Richard Bown

Mouth sushi, Grommit.

“Me: I offer a steady hand. Reliable. A dogged practitioner of futile labour. Isn’t that enough for you?”

I will watch it but it has to be a hell of a season 2

Once again O’ Brian informs and entertains with his tales of the Skaw and the Kattegat in “The Surgeon’s Mate”. Another right rollick

Holiday time on Lanzarote. Lots of boat and beer spotting options. Might even get a walk or two in.

This is one of the major downsides of travelling and attempting to have a life, of course. A writer has no life. You need to be glued to your keyboard and never far away from a kettle.

Letter from Philip K. Dick to Jeff Walker (The Ladd Company) about Blade Runner. #scifi #sciencefiction

The best thing about having finished a novel already is knowing that you can do it. The worst thing about this is knowing that you have a lot of legwork to do before you can even see the bones of the new thing.

Time to wake up the writing brain again. I've had a couple of weeks of doing bits and pieces, but nothing structured. That's very freeing, but it doesn't make projects progress. I've got half a screenplay and a novel skeleton to work on - get moving, he says to himself. #writingcommunity

I'm standing in front of the Dutch and Amstelveen gemeente flags holding my Dutch citizenship document

So today I became Dutch. Just a typical Monday.

Veel geluk gewenst. I have that particular joy tomorrow morning.

The bell tolls for those who don't actually add any value. I'll skip the light fantastic when I can finally stop dealing with accountants.

I've never been that proud of my code, but I've certainly been precious, nay passionate, about building things that people love using. This means sometimes being more like the other guy in that article. I solved my messiness by not coding so much (DevOps) and asking better questions

A brilliant article about the existential crisis for programmers that is Claude Code: matduggan.com/i-sold-out-f...

This seems to point the general direction in which publishing is going. Never been a better time to be an indie if you want to keep your voice true.

Same for French

Listening to “In Your Eyes” and “Red Rain”. The noise that Gabriel creates is phenomenal. I am transported back to the Kentish marshes of the 80s cycling about on my Rayleigh. Ethereal, touching, endlessly sad. Amazing that it touched so many, the brutal honesty and fear in the work.

It’s a beautiful spring day in this concrete jungle and the lyrics to Solsbury Hill are rattling around in my head

ALLi Bookstore - Richard W. Bown - Human Software - A Life in IT - A Novel View Human Software - A Life in IT - A Novel from Richard W. Bown in the ALLi Bookstore

I've recently joined the Alliance of Independent Authors (@indieauthoralli.bsky.social) and have just published Human Software via their bookstore. bookstore.allianceindependentauthors.org/author/richa...

Mingulay, July 2025

Mingulay, July 2025.

Learning from the last week: when you pitch a bookshop in person, it really helps if you speak to the owner. #writingcommunity #selfpublishing

Some of these places were where me or my family lived in Sandwich. Some of them made it into “Human Software”

Sitting on Folkestone beach

I've been travelling around South-East Kent today, marvelling at the number of housing developments that have sprung up and being amazed that the road infrastructure hasn't been updated to cope with them. It's a bit of a joke, really. I have some inspiration for Book 2. #writingcommunity #kent

Brilliant day of two halves today. Lovely enthusiastic bookshop owners on the one hand, slightly less welcoming and interested ones on the other. I understand it's tough for independent booksellers, but it's also for authors, so best to be polite just in case. Just sayin' #booksky #writingcommunity

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Brewdog: Bars close and hundreds lose jobs as beer firm sold in £33m deal Beverage and cannabis company Tilray acquires the brewery, the brand and 11 bars after Brewdog went into administration.

Yeah punk as fuck. In that a couple got super rich off the back of a successful grass roots marketing strategy. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

I’ve not seen some brilliant bands recently

Winners will be announced in one week, and I’ll ship signed copies directly.

Let’s celebrate Kent, tech, and the thrill of corporate intrigue!

Good luck!

How to enter:

❤️ Like this post
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✉️ Send me a DM or email with your name and contact details

You can contact me through the HUMAN SOFTWARE website, where the full T&Cs are listed. Link in the comments.