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Adrian Ellis

@adrianwriting.bsky.social
41 followers 58 following 100 posts

Writer of non-fiction and science-fiction, including "Civilization is a System of Abusive Control", "Minds Make the World" and "How Humanity Must Survive".

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Adrian Ellis @adrianwriting.bsky.social · 10/12/2024
Today's recommended book is... "Flight 714" by Herge. This is a light-hearted recommendation, but it was a wonderful book for a young boy to read. It's also a good example of how creative people often drift into the world of UFOs and ancient civilizations because... how can you not? :-)
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Adrian Ellis @adrianwriting.bsky.social · 10/12/2024
Today, Bob says... "Truth is a light we shine on other people." #philosophy
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Adrian Ellis @adrianwriting.bsky.social · 02/12/2024
The problem is multi-fold. Not only are these AI books causing people to plough through mediocre rubbish before it's clear it's AI, but the reviews may be fake too. It may soon be the case that the entire internet will feel like a soul-destroying, hall-of-mirrors hallucination.
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Adrian Ellis @adrianwriting.bsky.social · 24/11/2024
Today, Bob says... "We make our choices and we live with the consequences."
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Adrian Ellis @adrianwriting.bsky.social · 24/11/2024
Today's book recommendation is... "Heading Towards Omega" by Dr Kenneth Ring. This book is a fascinating compendium of testimonies from Near Death Experiencers. If you're not interested in religion and you want to know why we're here and what we should do with our lives, read this book.
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Adrian Ellis @adrianwriting.bsky.social · 24/11/2024
Or to quote Gary Larson, the third personality type says "is the cup half full, or half empty, or both? I don't know, I don't know..." and the fourth personality type says, "Hey, I ordered a cheeseburger!!"
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Adrian Ellis @adrianwriting.bsky.social · 24/11/2024
That's true, but you have to get past the literary agents and publishers to be published, commercially, and benefit from the publisher's promotions, high profile etc etc, and they are very keen on trends. One way to solve this is to be original within a genre that is trendy. #writingcommunity
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Adrian Ellis @adrianwriting.bsky.social · 23/11/2024
Writing as a parent?... I think you need to wear some kind of superhero costume! :-) #writingcommunity
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Adrian Ellis @adrianwriting.bsky.social · 23/11/2024
It's Caturday, so I think it's time to ease back, here in London, England, and take it easy....
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Adrian Ellis @adrianwriting.bsky.social · 23/11/2024
This is critically important in any drama. One of the criticisms levelled at the latest generation of action heroes is that too many of them are perfect; they have no internal flaws to resolve and overcome in the story; the so-called 'Mary Sue' problem.
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Adrian Ellis @adrianwriting.bsky.social · 23/11/2024
I don't think many people realise the intensity of childhood feelings. The fact that a child is having them doesn't make them less important; they're more intense, I think, that adult feelings, and they can last a lifetime.
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Adrian Ellis @adrianwriting.bsky.social · 23/11/2024
Today's recommended book is... "Magic and Mystery in Tibet" by Alexandra David-Neel. This is a fascinating account of an adventurous woman's travels in Tibet, a century ago. It opens our eyes to what is possible in reality. I think it's a must-read for any imaginative researcher or writer.
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Adrian Ellis @adrianwriting.bsky.social · 23/11/2024
...ideas. Other herbs aren't so useful, which is why many fairies talk a lot of tarragon, and sometimes, complete basil."
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Adrian Ellis @adrianwriting.bsky.social · 23/11/2024
Today's snippet from my fantasy comedy 'Faery Hero No" is about herbs. #writing #fantasy #humour "The best way to have wise thoughts in Faëry is to eat herbs. This is why fairies have their best ideas after eating soup. Of all the herbs, Sage is the most admired, as it gives wise and perceptive..."
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Adrian Ellis @adrianwriting.bsky.social · 23/11/2024
Today, Bob says... "Everything is strange, it just looks normal." #philosophy #illustration #cartoon
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Adrian Ellis @adrianwriting.bsky.social · 22/11/2024
Here's a wonderful anime about friendship, art, and doing something special in the time we're given. It starts slow but it works beautifully. www.amazon.co.uk/gp/video/det...
amazon.co.uk
Watch Look Back | Prime Video
Fujino, a fourth-grader, serializes a four-panel manga strip in the school newspaper receiving rave reviews from her classmates. But one day, her teacher tells her that Kyomoto, a truant student, want...
