Hello, world!
I'm back after four weeks of silence. For some mysterious reason, my account was not included in the first migration to theSpoke v2. I made it during the second round. Thank you to Mario Jobbe for his assistance. Permit me to say also that I really missed all my Spoke friends. :)
I've been playing with v2 for a while. This is going to take some practice, I think. The environment is so different, I'm disoriented. For example, whatever happened to the good old blog reader? I also find that I can't subscribe to certain blogs, e.g. Christine Amarra's and Sheila Nisperos. But let me not complain. I imagine some of these kinks are bug-related and some of them are adjustment-related and both will be resolved with time.
On to other topics. One of the cool things that happend over my vacation was I got to listen to a couple of lectures by GP Taylor, author of Shadowmancer, Wormwood, and Tersias. He worked as a policeman, and exorcist, and is now an Episcopalian (sp?) vicar with his own parish in the UK.
His fascination with the occult and the supernatural began when he and his wife moved into a haunted house. Strange things would happen. The door to the bathroom would shake, as if someone were trying to open it. A paper lantern from their second floor would detatch itself, roll down the stairs and swirl around the living room as if pushed. The silhouette of a woman would appear in their bedroom window and wave at him while he was gardening. Creepy stuff. Now he is a bestselling author of young adult fiction. Shadowmancer is in production as a full-length feature film. His latest book, Tersias, outsold Harry Potter 6.
It was delightful to listen to him because he had so many funny stories about this evolution from inventive, imaginative, "Billy Liar" child to internationally renown novelist. Of interest to aspiring writers in particular was his method of finding and studying characters for his books: he would go around with a videocam and film total strangers.
GP Taylor only began writing two years ago. This whirlwind of success is that recent. He ended his talk declaring: If I can do it, you can do it. Wow. Creative writing, anyone?