhaps from embarassment. My granddaughter loved it, which hopefully justified the blushes.

ebooks and Things Digital

2009-11-01T17:58:00.002Z

I played with a Sony ebook reader in John Lewis last week. I love gadgets and I am no stranger to technology – I once had a Psion Organiser (remember those?) and a mobile phone the size and weight of a small house brick and which only worked in London. But I also love books, and the thought of curling up on a sofa and reading a small glowing screen does not appeal to me. But what about those times when I’m not curled up, times when I am on a bus, a train or a plane and I want to read a novel but don’t want to carry a book? I hogged the Sony reader in JL for about 30 minutes, like boys on an x-box. It impressed me. I liked it. I thought about my collection of vinyl years ago, how I’d thrown them out to make way for the new CDs. Then my treasured Canon A1 camera, shoved aside when digital image technology became good enough, and affordable enough, to be used in cameras. So why not ebooks?
Why not, indeed. I was never really sure who Santayana was (I have just Googled him, so now I know) but I do know that saying of his, that ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’ Vinyl to CD? Kodachrome to digital?
So, printed book to ebook…? Yes, surely, but probably not completely. For most people, iPods haven’t ousted CDs, each has its uses. There is ceremony here, the satisfaction of browsing through a collection, taking a CD and inserting it into the player. We get similar satisfaction from browsing through books on a bookseller’s shelves. We don’t just go because we want to by a book, we also go for the feelings. Personally, if the bookshop hasn’t got coffee then I won’t bother, I will buy online. Take note, booksellers!
The printed book has a way to go yet, though I am convinced that one day we will no longer be able to browse through novels in a bookstore, we will browse online instead, downloading the first page or so of a novel and then a couple of pages at random to see if we like what we are about to buy.
When will this happen?
Quite suddenly.

2009-10-31T22:59:00.003Z

Believe it or not, after all I said yesterday, today I went to IKEA. While we loaded a flatpack wardrobe on to the roof bars we sat our 3 year old grandson in the drivers’ seat (key out, of course, handbrake pulled tight). I was warned that the first thing he would do was put the car in gear. Okay. He did that. Then the hazard lights. No problem, easily switched off. Then the central locking – momentary panic, he was sealed inside – again, no problem, I had the remote. Finally alone in the car and ready to roll I went through everything like a Jumbo pilot on a pre-flight check. Everything had changed. So… gearstick in neutral, wipers off, indicators off, main beam off, headlight adjusters back to their mid-position, dash light brightness control back to dim. Close the glovebox and other little cubby holes. Only then did I turn the ignition. Pulled away, out of the floodlit car park and into heavy traffic. I never bother with lights. I have a little thingy that detects darkness and does it all for me (okay, so I’m spoilt). It can, of course, be overridden with a switch I never use. And guess what….?
So when you have all your ducks in a row, watch out for the guy with the duck gun.

Beam me up, Scotty!

2009-10-30T15:34:00.000Z

I overheard a man on a cellphone today: ‘I’m in Edinburgh at the moment…’ He was sitting outside a pub and looking as if he wasn’t going anywhere for a while. It struck me as an odd thing to say, as if in a moment or two he would be in Rome, then Buenos Aires, then maybe even Milton Keynes. Did he have a Tardis tucked away around the corner that he used only for short trips? Or perhaps it’s just me. Not content with scrutinising my own use of language I find myself scrutinising the language of others. I don’t want to get like that. I even enjoyed reading Eating Shoots and Leaves when it first came out. I also bought the CD to listen to in my car. Sad. Even sadder was that I agreed with almost everything Lynne Truss said. And I loved that quote about greengrocers and the Apostropher Royal….
Then, on the bus to the park and ride, I heard a child who had mixed up her locations and was staring out at green fields: ‘IKEA’s gone!’ she yelled. Then her mum, not disagreeing: ‘Yes, it’s blown away!’ In your dreams, lady. In your dreams…
Having said that, IKEA really is the place to buy the world’s most bizarre bulbs and light fittings. Also, it’s a company that took a simple concept – Hampton Court Maze – and applied it to retail shopping.

