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Timothy Balding @timothybalding.bsky.social · 9h

Why do all such questions ask about 'WIPs'? Has no one actually finished and published anything here that they can talk about?😜

Timothy Balding @timothybalding.bsky.social · 1d

Just send the file to yourself by email each day, or hour, or minute, depending on your level of paranoia (mine is high). I figure that Google will survive me, so I'm safe.

Timothy Balding @timothybalding.bsky.social · 1d

Thanks! One can say what some music endeavours to 'describe' - Smetana's Moldau, for example, or Beethoven's Pastoral symphony, are extremely evocative. Then, one can also describe what effect the music has on us, emotionally. Here's an extract from one of my novels where I endeavour to do this.

Timothy Balding @timothybalding.bsky.social · 6d

What do you mean, though? To describe music? To write prose which has its own word music? Or ...?

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Timothy Balding @timothybalding.bsky.social · Sep 10

Once upon a time, authors savaged each other's books, while critics shredded lousy writing. Back to the good old days with a review eviscerating Dan Brown's new novel: "weapons grade bollocks", by an "inept", "hopeless" author. Let's kill more darlings! theguardian.com/books/2025/s...

The Secret of Secrets by Dan Brown review – weapons-grade nonsense from beginning to end

Code-breaking hero Robert Langdon is back for another conspiracy thriller, featuring underground laboratories and new thoughts on the nature of consciousness

theguardian.com

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Timothy Balding @timothybalding.bsky.social · Sep 10

Once upon a time, authors savaged each other's books, while critics shredded lousy writing. Back to the good old days with a review eviscerating Dan Brown's new novel: "weapons grade bollocks", by an "inept", "hopeless" author. Let's kill more darlings! theguardian.com/books/2025/s...

The Secret of Secrets by Dan Brown review – weapons-grade nonsense from beginning to end

Code-breaking hero Robert Langdon is back for another conspiracy thriller, featuring underground laboratories and new thoughts on the nature of consciousness

theguardian.com

Timothy Balding @timothybalding.bsky.social · Sep 10

Four bestselling authors recently put their readers to the test and published their own short texts next to AI work on the same theme. A large 'blind' poll found that their readers simply couldn't tell the difference. I did the test - AI was much better written and more interesting.

Timothy Balding @timothybalding.bsky.social · Sep 10

😀 Definitely not to be meddled with! And you should see her zucchini.

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Timothy Balding @timothybalding.bsky.social · Aug 14

Anybody out there? Is Bluesky a reality or an illusion? For the moment, it's a cemetery and I'm a zombie here.

Timothy Balding @timothybalding.bsky.social · Aug 10

"Great wit and erudition ... it's fun, playful and philosophical, a very enjoyable read!"
A video review of my latest novel, 'The Spectator', up today on the Youtube book channel of author Andy Miller.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQ8G...

The Spectator by Timothy Balding

YouTube video by Andy Christopher Miller

www.youtube.com

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Timothy Balding @timothybalding.bsky.social · Aug 10

"Great wit and erudition ... it's fun, playful and philosophical, a very enjoyable read!"
A video review of my latest novel, 'The Spectator', up today on the Youtube book channel of author Andy Miller.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQ8G...

The Spectator by Timothy Balding

YouTube video by Andy Christopher Miller

www.youtube.com

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Timothy Balding @timothybalding.bsky.social · Apr 19

The End Game - The best political analysis I've read since Hannah Arendt last crossed my desk. Do yourself a favour, get a stiff drink, sit down and read this. Brilliant and profoundly illuminating. Thank you @naomiaklein.bsky.social & @astra.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...
.
.

The rise of end times fascism | Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor

The governing ideology of the far right has become a monstrous, supremacist survivalism. Our task is to build a movement strong enough to stop them

www.theguardian.com

Reposted by Timothy Balding

Timothy Balding @timothybalding.bsky.social · Mar 20

In today's issue of the excellent London Review of Books ... my own little act of resistance to the oncoming storm. And the Spanish peasant woman who inspired it all (photo Associated Press, if I remember rightly). The creative mind at work ... Ooh la la!

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Timothy Balding @timothybalding.bsky.social · Mar 27

If perhaps you can find such a thing as your 'true self' 😀 In my case, it never existed. I had to invent it from scratch. I don't think I'm the only one obliged to do this, in an epoch where ways of thinking and beliefs are less and less inherited, our parents having, rightly, given up such ambition

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Timothy Balding @timothybalding.bsky.social · Mar 20

In today's issue of the excellent London Review of Books ... my own little act of resistance to the oncoming storm. And the Spanish peasant woman who inspired it all (photo Associated Press, if I remember rightly). The creative mind at work ... Ooh la la!

1 1 2

Reposted by Timothy Balding

Timothy Balding @timothybalding.bsky.social · Mar 17

It's a long time between reviews these days. Few readers make the effort. So when a new one suddenly pops up, like this evening, well, a man could weep, really 😃 'The Spectator' (tinyurl.com/3v3kfkt9)

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Timothy Balding @timothybalding.bsky.social · Mar 17

It's a long time between reviews these days. Few readers make the effort. So when a new one suddenly pops up, like this evening, well, a man could weep, really 😃 'The Spectator' (tinyurl.com/3v3kfkt9)

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Timothy Balding @timothybalding.bsky.social · Mar 14

Thank you kindly. Maybe indeed it's why my book sales on Amazon this past week are at nothing...

Timothy Balding @timothybalding.bsky.social · Mar 10

Twitter is under attack, apparently, and has been down three times today. That's why they're coming over here right now 😀

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Timothy Balding @timothybalding.bsky.social · Mar 10

Frantic first and last. I'm one of those (there are many) who only write one draft. That may have a lot to do with the long mental preparation. Paulo Coelho, for instance, says he wrote The Alchemist only once, and in twelve days, because he'd done all the work already in his head.

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Timothy Balding @timothybalding.bsky.social · Mar 10

My process, which is impossible for me to modify, apparently:
I simply have to wait, going about life, while my creative tank fills itself in agonising slowness with my next book's ideas. It could take a year or two. Eventually, I'm ready, and then I write rapidly to the death! Every day.

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Timothy Balding @timothybalding.bsky.social · Mar 10

First I've heard of such a boycott. Could you tell us more?

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Timothy Balding @timothybalding.bsky.social · Mar 4

Not revolution, but resistance. That's also satisfying.

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Reposted by Timothy Balding

Timothy Balding @timothybalding.bsky.social · Mar 4

As America sells out Ukraine and Europe, and begins to dismantle its own democracy in front of our very eyes, it seems like an appropriate day to give a new boost to my Trump novel. Please repost if you are feeling kindly. tinyurl.com/3v3kfkt9

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Timothy Balding @timothybalding.bsky.social · Mar 4

As America sells out Ukraine and Europe, and begins to dismantle its own democracy in front of our very eyes, it seems like an appropriate day to give a new boost to my Trump novel. Please repost if you are feeling kindly. tinyurl.com/3v3kfkt9

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Timothy Balding @timothybalding.bsky.social · Feb 13

I don't really see that they are. The US is much more ideologically related to Iran, for instance, than Russia. No, this current fiasco is rather the result of a personal rapport between two tyrants who adore power and cruelty.

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