I started to post some ideas in progress a week or so ago, tagged them on a tumblr blog and on twitter – some images, some text; just me trying to get the feel of the thing. Trying out the shape of it, how it sounded and how it might develop. That was then, and this is the start of the new year. I put a novel out in 2011, and learned a lot about what form means to content, and how the two interact as media change (and was delighted to hear Mark Kermode make my points about form and content in film for me a week ago) and how to, and how not to, bring an audience inside the text.

I put a few images up over the holiday, and some words, wrote some things that didn’t make it up online and took more photos than I used, and thought about what it felt like for a few days. And someone (thanks Julian) said they missed them when I stopped doing them.

So – here goes then:

One post a day (or as frequently as I can manage – the proviso is that I get to 365 by the end of 2012); image, text and something else. (Two characters. One’s a survivor, the other’s a victim.) Links from twitter and into a tumblr. Gathered here somehow (I’ll figure that bit out later on).

A continuing obsession with the form of a thing. With what form does to story, how story can be shaped within a simple set of rules. What those rules might do to the eventual shape of the story being told. Who, tells it, and how it is told. I suspect that the regular updates are going to force a shape, that the immediacy of writing day to day is going to rein in some of the extravagances I was guilty of last time out. It has to be a story too. Things have to happen, to be shaped and told.

A very public first draft.

An evolution of the notion of profundicity. The same techniques, the same site, but a different take on things. Those things still remain, but are reduced in significance.

Also, and this is a going forward thing but navigation is going to be important. Tags, and categories. Searchable stories. I’m bearing this in mind as the writing progresses. It’s possible that the searchable version isn’t written in the first draft, but exists somewhere from now, somewhere that looks much more Tinderboxy, for example (it has been suggested at least twice in the last 12 months, and therefore I’m paying attention).

It’s going to be about cities, as that’s the topic circling around my head this year. Cities, and story.

And, to work.

PostScript: I first met Diana Wynne Jones not long after I moved to Bristol in 1992. She was all of the things you’ll have read elsewhere and tenfold (go and search, and if you or I could have those things said about us when we’re gone, we’d have lived a fine life). Most of all, I thought she was a force of nature. Fierce, and pragmatic and practical, and a source of sound, grounded advice. She told me things, from time to time and I listened, I really listened.

I was very proud to be her friend.

Since the weekend, the world has felt much the same, but with a hole in it. We’re poorer, and she’s not there.

Banksy spent most of his career ridiculing the gallery system. Which is, without a doubt, stifled by hierarchy and positions of power, influence and prestige – none of which has anything to do with good art. His placing of work within a gallery context was designed to provoke debate, to throw an idea into the staid environment of the worshipful, white-walled galleria. And it worked. The agitprop graffiti artist sticking two fingers up to the establishment. Work smuggled into the Tate Gallery is fine, it makes a point, people listen and talk about it.

Then this. A gallery show. Which simply, sorry, doesn’t work. It doesn’t. It’s badly thought through, and misses the point so completely, so massively, that it’s as if the press release and covering commentary was written by a particularly poor contributor to Banksy’s wikipedia page. If you’ve spent your entire career pointing out the ridiculous, obscene nature of gallery spaces, then why exhibit in one? And no-one tell me that he’s bringing the system down from within, or that it’s different because it’s Banksy. It isn’t. He was accused of selling his soul when he started selling work to Brad and Angelina. This time, it’s not anything as ambitious as his soul. He’s simply sold out.

Getting married tomorrow. To the lovely futureMrsTom. Who will, of course, become MrsTom at that point. Will blog when back from Canada.

Behave while I’m gone, won’t you?

A statement which is, as I’m sure you’ll all agree, self-evident. Especially when one discovers that Module Titles, quite apart from Programme Titles, are in fact perfectly welcome to include said puncutation marks. We’re also free to separate discontinuous grammatical constructions with parentheses (rather inelegant, if you ask me), or with full stops (actually, I’ve not tested the full stop solution), but not, one realises, with the grammatical device described by Hart’s Rules for Compositors and Readers at the University Press, Oxford, as:

“the colon generally marks a step forward, from introduction to main theme, from cause to effect, premiss to conclusion”

All perfectly reasonable reasons to declare a state of war, I’m sure you’d agree.

The War of the Colon.

