As ‘An’ Historian
Modernists may disagree, but if challenged by these dangerous revolutionaries, refer them to the below and the glorious roots of our language.
Read MoreAs ‘An’ HistorianPublishing
Autodeleting the Public Record
Rage if you will and burn screen time if you like — I simply accept if I want my thoughts to be personal and private then I ought not post them online.
Read MoreAutodeleting the Public RecordReading More Efficiently And Effectively
I can well picture 'Hitch', cigarette languidly hanging from the corner of his mouth, hand clasped around a whisky glass, tossing the book toward the wastepaper bin, and then leaning back in his chair. Content in the knowledge he had repaid the reading in the only way fit.
Read MoreReading More Efficiently And EffectivelyOn Fairy-Stories and the Art of Fantasy
'Fantasy (in this sense) is, I think, not a lower but a higher form of Art, indeed the most nearly pure form, and so (when achieved) the most potent.'
Read MoreOn Fairy-Stories and the Art of FantasyHugo: Or, There and Back Again
Time again at a premium, I mused on my latest quest for minimalism. In doing so I realised that I was creating as many problems as I was solving.
Read MoreHugo: Or, There and Back AgainHow I Write — Long Form Research
From time to time, I contemplate how I publish. Mostly because I like 'the elegance of a refined workflow'.
Read MoreHow I Write — Long Form ResearchPolywork, A New Professional Network
I have often thought that an individual is far more than their job title or pay scale. Which means that even in a professional networking context, your portfolio of experience should also include your experiences.
Read MorePolywork, A New Professional NetworkMy Copy of The Times
When we cut each other off from access to knowledge, we may preserve our copyright, but we run the risk of endangering our copy's posterity.
Read MoreMy Copy of The TimesLife is Long, Access is Short
If not accidentally lost, your data can vanish in other ways: the community project shutters, a company goes under, or the subset of services you use are axed.
Read MoreLife is Long, Access is ShortA Peer’s Tube
Winter Ink PeerTube will allow for the documenting and preservation of videos to which I can link in my ongoing speculations about life and art. Links, and the content they reference, which are permanent and will always work. A necessity to promote the adoption of individually-owned and controlled sovereign spaces which enable an open and healthy web.
Read MoreA Peer’s TubeScribble, Scribble, Scribble
Anyone who has attempted higher degree research, will know that after a while the process becomes more a question of will power than mental acuity.
Read MoreScribble, Scribble, ScribbleHow I Publish – Back to the Future
A few months back I gave a short sketch of how I publish online. But today is back to the future as I return to WordPress.
Read MoreHow I Publish – Back to the Future100 Days of Muse & Reason
Well, I have reached the end of the 100daystooffload.com challenge and the numbers are as follows: I began the challenge…
Contribution Manifesto
In the spirit of a benign dictatorship, my determination of quality contributions will be both objective and subjective. No offence is intended, but as offence is a social construct, taking it is at your discretion.
Read MoreContribution ManifestoCopying Old Masters
For the better part of 400 years, the production of art in France was largely controlled by artistic academies. With…
Serialisation
Whether pre-prepared or thought out during serialisation, it provides for a short or medium content format which addresses a long form topic.
Read MoreSerialisationSelf-Gaze
It is possible to find a subjectivity and objectivity of the written word and know I am on the right track, even if my work is temporarily out of fashion.
Read MoreSelf-GazeFinding Confidence
While the fool is wise who opens not his mouth, the quiescence of the thoughtful is a loss for society. This is particularly the case when it comes to social media and blogging.
Read MoreFinding ConfidenceFinding Time
Find a trigger which helps you to get in the frame for writing, leverage the power of habit and set your inner candidate to the task.
Read MoreFinding TimeThe Case for Listenership
In some senses this is very apt, as on social media we are too often prisoners in a system providing emotional support to other prisoners.
Read MoreThe Case for ListenershipBeware Generalisation
A writer can fall into the trap of imagining because 67% of respondents to a survey support X, there is genuinely wide spread support for the proposition..
Read MoreBeware GeneralisationSupporting Evidence
My weekends are usually spent cloistered away in my study, working on one project or another. My fiancée laments I…
The Giant’s Causeway
James Boswell, 9th Laird of Auchinleck, lived in an age in which titles were grand and letters and diaries were…
Cartographic Escapism
Hogwarts was not only the best but, if you didn't read the text carefully and skipped whole sections of Goblet of Fire, the only wizarding school.
Read MoreCartographic EscapismA Land of Chilly Riverways
To a man weened on 'beautiful one day, perfect the next' descriptions of his adoptive land, it comes as a shock to find it so chilly a dull earache begins.
Read MoreA Land of Chilly RiverwaysHow I Publish — Version 3.0
Avid readers, and those who accidentally stumbled in searching for something else, will have seen deliberations on whether or not to switch platforms.
Read MoreHow I Publish — Version 3.0Finding Flow – Basics
Musing the topic, three ideas immediately spring to mind, which is a suitable number for the 100 Days challenge.
Read MoreFinding Flow – BasicsTime Capsule I
The novelist saw more clearly the differences between fact and fiction. That notions of a 'better world' tomorrow is a fallacy of the doctrine of progress.
Read MoreTime Capsule IDown the Rabbit Hole
Not a nice, cosy little hole, you understand. Rather a long and seemingly unending one. After you've fallen down it, you never know where you will come out.
Read MoreDown the Rabbit HoleA Novel Approach to Music
I share Gilmour's puzzlement that more authors don't team up with musicians to add another dimension to their audiobooks.
Read MoreA Novel Approach to MusicThe Base Camp of Everest
I have to stand on the shoulders of giants or, more specifically, tinker with the work of others to accomplish the end result desired.
Read MoreThe Base Camp of EverestMental Indigestion
Much as I wallowed in the majestic minimalism of how I publish, I now find myself revelling in a new minimalism of how I read.
Read MoreMental IndigestionContemplating Content
Though a visual man, I have grown tired of the flickering images of social media where unlimited filters and effects cannot cover the dearth of thought.
Read MoreContemplating ContentPlease keep scrolling
Perhaps this is the heart of my distaste for much social media: it is designed to halt my thinking and focus my attention, not impell me to think on.
Read MorePlease keep scrollingMarshal Your Argument
Like a genre in publishing, a work forms part of an existing discourse and this creates certain ground rules for how words will be read and ideas conveyed.
Read MoreMarshal Your ArgumentHow I Write – Technology
At first, my thinking rebels against the act of concentration. A day spent being pulled in a myriad of directions does not for a focused mind make.
Read MoreHow I Write – TechnologyHow I Publish — Version 2.0
My quest for a publishing platform which was both elegant, unencumbered by endless plug-ins and left me alone with my text, brought me to write.as.
Read MoreHow I Publish — Version 2.0The Cloud of Unknowing
The question today, for whom do you write? Perhaps to improve your scribblings; perhaps to attract a general audience; or perhaps it is for posterity?
Read MoreThe Cloud of Unknowing‘Good night, and good luck.’
This causes something of a paradox. I thought I would have to take a leave pass to not write today, yet pondering this has caused me to write today.
Read More‘Good night, and good luck.’One Hundred Days…
My writing efforts are usually months in gestation. Thus I am out of the habit of a daily journal. #100DaysToOffload should fix that.
Read MoreOne Hundred Days…