Sir Thomas Urquhart

Inventor of over 400 words Sir Thomas was a Scottish writer and translator now has a dedicated blog and Facebook page.

The man's DIY keyboard wrist rest

I've been needing a keyboard rest recently and living in Taiwan, as I do, I was surprised to find that none of the local shops sold one (only the small mouse type) and being impatient I stomped my feet and said "I want I want I want" and instead of waiting 2-3 long days for a delivery, I thought I'd make my own.

There is another website with instructions on how to make one if you sew and whilst I may be a reasonably modern man ( changing nappies, doing laundry etc) I have neither the time nor inclination to spend more than 5 minutes on this project.

So in my nearest shop that sells everything I found the following items:

1 x pair of ladies calf length socks (white)
1 x 1kg box of assorted grains. You can use anything you like but these were on special.

Cost: NT$140 or US$4.80(ish) for 2 (yes 2) wrist rests (the other will be used at home.

I already had a plastic bag in the office .













Here's how easy it is:

1. Turn the sock inside out
2. Hold the sealed end of the bag at the toe of the sock and with your hand inside the sock (gripping the bag) turn the sock out again.
3. Fill bagged sock with grain.
4. Tie bag and tie sock.

It's as easy as that and this blog took longer to write than they took to make.

Monied Waters Book Promo Video

Here's a new promo video for Monied Waters

My Amazon Author Page

The worst opening sentences of novels for 2012

The 2012 winners of the worst opening sentance of any novel has just been announced by The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest 

The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest 2012 is the latest in an annual series of competitions to find the worst-possible opening sentence to a novel.

The competition has been run since 1982, and is sponsored by the English department at San Jose State University. It is named after the Victorian novelist Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, who wrote the immortal opening line "It was a dark and stormy night." All are welcome to enter.

You can read more here

OMG!

No, I'm not channeling the thoughts of a 14 year old for a YA novel, although maybe that's not a bad idea. Writing about teenage hormones seems to be a money spinner. But I digress. Text speak maybe relatively new (circa 1994?), but abbreviations in writing have been around for long time, even if they did have to spell out the full meaning later.
Check this out from 1917.

from@LettersOfNote

Whilst most common abbreviations come from the late 80's and early 90's when they were first used in chat room on BBS, terms such as FRAG (used in first person shoot-em ups) have their origins as far back as 1918 before gaining traction in the 1970's and the Vietnam war.

New Harry Patterson Adventure - Monied Waters

The new Harry Patterson novel will be available on Amazon on August 2nd, however if you want to review it in return for a free copy then leave a comment below.

As the Crow Dies audio intro

The intro to As the Crow Dies is now available on Chirbit - http://chirb.it/k3etJg