One last thing...

Bevie had been ill for some time and wasn't able to work, so his financial situation was increasingly difficult for him and his family. We're not able to send flowers for the funeral tomorrow and in any case the money can probably be put to better use.

Stacy had the wonderful idea of setting up a PayPal account to take donations for Bevie's family. If you'd like to give a donation as the last thing you can do for Bevie, then why not pop over now to Stacy's Cafe. The donation link is in her left hand sidebar. When the donations are in, Stacy will send a money order to Bevie's widow as after discussion with the family this was agreed to be most helpful to them.

It's all that's left for us to do now. You can do it here.

We never met

I can't help thinking about the charming book 84 Charing Cross Road. It's the correspondence between an American lady and an English bookseller, mostly about books. Sadly, they never met.

Just like me and Bevie. We only knew each other online for a year and a half but we got so much talking done in that time. When I checked back to see how long we'd been writing to each other I was amazed that it wasn't longer. We wrote every day. He was one of my closest friends. I'm finding it hard to take in that he's gone.

You may notice I'm not answering comments at the moment but I am reading them. That's about all I can manage for now.

Sad News

I heard today that my good friend Bevie James died in his sleep in the early hours of Thursday morning, 6th May. Many of you may know him from Evil Editor and from his numerous blogs. His son has asked me to let his online friends know what has happened.

Bevie was a warm-hearted man, full of caring for others and rather shy. He loved to write and stories just poured out from him.

He made a lot of friends online and inspired much warmth and affection.

He leaves a wife and son and I'm sure that your thoughts like mine will be with them. The funeral is on Saturday.

He is a great loss to us all.

How do you translate a picture?

On your left you have the UK cover of Jonathan Safran Foer's Everything is Illuminated and on the right the French cover. They look like two entirely different books to me.

The Guardian asks why book covers are reimagined in each country where a book is sold whereas album covers are the same the world over. I'm not convinced by their argument that

literary fiction is an easier sell in mainland Europe than in the UK or the US, so publishers there can be less overt in their attempts to grab the attention of customers

considering that the European (French) cover is also attention grabbing. Or maybe public breast fondling isn't unusual in France. Who can say?

The article is here. I'd be interested to know what you think.

Spelling

There's an amusing twist on Twain's plan to improve English spelling here. Well, it amused me!

Italian is naturally pretty much phonetic apart from knowing where to stress a word. English spelling is a nightmare to learn especially if you're learning it as a second language but I'd find it hard to recognise words if they were spelt fənetikly.

Would it be worth going to a sensible phonetic spelling for the sake of future readers? Or is our spelling too entrenched for that?

Caption competition

I thought it was time for some pussycat goodness.

Captions, anyone? No prizes except the admiration of your fellow blog readers.

Edited to add: the captions were so good, that I've put them into the main post. Thanks to everyone who contributed - you're all winners!

Fred decided to skip the main meal and go for the dessert. Old Kitty

"And another thing..." Richard

"Mom, I'm not drinking it if he gets his spit all over the dish!" Wendy Ramer

Dark cat is saying, "what do you mean you forgot the straws for the Vimto?" Whirlochre

Ginger, unfortunately, never saw the zombie apocalypse coming. jjdebenedictis

"Four dishes of food *and* the oven's on preheat? Don't you ever read fairytales? Idiot..." Mother (Re)produces

Fed up with dried food, Count Catula lunged for Ginger's jugular. Simon Kewin

It must be spring

The weather's turned cold and rainy here and I've had to go back to wearing a coat and shoes. But it must be spring, because look at the ducklings on our local pond! There were about ten of them. One kept rushing off on its own and being chased by the geese. It looked so cute skimming across the water with its feet going full pelt like it was on a pedalo.

Magic Study

Edited to add: copy has now gone.

Does anyone want a copy of Magic Study by Maria Snyder? It's book two in a trilogy. I've got two copies so one is free to a good home. Just let me know.

My mistake

When I first started going online I chose to use a nickname because most people did at the time; the internet was still new and shiny and most of us were a little wary of it. Then later on I didn't want my playing online to be accessible to people who knew me professionally as a counsellor.

More than ten years further on I see lots of people using their real names. And why not? I don't think I've ever written anything that would particularly embarrass me, so my caution was unjustified.

What bugs me is that I've got a whole online presence complete with logo, colour scheme and voice under the name fairyhedgehog and it will be absolutely no use to me at all if I ever write stories that are publishable. For a start, I didn't even invent the name: I got it from a Terry Pratchett book. That didn't matter when it was just the login for a few bookchat sites but now I'm beginning to regret it.

My dilemma is do I abandon ten years of establishing a reputation or do I just hope that nothing I write ever gets published?

Web design follow up

If you would like an author website but don't know where to start, Kate has good advice for you over at her blog.

If you remember, she offered some free web redesigns the other day, but she isn't able to set a whole website up from scratch for free so instead she's offering you advice so you can do it. In part one she tells you how to know whether you need a website and crucially what to put in it and what not to.

Many of her points about the characteristics of a professional website apply to everyone, not just aspiring authors, e.g.

• It is functional. It is clearly organized, easily navigable, there are no broken links, and it looks and behaves the way you expect it to on all major browsers.
• It is well-written. For the love of God, have it proofread.
  

Worth a visit.