Although, upon further examination, maybe the University’s reluctance to embrace the humble colon might be justified. For example, look at this page header:

<title>School of Creative Arts – UWE Bristol : Courses : BA(Hons) Media Practice</title>

Colons! Everywhere! Ridiculous, transgressive colons. Seeping their way into our culture, and spreading their colonic tentaclyness into the furthest corners of the…

Okay. That’s enough. It’s indicative of systemic mismanagement, and that’s the end of it. Until I get this regulation overturned, and the title of the course instated properly, that is. Of course, in the meantime, I may discover the regulation that prevents the use of the colon. If I do, I’ll let you all know.

Right. Back to work. Lunchtime is over.

“Hi Tom,

just a quick one, I had to point out this Daily Mail priceless gaffe to you.

From the website today, ‘Start collecting our new British Classics DVDs now’, http://tinyurl.com/8n9sln:

“With this fabulous collection of classic adaptations of all time greats, you are sure to find a drama THE WHOLE FAMILY WILL ENJOY.

Our latest collection, includes Cranford, Great Expectations, FANNY HILL and Jane Eyre to name just a few. “

My capitals for emphasis. Could this be a more libertarian side of the DM coming through?”

Many thanks for the letter Simon, and yes, I think it is. The Mail has long expressed a desire to promote the seamier side of English culture (they can’t get enough of it in the paper), but has never has the opportunity until now. Evidently, their alliance with British Classics DVD (outlets in Weymouth, Scunthorpe and Basildon) has afforded them the prime internet real-estate necessary to subvert the ladies of England into a life of debauchery and prostitution. I look forward to more of this from the Mail, and encourage you to look out for it. Go on, spend some quality time with your local paper.

And tomorrow. The Gallery.

For those of you not following Stephen Fry on Twitter (and why not?), here’s an example of what you’re missing. The great man had to purchase a Sony Vaio laptop in order to test smartphones. Or something. Anyway, he had a similar experience to the one I remarked upon on these pages a year or so ago:

(actually, having looked at it again, I really can’t reprint any of it here. You’ll have to trust that I’m not spamming you and take a look at the record. It’s not particularly safe for work. Unless you work in a rather sweary environment, or at home)

Elsewhere, the real reason David Tennant is ducking out of Hamlet for a few weeks. And I thought Stephen Fry had it bad, at least no-one’s trying to kill him.

Neil points out the burning question of the day. Why aren’t writers aren’t being bailed out by the Government? Good question. Everyone else seems to be getting a handout, whether they’re overinflated banks, the car industry, or the defence sector (no, hang on, that’s been going on for years. Sorry). Why not writers? Or why not any sector of the economy? What’s sauce for the goose, as they say.

While on the subject, this was on BoingBoing a day or so ago. Marvellous. At least if we’re not being bailed out, we’ve still got the moral high ground.

And this is unbelievable. Just unbelievable. A teacher in Austin demonstrates the extent to which corporate America has brainwashed the country:

“…observed one of my students with a group of other children gathered around his laptop. Upon looking at his computer, I saw he was giving a demonstration of some sort. The student was showing the ability of the laptop and handing out Linux disks. After confiscating the disks I called a confrence [sic] with the student and that is how I came to discover you and your organization.

Mr. Starks, I am sure you strongly believe in what you are doing but I cannot either support your efforts or allow them to happen in my classroom. At this point, I am not sure what you are doing is legal. No software is free and spreading that misconception is harmful.

These children look up to adults for guidance and discipline. I will research this as time allows and I want to assure you, if you are doing anything illegal, I will pursue charges as the law allows. Mr. Starks, I along with many others tried Linux during college and I assure you, the claims you make are grossly over-stated and hinge on falsehoods. I admire your attempts in getting computers in the hands of disadvantaged people but putting linux on these machines is holding our kids back.”

Read the rest of the exchange here, and sit back and shake your head.

On a completely unrelated note – where’s my Christmas Pudding, dammit! I’ve got things to do today.

Right, where was I? Pudding. No, that can’t be it. Shopping, no that’s sort of mostly done. Mostly as in started, and sort of as in not finished yet. Tree? that’s up and decorated. Cards? Bought but not written. Sark election results? Off for a recount, as the 28th seat was apparently too close to call (that wasn’t completely random – I have a friend standing in the Sark elections, although as he hasn’t been blacklisted by the Barclay twins, it’s impossible to know whether he’s a reformer, or just keeping his head down, either way, I’m watching the results like a miniature Peter Snow).

