Links 29/03/13

Huge panorama of Gale Crater created by Andrew Bodrov from images taken by the Curiosity rover.

A fish with a see-through head.

Duckpenisgate.

'To feed their young, females grow an extra layer of skin that's rich in fats. The young scrape this skin off with their teeth and eat it. To help them, they have a specialised set of teeth adapted to the job, which are replaced by more pointed adult teeth as they get older.'

And in other news, Unlikely Worlds's tweets have been listed by Time magazine as one of the best 140 Twitter feeds of 2013.

A Day In The Life

 'But what do you really do?' is up there with 'Do you write under your own name?' and 'I've never read any of your books' as one of the most common responses when I tell people who ask me what I do what I do.

What I did today is start work at 9 am by scribbling changes all over the print-out of a draft of a short piece about watching the first ever episode of Doctor Who, add the changes into the electronic version, reread it on screen and make a few more changes, and then email it off.  That was the first hour accounted for.  I won't get paid for it by the way,  but for once I'm happy to violate the rule that money should always flow towards the author because the profits from the book (I hope) it'll appear in are going to charity.

After that, it was back to the first draft of the new novel.  1000 words before lunch, then a walk around my usual route - I live in Islington, one of the most built-up and populous parts of London, but manage to fit in three parks - and back in front of the computer for another 500 words.  I like to write 1500 words, or about five pages each and every day until I have a complete draft.  And then I start editing and rewriting, and rediting and rerewriting . . .

Sometimes it only takes an hour or two; sometimes it takes all day.  And if it's going really slowly, I'll take a walk earlier, to think about writing while thinking about something else.  Today, I finished at around 3.30, and then started to read through an old story someone wants to republish; so far, it hasn't needed much in the way of titivation.  And now, at just after 5 pm, I'm writing this.

So that's mostly what I really do.  I write.  Although today was a bit out of the ordinary, because ten copies of my new collection of short stories, A Very British History, were delivered.  Here are three of them:

Something For The Weekend

So I'll be in Bradford for the annual science fiction bash, Eastercon, this coming weekend. This is what I'll be doing in between admiring monumental Victorian architecture and trying not to buy too many books.

Friday     5pm     "PS Publishing"
Yorkshire’s very own specialist publisher gets Eastercon underway with an event to launch new books by five of the UK’s leading SF and Fantasy writers. "Universes" by Stephen Baxter. "Starship Seasons" by Eric Brown. A Very British History" by Paul McAuley. "Martian Sands" by Lavie Tidhar. "Growing Pains" by Ian Whates.
Get 'em while they're hot.

Saturday     10am     "Editing - the truth, the myth and the rule of the red pen"
 What do editors do anyway, and why is it necessary? What's it like to be edited? Practical experience and observations on how to edit, and how to be edited. Bella Pagan moderates Janine Ashbless, Naomi Foyle, Paul McAuley and Mercurio D Rivera.
Ever tried to self-publish? There you go.

Saturday     11am     "Sensory Overload"
Why stop at five senses? There are many other senses in the natural world, more available through technology, and even more in SF and Fantasy. Our panel explore. With Dr Bob, Simon Ings, Roz Kaveney, Paul McAuley, and Walter Jon Williams.
Which sense apps would you buy?

Saturday     9pm     "Five Years: The End of the World Panel"    
Recent apocalypses have been a disappointment, but what would happen if there was a guaranteed, proven end-of-the-world coming in five years. What would happen to society? Nigel Furlong, Chris Beckett, Janet Edwards, Paul McAuley and Philip Palmer discuss the consequences.
David Bowie already covered this, but I think I can add a personal perspective.