Creating Memes

Creating Memes

I often used to wonder how people created those personalised memes you see on Facebook and suchlike. You know the kind of thing - an image behind some snappy text.

I thought I could probably do it myself using Photoshop or some such, but it seemed like a bit of hassle.

I was delighted, therefore, to discover ShareAsImage - a neat little browser add-on that makes the whole thing quick and easy. Best of all, it's free.  

Of course there is a version with more features that you can pay for - but why not have fun with the free version first?  Here are a couple I made earlier:

Just go to the site, follow the easy instructions to add it to your browser and start wasting time immediately.

Sneak preview - Cover of Delirium: The Rimbaud Delusion

Here it is - the super-duper official cover for

 Delirium: The Rimbaud Delusion.  

Isn't it wonderful? 

Created by JD Smith Design - feel free to shower praise in the comments section.


For news of release date and other information, sign up at the signy-up thing in the right hand column. No spam will ever come your way.

 

Flash 500 Humour Verse competition - results

The results are out for this quarter's Flash 500 Humour Verse competition judged by me.

First: Necromancer by Rob Mooney

Second: The Springtime of Our Discontent by Martin Parker

Third: Straight from the Horse's Mouth by Martin Parker

Thanks again to Lorraine Mace for giving me the opportunity to read these wonderful poems.

Inspiration for Delirium: The Rimbaud Delusion PART FIVE

Inspiration for 

Delirium: The Rimbaud Delusion

PART FIVE 

Terence Tanfield 

Terence Tanfield was a controversial figure amongst beta readers of the novel. Some loved him, some hated him. Some said he did not belong in the book at all. 

There may be some truth in this last viewpoint. Terence Tanfield could be removed without affecting the main story of Delirium: The Rimbaud Delusion. I believe, however, that he does add something important to the novel. 

Terence Tanfield is a cynical old man who manages at last to find some tranquillity. To me he is a reflection both of what Rimbaud might have been like had he lived to old age, and of what Andrea could have become without Albert’s intervention. 

Terence Tanfield muses on the big questions of life and though he believes in nothing, cannot quite help himself from wishing that he did.

~

Excerpt from

Delirium: The Rimbaud Delusion

Terence Tanfield's Blog

Still on the Hunt for the Spiritual...

I thought it was all over this morning. The End.

     Brain was still functioning, just, but the old bones declined to join in the fun. Thought I was going to have to wait for what’s-er-name, little blonde bird. Nursey. She comes to get me up and get me ready but I always beat her to it. Francesca Hutton, Or Fran-tchess-ka Uh’un, as she says, spitting it out with a great smacking of tongue and stopping of glottis. As if she’s tasting her own name and finding it unpleasant. Managed to shuffle my bits together before she turned up though, and rose to greet the dawn. Deo Gratis!

     Decided to go through all my files again in case I’ve missed something. There are clues in there; there have to be. One day—is this a vain hope?—one day I’ll find something that will lead me to the prize. I know they went back to France. The papers. After their sojourn in Gairmany, Düsseldorf or Dresden or wherever it was.

     I have wind of them later, being sold at auction. Where is that note? Here: A packet of documents changed hands in 1952 for an undisclosed sum. They must be the same ones. There can’t be two sets of missing Rimbaud manuscripts doing the rounds.

     It’s not a lot to go on. Tenuous. Still, a suggestion that the chase is not in vain. That somewhere, at some time, some bloody documents did indeed exist.

     Fran-tchess-ka left me some soup. Well, she opened the bloody tin and sloshed it into the pan. Down chew forget it Mr T, she squeaks, yoonow wotchor laike. Carer, that’s what she is. Not a nurse. Employed to sling the gaga into their wheelchairs of a morning. To tyke em dahner shops for a breffa fresh air. And mop up their drool. I have not yet resorted to drooling. 

 

 ~

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What if? Inspiration for Rimbaud novel Part 4

INSPIRATION FOR 

Delirium: The Rimbaud Delusion

PART FOUR

What if...

As well as telling the story of Andrea’s involvement with Rimboy and Albert (see earlier blogs), Delirium: The Rimbaud Delusion also tells the story of the lost manuscript itself. 

My inspiration for this was again a What if?

 

 

What if the manuscript of La Chasse Spirituelle had lain forgotten somewhere—in Madame Verlaine’s lawyer’s office for instance?

What if it had been accidentally or incidentally saved from destruction?

What if it been hidden away again and then rediscovered?

I wanted to imagine a history for the manuscript and to show how it could have been handed down through the years.

I also wanted to tell the story of each person who had possession of it and how it affected them.

  

This idea inspired the consecutive stories of :

• Jean Martins, the legal clerk who saves the manuscript from destruction; 

• Simone Vennard, who discovers it hidden M. Martins' rooms; 

• Aurore and Dora, lesbian lovers who acquire it in the twenties;

and 

• Charlie Dick, a private eye who attempts to track it down in the fifties for his client, Babette Beaulieu. 

Each of these strands is written in a different style, in voices which I hope are true to the characters and the type of stories they are telling.

Following the What if trail is often a good way to get inspiration for a novel. 

Try it.

It worked for me.

~

Delirium: The Rimbaud Delusion will be published in autumn 2014 in association with Triskele Books.