1972
Fantasy – namely The Lord of the Rings – inspired my love of storytelling. I read LotR over one Christmas break, way back in about 1982. Then I devoured other fantasy novels. Swords, magic, heroic quests – everything that would appeal to an imaginative kid. In 1985, I wrote my first book – part one of an intended five-book fantasy epic – when I was 15, hand-writing it in two A5 exercise books over the space of eighteen months. I gave no thought to planning it. I just wrote, my mythology changing as I went. Often, I would sit up late at night (and sometimes through until morning) working on…
Luke
More complications this week, thanks to buying a new computer which then had the typical new computer teething problems – installing software, making sure everything I needed came across, etc. This latest computer comes a lot sooner than expected. My previous new computer, a HP, sucked. So did the laptop – also a HP. Both systems had problems from the moment I turned them on. The laptop would freeze spontaneously. The HP helpline suggested the ever-famous ‘factory reset’. If anybody ever advises a factory reset, tell them to get stuffed. It’ll wipe out the problem, until the system just escalates itself back into that situation, which is exactly what happened.…