Super Highway

There are lots of plans going on in the UK at the moment about creating a high speed train network to link London with other parts of the country, mainly the northwest. (HS2, it's called). This plan is stuttering along, held up by enquiries into its needs and the effects on the environment and on the people living close to the proposed route. The fairness of some householders getting compensation when someone else living just fractionally further away, and I'm talking about mere yards here, suffering the same disruption getting nothing
    At the same time the country is struggling to keep up with the growing demand placed on it by broadband and internet technology. Keeping in mind lots of things, including things the HMRC wants you to do, need to be and can only be done on line these days. Most broadband, in many parts of the country, still runs off old fashioned copper telephone wires which are not up to providing the speeds that most providers can offer. If you are lucky enough to have a cable connection then faster speeds are available. But if you are in a remote area, or even a small village just of the main cable network, then the cable companies do not want to know you.
    Now, I'm not speaking on behalf of the individuals who might want to play endless games on their computers or watch instantly downloaded films, although these people would benefit. I am speaking on behalf of businesses who want to boost trade, to profit themselves and the country, because, let's be honest, businesses are in existence to make money as well as provide jobs.
    Obviously it would take time and a great deal of money to connect every home and every business to a cable run network of broadband. And money, even government money, is limited. So what makes more economic sense? Building a high speed train line that will connect certain cities or connecting the whole country to the Internet via cable?
    Who stands to benefit from high speed trains and how?
    The supporters of high speed trains say that business will benefit because people will be able to get to meetings quicker. But the train will only take you from one main line station to another. At each end of the journey you have to get to and from the station which will quite likely negate the time saved by the speed of the train. It still makes a long day travelling with the possibility of overnight stays. And that only helps the people who are actually in the UK to start with. So any benefits are limited to the people who want to go to the Capital.
    Who benefits from a decent Internet service?
    Almost everyone. From businesses who are required to do all their Government related work on line, to anyone who can order their prescriptions from the doctor without making a phone call.
    Businesses benefit because they can operate from anywhere and yet deal with the whole world. There is nothing to stop a pottery firm in Stoke On Trent selling to Australia and South America, having meetings with their representatives all over the world at the same time, with no travel expenses, no loss of time, the most inconvenient thing might be someone has to stay up all night to accommodate the time difference. This not only speeds up business but cuts down on the emissions caused by travelling, hence doing a little to save fuel and the climate.
    This is already happening in some forward thinking companies but there is no reason why it cannot be extended even further. And even if we are not talking about global business, decent Internet means people from different parts of the country can work together without having to travel to meetings.  More people could work from home, cutting out that awful slog to work every day, giving them more time for family or other commitments.
    Already companies are operating where the staff have never actually met face to face and shaken hands. People are getting used to being part of a global community with social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. Where once upon a time your circle of friends consisted of the people you met at work, school or other local places, we now share our lives with people around the world. Whether they are real 'friends' remains to be seen, but they are contacts who provide opportunities.
    So imagine the possibilities for all businesses, large and small, if they could have reliable Internet connections to the world.
   And surely this would be cheaper than building a new train line, disrupting the lives of the people living on the route. And if the main telephone companies were given the funding to employ and train enough people around the country to accomplish this, it could be done a lot quicker and with less hassle than building a new train line. Plus this would provide employment which equals taxes for the government.
    So please Department of Transport forget HS2. We don't need to travel to do business any more. The technology is available to have all sorts of conference calls and videos meetings. I do believe you can even create virtual people now for those who feel they need a physical presence to make things real. Trains, no matter how passionate you are about them, belong to the 19th century way of doing things. The island of the UK is small, it doesn't have the wide open spaces of Europe and other continents. Bring this country into the 21st century and make sure everyone can get superfast broadband and then we might see this country grow again.

New Author Ryan Spier

A Big Blue Hour Publishing welcome to Ryan Spier the latest author to join us.

Out today Ryan's first book Postcards from Berlin, the story of a boy forced to fight to the end of the war against his wishes and beliefs.

