The 10 best words the internet has given English

Make Your Book Real

From hashtags to LOLs to Cupertinos and Scunthorpe problems, Tom Chatfield picks the most interesting neologisms drawn from the digital world

(Reblogged in full from The Guardian)

My book Netymology: A Linguistic Celebration of the Digital World is about the stories behind new words. I’ve been an etymology addict since I was a teenager, and especially love unpicking technological words.

It’s a great reminder of how messily human the stories behind even our sleekest creations are – not to mention delightful curiosities in their own right.

1. Avatars

This word for our digital incarnations has a marvellously mystical origin, beginning with the Sanskrit term avatara, describing the descent of a god from the heavens into earthly form. Arriving in English in the late 18th century, via Hindi, the term largely preserved its mystical meaning until Neal Stephenson’s 1992 novel Snow Crash first popularised it in a technological sense.

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Martin Freeman reveals loyalty to Sherlock as he says he would welcome fourth series

The Death Of Blogs? Or Of Magazines?

The Dish

As part of his “eulogy for the blog”, Marc Tracy touches upon the evolution of the Dish – which he praises as “a soap opera pegged to the news cycle”:

[T]oday, Google Reader is dying, Media Decoder is dead, and Andrew Sullivan’s The Daily Dish is alive in new form. This year, Sullivan decided that he was a big enough brand, commanding enough attention and traffic, to strike out on his own. At the beginning of the last decade, the institutions didn’t need him. Today, he feels his best chance for survival is by becoming one of the institutions, complete with a staff and a variety of content. What wasn’t going to work was continuing to have, merely, a blog.

We will still have blogs, of course, if only because the word is flexible enough to encompass a very wide range of publishing platforms: Basically, anything that contains a scrollable stream…

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#DojoCon2013 International CoderDojo Conference at Slane Castle 12th-13th April 2013

Gun trial sniper Danny Nightingale ‘not fit for SAS’

1981 H Block/ Armagh Committee leaflet looking to build support among the Trade Union movement for the Hunger Strike.

Irish Election Literature

From July 1981 (at which stage six of the Hunger Strikers had died) a leaflet from the H Block /Armagh Committee looking to build support among the Trade Union movement for the Hunger Strikers and their demands.

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The 2013 TV Drama Writers’ Festival Deadline: June 26, 2013

Led by writers for writers

EARLY BIRD BOOKINGS – DEADLINE EXTENDED: BOOK BY 10TH MAY FOR THE DISCOUNTED £45 RATE

“Drama is conflict. Everyone knows that. But is conflict also at the heart of our industry, and at the heart of our daily working lives as writers?” Emma Frost and Jack Thorne

Emma Frost (White Queen, Shameless) and Jack Thorne (The Fades, This is England) chair this year’s Festival and the theme is CONFLICT.

When: Wed 26th and Thurs 27th June 2013

Where: Leeds College of Music, Leeds

The festival is for professional working writers providing a unique opportunity to mix with your peers, alongside commissioners and producers in masterclass sessions, conversation and to debate the things that matter to you. This year’s creative group are: Sally Abbott, Pete Bowker, Danny Brocklehurst, Stephen Butchard, Dennis Kelly, Sarah Phelps and Toby Whithouse.

Is there a conflict between what we want to write – our art, our politics, our self expression – and what the industry, or even the audience, wants to make or watch?

If television drama is the perfect storm between art and industry, is that, in the end, a bad thing, or could that very collision be what produces the greatest television drama?

Are we, paradoxically, living in a golden age of television?

And has the rise of the showrunner led to increased power for writers or just the lucky one or two at the top?

Is the bottom getting crushed in order for the top to be fed grapes? And who is drinking the wine?

Is the ‘golden age’ an age of confused metaphors and possibly confused writers?

Think contradictions. Come and have a scrap at this year’s Writers’ Festival.

The line-up and sessions will be announced shortly but we have the following confirmed speakers:

Chris Chibnall

Dennis Kelly

Peter Bowker

Levi David Addai

John Yorke

Ben Stephenson.

Watch this space for more details.

Early Bird Bookings: Book by 10th May for the discounted price of £45 per ticket (standard ticket price £55)

**Please note we can only accept applications at this time from writers with a broadcast TV writing credit (short films are not eligible). We will not respond to applications from writers who do not have a credit**

To apply for a ticket please email: WritersroomEvents@bbc.co.uk

Subject line: 2013 TV DRAMA WRITERS FESTIVAL – EARLY BIRD

Please include in your email:

– A link to your work on IMDB so we can verify your writing credit

– The title & broadcast date of your most recently produced work

– Your contact telephone numbe

Learn invaluable tips at writersroom screenwriting seminar (Sold Out)