IAN RANKIN AGAIN

2009-10-28T17:42:00.000Z

If you know Edinburgh, or have read Ian Rankin’s latest book The Complaints, you will know about the traffic chaos caused by the city’s trams. Well, not the trams themselves, because there aren’t any yet. It’s the disturbances caused by the road works. They can’t have anything beneath tram tracks, so before laying them they have to dig holes big enough to hide a bus in so they can reroute the water and gas mains, electricity and telephone cables and the sewers and drains. To complicate matters there are bricked-up cellars under some of the roads. Again, Rankin fans will know about these. The cellars should have come as no surprise to the planners, because in 1979 Princes Street was closed after the supporting legs of high scaffolding punched their way through to a cellar - though no doubt it did come as a surprise to the engineers in the site offices up on the scaffolding. The offices were left sticking up at an angle, like a ship on a very big wave. Been there. Seen that.

Talking of catastrophies befalling site offices, I have a tale to tell about that…

2009-10-27T17:26:00.000Z

I bought a Haynes Manual recently about web site building. I have used them for years when rebuilding old motorbikes. The difference with this manual is that I don’t need to use spanners. Hopefully I’ll have a website up and running soon. I also went to the barbers… I needed it. For you guys in Edinburgh, try Blunted Barbers near St.Andrew Square (bluntedbarbers.com) I don’t intend turning this blog into an ad site, but want to give them a plug as it is the best place I know.
The Haynes Manual suggests blogs should be short. Pity I didn't read it before I wrote yesterday's blog. So to make up for I'll stop here.

2009-10-26T18:09:00.000Z

You might have got the impression that I have written a few books and not had any published. You are right (except for three short stories a few years ago). It is probably what happens when either (a) your writing is pants, or (b) when you don't have to make a living from it, get a few rejections and can't be bothered to submit any more, or (c) both of these things. With me it is (b). This isn't arrogance, it just happens to be true. I am a good writer.
I'm not good at rock climbing, I wish I was. I'm rubbish at it, I always have been, it scares the hell out of me. I'm no good at maths. Nor ironing shirts. I'm not very good with a paint spray either, the paint runs everywhere. Getting the picture? As you get older you get to know yourself better and better. I'm good at fixing things, I can strip and rebuild an engine. I can build computers. I can shoot (well, I could years ago. I have shot at Bisley. No, not at Wisley, that's the Royal Horticultural Society's Garden in Surrey. They would not be pleased). And I can write.
One of my books is called Playpits Park (yes, you already know that, you have read that). It is the one I submitted to Random House and got that amazing response from the MD. After taking the trouble to say all those nice things and do all that editing (Thurs 15th Oct) he said he didn't know where to place it. At the time I sympathised. It didn't fit a genre - or should I say, it didn't fit one of the publishing genres, which of course are artificial divisions between fiction types.
These days I no longer sympathise, not when publishers seem to be able to find the money to pay millions for ghost-written trash-ridden memoirs of 20-something 'celebrities' (hey - I'm not bitter, these are not my words but those of an agent).
So..... should I sacrifice Playpits? By that I mean should I give it away? I don't mean self-publishing, I mean convert it to Adobe so it can be digitally read, sell it on ebay for £1 or build a website on which it can be downloaded free? This is my daughter-in-law's suggestion and I like it.
A good novel takes about a year to write. Then you put it away and revisit it later, spending another 3 months rewriting and an additional month editing. You spend a small fortune in coffee shops. And for this (if you are lucky - you probably have more chance of winning the Lottery than getting published) you get offered a few hundred pounds for it.
Yes, I think I will give away Playpits. Trouble is, it will take time to get the website set up. So hang about. Rome wasn't... etc.

NOT HARRY POTTER

2009-10-23T12:03:00.000+01:00

My ten year old granddaughter just phoned me. Over the school holidays she has been test reading my children's novel, Kxxxxxx. 'I've just finished it,' she said, 'it's really good. I loved the way it ended, the way they found .......' 'Only the way it ended?' 'No, I mean I loved it all, it was cool.' 'What did you like best?' 'It was like I was there. It was real.' Then her mum's voice in the background: 'Tell him what you told me.' Then GD: 'It's better than Harry Potter.' 'That's daft. It can't be. So why's that?' 'It was like I was in the story. There was no magic, it was really real (sic).'
Nice way for me to start to the day. To be fair to J K Rowling, GD has just finished a marathon read of all the Harry Potter books and has been watching the DVDs, so she is no doubt supersaturated with wizards and needs something different. Maybe other children are feeling that way about fantasies. Time will tell.
Ironically, when I wrote it in draft about ten years ago I intended it to be a 'boy's book', to help address the lack of adventure stories for that age group. Then, perhaps stupidly, I put it away and turned to crime (well, you know what I mean...), no doubt influenced by Ian Rankin's growing success at that time.
I told GD that unless I can get Kxxxxxx published, then she will be the only one who will read it. She didn't like that, she thought it was sad. I told her I would start pestering agents with it. She seemed to like that.

