Links which caught my eye recently

Thanks to Gehayi for this one: Wow. Diana Gabaldon’s frothing tirade on fanfic.  Goodness. She must have a lot of readers if she doesn’t care about offending many of them. That’s a whole lot of Speshul, right there. That’s me done with her books. I only read them because of Lord John (never bothered with Outlander, don’t like Mary Sues, don’t like rape = love) and poor LJ was never allowed to be happy because he was gay.

An Excellent rebuttal

Wonderful Radio 4 Programme on about Duels “Pistols at Dawn” – it’s hugely amusing that the settling of grievances has “evolved” from sword to pistol to… the civil courts. How banal!

Also this. Why “LITERACHOOR” makes this columnist head for the Penguins.  I agree with absolutely everything he says here. I don’t know when “literary fiction” became the by-word for “incomprehensible stream of consciousness” with stupid similies and airy-fairy imagery.  Once upon a time there were real literary novels which weren’t just passive and descriptive. Why can’t “genre” be literary?

Porn for the blind. All I can say – Poor Blind.

Writer's Block: Nirvana

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Venice. I've only been there once, and that was in March, so I missed out on the humidity, the heat, the smells, the endless tourists but it got hold of me in a way I hear India does with other people and hasn't let me go for over 20 years now. We stayed in a cheap little hotel (which was still expensive for us, as we were doing "Europe on a dollar a day") and we ate at the university because you got a massive pasta nosh up there for next to nothing. But it was the buildings and the canals that captured me entirely. And you get a better - and cheaper - tour of the Grand Canal by bus than you ever do by gondole.

I'd love to live there. A few years ago I looked into houses (well ok, very small flats) prices and found that I could JUST afford a tiny cupboard size thing with the price i'd get for this and my parents house, but then - what would I live ON? I'd need to be self sufficient. It's a nice dream and I shall continue to have it, because you never know. But that's where I'll be if the writing ever does support me. Look me up! (Just not more than one at a time because - tiny!

Homophobic Beverage Attack!