Ever wondered how to send your script to the BBC and what happens when you do? How do they assess your work? What grabs them and what puts them off? If you’re after some tips, this is a session not to miss.
BBC Writersroom is always on the lookout for fresh, new, talented writers of any age and experience with an original voice and great stories to tell.
Join Henry Swindell, New Writing Manager for BBC Writersroom North, at Curve Theatre, Leicester, who will provide you with some invaluable tips and answer any burning questions you may have about screenwriting.
This 3 hour seminar utilizes loads of film and TV clips to clearly demonstrate the building blocks of great story telling. It’s a very broad talk that is suitable for both beginners and experienced writers designed to get people excited and invigorated about writing as well as covering most of the basics.
Henry R Swindell is New Writing Development Manager, BBC Writersroom North where he works across Film, TV and Radio finding and developing writers for the BBC. Henry’s background is as a TV, Film and Theatre Producer. His 2011 award winning film ‘All That Way For Love’ has been shown at film festivals all over the world. As a TV producer he’s worked for the BBC, ITV and Channel Four on shows including Casualty, Hollyoaks and Coronation Street.
Date: 11th May
Time: 11am – 2pm
Address: Curve Theatre, 60 Rutland Street, Leicester, LE1 1SB
Please note this event is now sold out!

Screenwriting Top Tips – Liverpool Literary Festival (sold out)

Ever wondered how to send your script to the BBC and what happens when you do? How do they assess your work? What grabs them and what puts them off? If you’re after some tips, this is a session not to miss.
BBC Writersroom is always on the lookout for fresh, new, talented writers of any age and experience with an original voice and great stories to tell.
As part of the Liverpool Literary Festival: In Other Words, join Henry Swindell, New Writing Manager for BBC Writersroom North, who will provide you with some invaluable tips and answer any burning questions you may have about screenwriting.
This 3 hour seminar utilizes loads of film and TV clips to clearly demonstrate the building blocks of great story telling. It’s a very broad talk that is suitable for both beginners and experienced writers designed to get people excited and invigorated about writing as well as covering most of the basics.
Henry R Swindell is New Writing Development Manager, BBC Writersroom North where he works across Film, TV and Radio finding and developing writers for the BBC. Henry’s background is as a TV, Film and Theatre Producer. His 2011 award winning film ‘All That Way For Love’ has been shown at film festivals all over the world. As a TV producer he’s worked for the BBC, ITV and Channel Four on shows including Casualty, Hollyoaks and Coronation Street.
Date: 3rd May
Time: 6pm – 9pm
Location: Liverpool Lighthouse, Oakfield Road, Anfield, Liverpool, L4 0UF
This event is now sold out!

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Bluestone 42 research

One of the most common questions my co-writer James Cary and I get asked when we’re talking about our new comedy Bluestone 42, is about the research process. Did you do lots of research, people ask. Do you have a military background? The last question gets asked very rarely when it’s face-to-face. I can’t think why.
Bluestone 42
Given the subject matter of the show, a counter-IED team in Afghanistan, we knew from the outset that we were going to have to know what we were talking about. When we started developing the show, almost three years ago, we read all the books and watched all the documentaries we could. And we read reams of posts on ARRSE – the forum by soldiers, for soldiers, that gives an inside view of all things to do with the Army.

But more useful than any of that was talking to current and former soldiers first-hand about their experiences of Army life in theatre and back home. We talked to people who had served in the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan, trying to focus on those who did the same job that the characters in our show do. It often seemed to work as a ‘six degrees of separation’ exercise – you’d be surprised at who your family and friends know once you start asking around.
Lots of the material in the show is inspired by stuff that really happened, not least because real life is usually funnier, weirder and more interesting than anything you could make up. However, it’s vanishingly rare that you can just lift someone’s story and drop it into the show. Research gives you a big grab-bag of props, circumstances, rules, phrases and events that still need to be assembled into stories that are driven by your central characters.

Although the idea of research may seem a bit dry – as I’m writing this blogpost I am imagining readers up and down the country clicking over to YouTube and starting to look for videos of humorous cats – the process is incredibly engaging. In fact, it’s too engaging – there’s always something else to read or watch, but at some point you have to remember to write the stories. Research becomes a distraction rather than an inspiration. And if you’re lucky enough to actually make the show, you have to be prepared to let the research be the background not the point of the whole thing. Getting everything right on screen is not the same as not getting anything wrong.
Of course, we have got stuff wrong – there are always limitations, be they in terms of time, money, communication or just knowledge. But the stronger your foundation the better placed you are to avoid too many howling errors.
Throughout the process our touchstone was authenticity: comedy has to have one foot in reality to be funny. If you watch something and don’t believe in the world, it’s hard to laugh at. We were lucky to have an on-set military advisor with us every day during filming, and soon discovered that authenticity is a great trump card to play if you don’t like a script note – just tell them you can’t change it because that’s how it is in the Army. Although I’m pretty sure our producer saw through that one fairly early on!

Richard Hurst is co-writer of Bluestone 42, a brand new comedy drama following the lives of a bomb disposal detachment serving in Afghanistan.

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