Keith W. Dickinson

Well now, something interesting happening in March next year. Gives me five months to finish the book I'm working on and get it out there. I reckon I can do it.

Mate, so sorry to hear that. Fingers crossed for clever doctors and a full recovery. ❤️

Also, if you're "in bed with flu", it's almost certainly Covid.

Thanks Fredrik. Right now the opening is all I've got. I'm not sure where to go from here lol.

Chapter One In the far-flung desolate crater of a ravenous volcano, surrounded by gunts of lava and acrid plumes of sulphuric black smoke, a lone dragon sat atop a pile of ash, its black carapace glinting wickedly in the fiery light as the lava floes around it popped and bubbled with menacing viscosity. It's body hunched, the dragon swung its head from side to side, its eyes vigilant to attack. Behind the dragon three figures approached the rim of the crater, weaving their way through a maze of razor sharp rock. Seeing the dragon they crouched behind a large boulder, out of sight. “Is that it?” said the tallest of the three, a handsome young knight in shiny new armour. “Of course it bloody is, what the hell else would it be?” grumbled the leader of the group, a dishevelled old man in leather armour older than he was. He was not in the mood for stupid questions. It was hot on the volcano, and his ancient codpiece was starting to chafe something rotten. “So when do I...?” The knight made a repeated stabbing motion with his hand. “When it lays the egg and flies away. Didn't you listen to anything I taught you?” The knight shrugged, causing his armour to clang softly. “School's boring. I much prefer stabbing things.” The old man exhaled angrily through his nose. He looked to the young girl between them who was busy taking notes, popping her head briefly over the top of the rock so she could sketch the dragon below. At least one of his students had a head on their shoulders. There was hope for the future yet. Down in the crater the dragon arched its back. Letting out a low, sustained growl it stretched its head forward, lifting up its tail as a hole on its back end gaped uncomfortably wide. It pushed (the page ends on 'it pushed')

This is better. 😊

Although you can just read the alt text as well. 👍

I wish the Snipping Tool took better screenshots. They always come out blurry for some reason.

Chapter One In the far-flung desolate crater of a ravenous volcano, surrounded by gunts of lava and acrid plumes of sulphuric black smoke, a lone dragon sat atop a pile of ash, its black carapace glinting wickedly in the fiery light as the lava floes around it popped and bubbled with menacing viscosity. It's body hunched, the dragon swung its head from side to side, its eyes vigilant to attack. Behind the dragon three figures approached the rim of the crater, weaving their way through a maze of razor sharp rock. Seeing the dragon they crouched behind a large boulder, out of sight. “Is that it?” said the tallest of the three, a handsome young knight in shiny new armour. “Of course it bloody is, what the hell else would it be?” grumbled the leader of the group, a dishevelled old man in leather armour older than he was. He was not in the mood for stupid questions. It was hot on the volcano, and his ancient codpiece was starting to chafe something rotten. “So when do I...?” The knight made a repeated stabbing motion with his hand. “When it lays the egg and flies away. Didn't you listen to anything I taught you?” The knight shrugged, causing his armour to clang softly. “School's boring. I much prefer stabbing things.” The old man exhaled angrily through his nose. He looked to the young girl between them who was busy taking notes, popping her head briefly over the top of the rock so she could sketch the dragon below. At least one of his students had a head on their shoulders. There was hope for the future yet. Down in the crater the dragon arched its back. Letting out a low, sustained growl it stretched its head forward, lifting up its tail as a hole on its back end gaped uncomfortably wide. It pushed (the page ends on 'it pushed')

So I wrote 5 pages, 1600 words, of a book I was *not* supposed to be working on.

I really need to be more disciplined about these things. 😂

#TheOtherChosenOne

"Down in the crater the dragon arched its back. Letting out a low, sustained growl it stretched its head forward, lifting up its tail as a hole on its back end gaped uncomfortably wide."

