The Word Cloud

As far as I'm aware, most traditional authors still prefer to get to the end of their first draft novel using the time-honoured routes of alcohol, laudanum, or depressive self-disgust. But there are, it appears, other means now gaining traction in the 21st century. You can read about some of them in Alan Rinzler's  Carry On Smiling article here.

I'm not sure I exactly recognise his checklist. Meditation, rising with the sun and eating sprouted wheatgrass juice are not habits practised by a huge number of authors that I know. And retaining good mental health isn't always the best route to vigorous, imaginative prose. But it's a good list all the same. Me, I like writing those first drafts. They're not arduous for me, they're more like a holiday. But not everyone is the same, and Rinzler's list may well help some writers.

Just heard that Louise's novel, Honour and the Sword, is at #12 in the hardback fiction bestseller charts - in its first week. Wow! Fab outcome.

Well done Victoria Hobbs (from AM Heath) who sold her to Penguin. Well done to Penguin, for doing a great job with the book. Well done to Louise for writing a great book in the first place. And well done to Michelle Lovric who helped her with getting the manuscript into shape in the first place.

The novel is a terrific, seventeenth century swashbuckling romp. And you can find it here. And the great news about really strong hardback sales is that they guarantee an excellent retail platform for the paperback, which is where the real moolah will be made. Fingers crossed ...

Hi guys,

It's been brought to our attention that some of you had your security settings reset. If you were affected by this, you need to reset them to your desired settings, but they should remain at your desired settings now, without any further problems.

All the best,

Tommy.

Hello all

Just to let you know that we've been in discussions with the CEO of the company which writes the software which powers the Cloud. We wanted to ensure that he is fully aware of the continuing bugs in the software - and that his company is properly on the case in fixing it.

They really, truly are aware of the problems and really, truly are on the case. The CEO's own background was as a senior developer at EIDOS (the conputer game company) and the new outfit has a very strong team of techies working on the issues. So, it IS frustrating, we're well aware, but everyone involved is doing all they can.

As is well known among Clouders, Internet Explorer is much more prone to clash with the Word Cloud than any other browser. You can download other browsers for free (eg: Firefox or Chrome) and you'll have very many fewer problems with those. Alternatively, if you can bear to live with the glitches for now, then life should improve ere too long. Needless to say, I personally feel privileged that all you lovely droplets make yourself at home among my billows.

Fluffy love

The Cloud

Hi guys!

It seems like some of you are having problems with viewing some posts. The tech-gerbils have been alerted, and are scurrying around, frantically trying to figure out what's wrong. In the meantime, I can let you know that this problem only applies to those of you using Internet Explorer. Safari and Firefox (get it from http://www.mozilla-europe.org/en/firefox/) seem not to have these problems, so you might want to give them a go.

Do you like our word cloud-y logo in the top right corner of our screen?

Of course you do! It's lovely! See what it's done to Wordsworth's least lovable poem!

And here's the extraordinary news. You can make your own. Easily. It's the work of a moment. Just head on over to the discussions tab. Scroll down to the bit about Wordles and other images. Read what it tells you there (you'll want to start with the Wordling for Simpletons). Then wordle away.

Actually saving your wordles is a tiny tad more difficult but if you've got any photo software on your PC (Photoshop / Corel / anything else), then it's as easy as pie. Sweet cherry pie.

First person to send us a halfway sensible word cloud logo gets to see it replace our existing logo. Happy wordling.

Yikes! We've got problems at the heart of the site. People trying to post their work in the Critiques section are having real problems. If you post just 2-3,000 words from Word and avoid any clever formatting, then it SHOULD work, but the site is being a bit glitchy.

Our best brains are on the case - we have a team of geeks in an underground cavern - we are planning to snatch Bill Gates and hold him hostage until the problem is resolved - but for now, big sorries and we'll fix the problem as soon as we can.