It's All Write

I'd never have expected to feel such grief when my first love died | Life and style | The Guardian

Mon, 20 May 2013 14:40:44 +0100

I'd never have expected to feel such grief when my first love died | Life and style | The Guardian:

Your first love is the one you remember years later - one of the themes explored in One Hot Summer.

Yahoo buys Tumblr for $1.1 billion

Mon, 20 May 2013 13:55:04 +0100

Yahoo buys Tumblr for $1.1 billion:

It’s official.

The Instant Guide To Creating An App eBook: Ian Barker: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

Wed, 15 May 2013 16:20:26 +0100

The Instant Guide To Creating An App eBook: Ian Barker: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

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Wed, 17 Apr 2013 18:35:26 +0100

The book-lover’s dilemma, via Rena Maguire You always need a...

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 15:59:08 +0100

The book-lover’s dilemma, via Rena Maguire

You always need a new book.

voiceofharold: Jane Austen stamps go on sale It is a truth...

Sun, 24 Feb 2013 19:23:15 +0000

voiceofharold:

Jane Austen stamps go on sale

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a man in possession of a good fortune can afford to buy a stamp.

Handy infographic: 29 Ways to Stay Creative

Wed, 13 Feb 2013 15:28:41 +0000

Handy infographic: 29 Ways to Stay Creative

Richard III dig: DNA confirms bones are king's

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 15:03:36 +0000

Richard III dig: DNA confirms bones are king's:

500 years in a car park. I hope he paid and displayed.

Interview with Ian Barker - Coffee Time Romance

Fri, 01 Feb 2013 15:01:39 +0000

Interview with Ian Barker - Coffee Time Romance:

Author interview on Coffee Time Romance.

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Tue, 29 Jan 2013 16:49:10 +0000

How to automate your Twitter feed: 5 apps to try - TechRadar

Fri, 28 Dec 2012 09:41:55 +0000

How to automate your Twitter feed: 5 apps to try - TechRadar

10 Things That Are Generally True About Writers

Sat, 15 Dec 2012 17:00:53 +0000

10 Things That Are Generally True About Writers:

nostroviatowriting:

If you are a writer, this will amuse you.

Gemini Gem7008 Tablet PC - review

Fri, 14 Dec 2012 12:33:44 +0000

At the top end of the tablet market you can pay £400 plus for the latest 10-inch models. Smaller 7-inch devices from big name companies are mostly around the £150-£200 mark. So what can you expect from an £80 Android tablet?

The answer, perhaps surprisingly, is quite a lot. With a 1.2GHz ARM Cortex processor and 512MB of DDR3 memory the spec is competitive and the Gem7008 feels solid and well made with a metallic grey back and narrow black bezel around the screen. The 7-inch screen is bright with good viewing angles and an 800x480 resolution that will happily handle video playback and games. It’s responsive to the touch too – often an area where cheaper tablet devices fall down – and the built-in gyroscope means it reorients itself when you tilt the device. You get a forward facing 0.3 megapixel camera that allows you to take stills or engage in video chats though it’s mounted in a corner of the bezel so you have to hold the device slightly off to one side. The unit comes supplied with a mains charger and a USB cable so you can connect it to your PC. It only has 8GB of onboard storage but you get a Micro SD slot to provide extra space up to 32GB. We found the built-in speaker to be a bit tinny but you don’t expect hi-fi from tablets and there is a headphone socket to use as an alternative.

At this price level it is lacking some of the features you get in more expensive tablets. There’s no Bluetooth or NFC for example and no GPS. It runs Ice Cream Sandwich so it’s one Android version behind the latest devices like the Nexus 7.

The Gemini is likely to appeal to first time tablet buyers so it’s important that it’s user-friendly. The first time you turn it on a setup wizard takes you through connecting to Wi-Fi and linking to your Google account. You’ll find pre-installed apps for the Web browser, camera, Play Store and a few other things ready and waiting for you. If you’re using it intensively, watching videos or playing games, then you won’t get much more than two and a half hours out of a full battery charge which is a little disappointing. It’ll last longer if you’re just surfing the Net or checking your email but even so we never managed more than four hours on a charge.

