Post and other stuff

First off, apologies for the stuttering posts, reality intruding had left me unable to post every day but I should be back on form from now on, I will even aim to get them up a little earlier as well!

Not much to tell on the publishing front, I am waiting for a copy of this years Writers and Artists Yearbook , once i get that i can source out some more agents and then go and bug them!

In the interim have been busy brainstorming for other Dodo offshoots and other media areas Dodo can expand into and outlining a website.

In Dodoart, finally completed the design for Flappy, he is a bit of a fidget which hasn’t helped, so I will be uploading his image on a wallpaper this weekend and starting work on Ogd.

In gadget news I have just bought a Apple iBook, one of the original clamshell style, I have never had a Mac before so i though i would get one to see and have another little project to upgrade it if i stick with it (its presently running on Mac OS 9.2).So far so good and a really nice writing experience.

Not a good week to be my computer!

The computer died at the weekend, windows update had a little fiddle and left me unable to get on the net accept in safe mode! Usually that wouldn’t have been the end as I have a dual boot with Ubuntu on the other side.Had net access there, but as I have not had the chance to configure it since I went to dual monitor it was not at its best. So I thought I would use the opportunity to wipe everything and start again, windows was starting to drag a bit and was due anyway. On the downside havent been able to update Dodoengine or get the sample ready for sending off to the agent!

To make matters worse my works laptop decided to die as well so I couldnt even work off that.There I was, harmlessly typing away when it popped and smoke started coming out of the side by the power socket (nice!) had a little look down the side and I could even see a little flicker of fire…so I blew that out and quickly tried to save everything and transfer it to my memory card before it died.I saved everything and then it died.RIP Dell Latitude.

I have been leant on of the new Asus Eee pc until IT can sort me out with a grownup laptop.Its quite nice but still not totally sure as the screen is soo small (this from the man who uses a Sony UX50 which has a 3 by 2 inch screen!)

My main pc is about back to normal so normal transmissions should be resuming, and crossed fingers i can get the sample off by this friday!

When a Dodo is born

Dodo, unsurprisingly, started in a very random way.

I am not sure where he came from but one minute he was wasn’t and then he was!
Dodo started life in Dixon’s in Liverpool, 1996 and i think it was a gray windy day.
I was looking to buy my first computer, as an aside i had been given an old laptop by a family friend but it had died, it used a floppy disk (and i mean floppy) as its hard drive and had a small green screen that made a Casio calculator look like an iPhone.I think it died of old age.
So in i went, not knowing much about computers, especially considering i had just buried the last one, my benchmarks were word processing, music and being able to play civilization!
I tried out a couple and played around on the keyboard, and the line came out

Once upon a time there lived a very fat rat called Bobo.Now Bobo was also very stupid and liked to try and eat his feet.

Thus Dodo was born, wrong name but definitely him.He stuck in my mind and as his personality emerged and as i started to think Bobo/Dodo like thoughts the corner of my mind where he had emerged from ( and only the gods know what else is still in there!) got too small and he needed some where else to go,So he did.He remained Bobo for about the first 6 or seven emails until i decided to see if the story had a bit more life.All of the initial stories became the start of book one, and after much um’ing and ah’ing i changed his name to Dodo.Dodo seemed to suit his character and place in life a bit better, and made him a bit more individual,there are other dodo’s out there, but they are all dodo’s!

Bobo is also more of a clown name, and okay you can laugh at him, but Dodo is no clown.He looks horrific in greasepaint and doesn’t go down well at kids parties…the curtains part to reveal a dirty overweight rat,his face has been smeared white and reddish marks cross his eyes and nose,his eyes are also very red as he didn’t close them in time when they ran the lipstick over him.A fading frill clings to his neck and round his waist,they look like they might have been a dish cloth, if your dish had been the inside of an oil tanker.

Dodo looks slightly bemused and bit self conscious, the frills were not his idea (not that the rest was!) and eating the rest of the lipstick didn’t help, nor did smiling at them.

The children are very still despite all the sweets and pop, and then they are not, there is no cheering and laughter except from Dead Vole by the punchbowl.

Flappy and Ogd are just out of sight and still holding the brushes they used to paint dodo, they are also trying not to wet themselves.Ogd still wants to hand out some flyer’s to the other parents, just in case.

Ultimately i think it was always Dodo, i just had not heard him properly when he told me.