I love xkcd.com for so many reasons, not least of which is the effort and research that goes into some of the comics. Coupled with an awesome concept, we get absolute gems like this:
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Books By Alan
Click on book covers for reviews, previews and purchase options.
RealmShift
A race against time and the Devil
"RealmShift is phenomenal. If it’s not already on your bookshelf it should be."
MageSign
Believe in the blood 
"a gritty tale of blood rituals, mystery, and mysticism… grabs hold of the reader and doesn’t let go"
The Darkest Shade Of Grey
You can tell the story.
"...stunning supernatural noir..."
Ghost Of The Black
"Everything about it is bang on"
Write The Fight Right
“The best way for a writer to learn what’s really involved in brawling, short of going down the pub and starting something.”
Powerful Words
Adjectives intensified with obscenities
A bit of geeky fun for the Battlestar Galactica fans
I was reading the paper over the weekend and this story caught my eye. The story is basically about a plan to start coal seam gas drilling and there’s controversy because it’s going to be near the Warragamba dam, which holds a lot of Sydney’s drinking water. The controversy comes from the fact that...
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A Dictionary of the Near Future
I found this article called A Dictionary of the Near Future at the New York Times online thanks to Marc Pesce on Twitter. I love the things I find through Twitter – the interwebz is a playground of joy. This is an article by Douglas Coupland, who says, “The thing about the future is...
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In defence of swearing
I swear a lot. I’ll be the first to admit it. I’m the worst person to have around your kids because I swear so casually that I don’t notice I’m doing it. I do try to remember when kids are around, but even that bothers me to some degree. They’re just words. Though I...
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Obscenity ruling
This is a bit of nonsense, but it’s quality nonsense. The Onion is an awesome site and did a great skit today on a free speech ruling. Read the whole thing here, or check the image below for the nutshell version. Dude, that is some quality swearing. .
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What’s in a name?
Check this out from Lamebook.com: 420, pronounced four-twenty, is an American counter culture holiday. It’s the day you’re supposed to get stoned. According to lore (wikipedia), the term was coined from a group of teenagers at San Rafael High School in San Rafael, California in 1971. The teens would meet after school at 4:20...
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What a great name
The recent volcanic eruption in Iceland is awesome in so many ways, but it seems to me that no one is drawing enough attention to the coolest thing about it. The name of the volcano is Eyjafjallajokul. Seriously, how cool is that? If I wrote a name like that into a fictional fantasy people...
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Procrastilaxing is my new favourite word
Procrastilaxing is my new favourite word. Yes indeed, I love this word so much I want to punch it in the face. .
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Can you succinctly pitch?
suc·cinct –adjective 1. expressed in few words; concise; terse. 2. characterized by conciseness or verbal brevity. 3. compressed into a small area, scope, or compass. As writers we always try to be as brief and succinct in our writing as possible, while maintaining a clear voice and interesting, beautiful prose. It’s the eternal difficulty...
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Tweet and google word of the year and decade
Further to the interesting discussion following this post, I was interested to read today over at Visual Thesaurus that “tweet” has been named the word of the year and “google” (in its verb form) has been named word of the decade. Given that Google are actively campaigning against the use of “to google” as...
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Did you know Lucas owned the word Droid?
I saw this over at Locus Online today. Apparently Google is launching its new phone with an Android operating system and calling the phone the Nexus One. Philip K Dick’s estate are upset about it claiming that Google is appropriating Dick’s work (his novel Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep which was used as...
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This week’s top searches
I am so often entertained by the search results that apparently lead people to my website here. I’m a bit of a nerd for stats and searches and things like that, so it’s always a bit of fun for me to check. The top search results leading people here over the last week are:...
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Unfriend becomes word of the year
My good friend and IT lifeline, James Frost, sent me this. According to The Register, the New Oxford American Dictionary’s 2009 Word of the Year is “unfriend”. As in, “Me and Haley had this huge, like, fight and stuff so I totally unfriended her on Facebook.” The actual entry is: Unfriend: verb; to remove...
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The Stoakes-Whibley Natural Index of Supernatural Collective Nouns
I have to thank Michael over at aNadder for this one. I’m a big fan of collective nouns. There are the old favourites like a murder of crows or a parliament of owls. But what about collective nouns for supernatural creatures? We’ve all heard of a host of angels. Well, thanks to Michael pointing...
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Great holidays and bookish treasure
I’ve been away for the last week, enjoying the peace and quiet of the Bega Valley with Halinka and Penry the Spacklehound. We did all kinds of sight seeing, visited cool little towns and gardens, went horse rising with friends and generally had a ball. It was very relaxing. However, the highlight of the...
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The Word
Welcome to the website of author Alan Baxter.
I write dark fantasy, sci fi and horror, ride a motorcycle and love my dog. I also teach Kung Fu, hence the Warrior Scribe tag above. A friend once referred to me that way and I liked it, so it stuck. Learn all about me and my work by clicking About Alan just below the header.
Our world is built on language and storytelling. Without stories, we are nothing.
The Word is a place to learn more about me, my stories and the words of others. Click the links along the top for all kinds of stuff, search the sidebars for loads of other stuff, click on book covers for reviews and previews, enjoy the blog and don't be shy to share your words, in comments or send me an email:
alan [at]alanbaxteronline[dot]com
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