h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I know what you mean. I work nights, and I just got up myself.

I joined hootoo a couple of years ago in order to teach myself html. I started out writing guide entries - I was out of work at the time, so I had a lot of time on my hands.

I used the entries as writing samples to get jobs - although with the best writing job I got, they were actually more impressed with my work on the Beta RPG. And then asked me to invent something similar for a school course.

Unfortunately, I don't have as much time to write EG entries now, because I'm working full-time and have writing jobs on the side. Doing the research takes too much time, because I'm too particular about getting it right. The rewrite process is too time-consuming, as well, because it involves dozens of amateur editors.

So I write fiction here, mostly, because it is relaxing, and gives me a chance to develop something new. I hope it entertains, sometimes.

I only ever manage to write a guide entry when it 'wants to come out' - if you know what I mean. The only other thing I manage to write is my column in .

That's a good way to write, I think, and a good reason. To write when you have something to say.

The hard part about doing things like that for a living is knowing that you have, say, two writing days in the week, and a topic that isn't overwhelmingly exciting...

Like: 'It's almost lunchtime, and I have to find a 'hook' about the Gold Standard.'

Writing a column puts you under time pressure, as well, doesn't it?

I imagine that to be difficult, having to write about a given subject.
The time pressure for my column isn't too bad, really, although I try to be topical if possible, which means I sometimes only start the writing on the deadline Sunday.

If I think of it, I take notes from things I discover during the time before the deadline, which helps my memory.

That gives you a reason for noticing things. Always good.

Oh, usually, I only intend to take notes, and then I forget about it.

Sometimes throwing the notes away is good, too. You just remember what you wrote (or something else).

I'm the 'visual' type, so having written something down does help to remember it, even if (as happens often) I find myself in the shop without my shopping list. I remember a good deal more than if I hadn't made the list at all.

Sort of an aide-memoire, paperless.

I just wish I had a photographic memory - then again, maybe not.

Depends on what your mind photographs, perhaps.<winkeye.

What kind of film you're using, the f-stop, etc...

Colour film.

Just imagine you would *have* to remember every bit you've ever read somewhere. Sometimes, it's really better to just forget things.

That would be terrible. A reason to stop reading and writing...

Yes, that's what I meant.

The only way to avoid that, would be to have somebody read things out to you. I bet the audio books would boom.

Cool idea.

I have lots of cool ideas - the problem is that I never make them work.

Oh, and hootoo's once again dead quiet - we're #10 on the FP top 20 conversations - and that at a rate of about two posts per day.

There must be something big going on somewhere.

Why did they all leave without telling us?

Maybe it's because I'm such a Partymuffel (partypooper)?

Or the life of a different kind of party?

Is there a German word for 'life of the party'? I can't think of one at the moment.