Engine Punk

A few weeks ago, I had a comment on this very blog that mentioned voice-activated dictation software. It described Dragon NaturallySpeaking as a secret weapon when it came to formatting text documents in readiness for publishing. I've had a lot of problems with using Word and PDF generators but had got around it by using Open Office Writer. I was interested to hear about this Dragon product as another alternative to using Word. It was as I researched Dragon NaturallySpeaking that I realised that this might be an alternative to learning to touch type. I had already embarked upon a touch typing course (E-typing) but it soon became apparent that I would never be as quick as I fought or spoke. I am a reasonably fast two fingered typist but very often my ideas come spilling out of my brain and my fingers trip themselves up. In fact, I seem to be getting less accurate as I get older. I decided to try Dragon NaturallySpeaking and ordered the Preferred version, complete with a Phili...

Both The Horsepower Whisperer and The Wormton Lamb are now in revision at Lightning Source. I can enter my account area to monitor progress and once the revisions have been accepted I will order proofs. It's a case of checking every day now. Once that stage is complete, I should get proofs in a couple of working days. In the meantime, I've been working on the next part of the Soul Trader trilogy. The title for this is The Grey Ones. This is also the title of a short story by J B Priestley, which I really enjoyed. The story is completely different but if anyone challenges me about it I'll say I'm paying "an homage" to it. I probably mentioned this before, but I raved about this story on a car club forum a few years ago. Everyone was griping about the growing police state and the sense of big brother watching you and slowly grinding our spirits down. I recommended J B Priestley's story to those in need and many years later at a meeting in Edinbu...

It's happening again. First there was the giant lamb born to one of Caroline's ewe. In fact, they're Jacob's sheep but belong to Caroline. This means that as sheep they are usually quite modestly sized. Then there's been all the soul-destroying influences we've been subjected to. We can't do anything fun because it damages the environment. We have to think about everything before we do it, audit our actions and ensure they stand up to scrutiny. Whose scrutiny? Why the Conformorians of course! Did you ever doubt they didn't really exist? And now here's Monika-Sandra, a third instance of real life following my fiction (although I suspect the Conformorians have been around for years before I ever wrote about them). You know the character called Heidi in The Horsepower Whisperer had a pet bat? A friend of mine called Heidi has rescued this little person. Unfortunately Monika-Sandra the Pipestrelle bat had a broken wing and died a few days after the...

Like some extract from The Horsepower Whisperer, (that's the book wot I wrote, if you didn't already know), the Grey Ones want to close Castle Coombe. According to the Old Bike Mart a couple of people have moved into the village, realised there's a motor racing circuit nearby and now want to get it closed. Sign the petition here.