Micro Blog

I find that the state of the world adversely affects my emotional health, but I resolve at least to keep writing.

Apr 21st, 2025

I truly feel for Americans at the moment. Financial impact is one thing, but the US has utterly lost the world’s trust. This will only deteriorate further as full repercussions become clear.

It’s often worse to be unreliable than an outright malefactor, and the US govt is now an unreliable entity from a western point of view. A partner in limited respects at best, but no longer a credible ally. It’s an appalling fall, and the reputational damage alone will take literally generations to repair.

Apr 15th, 2025

Appeasement never works.

Apr 10th, 2025

It’s when I most need to make art — because of the idiotic state of the world — that I most feel like giving up on making art.

Apr 8th, 2025

Celebrating 85-odd years of the special exemption for assaulting fascists.

Apr 8th, 2025

Nov 18th, 2024

Writing is the one pursuit I never seem to get tired of.

Nov 18th, 2024

The Achilles’ heel of liberalism is the flawed belief that illiberal, regressive voices should be given equal prominence. Pragmatically, it’s little more than martyrdom.

Oct 24th, 2024

I’m always nonplussed to find a web site that isn’t mobile-friendly, but is still being updated. Apparently, 60% (and growing) of web traffic is from a mobile device in 2024. I also suspect that usage of “reader” modes/views in browsers to bridge the gap is a lot rarer than tech-savvy people would think.

Oct 8th, 2024

Many problems with writing come from trying to imitate a style, rather than to be clear. Clarity is paramount, because without it, you haven’t communicated effectively. Eliminate jargon, idiom, and bombast. Brevity isn’t curtness, and it’s much easier to dress up a clear message than to decipher waffle.

Oct 1st, 2024

Regularly reassess whether your pundits have become apologists.

Sep 30th, 2024

The paradox of tolerance applies especially to demagoguery.

Sep 30th, 2024

I’ve started doing video readings of my weekly mini-stories, but beginning way back with the first one! You can watch the video for story 1, Nine Mile Burn, right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6_maxyUUlA

Aug 19th, 2024

Remember when I used to make open-source UI components? Life was lower resolution in those days.

Jul 10th, 2024

Up next (I mean, not too soon) from the writing desk… 🤔

Jul 9th, 2024

The twin problems of the modern internet are a lack of ownership of your own published content, and too many social media networks. And advertising. And privacy intrusions. And bloat. So, five problems, minimum.

Jul 9th, 2024

That time of year again when I start looking at fancy weekender bags.

Jul 8th, 2024

Delighted with the reviews that JINX has been getting! https://mattgemmell.scot/jinx-reviews-are-in/

Jan 29th, 2024

My new novel, JINX, the third book in the KESTREL series, is out now! https://mattgemmell.scot/books/jinx/

Jan 17th, 2024

Since I now have articles, stories, and podcast episodes on my site, I’ve made a set of new RSS feeds so you can choose exactly what you want to recieve: https://mattgemmell.scot/feeds/

Apr 14th, 2023

I send posts to micro.blog via an RSS feed. Is it possible to display images in those posts, such that they’ll show up here? Would a regular old IMG tag work?

Apr 13th, 2023

I wish I’d started physiotherapy for my knee years ago. It already feels a bit better after eight days.

Apr 13th, 2023

I’m trying to be more comprehensive about what I share here, so henceforth there’ll be brief links to my new podcast episodes, blog articles, and weekly mini-stories, as well as dedicated microblog posts. Do let me know if those links annoy.

Apr 12th, 2023

I’ve started a new podcast, with short, sharp episodes giving advice on all the stages of writing a novel! https://mattgemmell.scot/podcast/

Apr 11th, 2023

Fewer than 300 words, on faux-AI and creating things with it, from the point of view of authorship. https://mattgemmell.scot/authorship/

Apr 3rd, 2023

Some brief thoughts on our pernicious need to deify. https://mattgemmell.scot/new-gods/

Jan 26th, 2023

Good morning to all. My 107th free weekly mini-story is out, and you can read it here: https://mattgemmell.scot/books/once-upon-a-time/stories/tags/

This one occurred to me while I was contemplating the unknowability of other minds, and deciding which coloured labels to apply to a particular set of files.

Jan 23rd, 2023

This was never published on my site before, but I’ve taken the time to tidy it up and put it out there. An important one. https://mattgemmell.scot/i-found-my-suicide-note/

Jan 19th, 2023

Good morning to all. My 105th free weekly mini-story is out, and was inspired by my recent tinkering with electronics and Raspberry Pi computers. You can read it here: https://mattgemmell.com/books/once-upon-a-time/stories/making-things/

Jan 9th, 2023

Good morning to all. My 104th free weekly mini story is out, and you can read it here: https://mattgemmell.scot/books/once-upon-a-time/stories/daughters-of-the-moon/

(You can also subscribe via the link on that page to get these in your inbox each week!)

