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<title>Karen Traviss RSS Feed</title><link>http://www.karentraviss.com/index.html</link><description>Author&#x27;s blog</description><dc:language>en</dc:language><dc:creator>Karen Traviss</dc:creator><dc:rights>&#xa9;Karen Traviss 2012</dc:rights><dc:date>2012-04-30T16:10:42+01:00</dc:date><admin:generatorAgent rdf:resource="http://www.realmacsoftware.com/" />
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<lastBuildDate>Sun, 31 Jul 2011 22:04:57 +0100</lastBuildDate><item><title>Time to buy THE SLAB. Just do it.</title><dc:creator>Karen Traviss</dc:creator><dc:subject>Blog  - adult content </dc:subject><dc:date>2012-04-30T16:10:42+01:00</dc:date><link>http://www.karentraviss.com/blog/files/e9af913ae1c87918a3a5ddf0635f5a95-22.html#unique-entry-id-22</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.karentraviss.com/blog/files/e9af913ae1c87918a3a5ddf0635f5a95-22.html#unique-entry-id-22</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[I confess to being a bit confused by all this, but as far as I can tell THE SLAB is out in paperback in the UK on Thursday May 3, in e-book in the US on the same day, and in hardcover in the US on May 8.   Well, whatever order it's happening in -- there's no excuse for not buying it in some format or another from one of these fine retailers. ...  There isn't.   I now have a Nakaya pen habit to support,  as well as a growing pash for Design-Y notebooks, so get out there and start purchasing to keep me in the upmarket stationery supplies to which I've become accustomed. 


There's also Danitrio.    Just sayin'. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>The Slab in my hand...</title><dc:creator>Karen Traviss</dc:creator><dc:subject>Blog  - adult content </dc:subject><dc:date>2012-04-06T21:14:25+01:00</dc:date><link>http://www.karentraviss.com/blog/files/123f81061d42b8bc3a6f3322a46d6d88-21.html#unique-entry-id-21</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.karentraviss.com/blog/files/123f81061d42b8bc3a6f3322a46d6d88-21.html#unique-entry-id-21</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Lovely Ed at Simon & Schuster sent me an early copy of GEARS OF WAR: THE SLAB yesterday and the cover is very tasteful in the flesh. ...  There are a few laughs, but while this is a story of indomitable human spirit in the face of misery and degradation, it's not going to leave you with any warm fuzzy feelings. 

...I haven't given up collecting; I've just decided to focus on Japanese pens in future and urushi ones in particular. ...  I hadn't realised how much more until I laid out all the pens I'm selling and beheld the table covered with ranks of insufficiently-used nibbed waifs.   There were, I confess, an awful lot of them: curious and lovely things, like a 1930s Doric with an adjustable nib, an Onoto under-over feed, a museum piece from the 1870s with a vast nib and a wooden ink chamber, some Esterbrooks, and lots of 51s and Snorkels.  

...Sorting them out did reunite me with the lovely Danitrio Brillante (one of only 200 made) and my old-style Omas Paragon (also no longer made) with a Mottishawed nib, neither of which I remembered I had. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>74 days</title><dc:creator>Karen Traviss</dc:creator><dc:subject>Blog  - adult content </dc:subject><dc:date>2012-04-02T18:03:41+01:00</dc:date><link>http://www.karentraviss.com/blog/files/b77b3b7c29dc65e174f2dad6d7508e77-19.html#unique-entry-id-19</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.karentraviss.com/blog/files/b77b3b7c29dc65e174f2dad6d7508e77-19.html#unique-entry-id-19</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[It's the 30th anniversary of the start of the Falklands War.    I can add very little to that, other than to say I don't forget. ...  A member of my family worked around the clock to prepare one of the ships.   People I know came back from it.    Stories the survivors and widows told me stay with me to this day, some of those stories uplifting and some of them heartbreaking.    It lasted 74 days, but if we forget those short weeks, and those who died in them and were damaged irreparably by them, then we're fools.
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title> What gets rewarded gets done.</title><dc:creator>Karen Traviss</dc:creator><dc:subject>Blog  - adult content </dc:subject><dc:date>2012-03-23T08:24:58+00:00</dc:date><link>http://www.karentraviss.com/blog/files/c45f6461812fdcbc8a8ec655f74e43c2-18.html#unique-entry-id-18</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.karentraviss.com/blog/files/c45f6461812fdcbc8a8ec655f74e43c2-18.html#unique-entry-id-18</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Cop dramas are my fave form of entertainment, and in the couple of hours I have spare a week I try to catch up on the best ones, but I can live with the fact that not everything in life is the way I'd like it to be, because I'm old enough to vote. 

