Mostly by Knight - this WordPress site is giving trouble and for now I’ll be posting at “Q’s Place”

We are open for business at Q's place

Q

Novelist Sinclair Lewis had been invited to Columbia University to deliver a lecture on the writer’s craft. He stepped up to the podium, looked out at the host of eager young faces, and asked, “How many of you here are really serious about being writers?”

Hands shot up across the lecture hall. Lewis Paused, and then said fiercely, “Well then, why the hell aren’t you all home writing?”

And with that  he returned to his seat

And that’s the problem - keeping a blog - two blogs, and a web site… and writing at least two hours, usually more, a day.  Writing should take first place: doing it and learning to do it better, every time.

Yet the days of the writer in his lonely garret, banging out a manuscript that he sends to his agent or publisher are long gone (for most of us)and unlikely to return. The internet is our new window on the world. When it works, that is - this place has had a slow and erratic connection since last May, died in April and is now arisen from the dead - and please don’t read any geeky symbolism into this: it’s return is more like that of a zombie, slow and stumbling and not at all predictable.

So what’s up at Mostly by Knight? Good and useful things I hope - for writers and everyone interested in the craft: this site should be about writing and publishing in these new and interesting times.

Coming up next, I hope to work on the theme here - this one is very good and I can recommend it to anyone keen on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) the link is at the footer, below.  I’m working on www.byknight.com,  the web site that hosts these web logs - this one and Q’s Place (a journal for rambling, ranting and raving) and the idea is to keep the themes uniform so that all the editing hassle becomes simpler and I can focus on content. Which is what matters.

Q

Sphere: Related Content

Had he been alive,  this past weekend my father, Frank Knight, would have been  joining his fellow veterans at the Cenotaph on Whitehall, London in the annual parade. He left his squadron as Flight Lieutenant, when it was disbanded - I’ve always suspected that he would have preferred to continue in the RAF after the war (he mentioned once that he had the opportunity) but his wife was going to have their first child and they chose to return to her parents in Argentina - where I was born a month before his official discharge.

He stayed for a while in Buenos Aires after his retirement (he worked as a salesman for a brewery, then for a steel company) and was at one time Chairman of the RAF Association there,  but returned eventually  to live in London, back to those of his surviving friends of that time - for though it was a tragic and awful time for humanity and the world - today we stop a little while in memory of all that die in wars and particularly this one -  I think that bonds made then can never be undone. So honouring the memory o all veterans, and to Flt. Lt. Frank Knight, our Dad … with love,

Peter, John and Jeannie

About his Squadron:

No.172 Squadron was formed at Chivenor on 4 April 1942 from No.1417 (Leigh Light) Flight which had formed on 8 March to operate Wellingtons equipped with airborne searchlights on anti-submarine patrols. The first operational night patrol was flown on 3 June during which two U-boats were located and attacked. In August, seven aircraft were detached to Wick for patrols over the North Sea and were the basis of No.179 Squadron when it formed on 14 September. Patrols over the Western Approaches and Bay of Biscay led to many sightings and in March 1943 the Squadron’s Wellingtons were fitted with ASV Mark III radar to guide the aircraft into a position where their searchlights could be exposed to reveal a U-boat. This method soon brought results, U-665 being sunk on 20 March and the overall the squadron averaged one sighting for every four sorties.*

Between October 1943 and April 1944 detachments were based at Gibraltar and later, in the Azores. In September 1944, No.172 moved to northern Ireland and flew patrols over the Atlantic until disbanded on 4 June 1945.

* Win one, lose one. From my father’s flight log: On  the 8th. of October 1943, the German submarine U-340 was damaged and later scuttled (all crew but one rescued safely) but on the 7th. of January 1944 a surfaced sub blew a hole in one wing of my dad’s plane - the sub may have been U-380 or U-952 - but they managed to get home and land safely. For better or for worse that’s why it’s me, Q, here and not somebody else.

Q

I’m parking this addy here, until I figure out how to insert it into this theme’s sidebar - it’s my own book in the series, and with my customary modesty, I want to have it at the front:

Still owing - the new ones. It is becoming an impressive collection - coming soon now. Check out the shop from any of these links, meanwhile.

August, stock taking time -  but I was setting up ‘the store - or shopping mall’ on my web page (still in Dreamweaver, unpublished alas, but coming along); found the series of books for writers at Holly Lisle’s shop:  the Hollyshop. As I got them together one more was  announced - ‘Worst Mistakes Writers Make About San Francisco‘ …. But here we are, all together:

(Most recent first - scroll down for all - Click each picture for details)

Mother Nature, by Katharina Gerlach

Disappearing, by Julie Roselia Edwards

The Celts, by Lisa Lawler

Ballet Dancers, by Gypsy Thornton

Hunting, by Tanya Drayton

Genealogy and Family History, by Judy Roselia Edwards

Courtroom Law, by Lynne Murray

Firearms, by …  (you’ve seen this one already - if not: what are you waiting for?)

And Horses , by Sue Huffman, who  was the first.