The song that contains the following words is possibly my favourite song in the whole world:
#I once had a whim and I had to obey it to buy a French horn in a second hand shop;
I polished it up and I started to play it in spite of the neighbours who begged me to stop.
De-diddly-diddly-diddly-diddly....
Except really the diddlies are Donald Swann on the piano.
Hello there.
#To sound my horn, I had to develop my embouchure.
I found my horn was a bit of a devil to play DIDDLE-UM-DIDDY-DUM....
You'll possible be wanting some news.
News. Yes.
Oh right. Now, listen to this bit. Don't get distracted by comical song lyrics because it's actually kind of important.
The DEADLINE for the OPEN POETRY COMPETITION is being EXTENDED by ONE MONTH, so it now closes on 31st JANUARY. We've had a little bit of understandable flak in the past for extending the deadline on the Writing for Children competition, which upset some people who'd rushed to make the earlier deadline, and we do apologise profusely if anyone feels similarly pillocksed about on this occasion, but we're primarily doing it because we don't think it's really on to expect people to rush to finish their poems over Christmas. We hope very much that you approve. There.
#WHO. SWIPED. THAT. HORN? I'll bet you a quid somebody did, knowing
I'd found a concerto and wanted to play it, afraid of my talent at playing the horn,
For early today, to my utter dismay, it had vanished away like the dew in the morn.
De-dum-diddy-dum-diddy-dum-diddy-dum-diddy etc.
Otherwise our news is fairly low key, if not mildly tragic in a sort of mundane and essentially privileged fashion. Primarily we had a brief stationary crisis in the office yesterday, wherein we found ourselves quite horribly deprived of both A4 paper, clean and scrap, and sellotape. But we're over it now, and my back hurts a little, because I've spent a good forty minutes of the day bearing the ream of paper across country in my rucksack, in the most dreadful rain, and my umbrella has rusted into several fairly pointless sticks wrapped in soggy cloths, but what of it? We can print words off the computer screen, and then we can tape them to things. We ask little more from life.
Tomorrow we're having another meeting in the pub. This is mostly why our office is possibly just a little bit happier than yours.
#I miss its music more and more and more. Without that horn... I'm feeling sad and so for-lor-ooooooooooooooooooorn....
And if anyone knows where my French horn is, please to be letting me know in comments.
Sam.
Thursday, November 23, 2006
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
On Publicity & Marketing & Having Sore Eyes
The keenly-eyed and beady-fingered (?) of you might well have noticed the posh banner we've got occurring in the sidebar over there ---->
Well, that's been made to facilitate the new media world that is blogging, myspace, livejournals, the lot. Believe me I'm quite the turbo geek so it's of no surprise to me that these things work. Essentially it gives us a 'click-through', that is, that someone clicks it and flies through to the Leaf website whereupon they fall over, marvelling at how brilliant our books are.
I meant to say something earlier but by all means please take one for your own blog, myspace, livejournal or even website. I know writers are more keen on having official websites than scrawly blogs but there we are. If you don't know how to embed one then don't hesitate to email us -- I'll say something nice to you with instruction. Otherwise you can email and request that you very much want to use the code, and with forthright politeness I'll send you it at once.
After that you can place it in your HTML editor, or your 'edit profile' page, or any place really that might happily support a spot of pan-internet sorcery.
Our appreciation is -- and always will be -- legion.
Matt.
PS: I sourced out my own safety-pin thank you. And elsewhere my eyes are behaving wrongly and are resolutely hurting my upper-face. And... and and and... if you're doing the National Novel Writing Month... well. You understand precisely what I mean, and good luck to you. I'm 8,000 words behind schedule myself.
Well, that's been made to facilitate the new media world that is blogging, myspace, livejournals, the lot. Believe me I'm quite the turbo geek so it's of no surprise to me that these things work. Essentially it gives us a 'click-through', that is, that someone clicks it and flies through to the Leaf website whereupon they fall over, marvelling at how brilliant our books are.
I meant to say something earlier but by all means please take one for your own blog, myspace, livejournal or even website. I know writers are more keen on having official websites than scrawly blogs but there we are. If you don't know how to embed one then don't hesitate to email us -- I'll say something nice to you with instruction. Otherwise you can email and request that you very much want to use the code, and with forthright politeness I'll send you it at once.
After that you can place it in your HTML editor, or your 'edit profile' page, or any place really that might happily support a spot of pan-internet sorcery.
Our appreciation is -- and always will be -- legion.
Matt.
PS: I sourced out my own safety-pin thank you. And elsewhere my eyes are behaving wrongly and are resolutely hurting my upper-face. And... and and and... if you're doing the National Novel Writing Month... well. You understand precisely what I mean, and good luck to you. I'm 8,000 words behind schedule myself.
Monday, November 13, 2006
I would like most of all to be printing (or in New Zealand).
What I'm doing right now is primarily passing time until the printer on the desk behind me ceases to be in use by people who are not me. It's fairly frustrating. Not that I'm begrudging the other printer-user. Well, I am slightly, but I'm aware that my begrudgement is unreasonable and somewhat mean, so mostly that makes it all right. It's sort of intermittently in use. The printer. I keep thinking the coast's more or less clear for me to get cracking on the sizeable-ish printing job I have to do, then it whirrs again into action - as it did just then - and I have to pretend I was just wheeling my spinny chair in its direction for the sheer bally joy of the thing. Oh woe.
Also we're slightly out of envelopes. And we badly need brown paper. The brown paper acquiring mission was set for last Friday, but it sadly failed when the designated vehicle broke down and stranded the operator, who is even now housebound and socially isolated and having to order food over the internet. Goodness knows how people without cars manage to do ANYTHING AT ALL. Possibly that was slightly low. I apologise. I genuinely feel sorry for people whose legs and train timetables have been eaten tragically away by their cars.