...For me, cop shows that personally involve the cop in the crime have to make a thematic point of it (vice squad cop gets involved with tart,  undercover cop gets in too deep etc) or else they've jumped the proverbial shark. ...  Okay, the point of DSD may well be that having a troubled sexual past, the heroine indulges in risky behaviour that results in getting too close to perves, but as a viewer all I see is a silly, unprofessional cow who just isn't credible and makes me want to change channels. 

...What I didn't do was have a massive online nerd tanty and demand that the producers remade the shows to my personal specifications, because, y'know, that's the kind of thing that makes you look like an utter tit.


...To be honest, I'm not sure that I would have explored the case -- I don't know if ME3 has a good ending (endings) or not and I don't have the time to find out for myself.  

...But as any mother will tell you, when little Johnnie has an embarrassing tantrum in the supermarket and lies screaming in the middle of the breakfast cereal aisle hammering his heels and soiling his pants, the last thing you do is buy him the pile of sugar-coated artificial colourings that he's demanding. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Sequel to Glasslands</title><dc:creator>Karen Traviss</dc:creator><dc:subject>Blog  - adult content </dc:subject><dc:date>2012-03-21T16:50:28+00:00</dc:date><link>http://www.karentraviss.com/blog/files/3a7d1dcbe7e0727e2800857137848010-17.html#unique-entry-id-17</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.karentraviss.com/blog/files/3a7d1dcbe7e0727e2800857137848010-17.html#unique-entry-id-17</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[The sequel to HALO: GLASSLANDS is out on October 2 and it's called THE THURSDAY WAR.


In case you don't know, a Thursday war is the Royal Navy's old term for a sea-training or pre-deployment exercise at sea, because they often started on a  Thursday.    How that fits in with the shady carryings-on of Kilo-5 relates to UNSC Infinity - God bless her and all who connive and plot in her.]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Characterisation demands planning</title><dc:creator>Karen Traviss</dc:creator><dc:subject>Blog  - adult content </dc:subject><dc:date>2012-02-27T13:11:59+00:00</dc:date><link>http://www.karentraviss.com/blog/files/bdd85687e6a872ac92155bfc8c51ae66-16.html#unique-entry-id-16</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.karentraviss.com/blog/files/bdd85687e6a872ac92155bfc8c51ae66-16.html#unique-entry-id-16</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Sometimes that's factual stuff - Character X worked for Organisation Y and so would have known fact Z, so don't build a story on withholding that from the reader - but frequently it's about the mental fabric of the characters themselves,  about their family and upbringing. 

...You have an indefinite run usually with no firm planned end in sight for the story arcs, so you can't plan the character arcs in every detail: the writing team will change frequently over the life of the series, which can easily be thirty or forty years, not weeks:  actors will come and go for all kinds of reasons: and you have to churn out several shows a week.  

...But there are some basics of characterisation that you should always bear in mind so that you don't end up with characters who suddenly change their fundamental nature, and not in a good or managed way.


...If you've never revealed in your character's thoughts that he has a brother, then nailing one on halfway through the series or sequel is going to jar at best or stand out like a sore and rather dumb thumb at worst.


...Unless the point is to suddenly reveal the character as not what they seem - and that's something you can never achieve if you're showing what's happening inside their head, unless you take the delusion route -  then retrofitting the fundamental family dynamics stuff just doesn't work.