2009-10-22T14:56:00.000+01:00

Attempted, unsucessfully, to write in Starbucks this morning. Not because the muse had left me, but because of the earbashing piped music - jazz on a solo tenor sax, strangled by tinny speakers that pitched it around castrato - as if it wasn't bad enough already. Struggled on, as one does, wanting to be somewhere else but not wanting to bolt my latte and mini cheese and ham muchies (that I rather like). Developed a gradually worstening brain pain. Bye bye Starbucks, hello Nero and Mr Costa.
Interesting stuff now appearing in blogs and on Twitter about electronic publishing. I get the impression that agents and the publishing industry are running scared. Maybe running isn't the right word. Ambling, then. It's rather like the world's attitute to climate change: we know it is going to be serious, but nobody seems willing to do much about it.

2009-10-21T17:57:00.000+01:00

Nothing to do with writing, I know, but I can't resist telling you this one: I have an aged aunt. We were chatting on the phone today and she said "I don't bother with make-up these days. I mean, how can you get all dolled-up when you don't have your teeth in?"

2009-10-16T09:25:00.000+01:00

While I'm dropping names, I met Ian Rankin in Costa's in Edinburgh's George Street a few years ago. He was next to me in the queue for coffee. I'm ten years older than him and age gives you that extra bit of cheek and confidence. 'Mr Rankin,' I said. 'Loved your last book.'
'Fleshmarket Close, you mean?'
I nodded. 'Met you in Manchester, you presented me with a prize. I was one of the runners up for the Debut Dagger Award. I was writing as Alan Frost.' http://www.thecwa.co.uk/daggers/2002/debut.html
I didn't expect him to remember me. He didn't. At the awards we had chatted for some time. I was living in Edinburgh at the time and I remember him joking that he'd rather I didn't set any of my novels there.
No competition from me, Ian. Six years on and I still haven't been published. I just haven't been sending my stuff off. Perhaps I should try harder - not at writing, because I have no problems there. Try harder to get published, I mean.
Rankin has a stock saying for prospective authors, 'Keep writing!' Nice.
I came away feeling good, but kicking myself that I'd forgotten that he had just been awarded an Honorary Doctorate and I could - should, actually - have addressed him as Doctor Rankin, not Mister.
Now that really would have been a nice touch.

2009-10-15T17:25:00.000+01:00

Is writing to yourself better than talking to yourself? Debatable. No, it is probably worse. When you talk to yourself at least you can do other stuff, whereas writing to yourself takes time ... like right now. One day someone else will read this. And then I won't be writing to myself.
So why a blog? And why Playpitspark?
A blog because it might be a good way to get published (yes, okay, so that's rubbish. I don't expect a white knight - or a white dame - to rescue me from unpublished oblivion. It just doesn't happen).
To be honest with you I am blogging because my daughter in law says I should get on the net. She reads about three novels a week and she loves my stuff. She knows I write because I love it and can't stop myself writing, not because I'm a starving author in a garret who needs to sell books to live. 'If you can't or don't want to get published,' she said, 'then just put it online so people can read it.'
So here I am.
Ahh... so why Playpitspark? Play Pits Park is one of my earliest novels, possibly my best. About 10 years ago I sent it to Random House. I got a reply from Simon King, the MD of Hutchinson, Century, Heinemann and Arrow. He had personally edited my first few chapters. He had read the whole thing. His letter to me was over a page long. He said 'I like your writing. You will get published. It might take some time, but you will get there.' He also said he wasn't sure what to do with my book because it appeared to be a children's novel but there were real deaths. (Real deaths, yes... how times have changed!). It wasn't supposed to be a children's novel. I took his comments on board. I have rewritten it - ten years on!
I read that Simon King has now retired. Good luck in your retirement, Simon. If it wasn't for that early encouragement I might well have given up.