Sorry, this is no follow up of Naomi Klein’s celebrated book No Logo, which exposes the dark secrets of the working environments in the factories of many big brands. Nor is this the expose by any investigative journalist. The hard truths were revealed by Apple itself, which conducted an onsite audit of its 102 facilities recently.

(Read more)

Apple’s 2010 Supplier Responsibility Progress Report, which audits third-party vendors to ensure that “the companies we do business with… provide safe working conditions, treat workers with dignity and respect, and use environmentally responsible manufacturing processes wherever Apple products are made” makes for some shocking reading: 17 core violations, including child labour, falsified records, underpayment, overwork, and a whopping 57 vendors who have been cheating workers out of legally required benefits like sick leave and maternity leave.

As a long-time user of Apple products, I am deeply disturbed. However, considering that Apple themselves have revealed these violations, let’s hope it is because they are genuinely concerned about labour and human rights, and that it is not merely a PR exercise.

~PD

The Guardian asked a line-up of eminent authors for their personal dos and don’ts for efficient fiction writing. The results, to say the least, ranged from entertaining to outrageous to hilarious: “Get an accountant, abstain from sex and similes, cut, rewrite, then cut and rewrite again – if all else fails, pray.”

So anyhow, to cut a long story short, though eminence is a far-off nightmare dream, no harm in compiling a list of my own. Here’s hoping it doesn’t affect my relationship with my accountant, have a bearing on my sex life, or make me believe in religion…

1. Uninstall all IM software: Really, truly. In fact, getting away from the Net is good, on the whole, except that it sometimes comes in handy to look things up. I have to admit, I don’t follow this rule. I’m bad.
2. Don’t try to plot your novel if that doesn’t work for you: I find it impossible to plot out a scene-by-scene story. I just need to let stuff happen. I never expected Nira to catch the speld — she just did.
3. Don’t worry about chapters: Working chapters is usually something I bluff my way through. A chapter break happens when I think to myself, “Oops, I haven’t had a new chapter for ages.” It seems to work. After all, Terry Pratchett doesn’t do chapters, does he? He’s inspirational!
4. Characters without the right name have no life: I beg to differ with Shakespeare — the name is everything. A two-metre-tall nerdy Scandinavian called Bill would have turned out very different from Noah.
5. Give yourself a deadline and treat it seriously: I promise myself a treat when (and if) I meet the deadline.
6. Get some honest reviews: I’d rather know from friends that my precious work-in-progress is crap than from strangers.
7. If you get stuck at some point in the story, move on to something else: No point being frustrated with a part that just isn’t coming together. I move on to writing something completely different or to another part of the story. When I come back to the problem later, I’m always surprised how much the break helped.
8. Also, don’t write in chronological order if you don’t want to: I just write the bits I have figured out first and worry about what comes after what later on.
9. Writer’s block happens: So no point fretting over it! I try and enjoy the break and not feel guilty about it.
10. Free-writing really helps: In fact, they have proved to be an effective antidote to writer’s block for me.

If anyone has any other rules for themselves, I’m curious to hear.

~PD

It’s rare to read a book that completely enthrals you. But it can be a bitter-sweet experience: on the one hand you are so completely satisfied; on the other hand you know that nothing else will match up with it for a long time to come.

The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency happens to be one such book. Detailing the adventures of the unconventional, intuitive, unflappable Mma Ramotswe, proprietor of the agency, this is the first in a series of eleven books. This is also the book that has, at long last, kicked me into adding to Writeside.net’s reviews section.

Here’s a teaser from the review:

Precious Ramotswe is about as unlikely a private detective as you would expect — indeed “the only lady private detective in Botswana”. None of the slick smarts of the Kinsey Milhones and Kate Brannigans of the world. That’s not to say that Mma Ramotswe is lacking in the intelligence department. Oh no… she is an extremely sharp and resourceful woman, and her Daddy would have been proud of her today if he had been alive to see her.

Read the rest here, but don’t forget to come back to comment.

~PD