Get your copy here

Check out Ryan's page for full details.

Snow Blind - Released today

Released today - Patrick Mulready's Sci-fi short story Snow Blind.
Full details on Patrick's page or Here for .com and
Here for the UK.

Expanding Boundaries

So far Blue Hour Publishing has brought you adventure, mystery, thrillers, horror and film reviews.
Today we launch a book by our author Kristen Stone which takes a look into how becoming a Buddhist has influenced her life.
Available at all the usual sites on Amazon including

Amazon co.uk
Amazon .com

And don't forget ALL Blue Hour Publishing books are available from the Kindle Lending Library if you are an Amazon Prime member.

Why we should edit

I have been reading a book by an Indie author, won’t mention the author or the title of the book, but it was one I came across by chance. I really enjoyed the story – but oh the typos, if ever there were an example of a book that needed an editor this was it.

   I’m not talking about grammatical errors, although there were a couple – ‘that’ that should have been ‘who’, the odd ‘was’ that should have been ‘were’ (always a difficult one that, makes me stop and think every time I use the word, but in this case it was a definite plural not one of those conditional clauses that make you scratch your head and think was/were? As in my opening paragraph – I think I’ve got it right, but could be wrong.)

    No the writing was pretty much fine, very good, in fact. But the book was plagued with bad formatting, missing first line indents, back to front speech marks, and speech marks that did not need to be there. Now some people say typos don’t really matter and I will admit it is quite likely that sometimes even the editor will miss one or two, even miss the odd homonym, homophone or synonym. But this book had far too many it slapped of sloppiness.

    I know Indie authors can’t afford to pay professional editors for their services. It is hard enough to make money from your book let alone make enough to pay for something to be edited, especially if it your first. So what do you do?

    First step is to make sure you know WHAT you are doing. I know it is a trial reading all those articles about ‘how to write’ but there are some basic rules that a writer should know. I won’t list them all here because that is not why I am writing this, but one simple thing everyone should know is how to type dialogue.

     It is easy if your characters are only speaking one or two sentences at a time. Speech marks at the beginning and end of the speech, new line when starting a new character’s speech. But if one character is speaking in paragraphs do not put speech marks at the end of each paragraph. Put them at the beginning of every new paragraph and then a closing one at the end of the whole speech. That way the reader knows the same person is speaking all the way through.

    It is up to the author when/if or where they put ‘he said’. Once a thread of conversation has begun, especially if only between two people, it should be clear who is speaking. If there are more than two people it might be necessary to say who is speaking to make it clear to the reader.

    It doesn’t matter whether you use single or double speech marks so long as the use is consistent throughout the work. For many years industry standard has been to use single speech marks but I’m sure that schools still teach children to use double. Either that or the host of Indie authors publishing today were taught way back, as most seem to use double. What IS important is that they are facing the right way. If you inadvertently put a space between the speech mark and the first letter of the speech the mark will appear as a closing mark like ” this. I even edited something for someone whose computer didn’t seem to understand forward facing speech marks and even when I tried to type them it put them in the wrong way round. Obviously something got imbedded in the file that I could not get rid of. I had to copy the right marks from another file and then paste them in the correct place throughout the text.

    So what point am I trying to make here? ALWAYS check your work before putting it live. Not the day after you have finished it. Leave it a week, then check. Let your brain forget what you thought you typed so that it sees what you actually typed. Try to find a friend who reads slowly. It is so easy to skim read something but so many things are missed when you do that. That way you might produce a book that you can be proud of, not only with the story but with the way it looks.

    Right, better get off and read through the mss I’ve just finished before it goes live and I find it full of mistakes!

Book Junkies' Journal

Our author Kristen Stone is featured on the new Book Junkies' Journal. Read this fantastic article and learn more about Kristen HERE

Check Out This Interview

No, not on this blog. Blue Hour author Kristen Stone as been interviewed by Tricia Drammeh on her website Authors to Watch.
Read this insightful interview and find out what inspires Kristen to write.