...Work with the character, follow their natural flow, and ramp up the drama along the way by thinking smarter about where their family set-up and psychology would take them rather than grabbing for the first relative or secret you can think of and squeezing that square peg into a round hole that it was never designed to fit. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Back to basics</title><dc:creator>Karen Traviss</dc:creator><dc:subject>Blog  - adult content </dc:subject><dc:date>2012-02-13T16:12:36+00:00</dc:date><link>http://www.karentraviss.com/blog/files/770a5a00945401785f62a3139a5d87af-15.html#unique-entry-id-15</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.karentraviss.com/blog/files/770a5a00945401785f62a3139a5d87af-15.html#unique-entry-id-15</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Some of you probably remember that I was never exactly keen on Twitter, and that I didn&rsquo;t so much embrace it as hold its limp, clammy hand in a weak, disinterested kind of way until I could let go when I was no longer under external pressure to do it.  ...  Rather than pull the plug on Twitter now that I&rsquo;ve evaluated it and decided it&rsquo;s not earning its keep, I&rsquo;m going to go back to my blog and let a clever piece of software Tweet the link instead. 


...For my part,  responding on Twitter is exactly like getting e-mails - it&rsquo;s not a broader discussion and I get asked the same questions multiple times because few people click on through and follow the whole exchange, or check back through the entire timeline. 

...If you followed me to ask questions or generally make contact, you can click on the CONTACT ME link on the right-hand menu here and talk to me by e-mail. 

...A blog requires more time to read, and digesting it isn&rsquo;t something you can usually do on your iPhone under the table while you&rsquo;re in a boring meeting.    But I&rsquo;m happier not Tweeting because it&rsquo;s just not me, not at all, and the effort required to find stuff to tweet is greater than blogging when I&rsquo;ve got something concrete to communicate. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Fun with a sock</title><dc:creator>Karen Traviss</dc:creator><dc:subject>Blog  - adult content </dc:subject><dc:date>2012-02-12T22:27:08+00:00</dc:date><link>http://www.karentraviss.com/blog/files/Animex%202012.html#unique-entry-id-13</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.karentraviss.com/blog/files/Animex%202012.html#unique-entry-id-13</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[It&rsquo;s one of those experiences I&rsquo;ll look back on one day and think: now that that changed the way I worked.   Where else could you sit down to dinner with a group of animators and level designers and get a masterclass in puppetry from a former Muppets and Fraggle Rock puppeteer? 

...The festival has a heavyweight cast of speakers from the most interesting parts of the game and animation world as well as an audience of very smart students, and I&rsquo;m still marvelling at a rather clever game demo from a group of Norwegians who sat down to discuss it with me.   I wish I hadn&rsquo;t run out of time in the informal sessions -- I could have kicked ideas around with students for a week and never felt bored. ...  Animex went a long way towards topping up my depleted tanks of enthusiasm, and I think it&rsquo;s the first time in ages that I felt like writing something for the hell of it rather than because I&rsquo;d signed a contract and had to. 


...It&rsquo;ll take me weeks to process all the nuggets I picked up, but just spending a week with top-class people whose skills are different from mine and who love their craft was a massive tonic. 
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Best thing on the box</title><dc:creator>Karen Traviss</dc:creator><dc:subject>Blog  - adult content </dc:subject><dc:date>2012-01-26T22:02:05+00:00</dc:date><link>http://www.karentraviss.com/blog/files/5f3464ba1c51149079c87c89d97ee6ca-12.html#unique-entry-id-12</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.karentraviss.com/blog/files/5f3464ba1c51149079c87c89d97ee6ca-12.html#unique-entry-id-12</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[If you&rsquo;re not watching Eternal Law on ITV (that&rsquo;s UK television, although I know folks in the US who manage to see it) then you&rsquo;re missing something special.


It&rsquo;s by the guys who wrote Life On Mars (the real UK version, not the hideously stupid US remake) and Ashes To Ashes, and if anything it&rsquo;s even better.   Okay, the same team did Bonekickers, which was shockingly bad, but I get the feeling they weren&rsquo;t actually responsible for what appeared on screen.  ...  If I had to choose between watching Forbrydelsen and this series for some hypothetical reason, it would be a very tough call. 

