Lazarian Wordsmith's Blog, page 10

One rule for readers posting - another for writers posting - yet it's called a book club!!!!

Joined a Facebook Club organised by an RTE radio personality.
Posters are recommending books, commenting on books, and reviewing books.
Some are posting pictures of books they have bought - the front cover, the title and the author.
Seemingly this is allowed.

I then posted a link to my book in response to a query about scary books.
Then I got admonished by the "owner" for blagging my book.
So now my old belief that RTE will only promote books produce by Irish Publishers is confirmed again. Advertisers count - the person who buys the licence doesn't.
Public service broadcasting my derry-air.

I never wanted to lead a race....

Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 


#344 in Kindle Store > Books > Crime, Thriller & Mystery > Crime Fiction > British & Irish > Irish#595 in Kindle Store > Books > Crime, Thriller & Mystery > Crime Fiction > Kidnapping





So I'm not the winner but I'm satisfied.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wicker-Wood-Where-Secrets-Buried-ebook/dp/B00U1SPJ3O

Finger Flexing Exercises. Mad Thoughts. Maybe a book for kids.

So there I was out in the garden, at night, lamping slugs with a flash light. I suppose most of you are too young to remember when people went Lamping Rabbits after the war. No! Not the war in Kuwait or Iraqi or Korea, or Afghanistan...or The Liveline Call in program with Hoe Puffy 1345-1500. World War II! No! Two not Eleven. It was easy. Not the War: the Lamping.''
After falling into and crawling out of a ditch , or two, you switched on a big light - N0! You didn't trail a cable way back home, to a socket - you had a big battery, and you dazzled a rabbit and then you got - Oh! I forgot you needed another fool to go with you, a co-conspirator, - got that from Judge Judy - to belt Bunny over the head with the stick.
Now when you got Bugs home and out of his Long Johns and funny long-eared hat, and into the pot, you sat back and got the veg and spuds ready.
Where was I? Oh Yea! In the garden with the flash light looking for slugs when I heard a voice say “Have ya got a lite? Pal! A lite.”
I almost watered the cabbages again. I jumped around shouting “Who's there? I have a black belt! I knew it was holding up my pants, but I hoped the intruder - Crimecall, this time - didn't know that.
There was no one there. I was just about to go into the house and have a big cup of Coca to steady me nerves when I heard it again.
“ I said. Have ya got a LITE? Pal.”
Again I shouted. “I have all the Karate Kid videos and I watched The Sound of Music fourteen times.”
“Down here Pal. Shine that light down here.” I did. There was nothing there only a slug sitting on a rock, casually chewing on an over- hanging cabbage leaf .
Good I thought relieved - couldn't resist the Pun. It's only a talking head of cabbage. And then the slug said. “Shine it over that way a bit Pal. This being in the Limelight is drying me out.”In my best Miley accent, I said. “Well Holy God! A talking slug!”
“ I prefer Limacidae, genus Limax, species,L.maximus. Got that in The World Book Encyclopedia.” He Said. “But I goes be the name of Slugger.”
“Where did you get that name? I said, still confused , trying to wrest back the initiative in conversation: like they told me to do on my IMI Project Management Course.
“From you.”
“Me. I never met you before!”
“I've been watching you.” He said, just like the way Stephen King says it, somewhere in every bloody book he ever wrote.
“After all, I learned to speak your language from you. You garden and then you stop and start boxing the air. Punch Punch, Snort Snort shouting I got ya now Rocky.”
“No I don't!” I yelled.
“Yes you do!” He yelled back.
“Don't.”
“Do.” He said again.
“Don't.” I screamed.
And then he got me.“Don't.” He screamed back.
“Do!” I roared triumphantly arms akimbo, doing my little victory dance. Well! Sh-one-t! Bested by a slug. Well - a very intelligent slug.
And then he told me the story. 

Saint Valentine's Day (2017) Freebie....

Have to cash in on the commerce of St. Valentine's Day, by offering my 20 Minute Reads Kindle, The French Woman as a free download on the day. (Is this a Kerry Joke?)

It's a companion you can cherish with a slow pint of Beer, Guinness, or wine if that's your choice.

Maybe even a Latte or Cappuccino companion.

But if you are short of funds, who isn't? It's the thought that counts! So you can  'fess up and admit you got it on the bargain counter, for your PAL, Partner & Lover.

