CHAPTER 24

The guests are gathering for Martha Benson’s public seance, but one guest is far more concerned about what might be discovered behind the scenes.

Story running time: 22 minutes

Available from TableRappers.com or here:

Or you can listen right here

If you have a podcast or a website, please play the audio promo and promote Persistent Spirit. Send me your promo and I will play it in return. TableRappers audio promos

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TableRappers is set in the Edwardian period, starting in 1903. Even during early development I found adding a little Edwardian flourish to the text helped the general ambiance of the story. My confidence in this grew after reading G.W. Dahlquist’s The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters – a novel set in a pseudo-Victorian age, with a narrative very much styled in the colourful language of the time. When reading that book, I realised writing style and setting can be made to enhance one another.

After over 80,000 words of my first novel now complete, this colourful, style has become almost second nature and has made the process of writing the story much easier. Long, run-on sentences, indulgent metaphors, and often less than concise descriptions help to solidify the setting, while sending the more modern, tightened rules of concise writing off on a long deserved holiday in the sun. It is a fun way to write and offers a playground with few boundaries.

Here comes the ‘but’… I am far too accustomed to it.

I have other books I want to write that are most certainly not set in the same period. The available time aside, the one psychological obstacle I have in preventing me making a solid start on one of those projects is the difficulty in switching to a more modern and concise writing style. I’ve tried it, and it’s downright painful.

Here’s hoping I can un-learn the Edwardian flourish so I’ll not have to set everything in 1903!

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TABLE RAPPERS – PERSISTENT SPIRIT

CHAPTER 17

Nathaniel has a little time to himself before Martha needs to make some unexpected calls. Keynes struggles to deal with Merrick’s stubborn streak and decides to make his way on foot.

Story running time: 22 minutes
Total running time: 33 minutes

Available from TableRappers.com or here:

Or you can listen right here

If you have a podcast or a website, please play the audio promo and promote Persistent Spirit. Send me your promo and I will play it in return. TableRappers audio promos

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TABLE RAPPERS – PERSISTENT SPIRIT

CHAPTER 12

Jack Hawkins makes a risky visit to the only person who can help his brother, but is he being followed?

Story running time: 20 minutes

Available from TableRappers.com or here:

Or you can listen right here

If you have a podcast or a website, please play the audio promo and promote Persistent Spirit. Send me your promo and I will play it in return. TableRappers audio promos

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As an freelance illustrator trying to survive in the pre-computer age 1980s of the design and advertising industries, versatility was critical. If you could turn your hand to a broad spectrum of styles, then you could grab a greater opportunity for work, particularly through illustration agents. Clients would frequently give a brief along the lines of “We want a drawing of an American Football player in the same style as this …” at which point some existing illustrator’s work would be slid across the desk. This bred an instinctive need to be adaptable – at least within the boundaries defined by my own skillset – and a motivation to not develop my own definitive style. The problem with this now, is that my initial explorations into writing suffered from the residue of that mindset: if I read a book and very much liked it, I would instinctively try to emulate the writing style as a means to make progress. The next book comes along, so my style changed. You get the picture.

Despite having pretty much got this idea out of my system these days – in both writing and my art – these early stages in “proper” writing are littered with concerns about whether my writing is good enough or the particular style in which TableRappers is written, is viable as an end product.

I have just started reading The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters by G.W. Dahlquist (a gift from jEN – thank you). The story plays out in a pseudo Victorian time, a setting immediately apparent not by the descriptions or dialogue, but the writing style itself. This was very encouraging as that is precisely what I have done – instinctively more than by design – with the TableRappers stories, even from the very start several years ago. Not only that but the style has many parallels with my own writing and, despite Dahlquist clearly being a more experienced writer overall, there are huge similarities with my work. When you know that Dahlquist landed an astonishing $2million advance for this, first, book, you can understand that it is an immense confidence boost about whether I can make my book work.

Feet back on the ground. The realities of publishing are, of course, very different and I have no disillusions about the reality of what I am attempting to achieve. But the potential is there regardless, and the discovery of the above book has given me great encouragement that I am heading in the right direction with the project. Saying that, however, I would not change how the writing is being done as it quite simply feels right for this project. 2008 is feeling good already.

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This is version 1.1 release. It is based on the YouTube Brackets plugin, tweaked for the special needs of the extensive Mevio video embed code. Currently it has only been tested on Wordpress 2.6.2, please report any issues with any other versions.

DOWNLOAD
Current release: version 1.1 Download MevioFLV_1.1.zip (9Kb)

INSTALLATION
- Extract the mevioFLV_1.1.zip file to your wp-content\plugins directory
- Go to the WordPress plugins admin panel then activate the mevioFLV plugin.

USAGE
1. Upload your video to your account at mevio.com (or btpodshow.com if you are in the UK)

2. Get the video URL (not the entire embed code). The URL looks something like:

http://www.mevio.com/?persona_id=12345&
movie_id=c0b8a1b1bbd75452fddd076e64d6bfb4

3. Add to your blog post in the following format:

[mevio=<insert video url here>]

example (should be all on one line):

[mevio=http://www.mevio.com/?persona_id=12345&
movie_id=c0b8a1b1bbd75452fddd076e64d6bfb4]

You can add the above line into your wysiwyg editor in normal wysiwyg mode, or in code mode.

CONFIGURATION
No configuration required.

SUPPORT
Please leave a comment below, or get in touch via the contact form.

CHANGE LOG
1.1 Switch from PodShow to Mevio
1.0 First full release
0.3 Improved compatibility with early user IDs
0.2 ‘www’ in the flv URL is now optional, fixed link to this page
0.1 Initial release

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