Back to work. That was probably it.

It seemed that David Smith of the Observer managed to drum up a quote from one Steve Prentice at Gartner Research, suggesting that the mouse wasn’t going to be around in 40 years time (I know, a bold claim, and obviously not made to provide a soundbite, No, of course not). My counterclaim is that the mouse will be very much around in 40 years time, as we haven’t invented anything that works any better (just try and type, copy and paste or surf the net with a touchscreen – cute, but no mouse), and don’t appear to be capable of thinking far enough out of the box to create anything that might offer a viable alternative.

That’s it. We’re just not going to do it.

And then Mr Prentice pops up on the BBC, spouting the same brand of hyperbolic garbage that I’ve come to expect from research agencies and their analysts:

“Just look forward five years and computer screens will be built into the walls of our homes and that would make it difficult to drive with a mouse. That’s where all the new technology like multi touch and facial recognition comes in. This is where the computer stops being a computer and becomes part of a building.”

“Push things back 30 years and we would never have said we’d sit in front of a computer or that computers would hold all our music when everyone bought gramophones. Computers are not just computers anymore, they are part of our lives,” added Mr Prentice.”

Steve. I’m a technologist, and not for one moment do I believe the ‘computer screens built into the walls of our houses’ crap that you people continually spout. Before you head off making half-baked remarks about the future of our collective culture, can I suggest that you do some research. The mouse is 40 years old, and is representative of a genuine innovation. Everything that has come since with regard to the mechanics of human-computer interfaces (with the possible exception of the ‘pinch’ on the iPhone) is a copy of the actions made manifest by a mouse. That’s why it’s not going anywhere, and that’s why you’re dead wrong.

Now get back to school. They’re teaching history today. If you manage to pay attention you’ll see just how wrong your ‘30 years ago’ statement is.

Moron.

I have, in that time, been eating lots of fruit. And drinking a lot of water. These things are apparently designed to help flush the nicotine out of my system. I haven’t coughed up anything nasty yet (that’s supposed to happen soon), nor have I hallucinated black bears (that’s not supposed to happen).

I have had odd dreams though. Really odd dreams.

I offer the following from the other night. I’ve put it back together, and tried to describe what I was thinking (in the dream). Anyone care to explain this?

“A child that disappears, and then returns. This happens each generation. The son is now grownup, and insane and reports that his baby has vanished. Both parents look at each other. They know what is happening, and what it means.

A parent who hosts animals inside their skin. Deer leaping into blackness inside a housecoat.”

I’m obviously disturbed. Who knew?

“Tom really doesn’t feel well. e-sympathy gratefully recieved…” 11:27am

And was greeted with the following:

Graham Petch at 11:32am October 13
“pull yourself together man! stiff upper lip etc.”

Keith Jackson at 11:57am October 13
“Aren’t you Dr. Abba now? Can’t you prescribe yourself something? Unless of course you’re not a*real* doctor.”

Tom Abba at 12:11pm October 13
“My Doctorage is apparently of little defence. Damn it.”

Stephanie Blanchard at 7:51pm October 13
“…and you can’t spell received either! Get a grip man!”

And a wall post:

Andrew Crist wrote at 8:24pm
“Man up”

So, realising I wasn’t going to be receiving grapes and chicken soup, I followed that with:

“Tom Abba is thinking this sympathy business is overrated.”

And that engendered no responses whatsoever. Not even a question from Ms Blanchard as to the spelling of overrated.

Three days later and no grapes or soup having been received, I’m back at work. Twitter has recorded the following updates:

“brain has turned to mashed potato. Pass the salt please.”

“simongurr @tomabba How do you find Twhirl? Assuming it’s not responsible for the potatofication of your brain I might give it a try.”

“@simongurr Twhirl not at all bad. Although as it opens with the iMac and I leave it on the desktop, I haven’t looked for alternatives.”

“simongurr @tomabba Thanks. So many to choose from… BTW did you see J. Ives on stage with Jobs the other day? Carved from solid aluminium, that man.”

“@simongurr I didn’t – I think I was pretending to work while people discussed wedding plans in the kitchen. But managed to miss the keynote.”

And here we are. An odd week, and it’ll probably get odder. I can feel it in my bones.