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Adrian Ellis @adrianwriting.bsky.social · 22/11/2024
Yes, it's never mentioned - and Grant & Naylor explained that they came up with Red Dwarf after writing ideas on a napkin - but the similarities are overwhelming: a comedy about a couple of losers on a spaceship carrying out dangerous tasks and encountering weird aliens and sentient robots.
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Adrian Ellis @adrianwriting.bsky.social · 22/11/2024
Here's a glossary entry from my fantasy comedy novel, "Faery Hero No". This one's about goblins...
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Adrian Ellis @adrianwriting.bsky.social · 22/11/2024
Lovely work. The problem I always have is to produce a set of illustrations of different characters that retain the same style. I can get so bogged down and frustrated that I can view the success of my first illustration as a curse! :-/
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Adrian Ellis @adrianwriting.bsky.social · 22/11/2024
It's a lovely film. The beach ball alien is great! Fun fact #1: The actor who played Pinback wrote the original script for "Alien". #2: It's pretty obvious that Grant & Naylor based the wonderful "Red Dwarf" TV series on "Dark Star" but, understandably, they'll never publicly admit it.
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Adrian Ellis @adrianwriting.bsky.social · 22/11/2024
Today's recommended book is the "Tao Te Ching", translated by Frank J. MacHovec, published by the Peter Pauper Press in New York. I'm happy to view myself as a gnostic Christian but this book, for me, is the most important spiritual guide, and it's my favourite translation. #philosophy #taoism
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Adrian Ellis @adrianwriting.bsky.social · 22/11/2024
Today, Bob says... "We are what we do."
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Adrian Ellis @adrianwriting.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
Yep, I have chewed over this issue myself. In the end, I concluded that as long as most of them are roughly the same length, (which helps with rhythm) and even the longer ones aren't more than twice as long as the short ones, I was fine. Most importantly, none of my readers have ever complained.
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Adrian Ellis @adrianwriting.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
Tao Te Ching #76: “When living, people are supple and yielding; when dead, they're hard and stiff. When living, animals and plants are soft and pliant; when dead, they're withered and brittle. Thus, being inflexible and unyielding is part of dying; being flexible and yielding is part of living.”
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Adrian Ellis @adrianwriting.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
It was the quality of many of the Star Trek stories that captivated me; the ideas were brilliant. Also, the personalities of the characters were endearing, and for the time, very progressive. In terms of thought-provoking ideas, very little has come close to the imagination of that period.
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Adrian Ellis @adrianwriting.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
Assessing intelligence is a fascinating topic, particularly because we're looking at it through the lens of our own mentality. We can pick ways to show how intelligent we are, and use it to assess other beings, but we can miss our own stupidity, as the Postman and Bruner cards below show:
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Adrian Ellis @adrianwriting.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
Tao Teh Ching #16: "Everything comes into existence, but observe, returns to its source. Thus, vegetation flourishes and grows, but returns to the soil whence it came. Returning to the source is serenity; it is to realise one's destiny. To realise one's destiny is to know the Eternal Constant."
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Adrian Ellis @adrianwriting.bsky.social · 20/11/2024
Evening! (Here in the UK). I checked out your book on your website but there's no sign of any sample text. I can imagine some readers might want to read, say, the first ten pages. It's a thought! :-)
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Adrian Ellis @adrianwriting.bsky.social · 20/11/2024
2/ That way, you're prepared for a fan crowd, or 'we're not here for you, we're for the free drinks' crowd. I once read out my work to a prize-giving audience, only to discover half of them hated me because I'd won, rather than them. I'd wish I'd chosen a shorter piece of work! :-/
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Adrian Ellis @adrianwriting.bsky.social · 20/11/2024
1/ Grab a section you really like, then read it out loud to a friend/partner. Ideally, divide it into two so that you can read the second section if the audience is clearly into it, or stop at the divider and make it look as if that's where you wanted to stop, if they're clearly not into it.
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Adrian Ellis @adrianwriting.bsky.social · 20/11/2024
Today, Bob says... "Space is like promises, mostly empty."
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Adrian Ellis @adrianwriting.bsky.social · 20/11/2024
Today's recommended book is... "The Red Tree" by Shaun Tan. This is a visual story about a girl facing many troubles, but finally discovering that there are beautiful things in the world. It is filled with memorable images, and can be treasured by anyone from nine to ninety years of age.
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Adrian Ellis @adrianwriting.bsky.social · 19/11/2024
Sometimes, I think I'm a hoot bird. To quote from my new novel, "For Hoot birds, nothing is a hoot, and so they're always sad. They perch on bonker trees, sounding their hollow calls, while preening feathers so black, they stain the air."
