Nearly back on an even keel…

Filed by: Darren Turpin on November 18, 2007 at 20:50
Filed under: Miscellania

The last few weeks have been a bit intense, both work-wise and otherwise. Following the recent launch of the all-new PS Publishing webstore, as well as the Wordpress-enabled re-launch of John Berylne's Works of Tim Powers fan-site and the re-vamped version of Richard Morgan's homepage, Jo and I promptly jetted off on holiday for a week, to the quite fantastic Mediterranean island of Malta.

We had a fantastic time, but alas, we also received some sad news on our last day there; suffice to say that a family funeral ensued, which we both attended this week just gone. All of which has resulted in something of a backlog - as you'd imagine - although I think I'm pretty much back on top of things now. So much so that I managed to make time today to put together my new, personal blog site at www.darrenturpin.me.uk.

So from now on, that's where I'll be posting all my music, humour, movie and life etc. related posts, leaving The Genre Files free for more bookish material; like the pile of recommended reading that I want to post at some point. I'm also looking at my work schedule in order to free up more time to work on UKSFBN each day, which should result in more regular posts, or at least fewer content gaps. And of course, any work-related material will be posted to www.darrenturpin.co.uk.

Oh, and the eagle-eyed among you may have noticed that I've started signing posts as 'Darren' rather than 'Ariel', both here and over at UKSFBN. The reason? Well, 'Ariel' is an old nick-name from high school that stuck through University and my early days in bookselling. I always liked it, because it was quirky and memorable for folks on the other end of a phone; especially when I rang up busy publicists to blag review copies and author interviews for 'The Alien Has Landed'. But now I'm working freelance I think that using my given name is more professional. And something else happened recently to convince me that 'quirky' isn't always best.

My post on the Long Tail economics of genre fiction got a bit of blogosphere coverage; it was even picked up on by Lou Anders, a US-based editor whose work I have an enormous amount of respect for, which was naturally most gratifying... until Lou made the (not entirely unreasonable) assumption that I was a lady.

Not a problem, easily remedied, and indeed, Paul Cornell actually point out the gender-switch in the comment thread to Lou's post and Lou made the correction. But along the way, he replied to Paul's comment, saying: "next you'll be telling me Ariel doesn't have a tail and live under da sea..."

Ba-dum, tish!

You know what? When someone you respect - and whose opinion of you could potentially be quite important from a work-related point-of-view - makes 'Little Mermaid' jokes about your current nom-de-nick then that's probably a signal that it's time to stop being quite so quirky and focus on the professional instead.

So, 'Ariel' is being phased out, at least on anything that carries a public profile that could reflect on me professionally. Although of course I will still answer to my nick-name when talking to anyone that knows me (Jo won't call me anything else...), and I'll probably still sign emails as 'Ariel' from force of habit. But there you go. A lesson learned.

Comments

8 Responses to 'Nearly back on an even keel…'

Joe Abercrombie on November 18th, 2007 11:13 pm

Heh. I always thought more Shakespeare than Disney, but what the hey. And I wouldn't take Lou Anders opinion TOO seriously.

I don't.

Ba-dum, tish!
mhayinde on November 19th, 2007 5:03 pm

Sorry to hear about your family loss.
Darren on November 19th, 2007 5:22 pm

Thank you, Modupe. The dearly departed was Jo's Grandad. He was 86 and had put in a damn fine innings, but his health had failed him at the end.

Hell of a turnout for the funeral - he was one of the pillars of his local community, and had been involved in football for decades; President of the Shropshire F.A. and recipient of a gold medal for 50 years' service, that sort of thing. About a hundred people came to the service, including at least two dozen Shropshire referees, most of whom he'd trained at some point as well.

Damn fine fellow. I was proud to be asked to be a pall-bearer and lay him to rest.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I seem to have something in my eye...
mhayinde on November 19th, 2007 5:33 pm

It sounds as though he had a full life, and made a lot of people happy. I'm sure he'll be well remembered by everyone.
SpecLit on November 20th, 2007 6:59 am

I'm glad you're back. I've been reading your blogs for a long time, and maybe if you start posting there will be some nice bloggish dialog!

That and I've been hoping for your follow-up on the whole genre marketing thing....
Joe on November 21st, 2007 12:26 am

Sorry about your grandad-in-law mate and not an easy thing to be a pall-bearer; it is a last honour you can do, but still not easy.

And like t'other Joe here I always thought more of Ariel from the Tempest than the Little Mermaid, a strange spirit working arcane magical rites (describes both web development and book reviewing rather well I think)
Mark on November 21st, 2007 2:02 am

Welcome back Ariel... or Darren.

About nom-de-plumes: It's a tough decision, and something I've also had to deal with. What started as a teenage nickname has sort-of stuck, though it has been suggested for reasons similar to yours that now I use my real name as well. It confused Peter Watts something rotten!

And sorry to hear of the funeral too. Best to you and Jo.
Darren on November 21st, 2007 2:45 pm

Thanks to all for the very kind words of condolence. Very much appreciated.

Since posting on Sunday, I've had a good old e-chat with Lou Anders (a thoroughly pleasant fellow!), and have assured him that I'm certainly not blaming him for the whole moniker-change thing... but his comments were the catalyst that speeded the decision-making process and made me realise that whilst standing out from the crowd is generally a good idea, the way you do it is also important...

So, sometimes a quirky name is just a quirky name that doesn't say quite the right sort of things about you or your approach or your levels of professionalism. That's all I'm saying.

And speaking of names... Speclit old chap - welcome! I was very flattered indeed to hear you've been reading TGF for a while, and I'm also liking the way your new blog is shaping up. The only thing is, you could maybe do with putting your full name (Brian who?) somewhere on there as well? If folks decide they want to track down your short fiction to read then it'll make it a lot easier if they know who they're looking out for, eh? ;)