There be pirates, there be...

Ooh-Arrrgh, me 'earties, I've been pirated. I've found a Spanish website that's offering Burying Brian download as a free PDF file.

And I don't know whether to laugh that someone actually thinks my writing worth stealing, or to cry that someone is illegally giving away a book that took five years of my life to create.

The website is completely in Spanish, and as far as I can see there's not even a method to contact them and complain (I'm sure I could whip up a half-decent bemoan at them using Google Translate).

Take that! There are penguins in Spain, aren't there?

On the legitimate publishing front, my story, The Women Who Point at Men's Hearts, has been taken for the winter edition of Sein und Werden. This was originally written for one of the Shock Totem flash competitions as The Man Who Pointed at the Sun, and didn't poll a single vote (oh how genius so often goes unnoticed, eh? :-)

Also, The Perils of War and Death According to the Common People of Hansom Street is now published in Black Static issue 31, which I understand is imminently available to the unwashed masses.

A jolly trip...

I'm just back from six days in Poland. I love Poland at this time of year—it's cold, but it's a dry cold, a different cold from that of soggy Britain, which grips the lungs and tubes unmercifully.

We sat outside drinking cold beer under heated parasols, draped in thoughtfully provided blankets for the legs. It could easily have been summer except the skies were winter-dark and star filled. The chat was good, and being 'close season' there weren't too many tourists to bustle with, which made for a nice, relaxing break. Just the job, really.

The Web is a little smaller, today...

I've lost my website. Those terrible terrors at British Telecom have pulled the plug. The web hosting came free with my original contract. I think the word free probably worried BT--they're a huge corporate conglomerate, so such a word is likely to stick in their craw, poor lambs. And clearly they'd decided enough is enough and if I want web space I shall jolly well have to pay for it like everyone else.

Hmff, the indignity of it all.

And now I'm not sure what to do. I mean, do I really need a website? It wasn't exactly buzzing with eager visitors anyway. Is a blog enough to post the odd promotional stuff? Can one turn a blog like this into a virtual website (technically, I mean)?  Or should I look to proper web hosting elsewhere?

I shall have to have a think.