A rare candid snapshot

For those of you who missed this very important piece of news on Twitter, I am ill at present. Not the best time to post a photo of myself, you might think, but I think this particular image captures the essence of me at this moment:


Made at zombify-yourself.net

Twitter

I'm not sure I'll keep it yet, but I just created a public Twitter account. (Or rather, did something with the public account I created a while back.) There's now a little widget thingy in the right hand sidebar of this site/blog that shows my updates, or you can follow me on Twitter itself if you're thus inclined.

I warn you now that I won't be keeping up with direct messages or @replies from anyone I don't already know, and as I say, I don't know yet whether it's going to work out having a public Twitter as well as this blog (if it doesn't, I'll just jettison the Twitter and carry on as I was in here), but let's see how it goes.

A quick linkshare

Well worth a read is Tansy Rayner Roberts' blog post The Magical Writer Journey (or why Stephenie Meyer is a fictional character).

The image of the overnight bestseller who suddenly got it into their head to write a book (having shown no interest in doing so previously) has been mocked before, but it can't be mocked often enough. At least until people stop believing it.

Bring it on.

Over the weekend, I picked up a postcard in Borders. The artwork on it is taken from a Victorian handbill advertising...well...these:

BALDWIN'S
-
NERVOUS PILLS
CURES
NERVOUSNESS, IRRITABILITY of TEMPER
WANT OF STRENGTH AND ENERGY,
FEAR, DREAD, NEURALGIA,
HYSTERIA, DISTURBED SLEEP,
MELANCHOLY, INSOMNIA,
AND ALL NERVE PAINS AND DISEASES
---
PRICE 1'1 1/2d. & 2'9 PER BOX
POST FREE.

The notes on the back of the card points out that On the whole, people put their faith into [sic?] whatever cure claimed to be the most beneficial, and vast fortunes were made by patent medicine manufacturers.

Well, I'd give the Baldwin's a go.

Remembrance Sunday