Enjoy the kindle or maybe what ever other surprise you get on the day.

https://www.amazon.com/French-Woman-20-Minute-Reads-ebook/dp/B01MZ1HF9Q

Mr. Child. Fool me once shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

I have been a Reacher fan from the start, loved how the character was drawn, understood the dialogue, the plots, the scenes outlined, the logic, the lot in fact: but not any more.
I feel short changed. I reviewed Night School reluctantly, and had to ask if it was alternative reality Reacher. I didn't know the character.
Then I decided to track back and hoping for redemption, maybe it was just me and my after Christmas blues, decided to read, Make Me.
But it's shocking as well.
Even then I persisted and decided to buy Personal. When I looked at the reviews, the real ones, the lower starred ones. I decided to pass.
This is me talking to myself, and wondering do people who post glowing five star reviews know the other books, or the writer, or the character who once was Reacher?  I have an opinion that people do not read any more, at a pace to be able to concentrate and pay enough attention to detail to comprehend the story. Or do the skim a few lines at a time and skip ahead? ( Like checking a text to see if your own name is mentioned).
The Reacher I know is gone, his scars are gone, his maths ability and his ability to work out devastating plans and exact revenge is gone. Worse still the zest in the writing is missing, and trivial page filling gibberish is being used to pad the size of the book. The other books always had diversions that were interesting - like always being to tell the time of the day, or night.
In this book he gets a few "belts in the Gob", hard slaps around the head,  and is concussed, it appears. Then shortly after the blows he "nuts" a guy in the head and face, so hard he knocks him over and begins to fall forward himself.
This is one of those things that I feel were thrown in, to try and build tension, but is forgotten about, in that although Reacher stumbles a bit, or falls, he is still deadly accurate with his pistol shots.
Listen Mr. Child - blows bad enough to give you a concussion and then bouncing your head almost immediately afterwards into another hard skull means you are a dead duck: finished, kaput, out for the long count, brown bread, being measure for a harp, dead to this world. But then again this is only my opinion.
I gave this book my best try, Even read from about Chapter 49 to the end again. But no use, I'm out of the club, I can't go on. I will concentrate on writing my 20 Minute Reads for Kindle, at least if one of them is causing a reader pain, it will be over in a short time.
This book mentions hogs in a pen and how they are fed. In Ireland in the old days almost every family, out of economic necessity, kept pigs and fed them on a terrible concoction that we called "Slop" or "Pigs' Swill".
My view again: in this book I think Mr. Child is following a similar path, writing for some kind of necessity, it can't be money, but feeding his faithful readers with very inferior fare: maybe even pigs' food.

Said it before - writers should never review other writers' books. Lee Child Night School.

Night School. Lee Child.The Stats, as of now 27th January 2017 is: 3,922 reviews 44% 5 Star and 22% is 4 Stars.
And I said it before - real writers, proud of their craft, doing the best they can should never review another writer's work.
I have been a Child fan since I read One Shot, in 2005: used to devour the stories, avid reader.Then by Never Go Back in 2013 I was having concerns that the writing had changed. After 61 Hours I felt that the plots were not conforming to where I had expected Reacher was going to. A big "What happened After the car drove away into the Sunset" question.
Nevertheless, I stuck with Reacher/Child out of obligation: that is he had entertained me and I would wait and see what would develop.
In the heel of the hunt (cliche intentional) this trust has now been breached.
I got Night School over Christmas. Normally I would have had it devoured before the turkey bones were soup, but by early January I was still on page 12.
Then page 37 ...You should call your brother. At Treasury. (Bloody full stop.) At Treasury. (Another full stop, where's the verb, subject or predicate?)
I Thought Joe was dead! What's this. OK, I struggled on. The first time I ever fought to keep reading a Reacher tale. Then on Page 126 Orozco said, You got it boss. (Reacher) I'm not your boss, any more. What is this Crap? Isn't Reacher an MP Commander? Didn't he leave the army - retiring out of that position and going on the lam? OK, maybe later on this will become clearer.
By page 208 I was all at sea. Reacher is 35 years old! In 1996! Born in 1961, 13 years in the MP's where he was the first C.O. So where was he when he lost his milk teeth?
But other things seemed wrong. Reacher in bed with Sinclair - she did not comments on his shrapnel wounds or bullet scars. In all the other books these are presented as a badge of courage.
The Y2K discussion is all confused. I was there I worked on the so called problem and in the end it was another weapon of mass destruction that was a wet-fishy tale.

By Chapter 32 I was in serious real Reacher Withdrawal, asking myself is this alternative Reality or Reacher in the Twilight Zone. Then Page 362 did it for me with the discussion on sevens and ones. I was expecting a few pages later to have the six not underlined and the nine underlined, mentioned along with the zero with a slash to distinguish it from the letter O.
But before that page 324 had given me a real giggle. I read it...on a bus ....in the Houston Chronicle, and all I could visualise is a Bus with a banner, in the Chronicle. Imperial Sugar, for your sweet tooth.
Amazon reviews for this book rave, and say it's great. It's not and what P's me off it that some of those readers may not even have been reading when Child produced his first book Killing Floor in 1997.
I'm sorry Lee, but I feel you have abandoned your real, long time book buying  Reacher fans.