On the plus side, the sun has somewhat come out. But the printer is only deceptively silent.
Sam.
Also we're slightly out of envelopes. And we badly need brown paper. The brown paper acquiring mission was set for last Friday, but it sadly failed when the designated vehicle broke down and stranded the operator, who is even now housebound and socially isolated and having to order food over the internet. Goodness knows how people without cars manage to do ANYTHING AT ALL. Possibly that was slightly low. I apologise. I genuinely feel sorry for people whose legs and train timetables have been eaten tragically away by their cars.
On the plus side, the sun has somewhat come out. But the printer is only deceptively silent.
Sam.
Thursday, November 09, 2006
Razzamatazz and Other Poems.
Razzamatazz and Other Poems landed happily in the office earlier this week, and very keenly and with many salutations was it received. We're all agreed that it's an inordinately smart little publication, and chock full of really very excellent poetical offerings. I discover that I really quite despise the word 'chock'. Razzamatazz and Other Poems (it has a subtitle as well that I can't offhand recall - has something to do with its containing the winning poems from the 2006 Short Poetry competitions, which is nothing short of the truth) is available for purchase from the website. As are numerous other jovial publications. Did you know you can buy a Leaf Super Mega Turbo bundle type thing? I don't think it's exactly called that, but that's very much the idea behind it. It's the entire back catalogue in one absurdly exciting package, and it sets you back only about 89p per book. So, you know. That's rather jolly.
The Final Theory and Other Stories, which is the microfiction compilation, is due to go off to the printers very much shortly. There was an exciting blip with the cover at one point, where in these clever tilted monitors decided to hide from us the fact that the cover had gone kind of stripey, and it was only noticed when Matt stood up and looked at it a bit sideways. But that's all been beaten back into shape now, and everything is pretty much well. And I wish to apologise at this juncture for the fact that the Short Short Story competition results never went up on the news page, which is sadly unnewsworthy at present. I'd update it myself only the software's gone wonky. Badger Gav slightly in the comments and he might perhaps oblige.
We are mostly quite well. Matt still waits in vain yet touching hope for his safety pin. He is unravelling sadly from the ankle upwards. I told him he should've offered a free book.
Sam.
The Final Theory and Other Stories, which is the microfiction compilation, is due to go off to the printers very much shortly. There was an exciting blip with the cover at one point, where in these clever tilted monitors decided to hide from us the fact that the cover had gone kind of stripey, and it was only noticed when Matt stood up and looked at it a bit sideways. But that's all been beaten back into shape now, and everything is pretty much well. And I wish to apologise at this juncture for the fact that the Short Short Story competition results never went up on the news page, which is sadly unnewsworthy at present. I'd update it myself only the software's gone wonky. Badger Gav slightly in the comments and he might perhaps oblige.
We are mostly quite well. Matt still waits in vain yet touching hope for his safety pin. He is unravelling sadly from the ankle upwards. I told him he should've offered a free book.
Sam.
Thursday, November 02, 2006
Also!
Because I am a scruff and because I wear my jeans too low, I have a hole at the bottom of my left trouser leg.
Would anyone be kind enough to include a decent-sized safety pin in their next postal submission to us?
The first person to do so will get a photograph of my repaired jeans placed here, with many kind thankyous added to the post. In effect they will receive an entry dedicated entirely to them .
No really, they will. I can't actually walk in them. It's very sad. They are my favourite jeans.
Help.
Matt.
Would anyone be kind enough to include a decent-sized safety pin in their next postal submission to us?
The first person to do so will get a photograph of my repaired jeans placed here, with many kind thankyous added to the post. In effect they will receive an entry dedicated entirely to them .
No really, they will. I can't actually walk in them. It's very sad. They are my favourite jeans.
Help.
Matt.
Surprisingly for a publisher this post is actually about our books
The Final Theory & Other Stories is finished and very much about to fly off to the printers, having been lovingly crafted and commented upon by all as smashing. A perfect companion piece to Razzamatazz & Other Poems, which is due back from the printers today or perhaps tomorrow or perhaps never, because they're so good and clever they might well've turned sentient and ran off to their respective authors to appear on their welcome mats as smiling complimentary offerings.
And I might add that it is cold, and that even with two pairs of socks on my toes are possibly frostbitten and are probably only still attached to my feet because my laces are done up so tightly.
Anyway, there'll be a sneak preview of the new book's cover (The Final Theory's that is) up on the website over the weekend, with those having patiently awaited the poetry book hopefully fulfilled and happy by next week.
Otherwise, I smell massively of lockets again.
Are any of our readers doing The National Novel Writing Month? If you are... well. Let's hope that for Leaf's sake you fail and end up writing a stonking short story instead. Or if we pursue this novella idea your 50,000 words are edited nicely into something well below 40,000....
Can I do a smily?
I think I can do a smily:
:)
Matt.
And I might add that it is cold, and that even with two pairs of socks on my toes are possibly frostbitten and are probably only still attached to my feet because my laces are done up so tightly.
Anyway, there'll be a sneak preview of the new book's cover (The Final Theory's that is) up on the website over the weekend, with those having patiently awaited the poetry book hopefully fulfilled and happy by next week.
Otherwise, I smell massively of lockets again.
Are any of our readers doing The National Novel Writing Month? If you are... well. Let's hope that for Leaf's sake you fail and end up writing a stonking short story instead. Or if we pursue this novella idea your 50,000 words are edited nicely into something well below 40,000....
Can I do a smily?
I think I can do a smily:
:)
Matt.
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