Jan 2nd, 2023

Good morning to all, from rainy Edinburgh. 👋🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 I wrote a brief thing about the problem with AI: https://mattgemmell.scot/the-problem-with-ai/

Dec 29th, 2022

Good Monday to all (yes, it’s Monday). My 103rd free weekly mini-story is out, and you can read it here: https://mattgemmell.scot/books/once-upon-a-time/stories/what-you-seek/

Those of us who suffer from social exhaustion can find this time of year hard, with big family gatherings. This brief tale offers a bit of balance, mostly to myself!

Dec 26th, 2022

I wrote a thing. The key to understanding is deconstruction until each idea is irreducible, then reconnection of the parts. https://mattgemmell.scot/atomic-thoughts/

Dec 22nd, 2022

Good morning to all. My 102nd free weekly mini-story is out now. You can read (and subscribe, if you like) here: https://mattgemmell.scot/books/once-upon-a-time/stories/the-rehearsal/

Dec 19th, 2022

Good Thursday to all. I wrote a little thing about making progress with whatever it is you want to get done. https://mattgemmell.scot/four-bars/

Dec 15th, 2022

Good morning to all, from rather chilly Edinburgh. 🥶🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 My 101st free weekly mini-story is out, and you can read it here: https://mattgemmell.scot/books/once-upon-a-time/stories/the-confessional/

Dec 12th, 2022

Apparently we might reach a nighttime low of -6°C here next Thursday. Very much not looking forward to that. Barely ever above zero all next week. Coupled with mendacious Tory mismanagement of… everything, the Brexit folly, and the ongoing Russian atrocity including weaponisation of food and fuel, the results are all too grimly predictable.

Dec 9th, 2022

Good morning to all, from very-slightly-snowy Edinburgh! I wrote a little thing about making modest but regular progress, and how it all adds up: https://mattgemmell.scot/practice/

Dec 8th, 2022

Following my one-hundredth free weekly mini-story, I’m excited to announce that all 100 tales are available in a single ebook compendium, complete with author’s notes! Find out more here: https://mattgemmell.scot/books/once-upon-a-time-one-hundred-tales-collection/

Dec 5th, 2022

Friends, acquaintances, and especially frenemies: my weekly free mini-story is out as usual, and it’s the 100th tale (and week) since I started this series!

You can read it here, and I hope you’ll subscribe to get these in your inbox too: https://mattgemmell.scot/books/once-upon-a-time/stories/so-clearly/

Dec 4th, 2022

Now the birdsite has officially shut down their COVID misinformation-suppression policy. Just in the US, there have been over a million deaths from the virus in total, and more than 2,500 of them reported in the last week. The pandemic isn’t over.

Antivaxxer parents are refusing to allow life-saving heart surgery on their four-month-old son because they don’t want transfused blood that “contains” a COVID vaccine. That’s one of the results of abdicating our shared responsibility to suppress and counter misinformation.

It’s a dark place, and a dark time. Get vaccinated and boosted, and wear a mask.

Nov 30th, 2022

If I was any good at marketing, I’d have done this in time for Hallowe’en… but I’m not. At all. Better late than never, though, so my supernatural thriller/horror novel MIDDLESHADE ROAD is 40% off now as an ebook!

Here’s where to get it:

• Apple Books
• Amazon 🇺🇸
• Amazon 🇬🇧
• (or your local Amazon site)

and… AUTOGRAPHED ebook copies are here!

I hope you’ll give it a try!

Nov 23rd, 2022

If you’re not hosting your blog with micro.blog, and (like me) are instead just using an RSS or JSON feed as a source of posts for your micro.blog account, you might want to nudge micro.blog to pull your feed again after you’ve just published a new post.

For the record, you can do so trivially on the command line as follows. Note that you must already have added your feed URL to your micro.blog account, via Account → Edit Feeds & Cross-posting.

curl -X POST -F 'url=https://YOUR-FEED-URL-HERE' https://micro.blog/ping

Nov 8th, 2022

I wrote something today: https://mattgemmell.scot/dot-scot/

Nov 8th, 2022

While I am still on Twitter, and presumably will be for some time to come, it’s probably broadcast/marketing-only for me now. Having a strong sense of getting out just in time.

Nov 7th, 2022

As always at this time of year in the UK, my vote is that fireworks be limited to official displays, prohibited for private purchase, and in all cases be either silent (if that’s feasible yet) or banned entirely (until it is). My dog goes through hell from Diwali until several days after Guy Fawkes Night.

Nov 6th, 2022

There’s being bad at marketing, and then there’s forgetting to promote your horror novel around Hallowe’en.

Nov 5th, 2022