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Adrian Ellis @adrianwriting.bsky.social · 19/11/2024
Thanks! :-D I'm much better than I was, but that's only because I drew an entire graphic novel, realised it was a confusing mess, and also that the artwork in the first half was terrible. Apart from that, it was excellent practice!
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Adrian Ellis @adrianwriting.bsky.social · 19/11/2024
More writing advice: Put your freshly created masterpiece in a drawer, wait a week, then read it again. Finally, give it to someone else to read, while accepting that you may experience the feeling of your heart being torn from your chest and stamped on, if they tell you they don't like it.
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Adrian Ellis @adrianwriting.bsky.social · 19/11/2024
Personally, when I'm not hammering away on the keyboard, I get out my drawing tablet and ink a fun character. Unfortunately, that means I STILL haven't left the desk... :-/
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Adrian Ellis @adrianwriting.bsky.social · 19/11/2024
Today's recommended book is... "The Myth of Normal" by Gabor Mate. This is a wonderful, compassionate, and skilled analysis of how trauma dwells within many people, how it is formed, and how many of us cope with its presence in our daily lives.
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Adrian Ellis @adrianwriting.bsky.social · 19/11/2024
Today, Bob says... "Cleverer people don't do more, they just have better reasons for doing less." #psychology
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Adrian Ellis @adrianwriting.bsky.social · 18/11/2024
Today's recommended book is... "Blacksad" by Canales and Guarnido. This is a brilliant hardback graphic novel in the style of fifties film noir, but with animals-as-people. Guarnido's watercolour illustrations are masterful. It's violent, but if that's okay, it's a masterclass in visual fiction.
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Adrian Ellis @adrianwriting.bsky.social · 18/11/2024
Today, Bob says... "Why do people keep running away from what they created?"
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Adrian Ellis @adrianwriting.bsky.social · 17/11/2024
Yes. Self-promotion is a serious challenge for any writer. The paradox is that anyone who is happy to spend hundreds of hours writing on their own is not someone who is a good salesperson. This is why the industry loves to publish celebrities' ghost-written novels.
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Adrian Ellis @adrianwriting.bsky.social · 17/11/2024
Thank you! It's taken a LONG time to get right, but I'm pleased with the finished product. I switched to KDP because a literary agent did heap praise on it but couldn't land a publisher. This may be due to the current climate: www.theguardian.com/books/2024/n...
theguardian.com
Report finds ‘shocking and dispiriting’ fall in children reading for pleasure
National Literacy Trust finds only 35% of eight to 18-year-olds enjoy reading in their spare time, a sharp drop on last year to the lowest figure yet recorded
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Adrian Ellis @adrianwriting.bsky.social · 17/11/2024
It's strange when an LLM that's trained to gather information from fact-checking sites (as mentioned in the article) who themselves are highly dubious in how they obtain information, and that's only 80% accurate, can be viewed as being of any use at all, or is the word "A.I." now a magical spell?
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Adrian Ellis @adrianwriting.bsky.social · 17/11/2024
My family-friendly fantasy comedy novel "Faery Hero No" is now available on Amazon at www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0DK9CFBM5 While I record an audiobook for it in the next few weeks, I'll be tweeting illustrated quotes. :-)
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Adrian Ellis @adrianwriting.bsky.social · 17/11/2024
Since the horrors in Gaza are still going on, even though the Western media is doing its best to downplay or ignore them, today's recommended book is the journalistic graphic novel, "Palestine", by Joe Sacco. Excellent work
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Adrian Ellis @adrianwriting.bsky.social · 17/11/2024
Today, Bob says, "We make our choices, and we live with the consequences."
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Adrian Ellis @adrianwriting.bsky.social · 16/11/2024
That certainly helps. In our society, being creative is always a challenge; civilization is actually geared to minimise creativity, not the other way around. Hunter-gatherers, by comparison, could spend half their day being creative. The last century has been easier, but it's now getting worse.
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Adrian Ellis @adrianwriting.bsky.social · 16/11/2024
Client: "But coach, where does my life-path lead? What is my ultimate destination?" Reaper: "Me."
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Adrian Ellis @adrianwriting.bsky.social · 16/11/2024
To put it another way, "What is life good for?" Many people would respond that life is magical, fulfilling, and gives us a chance to enjoy the world, enrich other peoples' lives, add to society, and be the best we can be... which is the life of a creative person.
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Adrian Ellis @adrianwriting.bsky.social · 16/11/2024
Today's recommended book is "Logicomix" by Doxiadis and Papadimitriou. This is a wonderful graphic novel about Bertrand Russell's ultimately doomed attempt to discover a true logical foundation for mathematics. #comics #graphicnovel #mathematics #logic
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