Blog Archive: June 2020

Typing THE END!
Yesterday I typed the following phrase into a word document:

THE END!

As discerning readers may have already worked out for themselves, I typed this into the END of the document with the intent of properly notifying the reader that there was no more. A simple full stop would not be enough, capitalisation seemed REQUIRED, and I must say that even THAT was not sufficient on this occasion, hence the addtion of an exclamation mark. For LO! this was the ending of my latest NOVEL what I have written!

Regular visitors will recall that this is by no means the first such novel what have flowed from my princely pen. A couple of years ago I even SELF-PUBLISHED a book and then, through a very long process of re-writes and de-writes, I managed to sign up with a LITERAY AGENT. We then spent another WHOLE YEAR re-writing THAT book into a very different one which was sent off to Publishing Houses not long before The Current Situation commenced, since which the whole thing has Gone A Bit Quiet.

I also wrote TWO (2) other books around that time. One was a SEQUEL to the self-published book, and the other was a DYSTOPIAN SCI-FI affair. This Spring/Summer I had been planning to start re-writing the aforesaid SEQUEL, ready for the inevitable BIG SALE of the original book, but as things slowed down I realised that this might be a bit daft. What is the point of writing a SEQUEL to a book that nodody might ever read?

I thus turned my LITERARY EYE onto a whole OTHER writing project, and it is THAT what I have just finished writing. I do not, at this stage, want to go into too much details about what it is about for fear of JINXING it, but I will reveal that it is in fact a heavily re-written LITERARY ADAPTATION of something ELSE what I did a few years ago. It's been re-done to clearly be a kids book, with kids as the heroes throughout, and also to make a bit more sense AND to have some more gags in it, but I hope that when it is finally UNVEILED upon the word then people who liked the original will be pleased.

To be honest, this whole blog entry is just me being dead excitied to have finished it and trying not to say out loud what it actually IS. Sorry for only being about to tell you A Little Bit about it, hopefully before too long I can tell you A Little Bit More!

posted 11/6/2020 by MJ Hibbett
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The Childrens' Film Foundation in E20
How long have we been in The Current Situation now? Is it something like 10 weeks? Or were THE BEFORETIMES just an illusion? However long it's been, one thing I'm REALLY grateful for is that fact that we live right next to The Olympic Park, which has been a GRATE place to go most days for Mandatory Government Exercise. It is BIG and full of all sorts of different BITS, also WILDLIFE and, nowadays, KIDS.

There have always been KIDS in the park, but they've usually been young children taken there by their parents. Over the last couple of weeks though, since the weather's been nice and people have ventured out into the post-apocalyptic landscape a bit more, there have been noticeably more TEENAGERS. It seems that they have come over from nearby Stratford, LURED by the open space and especially by the HIRE BIKES, which they now pelt around in in large excitable groups, LARKING AROUND.

Apart from the generalised Are They Doing Social Distancing worry, there is somethig rather wonderful about it. Ever since we've lived here The Legacy Authorities have worried about how they can connect the park to Actual Stratford, but it's now clear that all they needed was a Global Pandemic, as LOADS of local people seem to have discovered it recently. It all feels like A Return To The 1970s as you wander around seeing Family Picnics taking place and, as i say, LOADS of Kids On Bikes. It feels being in a (very mildly) updated version of The Childrens' Film Foundation, as you see platoons of THE KIDS pedalling alongside the canal or down the Greenway, taking the piss out of each other and generally having GOOD CLEAN OUTDOOR FUN. It's as if they got completely sick of being stuck inside with their BORING families and discovered that this was a way to get out - and there's surely nothing more 1970s than that?

I hope that this all continues when/if things for Back To Normal, and that they have many summers of ADVENTURES and BOTTLES OF POP and SCABBY KNEES. The only downside of course, is for all those PROPERTY DEVELOPERS and CORRUPT COUNCILLORS whose evil schemes are about to get FOILED!

posted 10/6/2020 by MJ Hibbett
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New Song For Bandcamp Fees-Free Friday
After I DEBUTED A Museum Of One Thing on Museums Showoff a couple of weeks ago a few people said that they'd like to be able to download the song somehow. This, of course, was an excellent point and one which I really ought to have thought of in advance!

I was a bit miffed with myself about this, so when I saw that there was another Bandcamp Fees-Free Friday coming up (when, much as the title suggests, Bandcamp waive all their usual fees so all the CA$H goes to the artiste instead) I thought that this might be a good excuse to actually record the song properly. Well, to be honest, I MOSTLY thought "This is a good excuse to do that cover idea I thought of", and I did spend several happy hours using Conext-Aware Fill on Photoshop (which is LIKE MAGIC!) to create a design, but I ALSO spent NEARLY as long recording the actual song, which you can hear below:



I've made it Pay What You Want, so you can even download it for free if you like, and it'll be staying that way when Fees-Free Friday is over. It was a really nice, easy way to release a song, so I might do another one sometime too - all I need is an idea for a cover, and then I can work the rest out later!

posted 5/6/2020 by MJ Hibbett
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