...It&rsquo;s about barristers (trial lawyers) who happen to be angels, but it isn&rsquo;t the usual mawkishly preachy crud I associate with angel-based fiction. ...  You have to have a soft spot for angels who go up and sit on the roof of York Minster to have a smoke and drink a few bottles of red.
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Testify&#x21; The Book of Barriers.</title><dc:creator>Karen Traviss</dc:creator><dc:subject>Blog  - adult content </dc:subject><dc:date>2011-10-05T20:07:39+01:00</dc:date><link>http://www.karentraviss.com/blog/files/Book%20of%20Barriers.html#unique-entry-id-11</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.karentraviss.com/blog/files/Book%20of%20Barriers.html#unique-entry-id-11</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[&ldquo;I've done it the other way where I've been presented with what I call a book of barriers &ndash; you always get to a certain point where you say, 'you know by doing this you've closed off that?&rsquo;&rdquo;


...Just as the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath, the story bible was made to help the storyteller tell the story, not to strangle it to death, stymie the writer, and ultimately kill the joy and glory of a tale.   Which is why I&rsquo;m so unwilling to feed the wiki culture, where fans pursue me for detail that hasn&rsquo;t even been determined and get miffed when I won&rsquo;t give them definitive information that actually doesn&rsquo;t really exist yet. ...  By all means enjoy your hobby - which seems less about enjoying fiction that extracting data from it, if I might &ldquo;opine&rdquo; -  but writers don&rsquo;t owe wiki editors explanations or content. 

...Learn to spot how much is enough to get on with the story, and add no more - and if you do, don&rsquo;t treat it like holy gospel that can&rsquo;t be challenged or changed. ...  It might or might not make your product better, and frequently it won&rsquo;t if you change keystone elements of the story, but it&rsquo;s not real, and therefore you can rewrite it.
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>The creator/consumer barrier</title><dc:creator>Karen Traviss</dc:creator><dc:subject>Blog  - adult content </dc:subject><dc:date>2011-09-27T08:14:41+01:00</dc:date><link>http://www.karentraviss.com/blog/files/The%20creator-%20consumer%20barrier.html#unique-entry-id-10</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.karentraviss.com/blog/files/The%20creator-%20consumer%20barrier.html#unique-entry-id-10</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[So some folks accept my creative process - that I absolutely have to stay one side of the consumer/creator line or the other - even if they don&rsquo;t understand it, and some refuse to accept it can possibly be.    It really pisses some people off that I volunteer the information that I don&rsquo;t read novels or play games*, as if they can even know from what I write that I don&rsquo;t, or as if it&rsquo;s somehow part of the deal the writer has with audience. 

...I had to shove myself back across that line where the story has to be born, and use my grounding technique: imagine this is a real world, happening to real people, and imagine what&rsquo;s going on their minds as this is happening to them. ...  And then I was back in the world where I have to operate creatively: where I have to live through those fictional events as if the characters are real, living, breathing, feeling, human beings, and experience what they experience, and describe it. 


...For you to feel it through the filter of paper or pixels or game, then it has to be a high concentration of reality and feeling to make it into your mind and put you in the character&rsquo;s moment. 

...It&rsquo;s just a way to convey what I felt on behalf of a character who doesn&rsquo;t exist outside of a strange unspoken agreement between you and me to believe they&rsquo;re real for a few hours. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Peer pressure</title><dc:creator>Karen Traviss</dc:creator><dc:subject>Blog  - adult content </dc:subject><dc:date>2011-09-26T13:48:27+01:00</dc:date><link>http://www.karentraviss.com/blog/files/7f79c8fc6d84544ca756098ac8ec0834-9.html#unique-entry-id-9</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.karentraviss.com/blog/files/7f79c8fc6d84544ca756098ac8ec0834-9.html#unique-entry-id-9</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[Yes, I&rsquo;m tweeting now.   Against my better judgment, but when you&rsquo;re literally surrounded by Cliff Bleszinki, Rod Fergusson AND Greg Mitchell, who makes the Master Chief look like a short-arse, and told it really would be a very good idea to relent and bloody well sign up NOW, then there&rsquo;s nowhere left to run.   I was in a weak moment. ...  And I was so pleased with the way the game had been received that I would have said yes to anything right then, so I just handed my phone to Rod and let him corrupt my media purity.


