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I think I would freak out if a publisher showed up at mine. I might even share my fig rolls. Unfortunately the reality is far less exciting. Standard procedure for first-time authors is: 1) submit the first 2 or 3 chapters plus a synopsis and short covering letter, to a publisher who handles...

Thanks a lot. :) Depends I guess. I certainly saw a lot of nice images in Simon's (my bro's) lines, which I tried to focus on in rewriting it. He wrote it as pure reminiscence I think, but it seemed to have a dreamlike element to it as well. Well, he has what you might call the...

Author's note: the following poem is a collaboration. My elder brother penned the original when he was working as a night watchman on a farm. He gave me a draft to 'tidy up' and I did a bit more to it than anticipated. So the end result you could say is by both of us, though hopefully the spirit...

And you will know us by the trail of Threads Proof, if any were needed, that our friend is delusional. I'm not sure it's fair to continue to mock someone with such a tenuous grip on reality. Few writers? Have you ever seen the inside of a bookshop? Aside: Films do better commercially...

I once managed to end up on a panel of judges for a children's short story competition (for reasons too dull to go into here). I was struck by a peculiar trend. Up to a certain age, a lot of the stories were remarkably good: tight, economical with words, simple yet compelling. Then it got to...

WTF? There is a grain, no more than a grain of truth in this (Joyce, e e cummings and others have demonstrated it). BUT - and if I could write that BUT in 128pt bold I would - a certain level of expertise is still needed. Think of all the people who think they can do DIY, and end up with...

We should set up a new award. Like the Darwin Awards, only this one is in praise of blind, insane, wild optimism based on a spectacularly skewed perception of one's own worth and talent. (I actually have a row of these trophies on my self-assembly mantelpiece at home, or at least I did until the...

Eau meye gaaaawd... :eek: That is - what? - the funniest? most tragic? most alarming? - thing I have seen this morning. Tragic, probably. (clever idea, Stewart). :D :D

I don't believe it... could he have been a Forum Troll all along? :confused:

Neither do I wish to be involved in a war of any kind, flame or otherwise. Though the efforts to get Manuscriptx to hand over a reasonable extract of his work do remind me rather of that famous fiasco of Mr S. Hussein and the WMDs. If we all promise to be reasonable and impartial while...

Wilful obscurity, I'm afraid. I recalled from an old Asimov book that osmium is the densest of the elements (until you get into silly territory like neutronium). I found this definition, by the way, in a hilarious SF writer's glossary called the Turkey City Lexicon: • Gingerbread...

Dense? Yay, as osmium. But also very choosy as to how widely I dispense my email address. The convenience of forums is that they allow communication without making this necessary.

There are in fact a lot of errors, both grammatical and syntactical and in terms of general coherence, but that's not what keeps me coming back to this thread when I should be getting a life. No, what troubles me is that we've spent weeks talking about this supposed literary masterpiece yet the...

I agree, 'tis like watching a train crash in slow motion. Or someone attempting to escape from a tar pit of their own digging, by using a ladder made out of molten tar. It is unfortunate really that this has become about a woeful lack of command of grammar (or, indeed, coherent English... I'm...

Correction here: Lulu is not a publisher. It is a technology company. Books published on Lulu are published by the authors only. It is entirely up to the author how good or otherwise the content of the book is. You could write 300 pages containing nothing but zzzzzzzzzzzzzzs and publish it as...

So let's see what is so strikingly different. Come on, I've read Joyce and Beckett, I can cope with different. Let's see this sledgehammer now. Show me the money! Shew me the mon-aaaaaaaay! SHEW ME THE MON-AAAAAAAY! (Scott Evil: Dad, it's the 1960s, the film Jerry Maguire won't...

I found this an engaging extract. I've visited India ever so briefly and in much more comfort, but that was how I remember the cities - chaos, confusion, closing in on you until it's all suddenly too much. You describe things simply but you have so much to describe, the writing flows along quite...

Okay, I'm going to say this again. Manuscriptx, surely the best thing you can do is post a longer extract from your novel on the showcase forum so we can see exactly what it is you are defending so vigorously? At the moment you're fighting a lost cause because you're talking about something...

It may depend on how big a name the author in question is! 99% of authors seem pretty easy going when before their public; they are unlikely to deliberately snub a request for a photo or an autograph in an older work. However, it is probably good manners to buy the new book at the event for...

I guess what you mean, Manuscriptx, is that America tends to produce commercial success because it has access to the biggest audiences and marketing channels. Thus of course it produces the biggest 'names'. But you also have access to a big(ish) audience here. Rather than try to persuade with...