When inspiration strikes - you hafta act on it.....

My new 20 Minutes Read is in the pipeline.
the title will be:-
The Adventures of Trumper The Hare - an everlasting game.
Thump, thump: Tumper The Hare thumped out the message on the ground, big back feet drumming the news. Well once, he was called Tumper, but he discovered the card game 25 and the value of a Trump Card. He used them, without conscience, to win money. The obsession to always win became so bad that people started calling him Trumper The Hare.
Message starts : Some-tin’s in the wind - Countryside in a fuss. Some-one called Hedda Hoppa, the Frog Reporter – causin' a rumpus. telling it how it is - the news - terrible crisis.
Meet at Lair's Rath. Thump, thump: over and out.
He knew it: in his bones; when he awoke in his snug hay-lined form this morning that it was going to be a bad hair day. Nevertheless he did take his morning hare tonic, not a hare of the dog though. It was a long time since he had been on a hare-tare, hair-ruffling, hare-ride.
Restored: his morning tonic was hare restorer, smuggled in from Hare Hari, he ventured out to meet the news of the day, brought to him each morning by the “Hare Raising News”. 

Rantin' ravin' givin' out but with a purpose!

I used, once upon a time, participate on forums, Amazon, Createspace, Linkedin, and the like.
Now I don't as most of the time you are wasting energy, and writing time.
I did try on CS to help people who posted bits & pieces and asked for advice on their writing.
But when a person gives real, true, trying to be helpful advice - they get abused.
Some plonkers even go and having written a glowing review of your book saying BUY THIS BOOK, write another that says DON'T BUY THIS BOOK.
And the real laugh is that both reviews appearing alongside each other on the Amazon review page are almost identical except for the shouted DON'T.
Makes me laugh that the other writer can't see the absurdity of this.
But the posts that turned me off were questions like "How long should a paragraph be?" The hoary chestnut about chapter length also raises its head - again and again.
Yet most of the posters on these writing forums think they are writers: they are not!
Writing gibberish that is not punctuated or edited or spellchecked BUT published is not the work of a writer/author.
But the real question/comment that sent me screaming, raving, trembling into that dark night was, "My first book of 800 pages is not selling." Someone replied that that if the story was worth telling and needed 800 pages  to tell, then serialise it. But when your Facebook pals are telling you the work is perfect - then you can ignore advice from writers who have published and are selling.
But all of the above is just a ramble.
I decided my short stories would take 20 minutes to read, now my first two are for sale on Amazon.

So that's how long a short story will be for me for a while, and amazingly each has a few paragraphs as well - but no chapters.

Proofreading drives me NUTS!

The heading reminds me I saw a notice on TV something like Trump USA President! It was for the inauguration platform. With a bloomin' exclamation point. Which is.....a sudden cry or remark expressing surprise, strong emotion, or pain. I agree buddy.
I have just finished my second 20 Minute Reads - Caged Songbird.
The proof reading nearly drove me nuts - even if it was only 4,500, or so words.
OK. feather is feathers. he died in 1964 - I will remove that as it seems it will date the story, add died years ago.
birth Cert - should be Birth Cert.
Our Father need an s to be three Our Fathers.
Hail Mary's - is Hail Marys.
Right that's it - I'm read to rock and roll.
Do the upload to KDP - no misspellings - get the Interior Reviewer copy and check it.
Fine, right ready to go.
Then quite, what the F is that. It should be quiet, as in quiet you lot, not I'm quite sure you should be quiet.
Start again. change the ODT save as a HTLM, upload - check and, submit, add the price, and the market places and tomorrow it should be live.

I'm stuck between the Darkness and The Light

It's a confusing time of the year: for an Irishman.
It's the end of one year and the start of another: or is it?
We had the Solstice, a time of change for the ancient Irish, from one season to another. Darkness banished the light promised. The knowledge of the Druids and Sun Trackers in action. (Psst, psstt...The Knowledge Seekers and the Land of Cudhabeen, my buke!)
We had Christmas Day, the new liturgical year begins. The baby in the manger, Santa and presents. (In my opinion for some kids: far to many presents.)
And now new years tomorrow. Resolutions and the like. So what will I do or not do in the new year.
Well I have only one resolution, just one.
Keep on living as long as I can and die when I can't help it.
See yas all this time next year. I hope.
Meanwhile.....“Go mbeire bliain ó inniu faoi mhaise oraibh”
(May you prosper in the year to come, well really it says may the year from todayprosper on you.)