So let&rsquo;s see how it goes.  @karentraviss  And it does no harm for any writer to learn how to say things in 140 characters or less, I suppose.   Welcome back to the lost art of the telegram.
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>The best of times</title><dc:creator>Karen Traviss</dc:creator><dc:subject>Blog  - adult content </dc:subject><dc:date>2011-09-17T11:46:41+01:00</dc:date><link>http://www.karentraviss.com/blog/files/The%20best%20of%20times.html#unique-entry-id-8</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.karentraviss.com/blog/files/The%20best%20of%20times.html#unique-entry-id-8</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[I loved it from the first frame of the first trailer I saw without even knowing what it was - or what it would become for me - back in 2006: I have continued to love it through four years of solid slog, laughs, and occasional hair-tearing moments: I have loved it while working in all its media formats,  as novels, comics, and game: and now the story arc has reached its fruition. 


...A book is just mine, a solitary thing that I produce several times a year and can keep producing until they nail down the lid: I&rsquo;m interested in sales numbers, naturally, because I&rsquo;m a money-grubbing bitch and these Smythson handbags don&rsquo;t pay for themselves, but if someone doesn&rsquo;t like a book, it doesn&rsquo;t bother me because I know I&rsquo;ve worked my arse off on it, I can look myself in the eye and say I gave it my best shot,  and enough people will like it to keep me in the purchasing habits to which I&rsquo;ve become accustomed. ...  But I don&rsquo;t care if they&rsquo;re good or bad, because I used to be a reviewer (movies) in my early journo days, and I know what goes into that particular pork pie, so I just don&rsquo;t look at them. 

...I was already aware of the media response, obviously, because I&rsquo;d been doing promo stuff in the run-up to the release, but just seeing Gears 3 getting the kudos it deserved - in a paper that happened to be sitting there - gave me a football moment: my team had won the cup. 

...I&rsquo;ve worked on some projects where the primary product has been mediocre or the people working on it haven&rsquo;t cared much about it, but I&rsquo;ve kept my end up and made sure the product I&rsquo;ve been responsible for has been the very best I could make it. ...  But when you work on something that&rsquo;s solid quality in every aspect,  like Gears, where you know that everyone on the team is as committed to it as you are and that team is made up of the very best people in the business, then it&rsquo;s pure, unalloyed satisfaction.  ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Xboxing (Gears 3 event herogram)</title><dc:creator>Karen Traviss</dc:creator><dc:subject>Blog  - adult content </dc:subject><dc:date>2011-09-08T11:58:11+01:00</dc:date><link>http://www.karentraviss.com/blog/files/Xboxing.html#unique-entry-id-7</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.karentraviss.com/blog/files/Xboxing.html#unique-entry-id-7</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[I spent yesterday at Shoreditch Studios doing the UK media preview of Gears of War 3, which, unless you&rsquo;ve been living under a rock for the last year, you&rsquo;ll know is on sale on September 20 and is a thing of beauty and grace which you must buy.   I say that not only because I wrote it,  as false modesty isn&rsquo;t my style any more than it&rsquo;s Baird&rsquo;s, but because it also happens to be true. 

...Anyway, I mention the media preview because it was one of those events where you see PR at its best. 

...I am, as many of you know, an old spin doc as well as a former journo, so I&rsquo;m doubly unforgiving of slack PR or sloppy event/ press management. ...  The lovely guys at Xbox UK and JCPR (part of Edelman UK) laid on a truly excellent day and impressed the arse off me. 

...Clear instructions for participants (i.e. the likes of me) and hands-on minding by event staff to make sure I&rsquo;m gainfully employed and adding value during the gig. ]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>GLASSLANDS galleys</title><dc:creator>Karen Traviss</dc:creator><dc:subject>Blog  - adult content </dc:subject><dc:date>2011-08-10T15:17:19+01:00</dc:date><link>http://www.karentraviss.com/blog/files/Glasslands%20galleys.html#unique-entry-id-5</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.karentraviss.com/blog/files/Glasslands%20galleys.html#unique-entry-id-5</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[So the galleys of HALO: GLASSLANDS are done and dusted, and the book is now grinding through the production machine to emerge as a shiny TPB  on October 25.   If you&rsquo;re going to HaloFest in Seattle in a couple of weeks&rsquo; time, then you might even get a few spoilers from me if I&rsquo;m in one of my rare good moods. 

