Moving forward...

Hi Everyone,

Have been sat in the office working aplenty on Alt.Fiction and now I'm sat at home with a lot of random thoughts rattling through my head, so I thought id' be as good a time as any to post a blog...

I spent a good while this afternoon agonizing about programming, which is one of the trickier aspects of any event like this. Actually giving a shape to the day that balances all the different genres, events of interest to readers and writers as well as the individual requirements of all the participants is a tricky business but I think I'm now at a point where I've very nearly cracked it. There are various events for the writers there including workshops on editing and agents as well as panels on scriptwriting and building your career. There's also a really strong range of readings and I'm really pleased with how the Darwin Suite programme is looking. I'm also looking at a signing session to take place through part of the dinner break, which hopefully will really add something to the day for all the keen readers out there!!

One of the problems in programming, and one that seems to have come up more this year, is in fact fitting in everything you would like to have and I've had to trim or leave out a number of things I would have like to have done. But hopefully another year we can either get ourselves working with a larger venue or going for a weekend and there will be plenty of opportunity to run everything!

I've also been working this week on distributing flyers and hopefully you'll be seeing them pop up in bookshops, libraries and tourist info centres soon enough! I've had 5000 done this year, as opposed to the usual 10000, which is partly a financial consideration but also partly due to the fact that the community around SFF is incredibly supportive and friendly and I think word of mouth and good press are a better approach. So it's been the job for today to think very carefully and throwing away a lot of pre-prepared envelopes! I've always found something very cathartic about mailouts, for some reason...

In terms of more general stuff, I'm currently relishing getting right back into my writing and have managed to write a couple of short stories in the last week, which ends a pretty long barren spell for me! I've also been reading rather more and recently read Conrad Williams' 'The Scalding Rooms', which was absolutely superb- one of the best books I've read in ages. The world it was set in was so dark and so believable and the interaction between characters was fascinating. I'd thoroughly recommend it to anybody...

Anyway, I think that's about it for me for on night- an evening of Simpsons and Guitar Hero awaits...

Thanks a lot

Alex