Most of Europe ’s airspace has been closed for a couple of days, and it looks set to continue. With the London Book Fair starting on Monday this could be disastrous for publishers seeking to buy and sell international rights. Without any visitors from overseas it’s going to be unusually quiet at Earl’s Court this year. And that’s a shame, because Summersdale has just invested in an impressive new exhibition stand which not many people will get to see. At least anyone stranded elsewhere can enjoy our new website which is planned to go live on Monday. www.summersdale.com
Volcano dust permitting, I’ll be heading to Brazil in a few weeks, so I’m ramping up my daily study time (from half an hour to about two hours) in the desperate hope that I’ll achieve some degree of fluency by the time I get there. I’m getting to the point where the pathetically limited vocabluary of Portuguese words in my head is starting to float around my consciousness all the time. I look at a white cup and describe it in Portuguese. I see a number and I convert it to Portuguese. I look at my dog and work out the phrase to say that he smells a bit whiffy. I look at a bottle of wine and realise I haven’t got to that part of the course yet, so I just drink it.
The extra language study time has had an impact on my novel writing and editing time. Yesterday I wrote virtually nothing, but at least I managed to work on an entire chapter today. I extended my research into my Portofino Brazil Iceland
Hi Stewart. I recently signed onto your blog site as a follower, on the advice of my son Marcel (Expresso Expression - Why do folks insist on using fake names on the internet?) He is working on a young adult story in between holidays and living the writer's life.
ReplyDeleteAs I am British (living in Canada) and have an interest in writing, I find your blog most interesting. It has been added to my daily check list that I run through after breakfast. I was interested in your recent 'Tag' column, and that you are using Google Earth for research. I never thought of doing that. Clever. You have started a publishing company, does this mean that you will be self publishing in the future, it certainly seems to be the trend as the internet gains momentum.
I will stay in touch with you over breakfast. Good luck in Brazil. My so Marcel recently made a trip to a national rain forest park in Malasia, to get a feel for trekking through the rainforest for a chapter in his book.
Have a great day.