There are a growing number of stories out there about people who have written books, published them electronically and done well. There are also stories out there of authors using social media to promote their work.

Andy Holloman has done both. His book is getting great reviews on Twitter.

Why not take a look at how someone is doing it.

If you’re looking for some innovative and interesting viewing this coming weekend why not take a look at the Independent video channel on Vimeo? This channel showcases over 500 videos by independent artists. If you want to see something cool, new and of very quality this is the place to go.

The 2nd in a series of articles talking about the evolution and redevelopment of the Findingviews digital arts website.

I’ve learned that a number of places are still open for the 10th anniversary Twilight Realms LARP event. If you never tried LARP or tried Twilight Realms out then this could be a good opportunity to see collective story telling in action. The Anniversary game promises a great story line and a plethora of fantastic characters to interact with.

On top of that the game will take place in an actual castle

I was reading this article from New Scientist that describes Titan and started coming up with ideas for potential stories.

Then it hit me - reading an article about a place and thinking up fiction for the environment. Its an essential practice for SF authors but valuable to any writer -as we cannot always visit every place that a story demands we talk about.

Yet in order to keep the reader interested we have to make the reader feel that they know the place. So if you want to write great descriptions about any place, practice on some extreme examples from magazines or journals, before putting pen to paper on that new killer description in your latest work.

Giving inanimate objects personality can lead to some interesting ideas and circumstances in fiction. So how would a happy or angry bullet react when being shot from a gun

Although Shared Creation focuses extensively on Internet based creativity there is a certain rightness in looking at the real world too. LARP seems to bridge the both the digital and the real.

LARP is consenual group story telling - everyone agrees to a framework of behaviour and uses it to take part in the telling of a story. Its part a very modern idea, part a very ancient idea. The bridge between digital and realworld comes in the way that concepts, stories and characters are often developed online and then played out live.

Twilight Realms is a group that does this. The world is build largely online, and then enacted at events.

Very creative, very modern, and very retro.

Stealing creative software may bring you more problems than solutions, worse still it may not help you be more creative

This Call of Duty video comes from a young man who wants to get somewhere in the IT industry. The reason I’m posting this is that if you watch the video and listen to the commentary then it really is very well done. He’s into the technicalities of the game, but managing to explain what you are seeing in an engaging way. There is potential here for a great future in the game industry - or as a TV or web presenter on the subject of games.

I’ve seen adults do what is doing with far less skill.

He’s already doing the right thing - using Twitter and YouTube to give himself a platform and audience.