Overall the Gemini is quite impressive for the price. Provided you don’t need all of the extra features of more expensive tablets it does a decent job and it’s easy to use.

Verdict: You won’t do much better at this price point, its biggest drawback is the limited battery life but if you can live with that the Gem7008 represents an affordable route into Android tablets.

Sneak preview of the cover for my latest book. Out in ebook form...

Mon, 10 Dec 2012 13:20:06 +0000

Sneak preview of the cover for my latest book. Out in ebook form this week and tree book about a week later.

It’s 1976 and all it takes for a boy to learn of the pleasures and pains of adult life is One Hot Summer.

Custard and springboards

Wed, 21 Nov 2012 10:20:05 +0000

Custard and springboards :

Yes, it’s bad sex awards shortlist time again | Books | The Guardian

25 Things You Should Know About Dialogue

Fri, 16 Nov 2012 18:41:35 +0000

25 Things You Should Know About Dialogue:

thelondonmag:

This is written by the same people as the ‘25 things you should know about NaNoWriMo.

Check it out.

Quote:

Also, adverbs nuzzled up against dialogue tags are an affront to all things and make Baby Jesus pee out the side of his diaper, and when he does that, people die.

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Wed, 07 Nov 2012 18:36:53 +0000

Ten interview questions for the next big thing

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 10:09:00 +0000

My fellow Rebel author JH Bogran tagged me with these questions and since we’re edging ever closer to the launch of the next book and all publicity, they say, is good here goes.

What is the working title of your book?

It’s called One Hot Summer my editor wanted to change it at one point but after lengthy debate and a bit of focus grouping we’ve decided to stick with the original.

Where did the idea come from for the book?

To the extent that I was a teenager in the 1970s it draws on personal experience though it isn’t an autobiography – he added hastily! The big inspiration was the setting, the summer of 1976 in Britain was the hottest for 350 years and this seemed like the ideal backdrop for a coming of age story.

What genre does the book fall under?

It’s coming of age so you could class it as young adult though because of the setting it should appeal to the baby boomer generation too. It’s also ‘lad lit’ in a Nick Hornby-style and it’s funny.

What actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

The main characters here are quite young so I’d prefer that they were played by unknowns. However, I’d cast Neil Pearson as John’s dad and Rebecca Front (who plays Inspector Lewis’s boss) as his mum.

What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?

For a boy to learn of the pleasures and pains of adult life all it takes is One Hot Summer.

(See what I did there?)

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

Actually neither, it will be released by Rebel e Publishers, a small press who also published my first novel (Fallen Star – available from all good bookshops!)

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

I started it in 2000 and finished it in around 2003. I shopped it around for a while and couldn’t generate any interest in it so I consigned it to the bottom drawer while I wrote Fallen Star. I dragged One Hot Summer out again in 2011 to take another look and decided it wasn’t half bad so I made a few tweaks and sent it to Rebel.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

Hmm… tricky. I’d say Nick Hornby’s About A Boy, Tony Parsons’ Stories We Could Tell and maybe a hint of Jonathan Coe’s The Rotter’s Club and a dash of Melvin Burgess’ Doing It.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

This is effectively my first novel – even though it will be the second to be published. I guess it was mainly motivated by a desire to revisit in words an area and a time that has fond memories for me. I started to write it shortly after my dad died which was also a major motivating factor.

What else about this book might pique your reader’s interest?

There are lots of references to 1970s music and popular culture, plus it has two dogs and a cartoon devil.

New tagees are:

Carolyn Burns Bass,

Cat Connor

Patricia Mashiter Cooper

A.S. King

Yvonne Oots

"After all, from time immemorial, a large part of the pop industry has been devoted to selling pretty..."

Mon, 08 Oct 2012 12:31:49 +0100

“

After all, from time immemorial, a large part of the pop industry has been devoted to selling pretty young men to younger girls. - Charles Sharr Murray in the Guardian

This is one of the themes explored in my novel Fallen Star.

”

- Older men, young girls: a common theme of 70s pop – but still wrong | Music | The Observer

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Thu, 13 Sep 2012 18:33:48 +0100