Stephen Lean

Have a good one, whatever you’re doing. (Canon G10. Settings? Haven’t got a clue, it’s a point-and-shoot!)

As you may have noticed, this blog has a completely new look. I’ve been thinking about changing it for quite a while now as the web never stands still.

So I did a search for 2012 WordPress themes and found this one. I wanted a theme that utilised up-to-date technologies, like HTML5 and CSS3, but also I just loved the simple and traditional look and feel of this one. What do you think?

There’s a link in the footer if you’d like to see more. Want to know the best bit? It’s free!

Here’s another very short short story for one of Chuck Wendig’s Flash Fiction Challenges.

Chuck’s brief was simple: “I want you to tell me a story in five sentences. (Yes, a complete story.) No longer than 100 words total.”

Deadly Night-Girl

If you look really hard she still retains a certain glamour, but only on a good day.

In a previous life she had it all; she was an A-lister, she sparkled, turned heads, broke more than a few hearts. Now there are only memories; and needles; and the stale-piss stench of the cubicle.

A liquid jewel pops out of her vein, an HIV ruby pooling at the exit of the thin steel lifeline.

She’s well past caring about how she looks but she covers her arms carefully, in her line of business it makes the punters nervous.

Here’s my contribution to Chuck Wendig’s ‘flash fiction challenge’. The brief got my writerly juices flowing, it was as follows:

Go to Your Favorite Music Player. Dig out your digital music collection.
Hit SHUFFLE, then “Play.”
Meaning, let a random song come bubbling up out of nothing.
The title to this song is the title to your story.
Use the song for inspiration, too, if you feel so inclined.
Let’s tighten up the word count a little, too –
You only have 500 words this time.    Read more »

Are you an ‘Internet Marketer’?

Congratulations! You’re part of a huge movement, the 99% of wannabes who will never make a dime!

You’ll just keep flitting from one ‘money making’ scheme to the next, all the while overdosing on daily emails from all the ‘gurus’ out there trying to bleed you dry with the latest must-have ‘guaranteed-income-for-doing-fuck-all’ crock of gold. (Or is that crock of shit?)    Read more »

I watched a bit of this absolute fucking mind-numbing garbage last night and was going to do a rant about it today.

But then I was on Twitter and I saw a link to the article below on justpaste.it and decided that it said everything I was going to say. Only more so, and from an insider’s point of view!

So I’ll reproduce it verbatim below and just let you draw your own conclusions:    Read more »

The blog post below appeared briefly on indie publisher JA Konrath’s blog, but has now disappeared. It was written by successful thriller writer Stephen Leather. Methinks a few feathers may have been ruffled!
Edit: It must have been a glitch because it’s back now. Apologies for the wrongful assertion. See it here

Here’s what Leather had to say:    Read more »

I found this while looking back through my random notes on stuff that interests me.

Don’t know where it came from or who wrote it but I just love it so I thought I would share it with you.

To my friends who enjoy a glass of wine… and those who don’t:

As Ben Franklin said, “In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is freedom, in water there is bacteria.”

In a number of carefully controlled trials, scientists have demonstrated that if we drink 1 litre of water each day, at the end of the year we would have absorbed more than 1 kilo of Escherichia coli, (E. Coli) – bacteria found in faeces. In other words, we are consuming 1 kilo of poop.

However, we do NOT run that risk when drinking wine & beer (or tequila, rum, whiskey or other liquor)because alcohol has to go through a purification process of boiling, filtering and/or fermenting.

So remember: Water = Poop, Wine = Health.

Therefore, it’s better to drink wine and talk stupid than to drink water and be full of shit.

There is no need to thank me for this valuable information, I’m doing it as a public service!

My sentiments exactly.

As writers, we all have our doubts about whether we’re good enough to compete in our chosen genre.

So we keep our initial pathetic attempts at plotting, description and dialogue to ourselves, fearful of exposing ourselves to the criticism and/or judgement of our peers.

But sooner or later we have to stand up and say, “Hello world, this is me, I am a novelist. I am writing a novel and it will be published.”    Read more »

For any aspiring authors out there, this blog post by Joe Konrath is a must-read. Forget the traditional route, savvy authors are now going indie. A post that prompts 593 comments (as of 24/04/11) needs to be taken seriously.

Here’s a snippet:

Are you dense? What the hell is wrong with you?

I’m talking to you. The writers who are still thoughtlessly defending legacy publishing. Unless you’re making over a million dollars a year with the Big 6, continuing down the legacy path is a crazy bad idea.

I see the same tired, lame arguments, over and over again. They include: It’s hard to make decent money self-pubbing.

Guess what? It’s even harder to make decent money by legacy publishing…”

Go there now and read the rest of it, you may well get to be the next JK Rowling!