...And thank you to all those readers who&rsquo;ve enquired about my welfare in strife-torn Blighty. ...  But it&rsquo;s business as usual here, and I&rsquo;m not only from Portsmouth, I also have my own baseball bat.    NSFW moment of the day: as ever, the Daily Mash sums it up so much better than the so-called real media, who seem to be standing on a chair and screaming like girls. ...  You get paid a hell of a lot more than the average British soldier, who has to face much more dangerous bastards than 16-year-old yobs, and there&rsquo;s no Health & Safety law or union rep to look after him. 
]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>It didn&#x27;t happen overnight.</title><dc:creator>Karen Traviss</dc:creator><dc:subject>Blog  - adult content </dc:subject><dc:date>2011-08-08T23:18:48+01:00</dc:date><link>http://www.karentraviss.com/blog/files/Overnight.html#unique-entry-id-4</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.karentraviss.com/blog/files/Overnight.html#unique-entry-id-4</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[For those of you watching the coverage of riots in London and wondering if that Olympics 2012 ticket was such a good idea, this lawlessness didn&rsquo;t spring up overnight from nowhere.   Nor did the police suddenly become incapable of dealing with it in the last 12 months.   I&rsquo;ve got zero time for Cameron and Clegg, believe me, but the roots of this are in the previous 13 years on Labour&rsquo;s watch.   And no wonder the police can&rsquo;t cope with actual criminals.   They spent the last decade or so filling out their overtime claims and using the Terrorism Act to stop photographers from taking pictures of public buildings.   After that, feeling collars again must be quite a stretch.]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Before you start to feel sorry for Piers Morgan... </title><dc:creator>Karen Traviss</dc:creator><dc:subject>Blog  - adult content </dc:subject><dc:date>2011-08-05T13:26:36+01:00</dc:date><link>http://www.karentraviss.com/blog/files/Before%20you%20start%20to%20feel%20sorry....html#unique-entry-id-2</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.karentraviss.com/blog/files/Before%20you%20start%20to%20feel%20sorry....html#unique-entry-id-2</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[...just remember why he was fired from his job as editor of the Daily Mirror:


...Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan has been sacked after the newspaper conceded photos of British soldiers abusing an Iraqi were fake.


In case you&rsquo;re wondering, the pictures looked unconvincing and posed even on first glance (especially the &ldquo;action&rdquo; shots) and even a local newspaper&rsquo;s picture editor would have done a lot of very careful verification before publishing them.    The Mirror went ahead and printed them on its front page, putting our troops&rsquo; lives at even more risk than they already were. ...  It was seven years ago, but a lot of us over here haven&rsquo;t forgotten. 


So allegations about the Mirror phone-hacking Heather Mills on his watch really don&rsquo;t shift the needle on my outrage-o-meter after that.]]></content:encoded></item><item><title>Straight from the author&#x27;s mouth</title><dc:creator>Karen Traviss</dc:creator><dc:subject>Blog  - adult content </dc:subject><dc:date>2011-08-03T00:47:54+01:00</dc:date><link>http://www.karentraviss.com/blog/files/b0db4479ead858b34faa751a145f0b89-0.html#unique-entry-id-0</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.karentraviss.com/blog/files/b0db4479ead858b34faa751a145f0b89-0.html#unique-entry-id-0</guid><content:encoded><![CDATA[I&rsquo;ve not been a regular blogger for some time now, on the grounds that there are already too many gobshites out there opining as it is. ...  And I can summarise my worldly views in one line, because I&rsquo;ve had many years to refine them to a single, pure, glistening stream of vitriol: all politicians are scum, I&rsquo;d do anything for our lads and lasses in uniform, and I like  fountain pens, pork rinds, and gadgets. 

...I tossed a coin on whether to hire a professional designer to do my web site again or whether to plunge in and do the revamp myself using a flint and a stick.   In the end, with a lot of advice from the excellent Sean Timarco Baggaley, fellow writer and old friend, I discovered an authoring tool that&rsquo;s almost Traviss-proof. ...  Maybe I&rsquo;ll find time to learn to add bells and whistles one day, but for the time being, this&rsquo;ll work okay.


...Now all I have to do is work out whether to use my TV/ radio voice, or yer actual Pompey one. ]]></content:encoded></item></channel>
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