What a great line to end page one with. 😁

#TheOtherChosenOne

Nobel peace prize 2025 live: María Corina Machado wins for work promoting democratic rights in Venezuela US president had been conducting campaign to influence prize committee

It's important to focus on who won, not who did not.

Amusingly enough I can remove the word egg from the above and it still works. 🐲

Nah it's fine. I just need to think before I start writing stuff lol.

Did they move the Explore button on the website? Coz I keep hitting it when I'm aiming for Notifications.

I actually need to start with the egg being laid, so that there's a small window to destroy it before its shell hardens.

"In the far-flung desolate crater of a ravenous volcano, surrounded by gunts of lava and acrid plumes of sulphuric black smoke, a lone dragon egg sat atop a pile of ash, its black carapace glinting wickedly with harsh yellow light as the lava around it popped and bubbled with menacing viscosity."

Wrote the start of a new book. Forgot that's not how it was meant to start. Need to rewrite the whole thing. 🫤

More evidence of what i had to report to the @bsfa.bsky.social and @britfantasysoc.bsky.social this year - that publishers made a lot of noise about inclusion but have largely, in my experience, stopped working on this.

As you might imagine i have opinions.

Headline from an article in Nature this week that states "Prizes must recognize machine contributions to discovery. The future of science will be written by humans and machines together. Awards should reflect that reality."

Lol the Nobels can't even acknowledge women's contribution to discovery. But sure let's acknowledge The Machines.

This campaign video for the Danielle Brooks and Grantham Coleman fan clubs goes all-in. Sadly, the whole play seems unavailable right now. www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/s...

I kinda liked the original Tron but only because there wasn't anything else like it at the time. I was looking forward to seeing it updated but they forgot to bring a compelling storyline. Casting of the third one will keep me well away from it.

Quiet on here without all the constant notifications from that one post. You can see how people get addicted to that kind of thing, posting even more extreme views just to get the attention they crave.

You can. 👍

Mr Overthere. Great if you want to know where something is and he happens to be pointing in the right direction.

SHOCK POLL: NIGEL FARAGE WILL BE PM TOMORROW IN an amazing poll conducted by The Pointless Polling Company, it was revealed that voters' intentions may well change over the next three and a half years and at present it's 100 percent impossible to guess what the next government might look like. However, 99 percent of journalists agree that it would be much more fun if we had an election tomorrow and everybody resigned and everything was chaos and Farage had a go at being PM, just for the hell of it, because it was so much fun when Brexit happened and then the government kept falling every five minutes and we could write endless pieces about (cont. p94)

Private Eye offers up an excellently scornful commentary on the relentless polling. It’s become ridiculous and has oversimplified our politics to dangerous levels of stupid and irresponsible.

I'm not even going to bother with the next movie. I'm just going to buy the album and be done with it.

I think people remembered the idea of what they hoped it might be (and the light cycles) and that gave them a fit of nostalgia big enough to make them greenlight a movie. But then they delivered something kinda flat whose only saving grace was an excellent soundtrack.

Pretty confused by how TRON became a big-budget movie franchise. Was it a bit hit when it came out? No. Did it become a big hit on video/TV? Also no. Do people have fond nostalgic memories of it? Eh kinda but not really. Was it secretly great and critically acclaimed? No again

Not for long.

Can you put into words what that purpose is? You and the frog have really become icons of this protest. There’s been a nice overall whimsy that has shown up. The frog is amazing. We had a bunch of other inflatable people here last night, too. I saw people playing Twister the other day. What they rely on is fear. So by coming out in an absurdist manner, it speaks to them, to some extent, that we’re actually not that afraid. It also dismantles their narrative a little bit. When they try to describe this situation as “war-torn,” it becomes much harder to take them seriously when they have to post a video saying [U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security] Kristi Noem is up on the balcony staring over the Antifa Army and it’s, like, eight journalists and five protesters and one of them is in a chicken suit.

www.wweek.com/culture/2025...

I believe it