Practical Defence Against Piracy: CHAPTER TWO Begins!

I am proud to present you, Dear Reader, with the very first pages from Chapter Two of Practical Defence Against Piracy, in which the reader is unlikely to be misled, despite the narrator's attempts.

There are three (!) cameos in these pages. If you recognize yourself (or your loved one), I hope I've done right by you. We'll see more in the coming weeks.

Thank you Emmanuelle and Fergus for pointing me to references for styling the chapter synopsis! (Which I've also added to Chapter One, I just need to make the effort to update it in the right places).

For the first installment I thought it made the most sense to include these first six pages, because they make a good grouping and because it's nice to start off with momentum. Most upcoming installments will be posted in four-page chunks, because it breaks up tidily that way (and will let me build up a buffer, which is always useful).

If you would like to only browse Patreon posts that show these finished pages, they're all under the "DD4" tag.

DON'T YOU ALREADY HAVE A BUFFER?

No! I only just got these first pages done in time to post, because it's been a busy week. Not only has our household schedule offered less work time than usual, but also a surprise task popped up last week.

Loathe as I am (and believe me, I am) to make vague statements and mist-shaped promises, this week I got to do some work on a thing that will eventually, hopefully, ideally be of great interest to you, Dear Delilah Dirk Reader. Speculate all you want, that is all I can say right now. I'm excited, and I'm also slightly behind on my colouring.

TALK TO ME ABOUT BOOKS.

While colouring, I finished up Pratchett's SNUFF (pretty good) and started Oliver Burkeman's FOUR THOUSAND WEEKS. I am a big fan of Burkeman after reading THE ANTIDOTE: HAPPINESS FOR PEOPLE WHO CAN'T STAND POSITIVE THINKING, so I was very much looking forward to his new one. So far, it's delivering the goods and I've noticed something: if you like Pratchett's writing style and sensibility, you might like Burkeman's.

Coincidentally, this week I was also linked to this newsletter post from Burkeman positing that a useful question to occasionally ask is, "what if this situation is even worse than I thought?"

That post linked to this beautiful post by Simon Evans on the topic of the passage of time and growth and death and all those fun things. I found it extremely moving and (as Burkeman advises) worth your time and (I might add) perfect toilet reading if you like coming out of the bathroom with tears running down your face.

Finally, friend Molly Muldoon very gently beats up a bad (but apparently very popular) book in her most recent newsletter. This type of thing is important because we must always call a spade a spade even if the spade is very popular and its feelings might be hurt, because this act is sanity-preserving. So: thank you Molly. 

It's a long weekend for many people. If that's you, I hope it is a good one!

And as always, thank you Dear Readers and Patrons for making this work less financially irresponsible. I am beyond excited to share Chapter Two with you.

🐑
TC