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Those of you such as do not already read Making Light might enjoy tnh's report on a pleasant afternoon with the neighbours. In Middle English (I think). Oh dere Ghod.

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2000 words on Friday; today was mostly catching up on administrivia, so only 150 words.

The writing/publishing blogosphere has been pointing and laughing at various iterations of "I have the secret of publishing success, and for this week only I'm slashing the price to *you* lucky people!" As lots of people who do know what they're talking about have said, there's only one formula for success: write it, send it out. Or as one or two of my friends prefer to put it: arse on chair, fingers on keyboard. Then put it in the post. Repeat as necessary.

Charlie Stross talks about future shock and becoming a Google junkie in his latest blog entry. I understand that one. If I get arse off chair and fingers off keybord, and go for a stroll to the end of the block, I can see a small box atop a lamp post that in the next month or two will provide me with free wifi internet access, courtesy of everyone's favourite search engine. Google's latest aren't-we-cute-and-adorable embrace-and-extend is the provision of free wifi access to its home town. This might change my life (although it probably won't). I've never done the "take laptop to the coffee shop to write" thing, and one of the reasons is quite simply that nowadays I really don't like being cut off from Google and Wikipedia while I'm writing. I only realised how dependent I'd become when I Googled for something a couple of years ago instead of walking to the bookshelf all of six feet away to look it up in the Handbook of Chemistry and Physics. Soon I will be able to take a wifi-equipped laptop to my local bookshop, and sit in their coffee lounge, browsing Amazon and then taking the laptop downstairs to the till where I can say, "I want one of these. But from you, because I support my local bookshop."

The democratic genre: Fan Fiction in a Literary Context got a namecheck in the Making Light fanfic thread. I do believe I may know the namechecker... (For those in a different circle of my friends - I know the author, as do a number of people on my flist. She knows what she's talking about, and it's an excellent book.) Also mentioned - new book by Jenkins, due out Sept: Fans, Bloggers, And Gamers.