Yesterday, apparently, was National Authors' Day. Which nation?
I'm guessing the nation in question was the US, but I don't see why it shouldn't be a global authors' day.
Anyway, I learnt it was National Authors' Day from Joe Pulver. He was suggesting, commendably, that we support the writers we enjoy by writing a review and posting the link. So I did. Well, I wrote the review, of Nina Allan's The Silver Wind on Amazon, but it took a while for the review to upload, and then I edited out some typos, and that took longer, and then it was no longer National Authors' Day. But anyway, here's the link to the review.
I don't actually find it easy writing reviews. You might think I would, considering the way I spend my time, but I don't. This is not actually the first Amazon review I've written – I think it's the second, although this is the only one that shows up under my name for some reason. I feel like I should write more online reviews, as I do feel strongly that living writers should be supported. I'm pretty sick of the old joke about dying being a great career move.
I hardly know if I should mention this here, and I don't really know if I'm right or if I'm just 'being pessimistic', but it feels to me like we have entered an age of virulent philistinism. Since when? Hard to say. The 21st Century generally feels like a golden turd to me. Having said that, it's only this century that I've really started to get published (if that's any measure of anything). Anyway, since I'm pretty sure that philistinism thrives on opposition, I don't really know what to do about it, apart from forging blindly ahead in my usual way.
Do you know what I mean, though?
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