Sam Redlark

Throughout November, I will be participating in National Novel Writing Month, where the aim is to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. As I am treating this as a writing exercise, anything that I produce will be posted on this blog, one chapter a time. The text will have been edited for spelling and coherence but is otherwise a rough first draft, written at speed. There will be no second draft. ~ The Benefactor Index By Sam Redlark Prologue - A Sin of Gold Chapter One - Pochka Chapter Two - An arrow made of eagle feathers Chapter Three - The milking of chickens Chapter Four - Street without drums Chapter Five - Swans to the snow Chapter Six - Further from the eye Chapter Seven - The nephew of vodka Chapter Eight - The mayor of sidings Chapter Nine - The enemy of the good Chapter Ten - If even just one is absent Chapter Eleven - The friend of an unlucky man Chapter Twelve - The riches that are in the heart Chapter Thirteen - What fell off the cart Epilogue - New-forgotten old ~ Chapt...

This is my response to a question that appeared on the Notes & Queries page of The Guardian website on 27th November, 2022. The Guardian is apparently no longer happy to host my comments on their site, so it is appearing here instead. This blog is obviously not affiliated with The Guardian. Its reference to a question that appeared in Notes & Queries is presented here under the terms of fair use. ~ Will there ever be world government, and would we want it? image generated by Craiyon I telephoned James Anton one Sunday morning: “Me and John Edgeler will be around later to break your heart.” “Oh, that is splendid news,” he said. I could hear him attempting to conceal his breathlessness as he spoke the words. For the second time in less than a year, the artificial organ that pumps blood around James' body had been dialled down to maintenance mode by the manufacturers. I will name them here because I think they should be called out: Sandry Organs & Prosthetics, or '...

Throughout November, I will be participating in National Novel Writing Month, where the aim is to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. As I am treating this as a writing exercise, anything that I produce will be posted on this blog, one chapter a time. The text will have been edited for spelling and coherence but is otherwise a rough first draft, written at speed. There will be no second draft. ~ The Benefactor Index By Sam Redlark Prologue - A Sin of Gold Chapter One - Pochka Chapter Two - An arrow made of eagle feathers Chapter Three - The milking of chickens Chapter Four - Street without drums Chapter Five - Swans to the snow Chapter Six - Further from the eye Chapter Seven - The nephew of vodka Chapter Eight - The mayor of sidings Chapter Nine - The enemy of the good Chapter Ten - If even just one is absent Chapter Eleven - The friend of an unlucky man Chapter Twelve - The riches that are in the heart Chapter Thirteen - What fell off the cart Epilogue - New-forgotten old ~ Chapt...

This is my response to a question that appeared on the Notes & Queries page of The Guardian website on 21st November, 2022. The Guardian is apparently no longer happy to host my comments on their site, so it is appearing here instead. This blog is obviously not affiliated with The Guardian. Its reference to a question that appeared in Notes & Queries is presented here under the terms of fair use. ~ Will we ever set up an outpost on another planet? image generated by Craiyon In July of 2020, Elizabeth Mose discovered that someone had built a house on her land. “We're sitting on 26 acres,” she says. “I hadn't been going out of the house much on account of the COVID. Anyway I went to check the fences along the west side because we'd had some high winds blowing in from that direction. As I was getting nearer to the property boundary, I could see this solid looking block in the middle of the field, and I thought maybe someone's abandoned a trailer there. “When I got ...